#that sends a fucked up message to a lot of abuse victims?

[narniangirl1994]

Once again, very disappointed in Ted Lasso's take on abusive relationships. Even if that final montage was a dream sequence (which I'm telling myself it was), I really did Not want or need to see Jamie reunite with his dad.

Jamie reconnecting with his dad (which they hinted at last episode as well) is so horrible, because he deserves better than to let a man who physically and emotionally abused him for a decade (or more) - and caused him to be sexually assaulted as a teenager - back into his life.

Jamie could have let go of his anger and moved on without reintroducing someone into his life who caused him so much hurt for so long, and who could very well take advantage of him again.

Regardless of whether an abuser works to better themselves, their victims are in no way obligated to reconnect with and forgive them. Yet feel-good stories like Ted Lasso keep pushing the narrative that this is a happy ending, when it is both unrealistic and perpetuates the harmful idea that abuse victims owe something to their abusers or would be better off keeping toxic family members in their life. 🙄

They may have done an even worse job with Beard and Jane. At least the show pretended like Jamie's dad became a better person.. Meanwhile Jane is still employing her own toxic, abusive methods of controlling Beard (ie: shredding his passport to prevent him from leaving) without any indication she has changed or ever will.

Instead of Beard staying in England because he wanted to stay with their found family (which I could have accepted more), the show had him stay there because he prioritized a harmful romantic relationship over the positive and meaningful platonic one he has had with Ted for decades. And just like with Jamie's scene with his dad, they then imply through a possible dream sequence that Beard may actually marry Jane someday.

Why did the show demonstrate just how harmful this relationship is throughout the course of the show, and especially in Beard After Hours, and then keep Beard in that relationship until the very end with no sign he'll ever escape it? Why did they keep playing it for laughs when nothing about it is funny? And do they realize Jane got exactly what she wanted, since Beard is now further isolated from his closest friend and support system (Ted), which Jane felt threatened by since day one?

How is that a happy ending for Beard?

[mr-ribbit]

this isn't meant to soften or reduce the objective transmisogyny + additional hate action going into this, but since the people running these harassment campaigns are acting like they're literal baby children who need their hands held to understand anything, maybe this needs to be said:

what you're doing and how you treat trans women on this website is fucking MEAN. if you want to sit there and honestly convince yourself that you're *not* a transmisogynist or a transphobe or a misogynist or any other type of bigot - like if you genuinely believe that and are confused why people are calling you these things - then maybe we need to start from little primary colored building blocks and tell you that you're being fucking mean and rude and actively harmful to real people who read the things you say. im not sure why we need to start off with "trans women have feelings" - just kidding I know exactly why we need to - but maybe you don't.

no matter who you're talking to, do you honestly think accusing someone you do not know of being a pedophile, en masse, behind their back /and/ in a public forum, is a reasonable way to treat someone for making a tumblr post about video games or political opinions? even if you strongly disagree with the post, you think someone deserves to be treated like that by people they don't know? take a second please and sincerely imagine how that would feel. wouldn't it be scary? wouldn't you wonder who the people were who thought this about you - if they're people you know - if they're just a few people that will continue saying mean things to you forever or if there are thousands of people who choose to dedicate their time and energy specifically to making you feel bad? if you accidentally write a post in the wrong tone or unknowingly interact with a shitty person, that there are uncountable people that will keep track of that just to hurt you later? that's fucking horrifying

and to zone in on what's specifically happening here: do you think randomly accusing people of being pedophiles or sexual abusers has no effect on them? like a lot of you tend to excuse yourself in these discussions by saying "I didn't actually see the context of what they were saying" or "I didn't see that they apologized already" or "I didn't actually understand the post was a joke" or whatever other kneejerk response to make sure *you* aren't seen as a bad person. do you realize that makes you look even meaner? you didn't bother to actually follow up on a thought you had about someone before sending them hateful messages or making public accusations about them? those actions are harmful whether or not you like the victim at the end of the day.

believe it or not some people you send this shit to are survivors of abuse themselves, or have their own historical personal reasons to be weighing in on a touchy subject. when you baselessly decide it's ok to call someone an abuser of any type, that person is probably *also* disgusted by whatever horrible shit you're accusing them of. as someone that hates these things as much as you do in order to attack someone for them: what do you think it's like to have complete strangers think that about you? how many eggshells would you walk on if random people thought so little of you that they were ok doing this?

it's mean. it's heinous, cruel bullying, and if you genuinely think you are not doing it from a place of transmisogyny or hatefuk bias over the victims' identity, then you need to understand that that's not an excuse. "i didn't even know she was trans" ok, it was still mean to call her a pedophile with 200 of your closest friends in public. "im trans so it can't be transphobia" ok it was still mean to assume someone was endorsing abuse when they were talking about being accused of abuse. "i didn't see the post where she said it was a joke" ok it was still mean to actively harass someone without bothering to look into the full context.

at the end of the day, yes, obviously I still think you're all transmisogynist assholes who are clearly willing to gang up on a woman who has nothing to do with your problems simply because she dared to speak on them. i think you're bigoted and unwilling to examine that if it means giving up your vitriol against someone who doesn't like your favorite video game or whatever excuse of the week. but like even if you were just doing it for love of the hate game, it's fucking weird heinous shit and i hope you're happy having that be a central part of your life

to be clear: im not transfemme and if I'm overstepping or talking over anyone please let me know. im not speaking for anyone's actual experiences except my own, which is the experience of being angry at how much literal bullying and harassment I see excused on this so-called progressive queer blogging website

[reiderwriter]

do you think you could write where reader is a part of the BAU and gets kidnapped/ hurt by an unsub and spencer saves her? much love and i love your fics!

Hi! Thanks so much for your request. I'll admit this took a bit more brain power than usual 💀 may have gotten slightly carried away creating an unsub lmao

Summary: You go undercover for a case and Reid keeps you company through online messages, only to feel absolutely worthless when you go missing.

Warnings: Typical case descriptions, kidnapping and abuse of Y/N, Reid self-deprecating again but it has a happy fluffy ending so a win.

My Requests are Open! Send me an ask if you want me to write something~ 💕 And check out My Masterlist!

“Y/N, what do you think? I’m not going to send you in if you’re not confident you can complete the mission.'' Your Unit Chief, Aaron Hotchner, was briefing you on the plan. Luckily for the team, or rather, unluckily for you, you fit the victim profile of your latest case, and with an absence of leads, your last chance to get him before he took another victim was an undercover mission. 

“I can do it, but can we establish a background in enough time? He’s devolving and he’s going to need to pick up another victim pretty soon.” 

You’d been called in to consult on the case two weeks prior. Local women who lived alone in the metropolitan area had been going missing on a weekly basis for the last three months, and the BAU team had been called in when they’d finally found the dump site of the first three victims. 

You’d so far managed to figure out how he was finding his victims from their home computers - a site for young women to look for sugar daddies. You’d previously profiled him as a man in his mid-40s who was going through a personal loss and was lashing out at women who represented someone specific to him, and after searching through the dating profiles, you were pretty sure his stressor was a recent or impending divorce. 

But try as Garcia might, these dating websites had a whole lot more encoded data than was expected, and after the Ashley Madison scandal of the previous decade, they’d taken to deleting the majority of their user data regularly so that certain accounts couldn’t be found. Which meant that you were left with a geographical profile you couldn’t pin down, a profile that could match half the men in the city, and a killer that was almost ready to strike again. 

“Garcia can get something ready for you in the next 8 hours, and we have some access to some FBI safehouses in the area that we can ready in at the same time. Go get yourself prepared for cover.”

And that’s how you found yourself living in a dingy studio apartment on the south side of the city for two days, waiting to report back about whatever men approached you. There wasn’t much for you to complain about, but you were getting pretty lonely. 

You’d greeted your new neighbors and made a show of attending some ‘new to the neighborhood’ events, making sure to get out and about to let the team assess if the unsub was stalking you. Other than that you’d spent the rest of your time in your apartment a constant tab open at the sugar baby website. A few men had been interested, and your computer was cloned and running simultaneously on Garcia’s system so the team could do their best to track suspicious accounts. 

The rest of your spare time was, surprisingly enough, spent messaging Spencer Reid. You’d been on the team now for three months, joining the team as a transfer from the blue collar division you’d worked in straight out of the academy. You had spent the same amount of time doing your best to gain confidence to work in the field. Sure, you’d trained for this, but theory and practice were so different and you really didn’t want to fuck up so early into your job.  

Which is why, you supposed, that Doctor Spencer Reid was so intimidating to you. Though he admittedly wasn’t the best at field work, noting the amount of exceptions the FBI had to make to allow him outside of the office at all on your first meeting, he was just so damned competent. With three PhD’s, three BA’s and a pending fourth on the way, he was the golden child of the BAU, and you found yourself desperate for his approval. It surely didn’t help that he was also your exact type to boot, and sometimes you found yourself conflicted if you wanted his approval because he was so good at his job or because he was go goddamn good-looking. 

With no way to know how the unsub was tracking his victims before he kidnapped them, your team theorized it was unsafe to have physical check-ins, opting instead to set up another account on the sugar baby website, that would be manned around the clock. And tech-averse Reid had volunteered to do the bulk of the manning, leaving you with all the time in the world to talk to him in your private chat room. 

sug4rbbY/N: Good evening, Doctor, got any interesting facts for me today? ;)

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Did you know that it is illegal to flirt in Haddon Township, New Jersey? Under the section “Peace and Good Order,” a person may be punished for approaching “any person of the opposite sex unknown to such person and by word, sign or gesture attempts to speak to or to become acquainted with such person against his will.”

sug4rbbY/N: Well, aren’t I glad that we do not live in New Jersey then. 

D0ct0rD0ct0r: There’s more where that came from if you’re ever interested. 

sug4rbbY/N: I’ll certainly keep that in mind. 

sug4rbbY/N: Any plans for the evening, doc? 

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Just sitting here talking to you :) 

sug4rbbY/N: All by yourself? ;)

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Never feel like I’m alone when you’re online. 

sug4rbbY/N: Haha that’s sweet.

sug4rbbY/N: BRB, Doc, my doorbell’s ringing.  

You stood up from your desk, a glance at the mirror betraying your feelings, as your flush was prominent. You weren’t sure if it was the intimate nature of the messaging system, or just for the sake of your cover, but the flirty tone of your messages had certainly been leaving you wondering if there could be more to your relationship with your coworker in the future. 

You quickly walked over to the door, opening it wide and came face to face with a bouquet of flowers. 

“Miss Y/N Harper?” the man behind the bouquet used your cover name to address you, and you hesitated a little before nodding in the affirmative. “Can you sign here please? It’s standard procedure for deliveries like this.” 

“But I didn’t order any flowers…” you took the bouquet from the man and grabbed the pen in his hand ready to sign. 

“Oh yeah, our shop specialises in anonymous flowergrams. That bunch you’ve got in your hand has some aconite, some white lilies and jasmine flowers.” The delivery man explained, and something in your gut twisted as you listened to his words. 

“But aren’t lilies usually meant for funera-” you didn’t get to finish because he had pushed a wet rag to your face, and you had just enough time to shake some small petals off and push them far enough underneath a nearby shoe storage unit before you faded into unconsciousness, your last thought a prayer that your team would uncover your clue. 

–x– 

Needless to say, when you didn’t check back in a few minutes later, Spencer had alerted every cop in the vicinity of your new apartment that you were gone, and they discovered your apartment empty within ten minutes. 

“She was right there,” Spencer ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “She was talking to me and then she just got up and he took her.” 

“Reid, calm down, she can’t have been gone long, and we have security cameras all over the building. We’ll find her.” Morgan reassured the younger male while searching the entrance of your cover apartment for clues. 

“That’s easy for you to say, it isn’t your fault that she’d gone.”

“And it isn’t yours either, Reid. You did your job, but he wasn’t going to stop until he had her.” 

“I should’ve notified the standby officers as soon as she sent through that last message and what was I doing instead? Trying to figure out if she was flirting with me for real or not. I’m pathetic.”

“Reid, get your head back in the game. She’s gone and theres nothing you can do to change that now, but we need your head here or we’re not going to find her. Y/N’s an agent too, remember, she can hold her own. Now look and think.” 

“SSA Morgan, Doctor Reid, we may have something over here,” one of the local detectives called the two men over. They’d found the remnants of the petals you’d done your best to scatter, and even though the unsub had taken the bouquet with him, he hadn’t been as thorough as he should have been. 

“We didn’t set her up with any flowers when she started her cover, so these must have been bought in by the unsub. I’ll call Garcia, tell her to look for any flower shops within his comfort zone.” Morgan hit the number on his speedial, but before he could start, Reid cut him off.

“Wait, I think we can narrow the search a bit further. Those are Aconite petals, they’re not often stocked by local florists because they have a pretty sinister meaning. They’re usually used to express hatred for the receiver, and because of their poisonous properties most florists don't stock them for fear of doing harm and causing lawsuits. He must be specifically ordering them in to give to his victims. Garcia, can you crossreference the list of florists in the area and check to see how many of them have purchased this plant recently?” 

“Just the one. Sending you the address now. Go find our girl Doc.” 

–X– 

When you came to, in what you assumed to be a backroom of some kind of flower shop, you were bound at the ankles and wrists and there was a gag in your mouth. You struggled a bit against your bindings but it was no good, and you had to reassure yourself that you were going to be okay, doing your best to push down the tears and clear your head. 

You decided your best bet was to get to know your surroundings, check to see what was around you and what you could use to your advantage. There was a clock on the wall, and you realised that you’d only been gone half an hour. Reminding yourself that the unsub kept his victims for a minimum of two days did a lot to get your heartbeat back to a normal pace, but it spiked again as soon as you heard the door slam open and your captor walk in. 

“Stupid little bitch,” he slurred his words slightly and you could smell the alcohol on his breath as he moved closer to your space in the corner. You tried your best to scamper as far away from him as possible, but he grabbed you by the hair and pulled you up to his face. 

You winced at the pain and tried to squirm out of his hold. “Look at you all pathetic now, begging me to let you out. It’s not going to fucking happen, y'know. I’m going to be the last person you see, last person you hear,” he throws you against the wall, pinning you up with his hand on your arms as he sends a leering glance down your shirt and then gives you a disgusting grin. “Last person you touch.” 

Your bindings mean your movement is limited, but you still manage to bring both your legs up to knee him in the groin, effectively pushing him off you but landing hard on the ground yourself after you manage to do so. 

“Fucking whore,” he shouts at you standing up and dealing a sharp kick to your head that has your vision going white for a minute. “I’ll teach you to fucking mess with me again, you little bitch.” He makes to grab you again, but before he can you hear the blissful sounds of a door being kicked down and the shouts of the FBI to stand down. 

Two agents are on him in minutes and you finally allow yourself to let out a deep sob in relief, as a third, very recognisable agent, makes his way to your side. 

“Y/N, shhh baby, it’s okay. You’re okay now, I’ve got you,” Reid whispers in your ear as he unties you as gently and carefully as he can. The moment your arms are free you leap into him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pushing your face deeply against his chest. He pulls away just enough to untie your legs, and then lets you burrow into him again. 

“I knew you’d find me. Knew you’d understand something from those fucking flowers.” You sob into his chest now, as he strokes your hair, just holding you like that on the floor until you’re ready to move. 

“I’m so sorry, Y/N. I should’ve sent someone to check sooner, and I should’ve never let you accept that stupid cover mission,this is my fault and I'm going to make it up to you. I'm never going to let anyone hurt you ever ag-” he begins rambling but you shut him up again, this time by firmly pressing your lips into his. 

“Before you say anything else, this is not transference and I’m not doing this because you saved me, we both know I would’ve done that eventually anyway,” you rest your forehead against his, and after he has time to process what has just happened, he’s wiping the tears away from your face, and gently holding it with both of his hands, leaning in to do it again, gently pressing his mouth against yours as if he’s afraid you might bolt at any second. 

“Thank you, again. For finding me,” you whisper to him, the space between you so miniscule now that you barely had to move your lips to know that he understood you. 

“Thank you, for letting me find you.” He grinned at you and held you again, determined to never let you out of his arms ever again. 

[formulatrash]

I was working on gaining experience in motorsport but now I don't want to anymore due to the news. I have been torn up about this since it was announced. Am I even safe working in this industry? Is it only a matter of time?

I think there are two things to take from this: even in an organisation as closed-ranks as Red Bull, this was investigated. And although it's depressing to see many people either expressing disbelief or seeking to discredit the victim, there are a much larger number of people outraged. Not just that it happened but with the entire process, including the way it is being played as a political trophy within Red Bull as an organisation and the wider reaction of Formula 1 and the FIA.

In every industry, there are imbalances in power that lead to exploitation. Ableism, racism, sexism and homophobia go hand in hand with unfairnesses like nepotism and favouritism. Some industries, especially those that people really want to work in and where there are limited opportunities, have it worse - you see it in acting, in games, in music, in motorsport.

Nowhere is safe from the structural inequalities that frame the world. In any job you'll be in some level of danger. That's not intended as a blanket scare or as some way to minimise or dismiss the specific (and extremely unpleasant) case being brought this week.

I definitely have experienced sexism and outright attempts at exploitation/abuse in motorsport. A man who's still a popular pundit spent several years lying to me and even though I'm really not this naiive, somehow convincing me to exchange lewds. Another one who's in a senior editorial position routinely sends me obscene messages. Men from teams and championships and heritage programmes have tried to get me to fuck them and I'm not young or hot or particularly desirable - it's just that I was there and a woman and so it's almost seen as obligatory that they do it, so they can dismiss you as a slut.

I wrote a little about this when the Mazepin thing came out a few years ago. It resonated with a painful number of women across motorsport, I got hundreds of messages after it was posted.

But. This is being taken seriously. There is a clear level of discomfort within the wider paddock about Horner's presence - some of that is political, it is in the teams' interests for there to be disruption at Red Bull. But a lot is clearly pretty visceral horror and anger at both the reputational damage to the sport and what's happened.

Do not let the fact that there are gross people out there deter you from a dream. Do let yourself be angry about it and mould that anger into a toolkit to address it. Look out for the people around you, try to promote positive workplace cultures, call out unpleasant behaviours, especially in scenarios where you are relatively unaffected. (eg: if you're a straight woman and someone says something gross about a gay man, if you're a white person and someone says something racist, etc)

Motorsport needs good people to work in it to change. It needs you far more than you need it. Don't let it reverse or exploit that and you will have a level of power that constitutes safety because you won't let it damage you for the sake of getting something it isn't offering. (If someone is behaving exploitatively then they are not giving you anything, they are trying to see what they can take)

It's been a shit week. I feel awful for the woman who's been doxxed, robbed of compensation and had her career ruined. Who's being discussed and discredited by the paddock, by journalists, by the most toxic fans. In a just world, people would be protecting her but that would need the population of all those groups to change significantly.

So don't let it put you off. Let it make you keener to displace them.

[glitter-stained]

Some of the posts I see here y'all gotta stop seeing fanfics as "bad dc takes". Like, it's perfectly fine to not like a trope that's popular in fanfic, but you gotta stop seeing it as character meta is what I'm saying. Fanfic writers are not canon writers, they do not owe you canon compliant, and you don't get to assume that what they're writing comes from a place of ignorance when there are so many reasons to include/not include something in your fic.

Like, allow me to use my own fics as example since they're the only one I have background info on the knowledge and motivations of the author:

-I wrote a fic with Lazarus Rage in it once. Do I know it's not canon? Absolutely. Do I think it's necessary for the understanding of Jason's character? Not at all, I think canon Jason is more interesting without the pit rage. I just wanted to write it once because it looked cathartic and you know what? It was. It was super cathartic. I wanted to write a story about the progression of a depressive episodes and using pit rage to talk about the feeling of loss of control with intense anger issues and sensation of loss and deep self-hatred afterwards, and i thought writing this is gonna feel good and it felt good, for me and for the readers.

-I'm also currently finishing another fic, in which I've simplified Tim's relationship with Jason's a lot (basically Tim is still haunted by Jason's ghost and Dick is still his favourite Robin but the victim blaming is much less intense and there's an intense, genuine admiration for Jason and happiness to get him back). Is it because I hate canon and its complexity? No, I love it, I love when character relationships are fucked up and they make a mess. I'd love to explore that in a different fic, even have the prompt already. But I'm writing a really intense fic about trauma, taboo and lack of communication around sexual abuse, and there are so many characters pov and things happening and I have to do this right because we're talking about things that happen to real people and not being accidentally insensitive or sending a shit message is more important to me than perfect canon compliance, and it's just not the place for it. This story isn't about tim, and it's not about victim-blaming. It's a fascinating can of worms to open, but I'm not gonna open it if I don't have the space to deal with it because I'm not gonna let worms roam freely all over my fanfic when I can choose not to include the worms in my story, because it might rely on base material but it's still a finite story that exists within its own scope because I'm not a comics writer, I'm a fanfic writer and my story doesn't exist as a pure extension of the comics and I don't owe you canon compliance. And how boring would that be if we could only write canon compliant stuff! No more coffee shop aus, no powers aus, fantasy aus, no more non canon ships between characters that hated eachother until the day they died (but had so much sexual tension)... Fanfic is not one single entity that takes place in a simplified version of the canon universe complete with consistent lukewarm tropes and watered down understanding of characters. Fanfics are rich and diverse and yeah canon compliant is great and i want more of it but the universe is so much wider and that's what makes it rich! Do some people write fanfic and also don't interact with or know canon? Sure, plenty of them. Does that fanfic reflect their opinion of canon? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You don't know that. In the meantime, people are still creating extra content and enriching the fandom experience and if you don't like it, genuinely, the filter tags button is right there. That's not to say there are no racist or classist or sexist tropes in fanfics, but again that exists within the scope of that story. Bad writing exists in canon, and it exists in fanfics, and sometimes a story is canon compliant with a terrible message and sometimes a story is canon divergent with a terrible message and pushing away everyone who writes things that aren't canon compliant is not going to fix these issues in the dc fandom. Telling people to "not write the character at all if you're going to write them ooc" assumes your understanding of what is essential to the character is perfect and The Right Way to interact with a fandom and it's patronising and not only do you take the risk of looking like a moron the second you make a mistake, it is actual gatekeeping and the reason many people find getting into comics/fandom intimidating in the first place. (And it also shits on the potential of AUs like dark reflections, mafia etc. Of course Mafia Bruce who kills people is deeply ooc. These stories are still fun and it's not wrong to write them!)

"This story really should have addressed that thing that happens in canon" did it happen in the setting of the fic? No? Then shut up and let the fic tell its own story, it doesn't have to "address" anything it doesn't have space for. Again, don't like don't read is a thing. Fanfic enriches the fandom, it doesn't take away from it, but you know what can? Canon writing. I'm way more concerned with what dc is having batman represent nowadays than with fanfic I haven't read because I knew I wouldn't like it.

TLDR: It's understandable to be upset when people who don't interact with canon material at all try to assert their opinion on canon as the truth, especially if they call any attempt at disagreeing with the mischaracterization gatekeeping, but that doesn't make you immune to being a gatekeeper. Assuming you know a writer's knowledge and opinions on a character because of that one fic of them is naive and a misunderstanding of what fanfic is. Fanfic writers are still real people who give you cool stuff for free and you don't have to like it but you still have to be respectful about it, and all that negative energy you spend on rants about "bad character and" you've read in fanfics would be so much better spent on bad canon writing because these people do have the power to fuck your favourite character over and they do owe you canon compliance, and with the amount of effort some fanfic writers put into their fics compared to some of the writers who get payed to write canon, you guys could stand to be more respectful about fanfics.

[twilight-good-yall-dumb]

I have genuinely seen some of the most horrific takes on Liam Payne's death, and even though I don't often get controversial on this website, I'm about to.

First of all, labeling Liam Payne as nothing but some shitty abuser is such an obtuse observation. Obviously, I understand that the power of the internet has had a large part in this. People listen to whatever other people say without second thought or further research. So sure, if you hear from more than one person that Liam was this awful abuser, most people just take that on faith.

The problem is that it's so much more complicated than that. Firstly, a lot of the current information we have about Liam and his ex-fiancé is alleged. Not to say that it isn't true or that I don't believe her. That isn't the message I'm trying to get across at all, but still, it is alleged information, and it's coming only from her. Secondly, a ton of people have been massively misled because Maya released a FICTIONAL book that is supposedly "inspired" in part by her relationship with Liam, and people are taking instances from the FICTIONAL book and assuming they are true to life. Which is...unintelligent to say the least. Secondly, I've seen one account of a fan claiming she was "manipulated" into sending nude photos to Liam, but this fan was literally 25 years old. And according to her, there was no blackmail, threats, or serious pressure involved. We're not talking about naive 18 year old girls like I've seen people claim. And again, I've only been able to find this one account. This was not some kind of trend with him.

Again, my intention is not to blame any of these women or claim that they're lying. It is only to reiterate that other people have been exaggerating the evidence we actually have.

Secondly, the only thing Maya has outright claimed about Liam was his obsessive contact during and after the end of their relationship. She ordered a cease and desist to keep him from further contacting her and to try and put an end to the emotional abuse she had faced. This included him threatening suicide, obsessively apologizing, etc. Which to be entirely truthful, is manipulative and unacceptable behavior. That being said, it is also the behavior of, and a clear symptom of, his poor mental health and substance abuse issues.

Seeing people straight up say that they don't care that he died because the world is "better off without an abuser" or that women shouldn't mourn him because it's somehow anti-feminist to care about a man who has harmed a woman in any way is...such a crazy fucking take. Like I genuinely hope these people never come across somebody in their lives who is dealing with trauma, addiction, or mental health struggles, because holy shit that lack of compassion is crazy. Like, yes, he was not a great guy to Maya. He has literally admitted that in interviews before, admitted that because of his addiction and mental health issues that he has hurt people he loved. This is not behavior in any man that should be excused, but it is behavior that, in my opinion, can be forgiven if that man has the time to make amends.

Liam Payne was not Diddy. He was not a fucking monster. He was not the sort of man who seriously harmed and traumatized countless women. He was a man who was unwell and who made mistakes in his relationships. But as we've seen from so many of his loved ones in the last few days, to his core, Liam Payne was a kind person. He cared about his family, his friends, his son. He wanted people to be happy, to smile. He wanted to entertain people, to be there for people, and to be loved. He was a human. And he was a victim of the music industry. He was overworked, objectified, and commodified as a literal child, and then he was left on his own after spending his most formative years in an extremely high stress environment. I mean, honestly, the fact that any of the boys wound up somewhat stable is beyond my comprehension. There was bound to be at least one of them who struggled to adjust.

And so, to say that you don't care that he died, to say that the world is better off without him, is a wild fucking stance. To have so little empathy for somebody who was a victim himself, to care so little for somebody who brought love and joy to the lives of so many people, who left behind a seven year old son, is fucking cold hearted. Nobody is asking you to cry over a man who you have no personal connection to, and we're also not asking that any of his potential victims receive hate or blame. But that doesn't mean those of us who are grieving should have to hear discourse about your "morally superior" Liam Payne take.

Some of us just want to mourn somebody who was a massive pillar in our lives, who brought us joy in dark times. Who, because we cared, we worried about for years. Not all 1D fans are the same in this regard, but I never hated Liam. I never blamed him for any of the foolish things he said in interviews. I understood his actions as those of somebody struggling, of somebody who was calling out for help, who needed that help, who needed support. Liam Payne, had he lived longer, could have become the man that he wanted to be, that everyone close to him knew he was capable of being. He'd been to rehab, he'd had periods of sobriety. He was working on himself. He was slowly getting better. So yes, I am mourning for the man that he was, not just the boy in the band, but the man he was working towards becoming. I am mourning for the man who made silly videos during Covid that helped me get through the monotony. I am mourning for the man who took silly selfies that made me laugh. I am mourning for the man who was talented beyond belief or recognition. I am mourning for the man who wanted to be loved and accepted so badly, and who the rest of the internet treated like SHIT for years before his death. Which, by the way, almost always had nothing to do with serious allegations but rather actions that the internet deemed "cringe."

I am so tired, and so upset.

None of the women who are mourning Liam's death are "betraying their own sex" or whatever else some of you seem to believe. They are simply exercising a thing called empathy. Try it out sometime!

[raytorosaurus]

Wait what dumbassery got tweeted? I wanna see it so I can laugh

lol okay under a read more bc i was like "i don't have the energy rn to spark a whole discussion about this" but then it got kinda long anyway so. the tweet itself is your average annoying twitter bullshit but it speaks to a wider pattern that really fucking pisses me off and worries me so that's what this is about

someone tweeted this, which had like 900 likes and multiple people in the replies and qrts going "omg did she really do this/when did she do this" and op would be like "it's a joke," to which the reply would always be "oh well it does sound like something she'd do."

it's a) not funny in the first place lol and b) a very common type of joke to make, hinging on this widely-accepted idea that frank and lynz hate each other and are petty about it, and that lynz abuses gerard & is extremely controlling. both of these things are literally completely fabricated but people just believe them, and it really goes to show how all these people who hate lynz sooo much don't hate her for the reasons they claim to. these people could not any more transparently give less of a shit about jimmy urine's abuse victim when it really feels like they gleefully use her as an "excuse" to make frerard "jokes" where lynz is a villain. it's disgusting and so so insensitive. domestic abuse is also such a fucking disgusting thing to accuse people of with literally zero evidence besides the kind of thing that was touted on blogs like ode2's, including things like "lynz saying she deadheads the flowers is her sending messages that she emotionally or physically enjoys beating gerard into submission" and "the way gerard's behaving on instagram (i.e. not using it very often) just feels fishy to me...something must be wrong" and "frank and lynz are sharing coded messages about hating each other via opossum memes on their instagram stories or in their instagram likes".

my point is: if you really hated lynz THAT much for reasons such as her association to msi and the tweets where she claimed to have indian descent and was weird to people who called her on it, then you should not need to invent additional reasons to hate her. you would also have to admit that those two things are not exclusive to lynz since everyone in mcr also has extensive voluntary associations with msi, most of all gerard and frank, who have also done/said racist things in the past, and you would have to come up with reasons why you are willing to forgive them but not lynz. i also don't like lynz and find a lot of her actions distasteful but it's literally impossible to get a reasonable explanation from any of the mcr fans who hate her SO much for the depth of this hatred without them including complete fabrications or deeply bad-faith suppositions (or actively misogynistic comments) in those explanations. it's extremely transparent and only goes to show how little these people care about the actual genuine issues related to jimmy/msi and weird racist comments/claims.

also as a side point i don't understand why people also love to act like frank is a perfect innocent in any situation to the point where they'll literally make up reasons to like him or claim that he's on "their side" (e.g. the idea that he hates msi when he was a vocal fan). i love frank so much but fandom as a whole seems to have such a weirdly distorted view of him, despite him being the one in the band who's most open about his thoughts and feelings/life in general. or maybe for that reason? he certainly seems to be the one people project onto the most with a lack of self-awareness about what they're doing, idk. it's weird though frank is such a lovable and admirable guy but sometimes i see the way some of his intense fans talk about him and i honestly feel like they're talking about a different person? of course none of us really know him at all but idk i really feel like the version of him that exists in the most prevalent fan-driven frerard narrative is so bizarrely separate from reality skfjfkssk. idk anyway that's kind of off-point, the most important thing here is that if you make things up about frank or attribute your own opinions to him when he hasn't actually said anything like that (e.g. hating msi or hating lynz) you're gonna get further and further down that rabbithole and end up setting yourself up for disappointment when frank inevitably doesn't behave/think the way you want him to irl lol.

so anyway i qrted that tweet, and op deleted their account between my second and third tweet here lol.

[tarjapearce]

I am so sorry about what's going on. I found out that I was the victim of plagiarism (honestly outright theft) of an old oc of mine.

Like the design was an exact copy of my character right down to the scars on her body and the fandom she was created for! So I totally understand how you feel. (I did call them out for ripping the design of a character I've had for a decade, comment got deleted and I got blocked, no surprise 😅)

But honestly if you wanna talk about anything my inbox is always open! For some reason it won't let me open new DMs with people, it automatically sends new messages to one of my chats in particular and i have NO clue how to fix that; I feel so sorry for my friend who gets my out of context random messages .

And yeah the one night stand trope is used a lot, but the thing is.... You came up with OFAH. You named it. You gave the story breath and life. You are putting every tiny detail you could possibly put in, into it. You put all the angst and drama I honestly don't see in those "trope fics". Too many of them wind up with "he realizes his mistake and leaves his obviously unhappy relationship to marry his pregnant mistress and they live happily ever after" plotline.

You are putting in what would very likely happen in real life; including the PTSD of child abuse, the fear of carrying and giving birth to a child you didn't expect (possibly even don't want), the fear and uncertainty of giving the child up for adoption, of being a part of a big scandal. It's like reading/watching a good telenovela; the angst having me at times literally gasping out loud at some of the stuff going on in your fic.

And, oftentimes is something hard to come by when so much emotion and effort is put into it.

OFAH is YOURS, T. If somebody literally copy pasted it, and only changes a few things it is still theft.

They can spray paint your gold nugget silver and claim they "found" it, but at the core it is still a gold nugget they stole and covered with their own "work" to get attention.

I'm... What the actual fuck? I'm so sorry you also got stolen!

Oh my god.

Why I'm not surprised? Blocking when getting confronted? So damn mature and honest. Ugh.

And thanks fot the support dear. Means alot that people find out about this cause its not fair that people bust their asses creating for people to just take.

This has oddly motivated me to keep going.

STEALING IS NOT NICE. Don't try and be subtle about it. You'll be found out. Sooner or later. Besides, it's ridiculous and disrespectful af.

[basofy]

pinned post just because i dont have one and others do

hi im miguel and im a guy

especifically a bi trans guy from venezuela, i live there, i speak spanish and english

i am 23 years old

i like drawing messy stuff and experiment a lot and somuch of the stuff i draw comes from the heart even the embarrassing stuff. i like drawing silly stuff and a lot of vent art and stupid stuff and gay sex but you dont get to see that

my art tag is #my stuff

sometimes i like to make crafts too like plushies and clay figures but im no proffesional with it, the tag i tend to use is #my plushies . i also have some plushies that ive bought or been gifted and i take them everywhere and post about them ocasionally :)

i ocasionally sell commissions so i guess i'll edit this when i do but rn i'm busy and tired

be nice to me because i overthink a lot i might be mentally ill probably, trying to go to therapy soon but getting appointments is hard ¯\(ツ)/¯

i ALWAYSSSSSSSS read tags !!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!! as long as tumblr notifies me so keep this in mind please

i tend to like media thats colorful and cartoony and stupid and with fucked up people and with messages of love cuz im cheesy

stuff im currently interested on most is the lisa the painful games, kaiba 2008, chainsaw man, oneshot, yume nikki and its fangames, the mother series, undertale/deltarune, but i like other stuff too and sometimes i might reblog or draw for it, you can always ask me if ive drawn art of something. i mostly draw lisa cuz im very fixated on it and it matters a lot to me but not all of it is tagged so it might get confusing lmao no those arent ocs...

sometimeeeeeeeeeeeees i do requests but if you send one i might draw it 5 months later

i ocasionally have bad tastes in characters and media i do that, also i enjoy overanalyzing

please do keep in mind that there is fanart of both children's stories and adult's stories in this account. would like if you didn't follow if you're under 16.

another disclaimer: i tend to make art of harsh topics sometimes, all of it coming from own personal feelings, and i take it very seriously. also if you see me make fanart of characters who are family/are an adult and a kid/a victim and their abuser, these are not meant to be seen as ship material and i wish nobody sees my art like that.

i don't post alllllllllllll of my art here because managing accounts is tiring but i have a twitter and an insta

i have a silly strawpage you can send me stuff there or look at the million characters and gifs i put in it, this thing is sensory to me

someone asked me the brushes i use so here they are if you want them

also i have a kofi in case you ever feel like donating to me :) i'm always in need of money lol

[katherineholmes]

Many Caroline fans are always calling Elena a "bitch" for falling in love with Damon even though (according to them) Elena was aware of the sexual abuse Caroline suffered when she was under Damon's compulsion. However, I see virtually no Caroline fans complaining about how fucking selfish and cruel Caroline was to have sex with Klaus, even though he was responsible for making Elena's life a living hell. Not only did he kill Jenna in front of Elena, but he also tried to kill Jeremy, KILLED ELENA in the ritual, forced Isobel to kill herself in front of Elena for the sheer cruelty of doing so, and also made Tyler his slave and then killed Carol.

And in fact, Elena is ALSO another r@pe victim of Damon. I have nothing against Caroline, but her fans are extremely sexist and even misogynistic when it comes to Elena or even Bonnie.

Trigger Warning : Discussions of non-con, abuse.

Okay, first of all, hello, I got this ask such a long time back, and I'm really sorry about how long it has taken me answer it.

So, I wanna break this down before I answer this. All three of them - Bonnie, Caroline and Elena are victims of the vampires on the show. And pretty much everyone on the show has been wronged by someone or the other, even Klaus. All I'm trying to say is that the show itself pits a lot of victims, especially female victims, against each other. Mostly in order to prop up men, which is why I think that TVD is rooted in misogyny.

So I'm not going to blame either Caroline or Elena, but the message you sent is very compelling, and I want to dissect it a bit.

The 'Delena' of it

Let's get to the root of it - is Elena selfish for loving Damon? I recently saw a similar question on Reddit (two minutes of silence for the time I waste lurking on that site), and I honestly could not even read it, because of some of the takes I saw. But the root of it is this - Elena is traumatised teenager trying to hold on to every last person she has left.

I saw a meta about Elena having prolonged grief, and I agree, it feels as if her grief and her survivors guilt, is almost pathological. Within the show, she seeks one particular thing from her parter - immortality. Her entire family, with the exception of Jeremy, is dead. Of these she has seen her parents, Isobel and Jenna die in front of her. It is not only grief that she feels over these losses, it's also helpless, desperation, and a lot of trauma. In these situations, she essentially a person watching a train crash - on the sidelines, desperate to help them and save them, but helpless to do so.

Because of this trauma, she seeks to include people in her life that are immortal, and hard to kill. Be it Stefan, Damon, Caroline and Bonnie who's a powerful witch, as opposed to sending away Jeremy - someone who's mortal and can be hurt. She actively keeps an inner circle of supernatural beings around her because it's hard to lose them, and tries to distance the mortal ones - like Matt and April.

So it makes sense, that when she feels that she can't be with Stefan any longer, she is drawn towards Damon. Damon who takes the notion of death lightly, and plays with it, and has survived a lot. (A lot of this has to do with the sire bond, but we'll get into that some other day). But as it is, Elena feels safe with Damon because he is tough to kill, and it isn't selfish for anyone, let alone her, to seek security within a relationship. And to her, security is to not go through that grief or pain again.

Damon and his abuse of Caroline

Having said what I just did about Elena feeling secure with Damon, that's mainly according to her priorities and her specific trauma. Because yes, watching someone die, or being a spectator to trauma is also traumatic.

But, Damon isn't really safe, for anyone. Not even Elena. But he was particularly unsafe for Caroline. When we first see Damon meet Caroline, we see him charming her (because a seventeen year old girl is easy to charm), we see him flirting with her and going back to sleep with her. The scene then cuts to Damon biting Caroline and feeding on her - in the middle of sex. And she is traumatised, at which point he compels her and presumably this goes on. In the morning, she tries to run, he compels her again and then they go back out, behaving like a couple.

Now, the show runners themselves have never, ever acknowledged this as rape but it is rape. And we can see that, but Caroline never calls it rape - because she can't, and every time, Damon's abuse of Caroline is brought up, it is called abuse. It's said that Caroline is Damon's 'blood bag', she herself says that and calls herself his errand boy, but nobody ever calls it rape.

When Elena asks Stefan what Damon is doing to Caroline, he says that Damon is compelling her to feed on her. And we never see Elena and Caroline talking about it. So, in terms of the material that we have been presented with, we can conclude that Elena doesn't realise that Damon raped Caroline, because here's the thing, nobody on the show ever calls it rape. Not just in regards to Damon and Caroline, but in regards to Damon and Andy as well. Or Katherine and Stefan.

In a nutshell, TVD has a lot of consent issues, and straight up non-con, but it never addresses that, the narrative itself doesn't, and so we cannot hold a single character responsible for not seeing it. And if we can, then where is this energy when it comes to holding Stefan responsible for enabling Damon? Or Alaric - the grown man who hangs out with a rapist?

The 'Klaroline' of it

Klaus is the worst. He's a killer, he enjoys physically and psychologically torturing people, he literally enslaved his hybrids, then killed said hybrids just because they wanted to be free, killed his mother (who admittedly isn't mother of the year either), carted his siblings in boxes, and laughed when Finn expressed his trauma from being daggered for nine hundred years. Klaus is horrible, but he's arguably one of the best characters on the show, and is probably the best villain.

But he showers Caroline with affection. A lot of it, I think at least at the beginning, is love bombing. And while Caroline isn't amused by it, she is a little enamoured by it. She really is attracted to him, and doesn't like it. The thing is, Klaus is a lot like Damon, but he also cares about Caroline, and saves her life. Caroline is also traumatised, and has this belief that she'll never be anyones first priority - and I'll be absolutely clear on this, I'm not saying that Caroline isn't anyone's first priority, I'm saying that Caroline thinks so, and whether it's true or not isn't relevant to this particular conversation.

But Klaus at certain points, prioritises Caroline. And she's enamoured by this. When they fuck in the woods, he is only there for a day, and she wants to fulfil her desires, and maybe, get it out of her system, see what it's like. But, and I'm not sure of this, I haven't seen it discussed anywhere nor do I know Caroline's character enough to know if this is true, but I think sleeping with Klaus is Caroline's way of feeling in control.

Klaus is a lot worse than Damon, and she wants to feel in control with him, the kind of control she never had with Damon, as part of a trauma response. I'm not saying it's only a trauma response, but that part of it is. It's okay if anyone disagrees with this, or anything in this post, but this is my opinion. But, in either case, I'm not going to call it selfish.

There is a larger discussion here about what is selfishness, and it's always bad to be selfish, and whether or not a character being selfish should be a hindrance to liking them, but I digress. That's for another discussion.

Damon and his abuse of Elena

In episode 1x03 or 1x04 of TVD, Damon compels Elena to kiss him, but she's wearing vervain, so she doesn't get compelled. But honestly, Damon was so in love with Katherine, that he could've done anything to Elena simply because they look alike. In s2, he tries to break her hand, and physically abuses her, and throughout her relationship with Stefan and s3, he continually hits on her. In the end, she has no choice but to accept his behaviour.

In s4, he tricks her into blood sharing, and sleeps with her when she's sired to him. It's definitely sexual abuse, dub-con at best, but it isn't discussed because that clusterfuck of a plot point, the sire bond, is fucking weird. Elena is basically enslaved to Damon, like the hybrids are to Klaus, and no consent in this situation can ever be freely given.

So, I agree, Damon abuses Elena but it is never addressed, because the sire bond is presented, according to narrative, as a romantic thing.

In conclusion, a lot of TVD is rooted in misogyny, in fact the entire concept of 'who deserves Elena' is highly misogynistic because it treats Elena as an object to be coveted rather than a person. And so, it makes that quite a few fans are also misogynistic, but there's nothing we can do about it. Like I understand your frustration, and I'm right with you about Elena being hated for the most ridiculous reason, and I wish there was something we could do about it, but there isn't.

Thank you so much for sending this ask, it got me thinking about a lot of things, especially cause I'm neither a Klaroline nor a Delena shipper.

[boag]

I hope this isn’t too invasive, I went through the worst break of my life at the beginning of this year, and I still love her like crazy. I’m the one who blocked her because she would keep messaging me and telling me about her new bf, but then ghost me, and then when I got mad she would guilt me and play victim. So I got fed up and know I made the right decision even thought it sucks. I dream about her all the time, a lot of similar kinds of dreams where she’s like, literally rescuing me lol. It’s so embarrassing. Obviously you don’t have to share if you don’t want to but can I ask why she blocked you? And if you broke up with her or vice versa? Anyways stay strong dude it fucking blows out here 😔✊

Well it’s kind of a long and complicated story but I don’t mind sharing . It was the only relationship I ever had that lasted longer than a few months . We were together for like a year and a half and she lived with me and my mom and we were 17/18 year old babies but we talked about marriage a lot and the future like it was just a given that we would always be together and it really really felt that way 😭 when I was 18 my mom’s ex/boyfriend at the time introduced me to meth and I quickly became heavily addicted and he took advantage of a lot of recent trauma and started sexually abusing me and all of that added up to me just not being myself at all and doing things that hurt her feelings badly but I wasn’t ready to explain any of it and was so ashamed of myself and eventually we broke up and cried together all day and she moved back into her mom’s house in Delaware . We stayed friends but it was so painful and really led to me going off the deep end .

A while after the breakup she confided in me about being trans (she was my “boyfriend” when we were together) and said I was the first person she knew in real life who she was telling and I was so proud of her and so happy to be there for her and she would come to me for advice on certain things and also ended up telling me that she was going through similar trauma with a much older woman around the same time I was going through the thing with my mom’s ex and she just always reassured me that it wasn’t my fault but we just couldn’t be together . I still loved her with all my heart and still do but eventually she blocked me on everything because I guess my presence in her life was just kind of a painful reminder of her trauma and her life before coming out.

I did speak to her a WHILE after that when I was like having a breakdown and missing her so badly that I texted her old number in hopes that she still had it and it was this whole long embarrassing text about how much I missed her and loved her and hoped she didn’t hate me and at the end I just said that like… she didn’t need to answer at all but I would really appreciate it if she could send me a picture of our cat Dahlia who we adopted together and who I hadn’t seen since the breakup and missed a lot and she actually did respond really sweetly and told me that it wasn’t my fault and that she never hated me and she sent me some pictures of Dahlia as well as her new cat she had gotten since we last spoke . And then she blocked my number too

[sams-venting]

Hi it’s the anon who made the post everyone is mad about and first off holy fuck I am so sorry I didn’t mean to offend or invalidate anyone’s experiences, I think this has been a very skewed misunderstanding.

I interpreted the “mocking” as in relation to a situation that went down recently, because a group of blogs got together to harass and slander a handful of some very influential blogs in the fandom for over a month. Those people are the reason the VAs made those statements, because the friends of their friends were being attacked.

Especially Alex who took the majority of the abuse from the group just because he had received recognition from the VAs for their work in the fandom. I literally can’t think of any other reason why he would be involved because these guys beef was with solarmoon shippers and Alex is very vocal that he doesn’t ship solarmoon, but yet she took the brunt of the harassment anyway. So it looked like jealousy to me ngl.

Of the people that were attacking the blogs a few of them claimed to be victims of the gore anons, which is what I meant by that statement. I guess it was kind of crude of me to just assume everyone knew the drama that went down to cause the VAs to lash out at the fandom like that.

Basically to wrap it up it got to the point two people overdosed from the harassment, and they decided fuck this, made a doc compiling all of the harassment (without commentary) and tried to wash their hands of the situation. The same day they posted the doc, one of the VAs friends and a moderator in the official fan server gave the VAs the link to the doc and they exploded more or less.

I think they had such a visceral reaction because this isn’t the first time they’ve had to explicitly tell people to stop harassing other members in the fandom because of previous harassment these specific blogs had gotten (lots of mutual connections). I know it was literally just a few weeks before those tweets that Davis made an announcement on Twitch about it because Alex was being harassed over a rumor that he would end up on the team of show writers, so I can imagine the exasperation.

I still don’t think it’s right to blame the VAs for the harassment people are getting when they’ve been very clear they don’t support harassment in any way shape or form. They can’t control what people do with their story, they can only tell it. They don’t get involved in the fandom because every time they do there’s backlash like this, even when they’re doing a helpful thing.

There are ways to use and enjoy tumblr while keeping yourself safe. You can turn off media asks so people can’t send images. Never open a link you get in anon or from someone you don’t know because it may be a phishing scam to hack you account, and if you don’t trust unknown links you won’t be exposed to gore that way either. You can turn off anon if you’re getting violent threats, leave it off for a few weeks and they should leave you alone. You can turn DMs to people you follow only, so they can’t message you. I know it sucks and it’s hard but if you do this you should be safe overall. You don’t need to go into hiding if you just take the steps you need to protect yourself.

And you *can* reach out to people. I know several people in the fandom who want to help with the gore anon situation and make it easier for victims of harassment to return to normal online activity. Alex just finished a whole month of internet safety posts, which are worth reading if you’re ever struggling with an online situation like this. I don’t know Alex personally, and I don’t want to sound parasocial, but I know they have their messages open and good connections in the fandom, and they’d probably be willing to help if you’re dealing with harassment.

Again, I’m so sorry my words came off that way, I assumed that the prior post before mine was malicious due to watching the whole trainwreck of June and August.

.

[blockcurio]

HERE, Curio links to three anonymous messages that Patch got. Two of them being harsh, one of them being an outright wish of harm. However, Curio, you cannot prove who sent anonymous messages. If you have any proof of us "encouraging" people sending us anonymous messages, we would love to see it. We never condoned telling people to off themselves, and neither have any of our "friends".

NOW, we've also seen anonymous messages accusing Curio of this and that.

CURIO is not a pedophile, he is not an abuser, he arguably has not caused as much harm as any person he's enabled. To our current knowledge, he's simply an enabler. He may display abusive behavior when it comes to block evasion and speaking over victims, but that isn't concrete enough.

POSTS like this are how Curio dodges accountability, though. He will use these random anonymous messages, that, hell, Patch could've totally sent to his own askbox, that's the nature of anonymous messages, you cannot prove who sent them. Curio will not acknowledge enabling Shep & Co, even though it has caused a lot of his partners to go inactive.

THIS blog will stay up. We stand by our words. And we don't think you'd listen to anyone other than your proven abuser friends, as many people have tried to come to you privately but you blocked them. Without explanation, mind you, which you claim is immature & selfish when other people do it to you. Fucking hypocrite.

[theskullkid]

On Supporting the Art, not the Artist

There’s a lot going around about the prospect of supporting the art, not the artist. It means that you still listen to what an artist makes despite the fact that the artist is a grade-A douchebag. I’m very much against it, but there’s a point that I’m going to attempt to get across here about it. There is a lot of grey area that happens to be involved in that argument.

It seems pretty straight forward and simple: If an artist you like, whether the art is music, or novels, or physical art (though in most cases, and one I’m going to be referring to the most, is music), royally fucks up in the most unforgivable way, then you stop listening to them. You have to. What they’ve done is strictly unforgivable and you can’t condone or support it. Drop the artist right then and there, and forget they exist. However, though, it’s NOT that simple. Sometimes, the art that the artist makes is much more than art to the listener.

A song IS more than art. A song is something that can grip your soul in a chokehold and smother it in such strong emotions and feelings that it can make you sob or laugh. Music can help someone feel safe. Music may not be able to offer you as much as therapy or family’s support when you’re in the toughest mental scrap you’ve ever been in, but it can help ease the pain. Music is so very powerful. Listeners, especially listeners who need the comfort, will latch onto music that addresses the things that they’ve gone through- or, rather, are GOING through- and use it like a lifeline, crying to it and singing to it and listening to it whenever they get the chance. Those songs connect to them emotionally.

For my lil’ argument here, I’m going to use Melanie Martinez and her music as an example. Melanie has written songs about ED’s, abusive home situations, kidnappings, SA, sexism.. The list goes on. There are people who listen to her that are victims of the same things that Melanie writes songs about. They listen to those songs as a form of coping, and as a form of comfort; it can give them a sense of support, that they aren’t alone, and it can give them something to relate to. And, like I said, there are people who are struggling with that kind of stuff RIGHT NOW, in the moment, who use those songs as a lifeline. Those songs could be the one thing keeping them alive right now.

Right now, Melanie is being faced with allegations of r-pe and SA. Allegations that seem extremely true.

Are you going to tell those listeners, who use her music to help themselves cope, to take their mind off of what they’re going through right now, that they shouldn’t listen to her anymore? Are you going to hate on them until they do stop? Are you going to send them death threats, or send them hateful messages, or tell them to k-ll themselves, just because they have an artist that they listen to for comfort in their time of struggle?

I’m not saying I support Melanie, or other artists like her. In fact, I’ll be the first to spit on her grave. I stopped listening to her. But just because I could, doesn’t mean that someone else who is EMOTIONALLY attached to her music, can, too. 

I’m not saying to support artists who do fucked up shit. I’m saying to ease up on the listeners who use their music as a way to comfort themselves. You don’t know what they’re going through, and with that in mind, you don’t know what they do to help them cope and process it. There are also times when the listener is just uneducated and doesn’t know what the artist did— to which i say to please educate them on the matter.

Now, with this in mind, I will say this. If you ARE a listener to uses a fucked artist’s music as a comfort mechanism, then I ask that you please find a way to listen to that music without directly supporting the artist. Listen to their songs through one of those lyric channels on YouTube, or find another way to listen to them without directly supporting them. Because, in the end, the artist still proved themselves to be a monster. And even if you are listening to their songs to cope, that still means that you’re supporting that monster. If their songs are the only things helping you, then yes, listen to them. But I hope and pray that you can one day break away from them. 

[steviewashere]

Let's have a quick little conversation, Stranger Things fandom. This is a conversation for everybody, including those who create the amazing things we pass around our table of stories like bowls of mashed potatoes.

A lot of you guys are fucking mean. And I'm not talking regular mean. I'm talking a rotting, moldy, dilapidating, squelching sort of mean. I should know, I've given way too many speeches about this kind of shit. So, you're gonna listen good.

The new trend I'm seeing is bullying the bodacious babes within our community, and I won't fucking stand for it. I've had my fair share of bullying, both as the victim and as a bystander, and it's exhausting to have it spread into such a tight-knit space like this.

Let me reintroduce you to some wonderful technology on here, you hateful pieces of shit (no, I'm not talking about the people who are actually nice, but please continue to read this). (And, I'm not gonna be nice to people who are blowing up babe's Tumblr inboxes and anon messages and Twitter replies and AO3 comments. Or people sending death threats and threats of sexual violence. Because you don't deserve kindness. Not anymore.)

There's a "close tab" button located conveniently below your address bar. There's also a little bar on the side of your screen that lets you scroll all willy-nilly away from things you don't like. AND there's a "block" button! Oh, let's not forget the "mute tag" button! (Explosion sound effects here.) Isn't that crazy?! You can block anybody you want. You can scroll away. You can close out of a fic you're reading or a fanart you're viewing.

Isn't that wonderful? Because then, you don't ever have to see it again.

Fandom is a space for everybody, no matter what someone enjoys. Even if it's dead dove fics or unconventional kinks or relationship dynamics that may come off as "abusive" or "toxic".

If topics that are considered unsightly to you really bother the fuck outta your soul, then just ignore 'em. Ignore them. Leave them alone. Art, no matter the form, has always been made to make a statement; art is meant to be uncomfortable sometimes; art comforts those who may have gone through the same or similar experience.

Not everything is for you. That's what's so wonderful about tag filtering and muting tags and blocking users and content. That's what's so wonderful about the internet. You can get away from things that would otherwise be triggering for you.

You don't have to read everything. Or view everything. Or like everything.

Somebody else will like that piece of art, guaranteed.

And to artists, whether you're a writer or a painter or a scrapbooker or whatever you do that pleases your senses, continue to create. Continue to create because you do enjoy it, even if sometimes it seems that nobody does. Take breaks as needed. Walk away if you have to. That's alright. Taking care of yourself is so important and nobody is allowed to tell you otherwise. But at the end of the day, you are the poet and the artist and the muser. You are the creator.

The first person you should create for, because all fan work is self-indulgent on some level, is yourself. Always create for you. Create because it's something primal. Because it's an instinct.

Not everything is beautiful. But art can be beautiful. You make it beautiful. Your minds are beautiful. Everybody is gorgeous.

Fandom is like a museum, babes. Sometimes, the creator is going to be walking the same room as you, viewing their paintings sidelong. Keep your voices down, move on if you don't like the painting they made, and find something you do like. You're allowed to do that.

But by the gods, be thoughtful, be kind, and remember that the creator is always standing behind you in the art hall. And they're sharing their craft with you. And they don't have to. And sometimes they don't want to. But they do it anyway. Because it's important to create and tell their story and reflect on what is otherwise something shitty.

Telling stories is part of human nature. We've been doing it for centuries. It's in our blood. Don't be the reason somebody's blood turns cold or their pens fall dried or their mouths clink shut. Art is an objectively subjective form of culture, it changes from where you're going to where you've been and it's always changing and not every aspect is for you.

You do it for you, though. At the end of the day, your art should matter because it's an appendage of you. You're wonderful, you're beautiful, you're talented, and you're worthy of what you do. Because you're doing it. At the end of the day, you're doing it. That's something that matters.

But what matters most?

You do. You're the heart of everything you do. You're part of the thousands of arteries in the community we've built, you are the vessel carrying life in this community. And damnit, what a good job you do. You matter. At the end of the day, you will always matter.

Always. You will always matter.

[arumbleinthedark]

To add on to my post about Amberlynn, here's the summary of the comments I've seen on the video that came across my FYP.

"Feeders get off on force feeding their partners" (implying that it's non-consensual on the side of the Feedee)

"Feeders get off on killing their partners by feeding them too much" (Death Feedism treated as Regular Feedism)

"Feeders prey on people with binge eating disorders and are manipulative enablers" (Basically generalizing an entire community based on a few stray gross people)

"Feeders manipulate their partners into becoming defendant on them" (Same as above)

"Weight gain being part of Feedism makes it an unsafe and unhealthy fetish that everyone should be shocked and disgusted by" (The common rhetoric that all fat people are unhealthy and Fat = Bad)

"Getting someone fat enough to die is a Feeder's ultimate goal"

Also just all of the comments treating the situation like a reality tv show and calling it "The Amberlynn Rabbithole" "The Amberlynn Drama" "The Amber-verse" even though she is the victim in this situation, and wanting to "gossip" about it with people.

From what I can glean from the situation, because I am NOT digging deeper into this for the sake of my own mental health:

Amber is currently dating someone named Tommy, Tommy is an open Feeder who shares their kink publicly. Tommy has been shown to be manipulative on many fronts, reportedly sending unsolicited messages to fat women wanting them to be their Feedee. Tommy previously had a girlfriend who passed away, sadly, due to being extremely overweight. Instead of mourning her death, however, Tommy immediately went out to find another Feedee girlfriend, and that's where Amber comes in.

Amber has been, apparently, posting videos about her relationship with Tommy and I'm guessing that they are mostly videos about her weight gain and possibly being unhappy with it. Whether she is aware or not that Tommy is responsible for her situation I don't really know. There are also implications that Tommy is abusive towards her in other ways, which just opens an entirely new can of worms.

There's a lot of speculation on if Amber is/was willingly complicit in her abuse or not, it seems that Amber has broken up with Tommy and gotten away from them and is working on losing weight, which is entirely her choice if this is true. But people are talking about it as though it is still going on and honestly that's the most disgusting part of this is that these people cannot give this poor woman a goddamn rest and let her put this shit behind her.

It also pains me to know that these people who are "worried for her safety" and are so obsessed with her situation are the same people who use terms like "Big Back" and comment on fat women's videos with shit like "She ate, and ate, and ate." So it's entirely telling that they don't care about her wellbeing at all and just want to obsess over "drama" centering around the abuse of a fat woman.

It just really fucking cements my belief that fat people only exist as entertainment for skinny people. Either we're ridiculed and laughed at, studied like a fucking science experiment, fetishized, or used for inspiration porn.