#fandom wars

The fact is, we all got enjoyment out of this show. We kept coming back, season after season, because we were interested to see where it was going to go. We felt things, we experienced things, and it was all real.

Even back before I was a Byler (which was most of the show), I loved these characters. I loved getting spooked, I loved the soundtrack, and I was overall entertained. I didn’t need the show to be perfect. I say a lot that season 3 is the worst one in my opinion, but back when I first watched it, I was there for the whole thing.

It was an investment. I wasn’t making fanart or writing fanfiction back then, but I took time out of my day to watch this show. It was something I always came back to.

I feel like, when the conversation shifts to whether or not a piece of media is “actually even good”, we forget that it was something people experienced in real time. You can say a show is bad, but you’ll always have your experience with it.

Obviously we were going to care how this show ended, and obviously, it was always going to hurt if we suddenly felt like we weren’t getting that same joy out of it (which is what a lot of us are healing from now) - I can’t just stop feeling my emotions because logically I “shouldn’t even care about Stranger Things cause it’s dumb”, that’s not how it works.

Back when GOT ended, I felt for everyone who was upset over the ending. I’d only ever seen the first episode, and had no context for any of what people were complaining about, but my thought was, “damn, that sucks”, not, “well, I never even *cared* about it, it was so overrated, cry more”

You could go through all of GOT and point out things you thought always sucked, I’m sure you could pick this show apart if you *really* wanted to, but that wouldn’t take away the fact that people had a passion for it, and spent hours enjoying it.

It’s just so dumb to me that people want to make fun of people who are unsatisfied with the ending of a show. Okay, you never thought it was that deep, that’s fine, but why is our emotional experience invalid? What makes you better than us for not being a Byler, for not watching past season 1/2, for not having faith in this last season? Nothing - and you could be out there enjoying what makes *you* happy, but you’re focusing on other people being upset because it makes you feel superior?

- Cause the vampire genre is always pushed into that narrow niche -

Tumblr was always my place to freely share my thoughts about my favorite fandoms. Nothing that spreads massively like on Twitter. Just my thoughts. My mid-30s, adoring-a-pixel-vampire-in-my-free-time thoughts. And yes, sometimes I received positive reactions, sometimes negative ones. That’s life, we don't always have to fully agree with one another. Now I want to let my thoughts wander one more time. As a kind of conclusion, and I wonder how others think about it.

In the end, discussions about which of Astarion’s endings is the “True” one are pointless, because everyone favors one for their own reasons. That's also not how the game is supposed to be. Talking about it, yes, talking about what's the true one, nope.

It was never about kink-shaming for me, since Astarion’s story was never just a kink to me but more to it later.

But for some people, that’s exactly what the vampire genre represents. But it's more complex. I love goth aesthetics, moral grayness, the mysteries surrounding vampires and what they symbolize on a deeper level - the liberation of inner “sins,” sexuality.

If someone harasses you under your posts/vids/whatever because they hate the ship/characters in it… remember they're bumping up the engagement.

But not only that, they're telling the algorithm they enjoy the very thing they're hating on! And the algorithm brings them more of THE thing.

So they're essentially the ones getting screwed by their actions the most by: 1) promoting your work, 2) asking for more of the same in their recommendations

Once again, for all the hateful antis in the back who feel the need to police people & their creativity & might come across this since they tend to lurk in the ship tags:

🌟 BY HARASSING PEOPLE, YOU'RE BASICALLY PROMOTING THEIR WORK, THEREFORE THE SHIP/CHARACTER YOU'RE HATING ON. 🌟Hope that helps. ;)

And to the normal people: it sucks getting hate, but the haters end up getting the short end of the stick eventually, so there's some comfort in that. I guess hate asks are another thing, but if you're the creator and they interact with your content directly, they're essentially helping you and screwing things up for themselves. You can, of course, always block the haters, but I think it's hilarious to set them up for fuming over the same kind of content they detest by not doing that. Let them get the algorithmic karma. 🙏

nahhhh cuz I think the steddie side of the fandom is misinterpreting Steve and Dustin’s argument soooo bad. I argue, it WAS in character for Steve to say what he said.

Yk the character who frequently speaks with his emotions before he calms down and realises what he said wasn’t okay??

I mean come on we’ve literally seen it before - the car scene with Dustin and Steve in season 4 anyone? He lashed out and then immediately apologised once he realised what he said, and this is what we’re seeing once again.

Can we also not forget that Steve only knew Eddie - REALLY knew him - for like what, a few days at most? Of course he isn’t going to react like Dustin.

Plus his argument is super valid. I mean the fans watched the show and reacted the same way, Eddie did die for no fucking reason. They could’ve escaped from the upside down but the whole him running in was to show the character change - from running away to running in.

To summarise, what I’m trying to say is, Steve’s reaction is totally fucking normal. He didn’t know Eddie as well as Dustin did. He’s SCARED of losing Dustin, his best friend. They’re fighting for their lives constantly and adrenaline is a hell of a drug. We always knew steddie wasn’t going to be cannon but that’s the fun of it. We can write fanfiction and make art of whatever we want because there’s no fear of making it cannon relevant.