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#The internet it scary! Fandom spaces are scary!!
anti-dazai-blog · 10 months
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how do you deal with hate? like from what I understand, you posted your first "controversial" post knowing that people might hate you for it, and you did so anyways. even tho it might have felt like you were the only one who believed those things at the time. where do you get the confidence? cause honestly that was such a slay.
Like, obvi we all have our own opinions and I don't agree with everything you said but the confidence you had.. grrrr i like it so much 💗💗 i love it when people are real with their opinions.
okay ty, im sorry for rambling, gonna stop here now 😭😭
I really want to play it cool and say something like “I just don’t care what people think of me,” but honestly? Yeah I was terrified of posting my first BSD-related post.
I had been enjoying the BSD fandom from afar for about a year before posting anything about it. I’ve always had this personal pet peeve when (fictional or real) bullies get a free pass to be assholes when they’re conventionally attractive, but that applies to all fandoms, not just BSD and not just Dazai. 
(Note that that’s not a moral stance, there’s nothing wrong with liking a morally grey character, and there’s nothing wrong with finding a bad (fictional or real) person to be physically attractive. This pet peeve of mine stems more from how (fictional) bullies who aren’t attractive are seen as the biggest evil unleashed upon the world, while fictional bullies who are attractive are seen as The Ideal Boyfriend)
One day I saw a post pointing out one of the things Dazai did that bothered me, and I really wanted to add to it via reblog, but I was concerned I’d derail the original post, so I screenshot it and wrote a whole follow-up rant. 
Then I saved that post in my drafts for three days.
I posted something vague like “I really want to talk about this one character from this one fandom, but the fandom is very aggressive and they’d burn me at the stake if I said anything too controversial”
I don’t think I intended to explicitly tag it with anything searchable, but I must have said something like “#yeah this is about bsd those guys are scary”— apparently that counts as tagging it #bsd by tumblr’s standards, and someone from the bsd fandom (who I’m now mutuals with) responded with something like “most of us are nice! We wanna hear what you have to say!!” 
That was enough motivation for me to get that post out of drafts, and even then I didn’t post it immediately. I scheduled it to post for a time when I wasn’t home, so that if there’d be backlash I wouldn’t have to witness it live and I could just delete the post later.
Not only was there no backlash, but hardly anyone saw the post. Iirc it got between 3-5 notes. That was what gave me the confidence to continue talking about my (admittedly controversial) fandom opinions. 
My main blog is primarily a Shakespeare/Classic Lit blog, and the online fandom for those things encourages controversial opinions (as opposed to the standard anime blog, where it seems like posting controversy is a taboo). So once I had the confidence to interact with an anime fandom in the first place, it wasn’t too hard to post my controversial opinions, because that’s the internet culture I’m more used to.
As for how I deal with the hate, you’ll be glad to know there’s only one person on this entire site who sends (bsd-related) hate. If you’ve received any hate, it’s from her. So while I have received hate messages (everything ranging from “your blog sucks” to graphic suicide bate and murder threats), knowing it’s all from the same person makes it all pretty meaningless. Everyone else on tumblr just blocks what they don’t want to see, either by blocking blogs they’d like to avoid or by blocking tags for subjects that annoy them. 
Since I tag anything that speaks of Dazai in a negative way as “#anti Dazai,” I don’t often run into people who don’t want to see negative character analysis who’ve discovered my posts accidentally.
If you want to post about something, go right ahead! The people who enjoy the content you make will follow you, and the people who don’t will block you, and everyone will curate their own tumblr experience to make this site something we can all enjoy. Admittedly if the fandom you’d like to post to is bsd, you WILL get harassed by that one person, but everyone else in this fandom has gotten harassed by her too. We mostly just ignore her at this point. 
Posting controversial opinions to fandom spaces can be scary, but if you have something you’d like to post, go for it! I personally would recommend starting a side blog for it, that way if things really do get out of hand you could delete it easily without losing your tumblr account. But the most likely outcome is that it wouldn’t gain enough traction for anyone to be overly bothered by it. Controversial things are more often ignored than hated on.
(For context, I’m referring to this blog too! I’m a tiny little blog. So please don’t interpret that as some veiled insult, I’m in this group of “tiny controversial fandom blog” too)
Anyway. Best of luck to you!! And remember, the point of posting things is to have fun! If it’s causing more stress than enjoyment, there’s no shame in taking a break or logging off for a bit. I’ve taken multiple breaks, and I only post to the Anti-Dazai Series when I enjoy what I’m posting. 
[Also. I absolutely love controversial fandom opinions, especially if they’re well written. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I agree, so long as it’s a cool or original take on the source material. So if you wanna dm me, I’ll definitely follow you and your blog full of all your hottest takes]
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beep-bo0p · 2 years
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normalise Not having online friends. yes, I am a frequent user of the internet. no, I do not know how to talk to people on the internet . we exist. :(
I am logging into Tumblr. omg 16 notifications :D... it's all my irl bestie. but yk what? I am still :)
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rheakira · 22 days
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I've come to temporarily break my hiatus to bring up something deeply important. Because after a recent event, if I have to go another day without talking about it, I don't know what I'll do.
Fandoms have an enormous issue when it comes to bigotry and people feeling comfortable enough to be openly bigoted.
And I want to make it clear: everyone is capable of it. In fact, most people do it more often than they don't. But because this strange myth has been built up that if you aren't "blatantly saying slurs" or "killing others" it can't possibly be bigotry, we have done nothing but become dangerous behind closed doors.
If your friend has odd beef with a person of color in the fandom and holds them to standards they don't hold their white friends to, that is bigotry. If your friend feels some sort of way about the trans person in your friend group and tries to come up with reasons for why they specifically can't stay, that is also bigotry. If your group insists that a person with a personality disorder is making it up just for attention and uses that as a reason for why they can't be around them, that is bigotry as well.
I've never been upfront about it because... why do I, as a human being, need to be upfront about my identity when people randomly decide what I am? But I am in fact a person of color who is queer and disabled. Whenever I join a fandom group that is mostly white people, I am liked until this is discovered. And then I watch as people get brutal about things I do or say. Things that they don't do to other people in the group, and I also watch as they take my words and either twist them for convenience or ruin my reputation for it.
As a marginalized person, both in fandom and out, you are held to a unique standard that does not apply to other human beings around you. It makes doing what you love very difficult, because unfortunately as a marginalized person, people will always subconsciously side with the person trying to oppress or attack you. This has happened to me my entire life, from school to work spaces to even internet spaces claiming to be safe places.
People will say that they care about you and like you and even form a friendly bond with you, but the moment a person of privilege decides they do not like you very much, they can and will side with the other person even without proof of their issues with you. It's exhausting and ruins lives in places that should be fun and safe.
I am on my umpteenth experience with this exact cycle and I would be lying if I said it didn't make me feel like I couldn't live or breath in places I should be allowed to be involved in. It's a very real problem that refuses to end because no one has the courage to challenge it. I am speaking not only on my own experiences, but for the many other people of color or queers or disabled people who simply cannot join these so called "safe spaces" because of our identities conflicting with people who have been taught that we are lesser and not worth love or care.
If this is a problem you face, please know that I see you and I love you. It's hard to keep surviving in a world that wants to hurt you and leaves you abandoned and alone. I want you to know that the world is scary, but we all exist. You should be allowed to experience joy and fun without feeling like you're being suffocated and wanting to die.
You matter. The people around you that make you feel like you don't are nothing by comparison. You matter and I truly hope that we'll one day find each other and become the safe space that we deserve.
The marginalized people in your fandom are more important than your fictional characters and plotlines that you put above us. We're here and we're not leaving. Learn to live with us and protect us.
If we're truly your friends, you would care when your privileged "friends" want to remove us.
Additionally, please do not take this rant and make it only about white people who are part of these marginalized categories. This is a post about EVERYONE. Including the people of color around you. Do not remove us from this conversation. Care about ALL OF US if you support this at all. Thank you.
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olderthannetfic · 21 days
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That lorefm thing finally made me lock my fics. The thing I really didn't about the debacle wasn't the app itself (I hate it but I knew something would be done after all that backlash) but the people defending it and not understanding why writers are upset and seeing writers as terrible people for not supporting the app even after all the explanations given. It having that kind of support is scary to me cause it meant the people behind the app and others might try again cause there'd be people into it. Then there's also seeing someone's post saying "Fanfic is already stealing from IPs and now you're all mad someone is stealing from you?" cause wtf?
Also, whose voice would be used for the app? I bet the AI voices are stolen, too. Those issues have been talked about a lot last year (the AI scraping and the voice actors' voices being turned to AI and used without their permission) and I'm just tired.
The fear of harassment from antis didn't make me lock my fics but this did. Kinda sad cause a lot of my readers are guests (based on the kudos I get) although I hope something could be done with all this so I can unlock them someday.
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The app-makers claimed the voices were used with permission. My guess is that this is either a lie or they were paid for the use in a prior app.
I hear people about the wayback machine and how it's sad when fics are locked because they aren't saved that way, but frankly, I love locking my fics.
It promotes AO3. It tells people to man up and admit they're serious enough to need an account instead of letting them be like "Oh, I only dabble" while looking down their noses at the people who provide their entertainment. (Yes, this is more common than you'd think.) It gets rid of the gawking masses who were sent a link because it was ~cringe~.
Shoutout to the rando in the coffee shop the other day regaling the entire space with how she found a Richard Nixon/Eugene Krabs fic. Haha.
It makes it less of a blow when someone is harassed into locking. And just generally, it emphasizes that using AO3 is a privilege and fandom is a community. This isn't just ~content~ with no context or restrictions.
Minor barriers to entry greatly improve the internet.
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iintervallum · 2 months
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Sometimes I think about how the dndads cast should be on tumblr, with them having a subreddit(you know how they can be) and dndadstwt being like 10 people, tumblr would be the perfect place for them to see more of the fandom, if they wish to that is. Since quite a lot of people on here are way less honed in on negativity than reddit and twitter.
My edit of this is getting long lol so I'm putting it under a cut
Especially reddit, the people on there honestly I think just get too attached to a specific format or way of doing things, its a common pattern in any long running show fandoms i've been in where its reddit that constantly complains about the "good ol' days" and hate any new changes made. I would sometimes drop in and just see a lot of Scary hate at times, or people getting very irritated with the rule breaking, or just complaining that they're "forcing" the humor. I saw a post like that when i just started s2 and that couldnt have been more incorrect (yeah the piss jokes got a bit much but every other part was golden!...pun not intended)
There were absolutely points where I felt my interest wanning, but I think people would get pretty vicious about it and make a lot of mean spirited accusations. Like if anything the things I really enjoyed about this season was how different it was to s1, the contrast was really nice and i liked a lot of the story choices made, i still think about the apollo four teens and the fucking goof realm episodes, they were amazing. Which is why I remember thinking it was odd that they suddenly started involving the dads from s1 more, but knowing now that Anthony was struggling with people not liking this season as much it makes perfect sense.
Idk if it were just me, but i liked the earlier parts of the season for how the teens were still kind of discovering more about themselves and through gathering each anchor, learning more that their parents are people too, with their own fuck ups revealed and the teens have to clean up after them, so having it shift to be about Willy again was a little odd if i'm being honest(I didnt hate it but a repeat villian is hard to do, and for what its worth i think Willy did get the end he deserved and i loved the finale).
Funnily, in its own way it fits the theme of being a teenager and having to live up to your parents expectations. In a meta sense this being the successor to the first season and it being awkward at points and having issues with its identity is very fitting and just like how teenhood actually is.
I've gotten off topic but my point is fandom is just fandom, and letting it influence the way creators can view their own work is an interesting side effect of the internet and the way we navigate with the media we enjoy or hate. And spaces like reddit are grown in a way to encourage more brutally critical ways of analysing media which has very little consideration for the creator. By no means am I saying that the creators of things should be coddled, heck I literally airing my own annoyances with the podcast in space where i'm uplifting the positivity of tumblr over those spaces lol. I just mean that seeing the more genuine side of the fanbase would be more of a better time for them.
EDIT: (I just phrased things better, fixed the spelling and grammer errors and added more thoughts) The more I ruminate on this the more I think that it would honestly be a good idea. Like I do get the base worry of being too close to the more intense side of the fandom, as people on here are unafraid to gush about the show in ways that can be a little much and theres parasociality and all that jazz.
But it would be really good at least to see some actual genuine positivity, so many people provide their thoughtful meta and theories that even if widely off base are just interesting to read through because of how various different people see themselves in the characters they play. And even the critiques people give are not unkind, they come from a place of wanting to understand the choices made better.
I mentioned this in the old version of this post but having a blacklisted tag that only the people who don't wish their post to be seen by the cast use, something along the lines like how the magnus archives fandom has "do not archive", would be a very useful tool to create a barrier in the fanbase. I know i'm someone who feels very nervous about creators seeing the posts I make. Something like "not safe for dads" could work well or any other joke or pun about it being hidden. I doubt it would be filled with discourse or whatever it would mainly be people hornyposting since i know fandom well enough lol.
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that-lazy-snail · 1 year
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Being a fan of Avatar (the movie with blue people) is literally the most exhausting fan experience I've ever had, and I'm a female Star Wars fan, who's favorite Star Wars movie is The Last Jedi.
I'm by no means claiming that the movie is flawless or even "great" but it is by scifi blockbuster standards pretty good. It's no more or less racist than the Star Wars prequels and the writing isn't any worse than the scriptwriting in the Star Wars prequels either, yet it's treated with such disdain among people on the internet that I can't even talk about it without receiving random hateful comments.
I cosplay from the movie, more specifically the new movie and an OC that I designed in 2018. I love the movie, especially the visual elements and the design of the Na'vi and their culture, I think it's a fascinating metaphor for our treatment of indigenous peoples and our planet, I love the themes the film presents. But I'm also aware that it's harmful to indigenous people as well because it promotes a white savior narrative, that it's harmful to disabled people by promoting the narrative that they can't live full lives unless they're normative. I don't deny those problems with the movie, and I have plenty of criticisms of the new film as well. Particularly the use of locks on Jake and Spider, and I saw a video on tiktok complaining about that and I left a comment saying that I really wish they hadn't done that and I thought it was a really poor styling choice since up until that point none of the Na'vi we'd seen have locks so it doesn't logically make sense to give them that hair style. I got quite a bit of response to that comment, some people agreeing with me but largely people were saying, "why do you cosplay it then?" "why do you support it then?" like is it not okay to like things and also have criticism for them? I'm allowed to like things about it and also not like things about it.
I also keep seeing videos saying that Avatar has no cultural impact, that it doesn't have a long lasting fan base despite having lore comparable to Lord of the Rings. Here's the thing with that, it totally does have lore comparable to Lord of the Rings but the fan base can't thrive like LOTR fans or even Star Trek could partially because the internet wasn't a space in the same way then as it was when Avatar came out and the other fact is the sheer amount of shaming and harassment that Avatar fans get. I've seen people leave the fandom because of the hate they received on the internet. They quite literally get bullied out of their enjoyment of the movie. People say that Avatar has no fans, but it's fans are chronically silent and reclusive in our liking of the film for fear of getting harassed. I am part of Facebook groups of that have thousands of members and a very active discord. Avatar fans exist, they just keep low and quiet so as to protect themselves. I know people who speak Na'vi in the same way people speak elvish or klingon, it's just not something we advertise because every time we try to share our enjoyment of the movie we get mean comments or mocking stitches/remixes of our videos, pictures, etc. It's not fun to be a public Avatar fan, it's scary and exhausting.
I love Avatar, Neytiri was one of the first truly strong and inspirational female characters I connected with as a child (I was 9 when the movie came out) and I was fascinated and enthralled with the world of Pandora, as were so many movie goers. I'm so tired of getting railed on for enjoying this movie, or even just the constant ridicule that comes through my feed about it. What happened to the golden rule of if you don't have anything nice to say (or on this case even anything that provides new/valuable commentary/criticism) don't say anything at all?
I'm so sick of hearing the same arguments I've heard a million times about why it's a retread plot of Pocahontas/Dances With Wolves/Ferngully, I've heard it all before, I've seen those movies before and their plots are in myths and any number of other stories, that's not why I love the movie. No amount of people saying that to me will change what I do like about the Avatar. I don't watch Avatar for the plot, I watch it for Pandora, and for the visual spectacle and the world building.
I'm sick of the argument that Avatar's treatment of indigenous voices is somehow worse than any other piece of media written by and for white communities, it's not. Even Avatar the Last Airbender (which is my favorite TV show of all time and is often acclaimed as a great example of native representation) also falls failure to the same mistake of casting white actors in POC roles and changing the narratives of natives to be more easily accepted and understood by white audiences. This is not to say that ATLA doesn't handle its message better than Avatar, but it's important to be aware of the ways in which all media has flaws, even the things we think are less problematic and it's important to acknowledge them and not tear the media down for it, but use it as means to make new media better. Cameron did improve with the Way of Water, he frequently consulted with the Maori tribes he was pulling inspiration from, there's literally articles written by Maori tribe members on it but it is still a white people movie, written by white people for white people so do with that what you will. But don't claim star wars is any better, the prequels were outrageously racist, and they still maintain majority white casts.
The new Avatar movie (the way of water) is not perfect, there are quite a few things I found to be poor choices in regards to cultural sensitivity (aka locks, and casting Kate Winslet as Ronal instead of a Polynesian actress) but it's still better than it's predecessor, and unlike so many people on the internet say, it is not "a bunch of white people playing poc" since neither Zoe Saldana, nor Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, or any of the Metkayina children or Cliff Curtis are white. In fact, Cliff Curtis is Maori, the culture that inspired the Metkayina and many of the extras who play background Na'vi in the films are POC, because in spite of James Cameron's failings, he did want the Na'vi to be played by people of color. Very very few of the Na'vi in the original movie are played by white people, only a few extras with less than 1 minute of screen time and no lines. All the major Na'vi roles were played by people of black and indigenous color. Eytukan was played by a Cherokee native, Mo'at (these people are the two clan leaders) is played by a indigenous woman from Africa and is very black. Zoe Saldana's parents are Dominican and Puerto Rican for god's sake! She is not white. This argument that he casts white people in POC roles is untrue. The Avatars are white cause they're meant to represent the invadors, wolf in sheep's clothing if you will. The Na'vi are bipoc, and they're played by bipoc.
After Avatar, James went to Brazil and became and activist for native communities. He went worked with Brazilian natives fighting the building of a dam over their local river, a dam with would power a major city in Brazil, but destroy the indigenous peoples access to water. He went to their community, and asked them what he could do to help. He donated money, protested, ran conferences and tried to disrupt the building of the dam using his influence, but it failed, and he had to watch the suffering of this indigenous tribe that he'd grown very close to in their time working together to prevent the dam. He's not Anti-indigenous as people love to claim, he's clumsy and arrogant (like all cis white men) but what he does is an attempt to elevate native voices not smother them even if he doesn't necessarily succeed.
The movie isn't the menace to society people portray it as, nor is it as boring or uncompelling as people claim. But I still can't go online to enjoy it because no matter what I say, I like it too much for "a bad movie" or I'm "too supportive of something harmful" although I still see people buying Harry Potter merchandise in the Barnes and Noble and I'd argue JK Rowling is an actively bigoted individual who's words and paychecks actively harm marginalized communities, unlike Cameron who despite his bumbling is trying his best and actually learning and doing better with the new content he puts out.
People also say things like, "You only like it cause you're white, no POC people like Avatar." which is blatantly untrue, I've seen native people who like it, black people who like it, I have black friends who like it, I know a black cosplayer who cosplays from it. In fact, I know more poc who cosplay from it than white people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of the film, and should be allowed to interact with it without getting harassed. It's just exhausting to like it, so people don't say they do.
I'm tired of even the things that should be praised about the new film being used as a way to tear it down. Cameron said in an interview that he "likes Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman as characters but they're not mom's" when asked why he chose to make Neytiri a mother. Neytiri's motherhood doesn't detract from her warrior-ness, she's still a badass bitch and I think that's the point that this person on tiktok clearly missed. He wasn't saying you need women to be moms to be heros, but how many warrior women who are also mothers can you think of off the top of your head? I can't think of any. The choice to make Neytiri a badass mom wasn't to detract from single or childless female characters but to provide even more diversity in the kinds of strong female characters out there. I loved that 1/2 the cast of that movie was women, just as I loved Neytiri in the first film.
In conclusion, can we please stop making Avatar fans lives hell on the internet. I do my own research about how it is and isn't problematic and make my own decisions, I don't need strangers to yell at me. I just want to enjoy my silly ecoscifi movie about blue aliens. I'm aware of its issues and I do my best to raise awareness of the issues facing real natives, to engage with real native stories and voices and support their protests, legal persuits, tribal sovereignty, land back etc, and be the best ally I can be, but I'm not going to boycot this movie because it does some problematic stuff, or because it has an unoriginal plot, if I did that I could never watch another marvel movie again (and yes they're just as bad if you dig, look at the early ones especially) I'm so sick of the insane amount of factually unsupported hate this movie gets and of having to deal with it. I'm tired, I just want to enjoy my movie which is no worse than any other white backed and driven Hollywood blockbuster.
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nailgunstigmata · 5 months
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i couldnt fall asleep and spent the last few hours watching tiktoks of people pretending to be wolves so i probably cant articulate this well rn but i think theres something deeply sad about how much of not just fandom but life in general is done with ironic detachment nowadays. a kind of plausible deniability of feeling anything at all. and i catch myself doing this too!! its just a lot easier to not be vulnerable and earnest online. baring ur soul in front of anyone is terrifying because ur always giving them the opportunity to hurt u when u do it
like even with this post a part of my brain is going ok its not that deep omg but like. maybe it is that deep. maybe the things we do and say and the way we navigate the world matters even in an online space about a sitcom. maybe everything can have meaning and we should be careful of what we are saying and listen to other people and try to be nice to each other because theres already plenty of cruelty in the world
and again i have the internet socialised part of my brain screaming at me that this is cringe and nobody cares but again thats stupid. like thats stupid. nobody is being held at gunpoint to read my dumb rambles and if people mock my words thats their personal failure and not mine. u just have to kinda not listen and be earnest anyways and be comforted by the fact that this mindset of self denial isnt healthy for anyone. u cant be detached and happy those two things are mutually exclusive and irony is a thing that can genuinely poison you. like im speaking from experience i literally have the same kind of brainrot and i think that most people have it, especially gen z since we grew up on the internet and started curating the way people perceive us online way too soon. like yeah theres a point where u only know the self that exists to be perceived and that sucks i think.
mocking others vulnerability is fun and safe but it cant make you happy. the only thing that can is being genuine and open and vulnerable. its scary but its the only way. what im trying to say is that the live laugh love girlies were kinda onto something (minus the christian fundamentalism) and we are gradually spiraling into a world in which nothing is real and everything is a commodity and the only way to save ur soul is to be genuine and earnest with people u love and with the world in general. lets cling to our humanity as capitalism alienates us and keeps us trapped in a perpetual cycle of dissatisfaction so we can consume and be consumed forever and ever while giving just enough to keep the engine pumping. im not saying that actively trying to be earnest is the antidote for capitalism but i do think it helps salvage our humanity. and i do think its the only way to be happy
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working-dreamer · 4 months
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It’s wild how shipping culture has changed so drastically over time on the internet.
In the old days people shipped characters who either had only one line of dialogue with each other, never even met, or not even from the same piece of media. It was the wild west and sure some ships were uncomfortable but people had the mindset to just block the tag and stay away from ships they didn’t enjoy.
Nowadays? It’s more like people have to clarify that their ship isn’t canon compliant, character adjacent, and story irrelevant otherwise they get a flood of comments saying “but this character isn’t like this in canon” and some people legitimately get angry if you’re not following the canon.
Like- shipping and fandom culture from what I understand it is about engaging with media in a way that caters to you. And if you don’t like a ship or show just… block the relevant tags and don’t engage in the ships? The internet isn’t supposed to cater to us- we have to cater ourselves to our internet environment. And no matter how many times people may harass others over a fandom or ship they don’t like, those ships are not gonna disappear.
The internet has just been getting worse when people have decided to place morality in their opinions by saying things like “if you enjoy the ship then you support (insert horrible thing here that’s usually completely unrelated to the ship itself)” when it used to be “eh, not my thing” and people just moved on.
And for the record this isn’t about a specific ship or anything- just an observation of how fandom has evolved (and regressed) over the years and I find it fascinating from a sociological perspective cause we still don’t know how having the internet from birth affects the development of kids and how that affects how they interact with others- isn’t that scary?
I know that’s slightly unrelated but the way people engage in media has been changing over they years and that also involves fandom and the maturity level thereof in the internet space and someone smarter than me could probably write a whole thesis paper about fandom culture and how the internet has hindered the social development of people and how that affects community specifically from a fandom lens.
Just- for your sanity younger internet children: it’s not worth harassing others over something as trivial as ‘it’s not canon that this character kisses another character.’ Just find ships you like. Block ships you don’t. And just enjoy your time doing what you like!
You can’t control the internet but you can nurture your little corner of it.
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unorthodoxdeviant · 2 months
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The things I dislike about fandoms that make up rule's (EG; No NSFW, No "Proshippers") Is that it complicates fandom dynamics from there on.
While I totally understand the no NSFW rule if a minor made that character. There is however not exception for adult made characters. A sour part of the internet is accepting that posting your passion project may end up with thousands of people resonating.
And what do people do when they resonate? They become fans! And those people are totally out of your control. I understand it's scary, it is unnerving to see your OC's plucked out of your control.
However, I inevitably believe this comes down to one thing.
The internet is not your safe space. You cannot control anyone on here, nobody is gonna spend too damns about your morale. Your comfort is going to be trampled like a high horse
Now, you can take every precaution in the book to prevent it. But doing so will only cause a rise in pettiness. And I promise you, at least one mf snickering behind yo back doing so.
You don't need to like it, you don't need to find it pleasant. Completely intolerable even. You just have to accept it will and always will exist. And sometimes, for the sake of you AND us. It's more beneficial to move on and further control what you view online.
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It's SO FUCKING EASY to get harassed in this fandom - at least, in tumblr space. I'm thankful this confessional blog exists, because people would have made posts again "THEY'RE A FUCKING PEDO THEURE A FUCKING ZOO THEYRE ROMANTISING GORE THEY LIKE INCEST AND MORE HORRIBLE FUCKING THINGS IF YOU FOLLOW THEM I HATE YOU!!!!!!" and their proof would be some fucking bullshit, or taken out of context. And in any case its a problem that exists only in a goddamn vacuum ONLY in internet space. There are fucking people who dm you about another person and accuse them of shit BEHIND THEIR BACK, because THEY DON'T LIKE THEEEM :((( they're weirdd and scary which justifies everything we do and say. You can't just block, noo, you GOTTA write to EVERYONE around this person about how SHITTY they are, and anyone who doesn't agree is just as SHITTY as they are. I don't know what else can scream louder about the fact that you don't have anything else to do
I wonder how many of these people actually believe in cause, or are doing it because secretly they enjoy feeding their fucked up sense of "justice", by bringing down the person they PERSONALLY don't like. Can you REALLY, with whole your heart say you're doing this not because of that? The fact that you're with other people, all together, dogpiling another BAAAD person, because YOU'RE not like them, you have GOOOD morals, GOOD opinons, you have GOOOD stances. It feels as if you're better than them, doesn't it?
.
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feraliminal · 5 months
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Titan TVman and Beowulf are Basically the Same Character: Why Skibidi Toilet Is Folklore
It’s been a long time since I’ve touched the hellsite (I used to doodle and write dirty fic), but I’m fascinated by the silly toilet men videos, their popularity, and the confusion about their popularity. And because I’m a huge nerd and always want to know why people do things, I wrote something. It’s too long to leave on my Notes app and forget about, and I’m also not letting skibidi toilets anywhere near my serious blog. So I actually came back to Tumblr for this.
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(Also the first stupid doodle I’ve done in forever, here’s the original meme.)
Toilet humour is obviously a huge part of why it’s so popular, and imho it’s a poop joke that got bigger than the creator intended it to. Toilets are endlessly amusing, particularly for kids, because learning to manage your waste is essential to being a civilised person but something that no one really wants to do. Some of the first conflicts between kids and their parents are often around cleanliness and potty training, and as we get older, the toilet is one of the few places where we’re first alone, particularly if we share a bedroom with siblings. Childlore and fiction about childhood is full of toilets: bullies that strike in school toilets, toilet ghosts like Bloody Mary and Hanako-san, people who died on the loo, and rats or spiders that bite your bum. It’s a classic example of a liminal space that looks mundane but could be full of scary shit.
So that’s my first smart theory, Skibidi Toilet is a contemporary haunted toilet story with something to do with dirt and discomfort vs tech. Clever theories about symbolism are fun and I think symbolism that feels relevant and familiar might be why something first attracts someone’s attention, but I don’t think it can explain the thing having fandom.
The only thing people love as much as poop jokes is stories about cool guys having punch ups, and there’s plenty of that as well. Visually and thematically, Skibidi uses all the tropes that we love in serious popular media - fights, explosions, monsters, giants, noise, the aforementioned cool robots. Swap out skibidi toilets for alien invaders, and cameramen with plungers for cyborgs with swords, and we’d have a respectable alien apocalypse story that’s identical to five other summer blockbusters. But as it is, it’s so ridiculous that it can only be a silly little internet video.
There’s a video by MatPat making a convincing argument that it’s actually about the conflict between independent content creators and the conventional media industry. But again, I think it’s also probably only indirectly what’s turning curious views into millions of subscriptions, especially since the earlier netlore was pretty niche. I think what viewers are picking up on is the dissonance between cool robots, apocalypse horror, and silly toilets, evidenced by most of the comments on YouTube being variation of “why is this actually good”. It’s got the same vibe as other stuff I’d classify as creepypasta-style or meme-style horror: Five Nights at Freddy’s, Among Us, Homestuck, and so on. In meme horror, there is an in-universe threat to characters that’s not played for laughs. However, something like a ridiculous gimmick, a parody of pop culture, or a dissonantly cute art style makes it clear that adult viewers who understand it as fiction don’t have to respect the threat.
The line between feared and respected has always been thin. A cool example of this is the word aglæca in Beowulf and other Old English texts. Aglæca is a debated word because it’s mainly used to describe monsters and demons, but is sometimes used to describe heroes and saints. Both the human hero Beowulf and his monster opponent Grendel are called aglæca. Based on this use and its etymology, some medieval studies scholars think it means something more like an uncanny and powerful outsider. I think a big part of meme horror’s appeal is that it’s still got heroes who are more or less serious characters fighting serious battles. We can respect the characters and their struggles even if we don’t fear the absurd stuff. I’ve chosen Titan TVman for my silly title because they’re the character that best embodies the “uncanny hero” aspect for me, but tbh I think that most meme horror heroes/anti-heroes seem to be these character types.
We know that enjoying horror fiction helps some people manage anxiety and fear, and comedy horror can help us laugh at fear. With the retained seriousness besides the playfulness, meme horror might be more beneficial than basic serious or comedy horror as a comfortably uncomfortable middle ground between the two. Cringe is currently having a cultural moment too, where concerns about and celebrations of being cringe are everywhere, so it might also give us a way of exploring and processing our feelings about embarrassment as well as fear.
Memes, and therefore meme horror, are very amenable to being collaboratively and spontaneously adapted and spread by regular folk. They’re a new form of folklore, essentially. They address stuff that’s relevant to the lives of regular folk, including ugly and uncomfortable things. There’s even a theory that the culture of the very online has began an era of “secondary orality” where how we spread stories on the internet replicates how we used to spread folk stories by word-of-mouth. Secondary orality is a double-edged sword, as it can build creative and supportive communities, but also spreads conspiracy theories and hate. No wonder some of us might not be having our needs fulfilled by regular horror fiction, if we’re facing the bad kind of secondary orality as well as everything else that’s going on in the world. (More allegories! An increasingly absurd and hostile world is another theme in Skibidi Toilet.)
The 1938 book Homo Ludens argued that doing things just for fun has defined features and benefits: play gives us freedom to express ourselves, it’s separate from everyday life, it allows us to construct new worlds with new rules, and it’s never compulsory or for profit. When we’re bombarded by media that’s designed to extract the maximum amount of profit from us, engaging with mainstream entertainment might sometimes feel not as playful or as voluntary. But by being a bit cringe, meme horror retains the appearance of being indie and just for fun even if it becomes obscenely popular.
So, for me, this is what Skibidi Toilet is about. It’s about new folklore playing the same role as old folklore, even if it looks like silly toilet men videos, because we’re essentially the same people as our ancestors telling monster stories around the fire.
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containmentbreach · 1 year
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man oh man i'm actually kind of pissed like. if you don't know what this is about ignore it it's fine it's just stupid drama godbless but why is it that whenever wlw try to have their own thing in fandom and it gets even a little bit outside of those niche spaces they get made into the villains somehow. like god sorry the Big Mean Scary Lesbians are being mean and scary about your poor gay ship the whole internet loves that must be so hard!! like i'm not condoning harassment but the way this shit played out people are going to make hanamusa shippers the villains of this dumb drama when they were just trying to like. have fun with a pokemon ship. i literally don't even care about the ship that much but like. you absolutely did not have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how much you hated it when you seemed fine with it before. sometimes shit happens in a poll you can't predict! it's fucking tumblr! hanamusa shippers didn't deserve all this. christ.
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grollow · 3 months
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PINNED POST
“No matter how many years are left to us, there will never be enough time to fill the void that has been borne inside each of us when we were made so brutally aware of how very little we mattered to the world.” -- Emilie Autumn
Hi, I'm Asher.
Or Rhysa, which is my writing alias; I used to go by Ashyr, too, and that's also okay!
And this is a multi-fandom blog where I sometimes share my own original content (usually writing). I am autistic, possess next to no ability to mask and don't intend to learn for anyone on the internet (sorry), queer, nonbinary (they/them or it/its only, please) and opinionated. I'm also an adult.
This blog is primarily SFW, but there may be some suggestive posts. If you are a minor, please consider that before following me (I won't take offense, promise). There won't be anything blatant, but I do reblog kink-positive things.
Primary Fandoms
Elden Ring
Final Fantasy XIV (there will be spoilers for all current patch content)
Ender Lilies
Hollow Knight
I sometimes share horror-adjacent things; you will find gore and scary imagery here.
I admin a creative-focused Hollow Knight discord server, found here. 18+ only, please.
Spare Me And You The Trouble
I am not here to get into shipping arguments with you or anyone else. If you REALLY want my opinions, you can send me asks off-anonymous and I'll answer you candidly in private. I am not interested in discourse of this nature (I am too old and tired please).
Also, if you are thinking about sending me some ask complaining that I ship Grollow, save us both the trouble and don't. I'm probably going to not answer.
But if you want to know why, I wrote a long answer here.
Writing Tags
My main tag for writing is #ashe writes. You can find my more popular fics under #w&g, #red sky, #do not go gently, #ld, and #butterfly effect.
I have an original project called The Starfire, which is the first work in a series called #burning roses. You can see inspiration tags for that periodically. It's a space-fantasy adventure-romance and I'm very proud of it! I'd be happy to answer questions if you're curious to learn more.
Other stuff is probably randomly tagged because I am very bad at remembering the tagging system. Sorry.
Find Me Elsewhere?
I’m on Ao3 as Rhysa, Shyra, and Shyr (18+). I sometimes use Twitter as ashyronfire.
My writing blog is @ashyronfire if you are only here for that. ❤
Other Stuff
Deepest apologies to the people who follow me hoping for regular FromSoft stuff but are just subjected to the constant bug train; it will continue to happen.
pfp by @viapencil
banner by @amywolfhardt
Wanna help a starving writer? (PS: I’m not starving.)
I have a ko-fi if you’re feeling generous and would like to donate or you can donate to my cashapp $ashyronfire if you like. I also take commissions for writing. More info here. (Currently Closed)
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ourflagmeansgayrights · 7 months
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Hey so idk if you would know this but where did the term canyon in reference to Izzy fans come from? I feel like I just started seeing it like three days ago but everyone seems to already know what it means
lol so disclaimer that this ask has been in my inbox since september 23rd and alsoooo i might not be the best person to ask bc i am belothed by many who consider themselves part of the izzy canyon (which is their right). so if you asked an izzy fan about this you would probably get a different answer. also from what i can tell the term originated on twitter and i don’t go there.
the tl;dr that i heard secondhand from someone who identifies as izzy canyon is that at some point last year (summer or fall-ish i think) a lot of izzy fans were blocking so many people who didn’t like izzy that a lot of them ended up being unaware of general fandom trends and it became a running joke among them that izzy fans were isolated from the rest of the fandom in an "izzy canyon." and then allegedly the term expanded to just mean "if ur not a dick abt ppl liking izzy u can be in the canyon." THAT BEING SAID there are other ppl who had a very different experience with how "the canyon" originated and what kind of fan space it tends to be.
(slightly longer explanation below)
the thing with The Canyon is that to understand its origin and also why some fans have a problem with it, you gotta know two things:
there are annoying puriteen anti types on the internet who think liking certain characters make you a bad person. from what i can tell theyre mostly on twitter and tiktok. these people are annoying but also in my experience they're usually pretty easy to block and ignore.
the popularity of izzy hands is disproportionate to his narrative role in the show, and the popular fanon interpretation of izzy hands casts him not only as a principal character but as a much more sympathetic, righteous character than he is in canon. THIS DOES NOT MEAN I THINK ANYONE IS A BAD PERSON FOR LIKING IZZY. this DOES mean that i think ppl who think ed is izzy's domestic abuser are wrong. and also this is part of an age old fandom trend of fandom favoring a masc white guy who is often a side character and also often an antagonist.
so from what i can tell. in the early days of the ofmd fandom (spring-summer 2022) there was a lot of #1 going around on twitter, screaming about how if you liked izzy hands then you're a racist abuse apologist or something. at one point a throwaway account tweeted a callout for a popular izzy fan and said "we know they live in this area and work for this company, so these are the locations where they might work. everyone should call these numbers and tell their job to fire them. also we're gonna target these izzy fans next" and like, obviously this account was pretty quickly taken down. but it was a pretty scary thing and left a lot of izzy fans pretty paranoid, hence the blocking everyone who didnt like izzy.
(there was also a "izzy hater group chat" twitter account that was literally just a small group of mostly minors posting memes and also abt izzy that got accused of being connected to that whole mess. but afaict those guys have nothing to do with harassment of izzy fans they just dont like izzy)
so the thing is now that all of that has been used to justify shutting down any type of conversation about #2, or writing off anyone who posts meta about izzy that isnt like, "he works so hard and is so unappreciated despite everything he's done for ed" as an "izzy anti." analyzing izzy critically and posting this in the #izzy hands tag on tumblr is likened to genuine harassment.
oh lol and speaking of harrasment: there was also a problem with ppl on tumblr getting anon hate, and izzy fans will tell you that the anon came from an izzy hater who was targeting izzy fans bc the anon messages use "izzy critical rhetoric." however as someone who has posted "izzy critical" metas or whatever, i have actually gotten the same harassing messages accusing me of being an izzy stan and a racist abuse apologist. that's not what a targeted harassment campaign looks like. that's all been less of a problem ever since tumblr made it so you need to be logged in to an account to send anonymous messages.
anyway my stance on all of this:
i don't hate anyone for liking izzy. i am critical of certain comments/behaviors i often see from ppl who identify as izzy fans, but izzy fans are rarely the only ones who have this problem. from what i've seen tho, a lot of it comes from izzy fans.
before i ever saw even a hint of harassment against izzy fans, i saw izzy fans coming onto my posts and to posts by fans of color trying to argue that these posts were contributing to their harassment. from my perspective, it looked a lot like fans of a white character were trying to shut down conversations abt their favorite guy, especially when those conversations were being had by fans of color. i was very skeptical and oftentimes pretty dismissive abt the existence of this harassment.
since then tho ive done a pretty deep dive into the anon harassment on tumblr, and also looked at takes from different perspectives on the whole thing, and my conclusion is that there is harassment of izzy fans, however it is on the same base-level shittiness that most people experience from just... being on the internet. death threats and insults and slurs are literally just part of being on the internet. and yes, it SUCKS and it's wrong and nobody should have to put up with it, but izzy fans are not victims of specific targeted harassment. theyre victims of being on the internet and having to put up with general internet shittiness. and im sympathetic to that up until ppl start using "ive been harassed for being an izzy fan" as an excuse to be incredibly nasty (check out this tumblr acct for examples of what i mean lol). the ofmd fandom is annoying and parts of it are toxic but like, by no means is this the most toxic fandom to ever exist. we're not at "undertale fan giving out cookies with needles in them at a convention" levels just yet.
finally, tangentially related: i am inherently wary of fandom sub-groups that like, name themselves?? in my experience, the more people make being a Type Of Fan part of their identity the more it tends to lead to problems. this goes for fans who label themselves "antis" or "anti-antis" or whatever the fuck. i've personally been called an "izzy anti," an "izzy hater," and an "izzy critical fan" but like, i dont really call myself that?? it just seems weird to me idk. it gets to be very "us vs them" on default with little nuance and ive never found this kind of thing to be like, productive in fandom spaces. but that's just me.
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theurbanorc · 2 years
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Just wish to say to the younger or the people that was not in the fandom shit at the time:
The problem Anne Rice had with fanfiction had NOTHING TO DO with gay sex. She didn't give a damn about people fleshing out what was obvious in the books, and lots of characters are openly in relationships in the chronicles.
She was an atheist at the time she wrote it, and she was pretty fine with people writing out their desires in the pages.
The problem was that she didn't understood fanfic and she believed people will make money over her creations.
There was a precedent of trouble between a writer and a fan, where a person wrote a fanfic with too many common elements that Marion Zimmer Bradley pretended to use in a novel and everything becoming a shit storm.
So, Anne Rice was very affected, very scared by watching this shit storm happening. This was one of the first GIANT INTERNET CONTROVERSY, mind you, in a time when the surface internet of today didn't existed, and the fandom wars happened at the same time in the virtual world and in photocopied fanzines, conventions and God forbid us to remember all the ways we did fandom stuff before internet.
And at that time, the chaos about discussing the space that fanfic should occupy and how the authors should relate to the fans was a boiling cauldron exploding at every few minutes.
The problems Anne Rice (and her agent, and her editors, its impossible to know exactly what each part of it over reacted first) had with fanfiction didn't had shit with control of the narrative, and everything about money rights protection.
I cannot say this didn't make me have some bad blood about Rice. I, like a lot of fans, had a huge love and hate relationship with her as author because of it. It was a fucking mess. It was scary to everybody writing and reading fanfic.
Been a Vampire Chronicles fan was suddenly a big problem. And to be honest, that was a moment where been openly queer was dangerous and society was much more closed. Letting things between the vampire lovers been only suggested in the pages was necessary to it been published in a lot of places.
I rightly doubt it will be published in Brazil if it was more open about everything. Even in the 90's, with the movie, when my generation got our filthy queer hands in it. But we KNEW. And at that time, it worked fine to us.
So, just repeating for the people in the back:
ANE RICE FANFICTION BAN WAS A MONETARY FEAR ISSUE, NOT A VAMPIRE HAVING SEX ISSUE.
She even declared that she regretted her overreaction at that time. Apparently, her fear was fuelled by her editor when Merrick has been published. And later she perceived that if she was not going after the fanfiction (like Bradley used to do), it was pretty easy to just ignore it.
She was never comfortable with fanfiction, and we got kind bitter about it until her death? Yes.
But this was never a sexual thing. It was capitalism fucking with nice things only.
So, except for the short time she had returned to the church and was really on it, she was never a prude. But writing gay vampires in the 70's had a fuckton of problems to be published that we don't dream about today. And I firmly believe that if things was not more ope than in the books, was not because of her, but because of the public bigotry of the time.
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blues-valentine · 1 year
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So I couldn’t care less about Hailey Bieber or Selena and any of this drama perpetuated by TikTok but it’s insane the amount of support Selena Gomez gets when she has history of being a drama instigator and has constantly weaponized her fanbase to hurt and bully women online. Hailey is just another one of the countless women [mostly models] she has encouraged narratives about for the internet to tear them apart, it happened with Sofia Richie, Barbara Palvin and every other women that is somehow involved with Justin Bieber. She’s not a victim. She’s been long enough in this industry to know how her fandom operates. But it’s easier to rally behind her because she has the nostalgia persona attached to her narrative.
People dismissing the fact she’s been following and commenting on TikTok’s focused on hating Hailey and hyping these theories for months is wild and it shows you how easy it is to manipulate the audience. It’s not crazy to think this is some PR situation due to Hailey’s growing popularity in the beauty space. I think it’s crazy her whole label is "treat people with kindness" when she always lights the fire and pretends she’s doing everything in her power to tune it down and only “speaks” for others when the damage has been done. She has some clear insecurity problems going on with her and she seeks that validation from the internet. She knew exactly what she was doing when she said “she wishes she looked like Bella Hadid” because she knew her deranged fandom would bring up her plastic surgeries — her talking about one of her exes ex girlfriend was premeditated and there’s a reason her only friend in the industry is Taylor Swift who operates with the same self victimize narrative.
All of her behavior has been so calculated it’s actually impressive. The hate Hailey has been getting is not normal. You people don’t treat men like this. It’s too late for Selena to claim to be the bigger person. She was on TikTok a few weeks thanking her fandom and claiming they’re “the best” while she had women being dragged to moon and back online. It’s very easy to see the issue here and I won’t be surprised she’s due to release music or some product soon. The desire to glorify these celebrities that don’t care about you and self insert into these delusions is so scary to me. Genuinely scary.
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