I need to vent.
So picture this. Over the 2 years I've been creating stuff that is focused on G and the source material, I learned new skills such as serious photo editing and art. Both of them take a ton of time and effort. All in the name of creating content that is "acceptable" and presentable. I abandoned a lot of my other hobbies in favor of these.
Throughout these 2 years, I was always friendly towards fellow graftheads and was open to friendship. Hell, I have made a huge shout-out post about fellow fans who create, and have multiple crossovers with other people's Tarnished and mine, where both Tarnished characters liked demigods I liked.
I've also been lurking in ficto subs, avoiding to post anything because of the toxic nature of a lot of people in there. What I mean by this: some of them are incredibly vile towards other people who share the same fave character and it is just normalized in those subs. First world problems, am I right? It's still a present issue because it has effect on real life people.
Anyway, the other day, a fellow ficto who likes G popped up. I said hi and invited them to my profile, because guess who the target audience of my G posts are? Fellow fans of him. Not rocket science to understand. And since I have a metric ton of posts about him, I thought I'd do the friendly gesture of giving a heads up that hey, I have a lot of posts about him if you care. It's a small fandom so it's nice to find people who like him as well. Average fandom behavior, right?
2 days pass, I don't see my replies to them on my own profile. Sure enough, on my secondary account, I find an epic meltdown about me, and get this. According to this person, it is disrespectful that I post silly shit about my Tarnished and G. Because according to this person, the only acceptable way of portraying the Tarnished is in the Vargram armor set. Because apparently it's ok to imagine yourself into the place of Vargram but not a custom Tarnished??? Make it make sense.
Apparently I also post my face "everywhere" with G just to "assert dominance" or some shit, while I literally have only a singular post about my face in the Bling sub. You know, in the designated sub where people post themselves if they recreate their IRL self as a Tarnished, among other things.
Over the 2 years, I went out of my way to never refer to G as "my (pet name or whatever)" SOLELY so fellow fictos can feel okay around my posts because I know the insane jealousy that can fuel them to act out. And then, despite all of this, there comes a random person who spins a narrative so bizarre that I am genuinely at a loss for words.
See, this is why even fellow fictos think of the general ficto circle as sad. I say this as a ficto myself, you'll never catch me talking about it to anyone because of people like this. Because not only did this come across as straight up attacking me and lying about me while the person doing this did JUST that, it also is very likely the last straw that will prompt me to leave this fandom because I have had enough. G is damn near ruined for me, and unfortunately every time I even just look at the character, all I can think about is all the vile bullshit I've seen over these few years.
Imagine punishing self-expression and creativity because of your insecurities. Imagine spreading the idea that it is disrespectful to be sincere and heartfelt about something you love. Pixels should not be more important than real people. People are not just "dupes", they are humans with emotions who happen to share the love for the same character as your jealous self.
Shit like this should have no right to give me emotional distress to a point where I am willing to abandon the very interest and hobby that was a safe haven for me for years. But here we are.
And this behavior is just normalized in ficto circles. Incredibly disappointing and beyond sad.
Update on this: the person started a (now removed) smear campaign along with false reports that didn't go anywhere. Average DARVO tactic.
