#also yes this is a Massive vaguepost

[hybrix-hidings]

Full offense but when I joined the fandom and got confused over Hugo's appearances in unrelated fic, I assumed from the start that he was an OC who just got popular or was, at most, a background character that people fixated on. Because I watched the fucking show and knew he didn't appear.

I can promise you that "confused viewers" who "assume he's canon" aren't going to be a problem. Turns out people are smart enough on their own to either investigate or ask questions, and literally nobody is out here lying about whether or not it's canon.

[olderthannetfic]

i really hate when people with a real big following reblog things about a03 specially when those things are about the elections. yes this is totally vagueposting about two specifically big blogs here on tumblr. they have been reblogging things about the Audrey fiasco and i have strong feelings about their hypocresy, because they just mention 'she's a republican fucking fuck her' but seem to purposely ignore that she was, oh you know... harassed. those people who claim to be anti-harassment (because they're not really 'pro-ship' or anything -actually on of those blogs is not in fandom at all and like to say 'no fandom shit here') but ignore that really big detail about her resignation of the otw and candidacy is really telling. really, really telling. i hate that nuanced takes like yours or elfwreck aren't shared at all but instead those fearmonger/alarmist posts are massive shared by these people who know they have big following and use that in advantage.

sucks that she's a republican? yeah, sure. i can totally tell why claiming yourself as a republican and being on a03 feels like a contradiction. it also sucks that a lot of 'progressive leftist' people here like to deem some targets as harassment worthy. like i guys if you're actually worried about a03 facing censorship better to reblog those posts about how to combat KOSA/Earnt it instead of a one single individual.

--

[ranboo5]

the writer!cc!wilbur defense squad never rests 😔😔😔😔 no wilbur did not manage to actualize other people's (niki and eret's most notably) arcs into the writing of season 1 and that's a shame because they were all really good and I wouldve loved to see more of it but consider, 1) wilbur is One guy and his character is Much more ingrained into the geopolitical climax than he is with the emotional impact on the chacracters around him, 2) they very clearly write their own characters. Wilbur writes Tommy's, Tubbo's maybe, Techno is involved in his own writing even if Wilbur hadn't expected him to do much, Phil had come in with a set goal but ultimately it was improv my dude. The Theseus speech is a whole script Techno had for himself he didn't fight tooth and nail for it, he wrote it himself, that's how roleplay works. 3) his cursed lore? Is very clearly not Forced onto people? We dont view them as gospel if the actual content creator simply said they didnt want to do that and then didnt? If Phil said "i dont want a fucking Samsung fridge in my lore" he just would have said so? The fridge is now in the dump? Fundy fully embraces having a salmon for a mother and has said interpreting his charcter as trans is completely okay ? Techno said he didn't want the sbi family canon and guess what? It's gone! Wilbur is Phil's only child! It's that easy! They don't Have to fight Wilbur because they're friends and Wilbur's not a head writer for a tv show they have to keep checking in with! He's not paying their bills!

Wilbur was the main writer because he was a massive part of the current main conflict and it needed Structure. Once it was done, he handed off the script and vibed! There are so many characters on the smp now and he is friends with the content creators behind them. They are not strangers. He is not a studio network telling them to pull in views by rehashing the entire plot. He Is Not Going To Take Away Your Meow Meow's Character Arc

- vaguepost anon

Wilbur being One Guy is kind of the problem? Like yeah he's One Guy which means he can't write the whole RP and world, and he doesn't, but the framing of him as a Main Writer implies that there is a dichotomy between Real Lore and What Wilbur Didn't Write, which we have seen in action even recently, and that's concerning

Also yeah Techno has talked about how he had to hash the whole thing Out with Wilbur abt having a main role in the finale. Like yeah he wrote that himself but he had to put his foot down abt it. I think yr also underestimating th impact of how Mr Soot wrote SBI into it; it really ended up kneecapping Philza's character introduction and he's redoing it but it's not like. I'll elaborate on thsi in the last para here hang on

I have no doubt Mr Soot wants to help the RP but he is not doing it any favors by assuming that he can write 12 streams of Main Writer Things ahead of time; that perpetuates the concept that there is A Narrative

Like I think there's a gray area between "Mr Soot's engagement w/ the DSMP has 0 problems" and "Mr Soot is a studio network telling them to pull in views by rehashing the entire plot" and I think that's where. He is? Like I don't think he's Trying to be controlling and like he's Good At Improv which is a whole thing that makes it More Confusing when many ppl have expressed esp under him (not only, but esp) that their plotlines have been No'd instead of Yes And-ed

And like okay last para where I talk abt this. Honestly I think it's less an issue of Mr Soot and more of ppl perceiving his word as authority, which they Do. Like if you think people actually stopped holding SBI as canon? If you think Philza's character introduction and the conflict w/ how he wanted to take his character didn't kneecap his perception? As a Philza enjoyer I have some news for you :pensive: Mr Soot isn't like a fucked up evil guy or whatever in or out of character he's just lost in the concept of being able to manage the wider progression of A World (which I think is an issue of finding balance in the leadership role he finds himself in as a more experienced RPer, which is a hard balance to find) and the issue is magnified a thousandfold by the fact that people take his word as authority and it has demonstratably negatively impacted the DSMP's writing and fandom engagement

[lilquill]

Are you doing okay what with all the VV stuff that happened? It seemed like you and Mina were close

Hey hey, thanks for the worries anon! Mina of mvcreates/Violet Vineyard and I were properly talking as friends for only a few months quite a long time ago. Emotionally I’m completely fine, but I do have stuff to say and I do want to help document things if any of it is useful in any way. A lot of it will be dry because it’s just documenting, but some of it will be “juicier” I guess, and I’d like to corroborate some of the things my friends are saying. I’ll put this under the cut for people who don’t want to scroll through all this and/or have no idea what I’m talking about and want to keep it that way!

You guys can check @nuwuhorizons‘s blog to see what exactly is going on and I believe they’re also reblogging some things others who were members are saying. The case of people dogpiling a 19-year-old trans person and making fun of their name is on the blog (post here, wayback machined here).

I can corroborate a bunch of what @rrrawrf-writes (post here, wayback machined here) and @gingerly-writing (post here, wayback machined here) have said. I backread through the interaction that Ginger talks about in her post (of course not the DMs, but the interaction itself).

I know some people may be confused about why Ginger only has that one screenshot of what she said and may not see that as full evidence, but Violet Vineyard had a super strict “don’t screenshot and post anything” with lots of scary looking legal stuff attached to it policy and, well, Ginger can’t be sharing stuff without anyone’s permission if it’s just the message she herself sent, but they’d have grounds to take god knows what action with what backing against her if she posted something else. But, well, for what it’s worth, as someone who read through that conversation a little after it happened, it was certainly a case of dogpiling and left a bad taste in my mouth, and it strikes me as really odd that the mods would try to shut someone down like that.

I haven’t really been doing stuff in writeblr lately as you can probably tell from my blog, but yeah, Mina herself and a lot of people in that particular friend group of hers, as Lisa mentions, have just disappeared off Tumblr. I can also attest to the dogpiling tendencies and this Mina Is Always Right tendency, and the fervor with which people would defend her.

I was honestly never close enough to Mina to be in that friend group. She and I were only really talking to each other for a few months over a year ago. I don’t think I was “writeblr-y” enough to fit in with them. I was also not super active in that server. I didn’t post much about my wips because I in general don’t think I really post a lot about them. Therefore I didn’t get like, massive benefits off of the whole “network” thing, but  I’d reblog some stuff when I saw it. I was probably most known for posting pictures of my plants, lol. And I would occasionally hop in to talk briefly about kpop with like, one person? (They went by Kay and their url was like, lvcrezia? lvcrezias? Something like that.) In fact, probably the last thing I ever said in that server was a super quick conversation about Red Velvet’s “Monster” music video around the time it dropped.

In fact, for the sake of being super transparent/establishing credibility, and for documenting purposes, I’ll list all the non-plant-pictures and non-kpop conversations I can remember actually participating in. Some of these will lead off into bigger topics, and I’ll specify those. But first, a word.

TO ANY OF THE FORMER MODS WHO MIGHT COME AFTER ME FOR SAYING THINGS ABOUT THE SERVER, SINCE THIS HAS APPARENTLY HAPPENED TO OTHERS: The server is deleted, and so is the text of the whole “contract” (yes, really) that people had to agree to in order to join VV. I remember that the agreement made sure we didn’t post screenshots publicly, but other than that I genuinely do not remember the text and I have no way of referencing it to keep in line with it since the server is deleted. I do not remember if documenting things like this is against anything I have agreed to, I have no record of the agreement, and I have not been notified of any place to access a record of the agreement before the server was deleted. If my post is some sort of violation, you cannot hold me accountable for rules that I am unable to follow, and I would greatly appreciate not being targeted with empty threats shrouded in scary legal language. If you have any point of contention with what I have said, feel free to take it up either publicly or privately. Please do @ me if it’s specific to me; I’m not really the vagueposting kind. If any of you want me to delete this post, you will need to provide actual proof of the agreement that I made by joining Violet Vineyard, and you will also need to prove that the rules were not edited after I agreed to them. If any of them were follow-up rules not from the beginning of the server, it’s possible that I did not see them and therefore you need to provide proof that I agreed to those, too. In addition, since image editing is what set off this avalanche in the first place hence we’re all aware that there’s software that allows us to edit images and pass them off as an original thing, you’ll need to provide proof that any screenshots/images are undoctored. Furthermore, since the rules have been deleted with the server, as the method I used to agree to follow them, you must prove that my agreement is still valid, since it seems to me it’s been nullified since it’s, well, gone either through deletion or kicking me out alongside everyone else. Tl;dr you don’t scare me lol.

Anyways, back to a list of the non-kpop, non-plant-pics, non-my-wips-promo conversations I can actually remember:

On January 5, 2020, the server had a conversation about Roshani Chokshi’s book The Gilded Wolves. I can give the date because during/in the aftermath of the conversation, which I talked about the book in, Mina DMed me quickly. (This was also the last time Mina ever directly contacted me.) I’ll talk about this later.

In February 2020 I believe I quickly mentioned getting concert tickets.

Either early this year or late last year I think I posted some stuff about landscape photography, with some photos of the beach.

I believe I posted a couple fashion pics at some point?

Back in May 2019 I got some kinda weird asks about Violet Vineyard and I think people were talking about that, and I assume I participated since I was the one who received the asks. At that time VV was like a super new server and didn’t really have much as far as the issues we’ve been talking about go, so I defended it. (I’ll be talking about this later.)

Probably in June/July 2019 people in the server had a discussion about Black Muslim characters and representation, initiated by me for one of my WIPs.

I think we talked about South Asian sweets at some point???

I believe in April/May 2019, there was some stuff in that server reagarding “drama” with Castor who at that time went by the url pilipalea that I honestly don’t remember much of. Castor was never in VV, but I believe they were in a server with Mina at some other point. There was something about grammar and proofreading?? (I’ll be referencing this soon as well.)

I helped someone with their computer science homework at some point.

I asked for r&b music recs at some point either late 2019 or earlier 2020.

I’ve also talked about ethnic clothes I think.

We’ve talked about Hindu nationalism and how awful it is.

I think we’ve talked about tone policing and how woc are often portrayed as “aggressive.”

We’ve talked about health/fitness and exercise.

I recommended Jade City and some other books I’m a fan of in there.

Probably talked about Bollywood movies at some point.

The fact that I can remember probably most of my conversations that lasted more than like, one message in there is, I think, a pretty good testament to a) me having at least a kind of decent memory and b) I wasn’t participating in the server so regularly that the conversations kind of blend together. I know this is all kind of long and dry for anyone who’s here for drama purposes lol, but I did want to establish that I’ve been in that server for quite a while and that I wasn’t monitoring it heavily; in fact, I had it muted very soon after joining it.

I wasn’t super close to anyone that I’d met through VV. People who are friends that I still regularly contact who were in VV with me, I had met through other servers and other interactions on Tumblr. I’ll disclose right now that I have been longtime friends with Ginger, Lisa, and Eff (@time-to-write-and-suffer), who have all come out against VV, and that we are in our own servers with people from writeblr. Ginger and Lisa were both in VV, Eff has never been.

Okay, back to maybe “juicier” stuff.

Mina had always positioned herself almost as this “tumblr mom” type. She’d reference her age a lot, which would contrast a lot with how a significant portion of the members were much younger and, I think, set up the dynamic of people looking up a lot to her and always coming to her defense. After all, we’re talking a bunch of passionate kids who’d found a writeblr network. And the server definitely seemed “legit”; I myself was pretty impressed with just how tightly organized everything was, and like I mentioned, there was fancy legal language to ~protect their rights~ and whatnot. Mina herself seemed so accomplished with so many talents: she’d post her writing and artwork, I believe she’d made a couple pieces of music, she’d work out and keep in shape, she had a seemingly wonderful loving relationship with her husband, she was active in research fields professionally and as an outbreak responder, and she, of course, had a significant online presence as a “big writeblr.” I remember when she’d started blowing up, so soon after her blog had been created, because of her prolific content and friendly persona. People, especially younger ones who had no other writeblr support group, looked up to her and trusted her. And the nature of the server was to shower everyone in praise, so Mina found herself on the receiving end of quite a bit of it. Mina would also actively boost and review other writers’ content, genuinely engaging with it and providing feedback, support, and valuable resources.

Mina also had a tight-knit group of adult friends. Some of them I believe carried over from pre-VV times (incuding CJ of typewriter-jade if I’m remembering correctly, who made fun of the trans person’s name in the reblog chain in the link to nuwuhorizons’s blog), while some were made afterwards. They would act super friendly and familiar with each other, which I think contributed to a lot of people falling into this little “friendship” super fast. They were also authority figures and role models, and tended to agree with each other, so everyone just went along with that.

These factors, I think, heavily influenced the dogpiling tendencies. People were eager to defend their community, where they’d found so much love and support for their work. Minors would go along with adults in conversations. When someone said something, others would enthusiastically support them. And people were just so into each other that I really couldn’t keep up, which is probably why I didn’t participate too much. People became just super fast friends and the server was so large and so seemingly “professional” and structured in how it was made. I think people just kind of assumed everyone in there was great and their friend who could be trusted deeply, when in reality that’s just impossible if there are like, 100+ members. Meaning if something minorly negative happened (like on that literal eleven-year-old’s blog), everyone would come in to say something to demonstrate their emphatic loyalty, even when it became excessive for something as small as an ask game done wrong.

This happened with the Gilded Wolves discussion as well. Someone stepped in to say that the way Gilded Wolves coded its antagonists as this shady secret society of people was antisemitic, and everyone joined in to rip the book apart without having even read it. I joined in the conversation to state that I didn’t see it that way, since that shady antagonist group was very much coded as white Christians (their names are all French Christian names) and were colonizers (meaning making them this shadowy group of powerful and evil people was accurate) and one of the protagonists, who is Jewish, is opposing them and antisemitism is portrayed as horrible, and that the book had had (if I’m remembering correctly) Jewish sensitivity readers and multiple Jewish book reviewers really enjoyed and recommended it. Then Mina stepped in to say that multiple Jewish journals she followed rated the book highly and recommended it meaning the accusation of antisemitism clashed heavily with what a lot of other people thought, and that since me and the other person who was saying the book was antisemitic were the only ones who had read it or were familiar with it in any capacity, it wasn’t fair for everyone to be judging it like that. It was like she’d flipped a switch: people were suddenly much more “reasonable” and “fair” and willing to give the book a chance, just because she’d stepped in. (As a quick note, I don’t remember exactly whether Mina stepped in first or if I stated my opinion first. I also want to mention that Mina DMed me to state that the person who accused the book of antisemitism had expressed some Zionist sentiments in the past and to say that maybe their take on the book could have come from Islamophobia with them maybe assuming obviously ethnic name of the author was a Muslim name. The Zioinist stuff is something I can’t actually speak on since again, I have no access to the server anymore and I don’t remember that person’s url. This was the last time Mina DMed me or I her.)

I wrote all that out because I think it illustrates a few things. Firstly, a good example of the tendencies of people going with the flow of things even when it led to dogpiling/drastic conclusions. When I say they were really trashing that book, I mean it! Secondly, it demonstrates the willingness of everyone to go along with what Mina said. Third, it shows that Mina was capable of stepping in to prevent dogpiling (and, seemingly, she would, at least if her beliefs aligned with the opposite of whatever incited the dogpiling) and that people would listen to her and actually change their minds. 

Whether or not Mina supported something was pretty important. Of course, it was her server, so she was definitely allowed to run it how she saw fit, but she would very swiftly pass judgement on things and everyone would just comply. One time, I think there were more than one different threads of conversation happening in the general channel of the server. Jess suggested making a second general channel to allow for other conversations, as is common in a lot of servers, including ones I’m in and moderate/own/have some power in. I don’t remember if I supported that suggestion or if I only backread that conversation, but I know at least one other person agreed. Mina said that as an older person (she’d very frequently bring up her age) she thought people could just wait for their turn in a conversation and didn’t even consider trying it out. Other mods, I believe, backed her up and said no to the second general conversation channel. I remember being a little confused as to why nobody even considered trying a member’s suggestion to make the server more easy to participate it and help provide additional structure/support how big it was, and why it was shut down because people could just wait for their turn, when clearly the general channel was getting overloaded before our eyes. But Mina didn’t see the need, so therefore nobody else wanted to do anything about it, and nobody ever mentioned it again, I think. I know this is a super minor instance lol, but I do think it illustrates something about the behavior in the server and how it was run. It’s not like other channels weren’t added based on need; one was created for the 2018 elections, one was created for talking about race in June during the height of BLM protests having news coverage, I’m pretty sure one was created for talking about the coronavirus. So, the mods were watching conversations and responding as they saw fit, they just wouldn’t field this request, for some reason. Obviously conversations getting muddled in a general channel isn’t as significant as major political events, antiblack racism, or a pandemic, but these channels were made to improve the server experience and likely to prevent these topics from completely overloading other channels, so, well.

Okay, the Castor/pilipalea stuff and dogpiling. I’ll say this stuff now because Castor has opened up about it (here [wayback machined] and here [archived in a google doc]), so I see that as permission for others to comment on it. If I’m remembering correctly and looking back at the right things, there was something about Mina giving advice on a grammatical error to one of her mutuals, or something asking if her mutuals wanted grammatical advice? Castor vagueblogged, presumably about that, and talked about classism in expecting good grammar from people, which is a valid issue, but seemed misapplied to this instance of someone consenting to receive advice on grammar/syntax/mechanics, if that’s what the vagueblogging was about. I reached out to Mina to let her know that I thought someone was vagueblogging about her, and she told me about past conflicts with Castor. I also reached out to Castor over DMs to ask what the vagueblogging was about, because you genuinely never know; classist prescriptivism is harmful and bad, and so many people on Tumblr are in so many different circles that similar topics may come up coincidentally. Castor wasn’t clear with me either about what the post was targeting and skirted around naming names.  

At this point, looking back, it still seems to be that it was about Mina, especially considering that Castor had previous history with her and others in her circle. Mina was irritated by the vagueblogging (who likes being vagueblogged about?) and also informed me, all the way back in April 2019, about this past server drama that Castor mentioned. It seems to me that it stemmed from a misunderstanding: Mina and I believe other mods noticed another person using Castor’s PSDs without credit. Mina checked with Castor about whether people should be crediting them for PSDs and Castor said that, yes, they wanted credit; you can see this interaction in the screenshot Castor linked on their post. 

This is where the accounts of what happened diverge: Mina expressed to me that she and the other mods weren’t very harsh since they’d seen that Castor’s friend had credited Castor in the past, so they just wanted to remind Castor’s friend to give credit, without knowing that Castor’s friend had permission to use the PSDs without crediting. I was told that Mina and the team of mods were professional in their handling of this; Castor has stated in their post that the group was extremely harsh. Since I don’t have any screenshots or exact records of what they said before I was in contact with Mina, I can’t comment, so I’ll withhold judgement on that. According to Mina, she and the other mods had not been very vocal about this crediting/PSD stuff, and very few people knew about it, so it did seem like Castor had attacked Mina out of nowhere.

What I can say is that the VV members were certainly quick to respond to the grammar vagueblog, and that if I’m remembering correctly, readily jumped to Mina’s defense. I distinctly remember that one VV member specifically asked whether it was about Mina in a reblog. This happened pretty early on in VV’s existence and I believe was the first major “drama” that VV got embroiled in. Looking back, I do think it was fair to be critical of Castor’s post. But this was also the first look at the tendencies people had of getting embroiled in the fervor of any perceived slight against a member (in particular Mina).

I noticed this again when I received anons that were sort of bitter about VV’s existence in May 2019, way before VV had gained the reputation that it has now. People were very quick to respond with hostility and slightly amplify the anger expressed by other members, and little by little things got really out of hand. I can totally understand being upset and irritated, since the asks were kind of unwarranted and the sender did apologize if I remember correctly. But there was a huge outpouring of vicious language from a lot of the members, and this was, I think, the first instance of proper dogpiling in VV, especially since it was an easy antagonist; the sender was out of line, and they were totally anonymous.

These were the only two instances of going to bat for VV that I ever participated in. For the other things, I either only backread or missed them completely. While they don’t really paint VV in a super bad light, not like the dogpiling of an eleven-year-old that Jess mentions in her post, it did give me a pretty good idea of how VV handled controversies.

I’ve mentioned some of my theories of why this dogpiling/toxicity happened. I’d also like to add that Mina would often send concise, decisively-worded statements about things. I think this may have come across as final-word judgments to a lot of people, so they would take that as the last say on a certain matter and escalate in severity of their response from there. And like, you should trust your friends and take what they say in good faith. But you still need to be thinking critically and considering your response, especially when you haven’t known someone for very long. And this, I think, was a big source of toxicity in the server. There were just so many people responding to the same issues and aligning their beliefs, and they’d build off each other and create an environment where these kinds of responses were okay. Plus, VV was always portrayed as a tight-knit family when not everyone knew each other and not everyone was active (as is totally normal for a massive server), so this also contributed to people wanting to defend each other all the time. And I don’t think the mod team did an adequate job of shutting it down, despite the veneer of a structured, sort of more “professional” space.

Okay, now onto the art stuff.

Disclaimer, I don’t draw digital or physical art. I was always aware that Mina was certainly at least using references for her work. In some cases I could even pinpoint which pictures were used, like one where the faceclaim was Ranveer Singh. I also received fanart of one of my characters that, of course, looked very similar to the faceclaim. It certainly was clear some tracing had happened in that picture because of the level of detail in the chikankari embroidery, but like…..it’s free fanart, chikankari isn’t copyrighted, and that embroidery is super difficult to draw anyways. What I was not aware of was Mina apparently tracing images and using them to advertise for commissions, which is something I do not condone. I also know my photography and photo editing tools, so I was aware that there was some filtering/editing going on. I’m not sure if Mina traced and didn’t disclose it for commissioned art.

Okay, now the server shutting down stuff!

I was completely unaware of the dogpiling/transphobia stuff happening in the server because I had it on mute. I only found out about all this two days ago. I received the message where everyone was @’ed about VV’s “migration” off Tumblr and that the server would be shut down. I can confirm that the concern was about mirror sites and that the server did discuss these mirror sites as a big intellectual property issue. I didn’t know people wanted the server shutting down to be kept so secret, and I honestly cannot think of a reason why; I feel like if those mirror site concerns were serious, people would be trying to spread the word on writeblr? So I think that people are right to be a little suspicious of the exact reason for the server’s closing.

I think I should mention also that people were pretty much always friendly with me on VV. I met a bunch of cool people, and Mina was always kind and supportive with me. @radley-writes has echoed similar sentiments here (wayback machined here) and here (wayback machined here) while being critical of the environment in VV.

I know this post is like, wildly long and probably quite dry and rambly at points, but I hope it does provide some specific examples to back up some of the criticisms of VV and document it a bit better.

Thank you for reading! I’ll make sure to edit this to add stuff if I remember things/see the need.

I also want to state that my post is more a critique of the environment than anything. I’m not trying to attack anyone at all, I’m just giving an account of stuff that has happened, my level of involvement, and my own thoughts on all this.

I also want to say that I am completely open to hearing what any of you have to say. Feel free to critique/discuss anything I’ve said in this post with me. If you want to vent about your experiences in/with Violet Vineyard, my inbox and DMs are totally open. If you want to keep things confidential, I won’t break your trust or reveal your identity (unless you start idk, spouting racist stuff at me or something). If you want to anonymously tell people about an experience, feel free to shoot me an anon.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful day! I’m sending you lots of love. Take care! <3

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

ok YES i'm vagueposting abt someone in my notes but LOOK at this...

1) nutrition-wise, NOBODY should just be eating bread and yogurt for dinner? like... calling eating meals a "weird american thing" when it's just a 'this is how much/what types of food humans need to live' thing? so odd to me

2) i'm not american

3) to my knowledge, americans do in fact know how to make and eat sandwiches. i, op of the post, although not american, also makes and eats sandwiches (and frozen meals/instant meals). i cannot imagine how this person lives where they think that this is specific to them and not literally everywhere else in the world?

4) i rarely go to restaurants or order food - most of my meals i make myself or reheat from the freezer (either frozen leftovers or ready-bought meals). to my knowledge, americans also mostly make their own meals (although, not being american, i wouldn't know for sure)

5) the last tag? "idk how anyone has the spoons or the money to make dinner everyday or order food everyday" THEY DON'T! the post is literally about the task of making dinner every day being sisyphean! that's the point! BUT cooking a meal from scratch is far cheaper than what this person says they do instead (frozen pizzas/meals, "just going to the grocery store... when hungry")! so... what is their point?

6) i'm! not!! american!!! so how exactly does this criticism even apply?!

ik it doesn't say anywhere on my blog where i'm from but that's why i find it even stranger that this person (and others in the notes of the same post) have just assumed that i'm american... like. is this site so us-centric that (non-american) people assume that everyone but them is american? or do they just assume it of people they disagree with?

i'm assuming this person is finnish and maybe the 5 small meals rather than 3 regular sized ones thing is true in finnish culture (if anyone knows more about this i'd love to learn!) but to say it's true of all non-americans when 1) op isn't american and 2) from what i know of food culture from around the world (especially the rest of europe!) having 3 meals is much more common....... i'm just confused?

also there's SUCH a massive assumption of class/accessibility here? as someone who grew up on the less comfortable side of comfortable, ready made freezer meals were a godsend for when my parents were working and couldn't cook - although i'm not american i know it's the same for the majority of people. saying that americans all *have* to order food/eat out at restaurants on a regular basis rather than more cost-effective methods is just so bizarre to me because.... you think there aren't any poor people in america??? what???

i'm going to shut up now bc this is already uncalled for but this just really rubbed me the wrong way lmao

i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes i will not vaguepost about dumb people in my notes

[amourete-blog1]

(( opinions.

the “realistic” approach to online interactions doesn’t work. it’s a fundamentally flawed system for several reasons, which is exacerbated by the fact that people on tumblr are afraid of face-to-face interactions. even if one singular person isn’t afraid of it, the community as a whole is, and that’s a BAD habit.

fact: some characters will not get along unless they are literally forced to spend time together. this is one of several dynamics that makes rp interesting for quite a few people. if it’s not your fancy, more power to you, but for some people it is, and the current community approach to rp is crippling their ability to explore that. characters can have WILDLY different views on certain subjects, which are usually formed by people they look up to, people in their life, things they’ve researched or things they’ve personally experienced, among likely several other sources. these differences should be encouraged, not smothered. it’s not fun to rp when every character is exactly the same.

the usage of ic blocking so flippantly is a huge factor in smothering those differences in characters. as rpers, interactions are our lifeblood. without them, we can’t rp. rp is one of the few things a person cannot do by themselves, like it’s literally impossible - if you’re rping by yourself, you’re writing a novel. it’s no longer rp.

when characters icly block each other, that cuts off an avenue for those characters to interact, which means one less interaction for both those characters, ESPECIALLY because again: we as a community are afraid of ftf roleplay, so there’s no other alternative route. some rpers can take that hit, of losing one possible rper. most can’t. if your character is one of the types that is hard to love, you get a lot of people blocking you, you’ve now effectively cut off a whole circle of interactions, and here’s the worst part: when someone blocks you, there is virtually nothing you can do.

therefore, we as rpers learn that we “can’t” have our characters have those opinions/do those things, or else they will be blocked and we will be rendered incapable of rping. for “survival” in this community, we sacrifice diversity, because otherwise we know we literally won’t be able to rp. that’s not okay. and yes, some brave souls will do it anyway, but i would urge anyone to consider: how many people have you actually seen rp with those people? because all the numbers i come up with are typically pretty low.

oocly, it makes sense to block people you don’t want to talk to. it makes perfect sense, and i’ve done it several times myself. blocking is a wonderful tool that absolutely should be used. however, when used in-character, it presents massive problems, like this. rp does not strictly follow the rules of real life. that’s why we have aliens, and magic, and “coincidences” that add up to the conclusion both/all rpers want. if you’re looking for truly, flawlessly realistic rp, go talk to someone offline and have adventures. we write fiction here.

solutions: stop using in-character blocking except as a very, very last resort, and provide a way for the character to be unblocked. if a character blocks another character, expect character b to be unblocked at a later time, whether by character a’s choice, by a malfunction, by outside interference or anything else - and moreover, put plans in place for that to happen. provide a means.

fact: characters do not have their own autonomy. they are fictional. they can’t think or act for themselves, we as muns are always in control. if a mun is not in control of their character 100% of the time, that is actually, truly dangerous to everyone involved, and should not be encouraged.

we make judgements about what our characters would do in situations based on information we’ve gathered about them. it’s a really remarkable ability our brains have. we can put ourselves in their shoes, but at the end of the day, we are still making that choice to have them act on whatever they act on, think whatever they think, and so on. yes, impulses are a thing. yes, sometimes they greatly benefit an rp. no, they do not always have to be followed.

having characters react to every single thing they see can sometimes be good for sparking interactions, but most of the time, it’s exhausting. perpetuating an atmosphere where characters that DON’T interact with absolutely everything they see is frowned upon/discouraged is ultimately harmful. if an rper, ooc, is uncomfortable with something, or just doesn’t want to rp it, the atmosphere we should be perpetuating is one of “that’s okay. you aren’t obligated to rp this.” and if it’s brought up to them personally, rather than just being flung out in the abyss, we should be encouraging them to break character and talk ooc.

reacting to content, whether directly or indirectly (vagueposting, purposefully loudly ignoring by trying to redirect the topic) rewards behavior and furthers that content. if you don’t want to interact with content, don’t. don’t have your character vague. don’t have them scream at the top of their lungs about how nice the weather is where they are. that’s still an interaction. when you interact ic, you are confirming that you are okay with what is going on. if that’s not true, rpers need to stop interacting. they need to break character, and they need to say “i’m not okay with this.”

no, this isn’t a matter of “don’t assume consent.” online we have literally no other indicators of whether someone is uncomfortable or not. we just have the text we’re given. it is impractical at absolute best to constantly ask “are you okay with this,” and impossible at worst, because we’d be accenting every line with that question to the point where it would be just the same as before: assumed. we must, must start pushing for people to communicate ooc, immediately, when they are uncomfortable or otherwise not cool with what’s going on.

solutions: if an rper doesn’t want to have their character engage with a certain topic, have them do something else. not out of spite, not as if they’re trying to distract, just... something else, for its own merit. they can hit someone up in ims. they can start a different post. sometimes this doesn’t work because the discussion is so widespread, but that’s kind of... just how it goes. we as a community should also try to encourage this method by interacting with that content too, but sometimes it’s not what people want to do, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. whatever it is, though, it’s still better than icly interacting with the thing you don’t want to interact with.

that being said, widespread dash discussions of bad shit, like we’ve seen with the hemoism, slavery, etc discussions, are a problem. it would be good to mitigate those, a lot more than they are now. tagging is a good step, but interacting with non-Big Bad Discourse (BBD) topics will help too. like sandwich discourse - that was good. if someone’s trying to make a joke, we can help them! we can interact with them and help them make their joke, then we get something funny and everyone wins. if someone starts dropping hints in a post/dropping interesting information, it’s probably because they’re seeking interaction. scratch that: if they make a post, period, it’s because they’re seeking interaction because again, it’s the lifeblood of rp. it’s what we do. likes are great, replies are better, reblogs are top-tier. interact with content you want more of. we all want more diversity in the content we see here, so let’s make that happen, and “vote with our feet.”

and no this post isn’t actually solely re: hemoism discourse ooc talk. it’s actually opinions i’ve had for a while. i kinda just woke up and was like “hey i maybe want to talk about this.” the purpose of this post is me hoping to make a couple ripples in the community as a whole and maybe change the way we do/think about certain things. i really like this community, i love the people i’ve met, and i want to see it get better. if you don’t agree with me, that’s your prerogative, but i do hope you’ve at least thought about what i’ve said.

floor is open to discussion if anyone has anything to say/add.