#anon what are you talking about. youre making hypotheticals out of people who Dont Exist

[butchdykekondraki]

if you id as a guy you shouldnt be speaking for women at all its that easy

???!??!!!? IM LITERALLY A WOMAN. LIKE IRL I AM A WOMAN. HELLO?

[mithliya]

“HUH??? theres even straight women out there who arent finding sex with men pleasurable, why would a lesbian want to be with a man sexually to begin with? why would any lesbian have "no preference in sexual partners when they're horny" like ur basically saying lesbian boundaries fall apart once we're horny and that just.. doesnt make sense.... if u get horny for men and enjoy sex with men then thats a very blatant sign ur not a lesbian. when im horny i dont suddenly want to have sex with men bc men as a whole are entirely sexually undesirable to me. its not even a neutral act bc its directly me going against my desires & sexuality to do sth like that.”

I think you’ve maybe misunderstood my ask, because I’m on the same page as you on this topic. I do not see why lesbians (of all people!) would want to sleep with men, and I definitely do not think there’s a lot of lesbians having casual sex with men without any sort of pressure involved (like internalized homophobia or forced marriages/rape). My ask was kind of a response to the anon who talked about this topic (it was about her self proclaimed lesbian friend and things she’d read from lesbians online), and I was more or less contemplating the improbability.

I was being hypothetical and just thinking about whether or not it’s even possible to disregard sexuality without any feeling of unease. When I said there’s probably lesbians who do have willing sex with men, it was meant like “describe something, anything, you think is impossible, and there’s at least one person out there in the world who fits the bill”, and I did not mean at all that this is normal for lesbians, hence the “if we’re being hypothetical” that I wrote first thing in that paragraph. (I probably should have swapped out “lesbians out there” with “a lesbian out there” to make my point clearer…)

Also I did not intend to come off as saying that lesbians’ boundaries fall apart when horny — I do not think this at all. I wrote that because I was referencing the previous anon, who mentioned a lesbian friend sleeping with men when horny (paraphrasing: “not chasing it, but not minding it either”), and my point was “is that even possible? to sleep with someone you can never be sexually attracted to just bc you’re horny/they’re easily available/etc.? to not have boundaries in regards to sexual partners’ sex despite your sexuality? that can’t possibly be right?” — the same reaction as you — thus me mentioning various factors that can make lesbians “want to” sleep with men. That’s also why I mentioned early off that maybe there’s a lot more bi people than we think — because I think it sound very irrational to say that there’s lesbians who would sleep with men.

I probably should have worded my previous ask better, so I’m really sorry about that. What I wanted to get across was “it’s not possible for lesbians to sleep with men without there being some sort of internal/external pressure involved, but even if there is a lesbian (who may not even be lesbian) out in the world somewhere who does fit that bill, she will very much be an extreme outlier, and it would still be right to say that lesbians=don’t sleep with men willingly.”

ah thank you for clarifying, i thought you were perhaps debating that it’s possible and saying it could make sense but i wasn’t understanding how what u were saying would indicate that. honestly i cant even imagine that this 1 hypothetical extreme outlier lesbian even exists— like, what would even differentiate her from a bi woman? countless bi women strongly prefer women but don’t mind sex with men and can find men sexually pleasurable or consider men as sexual partners when horny enough. maybe a bad example but i used to watch this show called bad girls club & there’s this one woman who strongly proclaimed to being a lesbian. in one episode they’re in another country on some sort of vacation and she didn’t find a woman to hook up with so she finds a guy and hooks up with him in the bathroom and she says after “oh yup i’m totally a lesbian” (bear in mind this wasn’t even her first time with a man, she made it very clear she was just very horny and wanted to get laid) … anyways.. that woman ended up having a husband and kids and coming out as bi after a couple of years. like i just don’t see why any lesbian in the entire world would suddenly be horny for a man. like men themselves do nothing for us and we aren’t just like… neutral about men and could take it or leave it, we are actively totally unattracted to them. the only cases i can imagine are cases in which the lesbian in question has some serious mental issues or sth of the sort bc it absolutely is not normal nor logical to seek out sex with men when you’re not even attracted to them. when we’re horny, none of our desires will include men. it won’t suddenly make us find men attractive. we won’t suddenly desire penises or heterosexual sex. it’s just completely antithetical to our lesbianism. frankly i even find it hard to believe that any lesbian would be actually neutral about having sex with a man ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ very often the lesbians u talk to who claim they were neutral end up expressing visible disgust and discomfort and sometimes trauma symptoms like dissociation.

i think the far more likely scenario is there’s bi women with strong preferences who think bc their preferences for women are strong enough, bc they find men generally unappealing for some reason altho they obviously have exceptions to that (ie there’s some men they’d seek out and feel horny over) they think that this doesn’t count as opposite sex attraction & therefore they’re lesbians. and also the way i look at it on top of that is like.. if the term lesbian refers to women with certain qualities and traits, and you do not fit into that definition, then how can u even be an extreme outlier of the group? perhaps ur not a lesbian to begin with is all.

so, basically, i just don’t think it’s possible whatsoever even if we consider this as an extreme outlier.. that can only be an outlier if we take at face value this person claiming to be a lesbian while actively seeking out men and desiring men. but she’s not an outlier whatsoever when u consider the many bisexual women who are similar or have similar histories

[lone-nyctophile]

Hello there, i hope you are doing well and having a lovely morning, evening or night! <3

im 19, i know i have years ahead of me to explore romantic love. Currently, i am just focusing on myself and falling in love with life. It’s been good for a while.

but these days, it feels like maybe i am not meant for romantic love. my last relationship was of five years, and outside of that, some platonic relationships also changed me. It’s become really hard for me to trust people and their intentions. trust if they will stay or eventually leave me.

i did start liking someone, but they moved away to another city. we talk, rarely. they probably do not reciprocate the feelings and it is okay.

somedays i think to myself that these past experiences do not define my future. and somedays i get scared thinking that i will probably die alone. lol

Do you have any advice on how to stop this scary feeling that is gradually creeping up into my mind? i think it will hamper my healing process.

or another way to put up this question,

how to refocus on the love that already surrounds me? when my former partner recently told me that they are in a new relationship now.

thank you for listening, lots of love and light to you and your blog<3

Hello anon!

Well, these feelings are not unusual, especially after the breaking of a five year relationship.

Based on what you've written, I think you're apprehending the possibility of being romantically lonely in the future due to what recently happened with you. I dont want to tell you to stop thinking about it because it would just mean conscious repression of what your feeling which is definitely not a right solution because it will show up in some way later on.

Instead, it would be better if you address what exactly you're feeling now, ponder upon it and try to find out what is that common factor/factors in your relationships (romantic and platonic ones you mentioned) which might be making you feel this way by trying to gain an insight on them. I'll show you a method to facilitate this process-

Start slowly...first focus on the positives of each relationship, gradually move on to the neutral aspects and then finally to the more challenging parts (you can also talk to other people involved in your relationships to find out about the above)

If you're able to find the common factor/factors, then try looking at them in a rational way and what you both could have done to improve those aspects. Now most importantly, try learning from this and to give yourself some sort of assurance, think about a hypothetical relationship with similar challenges, come up with solutions, and imagine that this hypothetical relationship has become healthy now. I'm sure some of your fear about you messing up your future relations will recede!

As for not currently finding a relationship, darling you're young with so many years ahead of you. Life is a long journey and I'm certain that someone will come along as a partner!! You just need to wait for a while. Also yeah, I know it's not easy to see your former partner get into a new relationship but maybe there's someone better waiting for you.

Another advise I would like to give you is talk with people who are close with you (like your best friend, sibling, etc.) because trust me on this, it really helps.

To focus on your existing relationships, try making them stronger by maybe spending quality time, doing activities which are of mutual interest, give little gifts which hold genuine feelings, or just anything which you think would make the bond stronger. It will give you a sense of contentment and fulfillment.

Thank you for writing to me and for the wishes. If you want talk again, my door will always be open😊 I really hope this helped you in some way and that you feel better soon!!

[caroldantops]

hey! im quite new here and i have seen a lot of talk about readers interactions and i was wondering what is the best way to support my favorite writers (like you) because i think i have been doing this wrong and i really want to support writers who do this<3 ps. sorry if that was confusing, english isnt my first language

not confusing at all babes! you're 100% clear.

also can i just say, i very much appreciate you asking this. i would much rather more people speak up and be like "hey, we dont know the best way to support our favorite writers so how can we?" other than just. Not Knowing and Not Doing Anything.

so, im going to speak from my own personal experience but also what ive seen many of my mutuals/writers i follow talk about. this might get a little long but i wanna answer as thoroughly as i can because people should know!

im putting it under a read more because it got hella long, but please i encourage everyone who reads fics but don't interact to read and consider these things.

fellow writers i encourage you to reblog and add any other commentary you think is helpful!

before anything else (this is absolutely not directed at you, anon, you're perfect), i just want to get this out of the way. never come to a writer's blog and get angry with them for complaining about lack of engagement. like jesus christ. writers are putting hours of work on tumblr for you for free. the least we ask is for comments and reblogs. that's it. if you go and act shitty towards writers who ask for more engagement, yet still follow and wait for the next fic, like what are you even doing bro. just stop.

anyway. now let's get to the actual question!

basically all writers on tumblr will agree, reblogs are vital. and i feel like that gets said a lot but maybe people dont actually understand how impactful it is so lemme give an example.

so let's say hypothetically i have 100 followers. that is 100 potential people who see a fic that i post (i say potential because timezones exist so you might not see it as it's posted)

and let's say one of my followers (Person A) reblogs it, and they have 50 followers. that's 50 more people that can read the fic.

and let's say Person B followers Person A and they also reblog it to their 50 followers.

with only two people reblogging a fic, that's already doubling the number of people who have read the fic.

now imagine Person C followers Person A and reblogs the fic, and Person C has like, 1,000 followers. that's so much more exposure for the writer.

and that's only from two followers of the writer. so imagine if all 100 that read the fic reblogged it? the numbers skyrocket at an exponential rate.

plus, more people reading means that the writer could get more people follow them. so they get a more consistent audience.

likes, on the other hand, do not guarantee this exposure. i would say that most people don't have their likes public on tumblr. and also, even if they do, i know that I'm not about to scroll through people's likes rather than scrolling thru their blogs. likes up the notes, and that's about it. of course i understand liking a fic so you can come back to it later, i do that all the time. but if I've liked a fic, i always reblog it once I've read it.

now, say you're reading hardcore smut that you might not want on your main blog for whatever reason, so that's why you don't reblog a fic. look, i get it. sometimes irl people follow your blog, or sometimes you just don't want people to know what you're getting up to. but that's why i made a sideblog specifically for fics.

this entire blog BEGAN as a way for me to reblog fics i liked. and then it grew and grew and grew into all this. not saying that you have to start writing if you do that of course, but i guarantee, i'd rather see a small sideblog blog with like 3 followers reblog my fic than a blog just like the fic and leave. because that's still 3 more people who will see my fic and possibly read it and reblog it. 3 is better than none.

comments. reblogs are important, but comments are really what keep writers writing. they inspire us with new ideas, help figure out what it is that people enjoy from us, help us improve our writing, and most importantly, they make us feel good. and like writing and posting is worth it.

now, i know that sometimes it can feel awkward reblogging with a comment directly on the post. i even usually don't do that unless it's with a friend. but here are some alternatives/tips!

send an ask or DM! if you're really intimidated, sending an anonymous message is by far the easiest way to bypass that awkwardness.

write in the tags!! i cannot express this enough. comment in the tags. ramble about the fic. just put three tags worth of screaming. literally ANY comments in the tags are my favorite thing. i promise you that writers will scroll thru like basically every tag.

also, if they post it on both tumblr and ao3, don't feel weird about giving a little comment on both! i do that all the time. you can even be like 'hey i read this on tumblr first but wanted to say again how much i enjoyed it' and that is like, heart burstingly nice to hear.

also, if you're having trouble coming up with something to say, my like top commenting tip as both a writer and a reader is point out something specific that you like about the fic. when i comment on a fic (this is moreso when i comment on ao3 bc my comments are always longer there) i try to point out a particular line i like. literally if you just copy and paste it and go 'wow i really really like this line especially' that is the number one way to a writer's heart. seriously. it's the simplest thing, but it makes SUCH an impact.

however, if your comments are only asking for more fics, then that's not a comment, that's a request (which not all writers take).

saying something like 'hey i loved this fic a lot! if you have more in store for this in the future, i'd be really excited to read it!' is a million times better than 'will you do a part 2'. i know they don't sound that different, but i promise you that the tone makes a big difference.

(i honestly have more thoughts about good ways to get over commenting fear/know what exactly to comment that doesn't feel generic, so if people would like me to make another post about it i'd do it.)

and last but not least, if the writer has a way to donate, like a ko-fi, that always is so appreciated. of course, take care of yourself first, but if you have a few bucks and wanna show some support to your faves, that's a great way to help :)

oh! also, if the writer ever reblogs those little ask game things, just send them something! engagement outside of writing is also so much appreciated.

i think that's about everything i can think of! i hope this is helpful and that my explanations weren't confusing (if i need to clarify anything let me know). and again, thank you so much for asking! even doing that shows that you're a reader who cares, and that means the world ❤

[a-dragons-journal]

i dont "kin for fun" but through tiktok i found out about the whole kin for fun vs actual otherkin... situation ig? im having a really hard time taking it seriously... maybe im just burnt out and bitter from dealing with the worlds current events, and maybe its because on tiktok the only people i saw mad about it were white people, but you're the most reasonable person ive seen talking about it (a lot of other posts have this odd tone that 12 year olds on tiktok saying kin is the worlds greatest opression and it weirds me out) so ig my question is just... why exactly does this matter? why does it matter enough to post about and care about and not just ignore? /gen

Hey! I don’t blame you for being a bit weirded out by it, we’re a weird subculture and we’re well aware of it! xD I appreciate you taking the time to actually look into it past your first knee-jerk reaction, especially considering burnout and the state of things.

I’m not totally sure if you’re asking why otherkinity matters or why the “kin for fun” being wrong matters, so I’ll answer both - they’re pretty well tied together anyway.

The short version:

Otherkinity is an identity. It’s who we are, we can’t choose to pick it up or put it down, and it comes with struggles - though no, ‘kin are not systematically oppressed (though we are pretty badly bullied and, at this point, pushed out of our own words and spaces).

What people calling roleplay/relating to/projecting onto characters “kinning for fun” does is steal our words, make them meaningless, and in doing so, make it difficult or impossible for us to find each other. If someone says “I kin [x],” I no longer know whether they mean “I am [x] on an intrinsic level” or “haha I relate to this character a lot”. I no longer know whether they actually share my experiences or if they’re going to turn on me and call me “crazy” as soon as they realize I’m not exaggerating or joking or roleplaying. It’s done massive harm to the community as a whole because it’s become difficult to tell whether someone is actually ‘kin or if they’ve misunderstood the whole thing - and because antikin rhetoric, which I’m seeing more and more in KFF spaces, hurts far more when it’s coming from inside what you thought was a community space than when it’s coming from self-labeled “antikin.”

There are other words for roleplaying and relating to and projecting onto characters. Hell, there are words for strongly identifying with-but-not-as characters/things, though usually KFF people don’t even seem serious enough for those to fit in my experience. I’m really not sure why these people are so determined to steal and misuse our words, words that were specifically created to mean something else, when they already have their own and are just refusing to use them. (Or, hell, if you don’t feel like those fit, make your own. We did. It’s your turn to put in the work. (General you, not you-the-anon, of course.))

An analogy, if that still doesn’t quite land for you:

Consider, for a moment, the transgender community. I am aware this is a dangerous thing to say, but bear with me. Obvious CW for hypothetical transphobia up ahead is obvious.

Consider if you were part of the trans community (I don’t know if you are or not), having finally found a word to explain why you feel the way you do about yourself, why your experiences don’t seem to match up with those of everyone else around you. Having found a community, a home, full of other people like you, people you never would have met if not for words like “transgender” and “gender dysphoria/euphoria” that were created specifically to describe your experiences.

Now consider if people suddenly stumbled across your community for the first time who were not trans themselves. They see community jokes and lighthearted posts out of context, because Tumblr and Twitter aren’t exactly conducive to making sure people find the Transgender 101 information posts first. They don’t bother to do further research, assuming they understand: ah, these people like to crossdress! They like to pretend they’re a different gender! This seems like a fun hobby, I want in!

They begin to post things like this. They post photos of them crossdressing and caption them “hi, I’m [name], and I trans men!” and things of the like. Suddenly the concept of “transing for fun” seems to be everywhere - and it’s not at all what being trans actually is, but these people either don’t know or don’t care. When actual trans people try to politely correct them, they’re accused of “gatekeeping” - and to be clear, this is not “nonbinary people aren’t real,” it’s “transgender means you identify as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth, and you’re self-identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth 100% and telling us this is just a fun hobby for you, therefore you’re not trans, you’re crossdressing or doing drag or being GNC. That’s fine, but it’s not being trans - you have other words to describe that, use those.”

(Yes, I am aware these things have a history with the trans community - please just ignore that for the sake of the analogy and bear with me on the slightly simplified version of this. “Kinning for fun” does not have that same history with the otherkin community.)

...And then the response to those attempted corrections, in some corners, turns into “wait, you ACTUALLY think you’re another gender? idk that sounds pretty unhealthy, maybe you should see a psychologist or something :\” and “you’re taking this too seriously.”

I imagine, in this hypothetical scenario, you’d also be pretty fuckin peeved.

(Obviously, in this hypothetical scenario, systematic transphobia would be an issue as well, which isn’t the case for otherkin - again, you’re gonna have to bear with me on the simplification for sake of analogy there.)

(EDIT: this is not an anti-MOGAI/exclusionist argument, this is “you’re literally telling me you don’t fit the definition,” explanation on that here)

The long version, which is probably still worth reading if you have the time and energy:

Otherkinity is... pretty core to who I am, who we as a group of individuals are. We live with being otherkin on a daily basis. Many of us spent a long time feeling different and disconnected and not understanding why until we found the otherkin community. Even people like me, who don’t share that experience and still had social connection - I’ve still had to live with weird differences that I had to learn to mask when necessary; instincts that don’t line up with human society well, feeling body parts that weren’t there and that no one else ever seemed to have, things that other kids grew out of because it was just make-believe for them and I... didn’t, because it was never make-believe for me to begin with. Oh, sure, I played make-believe too - I played warrior cats and house and all those things with the other kids, but there were things that weren’t play-pretend for me too. I didn’t have an explanation for it for a long time - it was just how I was, I was weird, and fortunately for me personally I was okay with that (many of those with species dysphoria or more trouble connecting with humans have more problems from that than I did).

And then I found the word “otherkin.” And suddenly everything fell into place, and I had an explanation for the things I’d been experiencing, and there were other people like me. Something I’d assumed didn’t exist. I found others who shared my unique experiences, who were talking about how to cope with the instinct to growl or snap jaws at people instead of expressing annoyance in a human way instead of just saying “that’s weird, don’t do that”, who were talking about dealing with phantom wings and tails, who understood me. I wasn’t weird, I wasn’t broken, I was exactly what one would expect from a dragon living in human skin. I found an explanation for myself. I found a home.

That is why otherkinity matters - it is who we are, it’s not something we can walk away from (certainly not most of us, anyway), and it’s something many of us need the support of the community to help deal with on a daily basis. Being a nonhuman in human society isn’t always easy, but it’s not something we can just magically stop being - it’s core to who we are, we (generally) didn’t choose to be this way, and we (generally) can’t choose to stop. Which is fine - the vast majority of us can cope with it just fine, with a little advice and help and space to be our authentic selves in. We found each other, we built this community from the ground up to make a space and words to make finding each other easier - or possible at all.

Thus we come to the second half of our story.

It was only a couple of years ago that the “kin for fun” trend started getting big. It had existed before that, of course, but it only started going mainstream two, maybe three years ago, from what I can tell. Suddenly people were treating “kin” like it meant relating to, projecting onto, roleplaying as, or just really really liking a character or thing - not being that thing, which is what it actually means. Not long after that, it became hard to tell whether someone saying “I kin this” meant they were that thing, that they were actually part of our community - or that they really really liked that thing and either didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered to learn that that wasn’t the case for us.

Not long after that, it became relatively commonplace to hear phrases like “otherkin are ruining kinning!!” and “you’re taking this too seriously” and “idk, if it’s that serious for you that sounds unhealthy. maybe you should get some help :\” (all directly quoted, or as exactly quoted as I can remember, from things KFF people have said to me or people I know).

It is a special kind of hell, I think, to be told “you’re taking this too seriously, that’s unhealthy” by people who are taking words created to describe your experiences, not theirs, and misusing them to mean something that you do for fun on a weekend instead of something that’s intrinsic to your being.

Perhaps more importantly, like I’ve said, it’s making it almost impossible to know whether someone who says “I kin [x]” is actually ‘kin or if they’re misusing our words to mean something else entirely. The entire point of words is to communicate ideas, and once you start misusing words to mean something totally different than what they actually mean, that communication falls apart and suddenly we might as well not have those words at all. Especially when the community is small enough and obscure enough that we’re starting to be outnumbered by the misinformation. We’re being run out of our own words, words we created to describe our experiences specifically - because we’re a small community that the wider internet can easily drown out by sheer numbers of people who either don’t know any better or don’t care to learn.

That’s the harm it does - the harm it is doing, right now. That’s why it’s important enough to post about. That’s why it matters - because we’re fighting desperately to hang onto our own words so that others like us can actually find us. Because we’re seeing young nonhumans go “this isn’t a kin, I actually am this” and screaming “No, I’m so sorry that this is what the misinformation has done to you, that’s exactly what otherkin means, you have a place here, please don’t let these non-’kin misusing our words drive you away from the very community you’re looking for and that you belong in.” Because we can’t even communicate effectively about our own experiences anymore except in semi-closed spaces like Discord servers and forums (and the number of Discord servers overrun with KFF people is absurd).

......This got very long. Hopefully it at least explained why it matters so much to me and others a bit better ^^; Thanks for hearing me out, and thank you again for looking into this beyond your initial knee-jerk reaction - I really do appreciate it.

(For further reading, if that text wall didn’t blow you out of the water completely, I recommend my “kin for fun” tag, which has more posts like this in both short and long form.)

[moved-19871997]

im the anon who sent in the ask abt the glass closets thing and if you wanna could you elaborate on like. what you mean by the intentions behind his actions would be different from a non famous person's?? im just trying to like. figure out what you meant lmao. im kind of looking at this from the perspective of like, a famous person would actually be more likely to exist in a glass closet than to come out explicitly bc something like that would be aaaaaall over the news and especially with dream in a like, hypothetical scenario it'd be everywhere, in news articles and commentary channels trending on twitter random people talking about it on stream, and for every positive reaction there would be a negative reaction from homophobes and also people in the lgbt community who dislike him. those things go for anyone but i think it'd be especially huge for dream considering the size of his following. but basically having a large following makes coming out such and Event and if you dont want that then it's safer to just make silly jokes and occasionally allude to it or whatever. so im wondering what perspective youre looking at it from

intentions might not be the right word but more like. logic and thinking? because i think he knows that his core audience will be okay with him if he was gay and most of other people will be as well and it would only rlly be a small majority of people who would have an issue with it, but i think when he makes ‘gay jokes’ on twitter he’s not really doing it with the calculated mindset of judging the reception from his audience OR doing it to qbait in some sort of way, i think those are the jokes he feels comfortable making as a result of being comfortable in his sexuality and that he knows his audience will respond well to them

[spadedraws]

Wait huh? Aren't you the one always trying to go outside the box whether it comes to fusion rules or au's? Being off color/defective doesn't mean short. Tbh, I feel as if it's their au and they should do what they please(your words of course)and transphobic or not, someone's bound to get butt hurt or disagree over it. No harm towards you at all and I am against transphobia but...you don't think you're looking in to it too much?

Putting aside your quite obvious tone of patronization; Yes I am the one who always tries to go outside the box when it comes to fusion rules and AUs! However, this isnt exactly the same. Discussing a headcanon for how fusion works is entirely different from regulating and informing yourself on the harmful media and representation trans people are subjected to on the daily.

Secondly, I never stated that the gem had to be short to be offcolor or defective, though I understand how the words i said could be interpreted that way. Someone came to me for advice, and I gave them the advice they asked for. They can make their Amethyst equivalent defective in any ways they’d like, be that too tall, too skinny, wonky arms, too short, too fat, really any type of bodily figure that goes outside the norm for the quartz of that type. I only gave one rule, again a rule they asked for: Dont make the gem’s defect their gender identity otherwise it could have some negative implications towards trans people in general. Do they have to follow this rule? I mean on a technicality no, they dont! But they suffer the consequences of putting themself at risk on a platform and media that is safe for the people they are (hypothetically) actively harming.

Since you’re so quick to analyze my wording however, (i.e. that little bit about “your words of course” was rude and you know it) let’s analyze yours, shall we? You state that you’re against transphobia, yet in the sentence directly before you say “transphobic or not, someone’s bound to get butthurt or disagree over it”. Interesting how that works out huh? You’re not transphobic..... except for when its just trans people getting “butthurt” about it. You could apply that to any context and it would still be just as wrong.

“racist or not, someone’s bound to get butthurt or disagree over it”

“sexist or not, someone’s bound to get butthurt or disagree over it”

“xenophobic or not, someone’s bound to get butthurt or disagree over it”

Just because a particular issue, ANY particular issue, is not relavent to YOU, doesnt mean that there aren’t people who are harmed by the issue. It still exist, and it still needs to be regulated regardless of how you feel.

Furthermore i wanna look at this little line right here:

“No harm towards you at all and I am against transphobia but...you don't think you're looking in to it too much?”

Im focusing on the second half really, but notice how you say, “you dont think you’re looking in to it too much?” No actually I dont!

How is it that, I get asked a question on MY platform, by a person who wants to know MY opinion on a particular topic, and then I go to a direct source for the answer, yet im looking into it too much?

Despite the tone of that text, I am genuinely curious on that one! Do you not research into topics that you’re asked about??? If I asked you, how many days would it take you to travel the world’s entire circumference walking in one straight line, and you consulted an expert on the weather patterns and the gear you would need and the physical stress your body would endure over that amount of time, is it fair for me to say you’re looking too much into it?

The correct answer for that one is: no.

If I’m looking for a legitimate answer to a question, you should want to provide me with the most intelligible response. Thats not looking too much into it, thats called educating yourself and educating others.

Going back to the original subject, and I’ll try to keep it brief since I’ve been talking for a long time now: My main point is that trans people deserve to be treated with respect. They didnt have this right for such a long time. Im doing my part in making trans people feel comfortable in these spaces. If you have a problem with me teaching people how to respectfully write their characters, we can have a one on one discussion in the private messaging system if you’d like. But dont you dare come on anon and tell me that im wrong for treating my friends with the respect they deserve and teaching others to do the same.

[radiqueer]

Hey, I have question for you and that is have you ever made a post or know of one where a minor like you outlines the specifics of how we adults are supposed to interact with you (on Tumblr, for example)? I know, you'll probably be thinking: "Just don't be ageist/treat us as equals, duh!" but please hear me out, I'm asking this in good faith. One of my main problems is, for example, that - online culture being dominated by US culture and it's norms - that I will leave myself open to... tbc

Part 2: potentially life-destroying accusations of grooming/pedophilia not from you or other minors who want to interact in good faith, but from adult antis/minor antis who are not acting in good faith but want to get back at me, as soon as I say something they don’t like. I absolutely agree with you that such bad faith behaviour is NOT exclusive to minors but in the current climate - especially here - interacting with minors in fandom leaves one especially vulnerable. I would like to know tbc..

Part 3 (and I forgot sending the last one anonymously, please don’t publish my username) …whether you could accept/understand that some of us feel this need to protect ourselves. I want these conditions to change as much as you do, because I remember what it was like being in your position and I truly hated it, so I want very much to act differently towards minors now that I am an adult. But I really don’t know if I can for the above reason, which is not your fault of course but still… tbc

I have never made an entire post about it, no. I have, however, set clear guidelines in my faq and in interactions with adults on this website.��

honestly? I don’t know. this isn’t how I set boundaries; most of my experience setting boundaries with adults is over discord DMs and moderated servers and I’m exceptionally good at self-moderation, thanks to the adult friends who taught me exactly how to regulate my interactions and modeled various forms of relationship boundaries for me

please note that I use “relationship” as a neutral word - it doesn’t signify anything romantic unless it explicitly talks about a romantic relationship. 

the clearest and most objective set of guidelines I can give you is:

don’t violate DNIs. ever. this is a big one. if you violate a DNI in any way, and it’s always best to interpret DNIs generously, back off at once. block them, just to be safe. do not engage even if they engaged first. if they keep harassing you, block and report. it is not worth your skin, and manipulative antis can and will use your hesitance to block them out of hand as an indication that you are a predator. give them nothing to go on. 

you do not have to read the blog links of every blogger you come across, but if they’re in their bio then it’s best to skim through them at least once. 

for me, personally, I practice intelligent boundary setting, which is a really fancy way of saying “it depends.” if a friend I know and regularly speak to tells me that my fear fetish is showing on one of my posts, that’s different from like, you saying the same thing. which seems obvious, but you’ll be surprised at how many people think boundaries can be objective and set in stone. 

take, for a lighter (hah) example, my eating disorder. [tw eating disorder and weight talk ahead] I have an ED, I don’t really try to hide it. one of my friends is more invested than the rest in making sure I eat more-or-less enough as regularly as possible. she does it because she struggled with food herself and because she knows I’m underweight, and she wants me to be okay. the problem is that there’s only so much advice I can take before I shut down entirely. so we have to navigate that in an intelligent manner - she checks in with me regularly, and in turn I tell her when she’s going too far or stepping too close to a line of conversation which ends in a shutdown. I also make sure to let her know when I need help, and to thank her for her help no matter how many times I get it, and in general I make an effort to be an equal participant in our conversations even when she’s helping me. but there’s other people in my life who I don’t allow to talk to me about food (they violate that boundary constantly, reinforcing my need for it) and that’s bad. so like, I can’t go “adults talking to me about food is Okay” or “adults talking to me about food is Not Okay” because that boundary can and has to be set and reset as the conditions around it change. [end ed tw]

or like, sex. sure, as a minor I can (hypothetically) go “don’t talk to me about sex” but……what is sex? is heavy petting not sex? can my adult friend - lets call them Brianna, she doesn’t exist I made her up for this example - can Brianna not talk to me about the cute guy she flirted with at her college mixer? is it different if Brianna and the cute guy most definitely did not make plans to fuck after the mixer? what is the difference? can Brianna recommend me a song which contains explicit lyrics? what about explicit themes? can Brianna and I talk about #metoo? can we talk about how she’s afraid to walk back her to her dorm room at night because the security guard on her street creeps her out? can Brianna read my explicit fic? can I read Brianna’s? can she recommend it to her friends who don’t know me? 

this is an annoying amount of questions, isn’t it? now you get it. there’s a few more paragraphs where that came from. 

the best way to tackle this is to answer each question as it comes. there’s no need to spend a month hammering out each detail. flag certain subjects - I ask my friends to warn me before showing me explicit images (of the sexual and violent variety) because that boundary is fluid. some of my friends can complain to me that they’ve been horny and some of them refuse to discuss sexuality with me outside of academic contexts because they’re wary of influencing me. and you know what? both of those are fine. both of those are good and normal and they can co-exist. you will never have the same set of boundaries for everybody in your life. that’s just impossible. 

so focus on what you can do. learn to regulate your own boundaries, and know that the first step to teaching others how to set boundaries is to model your own. ask, “is talking about this okay?” when something sensitive comes up. learn to go “let me know if i ever say anything that makes you uncomfortable” - understand that in your bones, if you can. people telling you something makes them uncomfortable when it’d be easier to be silent is how you know you’ve built trust. it’s a compliment. when they let you know, back off and also go “I’m sorry”. maybe let them pick the next topic of conversation, or move onto something else. 

on tumblr, like I said, don’t violate DNIs. read every link available to you if you plan of following that user. don’t reblog posts tagged #dont reblog. some people (like me) prefer to interact largely over anon, and some people have different needs. it isn’t your job to parse that. communication is a two-way street. try not to say creepy things (”is it something I would say to someone on the street? did they ask their followers to send them things like this?” no and no? don’t say it)

if you’re an adult with “minors dni” in your bio and you’re going to interact with minors off anon, that’s generally a rather bad move. some may take offense - some may not, but it’s a toss-up you don’t want.

let me know if this helps! 

[dreamteamspace]

Random and perhaps specific question, if there were to be, hypothetically an acc made specifically to reblog mcyt fanart to the point it can balance the like:reblog ratio, do you think this is a good idea? I'd like to know your thoughts and maybe suggestions

In general, making a sideblog to reblog mcyt things, especially fanart, is a great idea! It allows you to seperate things from your main blog and reblog as much as you want without worrying about spamming people, and hey, some people might even follow for exactly that!

As for the like/reblog ratio: Obviously when you reblog something, you improve the ratio a little bit (the more notes, the tinier the improvement, given you also leave a like. If you don't leave a like out of principle, I guess you theoretically move the ratio a little more (mathematically speaking), but not because it 'actually' moved or because more people 'actually' saw it, it just gets one note less.)

It's obviously still a good thing to do! It helps spread the post, and hey, one of your followers might reblog the post and get it going even further!

I'm not sure what you mean with "to the point it can balance the like/reblog ratio". One single blog simply cannot do that. Even if you spam reblog, the ratio might LOOK better, but same with reblogging without leaving a like: The ratio looking a little better doesn't always mean more people saw it. In fact, theoretically, a blog that spams reblogs until there's as many as there are likes (if that were even manually possible, although that would probably need a bot or something) probably wouldn't have almost any people following that blog because of the spam they'd have to scroll through.

One reblog is all that one sideblog can *usefully* do, other than maybe reblog once every few days perhaps over different timezones. Although this, again, wouldn't be enough to "fully" balance the ratio.

And since I've started writing this marvelous essay already and you've got my going, dear anon, I have something else to say that's on my mind that I feel like a lot of people miss (although isn't directed at you specifically, I just feel like this is a good post to talk about it):

A lot of people on tumblr yell for reblogs, and they're right for the most part! This site lives on reblogs. I recently learned how to quick reblog on desktop (Hold down "e" and hover over the rb button of a post), and I reblog as much as I can. Reblogging things you like is crucial to this site.

That being said...

given each user that reblogs the post also leaves a like (as I said before, not doing that *technically* improves the ratio, but doesn't *actually* show it to more people, making the like/reblog ratio statistically inaccurate),

given every user that normally would've simply left a like and moved on,

-because it doesn't fit their blog theme, -because they've already reblogged dozens of posts that day, -because while they agree with a controversial post don't want to shove it at their followers just trying to vibe, -because it's a theme more adult-leaning than their typical content and the content they're comfortable showing their followers,

reblogs the post instead,

is a situation in which the like/reblog ratio would be "balanced", but is not realistic.

Because the above reasons exist. We can't ignore them. It could destroy specific, trigger-free spaces, spaces for minors, blogs with themes entirely and blogs that insist on a positive atmosphere meant to relax rather than start things.

A blog that posts and reblogs exclusively pictures of frogs reblogging a fanart of a minecraft youtuber would maybe lose a couple followers and the people following that blog would only be very marginally interested in it. Which is, again, where sideblogs come in: If the person running the frog blog likes mcyt that much, they'd probably consider making a sideblog. But we can't force people to make sideblogs, so assuming we do NOT ignore the reasons stated above for not reblogging, let's present a more realistic situation:

given every user that likes the post in some capacity but does not plan or personally does not want to reblog it instead ignores the like function and does not give a like,

then the same post would have... less notes. Yep. That's it. That's all that would change, really. The like/reblog ratio would be "perfect", but like... the post would have less notes.

The only time where the "reblog things!" is relevant is when people who WANT and are WILLING to reblog a post do not do so for a reason that is AVOIDABLE, such as:

"Im scared people will think Im cringe/this isnt the content my blog is made for/I dont want to show this to my followers for whatever reason, but i still want to support this interest of mine" (make a sideblog),

"reblogging takes too long" (learn to quick reblog. Side note, though: as someone with high depression times, yes, even reblogging can sometimes feel mentally exhausting. Obviously your mental health always comes first, and quick-reblogging does not allow you to add trigger or content warning tags, should you use those for your blog.),

"reblogging isnt that important, it won't matter" (YES, IT IS. YES, IT WILL),

or anything else within reason.

And like, I GET it. People want to boil down the message as simple as possible so that people understand it while scrolling by at 80 mph, which is "REBLOG THINGS", in hopes to reach the people that don't reblog for one of the reasons stated above.

But like, if people that can't/won't reblog a post anyway for one reason or another, and never plan to, just stop using the like function alltogether- we'd have a perfect like/reblog ratio, but just like... less notes on posts.

What people need to understand is that *only reblogs truly help in spreading a post and likes don't do anything other than add a note*, which is valuable and important information, especially people who come here from other sites where the like works differently. I put "likes" on a lot of posts that dive very heavily into drama or criticize ccs (even if I half agree, although most times I just don't know enough to know whether that's even a good take or not). I reblog them only when I think that *my followers would in some way benefit from seeing that post*.

Even if we're on the topic of fanart: Some fanart needs a hell ton of trigger tags, some I vaguely think looks okay but is from a cc or character that I literally know nothing about nor have ever seen and that nobody follows me for, but I still want to add a note.

Where I'm going with this is that, like, we're never gonna have a "perfect" 1:1 like/reblog ratio? It's literally impossible, unless people want to get less notes on their posts alltogether, and I don't see the point in that, personally. Likes may not do much, they really only do a little compared to reblogs, but sometimes people just... want to do a little.

TLDR: We just have to tell people likes work differently here than on other sites, and that reblogs are important and have a much greater effect on the post, and that likes work differently.

This system isn't designed to have its ideal state be a 1:1 ratio: It's designed to have an option of giving only a little and much more covert support to a post if you happen to not want to reblog it for some reason.