u/Strawberry_Silk380

This isn't so much a rant as it is what I'd call looking back on what was my only real initial reprave from a very dark time in my life and letting go of it now.

About four years ago now, I got into dottore as a stand alone character, ironically I only got into genshin much later by the end of the year (around the time Fontaine was about to be released and at the tail end of sumeru). The hyperfixation I had on this toothpaste man was one of the most intense I had felt up until that point in my life and honestly I don't think I've had another that matched the height of my first two years in the dottore fandom, I'm guessing it was mostly a timing thing since I started making dedicated fanart boards on Pinterest, reading more fanfiction, finding fan comics again- as well as well as getting into fandom community for the first time.

Ofcourse I very quickly learned the type of reputation dottore had within the genshin fandom at large and although it sounds idiotic in retrospective, this was the first time I put aside my compulsive need to be liked by the masses, even in fandom and was perfectly comfortable just- not being some people's cup of tea. Some of the first online friends I made were made through dottore fan pages and the like (ironically most of those friendships have fallen through, which, though sad, feels like an appropriate send off), I truly felt like I was part of a community, which at the time was all i could've wanted.

I don't think I need to rehash what's already been said about genshin's writing and the cop outs hoyo pulled regarding not only dottore, but several other characters that oozed potential (I still mourn disability rep Sandrone to this day). This along with life moving on, me growing up, starting art school and getting out of my depressive bubble (for the most part at least) made the attachment just that much more fickle.

The community I loved with all my heart at a time had grown thrice its size and though it'll be a long time before I start getting gatekeep-y about people appreciating the things I appreciate, it's also caused me to study the unwavering love i had for this community. I learned that to a degree I was falling back into my cycle of needing approval, only I was going the extra mile and taking all criticisms directed at the community as criticisms directed at myself, and feeling guilty for being every bit as comically horrible as a twitter thread in the fandom would have you believe, even if I was the furthest thing from; I figured out this was a result of- like i said this community being all i had. I know now, that my view of the community up until recently was kinda unfair to the people in here; it was the idea that it was a monolithic good, that everyone occupying it was the epitome of calm and nice, nicer than any other sub-community in the genshin fandom. Which, simply isn't the case, I think in removing the idea that all dottore fans are inherently good and that every bad fan reflects the people I engage with because of the common fandom space- i spared myself a lot of turmoil. Because now every time valid criticism arises I can acknowledge it without feeling like a bad person in turn. We are, in the end just as capable of being the things we condemn and we are not worse people for sharing a space with people that are those things- especially when we actively call those people out, people that lump entire communities into a monolith are inherently false in whatever sweeping claim they make, I was like that too- even if the claim was positive. that sounds preachy and cringe, I'm aware, but it took me a while to fully internalise that.

It is stupid, I'm aware to base one's opinion of themselves on the actions of a collective, but I've only recently gotten into the habit of thinking myself equal to the average person and therefore capable of having morality of my own that isn't reflected by the people I happen to share an interest with. And with all that growing up behind me, and now with the ability to look at this community and my fixation critically; I can safely say I'm leaving it behind.

This sounds sappy and honestly I know I make it sound grandiose when it's really just me making a note to myself saying that I won't be as involved in the community anymore (It's not even that I'm leaving lol), but again, I wanted it to be recorded somewhere, that I'm looking back at the person I was and the dependences i had- and im not uncomfortable with what i see, I'm learning not to be so critical of the child I was. This community, for all its faults, saved me for lack of a better term, and I feel content letting my love for it fade into background noise as I move on to do more important things in life.

This isn't a post I expect to be read or acknowledged, given how lengthy and sappy it gets- but, I know I wanted to leave a retrospective somewhere, leaving it here feels proper.

Now, I'm aware that I'm talking about the genshin community here and should already be primed to bear witness to the most rancid bullshit on my feed at random if I interact with the fandom for more than a nano second.

And I understand that dottore's sudden spike in popularity is going to garner the attention of a good portion of those troubled individuals. However, that does not mean I'm not constantly regretting having sight every time I stumble across dottore fan accounts that feature a VERY concerning sub-type of segment 8 fanart. Like, I know that obviously any child character is going to draw in such a crowd, but the sheer volume of this type of content is sickening- like you got SEVEN adult segments at your disposal AND YOU STILL CHOOSE THE BABY???

I'm really hoping these sickos move on from the dottore community in the near future but for the time being I just gotta treat the fanart space like a minefield. Does anyone else relate?

This is my first time posting here so please excuse my lack of sub decorum.

So, I've basically struggled with depression and a deep sense of shame (which is one of the leading causes of my anxiety) for as long as I can remember, I haven't really done anything I should be ashamed of technically, I know this and still I feel like I'm only worth how much I can appeal to other people, because i feel like only I know the type of horrible person I really am and hence can only work towards convincing other people I'm worth being around.

This has caused me to have a lot less sense of self outside of what I've been taught is good decorum, this also leads to me tying myself to my interests deeply, cuz it feels like the only thing I have to myself, when I choose to love something. So when people make harsh comments about stuff I feel deeply connected to or even just stuff that I find myself relating to, I feel like I myself have personally done something to earn that contempt and that there in; I'm exactly the type of person I think I am. Stupid thing is, I sometimes seek out these types of comments, or rather I look over the wider consensus about something to make sure that what I feel aligns with the majority, because I don't feel like my personal outlook on any one thing matters over other people, and inadvertently also seek out this negativity.

Again, it's kinda childish but this happens a lot with media, recently I got into this one show because of a character I like, it was a full blown hyperfixation and I felt the euphoria i needed at the time flow in after a relatively depression rest of the month. I felt the best I had in a while and I was still feeling mounting anxiety at the time, feeling like stuff was going too well and it would go to shit pretty soon. When nothing else happened, I went about seeking that oncoming "bad thing" myself, even though I knew what I'd find would make me feel miserable. The character I liked happened to be a major antagonist in the series, and there in, obviously received some level of hate from the fandom, and though generally this character was praised for their writing by a lot of people, the few that spoke genuinely harshly about them mattered more to me than the majority.

I fell into the line of thinking that these internet strangers clearly saw the worse in the things I liked and the worse in me, this is not the first time I've sought out fandom discourse and taken what I see as a truth about myself based on what the opposing side says. I felt like I was a bad person for liking something that so many others deemed morally reprehensible, even though logically I knew nothing harmful was being perpetuated, I still felt like to a degree these people were saying this stuff to *me*, telling me that everybody knows the type of person I am, that im only really good at pretending to be a good person.

How do I stop this? Seeking out stuff I know that will send me spiraling after I've finally felt a bit of happiness? How do I stop feeling like I'm always being judged, watched and being- like I said, morally reprehensible? I feel like to a degree the two things are connected, I know I seek out common place community with people to share in joy that matters and isn't mine, and that I feel like shit when I find people disliking that very thing, because that thing is all I am at the moment. Sorry if this came off as melodramatic.