#that was a 1k notes tumblr post i shouldn't be so upset about. But. Such dumbness. anachronism. ignorance.

[istj-mbti]

The ISTJ rage when someone uses unfactual data to jump into conclusions without any critical thinking or logic whatsoever.

[carpedzem]

a little about how it was to be on dreblr for the past few months

this post is inspired by another ‘apologist’ discourse, but mostly this post is for me and for my need to speak about what my friends have been dealing with these past few months now and hopefully this will be the last time I look at this discourse.

this post is about tumblr only, i don't know how people act on twt, I don't care, tumblr is my main platform and everything in this post is about my experience.

let's start with the most pressing thing. the term apologist. it's not like we came up with the idea to use this word. it was a name that was forced upon us and as far as i know, we just kinda adapted. we gave up. some people call themselves c!dream apologists out of spite. some just don't care. I don't like using it, but I do it so people can mark me with a red flag and just leave me alone. but at the end of the day neither me nor my friends excuse all c!dream actions.

'if you get upset over a character that's on you' I AGREE! that's why I'm doing all I can to avoid seeing negative takes. so let's play a game. block the c!dream critical tag and then visit the dreamwastaken tag. how long does it take for you to find untagged c!dream hate? 5 minutes or less (usually less). IT'S EXHAUSTING. we keep asking people to tag their posts correctly but they ignore it or just flat out refuse to do that. there's a rather big blog who straight up has 'I won't tag c!dream neg' in their bio. when someone is brave enough to ask, they often hear that the post won't be tagged because that's true or canon. there would be no problem if that was just on their own blog. no one is required to tag anything after all. but if someone uses the main tag, shouldn't it be common courtesy to add the critical/negative tags? one of the blogs to follow when you search for the c!dream tag is called something like ‘cdreamhateblog’. we have to create our own tag to see the sympathetic takes about c!dream because visiting main tags stopped being fun for us. that's one of the reasons why we are so closed off. so maybe, just maybe, it's not all on us.

since we are talking about big blogs - I think some people are not aware how small dreblr is. almost no take passes 500 notes even if it is cool, unusual, has all the clips. but at the same time the most ooc takes, based on headcanons will gain 1k notes overnight. and of course it's tagged incorrectly. of course it's the first thing I'll see when I want to see some loveposting about a content creator.

it still bugs me that when I made some appreciation post for the people who don't hate c!dream, it left the dreblr bubble and people started tagging it like 'I love to hate him' and I got upset because that wasn't the point of the post, so I made another post about it. and you know what happened? I got vagueposted by another big blog. and that's wild because they weren't following me. they saw my post, they visited my blog, they saw that I was upset, they LIED what the post was about and then blocked me because they 'didn't want drama' so I couldn't even defend myself against those lies. and who other people are going to believe - a big respected blog or some c!dream apologist?

'people act like it's not clear why others don't like him'. oh believe me at least once a week someone gets an essay in their ask box why c!dream is the worst and irredeemable. I wish I could have one week when something about c!dream isn't made about the exile. and we get it! he was and sometimes still is an asshole! I’ve never seen anyone saying he wasn’t! but you have to understand that some people look at some of his actions with a different approach or depth and want to know more about his character. sure you can disagree with it because for you everything is crystal clear. but, despite what some people think, this is what dreblr is about! everyone is allowed to like and dislike characters as they please - that's why we ask: let us enjoy c!dream in a sympathetic way! (also 'apologists have to understand that they are wrong/have to accept that c!dream is villain' LMAO and we are the ones who don't understand why other people interpret a character differently?)

I'm not getting angry at the people who disagree with dreblr. but I do get angry at takes that are half-truths or just straight up lies. the most recent one: how many people believe that it was confirmed canonically that c!dream built prison for c!tommy because c!sam said so? and how many people know that cc!sam said it's not confirmed, that's what his character assumed and that we should focus on c!dream’s silence? exactly. maybe the prison was built for c!tommy, who knows? fandom for sure not because nothing has been confirmed. again, it's just exhausting seeing your favourite character being dragged through the dirt every time a new lore stream happens and lied about only because so many people dislike him.

'all c!dream apologists...' love c!sapnap because I love him. hate c!sapnap because my friend hates him. hate c! tommy. love c! tommy. c!dream and c!ranboo are brothers. c!dream and c!foolish are brothers. c!dnf is canon. c!fwt is canon. dreblr would be so BORING if we all were the same. we are not, we like different things, we have different theories, we want different things for c!dream. the main thing we have in common is that we see c!dream in a more sympathetic way. which also means that YES, there are bad apples here. there are probably people who are unfair towards your fav. there are people who speak about things that trigger you with words that make you uncomfortable. but you can ALWAYS ask to tag it better or just block the person. and continue to have fun in the fandom. just like we want to have fun.

and the last thing to address I believe. anon hate and death threats. it IS common in this part of the fandom. we have an ongoing list of safe people to follow. a list of people that will gladly discuss with anits because some people are too tired or too scared. there's always a creeping fear of your post leaving the safe bubble because it means it’s going to be constantly reblogged by people who are going to hate on us and send even more rude asks. I mean look how many dreblr takes are tagged also with the dsmp tag - almost none. some people don’t want to breach containment at any cost. sometimes people close the ask box for days or turn off anon because something happened outside dreblr and people are on the hunt for us. again. every red flag kinda post ends up being just c!dream apologists hate-fest at some point. it’s not like death threads surprise us but they are still unpleasant. same with people claiming that we need mental help. one of my friends was discussing some canon events with a very rude person just for this person to be back a week or so later to do some weird 'in your face' rebuttal after a new lore stream. so yeah maybe we sometimes are too scared to interact with other people, we can react too violently to criticism but you have to understand why we are like this.

on a side note, because that was already discussed - 'they are abuser apologists', you do know that some of us are abuse survivors as well, right? like, this is common knowledge, right? finding c!dream sympathetic doesn't cancel your trauma and people don't have to tell you about their trauma for you to give them a free pass? we are on the same page, right? also - no one should have to have any trauma to be allowed to enjoy a fictional character! do you even hear how weird that sounds?!

so with all of that, people started getting more vocal about how it is in the fandom. how uncomfortable we feel in this fandom space. funnily enough it happened around the time when that one reddit post went viral - when a girl had end years long friendship because her friend couldn't stop accusing her of being an abuser apologist even when person in question was a survivor. one day when I was wasting my time on tumblr I found a post that haunts me to this day. another big blog (because of course) wrote something like 'guys leave c!dream apologists alone, because they will start playing victims'. can you imagine that? can you imagine saying something like that to your followers, knowing perfectly well that they treat you like someone with the most based takes? I don't want to say that we are the victims, because it sounds too heavy when we talk about fandom discourse, but we for sure are not in the wrong here.

at the end of a day it's not like we hate everyone who disagree with us. dreblr has a lot of love to offer and I believe it can be confirmed by a lot of people who interact with us. we even 'adopt' people who don't call themselves c!dream apologists when they act friendly towards us. as long as you respect our ideas and correctly tags your crit we can be friends. but I won't offer a compromise about my feelings when it takes so little from other people for me and many others to feel safe in fandom space.

not every c!dream apologist would sign off under this post or agree with every single word said because again - we are different, and we have different experiences and we all deal with fandom hate differently. there are people who care less than me. there are people who care more.

I needed to write this post because sometimes when I see some discussion about apologism I wonder - maybe people are not aware how bad it can get out of nowhere here? so now you know :)

to whoever reaches this point of the post, thank you for your time. I hope it will help change things at least a little bit <3