Anne and the Apocalypse

I'm an adult in my 40s. This blog is for an adult audience. I tag extensively for your blacklisting convenience. I curate my dash based on my own interests, boundaries, and energy levels, and I expect you to curate yours accordingly. I don't track unfollows or comment on them, and you're welcome to unfollow if you are not happy with what I post. No hard feelings.

I do not use nor support the use of generative AI.

Do you take fic requests?

I don’t, sorry. I have a huge backlog of my own ideas, WIPs I’m working on, and I also like to do exchanges now and again, so I stay pretty busy with writing. As fanfiction is a hobby I do for fun, I'm not interested in taking on anything I'm not fully invested in.

Is it okay to tag you in tag memes?

Yes! I like to talk about writing and share snippets of what I'm working on. If you want to tag me in a writing meme, feel free! Even if I don't even up having time to respond to it, I appreciate being tagged.

Do you accept critique about your fic writing?

I’m generally not looking for literary critique from strangers. I have trusted friends that I seek that kind of feedback from. If we don’t have any sort of established relationship, I’m not looking for unsolicited writing critique.

Is it okay to message you?

Yes! Just please don’t expect an instantaneous response. I’m an adult with a busy life and I’m not always available to reply immediately or have a long conversation. But don’t let that discourage you! I will get back to you when I’m able.

Did you make a post about X at some point? I’m trying to find it.

Probably! If the search bar doesn’t help you, please use the links at the top of this post for my meta masterposts and fandom tags. If you can’t find it in there and you’re still pretty sure I wrote it, drop me a line and I’ll try and dig it up for you.

Can I use/borrow your headcanon?

Yes, just please give credit for where you found it! (And feel free to tag me so I can see your work.)

I don’t agree with this meta you wrote!

Cool.

You got a piece of canon wrong in this meta you wrote.

Cool! I’m human, I get things wrong sometimes. I’m interested in all the lore for my fandoms and I’d love to know what I missed. Just don’t be a dick about it, please, and I’d really appreciate it if you told me where the lore I missed can be found (e.g. “It’s in World of Thedas Volume 1,” “It’s a line from a cutscene in the ARR patch quests,” etc), to save me some time in correcting my misapprehension. I will not be mad so long as you’re not a dick about it.

That said, if you insist on being a dick about it, I expect wiki links and page numbers.

Why do you post so much meta about canon? Do you think everyone should care about canon compliance?

I don’t in any way think fanworks need to be canon compliant. Many of my own fanworks include deliberate changes to the source material. That said, I do think it is worth drawing a distinction between canon and headcanon. I’m generally in a fandom because I at least find the source material compelling, and I reserve the right to discuss and analyze canon independent of anyone’s conflicting headcanons–including my own. Discussing canon is not an attack on your headcanons. They’re two different things. If this makes you feel angry or attacked, this might not be the place for you.

You reblogged a post from a Person Whomst Is Bad.

It happens. I don’t vet every single blog of origin on every single post I reblog, and you probably don’t either, so if you’re going to point this out to me, don’t be a dick about it, please. I do expect to see evidence if I’m told that someone is a bigot or a predator, and no, “They shipped a ship I don’t like” doesn’t count.

Do you support problematic ships?

Shipping is a form of storytelling. Stories frequently have problems. Some stories have problems that are more disturbing or upsetting than others. Most stories aren't for everyone. Some stories aren't for me. That doesn't necessarily mean those stories shouldn't be told. More importantly, it doesn't mean any one person, platform, or decision-making body should get to unilaterally decide which stories shouldn't be told.

So then why do you talk about misogyny/racism/queerphobia/etc in fandom?

Because our real world biases affect fandom whether we are conscious of it or not, and I think it's better to be conscious of it than not. So yeah, I think discussion of the broader social trends that affect fandom have a place in fandom. I don't think this is the same thing as arguing for some kind of moral purity in fanworks and shipping, or for censorship. Though it can be difficult, and I certainly won't always get things right myself, I do think good-faith conversations about these things in the broad strokes are important to make fandom culture more inclusive.

Will you reblog/boost my fundraising post?

Before I start, I will say frankly that yes, this was prompted by a recent incident in the FFXIV fandom where a well-known fan artist expressed sentiments that many others (myself included) felt were biphobic. I am not naming that fan artist because if you're in the fandom you're probably already aware of it and if you're not, well, it's out there, and this isn't a callout post. I am not addressing that artist directly because I don't know him or follow his work, and he's already been addressed directly and in good faith by people more familiar with him. This is aimed at a more general audience, with the intended goal of promoting greater understanding.

Just to absolutely emphasize this, do not send the artist hateful or harassing messages. It will not help anyone.

In all of this, it also important to bear in mind that queer people of all stripes are under attack to various degrees all over the world, and the fact that we are all navigating our safety and wellbeing outside of fandom only intensifies the hurt when we feel attacked from those we consider our own. With that in mind, it's important to keep some perspective. First, it's fandom. Fandom is important to many of us, and as with any group context, how we behave toward one another matters, but fandom is also a small niche hobbyist subculture and as serious as it may feel in the heat of the moment, this came about in a discussion about who gets to have their OC kiss a pixel person.

Second, the incident that sparked this is fundamentally an intracommunity conflict, regarding the way LGBTQIA+ people of different identities treat one another; I'm primarily addressing that audience, and frankly I think the majority of my followers are some flavor of queer (though of course there's some straight-and-cis folks in there and you're also welcome here so long as you're chill). To me, the artist in question who expressed the biphobic sentiment is still fundamentally a part of my community even if I don't know him, even if he wouldn't much care for me as an individual, even if he wouldn't think the same of me. The LGBTQIA+ community is not a social club, it's a political alliance, and at the end of the day we all need each other more than I think we sometimes realize. That informs how I respond to things like this, even when someone within the community isn't behaving well toward others. I also don't want to imply that homophobia doesn't exist within fandom, or that bi fans are immune to perpetuating it by virtue of being bi. Just as it is possible for gay people to perpetuate bigotry toward other queer identities, it is possible for bi people to perpetuate homophobia, and we all bear a responsibility to be mindful.

With that incredibly long preface out of the way, here's two videos from trans bisexual YouTuber Verity Ritchie that I think offer accessible context to some common anti-bisexual tropes. Each is under 20 minutes long. Obviously, this is not a comprehensive history of biphobia (though the creator has a lot of other videos about bisexuality and bi history, and if you find these two informative, I do encourage you to go watch more).

Because society is gendered, anti-bisexual tropes are also gendered, and manifest in different ways. Bi women experience a type of biphobia that intersects with misogyny; bi men experience a particular type of biphobia because they are men; nonbinary people will experience types of biphobia that intersect with transphobia and cissexism.

But if you watched both videos, you may notice a common trope that emerges: the bisexual as an insidious, malevolent interloper, invading both straight and queer spaces and tainting them, ruining them, making them unsafe. The bisexual as a dangerous outsider who fundamentally does not belong, and cannot be trusted.

Many bisexuals, I think, are familiar with the feeling of being perceived this way, and the sense of isolation that often comes with it. Before coming into contact with queer community and queer history, we may not be able to understand or explain why we are experiencing this, or why we react so strongly to it. But it does go deeper than simply rejection and hurt feelings. There is history to this trope.

And when someone says, "This used to be a safe space but then they [a group that implicitly or explicitly includes bisexuals] came in and ruined it," this is the trope that is invoked, intentionally or not.

Hearing this from within queer fandom strikes a particular nerve for me, not because it is shocking, but because it is so familiar.

You may also recognize this trope if you're a queer person of color, or asexual, or transgender, or nonbinary, or a lesbian. It turns out to be infinitely reusable.

And to anyone who has spent a fair amount of time in this fandom and interacted extensively with other creators, it is just... self-evidently obvious that there are a lot of queer fans here shipping all kinds of ships. Quite a few of those fans are bisexual or pansexual (and I've been using bi and bisexual as umbrella terms here, because I'm old, but consider that umbrella to include any and all multi-gender-attracted people). Among these fans you will find all kinds of ships and headcanons. And yes, this does include m/f ships (among any and all other categories), because for many of us, that is a part of our experience that we may reflect in our creative work.

It also worth mentioning that some bi women, in particular, have been driven away from shipping m/m because they found themselves regularly accused of fetishizing gay men. In other fandoms, I have seen harassment campaigns launched again female authors of popular m/m fic on this basis--in at least one case, led by gay men. It might surprise some of my followers to hear this, but there was a time when I was seriously questioning whether I should ever write m/m again because I'd experienced so much shaming around it. I did not, in fact, swear off shipping m/m; I still read it, write it, and enjoy it, and my AO3 catalog bears that out, but I won't pretend the discourse around it never got to me.

I would go on to discover, however, that there is nothing a bi woman can ship that exempts her from criticism and scrutiny. If you ship f/m, you are an annoying het shipper ruining fandom with your annoying het ships. Even a mention of the fact that you headcanon the characters as bi and that this informs the way you portray them will only get you further derided, and in some cases will lead to people openly questioning your identity or insinuating that you're lying about it. (The "straight woman pretending to be bi for attention" trope never goes out of style.) And if you ship f/f, your ships and the characters in them will be more heavily scrutinized and moralized because that is what happens to female characters generally. Or you will hear the characters and ships you love dismissively called "vegetables," implying that no one could truly enjoy them authentically.

You will never "win." The only winning move is not to play.

This isn't really about shipping.

Bisexuals are not invaders of queer spaces, or of fandom. We have always been here... shipping all kinds of ships, loving all kinds of characters. Our own lives and relationships are diverse, complex, and not always easily categorized.

And please, don't take the word of one tumblr fandomite, or one youtuber. What I've said here is incredibly incomplete. Go out and learn more about bisexual history.

Zoom: 25

Color Filter: Bright 4

Filter Intensity 40

Depth of Field: 13

Screen Effect: Frosted Glass

Frame: Journal