I hope that wherever Alba was today, someone gave her the biggest hug, let her cry her eyes out on their shoulder, and gave her a glass of wine because holy fuck
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I’m sure it’s not my business to spread but m a n I just feel. S o awful for Kaychen :(( she’s said a few times now that she doesn’t plan on coming back to tumblr because of bad experiences and as someone whose also been relentlessly harassed off of a site it just makes me feel such second-hand illness thinking about that happening to someone as sweet as Kay :((( I know this is a silly thing to be sad over but still BCNEBNEDJCNNX
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I have, a genuine question for you. Do you acknowledge the racism in the original AYTD or at least know about it? Like how MsKingBean uses slurs and racist stereotypes?
hey, so, i'm a bit apprehensive about answering this because...it doesn't feel like a very geniune question to me, if i'm being honest. "do you acknowledge x thing" is a question that is inherently set up so that i'm meant to answer "yes, i acknowledge that x thing is true," because the alternative is saying "no, i don't acknowledge that x thing is true," which is already framing this interaction as if to disagree with you would be a kind of failure on my part to do some due diligence of engaging critically with a text. and the fact that you say mskingbean89 used slurs in atyd shows me that you haven't even engaged with the text, because that simply...isn't true.
if what you're referring to when you say "slurs" is the anti-romani stereotypes--this is coming from an extra chapter in the bootleg tapes focusing on greyback, where there is a slur used to describe his living situation + he + his family were portrayed as nomadic irish people in a way that was insensitive. people who read that chapter and then went back to the canon story with that characterization in mind rightfully pointed out that it was fucked-up. mskingbean89 addressed those criticisms by adding this note to the beginning of that bootleg chapter:
personally, i think this was a good way to take accountability + acknowledge the mistakes she made with that portrayal. she was a human being who made an ignorant mistake, which then just happened to get absolutely blasted to millions of people--she did not have sensitivity readers or editors looking over her fanfiction, because she did not write it expecting it to reach the level of popularity that it has. to be honest, i am not really sure how she could have better acknowledged her mistake, aside from just....not having made it in the first place. she explains her intentions without acting as though that intent cancels out harm, owns up to the fact that the stereotyping was harmful regardless of intention, and provides resources to learn while also committing to be more mindful + educate herself moving forward. honestly, that's exactly the response i would hope to see from someone who makes a mistake like this one.
i agree with you that people reading atyd should acknowledge + understand the racism regarding romani stereotypes stemming from that bootleg chapter, which is why i think it's great that there is a note literally built into the beginning of that chapter acknowledging it! but i feel as though there's been this like...game of telephone happening online when it comes to atyd, where there are now people who have never even read the story talking about things that quite literally do not appear in the base text itself. i've also seen people acting as though mkb herself did not address these issues when they were raised to her, which is just...patently false.
and so what i'm wondering here is what you're looking for from me when you ask a question like "do you acknowledge the racism in atyd." anyone who actually reads the texts has to acknowledge the racism in that bootleg chapter, because mkb puts that acknowledgment front and center at the beginning. and also like...in the part of the fandom i'm in, in the conversations i've listened to or taken part of regarding atyd, people have acknowledged the issues with that bootleg chapter and the ways it reflects back on the main story. so what do you mean by "acknowledge" when so many people, including mkb herself, have already... acknowledged it? what action are you calling for, and who are you calling for it from?
because like. if what u actually want to say here is that atyd is Irredeemably Problematic and we should all like....shun it? universally agree that it's Bad? then it's just like. it is up to each individual reading the story to decide whether that specific portrayal of greyback in the bootleg chapters is something that ruins the story completely for them or whether they still think the story as a whole holds worth. personally, i feel like i can acknowledge that there are issues with mkb's portrayal of greyback and i need to be mindful of that when reading the story so as not to internalize harmful stereotypes while still finding atyd to be a masterpiece that really beautifully deals with a lot of nuanced issues regarding class and disability and systems of power. this is just part of thinking critically when you read; many famous and beloved works of fiction contain the biases of their authors or have mistakes or issues in the way they portray things that are a product of ignorance. and i know everyone reading marauders fanfiction should understand this, because if u genuinely think that a character being negatively stereotyped means u should throw the entire work in the trash, then none of u would be touching harry potter fanfiction with a five foot pole in the first place.
so, anon - if you have actually read atyd, and there are issues with racism that you have found that i am unaware of, and not just telephone-game twitter posts of people taking shit out of context that you're accepting as truth without bothering to engage with the work yourself--if you want to have a real conversation about it, i would invite you to come to me as an actual person and not an anonymous ghost in my inbox. my dms are open, but when it comes to talking about serious issues, i tend to find it more genuine if the person coming to me actually cares enough and believes in what they're saying enough to say it as themself. and if you haven't read atyd and are just parroting things you've heard other people say online then i would invite you to actually sit down and read the work and form your own opinions on it before getting back to me. i know that might sound harsh, but honestly i'm just completely fed-up at this point with all the bad-faith takes and misinformation that i've seen people spreading about atyd just because they think it's cool to dislike a popular thing.
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Daisy and Basira's relationship is such a sweet agony, because at its foundation it's so transparent, so honest. They both know what they're doing, however much they pretend to lie or hide it. Such is the situation they're in that there's no choice but to cling to eachother.
Have you ever been in that sort of situation? The type where the closest person to you is deeply morally flawed and you're realising just how in the wrong you are, but their hand is the only one to grasp. You see the claws along their fingertips and you turn your head and hold them close.
On many occasions Basira talks about the wrong Daisy's done, she knows where Daisy's kill spot is, she figured that's where Jon would be. And yet she never tries to convince everyone that she's capable of fixing daisy, because she knows she's not. Daisy knows this just as well, and perhaps it's a foundation of their trust.
To be loved is to be changed but to be changed is to be hated; a relationship where you accept each others flaws is a commodity, and a rare one at that. Whether those flaws are mundane or deeply damaging, these kinds of connections have a tendancy to grow beyond the point of return.
To know that you're in the wrong together is a comfort. It's not good, nor is it right, but it's a place you can sit. A place you can stay. And as your comfort grows so does that leeching wrongness you protect, and in the end it may just eat you up.
To continue the way Daisy and Basira did was what drove them towards their end, but even at that last painful moment there was a tenderness, a rose in the thorns that makes the wounds worthwhile.
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My best friend of over 20 years told me today that she refers to me as my deadname “because it’s easier” when talking to her dad and I didn’t immediately get why that hurt me so bad except for the whole using my deadname at all despite me having had it legally changed for almost a year part
But then I realized that she’s used the excuse before. Her grandmother “doesn’t understand”, so it’s “easier”. And so she still refers to me by she/her. If the name is confusing, why not explain it? Or keep my proper pronouns when telling ME the story about talking to these people. But no, this is “easier”
Which then made me think about the fact that she never, ever refers to me by my name — and I get that we call each other babe more than our actual names but I’ve heard her say Misha maybe once since I came out. She tells me she’s so good at using he/him about me but I’ve never actually heard her use the correct pronouns. Ever. Except when I correct her
I’m “baby boy” in her phone, I’m not Misha. I’m my deadname when she tells stories or refers to me in any way to any of her family members. She then goes out of her way to tell me how great she is with my name and pronouns when I’m not there and that nobody in her family thinks it (read: me) is weird
Why. The fuck. Won’t she use my name then? Why is it “easier” to keep my deadname alive and make it so her family will never refer to me properly? I’ve known these people since I was 6! They know me. Why the hell would she do this? We’ve talked about how hurtful it is so many times that my brother refuses to use my name and pronouns. I come to her when my parents “forget” and deadname me for an entire day. Does it not matter to her how awful that is?
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I wish strong feelings and emotions had a better way to feel like they translate to physical space. For me, personally, I get that shit cranked to 11 and if I can't get that shit out there and verbalized or shown it ends up making me cry. Fear about loss and change and thinking 30 years into the future? Cry. Have so much love in your body at once and can't let enough of it get shown to those who matter to you? Cry a whole lot. I used to put it towards art and especially personal poems or made up song lyrics or something but idk. I can't be staying up sobbing at 4 am due to random thoughts. Its always when I feel like I'm doing my best that this happens, idk if its just processing everything.
I know my emotional regulation skills aren't the best and I often go from a thousand yard stare to crying or a laughing fit or something. I don't want to be like this really, and often times this does happen when I think about loved ones a lot when I'm alone and I just end up wishing I was around someone I can feel loved by and love so much. Maybe I just want to be anywhere besides this 'home' where I know I'm actively seen as a nuisance and treated as a lesser person.
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