So you’re a fanartist/fanfic writer who has recently gotten some hate for your content. Not about whether or not you draw good, I can’t help you with that, about how a stranger thinks you’re a bad person for your ships. You try to avoid discourse whenever possible because that’s what fans with common sense do, but suddenly discourse is thrown onto your doorstep like a half-drowned cat that has definitely tasted human flesh before. The last thing you want to do is get mixed up in a big argument or somehow become the next Tumblr pariah. What should you do?
1) Don’t Respond
It’s really tempting to clap back with some clever insult, but that’s not a good idea if you want to avoid an argument. It’s fine to just delete an ask or ignore a mean reblog. In fact, it’s probably more of an insult than actually responding with something. Antis want attention and it’s a real power move to deny them the spotlight.
2) Block
Blocking may seem like a drastic measure to some people, but it’s just a part of social media. If you dislike someone, you don’t have to talk to them. There’s plenty of other people in the world who aren’t assholes. Don’t be afraid to block the ones who are.
3) Take a Breath
There are 7.6 billion people on the planet. It doesn’t matter very much if one person hates you. Some people think the earth is flat and Queen Elizabeth is a lizard creature. People can be wrong. You’re not a bad person for your ships. What you explore in fiction doesn’t define your morality.
4) Talk to Someone Who Cares About You
I mean someone who actually cares about you. A parent, a close friend, a pet, it doesn’t really matter who, just that they actually care about you. These are the people who matter in your life. Not strangers on the internet who know exactly nothing about you, not some fandom hivemind that polices your morality, people who really care. They know you aren’t a bad person. They know you would never support terrible crimes or harm real people. You can tell them about the hate you got if that helps, I’m sure they’ll find it ridiculous.
5) Don’t Stop Creating
There’s no better way to spite antis than to make more art. Keep drawing your problematic otp, keep writing your darkfics, show them that their hate has done absolutely nothing to stop you. If you get more hate, start at step 1 again. Remember, anons can be ip blocked from your desktop inbox. If someone threatens your safety, report it to Tumblr and don’t be afraid to pursue legal action if it escalates. Death threats are not protected speech in the US and are considered a serious crime. But most of the time it won’t come to that. If you don’t engage with antis, eventually they’ll get bored and leave you alone.
It’s called copula deletion, or zero copula. Many languages and dialects, including Ancient Greek and Russian, delete the copula (the verb to be) when the context is obvious.
So an utterance like “you a bitch” in AAVE is not an example of a misused you, but an example of a sentence that deletes the copular verb (are), which is a perfectly valid thing to do in that dialect, just as deleting an /r/ after a vowel is a perfectly valid thing to do in an upper-class British dialect.
What’s more, it’s been shown that copula deletion occurs in AAVE exactly in those contexts where copula contraction occurs in so-called “Standard American English.” That is, the basic sentence “You are great” can become “You’re great” in SAE and “You great” in AAVE, but “I know who you are” cannot become “I know who you’re” in SAE, and according to reports, neither can you get “I know who you” in AAVE.
In other words, AAVE is a set of grammatical rules just as complex and systematic as SAE, and the widespread belief that it is not is nothing more than yet another manifestation of deeply internalized racism.
This is the most intellectual drag I’ve ever read.
Good question anon! Here’s my secret: the old folks home lets us out for an hour of water aerobics every day and while the other residents are huffing and puffing like a bunch of suckers I’m off to the side of the pool with everything I need for posting quality content to Tumblr Dot Com.
♛”Ma petite!” *pets anon* “You know, I wish I could fight off every one of the bullies out there, but there are just too damn many of them and only one of me. There’s also the scheduling issue; my days are sacrosanct.”
//ooc; my Lestat is very out of touch with these issues, and he tried to continue with this answer, but it kept coming off as insensitive or flippant, so I decided not to let him finish.
He’s more often insensitive and cruel, even when he’s trying to be good.
He
intentionally AND unintentionally bullies Louis,
the person he loves most in the whole world, through his first and very difficult years as a vampire, and Lestat continues to bully him, even now. Lestat bullies a lot of other characters. My Lestat has a somewhat short fuse and really not enough patience for anything that’s delicate, he’s not very good at thinking before he acts/speaks, especially to people who deserve more consideration. Introspection is more for when he’s talking about himself or someone he knows very well, and even then, he has a lot of trouble truly understanding other people outside of what he wants them to be.
So I’m going to answer for him. TL;DR: Lestat’s general motto would probably be:F*ck the haters.
Ignorance and pity well… Sometimes people make these statements without meaning to hurt you. I’ve mistakenly made ignorant or pitying statements about people and I’m glad when someone corrects me. Some of your antagonists may not be trying to make you feel insecure.
HOWEVER, some of them really are trolls/bullies/whatever and they DO want to belittle you to make themselves feel bigger. The thing with bullies is that they will bully anyone for any reason. If not for your physical appearance or capabilities, then for your name or where you live, there are endless things for them to criticize, you’ll never scrub yourself free of something to be commented on. Even Mother Theresa had haters!
While we can’t change others opinions of us, as much as we’d like to, we can decide how we react to it. Basically: Don’t.
You wrote, “people that have been making me feel insecure recently…” No. NO. Stop. Don’t let them. Don’t give them permission to make you feel anything. Comments about you that seem pitying or ignorant? To adapt a quote Lestat from TOBT: They are like many silk banners unfurled around you. That weak. (He was referring to smtg else but still it’s applicable here)
Lestat has a partner and it doesn’t stop the bullies from attacking them separately or together, I think it makes them more of a target when they purposely go out hunting for homophobes. One of the benefits of having a partner is that Lestat can just wrap his arm around Louis a little tighter and they pick up the pace and go where they can enjoy each other together without any bullies trying to interfere *winks*
It may only seem like one person, but they send a lot of messages and overwhelm you with clearly wrong but seemingly well supported info.
The trick they’re trying to pull has two steps:
1. Overwhelm
2. Colonize
Overwhelm: By sending you lots of messages all at once they intend to trigger anxiety and cause you to give less than waterproof answers. From here they can deconstruct your answers with a combination of technicalities and fallacies.
Colonize: By making you answer publicly they spread their ideas through your blog. Further by making you look bad they make an example of you and by ganging up through your asks they isolate you from support.
The response?
Block them all.
And after that optionally you can publicly debunk their argument without their input.
People who use these dogpiling methods don’t deserve your blog as a platform.
Important.
They want your time and energy and attention. Delete their asks immediately and block.
Block early, block often. Trust that they will be return to pee in your inbox again, and pull out the flamethrowers.
I-want-my-IWTV 