#it's been discussed to death and i don't think it's a condemnation of fandom at all

[monstersinthecosmos]

As a fellow Marius lover, I always find it kind of disheartening how most of the content/fandom talk about him (meta, fic, fanart, etc.) revolves around m/m ships (Marius/Armand in particular but I’d even go as far to include Marius/Daniel here) when, in my opinion, Marius is like the one male character in the VC universe whose relationships with women are far more interesting than his relationships with other men (the only other character might be Lestat but even then it’s pretty 50/50). They’re so monumental and so full of complexities and pain and so much love and they define him and inform his character in ways that I think, his relationships with men simply do not. Interesting/hot under the right circumstances? Sure but like ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS MAN??? AND HOW HE RELATES TO WOMEN??? It’s one of the best things Anne ever wrote and I can never get enough of it and it makes me sad how little content there is of it and I feel I can never say this out loud because I would never want to make people feel bad about what they ship (truly not my intention here) but ugh SO MUCH potential there for life changing discourse and meta about Marius and the women he’s loved and lost and have shaped who he is and there’s like… nothing.

Tl;dr the reason I’m sending this ask is because I’m a firm believer that you must be the change you want to see in this world and because YOU get it! And every time you post or write about Marius/Pandora (or Marius/Akasha! Or talk about Marius/Bianca) an angel gets its (black) wings. You are seen, you are loved and appreciated tysm <3

OKAY FIRST OF ALL THIS WAS SUCH A DELIGHT TO GET IN MY INBOX, SECOND IM GOING TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST AND ADMIT I FEEL TOO INCOHERENT TO TACKLE THIS TOPIC HAHA. I don’t feel articulate enough to do it justice. And I don’t say that to be obnoxious and self deprecating but like in all honesty idk how to synthesize it neatly but I think you’re sharing some GREAT IDEAS. 

I have to say this in bullet points because I don’t feel equipped to string this into a cohesive post:

Marius was based on Anne’s husband, and Marius/Pandora was based on their marriage!!!!! And I think it explains a lot about why their relationship feels so fuckin POTENT to me, like it’s so genuine!!!!!!! And like knowing that I think it makes sense why she wrote him so HOT lol. Like she’s just writing thirsty stuff about her husband right? LOL

Also like insofar as there’s a lot of genderfluidity in VC there’s also something vaguely misogynist about it at times. And Anne Rice was a mega feminist and her work had so much womens lib in it!!!!! So I don’t think it’s intended as misogyny at all vs. Anne having conversations about gender and maybe her own relationship to gender. I think enough characters have said vaguely misogynist stuff that it makes me think it’s an Anne Problem vs being Watsonian. (This is also a historical/time period issue and we can discuss another time if and when vampires are supposed to break out of that when they transcend humanity and social constructs even when they’re still saying weird sexist shit at their big ages.) But I say that to say all VC characters are a tad sexist, even if perhaps she was writing with the intention of her own male power fantasy/male superiority/penis envy. AND THAT MAKES MARIUS VERY INTERESTING. 

Cause like really the three main ladies in his life (Akasha, Pandora, Bianca) DO define him so much! And we don’t see him pine for Armand the way he did for any of them! Why!!!

Like there’s that aspect of sexism where women can be infantilized by men who don’t think they’re being unkind and it makes me wonder, especially when the author is a boomer, like where is that line between condescension and respect? I don’t have an answer here, this is too big-brained for me LOL but like he is SO devoted to the women in his life and I just wonder like if he sees them as creatures unlike himself, you know? 

This is headcanon territory but I bet he’s such a fucking sub to Pandora lol and it just thrills me that he spent 2000 years begging Akasha for affection and she ignored him the whole damn time wow. And he continued to simp!

AND ALSO LIKE, I think people DO NOT DISCUSS THIS OFTEN ENOUGH, but did we forget that he chose Armand because he needed a Bianca rebound? He was absolutely TORTURED by his love for Bianca and picked Armand because he didn’t want to kill her oh my god. Oh my god!!! HE KEPT HER LETTER IN HIS POCKET OVER HIS HEART OKAY??? HE DIDN’T WANT TO DRAG HER INTO HIS COLD AND FATAL DOMAIN????? Fuck lol

It’s so fucked up that he didn’t go after Armand but spent like actual fucking millennia trying to find Pandora. HE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE ARMAND WAS AND LEFT HIM THERE LOL BUT PANDORA HAUNTED HIM EVERY NIGHT OF HIS LIFE FOR CENTURIES.

After everything he wound up spending like 200 years with Bianca or something and ?????? CORRECT because Bianca was the fledgling he actually wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But it’s odd, I know I’ve said this 337589235 times, but Marius like. Has an idea of the person he wants to be and he tries SO HARD to live by logic & reason and he just can’t reconcile with the fact that he has EMOTIONS. And so like part of the person he wants to be like, open/empathetic/wise and he begs his lovers/students/fledglings to CHALLENGE HIM when he’s not actually healed enough to be challenged? And to me there’s something kinda like, extra spicy about it when you’re in Rice World and you’re a lil sexist; how much that burns EXTRA when it’s Pandora or Bianca sticking up to you or AKASHA FUCKIN IGNORING YOU. 

Just really incredible that this person who is like the epitome of a patriarch has such fucked up relationships with all the women in his life. And like he underestimates these women, like the way he tries to manipulate Bianca and she leaves him! PANDORA AND AKASHA ARE UNAVAILABLE TO HIM AND BIANCA FUCKIN LEAVES.

akasSHA JUST IGNROING HIM!! JUST STRAIGHT UP FUCKIN IGNORING HIM FOR 2,000 YEARS!!!! HE'S OBSESSED WITH HER!

Anyway Enkil is ignoring him too but he doesn’t give a shit about that guy tbh lol 

Also the amount of space he gives Eudoxia and Zenobia in his book like there’s more here too but tbh it’s midnight and I can’t start unpacking. I just think like, in 2000 years it’s interesting how Eudoxia wound up having such a lasting impact on his life. 

I did just peek at the Eudoxia part and I’m dying, he goes “Her face was small, oval, and as close to perfection as anything I've ever beheld, even though she bore no resemblance to Pandora who was for me perfection itself.” CERTIFIED WIFE GUY.

What kinda mommy issues are we dealing with here? HIS MOTHER WAS A SLAVE THAT DIED IN CHILDBIRTH AND HE INHERITED HER GENES AND LOOKED LIKE HER AND DIDN’T LOOK LIKE HIS FATHER & BROTHERS? AND HE’S SORT OF AN OUTCAST AS A HUMAN LIKE ? THE STIGMA HERE? AND THEN HE SPENDS 2000 YEARS WORSHIPPING HIS NEW MOTHER??? PERHAPS YOU COULD SAY ENSLAVED TO HER? IDK MAN. 

IS THIS ALSO WHY HE WAS SO OBSESSED WITH LOSING PANDORA?

The irony too, and something I think a lot of people miss, is that he DIDN’T WANT TO MARRY PANDORA LOL. He wanted to be betrothed to a child so that he could FUCK OFF and NOT get married because she wasn’t old enough to get married! He fucked off! He went exploring! He said this is not for me! 

AND TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BE MURDERED BY HIS MOTHERS PEOPLE???? IDK. 

I’m not sure how these last two points tie into anything but I just wanted to mention his complicated relationship with Pandora and his own heritage lol. And then Akasha like DELIVERS Pandora to him because she’s like “wow this guy needs somebody lol and I am not emotionally available” — Akasha who was famously a violent genocidal radfem and who would not approve of his relationship with Armand but explicitly allowed him to have Pandora and Bianca. IDK WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN! 

Did Akasha approve of these women because she knew Marius was completely pussywhipped and would worship them and she wanted to see someone mommydom the fuck out of him and she knew that Armand would never be that person? 🫢

And again I want to say like, taking the author into consideration!! Anne Rice had a HORRIFIC relationship with her mom so you see these themes pop up occasionally in her work. DESPITE ALL OF THAT SHE IS STILL A FEMINIST AND WRITES ABOUT MATRILINEAR FAMILIES like The Great Family or the Mayfairs. But thinking about Mothers in Anne Rice Works makes me think a lot about this like, the damage they can do and the voids they can leave even when you’re a feminist and love women! You see a TON of this with Gabrielle and I always think that Lestat & Marius are such similar characters that you can do a lot of extrapolating or backwards engineering to ask questions about them and how they work, since we get SO MUCH Lestat POV in this series to work with and how we can zoom out sometimes and ask like, what is common across her entire body of work and what is more specifically common between Lestat & Marius and WHAT EVEN MORE INTERESTINGLY is a result that they were both based on her husband in their inceptions. 

Like how much of this has to do with Marius’s actual feelings towards men vs women on purpose, or how much was subconscious author bias, how much was simply that Anne Rice based him on her husband and she was THIRSTY, idk. It’s always hard to say in VC because Anne was such an intuitive and self-indulgent author and the stories are so weird!!! So your mileage may vary!

But I agree with you that these are FASCINATING relationships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I like Marius/Armand too (I recently made a post about how I didn’t “””””ship”””” them but then I spent 2 months working on a M/A fic every day and now I think I’ve corrupted and converted myself LMAO) but yeah like. There’s such a lack of substance between them in the end. He treats Armand like he’s temporary, fucks up and moves on, and it’s such a departure from how DEVOTED he was with all his other partners. 

Wow I didn’t think I had a lot to say, sorry about that. !!! EVERY TIME I BROUGHT A POINT UP I THOUGHT OF 5 MORE POINTS GOSH I COULD TALK ABOUT MARIUS ALL DAY.

#tldr he has mommy issues #marius de romanus #vampire chronicles #thank you hekateinhell for discussing this with me in DM so that i could scream and yell and make sense of it! #hekate is mommy issues expert she helped unlock some bonus points! #deep ass thoughts about vampires #also i wanted to keep fandom discourse out of this bc i dont got time but this is like #such a timeless topic in fandom spaces about the popularity of mlm ships vs het or wlw ships #and like what that all means #it's been discussed to death and i don't think it's a condemnation of fandom at all #it just is what it is #so this is always going to be the case when it comes to fandoms & female characters #but i think people need to stop complaining about shit like that HAHA #fandom is a potluck yknow #like you gotta participate and make your own contributions too #marius is already such a divisive character i'm not gonna split hairs about who we're shipping him with LMAO THE POOL IS ALRAEDY TOO SHALLO #but i would love to put more bianca & pandora content into the world!!! #and like you i do not want this to sound like i'm being salty abotu what anyone ships! it's all good my dudes! #akasha #akasha/marius #bianca solderini #marius/bianca #pandora #marius/pandora

[buttercuparry]

I now know why the idea that courtesy is the answer to every conflict is so prevalent in the fandom. You have a handful of tumblr intellectuals who would rather discuss if Arya should have been feeling guilty about killing the Bolton guard or the degree of it ( he is just a guy standing around, we don't know anything about him, hey maybe he doesn't get paid enough to stop 3 prisoners from leaving!), rather than acknowledge that Arya had gone through hell to survive and she more than any other Stark kid knows the cost of war. Arya's list is called fucked up ( they add the "understandable" adjective immediately after but reiterate that it's fucked up). And the prevalent idea then, in use of all these words is equating Arya to violence. Which is why all those incorrect quote posts of 'Arya's every solution being violence' get so many notes.

Arya's list isn't the measure of her violence. It instead is the proof of her trauma. And she tries again and again to leave the nightmares behind: the countless times she tries to reach Jon, her feeling what good does Joffrey's death do if her mother and brothers are dead, her wanting to stay on with the crew of Titan's daughter.

They would talk about how fucked up her list is hence insinuate the tremendous capacity of violence and draw up theories after theories about Faceless Men but won't ever be conscious enough to recognize that Arya never truly wanted anything to do with the FM ( even after reaching Braavos she tries to stay on the ship).

So imagine knowing all these. To have read all these chapters and to get stuck on the ethics of murdering the Bolton guard. Mind you this is brought up because it has been admitted that previously Arya has had to kill in self defense and for others. There has been a reiteration that there these kills are pardonable since there had been an active threat on her. But the murder of the Bolton guard is a matter of ethics!

And you know what I am not even arguing about that. It is a grey area. But it's the extra scrutiny placed on the female character that gets to me. A clood blooded premeditated murder committed!! As if this murder exists in vacuum. As if this girl who the world around knows to be a commoner would have been allowed to leave Harrenhal by that guard just standing around. As if prisoners and slaves have a say on what is to be their fate. As if each day and every day Arya isn't surrounded by the violence wrought in Harrenhal. As if this violence wasn't necessary for her to make a safe escape.

They would argue it wasn't and here I realize that the issue goes deeper than that. Here is an excerpt of their dialogue:

They maintain that only Gendry and Hot Pie had been in danger here. That Arya was actually safe as she could have just revealed her identity anytime and apparently there were ways of proving it without one recognizing her face ( I doubt that).

Somehow this makes me realize that this sort of thinking is what dismisses Arya's entire arc. This is what had been going wrong in the tv show which reduced all of Arya's trauma to ✨adventure✨because they think all the suffering Arya went through was intentional and could have been stopped anytime! All she had to do was reveal her identity.

I honestly do not know what Arya could have done to prove she was a Stark. When they sent guards to hunt her down and Arya realized that maybe in convincing her two friends to run away with her, she has in turn condemned them- Arya makes a decision to reveal who she is and let herself taken hostage. But here's the thing and no matter how many so called intellectuals throw up shit that her identity could have easily been proven-there would always, always the matter of chance. They could believe or they won't. And what would happen if they won't? Arya would be killed.

Now let's see what would have happened if Roose had ahold of the real Arya? Wouldn't she be in the place of Jeyne Poole. Jeyne has had to suffer under a monster, under a sadist. And those cries that echo around Winterfell now, would have been Arya's. This is what the fandom wants. I mean to say this is what the fandom wants from its female characters. Be the passive recipient of all that is to happen. There is no admiration in taking yourself promptly out of a situation that can be dangerous by actively interfering in the storyline. Act only when an action has been committed against you. There would have been more sympathy for Arya if she bled the way they wanted her to. If her cries echoed through halls. If she wasn't an active participant in her own storyline.

The other thing is the matter of could have. There is always the matter of could have when it comes to Arya. Arya could have tried to be more courteous. Arya could have just let Joffrey cut Mycah's face. And now Arya could have hatched a plan keeping in mind the safety of not only her party but of everyone else ( the Bolton guard) and snuck past. Every decisive control Arya takes is countered with a could have. That Arya chose to simply eliminate the risk in a situation that begged a safe escape isn't taken well. There is always a could have even when the text itself provides us with no definitive answer to this alternative could have.

I never understood how people could judge Dany when she actively brings down an empire of slavery. But now I think I can. There is no passivity. There is unapologetic action against the slave masters. They too perhaps are just some guys standing around to many in this fandom. And every decisive move against them, every violence against them also brings about the compulsion of the could have.

These female characters refuse to be a part of the could have. Of passivity. Their grey actions are to take back control of their storyline. Hence are they vilified. And hence should there be guilt and remorse on their part.

#arya stark #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire

[hollowingearth]

Yesterday was Rebirth's Ultimania release day! And... it was a lot calmer than I expected lol? I've never been active in the FF7 fandom before even though I got into it ever since Remake dropped so seeing everyone acting like it would be doomsday and complete hell on earth made me worried. Maybe I just curated all my feeds a lot to avoid the sort of person who incites those fights? I hate having to do that though because I genuinely like seeing different opinions/interpretations than mine but so much of it comes across as straight up petty in this particular fandom.

Generally, I dislike the penchant this fandom has to rely on Word of God for literally any interpretation for whatever is presented to us. It's a bit insane, actually, because Death of the Author seems to not exist at all and usually, when that's the case, it's because you can see the Hand™ moving the pieces purposefully and not allowing the characters to grow into their own but here it's more like the audience simply won't let it die, even if it's corpse is begging them to. Square Enix, of course, is willingly profiting off of it (tho I wonder just how much the ultis sell lol) .

I think that's why the RE Trilogy seems to be so interested on a metatextual discussion. This time around the Ultimania didn't really reveal anything that interesting and/or surprising overall (other than Elena being 18!!! like HUH????? wdym she's only 2 years older than Yuffie please be serious) BUT it did make me a lot more hopeful for Aerith's ending in Pt. 3 than the game itself haha. I've seen some thoughts floating around about how faitful it will be and I genuinely think they must end it on a different note than the original.

You see, I don't even think the original had a bad ending? It's bittersweet, yes, but that's sort of the point? People die but life prevails, you must go on and leave your past behind. The compilation, though, just retconned that, from my understanding. Now humanity is gone in 500 years after the ending, Geostigma happens and our protagonists become suicidal after the events of the game. Cloud's parting words "I think I can meet her... there" are cast upon a new light and it's not a hopeful one. Though, I think most allarming is Lifestream White and Lifestream Black, where we see both Aerith and Sephiroth condemned to an eternity of loneliness fighting and avoiding each other in the lifestream.

#final fantasy vii #ff7 rebirth spoilers #aerith gainsborough #ultimania #ff7 #honestly I just want a happier ending for sephiroth and aerith #like they have been through SO much #genuinely the two that have suffered the most in cast dont @ me

[twothpaste]

I feel like the fandom perceives Doctor Andonuts more harshly than Itoi probably intended. Maybe a little more harshly than the character deserves. I'm always seein him discussed n' portrayed as if he's The Worst Dad Ever, And A Terrible Person Besides. Which is a pretty tall order in a series jam-packed full of shitty fathers and morally bankrupt characters. Maybe I just read him differently than most folks do? I dunno. I like him. I'll go to bat for him. Kooky old scientist thoughts (for both EB and M3) below.

Dropping Jeff off at boarding school and never visiting for 10 years is brutal, don't get me wrong. In the scene's context, though, it comes off more like an absurd comedic circumstance than a condemnation. Peak EarthBound shit. And while Jeff's scarcely "written" in the game, nothing about the way he's presented actually conveys a sense of abandonment or bitterness. (I like to imagine he's got a lotta bones to pick with his dad, but I think that's mostly in the realm of headcanon.) (Also, while Andonuts being his only family would make it objectively much worse, there's nothing in EarthBound to suggest Jeff doesn't have a mom, or other family members.) Mother's not exactly subtle when it's putting a father worthy of harsh judgment on the table. Aloysius and Wess come to mind. I do reckon if the Doctor was supposed to be presented as an irredeemable monster, Itoi would've really driven the point home. Instead of smothering the guy's dialogue in funny off-kilter quips. Like the bit with the donuts, and inviting Jeff to come back in 10 more years, and tellin his friends he wets the bed (how would Andonuts even know that?? is he thinking of when Jeff was a toddler?? lmao). He's a socially blundering absent father, and he stirs troubled sentiments, for sure. But he's definitely not outright malignant.

The thing is, there's reason to believe the guy's working on it. Jeff and Andonuts (and pals) go through a lot of shit together over the course of the game. By the end, Jeff expresses that he's very eager to spend time with his dad, get to know him better, work collaboratively with him. Presumably Andonuts feels the same, having finally bonded with his son through all these world-saving hijinks. It feels like a sweet little character arc to me. A reclusive scientist learns to value something beyond his own work, and begins to make amends by welcoming Jeff back into his life. Perhaps death-defying circumstances shifted his perspective, reminding him of what's most important? Even if you assume the worst of Andonuts earlier in the game, EarthBound's ending is really uplifting and hopeful for these two.

Which really makes his appearance in Mother 3 all the more tragic. Andonuts was willing at last to actually be there for his son, and then Porky had to go and yoink him outta the timeline. The Doctor explicitly says he's only working with Porky because he's been forced to - and he isn't thrilled about it in the slightest. After the chimera lab, he tells Lucas he's been inspired to escape. That he wants to devote his work to benefiting all living things, whatever that means! He's the guy who really "defeated" Porky, presumably planning the Capsule trap in secret all along. He doesn't even belong in this time or place, but damn if he's not finding ways to do good for the new world he's found himself in. Same way he devoted himself to the fight against Giygas, before.

The fact he's been torn away from his son (possibly irreconcilably?) doesn't come up, and god I wish it did. But considering how much extraneous dialogue's been cut from the game (and this would've definitely been extraneous)? If he'd said "gosh I sure wish I could see Jeff again" it'd draw specific attention to the displaced plight of Porky's timetravelers - thus, failing to resolve it would probably feel like a loose end. I can see how that might've been outta line with the narrative's scope. I'm not sure it's fair to infer the streamlined writing implies Andonuts forgot about Jeff, or doesn't care about him. Dude was never very expressive about his personal life EarthBound, anyways. Call it a headcanon of course, but imo, it seems more likely he's keeping his sorry sentiments to himself.

I just think Dr. Andonuts is a really interesting character, with a lot of potential. EarthBound gives us this clever play on the "funny kooky genius scientist" trope, asking how a guy like that might prioritize work over family. Has this deadbeat dad begin earning back his bond with his son. It ends on such a wholesome feel-good note! Then Mother 3 brings forth all these gutwrenching implications. The thought of Jeff stranded back in 199X (feeling confused, abandoned, possibly even betrayed??) breaks my fuckin' heart!! Andonuts being coerced to use his genius for evil, all the while plotting Porky's eternal imprisonment? A guy who directly contributed to saving the world from Giygas gets dropped into a post-apocalyptic Earth, finding out he'd only been delaying the "inevitable"? That humans would destroy themselves, possibly thanks to the technological advancements of people like him! Realizing his efforts to reconnect with Jeff might've been all in vain, that he may never make it home again! Vowing to do good for this world anyways?? Agh. And he's presented as just a quirky unflappable oddball old fart the whole time! To call him a good person would be dubious as hell, but damn if he's not fascinating.

#2thtalks

[exitpursuedbyavulcan]

People having different opinions does not mean they’re being “rude” to other people within a fandom. You can disagree with tons of takes and that doesn’t mean you’re being aggressive or judgmental to them? There are literally people in this fandom telling others to kill themselves and sending various other abusive messages and yet you’re judging my ask as being too harsh…….you have a nice day.

Howdy! Sorry for the delay in responding, the store I was getting stocking stuffers at is unfortunately right next door to our local Christmas village so that was a child-filled nightmare.

If you'll go back to my original response, I gave very specific examples of the language in your asks that I took issue with. None of them had anything to do with your opinions on the story or characters we were discussing. What bothered me was the way you spoke about those who have different opinions from yours, as I found that language disrespectful. The only actual story opinion I replied to in that post was my disagreement with the importance of Alys' role in Aemond's story. If you read that again, you will notice that I never asserted my opinions as facts, I always included qualifiers (I believe, I think, etc.), as that is the courtesy I was taught to use in critical debate.

You have very, very interesting interpretations and opinions about HotD and the original book the story comes from that I would love to discuss. However, it does not appear to me that you want to have a genuine conversation that includes others' opinions and sharing why we interpret the story in different ways. To me, it seems like you are staunchly adherent to your interpretations and view anyone who disagrees with you (even respectfully, as I tried to do) as wrong and inferior. This is the wrong attitude to have if you want to engage in literary or media criticism.

I do want to apologize, as I did get a little sassy in some parts of my response. That's something I've been trying to work on for a while, and I will try my hardest to be better about it in the future. I say 'in the future' because I don't want to discourage anyone from coming to me, in my asks or in my DMs, to discuss the book or the show. I love having these conversations. I really, really miss doing this in school but alas, I am now an adult with a job that does not include this.

I also want to address your comments about death threats people have received in this fandom. Believe me, I am painfully aware of this issue, some people I care for very much have received them, and I condemn it wholeheartedly. But the severity of one person's wrongdoings does not discount the wrongness of others which are not as severe as a death threat. I have a very low tolerance for rudeness of any kind, and because of that I will approach all of it the same way: I will call out the problem, and take appropriate action. This is not me conflating rude language with making a death threat by any means, just me explaining that I will not tolerate any of it.

This will be the last post I make on this issue. If you would like to reach out to me again, please do so privately. I was really enjoying our discussion, and I'm very sad it came to this.

-Mel

#asks

[beachesgetpeaches]

All i want to say is thank you for what youre posting about this whole situation with matty and taylor. I personally think your responses are well thought out. Sure matty makes some really really bad choices in what he says or does and even acts etc. But that doesnt make him this evil person, the narrative people are trying to push.

I mean after all taylor did choose to be with him whether thats a relationship or friendship or whatever it may be. And if shes happy why start petitions to remove him from tour when clearly she wants him there. Yes i get he is problematic but thats not for fans to dictate who she spends her time with. There is no reason ANYONE should receive death threats, especially family members that have done nothing. We get so caught up and forget that celebrities are still people they still have feelings and they do take things to heart, so people saying they hope he OD's or relapses? That's is pretty messed up in itself.

The amount of hate he is getting is ridiculous, ive seen different articles and comments and whatnot contradicting each other on what and why things were said. But immediately we all jump to cancel someone, i agree if it was done in malice intent why would they still be a band? That is an excellent point. Honestly everyone is up in arms because shes dating someone who yes, does tend to be problematic. Should there be someone from their team (the 1975) to comment on the situation? Maybe, but that also could make things also worst. Noone knows for a fact what went on. Yes theres proof of him saying this but also no factual proof of him actually doing so, if that makes sense. Yes, joking or not, should not had been daid period.

Another point is if you do watch interviews, hes a different. He is into satire and you can tell. Not trying to make excuses for what hes said. Joking or not some of the things he has said he probably shouldn't have looking back, but you cant go back in time and change it so whats the point of dwelling on it. He also said he doesnt know himself and hes not going to form this idea of him because then every question or statement becomes a nightmare in interactions.

Long rant short, just thank you for standing up and speaking out. Yes these sites should be taken down and quiet honestly if people would focus their rage there instead of in threats there could be a difference. The fact they made these site so accessible and posting them. Thats the issue. This whole situation was bad from the jump but again desth threats and bashing on peoples careers, cancelling them... its not it.

Sorry!! Took a bit to answer this one bcs it was long 😅

Thank you, I've been thinking this through for the past few weeks (or so it seems to me), so I've had the time to construct my thought and opinions. And I was going to try to stay out of it because I thought/felt that getting into any discussions will just fuel the topic further while not getting through to people who have already condemn everything Matty does and Taylor alongside him.

But the level of horrible behaviour has reached its peak for me when I heard about death threats being sent, people saying they hope Matty ODs (ffs that one was very vile to read about), the open letter to Taylor was also a step too far for me (esp signing it as if it is the thoughts of the entire fandom), and then initiatives that people who go to specific shows turn around and not look at Taylor while she sings (I've heard second-hand about this BUT this would fuck with the entire show not for Taylor but for EVERYONE who is at that show)... basically, I just felt like if I don't say what I think it seemed as if I was agreeing with all of it.

I think it all comes down to some form of critical thinking, and also thinking for yourself. I have seen a lot of people parrot half-truths, repeat information which has not been true (from Matty liking nazi jokes - which I haven't seen evidence for, to some ww2 memorabilia comment which is false, and people also trying to spread shit like he is a pedophile or smth vile like that)... And it leaves this weird feeling in my brain, this whole outrage and cancel culture. Lowkey feels like tame public executions 😂 and I say this with utmost sensitivity.

But to me the world has come down to people actually actively waiting for someone to fuck up so they can do some symbolic online lynch and cancel them. Hashtags instead of pitchforks, cancellation instead as metaphorical death of a celebrity.

This situation with Matty (and I will focus more on him because Taylor really is the catalyst but she is very secondary to the discourse; or she should be)... but the thing with Matty proves that you can do a lot of positive shit, and you can say a lot of supportive things, and you can show through both your art and actions that you are a decent human being (flawed but decent) ... and none of it will matter if you do something that "the people/public" disagree with.

It ends up formulated as you being fake/performative because you are not constantly adhering to this morally perfect picture expected of you. Matty is clearly not perfect, he has clearly messed up on multiple occasions BUT he has also talked about important issues from what I've seen.

Sidenote: I have watched that interview with Zack Lowe (I think?) and it is very insightful and gives a nice perspective on the way he thinks.

But none of this matters because people (specific groups right) have already decided to treat him as if he has done the worst things imaginable (I maintain that all he should really be accused of is ongoing insensitivity and not finking things frew; iykyk... and like if that's an issue we can just be like yo Matty that was not chill pls don't and that ahould be it).

None of it matters because when you try to talk to people about the other point of view you end ip blocked or given the same "proof" you've already seen (but it's like a different compilation or a new thread or another copy paste article).

None of it matters because no one is ready to recognize that Matty is not anti-semitic, racist, islamophobic, or generally a bad human (all of this based on the gift that my hyperfixation is which has enabled me to consume so much info on the man and the band in the past weeks)... I maintain that for condemnation on those counts you need proof of continuous and purposeful behaviour with malicious intent.

And it would actually be much better to discuss his fuck-ups (which I believe he has accepted he will have, thats what I got from some interview I watched)... anyway, it would be much better to discuss his fuck ups in the context of those specific fuck-ups without pulling out heavy artillery of -isms, -phobics, etc.

....... ok I wrote a shitton lets wrap up

I went off on a tangent here, but I think we need to be realistic. As, I've said if Matty truly was all of the things he has been accused of the band would be no more, the fandom would not support them at all, there would be massive public condemnation, he would most definitely not be hanging out with A LOT of people who seem normal - unless I guess we are going to subscribe to the theory that eeeeveryone is a horrible fascist person (Taylor, Jack, the entire 1975, Gigi, Phoebe, Bo, Ryan, etc etc... I guess now Ice Spice is in the mix of people "collabing/hanging out" so lmao let's add her to that mix).

In general I think people use "heavy-words" too much in these online discourses which in retrospect dims their impact, yknow. Like is Matty insensitive edgy and has he said things that likely should not have been said/done? Yeah, like newsflash every person is flawed and literally for every person saying he is a nazi/racist/phobe/etc bet if I had as many recordings of them talking about various issues - I would be able to cherry-pick some shit out.

Anyway... people will stay mad, and people will stay believing that what they see is the ultimate and only "real" truth (while also knowing that they have only been privy to a small percentage of those peoples lives).

And when it comes to Taylor there has been this most fascinating thing with her - people just LOVE to watch her fall from grace. There is somehow nothing people enjoy more than having "proof" that Taylor is not this perfect good girl "she portrays herself to be", when all along it was the people who have put her on a damn pedestal and treated her as some perfect human being who can do no wrong.

#taylor swift #idk thats a lot of text #and again i do think peoples feelings are valid in regard to being hurt by what matty has said #BUT and there is one so sorry #being hurt that taylor is dating him like what? #she is not dating an alt-right nazi racist homophobic horrible human being okay? #she is dating a UK hipster lmao #and its not even mental gymnastics or “trying ti defend him” #it's just idk some form of logic? #matty healy #forgot to tag him sorry babes

[bardic-tales]

2.19.2024

tw: death. illness. chronic pain.

I am slowly getting back into reading and writing. I tend to bite off more than I can chew, and I thought that an overarching plot spanning all my fandoms would be an interesting thing to work on.

I also wanted to work on several original projects. Unfortunately, my health and family circumstances made it so that I have always been in bed with extreme fatigue and my body hurting.

Over the last two years, we lost 3 members in my little family: my husband's cousin who passed away in a car accident at 17, my husband's aunt who contracted COVID during last Thanksgiving and passed away on that holiday, and, finally, my grandfather last month. My grandfather was like a father to me. Then, as I documented on here during last June, I lost my cat, Loki.

I also have been dealing with very low Vit. D levels. I had a blood test last Friday which showed my levels at: 9.3 ng/ml. I am waiting for a call from my doctor at 9 am to discuss treatment options and possibly further tests to figure out why those levels are too low.

I've been too exhausted to really do anything. It makes sense as I often experienced severe joint pain when I sat and wrote or even attempt to game. I downloaded the FF 7: Rebirth demo and just haven't been able to play it. Same thing for Crisis Core. I feel bad since I want to announce the new work I have been working on, but I just don't really have the energy to.

Author’s commentary:

I have been working on creating a map of the Abyssal Realm for my huge fandom project: Fantasy Worlds Collide. I did create a timeline for the Heavenly War and made it so that the war started due to the Creator Deity forbidding his angels from loving mortals. This was after Lucifer fell in love with the 1st human: Lilith.

This sets the stage for Bianca Moore to love both Sesshomaru and Sephiroth. I love the thought of love condemning her and causing her to doubt her path to Heaven.

I am also reworking her powerset to fit her new role in this overarching plot: the destroyer of the Omniverse. Her powers are consistent to space, time, and interdimensional capabilities, as well as reality-bending.

Her profile will flow better. There is a new section devoted to the space between time where all portals to every dimension and the Edge of Creation is.

Snippet: A drabble I wrote on Valentine's Day.

tw: death mention.

As always, this is my trash draft. There will be grammar issues and sometimes incorrect grammar. It is unpolished.

"Pretty pathetic, hm?" Bianca tilted her head into his touch. His fingers slipped through strands of her dark hair. "You are only one of two men I have ever known like this, the only men I have ever loved."

The sun had crested over North Crater. The tent's entrance flapped in the icy breeze, but she didn't feel the cold on her skin. Bianca held some sort of immunity to the frozen temperatures, which was a very dangerous thing, in itself. Her organs still could freeze.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" Turning in the sleeping bag, she pulled the covers up over her shoulder and snuggled closer to him. The dark grey fur blanket lay over them as an extra layer of warmth. "How can I love you so deeply when we were not supposed to meet in the first place? We both lived in different dimensions and different versions of Earth."

"Perhaps, we are bound for more than just..girlfriend and boyfriend." Sephiroth looked down at the woman in his arms. His silver hair mixed with her black hair. Her left wing wrapped around them while her other one lay stretched out behind her. "You were always bound for the Reunion, Bianca."

"I think you are right. You were under distress from learning your true origins, and I was under duress from my father who had just murdered the only other man I had loved."

Different Fandom Taglist

@starryeyes2000, @residentdormouse, @megandaisy9 @themaradwrites @prehistoric-creatures @arrthurpendragon @serenofroses

#writing accountability #writeblr fanfiction #writeblr community #snippet: fwc #wip: untitled #tw: death #tw: illness #tw: chronic illness #tw: pet loss #bardic tales #bardic-tales #tw: fire #oc: bianca moore - ff #character: sephiroth #sephiroth #sephiroth x oc #canon divergent #canon x oc

[sofipitch]

are you accusing the people saying "don't attack me" of sending you racist hate, or do you just think they shouldn't complain because it isn't as bad as what happened to you (you assume)? i'm genuinely sorry all that shit happened to you, but you're not the only people in this fandom who've received hate mail and death threats. why frame it like a competition?

Both actually 🤗

A lot of the ppl being like "why can't we just have nice and respectful fandom discussions" have sent me some nasty shit. So yeah, I don't think they give a shit about "respectful fandom discussions" so much as wanting their white voice heard above all others.

I never received anon hate until after Jacob Anderson was cast and I made it clear I support the casting and condemned a lot of ppl being racist about the casting. Ppl can say not liking race switching Claudia and Louis doesn't have to be rooted in racism, that they "just don't like the character's background changing" (you know, the white background in a series of basically all white characters, the few POC characters all being evil or sexual objects of both) but sorry the P value is <0.000001 and the correlation coefficient is 1 between both those groups of people.

I also didn't post any fic for a long time fearing ppl would have a field day attacking me in the comments section when I did and boy was I right. Also the fic I cowrote with @sweetazathioprine is a fic where Louis is black and received an overwhelming amount of hate and a lot of comments are deleted not out of fear but bc they have slurs on them (not limited to slurs, I know white ppl can't recognize racism without a slur but the worst comments that we've gotten I believe had no slurs in them). Also the next day after we posted the first chapter of TLWH an incredibly racist "parody" of the AMC show was published. I still have screenshots of the whole thing and the comments section if anyone wants proof. The fic only got taken down after a white person asked them to.

So I'm not saying other ppl have not received hate mail or death threats in this fandom, they do and often for no reason other than pure malice that exists in internet spaces and the feeling that you can say whatever you want anonymously. However the hate I have received has overwhelmingly been because of race, my support of the race changes in the AMC show and me not being a white person in an overwhelmingly white fandom.

And I luckily have my friends to vent to and complain about but yeah, ppl saying racism isn't an issue here and they don't want to discuss race is a sure sign of privilege bc I have just told over and over that I am not welcome in this fandom bc of my views, which are influenced by my race and my experiences with it.

#vc #asks #its not a competition it's just all my shit is rooted in racism #which some ppl want to gaslight the whole fandom into believing is not a thing here #'there is no war in ba sing se'

[obstinatecondolement]

One of the issues I have with purity culture in contemporary fandom is that a lot of its most ardent adherents have a very... unexamined approach to a lot of their most hardline beliefs?

CW: discussion of incest, rape, harassment, suicide baiting; references to the lynching of Emmett Till and anti-Black racism

Like, for example, many of them seem to a) have an extremely broad interpretation of what relationships are incestuous and b) do not really know why they object to incest beyond it being yucky disgusting. But here's the thing: lots of things are yucky disgusting that are perfectly fine to do with a consenting partner or partners.

Which leads me to what I believe to be the real issue with non-fictional incest: it is almost always a form of sexual abuse.

I notably saw a group of people (who I do not think would harass people over this, to be fair) very earnestly making the point that you could not ethically ship Saavik and David, because they were "step-siblings."

Let's unpack that. Kirk is the biological father of David Marcus. He did not raise him and only met him for the first time when he was an adult with a terminal degree. Saavik is, in Beta canon, adopted into Spock's family (she seems to have been raised by him and his parents rather than being his literal adoptive daughter, although I haven't read the relevant novels) as a young child. Kirk and Spock, in fandom, are a popular ship.

So like... let's take at face value here the idea that Kirk and Spock are definitely married post-canon and that David considers himself 100% Kirk's son and Saavik considers herself 100% Spock's daughter. Are we to believe that people who met as adults, whose parents get married after they met, cannot ever have a consensual romantic and/or sexual relationship? That this kind of relationship can only be exactly equivalent to one where a sibling sexually abuses another and should be condemned in exactly the same way? Like... really? Do you not think that is enormously insulting to survivors of incest?

To take a more actively harmful example: what are the people who profess to believe that fiction about certain topics can cause real life harm believe they are doing when they tell people to kill themselves? If they actually believe what they say they believe, are they not at best attempted murders by their own standards? Is trying to kill someone not bad? And if they don't believe that they should be accountable for someone taking them seriously and obliging their request by killing themselves... then do they not feel embarrassed to expose their own hypocrisy like that in public?

And it gets even more absurd when the same people claim to support prison abolition, because they have inferred from the social justice internet zeitgeist that that is an extremely progressive thing to support. Girl! You openly believe that immoral fan fiction is a capital offense! But you want to extend restorative justice to violent offenders? Make it make sense. Or do you interpret prison abolition to be a pivot to mob justice where "the real sickos" get what's coming to them, as opposed to a belief that the state's abuse of prisoners is unconscionable? Because I invite you to read Emmett Till's fucking Wikipedia page if you think that's a great idea.

And I hope that I'm not being gauche by invoking the murder of a 14 year old child by racists so married to white supremacy that they thought a Black child whistling at a white woman was punishable by torture and a slow, painful death. This is not that by any stretch of the imagination.

But people have killed themselves over this shit. Children have died because of harassment they got over liking Problematic Things. It's certainly not anything like comparable to anti-Black violence in scale—and being a fan of yucky disgusting fandom content is not a marginalised identity that is literally inescapable without becoming estranged from your family and community for life, and that itself not being an option for most, as is the case of passing for white—but it has been lethal, and to the families of the people who died, I doubt it is any comfort that it was because of fandom bullshit as opposed to systemic oppression. And I do think that the patterns of thinking are parallel here, even if it would be enormously inappropriate to claim a one-to-one relationship between the two. To be fair, I think that the people I am talking about here would not themselves participate in a physical murder, but they may certainly approve of one they perceived to be righteous.

But, ugh, yeah. I'm just sick of people parroting back things they have been browbeaten into believing are Irredemable™ without any fucking reflection at all about why those things are bad and why a proportional response involves harassment and death threats or suicide baiting. I think probably most of these people are afraid to think for themselves, in case they think the wrong thoughts, but at least some of them are aware that it's all a fucking grift and just love harassing people for the rush.