Didja die? Really liked your fics.
Honestly? Considering my fics last updated at the beginning of a worldwide pandemic, don't you think this is kinda rude?
@arcane-renegade / arcane-renegade.tumblr.com
Didja die? Really liked your fics.
Honestly? Considering my fics last updated at the beginning of a worldwide pandemic, don't you think this is kinda rude?
➻ @tracer85s asked wangxian or kieta hatsukoi
➻ @neverenoughwangxian requested wangxian
y’know, it’s been a while since I made this reasonably popular post about how my abuse was the fault of my abuser and my society, not the fiction she used as an excuse.
But I want to talk a little bit more about how I came to that realization, because it wasn’t easy, but it was extremely important to how I conceptualized what happened, and what systematic abuse means.
During and immediately after the abuse - as in, for a little more than a year after we’d broken up and I moved away - I hardcore blamed Twilight for what happened. She called herself the lion to my lamb, she called herself a vampire and said she couldn’t resist me, she…. basically LARP’d twilight at me (and yes, even then, when it wasn’t terrifying it was hilarious). Of course it was Twilight that made her like this, she’d all but explicitly said so. She compared her emotions to Edward’s on the regular; of course Twilight was normalizing those emotions for her. Everyone thought Twilight was romantic so of course she thought things like stalking and controlling me were romantic! I was so sure. I never harassed people, but it’s part of why I chose to study media in college; to analyze unhealthy relationships in media and try to get abusive content recognized as harmful.
And then, almost two years after leaving her, I started talking on tumblr about her, on my main. Just a little, a few stories, comparing her actions to those of a character in a webcomic and pointing out that casting those as romantic is why I’d gotten abused. How she’d talked about twilight’s romance and some of her more distinctive and awful behaviors.
And then I got a message. “Was her name *****?”
It was.
“She did those things to me too. But she said it was like iron man. Like, she was tony stark, and I was pepper potts who has to put up with all of this to save her from herself.”
…
I hadn’t known, until that moment, that there were others.
There were a lot of others.
We reached out to a few of her other close friends / closeted ex’s. Same story, different fandoms. And then we looked at her college, gently reached out to the person she’d dated freshman year.
The same story again, shifted to accommodate whatever fandom we shared with her, twisted to make her actions look romantic. After me it was another girl, summer after we broke up, 50 shades. Her college boyfriend, it was Steve and Bucky. Over, and over, and over, stories changed only in details, and each one she used fandom to cast herself as the tragic hero and us as the ones who had to save her, who should see her abuse as an expression of how much she loved us.
There were so many of us, and she’d used fiction on us all. She’d used it, like a tool, jammed into whatever gap in our armor she could find.
I can’t…. explain, how I felt then. I found all this out in the course of a couple weeks. An isolated incident of someone who loved me and who I loved, whose relationship had gotten twisted by a romance novel, turned into a story of intentional and systematic abuse. I hadn’t realized how much I was using Twilight to avoid fully blaming her until I couldn’t do it anymore. Until I had to fully face the fact that she’d been lying to me, she’d been abusing me, and she knew that she had to make me think it was ok somehow. She’d known it was wrong. She wasn’t brainwashed by Edward stalking Bella; she wanted to stalk me, and she used Edward as an excuse.
When I say “abuse is the fault of the abuser”, I don’t mean in just a pure metaphysical, “everyone’s responsible for their own actions” kind of way. I mean that abusers start with their abusive behavior, and then fill in whatever behavior and excuses they have to to justify it to themselves and their victims. Maybe it’s media. Maybe it’s substance abuse. Maybe it’s past abuse that they suffered. Maybe it’s some psychology mumbo-jumbo about projecting past trauma onto you. Maybe it’s mental illness. Maybe it’s anything.
I had thought - I thought that maybe she was a good person, underneath it all. That media had twisted her. That it Twilight has just been different, she would have been different. I thought media made her think it was ok.
There is a unique kind of pain in realizing that someone you loved chose to hurt you. There is something that changes you, to realize that they wanted to take an action, realized it would hurt you, and then looked around their life like a handyman looking for a tool: “what would make this ok?”
Abusers choose to hurt you. They know that their actions will hurt you, and they choose to do it anyways.
Everything after that is an excuse.
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED ON NOVEMBER 5TH AND WHY IS TUMBLR FREAKING OUT I AM SO CONFUSED
Oh, bless you for not knowing haha
November 5th 2020 was one of the most absurd days in internet history, and frankly, in overall history.
So the world is trembling over the US election right. The votes are being counted, everyone is on edge and even over here in Europe, people are holding their breath because whoever wins this election could change the earth as we know it. Around that time, the third wave of Covid hits (I think), and sends us all back into lockdown.
Then, on Nov 5 specifically, there's this moment where Nevada's votes could make all the difference (that's why sometimes, Nevada pops up in the shitposts too). And Nevada is slooooow. The results aren't coming in, and everyone is constantly checking for updates. Also apparently, Georgia and Pennsylvania are turning blue (democratic) for the first time in ages (or ever? don't know, I'm not that familiar with US history) but anyway, it's unprecedented.
On the same day, the romantic relationship of Dean Winchester and Castiel (Destiel), two characters of the show Supernatural, becomes canon after 15 seasons...but in a really weird way that is dissatisfying to most of the fandom (I think. Not in that fandom either). Now the fandom in itself is huge though, one of the biggest fandoms on Tumblr ever, and there's this sort of massive Spn renaissance happening that just consists of...complete disbelief lol.
On top of that, rumors of Putin's resignation arise, being widely spread through the Supernatural fandom's Destiel shitposts. This, again, could change world history if true.
And at this point, everyone's just going crazy-town banana pants.
Because of the sheer absurdity.
AND I LOVE IT.
Because one person summed it up in the following sentence that went viral and honestly explains best what the heck happened on that day:
And this sentence MAKES ME COME ALIVE. Because DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FACTORS HAD TO WEIGH IN FOR SOMEONE TO UNDERSTAND THIS REFERENCE????????????????
It's a meme consisting of at least 5 other events to explain the 5th of November feeling. The peak comedy being that this is the first sentence of "My Immortal", the worst fanfiction ever written, implying that November 5 2020 reads exactly like that.
It's a cultural treasure, that's what this is.
And I'm just like...WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE. WHAT A TIME TO BE ON TUMBLR. WHAT AN HONOR TO WITNESS THAT TRAINWRECK OF THE US PULL ITSELF OUT OF THE DIRT AND LIVE ANOTHER DAY. ALL IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. FAITH IN HUMANITY RESTORED. RELIEVED FOR ALL MY US MUTUALS.
HAPPY DESTIELPUTINELECTION DAY ANON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy destielputinelection anniversary eve everyone
This explanation is neglecting to mention that, due to the high saturation of gifs of the relevant Supernatural episode at the time, many of us (including those of us who don’t give a shit about supernatural) were somehow learning about important world news via Supernatural memes. Which was just an extra layer of absurdity.
It’s also why you occasionally see important world news being delivered via a very specific Supernatural gifset.
i’ve been on hold at my library for a book about asexuality for a few weeks and i just read an article about some concepts in the book re: consent. and holy shit. blew my mind. i’ve NEVER read about consent in the context of a relationship with an ace and an allo that resonated so strongly with me, and as a person in such a relationship!! it’s so!!! i’m even more excited for the book now.
for anyone interested, the article is How to Negotiate Better Consent: An Asexual Perspective and the book i’m waiting for is Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society and the Meaning of Sex.
god okay, just to gush about this more, the author suggests using the categories of enthusiastic, willing, unwilling and coerced consent (rather than just “enthusiastic consent” or “no means no”). i really recommend reading the whole article linked above, but what blew my mind is the distinction between enthusiastic and willing consent. it gets broken down like this:
Enthusiastic consent:
Willing consent:
and like!!! it made me realize i may have never actually enthusiastically consented in my life, but like, that doesn’t mean i have never or cannot consent! i almost always fall into the “willing consent” framework and i’ve never seen that….validated anywhere. anyway, it’s just given me this perspective about my sexuality and consent in general and better ways to relate to my partner and!!! idk!!! thank goodness for other ace people, is what i’m saying.
This is very useful and a lot of sex work can also be best understood as willing consent, where the indirect consequences of having sex (getting paid) are what is desired and the direct consequences (having probably-mediocre sex with someone you don’t actively desire) are not considered so negative that they outweigh the indirect consequences.
Which is a definition of consent that gives sex workers agency and sees their consent as a choice made again and again based on the pros and cons, not something that is coerced and also not something that always exists by default simply because they are sex workers.
Recognizing willing consent is probably validating for a lot of people who have consent to sex without meeting the definition of enthusiastic consent.
diversity win! this fictional character is gay in my brain
“After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, Please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she Did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, Sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used— She stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and Would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and Found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering Questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag— And was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers— Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands— Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped —has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”
— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be.
The feeling of when you were a child in elementary school sitting in the school bus with your friends while on the way to the aquarium/museum/park for the school field trip
anyway i think it’s really funny how this nsfw ban has played itself out. the staff has basically stopped trying to remove the porn and instead just blacklisted certain terms so that you can’t search for them, thus meaning that the only way you can see pornographic content is if you are suddenly and unwillingly exposed to it - in short, precisely the thing that the nsfw ban was trying to prevent from happening in the first place. good job, guys
that’s exactly my point! the ban obliterated all the pros of nsfw content (the existence of a somewhat safe/anonymous platform for sex workers to operate from, artists trying to get exposure, regular horny people being horny, etc etc) and kept all the cons (random porn bots following you, untagged porn appearing on your dash). it achieved nothing and in a lot of ways made things actively worse
this amazon review 🥺
why did staff have to downgrade the desktop experience with loading issues and gradient boxes like they did with the app. desktop used to just work…
staff doesn’t understand that by not wiping us out swiftly they’re creating an antibiotic resistant strain of users that can never be killed
"Show me your face for a moment, Yamanbagiri. I missed seeing those eyes of yours..."
Tourabu EN launched somewhat recently, and of course I ran towards Yamanbagiri at full speed. Your Saniwa's loved you dearly ever since the game first came out, you know...!!
WAIT HOW THE FUCK DID THAT TRANSFORM SCENE GO WHAT
HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY WALKING
Pepper's Ghost Effect: the Beast seen in tge transformation is actually hidden and viewers are looking at a piece of glass with his reflection on it. When the super bright lights on Beast dim, the image fades to reveal his human form behind the glass.
Walking: all the support mechanudms are hidden under Belle's dress and she's carrying the prince around by his hand so his legs are free to dangle snd move and dance.
All still super impressive, the faces really get me too because there's no trick to make them so expressive other than engineering and craftsmaship and they even did it well on the horse
WAIT HOW THE FUCK DID THAT TRANSFORM SCENE GO WHAT
HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY WALKING
Pepper's Ghost Effect: the Beast seen in tge transformation is actually hidden and viewers are looking at a piece of glass with his reflection on it. When the super bright lights on Beast dim, the image fades to reveal his human form behind the glass.
Walking: all the support mechanudms are hidden under Belle's dress and she's carrying the prince around by his hand so his legs are free to dangle snd move and dance.
All still super impressive, the faces really get me too because there's no trick to make them so expressive other than engineering and craftsmaship and they even did it well on the horse
Never forget that one time I asked my friend "what the fuck did I do in that class anyway" and my friend replied with "dude you answered all the prof's questions while reading fanfic in class wtf"