#sorry I have a Lot of opinions about posting art online I've been doing this since I was 14 and I'm 28 this year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rallamajoop · 3 months

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I recently found your blog while working on some things for a Heisenberg fic, and I love it! It made me think more about this HC that I have about Urias and Heisenberg. Since you have a lot of posts that talk about the game files and things like that, I wanted to ask your informed opinion on this if that's alright?

My HC is that Urias is actually Heisenberg's father--not just due to the fact that the concept art and character models look too similar to be a coincidence (in my opinion; I'd also like to add that I've never found anything that confirms or denies (or even refrences) this anywhere online, so if I'm missing something, feel free to let me know!).

I always imagined Heisenberg being close to his father, who likely was the one to teach him everything he knows in terms of engineering (I almost wonder if his name could be Karl Heisenberg Jr., his father being closer in reference to the physicist he's based on than Heisenberg himself. I hope that made sense-).

I imagine Miranda took his father first, whose experimentation results were close to what she was looking for, but no cigar (pun intended), so her next best bet was to hop down the family tree to his son--which yielded much more promising results--giving us the Heisenberg we know and love.

This would definitely explain why Heisenberg is much closer to the lycans than any other character, and why he's able to wrangle them so easily, because he's related to one--even if the consciousness of that relationship is long gone.

I'm so sorry if I came off as weird or anything, your blog just really kind of livened-up my HC and my fic ideas in general, and honestly makes me feelnreally confident about it and wanted to know your thoughts. Thank you! :)

Honestly, my initial kneejerk reaction to this one was “Jeebus, doesn’t the guy have enough dads already?” But on a second thought, heck, maybe there’s actually something to this idea…

The info we get on the possible Heisenberg family from the notes from the concept art is all over the place, and concepts for Heisenberg’s father are the worst offenders. Sturm was supposed to be his real father, Heisenberg’s monster form was supposed to be his father’s, the village leader was supposed to be his father... I assume these were different ideas from different phases (or one was a step-dad?) but sheesh, how many dads does one guy need?

Meanwhile, the one thing we do learn about Urias (apart from the fact he seems to part of some extended Urias family) is that he was supposed to be the village’s leader at some point… but that’s where this whole thing might just get interesting. Because if Heisenberg’s father was meant to be the village leader, and Urias was also supposed to be the village leader… could there have been a point in development where both were true at once, and Heisenberg’s father was going to be Urias? (I mean, as well as the village leader, presumably.)

I mean, they’re both beard-y, grey-haired dudes with a love for giant hammers and long coats. It’s not for nothing that so many fans came out of the early previews for this game assuming Urias was just Heisenberg in lycan form. Those concept pics of Heisenberg's father in a trenchcoat with a shock of grey hair aren't a million miles from Urias' design either.

There's some plausibility to the idea of Miranda experimenting on members of the same family too, especially if they've got cause to claim descent from one of the four founders. I speculated as much myself about what might have happened to the rest of the Beneviento family in my post on her background. Heisenberg specifically strikes me as more the sort of guy who probably wasn't born in the village, given he names his monsters in German, mocks the very idea of his lordship (more on that here), and is clearly the least brainwashed member of the family. But that's interpretation ‒ there's nothing truly definitive either way.

You'd have a harder time squaring 'an engineer who taught Karl all he knew' with Urias' role as the village leader, though ‒ I have trouble picturing anywhere as superstitious, isolated and backward as the village being led by someone with that much 'outsider' knowledge to pass onto his son. RE has certainly tried to sell us on wilder things, but it doesn't really click for me.

As for Heisenberg's affinity for lycans, that's more debatable. He certainly seems to be commanding them at the start of the game (just to really cement all those lycan!Heisenberg theories!) but past that point, any lycan associations dry up very quickly. There are no lycans to be found anywhere in the factory ‒ just soldats, and moroi wearing mind-control visors (called ‘haulers’, but they’re obviously just new versions of the creatures you meet in Donna’s domain). Why bother putting visors on skinny zombie creatures if he could command lycans without them? Doesn’t really seem like Heisenberg’s ability to control lycans goes far beyond ‘stop’ and ‘go’.

True, Heisenberg does leave his Rose-flask in a stronghold full of lycans. But he also sends Ethan to that stronghold, where he has to fight and kill Urias himself. The idea that Heisenberg was ever close to his lycan-dad is going to be hard to square with how casually he sends someone to kill Urias, or how pleased he seems that Ethan succeeded. In Heisenberg’s mind, lycans are nothing so much as they’re expendable – Urias included.

So as far as the finished game goes, I think it’s probably reaching to suggest that Urias (of the extended Urias clan) is related to Heisenberg, who so casually throws him in Ethan’s way as a test. But the possibility that maybe Urias was going to be a Heisenberg at some point in development is a better explanation for the fact the Urias-clan are so big into hammers and trenchcoats than any other explanation I’ve heard yet. It’s certainly no crazier than so many other headcanons I’ve heard around this game.

But speaking of the Urias-clan, let's cover the other Uriasi you can find around the game. Urias Strajer (the bigger version of Urias with the mace that Chris fights near the megamycete) is supposedly Urias' older brother ‒ something the concept art wants you to know so badly it's mentioned on pictures of both of them. So if you still want one of them to be Heisenberg's father, the other is presumably his uncle. Heck, maybe Strajer could be Heisenberg's father, and Urias could be the uncle he never liked very much (despite his excellent taste in hammers), if you want to explain Heisenberg's lacking reaction to Urias' death. Some of the game files for Strajer are labeled 'village elder', which also points some kind of connection. Chock up some more evidence of Miranda experimenting on members of the same family too!

The two axe-wielding optional bosses you can fight in the sawmill and over Claudia's grave are apparently Uriases too ‒ Urias Drac, specifically, though you'd only know that from RE.net, where you can see stats for how many of them you've killed in Mercenaries mode. Personally, I only realised they were supposed to be lycans at all because you can one-shot them with the magnum if you unlock the 'special customisation' that 'does extra damage against lycans' ("extra" apparently means "10x" in special-customisation land). But presumably they're based on the same unused design from the concept art of this one 'lycan' out walking his varcolacs too.

Are these Uriasi too part of the greater Urias-family? Who knows ‒ that one's up to you. Their bodies, with that swollen weak point on the back, do match the model for Urias Strajer (shown below). In fact, I'm pretty sure all the Uriases use the same base model, just with different clothes, armour and hair. So there's some shared DNA in there somewhere (even if only in the sense that recycling a good model saves so many hours of development time).

The name 'Urias' is apparently a term for giant in Romanian, which checks out. Strajer, meanwhile, apparently translates as 'guardian' or 'sentinel', which tracks with the fact Strajer's job is to guard the megamycete. 'Drac', meanwhile, seems to be the same word you might know from Dracul (dragon or devil) or Dracula (son of the above) ‒ though I am also amused that google translate tried to tell me 'urias drac' means 'huge fuck'. 'Giant demon' may be more on the money for that one. Either way, all this etymology does strongly suggest that 'Urias' is more a description than an actual family name. Which is somewhat reassuring, because nothing I've read about Romania suggests they put surnames first.

Probably just to annoy me, personally (because I absolutely will overthink this shit now you've got me started), one of the models used for regular-vanilla-Urias is randomly called 'Gregorio', a name that shows up nowhere else in the game. There is a Grigori ‒ he's that old guy who gave Ethan his first handgun before the lycans dragged him away.

I really do not think we're supposed to take it that Urias is a lycanised Grigori, though ‒ that's rather too big a transformation in not nearly enough time. Otherwise, 'Gregorio' is neither Romanian or German (like both 'Karl' and 'Heisenberg' are) ‒ it's Italian or Spanish, which is just confusing. One of the four founders (more on them here) did have a vaguely similar name ‒ Guglielmo ‒ but I don't think that's really close enough to mean much either. 'Gregorio' could be the name of a developer who worked on the file once, for all I know.

So where does that leave us? Honestly, nowhere very exciting. None of the evidence of this greater Urias family was actually in the playable game (notes on concept art and names you have to find on an unrelated website are very tenuous canon at best). Still, Urias and Urias Strajer are similar enough that it's reasonable to assume they must have some sort of relationship. So take all this as you will (or not at all).

#Karl Heisenberg #Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil #Urias #Urias Strajer #Urias Drac #meta #asks #RE lore

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meruz · 1 year

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im gonna reply to some asks but not that many bc the last time i tried to type up one of these posts i accidentally closed the tab and lost like several paragraphs so now im scared

lots of heavypaint questions

@porch-gremlin

its the fan tool on heavypaint!! which is a free drawing app that i love a lot. and the fan tool is my fave its kind of a crutch actually im trying to use other tools gkfdhgsdg but its so fun i can do a whole painting using it exclusively. heres a video of it in action while i mess w the configuration options. u can slide the noise jitter up and down so its more or less streaky hehe ^^

thank you!!! heavypaint ROCKS!!!!! I love it... its like the only art program ill be a shameless shill for lol

also im flattered you think of my art while playing splat...i should draw more splat i feel like i havent done enough.

my phone!! I have a samsung galaxy note 20 that I am still not done paying off LMAO.... but I've been a galaxy note user for years. combined with heavypaint its a shockingly good mobile sketchbook.

I'm sorry it's crashing on your tablet... I don't have a tablet so I don't really have an advice. Unfortunately because HP is a small dev app it can be kind of finicky... especially in between updates. I think if you reached out to vaughn ling/heavypoly he'd probably respond though! he seems to keep up with the community pretty well.

@hellisrealsign nice nice.. I'm glad our tastes match up a little! hopefully that means you don't mind my frequent fandom jumping LOL. I promise to always be true to my homestuck-loving infinity-train-loving self.

LMAOOOOOO I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME? (covered in blood)

idk is it worth it to read any shounen manga for female side characters?????? (??) HEAVILY DEBATABLE. on one hand the casual observer would say no but on the other hand femslash shippers are the strongest people on god's green earth and will endure great tortures for paltry table scraps.

I think mha is a good manga but it's still a shounen, some of the tropes they squeeze the girls into kind of suck. I can kind of put my annoyance aside because regardless im still a big fan of cool fight scenes and the power of friendship but I think your mileage will vary depending on how much tolerance you have for that kind of story...? There's an awful lot of chapters afterall. I will say this: though toga and ochako aren't the main characters they're not in the background either. the path of their relationship spans multiple arcs across the entire manga and is both plot relevant and relevant to the greater themes/thesis of the story. it's pretty clear that the mangaka and editorial team are dedicated to giving these characters the time and page space to play out. it's not perfect but thats better than a decent amount of big shounen femslash in my opinion? shrugs

Thank you! for both the compliments and the concern. but I want to assure you that... to be perfectly honest I don't think I'll ever stop posting my art regardless of AI. I don't want to make this into a hot take like this is an entirely personal opinion and I don't expect any other artists to share my position but: Everything about my art that I consider valuable is inherently impossible for AI to replicate and everything about my art that is replicable and monetizable is not something I'm interested in owning or protecting. (this is also why at the end of the day i dont really care that much about art theft, tracing etc. and i think 90% of the time style theft is just silly)

I believe art should be freely shared and to restrict that is to make art into a product which is morally despicable and moreover uninteresting... to me. lol. I DO RECOGNIZE HOWEVER I'm very lucky to have both more of an online audience than I even want + a fulltime job that takes the pressure off any of my other art to make money. it's totally valid for other artists to have differing opinions on this especially depending on personal circumstances. AND also I make art that is primarily a product above all else for work everyday so im a hypocrite but. yeah thats my two cents.

I love posting art online LOL. I do it because its fun for me.

HAPPY NEAR YEAR!!!!!!!!!11111111

#ask #woof

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emmie-time · 2 months

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Tw: Suicide/ self harm threats and harrasment below the break (if I did it right sorry if I didnt)

So today is the third time this month I've been reblogged or commented by people who are implying I should either die as a result of my political and social opinions or kill myself because of my moral opinions on things. I've been on this site for a long time since like 2015 or something, which for me is a long time cause I tend to abandon platforms. In that time I have only ever recieved 5 hate comments or reblogs/asks. All of which only started after Picture Matt made his big ranting posts (these things may not be correlated) it just feels like people are emboldened to be shitty and say shitty hurtful things. Like even though I'm a small blog with like no reach these people still find me.

This place means a lot to me, it's the only place online where I can give my actual opinion and I don't have to use words with the edges smoothed off to do it. I love this place because even if I don't understand some people and the broader spectrum of self expression I'm given the chance to learn and ask questions. I have a chance to grow and be better and really get a handle on my own gender stuff. I get updates on world news way faster than Twitter here and I can find so much cool art and funny posts that lift my spirits. I've been introduced to new hobbies and learned new skills thanks to this site.

I've abandoned every other social media site because of transphobia or fat shaming or suicide baiting, but I don't want to leave here. I want here to be better and safer. I want to be loudly and unapologetically trans and participate in politics. I want my country to be safer and kinder to everyone. I want to feel safe online, and I think I've started to feel less safe here in the past few weeks.

Please be kind with each other and if you're having trouble please talk to someone about it. Seek professional help if you need to and are able. Please live, please.

#transgender #tw: suidice #tw: self harm #lgbtqia #tw: bullying #tw transphobes #transfem

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whump-me · 9 months

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Who's that person in your icon? I randomly got curious.

-Abraham ♡♡♡

It's actually AI! For a while, I had a reliable method of getting nicely whumpy images from Midjourney. That was a few Midjourney iterations ago, though, and it's a lot harder to get whumpy images now. I also do a lot less with AI art than I used to, in part because the whole thing is morally sketchy at best. For the most part, I don't agree with the specific "AI generators steal art" framing (I say this as someone whose work has probably been used to train AI, so I'm not a disinterested theorist, I've got a stake in this), but that doesn't mean I'm comfortable with tech companies making themselves rich off other people's efforts.

Sorry I don't have a whumpy piece of media to direct you to! There is, sadly, no more where that came from. (Aside from the other images I've created, which I did consider posting here, but opted not to because I know Tumblr tends to be a pretty anti-AI space.)

(Note that's probably not actually relevant to the original asker: I'm working off the assumption that this question is sincere and that you're not the same person who I think has been trying to pick a fight about AI art in my ask box for a while now. On the off-chance I'm wrong on that, or if anon is reading this, I respect your opinion--like I said, I'm conflicted about the subject myself, especially as someone whose industry is being impacted by AI in both bad ways and potentially good ways--but I'm not interested in having that fight. I gave up online debates a long time ago. Do your best to stay accountable to your own conscience and trust that I'm doing the same. And if anon is reading this and was not trying to pick a fight, I apologize for misreading you! The internet has taught me to expect the worst.)

#asks

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9luttony · 1 year

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ok so, a lot has changed since the last time i was here (last post july 17, 2021!) i'm not going to disclose too much about my personal life but many things have changed for me and i'm doing so much better now! initially i had stopped posting on this blog due to my ex who made me feel really silly for enjoying pretty much anything but i had stumbled back on this blog and had found an ask from @lordiavolo (hi!) and i was thinking about coming back

i know i've built a little following on this blog but im not sure how long you guys have even been here. i miss many old friends if they remember me, im sorry for disappearing. my predicament is that havent been into obey me in about two years. i don't plan to redownload the game so my options are as follows:

i can come back as i was ; an obey me blog and occasionally reblog fan art / make posts but i wouldn't be super active.

i wanted to revamp this blog perhaps for self shipping since that's what it was for me but i'm not sure how people would feel about the current things im into. id change my theme and username but ill try to still be recognizable..maybe.. <3 i still want to make aesthetic boards

don't come back i can just leave this up as an archive and maybe link to my new blog elsewhere. ( im in the process of switching the sideblog ownership to a different main account because i don't desire to have this main for it. )

if you have a better recommendation

i want to become reconnected with a bunch of things i used to do / be into and i remember how important this blog was for me to just learn how to enjoy things without feeling embarrassed and i want to get back into that. i miss the connections ive had to my online communities since ive been so irl focused these past few years. sorry for such a long post i really would like to use my blogs more personally now so id also just lifepost too if that would be annoying or too much idk.

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oonajaeadira · 2 years

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I am not stealing anything. I have removed/ changed everything I've been asked to remove. I voiced my opinion. This post by @stealyourblorbos is unwarranted, nasty, and untrue. If y'all would give me a chance, then maybe this can be worked out without hard feelings and people being blocked.

Come sit next to me, kitkat. Let me love on you. Gonna say some things that you might not like all the way, but I see that you're angry and hopefully I can help you see where I'm at.

Listen. Jules is a good friend of mine and I trust her. With my life. Every interaction I've had with her has been genuine and while I don't know everything about her life, I know enough that having her work stolen can be not only demoralizing, but damaging to her profits. She is a working artist. And while, yes, she does post stuff very generously online for free, those posts can bring her commissions and work. So to have someone pass them off as their own can be severely heartbreaking and damaging.

I didn't see the posts in question, so I have to imagine what the situation was. I truly believe that you didn't mean to pass the work off as your own. You may have just seen something beautiful and posted it because you're curating your blog. But if you don't credit the artist or reblog from the original source, that is basically you claiming yourself as the OG poster, and that is a kind of theft. It's better if you post a link to the artist. But it's best if you reblog from the original post itself. That's how the artist intended the work to be shown and it also directs people back to their blog so they can gain interest and therefore work.

You already know all of this and I'm sorry if this comes off as condescending. I don't want to condescend. At all. I asked you to sit by me for a reason.

If you noticed, I did NOT block you. In fact, the post led me to follow you. Because as much as I trust Jules, I also love her a hell of a lot and I know myself enough to know that emotions can do things to judgment. I wanted to make sure I wasn't just blocking you blindly out of my love for her. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and see their side of things before I bring out the pitchfork.

So I took a look at your page. Did I see anything that was stolen and passed off as your own? No. Did I see a few pieces of reposted artwork that wasn't credited? I did. Hmm. So there's some improvement that could happen there. But. I appreciate that you have done your best to remedy the situation. I'm glad you ultimately respected the wishes of the artist to remove a piece when it was asked you do so. Thank you.

Now then, let's get to my actions. Did I reblog Jules' post? You bet I did. She was hurt, she's my friend, and she's a fellow creator. As a creator myself I would feel horrible if someone reposted my work without crediting me. I felt that hurt in my soul. And whether you apologized or took down the posts, that hurt remains and distrust will linger. Righting a wrong does not instantly warrant forgiveness. That must be earned.

If you did something to hurt and you're sorry for it, then you'll do what you can to show that you truly appreciate the art that you put on your blog. In this case, you could do your best to credit and support the artists whose art you love. Follow a few of them and get to know them. Tell your followers who they are and why you love their art. Become a friend to artists.

However, if you believe you weren't in the wrong, that others are overreacting, then I stand by my reblog of Jules' post. You'll notice my tags were something along the line of "don't do this." And I mean that. This is a cautionary tale for others. "Please, fandom friends, don't treat creators this way. It hurts, and we'll get angry about it."

So know that while I listen to my friend--someone who has been nothing but good to me and deserves my support--I'm also listening to you. I hear you. I am 100% giving you a chance. I don't want to block you, because in this fandom we've all been through enough mistaken conduct and finger-pointing and really, all we all wanna do is love a really nice man and the work he does. I know that's what Jules wants, it's what I want, and taking the time to peek at your blog, now I think that's probably what you want too.

But just to be sure, I'll give you a follow and get to understand you better. While I must support my friend's feelings, I hope in time I can come to trust that your intentions are well-meaning.

(gif by dieter-bravo)

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aspecpplarebeautiful · 2 years

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[tw internalized aphobia]

hi!

i always felt good about my aroace identity. i always took a lot of pride in it and never struggled with it, but lately i’ve been thinking that it would’ve been better if i just identified as bisexual (i used the bi label before aro and ace). seeing some posts here really made me think that it would be just a lot simpler if i was in fact bi and not aroace.

i know that labels don’t have to be “old” to be legitimate, but i feel that some people online still see it that way? it makes me wish i was one of these labels that are seen as legitimate and real.

do you have any advice to deal with this internalized aphobia? i try to curate my online space as best of my ability but there’s always a voice in my head that keeps coming back saying it’d be better if i was bi instead.

sorry if this is too much information. your blog is a safe space for me i really appreciate your attention to answering asks and helping people. i hope your doing well 🤍

Yeah curating your online experience is definitely a good first step. Make sure you're also making good use of blacklisting options too. The more you see things that reinforce your internalized aphobia the harder it will be to work through that.

The other thing I'd recommend is go out of your way to regularly see and consume positive a-spec stuff. So that can be following blogs, which it sounds like you're already doing, but seeking out videos, checking out community, spaces, etc. I think it's especially really good to just see aces and aros talk about being ace and aro and talk about their own experiences.

Do you know any ace or aro people? Are you friends with any allies? If not, maybe consider joining an ace/aro discord server or something like that. So you have people you can talk to about being aroace.

If you're not already I'd also look into aroace media, there's more rep coming out all the time and some of it's really good. I've personally really enjoyed the Jughead 2015 run from Archie comics, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (YA Novel), and The Magnus Archives (Podcast) all of which have a-spec main characters. Alice Oseman is someone else to watch too, she's aroace and has a-spec characters throughout her works. Her book Loveless is specifically about an aroace college student coming to terms with her identity (this could be a bit raw if you're in a similar place), but if you're watching her current show Heartstoppers, Isaac is aroace as well and she's promised there'll be more a-spec content next season.

In general if you're not sure where to look for media, googling lists (such as books with ace characters, podcfasts with aro characters. etc) is usually a pretty effective way to find ace/aro media.

If you're comfortable with it another thing you can consider it pride stuff. If you don't want visible pride stuff around that will out you, maybe you can get a subtle pride art for your phone background or something like that.

Basically you want to connect with your identity, so not just see positive things about but also feel it.

Another thing you can do is some exercises to help yourself think differently. If you can identify the negative thought processes you're having about being aroace, or about it being better to be bi, you can consciously stop them and correct yourself.

So for example if you're thinking 'aroace is a newer coined label and people won't take it serously', you can stop and remind yourself that actually it's a term that has become very widely accepted in a short amount of time, including by most major lgbtq orgs. Or that the people who say that are jerks and their opinion on your identity doesn't really matter (or whatever resonates with you).

And you don't have to do more than that, just a gentle correction and move on with your day.

Another exercise that may help could be something like journaling, where once a week or something you like about the label aroace. So it could be listing things you like about being aroace, it could be things you like the community, things you like about the label itself, it doesn't matter. But that will help get you in the habit of thinking positive things or making positive associations with your label.

So generally speaking it takes time to unlearn internalized oppression. There's no flip you're going to switch and suddenly do better. But usually once you've identified it and you're making an effort, it will usually gradually get better. It's important to give yourself time though and be patient with the process.

All the best, Anon! Good luck!

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kadoodles-on-ao3 · 1 year

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It seems like you have a vendetta against Shulk/Fiora. Like, not just disliking it and preferring Shulkelia but straight up hate the canon ship of the game. Why?

Thank you for asking this! It's an interesting question and I have a quite a bit to say about it (as usual with me aha). So I'll put the details under the cut, but yes, I personally do not like any aspect of the canon relationship/writing of it at all (although I don't go into that here since I talked about much more than I expected lol, if you're curious specifically about what my opinions are on the dialogue/choices in the game regarding Shiora feel free to send me another ask!). Also if you've read my fanfics (genuinely not trying to plug my work haha I swear) and see how I write Fiora and her friendship with Shulk, and especially the fic where I write from her pov for the whole thing, you can see I don't hate her and try to be respectful to her creators and fans! Anyway, for a TL;DR:

Aside from my personal history (which also is part of why I like Shulkelia as much as I do) causing the way Fiora's attraction to Shulk is written to not come off very well to me, and even ignoring what I've seen on the Internet about how people react to these ships and those who like or dislike them, it's just A Thing About Life that there will be parts of media you really like and parts of the same media you really don't, and that's what makes art engaging and impactful and personal and fun to talk about! I'm just someone who always has a lot to say about anything, so don't take my diatribes as anything more than me being passionate about analyzing stuff haha. I still love Xenoblade 1 with all my heart, and me not liking parts of the series such as Xenoblade 2 (very much) or Shiora (at all) doesn't affect how much I enjoy what I do like! It's just another fun facet to delve into for me, whether it's a thing I like or a thing I dislike.

And when all you see and know of me is from a blog that's specifically just for talking about a small facet of one piece of media, I can come off as more melodramatic about my liking of Shulkelia and disliking of Shiora since I don't talk too much about the rest of Xenoblade as a whole, nor anything else for that matter, on here. I promise I don't truly care that much about this fictional love triangle in my day-to-day life, and I'm sorry if I came off as rude about it! If you like their relationship then... I do want to say more power to you, and count this as me having said so, but also I don't feel like I need to because, as you said, it is canon so the Xenoblade devs have been (and probably will be!) providing plenty of enjoyment for you, and so no one should care what a silly singular stranger like me thinks at the end of the day haha.

But if you do, then here's what I have to say:

First off, I just enjoy really thoroughly dissecting everything I like, as well as dislike (as you will soon see!). I like delving into details and analyzing stuff, and sometimes that passion can be a little too obsessive, which can come off as me being passionate in my hatred of The Thing rather than passionate about analyzing why I hate The Thing (which is what's really going on). So it's important to me to say that when I talk about anything I dislike in depth like this, it's not ever meant to be hating on or attacking people who do like it! I just really find it fun to put things under a microscope, both when I really like them and really dislike them, because I enjoy discovering what, specifically, about them makes me feel that way.

I also think it's important to repeat that point about how this blog is both 1) meant to be near-exclusively about Shulkelia and 2) the posts I make here are pretty much my entire online footprint (outside of my fanfic account which is p much about the same topic aha), and as such these are the only things that strangers have to form an opinion about me (much like the common criticism brought up about parasocial relationships). When I log on to this blog I'm here to talk about my Xenoblade OTP or things related to it, and so that's all you see of/know about me. And even though the reason I made this blog is because of how much I like it (I'm kind of obsessive about the things I'm really passionate about, I've been that way my whole life, so that certainly doesn't help either haha), there are things I may like equally or even more, but because they aren't what this blog is for I don't mention them, and so anyone who doesn't know me won't know about them unless I talk about them. When you only see the fraction of me that I'm willing to share, then of course it'll seem like that fraction is the whole me if you never get to see the other 99%.

So much in the same way that I can seem super obsessed about Shulkelia (which, to be fair, I do get that way some days haha) it can seem like I really really hate Shiora too, since the only time I'm going to talk about it is on a blog that's dedicated to a different ship, and since I'm not really a multishipper nor do I enjoy the writing of it in canon, I won't ever have much nice to say about it. And because it's a canon ship that most people seem to enjoy, it's going to come up from time to time on art that either has Fiora/the love triangle involved or in the comments I see on it, and since I have something to say about it I do. Although I do genuinely not like it at all, I try to do it in a way where it's clear I'm not hating on people who enjoy it, either by trying to hammer home that it's just my personal opinion about it, or being super hyperbolic about disliking it in an attempt at humor. But tone and meaning can get lost from brain to text and I'm surely not the best at wording things sometimes, so I don't blame anyone for getting the wrong impression, and if that's happened I do apologize!

For example, if this blog was instead about my love of Mexican food (which is true!) and was meant for being a catalogue of recipes I come across, I'd probably talk in the tags pretty often about how I lament that so many recipes have cilantro in them because I have the weird cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene and so it tastes awful to me (which is also true!). When this happens over and over again on so many recipes that have cilantro, and when this repetition is all you ever get to see about me, it would probably seem like I have a burning hatred for cilantro, when in reality I barely think about it at all, and if something I want to eat has it I'll just politely ask for no cilantro or silently pick it off. I do think the weird gene is interesting, and I have a fun story about how I found out I have it which I enjoy telling, but I'm also just fine eating my food if no one wants to talk about it.

But that comparison isn't perfect, because there's a lot more going on in interpersonal relationships (fictional or not) and why people enjoy them or not. So let's get into that!

I did mention there were personal reasons why I feel the way I do, and to the extent I do, about these pairings, so it's only fair to explain what that's about. All throughout my life up until college I never had anyone show any romantic interest in me, even in high school, while in contrast all my friends as well as my sister had been in multiple relationships, so I felt rather lonely and figured there was something wrong with me if no one would want to date me haha. But I did of course have crushes of my own (that because of the aforementioned thought I had that I was unlikable I never acted on) and one of them was on a mutual friend that my best friend at the time also knew, as well as knew that I liked him. And all of a sudden one day they were going out and being affectionate all the time, including right in front of me even though my friend knew I liked him. That plus my loneliness from before obviously hurt really bad and made me pretty upset for a while haha.

Then on top of that later that year I would connect with someone like I never had before in my life and he "felt the same way", the very first person to ever tell me they liked me and I believed it. I honestly do still think he did like me... yet he would go on to get into a relationship with someone else and all the while repeatedly promise me that I was special to him and that she didn't get him like I did and he'd leave her for me but of course we can still have our deep talks about his personal problems and blah blah blah. There's a lot more to it than that but I'll cut it short and just say this happened for literally every single day for an entire year of my life, and it really deeply affected me for a long time, though I'm fine now of course. Well, it did change me as a human being, but you know what I mean haha. I don't say this to elicit pity (really, don't, I promise I'm fine) but to give you some puzzle pieces to help figure out the mystery of why I dislike Shiora.

So I'm sure you can see the parallels from my life to what Melia goes through, and that's precisely the mechanism that everyone uses to relate to and love fictional characters: they deal with horrible stuff that we can connect back to horrible stuff we've been through, and we empathize with them. That's one reason why so many people love Shulk (including me!), and Melia, and countless other characters. That's kind of what they're here for: to relate to. He just like me for real and all that. So, in the same way my life experiences make me relate so much to Melia, I can also relate those who I liked but never could be with to Shulk and relate their girlfriends to Fiora. And knowing how those real-life relationships ended up and why they didn't work out, I can really see parallels to how Fiora and Shulk's relationship is written, at least with the vibe I got from it on first and second impression. Therefore I both dislike it for personal reasons and the information those reasons gave me about good and bad relationships.

On a lighter note though, there's another aspect to the whole we-like-characters-we-identify-with thing with regards to shipping: I really do think the ships we like (if any) are based on and a reflection of ourselves and what we want in a partner (should we want to have one). Or in simpler terms, our OTPs are often made up of a character we can self-insert as and a character we would marry if they were real haha. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all! It's fun to make up fake scenarios with fake characters that you want to kiss, even when you're not writing direct-self-insert or xReader stuff (which I also don't bash)! I'm certainly guilty of this myself, even as much as I try to write them true to their character, relating so much to Melia and finding a lot about Shulk attractive for reasons that Melia also does means I'm just like everyone else haha. But on the other side of the coin, the fact that I cannot relate to Fiora in so many ways as well as do not vibe with how she treats her attraction to Shulk means I can't really enjoy the thought of them as a couple.

But outside of talking about the canon for just a second more, I think there's an interesting phenomenon(? idk what to call it lol) here that is in this ask as well as many other people's vocalized opinions regarding this game's love triangle: said canon. As in, the concept that someone could like Xenoblade 1 overall but dislike the canon relationship either confuses and/or upsets some people. Which is strange to me on its own, like do these people also get confused and/or mad when someone says they love hamburgers but hate when they have pickles on them? Everyone has their own tastes, and what you like or how much of it you do is just part of being an individual. (Plus I must say it's extra odd with regards to Shulkelia, as I've never seen the same comments/reactions to ships like Meliora, Shulk/Reyn, Shalvis, Dunban/Melia, etc, despite the fact that they're all equally as non-canon as Shulkelia. Maybe it's because the game firmly shoots down Shulk liking Melia so hard? But it also shows how much Fiora likes Shulk, so wouldn't Meliora [which is pretty darn popular as far as Xenoblade 1 ships go, at least from my browsing] be just as "anti-canon"?).

For extra context too, there are. SO. many friendzoned/"haha Shulk doesn't like Melia" memes and jokes out there (and if these people are so concerned with canon, it's weird how often they make Shulk and/or Melia act out of character super hard to push the joke!) which don't really exist to be pro-Shiora and more just anti-Shulkelia. I even came across a guy on reddit who would post Melia fanart every day, and so many of his posts were stalked by this one dude who would write a little rant about how Melia sucks and Fiora is the best, and would really go off if the fanart showed Melia's crush on Shulk in any way. Now he was super downvoted every time but... I've never seen anyone do that for Shulkelia. And yet I have seen quite a few posts of people complaining about Shulk/Melia fans shoving their ship in their faces and how much it sucks as a ship and I'm like i have been trying for MONTHS to find a single scrap of shulkelia content yet find barely anything and what i do find has SO many comments saying they still like shiora or that they hate the art since it's not shiora literally WHO are you talking about??? Like maybe I just am unlucky and have seen literally all 20 or whatever number of instances of Shiora fans being rude that ever existed but... they still do exist. I'm not making this up, in fact I encourage you to go out and search for Xenoblade fan content regarding this love triangle and see how people react to it! That's what I did and that's how I came across all of this!

Anyway, like was there a huge ship war in the early fandom days or something??? If so why can I find no mention of it anywhere except from salty Shiora shippers/Fiora fanboys, like barely any Shulkelia art even exists and I see zero talk from the supposed pushy Shulkelia fans? They have like 30 freaking fics in existence and half of them are Melia sulking about how Fiora is being lovey dovey with Shulk and showing they actually got together after all so don't even really count as Shulkelia fics!! In my searching for Shulkelia content I come across so many comments from people who like the ship trying to downplay their enjoyment of it and placate any potential Shiora fans reading their comments with "oh but Shulk/Fiora is cute too! i still like them together! i only like Shulk/Melia in a close friends kind of way, or just to make Melia happy idc about the ship i just like seeing her smile!" so like... What reality do these other guys live in where they got bombarded with Shulkelia over and over because I wish I lived in it!!! Something's up with some Fiora fans idk. Maybe I just had back luck in my searching, but try it yourself and see. I'm not crazy or making this up, I could just have been seeing all 20 or whatever number of Shiora's rude fans but... they do exist, and I have yet to see similar behavior from Shulkelia fans.

And this isn't all just me being a lurker looking at rando's comments as well. I even have a bit of a secondhand-experience story to tell about it! (The specific timeline of the initial details might be jumbled a bit, but I do remember the gist of it and still have the DMs to confirm some of the facts!)

I used to be active on Twitter, and I followed a lot of different Xenoblade fan artists on there. One day a certain artist posted a WIP of Melia and Shulk laying next to each other on a hill where Shulk was smiling at her, and although the artist deleted it (for reasons you will soon learn about) I think they wrote the Japanese ship name of the two on the tweet for it. Either way, I do recall before the WIP was posted they tweeted about liking Shulkelia, or rather ShuMeri as the Japanese ship name is called, (although in much the same "i like Melia so i like the thought of her being happy. Shulk belongs with Fiora though! i still ship them!" please-don't-be-mad-at-me way that I have never seen a Fiora/Shiora fan do) and wanting to draw something for it. Even though this particular artist posted in Japanese, a language I don't know 99% of, I was able to get the gist of their tweets through the translation feature and my knowledge of what the characters' names are in Japanese. And despite how hard this artist tried to be nice, tried to show how much they weren't trying to be mean to Shiora fans (they even had drawn Shiora art months earlier!), they got a wave of hate directed at them from Japanese fans which I saw in real time.

And if you doubt this because the tweets are now deleted, and because even when they were up I only read them through an A.I. translation, I felt so bad for this poor artist that I DM-ed them (regrettably in English, since I didn't trust my knowledge of Japanese to not end up making me say something I didn't intend or in a rude/informal tone) to show there was at least one other person out there that enjoyed ShuMeri and was excited to see their art. And they fortunately understood my message and knew English to message me back and told me direct quotes of what was thrown at them, which I still have in my DMs and will quote:

"'You are denying the original story. It's too unsatisfying and ugly' 'It's not right to make Shulk and Melia lovers.' someone said. At other times, people have replied to my art, complaining about Melia's behavior in the story, as I tweeted the other day. I've had a lot of negative comments about ShuMeri and Melia." (With regards to the whole "complaining about Melia's behavior in the story" thing, if I recall that was from people saying she had no right to have a crush on Shulk in the first place, which... I thought you guys said canon is sacrosanct? It is canon that Melia had a crush on Shulk, and if you don't like that then you don't respect the canon/story and aren't a real fan. Do you see how silly this sounds???)

So. Tell me if you have ever seen any Melia fans or Shulkelia fans ever behave like this. Because I sure haven't. (Like even this ask [which I am not upset about nor trying to be rude to the anon at all, on the contrary I'm super enjoying talking about this topic! it's just the dichotomy here is interesting to me!) is proof to me: how many times can you say you've seen comments on Shiora art or asks sent to Xenoblade fanblogs asking why someone doesn't like Shulkelia, do you hate Shulkelia, what's wrong with Shulkelia? Like I get one is canon and the other isn't, but like... have you seen shipping culture? Literally all of the most popular ships for any given media are non-canon, that's half the fun of shipping!!!

"Don't let mean fans sour the original work" (and again, just to make sure I'm clear, I do not consider the anon who sent this ask to be mean or rude in any way! I'm referring to other randos here!) and all that, but it's kind of hard for me to like a ship when it has fans that act like this... going around projecting by accusing fans of a different ship of their own behavior, or saying things that contradict their own points about how important canon is to them. Thinking back on how we like characters we can relate to, isn't it interesting how fans of a brash, headstrong, do-what-I-want-and-fuck-the-consequences character who gets everything she wants in canon act in a pushy or even rude way to fans of a reserved, self-reproaching, I-will-do-what-is-best-for-others-first character who has so much taken away from her, and the latter fans always defer to the former and feel guilty when they talk about liking their character even as they do so much to be nice to them? It's pretty interesting I think, it's like when dogs look like their owners or something haha.

To end this off, since even though I have more to say (which if you would like to hear please let me know!) I've talked for far too long now haha, I really want to post the rest of the DM that the artist I talked to (who to this day hasn't made another Shulkelia/Shulkelia-esque fanart again, and interestingly never gets hate on their Shalvis art which is again a non-canon "story-denying" ship, too. Maybe they just blocked the rude people and if so good for them, but it's interesting still that they haven't draw Shulkelia since):

"I think it's useless to argue about who is better, Fiora or Melia, and I don't want them to get me involved in that fight. However, I received words of encouragement from many kind followers like you. I now understand important things; 'Don't worry about mean people' and 'Draw what I like.' Fan art should be free, shouldn't it? If I draw ShuMeri, some mean people might appear again. But there are many more kind people like you. When I think of that, I'm not afraid anymore. I will try to draw ShuMeri one day. Maybe I'll get depressed again because of mean people, but then you can tell me, 'You draw fanart freely, right!'... Please tell me that. You made me feel better and made me cry with happiness. Thank you so much. :)"

-Mirim, who can be found here currently, and their old account where the drama happened is here. This is the piece of artwork they got so much hate for. Shulk and Melia aren't even touching in it and Mirim didn't even mention their ship name.

#ask #please support mirim they're a very skilled and underrated artist!!#anyway every time i get an ask i get so excited haha i really like talking to people about things i/we like #(well if i got a mean/''kys'' ask i wouldn't be excited but you get what i mean haha)#and to be clear i do not think this ask was hostile at all! and even if it was meant to be... so what?#i enjoyed answering it and i hope what i had to say was interesting and satisfied the anon's curiosity #also i *do* want to talk about other things in xenoblade i like because there's **so** much i have to say #like if you could see the size of my notes section in my voice line doc you would know. you would KNOW how much i like basically #every single thing about this game haha. probably too much. it's over 700 lines of text long #i just don't feel like there's an audience most of the time for me and it feels a little sad talking into the void haha #hence my enjoyment of getting asks of any kind!#so if anyone has any questions for me about literally anything at all please send me an ask!#in return i will write you a thesis paper about your question free of charge as you can see here lol #i really hope i didn't come off as mean or bitter here it's just there's a huge dichotomy going on with shulkelia from what i've seen #as i mentioned if it's about canonicity why don't shalvis and meliora get hate? i've literally never seen a single mean comment about them #unprompted on a random one-off comment or directly on fanworks of it #maybe it's more about melia than shulkelia since there's also a lot of hate towards her that i've seen too #in a ''ew melia fans are so conceited thinking she's the best-written character and fiora is shallow'' and it's like #congratulations! you have just encountered a ''different opinion''! perhaps they like melia because they think she is well-written and #not to spite you in particular! maybe they think fiora is shallow bc a lot of her character objectively revolves around her crush on shulk!#and it's okay to not like it! it's also okay to like it! this is what art is about: having your own thoughts on it!#it is fun to share these thoughts and i enjoy it! but i do not enjoy when people are mean to others because they like #Fake Person/Relationship A but other people like Fake Person/Relationship B! it's silly to get super mad about it and it's rude to be mean!

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pentosugar · 6 months

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(I changed my url from dupermaus to pentosugar)

I'm reworking this account atm because even though I literally have not posted this whole year and last year I was very inconsistent, I've been thinking about posting some art online and I just feel like I haven't utilised my account since I made it + when i was using this account the most I was really immature.

What i mean by that is like i wasn't putting any real thought into my art (which is fine it just doesnt reflect how i think about making art right now) and looking back, it doesn't feel authentic to myself. I also was not nearly aware enough of the state of the world and i would just take on whatever opinions i saw the most on tumblr and except them as fact without thinking about it any deeper.

Besides that i think it was a good thing for me to stay off tumblr for almost a year and stop posting because it gave me a chance to mature and to focus more on the real world. I found that i was able to talk about things in a much more nuanced and form opinions that actually reflect my values. ALSO😭😭😭😭 i have had a lot more on my plate this year with school, some health issues and needing to make more MONEY💸💸💸💸

So basically the point is im reworking this account because i might want to post some art now and then. I deleted most of my posts but if i do start posting again i might redraw some old things. Sorry for the long post🤭🤭cya maybe

#ik i used to make 100 posts about how i was inactive and was planning to post but then never did #so sorryyy for that🤭😔😔😔🤥#but seriously i used to be really immature and its just too embarrassing 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭#like i would continue following accounts i wasnt interested in bc i was worried the person behind the account would be offended #if i unfollowed. as if thats a thing people care abt😭#also not to over share online and ik it sounds like an excuse but #i was genuinely diagnosed with an autoimmune condition in june #so ive been directing most of my attention to getting that under control and i actually kinda got put of the habit of drawing #but things are improving rapidly🥳🥳so im getting a bit of my drawing mojo back!!!#anyway i need to stop ranting byeee😋

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sweepingtree · 2 years

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i'm sorry but how on earth does random splashes of colours or pieces of paper and what not equate to antifascism? its very clear to me that you are one of those people who think that only artworks made by rich white m*n are important because they have "meaning", whatever that is supposed to mean in the first place. it's people like you who discourage artworks that are made with love and many hours of the artists' time. for pete's sake i've seen you complaining about hyperrealistic paintings

ok first of all, this is all googleable information, and it's not just me stating a personal opinion so idk why you're being so mad but OK LOOK, the whole idea of modernism is basically the progress of humanity, and the whole idea of the "new", instead of doing things that have always been done. It's a bit more complex than that but I'm not going to go into it. Modernism in art, specifically, is a movement that really blew up around after WWI, and expanded even more post WWII. Many of the artists/writers/designers that are associated with Modern art now were refugees of the war back then, and were critics of the fascist ideologies that the warmongers represented. The 'traditional' ideal of western art - realism, romanticism, etc - THOSE kinds of artworks have been put up on pedestals by ultranationalists as a kind of 'proof' of white superiority. You even see such behaviour online nowadays where some rando will post a picture of a sculpture of some woman or something and go this is western heritage blah blah blah.

Now I'm not saying that all modern artists are progressives and anti-fascist, but the entire movement really did very much stem from just that: a kind of rebellion against what was considered traditional, or a kind of nihilist outlook, kind of like "the world sucks people suck nothing matters i'm just going to do absurd art as a reflection of how absurd this society is". (I have to say at this point that this is specifically about WESTERN art. Modern art movements in other parts of the world evolved somewhat differently)

As for my criticism of hyperrealistic art in the past, I do fully claim it. I don't dislike hyperrealistic works, but I dislike the way people worship it as the 'best' kind of artwork. You see a lot of this on those clickbait-types of social media accounts where they'll caption it as "wow this is what true art is" and all that shit and I just can't stand it because again, it's discounting the kind of work and the kind of intellectual labour (research, experimentation, fieldwork, reading, writing) that goes into other forms of art that some people who are not art-trained are so fond of dissing.

Also, I'm an art educator. The number of times I've heard my students dismiss their own art as lousy or not good enough simply because they cannot achieve realism is exhausting! The whole reason why all kids love art and then they eventually lose interest in it is because of our whole obsession with 'beauty' and realism in art. At a young age, art is fun for them because it's about colours and playing with materials. As they grow older, some of their peers will have parents who send them to classes to draw better (ie. more realistically) and they learn to compare themselves with others. This traditional way of looking at aesthetics is something that I have criticised and will continue to criticise because it is an actively harmful way of thinking.

#anon #answered ask #oops i ended up going on a long rant #anon i get where you're coming from i really do #art IS for everyone and there needs to be better efforts at educating people about art and the value of art #but for people to be open to being educated about art in the first place we gotta stop telling them art is inaccessible #modern art isn't all elitist garbage #it's a reflection of culture and a documentation of the history of a certain place and time #YES even rothko and picasso and pollock and warhol and other artists that people like to use as examples of pretentious art #DON'T GET ME WRONG I dont like them either but ALL art has value #not just the pretty ones

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mysticdragon3md3 · 2 years

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I have to apologize to the IchiRuki community. Recently, I posted a thought that I think was misunderstood and upset people. I didn't mean to cause drama. And although I'm too chicken to directly apologize to anyone, I thought I should at least clarify things, in case anyone ever hunted me down about it. Even though I deleted the post, since it turned out so offensive, in case someone does track me down, I just want to clarify and apologize.

I am very sorry. The past few days, I've been so physically stressed over this, I've trouble focusing on Christmas. So hearing that my post unintentionally made other people upset, when they could have been focusing on Christmas/holidays instead too, is saddening. I'm sorry if I caused anyone to be unable to enjoy Christmas.

So I guess I should explain what happened.

A few days ago, Viz Media's official Twitter posted this Tweet (https://twitter.com/VIZMedia/status/1473443170390261767):

VIZ

@VIZMedia

Orihime really cares about Ichigo. (Loudly crying face emoji)

A fairly neutral statement, in my opinion. I'm not particularly an Orihime fan, but objectively, see does seem to care a lot about Ichigo. Whether that's more/less, or "genuine/ingenuine", or in the "best manner", compared to other characters, is not even in discussion with such a statement. She's just a character who cares about Ichigo. It's nice when fictional characters care about others. It's nice that Ichigo is surrounded by friend characters who care about him, like Chad, Ishida, and Orihime. At least that's how I took it.

So even though I'm not particularly an Orihime fan and definitely not an IchiHime fan, I went down into the comments to see people say how they love a character they like. I love fans talking about the things they love. Even if I have no idea what a series or character is, I love fanboying and fangirling. It's generally very positive and enthusiastic, and I love it.

But what did I find instead?

(https://twitter.com/alter_recs/status/1473591013872652295)

Christmas tree Jolly Records Christmas tree (Defrosting Mariah Carey)

@alter_recs

Replying to

@VIZMedia

Dear IchiRuki extremists, read the Manga

Ichigo was always gonna end up with Orihime

The anime just cut 90% of their interactions

I was offended. Excuse me. But posting an anti-shipping comment out of the blue, assumes that the "opposing ship" is on the attack, constantly looking to pick a fight, and just a mean spirited bunch that hates anything or any character having to do with opposing their ship. I don't appreciate these assumptions. I'm on the Ichiruki ship, and I don't see how we're like that. Granted, any fandom can have some reckless weirdos in it. But broadly implying that Ichiruki fans in general are all like that, is too unbelievable. In fact, I've always posited that it's more correct to assume that most fans are reasonable, the opposite of "extremists". And "extremists"? Well, since I've never been active in the Bleach fandom (besides reblogging ichiruki fanart and sparsely reblogging a couple story/character analyses), the only "extreme" behavior I could remember from the Bleach fandom, were the photos all over Twitter, about people burning their Bleach manga, purportedly because they were upset that the manga didn't end as Ichiruki. I had to assume that these were the "IchiRuki extremists" that alter_recs was talking about. What else could be more "extreme" than that, going on in the Bleach fandom?

(Oh my good gawd. I had no idea. No idea about the harassment going on in the Bleach fandom. Back to this later.)

I wasn't going to reply directly to that Tweet with my arguments, because getting into arguments with other people is not what I'm online to do. (I'm too anxious for that.) Besides, I always thought the best general etiquette in fandom is to "live and let live"; assume everyone is going to interpret work differently, and art is subjective enough for it all to be valid. That's been my philosophy. Interpretation is more important than decoding some singular truth from a work. So I try to let everyone have their different interpretations. I may be having a negative reaction to some rando's unnecessarily hostile post, but it wouldn't do my mental health any good to feed that troll and voluntarily get into arguments directly with them. And they have their right to an opinion or different interpretation of some fictional work. That's why I'm in the habit of subtweeting, just on Tumblr. I see something on Twitter that upsets me; I vent on Tumblr. I don't tag the person. I'm venting to purge a reactionary thought, and to move on with my life, having recorded my fandom thoughts into my fandom blog, for my personal fandom records. I never vent online, hoping to upset people or start fights. That's the last thing I'll ever want to do. That's why I don't usually tag my venting posts with tags common to the fandom. (I can't handle confrontation. And frankly, I would be upset with myself for causing someone else to be upset. Especially over subjective interpretations of a cartoon.) I certainly hate some characters and am annoyed with some ships, but I tell myself that fans of those characters/ships are just as valid as some of my characters/ships, which are generally hated by the broader fandom. For example, Ryuji Sakamoto is one of my favorite Persona 5 characters, and he was the most hated character from the series, for years. So I stayed away from people who hate Ryuji, and enjoyed my own corner of the fandom without them. But sometimes the other sides of the fandom say something to piss you off and you gotta subtweet (but on Tumblr). At least to defend your corner of the fandom. And often, defending the fandom, even in reactionary venting posts that don't specifically mention the offender, in my experience, can sound more like enthusiastic arguments for the fandom, more than negativity. Those were the thoughts and assumptions that I took into writing my ill-fated Ichiruki post.

I had no idea my wording could imply I was degrading the Ichiruki fandom that I was trying to defend. But apparently, it sounded as if I meant that "*I* was a reasonable Ichiruki fan, not like other Ichiruki fans" and that "most Ichiruki fans in general were extremists". The exact opposite of what I meant. I couldn't believe how unbelievably severe my screw up was. I never wanted to make the Ichiruki fandom feel attacked. And yet, here we are, because I decided to vent on the internet instead of keeping negativity to myself. I used to have a rule about never posting negativity, and I've been gradually letting that rule erode, allowing myself to become lax with it in the past few years...resulting in this. The very people I meant to defend, feeling attacked and upset. I am such a f**k up. I am sorry.

And as a testament to how recklessly I acted, I didn't even catch that I implied people who dislike Orihime are somehow "bad people"! Someone else had to point that out to me! (Thank you, darisu-chan, by the way.) That was truly careless of me. Truly, truly careless. I couldn't believe that after years and years of my personal philosophy for myself to "live and let live" in fandom, that I implied that people could be bad people for disliking Orihime. I certainly didn't mean to say that, and I'm very sorry.

I have since deleted my post, because its wording proved to be so offensive. But what I was trying to say was that, unlike alter_recs's Tweet implying that Ichiruki fans are generally, all expected to be "extremists", probably "burning manga and hating Orihime as a given", most Ichiruki fans are the opposite of "extremists": They're/we're "reasonable". Some of us like Orihime, some of us are indifferent to her, some of us dislike her, but we're not all rage monsters being "extremists", burning manga. Even though I was never active in the Bleach fandom and I was unaware of what was going on in the Ichiruki fandom, I was confident that most Ichiruki fans are reasonable instead of "extremists". Just like most people in all other fandoms are usually reasonable. The exceptions being probably 1 handful of weirdos that burned their manga on Twitter and people I heard give Star Wars fandom a bad reputation. Most ichiruki fans aren't burning their manga over that non-Ichiruki ending, and I don't appreciate alter_recs pretty much saying that. That's all I wanted to say. I wanted to defend the Ichiruki fandom.

But I ended up with the opposite. Careless wording from my stupid, stupid brain. Making people upset during Christmas. I haven't said I'm sorry enough. I'm sorry. Yet, I'm not even brave enough to directly tell the fandom that I'm sorry. I've always been a coward. I'm sorry.

Soon after my now-deleted post, I got replies from Ichiruki fans, explaining how I had implied Orihime-dislikers were bad or conflated with the "extremists", how I had made them upset, and made them feel like I was saying that Ichiruki fans like them were the "extremists" in the fandom. (Thanks to darisu-chan for giving me some benefit of the doubt.) I didn't even have the courage to reply. To clarify. To make them less upset during the holidays. I'm very sorry. But I also don't know if me trying to continue any kind of contact would just make things worse. I've demonstrably proven to be unable to word things carefully enough to not accidentally hurt others' feelings. And that's not what we should be getting out of fandom. This is supposed to be fun and cathartic, and maybe even a little enlightening. I created the exact opposite of all those things. And I'm sorry to have exposed you all to my stupid. I''m afraid I'll just hurt everyone again.

After those Replies, I checked out the Ichiruki tag for the first time. Your guys' descriptions of some of the harassment that was going on in the fandom _towards_ Ichiruki fans was so appalling, I couldn't finish reading most of it. I began to understand the point of view I was missing. Maybe being an Ichiruki fan meant being rightfully wary of harassment. Before, I didn't understand the accusations of "sucking up" to the Orihime fans. To me, it was generally accepted politeness, to not speak or assume badly of fans of characters/ships that I wasn't on; just like I expected them to do for me. Little did I know that Ichihime fans have reportedly burnt through all their good will already. I mean, I still don't want to assume that every single person who likes Ichihime or Orihime, is a harasser. But when I'm told the Ichihime fandom have repeatedly threatened bodily harm to Ichiruki fans, simply for disagreements of opinion on an anime...? I understand now why my attempts to include liking Orihime in tandem with being an Ichiruki fan, could be taken as offensive. If Ichihime fans were harassing with severe threats, like the few I've heard described, I can see how distance from any association with liking Orihime/Ichihime, would be the only safe bet. I don't want to police who is allowed to dis/like Orihime/Ichihime, but I can now understand why associating with it can be distasteful. And I understand now why my post trying to squeeze together any association was pretty offensive. I'm sorry you guys had to go through that. I'm sorry I reminded you of the most toxic parts of the fandom. I'm sorry.

Though I'm still too chicken to tag anyone or the Ichiruki tag. But I'm sorry. I hope that my demonstrably exacerbating words will fade away and stop annoying your minds. I hope that not tagging anyone, not risking my words making things worse, will be the right decision. ...I say as I finish up this long, long set of words. Maybe my apology will sound like nothing more than excuses, instead of sincerity. I hope that I can stop plaguing the fandom.

And in that spirit, I will ensure this never happens again, by no longer posting negativity to the Bleach fandom or the Ichiruki tag. This all started when I made that stupid mistake. I never should have reacted to that Tweet; all I did was spread its negativity to other people. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have written or posted while angry.

I hope you all managed to have a merry Christmas, regardless.

I'm sincerely sorry.

#sorry #apology #apologies #i'm sorry #toxic fandom #venting #ranting #this is my reminder to stop posting negativity #sodiumhypochloriteBleachIchiruki

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

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I completely understand where you are coming from. I got active in fandom to find people to connect with over similar interests as a way to help me cope with what has been a very rough year. And while a lot of people I've met here are great and wonderful and like having discussions, there is also a larger part that comes across as almost unbearably antagonistic. It seems like everyone is trying to out 'woke' each other and find a new person or idea to demonize. This has made being in this space very uncomfortable, and I'm honestly terrified I'm going to post or say something that someone is going to latch onto as the new big bad thing to get everyone to rally against. There's almost a mob mentality going on with the younger crowd, and it is very unhealthy.

This so much!!! That’s exactly why I made this post. I get that this has been a stressful year so tensions and moods are probably high/unstable. Hell, I know that I snapped on one or two people who didn’t really deserve it. But like that’s still not okay. It wasn’t okay for me to give those users a hard time for no reason. And it’s unacceptable for others to do that too. Like we can’t be using tough times as an excuse to be rude to people. Of course it’s a lot harder to keep oneself in check when stressed, depressed, etc. but again, ya gotta have the awareness to realize that mistakes have been made.

That said I definitely agree that people are trying to out woke each other and that just feels so hostile. I’m a biromantic ace and some of the stuff I’ve been seeing has been a little off putting for me. I am still 100% not over that person who accused me of being a transphobe over a mistake. I’m not over it because that’s when I started losing my will to write. And people who know me know that that’s an extremely bad sign. Like that shit has put me in a very bad place. I use fics and fandom to cope as well as concerts and I have none of those things right now so I’m kind of just not doing good. This ties into the fandom thing because overall this cancel culture is very dangerous. If someone makes a steep accusation like that it can really hurt a person not just online but offline too. “ I'm honestly terrified I'm going to post or say something that someone is going to latch onto as the new big bad thing to get everyone to rally against.” Is exactly what I’m trying to say with the above and I feel like a lot of people are thinking the same thing but they are too afraid to even speak up about feeling this way. That in itself is a problem. If you’re afraid to even talk about what you’re afraid of/concerned about.

And it never used to be like this. I remember when I could go into a fandom space and just nerd out. There wasn’t an agenda. Politics wasn’t always the discussion. It came up every now and again but it wasn’t overwhelming. These days I think that people can over-analyze things too much. Politics and analysis in fandom is (like anything else) fine in moderation. But if you do it too much it gets to a point where you can’t even enjoy the thing you like anymore.

I also remember when teens were the ones writing the ‘lemons’ and they would try to sneak around the adults to do it. That’s where I think I get whiplash. My gen of fans had secret stashes of lewd art and fics when they were teens. The new gen doesn’t like that stuff. I’m not saying that they’re wrong, if they don’t like that stuff, that’s just fine. The problem is when they start to demonize people who disagree and do enjoy the lewd and dark stuff.

Tbh I’m kind of worried about that gen because it really does seem unhealthy to me as well. I hope that, that doesn’t sound patronizing. But I do feel like this kind of purity, one mistake and you’re done mentality is dangerous and stressful.

NGL I was shaking when I came across the transphobe post because I am aware of the mob mentality. Cancel culture, mob culture, and purity culture are all horrifying especially when combind (as they often are).

Sometimes cancel culture can be good (like how Chris Brown got cancelled for beating Rihanna). But that’s only with SOLID proof. The problem is that people like to make baseless claims and many will just follow the herd and attack the accused unquestionably and without doing research for themselves and getting the full story. I think that the only reason I sort of got away was because I caught the post 1. before they blocked me and 2. when it only had like two notes so I got the chance to explain myself. A lot of people don’t get that; they just get blocked so they can’t explain their side. And everyone just attacks them without question. And 90% there is very little to no proof.

A lot of the times innocent people get cancelled (think Johnny Depp). I think that people have weaponized cancel culture; if they don’t like you or your opinions they will either twist your words or dig years deep into your past and find one mistake and then it’s over. And that’s horrifying to me both for old and new gen fans.

And I do think that this is a very new gen problem because I have never seen that until the past like 3-4 years. Like I started to see it a bit in 2016 (that’s when I feel politics started entering fandom) but cancel and purity culture is relatively new.

I hate cancel culture much more than purity culture. Purity culture I feel at least has good intent at heart. Cancel culture is often malicious and used for vengeance & bullying. It also doesn’t leave room for mistakes (which everyone makes) and growth.

Sorry, I got a bit long there but this is a topic that I’ve been meaning to discuss and I have a lot of opinions on this.

#fandom culture #Purity Culture #cancel culture #fandom #rant #Anti Purity Culture #anti cancel culture

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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I don't know if you want to talk about this (and feel free to ignore this if you don't want to answer), but I wanted to ask which side of the Ethren mess you're on? I know in the beginning you were on his side, but I've seen so much hate and so many accusations and I don't know what to believe anymore, and I trust your judgement

I have to be honest -- when I first saw that a blog had been created with the specific purpose of “calling out” someone in the HPHM fandom...I blocked it.

I come to this fandom largely to escape from the real world. It’s been one of the few remaining sanctuaries I’ve had during this quarantine and from my own mental health problems. I’ve made a lot of friends in this community, and I feel very strongly about putting out more positive content than negative, as well as trying to digest more positive than negative. I don’t like the thought of a stranger posting stuff online about someone else who -- let’s be honest -- nobody truly knows unless they actually physically know them IRL. Unless one wants to go down an entire rabbit hole of getting to know a person uncomfortably well, there’s not much anyone can do to prove what’s true. And I know it sounds really immature and selfish of me, but...I was never that interested in learning much about this fandom’s members’ personal lives, excluding what the friends I’ve made have been willing to confide in me on a case by case basis. I have plenty of my own drama happening over here on my side, and I just want to have fun roleplaying with people’s characters and making content for both mine and theirs. It’s been one of the few things that helped me fight back my untreated and severe chronic depression after being furloughed from my job thanks to the COVID-19 shutdown. My job had been my escape, and without it, I was drowning -- one of my only life preservers was making content for this blog. So for my own mental health, I shut out the negativity, because I wasn’t emotionally or mentally able to deal with it. And admittedly, it felt to me as though this sort of thing really shouldn’t be handled online when -- again -- this sort of thing seems like it’d be better handled in the real world and the legal system, rather than in the court of mostly anonymous public opinion. And it also feels kind of nasty to reblog content from people online who simply liked the character Ethren Whitecross and made fan content for him, just to harangue them for it. It’s like attacking all Harry Potter fans for being transphobic just because they enjoyed something created by a trans-exclusionary radical feminist -- particularly when in the case of Ethren, the vast majority of us don’t know Ren personally. One could’ve related to Ethren’s story without knowing anything about his creator, and people did, often not because of any kind of malevolent reasons.

After receiving this message, though, I unblocked the blog in question and read some more of their posts. When I’d first blocked it, the only post of theirs I saw in the HPHM tag came across as rather hostile, and combined with Ren’s blog saying that an ex was stalking him, I don’t think it’s unsurprising that some people were initially warded off by it. But reading some of the other stuff written on that blog since...I must acknowledge there’s a lot of troubling stuff there. It made me very upset, and made me kind of regret that I’d initially jumped into making a stance without hearing both sides. But at the same time, considering that someone from outside the fandom had arrived specifically to target someone in the fandom, supposedly on behalf of someone else who also had no ties to the fandom, it looked a lot like cyberbullying to me at the time. Now it’s very clear there’s more to the story, and for that initial leap to judgment, I am sorry. I wasn’t in a place where I understood fully what the discussion was about before I took a side, and that’s something I should know better than to do.

But I think this comes down to, in the end, my answer to your question, regarding sides.

I don’t want to take a side -- because I didn’t come to the HPHM fandom to fight people. I came here to be happy.

I know someone could read this as cowardly and ignorant, but please, understand that I thought long and hard about this. This place has been a safe space for me, and I understand it has been for others as well -- a place where we can go to enjoy art and fanfiction for something we enjoy and roleplay as new, interesting characters with other people who have similar interests and creative leanings. I thoroughly understand that it can’t truly be a safe space if we allow people who would threaten other people’s safety into it, and I also thoroughly understand that people can include problematic aspects of themselves into their characters along with good things (just look at how J.K.’s apparent subliminal views on the LGBT+ community influenced how she’s handled Dumbledore). Both things are definitely things to be aware of, and it’ll be an ongoing struggle to try to propagate a truly welcoming and positive, and yet safe and supportive community. There will always be shadows and dark spots that aren’t easy to see, just like with all fandoms, and it’s good to now and again take the time to examine them.

But to quote a line from one of my favorite songs, “it’s hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead.” I cannot log onto my computer and into this fandom every day and think about openly attacking someone else, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. This feels like something that the victim should handle herself in the real world, and I truly hope that she finds peace in whatever path she takes. But that is her story to tell, to write, and to play out -- it’s not mine. Mine is a story I have written and am still writing, where I’ve tried to find a way to be happy and be a good person despite everything in my life that has made that so difficult. And so I truly feel the only way I can approach this situation is to not let the things that hurt and drain me have power over my life, and put my energy toward things that build me up instead. I try not to visit tags or places online that could be triggering, and simply enjoy the things I do like. I’ve stopped spending money on things Harry Potter-related because of Jo’s stance on transgender rights, but still engage in the HP fandom and celebrate what is good in the original material and especially what its fandom has made out of it. In this case, I will simply do the same, particularly since from the look of things, Ren’s blog is no longer around for anyone to interact with anyway, positively or not. I’ll engage with blogs whose work I can still enjoy and give me some light when I most need it, and try my best to keep creating more light of my own for others. I will light candles, and little by little, I’d like to think the room will be bright enough that the dark will be significantly smaller and less scary than it was.

I understand if any of you disagree with or are angry about anything I’ve said. I know “playing both sides” is not a great thing to do, and I truly don’t mean to. But I’m afraid I do have to take my own side here, for my own mental and emotional well-being. I responded to this Ask because I felt like saying nothing would’ve truly been the cowardly thing to do, by pretending the issue isn’t there at all. I’m not pretending it isn’t there -- but I do think it’s a battle I’m ill-equipped to engage in, not because of my personal morals, but because I don’t feel emotionally able to play the role of judge, jury, and executioner in this court of public opinion.

#ask me #personal #fandom issues #opinion #*heavy sigh*#hphm #hogwarts mystery

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eradicatetehnormal · 3 years

Text

In The Case Of Shipping. Queer Ships and Straight Ships

A topic I will never shut up about. Before I start I will admit, I am on the queer side of fandom a lot more often than I am on the straight side and I will be speaking from that perspective. If you have another perspective to share with me, please do so respectfully.

Shipping will always be something that gray to me. I like shipping culture and enjoy certain communities around certain ships, but people getting way too defensive about it will always be something to drags me emotionally. It makes me sad especially when it's people who are like me. Fellow queer shippers trying to explain why certain things between two characters can be seen as queer coding and then being called delusional by people who are either willfully ignorant or simply don't understand the point of queer coding. That's not to say queer shippers are without fault, however. We do have a really terrible tendency of calling people who don't like our ship homophobic and ignoring characters from other media that ARE actually written to be queer, in favor of continuing to argue that there are next to no queer characters in the content they like. While they are scarce they are not non-existent. Not to mention, a decent amount of character portrayals do tend to be very extremely sexual and can be found in places that they do not belong.

That being said straight shippers aren't without their faults either. For starters, I don't really see this being brought up, but they also like to portray characters in very sexual ways as well. Particularly, male characters, with a popular means of sexualization being centered around predatorial behavior towards one of the female characters, or being a C H A D. Again, I personally don't have a particular issue with this, but just like queer sexual content, it does not belong where anyone can see it. Straight shippers also have a bad habit of calling queer shippers p*dos and perverts, even for the most inoffensive gay fan content imaginable.

With so much tension heating up between two groups, any interaction can come off as an attack even if that wasn't the intention. We queer shippers tend to get sensitive when someone has the opinion that our ship isn't real. Now sometimes we are justified in getting annoyed with these people as some of them will go out of their way to find joke posts and innocent fan art of a same-sex ship and pull that line, even though that wasn't really the point of the original post. However, even in people's own spaces when they aren't going out of their way to attack us, we still get offended. What gives? So let's take a tweet that's similar to what I'm describing:

(obviously, this is a fake image, I'm just using it to get my point across)

Now on its own, there's nothing wrong with this tweet. In general, there's nothing with this tweet. It's just showing frustration with people making every relationship a romance even if two characters only interacted for a few minutes. That's true. Shippers do enjoy pairing two people together, particularly men, who don't really interact with each other. Here's the thing though. This is an argument that's very popular and one that's been used by some not-so-well-meaning people.

Alright, it's sad people hours now, sorry sis. So for a good amount of queer people who are online or are big fans of fiction, fandom has been a big part of their lives. Shipping, in particular, holds a special place in many queer fans' hearts as, even though it's pathetic, ships were a lot of people's first exposure to genuinely queer content focused around queer characters. It would be through this shipping that a lot of people would find friends who were into the same media and fan content. Some of these people would grow up together and eventually find out that the other was queer. Some of these people would go on to have romantic relationships with each other, and because they meant because of a ship, would go on to continuously celebrate it as if it were real because part of the reason their romance is real is because of that ship. Sometimes people will hold certain ships dear to their heart because they were able to use them to not only find other people like them but explore their own sexual and romantic orientation via fan fiction and fan art.

The attachment to fictional, non-canon relationships would be met with consequences, however. A lot of people would become TOO immersed in their ship and would start to get into debates with straight shippers. Many of which were, unfortunately, homophobic or queerphobic in some way. A lot of the arguments these people would use were a lot of the arguments used today. "Said ship isn't real, you're delusional", "That wasn't the writer's intention", "Stop forcing your ship onto other people", "Two people can't be friends anymore".

It's when you look at it through this lens:

That the fake tweet above starts to look like it was trying to say something a bit different:

Now is this what the tweet is actually saying? Probably not. TityMaster69 might be someone who has faced harrasment from shippers innocently trying to vent out their feelings, but because many people with malicous intentions have said the exact same things and used it as an excuse to speak ill of queer people in fandom, it FEELS a lot more mean-spirited than it might actually be. To add to that, many malicious people have used the reactions of queer shippers as a means of giving a pass to genuine queerphobia inside fandom outside of shipping:

The screenshot ARE real this time and in are relation to this btw:

https://twitter.com/samelCamelCase/status/1382846776806412290

Now to be fair StarVolt358 did apologize to the person who retweeted the post, but the fact that they even brought it up at such an inappropriate time does still prove my point because, in a way, they did bring it up to draw less attention to the queerphobia in the KH fandom.

Stuff like this has led to queer shippers being berated and attacked by straight shippers in the community, even though in some cases they can do more damage than the people they're calling out. Let's not forget when Reylo fans doxxed and harrassed the actors because they didn't like whatever happened in the Rise of Skywalker, or when Sokai fans harrassed the voice actor SpuukyLIVE on Twitter for joking that the scene in kh2 when Sora sees Riku again was gay.

As I do not have a lot of energy, there are a lot of nuances I've missed, like many people who like queer m/m ships being straight teen girls and not actual queer people or queer people who like straight ships. This was, however, just a post to get my full thots out there. I'll shut up now.

#queer ships #ships #shipping #fandom #fandom stuff #fandom culture #fandom critique #fandom shipping

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tothemeadow · 3 years

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I've been a proshipper for awhile now but I don't think I want to be anymore? I'm not an anti either though. Maybe I just need a fresh online start? I know it all comes down to not bullying others, which I would never do but there's so much casual racism in the community and whenever I bring it up I get told it's just fiction. As a poc seeing people with blm in their bio creating media that exists solely on race, whitewashing, or stereotypes feels bad. My friends also screenshot teenagers that say they don't like problematic content (not being violent, just complaining in their circle) and then make a whole thread mocking them and it makes me feel sick. Idc that "that's what antis do", two wrongs don't make a right. Idk, I just feel too old for discourse posting (I'm only 22) and I realized that I want to enjoy my problematic content on my own I guess. Barely any of these issues exist off the internet. I like all the characters I want without judgement AND I can also freely say "fictional 18+ content of a 5 year old is weird" and not get an essay about how I'm trying to commit mass censorship. I don't want to be harassed by people for what I like, but I don't want to be called a cop for saying "maybe writing the N word in this fic as a white person is bad." I ESPECIALLY don't want to be gaslit and told that the people doing it aren't "real" proshippers. Sorry for ranting, I just feel alone on this I guess.

I’m glad you feel comfortable getting this off your chest, and I appreciate your honesty. Perhaps I can provide some comfort ot advice?

First and foremost, ship whoever the fuck you want. As long as it’s legal, go for it. Frankly, I ship characters because there’s nice pieces of art/writings? Also, it’s a fictional character and there’s worse things in the world to worry about?

Anyway, the internet is a shit place. While there’s incredible things out here, people strive for negativity to the point where it isn’t even funny. Since things are “anonymous” or not face-to-face, people act like cowards and target others since they “can’t get in trouble.” In my opinion, people tend to lack maturity when it comes to the internet and it’s disgusting. This is a big reason why I don’t have many social media accounts, and by god it’s one of the best decisions of my life. I’d rather spend my time worrying about my frail grandmother who has Alzheimers rather than argue with some stranger over an issue that neither of us can control.

As for the race issue, I try to keep things neutral as possible in my works. Unless somebody specifically asks for something, that’s how I try to do it. I myself am white, and I know a lot of works cater to lighter skin people. It’s unfair, yes, but there’s nothing I can do personally about the issue. (This is where my POC writers come and serve justice, to kudos to you 👏👏👏)

What I’m trying to say is that the internet is not a good place. While there IS some safe spaces, overall it’s shit. People do get sensitive for the wrong reasons, and it completely blows my mind for their arguments. Maybe I sound like an asshole about this, but I truly do think people are wasting their time and energy on trying to bring others down. If someone randomly left a message in my inbox saying something along the lines of “you suck, fuck off,” like... Who cares? They’re probably gonna be on anon anyway? Whatever I write and post is not affecting your life whatsoever, besides the point of you “not liking it.”

And that’s what it boils down to. If people don’t agree with each other, they tear the other down. And it’s like hey, if you wanna act like a damn monkey, go to a zoo. I understand that people don’t share the same ideology as me, but come on. It’s not hard to not treat others like shit. Then again, common decency is too hard to understand nowadays, at least at a majority level.

I probably sound like I’m preaching or I’m saying I’m better than others. And you know what? That’s okay. Why? Because I respect others, especially online. If I don’t like what I see, I click away rather than target them and try to make them feel like shit. Like what RuPaul said, it is NOT your business what other people think of you. If they don’t like you, who cares? If they don’t like what you’re into, who cares? As far as I’m concerned, it’s your own life and you can do as you please.

I realized I’m rambling, wow. I may have gotten off topic >.> Either way, I’m trying to say is “do what you want.” Granted, I’m not saying you should do illegal shit, but just... enjoy what you want? I don’t think I can convey this through text, and I apologize. Being online means you have to walk on eggshells constantly, and that’s what sucks about it. I mean, aren’t most things out there for our enjoyment? Who decided it would be a good idea to knock that idea and turn communities into such toxic places?

If I could rewrite the world, I would. I personally apologize if my words seem “typical” in any sort of way. I know people tend to write with their familiar with, and maybe of caution? Like, they don’t want to screw something up? I dunno. This is a big rant, yada yada, and I don’t know if it makes sense or even helps. I’ve said numerous times that I want this blog to be an open place, so I thank you for being honest.

#empress talks

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