#Who received homophobic threats and stuff

[lucysinatizzy]

Really weird that you’re denying the harassment of non hellcheer shippers. My friends and I have gotten harassed with death threats and racism for no reason other than not shipping hellcheer, none of us said anything negative, just that we don’t ship it.

Even if someone says something negative, that still doesn’t warrant hellcheer shippers telling them to kill themselves, doxxing them, being homophobic/transphobic, and racist/antisemitic.

If you have actual proof of actual hellcheer shippers sending you and your friends harassment/death threats/being bigots, then show it. I keep hearing about this, yet no one's provided any evidence so far, despite hellcheer supporters themselves asking for it multiple times. I've also seen them receive similar anon asks and say they'd condemn the stuff you're talking about if there was proof of it happening.

Let's get something out of the way. Hellcheer supporters have put in a ridiculous amount of time and effort into debunking bs claims. They're always up to bat. If there was legitimate proof of them being horrible, the steddies and quinnies (whatever they're called) would be shoving it in everyone's faces and doing a victory lap all over social media. They did that with their false accusations and fabricated evidence before being exposed for lying, publicly shamed, Joseph himself calling their actions disgusting, and having articles written about them.

Unless you're holding out on your comrades... After spending a year trying to take down hellcheer and Grace, don't tell me you really left them hanging like that when you and your friends had the proof all along??? They tried so hard to paint both as some flavor of bigot or deviant... just throwing everything at the wall to see what might stick and you did them dirty like that? You could've saved them from a world of embarrassment.

At best, I'm extremely doubtful that you and your friends are totally innocent. No one would give a crap if you simply didn't like a ship and we both know that. I keep seeing the same people who've harassed hellcheer shippers and Grace (or those who won't stfu about how it's 'problematic' when in reality a little fictional blonde cheerleader that's dead just made them feel insecure) turn around and pretend to be the real victims after getting exposed. Grown adults whining that they've done nothing wrong or downplaying their actions while there are dozens of posts on their account of them purposefully antagonizing shippers and saying the wildest shit I've ever read with nothing to back it up.

If you have the evidence, put it out there. Expose them. As a bisexual Asian chick, I'd like to know if I'm interacting with a bunch of racists and homophobes or whatever. All I've mostly seen so far is a small group of white women mlm shippers weaponizing extremely serious issues like racism for their stupid shipping war because they know how much damage it can cause in today's social climate. It's not a joke or a toy to play with. If you're making things up to get back at strangers online over some dead fictional characters on a show, then you should be ashamed of yourself for going so low. Without proof, that's all I'm going to take it as and nothing else will change my mind.

#asks #anon #hellcheer #stranger things fandom #show me the receipts #I don't want no hearsay #hellcheer drama and the harassment campaign against Grace go hand in hand #they're tightly connected #most of the folks I've seen in hellcheer are queer themselves #and plenty are poc too

[horizon-verizon]

Rhaenyra was usurped, half of her children were killed, here and there betrayals and other troubles, two bastards, to whom she gave huge dragons, betrayed her, Mysaria was poisoning her mind, but God forbid, if she rejects the idea that the last close person betrayed her and thinks that other riders can follow these two and betray her as well.

Definitely a response to this post.

Have you read my Twitter post about Rhaenyra & Nettles, anon? I suggest you do, it is a shorter explanation. This is going to be my only open, detailed, & calm explanation about it here on Tumblr. And I hope that people bother to read all this.

It's like when we come across either an accomplished/just a "cool" OR someone who has struggled against one form of societal oppression (ex. sexism) but still has performed oppressive acts themselves (homophobia). AKA, someone like Black female rapper I forget the name of who's homophobic.

Pre-Points

The Black Jezebel stuff, that sort of thing still happens today: a white woman/girl who sees a black woman/girl become the center of attention or otherwise receive the admiration/attraction from a white man and they try their best to slander the black woman or "persuade" the white man/boy away from the black woman/girl, trying to convince them that the black woman is an undesirable match but also person. To reestablish white dominance by "reclaiming" the white man. Because the white woman depended on the white man for access to many rights or privileges due to their society baring them of those rights due to their gender. And the (richer or "midclassed") white man, in the U.S. esp, has had the highest positions, the most money reserved, and the most political power/privileges/rights. Thus, that will come with the psychological games to feel more in control. Again, in both romantic/sexual & in platonic contexts.

Why should the blood purity Rhaneyra displays be relegated under her grief? Why isn't blood purity recognized as its own entity, as a thing with its own origins and role in Rhaenyra's downfall? Yes, she is a victim of misogyny, but she is also a perpetrator of misogynoir as white women often can be when the "threat" of a sexual competitor appears as the differently-objectified, more vulnerable Black woman. If fans of her story and Fire and Blood and ASoIaF can see that Rhaenyra's paranoia partly causes her downfall towards the very final months, why isn't it the same for her clear blood purity? This is the same blood purity that Rhaneyra's society/family passes down to her--that she uses to try to gain back and maintain power both immediately and by large. Why then do people try to separate the two as if they aren't connected and inform the other to bring her down?

-- not "inform the other"... rather "the grief loosens deeply embedded blood purity because that what emotional distress can do, get people to slip and reveal stuff --

Has to be because they aren't familiar with racism for Black women, or American history, and/or don't want it to color or affect how they define their own politics and everyday lives. To not have that sort of burden or implication of responsibility. Participation in society requires this confrontation and acknowledgment, the process of social change requires it. And of course that some in the fandom may just be racist and want to hide while performing it to continue it.

Either way, with this AND what I will describe below, those who dislike or can find no/less sympathy for Rhaenyra specifically because of how she handled Nettles very much have that right. They--and I--are warranted.

The History of the Black Jezebel

Jezebel is a Christian biblical figure that traditionally's been used to connote female wickedness and (later sexual) duplicity:

According to the Bible (Kings I and II), she provoked conflict that weakened Israel for decades by interfering with the exclusive worship of the Hebrew god Yahweh, disregarding the rights of the common man, and defying the great prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Here's the thing, black women--esp in American history AND currently, are often dehumanized into sexual creatures. Similar and borrowing from already existing socio-Christian ideas of [white] women being themselves inherently sexually deviant because Eve was "manipulated" or just was to blame for both her and Adam failing and being cast out of the Garden of Eden.

After the consolidation of the slave trade and European expansion/colonization, the colonized or nonChristian women received differentiation from the Christian/European in the new patriarchal/colonist matrix. It is also here where the prior Christianness of the white women got subsumed by her non-brown/Africanness. Only recently (beginning around the Victorian era) that modern white women granted the "inherently modest, sexually chaste and domestic goddess (if faithful)" assignment. The perfect mothers in the invented "private", domestic space. We also have the stereotype of the Femme Fatale, the woman as capable & powerful enough to destroy the social order and sanctity of "good" white families/society. Families and societies are headed by white (cis het) men. The "opposite" of the domestic goddesses and her more modern products (like Girl Next Door).

Yes, either way, white women's statuses' (legally and otherwise) remained defined as subordinate to men. Yes, there's still this tendency for women to be called sluts for not being "faithful" or having "high(er)" so-called body counts that stem from the Eve-Domestic-goddess pipeline. Yes, there is certain element of lack of self-restraint in the Eve-evil/Femme Fatale white woman. What makes the white Seductress/Femme Fatale different than the Black Jezebel is that Black women are thought closer to animals in need of white guidance. For their political and (coming from colonialism) spiritual development.

Going back to making white, Christian women "different" from the non-Christian African women used as slave labor. White women at least have the sociopolitical privilege of being the incubators of men's heirs and later in history, domestic goddesses (ironic wording). Black women and girls are animalistically and inherently lewd, being of a people (ethnic group) themselves inherently without proper civilization that began with heir absence of Christianity/God.

And with that element of control over African bodies and defining/validating their place in European and white colonial territories, the ideological, anxiety-mystique precursor of the Black Jezebel slowly forms. Esp when entering into real chattel slavery enslaved Africans could become Christian to legally free themselves--for a time in the colonies and from tradition, no Christian could be enslaved. Africans being able to become Christian and then free themselves made white people lose their source of slave labor. After slavery and the slave trade were abolished, Jim Crow and several different laws/measures prevented most Black people (esp in the South but also in many North places) from accumulating either wealth or political power. and even here, the true stereotype of Jezebel came into its own and got its name from several comedic/sensationalist pieces of media. Sex and magic and femininity are partially combined in media because of the anxiety towards magic in Christian Europe and women having independent power apart from the powers and privileges granted to them by patriarchal institutions. (The images and meanings of its positivity or negativity depend on how its portrayed, the main perspective[s], and how these things create the values of the conflict in different stories with magic and womanhood.)

Africans who were not Christian and were sold/grew up as enslaved persons or their descendants can easily qualify as practicing "witchery", though their own religions/ancestor worship/rituals are neither inferior nor superior to any other. And it wasn't that long into the slave trade that Africans became inherently different even if Christian, racially different from white Christians by law and successful domination. Therefore, in maintaining control over the Black female body and its meaning, Jezebel has elements of evil sorcery, to be used and implied through that element of the capability to "ruin" whiteness and white families.

It has the social purpose of justifying sexual objectification, sex trafficking, the invisibility of Black women's thoughts and emotions, etc. while still assigning the blame for violence from white people (esp men) to these women and girls. If you can do that, then it doesn't really matter that this young girl goes missing. It doesn't matter as much when she's raped by a police officer and sometimes it's never even put into the news or revealed until a couple of decades later.

And it becomes just one of many unspoken justifications to disable Black political power or dignity today. For Black women, with deep psychological consequences that look different from a white woman's.

Mysaria & Rhaenyra's Actions Toward Nettles and Blood Purity

So even though Westeros has no slave trade (though a few do participate in its commerce if not directly own any) and they haven't colonized any Sothryos, Ib, Naath, etc regions nor other "PoCs" (yet) blood purity can't really be separated from racism.

It's very clear that GRRM has Rhaenyra use blood purist terminology and ideology when she says "stink of sorcery" and "common thing" and "You only need to look at her to know she has no drop of dragon's blood", "thrall", "low creature", and "spells that bound a dragon to her, and she has done the same with my lord husband". Whether he did it unconsciously or not (and I think he did it consciously and with intent). Rhaenyra doesn't use such language with the Velaryon/Hull bastards as often as with Nettles, whose color AND baesborneness Rhaenyra uses to characterize her.

We know Mysaria is the architect of her would-have-been demise:

Rhaenyra's suspicion of Nettles takes on a different flavor, an intensity than the one she had for Addam and Alyn Velaryon after the Two Betrayers. Grief doesn't excuse nor erase the presence of blood purity, and blood purity facilitates grief's/need for control's worst, willful actions. If she hadn't used colorist and blood purist sentimentality in her explanation in going after Nettles, then, anon, we'd go by your assessment.

She's expressing a certain kind of casual yet sharp hatred for Nettles that goes beyond betrayal but also has the cognitive dissonance present in justifying said hatred. That comes with the anxiety of someone "not one of 'us' (Andal-FM Westerosi of the paler skin variety)" nevertheless having some sort of control or access to the power (here dragons and a lover-defender) associated and historically reserved for Targaryens. The vivid sexual imagery in "your husband's bed", "his bastard in her belly", words like "thrall" and "bound", all connote a possessiveness and loss of control that trigger Rhaenyra into acting. (Remember that Mysaria was going to have Daemon's baby way back until Viserys inadvertently caused her miscarriage when he exiled her).

One could argue that Rhaenyra's suspicious hatred for Nettles (even with her probably never got to know her like maybe Jace, though this really should clue one into discrimination) stems from Nettles seemingly keeping Daemon, the love of her life and main emotional support. That she was just afraid of losing that on top of her sons' lives and her trust in her closer advisors and thus needed to know she had a semblance of the past in actually seeing Daemon. However, Daemon is also one of her means of gaining and maintaining political power. He acted as one of her chief military commanders if he leaves her, it may have sort of sucked out the sense of his faith in her, made almost meaningless their past. And not really wanting to confront that, she used blood purity and misogyny (the text shows the precursors to misogynoir) against Nettles.

It's almost like Aerys II after Duskendale in that way, that personal decay, pressure to maintain control over those sworn to take back/maintain her throne. Nevertheless the constant feeling of vulnerability to others not being so honest with her, the mistrust sliding into paranoia and only compounded with grief. This makes it even easier to take the "easy" ways out, i.e., executions of "the least important" persons. She's still much more powerful than Nettles (in terms of privilege) to then be entrusted with said power to victimize someone like Nettles. Even when she has suffered so. Nettles would have lost her life.

This hatred, though "casual" in how easy it was for her to use it in language, is used to characterize Nettles as a "special" sort of evil in continuance with Mysaria's vivid sexual imagery and has dire and nearly fatal consequences for Nettles. See that disparity, the privilege Rhaenyra has and is using against someone like Nettles? We can't make it the same as the one she does against the other bastards. Especially since unlike both of them, Nettles is executed. Addam and Alyn were imprisoned or to be imprisoned truly only on account of Corlys and the Velaryons. This shows more of Nettles' sociopolitical vulnerability getting dismissed in lieu of the image and sense of control.

Ironically, Rhaenyra's own sons have been targeted for something similar, as her youngest Joffrey at least is noted for having nontypical Targ features. Remember that cognitive dissonance I mentioned? The fact that her sons all were able to ride dragons helps them have a better chance at happiness and survival, but Rhaenyra is less concerned with Nettles' wellbeing and contributions to keep said boys alive and alive to be her heirs, supporting her claim. And that blood purity honestly is just as much a part of Targ monarchy as it is for Andal-FM aristocracy, especially with the dynasty having mostly assimilated to the Faith/Andal-FM culture. Whether unconsciously or semiconsciously, she takes advantage of that extant paradigm.

And notice how he emphasized Mysaria's "skin as pale as milk" and "hooded robe of black velvet lined with blood-red silk" that contrasts against Nettles' brownness and past bedraggled clothing from her time being alone in the streets. Paleness is often described both in ASoIaF and the real-Western world as a marker of feminine beauty. And we know that Mysaria is unlikely to have been aristocratic herself--having been first a dancer, then a sex worker in Lys and KL. Gyldayn theorized that Nettles did sex work (therefore "impure" and unattractive to Daemon) to survive and get sheep for Sheepstealer and thus explain how she bonded with the dragon and thus tried to reduce the phenomena and its possible implications about Targs and dragon bonds, rationalizing her connection to Sheepstealer, & denigrating her character.

Mysaria, the more "obvious" Valyrian-descent beauty vs Rhaenyra--another, more obvious Valyrian beauty with an actual dragon vs Nettles, undetermined-descent-yet-doubted-bc-of-blood-purist-politics having her own dragon.

Though Westeros is not medieval Europe and the world is not the direct equivalent of either ancient or medieval societies...it shares much. And this, the blood purity, is one of the "much".

BTW, while the blood purity is worst for Nettles, this doesn't mean I think Rhaenyra didn't perform blood purity against the rest of the dragonseeds. Nor that her decisions concerning Rosby/Stokeworth were not bad political choices.

*EDIT* (8/21/23):

THIS is a great post by @mononijikayu about medieval queens, female rulers, the history of how women in leadership positions were made and seen as threats to the very structure of social "order", and contextualizing Rhaenyra thru Empress Matilda. I didn't even know about Matilda's husband being comparable to Rhaneyra's Daemon! PLZ READ!!!!

Excerpt:

just as much, along with these fictitious portrayals, more lies are depicted. these women are considered vixens that cause havoc to men by shifting them into desires and danger. through the written word, we see how women are cast in roles of villains in men’s lives. it is because by their conclusive thoughts, women are the only creatures that are able to turn ‘good honorable men’ into despicable creatures who do shameful, deplorable acts for the sake of women’s pleasures.  it is within this narrative that ancient chroniclers declare that women were in fact the doom of men. if they were not able to control the dangers posed by the wiles of women, then the foundations of the mighty society they had built would be up in flames.  [...] as i mentioned, these factors of community are written down and preserved. and with that, the example of the ancients were the foundations by which medieval society built itself. the same concepts continued to cause the same issue within society and that was the exclusion of women from participating in the bigger picture of community and state, much so with governing states in their own right—without judgment or disapproval. 

#asoiaf asks to me #rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyra's characterization #fire and blood characters #rhaenyra and feminism #alicent rhaenyra and misogyny #white feminism #misogynoir #asoiaf #fire and blood

[briyourmotherdown]

I wish people would just stop making shit up about James's new gf, Like I literally searched her up , nothing about her being " transphobic " and all that stuff , yall people really can't stand seeimg a celenb date so y'all gotta ruin it..

Y'all a fucking disgrace jesus.. it's called privacy for reason.. I heard some fans sended her death threats. I mean wtf is wrong with y'all...

i’m not sure if you’re the same anon that has been dropping countless transphobic messages into my asks, but i will not be dignifying those with any sort of response, simply because this blog is a safe space for trans people and i don’t want anyone to see such hate on my page.

in regards to this ask, however, i feel the need to respond. there isn’t anything being made up, and for the record, i didn’t go search for it myself in the first place but once it was brought to my attention it was concerning. she openly supported trump—an islamaphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, raging lunatic, but on top of that she had also interacted with various transphobic accounts. sure, there might be some small chance that she isn’t a transphobe, but i think that it is anyone’s choice, and currently MY choice, to question these things.

being a fan of someone does not mean deifying them.

for the record, i was initially ecstatic to see james with someone and looking happy and healthy, and if he is happy, so am i, and so are all of us who might be concerned about this. i do NOT condone death threats, and i never will. i have not personally interacted with any of her accounts or even visited her page when it was still open. i believe in privacy and believe me, i would’ve much preferred not knowing.

however i feel sickened by the amount of transphobia and defence of transphobia that is running rampant on this fucking hellsite after this news has come out. the fact that you can deny, defend, and apologise for a transphobe, NO MATTER WHO IT MIGHT BE, is absolutely vile and i wish more people were calling it out on here.

after this ask i don’t want anymore about this topic. i’m honestly stepping away from tumblr for a couple of days because i refuse to constantly receive transphobic asks.

#i’m tired #transphobes will never listen or learn #so i’m not sure why i bother

[manianlittlecutie]

You know, I am kinda tired of all the hate I see on this website towards a certain creator and their shows. Rant and explenation under the cut. If you don’t wanna read it scroll past and if you wanna send hate: DON’T This is an expression of emotions from me and not an invitation for hate!

NOW It’s fine not to like things, it’s fine to think things are bad and it’s completely fine not to watch stuff or not wanting to interact with it BUT it is NOT fine to slanderize people or shows just because you hold a grudge for no particular reason.

And I mean You don’t have to like Vivz, seriously, I don’t like many creators either but I don’t hound them like that.

I hear so many people call Vivz bad and problematic and toxic but so far all I’ve seen was either so riddled with lies that I couldn’t possibly take it serious  or had no actuall proof.

Like You don’t have to like her or her shows but to say she’s racist, sexist, homophobic etc. WITH NO PROOF is just disgracefull!

And don’t come at me with “Oh but person who worked with her said...” Well did they show proof?!

NO?!

Then I do not care!

No proof? No reason to believe them!

Now my stance comes from a person that’s been hurt before, from a person that knows people can be shitty and that sometimes you don’t want anything to do with them. But as a person who KNOWS what that feels like I can say, with all the air in my lungs, that I still never slandered or tried to take these people down over a PERSONAL interaction.

This all feels like a smear campaign against a woman who tries her best to make stuff for people to enjoy. Sure the stuff she makes isn’t for everyone but neither is everything else!

Seriously this woman received DEATH THREATS over her shows because people got butthurt a character, that was supposed to be an asshole and bad person mind, said a bad word!

The shows take place in literall HELL!

And some of you wanna say: “That doesn’t excuse them being bad people.”, but YES! That is exactly what it does! These people are in hell because they are bad people and that is FINE! Not every show has to have heroes and good people to be fun and imaginative.

All in all what I am trying to say is: You can dislike things, you can even hate things but making up reasons to make the thing bad for others and robbing people of their enjoyment of it is NOT how you should handle yourself. Lying is never the answer and spreading false information or slandering is just lying with more steps! So please, can we all stop with this shit and just agree to disagree?

Rant over

Oh and for the peeps that’ll come at me on anon Show me proof of your claims or don’t even start writing anything because if there’s no proof (PROOF THAT YOU LOOKED INTO TO MAKE SURE IT’S TRUE) I’ll just delete your message

#vent #rant #this is about spreading lies on here #because that shit needs to stop #you can dislike shit but don't start spreading lies! #yes this is about the yet again brought up drama #I am so tired of this

[spongebob-connoisseur]

On a random note. I don't think anyone deserves to be called a Spongeboomer for just prefering the first 3 seasons. I don't like the word that much. If you don't like post first movie then I get it. I used to be like that so I can't complain. Every season has it's own charm to certain people. Every season can be someone's hated. There's no right answer since taste is subjective. There's no absolute.

That being said taste is subjective. I get mildly annoyed when people act like you're stupid or something's wrong with you for liking the newer stuff. They have their own charm, they have its own style and humor that makes it different but not bad. Some people act like its just sugar crack filled nonsense thats nothing more than flashing colors to distract kids for 11 minutes at a time and that it has no appeal to older folks which isn't true. There's a large portion of the current spongebob fans who are adults and enjoy the recent seasons. They have a quality a lot of people see in it that's worth enjoying.

The only folks I think deserve to be called spongeboomers are the ones who have no respect for this fact. I get tired with people riding off of the superiority of being so ""cultured"" for liking the first 3 seasons that they feel so mighty and believe they're protecting the legacy of the show by harassing writers and artists on the show. It's happened too often to find these people flooding the accounts of people who work on the show with death threats and they largely cross the line. I get tired of finding someone from the show online and finding they've been flooded with hate because people think they're "ruining" spongebob. Even people who worked on the first 3 seasons who have returned to work on the modern era are not exempt from the hate.

It's rude and wrong and it doesn't need to be explained why. A lot of these people spread misinformation. Invade the privacy of others. And do all sorts of stuff. Its really crossing the line. I know it's normal for long time franchises to have insane classic elitists and stuff. This isn't a surprise. But gosh it's a show about a talking sea sponge. They swear up and down that they're protecting the integrity of the show and the creative property of Hillenburg. While also harassing people whom Hillenburg was close friends with. There's something wrong with that. For sure.

I've talked about this before and all but sometimes I remember every so often and it's just weird to think about. It's almost funny how crazy the hate train is. And for what?

I get it always gets rekindled because of what Nickelodeon has been doing recently with the show with spinoffs and what have you. There's questionable morality when it comes to that stuff. But its also not our place to speculate and perpetuate false information like the Kamp Koral situation. Where there was a LOT of death threats that came out of that. Only to reveal Hillenburg DID approve of it. Which was confirmed nearly a year before Kamp Koral came out.

If you have a problem with a lot of the latest content then badger the nick executives. Not the people who were friends and worked close with the man you swear so deeply to protect. These people are trying the best they can. They took note of what made him laugh, they assured that Hillenburg trusted them for the future of the show and that's enough to trust. Maybe he did that because he knew spongebob spinoffs were inevitable but at least they'd be in the hands of someone he trusts to do it the way he would have preferred it to be. But still he trusts them because he actually physically met them and talked to them face to face. None of them has.

This has become a rant and all but my point is to be kind. If you care enough about the show then you could at least understand spongebob isn't just the creation of just one person. Its a team of hundreds who really work hard to put together a show that will make people smile. Its okay not to like all of it. Its okay to be critical about it. But have some respect about it because these people aren't your friends. They have their own lives and this show is their job. And pays their bills.

#Aaaand done #Anyways this thought started because i was talking to a friend about the episode ink lemonade #Yeah it wasn't good but i remembered how much hate it got #Its a little disheartening #Oh also because there was someone who worked on the shpw #Who received homophobic threats and stuff #That they completely shut down and dont respond to questions and stuff anymore #We cant have shit when it comes to spongebob genwunners #spongebob #spongebob squarepants #sb #spongebon squarepants #the spongebob connoisseur #spongebob meme

[rhallucigen]

Starting to notice a pattern with dsmptwt where they treat poc, lgbtq, neuro-divergent and female CCs like absolute shit even after they apologize

Why do the cishet white boys get easily forgiven while the ones who aren’t get all the hate?

Dsmptwt keeps preaching shit that they’re always against misogyny, homophobia and ableism then proceed to call CCs slurs and say the most horrid shit about them 

It’s all about uplifting minority voices until it’s a minority you don’t like

#just something i noticed #mcyttwt my beloathed #cw discourse #I can think of so many times this happened #take eret and scott who's lgbtq for example #they get called homophobic slurs on a daily basis #or crumb who's a 15 yr old female poc streamer who gets an overwhelming amount of hate #techno who is neuro-divergent with poc fans and his poc fans receiving so many death threats on a daily basis #now hannah getting all the hate just for saying not to harass content creators #mcyt #i guess I kinda lost my point here since I was getting rambly and stuff

[scarlet-streak-fanfics]

So Smart, Yet So Stupid, Pt. 3 (1.1k Words)

Yes, yes, I know you’re all expecting Obey Me content, and I promise I’ll be sending that out soon! I just really love the simple enjoyment I get out of writing this series--it’s currently my only ongoing project that I chose to do myself. If any YnM fans are interested, my requests are open for shipfics and x reader stuff--just send an ask my way!

TW for implied period-typical homophobia--nobody in the story is homophobic, it’s just referenced vaguely.

Mycroft Holmes had never enjoyed receiving visitors during work–it was something he regularly discouraged, really. If the conversation wasn’t about work, it could wait until after he’d left his office for the day. However, in recent weeks, there was one person who had become somewhat of an exception to that rule, purely because any conversation with him could quickly become something much more exciting and meaningful than Mycroft’s regular work. Those visits, although infrequent, are the ones he often anticipates the most, even above meetings with the Queen herself. Today, a gentle knock on his door rouses him from his paperwork, much to his annoyance. However, a curt request for privacy dies on his lips as Lord Albert James Moriarty enters the room, removing his hat and giving the older Holmes brother a polite bow. “Good day, Mr. Holmes. I trust I’m not interrupting anything?”

Mycroft scans the papers on his desk, deeming none of them urgent before smiling at the nobleman. “Not at all, Lord Moriarty. Does your current mission require something from me, or do I owe this visit to one of your… extracurricular activities?” Albert seems amused at the delicate choice of wording that he used to allude to the activities of the Lord of Crime. “Both my work and personal pursuits are managing just fine, but I appreciate your concern. The reason I came by was to inquire about your brother, actually.”

Mycroft raises an eyebrow at that, concern and mild exasperation filling him as he wonders exactly what his brother could have done to merit a visit from a nobleman. “I was unaware you had had the misfortune of making Sherlock’s acquaintance. Has he been giving you trouble?” The head of the Moriarty household sits in the chair across from him, leaning his walking stick against Mycroft’s desk. “That’s what I came to discuss, Mr. Holmes. You see, Sherlock has taken a… particular interest in my brother. Considering his fixation on discovering the Lord of Crime’s identity, I wanted to make sure that his intentions were not to take advantage of William. My brother seems to hold him in high esteem as well, and he is carrying enough on his shoulders without the weight of a betrayal. That is something I will not allow to happen.”

Mycroft keeps a smile fixed on his face, but his eyes turn slightly colder than they were before. Though he enjoys Albert’s company and appreciates his goals and intelligence, his priority will always be his little brother’s safety. “I trust that that statement is not a threat to my brother’s life, my lord.” Albert cocks his head to one side for a moment before bursting out laughing. “Of course not, Mr. Holmes! Like I said, William is rather fond of your brother. He wouldn’t tolerate us doing anything to harm him, something that Louis finds rather irritating, I believe. I was simply inquiring for your perspective on Sherlock’s feelings towards my brother–or Liam, as I’ve heard Sherlock refers to him by.”

That nickname sends a jolt of recognition through Mycroft, dismissing his vague concerns and questions about the implications of Louis’s animosity and summoning memories of a recent dinner with Sherlock. His brother had been more animated than he’d seen in years, especially after John and Ms. Hudson had insisted he break his drug habits, prattling on about a recent case that a new friend, Liam, had assisted him on. He says, almost to himself, “Ah, your William is the famous Liam that Sherly won’t shut up about, then. ”

 Lord Moriarty looks absolutely delighted. “So, the feeling truly is mutual, then? I cannot tell you how much of a relief that is to hear, Mr. Holmes.”

Mycroft sizes Albert up as he chooses his next words carefully. “Well, that depends on your brother, really. His excitement when talking about William and the frequency at which he seeks out your brother’s company is unparalleled. Still, the Holmes brothers have never had much of an affinity for the fairer sex, my lord. Sherlock has yet to fully realize that, it seems, but I believe it has some influence on his interest.” He lowers his eyes from the nobleman’s, the unfamiliar anxious feeling of confessing what he’d always considered an unfortunate secret to a man he should consider his better turning his stomach into a pit. Of course, he’s already keeping a sizeable secret on Albert’s behalf that would cause an even greater social scandal, so he does expect that he and his brother will be safe from scrutiny or repercussions. At most, he thinks Albert is likely to request Sherlock stay away from his brother, an order which Mycroft will unfortunately have to comply with. What he doesn’t expect is the grin that Albert gives him as he leans forward. “Then our families have something in common, Mycroft. However, William seems to be much more aware and comfortable in that regard. I’m sure he won’t mind being patient with Sherlock, though.”

The conspiratorial wink that Albert throws him after that statement, combined with the intimate use of his first name, both embarrasses and reassures him–the nobleman’s casual confidence at admitting to such a social taboo catches him completely off guard. Albert, seemingly satisfied with his investigation, retrieves his cane as he stands, replacing his top hat on his head. “Your secret is safe with me, Mr. Holmes. I’m just happy to know that my little brother’s affections aren’t entirely misplaced. William wanted to extend an invitation to Sherlock to come dine at our house later this week, and now I feel much more comfortable indulging him. Would you happen to be free this coming Friday?” Mycroft nods wordlessly, still trying to process the turn this conversation has taken, and Albert’s grin grows wider, green eyes gaining an amused twinkle at Mycroft’s speechlessness. “In that case, we’d be happy for your presence at dinner that evening as well. I’ll have a formal invitation sent to you and your brother tomorrow. I do hope you’ll accept, Mr. Holmes.”

Mycroft realizes that Albert is looking at him expectantly, waiting for a response. “Of course, my lord. It’d be my pleasure to attend.”

“Excellent. Until then, Mr. Holmes.” Lord Moriarty gives a polite bow before exiting the office, a new pep in his step. Mycroft puts his head down on his desk, letting out a frustrated huff, wondering what exactly Sherlock had gotten them both into this time. He trusts Albert’s promise of discretion, of course, but that’s where his understanding of the exchange he’d just had with the head of the Moriarty family ends.

#merc writes #moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #sherliam #mycroft holmes #albert james moriarty #humor #period typical homophobia #I ship alcroft #and I imagine albert being a very confident bisexual #with his two queer little brothers #and it just scares the living daylights out of mycroft

[jamiebluewind]

Dear readers,

I'm reaching out to you right now, not out of joy, but out of fear. Cocoa-fells (riz-gukgak-is-best) is not responding to messages after posting that she was scared of possible actions her homophobic religious parents might take if they figured out that she and her sister were LGBTQ+. Cocoa is a genderfluid biromantic asexual (I'll be using she/her for this post) and her sister is gay.

Cocoa contacted @fangirlsftw (aka Katie) and I on the 8th (we've both known her for about a year and spoke off and on) really worried about her parents finding out her and her sister's identities and how the controlling (taking away of electronics, not allowing contact, etc.) and verbal threats had been escalating with her parents and her friend's parents. Her parents also believe gays are evil. Katie suggested a gofundme to help her raise the funds to get out of the environment with her sister, her best friend (who is also in a bad situation), and her dog. She also agreed to do a daily check in with me and a relative.

After the post went up, Cocoa found out that her mom had gone to her stepdad with suspicions about her and her sister. She said that her parents believed their lies about the LGBTQ+ stuff, but they did find out that her sister was no longer a believer and that Cocoa had doubts (she said that she told them she was leaning towards yes, but still). They appeared to take it remarkably well, but Cocoa still felt anxious due to them nearly finding out everything after successfully hiding her identity for so long.

Cocoa's last check in was October 12th at 10:20pm EST. Her gofundme was taken down and refunds were issued. On October 15th at 5:52pm, I got this message.

 

The message wasn't written in her normal voice and felt... off, so I reached back out to make sure that the person could confirm that they were Cocoa (and not someone else with her account information). No response. Katie and several of our friends have reached out as well and got no response from her tumblr or discord. Not long after that, Cocoa's tumblr account was deactivated.

If you have any information, please reach out to us. Otherwise, please boost this so that it might be seen by someone who can help.

And before anybody says it, I know that this is the internet. That I could be in for a world of hurt and heckling by the end of all of this. But the truth is, I will never let the possibility of hurt feelings stop me from ensuring that a friend is safe. So please, humor me for now and help however you can.

--Update--

It's been 6 days since Cocoa last checked in. 72 hours since I received the message that we strongly believe was not from her. We have no new information at this time, BUT we were able to find two of her worried online friends and update them on the situation.

This post is spreading. There is still hope that someone with information or that knows Cocoa in real life will see it. So I'm asking you, please help us. If you're able, you can even share it on other platforms (reddit, twitter, instagram...) as long as you remember to link back to either this post or one of our tumblrs so someone with information has a place to go.

And Cocoa? If you see this, it's gonna be okay. We will find you. I'm not giving up on you. None of us are. We got you.

#signal boost #missing #please help #lgbtq+ #bluewind talks #tw homophobia #tw animal abuse

[kiribakuhappiness]

How do you deal with the hate comments you get?? (Not that I think the last ask was particularly hate or anything) but I never see hate stuff on your blog or in your comment sections either. I feel like I see tend to get them a lot abd sometimes I don't know how to handle them :( love your work!!! Sorry if this is rude to ask...

Not rude at all - but there's a lot to unpack here, so I’m really sorry if I ramble or go off on a few tangents in my answer!

The short answer is: I don't deal with hate comments.

The medium answer is: It depends on the type of 'hate' that I’m receiving.

The longer answer is this:

I have been really lucky (I think) to have been able to grow a little community on this blog of similar, like-minded people who enjoy the same things that I do (Tsundere characters, characters that can help show more representation in the Alphabet Mafia community, dumb boys who deserve to just be dumb boys, etc). I've rarely received any hate comments since my time here on Tumblr, and I think there's a lot of reasons for this.

1.) If someone comes rearing into my Ask box just LOOKING for a fight (ie, random death threats from Anons, homophobic comments, an obvious attempt to bait me into some kind of long-winded debate, etc) I simply just do not deal with it. Those people (especially Anons) are just looking for a reaction out of you. They want you to get upset, to post some long rambling defense, to be snarky and rude back to them, that's what they want.

But at the end of the day, I don't owe any of them a response. Hell, I don't owe anyone a response if I don't want to answer something.

But I answer Asks because I like talking with people, and getting all amped up and excited over the same things, that's part of the fun of creating and sharing that creative work online and being an active part of the fandom. I LOVE hearing from the people that follow this blog (even if I don't always get the chance to respond to all of them) because I know that they're happy or excited enough to hit that Ask button and send me a message, and that makes me feel good to know that I was able to get them so pumped up!

But those Anons aren't looking for that kind of connection. Most of the time, they’re not even looking to have a mature discussion, even if that’s how they come across at first. They're looking to hurt. To ridicule and make fun of, to make me and my followers feel bad or low. And, most of the time, the people who are sending that hate are young. So young. Like... way younger than what you might be picturing in your head right now.

So when I get the really bad hate - the hate that makes your skin feel hot, the hate that spikes your blood pressure, the hate that makes you start typing in a blind rage because you want to hurt them just as much as they've just hurt you - then they've already won. And I'll be damned if I let myself be led by the hand right into a losing battle.

So I simply do not engage. I don't reply with some snarky comment thinking I'm oh-so clever, I don’t reply in a holier-than-thou manner because I think I’m just so much better than them, and I don't reply with a long rambling post about why they're wrong and why they're childish and why they're hateful because that in itself is a hateful act, and I have far more important things to be spending my time and my energy on than fighting with a random on the internet and fueling that (quite frankly, pointless) hatred.

When I don't respond, the anon grows bored. Why send hateful things into someone's Asks if they aren’t even going to showcase it to all of their loyal followers? The reason you don't see hate on this blog is because I simply do not allow them to sink their roots into this soil. I pull them out like weeds and refuse to let them grow here.

I also don't respond because, while I may be able to take a death threat or a homophobic slur with gritted teeth and a roll of the eyes and keep on going about my day, some of my followers may not be mentally or psychologically equipped to see such rude backlash. They range from pre-teens to adults, and when they choose to follow me and my blog, I see it as a responsibility on my end to shield them from that unnecessary hatred. There's no need for them to see such toxicity, and so I act as a stubborn guard blocking the front gates. This temple is for relaxation, for laughter and excitement and love, and I'll protect it until the day that I decide to send that last post and go off to do something else with my life.

2.) Another reason that I believe that I don’t get much hate on this blog is because I don’t cross-platform my content. Does this lower the visibility of my work? Sure. I don’t have a Twitter, or a Youtube, or a TikTok, or an Instagram. This blog is just that - this blog on Tumblr, with a link to my AO3 for my writing. And while that limits my audience and perhaps bottlenecks my views, the safeguard it brings from distancing from toxic mindsets that tend to leak into the more problematic social media sites is well worth it, in my opinion.

I don’t write these stories for kudos and hits. I don’t write these stories to push out as much content as possible, to gain a following as quickly as I can, to reach the entirety of the fandom. I don’t want that. I want to write stories to get better at writing, I want to write about the boys because I crave more gay representation and quite frankly I am obsessed with Bakugou as a character and how much fun it is to write from a Tsundere mindset.

If other people happen to find my work and they like it too, then that’s so awesome! But the extent of my dedication to this blog is just that, my own dedication to something I love and something that brings me joy.

3.) The final reason that I think why I don’t get a lot of hate comments or hurtful asks is because I put a lot of pride and effort into my fics. When I write a piece of work that contains heavy levels of smut, I work really hard to make them realistic, to make the characters motives and emotions clear and concise, to showcase a healthy depiction of what it means to be sexually attracted to and/or engage in sexual activity with someone that a person cares very deeply about.

I see a lot of smut centered around the bnha fandom, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, in my opinion, but sometimes I do see things that I personally feel are a little tactless. They’re not handled well, or they promote toxic behaviors, or it really is incredibly self-indulgent and sometimes grossly ignorant.

However, just like with the hate that I sporadically receive in my Asks, it’s of my own personal belief that if I see something I don’t like or don’t agree with on the internet, then I simply do not engage with it. I don’t give it the attention that it so desperately wants to get out of people, I don’t give it a platform to grow on, I refuse to allow it to think that it has the upper hand anywhere in the situation.

I am entirely in control of the things that I promote on this blog, and I take that responsibility very seriously. It’s why I refuse to reblog art if it’s so obviously not being posted by the original artist (there are SEVERAL kiribaku blogs I have seen gaining popularity recently that simply post art from other artists without any credits or any permission). I have even seen several of my own mutuals reblogging art from those particular blogs, and so I find it incredibly important to be diligent in which accounts I reblog art from.

That being said - I’m not perfect. I’m a human being behind this account, a singular entity the runs the entirety of this blog, ever growing and learning and working every day to be better than I was the day before, and sometimes I make mistakes.

Sometimes I reblog stolen art, and need a follower to nudge me in my inbox and let me know that it’s stolen and where to find the original art, so that I can take the responsibility of deleting the stolen post and reblogging the original content to show support for the original artist. Sometimes I write something in a fic that (to me, from my own experiences) I might not consider to be harmful or inappropriate, but that might be damaging in a way that I may have never considered before because I had grown so used to receiving that kind of treatment myself that I fail to see its toxicity on my own, and so when people come to me with genuinely helpful constructive criticism, I feel it is my duty as a writer to be level-headed and humble enough to admit that perhaps what I have grown so accustomed to is just that - behavior I’ve simply grown accustomed to - and to then take a good hard look at that example and make a decision about whether I want to change it or not.

The important thing to remember is that we’re all entitled to our own opinions and feelings, but that we’re also individually responsible for the way that we react to these types of circumstances.

Becoming defensive, becoming enraged, becoming aggressive, becoming jaded - these things don’t do anything but make a situation worse.

That’s why I love Bakugou so. fucking. much. He IS all of those things. Defensive. Easy to anger. Inherently aggressive. And Horikoshi is teaching him through many trials and errors why those types of behaviors will be his inevitable downfall, why falling into the pit of ‘you hurt me, so I must hurt you back’ leads only to repeated failure and internal anguish, why you will forever be forced to run in place and can never continue to grow and move forward if you’re so busy ignoring the reality that we are all humans, that we are all flawed, that we all experience the same emotions, even if we don’t agree with them or think that they’re justified.

The reason I love Bakugou’s character so much is because he is so deeply flawed, he is told time and time again that he is the epitome of a villain, and yet he refuses to accept that. He refuses to believe that he is anything other than the greatest hero-to-be, and he’ll push his bruised ego and damaged pride aside time and time again to relearn what has already been so solidly ingrained into his being, to continuously be watching and listening and learning while still whole-heartedly remaining unabashedly true to himself, to know that he came to this amazing hero school and is being taught by these incredible heroes “not to learn what he can do, but to learn what he can’t do.”

So, to wrap up this entirely incoherent rambling mess of a response that you no doubt didn’t care to read about, I deal with hate the same way that I deal with everything else; circumstantially, and with as much empathy as I can possibly muster.

If it’s random hate just looking for attention and wanting to hurt, I refuse to give them a stable platform to stand on or an audience to be subjected to. I force them to go somewhere else, cause it’s no fun to hit someone over and over again who refuses to ever hit back. If it’s in regards to my fics, I think I work really hard to provide healthy representation work for this fandom, to showcase the characters in not only challenging situations but also how they can realistically overcome them, and to create an environment where love can be seen as just that, love.

Whether it’s with Bakugou and Kirishima learning how to recognize their own weaknesses and become better people because of them, or whether it’s with Bakugou and Hikaru discovering that experiencing love and relenting in trust doesn’t make them weak but in fact makes them infinitely stronger than they will ever consciously realize, the end result is always the same. I just want to share stories, hopefully ones with positive messages, that make people feel things and maybe might teach them a lesson or two along the way.

I hope this somewhat answered your question anon! Sorry it’s so long and jumbled but is anyone really surprised anymore? When you ask me a question like this, just know I am always going to go off on a long tangent :,D

If you’re ever experiencing a situation where you feel harassed or unsafe or you want advice on how to properly handle a situation, please feel free to reach out to me, and we can work together to try and come up with a mature, responsible solution!

Happy reading!! xx

#dealing with hate #there I go rambling again oops sorry ahaha #personal #asks

[thisdancingheart]

Remember YFIP?

My Year of Grief and Cancellation

What was I trying to accomplish with my anonymous Tumblr?

By Liat Kaplan Feb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/style/your-fave-is-problematic-tumblr.html

If you were on Tumblr in the early 2010s, you may remember a blog called Your Fave Is Problematic. If not, its content should still sound familiar to you. The posts contained long lists of celebrities’ regrettable (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ethnophobic, ableist and so on) statements and actions — the stuff that gets people canceled these days.

That blog was my blog. I spent hours researching each post; as you can probably imagine, my search history was pretty ugly.

Your Fave Is Problematic had around 50,000 followers at its peak, in 2014, when I was a high school senior, but its influence was outsized. I got in a feud with a prominent young adult fiction author over his inclusion. One actor submitted himself, perhaps as a dare (or a plea) to dig up his worst. “Problematic fave” became a well-worn meme; even after I stopped posting, my blog was cited in books, articles, podcasts and think pieces. Through it all, my identity stayed private.

The blog started, as so many anonymous online projects do, as vengeful public shaming masquerading as social criticism. I was fine-tuning my moral compass and coming into my own as a feminist. So when I noticed classmates making sexist jokes on Facebook, including some about me, I started taking screenshots to post on a Tumblr called Calling Out Sexists. My policy was that I would take down a post only if its author publicly apologized.

A group of students brought the blog to the attention of our school’s administrators, who threatened to take legal action if I continued to write about them. Meanwhile, other Tumblr users had begun submitting screenshots featuring statements from minor celebrities. With graduation hanging in the balance, I shifted my focus away from my peers and toward public figures. I rebranded. Money and fame had protected them since time immemorial. What harm could my little blog do?

So I posted photos of Lady Gaga in V magazine with her skin bronzed to an unnatural brown. I pulled out troubling quotes from an essay Lena Dunham had written about a trip to Japan. I noted Taylor Swift’s since-changed homophobic lyric in “Picture to Burn.” My most popular posts tended to be about women — which makes sense, because the celebrity press tends to be more critical of them.

As it turned out, I had bigger things to worry about than dissecting the careers of celebrities I’d never met. On a winter morning, I woke up to the news that my older sister, Tamar, who was studying in Bolivia, had been in a bus crash, and the outlook was not good. I pored over research to escape from what felt like an impossible situation: my sister slowly dying of treatable injuries in a rural area thousands of miles away.

We held a public memorial service for Tamar in our hometown. Some of my classmates showed up, including a few who had written nasty things about me online. I found their shows of kindness insulting now, during what was quickly becoming the worst year of my life.

I tried going back to school after a few weeks, but I found myself picking frequent arguments with classmates and teachers. The school made an arrangement with my parents: I would be placed on “medical leave” for the remainder of the semester. I would graduate on time, but I wouldn’t return to campus.

Stuck at home, I devoted myself to Tumblr. What was I trying to accomplish? Mostly, I was interested in knocking people off their pedestals. I also enjoyed being popular, controversial, discussed. When a comedian I had posted about name-checked my blog on Twitter, I was giddy.

Then I started receiving threats. Someone sent me a screenshot of a house from Google Maps, claiming to have found my IP address. It wasn’t my house, but still. I realized that for every person on Tumblr who looked up to my blog, there were many more, online and offline, who hated it — and me. I started posting less and, eventually, stopped posting at all.

In the years since, I’ve looked back on my blog with shame and regret — about my pettiness, my motivating rage, my hard-and-fast assumptions that people were either good or bad. Who was I to lump together known misogynists with people who got tattoos in languages they didn’t speak? I just wanted to see someone face consequences; no one who’d hurt me ever had.

There’s something almost quaint about it all now: teenage me, teaching myself about social justice on Tumblr while also posturing as an authority on that very subject, thinking I was making a difference while engaging in a bit of schadenfreude. Meanwhile, other movements — local, global, unified in their purposes and rooted in progressive philosophies — were organizing for actual justice. Looking back, I was more of a cop than a social justice warrior, as people on Tumblr had come to think of me.

These days, there’s no shortage of online accountability efforts, the large part of them anonymously run. Some accounts post typically anodyne but occasionally explosive celebrity gossip. Others are explicitly aimed at naming, shaming and punishing people for all kinds of actions and missteps. My own work fell somewhere in the middle, I think; the information I posted was out in the open, but I was cataloging it to make a case against the veneration of the rich and famous.

As many have noted, the coronavirus pandemic has pronounced the distance between celebrities and the rest of us. And their actions have been subject to greater scrutiny — the vacations they’ve gone on, the parties they’ve held, the access they’ve had to testing and care during a health crisis that has taken millions of lives.

But celebrity culture began to crumble long before Covid-19. Mounting accusations of many kinds, whispered between industry professionals, had become too loud to ignore. Social media, which gave celebrities more control over their images and influence over their fans, also opened them up to new kinds of criticism. People have lost jobs and entire careers because of the kinds of errors my blog cited. Others have apologized for work and behavior that, re-examined in a contemporary context, just doesn’t hold up.

For years, I’ve regretted the spotlight I put on other people’s mistakes, as if one day I wouldn’t make plenty of my own. There can be an unsparing purity to growing into one’s social conscience that is often overbroad.

My brain wasn’t ready for nuance. I was angered by hypocrisy and cruelty; what I did about it was apply a level of scrutiny that left no room for error. I’m not saying that I should be canceled for my teenage blog. (Please don't!) I just know what we all should know by now: that no one who has lived publicly, online or off, has a spotless record.

For these reasons, I’ve thought about deleting my Tumblr. But doing that would mean erasing my own errors of judgment. I almost feel like I need to leave it up to punish myself for having made it in the first place. That, and I know someone could (and probably would) just pull it up on Wayback Machine. The internet, after all, never forgets.

~~~~~~~

#YFIP #fuck her and her lack of real remorse #25Feb2021 #NYT

[scarfacemarston]

This is a strange question, but I really have to ask, is the RDR fandom as bad as it seems? I like the series, but what bits and pieces I've seen with regard to fandom ongoings make it seem like it can be a toxic place to be in, even though the game has been out for a while. I would honestly like to have a bit more interaction with the fandom, but it just doesn't seem very welcoming so far...?

It's totally fine! My anon inbox is open for anything and everything as long as it's not harassment, of course.

 I've been around active in the fandom since before rdr 2 came out. Rdr 1's fandom was awesome and everyone was chill. Once rdr 2 came out, it was chaos. Every fandom has its bullshit and toxicity. Every no matter how big or small. There are good people in the fandom, but they can be difficult to find and a lot of the decent people I know have either been bullied out of the fandom or have moved on because they are tired of it all. Sometimes, people are bullied for the most ridiculous reasons and any action against harassment does no good and sometimes makes the harassers more excited. This is one of the most transphobic, racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic fandoms I have ever been in. I've never seen so much chaos. It can also be very dangerous. I know multiple people who have been doxxed, their lives threatened, stalked, goaded into attempting to harm themselves, just horrible stuff. I myself was threatened with doxxing twice which led to a police report being filed for one and the other being closely monitored. I have also received death threats before. I have had extensive therapy because of this fandom. However, I have also made some very dear friends. I'm going out of town with someone I met in the fandom. My small group of friends and I were all planning to visit each other, too.

At this time, there are some especially large trolls in the fandom. Just be aware of who to interact with and if something feels off - take that seriously. So there are good people, but they are all drowned out by the bull shit.

As far as how content creators are treated: It's basically the same as with every fandom. Very little appreciation, people being rude and demanding, etc. Representation of groups can again, be hit or miss. This fandom seems to have an unusually low amount of wlw content for example. I don't mean to sound doom and gloom, but if someone is going to ask something like this - I take it very seriously.

#discourse

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Do you maybe have some headcanons or Au or something for Moana x Merida? I really like that ship! 🤗and I like your moodboards with moanida! ^^

Anon I need you to know I am literally crying TEARS OF JOY because I have FINALLY received an Ask on this humble little blog and I am OVERJOYED

Yes, I would love to talk about Moanida!!!

I’ve got a few AUs I kinda play around with for them--might make moodboards of them one of these days! A couple I really like are a Mermaid AU and a Selkie AU, probably with Moana as the mermaid/selkie because of her ocean connection??? But I really like the idea of Selkie!Merida too, since it would go so nicely with selkies in Scottish folklore and all that. Either way it solves the geographical issue because they can just swim to each other!!! Also yes, these gay girls crossing literal oceans for each other is absolutely the hill I’m going to die on. I’m also a fan of a sort of Mythology/Goddess AU where like Moana is an ocean goddess and Merida is a volcano goddess of sorts akin to Te Ka with cool lava hair and scary volcanic rock skin and only Moana’s soothing ocean waters can calm her eruptive (heh, get it?) rage. And this also means FORBIDDEN SAPPHIC LOVE FORBIDDEN SAPPHIC LOVE FORBIDDEN SAPPHIC LOVE

Also MOANIDA HEADCANONS YESSSS

I thought up some just for you <3 Some are more general and some are more specific AU-focused so I tried to sort them by AU but there’s probably gonna be some overlap.

General ~Merida is THE most overprotective girlfriend. Like she knows Moana’s independent and can take care of herself, but she absolutely will not tolerate slander of or threats to her girlfriend of any kind. If Merida were to meet Maui at any period in the timeline where he and Moana weren’t really cool yet and he was still being kind of a dick to Moana, Merida would try to fight a literal demigod. She doesn’t give a single fuck. ~Once Merida hears about the Tamatoa Incident, she wants to fight every crab she sees. She also develops a taste for crabcakes and crab rangoons because she starts eating lots of crabmeat solely out of spite. Moana finds this endlessly amusing. ~Moana definitely has the braincell between them. She’s constantly having to hold Mer back and talk her down from starting shit. Merida would unleash the Rage of a Thousand Suns upon her enemies if given half the chance. ~Merida is very physically active and loves working out--she would work out twice a day if given the chance. She’s just really about those exercise endorphins. Moana makes her fresh tropical fruit bowls and tropical fruit smoothies for after her workouts. Merida adores these and eventually she absolutely refuses to drink any smoothies not made by her girlfriend. ~They’re both lowkey caffeine addicts. Merida usually loathes getting up early (unless it’s to work out or go riding with Angus) and will snap at anyone and everyone until she’s had coffee. Moana knows how to get her hands on these really amazing-tasting, obscure types of Polynesian coffee, so she hooks them up with The Good Stuff. After tasting the coffee Moana gets, Merida honestly never wants any other B-tier type of coffee again. ~They love to go sailing in Moana’s boat. In a modern AU where the boat has a motor, Merida likes to make them go really fast for the adrenaline rush and the feeling of wind in her hair. It kinda freaks Moana out to go that fast, but it’s honestly worth it for the look of absolute elation on Merida’s face, and the way she laughs and cheers the whole time. ~Sometimes they like to go out on more calm, tranquil night sails. Once they’re a ways out, they just lie on the deck and stargaze. Moana points out all the constellations to Merida and rambles about how to navigate with them. Merida just turns and watches her with this super-smitten look the entire time. ~Moana teaches Merida some Maori. She teachers her how to say “I love you,” and, at Merida’s request, how to swear. ~Sometimes Moana calls Merida Maori words Mer doesn’t understand. Merida gets mad because she thinks Moana’s insulting her. It turns out she’s just calling Merida a bunch of super sappy Maori pet names. ~Sometimes Merida and Moana just like to talk shit about people who are pissing them off IN Maori, so they don’t understand. ~Whenever Merida absolutely goes OFF on someone for saying something homophobic or sexist or whatever, Moana just stands back and crosses her arms and smirks, and says “Thaaaat’s my girl!” It absolutely never fails to make Merida blush like a madwoman and start blubbering like an idiot and lose her original point completely. ~When they fight, they are SO stubborn, petty, and dramatic about it that they can stay mad at each other for DAYS. For really bad fights, they usually end up needing a mediator (in a RotBTD+ AU, I imagine this would be Rapunzel, Anna, or Hiccup). ~Angus and Pua are best friends. No, I will not be accepting criticism at this time. They get into lots of hijinks and shenanigans, and sometimes they sneak out together and Pua likes to ride around on Angus’s back. When Pua and Angus go missing, Mer and Mo just kind of sigh like “Oh, they’re out adventuring again, aren’t they?” ~Angus also always protects Pua so he never has to be scared of adventuring again!!! Pua still remembers his and Moana’s disastrous first sailing attempt, and Angus makes sure little Pua never gets into danger like that again. ~Hamish, Harris, and Hubert ship it SO hard! Moana turns out to be really good with kids, and has even been known to assist with the boys’ mischief from time to time. They definitely think Moana’s a good person to keep their sister’s chaos in check while not being TOO much of a boring wet blanket stifling her fun. ~Sina absolutely ADORES Merida and basically adopts her and treats her like a second daughter. After hearing Merida doesn’t have the best relationship with her own mom and feels like her mom doesn’t try to understand her or respect that she’s different from her, Sina gets like...SUPER angry and and starts doting on Merida to an almost annoying extent. She never wants Merida to have to feel forced into being someone she’s not, since she saw that with Moana and how much it absolutely KILLED her to be kept away from the ocean. ~Tui is leery of Merida at first, mainly because she seems like she’s going to be a bad influence on his daughter. However, he eventually comes around to her once he sees how much she loves his daughter, and they bond over both being ridiculously overprotective of Moana. ~Fergus also adores Moana, and basically knew Merida was gay from the jump--them dating is 0% a surprise to him. He’s honestly just glad that his daughter has someone more rational and down-to-earth to prevent her from doing anything TOO stupid. ~Elinor meanwhile, traditionalist that she is, is NOT about this whole lesbian thing and would probably be pretty homophobic...at least at first (steaming hot take, I know, she’s just got tradition so far up her ass I don’t know if she’d EVER be okay with her daughter choosing not only to forego marriage to man COMPLETELY--not just delay it--but marry a woman instead, who she couldn’t produce an heir with. Also sorry but I do not like her and probably will not portray her particularly favorably in my HCs sorry not sorry lmao) Maybe she comes around, maybe she doesn’t. I’ll leave that up to your imagination. Although I am not an Elinor fan so I think you already know my take XD ~Moana is grey-asexual grey-aromantic, so she CAN be sexually and romantically interested in people, it’s just...very rare. Merida is basically the only person she’s ever wanted to legit date. Maybe she likes boys too, but she wouldn’t know--she hasn’t found any she’s into thus far. Merida, meanwhile, has always been a raging lesbian, and has had lots of crushes on girls over the years (in an AU where she has the opportunity to, anyhow--ARE there even any girls her age in Dunbroch??? XD). When her parents would read storybooks to her as a kid, she’d always finding herself getting doe-eyed over the “fair maidens” rather than the fearless, ripped warriors who saved them from danger.  No crush ever hit her quite as hard as Moana did, though. But Merida knows for a damn fact she isn’t into men--90% of the time she can’t stand them and their antics, and the only men she’s ever really felt any kind of affection for are ones in her family or ones who remind her of one or more of her family members. ~Moana makes Merida flower crowns. Merida grumbles endlessly about how “girly” they are, so Moana hunts down some black flowers to make one with so it’ll look a bit more badass and intimidating. Merida absolutely LOVES it and wears it everywhere. ~Merida teaches Moana how to horseback ride and how to shoot a bow and arrow. She’s pretty not great at either at first, but Merida is incredibly patient with her. This shocks everyone around them, because since when is Merida patient with anyone? ~Merida also teaches Moana swordplay, and they LOVE to spar with each other. Agressive flirting during sparring sessions is very commonplace. If anyone attacks either Dunbroch or Motunui, Merida and Moana are a force to be reckoned with. ~Likewise, Moana teaches Merida how to sail and some kinda basic naval combat skills (i.e. how to shoot that harpoon gun or whatever it was she used to fight the kikimora off). ~They don’t have sex that often because neither of them has that high of a sex drive, but when they do, Merida tops if a strap-on is used. ~Moana is the kind of person who just kinda sings songs to herself as she goes about her daily routine and her chores. Merida loves to listen in because she thinks Moana has the prettiest singing voice on earth. That doesn’t stop her from teasing Moana about “singing all the got dam time,” though. ~Literally ALWAYS cuddling and kissing when they’re watching something together or just doing any kinda idle activity at home together. These girls cannot keep their hands off of each other. They hold hands in public pretty much everywhere they go, and Merida yells at anyone who makes a fuss about it.

Modern AU ~They meet while Merida is studying abroad in Tahiti. Maybe because Maui (who’s Moana’s cousin or older brother or something) has a tattoo parlor, and of COURSE Merida goes in to get some edgy bow and arrow tattoo to piss her mom off. Or maybe Merida is just snorkeling in one of the coves on one of her days off, and she runs into Moana and they just Vibe. ~I also like the idea of them meeting at a bar/nightclub type place in Papeete--like maybe Maui owns the nightclub because he just likes to party like that, and he lets his little sis Moana poke around in there because he’s lowkey a terrible influence XD And maybe one night Moana’s bartending to make a little extra cash and Merida comes in and gets really drunk on like a huge Sex on the Beach or something and starts really clumsily hitting on Moana and Moana gets SUCH a kick out of it. Merida can’t remember much of the flirting the next day, but she and Moana still become fast friends. ~Merida is constantly ditching class to sneak off and go see Moana. Her grades are plummeting. ~When the semester abroad is over, they promise to keep in touch over the internet--although Moana also wants to write letters because she loves the idea of having a pen pal. Merida teases her mercilessly for being so “old-fashioned” but also doesn’t have the heart to say no. ~They end up confessing they like each other over internet chat. Merida damn well knows she’s gay and has for a while now, but she’s terrified of telling Moana she’s into her because she’s really scared Moana’s straight. So when Moana is the one who ends up confessing to Merida, Merida has literally never been happier in her entire life. ~Once Merida graduates, they decide to just say “fuck it” and move to some big seaside city together (for some reason I really like the idea of them living in Los Angeles???). Merida needs to get away from her overbearing mom and Moana just really wants to see more of the world besides the South Pacific, so away they go! ~BROADWAY MUSICAL NERDS BROADWAY MUSICAL NERDS BROADWAY MUSICAL NERDS! They both fucking LOVE musicals, especially those with sapphic undertones (Wicked, anyone?), and will loudly and obnoxiously sing along to the soundtracks, much to the chagrin of all their neighbors. They’re also pretty big theater fans in general--especially Merida, always rather the dramatic type. ~At some point they save up and go to see Wicked on Broadway together. The trip ends up being one of their all-time favorites, and their fridge is covered in goofy, dumb selfies of them in New York. ~Moana goes to every SINGLE one of Merida’s archery tournaments, and every single game of any other sport she plays. Literally no one cheers more boisterously or enthusiastically than Moana does. Whenever Merida hits a bullseye or scores a goal, Moana grins and nudges the people next to her (even if they’re complete fucking strangers) and goes “That’s my girlfriend!!!” ~Merida is a goddamn punk, and is always walking around in spiked jackets, combat boots, and basically any other clothing that says “don’t fuck with me.” She tried to start a punk rock band once, but it ended up falling through because no one would sponsor Merida’s angry screamo songs about smashing the patriarchy. Moana still went to all of their tiny-ass, tacky concerts though, for the few months they were “touring” the city. ~Merida taught herself how to play electric guitar because she thinks it’s Edgy and Cool. Moana really likes to dance, and knows a fair number of traditional Polynesian dances and has even taught a class or two. Merida learns how to play some traditional Polynesian music on the electric guitar so she can play while Moana dances. The combination of hard rock-esque shredding and a very mellow island dance looks extremely bizarre to anyone watching, but the girls absolutely do not care.

@takaraphoenix I said I’d tag you in Moanida content I made and I am a woman of my word!!! Enjoy!!!

Please y’all, send me more asks about my ships!!! I love to talk about them!!!

#moana x merida #merida x moana #disney femslash #moana #merida #moanida #meridana #moarida #moanaxmerida #meridaxmoana #moana waialiki #merida dunbroch #brave #crossover #headcanons #hcs #au #rotbtd #my askbox #holy shit it feels so good to finally be able to tag that #AN ASK #AMAZING

[les-belles-infideles]

What happened with Kora @princesshamlet: A start at contextualizing the events of the past week

While I am writing this because Kora expressed that they would like it if someone would post something contextualizing what happened, I do not speak for them; my opinions and perspective are my own. I think the general response has been wildly disproportionate to their actual words and actions. Let me know if you have questions about anything or if my writing style is hard to read and I’ll do my best to clarify.

Tl;dr: Last fall, Kora, a new Supernatural fan, started rewriting Supernatural to be more racially diverse and to more overtly address social issues such as homophobia and misogyny. They continually asked for feedback, particularly from POC, and received overwhelmingly positive responses.

Earlier this week, Kora posted something that unintentionally played into ideas that harm trans men. They were horrified to have hurt people, immediately apologized and made an effort to learn more about the issues involved.

Yesterday, some of Kora’s friends cut them off, presumably over the abovementioned. Some people read Kora’s Supernatural rewrite and were offended by portrayals of various ethnicities; Kora tried to learn from these criticisms and apologize for them. People organized to spread bad-faith, extremely hostile claims and Kora left Tumblr.

Background:

- last fall, Kora started watching Supernatural, and posting about it, including making some popular reaction videos and an elaborate summary of the events of season 16 as of mid-November. They got really attached to Cas as a character and DeanCas as a ship.

- Kora made a post along the lines of “what if I drew Castiel as Indian?” and got encouraging responses, so they made a drawing. A lot of Desi people left comments saying that they really liked the drawing and that the representation was meaningful to them, so Kora started posting and reblogging a lot more about recasting Supernatural to be racially diverse.

- Kora accumulates a lot of ideas around how they wish Supernatural had been, and starts casually writing it up into a story. It didn’t even have a title for the first few chapters, but it quickly amassed a small, enthusiastic following.

- I started reading it at first mostly as a way of getting to know Kora, who was at the time a new friend irl (they didn’t mean to give me their Tumblr; I had followed them for Hamlet and Star Trek posts and then recognized them when they posted a selfie) but wound up getting pretty invested. I started watching Supernatural despite the fact that I can pretty much never commit to finishing a TV show.

- Kora’s general strategy was to post ideas on Tumblr and get input before including them in the fic, particularly regarding race and ethnicity. Plenty of people gave them feedback -- I remember one really long conversation where people swapped headcanons about what music a Mexican-American Dean Winchester would have liked growing up.

- iirc, they actively collaborated with multiple Latine fans of the fic on one chapter that foregrounded Mexican-American culture. These fans are credited in an author’s note.

- they received substantial encouragement from Supernatural fans of color for how they were writing the fic, and afaik no negative feedback.

- they also used the fic as a way to discuss and joke about their personal experiences with misogyny, repression, and homophobia, including writing Dean Winchester as undergoing a character arc involving working through and overcoming severe homophobia. When we called recently, they described going from homophobic to not homophobic as “the best character arc a man can have.”

- afaik they had beta readers or at least people to run ideas by for most chapters.

First incident:

- earlier this week, Kora posted a somewhat poorly-worded vent post about Dean Winchester’s misogyny in Supernatural canon.

- I think I reblogged it because I don’t have super high standards for my SPN blog and yeah, afaict Dean said some pretty gross things in canon? I’d seen a lot of people talk about it, particularly Asian women, it’s clearly a thing.

- several people expressed hurt at the post’s wording, which could be read as bigoted against trans men.

- Kora immediately apologized and started looking for ways to learn more about trans men’s issues (afaict, mostly asking friends and going through the trans dean tag)

- they messaged me about it (Tuesday 4/13/2021), and I took a closer look at the post and explained how in isolation it looked harmless, but some of the rhetoric fit into wider patterns of transandrophobia, i.e. part of the impetus for this post was Kora being surprised that some of their trans male friends project onto Dean, since he’s a pretty bad role model for gender -- I pointed out that one way trans men are marginalized within queer movements is by people perpetuating the idea that we’re more misogynistic than cis men (which makes no sense), and their post could be read as playing into that trope (that reading had occurred to me when I first saw the post, but I had initially dismissed it because Kora and I had been spending a lot of time talking about gender and I never felt that they distrusted me or saw me as a threat).

- they made another hasty apology post, quoting my message to them.

- I encouraged them not to worry too much about what strangers online thought about them, but they were very insistent that they had hurt people and needed to learn and make amends.

- I think what happened next was that the conversation sparked a larger discussion about transandrophobia in the Supernatural fandom? I’m not sure about this though, I was off Tumblr most of Tuesday and Wednesday. I saw a few well-written posts refuting the idea that it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans. I did not see anyone claim it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans, but again, I wasn’t looking.

The Discourse™:

- yesterday, Kora started getting a lot more and a lot meaner messages.

- a large part of their social circle cut them off all at once, saying they felt unsafe and that Kora was transphobic. Kora did not/was unable to receive further clarification, while actively seeking the chance to learn more and repair harm done.

- someone made a dedicated hate tag for them.

- a new group of people read their Supernatural rewrite, and were offended by their portrayals of race and their writing about homophobia, and additionally mocking their writing style. The tone was often extremely mean-spirited.

- Kora responded to and apologized for some of the concerns around their portrayal of race, and refuted some of the bad-faith readings of their depictions of homophobia.

- Kora made an effort to understand what they had done wrong but a lot of the posts weren’t very specific.

- some of the claims got fucking wild. A lot of them involved taking stuff out of context. I think w*ncest got brought up at one point???

- Kora wrote another apology and took a break from Tumblr, on the advice of another friend.

- I spent like a day gearing up to write this because I vastly underestimated the speed at which Tumblr discourse moves.

#i know this would be a stronger post if I linked to posts addressing the issues in question #but I kinda just need to post Something at this point #supernatural #spn #princesshamlet discourse #discourse cw #ask to tag #tooth speech #lore

[evesbeve]

Hey there, you said your ask box was open for Justin Min's whole thing? I guess I just slept through the whole thing, honestly - could you just go over a gist of everything that happened? I get that it seems like a PR team didn't know how to use twitter (which, mood) and f-ed things up for him, but what were they "cleaning up" in the first place, who's Anna what did they do that warranted such a bizarre thread from the PR team, etc...? 😳

Hey! Okay so this is going to be a lot, so buckle up.

Right off the bat, I just want to say that Justin isn’t cancelled. The situation has been mostly resolved right now (more on that later).

So around a week ago, Justin Min started deleting his replies to fans. Depending on whether you’re on Twitter or not, you might know that Justin is one of the most interactive people of the cast. He knows a lot of fans by name, he has inside jokes with us, and he just interacts a lot with his fanbase. So you can imagine why him suddenly starting to delete his replies was a bit upsetting. There was nothing we could do about it though.

And suddenly, two days ago, Justin deactivated his account out of nowhere, which caused all kinds of drama to go down.

People started pointing the finger at specific accounts saying it was their fault that Justin deactivated (don’t even get me started on that logic; why a grown-ass adult deactivate because of a few teenagers is above me, it literally made no sense), even sending death threats. Others suspected that he got suspended because Twitter’s algorithm saw all these tweets get deleted and was like “welp, bot time.” Long story short, lots of misinformation was going around.

And then out of the blue, Justin’s account was reactivated, and he made a thread directed at Anna.

Now, who is Anna? Anna is a stan on twitter, whose @ I won’t be sharing for privacy, but here’s how they’re relevant in this:

Remember when I mentioned the inside jokes? Well, one of them was between a fan called Matt and Justin. Matt kept commenting on Justin’s tweets asking him to say trans rights. On the one year anniversary of Matt asking Justin to say trans rights, Justin finally said it. Then, Matt made a poll asking other stans what he should have Justin say next, and lesbian rights won.

Around a month ago, Matt replied to one of Justin’s tweets, and Justin responded with something along the lines of “haha, i know this is just an attempt to get me to say lesbian rights,” referencing the inside joke. People started commenting that the way he phrased it was a bit :/ so then he replied to his own tweet with something like “well, i’ll delete this before i get cancelled,” and that’s when things spiraled.

[id: Justin Min’s tweet #1: i see that you are trying to butter me up to say lesbian rights, nice try, matt. nice try.

Justin Min’s tweet #2: oh, here we go. this is an inside joke between myself and matt, if you’ve been a part o fthis fandom for more than a few weeks. but alas, i will have to delete this now before i’m cancelled by the end of the day. keep loving, everyone.]

Lesbians get spoken over and looked down upon not only by straight people, but also the LGBT community. So when Justin tweeted that, lesbians were like “this sounds as if you care more about your own self image rather than our community.” Then, non-lesbians got involved and started either a) calling Justin lesbophobic (which lesbians never did) or b) blindly defending Justin and saying he did nothing wrong.

(Side note: I am not a lesbian, and I’m not trying to speak over lesbians in this situation. But I did talk about this to some of my friends who are lesbians, and they told me that what Justin did wasn’t as big of a deal as Twitter made it out to be. These are their words, not mine. All I know is that it was definitely not bad-intentioned, just a huge misunderstanding.)

Anyway, Anna made a thread explaining to Justin why him defending himself came out as harmful towards the lesbian community, and then Justin apologised and that was it.

Which brings us back to yesterday (26/9/2020).

Everyone is freaking out, posting misinformation, panicking. I don’t exactly,,, know how, but the #justinminisoverparty hashtag started being used for actual hate towards Justin for deactivating, and some people (including Anna, though I think their tweet was in the context of a joke? please take this with a grain of salt though. update: it was in the context of a joke) mentioned that Justin is a lesbophobe.

A few hours later, Justin reactivated his account, tagged Anna, and said this (though it was actually his PR team, more on that later):

[id: Justin’s Tweet: @ [redacted] quickly jumping back on here from my twt break because i’m receiving messages that you’re continuing to spread misinformation, so i want to clarify.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 1. all of my interactions with you were deleted because of the need to set clear boundaries due to the fact that your incessant messages and replies from multiple accounts over the last several months were veering into stalking/harassment.

2. for someone who appears to pride themselves on reminding their friends/followers on a daily basis to be careful of the language they use on this app, you seem to be fine with flippantly labeling someone as homophobic/lesbophobic as if they’re cute little adjectives to give to someone, not realizing that such labels have real-life consequences.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 3. also noting here than in your original thread, you stated that you neither considered me nor my words to actually be lesbophobic, so a bit confused as to why your story has suddenly changed.

4. i realize you’re young, so i’m genuinely hoping you use this opportunity to learn and grow andbe a little more mindful the next time you decide to tweet.]

The next twenty minutes were pure chaos. Justin deactivated again, everyone started freaking out because that was very out of character for him. People were cancelling him because this could have easily been resolved in DMs, or tweeted without the mention of Anna (a minor) from a mainstream Twitter account.

And then, Justin Min DMed another fan on Instagram (her name is Em) about the situation.

Who is Em? For starters, I’d like to say that I personally know Em and that she’s one of my best friends. I’ve known her for more than a year now, and I can personally vouch for her. Everything that she posted is 100% true (if you want the thread where she posts proof of the DMs, please send me a different ask because I’m scared tumblr will not post this in the tag if I include it here).

The reason Justin DMed her out of all people is because he also kinda knows her? As I mentioned, Justin interacts with us on Twitter a lot, and Em is the one person he’s responded to the most, so he knows who she is. (He’s tagged her more times than other cast members, at least before all his tweets were deleted by his PR team.)

Anyway, this is what Em tweeted:

[id: Em’s tweets: please read this !!!

justin dmed me on instagram and basically the gist of it is that he hired a pr team and they tweeted the thread at anna without knowing everyone could see it. all of the tweets being deleted/ him deactivating was also them.]

Below is the image Em attached to the tweet:

[id: Justin’s DM to Em: hey. this is justin. i’m just hearing about what’s happening on twitter right now. for context, i was asked to work with a team of people to “clean up” my twitter in the past few weeks. they’ve taken the liberty of deleting a bunch of my responses and posts in order to safeguard me (whatever that means) as well as deactivating my account to comb through other things.i believe they accidentally sent anna a message and mistakenly believed the function for her to comment only would mean that she would be the only one to see it as well. needless to say, i’m no longer working with this team and want to personally apologize to her. do you know any way i can get into contact with her?]

And then, in a follow-up tweet:

[id: Em’s text at Justin: sorry for dming you again. is there any other way i can help? i just feel really bad about this whole thing and i know how quickly this stuff can spread if it’s not taken care of

Justin’s text: i mean, i guess you can share the information i’ve given you? it’ll take a bit of time for me to take back ownership on everything as i sever ties with that team, so maybe the sooner the better people know.

Em’s text: okay ! is it okay if i tweet a screenshot

Justin’s text: sure.]

Then Justin’s account got reactivated an hour ago (almost 24hs after Em’s tweets), and he tweeted this:

[id: Justin’s tweet: hi. it’s me. thank you for all your messages. this has been an incredibly tough week for me on multiple fronts. some things you might already be aware of; many other things you don’t know about.asking for a bit of privacy as i take sometime to unplug. hoping to be back soon.]

And that’s all, I think? There’s lots we don’t know about what happened yet, so please please please try not to spread misinformation. This is a stressful situation for us on Twitter, and especially for Justin, and misinformation going around is the last thing we need right now.

tl;dr: Justin Min hired a PR Team that started deleting all of his tweets and deactivated his account. Misinformation started spreading, people started cancelling Justin for no reason. The PR Team decided to respond to Anna, made the response public, deactivated again. Justin DMed Em and explained the situation, and an hour ago, he reactivated and said he’s taking a small break to sort things out.

If anyone has any other questions/clarifications, my askbox is open! Hope this shed some light on the situation <3

UPDATE 28/9/2020: Justin has DMed and apologised to Anna for the situation, and Anna has accepted the apology. Anna posted all of it on their account, but again, if you want a link, send me an ask!

#im gonna go to bed now so ill respond to any follow-up asks tomorrow #i hope this made sense #ask #anon #evelina nonesense #the umbrella academy #tua #tua cast #justin min #justin h min #justin h. min #ben #ben hargreeves #tua ben #the horror #tw: drama

[demoisverysexy]

An Open Letter to the Person who Blocked Me for Being Mormon

For context:

If you’re reading this, I hope it finds you well.

This letter is mostly for me, so I can get my feelings out. I’ve already talked about this with a few of my friends, and I’m feeling better than I was than when you blocked me. I’m still upset. Mostly because of general trends I see on tumblr of hatred for Mormons. A lot of it comes from ignorance and misunderstanding. Some of it comes from a place of genuine hurt that can’t go unaddressed. I don’t want to be dismissive of those who have faced trauma at the hands of my church. I am one of those people, and I know how deeply pain associated with my church can be. After our interaction, I felt that talking about it would help me process this.

Before I go on, I must be clear that this is not an attempt to get you to unblock me. As nice as it would be to be able to see your blog again – you’re very witty, and I enjoy your content! – I can live without it. This is more a response to the trend on tumblr specifically of hatred against Mormons, and assuming that they’re all bad people who are complicit in every single bad thing that the church does. You just happened to force me to be a little introspective about my church and my relation to it. Thank you for that.

First, however, I would like to clear up some misconceptions:

Your initial joke that prompted me to tell you I was a Mormon was a joke about Mormons and polygamy. The largest two organizations that can be classified as “Mormon,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Community of Christ (which incidentally allows for gay marriage and has female clergy, though I am of the LDS sect), both disavow polygamy. There are other, smaller offshoot Mormon groups who do still practice this, which is where horror stories of polygamists marrying teenagers arise. These people are also Mormons, though I wish they weren’t, in the same way that problematic Christian groups are Christian, though many Christians wish they weren’t.

I do recognize that mainstream Mormonism has been labeled as a cult by many people, though the reasons people provide generally don’t hold up. Often the proof that people provide of my church’s cult-like nature is to take note of corruption that can be found in almost every church. These issues – such as racism, homophobia, and misogyny, to name a few – while real and important to address do not a cult make. Sometimes the proof is to point towards practices that are demonized in my church, but are practiced in other religions with no comment, or even celebration. Other times people will point to their own experiences with toxic church congregations, and while those issues are very real, they are by no means universal. My experience growing up Mormon was a lucky one in many ways. I personally don’t think that most people who study my church from an academic vantage point would call it a cult. I would consult them on this matter. After all, someone in a cult is rather hard-pressed to be able to tell whether they are in one or not.

Another point often levied against Mormonism is how it leaves its queer members with religious trauma due to its homophobic teachings. I understand this well. I have experienced deep religious trauma associated with my political stances in favor of LGBTQ+ rights (though that wasn’t the whole story). I won’t go into detail about this right now, but suffice it to say, I had a very traumatic time on my mission that led me to a very dark place, and ended with me contemplating choices I would never be able to take back. I’m fine now of course, but I carry those memories with me.

So why would I stay despite all this? Is it because I’m brainwashed? You would have to ask a psychologist about that, but I would say probably not. I knew, and know now, that the ways I was being treated were unfair and wrong. I don’t have time to go point by point to address every grievance I or anyone else has with my church and explain my position on it, as much as I would like to clear the air once and for all on this topic so there is no misunderstanding. Here’s the reasoning that has kept me here so far:

I think that every person of faith must, at some point, deal with the problematic aspects of their church’s history and doctrine. This comes with the territory. Whether it be disturbing stories in scripture, imperialist tendencies, doctrines that chafe against us, or problematic leaders, no person of faith is exempt from wrestling with the history that accompanies their faith. I have studied my church’s history in depth. Many of the horror stories I heard were provably false. Many were true. Where does that leave me?

I believe that God is bigger and better than us. We make terrible, awful mistakes all the time. But I don’t think that makes God less willing to work with us. If anything, I think it means he wants to help us more. He wants to help us move past our histories and become better. My church has a long way to go in this regard. For too long we have been silent when it mattered, and people have been wounded by our silence. Or even the words we have said out loud! If you look at my Mormonism tag on my blog, you will see some examples of what I am talking about. I have been wounded by the things my church has said and not said. It hurts awfully, and I ache for those who have been wounded more deeply than I.

But at the same time, I cannot deny the healing my faith has brought me. Whatever problems my church has – and it has many, deep and pressing issues – it is because of my faith that I am the person I am today. I can draw a straight line from my religion to the positions I hold today. Because I am a Mormon, I became a Marxist. Because I am a Mormon, I became nonbinary. Because I am a Mormon, I became a leftist. I cannot ignore that my religion, flawed as it may be, has led me to where I stand now. I am at the intersection of the hurt and healing the church offers. It is a difficult line to walk. But I hope that in walking it, I can bring healing and love to those who hurt in the ways I do. To let them know that they are not alone, and that they have a friend who can help them wherever they choose to go.

Yes I am queer. Yes I am a Mormon. I am here because I am trying to fix things. If at some point in the future I realize that I cannot change things, perhaps I will leave. I hope it does not come to that. And things are changing. They have changed before, and they can change now. I am confident that my God is willing to lead my church where it needs to go. I hope I can help speed things along. We shall see.

But spreading unequivocal hatred and disdain for Mormons does not help those of us who are Mormon who are trying to fix things. Yes, those who have left Mormonism due to trauma need a safe place to be away from that, and acknowledging the church’s many faults can be helpful to those people. I myself have criticized my church quite vocally. But refusing to listen to the stories of those of us who choose to stay, telling others that we are evil or stupid or what have you, is also quite traumatic to us. We are people too, with thoughts and feelings. It is easy to dismiss us out of hand if you assume we aren’t.

I try to be open about my religion and political stances on my tumblr. See for yourself: It’s a mix of Mormonism, LGBTQ+ activism, Marxism, and pretty much every other leftist political position you can find. Along with all the furry stuff, of course. But despite all this, I am still terrified every time someone follows me to tell them I am Mormon. More than I am to tell them that I’m queer. Tumblr is not representative of how things work in the “real world,” of course, but I have received hatred for being a Mormon there as well. And it’s mostly other Christians. So on the one hand I’m hated by LGBTQ+ folks, on the other hand I’m hated by my church for being queer, and on the third hand (as apparently I have three hands), I am hated by other Christians. I do not face hatred to the same degree from other Christians. I saw it most on my mission. But still, it exists.

(Incidentally, Evangelicals, who you seem to have problems with, and perhaps rightly so, though I have not done a study of the matter myself, largely despise Mormons, from what I have heard. Something to consider.)

I want allies. I want help. I want understanding. If I am to push back against bigotry in my church, I need your help. I need everyone’s help. Fighting bigotry wherever we see it is a worthy pursuit, I think. And if we can succeed, we can make the world a better, safer happier place. I want to fight off the ghosts that haunt my church. You don’t have to fight them with me, but I would appreciate it if I could have your support. It would make my job much easier.

We aren’t enemies. At least, I don’t think you’re my enemy. We both have been hurt by homophobia and bigotry. We live in a capitalist hellscape where police brutality and racism are on the rise. Fascism is looming over the political backdrop, along with the ongoing threat of ecological disaster. I think we would be better off helping each other than going after each other. I ask that you please listen to us when we say you are hurting us. The Mormons you blocked knowingly followed you, an openly queer person who calls out racism and bigotry and pedophilia. Yet you assume we are in favor of those things. Someone can at once be part of an institution while recognizing it’s flaws. (Aren’t we both Americans? Why not move if we hate it so much?) And perhaps we have used the “No true Scotsman” fallacy to justify why we stay. I don’t believe I have. I don’t feel I need to.

I hope that you consider what I’ve said here. I hope we can work together. And I hope that no matter what, you find peace wherever you end up.

Yours truly,

Demo Argenti

#religion #leftism #mormonism #LGBTQ stuff #marxism #racism #misogyny #feminism #homophobia #queerstake #shouting into the void #ok to rb

[thehollowprince]

1.Hey just want to let you know that I am the first anon who asked about Jensen Ackles and Tyler Posey - I don't know which teen wolf anon you assumed I was, but that was the first time I send you an ask. I am a TP fan and check your blog for TP stuff and was surprised to see you reblogging jokes about Ackles being homophobic - since I see him facing the same issues that Posey did - a toxic fandom that bullies actors just because they don't subscribe to wanting two hot white men to get together.

2. Same anon. I don't think we should be throwing around words like homophobia lightly or based on rumors about how Ackles made a showrunner change the character based on his preferences etc. Ackles maybe homophobic - we don't know for sure. All I know is that from my experience, the Destiel fandom is as toxic as the Sterek fandom. Sure, Ackles shares part of the blame as he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off these fans at the various cons - ( contd. in part 3)

3. But that does not mean that actors or their family should be subject to cyber bullying and online hate or that the showrunners should pander to this toxic fanbase. Scott would have been and was sidelined to pander to and queerbait Sterek fans and he was called homophobic when he pointed out how nonsensical the ship was. Destiel is the same and I don't mind Ackles not giving two shits about acting out a badly written scene pushed in to appease a toxic fanbase. Just my two cents.

Okay, first off, I want to say the only anon I've ever gotten that used Tyler Posey and "double-standards" in the same sentence has been the Asshole Anon I tagged. And given the fact that this anon was in my inbox within an hour of posting that ask, it stands to reason that my paranoia is well founded. This would not be the first time they've tried to trick anyone into a "Gotcha!" moment, and I was the next on the rotation of people they harass.

That being said and out of the way, let's get into this.

Starting off, you're right. Claims of homophobia shouldn't be a joke. Homophobia is a very real thing that affects many people around the world. And given the shipping fandoms that habe arisen in the past decade, along with thr use of social media by celebrities, it allows these fans to harass and belittle them from the comfort of their homes, no matter where said celebrity is. I would never make jokes regarding how fans treat the loved ones of their favorite celebrities, because I find it abhorrent. We saw something similar to his happen with the Star Wars fandom, particularly the R*ylos, when they doxxed and harassed Adam Driver's wife in the hopes that he and Daisy Ridley would get together, thus fulfilling the fantasy they have about their ship.

I don't keep up with the actors of Supernatural because I don't watch it anymore, but I imagine that's the case with Jensen's wife. Fans harassing her because she married him and they've based their entire personality and fandom experience around a ship between two fictional characters and the actor's personal life interferes with that fantasy. The fans that are harassing Jensen and his family aren't doing it out of any sense of morality in their efforts to fight homophobia, but because they want to see Dean and Cas together, and can't (or won't) accept that they're fictional characters played by two actors that have their own private lives.

Something similar happened with the Sherlock fandom, when they decided to cancel Martin Freeman and his wife because they asked fans to stop sending them NSFW fanart or J*hnl*ck, especially when they were with their children. I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on that one, because I've never watched BBC Sherlock, but I did follow a few blogs that did so I remember the discourse. This all just feeds into the idea that shipping fandoms "own" the actors that play their favorite characters and has made for quite a toxic environment on most social media.

If the D*stiel fandom is anything like the St*r*k fandom or the J*hnl*ck fandom , than I applaud Jensen for standing his ground in the face of what I'm sure is countless inappropriate fics and art that are constantly thrown at him.

Now, there are a few differences between how Jensen is being accused of being homophobic and how Tyler was accused of being homophobic. The first major difference is something you said in this ask. They're jokes. Keeping in mind that, yes, I did say we shouldn't joke about homophobia, all the "discourse" around D*stiel has been jokes due to a variety of reasons. From how uncomfortable Jensen looked in that scene (leading some to think they were filmed separately and not told how the other was reacting) to the fact that it was happening during election week before the election was called. The fact that the rumors that Putin was stepping down came out at the same time and the whole situation took on this hysterical, otherworldly quality, like this was a collective fever dream we couldn't wake up from. The jokes came about, breaking the tension that had consumed Tumblr and uniting a large number of people in the absurdity of everything.

There's also the fact that the jokes about Jensen being homophobic were just that - jokes! I'll admit that I haven't gone looking, but I haven't seen anyone calling for Jensen to be cancelled or for his career to be derailed or his life to be ruined because of that scene. No, I've seen countless jokes about how Dean looked constipated or memes of random images found on people's phones used to "recreate" that scene. The fact that Jensen apparently wrote into his contract that his character in The Boys wasn't to have a gay sex scene just added to the satirical nature of everything.

Now let's compare that to Tyler Posey. When asked about a crack ship (that had nothing to do with his character) for the umpteenth time, he said that, if that's what fans were watching for, they're probably watching for the wrong reasons. It never condemned the ship or mocked its fans, he simply said that they were watching for the wrong reasons. And given how this interview took place after filming was done for that season, that could be interpreted as him saving people from wasting their time on something that wasn't going to happen. Personally, I just think he was fed up and frustrated about being asked about a crack ship that had nothing to do with him.

And for that one simple sentence, he was (and still is) deluged with hate. He received death threats and threats against his mother while she was battling cancer, all because he said something that wasn't a glowing appraisal of a ship that the fandom made up. To this day, there are people hell bent on proving how Scott was the true villain of the Teen Wolf series, and how Tyler Posey is just an awful human being.

Did any of those things happen to Jensen? No.

Would those things have probably happened to Jared if he'd said something negative about D*stiel? Probably.

Would the Teen Wolf fandom have acted the way it did if it had been Hoechlin or O'Brien who shot down St*r*k? Definitely not. We know that because they both did say something against St*r*k and the fandom at large likes to pretend that it never happened.

So, as we can see, there is a very clear difference between how Jensen was treated and how Tyler was treated. Could racism play a part in that treatment? Most likely, though, many would never admit to that. But, at the end of the day, its important to look at the differences between these two actors and how they were treated by their respective fandoms for what they said in regards to ships that fans have based their entire fandom experience around.

#anon #fandom homophobia #double-standards #jensen ackles #anti destiel #(just in case) #tyler posey #anti sterek