#arei vs antis

[areiton]

Imagine obsessively hating on Dylan O’Brien and mocking a real person’s trauma and life threatening accident just because you are still bitter that Dylan’s the star and breakout star of Teen Wolf and overshadowed your talentless fav Posey from day one without even trying... Scott McCall/Tyler Posey fan @noncanonfan (also known as @camelotpark) can relate

So I got this ask. And a few submissions that I’m not gonna share for two reasons. Bear with me, nonnie. 

1. I don’t want to share links to angry ramblings. I spent a bit of time--not a lot cuz it’s ridiculous--on noncanonfan’s tumblr last night and look--they’re literally just shouting into the void. There’s no responses. There’s no interactions. And there’s no reason to give them that. DOB is doing just fine, bless his quirky little self, and the best way to shut up haters is to not bother giving them a voice to begin with. So I’m not gonna share those posts for that reason. 

2. I really really need positive stuff on this tumblr. Nonnie, my darling, my dear, my friend. Send me pics of DOB with puppies or with anyone who isn’t Posey. Send me fic recs and head canons and gifs. Send me ‘omg i miss you in this fandom what do you think about lydia and allison opening a detective agency’ (i miss it too, and that’s fucking badass and we were robbed). But the posts about scott-stans and antis are really not my jam. It’s 2020. My kid is in the hospital. My other two are in quarantine for covid. Let’s ignore the trashfire stans, stop wasting our time on their hate, and focus on some positive, k? 

This goes for all of you, dear readers! Please feel free to fill up my inbox with prompts and nonsense and your shitty days and what you had for lunch (I’m having the most delicious chai coffee) because I truly lOVE hearing about the good things and your lives. 

[areiton]

Friendly reminder:

*Block content you dont want to see

*Ship and let ship

*Tag responsibly

*Curate your own internet/fandom experience

*Try to find joy in fandom, instead of dwelling on hate.

*You can't control other people and their fandom experience/shipping preferences, so don't try.

*Problematic ships don't equal problematic people.

[areiton]

It's April, which means flowers and rain and antis frothing at the mouth that people voluntarily give money to a site that they use, for no other reason than the site put a banner up about their fundraiser.

It's April, which means green grass and bunny rabbits and my faith in fandom being restored despite actual fucking idiots ranting in their corners.

I fucking love April.

[areiton]

Can a single anti please show me the child who was harmed by shipping?

Just--I want to see someone who was hurt by shipping. 

Not by trauma that is triggered by a ship--be careful and protect yourself, but not the internet’s fault if you aren’t. 

Not by making stupid decisions that were ‘influenced by a ship’--if you’re young enough this is happening, fandom is prolly not where you need to be. 

Not by a predator who met them in fandom--don’t blame fandom for bad people doing bad shit. 

By shipping. 

Because if you’re gonna say this shipping is harming children--I’m gonna call bullshit. And then I’m gonna say--show me where. 

Disliking something? Doesn’t make it harmful. 

[areiton]

So I just saw a Iron Man bingo thing. 

Which was apparently created specifically because the current Tony Stark bingo allows properly tagged Starker. 

And you know--that’s ok. It doesn’t bother me that some antis created an event specifically to avoid a certain kind of content. That is curating the internet experience they want, so good job, kiddos. 

What annoys me? Is that they also want their followers to scold the original bingo for allowing things they disagree with. 

Kiddos. That? Is not curating the internet experience you want. It’s annoying and harassment and just childish. Which--I know, you’re all about protecting the children, but like. 

As a person who entered fandom (an age ago) as one of those mystical ‘children to be protected’ and now, as a mother of one of those ‘to be protected’ fandom children, and as a problematic shipper, I want to just go ahead and say--

Starkers aren’t the problem. Problematic ships aren’t the problem. People who make other people’s internet their moral responsibility is the problem, kiddos. 

Mind your business and let others do the same. You were doing so good and you had to go and ruin it. 

[areiton]

I read this post (it’s long but so good, friends) and it got me thinking. 

I was 10, I wandered into the adult section of the library for the first time, and Courtney, my favorite librarian and (looking back) a high school student, handed me Stephen King. An older librarian swooped in and plucked it from my hands, and steered me back toward the Babysitter Club, and I grabbed a book called Lace because it was near the kid’s section and big and I was only allowed to take one book on our family vacation--for a girl who read two or three books a day, that was tantamount to torture. 

Sometimes I wonder if Brenda, the nice protective older librarian realized that King’s Salem’s Lot was a lot less impactful than Lace and the themes of incest and sexual violence I spent the entire drive to Texas devouring. 

But we’ll never know, and for a few more years, I didn’t peruse King.  

I was 14 the first time I heard about Harry Potter. And at the time--I was knee deep in the Kushiel Trilogy. But the one I was told I wasn’t allowed to read? Harry Potter. Kushiel, with it’s thick dense pages and lush sexuality and homage to BDSM--that was fine. A boy in a closet learning the power of love? Not so much. 

Sometimes I wonder if my mom would have stopped me, if she’d actually read the first few pages, or if she realized that two decades later, both series sit on my bookshelves, but only one is tattooed on my body, only one tugs at me, who I am as person. 

But we’ll never know, and for a few more years, I didn’t read Potter. 

When I was 13, my parents wouldn’t let me or my brothers watch Saving Private Ryan, because of the graphic violence. They wouldn’t let me watch Braveheart because of the sex scene. 

That was fine. I curled up with a series of historical fiction that detailed the lush, exotic life of Cleopatra and her lovers, read all about the battle and executions and killings in Rome with Colleen McCullough’s Master of Rome series, read about Alexander and Hephstation fighting and fucking in an ancient dusty book I still wish I had a copy of--and missing Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart didn’t bother me. 

I wonder, sometimes, what my parents would have done, if they realized how very little I cared about what media I wasn’t allowed to consume because I had everything I wanted and no one paid any attention. 

The point of this is--censorship doesn’t work. Kids are gonna read what they want, they’re gonna partake in the media they want. Take away what you think is gonna hurt them, and they’re still gonna find something comparable or worse. 

And in the end--it’s ok. It’s ok. Those kids--they’re gonna be ok. I am ok. No one was hurt in the making of this adult. Trying to shelter me actually hurt me worse than monitoring and talking would have but that’s a story for a different day. 

I say this as a parent who gives her kids pretty free rein over their media consumption--censoring doesn’t work. Talking to them? Discussing what they’re watching and sometimes saying, hey this might be something we need to wait on for a bit? That works. Or it’s working for me. 

Antis need to stop trying to shelter these kids they think they’re protecting, and maybe realize they aren’t pretty dolls on a shelf somewhere who shouldn’t ever experience life--they’re real people with real interests and a real world they will have to interact with. Let them do it. Let them do it in a space that safe and has guidance.  

[areiton]

PSA for Antis

When you send hateful 'omg you're writing <insert whatever you dislike>' asks? It makes us want to write MORE of it. To write it darker and dirtier, if for no other reason than fuck you.

You are achieving the opposite of your desires, kiddos. Cut it the fuck out.

[areiton]

ugh, scott mccall delusional squad members russianspacegeckosexparty and princeescaluswords are currently harassing a queer black woman and teen wolf writer just because she doesn't worship their personal fav and writes *AMAZING* sterek fics instead of scott mccall centered ones like they demand her to. and i... i am beyond disgusted by antis' toxic, abusive behaviour tbfh. they stay literal trash

I’ve seen a lot of Scott McCall nonsense and anti bullshit and general discussion over on @thisdiscontentedwinter tumblr–if anyone wants a recap, she does a much better job dealing with their nonsense than I do. 

Here’s the problem with anti behavior. In their need to defend a fictional character–they hurt real people. Right now it’s a black woman. In the past, they’ve accused me (a Lantix woman) of being racist. Their logic is–well, laughable and shouldn’t be called logic because it’s a disservice to the word. 

And frankly, they’re boring. It’s the same goddamn argument every time. We’re racist because we think other people are better at some things than Scott. We’re abusers because we think villains deserve redemption arcs. We’re blah blah blah bullshit. We’re horrible naughty very bad people who need to rethink our wicked ways.

It’s the same argument ad naseaum and it’s frankly, boring. And gross. You want to come up with new material, squad, or you want to, idk, use actual logic and not just rambling nonsense that makes no sense (have any of y’all actually attempted to read Camel or Pew’s posts? They’re actually nonsense) come back and we’ll talk. Until then–go write fic or something. 

Why can’t we all just live and let live with fandom, ffs.