#{/And people could unfollow/mute it if they didn't want to see it}

[blindedguilt]

//Cleared my inbox for the first time since I got it in like 2013, went down from 1,283 messages to 454 and lowering(?) and like //... Jesus fuck, I went so far back I actually ended up looking through the emails from my Google Plus days. Site was fucking horrible in retrospect, but godDAMN the nostalgia...

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for unfollowing someone on Twitter without warning?

Ok I know this is silly, it's low stakes but here goes.

I unexpectedly became fairly popular in a smallish fandom after some of my art was shared on Twitter. I don't like Twitter for fandom but it really boosted my audience so I joined up. I mostly stayed quiet over there because there was a lot of infighting and I just generally didn't feel "safe". It felt like if I expressed any opinions at all I'd run the risk of being cancelled. So I'd post my work and periodically engage but I didn't really make friends.

There was this one poster who had gotten pretty big in the fandom on Twitter. We interacted through DMs a few times. We were friendly but I wouldn't say we were friends. I didn't get very personal with them. I liked some of the things they made, but they were younger than me and I didn't really match their vibe.

This person was involved in some things that I personally found distasteful, but weren't exactly wrong. I won't go into specifics but it was fairly low stakes "rude" behavior that I just didn't like. I didn't feel like I should "call them out", first because we weren't really close and second because none of it was really that bad. I try to be a live and let live sort of person.

I've been on Tumblr for a long time and before the update that shows you in notifications if someone is your mutual, following/unfollowing wasn't that big a deal here. It was basically impossible to tell if a specific person had unfollowed you and me and most of the people I know here pretty much ignored Tumblr follow counts and never paid attention to who was coming and going.

This person on Twitter was starting to annoy me every time I saw their icon on my TL. again, they hadn't done anything "wrong", I just wasn't vibing.

So I unfollowed them. I just didn't want to see their stuff anymore.

They immediately noticed and posted about how nasty it was to unfollow someone without telling them why (Twitter showed me their posts about it bc someone else I follow was replying to them) and how I could have at least softblocked them and how it was a misuse of my influence as a BNF (which I never thought I was or claimed to be).

I didn't know what softblocking was I didn't know I could mute somebody. I thought it was just follow or unfollow and I thought they'd never notice.

I saw that they were upset but I felt going to their DMs to say that I unfollowed because I didn't like their vibe would be more upsetting than just leaving it alone. They clearly disagreed.

So AITA for unfollowing and not saying why?

What are these acronyms?

[snapscube]

is it possible you could put TOTK stuff under the cut for a small while? Me and a few other people I know got spoiled on some things because we follow your account and we don't have a ton of time to play

I really hope to not sound rude or a bit hypocritical but I'm not really down to change the formatting of my posts? I have been tagging almost everything I post about TOTK with "zelda" and "totk" which are like, very mute-able. The only clip I ever posted without tags was just a shot of some horses in an area you could also just find in BOTW that was mostly grass, and believe me aside from the UI changes I combed it very closely to make sure I wasn't showing off something too crazy.

I've also been going out of my way to keep shared footage mostly to stuff that you can find relatively early on if you follow the pretty obvious directions the game points you toward at the start of it. Maybe I'm just desensitized with how much I've played already but I was under the impression that a lot of the stuff I've shown is realllyyy basic save for a couple things that I made sure to put later in my clip compilations so anyone who didn't want to see ANYTHING about the game from my playthrough would have time to scroll past.

I understand that just tagging isn't going to cover all scenarios where someone could see something they don't want to and I'm sympathetic, I've had certain armor type discoveries spoiled for me and I was a bit frustrated at that so it may sound hypocritical for me to defend my own posting, but the difference there is that the stuff I saw that frustrated me was completely untagged, not even with general tags for the game so I couldn't even have avoided it if I wanted to. I at the very least am giving people the same essential courtesies I expect when posting about a new game.

If that hasn't been enough for y'all specifically and you saw more than you wanted to, I am sorry and I assure you I really have no plans to go too crazy with clip posting or anything on here, a vast majority of my experience will be contained to YouTube content for a long while, but also if my current style is too much then of course no hard feelings if you need to unfollow until you've played sufficiently for yourself. Also, if it's any consolation, I can assure you that there are like thousands of discoveries in this game that are 20x cooler than anything I have shared outside of my VODs.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

You should change the name of the blog if you're are gonna rec Buck/Tommy fics don't you think? Also why in the world would youbl

Oh wow, baby's first anon hater!

I've been pondering how to answer for a little while, because on one hand, do I really want to take the time and energy to answer such an idiotic message? But on the other hand, you've given me a great excuse to set some things straight so thank you for allowing me to make an example out of you.

This is my blog. I can blog about whatever the fuck I want. I do try to be diligent abut tagging Bucktommy content specifically so people can avoid it if they want to. I identify the Bucktommy fics in my fic recs, I tag the Bucktommy content. If you don't like Bucktommy, tumblr has great muting and blacklisting features, so use them. You can also just unfollow if you're not happy about what I blog. Didn't you think of that before coming into my ask box to bother me about this?

I do not have to justify the way I run my blog to anyone, but your suggestion that I should change the name of my blog JUST because I've recced SOME Bucktommy is ridiculous to me. If I really wanted to be petty about it, I would count the number of bucktommy fics VS buddie fics in my recs just so I could shove it in your face that it's such a fucking small number, I don't even understand how you're bothered about it.

And if I was a die hard "OTP Bucktommy endgame" stan, then yeah, I might make a separate blog about it, but anyone with more than two brain cells who spends any amount of time on my blog can clearly see that it's not the case for me.

I'm kinda glad that you managed to mistakenly (I presume) hit send before finishing your sentence because the first one already didn't make you look so good, I can only imagine how much worse the second one would have been.

So let this be a warning to all of my followers: I'm not anti Bucktommy. There will be Bucktommy content here!!! I'm pretty neutral-to-positive about Bucktommy, which means that I will rec the few Bucktommy fics that I read. I will reblog Bucktommy gifsets. Deal with it or show yourself out.

[gggreengoblin]

2142 words. Inspired by this post and I put my own twist (and insecurities) into the mix. Girl!Daniel who was so in love with Max having a late quarter life crisis because of Kelly's instagram posts and stories during their summer break. Thanks to toastandvegemite and their brilliant mind. CW :: WAG (Kelly), girl!Daniel is a little bit depressed in this story

This is just a fiction, yes, not real. English is my 3rd language so please be gentel.

Daniel had never imagined that she would be standing at the food aisle, 7 pm on Tuesday, tears welling up in her eyes while looking for a specific brand of cooking chocolate. She had been listening to Lana del ray all day, now all she wanted was making the most chocolaty chocolate brownie that ever made for her pity party.

'Did you know a singer can still be looking like a sidepiece at thirty-three?' Every time she heard that part of the lyrics from 'A&W'  her brittle heart crumble. Since when can song lyrics be so painful? Since when did she relate so much to a song.

Being a "sidepiece" might still be better than whatever kind of hell Daniel was in. Because Daniel was even more pathetic than "the other woman" or "the sidepiece". "The other woman" could at least have the person she loves, even if only for a moment. But Daniel could only admire the person she loved from a distance. Even that person didn't know if she had feelings for him.

The man she loved was spending his summer break on the Mediterranean Sea with his girlfriend. He was dancing with his beautiful and perfect girlfriend at a beautiful resort with amazing view. Remembering this put a heavy feeling in Daniel's chest. She wanted to lie down on the floor and cry her heart out. A little bit dramatic, she knew.

Daniel should unfollow Max and Kelly's instagram accounts. Seeing their insta story updates only makes things worse for Daniel. But that would bring up questions in people's minds. Maybe muting them would be enough.

Daniel took out her cell phone and opened Instagram when someone stood beside her and tapped Daniel on the shoulder. If Daniel didn't have good driver reflexes she would have dropped her phone.

"Jeepers! Max, what are you doing here? I thought you were still on vacation." Daniel removed the earphone she was wearing from her left ear.

Max just laughed.

Daniel looked into Max's shopping cart. He brought two big packs of cat litter.

"I came back to Monaco this afternoon. I'm out of litter so I have to buy some. What are you looking for?" Max looked at Daniel's shopping basket. Daniel has put in the eggs, flour and butter she needs for her brownies.

"Cooking chocolate and cocoa powder." Daniel took the closest chocolate and cocoa powder from her.

"What are you going to make?"

"Brownies."

Daniel looked at Max. Max was wearing a hat but Daniel knew that under the hat Max's normally brown hair had now turned blonde due to the Mediterranean summer sun. Max's facial skin also had a golden glow with a little hint of red on his cheeks. Seeing Max felt like looking directly at the sun, but it wasn't daniel's eyes that ached, it was her heart.

"I should go home now. Bye!"

Max held Daniel by the shoulders.

"Daniel, are you okay? You look tired?"

"Gee, thanks, Max." Daniel replied sarcastically.

Of course Max looked at daniel like she was not okay. Daniel was only wearing a hoodie and pajama bottoms, her hair in messy bun. Daniel usually still wears nice clothes and light makeup when she leaves her house, but she didn't have the energy or will to do any of that.

"I'm having a lot on my mind." Daniel wanted to hide from Max's eyes.

That blue eyes looked curious.

"I thought you were going to Perth for summer break."

Max took Daniel's shopping basket and put it in his cart.

"Let me come with you. I don't want you to be alone now. You don't look well."

Daniel did not protest. Who was she to say no to Max after not seeing him for almost a month. She followed Max to the self checkout. She stood behind max and studied the man's broad back.

"Do you need anything else?" Ask Max before they get to self checkout.

Daniel just shook her head. For a while she let herself listen to Lana while looking at Max. Max turned his back on Daniel, he wouldn't be able to see Daniel's pathetic face.

........

Arriving home, Daniel connected her cell phone to the sound system in her kitchen. She put the coffee mug and plate she used earlier into the sink. She also wiped down her kitchen island. Daniel was a little relieved she had cleaned out her apartment last night, at least Max wouldn't have seen her house in such a mess.

Max put her groceries on the kitchen island which had been wiped clean. Max had taken off the jacket and hat he was wearing. Now he sat on the barstool and watched Daniel without saying anything. Only lana's voice was heard between them.

Daniel took off the hoodie she was wearing and also her sweatpants and just left them bunch up on her bed. Now she was only wearing her merch t-shirt and cotton shorts. She didn't care. Max knew her for very long time, of course Max has seen Daniel in a worse condition than now.

Daniel opened her fridge and took out a can of redbull, she also took out the brownie recipe which she attached to the fridge using a piece of decorative magnet. She passed the redbull can to max who opened it immediately.

"I didn't know you could bake." Max said as he took a sip of his redbull.

Daniel took out the cake ingredients they had bought on the kitchen counter. He also took sliced almonds, chocochips and chocolate paste from the refrigerator.

"After becoming a test driver I had a lot of free time, Max. So I tried new things."

Max unknowingly touched on a sensitive topic for Daniel. One of the things that made it difficult for Daniel to fall asleep at night.

Becoming a Redbull development driver was not an easy thing for Daniel. Of course Redbull is a big team to be reckoned with, being part of Redbull is also an achievement but she had a dream to be able to compete in the grand prix. Became the first female driver since 1978. That dream was completely fading.

Daniel even had to fight with her teeth and nails to cling to that empty dream. Maybe she should had let go of her ridiculous dreams after turning 30. Moved on with dignity, return to Australia and settle down for good.

Before she could cry in front of Max, Daniel turned around and took the scales from one of the drawers. Daniel weighed all the ingredients she needed. Flour. Cocoa powder. Sugar. Butter. She chopped the cooking chocolate before weighing it.

"Aren't you happy, Daniel?"

"Do I look unhappy?" ask Daniel.

"Yes." Max answered quickly and honestly. "It was like you were about to cry."

"Like I said before, I've got a lot on my mind."

"What's wrong? Are you sick? How is your family?"

"Is it because of the money? Do you have financial problems so you can't go back to Australia during the break?" Max asked so quickly. Letting out of question after question is like releasing arrows.

Daniel took a large glass bowl and put the ingredients in for the batter. She wanted to whipped the batter manually. She wanted to feel her arm muscles got tired. She wanted to feel a little bit of muscle pain so that the pain in her heart would lessen.

Daniel beat the eggs and sugar using a medium sized whisk. After that he put the sifted flour and cocoa powder into the mix.

"Say something, Daniel. You can tell me anything. If you want to, of course."

Max looked at Daniel with his blue eyes. Blue maldives eyes.

Max was everything daniel wasn't. Male, young, successful.

"I'm fine, my family too. I have money, Redbull pays me well."

"So, what's going on?"

"I'm going through some kind of a crisis maybe. Like a quarter life crisis but in my 30s."

"I will cry if I talk about this."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with crying. Daniel, it's just me. You can cry if you want."

"Max, I don't know where to start. I have too much on my mind."

"Are you happy in Monaco?"

Daniel thought for a moment. Is she happy here? Does she feel happy coming home to an empty house? Everyone she knew slowly began to leave this place to make a new start, something serious, more precious, something they build brick by brick,  something they would die for.

"I don't think so. I've been feeling isolated lately. I'm far from my family. My friends aren't here anymore. Every day I see only strangers."

Daniel put down her batter, washed her hands and sat beside Max.

"I feel left out. It's not that I want to- I don't know how to explain it."

"Just slowly, take your time."

She took a deep breath, a shaky one. 

"I feel stupid for clinging to my dream of becoming a driver while we all know my chances are so small. Now I'm 34 years old, my dream has failed and I have nothing."

Daniel felt how her tears spilled out. So warm on her skin. Salty as they flowed past her speaking lips.

Max stood up and put his arm around her. Warping her in a warm comforting hug.

"So you want to leave the f1? Build a family?"

She nodded. "Leaving f1, yes. Starting a family doesn't seem like it. Too late."

"Of course it's not too late, you're still 34 years old."

"He already has a family." Daniel whispered into Max's chest. Her voice was small.

"Huh?"

"He's already build his own family." Daniel said louder. "He has a beautiful family. He has a beautiful woman, always perfect beside him. How can I compete with his girl, I look like- I'm so boring compared to her. And also a beautiful child." Daniel was crying so hard, letting everything out. Opened the flood gate. Drenching Max's shirt with her tears.

That was a relief. Saying it out loud gave her bruised heart a sense of freedom. Just like how her therapist said 'talking is fixing half of the problem, you can decompress negative emotion by talking'.

"It is not true, Daniel. You are beautiful. You are talented. You are smart."

God, She didn't want it to end. She wanted to buried in Max's arms forever. Enveloped by his perfume and warmth.

"Whoever he is, he'd be so stupid if he missed you."

Daniel let go of her hug. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. She felt her eyes begin to swell.

"Who's he?"

She was silent.

"Do I know him?"

"I guess."

"Nico?"

"Kevin?"

"Daniil?"

"No, Max. Don't make me say it. Don't make me admit anything, now."

"Daniil?" Max whispered. He was quiet enough as if talking to himself.

"I didn't want him to know. It is so pathetic. I don't want anyone to find it out."

Max just stood there. Eyes focused on his own hand. Deep in his tough, like he was trying to solve this little puzzle.

Daniel needed an escape. "Sorry your shirt got wet. Let me get you a new one. I have an oversized shirt that will fit you." She said in a too happy tone.

Daniel ran to her guest room, where she kept her stash of unsold merch. She should withdraw all of her stock merch when she no longer competing and joined redbull. She took a larger version of the shirt she was wearing. XL, she was hoping it would fit.

It's a little gross not to wash new clothes before wearing them, but bacteria won't survive in that t-shirt. The t-shirt had been stored for more than 1 year, of course no microorganism could survive that long without nutrients.

"Do you have time to wait for me to finish the brownies? Or is Kelly waiting for you and the cat litter?" Daniel gave the shirt to Max.

Max didn't hesitate to change his clothes in front of Daniel. He took off his t-shirt and exposing his slightly golden skin.

Daniel knew that Max always looks handsome when he wears black clothes. But Max wearing daniel's merch which is black? Damn, something churned in Daniel's heart.

"I can stay a little longer. I wonder what your brownies will taste like."

"Daniel, can you change the song. If you keep listening to sad songs like this, your mood will still be sad."

Daniel changed her playlist. She selects a random playlist from her spotify. She returned to mixing the batter and hoped that everything would be better tomorrow.

That day, she booked more appointments with her therapist while eating freshly baked brownies.

[thereddestpotato]

I lost my wife in a car crash on Friday.

I wasn't there. She was hours away with her mom, sister and grandmother.

I lost her mom too.

They didn't suffer, from what they could tell. Died on the first impact.

I haven't seen her body yet. They said it may or may not be an open casket funeral "depending on how good the funeral home is."

We have a son. He's four. He doesn't understand. He knows he misses his mommy. I can't tell if he gets that she's not coming home. I think it's better if he doesn't, for now.

I haven't lost too many people. My grandmother when I was 8 or so, and my great grandfather a few years after he married my wife and I. And that's it.

I've had so many people from all parts of my life reaching out to me the past two days. We live down the street from my wife's family.

The worst part of my day so far has been right after my son's bedtime. I sing him to sleep, with songs he's not used to because I never bothered to learn the words to the ones she would sing to him. I put him in bed, kiss him good night, and shut the door.

And I'm alone.

Our house was never quiet. Always a show on or music playing or even just us giggling and showing each other funny tiktoks or memes.

It's so quiet.

I'm a religious person. I believe in the afterlife. I know my wife is there in spirit, and here in spirit. But I don't just want her here in spirit I need a hug from her and I can't get one.

We usually have date night on Fridays. We can't go anywhere with our son at home so I usually get takeout and we'll watch a movie and go to bed early.

This week we had it on Wednesday, because she'd be on the road Friday. I got Arby's because we couldn't decide on a place, and we watched The Court Jester. One of our favorites. I'm glad we did that.

I think I'll still do date night on Fridays. Keep something.

I didn't take enough pictures. I always forget to when we are out having fun or when she looked especially beautiful. That's going to haunt me.

The last really good one I got was months ago.

It really got her smile, and her eyes. I'm glad I have a good one.

Thanks for listening. I don't have anyone I really know on here. That makes it easier to vent like this. My real life friends are sad enough.

I'm probably not going to be okay for a while.

I'm probably going to rant and vent and get angry and sad on here instead of my usual posts. If that's not something you want to see, that's okay. Mute me for a while, or unfollow or whatever you need to do.

Good night

[katyspersonal]

Tumblr sorta needs a 'Mute' feature in my opinion. Like what if I don't want to block this user, what if I don't want to become enemies and in some days I'd like to interact. But also most of the time seeing how they avidly encourage everyone else whereas I get the passive-aggressive 'oh yeah very uhh... interesting... (please leave me alone I don't like your art lol)' makes me want to unfollow every single fan of these characters and never draw them again.

I remember two years ago the exact same thing happened when someone liked the same character and the same ship and I swear I was the only person in the fandom they bluntly left out and could not spare a single good word for. I can't even blame this on my art being "ugly" because this type of user always aggressively praises all art styles and all levels of skill, it feels more like 'a personal thing except we never fought a single time'. And now my toxic trait of needing approval from [cool person name] is back to haunt me years later! Add the unability to "abandon" this character/ship/whatever despite wanting to after facing so much unspoken passive spite, because I am a contrarian and the best way to trap me into doing something is to try to exclude me from it. I didn't face attempts to very aggressively bully me out of the yard/class/community/etc, sometimes with physical violence included, only to let something mid like passive aggression online finally do it.

I am really stupid and naive person despite my age, but in like 5% of the cases I will still understand the hint and understand what is going on. Yet I have to pretend to be clueless even in rare situations when I know someone hates me, because since they never admitted it, quitting will be perceived as me being "paranoid". But dear goooood, it hurts sometimes. I hope that one day I will be numbed to being treated as a tumor on an otherwise healthy body of society that someone is dying to amputate- and always a person whose approval I want, of all people. Knowing that this day will come is one of the things that keep me going as both a person and a creator. Things like viruses and diseases still try their best to persist, so even if I am actually one, I should persist. It doesn't matter whether I actually rot everything around me or this is just my self-depreciating delusion upon focusing on people that mistreated me and not people that loved me. What matters is persisting, I just still feel angry that it hurts. I can't respond spite with spite or passive aggression with passive aggression, I can't do the 'smug asshole' when I become aware that someone tries to starve me until I "die". I can just fall over and cry about it like a kicked dog, despite being so old, especially when it is a person I didn't have anything against.

And really.. It is as simple as turning the internet off, so I don't see The Person and can focus on doing stuff that I like, as if they never existed and can't crash my self-esteem. It is just annoying to keep doing this, a feature to not see them unless I am in the mood would be better. Like.. blocking is not an option. Not only it implies being enemies which is not my intention, but also it will be like an "evidence" that I was "crazy". They didn't do anything, right? Well, they know what they did, but it was never verbal, so it is my fault I "imagined things", right?

[coldflasher]

5, 15, 27?

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

For this fandom I don't think so, but other fandoms yes. I am a known and vocal destiel hater partly because I hate castiel but also because I think the spn fandom is so obnoxious about the ship (sorry destiel-shipping mutuals i don't mean you, but i have seen things...) Also I will come to hate ships from shows I've never even seen if the fandom is annoying/vocal enough. 911 fandom, i'm sorry, but i do not wanna see those firefighters ever again.

tbf that fandom seems to have calmed down lately, or maybe i just unfollowed or muted the people who post it excessively, but there was no escaping them for a while

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

Season 4 of The Flash was actually really good. Most of you quit watching too early and didn't give that season a chance!! The huge ableism issues with Devoe aside, that arc was actually really compelling and ngl I find it frustrating that for YEARS we were like "PLEASE give us a non-speedster big bad!" and they finally did and everyone was like "no :) " and refused to watch it

Devoe was scary!! He was more than a match for Barry without being a speedster which I thought is what we all wanted! Plus season 4 is actually the funniest season. I hadn't seen it since it aired because the fandom had me convinced it was bad and then when me and my friend watched it we were CRYING during the first few episodes because the comedy beats were so impeccable.

Season 4 also had so many fantastic character beats for Barry, amazing conflict, CONSEQUENCES FOR HIS ACTIONS!! He literally got suspended from work because he was "harrassing" Devoe and broke into his house and it was SO interesting to see him face actual repercussions for letting Flash stuff bleed into his personal life! It gave us the prison arc! It gave us GOOD HAIR!

The actual downward spiral of the show began in season 5. Nora I love you but... that season had a lot of rough spots. Season 6 was also good! Now season 7 onwards deserves all the flack it gets but I maintain the show was still good way past the first 2-3 seasons that are held up as gospel and some of you are missing out on some actually really good television.

I think part of it is like... Coldflash besties, I love all of you, but The Flash was never Len's show. He was never a main character. And I think sometimes we get a bit caught up in acting like it was more Coldflash-centric than it was and like it was no longer worth watching as soon as Len wasn't in it. I get for some people (including me!) that the ship was a major part of enjoying the show but like. That was never the goal of the show. It was never trying to do that or tell that story, or even really focus on Len at all outside of a very minor big bad of the week role, and we do it a disservice by acting as if that ship was all the show had to offer, you know?

Some of my favourite episodes actually happened in the later seasons and I'd love to be able to share my love for those episodes and analyze them the same way we analyze the same 30 seconds of coldflash interactions but half of you wouldn't even know what I was talking about :( I could do it anyway and I still do, see my rant from the other day about Caitlin's s8 mad scientist necromancer arc, but it feels like shouting into the void sometimes... sigh

27. Least shippable character?

Hmm I'm tempted to say Caitlin. They put that woman in so many relationships and they were all soooo boring. Tbf I do quite like her and Ronnie (snowstorm?) but other than that... her and Jay? Boring. Her and Julian. Boring AND nonsensical considering he had such an issue with metahumans. Then there was that weird arc in season 8 where she goes on like 2 dates with a random dude and she's like "I want to tell him about Team Flash because I see a future with him and want him to be a part of my life" and then like one or two eps later she goes "nvm" and just dumps him. It was so funny. But all these relationships except with Ronnie were meh at best and by the final few seasons she was so detached from everyone anyway, they really didn't know what to do with her after Cisco left and instead of trying to have her bond more with the new characters they just shrugged and had her stand in the corner and do nothing

I have attempted to ship her with Iris in the past but it's hard work cos they gave us NOTHING. I wasn't sure if Danielle's acting was the issue and it was because she didn't have good chemistry with her love interests but I have no issue shipping Frost with people so? Idk what it is.

Kamilla is another one, which is ironic because her only purpose was to be Cisco's girlfriend but girl had no personality whatsoever, i'm sorry, she deserved better.

[young-royals-confessions]

To your previous anon who wondered why they were blocked - after S3 came out, I blocked a few people and unfollowed many more because they were posting negative takes on the finale. Of course they had every right to be disappointed and to discuss their feelings about it on their own blog! But I absolutely loved S3 and the finale, it made me very happy, and I just didn't want to see takes that would sour that happiness.

Could be a similar situation here? It's probably not personal, just for whatever reason they wanted to avoid seeing your posts. Tumblr alas doesn't have a mute function where you can avoid someone else's posts without stopping them from seeing yours in return.

.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

He's getting dragged for the "things like this don't happen to people like me" part of the speech. He's getting called a queerbaiter again for pretending to be queer and playing a victim and a priviledged white male for not understanding that awards and glory do happen to people like him and not black artists. I need to find ways to not care so much because it makes me so mad when I read things like this. I just want to gatekeep him from the general public who don't see him the way we as fans see him. I almost wish he didn't win aoty which is so crazy because I'm so proud of him and that album is so great.

Oh anon - I'm sorry you're finding it so hard.

You can't gatekeep Harry from other people seeing him - other people are going to see him and have opinions about him. He doesn't belong to fans.

One of the tasks of growing up is coming to accept that other people are whole and real and can be very different from you. It's really important to accept the messiness of the world and to do that you need to create your own boundaries.

It's very hard not to care (although I did find myself repeating in a meeting today 'it's OK if coworker is upset - coworker is allowed to have feelings - I don't have to pick them up'. I'm not saying it worked, but it was better than not trying). But you don't have to know what other people think about Harry.

Imagine it was 30 years ago and the only way that you could find out what other people thought about celebrities was talking to them, overhearing their conversations on the bus, or logging into dial-up and reading news groups. Our brains are not equipped to hear thousands and thousands of people's opinions about things we care about and are important to us.

And you can turn the opinions off. It may seem hard, but there are lots of ways that you can limit what you see, at least for now. There are so many ways you can control what you read. You can log out of apps and take them off your phone, but you don't need to be that drastic. If you're using twitter you can set it to only see who you want to see. You can block and unfollow people who you don't want to read and mute people who are putting people you don't want to read onto your feed. Don't let algorithims put that distress you onto your feed. If you don't want to read discourse about Harry discourse - unfollow blogs who are doing that (including me).

Can you set up some Harry content you really like (maybe the livestream of One Night Only?) and every time you're tempted to read discourse watch that and connect with the joy Harry's music brings you instead.

There are lots of times when it's a good idea to sit with you feelings, name them, let them be. But there are also times when you can make your life much better by turning off the tap of other people's dumbass opinions.

[vividthembo]

Tbh my twitter keeps asking to go through my contacts to add people I know & I wish I could tell it to fuck off forever, because under no circumstances do I want that to happen

I am absolutely horny on main™️ & I assume that the handful of people who I know irl have most of what I post muted & or blocked so they don't suddenly see a buff anime man dressed as a sexy cow geting <redacted> while they're at a cafe

A recent DM exchange between someone I know who followed me:

I can't tell you how relieved I was by their answer lmao

Once someone came up to me in person at a convention to tell me why they had unfollowed me

I didn't ask

I am absolutely fine with my content not being for them, but o m g only my closest friends get to tell me shit like that & it better be in a casual "oh I unfollowed you because of all the dicks" kind of way, not a "I am judging your moral fibre" kind of way

The only social media where everyone I know can add me (even family) is fb & I almost never use it for anything outside of msger

okay tumblr’s exclusion from the twitter social media ban list is hilarious but genuinely we do not belong on there. if a real human person asks “where can i find you on social media” and your choice is a swift death or revealing your tumblr, most of us would simply expire. half of y’all change urls every week like you’re in witness protection. just imagine for one second attaching your wholeass government name to your latest two am clownposting and tell me that didn’t send a cold chill down your spine. the only place i ever want to see the words “connect with me on tumblr!” is on the ao3 profile of an author i’m actively stalking. anyone in the world can follow me except anyone i personally know. antisocial media.

[shayminsky]

It's really times like these I would prefer tumblr have pretty much the only good feature twitter had that we don't, that is the ability to "mute" people without unfollowing them

Because like, I know I follow some former (and possibly current) homestucks, and as I may have mentioned before, I just don't care for homestuck at all. But they're not bad people by any means, like it's perfectly fine they want Vriska to win the poll tournament thing I just wish I didn't have to see it, I wish I could mute those people for like a week, because if I unfollow them, I'll almost certainly forget to refollow them later and I don't want that

[monarch-boo]

[destinyc1020]

Hi Destiny, I was just scrolling through Toms insta and noticed that the photos of Nadia are still up on his page. Any idea why this might be? Maybe he just forgot/didn't want to be rude?

From what I've seen of Tom, he's never really gone back and deleted a whole bunch of exes pictures from his IG. He still has pics of Elle on his IG anon lol. He also never deleted any pictures of Zendaya on his IG after they broke up (not even after the NYC/Jacdaya-pocalypse lol 😅🤣), even though he was clearly dating other women. Tom has posted Zendaya on his IG so much more than he ever posted N, so the fact that he didn't delete her pictures (and their relationship was longer and waaaaaay more public imo) says something. Plus...Based on my observation, it seems like Tom dumped N, not the other way around. Why would he feel the need to go and delete pics of her and give his fans the impression that she did something wrong? That would just bring the poor girl some hate her way if you ask me. If anything, as the dumpee, SHE should be the one deleting pics of Tom lol. 😅🤣 That makes more sense actually lol. Keep in mind, Zendaya also never deleted pictures of Tom from her IG either after they broke up. To me that's kind of childish and just brings on even MORE whisperings and speculations. 🥴 Granted, some could argue that they didn't delete pictures of each other in order to "save face" and pretend like they were always "just friends" all along, but that just doesn't seem to be their MO just in general. Zendaya doesn't even UNFOLLOW most people who she's no longer close with hahaha. 😅 I think she just mutes them. Less speculation and gossip rumor mills churning that way. Honestly? Unless there has been cheating, betrayal, or abuse involved, I don't see the need to go back and delete all pictures of exes or even friends you've fallen out with. Like, what's the point? 🤷 Those close to you know that the two of you are no longer together/close anyway. It's not like Tom's captions for N were even anything embarrassingly mushy or halfway romantic in the least that he would feel the need to delete it lol. He only captioned one picture of her, and it was a very SAFE (double-meaning) caption. No emojis even. Now that I look back on it, the caption didn't even seem all that meaningful imo. 🤷

Overall....It's really not that serious Anon. Social media isn't everything.

[skyler10fic]

yeah, I have been there. It is exhausting having to be this person. Either you're making enemies OR you're creating work for yourself. Here's what helped me:

Does it ACTUALLY matter that this particular person hears this right now from me specifically? Probably not. If your random coworker you interact with once a month believes something dumb about politics or science or something, that probably doesn't actually affect your job. If it does, yes, kindly keep saying something. Like "Hm I don't see it that way." or "I've heard the opposite." and escalate to your manager or HR if they are being an ass or a stalker about it. If it's someone on social media, would they even notice or care if you blocked them or unfollow or mute? If it's a parent you need something from, is it important enough to derail them from what you actually need to talk about? Most likely this is not worth wasting your energy on. (A deeper subpart of this is asking why it matters to YOU to be right or to correct them. Personally, I've unearthed a lot of childhood shit in therapy that was a giant lightbulb on the eldest daughter/Type A/achiever/compulsive teacher/being useful pipeline that has helped me unlearn this. Cannot recommend therapy highly enough. Get thee to a good one. ACT in particular helps with this more than CBT.)

2. Do you want to spend the rest of your day on this? Your time is limited. Wrong people tend to demand sources, research, all the vetting they didn't do before they spoke. But you corrected them, so the burden of proof is now on you in the conversational dynamics. They can "hear it from a good source" (aka a Facebook meme or propaganda masquerading as "news"), but even if you have a peer-reviewed study or a direct quote from an expert, they will still say they are skeptical and don't believe it, and they don't know why you're "attacking" them anyway. They may then badger you for the rest of the day or longer with what we call "sea lion" replies. Or, worse, sic the masses on you. There are certain types of people on the internet I never correct because any critique is automatically a dog whistle for their loyal followers to come defend them with viciousness. Instead, I play this West Wing GIF in my head over and over until I find something else for my attention span to latch on to. hahaha

3. Do you understand the vibe, honor/shame undercurrents, and power dynamics of this situation? There are a lot of complex social needs underlying correcting someone. You may have heard of the compliment sandwich (buffering critique with two compliments on either side). You may have received correction yourself that made you think "excuse me, who do you think you are?" or "you do not have the authority to talk to me that way" or "that's cute, I was there, honey." Or, as I often wish I could have on a T-shirt: "I know what I'm fucking talking about." (As a woman, this one is particularly frequent.) Even if I'm in the wrong about the fact, what I'm now focused on is the audacity and salvaging the ripples of social repercussions, especially if there was an audience, and trying to manage any pile-ons from any direction from bystanders. It's often not about the information at ALL but actually about how someone feels surrounding the circumstances and interpersonal relationship they have with you.

If you don't know how to give them an "out" or "save face" in the situation, you might be walking into more of a minefield than you bargained for. Phrases like "This is a really common stat, but here's what they were actually measuring with that" or "True, though in this context, I'd say ...." or "I see how you got there and I was right there with you, but here's what I'm learning recently. I had no idea! Grateful someone pointed it out to me. I'd heard it the same as you did originally!" Empathy helps someone hear you, which is more important than being right if your goal is being an effective communicator and not a trivia show contestant.

4. Do you actually know this person? If not, is there a reason you care what this EXACT person thinks? There is a great comic I remember to poke fun at myself when I get too worked up about randoms on the internet:

I can get VERY upset (yesterday I sort of spun out and every tweet and FB post and Insta story and more hit me wrong), but remembering this "Someone is WRONG on the internet!" helps me laugh at myself a bit and remember to take things less seriously. Of course people are wrong here. Anyone can say whatever they want.

This is another favorite to normalize and universalize the feeling. I neeeeed to correct them, I neeeeed to show them clips of Charlie Brown! No, I need to do literally anything else with my one wild and precious life, my limited time on this earth, anything besides argue with (maybe even AI bot) trolls on the internet, especially since many parts of social media are monetized and the greater attention someone gets, even if it's critical, boosts their profits, brand, and/or platform reach. Whether it's someone irl you're not going to see often, if ever again, or someone online who wouldn't recognize you if you DID see them irl, you can think like Elsa and let it go. You have people in your life who matter, and this random is not one of them.

5. Are you emotionally invested in this? Stop and listen to your body. Do you feel anxious? Is your heart rate faster, throat tighter, muscles or jaw tightening? Do you feel a sense of urgency and a flood of adrenaline that makes you feel more activated, even in a sad, angry, or grieving way? Take a breath. The person you are tempted to correct might not even have a stake in this. They might not have given it much thought at all. They might not even remember they said it tomorrow. What is, and very well may be, for you a vital issue may just be an offhand remark to them or a "thought exercise" or some passing thought, but by challenging them in a public way or in front of others, they are now on the defensive in a shame dynamic, receiving your full blast of emotional reaction, even if you are trying to be patient and measured in your words. Instead of saying "oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, I had no idea," most people will dig in deeper, sea lion, or match your emotional reaction instinctively without understanding why you're both upset now.

6. The other side of this is the opposite. Are you correcting someone on something they have a HIGH emotional investment in but for you is just a fact? Maybe a neighbor thinks her recently departed dog came back as an angel to visit her and you happen to know it was just the wind. Maybe someone thinks they healed their own cancer with prayer, and you're a doctor who knows it was statistically likely it was a misdiagnosis. Maybe your coworker looooves a celebrity you know is a problematic person. Maybe a stranger in a Facebook group posts about their hometown with several right-wing talking points you're fairly sure are propaganda, but you've never been there. There's a good chance, that whoever it is IS genuinely wrong. And sometimes these beliefs are very dangerous at a mass level. But there's value in knowing when heads are talking to you versus when hearts are having emotions AT you.

And at the end of the day, you'll save yourself a lot of wasted time, energy, emotional bandwidth, and bad blood if you understand the social subtext and leave it alone.

But then there are times when you will answer these questions and say, actually yes, this is worth my investment, I know how to approach this particular person, I have built up trust and know they respect my opinions and knowledge, I can empathize and hold space for what they really need emotionally beyond facts and logic, etc. and it's wise to say something. They really seem open and might not know.

OR you're not afraid to burn a bridge with them for the greater good of standing up for someone else watching or as an act of allyship when nothing else will do. It may be time to set a boundary that not only protects yourself but someone else, perhaps. Saying firmly and respectfully, no, we don't talk like that here. No, that is not true, and I'm not going to debate you on this. No, I can provide resources for you to learn more if you are truly curious, but you cannot raise your voice at me and I'm done answering questions on this. Especially if it's come up before, you can correct and give an explanation or support, and then say you urge them to do further reading, but you won't be engaging further.

Anyway, I hope something in here is helpful. In the end, we have to do a lot of mindful breathing exercises (okay okay DEEP SIGHS, whatever you want to call it) and just smile and move along with our day because we know our worth, we know what matters, and we know how to discern when the time is right. Good luck out there!

How do I let people be wrong? I'm a bit of a know-it-all and focus on details way too much, whenever someone shows a sign of not knowing or understanding something, I immediately correct them or explain it to them. My intention is to help them, but then I realize they're annoyed or embarrassed and I should've said nothing.

-

[lilyfreshwater]

ig a therapist might have suggested distancing himself if tubbo was so distressed by ranboo's existence lmao. I think the spotify thing might have been triggered by something though. otherwise he'd have probably unfollowed him at the same time he muted him. there's just a level of affirmative actions here that I think goes beyond a momentary and unbothered decision. afaik he hadn't been following tom before either so tubbo probably wanted the number to remain the same so people didn't pry

the spotify thing honestly confuses me a little bit cause i could see him just unfollowing everyone except his bf cause he felt like it, using unfollowing tommy as a coverup for unfollowing ranboo, or unfollowing ranboo because he's trying to avoid him and unfollowing tommy for a completely different reason. i think the second or third reason i mentioned is more likely correct, but i wouldnt be suprised if there was nothing emotionally motivated behind his actions at all