Virginia Woolf Really Knew 

Source: insta, idacath

This is the greatest progression of events I have ever read, where’s my historical gay romance novel about this

Hand painted, exceptionally rare miniature bat fan.  On thin shaved wood.  Circa 1900.

the cruel prince, 2018

richard iii, 1593

frankenstein, 1818

If you genuinely enjoy being alone, do you ever wonder if it is an inherent part of your character or if it stems from feeling inescapably lonely in the first place until you taught yourself to enjoy the peace and happiness one can find in solitude? what if the reason you now prefer & choose solitude at every turn is because you were a very lonely child, or teenager, not by your own choice, and that’s how you learnt to thrive and grow, so you no longer know if you can do that around people? There might also be an element of personal pride, an unconscious “you can’t fire me I quit” point when your brain decided to switch your feelings about solitude from distress to relief. I often find myself defending my love of being alone, to people who worry that I can’t possibly be happy to live in an isolated house in the woods; I insist that I do! I really do specifically enjoy the isolated factor and chose to live here because of it, but then I wonder how to differentiate an ingrained love of solitude from an acquired ability to thrive off unchosen loneliness, to learn from it and be nourished by it; to what extent it might be a form of contentment built on a bedrock of resignation.

The real glo up is when you stop waiting to turn into some perfect hypothetical version of yourself and consciously enjoy being who you are in the present moment.

it lit.

Reblog this if you’re pro-receiving a brown paper package containing one (1) handwritten love letter, a small jar of strawberry jam from the farmers market, and a smattering of pressed flowers.

I used to tolerate people boosting/expressing people posting anti viewpoints, because if you’re not familiar with the discourse around all of this then their faux-wokeness and use of progressive-sounding buzzwords can be sort of deceptively persuasive (sort of similar to other reactionary communities like TERFs and ace exclusionists, and yes, it’s also the same reason why conservatives are so fond of calling people pedophiles in the same way that antis do!). I mean, hell, when I first came across anti discourse I made the mistake of taking their talking points in good faith and was fairly convinced myself.

But, honestly, in wake of this new, sickening situation with what’s been happening to that fish blog (of all places) and the numerous atrocities I’ve seen these demons pull off over the past few years I think it’s about time we starting being fucking explicit and warning people about this stuff before it goes any further. As silly as it is that we have to have this discussion in relation to fandom discourse of all things, the vile rhetoric that has become simply normalized in certain communities is leading to actual real people’s lives being at risk, and unlike the immature bastards perpetuating this nonsense I actually care about that.

Here’s a cheap rundown:

People who claim that “anti” means “anti-pedophile” or “anti-abuse” are lying, even if they’ve convinced themselves that it’s true. It’s similar to how TERFs claim to be anti-misogyny.

Folks who have reblogged anti talking points on the grounds of the above likely don’t realize the deeper context, but if they don’t want to get wrapped up in the bullshit they better pull themselves out of those communities quick.

Most of the ideas spread by the hardcore anti crowd have been coopted from SWERFs and Christian conservative environments, which is unsurprising given the amount of overlap with those communities (reactionaries flock together).

The handwringing over female fans enjoying M/M erotica, paired with poorly mistranslated Japanese buzzwords, is both cartoonish misogynist AND racist nonsense.

The idea that we can prevent real world harm by banning fiction that portrays similar harm is cartoonish authoritarian nonsense.

The idea that fanwork locked behind explicit adult content warnings and more specific triggering content warnings will warp the minds of impressionable readers and cause crimes that they commit to be the fault of the author is cartoonish reactionary nonsense.

The idea that fictional characters cannot be adapted away from their original portrayal without a transformative work “really” being about the original portrayal, despite both portrayals being equally made up, is cartoonishly ludicrous nonsense.

The idea that adults cannot interact with potentially dark topics in a safe fictional environment without being somehow “tainted” or wanting to then go and enact those ideas in real life is cartoonish conservative nonsense (see the video game panic of the 90s).

The idea that people cannot have the personal autonomy to know what kind of content they want to consume and must have been involuntarily brainwashed by society into reading “impure” works is cartoonish SWERF nonsense.

The anti “movement”, group, community, whatever you want to refer to it as, is literally nothing more than a jumbled hodgepodge of the above ideas bound together by immaturity, in-group/out-group dynamics and the thrill that unsavoury people find in having designated target to bully (there’s a reason why these folks get violent so fast, folks!). This isn’t even to touch on how their abuse is usually specifically weaponized against the neurodiverse, queer people, woman, and other marginalized groups.

Antis are not just people who don’t know any better (although they often are that), but they are actively dangerous, toxic individuals, and their community is a breeding ground for abuse tendencies. If fandom is to avoid withstanding much more of this sort of thing then we need to start actively calling out these behaviours when we see them before our communities become defined by this sort of reactionary hand-wringing in what is supposed to be this cultivated progressive and transgressive environment.

(n.b. if you are here to leave a snide comment beneath this because you’re a righteous anti who is against the “evil freaks” who are interested in dark fiction then you can do so and swiftly fuck off).