You can make this public Ambie, but its something I've also been struggling with. I honestly understand what you meant when you were talking about like... feeling like you can't love/like said fictional character because other people have claimed them. I'm assuming you mean Gale because i SORTA feel the same but in the sense of... I make Gale gifs but other people's Gale content does so much better so I'm like... am I doing it wrong? Am I enjoying the character wrong? Am I making poor content? Do I not have THE RIGHT to enjoy him because people enjoy said creators content of Gale more than mine...? And yeah its a spiral, to the point I beat myself up over it. It's like... their content blew up overnight while my Gale stuff struggles. Sooo I guess I'm kinda in the same boat and it sucks.
Dear Taylor, thank you. ♡ I am going to write more about this because it's a way for me to organise my thoughts and maybe hopefully also to help me (and you maybe!) to feel better.
I think a lot of this has to do with kinda being on tumblr for a long while. It's ultimately hurtful behaviour but old habits die very hard and it's super easy to feel like it's all some sort of competition - when it isn't obviously, but the anxiety goes deep.
I mostly get it when I feel like I am not making enough "content" (shouldn't probably call gifsets / edits / anything creative "content" in the first place, actually because it strips it down from being something we should do for our own enjoyment. im gonna get there) for a character.
I get like this with Gale as well namely because he is my comfort character in the sense that his story helped me and taught me a lot, and it's just incredibly deeply personal and important to me. But I remember when the "norm" on tumblr felt like (it wasn't maybe but it felt like it) people laid claim on characters. At least in my personal experience, this was really the case because I remember I had a falling out with my ex friend because I started shipping my oc with the same character as them. Unfortunately, I started to believe that this is normal - that oops, they claimed that character and hence I can't have that character myself. I still don't like that character anymore even though I used to love them, simply because somewhere in my mind it feels like a guilty territory, like I don't deserve to like that character anymore.
I haven't been this affected by a fictional character ever before in my life. Gale literally saved my life when I was at a very very very low spot. And he continues to do so. I can safely say he is the reason I am still here. So I think that's why I feel backlash sometimes - even when it's just my own feeling, because nobody has ever told me "hey hands off, its MY emotional support wizard" - because I need to unlearn this habit of feeling like I am not enough. Or that my love isn't enough and that I am not a true "fan" enough. All of that "I am the no.1 fan" and canon url stuff from tumblr from years past is unfortunately still within me. And I can safely say I am working on it, however, there are some bad days sometimes.
I stopped posting about Faerene x Gale because at this point I only talk about my ocs because I feel like I need to "make up" for the fact that other people talk about their OCs / Gale x Tav ships more often. And if I don't post about mine it makes me feel like people will assume I don't like this pairing as much as others do. Same when it comes to gifsets and stuff, I feel like mine aren't getting much traction because somehow I don't "deserve" to love this fictional character as much because other people post and talk about them more often than I do.
It really really really sucks but I fully believe we can work on it!! At least I can always tell myself that even though I have these feelings I will not let them take over me. Because we don't act upon them. We don't go around and tell people "hands off my comfort character I love him more than anyone". We don't feel like this because we are bad people. I think we are just deeply hurt somehow. But that can be healed and I believe in us.
Just remember that you are more than what you post online. Your online presence doesn't define how you feel about things. You cannot simply measure love. Love is unique for all of us!! And it's incredibly beautiful that we get to love a fictional character so much and that Gale has brought so much joy to many other people. Your experience with Gale is different from mine and everyone elses! Nobody. I mean nobody. Can take that away. And spoiler alert, most of them aren't even trying to.
