#did I email them bc I’m insane and maybe want to go on a podcast yes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queenangst · 5 years

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1 - 30 😗

you’re insane, anon. love u. go big or go home

things i learned from answering this: i guess i didn’t write that much fic this year? at the very least, i didn’t publish much.

list of my fics i mentioned:

Flare Signal (BNHA), a wip longfic wherein Izuku is a villain, but he wants to be a hero. More Than Friends (PJO), a “wip” two part fic about classic PJO tropes!these old bones (VLD), a completed one-shot exploring Keith, told in three parts.what if this storm ends (and i don’t see you as you are now, ever again) (VLD), a short one-shot after Shiro’s breakup, when he is comforted by Keith.

1. favorite fic you wrote this year

Flare Signal, hands-down. i’m just having a good time!

2. least favorite fic you wrote this year

probably More Than Friends. i just didn’t execute it well!

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

tbh i debated about answering this bc it’s not published yet (spoilers for FS!):

“I may not be a hero,” Izuku said lowly, limping forward, “but I refuse to die a villain.”

4. total number of words you wrote this year

tbh i don’t know bc a mix of projects and wips and stuff. but about 90-100k!

5. most popular fic this year

according to ao3, ruins with 6,622 hits this year, closely followed by Flare Signal with 6,613 hits!

6. least popular fic this year

these old bones, with 402 hits this year

7. longest completed fic you wrote this year

complete?? maybe 3k, these old bones.

8. shortest completed fic you wrote this year

it’s probably an ask fill/request from tumblr, which usually round out to anywhere from 1-2k. on ao3, it’s what if this storm ends (and i don’t see you as you are now, ever again)

9. longest wip of the year

Flare Signal for sure. right now it’s at 72k!

10. shortest wip of the year

More Than Friends...? technically it’s complete since each chapter is a standalone, but it’s a two-parter that i never really. wrote the second part. 3k.

11. fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

i’ve been popping the biggest bottles in bnha! i just think the world and the characters are a blast to play with.

12. favorite character to write about this year

izuku lmao, what’s new!

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

probably Melodrama by Lorde, or kobasolo!

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

like, all of them, i bet! Flare Signal again; it’s much longer than planned (i thought it was going to be 50k, and then i realized it was going to be 100k, and now i’ve just given up guessing, though i have all chapters planned.) i honestly didn’t even expect to be sucked into bnha but here we are.

15. something you learned this year

i have to give props to past!me for writing this question. good one. i think.... something i learned is that i’ve improved! and i’ve come a really, really long way. i’ve been writing since about 2012/2013, and for the past few years i’ve personally not noticed much change in my writing. but someone pointed out to me how much i’ve improved comparing one of my fics from around 2017 to my most recent wip, and it’s really gratifying to hear that and to make the realization that yeah, wow, i did improve.

16. fic(s) you completed this year

i don’t finish anything tbh but:

17. fics you’ll continue next year

Flare Signal is the only planned fic that will continue next year! my vld fics are on unofficial hiatus, and i’ve really just been focusing on fs right now.

18. current number of wips

last time it was like, 21. this time it’s gotta be at least 30. maybe. who knows!

19. any new fics to start next year

nothing set in stone! i’m playing with a couple bnha ideas in my head that i think would be fun, but i don’t know. we’ll see :D

20. number of comments you haven’t read

i’ve read all of them in my email and in my fic comment section! however, ao3′s official count is 439.

21. most memorable comment/review

this is only one of many but...

"This. Is. SPARTA!!! YEET"

I never thought I'd have those two phrases go through my kind at exactly the same time, yet here I am.

22. events you participated in this year

honestly? i have no sense of time and i don’t really remember like, when 2017 ended and when 2018 began writing-wise. i was in the wild fyre keith zine, which was in the works last year, i believe, but finished this year. invictus/paladin magazine. riordanverse zine. lancito! zine. i think that’s it! a lot of projects were really long, so.

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t

plenty plenty as always. uhhh something called the “distance soulmate airport percabeth au” which is fun and ridiculous and i love it! a different mortal percabeth fic where they meet in a sleepy beach town by chance years after breaking up as high school sweethearts, and they solve mysteries as they fall back in love. and a time travel percabeth fic called step forward, step back!

and plenty more. but let’s stop here.

24. favorite fic you read this year

i can’t stop at one. i particularly enjoyed Yesterday Upon the Stair by PitViperofDoom, but also every bnha fic i bookmarked! good stuff. oh and classic PeaceHeather coming back to hit me with Rend and Rebuild for that good, good, good merlin & arthur fic.

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read

maybe by fandom?

bnha: could i but teach the hundredth part by terra_incognita on ao3.the penumbra podcast: Hyperion City, 5:30 AM by grantaire_dont_care on ao3.critical role: now seek the far horizon (sister, sail) by Attilavld: Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by wingedflower

26. number of favorites/bookmarks you made this year

164!

27. favorite fanfic author of the year

hmm, don’t have one off the top of my head! maybe mysterytwin, writing for trollhunters.

28. longest fic you read this year

probably Yesterday Upon the Stair, a hefty 365k. delicious.

29. shortest fic you read this year

idk :( i read a lot of fic all the time!

30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

bnha! like i said in the beginning, i just think it’s a lot of fun. and there’s some good dads, and some good whump. could use more whump.

#asks #shoutout to anon #ask games #fanfic end of year asks #this took me forever omg #long post #anonymous

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sweetsweetamber · 4 years

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23.06.2020

Emailed this to a friend earlier today.

I have been putting off even beginning to allow myself to process my feelings on this since I found out Zac Hanson was a raging racist, transphobic, sexist piece of shit. The problem is he keeps doubling down on his stance and making it so much worse, instead of letting me delete him from my memory and never have to think about him ever again.

This is so different to when multiple women came forward with allegations against Jesse Lacey. Like the second I found that out I never listened to Brand New ever again. Done, deleted. They were one of my favourite bands too, like the same level as Fall Out Boy, MCR, Panic and anything Andrew McMahon does. It hurt, mostly because I used their music to help me get through dealing with shitty men doing similar things to what Jesse Lacey did. But I haven’t really thought about them since, and I only miss their music sometimes. Maybe one day I’ll be able to listen to it without feeling disgusted, but that time is still a long way off.

I am also not the kind of person to idolise celebrities really? Not since I was a kid, anyway. Like all my favourite bands now, I have no idea about their personal lives beyond probably the mid 2000s. I have no clue what their kids, or wives names are, or even how many kids they have. I don’t even know all the names of the people in the band sometimes! I don’t feel connected to them as a person, I feel connected to them through their art, their music, their lyrics. As well as the fandom, the fans, the concerts, and the things I experienced in my life while listening to their music.

Anyway, here’s a brief timeline of what lead up to the main blowout to help put things in context:

May 25th-27th: George Floyd was murdered and Hanson posts normal content on social media with ordinary fan comments

May 28th: Protests against police brutality happen across America, Hanson shares a post about the rocket launch. A handful of fans (mostly Black and POC) express their hurt and frustration with Hanson in the comments

May 31st: Hanson posts advertising a livestream with an organisation that provides mental health support to musicians. Fans comment pleading with them to do the right thing, other fans start absolutely dog-piling those fans and tell them to stop “attacking” Hanson

June 2nd: Black out Tuesday. Taylor posts a black square and a few people comment asking him to actually say Black Lives Matter. The main Hanson account posts nothing.

June 3rd: Isaac posts on his account that “racism is wrong!” to very mixed reactions. Still won’t say Black Lives Matter.

June 4th: Zac posts about recording a podcast. He responds to a few comments about why he won’t say Black Lives Matter, it turns into a shit show and he deletes all the comments.

June 5th: The main Hanson account makes a post advertising their shitty yearly island vacation but it got blown up with backlash in the comments so they deleted the post. Zac makes a really fucking weird instagram text post, that says “Racism is wrong, but simply saying I denounce racism in a post will not save the life of the next young black man who comes upon it, or the next victim of reckless brutality”. The main Hanson account posts a photo with the one black hand in it they could find and still refuse to say Black Lives Matter.

This is where I jumped in and commented “Open your purse” and got completely torn apart by racist fans. I spent hours fighting back and supporting another indigenous Hanson fan who was also getting hurled tons of abuse in the comments. It was genuinely hard to try to calmly engage with these people who were spewing paragraphs about how Hanson don’t owe us anything and to “stop forcing your beliefs on them”. Whew. I think I blocked like 60 accounts, and had to change all my instagram settings to keep me as protected as possible without having to go private.

I knew Hanson fans were terrible. I found this out while in line for their first concert, when everyone was obnoxious assholes who wanted to brag about how many tens of thousands of dollars they’d spent following the tour (no one in line with me in the mornings were locals or even from New Zealand). The more money you spent, the more of a fan you were in their eyes.

This put me completely off ever going to their yearly fanclub island retreat which had been on my bucket list for at least a decade. The thought of being trapped on an island with Hanson and hundreds of complete assholes put me right off for life.

The funny thing is, I always met the nicest and most amazing fellow Hanson fans in line for other bands concerts? But the second concert I went to really solidified my opinion of Hanson fans being the most entitled assholes ever. I should have known it was only a hop skip and a jump for them to slide over being to racist as hell.

I eventually ended up deleting my original comment because a week later I was still getting angry racists coming at me for a fairly mild but sassy post. Which is hilarious because when Gerard Way made a similar half-assed post on his instagram, nearly every comment was “open your purse” and sarcastic “we stan a king who does nothing!!”. The next day he was like, I fucked up, here are some links and resources, we are redirecting the MCR store page to links to donate etc. There were probably some fans getting angry at the “backlash”, but if there were any I didn’t see it. Just insane to see the difference between two groups of fans for bands that I like(d).

On June 6th, a whole lot of Zac’s personal social media accounts got leaked, including a Pinterest board, youtube account and instagram account. He then he publicly confirmed they were all his because he’s a fucking idiot.

A few days later I got sent a link to the r/PostHanson subreddit, which had screengrabs of all of Zac’s pinterest boards. Seeing all those ridiculous and incredibly offensive “memes” was like a punch in the gut.

I had not kept up with this dude's personal life at all, I have forgotten his wife's name and lost track of how many kids he has after the first one. I just figured he was probably conservative because homeschooled + super religious + getting married quick and churning out babies. I’d never really heard or seen Hanson take a political stance on anything, but I didn’t really follow them too closely.

Apparently it was known to fans that Zac was SUPER INTO GUNS and played airsoft which is basically paintball crossed with modern military reenactment?

His pinterest page was completely full of stuff he’d pinned about guns (so many guns) and second amendment memes, that said things like “an 18 year old is too young to buy a gun, but a 5 year old is old enough to decide its own gender?” and one with a picture of a man and a woman with the caption “I told her guns make me feel uncomfortable, she said we should both see other men” which he added the comment “So true” to. The worst were the ones that were supportive of George Zimmerman.

I felt frightened, disgusted, and upset.

On June 8th the Hanson instagram account finally posted (with comments turned off) saying Black Lives Matter.

Since then, Zac has really just…. doubled down on being a shithead. He’s been posting as normal on his main account, blocking fans and deleting even mildly critical comments, liking the most disgusting comments that racist fans have been posting in support of him - one comment he liked was a fan justifying Zimmerman murdering Trayvon Martin. Also replying to some critical fans, making a ridiculously long comment where he thinks everyone is mad at him for being a second amendment nutter which genuinely made me more upset, angry and scared. He truly is the most dangerous type of white person: uneducated, ignorant, arrogant, and with a massive platform to spread his fucked up views. As someone else summed up so perfectly in a comment on one of his posts:

Too stubborn to look inward and see how their own actions, thoughts and behaviours are problematic. No desire to actually hear out marginalised voices. Instead, they'd rather create their own narrative, they want to play the victim, feign being attacked, deflect from any of the issues brought up, and will do anything BUT hold themselves accountable. Instead, they block black people and other POC (Rule #1 of what NOT to do right now), and will "like" comments of other uneducated ignorant white fans who are blindly loyal to anything he says and also don't care at all about marginalised and underrepresented people. Because it's all about HIM. The Poor, entitled, white man is feeling attacked. Zac, you are less than a man. Your development, somewhere down the line, was truly stunted.You are so brainwashed, so self righteous and so far gone, I don't know if you are even salvageable at this point. You would rather be in your bubble, clutching your guns and "liking" comments on your page that are defending the murder of black children than taking the bandwidth, introspection and WORK is takes to actually evolve and be a good person. As a black woman, at least I know now not to waste another dime of my money on you. Now go do what you do best and block another black voice, or write yet another tone deaf and ignorant response to make POC feel crazy (ie: "I'm sorry you are feeling hurt", "I love you", etc.) SAVE IT. That's more deflection bc YOU as the white man are CAUSING the hurt. If you want to love black people, start with explaining to all of your black fans why you believe a young, innocent black child named Trayvon Martin deserved to die because he attacked George Zimmerman. You were man enough to post it. Be man enough to defend it and stand BY your actions.

So I’m not entirely sure where that leaves me or where to go from here. I feel completely blindsided by the boy I picked as my favorite member when I was 12 grew up to be an abhorrent racist fuckhead. I saw in the subreddit support group someone said it feels like someone died and we are all in mourning, which sounds strange but it really does. The Zac Hanson I thought I knew is dead. He never really existed in the first place, or maybe he did for a short while before all the hate wormed its way into his heart.

I also believe that the type of music you choose says a lot about you as a person, and so much of my identity in my preteen and early teen years are wrapped up in Hanson. Both them as individuals as much as the music - I think that's why I can’t separate them because there has never been any separation between the two for me. I first heard Hanson on MTV with their music video for Mmmbop and decided I was in love with Zac before the song was over. I don’t think I can ever stomach listening to that song ever again.

Everyone makes mistakes, has racism to unlearn etc, but Zac hasn’t even bothered to lie and give us the PR answer of “I’m listening and learning etc”, even if he isn’t. He doesn’t even want to seem like he’s saving face because he truly thinks nothing he said or did was wrong, and that is the most horrifying thing of all.

I don’t know how to move past this. It's very easy to think, “people are flawed so you shouldn’t idolise them” but I can’t just snap my fingers and remove this weird 23 year old bond I have that is a mix of intense love and nostalgia? Like there was genuinely a point at age 13 where I actually truly believed: if he could just come to NZ and lock eyes with me at a concert we would fall in love and get married. Which sounds wild but it's how all 3 of them met their wives so it actually was a pretty solid plan.

I immediately took down my signed photo of the band that I had on the wall though because seeing it didn’t remind me of the happy memory of seeing them in concert for the very first time, it just reminded me that Zac is an awful person and his brothers are probably the same and just better at keeping their views private.

I always wanted to get my Hanson tattoo covered and redone but now I think I’m just going to get it covered. A lot of fans are selling or throwing out merch, but I don't want to do that so I've just packed the few things I have away so I don't have to see them for now.

Thinking about the time I met Zac makes me feel sick. It used to genuinely be the best day of my life that I could think about if I was having a shitty day and think “Hey, remember Zac Hanson hugged you”. I’m just so angry that he has tainted so many amazing and happy memories with the hateful rhetoric he is spewing now. I know over time it will hurt less but everything just hurts a lot right now.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk lmao.

#personal essay

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