EDIT: THIS POST IS INACCURATE !!!

I made the assumption Olive was editing the wiki articles, and while that's a very logical conclusion to reach, it was actually someone who shares the same viewpoints as them!!! Anything including the wiki articles and Olive's involvement is wrong and that's my bad!!!

Alright fellas, I guess we did it. We have reached the tipping point. I'm going to dedicate this post to calling out one specific person, @olivescales3, and their very toxic behavior. This post will be a bit messy, and I do apologize in advance, I'm writing this from the perspective of a Ninjago fan who also thinks beyond just the petty fandom stuff, what they're doing is just not cool.

I will clarify, I do not make this post for petty fandom drama, I make this to better spread awareness on some of the bullshit they're doing, so you can look out for and understand that they're bullshitting. Without further ado, I think we should just get into it.

So, what have they done?

Now, I should say while there is no 100000% concrete link between hyenabro and olivescales, I think based on their talking points (as well and the information I've recieved from friends in the Chima fandom, who have a bunch of prior experience with them,) it's safe to make this assumption!

So, what has olivescales DONE in this case? Simple, they've vandalized the Chima wiki on NUMEROUS occasions, even after several different people have revised their revisions, so as to discredit any conenctions between Dragons Rising and Chima.

(Green is their edits, red is the ones prior to theirs, I found this while going through their contributions section on their Fandom account, HyenaBro119)

As seen here, they have (under the username HyenaBro119) edited the pages for Chima AND the Forever Rock (I have two similar screenshots of essentially the same thing, one was from the Forever Rock article, the other was from Chima) and claimed Ninjago's lore to be some alternate universe. To further validate it, they write "Ras' visit to," but Ras NEVER claimed to have VISITED these locations, just that he knows them. They also claim the Forever Rock was destroyed, a blatant lie. Only a small section of rock on the Forever Rock was actually destroyed, not the whole thing.

Now, you're gonna ask "but Raine, how can you 100000% say it's them?" and I will cite common sense. While I cannot directly tie Olive to hyena, I CAN say their wording is SO very similar.

Both Hyena and Olive call DR "a parallel/alternate universe," and again, claim Forever Rock was destroyed, WHICH IS A FULL ON LIE. They're so adamant to protect "the sanctity of Chima's pre-established, set-in-stone lore" that they can't stop to think maybe, JUST MAYBE, sometimes a story can get new lore which can ALSO be canon!

I'd also love to share this HILARIOUS screenshot of one of their many posts, which not only backs up what I'm saying, but it's like damn they really set themself up huh!

Gee I wonder why you feel alone! Maybe it's because you are! Maybe it's because you're lying and making shit up to prove yourself right! No one is as big of a hater as you!

The also LOVE saying Ninjago cannot do anything with Chima unless they get express permission from the creator of Chima, some guy named John Derevlany, but oh man what's this I see before me?

CO-CREATOR? Oh but Olive, I thought he was the CREATOR of Chima, not CO-creator... ALSO Lego owns the rights to Chima, and Ninjago, and every other theme, as said by Doc himself! If anything he wasn't really dodging the question, just giving a vague answer, because he doesn't know much about the old contracts!

From what he said, it's clear that if they wanted to use anything from the other themes, they'd have to consult folks over at LEGO, not John Derevlany or Tommy A.!

Now here's the THING, I GET where they're coming from, it CAN be annoying to have people only care about a thing you like in relation to something else, but when you're going out of your way to argue that none of it can be canon and it's all an alternate universe it's like... god it's so sad and pathetic really.

Their lies and BS don't even end there with the wiki shit, because I have THIS glorious gem.

A) They bring up that the Ninjago folk do not know who the Phoenixes are which is like, okay??? Why the fuck are they gonna know about how another universe was created??? That's like if someone told me I don't exist in the same universe as my glasses because I have no clue who made them, that is to say, that's stupid as FUCK to say!

B) OH they say something REAAALLL funny ohohohho I am actually dying. Olive says the Phoenix icon "appeared in a Ninjago episode" and "Ninjago tends to reuse assets." Yep, NINJAGO is the one who reused the phoenix symbol, mhm. The symbol that was made in 2011 for NINJAGO, which cameoed in CHIMA in 2014, was actually just an asset reuse by Ninjago. I feel like this actually goes to show how desparate they are to feel right and validated, because this? This a lie! Ninjago made the symbol, and because Tommy A. is co-creator to both, he wanted to slip in a neat Ninjago reference, so he slipped in the Phoenix symbol Nya uses for the Phoenix tribe, not the other way around!

Another REALLY funny thing they did, aside from the wiki and Phoenix symbol shit, was this hilarious attempt at being right!

Yes, the compared the WOLF Masks to BATman's cowl, and did a horribly rough comparison illustration that very much does not make sense. If you actually compared them side by side, the only similarities would be they're both angry animal themed mask with pointy ears, which does NOT go very far in the long run. The foreheads they drew aren't even the same fucking shape lol.

OH ANS WE CANNOT FORGET THIS ONE! Their using a post about the Palestinian genocide and boycotting Lego in order to complain about Ninjago.

They claim Ninjago is produced by Lego, unlike other Lego shows, which is an EXTREMELY bullshit fucking claim. Just like Chima and Nexo Knights, Ninjago is produced by Lego, it's not JUST Ninjago produced by Lego, they are all Canadian-Danish CGI action shows, and they're all known to have Tommy Andreasen involved in the creation of them.

They're using a post about boycotting for the sake of innocent people DYING to complain about a lego ninja show for... killing evil people? It doesn't glorify war, the worst it does in regards to war is like not address how fucked up it can be in regards to the Serpentine War, but that's like it. I think it's so funny they want to single out Ninjago as if it's the only TV series where villains die for trying to conquer/destroy the world.

So, what do I want the takeaway from this post to be? What do I want you to get from it? I don't really know anymore, I just don't want Olive's horrendously toxic behaviors, and straight up lies to stop. If anything I think it's beautiful that Ninjago is making others interested in revisiting Chima again, stop being such a fucking hater dude. They act like Chima is some holy grail of Lego, the greatest thing since bread, but it, just like Ninjago, Dreamzzz, Hidden Side, and Nexo Knights, have Tommy in creative roles.

To act like Chima is somehow greater than is to place it on an unrealistic pedestal as if it's a godsend, when in reality it was co-created by Tommy Fucking Andreasen.

If you read through all of this, I do THOROUGHLY appreciate it, I didn't mean for this post to descend into an angry ramble but ehhh yk how it is. And Olive, if you see this, please, just stop with the bullshit.

tw - sa mention, noncon mention, dark content discussed briefly but not explicitly

hi okay sorry for the unfathomable amount of bullshit clogging the tags the past few days. i keep seeing it labelled as gilfhub drama which is pissing me off as i haven’t said anything at all, i’ve stayed quiet throughout unless you follow me and read my posts. while i haven’t outwardly inserted myself into the situation im the one being witch hunted ig, i’m making one last statement which sounds way too serious for this corny and unserious situation.

anyway, i'm mostly making this for my own benefit, because i would feel more at peace after posting this lmfao. first of all, I’m being called a pedophile which is a fucking insanely serious claim to make with no concrete evidence! i’ve never written underage characters. if you’ve mistaken my ddlg content as pedophillia i beg you to get your brain checked! your skull must be so thick it couldn’t be caved in with a baseball bat. other than that i mainly write about LEGAL age gaps bc I am 19 and leon is fucking 47 as of now he is the creep actually.

i’m being called a rapist and a paedophile and all sorts of shit. im a victim of sa, it’s happened both at the hands of someone i trusted and at the hands of those i didn’t know well. some of my writing is to cope with this, none of my fics have ever romanticised rape and made it seem like something flowery and cute and fun? i don’t know who pulled that out of their ass but my fics that involve this sort of content are usually about toxic codependent relationships, it’s quite literally about trauma bonding.

this moves me onto my next point - people say this content belongs on ao3 and ao3 only. i don’t know if you’re 11 and new to the internet, to re fandom in fact, as dead dove has been a consistent theme within re fics since forever. since i was a kid i saw fics like that and even as a fucking 10 year old i managed to scroll and mind my business. tumblr has always had dead dove, when it rebranded and the guidelines changed they messed up their tagging system. this means that even if you tag tw incest it’ll remove your fic from the TAGS not from tumblr itself but from the tags as a whole. however, if you tag tw noncon your fic will stay up, it’s glitchy and dumb and shouldn’t be seen as a reliable source on why dead dove isn’t allowed on tumblr. that’s never been the case ever.

people who write dead dove don’t have to be victims and they don’t have to be mentally ill, they are also normal people with jobs who pay taxes and have normal fucking lives. because it’s simply fiction. people who read/watch american psycho are not murderers or rapists. people who watch any form slasher horror are not murderers. people who enjoy resident fucking evil and like wesker don’t fucking believe in eugenics. i could go on and on and on and on about so many different examples in extremely popular franchises.

as aforementioned, tumblr’s tagging system fucking sucks, so to combat this i give a warning even AFTER i explicitly tag my fics correctly that says ‘tumblr has started to remove fics that use tw non-con, tw incest and any nsfw tags in general. for this reason, as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags so i can have the same reach as other authors, please understand that this fic contains dark content under the cut. reading this comes at your own risk.’ for some reason I didn’t specify remove from the TAGS not from TUMBLR because tumblr doesn’t care 😭 that was totally my mistake for not checking if that disclaimer made sense but i guess i hoped the following sentence (‘as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags’) made it clear that i was simply speaking about tags. not tumblr removing my content.

if you are genuinely adults on this app, you should know that on the internet sometimes you will see things you don’t like! because it’s the internet and everyone is on here with their own opinions and their own tastes. it is YOUR responsibility to cater to your own needs by blocking content you don’t enjoy. so what another dark content blog pops up? as soon as you see a content warning you don’t like, BLOCK THE AUTHOR? or ignore it! scrolling is very simple. it’s insanely easy to mind your fucking business.

i'm kind of tired of the endless harassment both in the tags and in my inbox! if you are genuinely doing this in the name of victims and in their best interest just know you’re harming other victims in the process 😭 i am not easily triggered but the shit in my inbox is really gross and i got called a racial slur like… is fictional content that’s easy to block so deep to the point where you have to stoop that low? everyone copes how they cope, it’s not wrong and it never will be, psychologists recommend dark content as an outlet, you can literally google this. therapy is not a fix, it can’t fix mental illness. sometimes it doesn’t help. in my case counselling made everything worse. the ‘get help, get therapy’ comment comes from a place of privilege, not all of us have the money, the support system it takes to get therapy. some of us have had experiences where therapists discriminate against us. in my case that has happened, im a woc in britain they don’t care about us not about our psychical or mental health LMFAO.

im sure im missing a lot of what i originally wanted to say here, but overall i honestly wanted to clear my name of the pedo allegations lmfao because i’ve never written anything like that about underage characters or readers. anyway if any of you have a brain you can block dark content creators in a few easy steps! sorry again for yapping in such a formless, inarticulate way but i'm kind of exhausted by all the stupidity 😭

overall, dark content creators shouldn’t be allocated a little hovel in the corner of the internet in which they should privately discuss matters. we’re allowed to post it freely because CONTENT WARNINGS EXIST. dead dove will always be a thing and always has been. just because i post my content doesn’t mean it’s open for harassment and death threats and rape threats or anything? you can be an adult and get on with your day! and if you really need an outlet go talk to friends with the same opinions as you! i see ooc leon fluff all the time everyday and i don’t give a shit, i move on because leon isn’t real.

i pride myself on characterisation and if you have so obsessively read my fics to point out and circle random words in red that don’t correlate like we’re in a fucking crime show, then you would know that half the time i actually flesh out his character, i hate posting smut alone. i simply like exploring topics that are dark both to cope with my own problems and because i think they’re interesting to write about. however, as soon as something is mildly dark and sexual you guys cry mischaracterisation. leon also isn’t lighting candles and throwing rose petals but I don’t fucking judge what people write because if I don’t like I don’t read!

i promise, posting screenshots of my fics untagged with no warning is more harmful as you’re showing it to people who didn’t ask to fucking see it. i promise that harassing me will do nothing for you, you’re literally just sending vile shit to a real person who has struggled with the things she writes about LMFAO sorry again for yapping. i genuinely want to move on and post my regular shit but this has consumed the entire leon tag and i feel like im partly responsible. if you did get through this thank you! it’s mainly just ramblings and not read over so excuse me once again

I don't get why people want to pretend Ed wasn't abusive. Why do people insist on making everything into binaries? Yes, Ed has been a victim of abuse. Yes, he has been abusive. Both things can be true. I love him because I think he's in interesting and I understand where his pain is coming from (even if I think S2 was a missed opportunity in terms of character development). But anyway, thank you for writing about this because maybe some folks genuinely don't recognize abusive trends.

I think it has a lot to do with the fandom culture of only being allowed to like "wholesome" ships.

Look at it this way: when season 1 was airing, Ed and Stede were, in fact, very wholesome. Sure, they had some moments of lesser wholesomeness, but overall they were pretty wholesome and sweet and gentle. They were sweet and finding love in middle age and it was adorable. They had a general stamp of fandom approval that they were, in fact, Wholesome And Good To Ship™.

If you look at other fandoms, you'll see a lot of times there's the Good And Acceptable Ship and then there's the Bad Ship (or ships) and the Bad Ship is always slapped with the "oh that's actually incest!" label when they've, idk, grown up together, or "oh it's abusive!" because one of them one time made a bad joke or something, or "power dynamics!" because one is 27 and one is 25 or one is short and the other is tall or whatever, and yeah sometimes the Bad Ship is actually toxic or whatever (which is not a reason to not ship and enjoy it!), but they're put in neat little boxes: Good and Bad.

And for a lot of people, those boxes keep them safe. Last year, someone who was an Izzy Hands fan got doxxed because...? They liked Izzy Hands and shipped him with... I don't know actually. Ed? Stede? It doesn't matter, all I know is they got doxxed.

The side of fandom that thinks you should only ship the Good Ship are toxic and downright dangerous. It's happened again and again in numerous fandoms and just keeps happening.

So when at the end of s1, Ed turned around and cut Izzy's toe off and fed it to him, I think a lot of people panicked because shit, now Ed was Bad too, and if he's Bad then you can't like him or relate to him or ship him with the Good guy of Stede, so what the fuck do you do?

Obvious answer: Blame Izzy. Izzy's already classed as Bad, so put all the responsibility on Izzy for Ed's darkness and then it's safe to ship Ed and Stede again and no one can call you an abuse apologist or whatever for liking them together.

(To be clear: Shipping says nothing about your real morality. This is very clear for many reasons, one of which is... spend thirty seconds watching fans of the Wholesome Ships dox people and abuse people online lol)

So they spent all this time saying Ed was just scared and lashing out, and now s2 has come along and Ed is... well, abusive, canonically.

And for most of us, that doesn't really matter. We can still enjoy Ed and Stede or Ed and Izzy, we can throw ourselves into fanworks and enjoy the show for the things we like, and we can critique the things we have issues with (my problem is not Ed being written as dark and twisty and having a villain arc, my problem is the show writing it badly, exploring it badly, and then handwaving it, because it's shitty writing) and still really enjoy the vibes we got from the show.

But for people who are scared because they spent all this time saying Izzy fans should kill themselves for liking an abuser, well... now they have a choice: either admit Ed is an abuser and admit that liking a character doesn't dictate your irl morality, nor does it say anything about you aside from what you enjoy in fiction, or excuse away his actions, insist he's just a lil meow meow and continue feeling safe in their little bubble.

In a lot of ways I can't blame people for wanting to duck and cover from it. I mean, look at the shit people get for liking characters who aren't perfect, or talking about the imperfections of characters, or just enjoying complex narratives!

But what genuinely concerns me isn't anything to do with the fiction really, it's when people look at Ed's behavior in 2x01 and 2x02 and go, "Nah he's fine," because oh, honey, no, you are making yourself so vulnerable to real life abuse. That is what worries me, which is why I answered that one ask saying Ed wasn't abusive, it felt important to point out why he is.

Anyway, that's what I think is happening here. I think people are just scared that if they admit their fave has multitudes and isn't a perfect character who never does any wrong, they'll get doxxed and abused and harassed online.

I get that.

*TW*- i*cest, r*pe, g*re, p*dophilia, some general discourse

Ok so I am trying to ask this in the most respectful way because I don't wanna snowball this into a huge discourse; but I wonder if you've been seeing the Dark Content Discourse here on Tumblr?

It basically entails that despite your personal preferences, attacking/ demeaning other ppl who create/ consume dark content is a big no no because it's their safe space to be able to explore these topics. This includes all sort of stuff like i*cest, r*pe, g*re and even p*dophilia. Now you may not agree with any of these things, most ppl don't, and they might disgust you; which is totally fine. But there is a huge leap b/w something that is fictional and something that is real.

Fictional characters are literal lines on a paper. Doing anything with a fictional child does not mean you are harming a REAL child. This might still disgust you and that's fine too. You can block that person so you don't have to look at it again but to call everyone like this and start a campaign against them is well...

I just want you to know that I am not defending that person. I didn't even know them at all before this...Neither I am advocating for anything they are saying or confirming/claiming that they are good irl. I don't know them.

I just want you look at this from a different perspective and know your thoughts about this ordeal. Like for one moment step away from your pre-existing feelings and bias and look at this objectively. Everyone likes something that's even a lil problematic, so if we went on these campaigns every time, literally no one will be left in fandom. I don't agree with p*dophilia but I don't agree with this either...AGAIN THIS IS NOT MEANT TO CONDONE ANY OF THIS BEHAVIOUR! But to paint someone as a bad person for things they do in fiction in their safe space no matter how problematic, is somewhat disconcerting.

I again wanna say that this is not any hate against you or anyone else. I don't want to cause any discourse myself . I think you are an amazing writer and a valuable member in our fandom. Which is why it's important to me to hear your stance on this. But if you'd rather not answer this at all that's fine too! :>

I appreciate your perspective and I sometimes enjoy certain dark content as long as they warn others but pedophilia— fictional or not— should never be written/glorified/accepted. If it’s written as a horrible incident or traumatic backstory (like Lolita) then I understand why it’s written but glorifying or romanticizing it in any way is unacceptable.

If no one is left in the fandom after going on these “witch hunts” then the fandom is toxic, preditory, and unsafe.

As for the huge leap between fiction and reality, everything starts as a thought or fantasy. The more you think about it the more likely you are to commit or watch such an act.

Tumblr should under no circumstances be a safe place for pedophiles.

Like honestly it makes no sense the way some 911 fans are so fucking intense..🤨

Some actors and characters have done genuinely problematic shit (without any apologies) yet we leave them alone unless provoked.

But you have Tommy (a character that yes was problematic in the beginning but is now redeeming himself if he hasn't already. Like I've said previously him being a piece of shit in the toxic environment of the old 118 was part of his story, and necessary for his character arc. (Buck was an asshole in S1 so why don't we hate him??) That being said, everyone is entitled to form their own opinion on a character and it's fine if you don't like TOMMY. Hating on Lou though is a whole nother story, cause why would you hate on an unproblematic actor just for doing his job right?? That's crazy ass behaviour 😒😒.

Also recently some ancient IG lives by Ryan are starting to make rounds again, and it's kinda pissing me off.

I think we sometimes forget that actors are ppl too (meaning they also make mistakes) and just like you and me the most important thing is that they learn from said mistakes. I'm not excusing what happened (I'm Black) so... I understand just how offensive his ex-wife's actions were, but he apologised right? He learnt from his mistakes and he's shown growth. (But also honestly some of y'all are still hating on the man for defending his (now ex)wife's actions, not even doing the thing himself correct me if I'm wrong [nicely pls, I joined the fandom when the Ryan drama was dying down so I didn't experience it live]) yes I admit, he went about it the wrong way👀👀 but .. come on. Some fans be hating on him so fucking hard...honestly how the hell are you calling Ryan VOLDEMORT!!!, but refusing to talk about Ronen???🤨🤨 That man had already been through it with his crazy-ass ex, so can we please try show him some love now? 🥺🥺🙏🏽

I know you probably don’t want to dwell on the show and the negative but I absolutely hate what has happened on here and how hateful people are in the VC fandom it’s just very demoralizing and makes me want to retreat from anything besides the books completely. The discourse was spicy before the show but everything is just even more divisive now and it has sucked the fun out of it. Not really an ask more of a vent sorry

Hi there!

You’re correct that I don’t particularly find it fun to dwell on the negative stuff – as you said yourself, SOMETIMES THE DISCOURSE SUCKS THE FUN OUT OF IT. But I do understand how you feel and I want to say a couple things and I hope this helps you find a groove.

First of all, I did my best not to acknowledge it too much because I didn’t want to validate the folks who were being cunts to me lol, but please know that this fandom (at least on Tumblr) has ALWAYS been kinda fucking violent towards me LOL. I started VC tumbling back in 2016 and it’s ALWAYS been a fucking trash fire. It is hard out there for Marius stans lmfao.

Like, when I was first posting on Tumblr and acclimating to the Tumblr culture it was so much of like, me feeling brave enough to share meta only for someone to be RB’ing me to tell me I’m wrong, or me talking about how much I liked something about Marius only for someone to vague me, or it was me hosting the huge fandom Discord back in 2017 only for people to then come on tumblr and complain about how the Discord was way too Marius Friendly as if like, a drama-free space where we can discuss the books makes it a harbor for predators.

Of course I also had the gaggle of fucking morons who were constantly stalking me, catfishing their way into my servers to try to take screenshots and write call outs and cancel me, who would not stop preaching about how “all these big blogs” are “actually such terrible people” because “look at the things they ship” even when I’d never been unkind to them, even occasionally donated to their GFMs. These are folks who think they’re morally in the right for protecting the virtue of Armand’s poor teenage asshole and executed this justice by stalking and harassing an ACTUAL PERSON LOL. Like, listen. I’m sorry to burst ur bubble, but Armand doesn’t exist. He’s letters on a paper. I’m actually a real person and you’re up my fucking ass because I don’t’ even fucking know why, you’re jealous of my fucking Tumblr engagement or something? Which one of us is actually the creep here lol?? Is this a race to the bottom to be the valedictorian of clown school on the website for homeschooled clowns?

I’ve also had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of acephobic discourse, being told I don’t do enough to protect every individual in fandom from their own bullies as if it's my job to do that, being called ableist for how I wrote Daniel in my fics even though I was projecting and discussing my own personal experiences – I’ve also had a project collaborator have a tantrum and try to steal my work until I had to threaten with legal action, I’ve been put on block lists, I’ve had many people consume my fics in secret without actually leaving comments because I’m too toxic for them to communicate with in public.

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

This was all before AMC showed up LMFAO. It was not easy for me! It’s still not always easy!

And so yeah like, by nature of the fandom EXPLODING we are going to see more drama. More people is more drama. The nature of the discourse often hedges into real life issues that people are very opinionated and passionate about and there are conflicting needs inside the same space about how to hold conversations. Even just the other day I RB’d a joke about Anne Rice and OP got upset with me because they didn’t want actual fans interacting with it. Whoops! I didn’t know! I just thought it was funny. ;.;  

Even in good faith and with the best of intentions we’re going to step on each other’s toes, and we’re gonna find people we don’t vibe with. And that’s normal and it’s fine.

What ISN’T normal is this inability to disengage that I think we see often in online space, and I don’t want to get into a whole side essay about all the reasons why I think that happens. But sometimes you gotta be the bigger person and take it on the chin.

Like, yeah, it sucks. It sucks the fun out of the room when you share a space with such bitter people who can’t be kind to each other. But like. THAT’S A THEM PROBLEM, YOU KNOW? And I think we gotta remember that sometimes people like that do it for the attention or the spike of dopamine when they can pick a fight and honestly like, you don’t need to waste YOUR OWN time on it, but you’re also doing that person a kindness if you don’t enable the bad behavior.

And it sucks that Tumblr’s mute tools are awful!!!!! It would make navigating so much easier to be able to curate the dash a little better and keep the bad actors out of your space. I sometimes just fuck off and don’t even come online for days if I know I’m not in a good headspace and won’t have the strength to just fucking ignore it, because sometimes drama catches my eye and I get nosy and go down the rabbit hole, too – having ADHD makes it really hard to avoid sometimes LOL – but like I try to be reasonable and love myself enough to avoid it when I can help it. I’m not willing to make my own problems everyone else’s problem, and I hope that some of these shit starters in fandom will get there, themselves.

So yeah it blows when the vibes are fucking atrocious, and it REALLY blows when it’s a fandom this small where you can’t avoid it. Even when it’s a vocal minority it really just kills the fucking mood.

BUT WHAT I WILL SAY.

Whenever I say shit like “write what you want to read” and we’re talking about fanfic, or even meta or even silly headcanon posts or jokes, that also means draw what you want to see, it also means make what you want to hold, apply it to any creation you can think of. Put the thing you want to see into the world. And it counts for fandom, too.

I don’t want to be part of a fandom that’s constantly infighting and attacking people, so I don’t fight and attack people. I don’t want to be called a predator for being a Marius fan and so I don’t engage in posts that say as much, not even to argue, because I don’t want my followers (who might also be Marius fans!) to have to see that on their dash. I want us to protect our peace and create a space we want to be in.

Like I have a policy that any time someone says I’m a freak or any time I see truly godawful word salad discourse, I go out of my way to post something kinky and offputting about Marius LMFAOOOO  because I want to be surrounded by reasonable fun people who share my sensibility for fiction. AND SOMETIMES IT’S CRICKETS, AND SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO WORK HARD TO FIND YOUR PEOPLE. But at the end of the day I know I’m being my most sincere self and I’m trying to have a good time and just post fun things that I enjoy. And like, the book fandom is small as fuck and we’re all famished, but I think if more of us did that, we’d build a much more productive and tolerant space.

And for all the shit I’ve mentioned, all the drama and attacks and all the times people have harassed me or tried to make me feel small, you know what? I just got back from @apoptoses & @cup-of-lixx 's wedding and they met in VCblr! We spent all week with our VCblr friends! We all went to New Orleans together last Halloween !

When I used to work on ships it was like a fandom friend world tour! I had so many coffees in port with my vampire friends!

I’ve learned so much about writing from all the time I’ve spent here and the community of writer friends who supported me! There’s folks I met on VCblr that I talk to LITERALLY every day! They are such huge parts of my life and genuine life-long friends!!!!!!

Sometimes it seems like the ROI is garbage but like, so much of finding the joy is also learning to protect yourself from the negativity.

It IS out there. It DOES suck. And it’s lonely when you haven’t found your people yet. But fandom doesn’t have to be the 500 angry assholes arguing with each other about a fucking TV show, it can be your 3 besties in a private group chat having a great time.

Like I just drove @hekateinhell to the airport (met THROUGH TUMBLR!) and on the way back I was listening to an episode of Last Day and they were discussing the concept that “community is a life raft” and it hit me so hard man!!!!!!!!!!!

Find your people! Block the shit starters! Mute discourse buzzwords that you know are going to upset you!

Keep! Posting! What! You! Want! To! See!!

Fandom is self-generating, we can do this!

My inbox is always open and BELIEVE ME I have been motherfucking persona non grata in this place before and I know how rancid the vibe can be so please come talk any time it's grinding you down, I got you!!!!!!!!!!!!

honestly same...I also only stick to reading the same ifs I've been reading since like 2 years ago + as a disabled lgbt person this community has gotten to toxic to interact wth tbh

hmmm putting this under a read more but here's some ramblings about my personal experience as well as some advice if anyone wants it

before i started writing tnp, when i was just a reader, it was very easy to curate my space and avoid a lot of the nastier people (especially back when the forums were the main space for people to talk about IF. i didn't go on the forums at all) and i was very much outside of the fandom and followed only like one artist whose recommendations i started off with before finding more stuff on my own.

once i became an author though it is impossible to avoid certain groups of people and it's really hard to hold on to that comfortable space. over the last like 3 years now my audience has definitely changed and dwindled a lot due to my.... Big personality but before that i had to endure a lot of harassment, people stalking me, people harassing my friends just for being my friend, almost constant transphobia and racism, and even now i still have people that seem to just camp in my inbox waiting for any opportunity to try and hurt me/get a reaction out of me.

i've been pretty open about all of this stuff happening too which most people also don't like, though that seems to be pretty standard across any fandom when you try to talk about how bad they are. i'm never really surprised when other authors delete without any warning or they just slowly stop posting and never come back. it's definitely something i've wanted to do more than once and still think about sometimes. even now after finally seeming to find my "niche" and a more understanding audience, it's really hard and i struggle with finding inspiration and motivation because of how people have treated me.

unfortunately i think it's always been this way, it's the nature of sharing work online and especially with IF feeling so "collaborative" people really feel entitled to it. and i also see readers facing this same kind of harassment, too, so it's definitely not just an author problem.

my advice is to just block and ignore people as best you can and just stay in your own little bubble with your friends or at least people that you trust. if you're an author going through any of the things i mentioned then just know there are a lot of other authors that have had to go through it, too, and that you should also just block and ignore to the best of your ability. just because you're an author doesn't mean you have to tolerate it. i used to respond to a lot of messages which is why i feel that a lot of my harassment lasted for so long, because they thought it was "funny" to upset me, but the more you respond and give them attention the more they'll keep doing it. so just block anons and move on (i know i make it sound so simple. trust me i used to be really bad about it, now i try to take at least a day or two before responding and usually by that time i realize how stupid it is and i just delete it without any fanfare)

at the end of the day though it's your decision, and your well-being comes first before anything else. i say this to both authors and readers, there's no reason to force yourself to stay in a place that makes you uncomfortable or is triggering. sometimes it's better to just let go and move on, though i know that's easier said than done. i'm a prime example as someone who still logs into tumblr daily despite trying really hard not to do that.

and i'm not saying to give up on your work, but rather that writing privately is always an option, and it's what i've been doing now with my other projects ever since i took siren's call down. i know the desire for outside validation can be overwhelming but i think it's important to remember that you should be writing this for yourself first and that there's no harm in keeping your work private until you're ready. tumblr is fun but there's also a lot of problems that can be difficult to deal with while you're also trying to keep motivation and creativity up to write your story, and it can be really discouraging.

like i said, your first priority should be yourself, and if you have to step back away from tumblr/fandom then you should & you shouldn't feel guilty about it.

all of that to say that there are nice people out there, too, i've made really good friends here and i really value their friendship and their understanding, especially when i was going through the worst of it. and there are a lot of readers who have been very kind to me and that have sent me very nice messages and drawn lovely art over the years and i always try to focus on that over everything else.

it can be really easy to get overwhelmed by all the negativity and hostility which is why it's so important to find your people and be supportive of each other.

What do you think about ST writers staying silent when it comes to homophobia in fandom? I've seen some people talking about this and I have to agree that it is getting toxic, and the creators can say something about it. This issue is not about shipping, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in this fandom.

I get this, I really do, but there is a reason they don't bring a bunch of attention to the negative and it's the same reason most of the cast tries to not bring attention to the negatives going on that they experience.

This reminds me of when Noah came out for example. A lot of fans were congratulating him with support and stuff. But that didn't last long bc suddenly everyone in the tag was fixating on the negatives they were seeing, reposting homophobic comments he was getting and just freaking out on a loop over harmful shit going on. Some fans even made like plot twist edits of hateful comments he had under his coming out video and Noah himself commented on one of them, like alluding to the fact that he tries to not let it get to him.

When you're in these peoples positions, you're hearing about god awful stuff happening constantly. And that makes sense, when you have an audience of hundreds of millions of people, shit goes down. ALL the time.

And so it gets to a point where, eventually you have to give up basically. I'm sure there was a time early on like in s1, when they might have felt the need to put the fans in check over certain harmful things. But it probably got so big they couldn't do that any more, simply for mental health reasons I wouldn't ask that of anyone.

Think about Finn who has been through some shitty fandom behavior over the years with fans obsessing over him and like essentially photoshopping a fake story about his gf SAing someone. Did he come forward and talk about that? No bc fans like that don't even deserve the attention. And while yes, it's clear that he feels like grateful about this experience, it's also clear he has an intense sense of bitterness over the fact that having millions of fans means that there are bound to be quite a few who don't understand boundaries. And yet it's gotten to a point where acknowledging them only makes them stronger.

And then there's Caleb, who experienced fucking racism as a child simply for his character getting in the way of milkvan... And he only recently over the last year or so has felt comfortable enough to start talking about it more. And it's probably because he was in large part not wanting to re-hash over stuff that is obviously traumatizing and just not fucking fair for him to have to discuss in the first place. He deserves for this to be an incredible experience. He shouldn't have to give any of his time and attention to people that don't fucking deserve it in the first place. He deserves better than that.

And then there's Millie who has also been through a lot, to the point where it's like near impossible to even pinpoint everything because it's just so much. And she has the biggest following on social media so that makes a lot of sense. Her fandom experience is a large part of why she doesn't really use social media anymore. She used to love interacting with fans, but now it's just not something she can handle. Not only does she have to deal with people that hate her for no apparent reason, she also has to deal with so called fans psychoanalyzing anything and everything she does, to the point where they're convinced they know everything about her and her boyfriend and her family, as if they know what's best for her? Like imagine not having a space anywhere despite having millions of people say they love you, when they just turn around and treat you like a product to be consumed and discarded? It's exhausting.

All of them have a story like that, that just makes you realize that this is so much bigger than ship wars and any nonsense fans obsess over. Sometimes we forget these are real people and they have to see this and it obviously effects them mentally over time to the point where they just can't acknowledge it anymore in order to simply live their lives peacefully.

Now, I'm not saying the Duffers will never address the homophobia, bc they no doubt will. However, I think that in large part the point is to let these homophobes especially feel like they are superior and have the upper-hand, only to rip it out from under them basically.

And that's because we're also talking about a show that is hiding the truth in plain sight. This show is in fact for the so called freaks and geeks (and the gays). And so when that truth is finally revealed, THAT'S when they're going to call the bigots out on their bullshit. Because this show was never for them in the first place! And making them tune in for all of it, convinced it was for them all this time, only to find out it wasn't, I'm sorry but it's fucking badass.

If they're hiding that core message in plain sight, and yet most of the audience STILL doesn't see it, and it's also a big reason why they refuse to even consider byler, then yes it makes sense to hold off this scolding for when the reveal happens, only to throw all of that backlash on the people STILL being homophobic when it's all said and done, despite them saying it was all indeed intentional.

Right now there are genuine homophobes out here, and then there's people that are merely misunderstanding the extent of what's truly happening bc of heteronormativity, which is arguably the way the show was intended to be watched, assuming you're only watching it once through and you don't consume any more content regarding it much outside of that initial viewing (most of the ga). And then there's the fans who are literally queer and love queer stories, but aren't allowing themselves to believe it this time bc of how prevalent queer-baiting is.

By no means am I saying homophobia is okay. Obviously it's not. But people are homophobic, people are bigots. You can decide for yourself which situations you want to call it out and when you want to let it just be because otherwise you're gonna be fighting forever with people that do not fucking care, and that's not helping anyone, least of all queer people who would rather probably just ignore all of the noice and be happy being their authentic self, despite all of the hate that's out there.

We'll have to see how fans react to s5. I have hope that it will go well.. I do think that there could be a time period where people are like in denial and grieving or whatever. But we know the evidence is there. We know that the Duffers are going to be happy to admit that it was intentional to disprove the claims that try to say byler came out of nowhere.

Absolute worst case scenario, I think the critical reception will be something along the lines of this:

Ok scrolling through acotar tiktok KILLS ME. Its not the og tiktok with cool edits of ships that you prefer its just pure toxic hate.

Like me, you might have noticed there are few and few Gwynriel/elucien content then Elriel content. I don´t believe it is because they dont ship these ships anymore i think its because they are tired.

When i was neutral (about a year ago) on the ships wars, i would CONSTANTLY see Elriels being so confident about their ship and how acosf pointed to an elriel endgame. I had not read acosf by then and when i did+ the bc i didn´t hate elriel i just started to love Gwynriel.

Sometimes sarah likes to put positive factors on a ship, like something beautiful without there having to be a whole theory. Because sarah does not expect her readers to be theorists. She wants them to laugh,cry,giggle,scream. etc. So when she was writing the BC which according to elriels are not important she probably wanted us to look at Gwyn and Azriel and consider her obvious wording and differences between elriel and gwynriel. According to elriels the BC isnt important and does nothing to contribute into plots,but also it introduces Gwyns lightsinger powers? Whatever that is not even my point right now. My point is, at first glance at the BC everybody should be more positive towards Gwynriel. SJM put out a free bonus chapter. Why should something heavy like a characters powers be in there? Its supposed to be a light hearted thing. Im just tired of Elriels saying we are delusional or our ship is a crackship.

I never hated Elriel before. All the anti elriel stuff i have mentioned is everything i was already aware of before ´´hating´´ elain and az together. I was still neutral even with all those negavtives.

Its the fandom that made me turn around and choose Gwynriel. I noticed Gwynriel and Elucien content was much more surrounding pro content for their ship and cute headcanons,cannons,edits,fanarts etc. It rarely EVER mentioned anti Elriel information. Except the elriel content then and now, all revolves around Gwynriel and Elucien. Instead of promoting their ship, they have to tear down our ships and say we are crazy.

It was like: Elriel vs Gwynriel and it said that gwynriel was fanon and elriel was canon. Thats´ just false but i understand i cant change that which i dont mind but why scream about it to my face? I saw people bullying Gwyn and saying she was faking her trauma,lured in hyberns men or was evil for the sake to uplift elriel/elain. I saw people bully emerie too calling her a crippled fake illyrian and how it was stupid for emerie to win the blood rite against her cousin. Or how somehow emerie was a b*tch and does not deserve to be a valkyrie+ nesta and gwyn. I saw people make edits to uplift Elain and hate Gwyn. I witnessed people dismissing Luciens trauma and comparing him to his father. I saw people say he faked the bond to protect tamlin or what not. I saw people make up theories for Clotho saying she was odd because she said she was going to give Gwyn the necklace but probably didnt....

That was my last straw. So yes naturally i did in fact shift to the Gwynriel/elucien side. It was easier. Instead of the bullies i saw cute videos of ´´Azriel and Gwyn singing´´ or ´´Elain and lucien picking flowers´´ it was all just so lighthearted and beautiful.

Although i think the fandom for G/A and E/L decreased because they are tired. Because i was tired too. I did not even want to enter acotar tiktok because i knew we would all be bashed for it. Dont get me wrong i find myself sometimes leaving comments on Elriel videos. Not the ones with a cute edit or fanart the ones the share false information or something i disagree with. I only hope for a civil talk and next thing i know, there is a whole gang of elriels trying to push their narrative on me without listening.

Honestly the ship wars have always existed but before Elucien was the calmer side. Although sadly they got roped into the mess of the G/A vs, A/E wars. WIthout a doubt on every single Elucien video, elriels never miss a step. It would be a cute video like a fanart of them and they will start being like ´´ElAinS So UNComFOrtabLE aROUnd hiM´ like you guys ask us why we ship elucien when mentioning this but its like you dont even want an answer you just want to disagree. We tell you and you flat out ignore it.

As much as i love Gwynriel/Elucien i cant help but miss the days were reading ACOTAR was for all the characters. When it was just to see my favorites like Nesta. When i just desperately wanted to get to the iconic epic scenes.

I know if e/riel was confirmed, Elriels would firstly shove it in Eluciens and gwynriels faces and then maybe celebrate the characters.

I know Gwynriels/eluciens would too and i honestly want to see none of that. Yes i do believe we are getting Gwynriel/Elucien but i would not want to make people feel bad for their ship. They by all means can still love elriel. So many people like feylin,nesris,Aelin x chaol,aelin x dorain, and obviously aelin x sam (my endgame if rowan never existed) dramoine,klaroline,stelena,stiles x malia, Jelly,Bellarke,clexa,Rory x those 4 other guys etc etc.

Main point, Can we all just do better? Yes i am talking about elriels for my sake and lots of others peoples sakes but to everyone PLEASE.

I know that wont work though even if i say it because im only one human hahah

What im going to say is we should tag all our posts to our preferred ship and probably always put anti to the ship we dont like. That way everything is divided and less toxic. Also i will be tagging nothing to do with ship wars because i want everyone to see haha but please be nice!

This is just my experience btw im sure Elriels have has their fair treatment of toxic Gwynriels/Eluciens

I think it's important to remember that homophobia and trasnphobia are just as shitty as heterophobia is shitty.

I have been a supporter of queer people for years and I will continue to be, but I often witness that queer people sometimes insult heteros from below. "Hah you are cis what do you understand" "ughh why are these stra8ts like this 😩" And when you tell them that they is making hate speech about it, they say that you are emotional or that they is playing the victim because you are hetero. But they do the opposite. They accuse you of homopfobi in everything, even in the most irrelevant issues. Especially this happens a lot in fandoms. If you ship a character with a woman, they put you in a ridiculous situation by attributing you with strange things, and they call you homophobic again from the bottom and call you "cis", that vile word again. I hate that word so much that I heard it was a term for pedophilia that a professor used to use in the past.

This kind of propaganda and toxicity has increased so much that I realized that now they want superiority rather than equality and awareness. And I think it's not just hetero people, but some queer people are also being discredited. An acquaintance of mine told me that her gay friend had thrown away the flag of honor in his home because of these toxicities, and that he no longer participated in activities, that he was now neutral on these issues and wanted to stay away.

There are two kinds of queers. One is wrong and one is normal. The unjust ones are the twitter addicts who insult and insult people. You have no right to call us cis (pedophile) just because of our biological sex or orientation. If we respect your choices and orientations, you have to do the same without discrimination.

If you think that because you are an LGBT person you have the right to insult someone's choices and sexuality, and that you are superior, you are wrong. We are all equal and human here.

I want to talk about fandom again. You've seen that a male character who is usually approved as straight and has a romantic relationship, you've seen him ship as gay in fandom and nobody says anything about it. But if you ship a gueer character with a woman, most people label you as homophobic.

I see this happening with Levi too. Even if he's not in a romantic relationship and his sexuality is not approved, if some people see him as queer, that's fine, but they bully people who see him as straight. That's why most people who send Levi with a woman are afraid to call him straight and they pan, bi, ace, him in their Hc.

Finally, do not insult anyone because of their sexual orientation. This includes heteros.

Boo-fucking-hoo. Sit down. I'm also hetero. There is nothing inherently wrong with being straight, and I never implied being straight is wrong, nor have I explicitly said that.

If you actually think that the prefix 'cis' is an insult, slur or a synonym to 'pedophile', I'm going to need you to back off, log out, and go outside. I don't know why you're trying to tell me, a cisgender woman, why being called 'cis' is apparently the worst thing to be called. I can think of far worse things to be called than a Latin prefix that has existed for centuries and has been traditionally used in a scientific context.

I don't get why you're also talking down to me about the whole dilemma of toxic mlm fans falsely accusing fans of straight ships to be homophobic. Don't patronise and lecture me about the harassment that I, as someone who writes Levi x fem!Reader, have faced. I fucking know. I've talked about this problem multiple times. I get it. But being harassed by toxic Eruri trolls is not, and never will be, an excuse to assume that there is 'propaganda' and that cishet people in fandom are being oppressed by LGBTQ+ people in fandom. Of course it's shitty to automatically assume that everyone who ships a straight ship is homophobic. I never said otherwise. If someone is falsely being accused of homophobia, yeah, that fucking sucks, because nobody in their right mind would want to be called this. But in Juri's particular case, she openly and proudly admitted to being a homophobe, and then cried and said that everyone 'calling her names' was a heterophobe. That's pathetic. Especially because heterophobia doesn't threaten the lives and rights of straight people in the way that homophobia threatens the lives and rights of LGBTQ+ people.

And have you considered that those who headcanon Levi as pan/bi/ace/etc do so because... they actually see the potential of this headcanon and enjoy viewing him that way, or ship him with multiple people of different genders? It's almost as if other sexualities outside of gay and straight exist but they are constantly erased and invalidated constantly, and it's almost as if people can have different headcanons and can multiship. Shocker, I know, I'll give you a moment to process that. It's just really gross of you to say that the only reason that some people hc Levi as bi/pan/ace is because they're scared of being called homophobic. Do you even hear yourself? Your claim isn't even remotely true.

I also think it's really insidious of you to say that LGBTQ+ people can be divided into 'normal' and 'wrong'. This a very slippery slope of thinking. Ask yourself this. Do you really think that members of a minority or margnalised community has to fit a particular set of standards, set by the majority/privileged class, to deserve acknowledgement, acceptance and basic respect?

This sounds a lot like the way some white people talk about East Asians being a model minority in the West - which is a myth, by the way. "Why can't all of you POC/BAME be like the East Asians? They aren't loudly protesting in the streets for their rights, they aren't making a fuss or making ridiculous demands, they don't ask for anything, they put their head down and work hard. See? Look how studious these Asian kids are! Look how much these Asian people are earning! Look, non-white folk can do well in a predominantly white society, if they work hard enough! East Asians can get over their past history of oppression, why can't you? Society is equal and there are no problems, the rest of you are just lazy and aren't working hard enough! You don't care about equality, you want POC/BAME supremacy! There is equality, the system is fine, and the success of these East Asians are proof! Be more like them, be grateful with what you have and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get to it!"

That's a fucked up thing to say, isn't it? Implying that there can only be one right way of being a minority and dismissing other ways. This is harmful to all POC. It's harmful to the East Asians being held up to a ridiculous false standard and being lumped together as a monolith, and ignores that they are not immune to racism. It's harmful to other POC who are being told that they're lazy, complain too much, just need to 'get over it' and work harder and be thankful that they have rights at all, etc, when they have so many barriers in place and the system puts them at a disadvantage.

To me, this is how you sound when you say that. Listen, I know every community has its bad apples, including the LGBTQ+ community, but that does not give you the right to say that there can only be one right, 'normal' way of being a minority and that everybody else is spreading 'propoganda' of 'LGBTQ+ supremacy' and is out to get all straights. Once again, heterophobia is not a systemic issue.

Don't send stupid shit like this to me again. The least you could do is to not hide behind anonymous, if you're going to send me a condescending essay in my ask box and make me waste my time reading and answering it.

literally hoping they break up in the last season

Why Mileven is shit - a submission-based essay, part 2/3

Mileven - a currently canon het ship from the Stranger Things fandom between Michael (Mike) Wheeler and Jane (Eleven) Ives/Hopper/Byers/IDK

they NEED to breakup (AGAIN) in the final season let's start w their character arcs rn. el was born in a lab and was raised VERY strict to be a weapon and shit. she escapes and now her whole arc is finding herself and being who she is separate to what people tell her she is. mike comes from a lowkey conservative family with parents who are married only to fit into the normal, not because they love each other. his arc, similar to his sisters' struggle in earlier seasons, is to not fall into conformity just because you feel like you should. both of these stories line up with the main moral of the show: be who you are even if it isn't "normal" ot whatever now how does mileven go against this? mike, and a bunch of ppl around el, in the earlier seasons keeps telling el what she should do/be. even in the later seasons we see mike refering to el as a "superhero" (which she doesn't like). neither of them feel free to be themselves around the other (shown by el lying to mike and mike being WAY out of character around el, etc). mike literally can't tell el he loves her while not under pressure. mileven sometimes parallels mike's parents' and sta.cy (a failed conformity relationship) and other bad relationships ANYWAYS it also reallyyyy pains will byers (who's been canonically in love with mike for like years, and mike's best friend) to see this. also, milevens keep harassing will/mike shippers on anon even months after the last season. like they have a hate discord server just for it. anyways i love mike and el but ohhh my god there is still SO much i haven't mentioned about how bad they are together (and how bad shippers often are, sometimes being violently homophobic and calling bylers delusional and shit)

OOOH IT FUCKING SUCKS THEY ARE SOOOOOO BAD FOR EACH OTHER JESUS THEY DON'T COMMUNICATE LIKE EVER THEY ARE BOTH CLEARLY IN IT BECAUSE OF THE EXPECTATION OF A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE THEY CAN'T CONFIDE IN EACH OTHER THEY DON'T SHARE ANY INTERESTS THEY'RE HAVING CONFLICT MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THANK *GOD* I AM UTTERLY CONVINCED THEY ARE HEADING FOR A CANONICAL PERMANENT BREAKUP. NOT TO MENTION THEY ARE BOTH GAY AS HELL TO ME. YOU SEEN THAT "THIS SHIP IS SO CANON AND IT'S A LESBIAN AND A GAY MAN" TWEET? YEAH. FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING SHIP NOT TO MENTION THE SHIPPERS ARE FREQUENTLY OPENLY HOMOPHOBIC. UGHHHHHHH KILLING BITING (this is my fave btw)

they have no chemistry or buildup unlike the other st couples. they kissed season 1 right after she asked if he would be her brother. hes very obviously compensating for something. i think i gagged when they made out in season 3. speaking of. thats all they do. make out. they dont really have meaningful conversations. this also comes from the fact that when mike met her she was fresh out the lab that abused her for like 11 years. she was not socially ready to understand the bounds of a platonic relationship let alone a romantic one. anyway mileven break up s5 will happen i believe it. if nothing else. cross ur fingers gamers

the sheer homophobia and general toxicity that the fans of this ship create is absolutely insane when their perfect (read: mischaracterized) straight (read: homosexually-coded) couple is judged for having toxic or incompatible elements is insane. the only good romantic aspect between these two characters is in a cringefail "wow this really doesn't work at all" i-want-to-put-this-dynamic-under-a-microscope-and-study-it-because-it's-an-absolute-trainwreck" kind of way. el has been abused and cut off from society her whole life and at 12 years old she immediately gets together with this guy at whose earth shattered after his best friend went missing who then has surviors guilt after she almost does which is misconstrued as romantic rather than unhealthy obsession and trauma. and so on and so forth.. there's just so much wrong they lie to each other So Fucking Much despite truthfulness being very important to them and they ignore their friends to make out (which is filmed in a way that is meant to feel uncomfortable btw lmao) and el doesn't understand mike's trauma from bullying and he doesn't understand how she doesn't want to be built up into being a superhero etc etc. and it's just so increasingly bad I want to rub my temples just thinking about them. they're just so bad for each other and their relationship has done nothing but make them worse in general but for some reason their ship is viewed as fluffy or cute or whatever the hell. anyway mike is so heavily coded to be fucking gay and in love with his best friend (and el can be interpreted to be lesbian coded) and I just need to get them out of there amen

I'm gonna make a list bc the reasons are many: 1) their first casual interaction they get together but in the same conversation she asks him if she can be like a sister to him 2) all their "cute moments" are them making out in the 3rd season with still absolutely no chemistry 3) their only actual cute scene is them dancing at the snowball yet in the same scene they portray the same way two couples that are not romantic 4) mike becomes a terrible person when he's with eleven 5) eleven literally GOT OUT OF A LAB SHE WAS RAISED IN and this is the first guy she dated 6) she can't even say he's a good kisser 7) mike can't tell her that he loves her (bc he doesn't) and the only time he does he makes this whole ugly ass speech up about how she's his "superhero" even though she doesn't want to be seen only for her superpowers 8) in said speech, while listing the things that he loves about her, he only names her superpowers + he lies multiple times 9) EVEN AFTER SAID SPEECH she is still mad at him and won't talk to him (probably bc she saw right through his bs) 10) she spent a whole 6 months lying to him about all of her life 11) mike is clearly gay and is meant to be with his childhood best friend will 12) mike idolizes her and doesn't see her as an actual person 13) eleven needs to be her own person (ffs she just got out of a lab) 14) the ship sucks and even the authors and actors say so

they have NO chemistry. they kissed after one week of knowing each other when they were 12 and eleven didn't even know what a romantic relationship was at the time, given the fact that right before mike kisses her she says "will you be like my brother?". they spent the entirety of season 2 apart with mike calling el on his walkie and el watching romantic movies on the tv for a year (then will is in trouble and mike says 'fuck it' and goes full protective boyfriend mode but this isn't about byler so i digress) and start dating soon after they meet again even though they haven't had a SINGLE conversation and are barely friends. season 3 comes along and the writers do their utmost best to show us how incompatible they are. their makeout scenes are uncomfortable, they break up at the beginning of the season and neither one of them seems particularly bothered that their first relationship is over. in fact, the happiest we see el in the entire series is during the time they're broken up, when she gets close to max (who she actually has chemistry with, by the way) and finally experiences freedom, being a teenage girl and etc since mike had been "keeping her all to himself" for like, a year. aside from that, he doesn't go after her at all after she dumps his ass (literally) but when he and will have a fight, he bikes across town in the rain just to apologize, that boy is GAY. finally, the theme of season 4 is lies and once again, mike and el spend the season apart (once again, mike spends the season with WILL) and right before they part ways, they have a big fight about mike being unable to so much as WRITE "love, mike" on his letters to el, let alone say it, and he bullshits his way through it and refuses to say the actual reason until vol. 2, when he apparently "confesses" that he's afraid he'll lose her if he says it (okay, amigo, you're gonna lose your girlfriend who was literally begging you to say 'i love you' not even a week ago, aham, totally valid excuse). conclusion: they don't know each other and they don't act like themselves when they're together. mike hides his nerdy nature, el feels like she has to be the amazing superhero he's always viewed her as or else he'll lose interest and it just feels like they're both grasping at straws because this relationship has been dragged on for too long that they don't know how to break up permanently. they are afraid of losing each other, but not romantically, as mike was el's first semblance of family after escaping the lab and mike feels like it's his duty to protect and care for el. also, mike is gay. in other words, FREE THEM.

To your other anons who were worrying about other people’s opinions on SMF pt2:

https://twitter.com/seokjinbit/status/1637439627442401281?s=46&t=0-12xA4kSNba5ny-jB-QWA

Proof that these kpop stans don’t know a GODDAMN thing they’re talking about. They spout bullshit because they know they rarely get called out and that other people will support them just because they don’t like Jimin will give them a pat in the back and amplify the BS.

Trust your ears. If the sounds good to you, then it’s good. Stop worrying about what other people think on what you should think about it. You have your own ears and your own brain and that’s all you need to have to listen to the music.

*

Ask 2: Bpp hi! I noticed something with JM's new song that I also saw when NewJeans released OMG. Immediately after OMG, Kpoppies said NewJeans was mocking mental illness and that Min Heejin was responsible for suicides in SM entertainment agency. It was like all kpop fandoms joined hands to hate on NJ saying the vocals were mid, they were trivializing mental illness and that Hybe was brainwashing fans to accept the song. But OMG became very popular with the general public and has gone viral. Since Jimin's solo album was announced, the rose colored glasses has fallen from my eyes. I used to think Armys are the worst fandom but now I see SM entertainment fans are the worst. Taemin fans dragging Jimin bc of an album called FACE??? I couldn't believe it. The same people are attacking Set Me Free saying that Jimin is mocking mental illness with the voices in auto-tune, that Armys ears are damaged and Hybe brainwashed Armys to accept Jimin as a good idol when he's inferior to Kai and Taemin. Each time I checked hit tweets dragging Jimin it was either a Shinee fan or Exo fan that started it. Now they're even attacking reactors and reviewers who are giving Jimin positive comments

https:// twitter .com/sarasfilter/status/1637457811515777024

Attacking reactors! Taemin stans are attacking reactors Bpp. My mouth is on the floor in shock. And then I saw they;re the same people who filed a petition with the PRESIDENT OF KOREA TO DISBAND BTS IN 2018!!!

https:// twitter .com/TheKoreaHerald/status/1049951488842166272

Those kpoppies haven't changed in 6 years!! Now I understand why Armys are how they are. Eff those SM fans. Jimin doesn't need them. Armys we should keep supporting JM!!!

***

Hi Anon(s),

Your link Anon in ask 1. Anon in ask 2, your link 1 and link 2.

Imagine how tired we are. Imagine how tired BTS's team is.

But, this...

...is nearly a perfect example of what counts for 'criticism' or 'discourse' in k-pop spaces.

It's the exact same thing that happens every time: people with only passing knowledge at best on the subject of music/dance being the most eager and most confident in giving their hare-brained takes, and I guess it's just a coincidence most of the repeat offenders just happen to be antis, multis, or people who belong to rival fandoms.

Without fail, in the 10+ years I've been into k-pop, the people most eager to say they're providing critical discourse on a subject, fandom, or group, are people who hate/dislike said subject, fandom, or group. This has been true 10 times out of 10 for BTS, ARMY, and Jimin - in my experience at least. Sometimes they use neutral academic language or $10 words to give the impression they're knowledgeable about music/BTS/k-pop, but if you pay attention you'll realize these people have zero idea what they're talking about.

But that behaviour is the norm in k-pop spaces because that is what the system rewards, because of how toxically hyper-competitive the industry is.

Anon 2, I'd rather you didn't generalize all fans of SME groups, because obviously we don't know how widespread those sentiments towards Jimin are. But I will say something I've said before, which is that though I'd been following BTS since 2014, I only became ARMY in 2018; and the amount of tomfoolery towards BTS and ARMYs from k-pop stans in 2018, most of which was from fans of Big3 groups, was such that I'd never seen ever in the history of the genre, nor have I seen since. Like ARMYs were getting physically assaulted for no other reason than being ARMY and BTS were getting explicit insults thrown in their face five years into their career from industry mouthpieces backed by the Big3.

It. Was. Wild.

Anon 2, that petition you linked asking the government of Korea to step in to disband BTS, was just one of the several 'what the fuck' moments I had that year. It still makes me laugh till today, and is one reason why I can't take seriously anyone who ignores this history. Cause a lot of ARMYs from back then are still here, and believe me when I tell you that unfortunately, those dominant behaviours from k-pop stans haven't changed. What has changed is the ARMY fandom that since 2020 or so, now mirrors a lot of those behaviours rather than acting counter-culturally to the wider k-pop fandom.

It's nice you're both already noticing how things work here. And why it's best to focus on the actual music and the artists. Everything else is noise. If you're able to avoid 'discourse', that will save you time to focus more on the music. And after the latest Like Crazy poster, I feel we're all going to need as much energy as we can conserve for the beauty that Jimin is about to serve.

Stream Set Me Free Pt 2 for clear skin.

Hi, I recently found you're blog and have grown quite addicted to it lol. I've also been looking at both team's posts to try and get a broader understanding at everyone's mindset and, if I'm going to be honest, feel very exhausted from it.

I'm a firm believer that stan culture is toxic and this fandom is no different, but I've actually found an interesting pattern when it comes to posts from both stans in this fandom specifically and wondered if you noticed the same thing. Team Black stans are more likely to be aggressive and continue on an argument, but the information they argue tends to be more accurate actually. Team Green stans still argue, less overall, but their arguments aren't built completely on actual facts on the show (which is also the only source they base arguments off of) they use far more speculation and are driven more by their own individual feelings. Some examples are that I've seen: TB arguments saying that calling Rhaenyra's boys bastards is a very dangerous claim that can lead to real, dangerous consequences, which is completely true, but then TG have laid out an argument comparing Rhaenyra to Cersei on the hypothetical that her children would r*ape women in order to try and make Alicent seem like a better person, which is a scenario we all know is completely made up and pure speculation based on nothing but opinion. Black stans are more likely to accept the faults of their favorite characters, or at least come out and say they don't care, while Green stans will defend every action of the people on their team even when they probably shouldn't. Like, do they know it's ok to like flawed characters? I've also seen TG stans attack show Rhaenyra for every single action she's done and I've seen TB stans do it for characters like Alicent too, but it's just overall less?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to take any argument from Team Green stans seriously. What's also shocking is how many notes some of these arguments have even though a lot of them spread false information or just make things up. Now of course, there's false information going on both sides, I know that, but on here it's just so concentrated onto the TG side and I just think that takes away from really getting a good grasp and understanding on that version of events.

What's your opinion on this?

Firstly, thank you for following me thus far and I'm glad you enjoy my posts! Sometimes I feel like I'm not really getting my pts across well enough and I try to improve.

Secondly, from my time in the online fandom -- I wanna say from Oct of last year? -- yes, I agree with your assessments. Quickly, before I go on, I tend to be more team Black (as one can see from my profile pics here and on Twitter) and specifically, I am a Dany/Targ/Rhaenyra/Rhaenys I-Visenya stan. So one may argue or dismiss me as having way too much bias towards how black stans vs green stans tend to argue.

However, in all my time (half a year, so not much) I've reblogged and been reblogged at least 30 posts, entering debates about how Fire and Blood/HotD are written, who wrote them, why certain ships exist, etc. Most of the time, green stans & HotD!Alicent stans argue from a place of traditionalism and reactive emotionality because they have learned that the anti-autonomist ideologies against women, lower-classed people, gender-nonconforming people, darker-skinned people/PoCs, and foreigners because those formulas are ready-made and are status quo to organizing and seeing gender, race, sexuality, etc. They do not have to think any more than emotionally react to what they already know is both "sad" but "must be", no noticing irony or strange details that might point out how the text may be making fun of a character or how absurd they think for thinking and doing a certain thing when they already decided to stan.

Both sides do this (me, I didn't really over much over Daeron's sins until HotD and thought him even "good"), but green stans really don't bother to work at observing language or/and context or/and text -> how those relate and interplay to create meaning(s) in the story. One time, you hear how F&B is unreliable--which it is but not in the degree and way they describe it and leave readers to think--and that the HotD writers are doing so well at rewriting Alicent away from the evil stepmother trope, then another time they will applaud Alicent for trying to mutilate a young boy...ironically something many evil stepmothers or women of that archetype have performed evil against children they perceive as threats or competition to themselves and/or their own kids in fairytales. Or they will ignore completely how Alicent knows how horrible childbirth can go from having 4 kids of her own yet deciding to have Rhaenyra's newly born sons paraded around on their way to "be presented" to show how "obvious" a bastard they are, gain public support, and/by humiliating Rhaenyra and demeaning her political stance in subtly exposing her "whoredom". And then choose to ignore how Alicent herself practices disturbing, anti-autonomous sexual exchanges when she uses her feet for Larys to give her info--this would absolutely get her labeled as a "whore" by many others in her society AND not relate how that compulsion to sacrifice sexual autonomy mirrors Rhaenyra's not wanting children out of fear of death or being put out of the "room" of decisions where she's been outcasted from her whole life, yet having to marry to even have the beginning of access to that power and continuing to have it as a woman. (Forgot to mention, these are HotD's characters, not F&B's.)

You will hear green stans say that it is Westerosi society's culture--therefore unquestionable "right"--to have only men and boys automatically inherit higher, directive political power over any available or smarter/better-equipped girl or woman. And some will claim and suggest that it is for the sake of ORDER and harmony. Part of the idea is that if you maintain the ORDER, there will be a social balance between classes, genders, etc. that would ensure much less bloodshed or people hurting each other (ironically, something that existed as proto-thought since the real medieval era during European feudalism -> c.400 A.D. -1400s A.D.), and you see that thought solidified into something like what Thomas Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan, which argued for people giving their obedience and allegiances to a sovereign entity unaccountable to the ruled's as equally, or at all. Pro-Monarchist, pro-stratified hierarchy. 

In other words, hierarchies in general and their extremes of them that veer the most away from the truest, ideal democracy (where the government must adhere to and exist as the people direct and structure it) work to suppress as much an affirmative negation as possible, which inevitability also means critical thinking. Not just the skills, but thinking deeper than what's presented to us in the first place because once you start to do this you are already putting the bones, so to say, in question, when you ask how an untouchable really came to be so untouchable and how God would just leave an infant to die when a grown nobleman voluntarily goes after a literal 11-year-old.

Because human societies have been essentially training people since infancy to accept what status quo is available, all fans in the fandom are passionately inquisitive and/or territorial.

*Small Rant*

Stan culture is very saturated in dismissals and outright bullying for the most meager things, and that is because people go online to:

outpace their own loneliness and/or commiserate over oppressions, annoyances, what have you

celebrate with others over how much they love a certain creation, esp when they do not have anyone, enough real-life, persons, or are bullied and put down for liking that thing

are torn down in real life and wish to get back power by ruining others' days

reaffirm their own biases that make them feel in control

share their creations so that they have some sort of validation that they create some sort of good thing, whether just a pleasurable object (entertainment/beauty) or something of salubrious moral character that brings perspective, or BOTH

In other words, there are so many high feelings most of the time when we log in, the good and the bad and the somewhere in between that are nonetheless complex and sometimes powerful. And we push them here in fanart, metas, debates, fanfics, and we seek other minds and perspectives to bounce our ideas off, show off, or peek for assurance and validation, sometimes all of the above. On the one hand, I don't always care what Uriahdeeznutzgotee from the UK thinks of how my grammar when I speak about my love for Rhaenyra, but I do and will always care about how Uriahdeeznutzgotee decides to imply I am stupid for not agreeing with his ideas about women in relation to himself, politics, the genre of epic fantasy, publishing houses, etc. Because these are the structures I both take a break from it being online sometimes while most of the time I take a break from facing head-on to actually reflect through fiction, which I go online then to break down for others and myself to further appreciate. So it can eventually bother me when Uriahdeeznutzgotee uses ad hominems to discourage others' thoughts or even misreads and misinforms (purposefully or not) others that fiction piece that has helped me in some way to contextualize the real world. Some trolls know it too, dammit. And when attempt to actually argue but the other side persists (esp with quotes), they tend to stop and block to save some face. Or, they may do as I did and stop, blocking for what is whatever peace of mind can be had after leaving the last argument that they want to give.

While fiction is fiction and the characters cannot reach out to bite us, their actions and their worlds are always sprinkled with a specific set of rules inspired by the real world and thus we're always going to emotionally engage with the fiction. Another reason why I find most team neutrals to lie to themselves but that's another thing altogether.

High emotions and passion = higher chance of crazy behavior. And I think fandom, but esp stan culture, will always have questionable patterns and behaviors. But I also think that without these spaces, a lot of people will silently suffer more and be even dumber than they already could be.

*End of Small Rant*

This doesn't mean that, as you mentioned, there aren't any black stans that are not compassionate or maybe want to be but do not know how to quite get there without giving up the peace that just going online to gush about Matt Smith's banging cheekbones gives them. Same goes for Olivia Smith/Ewan and some green stans (concerning the only going online to gush). But, it is also true that I am far more likely to come across a worse argument from a green stan than a black stan about gender, ethnic, etc. politics in the ASoIaF universe which is more likely to suggest how they go out in the real world treating others.

I keep seeing takes like “Dimitri is a toxic man who embodies toxic masculinity who has to be fixed by women who submit to his every whim and that’s why so many women like him” and it drives me fucking insane

Same toxic masculinity anon here. Like it just makes me so sad? It genuinely makes me want to cry and throw up. I hate that we still have to see takes like this in 2023, and sometimes these takes are from other women too

I was actually thinking about the origin of that post recently too.

Frankly, I think it was a huge dick move to put so much blatant misinformation out there, repeatedly get called out on it, and then just nuke it without making even a single attempt to actually correct the misinformation.

Now I talk to people who have spun out some wild shit from that post who have no idea where it even came from, and the second you try to engage in an actual conversation about it then it becomes abundantly clear that they don't actually know what they're talking about and they can't actually back the reading up with anything substantial (because the post itself was based entirely off of a misunderstanding and a lie in the first place).

And yeah, add a heaping fucking helping of sexism on top for literally one of the most obnoxious fucking fandom experiences I've ever had. Like I am so fucking sick of 3H fans just throwing out "smart boy" terms they have no fucking idea about and then getting mad at people who actually understand them for actually understanding them and trying to use them properly.

"Toxic masculinity" is an actual fucking concept and in the 3H fandom it's basically been reduced to "anything I don't like" because their core understanding of the concept begins and ends at "it's bad".

I genuinely do not understand why everybody wants BTS to be goody-two-shoes. For f-k's sake, I personally don't give a rat's a-s, even if they start following gangsters one fine day. It's their life, their choice, it's their account, as long as the person they follow is legally allowed on the platform, it's fine. I get that they are celebrities and need to stick to certain rules, but this is truly difficult for me to understand. They can't follow fellow female k-pop stars or anyone who perhaps interests them, like, what is this?!! I used to think that this is a cultural difference because maybe, I just don't understand Korean Idol culture in depth, but now to my utter dismay, I see it's my friends who I hang out with that make a big deal out of who they follow or unfollow.

I mean, everybody's allowed to judge anyone for being friends with people of questionable reputation, but to spew hatred and nonsensical stuff of this degree, just for this is just so f-king toxic. I swear this fandom is bat shit crazy. And for once I wish they would just start randomly following anybody and everybody they want to, and keep following regardless of the hullabaloo of "ARMY". This catering to the fanatical whims of "their" fandom gets on my nerves. Sometimes I feel BTS themselves are also very insecure about losing their fandom, which funny enough, kind of makes me feel sad for them. This whole need of BTS Armys to forever visualize them as sweet soft teddy bears, who don't have vices and needs and wants and everything else like regular humans, (when they are actual billionaires) is simply delusional.

And BTS needs burner accounts, for what it's worth.

You're preaching to the choir here. Army obsesssed with the IG accounts, obsessed about the people BTS members interact here and how it's perceived. All from this moral high ground, as if their opinion matters. As if they can control the actions of some adult men that can can and should do whatever they want, especially in the case of such non-issues. I wish Tae would grow a pair and just follow whomever he wants and not backtrack on it. What would actually happen? Nothing. Because it's not that serious. The fact that they only follow each other on their public IG accounts is such BH ot7 bullshit cause god forbid there's a chance for their narrative to be in danger. It's silly and innacurate of their real life, which is the case with so much BTS content out there. That entire need for authenticity and what made them relatable in a way through the way they interacted online and shared so much of their process and journey, it's long forgotten.

They won't lose their entire fanbase. They'd still get their money and fame and adoration. But nothing will change for the better if they don't put their foot down and send a clear message to their fans that they're not some kids. Because Army is not treating them like adults (and everything that entails) as long as they call BTS "our boys" that need to be protected in situations when there is absolutely no need for that. Imagine thinking you need to protect men close to their 30s. Like, just think about it and take out BTS out of the equation and them being regular men. Is this where we are at? Not me, certainly.

RULES/GENERAL

Howdy! I’m the mun and you guys can call me Sharae or simply Mun if you’re more comfortable with that! I use she/her pronouns and my blog and I are 100% LGBTQIA+ friendly for any and everyone! I’m 21 years old and I’ve been roleplaying for about 5 (five) years now! I am very shy and a very nervous person. I have gotten better at being more active and talking in DMs, sending asks for fun ect. But somedays I’m just too anxious to be active. This is a me problem not anyone else’s… so please don’t think I am ignoring you or anything! Now let’s get to the rules! I don’t have many rules but I do have some “general knowledge” you need to know!

0. I will not stand for racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, bigotry and more around this. You will be blocked for good.

1. Blog is labeled LOW activity so please except there to be little activity. This means replies won’t be instant and can take a few days to a week. I suffer from dyslexia and CTS syndrome. Due to being dyslexic I might make writing errors. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if what I wrote doesn’t make sense!! I won’t be offended!

2. I don’t use icons but you are free to do so!! I tend to use dividers between long paragraphs!

3. Please specify muse! If you don’t specify I will either not answer it OR pick randomly and you get what you get I’m afraid!

4. No Godmodding my muse's choices or actions! I will most likely ignore you if you do it a few times. I understand it may happen sometimes depending on the your muse's powers or during starters but ya get the drift!

5. I will not interact with pedos and others around this sicking spectrum. You will be blocked!More will be added when I can think.

6.I long like any length replies (except one liners)! You don’t have to match me because I know I get carried away sometimes!! As long as there is something to work on I don’t mind!! But I will admit, longer threads will take me a bit Ionger to reply back to as I’m a perfectionist when it comes to writing (and I suffer from dyslexia/CTS) shorter threads will be answered much quicker tho!

6. If able, please tag your roleplay partners url in the tags. This way if needed I can easily blacklist that tag for my comfort. My rp partners are able to roleplay with whomever they want! I don’t care who you rp with as long are they aren’t toxic or if they have anything to do in my rule 0. Iam going to be vague about this.

I was being bullied/harassed in a certain fandom for a long time (if you know you know) so I’m going to be selective as heck. I’ve also just met a few others in this specific fandom that have made me feel super uncomfortable and just made me feel like shit for DAYS. I will not be stating the peoples urls and even the fandom. But this is why I’m begging please… tag their url in the tags so if you rp with them I can blacklist. Blocking only does so much and even though they are blocked; they still come up by blacklist I won’t see them.

7. Due to be selective as heck, I’m not going follow for follow. I will only follow if I want to interact/engage with you! So If I do follow you, please feel free to reach out and talk!! I’m extremely nervous and anxious person so it will take me a minute to reach out but I promise I will! I won’t follow personal blogs (unless it’s a rp hub) and I might not follow everyone. If I don’t follow back in a week, I am probably not interested and will soft block you so you won’t be following me anymore. I’m so sorry if this comes out harsh I’m just trying to protect myself. I don’t want to be hurt anymore.

8. Over the years I've become "block happy". I will block anyone who makes me uncomfortable, toxic, if you're a rude anon or just a rude person in general. I've come to realize the block button isn't a bad thing and I have to keep my space as happy and peaceful as possible if I wish to remain on tumblr.

MORE TO BE ADDED