#<< not my vent!

[real-sun-wukong-fan01]

Gotta confess that u talking about de xreader thing made me sad.

I know that each person do whatever they want, so u can hate self indulgent things if u want, and I can read those stuff if I want too, no one can stop both of us.

But there's some really nice stories/arts that people treats like //garbage// for being canonxreader, instead of canonxcanon or ocxcanon (acting like many those oc's weren't self inserts too??? but like "secret" self insert to not be judged). There's some genuine fun stuff, but every single work like these are just "cringe" to people, and people go far to the point of saying it directly to whoever is producing those things to shame them and their public (I literally saw authors turning off the anon option for this).

Some people (actually lots of people) who find comfort in those kind of fic (I mean, if u feel like trash everyday it's nice to daydream with the idea of being appreciatted by your fav character) gets ashamed for liking these things. So we hide it from close friends, just to get reminded by strangers online that we're ridiculous, so we have to keep hiding it from friends cause we don't want them to laugh at our comfort thing.

Like literally, isn't just romance in this "genre", there's some platonic things that I saw solitary people writing when in need of a friend, some fatherly character for people with dad issues. List goes on. Of course that romantic fics are the most famous one, but isn't like this doesn't happen in "normal" fic too!

The "isekai" anime genre isn't famous in Japan for nothing, it's literally escapism, real life people escaping from reality by projecting themselfs on characters.

ASMR channels with roleplay are famous for a reason! (like better sleep I know) It's many content with a story focused on YOU.

God, even simply roleplaying like in rpg it's having fun living another life.

It's more a vent message than enything else (I know that u hate romance in general, specially with your hc of aroace Wukong), but yeah, I think it's sad for me and other people when we're doing our thing in search for comfort, and then suddenly having a bunch of people laughing and shaming us in our own space.

I wasn't going to send u this, but I know that ur voice has actual power in this fandom, because it was after u creating this blog that Aroace Wukong got actually popular (even with many jttw fans already saying that he seems to be super uninterested in romance and sex before)

Sorry that this was so long. It's really a vent thing here.

Ok maybe it's because it's late that i don't understand if it's directed at me or not, but! You're right! everyone has their own opinion on things, and if someone likes canonxreader or anything similar (that is not proshipping), they are free to do so.

I, personally, do not like it, never liked much self inserts like reader or ocs in canon, but it's my personal opinion, you can always see me talk and enjoy my moots talk about their lmk oc that interact with canon.

On AO3 specifically, i always use the filter to avoid all the things i don't want (usually it's shadowpeach, x reader and Tripitaka x wukong), but i never complain since i can't expect people to stop doing something they like or find comfort in.

sometimes i do get stressed about it because it's really HARD to find something that isn't that, something even remotely similar to canon it's hard to find or something like sun wukong centric (or maybe it's me who sucks at finding it), but it's the heat of the moment, it's me who normally changes emotions by the smallest things, especially anger, but i have never wished that those things to get taken off. Yes it would be more comfortable for me, but not for others.

those people who complain about it just don't understand really, they are just self centric most of the time. (MOST of the time.)

i advice to everyone to just use the filter or scroll when something appears and you don't like it, please. It makes people's day easier.

just try to look less and less for an argument, really. When it's about THESE types of thing, that i wish people would ignore them more than anything, block even, that's a great option.

not mean to invalidate your vent with my talking and talking about myself! just wanted to explain why i said "what the fuck" to the sun wukong x reader !! since i think it's why you sent me this, or not. Again it's late and i have my period I'm kinda on the verge of going insane

But! You're completely right.

[kenapiece-main]

Can you believe I'm having to make this meme even after successfully finishing up taxes and applying to job

[futuristic-koala]

[rafeandonlyrafe]

well 🧍‍♀️ as a reminder this blog is NOT a safe space for trump supporters but it IS a safe place for women, queers, trans ppl, people of color, undocumented people, and any marginalized group.

[gayvampyr]

no offense but you guys need to learn the difference between someone implying their experience is universal and a post simply just not being about you

[blatantlyhidden]

despite everything.

[echoesoftheinfinite]

[doom-dreaming]

"when i was your age, i was working three jobs to help support my family" and "when i was in college i was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living off of soup"

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DO THAT. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DO THAT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS ISN'T A CHARACTER-BUILDING LESSON, IT'S JUST BAD

[reikacchan]

don't give up

[krmljam]

more bugs more drinking

[punkitt-is-here]

transgender online

[szollibisz]

finally made a little zine from all the photos i took of various wires and machines and pylons and etc

this was sooo fun i need to get it printed

[variksel]

i hate you ai art i hate you "unalive" i hate you youtube premium i hate you twitter 8$ checkmark i hate you nfts i hate you therapy app advertisements i hate you non-chronological timelines i hate you instagram reels i hate you subtle tiktok filters that cant be turned off i hate you family bloggers i hate you ads on true crime episodes i hate you facebook i hate you vr glasses on chickens i hate you dystopian social media

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[blatantlyhidden]

i just wish someone told me