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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Okay, I'm gonna do this the clean way by sending you an ASK! :) I was listening to the latest fansplaining ep about doing fandom without other people (is that still fandom or just pleasurable consumption?) and got me thinking if other very long-term fans feel like they don't want to do the online fandom thing anymore. I know you talk about your offline group of fandom friends, but putting that aside, do you feel it'll come (or has come) a time when you just don't want to do it with new fans/fandoms anymore? (that was the gist of the experiences discussed in fansplaining and something I have been feeling and discussing with a like-minded friend, though neither of us have been on fandoms for most of our lives).

I think just consuming canon without interacting is pleasurable consumption. Writing fic, even posting fic, without interacting much or reading other people's fic without trying to be active on tumblr/twitter/discords/etc. is more like doing fandom alone.

I haven't listened to fansplaining in a while. They've humored kink-haters too often and been too Boggled, Just Boggled by basic fandom shit their friends all know. I like them as people, but...

But back to your actual question: I'm just about the most extroverted person in the universe, so no.

I like new people, even now, even in the era of radical feminist kink hating pretending to be pro-gay activism. Even in the era of whiny children causing massive mental trauma to their peers in the quest to protect a cartoon character's chastity.

Lately, I've had trouble sitting down to watch or read anything. I blame general life stuff. (I'm still in the middle of epic decluttering, and my mind feels cluttered because my space is.) But I'm not someone who revisits comfort canons. If I rewatch, it's for vidding. If I reread, it's not until I've forgotten everything, and usually then, it would only be if I want to review a book, not just for the pleasure of reading it again.

I do revisit fandoms pretty regularly, usually to read new fic or because I want to write new fic or make other fanworks. But for me, fandom is a long procession of new interests. I'm never happy for long in a juggernaut ship or megafandom, so the idea of stagnating forever in my "safe" old corner is anathema. "My" corner is always something where there are 20 fics and I've already read them all. There's nothing to stay in.

And even in my last couple of years of gray blah, I fell hard for Kingdom. I have so many feelings. That one I am going to rewatch, but for Korean practice and to vid it. I've already got some new-to-me music I'm very excited about also that I want to pair with it.

It sounds like Fansplaining was talking about something that is essentially a Fannish Midlife Crisis. This has been a well-known pattern as long as I have been in fandom. If you stick around long enough, you'll generally go through one. Stick around really long, and you'll go through multiple!

If you're like late 20s-mid 30s and got into fandom in college, on average, you're probably hitting your first serious one right now. (I see this a lot.) If you're like 60, you've probably left fandom for a decade or two and come back. Some people do leave forever, of course, but if you're a current fan then, by definition, you didn't.

Honestly, it reminds me of people endlessly rediscovering the thing that happens with friendship once you're a few years out of college and you have to make regular adult life friends instead of having peers delivered to you on a silver platter. It's a genuine issue, but it's an issue that generations of other people have dealt with before, so it's amusing when people are shocked or think they're unique.

The basic fandom pattern that leads up to these crises is that people get into fandom the first time more or less the same way:

You find something you adore. You're on fire and other people are too at the same time in the same way. It's magic!

Now, not everyone has this experience, but people who don't often fail to find or get into fandom in the first place.

After a few glorious years or months, depending on your era and circumstances, you sour on the canon or you run out of fics to write or other people drift away. In type 1 of this crisis, you're still happy where you are, but the there isn't there anymore. Where has the love gone? etc. etc.

In type 2, you find a shiny new canon! The pangs of new love! Everything is new again! Only, this time, something is wrong: nobody else is into your thing with you. Fandom has not rallied round with the longfic and the meta and the gifsets. What is going on???

And, of course, the answer is that nothing is going on. 99% of the time, when a person falls in love with a piece of media, other people don't love it quite the same way at quite the same time in sufficient numbers. But since Baby's First Fandom is by definition one where this did happen, Baby's Second Fandom is hugely disappointing.

Since you now know fandom as a way of processing all your media feels, you want to do it with canon #2, and you just can't. Not if you want other people in a community as part of that.

Both 1 and 2 could happen with baby's 37th canon instead, or they could happen with a cultural gap of some kind--maybe a generation gap, but not always.

In addition to all that, you the person change. If your life gets really busy and stressful or you're depressed or you're trying not to look at bright screens before bed or whatever else, you no longer have the ability to make the party happen. I constantly see people going "Why is fandom not like X anymore?" where X is something they did because they were a college student and they were willing to blow off homework to run a bajillion fandom events or to hunt for fic. But now, they don't have time or energy for that yet somehow expect that it will just happen in their space somehow. I certainly don't fault people for having more going on in their lives, but if you can't bring the party yourself, you have to go where someone else is throwing one. Them's the breaks.

We all go through periods of being more and less into our hobbies. That's just life. But one of the big things I've seen in fandom is people unwilling to put themselves out there.

I have made plenty of new friends over the last few years, from people I've hung out with offline to new tumblr friends like you, and it's basically entirely because I'm so publicly visible. This also paints a target on my back, of course. I get why people don't like being out in public.

Antis suck, sure. But how many people do we all see saying antis suck? How many people are going "I feel old and want to hang out with people who aren't emotional children"? How many people are like "Everyone my age is awful! Where do I find friends?" There is no shortage of fans who don't like what they perceive to be the current state of fandom and who would like some new friends. At least some of them are going to be to one's taste if one went out and found them.

It's like romance: if you're too scared to try again, we all get it, but you can't then expect to be anything but single. How many romances start this way? Just so, so many. The character absolutely did get burned, and there absolutely are emotional consequences to putting yourself out there, but...

I have friends who sit at home talking about how they want to date, but they don't go out to meet people. They don't use apps. Things don't just happen. You have to make them.

Even liking new canons is like this: if you can't make time to sit down with a few different tv series, how can you expect to find the one that clicks? I've had few new fandoms lately because I haven't watched anything. The one time I actually did--Kingdom--I was hooked.

Between the pandemic and various other factors, a lot of people are in a life phase where they're like a turtle retracted into its shell right now. New friends, new canons, new fandoms are just not going to happen for a while. And that's okay!

But it's not inevitable or an unchanging future unless people want it to be.

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bowerywilliam · 3 years

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Got an theory. May be ageist or smt. I just feel like fandoms where there're a lot of kids (or pre teen/teens) are easier to become toxic.

They don't have yet figured out what's the more proper behaviour and they just start doing/ saying the same stuff as the loudest people and also lack a lot of development on their critical thinking so yup. I mean this loud people can also be grown up adults who just don't know boundaries. But like kids, teens, pre teens don't always know another way to be a fan of something while peaceful and smart experienced fandom members tend to stay on their quiet corner.

Idk thoughts?

i dont think its ageist to point out that children shouldn't be exposed to fandom this way because they're just too young to handle it and that fandoms that are mostly teens and young adults tend to become really toxic when there's no adults around them telling them why certain behaviors are not okay, but more than age i blame social media.

like yes, children in their early teens have this onslaught of emotions they're still not mature enough to learn how to properly handle and they're all also going through the process of figuring out their sexuality and discovering it, so they latch onto the people they find themselves attracted to very passionately because it's new to them, that's all okay and perfectly normal. the difference is now they have social media, which gives them what they perceive as a genuine connection with these celebrities and that makes the parasocial relationship all the weirder.

like when i was 14 ten years ago, social media wasn't yet what it is, so if i wanted to consume content about one direction i had to do it through magazines or live journals and blogs where the content was more curated and it was easier for me to separate my life on the internet from my life offline and therefore my relationships lived separately too, but when social media started growing i had a 24/7 content machine. i could be consuming content about niall horan, from niall himself who was posting on social media, at any time and he was interacting with fans replying to tweets and whatnot and that does give someone a sense of friendship. And truly, it wasn't until like 2017 that i realised neither niall, nor taylor, nor any of the people i admire are actually my friends or care for me as an individual.

and i feel like with the jatp fandom, these are children who are experiencing fandom for the first time so they don't have yet the experience of already knowing what's okay and what's not, and what's an appropriate way to have a relationship with these actors and what are the boundaries that have to exists to not make this a toxic experience for anyone; and the adults around them are also not helping because, in many instances, they're the ones starting the toxic behavior and they're not willing to listen when other people tells them that what they're doing it's not okay.

it also doesn't help that these children are growing up with twitters false sense of moral purity so they're not understanding there's things that are okay and things that aren't and sometimes those things exist in grey areas (like rpf or why making thirst posts about 17yo characters isn't okay but being attracted to the 22yo actor is totally fine) because they see everything in black and white so it must either be completely morally pure and okay, or completely corrupt and reproachable.

#i have so much to say about this but this answer was getting real long already cjsncnsmmc #lillie replies #anonymous #julie and the phantoms

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rpbetter · 3 years

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Urgh. Okay, full disclosure, I haven't been on tumblr much over the last week or so, because I was one of the people that Raven initially called out after the COAR mess, and it was in the interest of my own mental health to fuck off for a while so I didn't stress myself out into oblivion. So I'm scrolling through most of this stuff for the first time, and talking to other people who were targeted. And pardon my French here, but I'm fucking disgusted at the lengths Raven has gone to assert themselves as a victim, how many people they've affected, and the waving around of something as serious as suicide for brownie points.

I have sympathy for people who overinterpret things in a strictly emotional and mental sense (actual reactions aside) because they lack the maturity. There's always a reason for that, and it's not their fault. And I have sympathy for people if they legitimately feel suicidal. That, too, isn't their fault. If I hadn't been blocked, I would've reported Raven in case their claims were true as well, because yeah, I don't mess around with that stuff either. But what's unacceptable is how Raven acted on those sentiments and behaved towards others, even after people tried to provide perspective. How Raven claimed to be done with the drama, but continued inciting it; how they claimed to be suicidal and had left tumblr, but wrote what amounts to a "fuck you" in their header and were still putzing around on their blog, and were apparently still editing their posts until as late as today; how they claimed to have deleted but only changed the url; how they weaponized all of this stuff and used it as a tool for guilt-tripping. Like, come on. It's okay if you're down in the dumps, but it's not okay to treat innocent people like garbage, and carpet bomb half the RPC. To me, it really feels like there was an intent to weaponize all of their hurt, offense, anger, and suicidal ideations, despite the possibility it did come from somewhere genuine, and that's so harmful to anyone who is actually struggling with depression.

Every time someone weaponizes mental illness in this way, it just makes people more and more apathetic the next time someone is genuinely just hurting, and saying they feel like they're at the end of their rope. And it makes people suspicious of whether those words are being used maliciously, or legitimately. That suspicion and that association is now there, unconscious or not. And every time this kind of stuff happens, the association gets stronger. What happens if Raven does this again? Some people will still report, but some people might just scoff and walk away - people who might've actually acted before. So in a way, that kind of behaviour impacts Raven as much as it impacts other people.

And you know what? They're not the only one dealing with serious shit. I've been suffering from MDD for the last fifteen years, and I've been in the process of changing medications and having little success for months. I've been going through hell offline. I have a shit list of people I want to yell at because they're dragging their feet on really important things I need to function; I'm constantly running a deficit on spoons. Until a week or so ago, roleplay was one of the only ways I could unwind. So for Raven to bully me by sticking that stupid post in my tags, because they needed to make a scene on COAR, which I was obviously going to comment on (like many other people), then to "like" an unsubstantiated callout about me and other innocent people related to that mess, it's only worsened my own mental health. It sounds melodramatic, but really. Someone else mentioned this too, but the fear of being in another callout, and the fear of that first callout somehow exploding, was in the back of my mind all week, despite being away from tumblr. So that was a little anxiety-inducing, much as I tried not to think about it.

And I'm debating whether to return now, or take more time off, and I have no idea what to do. Because that callout post is still in my blog's tag. I'm freaking out because I was planning on approaching some people to roleplay, which is something I rarely ever do, but now I'm concerned that I'll contact someone, they'll look at my tag to get an idea of my writing/partners/who I am, and see the callout post, and immediately dismiss me because even seeing the word "callout" on its own will send up red flags, by unconscious association with more impactful drama. And as long as that callout is up, these fears are going to be there.

That's just not fair.

And Raven's "apology" is completely unacceptable. Like you and others said, it doesn't reach anyone who needs to hear it, because they've all been blocked. I would fucking love an apology if it came from a place of honesty, but am I going to receive one? Probably not. And even for the followers who can still see that apology, it doesn't address anything. It isn't directed to anyone in particular. It doesn't mention the specific behaviours that were wrong on their part. And miss me with the "my intentions were good" part. No, they weren't; going around blocks and sticking shit in peoples' tags is vindictive and entirely intentional in all the worst ways, and shame on them for pretending otherwise, and by leading with such a poor example for many roleplayers, some of whom are in their teens. One of the people who tried to message Raven (they, too, were called out on Raven's blog) was speaking to a nineteen-year old who was completely clueless about the extent of the manipulation Raven was pulling. They thought all of it was normal and acceptable behaviour. That genuinely terrifies me. And while I imagine if Raven was genuinely apologetic, they would've gone to the callout blog and ask them to delete the callout post (attempt it, at the very least), somehow, I don't think that would've happened given all of their prior actions. God forbid something else is going on there.

Phew. Yeah, I'm angry. Maybe I'm just biased and tired. But honestly, I have a right to be. Raven's apology is a handwave, and they know it. It's a slap in the face to me, to you, and to everyone else who was involved in this clusterfuck. They're not the center of the universe. They affected real people, with real problems of their own. Anyways, I am so sorry for this, argh. Really had to get this out, and I didn't want to dump it on discord or somewhere else; I sure as heck didn't want to go to COAR with it. But hey, maybe people here will feel less alone if I added my own account to the mix. The more, the merrier? In a sense, anyways. Sometimes if you feel like you've been singled out, it's nice to know you're not actually the only person it's happened to.

Sorry for saving your reply for last, Anon. It's such an important one, I wanted to be properly thoughtful!

I think that it is going to make some people feel less alone, and there is always some relief in sharing one's trials. That might be especially true when one has been unable to share them anywhere else. It's not like you can address this on your own blog right now, COAR is definitely not a safe place to do so, it's a very isolating feeling that is made worse for having done nothing.

Coming back and being required to wade through this shit was really damn disgusting to me as well, but at least in my case, I had neither been obliged to distance myself for the sake of mental health nor was I treated to the sickening display of drumming up ideas of victimization from someone who victimized me. What I experienced was just incredulity and disgust, I cannot imagine how incensing this must be for you, I am so very sorry. If it makes me angry having a degree of removal and watching in it real time? What you're experiencing...there really isn't a single word to adequately encapsulate that, I'm sure.

You've still expressed so many of the things I've thought and felt. I found all that initial behavior uncalled for, shameful, yet another display of what's actually wrong in the RPC, but it was increasingly upsetting to me the more I looked into it because it did feel a little (a lot) too reminiscent of the sort of bullying experienced in person. It's really something else to be viciously picked at by someone who keeps upping the game until such point as it begins to cause them trouble, then get to be painted the wrongdoer and punished in some way for it because they're presenting as a sympathetic victim. A more sympathetic victim than you, that's really what I mean, I'm just going to say it.

And that was already in swing by the time I got from the launch point to the smoking crater of then current events. I got to Raven's again after bouncing back and forth between their interactions with others, largely from COAR, yes, and the shit on the callout blog...to see...everyone else being blamed in increasingly drastic ways.

Because on tumblr, unlike reality, if you throw out enough times ahead of time that you have disorders people can get behind, you're more sympathetic, not less. So long as one has set that foundation and has others to broadcast it once convenient, any horrible action one undertakes is given a pass. Anyone disagreeing, anyone not tolerating the abuse, is in the wrong now. In the worst possible way, of course.

This whole thing began with incredibly unnecessary bullshit and every, I mean fucking every, further action taken was a new level of fucked up, but the trivializing of and damage done to the perception of mental health and differences is quite possibly the worst. Are those things that need any more of that? It's already such a problem! I already see suspicion and fatigue with this, every time it's given validation, it grows.

Even if I wasn't mentally ill, with one of the disorders that gets vilified even on tumblr, even if I were not autistic, even if I never knew a single person who suffered worse than I do from the the complications they won by way of being born, hadn't anyone I loved that took their lives, this would be extremely upsetting to me. Using the idea that "whatever I do, it's got to be acceptable because I am X" while not caring that anyone else is X, Y, and/or Z. Weaponizing it for bullying and sympathy simultaneously. Way too much. Incredibly gross and harmful, legitimately fucking problematic.

I want people to be taken seriously when they choose to speak of the boundaries their mental health requires, I want muns to be able to say that they are having a difficult time without it coming off (even to the rest of us with mental health conditions) as a ploy for attention/guilting for whatever action they desire be taken by partners, and I want people to take threats of oncoming, serious harm seriously. How are they to do this, when it is continually used as tool or weaponized against others? At very best, it becomes another thing to ignore and scroll by on the dash.

As we've all had the misfortune to experience or witness so recently, once it is weaponized, it's a problem of priority. I've said in damn near every message I've gotten that Raven isn't the only person involved here who has serious shit going on, but like the absurdity with trying to spin an accident as transphobia, or having the audacity to attempt speaking from a place of peace in a way that might benefit everyone, Raven included, resulting in a callout about being against ND people...it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that any of us are neurodivergent, have serious chronic mental health complications, or are not cisgender. Raven was swinging that around like a flaming sword to drive off bigots real and imagined before we ever got their attention.

Attention they fucking asked for.

Reblogging that post from COAR was just like posting those rules. The intention was to get attention, and it was asked for with extreme hostility. I have no idea how that is coming off to anyone as simply them defending themselves. It was a great moment to either not out themselves as the person in the confession at all, not engage with it, quietly remove the post, or to reblog it and take responsibility in a meaningful way at that point. Can you imagine what a difference that would have made then? If Raven had chosen instead to reblog it and apologize for doing what they had. Just that. No shitty, snide little comments about how they're sorry, but still absolutely correct and here are five reasons why everything they've misconstrued won't be tolerated. Just an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, an apology for doing so, and awareness gained moving forward.

Their decision to interact with that post in the way they did wasn't just more of the same nonsense, it was actively upping the game. I don't really care if it was intentional bait or just continuing to let malicious impulse run free, it was used as bait. Everyone who interacted with that post was effectively consigning themselves to harassment, and if they happened to interact on literally any other topic that group held a passionately opposing opinion on, they were attacked for it. Curiously, it became necessary for them to be harassed by way of the callout blog, but that is getting a little close to off-topic, so, I'll leave it at that.

So, while I initially really wanted to have the appeal to Raven work because their expressions of regret that I was greatly on the fence about being genuine, I'd say those flags were accurate. I cannot believe that someone who took every opportunity to do the wrong thing is genuinely sorry. Sorry for themselves, absolutely, sorry for anything they did, not so much. This constant narrative I got of "they SAID they were sorry" and "they apologized again and again and took the posts down," including from Raven, is incredible. On that last one, they, yet again, couldn't actually address me.

Appropriate response: messaging me or reblogging that post (you know, the rules snippet I found right the hell there still, despite the claim of it being deleted and the final catalyst of me needing to say something after I saw that, nope, surely was not) with the acknowledgment of a single thing I said.

Extra appropriate response: ^ plus going to everyone who could still be located that they harmed with a genuine, individual, private apology.

Inappropriate response that was had: new post, shitty, childish tone like they at once wanted to argue with me and didn't want to drop the act, restating of this apology that had already been deleted and meant exactly shit while it existed, restating of how they deleted this post and couldn't control reblogs, ignoring that I literally reblogged the original copy from their blog.

Apology neither believed nor accepted. Just as it wouldn't be if my nephew came to my house, broke a bunch of my things, said he was sorry while throwing the pieces at my pet, then threw himself on the floor screaming that he said he was sorry when I told him to go have a time out.

(Yes, I absolutely did just make a comparison to a child, y'all can shit yourselves again. It's not my problem if you want to misconstrue "this person's actions are not befitting of an adult" as "Vespertine said autistic people are children!" Fucking miss me with that. I'm an autistic adult who pays my bills, apologizes, doesn't treat people like shit while trying to excuse it by being ND. You're offensive with that shit, and contributing to the negative perception people have of those on the spectrum. Be a good ally today! Don't valid that! Free ninety-nine offer!)

Again, sorry for yourself does not equal being sorry for what you've done. The former can contribute to the development of the latter, but as I said in a response yesterday, there has been no display of that beginning to transpire. I genuinely hope that will eventually be the case because that would be the best outcome, the only "best" outcome at this point. Even if it was two years from now, if it did happen, I certainly would not be kind to people refusing them any such growth in peace, and I hope that, by some distant chance, I get to prove that.

But...stating "my intentions were good" over any part of this is not remotely promising. When? Where? At what point? Oh, right, when you took it upon yourself to label a random mun you took issue with. That's when your intentions were good. Then, when you vehemently needed to defend that point by callouts and individual attacks under the guise of it definitely not being about your pride, no! It was the defense of everyone else! Defending the community by carpet-bombing it, yes. This is not a "the path to Hell is paved with good intentions" situation.

I am so disturbed about the nineteen-year-old mun, my god. I'm telling y'all, my anger and disgust almost reach what I think is a pinnacle, then there's something new like this.

I don't even subscribe to tumblr's ideology that anyone under twenty-five is an actual infant who needs be kept in a protective bubble and forgiven for all bad behavior with infinite kindness, nineteen-year-olds deserve the agency of the adultier adults they are becoming, but it is a transitional age. Especially today. Most socialization and formative ideas take place online, and by the time younger RPers are entering the adult sphere of RP here, they've already got some really unhealthy ideas. About themselves, about others. There is such a demand for rabidly performative action that gets internalized, it shouldn't be being heartily fed by people in the community they might look up to.

At that age, someone like Raven is going to be a person looked up to. They espouse all the right ideas, and it's an age in which aggressive interaction over those things is seen as amusing and correct, no matter how wrong the actions taken are or the basis upon which they are founded. When these people foster an environment of cruelty for questioning, of course, that is not going to be the natural response. The response is now going to be the requirement of being told otherwise with adequate proof.

I have suspected that many of the hateful anons I've gotten were from Raven's even younger followers who feel like it's normal, acceptable, and that everything they're being told by Raven's sales team over at the callout blog is absolutely true. Of course, they're now morally obligated to come harass me for the things they were told I did! I think it's likely that several of the anons people got were from actual minors, which is so many levels of scary and irresponsible. Really great example all around, yes!

Because whether it is one's intention or not, that is potentially exposing minors, or muns who are still close enough to be more negatively impacted, to who even knows what. As well as violating the rules of blogs who do not interact with minors for good reason, setting those blogs up for yet another callout for treating someone they didn't know was a minor the way they did or having "freak shit" on their blog. Setting up the other party to be treated with full hostility as an adult would be. Very cool, very responsible.

There is just so much here that is unacceptable, I don't think people who were not directly impacted or have never had a callout against them understand the results, and that is one more unacceptable thing you've been good enough to talk about.

Even while taking a break from the RPC, it affects you negatively. Wondering what you're coming back to, your blog is no longer a safe feeling space, and there's nothing you can do to "cultivate your blog" to change that. They've taken away the ability to simply block and avoid others, the thing that keeps all of us comfortable here as well as allowing that to be all of us no matter how disagreeable we might be to each other. Callouts negate adult behavior. Callouts mean that one doesn't know where more potential for harassment might be coming from, or how long we might have to be worried about that.

It would be a major concern for me as well about what putting myself out there to new writing partners might bring. What the success of that might be. It's incredibly unfair that they've made finding new people precarious and more unpleasant than it can be anyway. That puts all of the future of your RP here in question, and if you're like me, just dropping a muse, picking up another, and moving to a new URL isn't going to be a good choice for you. It isn't that simple if you dedicate time to a muse for a long period of time, when that's the case, that's the RP you want to do and have laid the groundwork for.

I don't know if it will help at all, but it has seemed to me, over the past several days, that there are fewer people in the RPC who are inclined to believe or support callouts than there once was. I was hoping that was the case, since there is always so much interaction on my posts against callout culture, but until this crap went down, I had no idea just how many people are not positive toward it. It has seemed to be that the people who are inclined to listen to callouts are just louder.

I've also noticed that those people have the same set of red flags, so maybe sharing that will help you or others?

They don't have simple, basic, reasonable Do Not Interacts. It isn't simply asking that minors don't interact because the mun is over eighteen, that muns writing a triggering topic not interact, or that sort of thing. No, it's URL dropping of specific muns, outright links to callouts or "receipts," and an accusatory tone about any topics or types of muns who shouldn't interact. Such as "nasty ass proshippers" or "pedo apologists shipping incest."

Their rules are reflective this as well. A statement cannot be made that they do not write, let's say, toxic ships and left at that. There will be some morality wank present about normalizing or romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

There are less assured flags, but literally, anything that stands out as an interest in RPC or fandom-based activism as opposed to an interest in writing, their muses, or even their friendships with a variety of muns. I don't mean a rounded-out interest in things, I really do mean a glaring predominance of buzzword-laden reblogs and PSA's while they've not written a reply, headcanon, or answered a meme in months.

I'm not saying any of that because I feel like you, or anyone else's, judgment is terrible or that you're oblivious to warning signs! It's just that when we've experienced bad situations, it can compromise our ability to see clearly. It becomes easy to see a potential threat everywhere, and maybe that seems contrary, but it's then easy to fail to see real threats from those we're blowing up. We question whether we're being just as judgmental as the people who wronged us, putting words in other muns' mouths and thoughts in place of their own as was done to us. While we still are afraid to be wrong in giving someone an in to ruining our time again.

So, please, don't feel like I'm questioning your intelligence or speaking from a place of ultimate knowledge, never making mistakes in such a choice! I just really hate that you, and many others, are going through this, and anything at all that I can think of that might help you move forward from this utter bullshit you've been through, I've got to try to grab it.

Because, Anon, like all those sharing their experiences these last few days, you sound like the kind of mun we need in the RPC.

You're someone willing to share with others for the benefit of others. You're being honest about your feelings of anger and even the hopeless sensation of whether it's even worth it to try to return, having your progress on and offline stomped on, while still maintaining a sort of fairness and calm that I know is not easy. Because that's the mature thing to do, it's the right thing, and unfortunately, those are usually the harder things to do as well.

You did the right thing in expressing your opinion and doing what people like Raven's group love to be on about, can only do through bullying: not tolerating it. I'd hate for the RPC to lose someone like you!

Just as your message matters to more people out there than myself, I have no doubt that your choice to not quietly allow this behavior mattered to more muns than you'll ever know. I'm sure that none of them would have wanted this result for you, but so many muns have experienced such toxic, bullying behavior over the years in which not a soul spoke up.

Many of you proved something very important with challenging Raven and the callouts blog, that unlike them, it isn't necessary for good people to even know each other to do the right thing. They have to dogpile and engage in cliquish behavior, what they do isn't coming from a place of inner ethics and strength, but what you all did? It's the opposite.

So, not only do I thank you again for sharing and providing the important support of simply not being alone to others, I thank you for being the example to the RPC that people dealing in callouts and generalized shaming cannot be, no matter their platform.

I hope that, whether you choose to remain, leave, or take a very long break, everything you've been dealing with starts to look up. I know it's easy to say things made hollow for their repetition and flippant use, like telling you not to let them win, or that their bullshit just isn't that important. So, I'm not going to say them.

It doesn't work that way when you're dealing with mental health concerns! You can logically know that this is just petty bullshit not worth being run out of something important to you, but that doesn't stop the worry, frustration, or depression. You can have all the determination in the world to hang in there, even the spite to back it up, but neither is a match for the things you cannot control coming from your brain. That is the cruelty of mental illness on the very best of days.

You have all of my respect, support, and genuine sympathy that this happened to you. No one should be allowed to continually and unapologetically go out of their way to throw a wrench into someone's hard-won progress. You did nothing to deserve this, and the people out there worth interacting with are going to be the same ones who will have no question of that.

Lastly, I also hope that some of the anons sharing their experiences have helped you feel less alone, or like you're not just irrationally upset. Please know that you're seen and supported as well! And that you are always welcome to talk more, vent, share successes here.

Thank you, Anon.

#vespertine #answered #anonymous #long post #drama cw #rp harassment #callout culture

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x-useobwa-x · 5 years

Text

�� are you mad? | 너 화났어?

Jungkook x Reader

➺ Word count: + 1k

╰Due to his PC being broken, Jungkook finds himself visiting the internet cafe daily for hours to play Overwatch. He's an outstanding player, by far better than many of his teammates and he carries his games, but there's one player he always encounters over and over again.

a/n: yooo! I've been itching to write this short thing for a while already! It's nothing special or anything, but I really enjoyed it! It was a nice change from my usual stuff! 🤧👌🏼

Start reading!

⇣ ⇣ ⇣ ⇣ ⇣ ⇣

Jesus fucking christ.

„Fuck!“ he curses under his breath.

This is the seventh time he got sniped down out of the blue and everytime he peeks at the kill-feed, he's burning with rage.

It's the same name. All over again, he's getting killed by the same goddamn player. This has been going on since the day his PC broke.

How it broke in the first place? Well, in his opinion it was because of said player. Even while he was playing at home, he already got hunted down by that one person behind the screen somewhere in the world, making him question all the talent he actually has. At some point he got so angry that he lost his control and kept kicking his computer, loaded with rage.

This is now two weeks ago, and he can't get over the fact that this guy is better than him. Usually he would look up to these better than him, but with this goddamn little shit he just can't get any clear thoughts.

He's so fixated on finding the enemies' Widowmaker that he got too careless and- shoot.

„What the FUCK,“ he yells into his headset, having the majority of the internet cafe turning around and giving him looks.

This damn guy.

Venom. Once again, it was Venom that shot him down.

‚I'm so sick and tired of this dude. Jesus fucking christ.‘

Jungkook is far beyond reaching his limit. This has to be settled, once and for good. He's furiously typing something down in the game-chat.

[Seagull: yo venom, after this game, let's go 1vs1 and lets put an end to this. Its been weeks and you can't seem to fucking stop.]

[Venom: lol what you so triggered for. its just a game bro.]

‚It's just a game? Jesus christ. This... this dude really is something.‘

[Seagull: are you scared?]

[Venom: nope. just not serious about this game. but if you insist, lol sure.]

Jungkook is evily grinning to himself.

This will be the last time he'll get his ass whooped by Venom. That dude might be good with 5 other players on his team that distract Jungkook, but on a 1vs1 battle he definitely will have the upper hand.

„Kook are you sure you want to do that?“ Seokjin calls out to him through the voice chat.

„Yeah I am. I am so sick of getting my ass beaten by that kid, I have to.“

„Well, good luck, because the game's ending now.“

Jungkook doesn't fucking care. He just wants to settle this. He has to show off that he's better, he has to-

‚What the actual fuck?‘

Now he's really pissed. As soon as the game finishes and the ‚Play of the game‘ comes up, he has to fight the urge to throw away the keyboard.

The recap shows one of the many times Venom has shot him down, and it wasn't even a good one in Jungkooks opinion.

[Seagull: wow kinda sad that you got the POTG with that.]

[Venom: you butthurt or smth?]

„B-butthurt??“ he scoffs. „This little...“

„Well. See you, Kook. Good luck with Venom.“ Seokjin says and leaves the group.

He's waiting. He's waiting for Venom to invite him into a private game so he can restore his pride. He is butthurt, but that doesn't mean that he has to admit that to everyone.

[GROUP INVITATION FROM VENOM]

,Finally. Took him long enough.‘ is all he thinks as he clicks ,accept‘.

[Venom: widowmaker 1vs1?]

[Seagull: yes ofc]

[Venom: lol aight]

As both of them enter the game, Jungkooks fingers are itching to turn this around.

‚5...4...3...2...1...go!‘ the game counts down and both of them rush out of their bases to hide.

Jungkook is concentrating with all he has while he zooms into his scope as he tries to track down Venom.

„There you are,“ he whispers as he finds the hated enemy and slowly moves his cursor to steady his aim on Venoms head.

‚Gotcha!‘

Jungkook immediately takes the lead. He's feeling so content right now- they're roughly 20 seconds in and he already shot him down. Using the time until Venom respawns, he repositions himself and hides, scope fixated in the direction of the enemy's base.

‚Come out, come on, show yourself.‘

Just as he finished his thought, he gets shot, and Jungkook can‘t help but stare in disbelief. Where the fuck did he hide? Why didn't he see him? He hates to admit it, but that was a very good play.

[Seagull: yo wtf. that was actually sick,,,]

[Venom: thx broski]

[Seagull: nah we aint bros man. but still, that was dope as fuck.]

The game keeps going like this; both are pretty much equally good, and Jungkook hates that he realizes that. Well, at least he isn't worse. But what actually is worse, is that he starts enjoying playing with Venom. It has been ages that Jungkook met someone that could keep up with his skill.

It stands 29-29 right now, the game limit being 30 kills. This is now going to decide things.

[Venom: this is actually pretty fun. i mean, i have my cursor on your head for the past 2 minutes but i don't want to shoot, i'on want this to be over yet]

[Seagull: ikr, tbh i even feel bad for all the hate and the tons of reports i sent in because of you lmao]

[Venom: EXCUSE ME WHAT CNXND YOU REPORTED ME??? YOU ASSHAT I GOT EXP PENALTY BECAUSE OF YOU I—]

[Seagull: ,,,sOrry??? idk man you really pissed me off ajfksk i hated that you were better its not even that you were better its just that you were always so cOckY OOF i hated it but ur actually?? pretty fun??]

[Venom: lol i'm sorry but your reactions always were gold kfkdls]

[Seagull: yea i,,, i can see that LOL i got pretty worked up. I even crushed my computer in anger oops]

[Venom: you did wHat]

[Seagull: HFKDKDL LET ME BE]

Jungkook is smiling to himself. This guy isn't all too bad after all. Not even half as cocky as he thought. Maybe he'd even end up teaming up with him some time. That thought is immediately cancelled again, though.

Suddenly, his character falls, shot down by the person he just praised for not being as bad as he initially thought. Fuck that.

[Seagull: WHAT THE FUCK BRUH??]

[Venom: lol i thought i'm not your bro]

[Seagull: yEah NOT ANYMORE NOW,,,]

[Venom: are you mad?]

[Seagull: uhh y e s ?? I thought we didn't want to finish this fkdkls]

[Venom: IM SORRY BUT YOUR REACTIONS REALLY JUST ARE SO GOOD I CANT HELP IT-]

Jungkook sighs. He wants to be pissed, but he can't really. He knows it was just meant as a joke, but still, that means the game is over now, and he's kind of feeling sad.

[Seagull: yo... you maybe wanna stay in the group and keep talking a bit? y'know, just being on the title screen and ,,, t a l k]

[Venom: u mean voice chat?]

[Seagull: yea i mean if you want to,,,]

[Venom: uhh sure why not]

Jungkook enables the voice chat and waits for Venom to do the same.

As soon as he gets the notification that his new mate joined the voice chat, there's some sort of awkward silence; it seems like neither of them wants to go first, but then they happen to start talking at the same time.

„Uhh hello?“

„Uhm, hi?“

Silence. Jungkooks eyes widen an unreal amount and his mouth slightly falls open.

There are two things that he would like to point out. First, the voice belongs to a girl, which he didn't expect at all. But the second thing is, that the voice came from nowhere else than the booth right next to him.

He jumps out of his chair and watches as you do the exact same- and there you both are, looking at each other like two idiots.

„You- you're Venom??“

„You are Seagull? Dude we've been both coming here everyday sitting in the same damn places??“

„As if I didn't figure that yet. What the- so you are the person that keeps hunting me down?“ he says as if he's just figured out all the mysteries of the world.

„What do you mean ‚hunting you down‘? YOU are hunting me down!“

The both of you stare at each other, pouts on your faces before you burst into laughter.

What the actual fuck is happening right now? An hour ago he wished to rip the gamer that goes by the name Venom into pieces, and now he's standing infront of you and your smile and the melody of your laughter is sending his stomach tingling. Is this what people call ‚love at the first sight‘? Because if so, that's definitely what's happening right now. A girl? Not to mention a very beautiful one? Playing his favorite game almost better than he himself does? And on top of that she's funny and seems nice so far? He'd be damned if he'd let this opportunity slide. He could be living the dream of many, many men and he's not one to pass a chance he'd like to take.

„You know, what do you think about us just logging out for now and grab a coffee together? Getting to know each other and continuing our talk offline?“ he smirks, eyes big and full of hope.

„Hmm, I guess that does sound fair, I mean, I owe you one for all the teasing and for your broken computer, huh?“

„You totally do,“ he says as a wide smile starts spreading across his lips.

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