So....are u still active on here? I heard ur not an anti anymore- what made u change?.
I keep the blog active as documentation, and as a reminder to myself of the past.
I've been meaning to make a post about this on here for a while now, but I never could find the exact words to express what happened. But now is a good a time as any.
First let me explain why I became an anti. I became an anti Reylo after Reylo shippers harassed me after The Force Awakens was released, for making a joke about the possibility of Kylo and Rey being related, because of what happened with Luke and Leia in the original trilogy. I was sent death threats and told to leave the fandom! If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have ever felt the hatred I felt towards Reylo and it's shippers. I was only 19 back then, after all. So when anti Reylos came to my defense and validated my emotions, I clung to them like glue. I took on the rhetoric, and used my own feelings and experiences to add validity to it.
I'll admit, I was super toxic on here. However, in my defense, the toxcitiy went both ways. Shippers were intrusive, posting their content to unrelated tags, and made avoiding their content almost impossible. That's how it all started, you know? By asking for them to tag their content responsibly. The other stuff- the harassment, the doxxing, the death threats- that all came later. And eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth. Just a lot of back and forth, fueled by tumblr's PC culture and the argument of fiction affecting reality and how problematic fiction shouldn't be condoned.
But I digress...I took part in some super toxic behaviors, and have grown enough as a person to recognize that both sides were spewing toxicity, and everything that happened...Could've been avoided had we all minded our business and respected one another more.
So...After The Rise of Skywalker dropped in 2019, and Reylo was officially a canon ship, I guess you could say all the wind was pulled from my sails. I was disgusted, revolted. How? How could this ship that I hated so vehemently become canon? And worst yet: Reylos were unhappy with how it came to be. So basically, both sides of this ship war lost. It was...A pitiful end to 5 years of my life, that left me feeling? Lost? No...Drained? Absolutely.
It made me think about the entire 5 years I had spent hating on this ship, and all the things that had happened. I had poured YEARS of my life into highlighting all of the ways Reylo was "terrible story telling", and at the end of the day, it meant nothing all because Disney wanted to capitalize on the hype. My energy wasn't worth it, and it kinda ruined the sequels for me, when I could've just minded my own damn business.
I also joined the Voltron fandom around 2018, and as everyone knows, the Voltron fandon has its own issues with antis. And as previously stated, I was just an anti Reylo. I wasn't anti every ship. I just hated Reylo so much I didn't want anyone to enjoy it! And then Voltron comes along, and I had posted pictures to my Instagram of me and my now ex girlfriend, cosplaying as Shiro and Keith, and sharing a kiss. This anti came along, and harassed us through FIVE accounts, accusing us of being pedophiles and shit. It was the first time I'd ever had anti rhetoric spewed at me, and it was eye opening. Was that really what I had sound like???
So...When that last movie dropped...And anti Reylos scattered to new fandoms, I reflected on myself. It was never about protecting people from problematic fiction. It was about making others hurt for hurting me. I fell into the cult-like mindset of anti shippers, all because of a personal vendetta against toxic shippers. And that revelation disgusted me, so I unlearned all of the rhetoric (which was extremely false btw), and finally...FINALLY listened to what shippers had been telling me for 5 years.
Their consumption of fiction has nothing to do with me, and only I am responsible for cultivating my online experience. Took me long enough to figure that out, and now I try to teach antis on Twitter that same lesson.
Anyways, I've learned a lot from my past mistakes, and I want to use that to help others change their perspective. I want to try and end fandom toxicity. However, the only way to do that is by recognizing toxic behaviors, being kinder to one another, and promoting responsible media consumption and accountability.
The fiction people choose to consume is not a measure of their morality. There's no such thing as problematic fiction. And neither shippers or antis are better than the other. They're both prone to toxicity, and we need to do better to put an end to it.
I hope that answers your question.
dededos
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
gummygunk
vaporwave
annaxmalina
