#rpb updates

Just dropping in to let you all know that I am receiving the messages sent and not ignoring anyone. The holidays had me quite busy, and I've not been very well recently. I'm working on getting several done to release in the queue, and hope to do so this coming weekend! There should also be an announcement that I hope you'll all find helpful.

Firstly: anon with the warning, thank you! I swear, it is like playing whack-a-mole with these people. I really appreciate, especially when I am so busy and spending 99% of my time on this blog replying and queuing replies, all of you who give these head's up messages!

In this conversation, I tried to make it clear that while I held absolutely no hostility toward muns making this choice for whatever reason (or reasons) made it right for them, I had some biases going on. I always feel like it is important to be open about where I'm coming from on an issue. Every conversation on this blog is meant to be that, a conversation. This is a place where unpopular opinions are welcome and difficult things can be talked about. You cannot have those conversations in the hope that the community will broaden their views and be a little more chill if you're not being open about where you stand, too.

That also means it is an obligation to speak again when that changes, it's part of the honesty, part of the conversation. And that has happened.

Thanks to some messages, ones that were not at all meant to change my mind or anything, I got the opportunity to explore blogs and characterizations, in addition to, quite simply, being really impressed with a group of people that chose to be rational and polite, despite knowing that I wasn't into what they are passionate about. Looking through these blogs, it smacked me in the face at about three in the morning that my opinion had been unfairly colored by fandom experiences. I even said as much in my responses, and had left myself my own damn breadcrumbs as to how this had happened. Sometimes, though, it takes removing oneself from oneself to follow those innate trails to their source.

That's what happened. It was kind of a journey back in time to my first RP fandom. While things were nowhere near as toxic as they are today, this was in the late 90's and I was a minor in a fandom fully meant for and run by adults. Things were quite often...raunchy. Now, as a young teen, especially of that time period, that was just a thing to be mindful of avoiding when I didn't like it, to find a little funny when I did, and that otherwise felt the safe kind of deviant. (Don't get me wrong, in those days adults did protect minors, many of us were not subject to grooming and other abuse expressly because the twenty and thirty-somethings in our writing groups stepped in and got terrifying. But we were expected to behave maturely enough to self-avoid and take responsibility for our choices to forgo warnings of art and writing we encountered.)

Like most fandoms, my first one was dominated by cisgendered, male characters. In my particular era of it, there were two adult women and one child who were not. Many, many people genderswapped then, it was not considered a terrible thing. I wrote with genderbent versions of the canon I had, even. However, a great deal of the impetus to genderbend continually was sexualizing one or the other of the two male mains who everyone shipped together and many had some, realized or not, homophobia about shipping together. Turning one or the other into a cis woman "fixed" it. They could now be as explicit as they wanted to be without the icky feeling of writing Gay Sex. (Listen lol there were still warnings on fan sites that read "contains Gay Sex!! That's a man and a man together, don't proceed if you don't like it!" It was an era in which both of my favorite canon characters were continually insulted using homophobic slurs. Things were different. Things were a lot closer to the way muns now act like they are.)

For someone who was writing male characters because that was the gender they felt comfortable as, who did not want to be sexualized as a feminine presenting and defaulted person, that was not exactly charming. I started avoiding it like the plague. I developed some latent irritation over the matter that came out twelve to fifteen years later when still writing RP online and the MCU crashed fandom into popular culture awareness and acceptance. In many ways, I think that experience was for me what it was for a lot of older fandom folks - it was a reminder of how thrilling getting into a rich, older fandom was the first time around, but it was also a little frustrating being suddenly swamped by people who might have acted like you were a freak six months ago, now wearing three hundred dollars of merch and informing you of their arcane comic knowledge. A lot of things we experienced in the early days of online fandom were coming back around again in a huge way. Including genderbending and all the ways it can be used to do anything but explore characters.

And, hey, let's just say it - the MCU has been a bit infamous for being toxic. Whether you love it, hate it, are somehow neutral, we're all aware of the reputation, most of us have directly experienced it. I don't think it is the fault of the material or anything, I think it rests largely upon the scale and reach of the fandom. That is the mega fandom of mega fandoms. Even having only 1% toxic, terrible assholes in it would still mean you'd run into their bad behavior constantly at that size. There are definitely other factors, yes, but that's a whole other conversation when my point is that the overall toxicity of the fandom that was absolutely inescapable did not help my revived, lingering feelings of distaste surrounding the thing once again popular to do for the reasons I found it distasteful the first time.

That's alright, we're all entitled to have things we don't like, we're all entitled to not realize why or want to work on it, so long as we're not using that as a vehicle to harass and shame people. Being a person is a thing I strongly support and people are flawed and full of nuanced experiences. The whole point of this post is because I suspect that other people out there have negative viewpoints being unfairly applied (unfair to others, but also, unfair to themselves in potentially cutting themselves off from people and writing they might enjoy). My hope is that if I say I recognized this, others might be more willing to consider why they feel the way they do and whether it might not be worth it to give someone a chance they might not have otherwise. At the very least, to try to understand where others are coming from before you believe everything you're told or keep your viewpoint only to the negative experiences you've had.

Looking at these characterizations the other night/morning, what struck me so much was the feeling of well, I'd write with this person. All my requirements as stated in my rules were present. In the rules of my RP blogs, I certainly do not state that I won't write with genderbent muses, my requirements are all about the writing. If these people fulfilled that, would I have given them a chance? Would I have looked at their blog when they followed, or would I have seen that they were a genderbent version and not have clicked the URL to see any more of who had followed me?

That was really uncomfortable to contemplate! In the end, I can't say because it never happened. I wish that it had so that I could say either way, it'd be a more comfortable feeling to either know that I'd have done the reasonable thing or not. That if I did not, I could at least feel bad about it and try to make amends. I can only suspect, and my suspicion is that I'd have floated over the URL, seen the description, and in my visceral reaction, not gone farther. I'm not very happy about that suspicion.

It's not cool that I very well might have ignored someone who was doing exactly what I want and talk about doing all the time, analyzing and developing their own version of a muse. Taking into account how changing one thing, large or small, changes the character and their story, and writing it that way. Being invested in characters and writing, being a good RP partner and member of the RPC.

So, while I could have had this moment of realization quietly and never said a damn thing, it definitely affects no one's life but mine, since I did make the statements I did, I felt it was important to talk about this unseen side of the story. I had some negative opinions I didn't even realize fully, and I really appreciate some great muns for being willing to join a conversation and even allow me the opportunity to view their blogs. That's difficult when your experience is being maligned and harassed. We all know what that means in the RPC now, it means an unending string of anon hate, callouts, smear campaigns, and wondering every time you log in or go off of your blog what hatefulness you'll have aimed at you today. It does not leave much room for openness with others.

I'd like to invite everyone to consider their own feelings, not just on this matter, but other matters in the RPC that they no longer even remember why they started avoiding. If it isn't going to be triggering to you, maybe check out that side of things and make sure it really is the way you think it is, or if things have changed, if you've gotten the wrong impression of a topic, fandom, or individual person. No one is under any obligation to write with, or otherwise interact with, anything they don't like here, of course. However, it doesn't hurt anyone to be aware of all sides. To start a conversation with someone you normally wouldn't, look through blogs you might not have otherwise, or to do some self-examination on whether you're being as truthful with yourself as you think you are when you say in your rules that it's only the following things that matter to you.

Maybe you'll make some new friends or mutuals, or simply learn something about yourself and others. The most important thing is the underlying message I'm trying to demonstrate here, as I feel like it's a major issue unpinning so many others, that it's alright to be wrong. Perhaps, if I demonstrate that being wrong can be a good thing and a good thing to be open about, it'll have a less nasty flavor for other muns.

*I want to be clear about muns choosing to write a genderbent muse on the basis of smut. Just because it is something that has bothered me does not make it legitimately gross and wrong, you're fine. Those are my own personal gender-based issues. It doesn't mean this is inherently homophobic, just as genderbending isn't inherently transphobic. I don't want that to be confused in what I said. I was referencing well over twenty years ago in fandom, I have not seen anything like that in years now, and would not ascribe such things today where they are neither inferable nor directly stated by muns. I don't want anyone doing that, or feeling like I am doing that.

Just as some muns are only comfortable or interested in writing from the perspective of their own gender, it is not wrong to write something as personal as smut from one's own perspective. I shouldn't have to say that, with the way that accusations of fetishizing remain high, but the RPC is nonsensical like that, isn't it? We don't want anything but queer ships, but also, if you write queer ships that aren't of your own bodily reality, you're fetishizing them. RPC logic at its finest!

Like writing any other perspective that is not one's own, if you cannot do it in a respectful and faithful manner, I am of the opinion it should not be done. As I am of the opinion that if it makes you incredibly uncomfortable to the point of misery to write it, it should not be done. There are valid reasons why muns might not be comfortable writing out those particular logistics and they have nothing to do with homophobia.

As was probably evident from beginning to queue some finished responses yesterday/today, I'm finally not too busy with work to be functional. To let everyone know, I will be continuing to finish answers, adding any pertinent links, checking them for any especially mortifying mistakes I've made, and then queuing them until things are caught up a bit more again.

I would like give a warning that a few of those asks do deal with what I'm going to designate as "sensitive matters." As always, they will be tagged appropriately, but are like as not to be a bit...inflammatory on topic alone. Since I am so behind, I am a little reluctant to post those right away, lest that turn into the shit storm I'm fairly certain it will, thus, taking my time away from all of you far more reasonable, peaceable, and mature folks.

As I've said before, unless it becomes absolutely necessary to not post something due to it being potentially harassing to someone other than myself, I do publish everything.

In any event, I greatly appreciate everyone's understanding and patience the last few months! Had I any idea that this year would be a more typical one with my work schedule, I would have given advanced and repetitive warning - totally shocked me as well!

Things should now be getting back to a more regular pace! As I said, I'll be completing and queuing a few at a time, so, if they're at a strange order or something, please, don't feel like your post isn't being responded to or anything. If you're concerned that there might have been an inbox mishap or anything else, you can always send me another anon with a description of what you submitted, and I'll be happy to confirm I got it for you. I don't want to give anyone anxiety or make them feel ignored when they're having enough of a rough time!

So, things are likely to still be a little bit slow, and like many muns, I'm doing a daily prompt for October on my RP blogs, but I'm at least here now and capable of working on things more than about three hours a week.