#soapbox talks

I’m actually going to answer this because I see you absolutely twisting yourself into knots over this and I’ve been told much of the fandom is in a similar state. Let me get real real with you here. I really say this, from the bottom of my heart, with love.

There is no madness to stop (other than the madness of wealth and privilege and I can assure you that ain’t gonna change by “our” efforts). All of the people involved are adult humans with careers, relationships, all the associated responsibilities of life. They have the best health care and therapy money can buy. They have teams and families and support networks that many of us could only dream of.

There is no “real” Sebastian Stan for us. The sooner everyone accepts that we do not know that man, the better.

(I’m giving that its own paragraph because it’s the most important thing I’m saying. If you don’t hear anything else I say, take this one home with you.)

Since we are not able to know him as a real human, we create narratives based on his actions. The absence of coherence between your narrative of him and his actions is what’s hurting you right now. And I don’t say that to diminish the hurt. The hurt is real. I’ve felt it and I deeply regret that you’re feeling it.

Let’s say Seb dumps Ale tomorrow, flies back to NY after filming, never again travels during a global pandemic. How does that erase his actions for you? How does that change the fact that he is a person who does those things, which we can safely assert, because he did those things.

I feel like some people want there to be some dramatic reason that he would act this way. Like the shadowy forces of the agency, “PR”, whatever. Would it comfort you for him to be doing all of this because some mysterious PR person told him to? It does the opposite for me, that a man with so much privilege and freedom would go against his own morals because someone told him to. (Ditto the “Ale is changing him” idea, which also has deeply problematic layers of misogyny and “evil seductress” vibes that frankly are beneath all of us to buy into.)

I need y’all to accept, for your own sakes, the basic premise that: Sebastian is doing what he’s doing because he wants to and/or he doesn’t not want to.

How can I make this clearer? His actions matter. They fucking matter! The way we move through the world matters. I’m not saying he’s evil, but he is a person who made choices. He can’t go back to the old Sebastian because that person never existed except in our fantasies (this is a loaded word choice but I stand by it). He has always, fundamentally, been the same person, and no matter what he does in the future he will continue to be the person who did these things. His actions can’t be erased. They can certainly be forgiven, if that would make you feel better, but it won’t matter to him.

I feel like you also think he owes the fandom something when it comes to his personal life and behaviours. He does not. He never has.

I really really hope for your sake that you are able to come to accept the marbles where they are. There is no swooping avenger coming to save us from Seb being Seb. If those marbles are tripping you up this much, I really think you need to reevaluate this fandom’s presence in your life and the energy (and the type of energy, positive or negative) you’re devoting to it. Then allow yourself to sweep those marbles out the door and move on. Not right away. Give yourself the time and space to grieve this. Even if Seb isn’t, the emotions are real. I have to say again, I was there. I wish I could sit with you as you experience them. I wish I could make you a cup of tea.

I know things are hard right now and it’s difficult to imagine filling the void where this fandom was. I can tell you from personal experience that you will find something to fill that void. You’ll be able to look back on this with fondness, maybe some nostalgia, a wry chuckle. You will find something else that brings you joy. You will bring these lessons into your new fandom and you will be wiser and stronger for it. You will feel that rush of love and excitement and creative energy for something new. It feels fucking amazing. Be strong enough to go after it.

Big luv,

If he's your friend and he's in the public eye and you know his fans are dramatic, please protect him...? Just like Charles and will did... or am I the only one who noticed that as soon as seb stopped posting in dec 2018z they both did too? They clearly care for seb, toby should learn some things! ..hot even sebastian's college friends post about him and they know him from way before than toby (with the exception of Deirdre lately I think).. 2/2

RS: ok here’s the thing. You’re making some assumptions. The first ones are about “the clout” and comparing his friends. This fandom has a bad habit of assuming anyone who knows Seb in real life and posts about him is looking for attention. Trust me I do *get* where you’re coming from. But we don’t know what Sebastian’s relationship with each of his friends is like. We don’t know his friends personally either. We don’t know that Seb asked his friends to post less about him. We don’t know that they did that on purpose in any way. Maybe they were just fucking tired of insane people in their mentions and probably their DMs and prrrrobably in that time period asking about Ellie. Maybe they’re avoiding the fandom for themselves?

And like Toby’s engagement gets a little bit of a bump when he posts a Seb pic but he doesn’t often tag him and he doesn’t name drop him in a very explicit way at all, just like he doesn’t with Chase or whatshername from vampire diaries. Dude knows some famous-ish people. That’s his life. He’s got shirtless and headshot pics that get the same number of comments or more than his pics with seb. This recent video has <4K views and doesn’t even show Seb. Video with vampire diaries gal is just under 19k views. It’s not as though he’s getting just wild numbers whenever he mentions Seb.

He also generally mentions him in the context of their whole friend group and tends to post pics of “the boys” all together or at events celebrating, which to me is very endearing. I love that they’ve kept in touch to the extent they have as a group. That to me says very good things about those men. The other genre of Seb photo he posts is throwbacks and I can honestly not blame the dude for some good old fashioned nostalgia? I have personal experience with addiction and looking back on times before that all went down for him.. could be a thing. Not saying it is but it’s an option that maybe someone without that history wouldn’t consider. But honestly I’m not gonna pull out my statistics software right now but most of his pics are selfies. The fandom is fixated on Seb and that cognitive bias makes us feel like any pic of Seb is a Big Noticeable Event. I can almost guarantee his friends don’t think about it half as much as we do.

Sure, I can see that. But you’ve unintentionally hit the nail on the head here; the reason you find that narrative unhealthy is because of your own personal experience, whereas at least one of the anons who think it sounds nice has had the opposite experience.