#fandom trauma

[raihanangel]

An important detail from the first five books that I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is that Silena is the only one who doesn’t call Charles ‘Beckendorf’— (tlo spoilers under the cut)

—she calls him Charlie up until her own death in the last Olympian 🙁

[garden-secret-ao3writer]

"Me searches Lance on TikTok for fun edits"

TikTok: here, have emotional damage.

Me in tears: Oh...thanks, I guess...

[sufferingmp3]

Sharing Ninjago Fandom trauma

Prepare yourselves for this shit for once you'll see me get a bit heated.

Okay so when I was around 11 or 12 I got into Ninjago and I recall on Pintrest and Google images seeing a lot of art created by someone called 'MaylovesAkidah' and I just recently recalled them (apparently they were on deviantart which should've been my red flag to not look them up). I looked it up and just realized how fucking weird their art was.

Like they were drawing young Lloyd (like season 1) in a way which implied they were shipping them with the other Ninja 🤢. It felt so fucking weird seeing how they drew Lloyd.

The mpreg Lloyd is burned into my mind (no hate to ftm Lloyd headcanons tho, y'all are chill <3). Also reminded me why I don't ship greenflame, it felt so disgusting as someone who loves the RBG siblings.

And don't even get me started on the FUCKING GARMACEST

It was these weird and gross topics covered up by an anime esc art style.

Does anyone else remember this shit? What the fuck happened??? Does anyone else share this trauma??? I tried to see if anyone called this out but no one was talking about it except for some reddit post from a year ago and a random tik tok I found (who agreed that this shit is gross thank god).

Feel free to trauma dump about this in reblogs.

Here is a sample of their art I found

[swan2swan]

Me: "Oh, hey, is that Pupitar evolving? That's cool. Is this the arc where Ash had to care fir it?"

Guy: "Muahaha."

Me: "Oh no that's not Ash. That's some mean guy with a--oh no."

Team Rocket: *frightened protests*

Me: "Oh, no, no, no--"

The Pokémon visible in this shot:

Me: "NOOOOOO."

[tkkeith]

I'm gonna get klanced I'm gonna get klanced I'm gonna get klanced IM GONNA GET FUCKING KLANCED

[angels-heap]

No not at all, I’m so sorry about how I came off, I just didn’t know you were still getting bothered by these stupid teens! You have every right to be angry and I would be too. You’re a great person so im just sad to see you so torn up about some exceptionally terrible harassment. They need to go fuck themselves and I hope your real life gets easier somehow. I’m sorry again, it was rude of me to jump to conclusions.

(This appears to be a follow-up to this ask.)

I appreciate your concern and kind words! And I know it can be hard to convey tone via text, so thanks for following up and clarifying.

While we're here, though, I want to say a few more things about the fandom bullshit. This isn't necessarily directed at you, specifically, but it needs to be said. I'm glad most of the harassment has died down and I'd love nothing more than for the my last couple of loser stalkers to fuck off and touch grass, but honestly, the whole thing has been genuinely traumatic in a way that's not going to stop bothering me overnight, and I'd be plenty justified in still being salty about it even if it wasn't still ongoing.

Resources that are meant to protect real, living, breathing abused children may have been wasted because some kids on the internet didn't like my fanfiction. Even though nothing about that whole ordeal was my fault, that shit keeps me up at night. It is absolutely chilling that clout-chasing internet trolls care more about discourse points than the real human lives they're supposedly trying to protect. It scares me to think about how big of a problem these false reports are across so many fandoms, and how many real kids might suffer as a result.

Not to mention, as someone with a lot of lingering trauma from the purity culture I was exposed to growing up, it's genuinely sickening to see those same attitudes being circulated (and used to attack me and my friends!) by supposedly "progressive" internet users, all in the name of "safety." (Nevermind that all this ship policing does virtually nothing to protect kids from real online predators.) Hell, several of the older teens/young adults who were building entire platforms around harassing me and my friends were actually engaging in potentially dangerous grooming behavior themselves, and there was nothing I or any other sensible adult could do about it without being branded a creep by those same likely predators. That shit also keeps me up at night. I hope the younger kids who got sucked into those cults of personality are doing okay, and aren't out there telling people in other fandoms to kill themselves over ships. Because some of those people just might take the harassment to heart and follow through.

I'm going to stop here because there's no point in stressing myself out any further, but TL;DR, I'm not being salty about ship discourse. I mean, I am, but that part of the whole thing is actually kind of funny at this point. It's the purity culture and ignorance of normal human sexuality and dangerous misinformation about how online predators operate and all the other shit underlying the ship drama that really upsets me, and in all honesty, it should upset you too.

[bandomfandombeyond]

i know you’re not a therapist, and i hope this question doesn’t read as such, but i found your answer re: ao3 and don’t like/don’t read really thorough and well thought out, and i was wondering if you have any advice for folks who have been mentally affected by the anti/cancel culture/purity police type behavior. some of my friends and i have found ourselves extremely paranoid and full of self doubt, convinced we’re terrible people. have you or any of your friends experienced this? any tips or g

So I'm totally happy to answer, thank you for being vulnerable with a stranger! I think you're right about the therapist not understanding how damaging it can be to have your escapism be infected by hate.

I think the first step to dealing with the emotional problems caused by anti harassment is to identify what you're feeling and why.

So, for me, I was raised with extremely christian parents who told me God would know if I even had bad thoughts, to the point of telling me a migraine that took out my vision in one eye during a church service was "god fighting the devil for your soul."

This feeling of omnipotent thought police judge is definitely magnified in fandom spaces, because the nature of fanwork is inherently transgressive. Fanfic allows people who don't see themselves in mainstream media, for whatever reason, to express the deepest parts of themselves that they wouldn't want anyone to know they enjoyed.

So, it's naturally going to be very traumatic to have people come in and tell you that you're a bad person for enjoying things in the privacy of your own brain, simply because THEY don't find enjoyment in it or are repulsed by it. I personally am repulsed by children in movie theaters but you don't see me harassing parents about it -- because I'm capable of realizing that an uncharitable thought can only reflect poorly upon me if I turn it into a cruel action.

So, I think, perhaps, the best way to comfort yourself - and speak over the anti-narrative they're harassing into your head - is to be able to tell yourself that your actions have harmed zero (0) real people, while their actions have harmed YOU and many others. So you automatically have the moral high ground just by not being a raging cabbage head.

I hope this helped 💚 If not, feel free to ask more follow ups!

[jojoeyo]

Just dancing in my little jojo tumblr house till someone rolls by and says hi ✨🌈

And if no one comes, I’ll still be here dancing with myself 🖤🙌