#i feel like i get a disproportionate amount of weird anons

[fandom-oracle]

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.

[spookyrobbins]

thinking abt s9 again and it still pisses me off how much of az's experiences and disability is viewed from callie's pov (like literally at some points). like disclaimer here bc i understand that the people around an amputee are affected by it too and i understand that (esp at the time) showing callie's pov and struggles was extremely novel. but callie's pov should have been a supplement to az's, not replacing it?? bc literally every single one of az's ig accomplishments?? 1/8 – darkness anon

are seen from callie's pov. it even goes into the way they film certain scenes. (note that i am not like a professional filmmaker but i did take courses on art interp) comparing two scenes - the scene where az walks across the apartment to the door w her prosthesis and like trips and breaks shit along the way vs the "i got back up" scene which are very different scenes that occur in the same location - i noticed smth rlly interesting abt the way the audience is positioned 2/8

in the first one. there is only one portion of the scene (lasting maybe one second) where we do not see arizona in frame. in fact, most of this scene, we see arizona from her side, and at the end, we see her facing forward, toward the camera. and that's significant bc when they do that, we don't see things like the character sees it. we see it like an audience. we literally don't see az's perspective even when she is the Only character on screen. the closest we get to that in this 3/8

is the split-second frame of the vase breaking and one of the outside of the apartment, pointing to where the files bailey promised should have been. what the scene conveys isnt necessarily az's experiences, as a result, and instead is showing us the results of bailey's plan to get az walking again, which is linked back to callie's feelings abt az's response to the amputation and,, yeah. admittedly though, this scene is probably one of the most arizona centric scenes in the season. 4/8

comparing a scene with similar setting - the i got back up scene - is super interesting though, because we can see that the directors are filming az's scenes the way they are on purpose. bc that scene starts from callie's perspective and stays there for the rest of the scene. we start with the camera behind callie as she stands outside the door of the apt, and then cuts to a side/frontal angle so we can see her expression at the sound of az giggling behind the door 5/8

then she opens the door and we cut to a frontal angle so we instantly see callie's reaction to smth behind the camera and then turn around and show us what she's reacting to. compared to how they framed az opening the door in the 9x06 scene (they focus on the empty floor first and then pan up to az, emphasising the importance of the empty floor over az's reaction). and even when the camera is focused on az and sofia, it's callie's voice that we hear first and she asks if az 6/8

had a good day and then az reveals oh well i fell down and then we cut back to callie for her reaction. and then az responds w "i got back up". but the "i got back up" part? literally lasts less than a second before we cut back to callie again. and after that the cam cuts between focusing on callie and watching az and sofia from callie's pov (u can argue that the focus on callie is sofia's pov but i dont think that makes much sense? idk) but yeah. its like really weird too bc 7/8

in the same ep, they have the scene where az actually falls and its filmed so similarly to this scene in some ways and even though some of these techniques are used on az, it emphasizes alex's pov more than it does az and ugh idk. s9 irritates me in both the storyline and filming ig is the conclusion here. and uhh just realised how super long this got so like. feel free to not,, respond? like i get that this is like ridiculous and im sorry my dude 8/8

no no but you're so right. i've said it before (i think) and i'll say it again: the show disproportionately favours callie's pov over arizona's (it does this with other characters, like meredith's over derek's, but to a slightly less extreme i think) - part of this i think is bc callie was there first and arizona is written as a love interest exclusively. but the whole amputation storyline really showed this to an extreme

i also think that the amount of time spent in callie's pov is part of the reason that the cheating felt so extremely ooc/cheap emotional payoff. i've seen various places where people have said that cheating can be part of depression/ptsd/trauma (and i fully agree/believe that) and that could fit in arizona's storyline - except the audience never really saw her dealing with that. there was the stuff at the beginning of the season and then arizona seemed fine? and the challenge of arizona i think is that she's very internal and taking away teddy and mark (to an extent) sort of limited her external processes, which left the viewer thinking that arizona was doing okay. but the effect of not showing us arizona's pov is that it comes out of left field (which is you were writing not filming from callie's pov could work bc limited 3rd person) is that it just seems out of character and tawdry and you have to create miscarriages to explain her behaviour

the way they filmed/wrote 95% of calzona's scenes in s9 were focused on callie and her feelings. even scenes that on the surface seem to be about arizona are really centered on callie. like for instance the shoes before bailey's wedding. arizona is struggling with self-worth and beauty and this would be a perfect moment for arizona to have ownership in her journey - instead we get callie yelling at her about how "everything is about the leg", which i think does a disservice to arizona and also to callie's character, which has often been based around empathy (don't get me started on callie's empathy and how it relates to arizona lol) like you said, every one of arizona's moments/accomplishments is not really about her. and that was a problem with arizona's character from the start - it's never really about her - it's about other. for example: her telling callie about tim was about reassuring callie's feelings versus it being a moment to add depth to arizona's character

one more thing: i think the writers majorly screwed themselves with the amputation sl/how they approached it. in the same way that the plane crash dominated like 4 seasons on a wider scale, arizona's leg and amputation did on a smaller scale, but they set it up so poorly that it was almost unsalvageable. they wanted the pat on the back for having a disabled character, but they mismanaged the storyline so atrociously that by the time s10 rolled around they were sort of screwed and didn't know what to do with callie and arizona. it's also notable that by like what? s11 they just stop talking about arizona's leg entirely

lol my part got long too so i'll leave it here

#darkness anon #the writing goes so downhill in s9

[intersex-ionality]

If you don’t mind me asking, why is your hatedom so thorough? You get so many anons that aren’t just awful, they seem to have stalked your blog for a while and know a lot about you. They come out of the woodworks every time you post. Does that happen to every activist on tumblr?

Not every activist, no. I'm an especially inflammatory person, at least on tumblr.

I have sone ideas about why people love to hate me, but ultimately I can't be sure what it is about me that's so infuriating.

I can say that I see dramatic upticks in hate, and especially weird stalkery hate, after I do certain things.

For example, any time I diverge from the idea of a jew that has become stereotyped on tumblr, I get a lot of loathing. This also happens when I diverge from the tumblr stereotype of being trans.

In contrast, when I walk in line with the stereotype of a person of color, a bi/pan/aro person, or an autistic, that garners me disproportionate hatred as well.

Of course, diverging from the stereotype of an autistic also gains me plenty of hate, so that's not a perfect example.

My sister has sier own ideas about why people hate me. I don't really understand them, as they rely on psychological principles I also have trouble grasping. I'll try to explain sier hypothesis here, but I guarantee I will mangle it.

@butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway sorry for misrepresenting you, lol.

Sie says that I am extremely appealing to many people for many different reasons, eg I appeal to sex positive queers because I am a very vocal sex positive queer. But, because I have such strong opinions on such a wide variety of subjects, I inevitably disagree with almost everyone about something, and I do so passionately and aggressively.

As such, when I disagree with most sex positive queers by, for example, refusing to condemn nonviolent mentally ill people to death for using fiction to control their violent impulses, this feels like a betrayal of the bond I formed with them.

Of course, there was no bond. The vast majority of people who idealized me have never even spoken to me, let alone been my friends.

But the feeling is there, and just as treachery always inspires a much greater degree of pain and rage, it causes people who have followed me for many years to think that I am a traitor. This inspires much more visceral and often vicious reactions than one might otherwise expect.

Add in the fact that I am quite public with an enormous amount of information that can easily be used to try to emotionally harm me, such as personal trauma and my various marginalized identities, and inevitably some very nasty stuff gets said by people lashing out against what they cannot help but see as a personal attack.

[synodicatalyst]

honestly i

i don’t know where you believe i said “everyone who prefers reading or writing m/m or m/f is inherently lesbophobic” because i like, didn’t. and to make it clear - i’m not offended, i’d just rather people didn’t send asks in bad faith as such.

also “i write a lot about this one character = i hate all the other characters” is something you said, not me, and i really don’t understand where that line of thought came from. anyways.

let me explain why i don’t like the “it’s just a preference!” argument: 

preferences do not justify a whole fandom bias. many of them are rooted in genuine internalised lesbophobia and misogyny.

the female cast of homestuck is, as a whole, just as strong (writing-wise) if not stronger than the male cast. by this i mean vriska and terezi and rose and kanaya and aradia are all INCREDIBLY GOOD and well written and funny characters. there are some pretty good boys, but i genuinely believe only dave manages to snag a spot in the list of top 4 best written homestuck characters

the girls are as a whole, more plot relevant, more pivotal, and better rounded than the boys. this is just like, fact. the female cast of homestuck is superb and it gives us a cast of many vibrantly different girls who are weird and funny and sometimes gross and have wacky interests and i think that’s genuinely so incredible. thus i think it’s a huge shame that people like, don’t get that? or they don’t want to focus on it???

anyway, a preference / bias has to come from somewhere and i don’t know how it doesn’t sound lesbophobic to you if someone openly admits they care more about m/m and m/f relationships than f/f ones. or if they say they dont care about the girls as much as the boys. if youre a gay dude and relate to the boys more, sure? i guess? i just think its wack to suggest there’s obviously nothing Deeper to a Preference like this

i think something that needs to be examined is why, even though so much of fandom is female and largely wlw, there is a disproportionate amount of m/m content and why most of it ISN’T CREATED BY MLM. in most other fandoms, this can partially be attributed to the fact that female characters are usually not as well written as their male counterparts, as well as being lesser in numbers. this is completely not the case in homestuck, however, which suggests a bias amongst fans. and when you have a clear trend where explicitly romantic, fascinating and dynamic wlw ships like vrisrezi have LESS AO3 CONTENT THAN CRONKRI? ??????????????? that means that there’s clearly a fucking issue lol

anyways if only ever drawing and writing and reading about dave is what floats your boat i literally can’t stop you and i’m not accusing you of lesbophobia for doing so. like, i only read FFXV fics that have Ignis as a pivotal character and he is a dude. this is because there’s almost zero femslash in the ffxv fandom though. and i am in the middle of writing a pretty long f/f oneshot for it so, you know.

so yeah this isn’t a PERSONAL ATTACK and if you take it as such either youre exactly the sort of person who needs to have a little Think or you should stop worrying about my opinion and call me a bitch and complain about how i’m generalising all people who like m/m or something. if you do the latter please do it in my inbox and explain exactly why you’re not lesbophobic (this sounds very combative but im sure You, as in The Anon Who Sent This, is the least of my problems to be honest)

 im just saying like. there’s a very bad fandom bias. and that bias has to come from somewhere. and it’s obvious. and if you only create boy content for this fandom you might want to ask yourself why and then read roxi’s fics because that’s the number 1 guaranteed way to become deeply invested in girl content. i’m not kidding

also sorry i sound mad in this response. im not actually mad i’m just bracing myself for ten anons telling me about how i should just let everyone like what they like and not talk about how the fandom has a really bad problem with misogyny and lesbophobia and where that may come from

also this is the third draft of this post. i was going to put a long anecdote about how i used to be a striderfan but i didnt because it was embarrassing

#TEXTBOX #i considered not posting this #seeing how female characters get shafted all the time both in canon and fan content sucks #i dont know why people don't understand this #like holy shit look at ao3 #anon #asks #long post

[dirtybiowareconfessions]

So, you don't post character hate but you'll post transphobic things? Weird priorities. Even if their confession wasn't intended to be transphobic, it still is. Intentions don't matter, actions do. And in this case, the action was offensive. But it's great you added a transphobia tag! Maybe you can add a homophobia tag too! Sexist tag?? Sign me up! Or maybe, just don't post anything like that? A comment made out of ignorance can be forgiven as long as they learn from their mistake and do better.

Mod edi here. Long post ahead.

TL;DR: we fucked up, and I am truly sorry. The confession is taken down.

First things first, I am non-binary & demi/pan. I have been here on DBC for a long time, a follower at first, then a mod. What I saw in this blog back when I first found it, what I still want to see in as now, is a friendly place for anyone to explore their sexuality and gender. This is why I joined, this is why I’m still here - for the sake of community in general and my fellow LGBT+ people in particular.

This is why I want to protect our followers, to understand and support everyone.

This is also why I keep fucking up.

I am not outright trans, or gay; I’m always halfway, always coming up with excuses and explanations, always giving people the benefit of the doubt. Reeling in my initial feeling of “this is wrong”.

Maybe they didn’t mean it that way, maybe the OP is trans himself, maybe this, maybe that. I read life stories of trans men who gave birth. I read stories of trans men terrified of those things. There is no universal truth.

But there is compassion.

The negative impact of a confession like the one in question outweighs its possible - theoretical - “positive” impact. For the OP, the subject is likely a fleeting fantasy they might have already forgotten about; for a trans man, it can be a stone in a landslide, the kind of landslide they can’t forget or log out of when it gets too much.

I pledged to be an ally. I claimed to support trans people. And then I fucked up because I disregarded my initial knee-jerk reaction in favor of “maybe they didn’t mean it like that”.

There can be no excuse, and I’m not asking forgiveness. All I can say is that I am, truly, deeply sorry, and I see that post as a mistake.

You, anon, and everyone else who has spoken up - you all are absolutely right to be angry at me for letting this slide, shaking off responsibility with a hand-wave and a warning tag. It’s hypocrysy, and I can’t stand it. How can we do this, claiming technically it’s not against the rules because it’s not “illegal”? I don’t know if I can live with myself as a mod of this blog if we start posting confessions that cause our followers and ourselves so much grief.

Maybe it wasn’t meant as a hateful message, but it left me and Raven both feeling iffy. We have been back and forth on the matter for almost two days now, and I think I’ve made up my mind.

Any amount of joy that confession might bring to someone is disproportionate to the grief it cost. I can’t stand the thought of our most vulnerable followers experiencing the betrayal of us siding with some thoughtless, careless fetishism. These are not the ideals I want to uphold. I might be biased, and there will be people who might call it censorship, there might be accusations of giving in to the pressure, but… the more I think about it, the less I want to set a precedent of betraying my community.

This time, I’m putting my people first.

-edi

#transphobia mention tw #edi replies #anonymous #ask #transphobia tw #tw transphoia

[momo-de-avis]

After a childhood of a parent hitting me while the other just avoids the scene and doesn't stand up for me followed by them ignoring me saying that them hitting me was traumatic I still wonder how I can ignore that and still tolerate them and almost be a normal family with them... I'm so scared that I bring or will bring that abuse to the people I love and will love, because of not knowing it's bad.

Sorry for taking a while to respond anon, I haven’t been on my laptop in a couple of days and the app is NOT friendly with asks.

First of all, I don’t think you should ignore that at all. If you wish to put it behind you, forgive and overcome your trauma so you can find peace of mind along your peers, ignoring will just push it down and turn it into a burden when you least expect it. But only if that is what you want. With childhood trauma, it’s not mine---and nobody’s---business telling you what is the right attitude. The right attitude should be the one that makes you feel comfortable and gives you peace of mind.

It might just take a while to figure out what that is. Everyone has their rhythm---it could be a month, a year, it could be ten years. Your healing process is yours and it needs the time it needs, and you need the time necessary to heal.

Then, try to define what ‘normal family’ is. From a personal perspective, I can tell you this: trying to impose my own version of normality on a family dynamic that was, by all accounts, not really normal, only crushed me. Instead, what I had to learn to do (and am still learning---and suspect I will still for a very long time) is learn what my place is in this dynamic. I’ve repeated it often but I’ll say again what the motto is that I learned and that’s helped me a lot through time: you can’t change people around you, and to believe you can might be very dangerous, but you can change your behaviour around other people, and that might just be the ingredient to allow you to adapt. For that, part of the process is accepting how those people are. It’s a process that, I won’t lie, it’s difficult, because it often clashes with our own memories and our own experiences (like my family outright rejecting the memories I have).

One thing that childhood trauma creates is a distorted sense of self. It comes from a survival instinct, in a way. Because it’s like you’re constantly clashing head-first with what the core family wants you to be and who you are, you’re torn between several selves you create in order to adapt. Adaptation as humans is quite the normal thing, but with trauma it tends to be disproportionate in terms of the amount necessary. But to a degree, we tend to keep doing it. The mindset, I believe, is learning to be yourself enough that you find the right persona that’s still true to who you are that adapts to the family dynamics. (In my case it’s like, just be 60% of myself. Like, certain things that I love and give me pleasure, I purposefully keep away from my family because they can’t understand the importance it has to me, so it’s my own way of preserving it. It’s actually helped me in realizing just how important those things are, and in preserving those things more endearingly.)

So it is hard work and quite complex, but I promise you, it’s a doable step-by-step thing. I promise you, you will do it. You will achieve that.

I can’t say just how to do it. If I’m being honest, at least from personal experience, it’s a bit of trial-and-error thing. But I can say I believe wholeheartedly you’ll find your voice, your self and your place rightfully. Whatever that place is. If it’s turning your back and never looking back again, it’s your decision, made to your best ability, made to protect yourself---and the right one. If it’s finding forgiveness eventually and accepting the change in the people around you, it’s yours alone. If it’s accepting they haven’t changed, but tolerating just enough that you don’t lose contact---same thing. It’s yours, and it will come.

But don’t even ignore it, don’t push down that pain of the past. Look back at that child who suffered and think: what do they need? What did they need to hear, to feel? And keep nurturing to that child (or young adult, or teenager---doesn’t matter. It’s your past self that matters). And the work you will do in overcoming your trauma will somewhat be a redemption to that child. It’s a weird thing to say, I know, but it’s actually a thought that never occurred to meuntil my therapist brought it up and did this exercise with me where I try to look back and understand that child. It’s helped me a lot in something that is exactly what you fear, the last point you brought up, and something that’s been my fear as well: how can I keep going without replicating the abuse I witnessed. By understanding better what that child needed but didn’t have, what that child wanted but didn’t get, I have a better sense of how to get away from those learned behaviours.

With that in mind, I’ll tell you this with 100% certainty: you won’t bring that abuse to other people. I know this, anon. The fact that you are already aware that there’s a chance your brain might snap and engage in those learned, toxic behaviours is enough. That doesn’t mean one or two behaviours stemming from that might come, but the trick is always to be aware of your limits. Accept that there will come a time or two when you might just act wrong in that sense, and it will be easier to learn from it, ask for forgiveness and move past that part of yourself.

We aren’t perfect, after all. And we replicate the behaviours we were given as children, even the toxic ones. We can find ways of venting those behaviours in a non-harmful way (rage issues work well with cursing like a sailor, or screaming, or breaking dishes for the hell of it---hell, I once heard about this business a guy had in Lisbon in like, a car graveyard or some shit, where he rented out a bat and a couple of hours for you to go around just SMASHING shit). But we can also observe others and listen. So long as you engage daily in becoming a better person, I promise you will never be who you fear you’ll become.

And honestly, from your ask alone like, the goodness of your heart just pours out vividly for me. You’re a kind human, anon. You have a big heart, enough that you’re struggling to find ways of establishing normality in an environment that was very toxic for you. Enough that you’re concerned about the person you can be with others---and how can you be your best self. You grew up, you survived and you became a better person than maybe your surroundings expected you to become. One, two, three---even ten wrongful acts aren’t enough to call yourself bad in any way. Strive always to be better, believe in yourself and your ability to heal, and always look back on that traumatized child and answer their wishes, listen to their voice, soothe their pain. 

I believe in you, anon, and I’m here always rooting for you!

#anonymous #abuse mention #abuse tw #violence mention #violence tw

[lulu-balu]

Fluffball Fen is mostly not badly affected by things that are toxic to cats and not birds or butterflies; cats have carnivore livers that are not very good at handling toxins, and so are very easily posioned. And they’re not likely to do what cats sometimes do, and eat stuff like slug bait or glowsticks because “ooh what’s this let’s eat it and find out!” they are a person who can do things like ask “is this food” and then not eat it if it’s not. It’d still be a bad idea to use most human medicines on them, humans actually metabolise things weird-did you know that macadamia nuts are poisonous to most animals? 

They’re a lot bigger than a butterfly, so insectides etc affect them in higher doseages than butterflies. Things like canola oil, they are unlikely to be poisoned by although it is technically poisonous to them-after all, why would they drink cooking oil? They still have to be careful around insectides though. 

They can’t have avocado, start feeling nauseous after eating only a little chocolate (they might consider a small slice of chocolate cake or whatever ‘worth it’ as a rare treat), and have a very low alcohol tolerance and longer-lasting hangovers than humans do. Like, a whole day. (This is them getting off lightly and having it based off of waxwings and the like. Lorikeets can be hungover for a month.) 

Macadamia nuts and raw beans are also a bad idea for them, as is large amounts of garlic, onion, or chives. Mostly the nuts. The garlic etc would mostly be dangerous if eaten frequently. A little bit of garlic here and there, in things like sauce, would be fine. Eating whole bulbs of garlic or whole onions would make them sick. And as for chives, who even eats a whole garlic’s worth of chives, that’s too much chives, Fen isn’t going to get sick from chives unless they put chives in everything and there are other flavourings in the world. 

The thing with chocolate and coffee being toxic to animals is, technically it’s toxic to us, too. We’re just really good at breaking down the toxins and so have a really disproportionately high dangerous dose. Fluffball Fen doesn’t.

Xylitol (a sweetener) would also be a no-no, along with maybe grapes and raisins. Actually, probably grapes and raisins, but some strains of sprites would be able to eat them just fine. Fen does not know that grapes/raisins are toxic to them. They know it’s a possibilty but not one they’re intending to find out about. 

Submitted for our friend Anon. I knew a lot of this (I used to be obsessed with animals and bugs and as a result read tons of books on them) but I didn’t know about some of these, like the nuts bit. You learn something new every day!

#submission #Fluffball Fen AU