#I understand how they're a useful tool and even appreciate them in internet spaces

[clonerightsagenda]

I've started noticing content warnings start popping up more frequently in the front of published books, and I'm curious as to people's thoughts on that. So, poll time!

[fidenciocryptidcreechur]

Pet Peeve of Mine

Sometimes I'm reminded that folks don't know how to regulate and curate their online experience, most notably in fandom or in fictional media but also just in general. I understand everyone has their likes and dislikes, someone's yum is someone's ick. I also get that plenty of folks have stuff going on that makes them distressed when they do see certain images or topics etc. Certainly, one should do what they need to do to make sure they're comfortable and aren't becoming overly distressed by their online experience. This is why block buttons on social media exist, this is why there are filters and search functions on nearly every site. To help curate content you like in art, topics, tropes, settings, images, text, or animations etc and block content you dislike in these as well. There are ways to navigate things online, by using those tools provided by the site or even by using add-ons etc. The Internet is a Public Space, there are many different types of sites and topics and activities for everyone including topics, activities, and people one might not like or might find odd. For example, Someone with a fear or distaste for insects and other invertebrates might not like an entomology enthusiasts group or a bug appreciation community.

However, because the Internet is a Public Space, the responsibility of ensuring one doesn't see things or interact with things they don't like falls on the person. It falls on the individual to block the topics and contents one finds distasteful or upsetting. If an individual doesn't like bugs then they must block the bug and/or insect tag or exclude it from their feed/search on the site they're using with the site's filter. If an individual finds yandere, dark fics or angst distressing then they need to utilize the functions of that site to remove it from their feed. It is not the job of the entire Internet and/or community one is in to completely censor and cater itself to that individual especially if the site or platform they're using has features and tools for them to use to prevent this and to help them personalize their online experience anyways.

What's truly odd is when these individuals take it upon themselves to harass others instead of simply using the features of the site. To throw a tantrum while completely ignoring the built in tools provided to both prevent this and to address this. It's extremely rude and immature to harass another person, another human being, simply because of an inability to self-regulate. Especially in fiction. Does every dark topic in fiction beget a murderer or criminal? By the logic of many of these individuals, people interact with fiction and immediately embody it. Do you read about the mafia and then immediately search your local area for a recruiter for organized crime? Does fiction truly manifest in reality so completely? If so, then the entirety of the horror genre must be churning out Hannibals and Freddy Kruegers everyday in the millions. Does everyone who reads a single Sherlock Holmes book or who watches a single Conan episode become a top notch detective as well? Do these people also think that you can rival Gordon Ramsey if you play enough Cooking Mama? To think this and then lash out at people with this thinking is immature and petty behavior. It shows A lack of comprehension and an extreme underestimation of people's ability to think and to determine their own selves. This is childish and mainly shows that such an individual is unable to take care of themselves and doesn't know how to use or is unwilling to use the site features but is willing to lash out at a stranger for this. For someone to go after artists, blogs, writers or site users for something that didn't have to be interacted with, that could've simply been blocked or filtered is unhinged especially if that creator/site user has never initiated interaction with them in the first place.

This is just my pet peeve hence why there are no super specific tags besides my own plus the ones i use for my blog. It's just deeply irritating to see and to encounter because it's the same movements and talking points that have happened before since the beginning of fandom, since Star Trek (arguably the oldest and one of the first fandoms though if you stretch the definition then it definitely goes beyond then to when written novels first came around etc). Technically, Fandom discourse has been around since humanity could share stories and discuss them. It's just now you can be an anonymous tantrum ghost on many sites specifically to bicker and it's not even fun like a book club or gossip or getting heated discussing different takes over snacks and drink etc. No, it's usually someone being a faceless no name ghost that's likely obsessively refreshing a page hoping to see a reply or response on whatever site, platform or forum they're on.

It's just annoying to see the same age old stuff but rehashed. Much of it isn't even particularly interesting or different. Same rants about purity (mental, emotional or otherwise), same rants about worrying that it was destroying society, same rants same words same message. It's been rehashed since Victorian times and beyond, concerns about fiction have been around since the days people thought the human body was made of humors and biles and have been rehashed since the days people worried a woman's uterus would fly out of her body if she got in a train. I truly can't bring myself to care or take it seriously tbh... Half of these folks sound like the reincarnated soul of Sigmund Freud. I keep Half expecting some to even spout off about how there should be a way to cut these thoughts out of the brain (reinventing lobotomy) or how "you can just tell by the way someone looks" (reinventing phrenology, the racist idea that someone's head shape can detail their entire life, morality, and their destiny).

Like i just can't. (This isn't direct at anyone really, more so a general phenomenon)

[reloadavery]

My Favorite CD from 2023

At the beginning of Autumn, I ventured on a musical adventure and began looking for websites that offered music similar to what I liked. One of the sites I came across was named RYM (Rate Your Music). At first, it seemed superficial because people ranked the quality of the music into numbers and rated them on a scale of 1 to 5. I looked up some of my favorite songs from when I was eleven to see how good my musical tastes were when I started listening to music independently. I discovered that my artist's album had received a rating of 1 and 2, well below mediocrity. I was distraught, but I reasoned that if RYM's music rating was so good, why not put it to the test and listen to what these people thought was real music? Were they telling the truth? There's only one way to find out.

One of the genres I was currently listening to was Space Rock, defined as an "intensive use of synthesizers and guitar effects to create dense atmospheric soundscapes intended to evoke images of outer space and science fiction scenarios" " according to RYM. When I consulted the top-ranked space rock albums, "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" came up first, and I decided to give it a chance. I wanted my experience to feel special, so I ordered the CD and waited for its arrival.

Once it arrived, I unwrapped the case to find an eccentric cover art.

They treated the CD case as if it were some doctor-prescribed medication, which is unlike any CD I've seen before. Knowing this, I presumed the tracks would probably sound like you were in space, high on drugs and adrift, which would delight me since I'm a space-rock fan, but I still was unsure of the album's superiority. After pressing the "play" on my boombox, I heard a faint voice, which prompted me to turn up the volume. To my surprise, the song struck my ears with noisy shoegaze chords, and I turned the volume down again, as I'd forgotten that Space Rock can be loud. I don't want to spoil the album for anyone, so I suggest you listen to the first track. You'll understand what I mean.

The first track is probably one of my favorites; I listened to the CD countless times during the fall. Although my CD collection is relatively small, this one was my go-to. If I had a CD that touched every emotion I wanted it to, this would be the one. Whether I was happy, sad, numb, or angry, the album effortlessly conveyed nearly every emotion of the human experience. Throughout the album, I felt like levitating - sometimes even in the middle of a stormy black hole.

If I were an RYM user, I'd also give the album a rating of 3.82, as indicated on their website. Maybe the website wasn't such a bad rating guide after all, although it still seems pretentious that people only rate "sophisticated" music when I'm still a fan of those cheesy pop songs from my childhood. The website includes numerous albums I've never heard of before that I could use as a tool to find more music, and I suggest anyone else who enjoys music use it as a guide. Also, don't let strangers on the Internet spoil what you love because they're trying to be grandiose. You're the one who appreciates music for what it's worth! ― 2:20 AM, December 13, 2023.

“Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care” ― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.

i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.

i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.

nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.

the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.

what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.

that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.

but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.

i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.

the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.

if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.

even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.

children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.

which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.

individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.

if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.

[a-dragons-journal]

hi idk if youre the one to ask for this but like: how do you deal when people call you gatekeepy and keeping saying that you're wrong and they're right when you try and and correct information (kin being voluntary)? i cant deal with stress very well but it's also very hard for me to not try and correct any wrong information. do you habe any tips/recommendations? -☆🌕

My advice comes in two parts here, I think, so it’s gonna be a long post and is thus gonna mostly go under a cut.

Part one: Conflict Management

Conflict management skills are a blessing, if you haven’t taken a conflict management course then go find one and take it. It may be that you’re coming off as aggressive without meaning to, or are doing something else that’s making the conversation shut down - that’s easy to do over the Internet, especially on a hot-button topic like this. The crash course version of the conflict management skills I learned from one (1) lecture series that have saved my tail many, many times, below the cut:

Never assume malice where ignorance will suffice, which is one I try to just live by

Be Stubbornly Kind, or at least Stubbornly Polite, if you want the discussion/debate to continue

Use "I" statements, not "you" statements (ie "I feel like there's a misunderstanding here" is going to get people a lot less defensive than "you're misunderstanding me" despite fundamentally saying the same thing)

Defining terms at the start of a conversation is key to make sure everyone's talking about the same thing and miscommunications aren't happening. (Or when they come up, or when you realize you may be meaning different things with the same word)

Sympathetic, appeasing, and even apologetic language can be unbelievably useful in deflating anger before it has a chance to ruin a discussion. Phrases like “I think I wasn’t clear enough about that, sorry!”, “in my opinion, and you’re free to disagree with me, [subjective opinion]”, “in my experience,” “Am I making sense?”, and “I definitely appreciate the concern for [x]!” The only downside to this is that it can come off as passive-aggressive or condescending if overdone. All things in moderation and all that. (A very light, careful amount of humor may also help defuse anger.)

Pick out anything you agree with and point out that you agree with them on it. Literally anything. The smallest shred of a statement that you share common ground on. Anything you agree with them on, state clearly that you agree with it. This both shows that you’re not arguing for the sake of arguing (and thus makes them less defensive) and keeps you both from not continuing to argue about a thing that you actually agree on, so you can focus on the things you disagree on.

Ask clarifying questions. If you’re confused as to why a person would make an argument, don’t be afraid to ask “Do you mind if I ask you to clarify what you mean by that?” or something similar.

Rephrase their points back to them if you’re starting to get lost. This basically just ensures that you’re not misunderstanding them - and it tells them that you are listening and paying attention to what they’re saying. The phrase “If I’m understanding you correctly, and please correct me if I’m not, [rephrase]” is an underrated tool.

All of these will help aid communication by a) making sure that you’re not misunderstanding each other and b) keeping tensions lower and preventing everyone involved from getting angry/frustrated/defensive.

Part Two: When Conflict Management Fails

The reality is, after a certain point, all you can do is present information and let people do with it what they will. You can make logical arguments against logical arguments, but if someone is just flat-out disagreeing with you about the definition of a word and won’t budge on that, there’s sometimes not a whole lot you can do to change their mind. You can present your arguments and evidence as to why it’s factually wrong, why it’s harmful to keep perpetuating that, and why “this word has a definition” is not gatekeeping, but there comes a point where the argument becomes a circle with no end in sight. At that point you just kind of have to step away before it starts doing more harm than good.

You have to find your boundaries for how much argument you’re willing/able to deal with, and draw a line in the sand - not for others, but for yourself, to tell yourself when to step away - in advance, so you don’t have to make that decision in the moment.

Me personally, my line in the sand is pretty far out, because debate and intellectual discourse generally do more to stimulate me than to stress me out. That’s why I can run the antikin-and-misinformation-addressing sideblog I have in a healthy way - and it’s why I don’t recommend most people try to do that, because I’m the odd one out on that. But I made an agreement with myself when I started that blog that the day it actually started to cause me stress would be the day I put it down and never went back. The line in the sand exists, it just isn’t publicly visible because if I even get close to crossing it, I step away before I can do or say something I’ll regret.

And I’ll let you in on an open secret - as someone who runs a blog specifically to interact with those kinds of posts, the point is rarely actually to convince them to change their mind. People hit a point where they’re so adamant about their point of view that they refuse to even listen to any arguments to the contrary. The point is usually to make your viewpoint visible to the third party onlookers who haven’t made up their minds that strongly yet.

(And in an effort to try to avoid becoming that myself, and to facilitate communication, one of the other reasons I have those conversations is less to convince the other side and more to understand them - if they genuinely have an argument I can’t dismantle, I want to know what it is so I can look it over and see if it warrants changing my opinion on a subject.)

If you can’t handle the arguments, and you can’t make yourself let it lie, the answer may be that you need to leave that social space entirely or block those individuals - the block button exists for a reason. Which may sound harsh, but blocking really isn’t as big a deal as people make it out to be these days - you curate your own experience, and that’s a key part of that. Your mental health is the most important thing.

That was probably a longer answer than you were bargaining for, but I hope it helps at least somewhat.