Hey! My name is Char, don't mind me just obsessing over my favorite characters. Warning: I might ramble. 28, She/Her, Cis, Autistic, Virgo, African-American.
My worst fear when Calling All Villains comes out is the return of Puzzles discourse, but I think my second worst fear is Gunshow becoming mainstream and attracting the most annoying kind of shippers and shipping discourse.
Seeing people celebrating the TADC finale make me feel a little guilty I never got into the series even when it was just a pilot.
It feels like a show that would have been up my alley, but I just couldn't get into it. Not helped how much the fandom and discourse killed my interest in it even harder.
"A marriage ending isn't a failure at all. I spent eleven years with her. We were so in love that we couldn't image life apart from each other. We got our own place, adopted a dog, and supported each other through school. I thought if tow people loved each other enough the rest would fall into place, except... love isn't everything.
And I didn't want to believe that, but we were sitting in counseling one day, talking about our future and I realized we were describing two completely different lives. Where we'd live, what kind of life we wanted, what made us happy. And it hit me that- I love this woman and this woman loved me. And after eleven years of loss, grief, career changes, we were so deeply in love... but we weren't aligned. And I kept thinking 'We just need to try harder. We can find some compromise to make this work,' because that's what you're supposed to do when you love someone, right?
But the reality was, we had just become different people. Her trade school took her in one direction, my graduate degree in another and trying to force us back into who we were five years ago wasn't coming from a place of love. It was coming from a place of fear. Fear that, if this ended, it meant we wasted eleven years. But sitting there across from her, I realized: That's not how love works.
Those eleven years happened. They were real. The dog, our home, showing up for each other through grad school and trade school. I wouldn't change a single thing because loving someone doesn't mean you're meant to stay with them forever. And letting go doesn't erase what you had. We measure marriage by whether it lasts forever or not, but what if we measured it by whether it mattered?
What if we measured it by the love we gave, the life we built, and the people we became? Because love's job isn't to last forever, it's to help you become fully completely yourself, and sometimes the most loving thing you can do is give each other permission to be yourselves, separately. But the dog doesn't know were' divorced. He just gets two Christmases now."
Pulled this from this guy Preston Rakovsky's Instagram (@prestonrack) because it is a beautiful perspective on love, marriage, and relationships in general.
Me: *starts shipping a little rarepair with a few others in our little corner of the fandom*
Fans of the big and popular ship, entirely unprompted: "Why would you ship this rarepair, when this big and popular ship is here? Your ship is shit and probably problematic as well. You should stop shipping them or we will make you!"
Just why do so many fans of the big or even canon ships often feel so threatened and personally insulted by a tiny portion of the fandom not caring for their ship and shipping something else? 90% of the fanworks are already dedicated to your ship, you have enough. Just let us be.
It's so jarring when you see/follow a blog that has a nice, cutesy aesthetic (i.e. magical girl blogs or whatnot), only for them to suddenly make posts that trashes on a series they hate and their fans because it has problematic content or because it's dark and edgy. And it wouldn't be annoying if they didn't post how much they hate it all the time making me not want to follow or unfollow them.
The irony is that they also like something that has just as or much worse problematic content.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with relating to characters, “they’re literally me” etc but if that’s the only way you engage with stories you’re kinda missing the whole point of Characters being vehicles through which we can see perspectives outside of our own. and also you’re going to get upset when the Character acts in a way that is not Personally Relatable to You
Please call your representatives: VOTE NO on the FEDERAL BOOK BANNING BILLS HR 2616, HR 8705, and HR 7661!
Transcript below the cut.
Page 1:
There are currently THREE FEDERAL BOOK BAN BILLS aiming to ban all TRANS BOOKS from U.S. public schools! HR 2616, HR 8705, HR 7661
June 2026 / Maia Kobabe (a trans author, for three years in a row the most challenged author in the U.S.)
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HR 2616 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools if they “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology,” as defined by an Executive Order signed by Trump in Jan 2025. It would also cut funding from schools unless they require “parental consent before changing a minor's gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form.” HR 2616 HAS ALREADY PASSED IN THE HOUSE! Please call your Senators to say NO ON HR 2616!Â
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HR 8705 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools which teach “discriminatory equity ideology or gender ideology,” as defined by two Executive Orders aimed at suppressing “critical race theory” and trans representation. This bill is named after the late far-right activist Charlie Kirk, “The Charlie Act.” HR 8705 has passed out of committee, but has not yet been introduced in the House. Please call your House Reps to say NO ON HR 8705!
Page 4:Â
HR 7661 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools which offer material deemed “sexually oriented," treating any LGBTQIA+ identity as sexual content. It specifically forbids “gender dysphoria or transgenderism,” and “lascivious dancing” (drag). This bill, titled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” has 22 co-sponsors and has passed out of committee but has not yet been introduced to the House. Please call your House Reps to say NO ON HR 7661!Â
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CALL SCRIPTS
“My name is [name] and I’m calling from [city, state, zip code]. I’m asking [Senator] to vote no on HR 2616. I oppose HR 2616 because it would restrict student’s access to books and it would specifically harm trans, nonbinary, and intersex students. Please stand against book bans and protect queer students!”
“My name is [name] and I’m calling from [city, state, zip code]. I’m asking [Rep] to vote no on HR 8705 and HR 7661. I oppose these bills because they would restrict student’s access to books and accurate history, and would especially harm BIPOC, trans, nonbinary, and intersex students. Please stand against book bans and support public education funding!”
Page 6:Â
Author Maia Kobabe: If HR 2616, HR 8705, or HR 7661 pass, it would be almost impossible for any public school in the U.S. to offer or teach my books, unless they’re willing to risk their federal funding. Students would be even less likely to learn about trans stories or accurate U.S. history.Â
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Please call your representatives: VOTE NO on the FEDERAL BOOK BANNING BILLS HR 2616, HR 8705, and HR 7661!Â
Follow AUTHORS AGAINST BOOK BANS on insta & bluesky for updates on these bills!
insta / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books / print store / bluesky
Maia always makes these actions clear and accessible and I so appreciate eir work.
If you don't know who your Senators or Representatives are, you can use Ballotpedia's Who Represents Me tool! (Note: there's a field for you to input your email address on their page, but it's not necessary to get your results. They just need a mailing address to confirm who your reps are.)
Once you've got names, you can look up and save your Reps' phone numbers in your phone. I find this makes it easier when I'm wavering about feeling brave enough to place a call. Just pressing a button instead of going and looking up the phone number all over again makes it just a liiiiittle easier, and sometimes that makes the difference between calling and not calling!
not to be mean but you just know that some ships only get popular because of a widespread (and totally ooc) fanon interpretation of one or both characters
I like this female character as much as the next person, but man am I getting tired of trying to look for content for them without their fans bashing the male (especially popular) characters and calling people that like said male characters misogynists. Especially as a fan who likes both the female character and popular male character.
Don't get me wrong, yes there is an issue with how a lot of female characters get treated horribly within fandoms due to misogyny, and I also agree there are some that deserves a lot of love and attention than what they get. But constantly hating, bashing, and making baseless accusations on the popular male character and their fans is not helping anything.
Not only, ironically, it makes me not wanna engage with any content featuring said female character because of the rude attitude from their fans, it also makes it harder to actually criticize fandom misogyny with how it feels less like criticism and more about people using the misogyny card to bitch about people liking a male character they don't like with a female character as a shield. Whether I agree with how underrated/overhated she is or not.
Imagine being on tumblr minding your own business when out of the blue somebody informs you that people like you should all be lined up and shot and that they take active delight in daydreaming about your suffering. And then you check their profile and it's all
"ouuh uoogh aaaagh why am I so lonely, why does nobody like me, why do people bully me by not being cool with me bullying people, it's not fair that people hate me just for being hateful, every morning people form a conga line outside my house and dance around it while waiting for their turn to go inside to fuck my wife. these people that I want dead ruined my life by making everyone else think I'm insane and unhinged for wanting all of them dead. waaah."
When a ship that you are neutral about becomes suddenly so popular that the fans decide that everyone must ship them. Which becomes so annoying that you actually end up slowing disliking the ship.
