#At this point do not engage in online arguments any further if that leads you to do destructive & despicable things to yourself & everyone

[pawberri]

The key problem with "proship vs anti" discourse is that the most extreme versions of each side, the ones who actually bother to identify with these labels, accepted each others worst takes as arguments they had to debate. "Fiction =/= reality" is, in practice, an absurdly reductionist, anti-intellectual, thought-terminating-cliche that dictates we can learn nothing about a person via art and that their fiction reflects no political or moral messaging worthy of critique. In response to this, the "puriteens" who are too young to possibly hope to articulate their discomfort, to untangle their position from what is often real trauma experienced online, simply argue "yes, fiction influences and reflects reality in a 1 to 1 capacity." They, and people who want to use the groundwork they laid to make bad-faith callouts, make bad arguments about how the action of engaging in problematic fiction is on equal ground to real life abuse, or is a clear indicator of interest in real life abuse. Both of these arguments are terrible, but each side seems to radicalize the other further and further into their own brands of anti-intellectual reactionary belief. "Proshippers" become libertarian absolutists about free speech and view all transgression as righteous and alternative and therefore leftist. They gain a reactionary nostalgia for the past, desiring a time when people didn't seem to care about the implications of art. "Antis" become authoritarian and hypervigilant for signs of moral decay, at their worst, willing to align themselves with government bodies that offer carceral solutions to the debate. They are willing to use harassment as a tool of punishment, which then leads to false accusations and a fear of openness that puts people at risk of being triggered via obfuscation. (That said, proshippers also take part in plenty of harassment.)

I will say that I believe both of these movements are equally sensitive to co-opting by right-wing forces. We see the authoritarian tendencies of anti culture in harassment campaigns and even the way Republican law makers co-opt "grooming." The proship/fic crowd has such extreme nostalgia for the past that I often see people align themselves with the cultures of 4chan or other happily right-wing websites. They so heavily reject the idea that a drawn sexual depiction of a child could reflect any desire that they are disinterested in analyzing what the motivation behind the depiction is. i.e If we track the history of lolicon in Japan we do find that is, yes, countercultural, but that counter culture is right wing, very misogynistic, and defensive of patriarchial Japanese culture as it is and was including its culture around rape and abuse. Plenty of fictional content works as radicalization material, and radicalization material needs to be ambiguous. There is a valid reason to be hesitant to trust people who consume this content, even if I do not believe most of them will ever be dangerous towards children. The mere presence of sexuality is not enough to make a movement left wing. This kind of thing can again be seen in right-wing libertarian movements in the US. (And even leftist movements can be bigoted and even "pro-pedophilia" or otherwise disinterested in social reform around abuse.)

Is all content with elements of age-play this way? No. But to me, that is why kink media deserves to be treated as art and analyzed, critiqued, treated seriously. It doesn't have to do anything to anyone to be worthy of a moral critique. Said moral critique just doesn't warrant harassment and cruelty and reactionary exaggerations of the person consuming said content.

Anyway, what's my point in saying all this? I don't know. I'm just begging you to tag your God damn content with specific tags instead of random and nebulous shit like "dead dove" or "dark content", and also begging you to stop harassing people who do tag their content so I don't have to guess what "dead dove" and "dark content" mean. No one will erase incest kink fics or people who feel sickened by the idea of them off this earth because we aren't god, but we could at least all be responsible about tagging, flagging, and age-gating our stuff.

[aidenknow]

Good that you are aware of the damage that you caused within in the OFF community. You bringing awareness on us for the sake of “keeping the community safe from bad people” when in turn led to you doing the opposite of what you were intended to do.

I don’t care if I am also at fault. You stalked and harassed me as a retaliation even after being called out on your behaviour. You dragged a lot of people to make people believe in your poorly written accusations and arguments ranging from evidences taken out of context to disrespecting someone’s death to putting out baseless accusations that do more harm than good. You even throw unrelated people under the bus who go against you or even those who are minding their own business until you came along making a callout on them just because they liked a post of mine. You used someone’s name who doesn’t want to associated with you everytime as a way to defend yourself and prove your point in stalking me. What kind of obsessive behaviour you have in bringing up someone’s name into the almost every argument you made?

How can you call me the “CEO of false accusations” when you yourself make several accusations on me with evidences that are taken out of context, based the accusations on biased assumptions and leaving crucial details in the evidences. How can you called yourself an “Anti-Anti” who believes in “anti-harassment” yet you decided to police us on our behavior when it is none of your business to the point of stalking and harassment with so many alt accounts? At the end, someone ends up getting blamed instead. How can you called me “a boy who cried wolf” when you admitted that you used to be a compulsive liar, yet keep on saying lies about me and my other friends? Not only to the people from the MoA group, you also called a 14-year-old a rapist when the only crime they did was sexual harassment. They are taking accountability and currently working on themselves to become a better person yet you worsened it by stalking and policing their behaviour. You, a full grown adult who never got to change their behavior after being called out multiple times by other people, are harassing and stalking a 14-year-old, a minor who is trying their best to take accountability and fix themselves. How can you call me a perpetrator when not only you stalked and harassed me, but also coerced and forcing other people to believe in your poorly argumentative accusations which slowly led to an opposite outcome when you started to become aggressive with other people and making up ridiculous points? You are getting into everyone’s nerves because of this. It’s to the point of stupidity and ridicule for bothering and harassing the people you accused and even people who don’t want to be involved with your predicament

If you are trying to be sincere with the apology you have made, you should correct and fix your mistakes. Then, take a time out from going online instead of getting involved into other people’s debate. That’s how you move on instead of sticking yourself in a ditch. Final advice, do not ever come back until you fix your behavior, work on your mental health until you stabilize and reflect back on the mistakes and damage you created, or focus on finishing your pending issues you have IRL

That is the consequences of your own actions for taking it too far. Now it is your responsibility to take damage control for all the mess you have created

I wanted to again give my apologies to everyone who got caught in the crossfire, rose, chub, e, anyone else, you don't deserve that and it was fucked up of me to do things and lash out at those trying their best

I am growing up and changing, I am moving on. I wish you guys the best, and I am very sorry. This is not for anyone to see or anything, i do not deserve those who I hurts forgiveness forgiveness. I was having a huge downward spiral, and my mental health got the best of me and it's NOT an excuse but I'm now able to see that and take steps in the right direction

I hope everyone not involved stay out of things

(If you see this and you are NOT those people, don't send this to them, don't harass them, grow up and leave them alone)

[lobautumny]

So there's a Twitter post making the rounds making the claim that nobody has ever shown anyone an old TikTok video and that the website is an entire platform of "disposable content."

It is not lost on this toy that the account holder is probably engagement-baiting, and does not earnestly believe this argument or, at the very least, is embellishing their beliefs to make them more inflammatory so they can farm bigger numbies and get that paycheck from Elon. However, it doesn't really matter if said post is genuine or not because a lot of people agree with the point wholeheartedly.

Now, this toy could sit here and point out a ton of TikTok videos/accounts that are really very good/have had a pretty good amount of cultural staying power/have become large memes, such as the square hole, "that doesn't taste like a gusher," the Da Vinki twins, three gallons three seconds, the tour of Ohio video, the Grimace shake, etc. It could go on. But that wouldn't matter, because anyone making this claim will simply tell you that "oh, well, those are fun videos and all, but nobody will remember them in <amount of time>. You're only proving my point."

Many will go on to tell you that TikTok is nothing like the good ol' days of Vine, that nothing from TikTok will ever compare to the heights of humor and cultural relevance of classic Vines like, uh... The yeet video, for starters. Y'know, that did lead to the creation of a word that persists in common slang years later. Aside from that, though, there's, like... Fre sha voca do? Road work ahead? Welcome to Chili's? Any of those ring a bell? They might, but they also may very easily not. There was the Damn, Daniel vine. Remember Damn, Daniel? Seriously, aside from "yeet," how many vines do you actually hear referenced or otherwise mentioned in the modern day?

Now, one might try to use this as evidence supporting the claim that TikTok is a garbage platform that only produces worthless slop. After all, if the platform commonly cited as being superior didn't actually have that much cultural staying power, then surely that means it's actually secretly worthless and TikTok is doomed to also be worthless, right?

Well, no, not remotely. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of culture is pretty short-lived, especially online culture. I mean, how could it not be? Think about how much stuff gets posted every hour, how quickly it can blow up, how quickly trends start and then proceed to become insufferable. Think about how there's not really much of a unified cultural zeitgeist anymore because of how the internet lets communities for niche interests flourish.

Yeah, the vast majority of Vines have lost all relevance, seven years out from the platform shutting down. Sure, nearly every single TikTok will share the same fate. But that's how all of this goes. You could say the same thing about anything posted on Twitter, or Tumblr, or Youtube, or bsky. An iconic Vines compilation feels the exact same, to this toy, as a classic TikToks or classic flipnotes compilation. Going a bit further, you could say the same for most things put onto platforms like DeviantArt, or Newgrounds, or Steam, or itch.io, or AO3.

Like, yeah, sure, memes get quickly cast aside once they have stopped being novel and culturally relevant, but does the same not happen to art all the time? To that end, are memes, in themselves, not capable of being art? What does it say about us, about how we engage with media, that so much of what any given person consumes is given no thought, that there is genuinely no difference in the average person's mind between works of art that had a ton of effort put into them and what they would describe as "slop?" Sure, they'll tell you that there's a difference, that one is much better and preferable and more noble than the other, but it's all just background noise to them. They'll drop a like and scroll past it in either case, never thinking about it ever again. If the random meme that gives you a chuckle during your busy day is fake culture for stupid idiots because you won't be thinking about it in a year's time, what does that make the beautifully-rendered painting of a landscape that you looked at for about a second and a half before dropping a like on and abandoning all thought of forever? Surely, if the former is slop because you have treated it as slop, then the latter must also be, yes? But you'll never admit that because then you'll feel bad.

The issue with online culture is not that the culture is bad (at least, not inherently), nor it that the people posting it are (inherently) bad. Rather, the problem is that everyone is being psychologically manipulated into endless, mindless scrolling forever while we also happen to be living in a culture that constantly devalues art and only sees culture as being worthwhile if it's making some suit somewhere a morbillion dollars per week.

But instead of having this conversation, we have a bunch of shockingly young people within this toy's exact age range talking about "new thing bad because new. New kid upbringing bad. Me miss old thing from me upbringing" like they're stereotypes of 80-year-olds. And that gives this toy one very simple question:

What the fuck is happening?

No, seriously, why do we have people who were literally in high school a single-digit number of years ago whinging about how kids these days are too cringe and pining for the good ol' days? Where is this coming from? This toy knows that on some level, the internet can be said to rapidly age people, but this is ridiculous. Furthermore, why is specifically TikTok causing this divide? This toy could understand to an extent if the website started in 2020, but it started in 2016. It could also understand to an extent if TikTok were actually primarily used by children, but it's kind of always been used primarily by the exact age demographic that this toy sees complain about the website the most.

Is this toy simply too young? Have there always been 20-somethings acting like crotchety geezers when new things enter common culture, and this is simply the first time it's become aware of this phenomenon? If not, what actually makes TikTok any different from any other platform that's ever existed?

This toy doesn't really have any conclusive statement to give here. It's just frustrated watching so many people its age give way to reactionary boomer-isms and getting heavily invested in generation politics (by which this toy really means petty shit-flinging) real early, all the while brushing against the task of interrogating how they engage with the world around them while doing and saying whatever they can to avoid that uncomfortable little conversation.

Truly, we will never be free.

[yuriswitch]

The first time we see a piece of discourse that we generally agree with to a degree, we instinctively pass it on without really spending a lot of time going over the argument, since we're not really aware of the pitfalls yet at that stage. And yet, over time we see more and more arguments on the same direction, and that reveals a whole pattern of oversimplifications and logical extremities that eventually make it difficult to engage or even just keep reblogging. It tends to come with limited and biased understanding of counter arguments from the other side, which is falsely presented as a big monolith and always engaged with through the proxy of a set of reduced versions of the arguments - with the unspoken assumption being that there is nothing more than those bad arguments of the wrong side and the good arguments of the right side, also organized into a fixed list.

Nobody will ever tell you that there doesn't exist anything beyond those "pro" and "anti" options, but everyone still acts like those are the only two things that ever exist and that freedom is when you choose the correct one (sounds familiar?) because the other will destroy the universe or something. Even though there's always more to it than the "pro vs anti" question, everyone still keeps constantly going from one object of that question to another like there's nothing else out there than this narrowly defined discourse.

And it's a serious problem, because not only does it result in everyone posting ready-made conclusions without any prior investigation, but also leads to a perpetual failure to engage with the ideas themselves, instead trying to advertise a distortion fixed into a bad faith argument purely for the sake of advertising a logically extreme position. It's either "literally nothing about it is ever bad stop wanting to do something about it and just give up on reacting altogether, it's fascist not to let it go completely no matter what" or "literally everything short of complete eradication of this thing is pure evil and you're evil too unless you do the one right thing" applied to things that absolutely shouldn't be treated in the same way as rape or torture.

And this always comes with a spectrum of more thought out positions that aren't as popular as the much more shareable extremities are, so they get conflated with the most popular one, all because the very idea of "pro vs anti" discourse relies on the assumption there is only one abstract cultural object to judge as allowed or not, rather than a wide variety of different particular cases of the same general type, that nonetheless have wildly different implications depending on context. Again, unless it's literally something like rape or torture.

And what that leads to, is different valid grievances being rejected and dismissed by association with their assigned stance, even when they don't necessarily imply a "pro" or "anti" position. And what really worries us, is that this only further pushes reasonable takes out just to create more room for the more shareable takedowns and callouts of the other side, aggravating a pointless conflict to the point where any kind of wide collaboration, for the sake of identifying when the thing in question leads to harm and what can be done about that, can no longer happen.

All because the fundamental question of how things affect different people is entirely incompatible with a simplistic "should we exterminate it or let it happen no matter what" routine, built into the surrogate of real agency that is the online system of social control through discourse and exclusion from entire social spheres

/Hachikuji

[grandhotelabyss]

Could you elaborate on your idea that in the current day one should actually have a presence if one wants to be an "author"? it goes against the common cliches, and I can see the logic, especially with art allways being beholden to the material realitys of commerce and patronage.

Still it kind of seems, and maybe this is to my own man-childish warped view of "authenticity" or "not selling out" that by becomming overly opinionatend and "brand consious" one kinda diludes the point of the work (no matter how trivial the work actually is)

Like what I mean is that it easily becomes more about trying to get an audience, one becomes a marketer that adjust the "content", for a lack of better word", and sells it, even if that takes compromises. But maybe thats too obvious of an argument - what may be worse that the authors get lost in the trill of becoming a personality, of "being in the process of writting the book" of reyifing the identity of "being an artist" in itself with the work becoming secondary.

Ofcourse this may be nothing new, atleast the dream of being a bohemian is hundreds of years old, with the modern form being a cliche for both the hippys and their grand children, so eh maybe I'm just wasting time. Still maybe what my point is, that atleast personally, I by engaging in the "discourse", by spreading scattered thoughts in hopes of raising some cache or clout, even if it is a self-justification for the audience of one, seem to just get further from the point of actually making the thing I wanted to make. Especially when direct arguments and snide remarks seem to lead only to problems and headaches in the end (but maybe thats my problem of being both hyper-confrontational and wanting to have my opinion heard and justified, while being thinner skinned than a butterfly, having a pavlovian submisive response to any scolding and naively wanting for everybody to get along, as if I was the stalker at the end wishing for peace and love for the whole world.) Anyways, enough auto-psycho analaysis, appreciate your posts, even if I don't allways agree - and if you don't reply do to enjoying easter with family or friends or even a good movie (or even a rauncy 90s comedy) - I won't carve a woodoo doll.

God Bless

Thank you! Ideally, your online presence is itself a work of art, shaped as any work is by carefully chosen inclusions and omissions, symbols and motifs, not the simple expectoration of your opinions. (I really try not to "opine" when I have nothing useful to add!) Even if you do opine a lot, though, I don't think this is that different from the model of literary celebrity forged in mass culture as early as the days of Dickens; it's just moved online. From a recent post by Katherine Dee:

Culture isn’t stuck. Old media is dead, and we under-appreciate the new forms because they’re somehow ‘less legitimate’ than the old ones. The collaborative storytelling that goes into creating an Internet persona, algorithms, mood boards, and even certain types of uniquely online sketch comedy are all new or evolved art forms. And they’re thriving. We just don’t take them seriously. 

I agree with this. I don't agree with Katherine's follow-up on X that, "Literature has been replaced by the role play nature of the internet," because, as I've said, the internet is too ephemeral, and we need to get some works deserving of permanence into book or otherwise solid form. I don't think literature (in the broad sense) can be replaced, not even if we are replaced by AI or aliens or whatever, but this is also where I disagree with McLuhan: language, whether spoken or written or printed or digitized, is not one medium among other media but the meta-medium that allows all other media to converge and converse. Literature in that sense is the highest art. Maybe not the prettiest or the most emotive or the most beautiful, but the one that contains and transmits all the others.

[nobleelfwarrior]

I just spent an hour untangling some Radblr drama, so we're talking about anger again.

My credentials: I have no male friends because all of theme got into arguments with me where they thought I was over reacting, hysterical, or mean. Every time I spent about a week or more wracking my brain to find something I did wrong and found nothing.

So, you're feeling heated about something someone said on Tumblr. You feel like you've been wronged or that the person was stupid or cruel. What do you do?

Step 1: Take a deep breath. Nothing productive happens when you are reactionary. You want to act, not react.

Step 2: Did you read this in the kindest possible way? Was it still mean? If yes, then yes, you are right to be upset. If no, perhaps approaching this post/poster in a more generous light will lead to more understanding. Assume they had good intentions and ask questions to clarify what they meant.

Step 3: So they were being mean and you didn't find common ground. You can either choose to engage or disengage with the conversation. If you think you are going to loose your cool and do something you regret, disengage. You don't have to engage with online discourse that makes you uncomfortable. Just log off.

You chose to engage. Let's cover a few things NOT to do.

no slurs. None. Not even if you think they're justified. Slurs are never ever ever ok.

avoid sarcasm. we're online and it can be hard to pick up and it isn't productive.

act like something should be obvious. We're all at different levels here. Some of us don't speak English as a first language. Some of us are new to our sexualities or feminism. It might be obvious to you, but it isn't obvious to others.

You should explain clearly and calmly what you mean. That isn't to say you should never get heated or passionate, but if that passion overwhelms your ability to communicate your point, you need to take a step back. Spite is fun in memes and harmful in discussion.

You should treat questions as attempts to engage, not bad faith. There are obvious exceptions, but, again, being online, it is hard to show genuine confusion/curiosity, especially in heated situations where you might assume hostility.

You should know your audience. There comes a point where you know whether the person you're talking to is the person you are communicating with or if the standers-by are the people you are communicating with. Knowing the person you are debating with is not the person who needs to hear it can help you make better choices.

When to bow out: If at any time you want to let your anger take over, it's time to step out. You've made your points and going further with this person is only going to hurt you more. For me, going in circles with the conversation is what makes me livid, so I know that's where to call it. When you leave, it can be helpful to give a call to action like "do the research for yourself and see what I said is true" or "check out what x person had to say about it if you don't trust me".

Why is this important

There's been a lot of talk about infighting recently. Bad faith readings of what others had to say contributed to a lot of that. When someone says "I meant x", they probably did. Not everyone here is a perfect writer. We don't have editors or beta readers or anyone to tell us that something was unclear or misleading until we post the thing.

Radical Feminism is about women's liberation. Each of us likely have multiple axis of oppression, but we share female. Racism, ablism, and homophobia cannot be tolerated and need to be called out. Men will band together despite their prejudices to demean women and we need to make sure we don't alienate our sisters with slurs so that we can fight back. It doesn't sound fair, but life isn't fair and that's why we need radical feminism, female communities, and to work together.

If someone calls out your bad behavior, carefully consider the criticism. Don't react. Act. I've had to adjust my behavior several times because women I respect and follow made posts, not about me personally, but that did apply to me and I thought carefully and adjusted my behavior.

And you do have a right to prioritize different women in your life, but the moment you exclude any group of women from your liberation efforts, you aren't feminist. Again, prioritize is ok, exclusion is bad. I'm personally prioritizing women in my community because that's all I can handle with my mental health. Even though my efforts aren't focused on women in other countries, I'm not going to make them feel like I don't care about them. Does that make sense? I'm not going to post about how they're dumb for this or that. I'm not going to say they can fend for themselves or that I don't share sisterhood with them. My efforts can only reach so far, by they are my allies. I hope that makes sense.

I get why you're mad.

I really do. Lesbians have faced homophobia from OSA women in Radblr and that is hurtful and frustrating. SSA women are sometimes insensitive or even cruel to straight women (not the same as systematic oppression, but still unproductive and hurtful). The black, indigenous, and brown women on Radblr have faced racism. Women will use ableist slurs and not see that it is completely unacceptable, even if the woman you are arguing with seems bigoted to you. We see a lot of people who claim to be radfem but seem more just gender critical, which muddies things. We see women on here who insist that their man is different. It is all very frustrating.

But it comes back to the post I made about venting. If your discussion with self ided radfems becomes a back and forth vent, that's not productive. Taking actual action is productive. Calling out ableism, homophobia, and racism is productive. Asking for clarification on what seem like incendiary posts is productive. Discussing difference of opinion in respectful ways is productive.

The whole point of radblr is to have a community so we can be productive. We need to put more effort into getting along. It seems unfair, but that's what we have to do in order to make progress.

Quick obligatory disclaimer that there are limits to trying to get along. There is a point where just blocking and moving on is fine. I think we all know this.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

[bi-furiosity]

content warning for addiction, overdose, ableism, classism.

since apparently nobody on this godforsaken website knows how to google things or engage critically, some of yall been usin harm reduction in completely irrelevant ways that misconstrue what harm reduction actually is and, believe it or not, that fucking hurts people.

harm reduction: is the idea that moral judgement is not a productive aspect of addiction care and accommodating drug users. it's any practice designed to minimize the potential negative consequences of drug use and prioritizes overall well-being over stigmatizing drug use any further.

harm reduction is a relatively new idea that's only been put into practice in the past few decades, which is pretty fuckin sad considering the majority of it is common sense and was already practiced unofficially in certain marginalized communities.

what does harm reduction include? a whole lot of shit

needle exchange programs

decriminalization of drug usage

community support and outreach programs

access to naxolone (also known as Narcan,) which can reverse the effects of an opiate overdose

recovery programs

supervised injection sites

access to related healthcare without threat of discrimination or legal action

etc.

harm reduction is a wide-ranging field of strategies, it boils down to respecting drug users, meeting them where they're currently at, and keeping all involved parties as safe as possible.

addiction is horrifically stigmatized, and this stigmatization leads to families being ripped apart, people overdosing, incarceration, and a host of other consequences. for many of us, addiction is a reality that we cannot ignore. it's ourselves, our loved ones, our communities. as it stands, marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by the stigma of addiction and drug usage, especially communities of color and poor communities. i am from appalachia, and while i'm not personally in recovery, i was raised by a mother who is. i grew up going to 12-step programs, and i've seen the way the system and its view of addiction destroys lives.

i say this to show the stakes. harm reduction is the first time that the needs and humanity of addicts and drug users has really been formally considered by organizations, much less local governments. it's potentially game-changing for many people. harm reduction saves lives. it keeps kids from being raised by grandparents or in the foster care system. it keeps people from OD-ing in the streets. it gives the chance for addicts to be treated like the people they are, in a world that does nothing but vilify and kill them. every overdose could be preventable. anything that gets in the way of that costs lives.

why is this relevant rn? because people online have a habit of taking serious terminology and diluting the meaning to prove their own point. i'm telling yall right now, you cannot be doing that. i don't even want to get into the specific case that i just witnessed, because point blank, yall cannot be using this to win arguments in fandom or shed accountability. harm reduction is DEEPLY stigmatized in many of the communities its most need in. in 2015, 25 to 40 year olds in appalachia were 70% higher in terms of fatal overdoses than those outside of appalachia. (source) overall, for a lot of social and political reasons, the stigma is worse in places it's needed more. (example)

can harm reduction be used in other contexts? yes!!! absolutely! (for example, it's also utilized by sex workers.) it should be used in other contexts, when it's appropriate and productive.

do you know when it isn't productive? when you're diluting the meaning by using it when talking about fandom shit. for real, if i ever have to see this shit again i'm going to lose my mind. please understand that the misunderstanding of what harm reduction is kills people. it is not a toy for you to play with. undermining the actual purpose of harm reduction gives politicians and opponents to harm reduction more leverage to block life-saving programs that are desperately needed and sorely underfunded.

this shit is particularly relevant rn because the pandemic has led to overdose rates skyrocketing. alright? ok.

FIND A HARM REDUCTION PROGRAM NEAR YOU (x)

reading you can do: (this is not extensive, i'm fuckin exhausted from writing this shit out. if you have suggestions hmu. also they're biased towards wv and appalachia bc. hick.) Understanding Harm Reduction (available in English, Chinese, Punjabi, Farsi, French, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese) Reducing Stigma in Appalachia Sex Work + Harm Reduction Stigma Free WV How the Closure of Harm Reduction Changes Rural Healthcare IHRC 2019 Reading List NHRC Resource Center

[anarmorofwords]

Hi! You're probably not going to like this ask, but before getting into it I'd just like to say that this isn't meant as Kamala hate or anything, and I don't really want to offend.

Having said that, wouldn't it make sense that we get to see how Kamala treated Anna after she came out? It's in all likelihood one of the things that's weighing on Anna the most.

Obviously Kamala had her valid reasons: her parents aren't as liberal as the Lightwoods, she believes (knows?) their love is conditional as she's adopted, she's not white and not being heterosexual could further any treatment she's suffered from being different... Her reasons have already been listed multiple times by multiple people. Kamala has the right to stay in the closet and fear coming out. And while that shouldn't be villianised, we can't forget that closeted people can harm those around them.

If Kamala had kept treating Anna like a good friend, rumour would've sparked, and even if it was denied, she'd have been harmed by merely associating with Anna. Especially with the life Anna began leading; she could have been labelled as one of Anna's 'conquests' by the Clave. That, as we've established, is detrimental for her safety.

But at the same time, it would create a breach between Anna and Kamala. And Anna had the right to be hurt by it and weary of it when Kamala said she wanted a relationship.

If we look at it from that perspective, Anna's actions (though inexcusable in how they treated Kamala --who was also at fault for not accepting a negative for four months) make sense. Kamala wasn't only a fling of a week*, but also the girl she lost her virginity with, who asked her to be her secret (until she married Charles, after which Anna's affections would be discarded), who hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna suffered from homophobic commentary, and who now wants a relationship hidden from most of the people that know her.

Kamala shouldn't be forced to come out; but the harm that can do to the women she may engage with is reflective of what happens nowadays. I can mostly think of examples with gay men, so my apologies in advance. But how many women have seen their marriages ruined by their husband having affairs with men?

Creating characters that reflect a toxic part of the 'hidden' LGBT community shouldn't be seen as hating or villinifying. Thomas isn't out and he isn't labelled a villain by the narrative --because his actions don't harm anyone. The hate Alastair gets in-universe is because of his past as a bully, not because he's gay. Matthew's not fully out and he isn't villianised --like Thomas, because the decisions he makes to keep his sexuality hidden don't impact anyone negatively.

I'll even go as far as saying that not even the narrative villianises characters like Kamala and Charles. If it were, they'd be seen more like Grace in Chain of Gold. We'd see how Kamala's actions are affecting Anna's in more ways than anger (that in itself put the fandom against Anna), and the characters would note so. We wouldn't see scenes were Cordelia empathised with Charles, nor Matthew said he loved him.

Be it as it may, Kamala and Charles represent ugly parts of being closeted that can naturally occur when someone is in their position. LGBT people are human. Humans, when put into very difficult situations (and Charles risks his career; Kamala her safety), can make decisions that harm those around them. Consequently, the people they're harming have a right to feel, well, harmed in whatever range of ways --this goes mostly for Alastair, and very partly for Anna, whose treatment of Kamala was horrible.

Readers need to understand what is pushing these 'villianised' characters to harm (again, mostly for Alastair) the more prominent characters and go beyond how they are instantly depicted. Because these are complex characters based on complex real people influenced by very ugly realities we will move on from someday, but sadly not yet.

By the way, Charles and Kamala's situations aren't that similar beyond the closeted thing, but I crammed them together because of a post I saw you reblog.

Please understand I'm not justifying Charles's actions; that I understand the pain he's put Alastair through, and know that he shouldn't ever be near Alastair. Nor am I trying to justify Anna's actions nor hate on Kamala.

I'll just finish my pointless rant by adding that I do think cc has sensitivity readers. I think she asked a gay man to go through tec (I don't know if he still revised her other books, though), and know she asked POC's input when writing someone for their culture. I don't know much beyond that, but I doubt who revises her stuff is up to her. Wouldn't that be something the publisher is responsible for (honest question)?

*I've also noticed people using the argument that they didn't know each other long enough for Anna to harbour such ugly emotions towards Kamala, but Kamala also remembered Anna pretty deeply and is 'in love' with her. I just wanted to say that considering cc writes (fantastical) romance where someone can ask a woman they met two months ago marriage, stressing over time spaces doesn't make much sense. Just my take.

hi!!

alright, where do I start? probably would be best with stating that while I can analyse Kamala's situation with what I know/see/read about racism and discrimination and reasonably apply things I've read/heard from PoC to the discussion, as well as try to be as sensitive about it as possible, I'm still a white woman, so not a person that's best qualified to talk about this.

that being said - if someone wants to add something to this conversation, you're obviously more than welcome to, and if there's something in my answer that you don't agree with or find in some way insensitive or offensive - please don't hesitate to call me out on that.

back to your points though: (this turned into a whole ass essay, so under the cut)

I don't think Anna shouldn't be able to reminiscent on Kamala's behaviour/reaction to her coming out, or be hurt by it. what bothers me is the way CC talks about it - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the post where she mentioned this suggested something along the lines of "you'll see how Kamala sided with the Clave and didn't defend Anna after her coming out", therefore putting the blame on Kamala and completely disregarding the fact that Kamala wasn't in position to do much at all. It suggest that their situation was "poor Anna being mistreated by Kamala". therefore I'm afraid Kamanna's main problem/conflict will remain to be portrayed as "Anna having to allow themselves to love again and forgive Kamala", while Anna's shortcomings - and Kamala's vulnerable position - are never discussed. I think it would be possible to acknowledge both Kamala's difficult situation and the possible hurt her behaviour caused Anna without being insensitive towards Kamala's character, but it would take a really skilled - and caring - author to do both of the perspectives justice. CC would have to find a balance between being aware of the racism/prejudice Kamala faced/ writing her with lots of awareness and empathy, and still allowing her to make mistakes and acknowledging them. As it is however, I'm under impression that she's just treating it as a plot device, a relationship drama.

I'd say no one expects characters of color to be written as flawless or never making mistakes, it's mostly the way these mistakes are written and what things these characters are judged/shamed/

And that's - at least in my understanding and opinion - where the problem is. it's that the narrative never even addresses Anna's faults, and portrays Kamala as the one that caused all - or most of - the pain, without ever even acknowledging her problems and background.

White characters in TLH make mistakes and fuck up - because they're human and they're absolutely allowed to - but the thing is, non-white characters aren't afforded that privilege. Anna's behaviour is never questioned - none of it, shaming Kamala for not being able to come out, dismissing her desire to be a mother, or any of the questionable things she did in ChoI. Same with Matthew, James, Thomas. Alastair and Kamala however? they're constantly viewed through their past mistakes, and forced to apologize for them over and over, forced to almost beg for forgiveness. Moreover, those past mistakes are used as a justification of all and any shitty behaviour the other characters exhibit towards them now, which is simply unfair and cruel. They're held to a much higher standard.

So I'd like to say that yes, Kamala was in the wrong to keep nagging Anna after numerous rejections, and she was in the wrong to not inform Anna about Charles prior to them having sex - but that doesn't give Anna a free pass to constantly mistreat Kamala. And let's be real, Anna isn't stupid - while at 17 she could be naive and uninformed, I can't imagine how after years of hanging out with the Downworlders and numerous affairs and being out and judged by the Clave she's still so ignorant about Kamala's situation. I definitely think she's allowed to be hurt, but to still not understand why Kamala did what she did? Anna isn't blaming her for not telling her about Charles earlier - which would be fair - but instead for refusing to engage in an outright romance with her. She's being ignorant - and consciously so, I think.

Overall, I think you're definitely right about how coming out - or staying closeted - can be messy and hurt people in the process, especially in unaccepting environments/time periods, and I've seen enough discourse online to know there will never be a verdict/stance on this that will satisfy everyone. I, for one, would really like to refrain from putting all the blame on a single person - but, at least the way I see it, CC is pointing fingers. maybe not directly, but she is. Kamala, Alastair and Charles have no friends or support systems, and the only people in the narrative that defend them are themselves (ok, Cordelia does defend Alastair from Charles, but not from shitty takes about him and his "sins"). Also, sorry, but I don't like how you say "hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna experienced homophobic comments" - it sounds very much judgemental. Kamala had every right to do that? The fact that she slept with Anna doesn't means she owed her something, and certainly not coming out and most probably destroying her life, or even defending her at the - again - expense of her own reputation, or more possibly safety.

As for Charles - it's a different issue here, at least imo - I fear that it'll be implied that his refusing to come out will is his main "sin", and therefore not something he can be judged for, which ironically, will be villainizing, but mostly will mean his actual sins are dismissed. This is where the scene with Cordelia feeling a pang of sympathy for him comes into play, and it worries me. I've never hated Charles for not wanting to come out, but rather for, let's see - grooming Alastair, disregarding Alastair's needs and feelings, disrespecting his mother, being a sexist prick, being low-key far-right coded "make Shadowhunters great again" etc.

As for sensitivity readers - I'm no expert, so I don't think my input is worth much. From what I've gathered from multiple threads/discussions on twitter, tho it is probably consulted/approved by the publisher, many authors push for that - and authors less famous and "powerful" than her. I'm not a hater, but seeing fandoms' opinions on much of her rep, I think she could do better. Because if she does have sensitivity readers, then they don't seem to be doing a great job - maybe they're friends who don't wanna hurt her feelings? Or maybe she thinks a gay guy's feedback will be enough for any queer content - which, judging by the opinions I've seen from the fans, doesn't seem to be true.

Again, these are mostly my thoughts and I'm more than open to reading other opinions, because *sigh* I really don't know how to handle this.

Bottom line - I really really don't want to be hating on the characters in general, playing God in regards to judging the struggles of minorities, or even criticising the characters too harshly for being human, flawed etc. What my main issue is is how CC handles those complex and heavy topics.

I hope I make sense and this answer satisfies you somehow - I also hope someone better equipped to answer might wanna join this conversation.

* I desperately need a reread of TLH before I engage in any more conversations like this, but I didn't wanna leave you hanging. So yeah, I might be remembering things wrong. Again, let me know, I'm very much open to being corrected as well as to further discussion.

* I use she/her pronouns for Anna because that's what she uses in canon

[rainbowsky]

Re : your latest ask response on AT - I agree with what you say. And dont u think more ppl need to read this? Those fans..maybe they are just none the wiser. But how can they be unless there are more talks like this in the broader circle. Maybe they are, i wont even know. But just wondering

This is in reference to a previous post.

I was chatting with Anon off anon for a while, and because the issue they raised has come up before I asked them to submit the question so the answer could be shared with all of my readers.

Ultimately the issue that’s at heart is, “Why not take this type of argument to the people who are saying incorrect or toxic things? Wouldn’t it help the situation?”

There are many good reasons not to get into this type of exchange online.

GG has explicitly asked us not to defend him online, and explicitly asked that we do not get into arguments and debates online. I really hope that this is enough reason for us all, and that people see no need to read on. It really should be the only reason we need. But yeah, I get it, most people don’t GAF what GG wants. So let’s keep going on this list...

We will be ensuring that the toxic threads and issues get more attention. Almost all online forums are engagement-driven. It doesn’t matter whether the engagement is positive or negative - the more people discussing a topic, the higher it gets bumped in online forums. In fact studies have shown that negative, acrimonious topics tend to draw bigger audiences and more dedicated, enthusiastic engagement. And the more comments there are on a thread, the more readers will be curious to find out what all the fuss is about. This all means more eyes on the issue, more eyes on what the antis and toxics are saying, and potentially more interest gossip sites, entertainment sites and the media will take. This is a very, very bad thing.

We will be ensuring these jerks make more money. Just as forums are engagement-driven, so is revenue. Whether it’s a YouTube channel, an online blog, or a social media platform such as Facebook or Weibo - the more we engage in negative threads on those platforms, the more money those with a stake will be making. Including the people posting that garbage, in many cases. Especially on YouTube where channels are monetized. Giving these people more comments and attention can lead directly to more profit for these clowns, by giving them a higher profile, more algorithm prominence, and more clout overall.

In general, people who get into these kinds of debates online don’t want to open themselves up to new perspectives or learn what other people think, they just want to assert their own POV. This is, in fact, ultimately what Anon is suggesting should be done with the points I’ve made in my posts - put them out to there in discussion threads so that everyone can ‘benefit’ from them. But here’s the thing, Anon: I’ve already done that in the only capacity I feel is ethical; I’ve posted about it on my blog (and I was hesitant to do even that). My points are already out there for anyone who wants to read them. Any further sharing of them in threads where people are arguing would just be me or you or someone else asserting a POV. People in these types of threads generally don’t care about what we have to say, they only care about being right and converting others to their POV. People who genuinely care about the truth and who genuinely care about being open-minded and reasonable will seek out different points of view, and that will take them to places where people aren’t arguing and slinging mud about unsubstantiated gossip.

People acting in good faith will rarely be found arguing online about these types of topics. They will certainly not be debating and spreading gossip in comment forums, because GG has asked everyone emphatically not to do that. So the people we try to ‘school’ with these ideas are highly unlikely to be acting in good faith. They are highly unlikely to be open to our ideas. They are much more likely to take these arguments as attacks, and/or as opportunities to attack. They are much more likely to resort to lies, manipulation and dirty tactics while they do so - whether consciously or unconsciously.

Arguments - whether weak or sound, whether ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ - are the fuel of every debate, every scandal, every piece of gossip or hate. Any post that is made in a comment forum about a toxic issue is fuel for that toxic issue, even when - and I’d argue especially when - the arguments are trying to elevate the level of discourse or urging moderation, level-headedness and kindness (because those tend to be extremely controversial perspectives in such forums). Electricity doesn’t care whether you’ve plugged in a toaster or a cosmic death ray, it will power everything equally. So it goes with online arguments. Thankfully this works both ways. While it’s true that every argument helps fuel a toxic debate, everyone who steps out of it and refuses to engage is helping to kill the debate and deprive it of oxygen. Every person who refuses to engage helps bring down the level of furor and hate. Every person who refuses to add to the comments is helping to bury the thread. This is the most powerful thing we can do to stop online arguments - refuse to get involved in them. Everyone thinks they’re the exception. Everyone thinks they’re the one person who really should be there arguing. We all need to realize and accept that none of us should be there.

Further to my previous point, opposition helps the antis/toxics more than it ‘harms’ them. It gives them more opportunity to assert their position and persuade their audience. They will be grateful for the counterarguments we provide them, because we’re giving them information about the sorts of doubts others might be feeling, and some of the ideas bolstering those doubts. They will use that information to hone and improve their arguments. And as I stated in the previous point, they aren’t necessarily burdened by the need for facts and fairness. They will take any opportunity to massage the facts even more, to hit even further below the belt. By arguing with them we are essentially just helping them to patch the holes in their rhetoric.

Rational points will have no helpful impact on irrational, emotional people. As the old saying goes, “People cannot be reasoned out of an idea that they didn’t arrive at through rational means.”

Calls for moderation are almost always going to have the exact opposite effect from what you intend. Because it’s not what people want to hear. They take it as a criticism of their behavior. When we go into a party and say, “OK, party’s over, let’s all sit down and talk about facts and feelings!” all that’s going to happen is people are going to get more boisterous, more indignant, more drunk, more sanctimonious and more angry. And we’ll have galvanized them all together into a shared belief that they’re doing the right thing. We’ll be the bad guy and they’ll all feel even more justified in doing what they’re doing. In a highly charged, bitter comment thread, few statements are more controversial or more potentially incendiary than the ones that seek to calm people down and get them thinking rationally.

There’s little to be gained, and plenty to be lost. At best, we might convince one or two passers-by with our arguments. However, the vast majority of people will take those arguments as fuel. The antis and toxics will hone their arguments on the whetstone we’ve provided them and will only become more effective at their work. The people arguing will feel more justified in arguing. The issues and threads will get more airtime and more prominence in the forums and possibly even find media attention.

As I said, the list should end at #1. But if it didn’t for you, I hope some of the other points I’ve made here get through because arguing about gossip online - no matter how good our intentions may be - is toxic and harmful. This goes doubly for issues connected to antis and toxic fans.

Refraining from arguing online is not a passive act. It is the single most powerful thing we can do to eliminate online hate. To quote point 17 from my fandom survival guide,

Blocking and ignoring are not a capitulation. Someone might be saying the most egregiously wrong, hostile or negative things, and we might feel tempted to engage and ‘set them straight’, but often the best course of action is to block and ignore (and report, where appropriate). This isn’t a capitulation - it isn’t ‘backing down’. Quite the contrary, it’s often the single most powerful action we can take against hate - to simply not give it a platform or a voice in our lives.

Here are some related posts that might be of interest:

Fandom Survival Guide  

BXG Fandom Etiquette

Dealing with Antis On Tumblr

Why is it so important for our fandom to behave well online?

When is arguing online safe/OK?

I should add that there are cases where it’s perfectly fine to debate online. Debating online can actually be a lot of fun, and can be a great learning experience. People can learn how to form arguments and recognize weak points or logical fallacies, they can practice critical thinking and staying emotionally detached and rational, they can develop a stronger rhetorical voice or develop courage to speak more boldly. There is a lot to learn by debating online.

Low stakes, low impact issues, or issues that are broader in scope

Having said that, I feel that it is safest to do that with low stakes issues, issues that do not impact individuals or marginalized groups, or issues that are framed broadly enough that there will be a level of interpersonal detachment. For example:

Debating with people in the comments of a news article about whether the city should build a new light rail system.

Debating in a game forum over which console or game has the best graphics.

Arguing over whether Marvel or DC, PC or Mac, french fries or mashed potatoes are superior.

Debating the merits of our favorite sports team or athlete.

Discussing which political candidate has the best policy on climate change.

You get the idea. We all have opinions about a variety of subjects, and there are endless places online to discuss them and hone our debating skills.

It becomes a problem when the issues are sensitive, when the people involved are being targeted for hate, or when the topic impacts the reputation or activity of an individual or group. We should always consider the implications of the issues we are discussing and the potential impact of our words, the words of others and the overall drama being generated.

Particularly when there is a lot of emotion, anger, hate and bitterness involved, or when people are being whipped into a fury that they intend to turn on a person or organization, we should proceed with extra caution.

Especially when the person in question has explicitly asked people not to engage in that type of behavior.

Well-moderated forums

More challenging or sensitive topics are best discussed in forums that are well-moderated with robust guidelines on how to behave, and rules that are properly and fairly enforced. In that type of setting, it’s possible to discuss a difficult topic without having it devolve into something toxic.

Unfortunately, the forum that Anon is talking about above is YouTube. Social media venues such as YouTube and Twitter are not built to be managed or moderated in any truly effective way, and they are notoriously bad at handling hate and toxicity (beyond profiting from them, which they definitely do). Those types of forums are not safe venues for debate. They aren’t safe for us and they aren’t safe for GG.

When looking for a place to discuss topics that are more sensitive or personal, try to find a community that has a strong policy, clearly posted rules that are properly enforced, and a good moderation team that cares about healthy discussion and about fostering a community of inclusion and friendliness. Such communities do exist, although I’ve never seen one dedicated to discussing topics related to GGDD.

[rainyday-deer]

I see a lot of posts from people telling minors to be more careful, and to not give out personal info, and to be more careful in curating their experience-- WHICH ARE ALL TRUE AND THEY SHOULD ABSOLUTELY DO THAT

But also I see a lot of minors getting into it with adults. Call outs, sticking their noses in other people’s business, making a public display of their arguments with these adults. And like... I never really. See anyone talking about how FUCKING dangerous that is?

Yes, this adult may be wrong, or maybe you think you’re doing the fandom a favor by outlining why this person is problematic™ or the like but like.

They are actively drawing attention to themselves. Attention that could be dangerous!

“But this person ships--” BLOCK THEM. “But they draw--” BLOCK THEM. “But they like this show and thats--” BLOCK THEM. BLOCK. THEM.

Idk how to tell these kids that the people WHO DONT WANT TO interact with this person ALREADY WON’T. Chances are, they’ve never even heard of them before! If they have, they’ve probably already steered clear! Making a giant callout post, or going to this person and actively getting into an antagonistic talk with them on PURPOSE isn’t doing ANYONE any favors, and actively putting yourself in danger if you do this to the wrong person.

“Isn’t it pathetic this grown ass adult is harassing a minor?” YES. IT IS. But you need to realize thats exactly WHY you SHOULD NOT ENGAGE.

Curating your online experience isn’t just about avoiding what you don’t want to see, or triggering material. It is ALSO about staying out of dangerous situations by NOT engaging in things like petty drama, or just... People you hate.

It drives me absolutely batty to see minors being harassed and they respond in turn by poking the bear FURTHER.

And I want them to understand that this isn’t victim blaming or anything like that, it is me, being genuinely concerned for their safety-- And sometimes, even the adult’s safety. A minor harassing someone they don’t like is still harassment, and that can also lead to some pretty bad consequences

I am literally begging you to stay in your lane for your own sake, and stop getting into petty internet squabbles for the sake of looking woke or superior or just to prove a point. It’s fucking dangerous, especially nowadays.

[falloutboywife]

i want to start this off by saying i am infintitely grateful for all the support i've gotten while i was away, and i cannot express enough how much it means to me to know i have so much support during such a frustrating part of my life, even if i'm only showing you guys one part of it. i cannot tell you enough how thankful i am, and i'm going to respond to as many messages as i can tomorrow because this has taken a lot of time and energy for me to write and piece together emotionally

i definitely think the other week when i made that lengthy post about my identity and my place in online spaces may have been a bit of an overreaction, however while i've had some time to think about it on my own i think that just avoiding tumblr outright is causing me to become pretty insular in how i'm perceiving the entire situation, which isn't made any easier for me considering when i ask my friends who've been seeing it unfold what their opinions on it are, their responses have been pretty mixed.

as a whole, i think that being in online fandoms, as an outspoken artist (outspoken in this sense meaning redacted and fat kid fuckery, both shameful and heretical topics few dare to mention), tends to inflate my ego in a way i don't really find desirable. meaning people who are super kind and friendly towards me and who give me a lot of positive attention, while reassuring and definitely welcomed, tends to lean into people admiring me for reasons i don't really understand, and this can also end up trapping me into a certain role to fulfill in a community because of the kind of attention i tend to reward and validate, i.e. fat kid fuckery in my dms, which leads to the expectation of me being this sort of bastion of hornyposting where all evil (affectionate) thoughts are encouraged and endorsed.

on the other end of the spectrum, and if you know what i'm talking about then you know, i tend to attract a lot of negativity from people i've never interacted with or had any intention of interacting with, and this has been an issue for me pretty much the entire time i've used social media (me adding hornyposting as a facet to my personality is really recent, like i only started doing this late 2017 and i'm really tired of it by now but. again. it's what people expect of me, more on that later), and i'm not entirely sure how to make it stop. granted, when i was a lot younger, i was genuinely an asshole, but i want to stress a very important thing i think very few of my followers on here are aware of

i'm 28 and only just now aware of the fact that i'm autistic, and i was misdiagnosed with bipolar when i was 13 and because none of the treatment or therapy worked, i always thought there was something really wrong with me, so i couldn't actually learn how to cope with a lot of my problems in a productive way until recently. so yeah, i was a jackass when i was younger, and i can be a jackass in private sometimes when i'm under a lot of stress, but having this realization about myself is really helping me a lot on its own

and being autistic, people can think i'm annoying or obnoxious or irritating and that, juxtaposed with content or opinions they might personally disagree with, can make people very angry just inherently. i've spoken with my friends about how i can't seem to shake off any drama that i really, really have nothing to do with or any interest in, and the only ones who could really relate were other autistic people. my own friend actually told me that she thinks this is something i'm just going to have to struggle with my entire life, because even if it's not being horny or advocating for sexual positivty, i'm ALWAYS doing something that will piss someone off

(quick disclaimer: i know some of you are probably going to try to engage in bad faith arguments with me saying that i'm calling all my haters ableist, and if anyone tries to insinuate that this is the conclusion i'm coming to, i'm not only ignoring your ask but blocking you as well. i'm also not answering any asks trying to insinuate that i "need help" simply because of the type of fiction i enjoy, when the issue was HOW i was engaging with it, which i think i have made exceedingly clear.)

i think it's funny that me clearly being into waycest and clearly being into babystump is lost on people to the point where they feel they need to make callout posts "warning" people about the fact that i'm...openly and unabashedly interested in this shit, but the very second i say "actually i'm asexual but i'm glad you guys are so sexually open about yourselves and your interests" i lost more followers than any active campaign trying to cancel me, which is exactly what i fucking mean when i say this is what people expect of me

so i can't really make anyone happy in the current environment i've curated for myself because it is expected of me to maintain this personality and continue engaging in this nature of content regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter, because if i want to break free from it then i risk pissing people off. i also can't just act how i want or make the kind of jokes that i want or enjoy the kind of things i want anyway because simply by having a mental disability that effects how i engage with people socially, i am risking ostracizing myself by pissing the wrong people off and ultimately making things a lot worse than they otherwise would be

however. However. even if this is exactly how i feel, this isn't entirely a situation that is exclusive to this current blog, and when i said in the beginning i was taking this too seriously, i still mean that, and i think that my own personal problems with being in online fandoms stem from external factors that have nothing to do with this website. i'm almost 30 and a lot of my life this past decade has been very stagnant due to severe depression, with no real progress towards furthering my life in any meaningful way, and i think that what i was really frustrated with when i made that post was this very factor. in conjunction with this, i use online spaces a way to try to find an open and accepting community of people i can befriend and be myself in, because my undiagnosed autism has historically made it difficult for me to really socialize with people in a productive way that didn't make me feel like an outcast. i think a combination of the fact that online spaces are becoming increasingly more difficult for me to adapt to, as well as incresingly unfulfilling, adding to the lack of fulfillment in the rest of my life, was the subconscious realization i came to when i decided to make that post and take a break from tumblr for a bit. i'm frustrated that i have no fulfillment in my life, and i can no longer find it in online spaces that i used to enjoy and find so much meaning in

this being said, i'm actually doing shit with my life at long last. i'm enrolled in classes for an english degree, and i'm going to subsequently get an associates in creative writing that i'll be able to complete in a single semester after the fact, leaving me with two whole degrees under my belt that i can use in developing my future in the literary world. i'm taking my art more seriously as well, although i only post my bandom and lotr drawings on here, and i'm thinking of making an instagram account to start posting my art on there as well, as a sort of portfolio. i'm sick of this ongoing feeling of there being no meaning in my life, and i'm sick of feeling like i'm just wasting away and putting my mind to no use, and the immense joy i got just from seeing my class schedule for the fall semester made me realize that i am an intellectual, i'm an academic, and i'm in love with media and literary studies and this is what i find meaning in. this shit makes me so fucking happy and when i finished the picture of dorian gray the other day i IMMEDIATELY went on a tirade about its themes and symbolism just to myself and that, alone, was so fucking rewarding. i've been watching movies with my friend sweaterangst and just describing the themes of the horror used in the fucking texas chainsaw massacre movies made me feel so fulfilled even if he might have barely been listening LMAO i find meaning in seeking out complex and thought-provoking pieces of work and i

absolutely

am not getting that being on tumblr and talking about how i'm gonna let the fat kid deepfry me at the state fair (affectionate) (delusional) (severe)

with that being said, yes, i'm still asexual and i don't get fulfillment from purely sexual discussion, but i think i'm still gonna be answering asks about the sexy stuff so long as i find it engaging to a degree. i'm gonna start trying to use the guys you say as creative writing exercises because in the beginning that's what the fucking smut started as LMAO but i lost the plot a while ago and just let myself stagnate, like i said. i'm still gonna blog about bandom stuff but now that i have no reason to treat social media like it's all i have, and now that i'm breaking out of my depressed state in more meaningful ways, i think i'm gonna start blogging about a lot more things too and try to start having fun on this site again.

five nights at fat kid's is back, baby

[withteeths]

Maybe Steamrolling Games is Bad Actually

Videogames are unique in that they are inextricably tied to corporatism and have been since birth (this is an oversimplification but roll with it). This means that to an extent most companies even since the ’80s have never really cared about proper preservation or easy access to their titles. Nintendo carts were originally manufactured to have their battery die in 3 years so you would have to buy a new one (this failed, but it’s why you still see a lot of dead carts floating around). I think there's a nostalgia issue within the gaming fandom regarding "oh x was great back then" but a lot of the time, games manufacturers have been historically shitty and anti-consumer and it’s just that they now have the tools to execute it much more effectively. Regarding obtrusive DRM, that’s an issue PC games have had since their zenith, where if you lost your original copy of a manual or a small plastic key you could never play a game again because the codes were individualized for each copy and support would refuse to give you a new one. Even back in the arcades, there were particularly batshit examples like the CPS board, which I shit you not was built to explode a battery pack filled with corrosive acid if it detected you were attempting to repair or modify it. There’s a lot to say about the current state of games but what I would likely illustrate is that 2/3 major consoles are racing to decide who will be obsolete first. Games consoles are reaching a point where they are trying to emulate PCs with more restrictions and DRM. We're already seeing interest in steam spike again and it’s likely that eventually, we will see almost a crash for consoles where no one can justify the price for games they can play on a PC rig. The only solution I see there would be a merger between the two consoles which feels inevitable. 

That being said as interest in the PC space increases again so does attempts at entering the bubble. We have Epic, Origin, Microsoft, Indiegala, Itchio, and Steam all vying for attention, requiring accounts, and offering exclusives to justify the use of their storefront over others. Some people think this is a good thing because it's breaking up Steam's monopoly but it literally is not, if you ever really wanna hear me rant ask me about Leftist obsession with itch being some sort of ethical steam, which it is provably not. In the end, the real sort of saviour figures that work to preserve games are random ass people on the internet. I know people who automatically assume that at the end of the day, companies care about games preservation too, and they usually have a three-pronged argument that cites a) Steam’s ability to allow the redownloading of delisted games, b) retro companies periodically rereleasing titles for modern consoles in compilations, and c) companies doing limited reruns of a game that fans request. All three of these examples are basically an incredibly effective use of diversionary tactics, but most of the time when someone cites these I just assume it’s a misunderstanding and not outright malicious intent because a lot of the time companies will attempt to actively implant these ideas to build brand loyalty.

My main dissertation is usually that Steam is incredibly selective with what titles you can redownload, and most importantly, corporate benevolence is more-so a band-aid on a gaping wound! There’s no contingency for when Steam might migrate to a new service, go belly up, or become obsolete when a new OS is created. That means thousands, tens of thousands of dollars worth of games are just gone, permanently, along with fan mods, DLC, and content. It’s a terrifying thought that not many people bring up when discussing the problems with game storefronts that focus so much on providing a cloud and have DRM attached to every purchase. In a way, Steam preceded the trend of not allowing consumers to actually own the things they purchased, and they’ve avoided criticism by strategic use of silence and creating the illusion of a company being made by the consumers they’re attempting to serve. At the end of the day, Steam is a business, and if you ever lose access to your Steam account, or they decide to up and leave one day, you will not be able to play almost all of those games, even if you have them installed on a hard drive, because if you’re online, they connect with a server to ensure your steam account has the ability to play them. When it comes to other arguments like the limited rereleases or use of compilations to preserve arcade titles, I usually just beg people to look at community-driven options that have existed for years. The Scott Pilgrim game is a big source of contention, but I would point out that for years now, it was playable, for free, with all the DLC, on PCs. Preservationists didn’t wait for the gods of Universal and O’Malley to rerelease it for 30 bucks or save up to snatch the fucking ridiculous 200$ limited edition with shitty paper cut-outs, they straight up just did the work to make the game free and available. RCPS3 has (with a contemporary build) been able to run the game pretty flawlessly for years now, in fact, it was how I played through a majority of the game in high school on my shitty brick of a laptop. If you look further out than this one example then it gets even better, MAME and other emulation backends have been able to play obscure, unfinished, and homebrew titles with 100% accuracy, on almost any setup, for free, for decades! I found out about many of these options back in 2015 or so, certainly late to the curve, but I never really questioned as to why emulation, games preservation, and some key titles being available on PC remained some sort of arcane, unknown knowledge to most people interested in games. In the end, the answer was a highly effective propaganda campaign that combined with strategic use of DMCA takedowns has resulted in the concept of communal games-preservation and emulation becoming some sort of debate, where people will wholeheartedly side with corporations in some sort of quest for preserving things the “ethical and correct way,” which is code for preservation on the condition that it remains profitable for the IP owners.

 I think the best way to illustrate this would be with the community built around the preservation of an infamous PS4 title, PT. The story of its inevitable delisting from the storefront and the messy breakup between Kojima and Konami is well known, so I won’t regurgitate it, look it up at your own leisure. What is significant here is corporate reactions to attempts at preserving the game, which can basically be boiled down to Konami acting with borderline rabid fervour to prevent redownload, redistribution, or recreation of a seven-year-old demo, released for free download. Mentions of solutions to redownload the game have been taken down, fan-made recreations for PC, and archival servers that store a copy of the game for future preservation or emulation. Usually when this is brought up a debate occurs citing that technically speaking, Konami has a right to do this whenever they want, for whatever piece of media they believe infringes on their copyright. On one hand, yes this argument is factually correct considering the current state of copyright and ownership of media, but on the other hand, what compels someone to step into the ring for a multi-million dollar company with the primary argument being “well actually, people SHOULDN’T be able to play this specific video game until it benefits the shareholders”? In my opinion, it’s some sort of corporatized symbiosis where players believe that, if you cull the bad actors and play by the rules of the company, you may be able to eventually play the game a couple of years down the line. Sure, this has happened in the past with a few isolated cases, but it can’t be stressed enough that this is a genuinely dangerous and reductive position for people to take regarding games preservation.

 I have two colleagues, Mariken and Fotocopiadora, who released a short interactive title called Videopulp (playable here: https://fotocopiadora.itch.io/videopulp). It’s a dramatic reimagining of a real historical event, wherein a promotional event was held in 1994 at Lelystad to destroy bootleg carts by a figure in a Mario costume. This perhaps best encapsulates something I am pleading with younger generations to understand, as an archivist, art historian, and creator: corporations are not your friends, and they never will be. With the rise of online circles of leftism, this concept is starting to gain traction but is starting to be polluted with concepts of fandom and tribalism. This has lead to arguments that while *most* corporations are bad how could you say that about Nintendo? Or Valve? Mario is so innocent and characters like Wheatley are beloved by all! I feel some people don’t realize that they can enjoy a select title or character without enlisting in a corporate faction in the battle for “best company” or “best videogame”. It leads to a parasocial kinship with a nonexistent figure that was hand-crafted to ensure consumer loyalty to a certain brand. It’s depressing, terrifying, and should stand as a disquieting example of how the grip of capitalism on works of art has permanently distorted how we think and engage with media today. So, what’s the solution? As always I can never really provide something concrete that’ll act as a cure-all, only things that people in games need to work towards. Bring up conversations about games preservation, create archives for your own work, support archivists and boost their work whenever a new discovery is created, and try to promote optimism and solidarity in your hobbyist communities. I’ve noticed a lot of futility being intertwined with the future of AAA gaming, use of online storefronts, and the inability to own pieces of media anymore, and I feel this should be pushed back against, even in a minute way. Open-source programmes still exist that allow you to hold on to what you have purchased, offline and ad-free options exist for games launchers, e-readers, and media players. The future isn’t bright, but it is not a place without hope, and as long as people continue to enter communities with passion and ingenuity, I think we have a chance at stopping the events at Lelystad, 1994 from happening again. 

[julio-claudian-saberface]

Some Other Women, Part II

Previous post, now with extra crackfic discussion and corpse disposal. Same disclaimers apply. 

Domitia Lepida (the elder): Caligula’s cousin, Nero’s paternal aunt. There’s a story that when she was bedridden, she told Nero that she wanted to stay alive long enough to see the coming-of-age ritual of his first shave. According to this story, Nero said he’d shave posthaste - and then poisoned her and took her stuff. 

In Fateverse, of course, Nero wasn’t going to have anything to shave up there but her eyebrows, so I wonder how it would have translated. That, and the arts festival that historical Nero threw when he did have his first shave. I’m picturing something with an obviously fake beard, Hatshepsut-style. 

Domitia Lepida (the younger): Caligula’s cousin, Nero’s paternal aunt, mother of Empress Messalina. She raised Nero once his father (her brother) died and Agrippina was exiled. After Agrippina’s return they came into conflict, not least over her influence on Nero. Apparently Lepida was the honey to Agrippina’s vinegar. But when Agrippina, now Empress, brought trumped-up capital charges, she got the teenage Nero to testify against her. Lepida was subsequently executed. 

Claudia Octavia: Daughter of Claudius and Messalina, Britannicus’s sister, Caligula’s first cousin (though far younger than him). Nero’s first cousin once removed, stepsister, and unloved first wife. She was a couple of years younger than Nero and their marriage was arranged some years after their parents’, when she was thirteen and Nero was fifteen. 

A bit over a year later, her father died and Nero became emperor. A few months after that, she witnessed Britannicus die of poison at a dinner party while Nero dismissed his death throes as an epileptic fit. 

(Also present, by the by: the future emperor Titus, who was Britannicus’s BFF or at least liked to say that he was in the years afterward, and also said that he had a sip from Britannicus’s cup and was deathly ill for a while)

(Also: The ever-virtuous Seneca wrote a nasty little RPF about her dead father called the Apocolocyntosis. You can find online translations of a work that historians are reasonably convinced is the same one. It trashes Claudius as a deformed mass murderer and Caligula’s whipping boy, and shamelessly sucks up to Nero)

By all accounts Octavia was an ideal virtuous Roman wife despite all this, with a lot of practice at holding her tongue and hiding her feelings, but Nero didn’t care for her and busily carried on affairs with first Claudia Acte, then Poppaea Sabina (see below). She was popular with the people, probably because of the ideal virtuous Roman wife thing. Seven years after becoming emperor Nero finally divorced her to marry Poppaea, leading to protest in the streets. Nero kept escalating, exiling her further and further away, accusing her first of being barren and then of committing adultery - first of doing it with a random slave, then with his admiral Anicetus (who had previously killed Agrippina for him, and who he paid off for his assassination and perjury with a cushy retirement of an “exile” in Sardinia). He threw in an accusation that she’d aborted an illegitimate child, never mind that he’d previously said she was barren. Her slaves were tortured to provide more “evidence,” but most of them refused to break. Eventually, on the encouragement of Poppaea, who was nervous at her popular support, the executioners came for her. 

By now Octavia was imprisoned on Pandateria, one of the go-to exile spots for women of the imperial family. Augustus’s daughter Julia had died there, and Caligula’s mother/Nero’s grandmother Agrippina the Elder, and Nero’s aunt Livilla. She begged to be allowed to live as not Nero’s wife but merely his sister, to no avail. It’s said they tried to bleed her to death, but she was so frightened the blood wouldn’t flow heavily enough (I have no idea about the biological veracity of this), so they suffocated her instead and brought back her head to show Poppaea. She was about twenty-two years old. 

Headcanon time: Britannicus took after Messalina in looks, and Octavia took after Claudius, so Claudius was far more certain she was his. Hence he eventually agreed to a marriage between his daughter and his “stepson,” with the understanding that they’d be engaging in the good old Roman custom of adoption. The seemingly more sensible measure of a marriage between Britannicus and a female Nero was dismissed because of his doubts about Britannicus’s paternity. 

Historically it’s speculated that Nero poisoned Britannicus so that Agrippina, who he was already quarreling with, couldn’t hold him over his head as a threat. But in Fateverse Everything Is Agrippina’s Fault, so she probably poisoned Britannicus too, to make sure he didn’t challenge Nero as he got older. Maybe he really did have epilepsy, and Nero didn’t take it seriously until it was too late - and maybe Octavia didn’t believe that she hadn’t known. 

And the slander? The murder? It can’t be blamed on Agrippina, who was dead for three years by then and in any case wanted him to stay with Octavia for political reasons. Shall we switch gears to Everything is Poppaea’s Fault? FGO Nero in Septem is from 60 AD, the year after Agrippina died, and the divorce/remarriage was in 62. Were the effects of Agrippina’s poison really kicking in at this point, leading to Nero’s paranoia ramping up? 

Claudia Acte: Nero’s first love, a freedwoman formerly owned by the Claudian clan and afterward under their patronage, indicated by receiving the name Claudia upon her manumission (headcanon: Nero met her because she was one of Octavia’s attendants). From her name, she might have been a performer of some kind (alternate headcanon: Nero noticed her after she played the role of Andromache in Seneca’s Trojan Women). Nero fell for her so hard that he sought to fake a genealogy that made her a long-lost princess of Pergamum, presumably so she would be a suitable wife. The relationship was a source of conflict between Nero and Agrippina, who presumably thought putting aside an emperor’s daughter to marry a former slave was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard of. As such it was encouraged by people like Seneca and Burrus, to lessen Agrippina’s influence. Some of Seneca and Nero’s friends helped run interference. One of them pretended that Acte was his mistress; Nero would slip him presents to pass on to her. There’s a story that Agrippina, desperate to recover her influence, starting trying to get incestuous with her son. Seneca nipped that in the bud by getting Acte, who herself was alarmed by this development, to go tell Nero to please don’t get down and dirty with your mother, it’s gross and the soldiers won’t like it. 

You would think she’d be cast in the role of the Grasping Gold-Digging Whore, but that wasn’t the case. The likes of Tacitus regarded her as far better than Poppaea -  to them, she was a nice inoffensive girl who knew her place and followed the instructions of good influences. Eventually even Christians began to claim she had been one of them. Why would Nero take so much to this Nice Inoffensive Girl and take so much against Octavia? Romantic chemistry is weird and unpredictable, and that he was never accused of being anywhere near the killing of any of Acte’s family probably helped their relationship. Maybe Acte, the common girl, was supportive of Nero’s artistic endeavors when Octavia, the proper Roman lady, wasn’t. 

Being all virtuous and noble doesn’t mean you can’t amass oodles of money, as Seneca can attest (in an age before mass production, he had five hundred identical fancy tables). Nero eventually moved on to Poppaea, but Acte did very well from the affair, and retained her wealth after it ended. There are inscriptions indicating that she owned multiple properties and funded a temple to Ceres (I hear things floating around the Internet about one of those inscriptions being a prayer for Nero to love her again, but haven’t seen any actual source). She would use that wealth after Nero’s death to fund his funeral, presiding with two of his old nurses. 

Poppaea Sabina: Nero’s second love and second wife. She was named after her mother, a famous beauty who was driven to suicide by the accusations of Messalina, and took after her in looks. She had red hair, which Nero rhapsodized about and compared to amber - “amber” hair dye became fashionable afterward. 

She was married three times. First was to a guy named Rufrius Crispinus, resulting in a son who Nero was accused of having drowned on a fishing trip after her death for supposedly having imperial pretensions (i.e. playing at being the emperor; he was still a kid). Second was to Otho, one of Nero’s buddies who’d helped him with the Acte thing. Third, Nero fell for her and packed Otho off to Lusitania (modern-day Portugal or thereabouts). 

All the potential nasty things they didn’t say about Acte? They said them about Poppaea. Josephus is the one historian I know of to have anything nice to say about her; according to him, she was a “God-fearing” woman who sympathized with the Jewish people and influenced Nero to go easy on them. There are claims that she pushed Nero to kill his mother so that he would be free to ditch Octavia and marry her - but, as noted, there was a three-year gap, so if that was the case Nero took his sweet time about it. Then there’s going to extravagant lengths to maintain her beauty i.e. milk baths a la Cleopatra, marrying Otho just so she could get close enough to grab Nero’s attention, and gloating over Octavia’s decapitated head.

She and Nero had a daughter, Claudia Augusta, who died at a few months old (infant mortality’s a bitch). She was pregnant again two years later, at the time of her death. Nero is the prime suspect, being accused of kicking her in the stomach or else jumping on it, possibly after an argument about his time at the chariot races. Modern historians are more inclined to think it was a miscarriage or childbirth complications; if it was childbirth, the child died with her. 

At any rate, Nero took her death hard, threw her a grand funeral, and had her declared a goddess. One of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has a poem of uncertain vintage in which the deified Poppaea is greeted by Aphrodite and reluctantly whisked off to the heavens to be with her children. Later, Nero “took up” with Sporus (a very unfortunate young man who has a whole other sad story) because of his uncanny resemblance to her, and sometimes dressed him in women’s clothes and called him by her name. 

Headcanon: Nero, the admirer of Paris, decided she’d rather have a Helen than an Andromache. 

Unless Simon Magus had penis-attachment magic, baby Claudia Augusta and the unborn child would have been adopted in that good old Roman tradition. Who was the sperm donor? Otho, perhaps?

Nero would marry a third time, to Statilia Messalina (having her husband bumped off to do it), who survived his fall, was briefly engaged to Otho during his own bid for emperor, and apparently disappeared into obscurity afterward. 

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Anyway, hope some of you were entertained by my rambling. 

[experdent-web-services]

A Step-by-Step SEO Guide for Dentists in 2021

A Step-by-Step SEO Guide for Dentists in 2021

This article is a really simple step-by-step guide for dentists from Experdent. Let's begin

What is Dental SEO Dental SEO is the optimization of your website so that it is easy for you to be found by patients online when they search for dental treatment or any service that you offer. In other words, SEO for dentists is to make their dental office rank higher in Google or Bing or Yahoo search results. Do people go to page-2 of Google? Yes, people do go to page-2 of Google. However, this is quite seldom. Over 70% of searchers will click on something that falls in the first five results on a Google page. And almost 90% will click on something on page-1. The rest may likely refine their search and search again rather than go to page-2.

Is SEO Digital Marketing? SEO is the digital equivalent of traditional inbound marketing. Let us explain: While many activities qualify as digital marketing, SEO is the foundation for all digital marketing processes. Conversely, a weak SEO can result in massive marketing expenditure to get results online. SEO builds cred for you with search engines. Think of it as a virtuous loop. The better the SEO for a website, the higher it will rank in search results. The higher it ranks in search results, the more people will click on it. The more people click on a consequence, this tells Google/Bing or any other search engine that yours is a quality website, and therefore the search engines push up the rank of your website even further. A high-ranking site on Google search, therefore, becomes a magnet for visitors. More visitors will lead to more conversions in any marketing funnel, i.e., more people becoming dental office patients.

Does SEO improve the visitor experience on your website? The foundation of SEO is in Technical SEO. Let's unpack that: SEO work for any quality SEO services business starts with a detailed website audit. This audit looks to fix these key elements that go into user experience: - Site Speed - Performance on Mobile - Intuitive navigation - Presence of Metadata including alt tags for images - Presence of appropriate keywords on pages - Submission of sitemaps to search engines In addition, SEO looks for compelling content and quality images and video to create an engaging experience for the visitor to a website. Through this process, technical SEO helps improve user experience while improving the website for search engines to crawl.

Is SEO advertising? The output of SEO is greater visibility for your content for the people who are searching for that content Let's say you live in downtown Toronto and you have a toothache. You will likely open up your computer or your smartphone and search something like this: - Family Dentist in downtown Toronto or - Dentist for a toothache or - Best dentist in Toronto or if its evening or the weekend - Dentist in Toronto open today If your website is optimized for SEO and contains this information (preferably in the schema), then your visitors may see your website featured on page-1 of Google. Thus, SEO is advertising by another means. Content that ranks is the best advertising because research has repeatedly shown that people will click on an organic link that appears more authentic. Research by Wordstream.com shows that "Clicks on paid search listings beat out organic clicks by nearly a 2:1 margin for keywords with high commercial intent in the US. In other words, 64.6% of people click on Google Ads when they are looking to buy an item online!" And here is the kicker - When you run an ad campaign, you get results only while the campaign is running and you are paying for clicks on your ad. In the case of SEO, however, you continue to get results for a long time. Yes, if you don't continuously optimize your website for SEO, your Search Rankings will eventually begin to drop. Why is that, you ask? Simply because your neighbours and competitors will not have stopped, they will continue improving and scaling their websites, and as a consequence, Google will keep pulling other websites over yours.

On-Page optimization Getting Google to like your website and show it on page-1 of its search results means that you need to bring quality to your pages and make them valuable and delightful for your visitors. Remember that the best websites are built for real visitors and not for search engines. The key elements that SEO helps you improve on-page are: - The quality of content on its page and its layout and organization for easy flow. The presence of images and video. - Headlines, subheadings are identified by Headline tags. For example, a page should ideally only have one headline tagged with an H1 tag. Sub headlines can go to H2 or H3 tags. Sub-sub headlines can go to H4, H5, and even H6 tags. - Metadata and descriptions that encourage clickthrough. This is the data that search engines showcase your pages within search results. - The amount of content on the page. Although the jury is still out on the length of an ideal article for Google to show it on page-1, research shows somewhere between 1000 and 1500 words. This does not mean that a page with 5000 words will consistently rank higher than a page with 1000 words. However, it does mean that when choosing between 2 pages that are otherwise identical in quality of content, Google will likely choose to showcase the page with more content in a higher position. - The number of pages on your website (remember, more is not always better). - The freshness of your content etc.

Off-Page optimization The links that other sites on the internet provide your website are essentially treated like votes. The larger the number of websites linking to your website or providing you with backlinks, the larger the number of votes for your website. This quantity of links helps Google decide where to rank your website. That said, all backlinks are not born equal. For example, a link from a higher ranking website carries more value than a brand new one-page website. Some backlinks can be toxic and be damaging for your website's rank on Google. (More on toxic backlinks and how to get rid of those in a future article). The list for how off-page links create value for you can be bullet-pointed as follows: - Citations or directory listings - In context, backlinks from articles or guest blogs - is the link reciprocal - this practice has the potential to reduce the value of the link received - The nature of the website that the link comes from: i.e., is the website in a related space? A link from a gambling website for a dentist is not likely to count as useful. - Keywords in anchor text could indicate that the link has been sourced or purchased. The best links have anchor text that is just the URL of your website or "read more" or "click here," etc.

Technical SEO We have mentioned earlier that Technical SEO is the foundation of SEO for a website. The critical elements of the work done under technical SEO are - Identification and removal of Crawl errors. - Check if your website is secure - check for HTTPS status - Check if XML sitemaps exist & if they have been submitted to major search engines - Check and improve Site Load time - Check whether the site is mobile friendly and upgrade as needed - Check and optimize robots.txt files - Check for keyword cannibalization and edit as needed - Check and improve site metadata, including image alt tags - Check for broken links and eliminate them or apply a 301 redirect that passes full link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page.

Yoast, a company that provides an extremely popular SEO plugin for Wordpress websites, in addition talks about the need for technical SEO to ensure that there is no duplicate content, nor are there any dead links in the website.

As a dentist, how do I build a high-quality website myself While we would recommend that you hire an experienced web developer to help develop or update your dental website, you could build a workable website quite easily as a DIY project There are many website development tools available, and you could choose between them for your DIY project. Three major platforms that you could use are: - WordPress - Squarespace - Wix WordPress will need the most significant amount of expertise, while both Squarespace and Wix use drag and drop functionality for you to build something quickly. There is an argument between SEOs about whether or not SEO is easier to do on WordPress versus Wix or Squarespace. However, what is clear is that WordPress enjoys a much larger ecosystem which gives you access to better tools and developers than does any other website builder. According to Search Engine Journal "WordPress content management system is used by 39.5% of all sites on the web."

Choose a reliable & high-quality hosting company If you go with Wix or Squarespace, the hosting is with the website builder's platform. If you build with WordPress or any other website builder platform, you will need to choose a high-quality, fast, and secure hosting service. Some of the major hosting services that you could consider are: - Amazon Web Services - Bluehost - Godaddy - WPengine - Siteground - Hostgator etc. There are quite literally hundreds of hosting companies for you to choose from. Choose a hosting service that has close to 100% uptime, which has enough bandwidth for your clients to visit without the speed of your website going down. Over and above that, the hosting service should have robust security and offer you a service of backups so that if your website gets damaged or hacked, they can put back the site in a matter of minutes.

How do you do keyword research? As a dentist, you have a scarcity of time. Still, given that you have decided to build a DIY website, you need to ensure that you do keyword research so that Google recognizes your content to contain the answers your future patients or clients are searching for. Some of the tools that you could use for keyword research are: - Google Keyword planner - this is a free tool - Semrush/Ahrefs/Moz - these are paid tools but will help you in getting a solid grounding of keywords

Submit your site to Google Once your website is ready, make sure to create your presence and submit it to the search engine with the following tools: - Google My Business - Google Maps - Bing Places - Yahoo Small business - Unfortunately, this tends to work only in the US unless you subscribe to some listing services.

Google Tools to monitor your website performance These tools will help you gauge the performance of your website traffic and help you find points of strengths and weaknesses on your website - Google Search Console - Google Analytics - Google Page Speed Insights

List yourself on review sites. While the best website for reviews that self selects itself is your Google my business (GMB) page. You would also find reviews very helpful from the following websites. - Facebook - Yelp - RateMyMD - Healthgrades

List your practice in online directories. A presence in online directories is a crucial aspect of SEO for any business. You should list your dental practice in as many relevant directories as possible. There is a wide variety of directories available, and you should choose well. Your choices will be along the lines of: - Local yellow pages or equivalent - Directories for your town or province - Directories for Dentists or healthcare providers - Directories of local chambers of commerce or industry organizations

Is your Dental SEO strategy working? Once you have done all this work, you will need to ask how you find out if your dental strategy is working? To get this answer, you will need to check for some of the following: - Website traffic - this is the first and foremost indicator of performance - Ranking keywords - What is the page and rank of each of the keywords you believe to be vital. And, of course, how do these keyword ranks change over time. - Reviews - the number of reviews and the grade you get on your reviews is outside SEO in a technical sense. However, reviews create a very favourable feedback loop for search engines. Generally speaking, a large number of reviews will push a website up in ranking.

How do you find how you rank without subscribing to expensive SEO tools? If you check your keywords using your computer, the computer will respond based on your search history, thereby potentially fooling you into thinking that your rank has improved. Instead, there is a simple trick to finding how you rank for your target keywords. First, open an "incognito" session in a browser such as Chrome and then search for your keyword. If you don't find it on page-1, go to page-2 continue until you find it. Of course, if you don't rank even on page-10, then functionally, you don't rank for that keyword.

How can Experdent help? While you can most definitely do all of the work that we have enumerated here, you could choose to get expert help to create powerful SEO for your website. At Experdent, our focus is SEO for dentists, and that is just what we do. So, get in touch, send us an email, or call us to set up a time to chat very quickly. At Experdent Web Services, we put these very ideas into practice. We are results-driven, dentist-focused, and experts in SEO for dental offices in North America. So, if you are a dental office looking for SEO or need advice on your digital strategy, call us for a free 30-minute consult.

[inscapeblog]

Is there significance in Subcultures in Design? - Sahriel Nicole Sicat

1. Introduction 

I have chosen Subculture in Design; this essay will contain arguments on why sub-culture in design is important and the influences that sub-culture has on design. The way I will achieve this is to define subculture and provide examples from research resources. This essay will also contain information on how subculture has influenced design over the years and how it affects design solutions today. Examples will also be provided to explain further and give proof of sub-culture within the design field, with brief descriptions on how it has changed the design and how it has either improved or not improved from the before and after processes. This essay will be concluded by summarising the information and what sub-culture is defined as in my own words

2. Defining Subculture in Design Subculture is defined as number of cultures that has derived from one main culture. 

There individuals share characteristics and interests within these subcultures that have been influenced from its origin. According to YourDictionary.com, subculture is described to be a group of people that have created a culture that contains different beliefs and values from the consensus; something that does not typically align with its wider culture. (Yourdictionary.com, n.a). Bashin (2020) defines subculture as groups that hold values and norms that deal with politics, cultural and sexual matters; he goes on to say that subcultures are an integral part of society as they give balance to certain issues or situations. Bashin (2020) states that characteristics of subcultures cannot ideally be defined or made into list form because the definition of subcultures itself are changing all the time. Although it is known that subcultures are not particularly easy-going when it comes to who represents them and who are suitable for these groups; their overall identity and who embodies it is important. Grimell College’s (n.a) piece on Subcultures and Sociology: Characteristic of Subcultures, covers the general overview of the characteristics of subculture, other points that would define subculture characteristics would be: - Share different meanings. This means that although the identities or values of a subculture are different from another subculture, their practices could be similar or done for similar meanings. - Shared identity. This pertains to the feelings of members within these cultures; Grimmel College (n.a) mentions that people would feel some disconnect but having or being part of a particular subculture, even without physical interaction, made them feel more at ease and like they had more to their individual identities. - Resistance. This mentions three dimensions in which subcultures can take place or engage in. The first dimension can be active or passive, in the sense that it will take the intentions of the subcultures into account. The second dimension or micro level depends on the direction that the subculture is taking their perspectives. The third dimension or macro level happens when issues are being directed to those within political positions or dealing with political issues that are aimed towards the subcultures. - Marginalization. Marginalization happens to subcultures because of their unique traits and personalities that do not exactly fit in with those in the dominant or origin cultures. All these points briefly explain the characteristics of subcultures; it gives a vague overview of how these groups get categorized into subcultures.

3. The significance of Subculture in Design in identifying and solving a design problem 

Subcultures in design shows major significance because the community of designers can be said to be or contain its own subcultures, for example you get graphic designers, fashion designers, architects and so much more. If you had to think of it in this way, subcultures can create communities for individuals to feel more comfortable in their interests, as they are able to share it with others who share those interests or values. “We can therefore conclude that graphic design is a communication form that utilizes the visual aspect of communication to transmit certain ideals or to stimulate particular feelings and emotions from its audience.” (UK Essays, 2018) Good Therapy (n.a) speaks about how subcultures can affect mental health; although this is a broader topic, it can still apply to the field of design. I say this because designers are put under a lot of pressure, this can be due to deadlines, time constraints, any mishaps that may occur during the planning and the execution processes. All these factors can aid to stress and can cause further issues that deal with mental health or health in general. Good Therapy (n.a) continues to say that within subcultures, communities are formed and people use this as an outlet or a place to feel more comfortable with themselves. This gives them reassurance in their interests, making it known that they are not alone and there is a place for them within society. If you had to put subculture in design within the context of how it has affected design over the years, then I would say that its significance still applies. I say this because design is influenced by traditional and culture, the styles and colours take a lot of inspiration from what is occurring around us. If dominant culture can influence our way of design and visual imprints on the world then so can subcultures; design can evolve and cater to any demographic it chooses, if done correctly and with the right message and/or intentions. Batagoda (2019) writes about the importance of looking at cultures and subcultures when designing. Some of these points are: - Understand which countries you are doing work for and where the clients live in. - How do graphic design trends change in the countries that your focus groups are? - How the visual language change from country to country? - What is the cultural impact of the country on its design? - What are the most common colours used in the designs? - Understand common font faces, native fonts and how the visual hierarchy is present in the design. These questions are good to ask when you are designing for a client; taking into consideration things such as, the demographic within the area you are planning to design for, their age, ethnicities, needs within that area or community and more. Thinking about the overall personality of a country and how they represent themselves within design projects is important because this is a form of communication to the public, it needs to have a clear message but still appeal to the interests and values of subcultures.

4. Examples of successful application of Subculture in Design in spatial design 

How the Great Recession influenced a decade of design 

Figure 1: Sarah Lawrence for Vox (2018). Photograph. Vox. This image contains two sets, one of minimalistic style and white being the staple colour, the other half shows a more renaissance scene with duller colours, heavier furniture and very elegant design finishes. 

Brooke (2018) wrote an article for Vox on the influences the Great Recession has had on design over the years. She specifically points out minimalistic design and states that the concept of minimalism is to purchase less but better things. I believe that this can be seen in the image comparing two different styles but they still share characteristics in the fact that furniture pieces, lighting, colour and finishes play a significant role in achieving a simple yet put together spatial design. The term to buy less but better things came from a brand called Cuyana, they wanted to encourage their customers with this phrase and with the recession in mind this was an action that become an impulse during the aftermath of the recession. (Brooke, 2018) Within this image you can see the similarities that have been applied when you think of the “buy less but better” phrase. Each space has their own colour palette but they both stay true to its main choice of colour, this makes the space look cleaner and open. The styles of design are true to the era they fall part of but you can easily distinguish that fact the modern-day minimalism holds a crisper style; the edges are clean and everything looks very bright; modern minimalistic design relies a lot on natural light and also using pieces within the space that won’t distract from the overall harmony of the area. If we look at what it is being compared to, the older design style has more rounded furniture pieces and finishes; they also contain a lot more detail but is focused on statement pieces of the room, such as the fireplace, it has intricate designs carved onto it which makes it stand out but it does not take away from the overall aesthetic. Design experts weigh in on the changing face of retail design 

Figure 2: Shweta Parida (2018). Design experts weigh in on the changing face of retail design. Image. Commercialinteriordesign. This image is of as store, it contains a flight of stairs which leads to a section of display areas for products. 

When we take into consideration of the changes within the economic and how it functions now and how it did in the past, the wants of customers have changed drastically and is still changing. To change the space of retail stores to accommodate customer needs and wants again, Parida (2018) writes about Architectual guidelines and the inclusion of technology when it comes to shopping. Parida (2018) continues to say that buildings would have to change their structure to allow more space or passageway for customers to feel more comfortable when trying to adhere to guidelines of current situations. If we look at modern adaptions and compare it to methods from the past, technology is a large step into change and how shopping can be achieved, whether it be from physically going to the mall or doing it online. Technological advances for retail spaces can also be applied to actual stores within shopping malls. Design aspects on buildings would look at aspects like spacing, lighting, audio and other visual elements that would be the most effective on creating impact on customers. (Parida, 2018).

5. Conclusion 

Based on the evidence provided in the previous section of this essay, I would say that the significance of subculture in design is important and still applies to how and what we design today. I say this because, it is evidence that characteristics or styles of design that we call modern, can easily be spotted in designs from the past. We are able to identify that they have been influenced by art movements, clothing trends, economic changes, the people within certain communities and so much more. Taking this information into account, the evolution of design can be considered a subculture itself.

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Types Of Mediation Services.

Hexagon Mediation.

Content

Why Pick Family Members Mediation?

Workplace Mediation Communication Disagreement Study.

Instead, most of organisations make use of a grievance as well as corrective process that states that person is right and one person is incorrect and we presume that if we are not cautious we might be "captured out". We can supply onsite support from an experienced conciliator to help in chairing mediation meetings with employees, and other aspects of workplace mediation. Arcadia Team which has greater than 2500 electrical outlets as well as has a number of worlds-known high road brands including Topshop and also Topman.

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Workplace mediation services, via Croner Face2Face take care of difficult conflicts within your service. This can consist of cases of bullying, harassment, victimisation and even more.

Why Pick Family Mediation?

Mediation can be used to resolve discontent in between worker as well as staff member, employee as well as manager, manager and staff member and manager as well as manager. In the not likely occasion that mediation is not effective, the choice of raising a grievance stays readily available to those entailed. Mediation works in the majority of situations and can aid to strengthen the workplace bonds of those involved, in addition to preventing additional conflict in the future. Below at MBHR Consulting, we offer workplace mediation in Newcastle-upon-Tyne as well as throughout the bordering areas. The course takes a comprehensive check out the idea of mediation, its history, and its most likely future as a different conflict resolution device within the workplace. Delegates will find out both the concept and technique of workplace mediation. The conciliator will certainly not disclose anything claimed throughout the mediation process without the approval of the events involved, unless refraining from doing so would certainly involve the moderator in damaging the legislation.

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There will certainly be some cases where the celebrations decline to co-operate and insist on lawsuits. David Liddle in his book recounts an issue where he moderated in between 2 families, one of whose children had actually been eliminated, after which the perpetrator in the various other family members dedicated suicide.

Workplace Mediation Interaction Disagreement Case Study.

Provision of very seasoned independent mediators for specific or group mediation along with problem training. We likewise advise organisations wishing to set up or administer internal mediation systems as well as supplying guidance and also professional support for practising arbitrators. Please keep in mind that we are now supplying on-line mediation solutions, for further details please see our extra guide and recent blog site.

What can you not say in child custody mediation?

What Not To Say In Child Custody MediationDon't Use the Mediation Session for Accusations. Don't Say “Yes” to Everything. Don't Say You Don't Need Your Lawyer Present.

Arrangement could not be reached to participate in mediation in this scenario and as a result mentoring was an alternative assistance offered to among the celebrations. The partnership in between a majority investor as well as a shareholder/director was causing dispute. The partnership would certainly be okay at times but arguments would certainly flare every so often and also this was beginning to effect on the business.

Who Are The Arbitrators?

It can enable people both to bring back and also to develop healthy functioning connections. It is future concentrated, being interested in exactly how things will certainly be from now on rather than with finding blame for exactly how points have been in the past.

Workplace mediation is a casual however structured process where the arbitrator helps people with an argument or disagreement to create a means forward. Mediation presents an effective new dynamic to any kind of negotiation or dispute discussion.

Arcadia team calculated that specifically grievances between managers as well as their staff member were taking at least 3 weeks to settle. By using workplace mediation given that 2009 Arcadia Group has substantially these types of grievances by 50%. Workplace mediation is a direct as well as quick way to fix the situation to ensure that lawful prices, down-time as well as staff member absence are avoided. It is a hugely efficient option to prolonged, costly and also adversarial approaches to dispute resolution, such as litigation or tribunals.

Conflict management mentoring is a procedure in which a specifically trained train aids people on an one-on-one basis to boost the way they handle as well as interact in their interpersonal workplace problems and conflicts. It is a future- oriented procedure that concentrates on each person's details dispute monitoring objectives. Resolution at the workplace has actually been at the leading edge of workplace mediation and also conflict resolution since it was developed in 2000. PMS urges services to engage with it early in order to deal with disagreements, recover working relationships and also enable the group to get back on course with very little disruption.

At Banner Jones, we are greater than satisfied to be able to refer our clients to particularly trained conciliators that are specialists at fixing disagreements that arise in the workplace. A lot of staff members will just ever before moderate as soon as, if whatsoever, during the program of their occupation. Similarly, several organisations typically do not use mediation as an issue of program so there is not a culture of early resolution embedded right into the organisation.

As opposed to providing straight recommendations, arbitrators supply lawful and also monetary info to assist customers arrive at their own choices.

The Rutland and also Stamford Family Mediation Solution is available Monday to Friday, 9am-- 5pm, as well as is a completely voluntary procedure.

You will certainly need a solicitor to offer you your own independent lawful advice.

In workplace mediations workplace mediation northampton free trial where there are a variety of family members possessions, it significantly accelerates the mediation process if you can obtain assessments of assets in time for the initial conference.

Even though nearly workplacemediations’s free online workplace mediation portsmouth are lawyers, they can not suggest each of you individually, yet can just give lawful info to both of you with each other.

Transfer values of pensions are often difficult to get as well as can hold up the mediation process.

PMS supplies a complete end-to-end Workplace Mediation Solution that meets the damaged team, analyzes the prospective conflict-resolution approaches and then overviews the celebrations via a restorative dialogue. Using a corrective strategy to arguments is extremely advantageous in a commercial environment where dissonance and stress can significantly hinder a business's chance to operate successfully and also go after tactical objectives. Where a company seeks to address dispute by allocating blame, this will seldom recreate the joint working atmosphere that came before the disagreement. In comparison, a corrective strategy that advertises reliable dialogue as well as a greater understanding of the staff member' perspectives can actually enhance employees capability to interact and also provide objectives.

It is optional- any kind of party can withdraw from the procedure at any moment. Workplace mediation often tends to involve conflict in between 2 or more staff members, rather than being between the worker as well as the employer. The mediation is mainly about past as well as future partnerships, and also it is usually imagined that the employment relationship will certainly proceed when the dispute is fixed.

When should you avoid mediation?

If you or your spouse harbor extreme feelings of anger, mediation probably won't work. If one of you does not want the divorce, mediation doesn't stand a chance. If you're trying mediation but you feel the mediator is siding with your spouse, you should stop the process.

The mediation ended with the papa of the dead girl sharing compassion for the other family. Handling conflict at the workplace at a beginning saves money as well as jobs.In 2015, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Growth reported that 4 out of every ten workers had experienced interpersonal dispute within the last 12 months. This should be a consider the reduced efficiency that torments the UK economy as well as it also contributes to high degrees of staff turn over. Over 10 years back, research study by the Centre for Effective Disagreement Resolution exposed that the price to the economic climate of unsettled problem was ₤ 33bn a year, due partially to a hostility to taking on dispute. The CEDR memorably reported that over a 3rd of managers would rather parachute dive for the first time than address a problem with their team at the workplace, and simply under a third prefer to cut their go to charity. This is frequently validated in work litigation when managers fail to attend to weaknesses when conducting evaluations and those weak points then cause a complete failure in relationships. While conventional disciplinary and also grievance procedures have their place, they have typically been shown to be both poor and even downright harmful given their propensity to motivate adversarial and defensive behavior.