Ask A RED Fem-Medic @askaredfemmedic-blog - Tumblr Blog

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Maurice Sendak, author of ‘Where The Wild Things Are” (via violaceae)

#reminds me of Henrich

Why this count will probably stay inactive. occ

(( This is really hard to write. I haven't been here for a really long time. A friend's breakdown/rant prompted me to write this. And while I have thought about erasing this character, I still get a lot of kind hearted people telling me how much they loved hanging around with this crazy medic woman. I honestly feel guilty for keeping people at arm's length and not coming back here.

But the truth is, staying off of Evie has probably saved my sanity a little. It has not been safe for me to play her in a long time, and as I was reminded two weeks ago, it's still not safe to play Dr. Frost.

While I have shared some amazing stories with a few of you, some of the more frightening aspects of this fandom don't escape me. The bullying for one has always been a problem. It's something we all deal with, but I've never been comfortable about it. When I originally started the RoR, it was so people would not be teased for doing less than serious roleplay. That room though, had changed hands a lot, and when I stopped moderating it the first year, a lot of things started happening in there that I didn't agree with. It's changed hands, I want to say six times or more, and who knows what goes on in it now. It's frightening to see something you've made as a positive thing become a cesspool. When I left it for a final time, it was not because I was booted out, but because people that bullied, stalked and had a general reputation for two faced behavior where being let in. A guy that sent me degrading, harassing messages was let in, and the new moderator did not care, even with proof. It was really not a safe environment, so I chose to leave without notice or argument. Later the same mods appealed to a group I didn't get along with, going as far as to lie, saying I was thrown out, and it got them about five minutes of attention.

The stuff I went through with a certain Medic was also pretty bad. Bad enough to end friendships, and I am still getting letters about it. Letters from this guy that attack my self esteem or are meant to, but are really pretty pathetic. The furry guy that was stalking me stopped, but one of the guys that was sending me things lives in my state, and while he has stopped too it's unnerving having him close or that friends knew about what he was doing and were friends with him, and of course- I still get things from Mr. Medic to this day. I never minded that people had sexual or violent rps, but the non-consenting rapes and the child molestation from a portion of the community was really not something I handled well. It's one thing when people agree to do those kind of stories, but when people don't and the other person is doing it to your character or others anyway, it's awful. A lot of it was to get back at people out of character, and to punish specific people, it was about power. I think that while Mr. Medic's character did do a lot of bad things that were in character, I know of several things that weren't and it still is upsetting to think about. It makes you wonder sometimes what's up with the person on the other side of the screen, and if they have a really unhealthy opinion on sexual abuse, like they have possibly been sexually abused.

The hardest thing, was that a large portion of people were okay with this stuff, and most of them were friends. I felt good friends. But, it was enough to actually put my mental health at risk. What was really jarring, was that one 'friend' actually confronted me about being suicidal and actually called me a liar over it. It's almost like they would have wanted me to give in to people egging me to hurt myself, so I would be more legitimate in their eyes, I got really close but I ended up not going through with it, it hurt, but it didn't seem worth it. I think sometimes you have to get that far to realize what's important to you. Still, some friend right? It's scary! I don't think anyone should ever have to feel like that, or dread coming online to see people. It gave me anxiety for a very long time. So, when I did finally have enough, I just started really cutting people off, and not even notifying some of them I was doing that. Have any of you ever felt that way?

I think for what it's worth, a lot of really good things came to me in-spite of this. I still talk to a few people from the fandom, that have become lasting friends. I have weeded out a lot of unhealthy things and people. I have more of an offline life.

While I do still rp a little, it might never be with Evie again, and hopefully people will understand why. Her adventures, and the time she came to be were a large part of my life,time-wise, maybe three or four years of it. Can you believe that? And while I probably will not delete her, I have not really been able to write for her either. I should be sad about it, because it was like the end of an era, but.. I am not really sad. It's okay.

Realistically, I do not want to return to the TF2 community, even as a canon character, I did that for a brief stint and saw the same shit in a different wrapper. I hope that the community's attitude and climate will eventually change. There is a lot of bullying, harassment, preferential treatment, and misogyny (mistreatment of female characters, especially due to people favoring male shipping, which is serious because most of the people doing it are women, really, wtf that is WEIRD). I have watched a lot of people harassed and treated like shit until they have left, before I left too. You know what though? It's okay. Let them have it, and move onto better things, because there will be better things, I promise you. I PROMISE.

But yeah.. so that's why I don't come here anymore, or on Ms. P. Or on FB, and I sure hope you understand. ))

#occ #inactivity #online harassment #nightmare fandoms

georgetakei

Some sound advice.

Source: Allegiance, A Broadway Musical

knock knock knock

You hear the subtle hiss of someone putting on a record and the volume is cranked up a little.

poetryformyself-deactivated2017

It may have escaped your notice, but life isn’t fair

Severus Snape (via poetryformyself)

matchgirl42

We need more Mary Sues. We need more unapologetically powerful female characters, on a wish-fulfilment level of awesome. We need them to be gods and superheroes and billionaire playboy philanthropists and science experiments gone wrong and normal kids bitten by spiders who now save the world. Why should female characters have to be realistic, while male characters have all the fun? Why shouldn’t a female hero appear alongside Iron Man and Thor, in a way where she can truly hold her own?

We Need More Mary Sues (via matchgirl42)

Interesting!

(via writingweasels)

I’ve seen a lot of these posts around lately. There’s one talking about Batman as the ultimate Mary Sue but it’s OK because he’s a dude so he can’t be a Mary Sue. There’s another one talking about how men get all the wish fulfillment stories and women get laughed at or accused of Sueism if they do.

I just want to clear up some things that make me angry about this whole movement.

Despite the name, Sueism is not a gender-specific term. Do not hesitate to call male characters out on their freaking Sueism for the love of R’hllor. Male characters can be and are Sues! If you think that male characters are not being called out as Sues, then go do it. If men think their little fantasies are immune to scorn, then let’s call them out on it.

"There aren’t enough female heroes!" Damn right there aren’t, especially on the big screen. I would love to see a hero as powerful as Thor smashing her way through her foes. I would also like to see her well-developed, much as I would like to see any protagonist well-developed. Muscley idiots spitting out pithy one-liners are just as dull as perfect women.

"We need more female gods/superheroes/billionaire playboy philanthropists." Yes, we do. We need more women who aren’t sexy lamps, who aren’t sexy at all, whose characterization has nothing to do with them being attractive (if they are), who don’t spend 3/4 of their plot wrapped up in a romantic subplot, and who aren’t sexualized. Now make me a well-rounded god/superhero/billionaire playboy philanthropist instead of stooping to the patriarchy’s levels to win.

Wish fulfillment characters are boring as hell. This quote discusses the Marvel superheroes. I’ve seen all the movies and liked most of them, but overall the movies were formulaic and predictable: there’s some jokes, stuff blowing up, and the ~evil villain~ but you know at the end of the day the guy will win and get the girl. B-O-R-I-N-G. I yawned so hard my wretched soul escaped out of my body.

Bad does not wash out bad. Your Mary Sues are not going to wash out decades of Gary Sues. We should have all characters of all genders developed as fully-developed people.

"But empowerment!" Guess what? You can still have female characters who are powerful and well-rounded. You can have male characters who are powerful and not wish fulfillment. It’s not mutually exclusive!

Mary Sues are literally the worst character.

tl;dr I don’t care where your character is on the gender spectrum. Don’t write them as Sues.

(via clevergirlhelps)

I think there is a nasty habit going around in the writing community right now that’s equating Mary Sues with powerful characters. Your female characters don’t need to be Mary Sues in order for them to be powerful. You don’t need to create a Mary Sue in order to challenge gender stereotypes. The truth is: when you create a Sue, you aren’t challenging those stereotypes. Characters who are Sues are usually treated as the exception in the narrative, they leave no room for other characters (regardless of gender) to follow their example. When we write an Action Sues, they often become the only one of their gender to ever do the thing and that only serves to uphold the damaging idea that women don’t or can’t handle violence. It says that women can only be good at combat if they are better than the men, that men are the golden standard and the only ones who have ever fought ever.

It doesn’t normalize the behavior, it makes the character the exception to the rule and that hurts all women out there who can and do fight. It upholds the myth, instead of looking at the reality.

We have all written Mary Sues at some point, they are part of the writer learning experience. However, they are not the end all and be all. Don’t be ashamed of them, but learn how to make them real characters and part of engaging stories.

-Michi

(via howtofightwrite)

spanx-the-weasel

Sexual Assault in Roleplay

!!!!TRIGGER WARNING!!!!THIS POST EXAMINES THEMES OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT IN ROLEPLAY! VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!!!

Medic

It's late and she is in a bathrobe when answering. You can hear the steps before seeing a calm, cool face answer the door. "Anything I can help you with?" There is a stifled yawn.