#im not maintagging any of this for several reasons

[eggtwobroes]

frenrye

i dont evem know who these guys ARE!

jokes aside though i luv frenrey. frenrey means alot to me which sounds kind of funny to say. its an inside joke to several friend groups (3 friendgroups i can think of off the top of my head). its a comfort. it makes me unironically nauseous if i think about it in bad contexts. i couldnt look at it for a little bit due to bad associations. it also helped me figure out alot about myself (mostlu helped me figure out that im. fictoromantic </3)

alot of text under the cut sorry. WATCH OUT! (ship ask game)

as for what it means to me personally, at first i was annoying with hlvrai. i had the worst possible characterizations yiu could possibly conjure up because i wanted to frankenstein every fucking ao3 trait for benrey and gordon together because i thought that was the way to characterize them. i was also 13 so whatever. i also projected onto benrey HARD which made him more annoying and me more annoying also. at some point i projected too hard and got nauseous with the ship cuz i convinced myself that i was projecting trauma about my ex friends onto them.??? which was weird but i ended up reaching some closure regarding those ex friends a little while ago and also at the time i realised "hm. no this is stupid" and moved on. then i got on tumblr and became a bigger frenrey fan (really funny to say) and it started meaning more to me... my characterizations got better ovr time (same with my art) and everything was goung well. i had friends who liked frnerey and also i liked frenrey myself. peace and love on planet autism. and then the thing in june happened when my now ex friend told me something about literally everyone in The Frenrey Discord server which caused alot of stuff that i wont explain cuz i think you guys know it by now. that was embarrassing. i also couldnt look at frenrey because i associated it with that and it made me sick to my stomach to think about. at some point i got normaler and less mentally ill and stuff. frenrey also became a relaly big inside joke in my friend groups and stuff <3 i dont really make as much frenrey art as i used to now since im more of a darnrey enthusiast at this point but thats cuz i did figure out im fictoro bcuz of it (shoutout to my wife. girdon)

other than what it personally means 2 me its also a really funny dynamic. guy shows up and starts pestering you the WHOLE FUCKING DURATION of the worst days of ur life. claims he used to know you when you were kids (you fucking didnt). and ur brains response to this is "lets kiss with tongue" its so funny. in canon context its like. this guy plays a game and meets the most fucking insufferable npc of his life and falls in love with him when hes literally not even tangible. how do you store that much emotion towards a character from a game you could just turn off dude. theyre both pathetic i think. their dynamic is kinda hard to describe. i think its funny when benreys head over heels for this guy that hates his guts. i think its funny if they both hate eachothers guts and are simultaneously thinking "i hope this guy fucking goes to hell. i bet he wants to kiss me. good thing i dont want that". i think its funny if benrey doesnt care about gordon at all and just harasses him cuz he thinks its funny and gordons like "god this guy sucks. would it be weird if i kissed him. id hate that probably". idk its a very fun ship to play around with its very flexible.. they fit as queerplatonic, romantic, AND platonic. they work out in game and nongame scenarios. they work in aus because theyre opposites. its so fun. im like dr frankenstein and frenrey is my frankensteins monster that i test on just to see what happens and what works best. idk how else to end this paragraph and continue to the next one sorry

mre related to the first bit about how theyre an inside joke. heres a collection of frenrey related images that are inside jokes or about inside jokes

theres also a lot more videos i have but i cant put themall here. sadly. heres one at least

#im not maintagging any of this for several reasons #asks #NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT #TALKING ABOUT FRENREY TO MARCIE MADE US CLOSER. WERE QPPS NOW #TAHTS SO FUCKING FUNNY TO ME

[decepti-thots]

I was in the tumblr tf fandom for a hot second a few years ago and i just wanted to ask, is it still really aggressive here? because back then there was a lot of shipping drama, there were a few callout posts going around (can't really remember about what) and just...a lot of bad stuff. I personally had someone tell me to kill myself because I liked one of the villains. guess I'm just wondering if, in your opinion, things have chilled out? Cuz I'd like to get back into it but I'm a little hesitant;;;

I'm going to try and give the fullest answer I can in the best faith to this! For context, this blog is a couple years old now, I have enough followers that I get a lot of active engagement on my posts etc, I am very active in TF fandom here, Twitter, and IRL, and while I did not used to be active I have been lurking in TF fandom as long as I have been on Tumblr.

There is absolutely still some toxicity; all fandoms have their bad faith actors, their drama hounds, their shipping Diskhorsers TM. I have gotten hate mail, I know folks who have issue with weird anon haters who are persistent, whatever. But no, it is not as bad as it has been in the past, IMO, not at ALL, and it is 100% possible to have an active, sociable and nice time in this fandom so long as you curate your engagement, with basically no drama at all. Many of the worst folks burned out and left when the fandom got less active and their shitstirring paid lesser and lesser dividends, IME.

People sometimes ask how I maintain such a vocal presence without falling into the still-there drama, and I have some advice that I promise you will mitigate like, 99% of the possible issues you could encounter:

Block whenever you feel like blocking. If you get a bad vibe, if you just don't personally like someone and don't wanna see them, if you see them throwing what looks like a temper tantrum you don't want in on, just block 'em. Remember: blocking is nothing personal towards the person you are blocking. It is not insulting and doesn't need to be 'earned'. Block every single person you think not blocking might even just theoretically cause stress or drama. (I am blocked by several people for reasons no more serious than 'I hate your OTP', and I commend every one of them for doing it and having a better time on this site!)

Delete any and all anon hate. Block anyone and everyone who sends you hate. No exceptions. No witty comebacks. No takedowns. Nothing. You see it and the actual literal second you do, you block and delete. None of it is worth one second of your time. Deprived of the oxygen, they will leave. And you won't be tempted to re-read it and stress out.

In that same vein, if it causes issues, just turn anon off! Turn it off. Personally I keep it on because I simply do not care about the odd troll, but if you care even slightly? Fuck 'em, turn it off, anon is a privilege your followers need to earn by acting in good faith.

Find people you like and follow them, ignore blatant shitstirring in the maintags (again: block people!) and try to curate content and follows and mutuals based on what you do like and not what you don't. Curate positive engagement; do not rely on the general fandom slurry, find what you like and hang out in your own corner of things that bring you joy. If the maintag stresses you out: don't check it. Check the blogs of folks you know are cool instead. Stuff like that.

Fandom should be fun. Fandom should be finding people you like and sharing good times with them, not stressing about avoiding folks you hate, or who hate you. Tumblr lets you moderate how you engage, when, and where more than almost any current social media site; now you can even turn off reblogs and oh my GOD is that a lifesaver function btw. If you want, you can make your blog unsearchable! It means you will need to be more proactive in making friends. But TF fandom is pretty tight knit these days, and folks want to talk a lot of the time. You'll still be able to engage with cool people.

There's way less aggro losers around these days, but more to the point, you can absolutely avoid the ones that still insist on being annoying and starve them out without much effort, tbh.