#Controversial Reddit communities

[richdadpoor]

Reddit Is Handing Out Awards to Its Frustrated Moderators

Image: chrisdorney (Shutterstock) A tidal wave of strife plagued Reddit following the popular social media platform’s decision to charge exorbitant fees for access to its API. Now, the company wants to reward the free labor of the moderators it once antagonized. Reddit Knowingly Downvoting Self | Future Tech Reddit is now launching the Mod Helper Program as a way to reward moderators who offer…

[bloomfish]

Livejournal was cool. It was pretty easy to find and interact with people.

However, there was a great purge a while back. It was a bit like the tumble porn purge - accounts with art were banned for “porn” even if it was basic figure drawing or pictures of gays kissing, meanwhile actual hardcore straight porn was still getting through

So most the people I know just left.

That's the thing, I know it was but for some reason not for me rip 😭 I poked around but was unable to find like... anything substantial on there, let alone the communities that I knew existed lol. I was probably going about it wrong but it just seemed like an empty wasteland to me. Like I set up my little blog, then what was I supposed to do?

Yeah afaik lj and ff.net had kind of a more... moralistic stance on fan content than we're used to now. I remember the ff.net mods would crack down pretty hard on random stuff back in the day and get very personally involved. Also the 'slash' shipping wars were HUGE apparently though I was not involved. This was before sjw tumblr changed the world, and it was more acceptable to just be outright homophobic on the internet lol

Honestly before tumblr I spent most of my time on random forums, at the time the invisionfree-type boards were popular. I remember being on a spuffy one (I want to say it was called Elysian Fields) and various Harry Potter ones. I even made invisionfree boards idk what they were about anymore though. I think I had some that were just me and 3 friends lol it was totally free and pretty easy to get the hang of basic html for them. god this is so long ago I must have been like 13-14

[star--bird]

Which social media platform I think each Batfam member uses the most:

Alfred: Facebook (may be controversial but he probably keeps up with people on their, maybe former classmates or relatives)

Bruce: Instagram (again, controversial, he should be a Facebook user, but he is also a billionaire playboy philanthropist, and billionaire playboy philanthropists don't use Facebook)

Dick: Instagram (like the millennial he is, his page resembles the song "White Woman's Instagram" )

Jason: Tumblr (was familiar with it before he died, but has one of those blogs that has never liked, followed, or posted anything with a default avatar and theme)

Tim: Reddit (is the top contributor on several true crime subreddits)

Steph: Instagram (mainly posts memes and purposely poorly taken photos of events she attends and places she has visited)

Cass: TikTok (uses it to learn ballet. Idk if TikTok has a ballet teaching community but I assume they do. If they don't, Cass has found videos from a single person who posts lessons and follows them exclusively)

Duke: Tumblr (has one blog he uses for everything that changes content based on his current interest)

Damian: Twitter (like the 14 year old boy he is)

[queerautism]

It feels kinda wild I've seen no one mention the huge controversy NaNoWriMo was in about 7 months ago (Link to a reddit write up, there's also a this google doc on it) in this whole recent AI discourse. The main concerns people had were related to the 'young writers' forum, a moderator being an alledged predator, and general moderation practices being horrible and not taking things like potential grooming seriously.

About 5 months ago, after all of that went down, MLs or 'Municipal Liaisons', their local volunteers organisers for different regions of the world, were offered a horrible new agreement that basically tried to shut them up about the issues they'd been speaking up about. Some of these issues included racism and ableism that the organisation offered zero support with.

When there was pushback and MLs kept sharing what was going on, NaNoWriMo removed ALL OF THEM as MLs and sent in a new, even more strict agreement that they would have to sign to be allowed back in their volunteer position.

This agreement included ways of trying to restrict their speech even further, from not being able to share 'official communications' to basically not being allowed to be in discord servers to talk to other MLs in places not controlled by NaNoWriMo. You also had to give lots of personal information and submit to a criminal background check, despite still explicitly leaving their local regions without support and making it very clear everyone was attending the OFFICIAL in person events 'at their own risk'.

Many MLs refused to sign and return. Many others didn't even know this was happening, because they did not get any of the emails sent for some reason. NaNoWriMo basically ignored all their concerns and pushed forward with this.

Many local regions don't exist anymore. I don't know who they have organising the rest of them, but it's likely spineless people that just fell in line, people who just care about the power, or new people who don't understand what's going on with this organisation yet. Either way, this year is absolutely going to be a mess.

Many of the great former MLs just went on to organise their writing communities outside of the official organisation. NaNoWriMo does not own the concept of writing a novel in a month.

R/nanowrimo is an independent subreddit that has been very critical of the organisation since this all happened, and people openly recommend alternatives for word tracking, community, etc there, so I highly recommend checking it out.

I've seen Trackbear recommended a lot for an alternative to the word tracking / challenge, and will probably be using it myself this November.

Anyway, just wanted to share because a lot of people haven't heard about this, and I think it makes it extremely clear that the arguments about "classism and ableism" @nanowrimo is using right now in defense of AI are not vaguely misguided, but just clear bullshit. They've never given a single shit about any of that stuff.

[dafunzies]

— what season of Gossip Girl is it, or how many events happened in two weeks after Brazil

(72, so far, which is roughly 5 per day)

I’m pretty sure I forgot something, but I tried my best to gather everything, so:

‘Supersonique’ documentary release aka fighter pilot Charles

Various media outlets declaring Max as “one of the greatest” after calling him a disaster on track

Jeremy Clarkson side quests: delivering the beer to the Alpine garage

Lewis, Alonso & Hulkenberg’s celebratory comments under Max’s post about his win

GPDA insta account investigation

Aramco power rankings

Lando drama: huge backlash on socials after the post-race interview, messy insta & anti-hate wave by the LN fanbase

Zhou & Valtteri's messages regarding their departures

Gabriel Bortoleto signed for Sauber 2025

USA Election results: Danica Patrick & Mohammed Ben Sulayem celebratory posts

Andrea Stella claiming McLaren never aimed for the WDC

Lestappen equal points (62) during the Americas triple-header

Valtteri as a reserved driver for Mercedes rumors

Lando eating expired food on Max Fewtrell’s stream

GPDA statement regarding “driver misconduct”

Petition to remove Danica Patrick from Sky Sports

Franco dating rumors: his insta likes

Jeremy Clarkson side quests 2.0: praising Max

No upgrades for Ferrari till the end of the season

Zak Brown bday

Charles with his new customized SF90 XX Stradale

Redline 23h mental health charity stream: meme livery, penalties, the inchident

“Is lestappen real?” or how the whole twt & tumblr f1 community was mortified by breaking the 4th wall

Charles in a black turtleneck

Alex buying a Porche 911 GT3 RS

Tate McRae & Lando rumors

Abu Dhabi Ferrari FP1 debate: Antonio Fuoco v Arthur Leclerc

Reddit users recognizing lestappen

Logan Sargeant IndyCar tests

Toto's reveal: Carlos’ father's phone call about Lewis to Ferrari

$30 million in Checo’s sponsorships

Kitkat x F1 partnership

Lestappen on main: RBR, Scuderia, F1, ESPN & others (+ Carlos likes one of the posts)

Alpine announcement about Mercedes PUs & gearboxes starting 2026

Max as a single constructor in the WCC standings throughout the years

Ferrari x IBM partnership

Dan Fallows to leave his post as technical director of Aston Martin

The FIA race director's departure

F1 75 Live at the O2 in London: tickets, liveries, artists, jokes

Lando bday

A rough estimation of $80 million cost for Red Bull to out Checo & sign Franco

CEO of Liberty Media stepping down

RBR socials admin choosing lestappen and violence daily

Franco dating rumors 2.0: Norwegian princess

2025 Ferrari F1 presentation in Maranello

Max’s #1 place in the most penalized drivers since 2014 (39 points)

Monaco GP extended to 2031

Ferarri denies Lewis to stay at Enzo Ferrari’s house speculation

Gilles Villeneuve statue abduction

Quilmes (beer giant) official confirmation on Franco’s sponsorship

Liam against the British anthem for McLaren

Max playing chess with an old lady

Williams financial trouble on performing one or two cars in Las Vegas: rumors proven false

Max & Daniel lost a padel match to a 13-year-old

Mercedes book release

Charles & Carlos attending the London premiere of Gladiator II

Max meowing on his stream

Jeremy Clarkson side quests 3.0: Oscar driving a tractor (literally)

The FIA’s compliance officer being fired

Carlos to drive in the end-of-season test for Williams

Franco’s interview and his determination to beat everyone on track

F1TV vids about the drivers: quick-fire questions & my highs my lows pt 2

False rumors about Domenicali's departure

Damon Hill leaving Sky Sports

The 2023 Las Vegas GP full replay on YouTube

Ferrari x Chivas partnership

Crane child abuse jokes controversy

Zhou is expected to be signed as a reserved driver for Ferrari

Franco dating rumors 3.0: this time, she is 33

Carlos about his frustration on rejection from both Redbull & Mercedes

Mick’s emotional insta message in regards to Valtteri potentially becoming a reserved driver for Mercedes

Vegas promo antics: race to the altar

[hypodermicfroggy]

= PROJECT MOON LORE GUIDE =

(I've posted a guide like this on Steam, but I figure it couldn't hurt to put an updated version on Tumblr, too. Also, a warning: This post is going to be very, *very* long.)

Hello, current Project Moon fandom and future/want-to-be fans!

Do you enjoy Limbus Company but don't know how to get into the other games and media to appreciate the greater lore of the series? Do you not actually have the money, time, or patience to endure a brutally punishing (and sometimes even janky) roguelike management sim, deckbuilder, or gacha game because we live in a capitalistic hellworld like the one this very series criticizes? Struggle with getting access to supplementary materials due to controversies and language barriers?

(Pictured: PM Twitter and the Limbus Steam Forums, on any given day. Seriously, what is wrong with some of you people.)

And especially important: hate how Reddit and Steam are full of dudebro coomers who are openly hostile to F2P, non-day one players who might grapple with all the previous issues on top of being more invested in story than waifus?

Then read on under the cut!

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

This guide contains a comprehensive list of resources for you to be able to enjoy the Project Moon series to its fullest, including links to wikis, playlists, and more. Even if you can't play the games, I personally think those who can actually appreciate the series shouldn't be gatekept from the truly fantastic story and world that the games hold. Except Canto 6, we don't talk about Canto 6.

AND AN IMPORTANT REMINDER: THERE WILL BE SOME SPOILERS FOR CERTAIN PARTS OF THE SERIES, AND PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONTENT WARNINGS BEFORE YOU GET INTO ANYTHING HERE! This is a very dark series that tackles and shows very heavy topics and content!

For those who can't read the text on the image, some of the common trigger warnings for this series includes:

Animal Cruelty

Drug Use

References to Alcohol and Tobacco

Injury and Dismemberment

Homicide and Suicide

Violence and Torture

Cannibalism

Kidnapping, Abduction, and Captivity

Psychosis

Diseases, Seizure, and Dyspnoea (aka shortness of breath)

Familial Homicide and Domestic Violence

Reference to Clowns (Coulrophobia)

Themes of Occultism and Spiritualism

Audiovisual Depictions of Gore

Uses of Sharp and Pointed Objects

Hospital and Medical References

References to Gaslighting and Bullying

Body Modification and/or Deformation

Flashing Lights (Photosensitivity)

Disorientation Induced by a Shaking Camera

Strong Language and Demeaning Words

Reference to Traffic Accidents

Uses of Guns and Instruments of Violence

Discriminatory Violence

Religious Torture and Violence

Enforced Ideology and/or Actions

War and Mass Conflict

Anyway, if all that didn't scare you off, on to the guide!

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=WIKIS:

When in doubt, there's always the wikis for being references and useful sources, from gameplay to story elements!

>>Cogitopedia - A WIP wiki run by members of the community, working on adding in-depth content for all of the games and supplementary materials.

>>LobCorp Wiki - Has data on every abnormality, including inaccessible ones and cut ones (such as Price of Silence).

>>Library of Ruina Wiki - Has the lore from key pages, and also has cut content like the CGs from the original planned ending.

>>Limbus Wiki.gg - Has ID Uptie stories and info about Mirror Dungeon encounters. (DO NOT USE THE LIMBUS FANDOM WIKI, IT HAS BEEN ABANDONED/VANDALIZED.)

>>Library of Project Moon - A WIP fan blog whose purpose is to consolidate translations of the literary source novels and related works for Limbus Company and the PM games as a whole.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=LOBOTOMY CORPORATION:

Summary: Lobotomy Corporation is the first game in the series. It is a roguelike management sim where you play as "Manager X", tasked with handling employees and various monsters known as Abnormalities in order to generate daily quotas of a power source substance known as Enkephalin and a mysterious "Seed of Light" project. You are aided by an alleged team of AIs known as the Sephirot, and your very own personal assistant AI, Angela. It's often been likened to "anime SCP Foundation."

This is the game where everything begins, and without it, we wouldn't have the plot of Limbus (or anything else for that matter). This is where the Golden Boughs come from, this is where Abnormalities come from, this is even where Distortions come from - but we're getting ahead of ourselves on that front.

>>This playlist will allow you to watch all the cutscenes from the game, in order, for the canon ending.

>>This video also has the cutscenes, albeit not in order, HOWEVER, it does have the alternate, non-canon endings A and B (which are timestamped in the link for convenience).

>>WordsmithVids (also on YouTube) also has what is generally considered to be the most popular summary of the game.

(NOTE: Some people disagree with WordsmithVids and his interpretations of some of the characters as well as his content being "meme-y," so I advise you to watch at your own discretion and draw your own conclusions. That being said, if people have better recommendations, please send them to me instead of just complaining and bitching without offering solutions like that one guy on Steam did, thank you.)

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=WONDERLAB:

Summary: Wonderlab was a webcomic by the artist MIMI/Whitezombies, originally posted on the Project Moon Postype account. It follows the adventures of several employees - often called "nuggets" in fan parlance - Catt, Taii, and Rose, in a Lobotomy Corporation branch facility as they go about their day to day activities.

This webcomic was taken down after the Summer 2023 Incel Controversy, when incels stormed the Project Moon office in Korea and made enough credible threats that the former Limbus CG artist known as Vellmori was fired, and it is currently part of a second conflict over copyright. However, primarily for archival and personal reference purposes, the comic has been saved and rehosted in several forms.

>>Internet Archive version. This has just the comic in an on-site readable format.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This features the individual pages, a downloadable .zip of the archive, and a readable Google Docs version.

For those who may have ethical concerns about downloading a webcomic that was pulled due to controversy (understandable), once again, >>WordsmithVids has a summary.

(NOTE: This is NOT the place to discuss either the Summer 2023 incel controversy *or* the current (Summer 2024) copyright conflict. There are far better places to do that with people who are far better informed on the topic than I am. This post is solely for providing references and archives of lore material to help guide people into this series. DO NOT attempt to bring up the controversies here, I will not be acknowledging them outside of mentioning why certain supplementary materials may have been pulled and have had to be mirrored. I am just an archivist, not a lawyer or discourser.)

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=LIBRARY OF RUINA:

Summary: Library of Ruina takes place some months after the events of Lobotomy Corporation. A "Grade 9 Fixer" known as Roland finds his way into the mysterious, tower-like Library that has sprung up in place of the former main facility of L Corp, where he encounters Angela and the other Sephirot (all now Librarians). He begins assisting her in finding "the perfect book", which involves enticing people to come to the library through the sending out of curious invitations.

Now, unfortunately, there is not a playlist that splits up the cutscenes or puts them in order for Ruina.

>>These two videos have them all in compilation.

HOWEVER. A wonderful and dear friend of mine (@citroncynique <3) has allowed the guide they sent me to be reproduced/copied.

>>As such, there is a guide on how to watch the cutscenes in the order that makes the most sense, utilizing the timestamps of the previous two videos. It is not a perfect system, but it works at least.

>>WordsmithVids also has at least two summary vids out.

However, due to financial issues at last update, he has not been able to continue his summary of Ruina. I am including them regardless. >>As well as his Patreon in case people want to support him in hopes of making it easier for him to work on the vids again.

>>There is also an almost FOUR HOUR LONG video essay that delves into Angela's character specifically after the events of LobCorp and Ruina. It is not required viewing like the rest of the materials here, however, I think it still deserves a mention just for the amount of effort and care that went into it.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=DISTORTION DETECTIVE:

Summary: Taking place at roughly the same time as Library of Ruina, two Fixers known as Ezra and Moses and an N Corp. Taboo Hunter known as Vespa investigate the Distortion Phenomenon that is rapidly starting to spread across the City after the events of the previous games.

Originally released as a webnovel on Project Moon's Postype, Distortion Detective has 42 chapters and is technically incomplete/on hiatus. Project Moon, surprised at how popular the webnovel was, decided they wanted to potentially make an entire game based on the story. As of this writing, that has not happened (yet) but at least one character from the novel has appeared in Limbus Company, so there is still hope yet.

>>The DD series in its original form on Postype. This version was posted chapter-by-chapter, on Project Moon's Postype account and is (as of this writing, at least) still readable there.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This has the entire webnovel in a single document format (both Docs and downloadable PDF) featuring NishikujiC's official chapter illustrations up to Ch. 26, and includes the now-cut comic adaption of Ch. 19 by the artist Monggeu/koug99.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=LEVIATHAN:

(Lord, this one. Like it wasn't a big enough pain in the ass already.)

Summary: After the events of Library of Ruina, and operating as a direct prequel to Limbus Company, Leviathan follows the Color Fixer Vergilius (aka the Red Gaze) as he grapples with his own personal traumas and comes into conflict with the Ring Syndicate, before being recruited as a guide for the LCB.

Leviathan originally started as a webcomic by Monggeu/koug99. Health issues with the artist resulted in the comic being discontinued and turned into a webnovel, whose translation was never completed and had to later be finished by fans. The comic portion has since been taken down as of the Summer 2024 copyright conflict and controversy, much like Wonderlab was. Once again, however, this has been mirrored for archival and reference purposes.

>>Original source of Leviathan on Postype. Due to the copyright conflict and the translation hiatus, the only chapters available are Ch. 12-15. The link is still included for posterity reasons and just in case the copyright conflict results in the chapters being restored.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This link includes the comic chapters, as well as the SnakeskinFS English fan translations for the last five chapters that were never completed, all in PDF form.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=LIMBUS COMPANY:

Summary: After all the events of the previous games, a mysterious up and coming business known as Limbus Company has taken it upon themselves to send a group composed of 12 "Sinners" and their mysterious clock-headed Manager Dante to delve into the now-abandoned L Corp facilities in search of mysterious artifacts known as Golden Boughs.

Finally we come to the end of the shrubbery maze. Limbus Company is the latest chapter in the currently unfolding story of Project Moon and the City, a gacha game being used to fund other projects under the company umbrella.

Many people, once again, have ethical concerns about patronizing a gacha game. I for one agree with them, even as one of those patrons.

>>This playlist features all of the cutscenes for each part of the game story released so far (up to Intervallo 6.5-2/Murder on the WARP Express as of this writing).

>>There is also this site, which operates as a pure datamined text archive of all the story content.

>>And this site, which has all the in-game Observation logs as told by the Sinners, about the Abnormalities and enemies encountered in-game.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=BONUS/SUPPLEMENTARY:

This section, liable to be updated at any given time, is for links to materials or fan-creations that don't necessarily fit with the strictly canonical story materials found in the games and webnovels themselves but which otherwise provide useful resources or analysis. Note that the vast majority of material here is supplementary and not required, but recommended.

(Except the literary sources. You will read those, and that is a threat. I can't take another Wings-forsaken illiterate opinion on Canto 6, I'm going to start Distorting and biting people if YOU PEOPLE DON'T READ THE DAMN SOURCE NOVELS.)

YouTubers and Video Essayists:

Frey Chaqma - Frey has done lots of work for the PM community, such as spearheading the Absolute Pride Resonance charity event for Pride Month 2024 as well as discussing the lore of the games and the City as a whole.

Tsunul - Another YouTuber who discusses lore but who also often delves into more interpersonal matters relating to the fandom and controversies that can affect the game community as a whole.

Esgoo - Although Esgoo does not necessarily get into lore so much, they are often tauted as one of the biggest names in the fandom for, if nothing else, their meta-analysis and basic gameplay/strategy material, as well as their community involvement.

hydrojoy's essay on Benjamin - in addition to Angela, hydrojoy also did an in-depth analysis on Benjamin, aka B, aka Hokma, from Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina and their impact on the story.

MetiNotTheBadGuy's PM Character Essays - Meti has done several excellent character breakdown videos on some of PM's most notable villains/characters, including Roland, Kromer, and Dongrang.

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

=ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Citroncynique. For being a truly amazing artist, putting in the effort of making a watch guide for Ruina's cutscenes, and getting me into this series and ruining my life forever by jingling a bugman with PTSD in front of me (<3).

MIMI/Whitezombies, Monggeu/koug99, NishikujiC, and Vellmori. Although several of these artists have left PM and the community on bad terms, I still think their efforts should be appreciated and supported, now more than ever.

SnakeskinFS. For finishing Leviathan's English translation.

Folex, Bek, WordsmithVids, hydrojoy, and the Lobotomy Corporation Archive. For posting their cutscene and summary/analysis videos.

NeedsMoreDoge. The Steam user who provided the original guide and backup on how to read Leviathan that I myself utilized.

The less than pleasant members of the community who spurred me into making this guide in the first place, out of pure spite.

And of course, readers like you and those members of the community who make me so happy to be here and be a part of this fandom. Genuinely, thank you all, I have never felt as welcomed as I do in the Project Moon circles I run in.

In addition to the references included here, I recommend you get involved in your PM community as well! Join communities and Discords, support content creators on social sites, help contribute where it's needed and in whatever way you can! The best way to counteract the worst elements of any fandom is to be a guiding and helpful element in your own right.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope this guide helps you out!

[sophieinwonderland]

A Roadmap and Why Anti-Endos Are Getting Left Behind

A recent post of mine was controversial and has been making waves. That post was the short un-nuanced version of a pro-endo future that's coming. It was phrased to sound threatening and inflammatory because it feels like that's all anti-endos will listen to anymore. But now that I've successfully gotten your attention, let's talk seriously about what's been set into motion, why it's bad for anti-endos, and why there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

Positions on endogenic plurality in psychiatry

The nature of DID has been the subject of much debate within the psychiatric community for a long time. Most experts have agreed that the cause of DID is virtually always trauma. (Although many doctors are hesitant to assert this cause 100% of the time because edge cases can exist with anything.) But there's a smaller group that views it as sociogenic or iatrogenic, being caused by suggestion or doctors themselves.

I tend to agree with the majority.

But that majority group that believes DID itself is caused by trauma has also consistently acknowledged that there are, or at least could be, other forms of plurality beyond DID. This includes Dr. Colin Ross, who in the 90s speculated that there could be a non-pathological endogenous form of multiplicity. This was also echoed by Kluft, another DID expert who holds the traumagenic view of DID.

In the early 2010s, the creators of the theory of structural dissociation mentioned in a paper that mediumship and hypnosis may involve self-conscious dissociative parts of the personality.

By 2019, the World Health Organization's ICD-11's DID entry stated that you can experience multiple distinct personality states without a disorder.

Every source you can find about endogenic and non-disordered plurality either affirms it as a real thing or is at least neutral on it.

There is no hard anti-endo papers in psychiatry or psychology.

You can look through peer reviewed sources if you want for a single one that supports the idea that all plurality is traumagenic, and I promise that you won't find one.

A growing trend in research.

Like I said, in the 90s, there were a couple doctors talking about non-pathological multiplicity as something that may or may not exist. But this was largely un-studied. Later, this phenomenon got more attention, but there were no studies into non-pathological multiplicity, outside of spiritual possession, until 2016 with Varieties of Tulpa Experiences.

That was only 8 years ago.

The year after, in 2017, came a small interview study into online multiples that concluded this:

2018 saw the publication of Transgender Mental Health by The American Psychiatric Association, which asserted plurality could be non-traumagenic.

And again, 2019 saw the ICD-11 worded to say that one could experience the presence of multiple distinct personality states without a disorder.

There have been so many studies conducted in the intervening years that this post would go on forever were I to list them all.

If you want to see more, you can look at Guardians Systems' doc. Progress is happening at a rapid pace with new studies published every year.

This leads us to the next big milestone... actual fMRI research and brain scans. Because THAT'S HAPPENING.

Stanford University conducted a massive $50k study (not including the payment to researchers themselves) into tulpa systems, and the people running those studies recently did an AMA about it on Reddit.

The results are promising, showing neurological changes during possession. (Possession is a tulpamancy term for a headmate taking control over a single part of the body without fronting.)

Once this is published, it's only going to further pique interest in tulpamancy and endogenic plurality in psychology.

Are you scared yet? Because Rod Dreher is...

Rod Dreher is a transphobic conservative pundit and reactionary. I'll preface this by saying it's unclear how much of his fear is legitimate and how much is playing to a transphobic base as a way of saying "look what these liberals are doing now." Personally, I think it's probably a bit of both.

I'll be linking the archived version to avoid giving him clicks.

What conservative pundit Rod Dreher believes is that tulpamancy and plurality are going to be the next frontier of identity politics, as he makes the case for here.

He's of course NOT in support of this, but he's afraid of it.

And he's not wrong either.

In another quote from the AMA, Dr. Lifshitz mentions how much interest he gets from colleagues when he discusses tulpamancy.

The awareness of plurality and interest in it in medical spaces is rapidly spreading, and current studies do show tulpamancy improves mental health.

While it would be easy to dismiss Dreher's predictions as typical conservative fearmongering, the current trends clearly support what he's predicting.

He may be on the wrong side of the debate, but he can see the same signs and trends I do.

Plural Acceptance In Therapy

As said above, studies have shown thus far that tulpamancy is healthy, as are other forms of plurality. Plural awareness and interest is spreading quickly through academic circles.

And in one interview, Lifshitz mentions that they're interested in using research into tulpamancy to develop better DID treatment.

This will take a while to apply, and I don't know when they'll start using knowledge from tulpamancy in clinical settings, but there's a good chance that within the next decade, this research into tulpamancy may start to influence the treatment of DID systems.

How this will manifest is still unclear. Perhaps it won't go further than the advanced inner world exercises tulpamancers use to immerse themselves in inner worlds to communicate with tulpas.

But... a number of DID systems with tulpas have reported positive benefits from creating tulpas to help their systems. So maybe we'll see studies into using tulpamancy to intentionally make alters for DID systems and see how that benefits their mental health. If results are positive, this could be used in treatment.

Speaking of which, we're probably also going to see studies into having singlets create tulpas intentionally.

They're already having children make imagined companions, and have recorded these imagined companions are able to act seemingly autonomously, possessing their own thoughts and feelings.

This research cited research into tulpamancy, and suggested future studies should be carried out on adults to see if there are benefits.

I can already see the path from having adult singlets make tulpas to test for benefits of plurality, and then to testing on DID systems to see if this could be used to help strengthen communication in those systems.

And if these studies are done and the methods are proven effective and put into practice, anti-endos won't even know that the methods that are being used to treat them were derived from tulpamancy studies.

But as more anti-endos are being treated by therapists who are working to get them into healthier mindsets, it's likely you'll see a trickle down from the opinions of therapists to their patients, helping dismantle their bigotry towards endogenic systems and internalized pluralphobia.

If you're anti-endo and have seen other anti-endos complaining that their therapists seem pro-endo, know that it only gets worse from here.

Plural Acceptance and Gender

Plurality is also likely to become an increasingly big thing in topics around gender.

Just last year in 2023, we saw a study into the intersection of living as plural and transgender.

This study also marked a major milestone for plurals, being the first time ever that a system name (The Redwoods) was used as an author on an academic paper. Authors in this study worked across multiple universities, a hospital, and a gender wellness center.

This will almost definitely not be the last.

Additionally, we've lately been seeing live gender conferences with plural speakers speaking about plurality and this intersection. No longer is this community based entirely online.

Plural acceptance is going to quickly spread within the LGBT community. And anti-endos will be tolerated in those spaces less and less.

A Stranglehold on Resources

Another reason anti-endos are going to lose is because most resources are already pro-endo. Simply Plural and Pluralkit both support endogenic systems, with Simply Plural having links discussing endogenic plurality, linking young systems to the information.

There have been anti-endo attempts at breaking this stranglehold, but it always comes down to copying a more popular pro-endo thing and making it more hateful and exclusive, and it never gets close to enough traction.

Anti-endos contribute nothing to the community and are reliant on pro-endo resources, and every person they suggest Simply Plural to brings them closer to those pro-endo articles from The Plural Association.

Confidence in Being Out as Plural Means Plural Role Models

I don't know who these role models will be. Aimkid came out as a DID system and is pro-endo. Unfortunately, anti-endos have had success in bullying Aimkid off of social media.

But some studies have shown about 3% of the population is plural, only about half of which have DID, and I believe the real numbers are actually much higher.

As plural acceptance increases, it's only a matter of time before you start seeing some of your favorite celebrities come out as plural.

It's only a matter of time before plurals have their equivalent of "The Puppy Episode" where Ellen came out as lesbian on television.

I can't predict when this will happen. Things like that tend to come out of the blue. But I do believe it will happen and when it does, plurality will suddenly be pushed to the mainstream conversation.

This is Going to Quickly Become a Left-Right Issue

When plurality hits the mainstream, conservatives will fiercely oppose it. Because of the way reactions tend to work, that means liberals are going to fiercely defend it. Each side feeds into the other and results in more support in liberal spaces and more opposition in conservatives ones.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. If you stand by bigotry in these liberal spaces, especially queer spaces, you're going to find your social circle shrinking unless you keep that bigotry to yourself. When this is part of the national conversation, you will find yourself cutoff by people you care about and spaces you previously would be accepted.

Intolerance to plural systems of any kind will no longer be tolerated. There will be no safe space for hate in those communities.

And with the overwhelming science and doctors supporting the existence of non-disordered and endogenic systems, with the support of the psych community, anti-endos will soon find themselves regarded the same way we regard anti-vaxxers and flat-Earthers in liberal spaces.

A Choice to Make

You're not doomed. This isn't hopeless. You can make a change.

System medicalism is The Titanic but you have life rafts you can hop on before it goes down.

Plenty of anti-endos have changed their ways. But if you stay on your current course, this is where it ends. You either maintain your bigotry, as you're cast out of queer communities, watching endogenic plurality infiltrate your favorite media, and with therapists who are pro-endo, all while your own hate and isolation destroy you...

Or you can choose to be better before it's too late. Because the longer you maintain your hate, the more people you hurt along the way, the more guilt you'll carry with you after you break away.

Or... I guess there's a secret third thing. A worse choice. You could join with the Rod Drehers of the world, because the Alt-Right will probably accept you gladly if you're willing to toe the party line, and turn against both fellow systems and the queer community.

I'm sure they would love systems with internalized pluralphobia who speak out against a plural future that they can hold up as examples, the same way they love homophobic gay people like Milo Yiannopoulos.

If that's what you want to be, I suppose that's an option too. 🤷‍♀️

If you do make right choice...

You can find acceptance. Your past mistakes won't be held against you.

Admitting that you're wrong and choosing to be better can be scary. But that's no excuse to continue down a path of hate.

If you do choose to make a change, we can build a plural future together. One where we won't have to hide or fear discrimination for being plural.

One where future plural children won't have to grow up feeling crazy and hating themselves and their headmates for being different, and they'll have real people to look up to who have been where they are.

My Part...

For myself, I'm going to do everything I can to push this future forward, to help bring it about. This future is an inevitability. But the more of us that spread awareness of the science and what's happening, the sooner it gets here.

But with or without my involvement... anti-endos... you're losing. Bit by bit, every single day, and you don't even realize it because you're surrounded by an echo chamber that refuses to see the reality of what's happening.

But We see it. Dr. Lifshitz sees it. Even conservative Rod Dreher sees it.

And you are so far behind in this battle that there's no way you can possibly prevent what is coming. Maybe you could have stopped it had you started paying attention half a decade ago. But you've walled yourselves off from anything that contradicted your worldview and that willful ignorance has left you playing catch-up.

Your echo chamber will tell you that you're safe to keep being who you are, to keep spreading hate and hurting innocent people because of what we are. That the future I promise won't happen. They'll tell you to ignore all the signs.

But the reality is that the world is changing and the future is plural, and you are going to have to make a choice.

I sincerely hope you will choose the right thing. But for those who don't...

Well, like I said, it's up to you. I can't stop you from choosing hate. I'm not going to try to make you into a better person either. That's up to you.

But I think you at least deserve to know what's happening and how it will end up affecting you if you don't make a change.

[quotevarchive]

official quotevarchive quotev death post (three entire days late)

On Friday, May 31st, 2024, Quotev issued an update that removed the activity feed, the chatbox, the ability to post in groups, the recently added “recommended users” feature, the ability to make individual posts private, the “location” feature on profiles, and backgrounds on the homepage, to name a few things.

They also added a reminder in groups and messages that the two features “are being discontinued and will be removed July 1st.”

This update also added a home button and a button that leads directly to a user's library on the menu bar (situated in a somewhat unbalanced position.)

According to reports of several users, the update happened sometime between 1-2 PM, GMT (I am not entirely sure what time is most accurate, and I did not log on until an hour afterwards.)

Thus began the mass panic. Several users blamed themselves for the removal of the feed, including one user (.hideri) who had among other things apparently make a joking bomb threat the day before. Since the administration had not made a statement in the News section (which was temporarily removed when I logged on, at about 3 PM GMT) no one had any idea whose fault it was. With no other apparent options, users began to move to other platforms to discuss the situation, including twitter, tumblr, reddit (r/Quotev), discord, and plurk. Some users sent messages of protest to the administration.

Around 6 PM GMT, the administration posted a statement in the restored News section.

(note that the time on the post is listed in EST on my device)

The last paragraph, detailing how to archive your messages and group topics, was not included in the post until around a day after it was posted.

Users have continued to move to different platforms. Some seem resigned, while others are determined to challenge the administration with a change.org campaign. Several “quotev discord” servers have been created (spawning their own separate dramas.) A controversy on plurk has emerged, discussing whether or not the recently moved quotev users are disrupting the website.

This all leads us to the question: why? The administration's statement is vague and probably not fully true. What is the actual reason? Can they no longer maintain the website? Were they fed up with the constant drama moderation? Quotev has been no stranger to unpopular updates, but none have been as dramatic as this. Website statistics have shown a huge drop in usage. It's not going to get better when everyone finishes moving their stuff and lurking. It remains to be seen if we will ever truly get a good answer. In the meantime, former users mourn, reminisce, bicker, and will ultimately move on. There has been ridicule for the sadness that we are experiencing, over “just a quiz site.” Yeah, maybe it sounds silly to be so sad, but there is really nothing quite like quotev and the community that it contained, for better or for worse.

[keystonepublishing]

The Saga of Hermitcraft on r/Place (1 April 2022 - 4 April 2022)

On the 1st of April 2022, Reddit unveiled a white blank canvas where every user had the ability to place one colored pixel in every 5 minutes. At its height, about 4 million people participated in one of the biggest internet collaborations ever made. The ripple effects reverberated into news reports as far away as Turkey, and the final canvas represents a snapshot of the multiple communities, events, memes, and what was popular around the world at that time.

This is a documentation of the Hermitcraft mural on r/place 2022.

aka.

Remember what I said about my latest ficbind being a distraction? This is what I wanted to be distracted from.

After Reddit's API fiasco of this year and the subsequent controversial event that was r/place 2023, I decided to save as much documentation about the 2022 event as I could. Luckily, I remember how there are already a series of posts by @riacte who documented the progress of the Hermitcraft mural throughout the whole event, from beginning to end. Her blogposts form the bulk of this book (like, 95%!) and I cannot thank her enough for preserving the happenings of the block men mural.

With that said, I quickly realized that someone who's not a Hermitcraft fan - or me if I'm older - might not get the gist of who's who on the mural. The solution? Make several pages dedicated to just listing who's who on the murals! Because of the sheer number of heads, the mural was divided into several pieces for easier labeling. As a bonus, I also threw in another mural nearby which was connected enough to the Hermitcraft community.

For consistency's sake and preserving focus, I decided to not label the peeps from Dream SMP or the MCC secondary mural. Wrangling Microsoft Word to create an infographic was hard enough, let alone 3! If I inadvertently left out a few bits of extra context from this decision, mea culpa.

When it came to typesetting the entire text block, I decided to make some consistent rules. Titles denoting each day or stage of the mural are on their own pages. New sections are titled using the Bahnschrift font and colored blue, while the first paragraph has their beginning lines look Minecraft-coded and topped with a drop cap (aka. those super-large alphabets).

The names of Hermitcraft and Minecraft players in general are bolded when they first appear in the text. Afterwards, they are bolded if they are contextually important to what's being said.

Extra context would be placed in the footnotes section at the bottom of the page. This is also where I dump some background information that would be invaluable for any readers who aren't Minecraft fans, which is why the SpaceX page looked like... uh, that.

My image policy is to go with the flow; I used as many images from riacte's posts as possible, but I also added-in some of my own if more context is needed. Placing them to look smooth with the text was harder - some are small enough to not cause any problems, others are large enough to fill entire pages without any problems, but a few like the Dream SMP mural (hey there! I managed to put you in!) are too wonky to fit perfectly without leaving no empty spaces.

So in that mural's case, I placed them to the side and let the contextual text flow around it. This principle was also used for the Dota2 / Love Live images and in a few other places throughout the book. The biggest case of this are the few images that are just too wide.

Like this one.

Making double-page spreads is not the easiest thing to do in Microsoft Word, and there are a few r/place images that are too wide to fit perfectly in a single page. Confining them to one page would also mean losing all their details, so making them a double-page spread was necessary.

Didn't make it easy though, especially when there are paragraphs of text and other images that needed to be shuffled around. Mess up the double-page images, and they won't meet in the middle. Mess up the text and other pics? There goes the layout and overall flow!

In the end, making this book took a lot longer than I expected, but I am still grateful to have made this as I have now read through many posts from Tumblr, Reddit, and even Youtube - people expressing joy that they have collectively made something together. I can only hope I have made some justice to them by compiling their work and (even if a small sliver) preserving their testaments.

May this r/place be remembered.

[rainbowwrare]

So I've seen a lot of discourse around some of the arcane ships and I felt like throwing my opinion into the ring too

I will preface this by saying I think shipping is fine, I am a casual shipper of both Jayce/Viktor (Though I think a queerplatonic relationship could work lovely for them) and Vander/Silco (yeah this ones a lil silly I guess but i just think it's funny so)

So firstly, Viktor and Jayce. I have seen lots of people (mostly on reddit but some here too) saying that we shouldn't ship them because guys should be allowed to be close and affectionate without being called gay. That is a valid viewpoint until it comes to the point where one is invalidating LGBTQ relationships. There is definitely a sore lack of healthy, close affectionate m/m friendships in the mainstream media. However, there is also a MASSIVE lack of good M/M, and same sex couple representation in general and there has been for many years. When people try to say "why is everything gay nowadays" it comes across as rude and condescending because it's really not true. The LGBTQ community has fought so hard just to reach the level of acceptance that we are at today, and even that is the bare minimum and below in some places. I think we should be allowed to have both of those things, they should be able to coexist, but people aren't making it better by just attacking anyone else who shares a slightly different opinion.

By all means criticise JayVik for it's faults (Mel?? My girl?? Jayce fumbled you so hard and the writers did too) (Also Skye, they deadass brought her back this season just to get rid of her again) but don't make it about that.

I think let people ship whatever they want to ship, and as long as it's not harming real people and if it's something that could potentially trigger people then keep it to yourself/make sure it stays within circles of people that it won't trigger.

Same applies to Vander/Silco, though I knowww this one is a bit more controversial. Way I see it, the "brothers" that they refer each other to applies more in a "comerades" sense, as I believe it was translated as such in the other language dubs? Anyway yeah, I just think they'd be funny together and they have a lot of angst writing potential so...

Yeah. Just let people ship who they wanna ship, shippers, don't force anyone to believe in it if the writers deliberately left it ambiguous (JayVik ending scene). At the end of the day they are all just fictional characters and That Is Okay. It's all chill.

[our-magical-world]

One thing I like about the shifting community on Tumblr and Reddit is they're much more open to the idea of permashifting.

I've never been active on shiftok, but my main source used to be Youtube, and most popular shifting youtubers came from shiftok anyway. So many of them are against permashifting or don't believe in it, try to talk their followers out of it, or say that you need to make peace with your CR and be happy here in order to shift.

When I started learning about shifting, I was a little disappointed that permashifting wasn't an option (or that's what they made me believe). Because I always thought, if I ever found a way to go to my fantasy DR, I'd never come back. And suddenly I had found the way but I was forced to return regularly.

Later, I learned permashifting was actually possible, but it was controversial, and I decided I'd never talk about it because I didn't want to be judged. I thought I'd take the secret with me when I shifted.

But now, I feel like I can talk freely about my plans here, even if some people will still judge, there are many more who understand.

[glagglepilled]

If you are questioning whether you have DID or OSDD. DO NOT USE TUMBLR FOR INFORMATION.

Complex dissociative disorders are just that, complex; and nearly no one in this community is qualified to educate you on these things. If you seek information in this community you will find misinformation, and you will find people supporting unhealthy practices. Without the necessary knowledge on the disorder you wont be able to discern fact from false, and being misinformed on this disorder could be detrimental to you considering its severity and complexity. This could lead to worsening of symptoms due to unhealthy practices being picked up. Or you could end up aiding in the spread of misinformation, even unintentionally. Do not risk it. Community shouldn't be where you go for vital information. If you can in any way, it is STRONGLY advised you get in touch with specialists or doctors. If you cannot, Please seek information from sources made by qualified and educated professionals. As well as tumblr do not turn to discord, tiktok, reddit, or any social medias for your information. Also avoid carrds or ANY informational source not from a professional. Some alternative resources: CTAD Clinic - Youtube channel with informative videos, run by specialists. Dissociative Identity Disorder(DID) Shepphard Pratt - Great overview of DID, its causes, and it's treatment. ISSTD website - Has a lot of information on dissociative disorders, avoid their information on RAMCOA, they have a negative history with that. Their treatment guidelines are especially useful for people wanting to know what is good or bad practice in terms of treatment & healing. (Adult Guidelines, Child/Adolecent Guidelines) The ISSTD also produces the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, which contains peer-viewed scientific articles. Very helpful to find research! The DSM-V, - Book listing mental disorders, often used by professionals in the USA. Can be used for finding general information on disorders, also contains differential diagnoses which I recommend also researching if you suspect a CDD. The ICD-11, - List of diseases and disorders, used globally and has information on mental disorders. Can also be used for finding general information on disorders. May have different diagnoses & information than the DSM-V The Haunted Self - A great informational source about structural dissociation. Very long, but worth reading if you think you have a trauma-related disorder. Scientific studies/articles - Extremely important, It may seem daunting at first to read through these as they arent as disgestable as other sources, but they are usually full of good solid research. (Please inform me of any other useful resources! Also tell me if anything listed here may be unhelpful, thank you.) When finding & reading your own sources BE CRITICAL When you find a source or receive information consider these factors:

Is this made by a professional or someone qualified?

If its an experiment/study, is it valid? Has there been any controversy with this study? Who worked on it? Is it outdated? Are there any limitations that this experiment/study may have?

Is it relevant to the thing you want to know?

Does it contain references to other sources?

Final note: If you are questioning, DO NOT JUST RESEARCH CDDs. Research common alternative diagnoses, research other possible causes for your symptoms. Do not become fixated on solely DID or OSDD.

[mywitchyblog]

The Reality of Age-Changing in the Shifting Community: A Response to the Hypocrisy

I wanted to answer by reblogging their post, and the one made by @starenthusiasttraveler its deleted i think) :

but I couldn’t, so let me lay it out here. The post explains the controversy brewing over on Reddit and certain Discord servers, where mods are basically playing shifting police, accusing anyone who age-changes in their Desired Realities (DR) of being predatory or, even worse, a pedo. But let’s break this down, because this argument is rooted in a massive misunderstanding of what reality shifting actually entails, and honestly, it reeks of holier-than-thou hypocrisy.

These gatekeepers are trying to claim that anyone who shifts to a younger version of themselves, no matter the reason, is automatically indulging in harmful behavior. Meanwhile, they’re perfectly fine with people aging themselves up just to live out sexual fantasies. The double standard here is laughable, and it’s time to shut it down for good.

The Hypocrisy of Age-Changing Policing

As I mentioned, these people are okay with shifters aging themselves up to 30 or 40 just to get involved in sexual relationships, but the second someone says they’ve shifted back to when they were 16, suddenly it’s a crime. For example, if someone is 20 years old now but keeps shifting back to the DR where they were 16 and living out their Hogwarts fantasy, these gatekeepers will label them as some kind of predator. But guess what? That’s hypocritical as hell.

Shifting up for sex? Fine. Shifting down to relive your youth or have an innocent romance? Suddenly you’re a problem? That’s pure moral panic, and it’s based on fear, not facts. The reality is, age-changing isn’t inherently harmful. As I’ve discussed in-depth before in this post, when you shift to a younger version of yourself, you’re not bringing your “adult mind” with you. You become fully immersed in that version of yourself, meaning your mindset, emotional maturity, and life experience align with the age you’re shifting to. You aren’t walking around in your DR thinking, “I’m actually 23 with all my life experiences” while interacting with people of that age. You’re 16 in your DR, and you live like it.

The Intent Behind Age-Changing Matters, Not the Act Itself

For the last fucking time: Not everyone who age-changes is doing it out of a desire to sexualize, exploit, or fetishize youth. Most shifters who age-change are doing it because they want to relive experiences, heal from trauma, or explore life from a different perspective. Intent matters. As I’ve previously written about in this post here, there’s a huge difference between someone scripting a harmful, predatory dynamic and someone who’s simply revisiting their teenage years to heal or explore. It’s not black and white—it’s nuanced as hell.

Shifting isn’t some Manichean concept where everything is either good or evil, “black or white.” It’s subjective, personal, and exists in the gray areas of ethics. Sure, are there people who might shift for more perverse reasons? Unfortunately, yes. But they are about as common as those who shift to bang their family members (yup, that happens, too). As I’ve pointed out before in this post, the issue isn’t the act of age-changing—it’s the intent behind it. If someone’s intentions are pure—whether they’re shifting to relive their youth, heal trauma, or just explore life in a different stage—then there’s no ethical issue. It’s when someone is using age-changing for predatory purposes that the line gets crossed.

The "One Reality" Mentality: Closed-Minded and Problematic

These Reddit and Discord mods are operating under a very dangerous and closed-minded assumption: that the rules and ethics of our Original Reality (OR) must apply across all realities. They’re acting like OR is the “one true reality,” and that all DRs have to abide by the same moral codes we follow here. That’s just not how shifting works. Shifters know that different realities operate under different rules, and trying to police them based on OR norms is narrow-minded at best. As this post on Tumblr explains in detail here, when you shift into a different reality, you aren’t bringing your OR moral compass with you. You’re living by the rules and norms of that DR.

So the idea that anyone who shifts to a younger version of themselves in a DR is somehow committing an ethical violation based on OR standards is just ridiculous. They’re not “exploiting” youth—they’re fully embodying that age and experiencing life through that lens. These mods are policing shifters from a “one reality” mindset that’s completely out of sync with how shifting actually works.

For those who wish to know what aging yourself for predatory or exploitive reasons actually looks like i reccomend my post :

So, you can check it out, but yeah, an adult aging themselves down and having a romantic or sexual relationship in their DR (Desired Reality) doesn’t automatically make them pedophiles in this reality. The intent and the reasons behind it vary greatly from person to person.

It can only be judged on a case-by-case basis.

I think the Reddit and Discord moderators are misguided in assuming that everyone who has a significant other in their DRs, where they are minors, is automatically "weird." That’s a fallacious way of thinking. There are many nuances to consider, and it’s not fair to paint everyone with the same brush.

P.S.: To touch on what @starenthusiasttraveler mentioned at the end (in parentheses), people tend to underestimate the total immersion of reality shifting. It is so intense that when you first shift, you won’t even realize it immediately.

Living and existing in your DR feels completely normal, casual even, because in that reality, you've always existed there. Then, something—a person, an event, or even an object—will trigger the realization that you’ve shifted. And even then, you won’t feel like you came from another reality; you just know that there is a different version of yourself in another reality.

So no, there’s no "consciousness retention" nonsense or anything of the sort. Some of you anti-age changers (who are total hypocrites, by the way) don’t fully grasp how real and immersive shifting actually is.

[thisisthinprivilege]

So I made a post to raise awareness about fatphobia in a leftist reddit community. Within 2 hours, it became the second most controversial post of the entire subreddit.

All of that sourcing, all of that listening, even trying my best to appeal to the community, it returned as 0 votes and 31 comments, majority of them just want to insist that being fat is bad. I really don't get it. I had all the sourcing necessary, I did almost the exact same thing as another post criticizing the ableism in leftist communities, with the context, the sources, trying my best to answer to bad faith arguments. What I got in return is the comment section I can't even look at.

"If you put a fat people in an island they'll become thin", "fat people is why there isn't Medicare for all", "being fatphobic is wrong but being overweight is bad" like it's not even two hours in. All the things I've debunked with my sources, like how I mentioned only 5% fat people lose weight permanently, how the medical system is so fatphobic that Medicare for all would mean nothing, and god forbid the last talking point. I don't even disagree that I should do more exercise and eat better, when I started doing so my GPA went from 2.0 when I was dieting to 3.4. I guess I gotta get used to this now that it's part of me and part of what I believe in. 

Thin privilege is people actually listen to you when you speak up.

(sorry for using a new account my other accounts were shadowbanned)

[flower-boi16]

Do you think this fandom can still improve despite everything? Is it Viv and Spindlehorse's fault that this fandom is problematic or there is deeper root cause? Despite the amount of negativity both hh and hb recieved, is it still possible to listen to fans who give constructive criticism and improve both shows? Many fans often say something like"The Spindlehorse's crew don't want to listen to critics because there are too many bad faith criticism and hate" or "Those critics don't have the vision of the creators so their advices are invalid." I think both sides of this fandom are overly aggressive to whatever happened. It must have something behind it.

I think the reason why the fandom reacts so poorly to criticism is a mix of several factors:

These shows are fairly popular, the more popular something is the bigger the fanbase will be. And, likewise, some fans would be very defensive when it comes to criticism.

The batshit insane twitter users and fake outrage being confused with the actual critiques people have of the shows. I'll admit, early critical videos were...not great to say the least (cough cough Pkrussel cough cough), and many of Viv's past controversies are admittedly dumb. However, there are real issues people have with these shows and Vivziepop, however, because of all the past controversies with Viv being over-blown, fans lump these real and valid critiques in with the fake Twitter outrage, causing this confusing mess.

Vivziepop's reaction to critiscm. She directly dismisses critiques people have of her shows and pretty clearly spends a bit too much time on online discourse about her shows. Viv IS aware of the critiques people have of her shows but she has this very immature response to criticism just looking at her twitter, and, this does translate to the fandom as well.

Drama channels such as AyyLmao and Iox constantly defending Viv and her shows. AyyLmao is a fairly big channel and a lot of his videos are about controversies surrounding Viv. Pretty much all of these tend to be heavily biased as AyyLmao instantly takes Viv's side, as in several of his videos he deliberately chooses to lump in the actual critiques of the shows with the deranged Twitter users online, which contributes to the second problem I mentioned above. This can be seen with his hatedom video where he says that most of the criticism at least on Twitter isn't "real criticism" and "just hate disguised on such". Notice how he says that at least on Twitter the criticism is just hate. He's deliberately making it look like the critical community is just a bunch of deranged Twitter users who just hate Viv cuz they are jealous or something, when looking at sites such as Reddit, Youtube, Tumblr, etc you'll see people with ACTUAL PROBLEMS with the shows, by AyyLmao's ignoring that in order paint the critical community as a toxic hell-hole. He pretends to be neutral in the video but he clearly is biased with how he paints the critics here, as he only focuses on this one site just to make it look like the critical community is just an annoying vocal minority on Twitter. and because of that, the fandom views the critical community as just that; just an annoying vocal minority of Twitter users who shouldn't be taken seriously.

The fandom just refusing to engage with people's critiques because they can't handle criticism of their favorite shows. That's pretty obvious.

I don't think the fandom will get better any time soon given these factors I just mentioned. Until Viv learns to accept criticism, until Viv drama channels stop defending her bullshit, and until the fandom actually engages with people's critiques rather than sending death threats...ya no this fandom is still going to be awful.

[visgrapplinghooks]

a very long fucking rant about neurodivergence, the internet, controversy, and conflict

I've done my best to try to make references to specific dramas and situations as vague as possible, since I really don't want to stir shit with the fucking losers who care way more about which total stranger to me abused another total stranger to me than I do. If you're the kind of person who cares strongly about creating villains and victim narratives, this post probably isn't for you.

The internet is kinda bad for neurodivergent people, particularly people with innate social communication dysfunctions (autistic people). I've been noticing this for a while, but every other internet controversy I observe seems to have neurodivergence in some way involved. Typically, some kind of longstanding mental illness, very frequently autism spectrum disorder as well. Three streamers I know of that have all had controversies where they get grossly misunderstood or misrepresented by others and dogpiled by internet communities, all three of them diagnosed autistic. A situation regarding one autistic YouTuber crossing the boundaries of another autistic content creator due to what appears from the outside to me as a failure of communication. Another who kinda defined the term "lolcow", well… I don't think I need to go too much into that. There was that thing with another autistic creator ages ago posting sexually explicit messages in their Discord server where minors were present. I would argue almost all of these controversies mentioned are in some way related to being neurodivergent and their engagement with the internet.

A lot of the people I'm referencing are Old Guard online or have been online for a long time. Being streamers also kinda necessitates you immerse yourself in online culture quite heavily. Humans, to develop adequate social response mechanisms for human and serious things and communicate them appropriately, typically need regular socialization. For neurodivergent people, this is often not an option. The real world sucks.

The problem with autism in particular, and this has been noted by autism groups irl, is that there really is no such thing as an "obvious" cue. Depending on how severe the social cognition impairment is, you may not learn any social responses at all for your entire early adult life and need them explicitly stated to you. In dangerous cases, your grip on reality can get so broken that you don't know what is and isn't acceptable. There's a genuine and real problem of autistic people (men in particular) failing to learn appropriate sexual boundaries. There's also a problem of autistic people not learning how to advocate when they're uncomfortable due to childhood experiences. This is very obviously going to lead to some pretty fucking bad situations, especially between two autistic people.

To neurodivergent people as a whole, this is also a thing of "your social environment dictates what behavior you think is normal". And if your "normal" is environments like YouTube comments, Reddit, internet forums, Tumblr, then what you think is acceptable is completely insane to the average person. And while this can function well-enough for most things, this often fails to be adequate socialization for things like human friendships and sexual situations. This, again, is likely to lead to problems. On top of that, there is a tendency for the internet to be… rather ableist. Online mobs tend to be very obsessively hypercritical of neurodivergent people in particular (often autistic people), because they give off "bad vibes" to them or otherwise come off as abrasive. The problem with this is that the average human is ableist as fuck. It's been demonstrated that most allistic people can clock autistic people as "weird" within moments of meeting or interacting with them. The same goes for neurotypicals and most neurodivergent people. This tends to then frame large swathes of the internet's perceptions of people's behavior and lead to generally higher rates of scrutiny for neurodivergent people online, again, leading to the generation of controversy.

Essentially, the first premise I'm outlining here is the internet is a bit of a controversy and boundary-crossing factory, and the prime subjects of this are overwhelmingly going to be neurodivergent people. Particularly those with some kind of social communication problem. In fact, you also see this with some creators with ADHD (especially streamers) impulsively saying shit on stream and that getting clipped and used against them. The second premise is the nature of "culpability" and "blame". One of the biggest issues with controversies online is that they're very focused on the act of blaming someone or the framing of a person as a bad actor. This becomes especially dicey when a lot of controversies are about interpersonal interactions and relationships that you would never have heard of or cared about if not for the internet. Very rarely are there interactions (between adults, at least) where one party is a unilaterally bad actor.

Putting the proneness of blame together with the issues of boundaries and social communication, you're more likely to end up with oversimplified framing of very nuanced and complex social interactions. My reading of the aforementioned situation with the two autistic content creators for example, for example, even when it was initially a hot topic, is that, "this reads like an autistic person who has no idea what boundaries are". Upon learning that the other party was also autistic, it also made a lot of sense as to why they didn't just tell them to stop or explicitly state their discomfort with it, either. Autistic people can often be bad at setting boundaries for themselves. That's not an excuse for one's behavior, but I think it's a meaningful analysis.

Escaping the specifics of that particular situation and discussing things as a whole… who exactly is to blame in situations like this? I think, in a lot of ways, the desire to jump to blaming people or villainizing them leads to more harm than good. This is especially in cases where they respond very poorly to online backlash and criticism. Most human beings would probably become mentally ill after being an online public figure. If you have something that already predisposes you to bad stress reactions, this kind of thing could be devastating for your personal life.

It's long been my stance that 90% of the things that online influencers get held under super high scrutiny for would not stick nearly as hard to actual celebrities. I think due to the "intimate" nature of internet parasociality, online figures are just easier targets than real celebrities, most of the time. That being said, this does not mean individuals involved in these controversies are wholly innocent or blameless. I'm sure in every controversy imaginable, someone could have communicated better, explained themselves better, worked harder to recognize boundaries, etc. My take here is that in most cases, the fixation on complete fucking strangers placing blame on people and being super emotionally and parasocially invested in these controversies just worsens them and in many cases may cause or exacerbate them.

I don't want to equivocate violating sexual boundaries and sexual harassment with saying cringe online discourse shit. They're not equally bad. However, I do think there are common interpersonal and particularly online structural mechanisms that operate and enact during such controversies.

This also applies to neurotypical people, in general, as normalized social environments create some bad behaviors and tendencies. However, I do think neurodivergent - and specifically autistic people - are disproportionately likely to be impacted by it.

To wrap up this rant, I'll close with something vague about myself. I've been in some online communities I probably shouldn't have been. I've been on Discord since I was a young adolescent. Before that, I was a forum lurker and even poster. I have done things and said things to others I shouldn't have. I also know that I am autistic and grew up on the internet. It took me until this year to realize how much that even impacted me as an individual online and in person. Humans, particularly neurodivergent humans, are kind of just bundles of neuroses that clash with other bundles of neuroses and will often seriously hurt each other during those clashes. I'm certain other ND adults, other neurodivergent adults in here included, would probably have the worst and weirdest shit about their histories brought up and scrutinized if they were to become a public figure online. It'd be absolute hell. And gods forbid it hasn't crossed boundaries into something that seriously harms others, but sometimes that happens, too. I don't think that failing to develop and then tripping over yourself so hard that you won't be able to get up should be the defining experience of every neurodivergent person online.

Addendum: it's just idk dude I have no idea what I don't know maybe I'm doing cringe unacceptable shit right now and nobody's told me yet but people will still blame me for not just magically Knowing that I shouldn't be doing it because it's "obvious" and then some piece of shit will make some fucking bluesky or X thread about it in 5 years and then other lowlifes will doxx me why do we just accept that the internet works this way?