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20 something year old lurker This blog is old. I don't know what's going on with it. Some of the sidebar links are probably 7+ years old.
I briefly explored fandom again and saw a fic tagged “Character A uses he/it pronouns”, where Character A was the only one tagged as using it pronouns and Character A is one of only two main characters of color in the source media.
content warning for nonexplicit mentions of csa and sexual assault:
When I was a kid wracked with mental illness that didn’t know how to process abuse, I coped by projecting onto fictional characters and scenarios because the concept of actually getting better was unfathomable. I thought so lowly of myself that I didn’t think I could get better. And while fandom was the only place where I saw people openly discussing sexual assault and child sexual abuse, which was how I was finally able to articulate the experiences I had and was at the time going through, ultimately it was a placeholder for actual healing. Not to mention it was not at all helpful for processing the often sexually charged racist microaggressions I grew up surrounded with as a mixed kid.
It was easier to think about fictional characters healing because I couldn’t bring that same compassion to myself. When a character fucks up, you as the content consumer or producer are able to see a bigger picture of the nuances of their actions and intentions. I never offered myself that same forgiveness and care. To be honest I think a lot of people don’t offer themselves that.
This isn’t the first online space I was a part of, but I can’t really bring myself to read through this blog or even a lot of the fics I posted because I see that kid grasping at threads of how to hate themselves a little less.
Years later and I’m an adult, still mentally ill, still kinda fucked up, but I have people I love and have told my story to. I’m after that difficult stage in my life, and that kid is still a part of me, just like the child who didn’t know what was happening is still a part of me, but the me since then loves them enough that I want to be the person that could have made things easier for them.
I used to think I was just starting to get there. But just by trying to get better, I’m already here.
Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin ENDING SPOILERS
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Up until the basement, Eren was healing, he was overcoming his self-hatred and finding value in just being alive in the world, he was learning to share the responsibility of saving his people with his comrades, he was still goofy enough to mess with Jean before the battle, he was able to confide his motivation to Armin and let Armin know how much he valued him, he was level-headed and confident even when the situation became incredibly dire.
When his closest friend and one of only two people he had remaining from his childhood was mutilated and at the brink of death he was desperateto avoid being helpless again to protect someone he cares about. And when he was begging for Armin’s life he confessed that he still hated himself. That his thoughts were full of hate, but Armin deserves to live because he has hope and dreams.
Eren is gentle and supportive of Armin in a way he is toward no one else. He cared about Armin more than he ever cared about himself.
The last few times we see Eren before he receives his future memories, he is most himself with Armin. Supporting Armin unflinchingly. Telling him that he was worth saving. Reminding him of their dreams, even when he’s traumatized by the memories of atrocities before his time.
He was healing.
And the future memories took that from him. Took any belief he may have had about himself being a decent person. Took away any doubt that he was a monster. That he truly was full of hate. The future memories demolished his self-worth, his confidence, made him feel like he would taint his loved ones by just being near them. Made him hide his pain in the last five years of his life.
He knew that Armin and Mikasa would have followed him anywhere. If the Rumbling really was an inevitability, once they realized the futility of their actions, if Eren asked, they would everything behind to go with him, whether it was to abandon all of Paradis or to follow him to the near-extinction of mankind.
Because they loved him.
And in Eren’s heart that made him as disgusting as a slave-keeper. Allowing them to love someone as despicable as him made him even more of a monster.
Eren could lean into the role that was pushed onto him for so long. He could be that monster if it meant saving Eldia.
But he could never take that choice away from Armin and Mikasa. He could never turn them into someone like him. He could never allow them to live the rest of their lives with regret for what could have been.
So he had to run off and break their hearts and leave behind no answers, no closure until the very end. He gave them no semblance of choice in participating in the terrorist attack on Liberio, because the other option was them leaving him to die and dooming Paradis to be defenseless against a counterattack. And with their participation forced, they weren’t like him. They never wanted to be a part of this.
He looked them in the eyes and set fire to the roots of their bonds, hurt them in incredibly personal ways neither of them would ever think him capable of. By becoming a monster in their eyes he wanted to wipe their hands clean as best he could.
He gave Mikasa a vision of them running off, and Mikasa knew it was only a fantasy in the deepest, darkest corners of her heart because she knew they would never leave Armin behind.
He showed Armin the world that he had destroyed, their childhood dream that would never happen, and saw the wonder in his eyes and felt solace in the final moments of his life.
And he shielded Armin from the final truth of how his lifelong drive for freedom stemmed from a forbidden book Armin showed him with shining eyes.
Eren thought he had given in to his darkest desires by starting the Rumbling.
The reality is that first he gave up. He gave up on himself before he ever gave in. He tried so hard to work on himself and heal. He chose to get better. He chose to value his life, to value his loved ones’ lives.
white ppl in fandom rly will hear poc describe their experiences with racism in fandom and ppl describe how places like ao3 & tumblr enabled their harassment/abusive experiences and say some dumb shit like “but that’s the point!!1!1!! the lack of moderation is the point!!11 that’s how it was designed!!!″
like…yes…that is the problem…because you have intentionally and gladly created the exact sort of space in which abusers and racists thrive…why are you proud of saying that the purpose of the thing you created is to be a repository for abuse and racist harassment? why do you hear minors saying they were groomed and harassed or poc saying they were targeted by racists and think “oh yeah their fault for being online”– like what kind of victim blamey bullshit is that? why is “yes, we know a bunch of people get harassed and called slurs and groomed here, but we can’t do anything about it bc that’s just how it was designed” treated an acceptable excuse and not a glaring problem with the inherent structure of the place?why have even simple solutions such as adding an archive tag for racism been brushed off with such vehemence?
like, yes, online spaces are rife with abuse and racism…which is exactly why we should work harder to make sure that doesn’t happen! unmoderated & anonymous online spaces are precisely the types of environments where racists and abusers thrive, so if you have a space like that, then you need to take extra care to make sure that doesn’t happen!
whenever u bring this up a bunch of white ppl who wanna pretend they’re oppressed just completely ignore the rampant racist abuse poc face and act like you’re oppressing them for asking for basic protections against harassment
idk how you can hear people suffering due to the fundamental way a space was created, and think that that space doesn’t have any problems. if people are talking about their experiences with racism and abuse, your first instinct should be “okay, and how can we make sure that doesn’t keep happening?” and not “yeah lol tough luck that’s the point.” time and time and time again poc have expressed how unsafe we feel and how our very real concerns have been regularly brushed aside by the ao3 staff and its users and broader social media/fandom alike, but white people literally do not give a shit about the safety of poc in fandom lmao
a place that knowinglyallows abuse and harassment to exist and does nothing about it isn’t all that worthy of your defending.
contrary to what weird white people may think, it is, actually, our responsibility to look out for other people.
white people in fandom: i wanna be a better ally, black lives matter! stop asian hate! we must be anti-racist. white people we HAVE to do better! if i’m doing something racist please let me know. i’m so sorry as a white person-
fans of colour, especially black people: maybe actually listen to us then? ao3 has a serious racism problem and they’ve made our fandom lives horrible. they need to take down the racist fics, and slave fics. there’s a double standard to how they treat us because they acted with swiftness to take down the fic that clogged tags but not the ones that mock BLM, AAPI issues and the ones that have racist porn. we’re uncomfortable seeing you guys unironically stan them without thinking critically and it’s just making things worse for us. even to this day, ao3 has not crafted a proper anti-racism policy and we feel like we’re just screaming into the void. *make multiple posts and essays explaining our disenchantment, and the many ways the beloved archive quite frankly, doesn’t give a fuck*
white people in fandom: it’s a CHARITY! you’re just a stupid anti! if you hate it so much don’t use it! if the site takes down the racist and slave fics it becomes censorship. it doesn’t affect me so i don’t care and i’m gonna continue supporting them and not saying anything about it and fuck you and your gofundmes that you need to survive! *has blm in their bios*
That ao3 fic reminds me of how when George floyd was murdered like three days later some marvel fan made a fic like “on Tuesday george floyd was murdered. On thursday the avengers had a press conference” or some shit like it’s literally heinous. White people just see our suffering as fodder for their stupid fantasies and it’s so depressing and so demoralizing. How fucked up do you have to be to see us suffering and want to write about it? To sit there and research details about a Black man’s murder at the hands of white supremacy, not to educate yourself in the hopes of being more aware about the world or to help the fight with others, but to headcanon how you think these fantasy characters that don’t fucking exist might respond to a murder they wouldn’t even have blinked at in-canon (and whose actors also frequently remain silent)? Ultimately all for views and likes? Do you people just hate Black people that much?
And what’s crucial about this, what a lot of white fans want to ignore, is that the AO3 mods absolutely refuse to take these fics down. The creators, runners, and supporters of AO3 are largely white and largely apathetic to the various ways that Black people get dehumanized. Just go through any post made by AO3 defenders and they’re more willing to argue about sex and purity than the myriad forms of violence that white (women, mostly) will engage in to dehumanize Black people for their personal enjoyment. It’s chronic. It’s racist. It’s absolutely flooded AO3 and the mods cover up their antiBlack apathy (or outright antiBlack antagonism) with claims that doing anything about this is censorship. They fully and wholly believe that “”“fan engagement”“” is more important than racism–if anything, they don’t think it’s possible to even have fan engagement without virulent antiBlackness.
White fans see this, ignore it, and–like the reactionaries they are–donate dozens and dozens and dozens of times until Archive of Our Own quadruples it’s goal. They scroll past donation posts for Black people in need and in danger to donate to AO3, all for the mods there to keep doing what they’re doing, which is ignoring antiBlackness, supporting racism, and shouting down any dissenters by directly stating they must be procensorship.
