#thought that was Twitter exclusive but I clearly was wrong lmao

[raibebe]

If you call someone out for problematic behavior, why do you need to be problematic yourself and call him names or shame his appearance?

[carmybearzattos]

ok forgive me if this is sooo loony coo coo crazy to say but as someone who generally writes for the bear with a more "negative" slant on carmy's mom and i fear the originator of such takes i just wanted to say that like even if you do take for canon that she may have been in some instances verbally abusive to carmy for whatever reason i dont think it makes her a totally abusive person ! and i worry sometimes that's what people take from a post or a fic so i just wanted to say like i think there's a ton of room for nuance and forgiveness particularly bc that's what the show is about. and i think things get very hazy and weird and personal when it comes to how loosely or strictly do we apply the word abuse, and must it always be forgiven, or can it never be, and do some actions make you irredeemable, as well as accounting for the culture carmy was raised in and the exorbitant amount of factors that may have influenced how she would've coped with being a single mother who had some kind of issue with emotional liability. at least when i am thinking about whatever shit is between carmy and his mom i'm never like thinking, "she's abusive and wronged him exclusively" i'm thinking like, clearly we know there were some issues in the home and whatever those issues were, carmy seems to view his mother as one of the main contributing factors to them. and whether that's true or half true or just in carmy's head i think that that's something he thinks based on how he talks about her and avoids her. i'm sorry if this is soo crazy but i just wanted to like share my thoughts and say like i think there's a lot of room for interpretation and growth for carmy and his hypothetical mother if we meet her and this got so long bc there's a carmy and his mom reconciliation longfic in the depths of my soul that longs to be released but i never got the chance to actually write it so im so sorry for dumping it in ur ask but anyway p ls if this is weird in anyway disregared LMAO

oh no i totally agree! i honestly probably didn’t word the answer my bit about carmy’s mom particularly well bc you’re right there is a lot of nuance there and whatever she has done to carmy in the past it’s obvious it’s affected him and made him not want to be around her.

honestly like i totally love your takes on the show and your fics i’m just so bad at wording what i want to say i should shut up 😭

i think my thing is i would like to see a reconciliation between carmy and his mom but i don’t want to see that happen if it turns out she was straight up abusing him. but i totally agree with what you’re saying there is so much room for nuance and stuff there i think i was just thinking with fandoms being fandoms there are some people that can take a nuanced take like that and turn it into something else

like i saw someone on twitter say that MIKEY was carmy’s abuser

tldr: i think we’re on the same page about carmy’s mom, i think she wasn’t always good to carmy but not so awful that it can’t be forgiven if thats what carmy chooses. and i love your takes pls don’t think that answer was aimed at you or anything bc it was not omg

[protectwoc]

why all reylos are racist

y’all can go ahead and cancel me now because some of you are not going to like what i have to say and i am completely okay with that.

this recent gq interview with john boyega has incensed me. hearing all the things he went through, from disney and from “fans” and with no support from anyone… i’m livid. sometimes when i think about it for too long i start shaking, i’m so furious. and the response from the reylo fandom has infuriated me to a degree i honestly didn’t know was possible.

some of you may have seen my recent tumblr rampage. it’s reylo bullying hours here on my blog, and i’m not sorry either. one person threatened to post screenshots of my comments, which like… okay? i know what the fuck i said, it wasn’t that long ago. in fact i was going to include the screenshots in this post right here, but they blocked me before i had the chance. sorry. i’m sure somebody has them. anyway…

over the past two days in the star wars fandom we have seen something unprecedented: an outpouring of support for john boyega. both reylos and anti-reylos have joined forces to voice support for john in the wake of the gq interview (and the blm protests, let’s be real, some of y’all would not have given half a fuck if it wasn’t suddenly cool to be antiracist). and this showing of unity is one of the most rage-inducing things i’ve ever seen in a fandom (which is saying something; i have seen some shit).

reylo fandom, full offense intended, but where the fuck do you get off? you’re supporting john now? where was this support when tfa came out and you couldn’t stand the thought of him next to your white-girl-self-insert? where was it when tlj came out and your boy ryan completely sidelined him? where was it earlier this fucking year when y’all twisted a harmless joke (like yall haven’t spent years writing reylo-throne-room-sex-meta BULLSHIT) and ignored the vile racist shit coming from your own fav’s mouth? but you’re supporting him now? now that being antiracist is trendy? fuck outta here with that bullshit.

your fandom is the reason for the vast majority of the absolutely subhuman treatment john has endured over the last few years. your fandom influenced ryan (yes i know what his name is) to write tlj the way he did, you have behaved indefensibly here on tumblr.hell writing and drawing and fantasizing about all sorts of racist bullshit, and y’all have STAYED in his twitter mentions spewing hatred seven ways to sunday. but NOW, without a shred of self-reflection, you’re supporting him? now his experiences are valid?

the way that your fandom refuses to take accountability for its actions makes me see red. y’all stay on some “not all reylos” nonsense and i am SICK OF IT. i’m only gonna say this once, and i want you to hear me: you cannot be a reylo and be “antiracist”. you cannot participate in a fandom that has behaved the way yours has and say “blm, uwu acab.” you can’t. like do you think black people are dumb? that we can’t see right through you? we can.

“but rae,” i hear you whining. “you’re gonna say just because i like two characters together i’m a racist?” and of course not. that would be ludicrous. i think just because you knowingly engage and participate in a fandom that has racism encoded in its dna, you’re a racist. i think because y’all are in bed with racist harassers, racist trolls, and racist content creators, you’re a racist. that’s what the fuck i think. y’all lost the right to “it’s just a ship” me the instant you dragged john boyega into this.

here’s an example: i watched tfa about three days after it came out. i watched the first half, saw the obvious relationship set up between finn and rey, and thought, “aw, cute.” then i watched kylo and rey fight, watch him offer to teach her, and thought, “... interesting.”

when i got home i checked tumblr for finnrey content, saw the outpouring of love from black fans, all the cute fanart and fics blooming, and smiled. then, slowly, guiltily, i searched “reylo.”

BOOM. racism. the things i saw in the tag that night are tattooed on my brain. reylos rejoicing about the obvious rey/kyle pairing because “sw would never put her with that monkey finn”. calling him an “oaf”, “useless”, “bumbling”, “stupid”. reylos joking about how “when they talked about the Dark side, [they] didn’t think they meant that kind of dark.” “woke” reylos pretending to ship stormpilot in an obvious ploy to get finn away from kylo. and in between all of that, cute ship art. fun fics. talented gif makers. and nobody saying shit about the reprehensible behavior going on in their tag.

reylo is built on a foundation of racism. from that first week, racism has been woven into the fabric of your fandom, and it’s been going unchecked. and i don’t mean calling out other reylos. that’s not enough. i mean taking actual steps. y’all have been sitting in a cesspool of racism for five years, and its time for you to get the fuck out or shut the fuck up about being an “ally”. y’all need to leave this fandom.

don’t agree? here’s another story. in 2017, when i still watched supergirl (before i grew taste) i shipped karamel. for those of you who don’t know, karamel is the ship of kara zor-el (supergirl) and mon-el, her second love interest. when supergirl was moved to the cw for its second season, the decision was made to abruptly end her romance with jimmy olsen, played by mecahd brooks (a black man) and replace him with mon-el, played by chris wood, a white man, who was revealed to be, among other things, an alien slaveowner, as well as a playboy and all-around terrible person. and i shipped them. look, i’m not defending myself, but i never really bought the chemistry between jimmy and kara. even though mon-el’s introduction and the way that they carelessly disregarded kara’s feelings for jimmy made me uncomfortable, i thought the way melissa played her attraction to chris wood was more believable (and again, i’m not defending myself, but they are now married so it’s not like i was wrong). so i shipped them. simple as that, right?

well, no. not really. because the inherent racism in the way the writers wrote out her admittedly sweet romance with a black man in favor of a white slaveowner jerk kept bothering me. and finally i decided that it made me too uncomfortable to participate in. i never really reblogged any karamel fandom stuff, but i completely divorced myself from the fandom. i stopped reading karamel fic, and i switched to reblogging exclusively jimmy/kara content until the fandom died out/i stopped watching. i made a choice that real life racism is more important to me than a fucking fandom or a ship, and then i acted accordingly. simple as that.

and i’m not saying you have to stop liking the reylo dynamic. i still like the chemistry between kara and mon-el. i’ve shipped problematic ships before (bamon comes to mind) and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (to a point). but there’s a difference between liking a ship dynamic and engaging and contributing to a fan culture of racism. you have to stop participating in the fandom. y’all are in bed with people indistinguishable from confederate-flag-waving-all-lives-matter-touting racists and you don’t feel the need to get out of that environment? there comes a certain point where you have to decide if fandom bullshit is more important to you than fighting racism, and unfortunately, reylos have chosen wrong. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why all reylos are racist, regardless of what they say. roll credits.

except i have more to say, so i’m gonna say it. first of all, i’m not trying to hold myself up as some kind of paragon of virtue. i’m not holier-than-thou because all my ships are “woke” or whatever. chemistry is subjective, and we’re all going to be attracted to different ship dynamics, and there’s nothing wrong with that in theory. what matters is the execution. i finally had to say one day, “you know, this ship and the racist baggage it carries is actually less important to me than battling systemic racism on every level, including the fandom level”. y’all thought being antiracist was gonna be easy? that you wouldn’t have to make some actual changes, to make some actual sacrifices? sorry not sorry to disappoint. and if i, a normal-ass person with flaws and problematic thinking that i’m still dealing with and the whole ine yards, can make that decision, then other people should be required to as well.

(what really irks me is that the karamel fandom wasn’t even really that bad! i definitely could have gotten away with being a karamel stan in 2017. thankfully the supercat and supercorp shippers were doing the lord’s work and bullying them into submission (don’t think i’m letting y’all off the hook either, y’all have got some racism to deal with as well but that’s an essay for another day) but like most of the racism happened at the writing level; the fandom itself wasn’t engaging in racist clownery on the regular. but like the reylos are. y’all see racist bullshit coming from your neighbor, fav fic writer, artist, gif maker, whatever, and don’t say shit? don’t feel the need to distance yourself from them? gtfoh.)

i made this argument earlier when i was on my rampage (which i’m still on btw so don’t clown in my inbox, you will get your shit rocked) but i’m going to make it again because i feel like its important to note. when i pointed out that existing in the reylo fandom while you are aware of its racism makes you complicit in that racism, a white reylo told me earlier that (paraphrasing, my memory’s not as good as it used to be and i did mention that they’d blocked me) “you don’t solve a problem like systemic racism by ignoring it. leaving the fandom would be allowing it to happen.” when i pointed out that that’s police officer rhetoric almost verbatim, she (a white reylo) admonished me (a black woman) not to compare police brutality to a “ship war.” lmao.

look, clearly y’all need a refresher on what “systemic” means. it means, quite simply, that there are systems, large and small, allow for racism to exist, and it also means that allowing for racism to exist on the small scale means expecting it on a large one. like you think police officers spring fully formed from the head with racist ideals already ingrained? no! they learn it and learn to justify it with “well just because my friend made a racist joke doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because i laughed at my friend’s using a racist term in my video game doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because my friend is a racist doesn’t mean i’m a racist” and then we have people watching their coworkers kneel on a man’s back for 8 minutes with no remorse. i’m not gonna solve police brutality by fighting reylos on tumblr, but fandom racism is real racism with consequences on our world, and i don’t tolerate ANY type of racism. and the fact that you are so willing to not just tolerate it but justify it should say something to you.

and not all reylos are like this. similar to cops, good reylos don’t last. i have seen people grow so disgusted by the racism in the reylo fandom that they publicly turned their backs on it, and those reylos i respect. you’ve heard of “the only good cop is an ex-cop” well get ready for “the only good reylo is an ex-reylo”.

(and also like far be it from me to justify a cop but one could at least say they have their livelihoods to think about (not like they couldn’t just pick a nonmurderous profession but i digress) but you reylos can’t even choose between taking a stance against the hateful and unjustified bullying of a man who had the audacity to… get a job (?)... over a ship? come on now.)

the point of all this is, for all their posturing about “being antiracist” and “fuck 12” and “support john boyega”, reylos have decided that a relationship between two fictional people is more important than all the black and brown people who are hurt by that decision and the consequences of that decision. and before y’all pull some “b-but there are POC reylos!” (stop fucking using poc as an adjective, its a noun, it stands for person of color, please use it as such) internalized racism is a thing. busting out your token “reylo of color” (see how easy that was?) is not going to change my mind. all reylos are complicit in the racism of their peers, and being complicit makes you culpable. full stop.

and that is why the public support of john boyega from the reylo fandom has me seeing red. renounce your fandom or keep that man’s name out of your mouth. anyway, this was long and ranty and entirely stream-of-consciousness and i’m refusing to edit it so it’s probably completely incomprehensible to anyone besides me but if you made it this far thanks for reading ig. all reylos are racist, blm, fuck 12, acab, stan john boyega, don’t clown in my inbox unless you’re coming to bully me for being a karamel shipper, which i deserve (or do, i couldn’t give less of a fuck). good night.

[maybe-mythical]

Bleak Creek Conversations NYC

WARNING: THIS POST TALKS IN DEPTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BLEAK CREEK CONVERSATIONS AND THE BLEAK CREEK DOCUMENTARY

ALRIGHTY so here I go trying to recall as much as I can from last night. It was an incredible experience to get to go and see our boys and even though I didn’t do meet and greet, I was just so happy to share that experience with them. They had had a LONG day - doing a radio show and The Tonight Show beforehand, but their energy never waned, their love for what they do and the mythical beasts consistently shone through, and it was so amazing to see them coming down from such a high together. (Also - it made me feel justified in all the post-major event smutty headcanons we all seem so share)

This may be a lot so...

First of all - the venue. It was right in Times Square - on 43rd street in the theater district. It was really cool to see them essentially on Broadway (Beautiful: The Carole King Story is right across the street). Seating was typical for these theaters - kind of small and uncomfortable but nothing crazy. Loved the stadium seating because even though I was a bit far back (what up, row Q!) I could still see the stage very clearly. Books and small playbill-ish pamphlets were given out at the beginning and everything was all set up. One of the slides that played showed a twitter hashtag that you could use to ask the boys a question that might be used in the show. I’m shy and didn’t but it seemed like a decent amount did!

Town Hall itself is a smaller theater and the merch booth was tucked away in a corner and lines were INSANE. I didn’t even bother trying because things like that stress me out. Also, the only thing they said was a tour exclusive was the hat and I didn’t care for that too much. LOVE the sweatshirt and I will definitely be getting that once they’re selling it in their store. 

They walked on stage and the crowd collectively (and understandably) freaked OUT! I mean it was our boys, right in front of us, looking dashing as hell coming from Fallon. There was cheering, a collective swoon, just everything at once. Rhett’s hair was incredible, so long and textured. I really wanted to run up there and run my hands through it, but we know our jealous boy Link wouldn’t love that. In the beginning they just talked about how excited they were for the book and how proud they are that it’s real and out there for everyone to experience. They were impressed that people had already finished reading it and that they were really excited to see all the feedback on twitter/the internet. They kept giving each other looks and smiles the whole intro and my heart just exploded at how proud they were of themselves and each other. There were so many small moments and jokes and innuendo (including Link saying “hard on” thrice). Too many moments to name!

The show pretty much went on with the following pattern: excerpt, documentary clip, Q&A from the twitter hashtag from before, repeat. It was pretty awesome to see and hear and watch them go back and forth in so many different contexts. A particularly funny moment was when the screen first went dark to show the beginning of the documentary, the lights went off above Link, but not Rhett, so he was just sitting there, fully lit up, trying to pretend like he wasn’t. We all just kept chuckling and were distracted from the beginning! It was great though. The first section they talked about on the doc was playing Testikill and they showed them playing it in Rhett’s old bedroom. Then, they read an except from the book of Rex and Lief playing the same game. I recorded most of that (unfortunately I got a phone call during because I forgot to put on do not disturb - so it’s in 2 parts) 

Part 1: https://vimeo.com/369955016

Part 2: https://vimeo.com/369955535

Password: mythical

I kind of fell off with taking pictures and videos here because I was so immersed in everything else they were doing. Cliff notes from each section:

Q&A:

Someone asked about how much Rex and Lief was based on them personality trait wise. They talked about how the characters are definitely based on younger them, had been originally named Rhett and Link until it got annoying to say “I do this and then you do that”. They also shared how they think of it as shining light from their 40 year old selves onto their 14 year old selves, which was very sweet.

Someone on the balcony wrote that they dropped an m&m and if the person below them was ok. The seat seemingly below them was empty though. They assured us they would get medical attention if there was a person on the floor after the show.

Someone asked a question that I can’t remember and then wrote tokyo. There was indeed a large “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT” reaction.

Someone asked what their favorite chapters were. Link ate the question after Rhett’s egging on. I believe it was supposed to be Link interrupting Rhett and being indecisive about answering at first and then just being like “oh I’ll eat it!”. It was cute but felt maybe a little forced? Their favorite chapters though are 11 (Rhett) and 20 (Link)

I’m definitely missing questions but this is all I can remember!

Excerpts:

They read small parts from the prologue, testikill, polterdog, the tree, taking about defying authority, and the talking rocks. All of these parts were directly tied to portions of the documentary.

Documentary:

Polterdog was tied to a part of the doc when they talked about Tucker, Link’s childhood dog. They told the story about burying Tucker and having the small ceremony for him. They also talked about how it rained the next day and they jumped into the grave and even had the muddy pictured of Link to prove it (horrifying lmao). 

For the section on the tree they showed them finding “The Tree” next to the creek. They originally looked for the tree, thought they found the tree and then promptly realized it was the wrong tree. It was pretty funny watching them stumble around and bicker while looking for something that was so significant in their childhood. They also talked about how several trees around were actually much bigger than their “The Tree” and how it was funny they never found those. I, personally, am still not convinced that it was the right tree. 

When they talked about defying authority, they showed all the places where they got into mischief when they were younger. This included the air conditioner at their church, which Rhett had written “Rhett” into. Their childhood church where they showed how they used to pass notes back and forth and tried to make each other laugh. My favorite part was definitely when they had Stevie pretend to be Rhett’s 5th grade teacher who sat with the choir gave gave them dirty looks. They also showed where they threw rocks off the library?’s roof and tried (but never succeeded) at hitting cars. They showed where they climbed up, and of course there’s now a lock there.

The talking rocks. This one was a doozy. This was what they were ending the show with and boy was it a LOT. They went back to the talking rocks and basically uncovered them. They sat and talked back and forth (somewhat) following the rules of the rocks. They talked about how much they had accomplished. Link talked about how he couldn’t voice at 16 that he didn’t want his best friend to go and be a basketball player in college, he wanted him to make movies with him, but didn’t want to be so selfish as to say it. They talked about how the rocks are where they made their blood oath, where they promised to do something big together, something creative. They reflected on it and how they had accomplished it and did a “renewing of the oath” where they shook hands and talked about continuing to create together. There was a point where Rhett was on one knee and Link just said “What are you proposing to me?”. I sobbed then and I’m sobbing now remembering back to it. On stage they each got on a knee and shook hands. Ugh. If there were tears before there was even more now. 

After that overwhelmingly emotional moment, they closed the show. They talked about how privileged they are to be able to have the platform to tell us their stories. That they really feel like this book is their passion and that they’ve put so much into it and are so honored to share it with us. They thanked all the mythical beasts, as they always do, and told us how much we mean to them. They were, simply put, mythical.

[disastergay]

this is going to be a long read, so I’m putting everything under the cut. (TW for discussion of sexual assault)

ok so, I’m happy you weren’t quick to doubt me, but that’s not the flag they’re talking about--it’s this one. and on this one, they’re not exactly wrong--I did say “the blood of” instead of “lifeblood” due to sheer forgetfulness on my part. but in my head, I thought of them as the same thing (e.g. “we would not be here or have a community today if not for the decades of painful bullshit Black trans women fought against”). 

I’d be happy to edit the original post if people do see an issue with the wording, though. 

the transmisogyny they’re talking about is most likely related to two things: 

1) I said “single gender schools shouldn’t exist” because they’re inherently exclusive of all nonbinary people, regardless of our AGAB, and I definitely could’ve phrased it better.

some people interpreted this statement to mean “trans men and AFAB nonbinary people have more of a claim to all women’s schools than trans women do”.

2) I once made the mistake of talking about my experiences with sexual assault on tumblr and twitter in a misguided effort to scold TERFs for using people like me (an AFAB person who was sexually assaulted by a trans woman) as their political pawn. 

I took said post down after I was repeatedly told I’m parroting TERF rhetoric and clearly lying about what happened to me.

3) I am not a lesbian, but I am close friends with many lesbians (some of which request I make flags for them) and I have a lesbian alter named Nyx.

I think that qualifies me to make lesbian flags from time to time.

4) I am 100% sure this anon was not sent in good faith to protect trans women from my past transmisogyny, and is in fact weaponizing trans lesbians’ identity

I received 5+ anons this morning from this same person (they said the exact same things), and one of them not only called me the r slur, but told me I deserved to lose all my IRL queer friends for “supporting lesbophobic bisexuals” (bi and other m-spec lesbians), and misgendered me, calling me a “bi woman” / “she/her” (and also a “bisexie narc” lmao). 

so yeah, that’s the whole truth of this situation. thanks for reading this long-winded explanation.

Hi, a few months ago you reblogged a new lesbian flag design by frostwitch. This person not only has a history of being transmisogynistic but is also not a lesbian, trans woman nor black, but decided to make a new serious lesbian flag whilst putting a stripe for and I quote, "the blood of lesbian activists (mainly black trans lesbians)" on it. Do you really think trans and black lesbians want to be reminded of the violence theyve face and continue to face on their flag.

okay i went digging through their blogs for awhile and found the post i think you're referring to and here's what i've found:

1) they have written a lengthy apology acknowledging whatever this is about and seem to have learned from their mistakes

2) the flag in question was made with input from a lesbian friend

3) the meaning of the red stripe you're referencing doesn't say that. it says this:

which i believe is really more about celebrating their lives and acknowledging what they've done for the community and community history than about violence that people currently face. plus i've seen lots of flags that have stripes with similar symbolism and i've never seen anyone take issue with it before.

so basically i don't really see the problem here