#bigots will not give a shit either way and harass

[pageofheartdj]

It's so weird, I am sex/romance averse aroace, yet when I see people describing aspectrum only as not wanting/doing romance/sex, I get upset.

Because this is not the core part of being aspec. Allospec can not want and do these things too.

It's just creates a mess where allos think they can't be allo because they don't want/like it and aspecs think they can't be aspec because they do/like it.

That's just unfair and limits aspec experience despite it being so incredibly diverse.

[mhsdatgo]

By the way, you can say you hate characters and STILL admit that they were abused or harassed. There's literally nothing wrong. Denying it or romanticizing it because of a strange kink of yours won't make your hate any less evident, trust me.

Rhaenyra was abused. She's continuously taken advantage of, and brushed away the moment she isn't needed anymore. And she experiences this first hand with her own father, who completely ruins motherhood for her when she grows up watching Aemma get impregnated and either miscarry or have the baby be stillborn or die in the cradle. If Viserys had been by her side as a supporter to her claim since the start, he wouldn't have gotten Aemma pregnant again and again in the pursuit of a male child. He wouldn't have married Alicent for the same reason. Even after, the only reason why he still stands by her side, and it's time the fandom accepts this, it's solely because of his grief and guilt, because Rhae is the only remnant of Aemma.

And there it starts. Firstly, groomed and left alone naked and alone by her uncle in a brothel. Secondly, slept with Criston Cole (although she did coerce him, that's still a literal TEENAGER) then she's married to a gay man and still approached super young by her new bodyguard and just one year later she's started giving birth to his children. (Side note: FUCK Rhaenyra x Harwin. FUCK with reverb. With hard K.)

And up to this point, most fan agree that she's had a shitty life, although I don't agree with some of her choices. (like her treatment of Criston Cole and the bastards, not because I'm some kind of bigot, but because passing bastards as trueborn in THAT precise world sets them up for failure, not being legally deserving of a thone DOES NOT mean me hating them. That's for another post.)

To top it all off, she meets her uncle again, and there starts the fanfic self insert. They have sex on a beach the day of Laena's funeral, the only one of the three wives he's ever been canonically loyal to (FUCK you writers) and fans think it's soulmates meeting again or sum shit. They subtly threaten Laenor to fake his death or actually die (that's what they were trying to do, cope harder) and marry mere days after the death of Laena.

Yes, all cute and romantic (for Dumbnyras twats) but literally, has it done anything good? For Rhaenyra or like, anyone else? It just brought Daemon closer to the line of succession. Literally. That's all the good it has done.

Fast forward to ep 10. How do I even start with this? Only Jace seems to be on Rhaenyra's side. It's clear he only obeys to Daemon out of fear and is scared to talk back to him. Meanwhile, he COMPLETELY disregards his wife's, and by his faction's loyalties, QUEEN's, orders, he ignores her wails of pain as she miscarries their daughter out of pure shock and grief for her father's death. He lashes out and chokes her on the same day and people still see him as the malewife to Rhaenyra's girlboss. They're always ready to do award-deserving mental gymnastic to justify this man.

"He was planning war because he wanted to distract himself!!!!" "He only choked Rhae because he was mad at Viserys, he'd never hurt her!!!!!!"

Fuck off. Coming from probably Rhaenyra's #1 hater. Fuck. Off. Don't say you care about her place in the view of men when you're ready to justify shit like this.

This is the same man who runs off and has an affair with a teenager, and then prefers going on and having a badass death instead of joining his wife and children who need him in King's Landing.

Do I like Rhaenyra? No. Do I think that, because of this, she's never been abused, or exploited in any way, in her life? ALSO no. My distaste for her character has NOTHING to do with Viserys, Criston, Daemon, Harwin or literally ANYONE ELSE in her life.

Alicent Hightower time, baby.

My mother, my aunt, my grandmother, my entire bloodline, my Roman Empire. And more. To anyone who thinks of her as nothing but a bitter/jealous girl, go read @feretrumdulcia 's post about this matter cuz there's literally no one I've seen that words it better. (And bub if you're reading, long live you and the way you think.)

https://www.tumblr.com/feretrumdulcia/720746371814195200/i-have-seen-quite-often-that-many-people-consider

Anyone who can read this and argue that Alicent is envious/jealous or bitter, honestly needs to take the heart shaped sunglasses off, get off tumblr and Ao3, learn what media literacy is and start learning how to possess a crumble of it. To us it makes sense to synpathize with both, because we've seen the big picture. To Alicent, Rhaenyra gave her virtue to the man that almost killed her brother, and chose to believe she did not out of trust and maybe nostalgia for her friendship and easier times, only to have her father be blamed and taken away from her as a result.

She has four kids in the span of, how much? Five, six years? Seven at best? Helaena and Aemond are NINE MONTHS APART. Viserys didn't even let her rest after she gave birth to her daughter. And I'm convinced 100% that he kept her as Idk some whore he didn't need to pay for because it's stated that he never wanted Aegon but the son he butchered Aemma for. Why keep on bedding her and forcing children on her when you'd never get what you want from her?

Throughout the series she's called bitter and downright a c*nt for this and that reason. She tries convincing Viserys that Rhae's children are CLEARLY bastards and she's setting herself and them up for failure by committing treason and putting them on the throne? Nah, power hungry, jealous, bitter. She marries Helaena to Aegon as a last resort because she's Valyrian and probably would've received proposals worse than the ones Rhaenyra made that would eventually convince Viserys to give her away? Hates her daughter, abuser, shitty mom. Rhae's sons slit her son's eye out instead of running when they had the chance and she rightfully lashes out? Nah, crazy ass, for the dungeons. She gives money and moon tea to her son's rape victim to ensure she gets a way out and isn't forced to have a baby she doesn't want? Bruh, rape apologist. She goes to Aegon and RIGHTFULLY disciplines him? Abuser. Forced to show her feet to a rancid filthy man to know where her son is? Upholds the patriarchy, hypocrite. She convinces Aegon to start fighting for her family because it's either them or the Blacks and he needs to start putting his life together and fight for them, so she crowns him and makes him King? Treason, deserves death, long live the brothel queens.

Somehow, it is ALWAYS HER FAULT. And those few that admit how wronged she was make fun of her.

CAN SHE FUCKING WIN?! Or y'all just hate her because she isn't Valyrian?

Btw almost all of these arguments are the same for Book!Alicent who I personally believe to be FAR MORE than just a bitter stepmom that hates her stepdaughter. She arguably has more reasons to start a coup against her in the books without that prophecy shit.

TLDR; It's OKAY to hate characters and admit they're abused and taken advantage of at the same time. You don't have a moral high-ground on no one because you hate or love a character instead of the other.

[n3felibata]

I made a post on Reddit titled "Hot take but I feel like many if not most Stolitz antis are either homophobic or just hypocrites" and I even had to clarify at the end that not all Stolitz antis are like that. Cue the replies harassing me, taking it as a personal attack on them and making baseless accusations about me. One of them even sarcastically said "Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and bigoted" as a way to make fun of me. I never said anything remotely similar to that. I don't think they bothered to actually read past the title where I explained that Stolas and Blitzø meeting as children is compared to a bad fanfic when that never gets said about straight couples in media who met as children and that people who hate Stolitz for what it is now only tolerated it when it was just a running gag, as if they can't stand it when gay relationships are being taken seriously. I also mentioned that even non-homophobic Stolitz antis complain about how toxic it is and then turn around to ship Blitzker. (Blitzø x Striker)

I had a similar experience. It's so stupid because like, some of them aren't even subtle about it. Same for chaggie antis. I remember seeing a post talking about how much Charlie doesn't get enough dick, so she's unsatisfied and needs Alastor. Like... I'm sorry, what?

A lot of the arguments stolitz antis are literally inherently bigoted. Like how they want Stolas to be paired with Stella instead even though he's gay. And STILL hating him for "cheating" after The Circus even though he's a gay man being forced to marry an abusive woman? Idk, that's... a red flag 💀 The same people saying stolitz is one sided were the same ones saying that Stolas and Stella were in love not to long ago... sounds like heteronormativity...

And a lot of them are Stella defenders? Sorry that I came to the conclusion that the people doing mental gymnastics defending the cishet abuser calling the gay male abuse victim the abuser may be homophobic 😭

Like, it's not that different from female characters who get hate while the same people shitting on her praise fictional men who are worse or do the same shit. There are clear double standards here. These people turn around and praise cishet media with very similar writing, characters and tropes as Helluva Boss. And not only that, but it's not even just about their relationship specifically. Like, I have a theory that the whole controversy about Stolas being an "abusive" father is because of the stereotype that queer people can't be good parents. And the whole "child and parent have conflict but make up in the end" trope happens in fiction all time (example: Danny Tanner, Jeff Morales, Doofenshmirtz, ect.) Weird how it only became abuse and neglect with Stolas and Via.

Some people are blantly saying they wanted stolitz to "stay a joke", and it feels obvious to me that a lot of them just like queer characters who are queer in a goofy "dark humor" way and not an actual character with queer struggles and/or queer relationships.

People who say "but I disagree and I'm not homophobic!" Be expecting you to give them a pat on the back or something, I swear 💀 Like... good for you? Thanks for not being a bigot? Do you want a reward?

What I don't think people understand is that if they're not homophobic, then the post isn't about them. The fact that they're getting so defensive about posts directed at no one in particular is just weird because it looks worse than it would be if they just kept scrolling. Now it just kind of seems like Freudian Slip.

No one was looking at you until you said something

Of course they're not all the same, but I've seen people straight up call them the f slur

Sorry that happened to you. Just remember that Reddit is INFAMOUS for being toxic, so don't take what people on that app have to say to heart. Like, it's up there with Twitter and Tumblr...

And wouldn't you know it? Those are the 3 sites I see the most Stolas and Blitz hate.

Interesting

[rwbyuser24]

About infamous opinions and the exaggeration of the people in the RWBY community

Has it ever happened to you that people start threads like…

"Put your opinion that got you like this?"

And then people in the thread post opinions that wouldn't put them in this situation? I mean, a lot of people think their opinions are infamous, or that they'll get people to harass them. People want to feel special, believing their opinions are unpopular.

No, my friend, being a BB fan isn't going to put you in that situation. Saying you're a fan of the show isn't going to put you in that situation either. Neither is saying the opposite.

Before you participate in a thread of unpopular opinions, think about it, how many people would support you if you posted your supposedly "unpopular opinion"? If it's a lot, then you should consider if it really is an unpopular opinion.

People exaggerate in the Fandom. RWDE and Anti-RWDE.

For many RWDE members the fandom is surrounded by annoying and radical fanatics. People generalize, for them, because a few have been aggressive, it means that the entire FNDM is like that. The worst thing is their way of treating the FNDM as a group with a single mentality, "FNDM is toxic". No, man, there are simply toxic people within the fandom, which is different. Another thing, saying "Monty was a bad writer" or "I don't like this reactor's opinions" is not being an aggressor.

The same goes for Anti RWDE. For many of them, the RWDE is full of people who insult the writers, who offend them, people who hate the series, people with bigotry and so on. They tend to treat RWDE as people who only have one opinion. No dude, a lot of RWDE doesn't consider Ruby's group to be the villain. There are those who like BB (just not their execution). And they're not full of homophobic, misogynistic people, and so on. I'm not saying that all of them are perfect, but come on, a lot of them are good people. Another thing, just because some don't like BB, it doesn't mean that "They don't care about bisexuals or lesbians." You can't say the worst about them just because they don't like your ship.

"We shouldn't associate with them." Look, if for you, you don't want to associate with them, no problem. But don't try to generalize them all.

What pisses me off the most, is their tendency to exaggerate in both groups.

I once read on Spacebattleforums someone saying that the majority of the RWBY fandom was a Hatedom. Basically because of the criticism of the series. Dude, don't you realize that for every person who criticizes the series there is someone else who defends it? Don't you realize that many of those who criticize the series are just fans who obviously can't like everything?

Or those who treat fandom as a group with a cult mentality.

And even worse is the attitude of some to control what people can like or not.

"People like Ironwood and Adam?" What do you care?! Let them be fans of whatever they want. As long as they don't hurt anyone, why bother them? "They have no right to like a pedophile and a genocidal maniac." Dude, they are fictional characters. It's not like Adam's fans like him being a pedophile. And Ironwood's fans don't support him with his genocide on Mantle either.

"But RWBY fans support a company that exploits its workers and is toxic!" Yeah, so what? They are free to invest their money in whatever they want. Or what? Do you think that the day they stop supporting the series, the world will magically be better? What are you contributing to the world by making fun of them? By making memes insulting them? I don't give a shit about whether they supported a bigoted company.(RT)

I know I sound aggressive, but I really needed to get this off my chest.

[jackdaw-kraai]

Hey, Jack? Do you have any advice for dealing with those who do nothing but demand updates for your fics? I'm pretty sure most writers have to deal with this crap, it's just… I have one reasonably popular fic that's been on hiatus for over a year, and it feels like almost every comment I receive is just another demand for an update. I'm starting to regret ever posting that damnable fic in the first place. I don't want to delete it, that would be cruel to the other readers, but I'm already stressed as hell, I already felt guilty for the long hiatus, and these constant demands just kept grinding me down to the point I can't stand to even look at this fic, much less continue writing it. So… any advice?

Oh I have different tactics for different platforms, so I'll give you some tips for all the ones I use and how they synergize. First of, on Ao3, I generally put something in the notes like "writing takes a long time and real life doesn't always cooperate, so be patient. I'm the one actually working on this, so you can deal waiting for me to pour my labor and passion and time into this. Cool? Cool. If you can't be cool, I'll block/mute/freeze you." Then, I put places in the notes where they can find me outside of Ao3 like my tumblr and discord and explain what they can find there, usually this will help redirect. Then, once in a while, I'll answer a comment if I'm feeling like it like "life is still busy, working on this is still fun but very labor intensive in order to make it, ect". If they get pushy, I block them.

On tumblr, if people get pushy about it in the asks, I block them. No question about it, I block them. Once in a while I'll publish one of them with either a compassionate, curt, or snarky explanation depending on my mood, but I don't give all of them the time of day because oh my gods, who has the time once you ask box hits the triple digits?? I also keep a pinned post on my blog with links where you can find my stuff, so people can easily locate it instead of pestering me about it.

On discord I'm most active, so there's a lot of info to find there, but also, there's a lot of friends there who can help intercept anyone asking questions like that and inform them "writing takes time, cool your heels." Having a good moderating structure also helps with this, as well as spoiler channels where you can rant about your progress to people who are willing to be spoilered, or point at to people who aren't down for spoilers but still want info like "them's the rules for the info, if you don't like it, tough tits." I also flat out have a rule amongst the server rules list (mostly stuff like "don't be a bigoted cunt," "don't air your dirty laundry in #general," "if I catch you being a creep to minors, I WILL call the cops on your ass") that says "don't harass the author" and enforce it by having the server closed to anyone who doesn't tick the little box at the top saying "I have read the rules and agree to them." You very quickly get a self-selecting audience that way that knows you won't take their shit.

Key to all of this is to assert yourself and be willing to step on toes to make people back off and give back your personal space. You can't be shy about setting your boundaries, and you don't have to be polite to people crossing them. Even the kindest celebrities often have bodyguards for this reason, and while we may not be celebrities, we can be our own bodyguards enforcing our boundaries. Try giving people a space they can go for information, but information that's given on your terms, not theirs. Pinned posts and A/Ns and the like are excellent for this. And finally, just block people. Literally just block people, even if they're fans. If people make you uncomfortable, remove them from your space, you can literally just do that. You don't owe them access to be able to harass you, and if they can't be polite about this, you can deny them access to you, period.

Fans are a lot of fun, and I love interacting with them! I met some of my best friends as fans first, and they're lovely folks! But you gotta stick to your boundaries in order to keep it fun for everyone, and make sure you state them loud and clear. And if people pretend to not have heard them, you can remind them this isn't a court of law, and even if it was, ignorance of the law is not defense of breaking it. Evict them from the premise without further notice if they won't comply.

[rainbowdaisy13]

Taylor acted like the world's biggest dickhead concerning the gay rumors about her from 2014 up until 2018 and I think it's fair to criticize her for that, but I personally don't think that Taylor should be forced to act like she cares about the LGBT+ community post Lover Era if it's not true and I think there are valid reasons for Taylor to feel disenfranchised and unconnected to the wider LGBT+ community.

Look, Karlie used to celebrate Pride Month every year and make a bunch of posts about it on her IG, but then in June 2020, a bunch of Gaylors decided Pride Month 2020 was the perfect time to dog-pile her and subject Karlie to a bunch of antisemitic harassment and slurs 24/7, and as a result every Pride Month since the one in 2020, Karlie doesn't post anything about Pride Month on her personal Instagram anymore.

If Taylor's genuine in her deep feelings towards Karlie, which I think Taylor is as far as her majorly-fucked-up-by-her-Dad brain is capable of being, then there's been no real reason for Taylor to give a shit about the wider LGBT+ community for the last four years. Taylor's always been kind of an asshole who mostly cares about things that personally affect her, and she's always been petty and has always loved reveling in what she perceives as bad karma affecting people who she perceives as having wronged her. There's no way that someone like Taylor was ever going to "side" with the wider LGBT+ community when a bunch of bigoted Gaylors who constantly harp on about how important the wider LGBT+ community is to them after they harassed Karlie so badly that she no longer posts about Pride Month when it was something that Karlie previously enjoyed doing quite a bit, and I can't find it in myself to blame either Taylor or Karlie if they feel disenfranchised and unconnected to the wider LGBT+ community, a large enough minority of the wider LGBT+ community is NOT accepting of everyone without facing much, if any, pushback for the behavior from the rest of the community that I think it's perfectly fine for queer people who face hate and discrimination from the LGBT+ community and the loved ones of the affected queer people to not give a fuck whether certain things affect a community that they've been unjustly rejected from due to bigotry.

I absolutely agree the community has groups of people that are awful—every community does! As an annoying bisexual married to a man, I’m a punchline at best & a fraud at worst, so yes I agree that anyone who claims to support the queer community but attacks Karlie Kloss for her Pride posts is just being a piece of shit

Taylor also spent an entire year of her life promoting pro-LGBTQ legislation, donating to queer organizations, boosting queer artists on her stories/tweets, covering herself and all aspects of her art in fucking rainbows, name dropping GLADD in a song, and making a full length doc about finding her voice because “they are coming for their(LGBTQ) necks” so yeah I’d say she should absolutely continue to care about the community on some level without being a total POS herself

[angerissue]

Yeah, so I posted this on my personal blog already and I'm posting it here too. Recent events consisting of health issues and harassment, along with my recollections of what other people have been through lately on this website, have made me rethink my priorities. I'm going to be stepping back from tumblr.

I'll move my fics to AO3. I'm still deciding what to do about my collaborative writing and all the threads and headcanons.

Honestly, leaving has been on my mind for a while. But the absolute bullshit behaviour I've seen demonstrated towards me, and so many other people, has made me seriously question why I'm still here. I've never posted anything controversial. I've never intentionally tried to hurt people, or spread bad ideologies. I'm a conscientious person of what I think is good moral fiber. But holy fucking shitballs, what has happened to this website? The last few years on this site have been atrocious with all the harassment, the dogpiling, and the other shit where people derive, frankly, a scary amount of joy and amusement from attacking others like it's some kind of entertainment.

People have discovered that if you want attention here, you can do it quickly by fabricating "outrage porn" and dragging someone through the mud. People will believe it without hesitation, because they are so angry about what they are being told, they don't stop to think. People really eat up the "us versus them" mentality, especially when it allows them to feel like a part of a group, and when it gives them a purpose in harassing and/or getting rid of people who are designed to not be in that group. It's especially insidious because all of this harassment seems to be rationalized and justified by the groups participating in them. It's all in the name of this-or-that, it's just moral crusades, just socially-acceptable bullying and/or death wishes with a fresh coat of paint to appeal to a younger crowd. Because it really does seem like a vast majority of the people doing this stuff are in their early twenties or in their teens.

I really do understand why other people have left this website - it is such a buzzkill to feel like you're swimming in a shark tank. I have no desire left to share my work in a place like this. Why make content for a website where its users are so quick to steamroll others, for a quick laugh, no matter how vanilla the content? Why put in the effort to get suspicion; why put in the effort when it feels like I'm just rewarding a Bad Thing, at least to a sizable extent?

Like, I've been posting in the Bruce Banner tag since The Avengers came out. I've been here since many of those popular ship tags were literally empty. And despite the positive reception and complete lack of criticism, despite the masses of people who liked my content, I'm completely unmotivated to post things there now. Last year, there was an isolated incident with fanpols and moral panic people, where one person went out of their way to post some untagged ship hate in the Bruce Banner tag, and after I told them to tag it, they spent three hours scouring my blog for ways to retaliate (and it seems they still haven't blocked me). It was a textbook case of, "lol, let's point and laugh and tell someone they're better off dead because they write a character yet don't incorporate my own headcanons, let's call them [a dozen different types of bigot without due cause]." Predictably, none of their followers reached out and actually inquired about what they saw in the person's smear campaign (all the "damning" screenshots they posted of my blog were headcanons for Bruce Banner, none of which were any indication of personal views and were easily chalked up to either bad wording, ignorance, or literally just nothing because they were reaching farther than Elastigirl to find shit, and upon later inspection, it appeared they even shared many of the same personal headcanons they had harassed me for, which... Eugh). Nobody asked for clarification. They were told what to feel, which was outraged and vitriolic, and they clamoured. Guess what happened when I woke up, saw all this, and blocked everyone because I wasn't having that shit? "Lmaoo they must have blocked me because of my gay ships lmao what a homophobe".

I just. What.

How are people okay with saying this kind of stuff. Like, my brother in christ, you were blocked because you were a twatwaffle, a participant in an outrage porn dogpile. I have dozens of Bruce Banner versions in my headworld, and a shit ton of headcanons of both Bruce and other characters that run the entire gamut of sexuality and orientation; I'm literally a trans person with gay ships; the first ship I ever made fanart of was Cherik, for crying out loud, and two of my favourite ships have always been BrucexLoki and BrucexTony. You are not as accurate as you think you are. Not at all. Get off your high horse before you fall off, it's made of playing cards.

Oh, but I guess it's "funny". I guess it's okay to throw around loaded terms in that case.

Some of this stuff genuinely was funny to me. Because this person had literally scoured my entire blog (and when I'm saying "entire", I mean they went through every page, every post, every single bullet point in my extended reading portal, and there's a load of content in there, folks, and all their visits were recorded in my statcounter so it was pretty easy to see they had spent three hours on there looking for "bad stuff"), found one line in a headcanon that said (in keeping with official canon) this specific Bruce tends to be most attracted to people of the same ethnicity... And they sent me an ask saying, I kid you not: "does Bruce hate black people".

What even. How does this compute. The ask couldn't even offend me if it tried at this point, it was hysterical because of the total quantum leap in logic. I had literally never posted anything else, not a single other line, about ethnicity in any sense, nor would I ever insinuate what they were claiming. It was just a line I threw in because, like most lines, it's nice to paint a more complete picture, and if you've ever seen my content and how outrageously exhaustive it can get, I love painting.

It was less funny when they used this single throwaway line to call me a racist.

But seriously - the entire harassment campaign was based around stupid shit like that, and funnily, it was all tacked onto the original ship hate post this person had originally posted, which was pretty much bait for attention in the first place. Some of the screencaps they took even had contents that directly contradicted what they were even trying to roast me over.

In the end, once they realized I'd blocked them, they dared me to, just about verbatim, "come back and defend this boring white bread man you created".

Sure. Boring. So boring they needed to read all my content for hours (which showed a huge inability to curate their content consumption like an adult), and so boring they stalked my blog for months after the fact and made fun of the fact I went to the ER for an unrelated health issue. It's just ridiculous, especially because if all this criticism about my headcanons had actually come from a place of reparation and not using me as entertainment fodder; if someone had actually talked to me about something that concerned them, I would have completely cooperated and taken the advice. Because I really don't want to be a dick on the internet, I actively look for edification, and I really do want as best as I can.

But I digress.

It's strange, because despite what happened with these clowns, it's not that I'm afraid to be here. I haven't been intimidated into keeping quiet. Rather, I simply have zero motivation to be here or contribute. And really, I'm just deeply disappointed in all the disgusting actions I've seen in this fandom and elsewhere on tumblr, the brazenness of it these last few years. I don't know what happened, but it was never this bad. And people don't deserve it. I've seen a lot worse than what I've received, and let me tell you. It is horrible. Content creators don't deserve to feel like they're playing Russian fucking roulette every time they post some new content, or be fearful that the wrong person will see their work and make a playdate out of harassing them for literally no reason. And on top of that, nope, tumblr just enables this bullshit and doesn't do a thing.

There have been three cases in the last, what, three years, where people I know were dragged severely for doing absolutely nothing wrong. For making boundaries known, for writing certain things, for not responding within a certain time frame. In all but one case, it was always the same ending; they left.

Participation in fandom should not be this stressful for anyone. It really makes me miss the 2012-2015 era, because while it certainly wasn't perfect back then, it was a lot better than nowadays, with all the renewed moral panic shit that is doing nothing of value. It's just carpet-bombing the userbase, and disincentivizing people to make new things, any new things. If there isn't something obvious for the impassioned bully to hit, or something they can manipulate, they'll just make shit up on the spot. Want to guess how many people of good character have been ousted from the Marvel fandom alone since, say, even 2018? Well, I don't have the numbers, but I'm sure they're substantial.

It just kind of sucks, because I've written this version of Bruce here for over twelve years. And seriously, I have never seen anyone take issue with my headcanons until the harassment last year. I'm pretty careful about what I write, so naturally with the harassment aside, I did review all the headcanons I had written, but after that, and after getting the opinions of a few trusted friends (which I am so grateful for), there wasn't... Anything to fix. They were just headcanons. Not only was this harassment limited to the last year or two, but almost all of the harassment my friends have received has been within the last couple of years, too. Like, alarm bells should be going off there, because wow. Especially when I also consider how much harassment has happened to people outside of my friend group. Especially when I consider how commonplace it has become to throw around shit like "kys" or "I wish you died in the ER" to people you don't like. Especially because it seems like it's just getting worse and worse. I'm seeing this kind of shit in casual posts now, not even directed to anyone. "Go kill yourself". I can open ten carrds, and five of them will have "swallow a knife :) :)" or something in them.

Is it a wonder there are so few content creators here now? Especially fandom olds?

So yeah. I'm out.

If you're a genuinely good person who doesn't make a pastime out of harassing people, and if you ever recall seeing my stuff in the tag and enjoying it, be it my gifsets, my headcanons, or my fics, thank you for that.

If anyone here wants my AO3 or discord, send me a message.

Toodles.

[piracytheorist]

2 and 3 please for the violence ask game (I like being nosy and the idea of airing out dirty laundry lol)

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

(I'm taking this with more of a meaning of dominant and submissive role, respectively) I don't have particular headcanons regarding Loid's sexual preferences (other than him being a-spec), though I believe that he's done both as part of his missions, carefully separating his feelings from the activity so that either role wouldn't matter to him.

So I'm going to talk about Killian instead. And I'm full on the "submissive Killian Jones" train. My argument is that he has trauma and issues over loss of control due to growing up in servitude, and allowing his significant other (Emma, or whoever else) to wield some control over him and their sexual relationship helps him come to terms with his fear. To give up control and not only be treated well by his "master", but to also be given care and support and gratification back (and through the whole thing that what happens is the submissive's choice, so he would choose how things would go but would allow his SO to handle things). I don't know if that's healthy, but the opposite (him becoming dominant to deal with his trauma) could be unhealthy and toxic as fuck because he might see it as a way of "avenging" his past self who had no control and no agency. So yeah, for me, I could never see him wielding control in a sexual relationship like that, and giving up control is what would make him feel more free and relaxed.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

As a rule I hate keeping screenshots because a) no reason to remember stupid shit people have said just to make myself angry, b) people can change and holding them on to ideas for fictional stories they had from years ago is unfair and c) I've seen people get endlessly harassed over silly tumblr fandom takes, so.

But that doesn't mean I don't REMEMBER horrible takes. Ethan Winters from Resident Evil being a bigot for some reason. Killian Jones from OUAT only wanting to "get in Emma's pants" (and the painful part about that was HOW MANY PEOPLE just outright believed it, like, tell me you haven't watched his scenes without telling me you haven't watched his scenes). Damian Desmond from SxF "never having been a bully".

Ironically, the worst take I've seen about fictional characters in EVER was on twitter, but I'm not gonna go there cause we know what a cesspit that site is and why the people who make such horrible takes do not survive on tumblr.

But yeah I think the absolute most derailed, most biased take and biggest proof of "I haven't watched the original material" is people saying Heisenberg from Resident Evil wanted to help Ethan. Heisenberg, the guy who forced Ethan to fight his way through a stronghold full of lycans hell-bent on killing him, and then fight through Urias too, apparently wanted to help Ethan and also "cared" for Rose. Because throwing Ethan into another death trap after Ethan refused to let him use Rose however he wanted to is how he showed his compassion!

And I'm not talking about people who recognize the difference between canon and fanon. I'm talking people who legit think Heisenberg would be a better romantic partner for Ethan than Mia. They're like "I can excuse using people as objects and leading them into death traps and ignoring their wish to protect their child but I draw the line at lying to your spouse about being a bioterrorist".

And there are people who legit believe that! There are people who are down to fight for Heisenberg's honour and it's the biggest proof that they completely skip the Stronghold part of the game (and most of the factory, I guess, aside from the moments Heisenberg has his monologues through the megaphones). Because I cannot believe watching an entire playthrough or playing through the entire game, with a moderate amount of reading/watching comprehension skills and reach the conclusion that Heisenberg was only "helping" Ethan and that Ethan was wrong to refuse him and kill him. Again, fanon content is different and I respect whatever people want to create. But when it comes to canon interpretations, I do believe that it's the worst, least informed and most biased take I've seen in my years in fandoms.

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

[robotslenderman]

under the cut bc I don't know if I will delete this later

#and what if they WERE trans

Look, that's not what they're trying to do with these posts. It's important to show trans people that they are supported and loved, but this post, specifically, does not have trans people as a target audience. The target audience are TERFs.

What they're trying to do with these posts is show TERFs that they're not safe from other TERFs. They think their idea of "women only" spaces will keep them safe because the entire TERF ideology is born of fear of harm for being a woman. TERFs isolate themselves from men, they isolate themselves from everyone else because they are so obsessed with trans people that they only hang out with other TERFs.

Posts like these show them they are wrong - other TERFs are a bigger threat to them than transgender people. And when their entire networks are made of other TERFs, holy shit, does THAT make an impact. Suddenly, their only safe space is much more dangerous than the people they've been villainising. And that danger is way more real than the theoretical danger they've been screaming about for years.

They're not going to listen to "trans women are women" because they're TERFs. But they're much more likely to listen to "they don't think YOU'RE a woman either." From there, they can start to realise their peers are batshit insane. Suddenly, they realise they're surrounded by enemies, and the only safe, reasonable person is the one going "wow, isn't it horrible that they ruined the life of a woman who turned out to be cis all along?"

We give a shit if that ruined woman's life is trans, but they're not there yet, so telling them that won't work. Not yet.

If you want to deprogram someone, you have to meet them where they are. You can't be performative, you have to do what works. You can't walk up to someone in a cult and tell them they're wrong and have them abandon their lifelong held beliefs.

This is where allies come in. Minorities are constantly in danger, it's too exhausting to defend their own humanity and meet bigots where they are, and it's sadistic to expect them to meet their oppressors where they're at and hold their hands through the whole thing. It's sadistic to tell a trans person that they, themselves, are obligated to speak to TERFs in ways a TERF will listen to; that kind of shit will erode your humanity.

Allies don't have that problem.

Allies can afford to expend that energy because they're not spending it trying to survive a society that hates them. So they can spend time working out where TERFs are at and starting there. Allies might be saying things like this - and I won't deny that it can hurt like hell because it absolutely DOES sound like they're saying it would be fine if the targets WERE actually trans - but if you know someone is an ally, you need to trust us. We support you, we are here for you, we will keep being here for you. But right now, we're talking to the TERFs, and you need them to hear us. This is part of how we can make this world safer for you. You need converts. Let us handle that.

The JKR and Imane fiasco has been a shitshow, but it has absolutely started a small snowball running down the hill that's getting bigger and is making a significant impact on people who were harder to reach before. JKR has finally shut the fuck up, for however long that will last. People who've peeked in on TERF spaces have noticed that they're rattled that a cis woman got harassed. People who never gave a shit about trans people until now are suddenly going "holy shit these people are insane, maybe trans people aren't as bad as they say because clearly the judgement of these people can't be trusted."

Like yeah. What if they are trans? They deserve the same dignity all women deserve. But that's not going to get through to them. That's why people are saying instead, "hey, what if they're not?" You play on their fear of not hurting the "right" people and you turn it into empathy by forcing them to feel that same fear that they want to inflict.

And then you ask them, "isn't it a bit fucked up to inflict that on someone?"

And then you tell them a secret: they don't have to. Because that weird fear and obsession they have of being attacked in the bathroom isn't nearly as real as the fear of other TERFs. And if they aren't surrounded by nutjobs telling them trans women are going to murder them in the bathroom they'll finally realise trans people are people.

And from there they can get to, "yeah, those athletes are cis, but so what if they ARE trans?"

[bellmo15-blog]

I Closed My Twitter Account and Don't Regret It

I should be sad over the closer of my Twitter account especially since I closed it in the same month it would of turned 10 years old, but to tell you the truth I'm not sad about it! At all! In fact, I'm happy to be done with that place! And I'm not the only one who's done this either! And there are good reasons why I and a lot of other people have finally caved and decided to close our Twitter accounts. Granted my reasons for closing my account personally go beyond just the main reason everyone else is but it is still a contributing reason.

And since I know some people will be wondering, yes I DO have an account on Twitter's replacement BlueSky here. I mean I'm probaply not going to browse that a whole lot with how much I've been trying to stay off social media as a whole for the sake of my own mental well being but it's still there for people who want to follow me there.

So why is everyone renacting the story of Exodus and leaving Twitter? Take a guess, another stunt from pharaoh Elon Musk, the pretentious self absorbed prick he is. Look, it's hardly a secret at this point that ever since Elon brought Twitter the site has become worse and worse. From the random name change calling it X when there was nothing wrong with Twitter to start with (and also literally no one calls it X anyway even after the name change) to making it impossible to see the likes of those you follow to banning the site in Brazil for some reason to the most recent shit he's pulled, changing how blocking works and being in support of having any pic you upload to the site be used for AI Generative Content! WITHOUT giving you the option to opt out!

First there's the whole blocking BS. Because now it's that people you have blocked for whatever reason, mostly that person being an asshole or harassing you, can now still see your posts. Yeah, they can't interact with your posts but this still defeats the entire point of blocking. And this change is coming only a few weeks after I had to block an artist I regret commissioning because because they got exposed a few days after I commed them that they were a terrible person so you can imagen how I feel about this!

Then there's the whole AI shit. For a while now Twitter has has this thing called Grok which was an AI trainer for generative AI and do I even need to explain why I don't like this!? Thing is, you could opt out of it in the past! You could have it so that your posts CAN'T get used for AI Content. I mean it sucks that this thing was even implemented and sucks that more and more corporations are trying to find some ways to implement AI in the first place but at least it gives you the option to opt out. Now? You don't have a choice! Your posts can potentially be used for AI weather you like it or not!

I'm sorry, but as someone who regularly commissions artists to draw stuff for me and posts my comms everywhere I can unless said otherwise by the artist I use to always post them onto Twitter. I don't want something I commissioned both for my own enjoyment and to support artists I like being used for this kind of crap! And considering most of the best friends I've made these past few years have been artists themselves I can't say I blame them for wanting to do the whole mass exodus to BlueSky.

So what's the other reason for me finally caving and closing my account there? Take a guess, it's just a hostile and toxic hellhole that was doing a number on me! Remember how I made that vent post about why I've grown to hate the internet, or I guess rather social media as a whole? Yeah, Twitter was the absolute worst of it and it's been like this for several years at this point honestly, even before Elon came along and made the site even worse! If it wasn't people making rage bait posts for attention because "negativity sells" it was people being massive bigots or scumbags who would get upset at anything that stared a woman or had pronouns or it was incredibly thinn skinned people making a fuss over the smallest and most pointless shit ever like what games get ported to what system or not, what fictional characters who most people probaply only remember because of a meme they are attached to die of screen or who animated a 10 second clip of a Wired Al music video! I mean this sort of bullshit wasn't exclusive to Twitter alone but if someone was afraid to admit they liked a certain game/movie/show/whatever because of how some people on Twitter were acting over it and towards the people who did like it, I can't say I blame them for being afraid to express themselves. I was for certain things because of Twitter discorse.

So yeah, the shit Elon's pulled recently was mostly the straw that broke the camels back. And I'm only really making this because some people who might still be on Twitter and followed me might be wondering where I've gone. And I'm sorry if anyone who did only ever follow me on Twitter got worried over my recent action of closing my account. But I at least want you all to understand why I did go though with it and why I'm not going back there anytime soon because I am about at my limit with that site and this shit I had to go though. My BlueSky's still up so follow me there if you want to.

[doginabirdcage]

The Boy Who Overcame Time

Inuyasha was digging through his backpack looking for his textbooks, to no avail. "Shit," he whispered. "Ma's going to kill me if she has to buy these again."

His first set of textbooks worked as kindling on one of Kagome's first human nights alone with him. There was a snowstorm, he found shelter in an abandoned hut and they’d be approaching hypothermia if he hadn’t acted quickly. The second set of textbooks eventually reeked so badly of miasma after a run-in with Naraku that grandpa Totosai said a prayer over them, his bugging eyes watering before he burned those too.

He could not afford to lose these. 

He dumped the entire bag onto the grass unceremoniously, as if it would make 3 heavy books materialize. 

"Now you're just making a mess." Sango crossed her arms somewhere behind him, and he turned his head to see the miko looking down at him with a disgusted expression. 

"Leave the kid alone," Miroku called from where he was sprawled out on the ground. "This homework thing sounds scarier than an entire horde of demons."

"Oh? Not too keen on being held accountable for your choices?" She cocked a hip and didn't wait for the slayer's response, "Inuyasha, your textbooks have to be somewhere, nobody is going to steal books they probably can't even read. Have you asked Kaede?"

"Maybe she's using them in place of rocks to weigh down her stew. Wouldn't put it past her." Miroku sat up in the grass. "Do you think Futaba has them?"

"Stop using anything you possibly can to harass poor, unsuspecting women—" Sango stomped over to him, which made Miroku smirk, as if he'd been aiming for that the entire time—

"Shut up!" Inuyasha grouched. "Your theories mean nothing to me. Where's Kagome?"

The half-tengu girl couldn't be harder to keep track of. She stuck her nose in everything and helped people who didn't even want her to because they were bigoted fucks. It gave 15 year old Inuyasha the vapors. He was way too young to be getting the vapors. 

Inuyasha left the miko and the demon slayer to hash out their unresolved sexual tension by themselves and went off to find Kagome.

He ran deeper into the very forest for which she was the namesake, looking for a set of raven wings hidden in the treetops. 

"Kagome?" 

In return, the wind blew, rustling the tree leaves around in a gentle caress. Sunlight dappled down through the gaps in the foliage, the image before him so serene he could almost forget why he was hanging out in Feudal Japan in the first place. People paid good money for this kind of scenery in his time.

Deeper within, he found Shippo napping in a patch of sunshine, which meant that Kagome wasn't far away. She looked after the runt like he was her own. The fox kit smelled him approaching, nose wrinkling as he roused.

"Hey, stinkbutt," the 2 foot tall entity of pure irritation groused. "Got any lollipops to give me?"

"Not with that fuckin' attitude, shrimp. You seen Kagome?"

Shippo huffed. "She's off readin' somewhere. Beats me." 

She's reading, he thought to himself, that tells me everything I need to know.

"Back at camp there's ninja snacks," Inuyasha nodded behind him as he began to jog away from the fox. "Thanks for the intel, shitbird!"

Behind him, Shippo brightened with excitement and made to scurry off to where Inuyasha left Miroku and Sango before he stopped abruptly. "Hey, wait! I'm going to tell Kagome you said that!"

"I dare you! Hope you don't walk in on our friends making out!" Inuyasha yelled without turning back.

"Yuck!"

-

Once Inuyasha made it to the well clearing, he skidded to a halt. He looked down to the hem of his uniform trousers and winced at the dirt trailing up his pant leg. He'd started wearing normal sneakers in Kagome's time, but maybe it's time to start coming in sweats or something. 

Either way, he's going to get an earful from Izayoi ("I'm not mad sweetheart, just disappointed"), and then Toga's going to nod half-heartedly behind her like the loyal puppy he is. 

Gods, his parents were so embarrassing.

Inuyasha looked up, and sure enough, he could see Kagome's large wings hanging over one of the higher boughs. He sighed and walked right under the tree's impressive branches.

He whistled for her attention. When she didn't respond, he did it again, saying "Hey, pretty bird!"

Inuyasha continued to call her as if she were an actual pet until a burst of black feathers flooded his vision. He was scooped up and firmly planted on that same branch he saw Kagome sitting on in a matter of seconds.

"I resent that!"

She had a veritable nest building on the expanse of corrugated bark, a little nook being created by an adjoining section of sturdy wood where, bingo: his textbooks were piled next to an open bag of chips, one of them open to a page about the Heian period.

"Only birds steal things to make nests, y'know. I'm just callin' it like I see it." 

Kagome's wings flapped irritably as she scoffed, waving his comments away with a flick of her taloned fingers. 

"You can't just take my books without mentioning it. Ma'll wring my neck, and you'll be out one shard detector."

She loved his mother. Every time Kagome got even a flicker of praise from Izayoi, she'd brighten. 

"I'd never let you go home without them," she said defensively. "You just weren't using them and there were things I wanted to see."

"I carry them to use them."

"Why don't you ever take them out?"

"Uh, does the constant threat of power hungry demons ring a bell to you?"

Her brow crinkled at that. Inuyasha reined in that blooming affection he felt at the sight, it was creeping up far too often for his liking. 

"Fine," she replied softly. "Not like I can decipher it all anyway."

At her sullen mien, Inuyasha gestured to her pile. "Hand it over. We'll look at it together. That cool?"

Kagome plucked the heavy textbook one-handed and with lots of enthusiasm. He set the book between them on their legs.

"Tell me what you don't understand and we can go through it together."

She blinked at him in awe, a gentle smile curling on the side of her mouth. 

-

"Oh, the sun's starting to set."

"I was supposed to be studying math this whole time."

"Ew, math!"

"Tell me about it."

-

Midterms came and went. 

He had to retake his math exams.

[watsername]

Hey I'm really sorry that people sent you death threats over a joke. I do hope you are feeling better lately and that none of it affected you.

So I just wanted to give my opinion on why people usually let criticism to the dteam slide on the tag. I've see this mostly on Twitter but I imagine people here have seen it too. Basically, there have been several dream stans that have insulted female ccs, saying they suck and they are whiny, bad at mcc, etc. So whenever I see hate on the dteam I don't feel anything, bc if some dteam stans can insult other ccs, their ccs can get hate too.

As of a last note I do want to say that, unfortunately, people will look for anything and everything that's on them, which is super disrespectful and awful. But yeah, also I'm sorry if this ask may come off as agressive, that's not my intention, just wanted to share a dif pov

no offence anon that’s fuckinf bullshit. seeing some people be assholes doesn’t entitle you to be one either . you just straight up said to my face that we let dteam hate slide because you don’t like them and oh well but i have been harassed because i “clogged the tag with negativity” .

i don’t give a shit if you hate dream you can hate him all u like but u cannot preach etiquette to me and then say but that doesn’t apply to you bc other ppl are assholes .

if we want to combat neg in the mcc tag it applies to ALL neg . and you cannot rightfully justify hate by saying oh well his fans did this so i can tell him to fuck off and die .

sexism isn’t limited to dream stans . it is a huge issue in the wider mcyt community it is a huge issue across all of the sun communities that women are overlooked and shit on and never seem to get as much praise as their male friends and acquaintances. you cannot limit sexist posts and comments to dream fans and use that as a justification for why you are allowed to hate him you are a pathetic piece of shit weaponising a societal struggle that was not even prompted by the streamer you hate as a means of spreading hatred . you are being so ignorant to the struggles of female streamers form every community

let’s look at this another way . the homophobic backlash dream received after coming out . nobody uses your completely bigoted and ignorant comments to justify hating on any other creator . imagine if we had how would you have reacted . it is disgusting. right .

i was harassed into deleting my post because the mcc tag was not a place for neg or discourse . you CANNOT let ANY slide if you want to uphold that value beacause it shows you to be shallow hypocritical and biased towards and against certain communities .

congratulations you’ve made things worse

. i’m main tagging this again bc i think i should confront the hypocrisy in the community .

[angeloncewas]

okay but you’re so right about this fandom and the weaponizing their minority status

like, yes poc creators have a hard time and they deal with a lot of shit, but the way to help them is not bringing other creators down. it’s to support poc creators! and support poc creators because they’re good at creating and they make good content!

my least favorite thing people do is go on twitter, and list poc streamers solely by their minority status, it feels like you should only watch a streamer because of the boxes you can tick off for them and that’s so fucked up. i would absolutely hate if I were a cc and someone said “oh watch her she’s a queer woc” like I have nothing else to offer? bro at least talk about my content a little bit?

also not to mention manatreed is definitely going to be either dream, another well known cc, or one of Dream’s very close friends, so it’s not like he randomly picked someone and went “even though you never made any content, you’re a white guy so I’m gonna add you onto the dsmp!” like, can we use our brains? or any critical thinking?

Sorry for this rant btw, but you’re just so right and it always pisses me off how people treat minorities in the first place. i know a lot of people on twitter is doing it with good intentions but it’s weirdly dehumanizing to act like you should only add people to dsmp based on their skin color or something

This was my original point, and I actually have a post in my drafts somewhere about it because it's been on my mind for a while.

I am Asian. Being Asian is inherent to who "Angel" is and while I didn't really accept that for a long time, I am very much in tune with my culture at this point. And yet this hyperfocus on identity that Twitter has developed still drives me mad. This notion that someone is definitely inherently more knowledgeable on a topic purely because of their skin color; that you should support someone purely on the basis that they're [x] - it's always bothered me.

And I understand wanting to lessen the inequality, I really do. It's why people who need money often include what minority groups they're a part of - it's a way of saying "society is working against me and thus I would appreciate your support to combat that." I don't think it's wrong necessarily and I'm definitely softer on it than I used to be. But it still does bother me for all the reasons you stated.

Reducing me to your perception of who I am feels gross even when it's my minority status. Racists are also fixated on the fact that I'm Asian because it's the "other" part of me; I should be allowed to be whoever I am, all things included. (I'm using myself here as an example because I don't wanna drag other people in or use examples I can't directly speak for - but y'know, Tina should be allowed to be Tina and not just Asian woman. Sniff should be allowed to be Sniff and not just nonbinary. They're worth watching for what they do, not just because you want to stick it to society.)

And the way it goes is so wild to me too. I mean, look at how they treat Hannah. I understand that discrimination due to race and gender are two incredibly different things, but you're willfully ignorant if you're gonna pretend that Hannah hasn't had to combat a whole lot of shit to get where she is - including pretty recent on-stream harassment from another cc who turned out to be a total creep. Gaming is a white male dominated industry and Hannah - though white - is a woman. That's something to consider. But they don't give a shit because they don't like her and she won't fold.

(And the framing... they're acting like Dream saw Manatreed and said "you sir, are white. welcome to the SMP." like if you think that poorly of him then I think you're spending your time wrong.)

No worries for the rant - I agree with you. It does feel dehumanizing and I don't know why they're so invested in it. Like, I guess I kind of get why - they really flock to their community due to bigots - but I've faced my fair share of racism and I would rather no one - not even people doing it to hype me up - start with the fact that I'm a woc.

[ablednt]

Actually helpful advice for the kids on this hellsite

Once again tired of "don't make a carrd or tell people your triggers" posts going around literally telling kids it's Dangerous to set boundaries. So here's what I've learned in my teen years on how to stay safe in the hellscape that's the internet.

Identity

You don't have to link all your social media together but you can if you want to. Don't give out something that is more private (like discord account, Skype or zoom account, facebook, Snapchat etc.) publicly or to people who aren't familiar with yet though.

Use a nickname rather than your real name or birth name, an account and name change may unfortunately be necessary so if you want to keep a name safe or use it irl then don't attach it to public social media. This can be fun though! Go apeshit coming up with different aliases and names! Call yourself lizard if you want to!

The only thing you absolutely need to put somewhere on your account (or carrd) is that you're a minor. You don't have to give the exact age but I promise this is important because even if there's plenty of context clues that you're a minor if you don't indicate this somewhere clear and adults start treating you like shit you need to be able to point out that they're knowingly doing this to a minor. That has saved me from gross bullshit a lot. Yes, people should default to treating people who's ages they don't know as a minor to play it safe but the majority of people assume everyone is the same age as them so you need to make it clear you're not an adult.

Pronouns don't make you identifiable and anyone who acts like putting your pronouns in your bio is unsafe is probably transphobic lmao. You don't have to if you don't want to (and don't mind people not using/knowing your pronouns) but it's safe to put them there most of the time. (The only exception I can think of is if you're closeted and your parents may find your account but in that case you should probably stay closeted online to unless you feel safe/know they aren't likely to find your account.)

You don't have to list every privilege you have and you probably shouldn't but if you're white you probably should indicate this somewhere. This is to hold yourself accountable because yes even teenagers can be racist and underaged people of color also deserve to feel safe. If you're nonwhite and don't feel safe doing so you don't have to list your race or ethnicity.

If you're part of a system/plural or questioning you do NOT have to say your systems origins, if you have DID/OSDD, or list your headmates/alters. The system community has a lot of people in it (and singlets adjacent to parts of the community due to bullshit discourse groups welcoming them) who will target underaged systems to fakeclaim them or harass them etc. I suggest having everyone use aliases/nicknames on a system account and you only tell your origin to people you feel comfortable around and safe with. Your safety and privacy is more important than your trendy system carrd goals I promise!

You shouldn't really just list any disorders you have but it really does no harm to put marginalized identities you're proud of on a carrd or in your bio. You might get a shitty anon or two but I promise people aren't going to dox you if you say you're autistic on your carrd or something.

I personally wouldn't list any special interests that are particularly recognizable (popular media should be ok but more niche stuff may not be) or publicly share a kin list just because you never know if you'll want to switch up your identity online to feel safe and the more things are clearly tied to your current nickname and handle the harder it will be to do this. However if you feel safe doing so it's not the end of the world. Just be careful about it and don't feel pressured to give more info than you're comfortable giving.

You do NOT need to tell people your trauma in order to tell them your triggers. If you need something tagged with a tw you really should indicate this somewhere so people know to tag it (unless you intend to send every you're mutuals with an anon with what to tag which is also an option but may be difficult) but you shouldn't tell them your trauma or medical history to justify it. Your boundaries aren't up for debate and you have nothing to prove. You should only talk about your trauma if you feel safe doing so (and even then please don't give identifiable details like.names of people involved or specifics as that can cause serious problems.)

Boundaries & etiquette

DNIs are good! BYFs are good! Anyone who tells you that they're not good or useful is absolutely trying to disrespect your and other people's boundaries. You can and should make a DNI and list the people you don't want to interact with. (Generally it's better to say groups rather than specific people or names because it's easier to again not be recognized if you need to change accounts/aliases but you can do this if you have strong reasoning and absolutely have to to feel safe.)

DNIs (and also.trigger lists) don't have to all be bad things! You can put fandoms that make you uncomfortable, things that trigger you but aren't bad inherently, etc. on these lists. They're about helping you feel safe not having the hottest takes or being the most morally correct.

Some people you should put in your DNIs as a minor are proshippers/anti-antis and MAPs. Both of these groups have been proven time and time again to groom minors online so the earlier you get away from them the better.

Once you have your DNI please do be aggressive in reinforcing it! Block people who break your DNI, tell people who complain about your DNI to fuck off! Do not tolerate people trying to debate the boundaries You have set this is your corner of the internet to feel safe! They can go somewhere else! Being blocked by a kid on the internet is not the emotional blow abusers act like it is. You're not mean for having boundaries please internalize this and stand up for yourself!

If other people have a DNI you need to check that before following them this is for both your own safety and theirs. If you're unsure what something on someone's DNI means ask around to find out before following just in case.

Do NOT get involved in discourse! This doesn't mean you can't ever take part in or boost serious things. Discussing/calling out bigotry (racism, ableism, transphobia, etc.) isn't discourse. Sometimes callout posts for legitimately harmful people is necessary so that's not automatically bad. But I'm taking about the shit that's #discourse. Stay out of ace discourse. Stay away from syscourse. Don't debate with terfs or transmeds or shitty people. I know it seems like it'd be cathartic to win debates with shitty people, I know there's people who will try to bait you into the latest argument over which lgbt+ identities can say what slurs or whatever the fuck the pointless bad faith argument is, and I know you want to prove that your marginalized identity doesn't make you a bad person like bigots say it does. But as someone who's mental health was absolutely destroyed by discourse as a teen it's not worth it. By all means discuss issues as they arise, broaden your perspectives and horizons, etc. but don't engage knowingly in discourse it will save you so much trouble in the long run.

Try to avoid talking to adults 1x1 if you can avoid it! It's okay to dm with an adult you feel safe talking to sometimes and while it's certainly okay not to interact with adults at all if you don't feel.comfortable it's generally okay to do so. But if an adult is going out of their way to consistently talk to you in private needlessly that can be a red flag. If an adult tries to insinuate that they're the only adult around you can trust that's DEFINITELY a red flag. Basically talk to people in places you can easily involve others if needs be. If someone sends you a dm that makes you uncomfortable screenshot it in case you need to show someone etc.

Don't discuss NSFW things with adults, in spaces adults have easy access to (for example a discord server open to all ages), or even with other underaged people who haven't indicated they're comfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with being aware of nsfw stuff or experiencing sexual attraction as a teenager but it's very important that you don't put yourself in situations that may be unsafe for you or others. Most good discord servers have rules against this for this exact reason. Now, to make it abundantly clear, if you did or do ever say something nsfw and an adult takes advantage of this or responds in a way that makes you uncomfortable this is NOT your fault! The responsibility falls on adults to act appropriately but it's still a good idea to keep youeself out of harms way.

That's basically it on a general level. Once again, posts telling you not to make DNIs or carrds or trigger lists (all used to set clear boundaries) are very suspect and either grossly misunderstand how these things work or are intentionally demonizing them in order to have more opportunity it excuse to do harm. Setting clear boundaries is good. Doing things that help you feel safe and respected is good. Just don't go and get involved in discourse or give out personal information or anything.

[tttinytrash]

((This one is a prompt from a lovely anon for a naga Red battling his instincts. He warns Reader about coming close, but they’re not the best at listening apparently. Unzipping as described here is a concept i stole from @shamedumpbecause holy wow is it a better way of getting your friend back after tum cuddle time. Onwards!))

The way life changed really was baffling. Being besties with a human of all things was definitely on the top of the list of things he’d never thought would happen, but here he was. Their initial meeting had been pure chance but damn was he glad they’d decided to continue to talk to him. Why they did was something he still couldn’t fathom. But on his end, he was doomed from the first time they sent him an outdated meme in lieu of hello. 

Their perseverance didn’t hurt either. Yeah, he’d done a CHECK pretty early on in the relationship (old habits die hard) but that little purple heart hadn’t shown him anything he didn’t like. They had spunk, they put up with his shit, and most importantly they were willing to dish it back. His human was a blast, and nothing could ruin it for him.

Well. Nothing but his own damn instincts. 

They had their aforementioned spunk, sure, but they also had a lot on their plate. So he was happy to act as their sounding board or be their go-to person to vent to. But the more Red settled into the fact that he did in fact care about them, the more the instincts gnawed at him. Every time they were close he’d have to tamp down the urge to take them in, not helped by the verbal harassment from random onlookers in public. Such sentiments as “That thing just sees you as food!” being tossed their way was far from uncommon, but his human just quipped right back about them being stuck in the middle ages. He still felt a satisfied warmth in his SOUL when they’d snark back at the bigots for his sake, and was also glad the yelling usually drowned out the sounds his stomach was making at being reminded that his buddy was in eating distance.

The urges started off easy to ignore beyond his talkative gut, simple enough to ward off with approximations instead. First it’d been licking them (under the guise of teasing, which was half the reason he did it since their indignant squeals were dang hilarious). That stopped working eventually, and he got a little desperate. Desperate enough to push his luck, and that night was still seared in his memory. 

They’d been watching some cheesy movie on the couch, and with them so damn close it was so tempting to just go for it. Instead, he worked up his nerve and managed to scoot to be next to them. He threw an arm across the back of the couch which left less than an inch of space between his body and theirs, he had been so close he felt their natural body heat from proximity. But he didn’t dare touch them. He knew he was gross, probably even smelled like stale mustard. Maybe if they’d tolerate this for a minute that’d be enough. He was just happy to have gotten this far without dusting in shame. 

They whipped their head towards him when he moved, and he pretended to still be watching the movie instead of them in his peripheral vision. Delta, had he pissed em off? Shit!

He’d been shocked when they responded by instead closing the tiny distance between them and actually leaned on him. The warmth that went through him in that moment was more than worth the subsequent teasing from them.

From there it had quickly devolved. Apparently, his human pal was very much a cuddler. Their default spot to watch TV or game from somehow became nestled in his coils, which he quickly came to appreciate after getting over his own nerves. (Again, why would they actually want to touch him? Baffling, but he wasn’t going to question a good thing.)

Unfortunately that also lost effectiveness after awhile. The only way he could think to keep the instincts at bay by this point was to just not be in proximity at all. He video chatted them daily, giving excuses about being busy and whatnot as a reason not to meet up in person. Whenever they bitched about whatever their greedy landlord had attempted to pull this week, or what drama aunt Karen was trying to stir up lately, his stomach would growl loudly. That was fine. He could ignore that for their sake. After all, their friendship was worth way more than his own comfort. ...He did miss seeing them though.

Eh, it was better this way.

-----

“Edge, I’m telling you he’s avoiding me.”

“THAT’S RIDICULOUS.”

You glared at the screen, since Edge wasn’t actually here to be glared at since this was just a phone call. “You think I’m lying?”

“NOT AT ALL. MY BROTHER IS WHAT I WAS REFERRING TO AS RIDICULOUS. HE CARES ABOUT YOU A GREAT DEAL. HE NEEDS TO TALK THIS OUT WITH YOU, AS HE’S DONE NOTHING BUT MOPE AROUND THE HOUSE FOR WEEKS. CLEARLY, HE MISSES YOU. I WILL FACILITATE A MEETING WITH MY IDIOT BROTHER FOR YOU, AS I LACK THE PATIENCE TO ALLOW FOR THIS FARCE TO CONTINUE.”

You laughed, relieved and amused all at once. Leave it to Edge to be this damn blunt.

“Thanks, knew I could count on you Edge.”

“NATURALLY.”

-----

You cautiously approached the house. It took a moment to realize feeling this nervous approaching Red’s place was dumb, you’d been here many times before. ...But usually with a more direct invite. You quickly found the key Edge had hidden for you and used it to unlock the front door. You knocked as you opened it, calling into the depths of the house. “Hey, Red! I know you’re here! Why have you been avoiding me?”

You heard a crash like something had been dropped farther into the house. “SHIT! human, you’d better stay the hell away from me!”

“Why?! What did I do?!” You closed the door behind you and followed the sound of Red’s voice deeper into the house. 

“nothing, stupid! just get outta here!” The childish insult really gave away you panicked your friend was. He was usually far more creative.

“Not until you talk to me, stupid!” 

“you are not gonna like what happens if i see you right now.” his voice was low, the warning sounding serious.

Ignoring that in favor of your own frustration, you throw the door his voice was coming from behind wide open. “Try me!”

The way his eyelights narrowed to slits the moment he saw you really had you second guessing your bravado.

Then he lunged at you.

-----

There was no thought. He saw them, and suddenly he was a passenger in his own body rather than the pilot. 

His arms reached out the moment the human was in reach, pinning their own limbs to their sides with minimal resistance. Their shock made it easy to engulf their head, the crown already butted up to the entrance of his throat. He greedily swallowed, which brought their frightened frame within his own. He felt guilt when they started screaming but his body continued despite his mind and SOUL’s protests. Those died quickly, however.

Delta, it felt so RIGHT.

The deep swallows continued and that feeling of all being right with the world only increased, despite the garbled pleas and swearing coming from his chest. He had to have more.

It went by so quickly, and soon he felt them curl up under his ribs. Then the feeling of rightness left as control of his own body returned. They were fighting back from the inside, yelling about how could he, let them out, less than friendly comments about him, etc. The wild thrashing caused them to be shifted down from his torso deeper into his tail, where they had more room to move. The pain ebbed somewhat but his guilt was building, had had to explain but really didn’t know where to begin. He briefly considered just letting them out, but the pained tensing of his stomach around its squalling contents made it obvious that wouldn’t be possible until they calmed down.

He finally was able to tune back into what they were actually saying, re-entering reality mid angry rant “GET ME THE HELL OUT! DID YOU DOUBLE EAT ME?! WHERE AM I NOW-?!”

“well, i do have two stomachs but-” he tried, lamely.

“OH YOU FINALLY RESPOND?!” they interrupted, fury in their voice.

“well yeah, can’t talk with my mouth full-”

“YEAH, FULL OF ME!”

“SHUT UP FOR TWO SECONDS AND I CAN EXPLAIN!” he finally snapped.

They quieted, leaving a heavy silence. 

“I’m waiting.” They said tensely, no longer thrashing but stretching the walls away from them by pushing in a different outward direction with each limb.

The stretching wasn’t the most pleasant sensation, especially after the prior abuse, but he could ignore it as he cycled a breath and started to explain, “this is exactly why i was avoiding you. i wanted to prevent this, but the second i saw you... my instincts just took over.”

“You’ve wanted to eat me from the start?!”

“what? hell no. this is a protective instinct that cropped up once i started giving a crap about you.”

“How is this,” They emphasized by shoving their outstretched arms into the flesh harder for a moment “protective?!”

He hissed in pain, “you’re safe, now would you quit that?! didn’t you notice you’re totally fine?!”

There was quiet again and their limbs finally fell back into a curled up position. “I mean... I guess I can breathe...”

“yeah, i know. you made that pretty damn clear the whole way down.”

“Oh, right.”

He sighed, but continued to explain “nagas historically do this with their loved ones, including mates, family, and close friends. it’s s’posed to be part trust exercise part cuddle or some shit. we call it taking someone in. i’ve been fighting the instinct to take you in the more crap life piles on you. but i knew you’d never go for it, so i ran away like a damn coward instead. then you came and found me anyways.”

They went silent once again, clearly mulling it over. He let the silence hang.

In the meantime, he reoriented his body so that he was within reach of the rounded shape of his companion clearly visible in his upper tail. He hesitated, but did reach out to press in at his best approximation of where their shoulder was. They flinched away in response, gasping in surprise. He gave them a moment before repeating the gesture. This time they didn’t recoil. He felt them hesitantly press a hand outward, trying to touch his hand through him. 

“Look, I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.” They finally said. 

“i’m sorry this happened at all, i can’t even be pissed at your reaction to be frank. i deserved it.”

“Let’s say be both reacted poorly and call it even? Cause while on your end you didn’t talk bout your issues, on mine I barged in against your clear wishes.” They paused,  “I... I just wanted my friend back.”

“...are we still friends?” He asked, hating how small his voice became. His shoulders tensed as if that’d help brace for impact.

“Pfft, what? Duh!” The brightness came back to their voice, “Like you could get rid of me this easy!”

He was baffled into silence, his hand finally falling away. How were they not terrified of him?

“Dude, is that what you were afraid of? Nah man, you’re stuck with me!” They started rubbing upwards at the wall over them, which soothed the ache somewhat. 

The abatement of pain combined with the relief that he hadn’t lost his friend meant he had no chance to avoid purring. He didn’t really care, even as they laughed at his reaction.

“Hey, can you let me out now? I can’t hug you proper human style from in here.” They asked after a quiet moment, bringing him back to reality.

“o-oh, yeah. right.” He slipped a finger into the red ecto of his tail as if he were skewering jello, then raked the finger down his body to open his body like a zipper. The human spilled out in surprise, and he was able to seal the rift while they righted themselves. 

They followed through on their promise for hugs, and he allowed it without protest for once. Still mid-hug, they said “I’m not totally opposed to doing that again, you know. Now that I know it’s important to you.”

He pulled back enough to look them in the face “wait, you serious?”

They released him and shrugged “I mean, once I knew I’d be fine it wasn’t too bad in there.”

Red laughed hard, which got them laughing too. The mood being broken was a welcome change, and they surprised him by pointing out “Now that that’s all done, you still owe me! I’ve been waiting for your dumb butt to finish Dragon Blazers III!”

“pfft, you’re on fleshbag!”

“And don’t think I won’t be taking my usual spot you bag of bones!”

“yeah, yeah. as long as you don’t beat it up on the outside like you did inside.”

“You gonna lord that over me forever?!”

“probably.”

“Dammit!”

Red laughed, glad things had gone right back to normal. Well, except now his instincts were sated. Sweet relief. They’d wait as long as needed for his friend to be ready for another go.

[deramin2]

This!

And yeah, this is still a big structural problem with Tumblr moderation, but it has a different solution than "kick bigots out of the moderation team." It's that the appeals process needs a more robust way to report targeted harassment as a factor in why someone was reported in the first place.

It's the same reason Black people are more likely to get prosecuted for drug possession: Black people smoke weed at the same rate as white people, but white people aren't reported frequently and Black people are due to racism (by privateer citizens and police). So even if you fixed prosecution to only prosecute people who clearly broke the law and didn't have cops frame them, the enforcement of drug laws would still be biased because who gets reported is biased. (Which is one reason prohibition laws need to be repealed and post convictions nullified.)

It's also why "trans people aren't breaking the rules and being banned anyway" is a bad argument. Quite frequently there was a TOS violation. It's just that most of us are constantly flouting the TOS and it's completely ignored. Meanwhile transphobes ensure that trans people, and especially trans woman, are constantly living under a panopticon where the slightest infraction gets reported, and are constantly baited into violating the TOS through abuse.

Exactly the same pattern as childhood bullies using constant verbal abuse to bait their target into hitting them to make it stop and then running to the teacher about it to complain that actually they were the one being targeted and assaulted. Most schools rules say teachers have to punish hitting other kids, but don't give a shit about ongoing campaigns of psychological torture (a trauma that a lot of trans children also loved to and are predisposed to react too as adults). I'm betting a lot of these dedicated transphobes were also abusers in childhood and faced few consequences or were even rewarded for it.

All these factors are also why Palestinian blogs are getting nuked. Staff aren't searching the tags for Palestinians to ban, anti-Palestinian bigots are. Both looking for the smallest infraction and baiting Palestinians into those violations by using their justifiable anger and trauma.

The fact that transphobes water not being banned for hate speech when it's reported is absolutely a case of moderation rules enforcer bias and them being given continual free passes to be hateful is absolutely enabling them and allowing them to mass report.

Moderation tools that rely on reporting and are especially sensitive to mass reporting are incredibly vulnerable to coordinated reporting attacks. But moderation teams are taught they can't pick and choose who to enforce the rules against. Either there was a violation or there wasn't and what series of events led to the violation are not important. Theoretically this prevents bias and favoritism at the enforcement level, but it doesn't protect against reporting level bias.

(This is why the ACLU's philosophy is that they'll still defend hateful people against first amendment violations because even if those people are garbage, far more and better people are hurt by the legal system picking and choosing unequally. Opinions differ on whether that is an effective strategy to create a better society.)

No social media platform has solved this problem. I think Blue Sky probably has the best protections between the extremely thorough way blocks work and subscribing to user-created moderation lists on top of site moderation. Mostly it just keeps people separated so it's harder for transphobes to interact with trans people at all. It's not foolproof either, but it has led to a much more thriving and safe trans community where most threads aren't full of hateful replies. But that was designed into the structure of the site nearly from the beginning by people that got burned by multiple older platforms. Tumblr's structure would make it extremely hard to implement something similar.

Obviously things need to change this is a completely unacceptable moderation situation leading to the persecution and silencing of a vulnerable minority. But understanding where is actually going wrong will help us identify and advocate for specific policy changes that would improve it. Simply railing at Staff for being uniquely bigoted does nothing to address structural drivers of bias that are outside their hands.

The number 1 change I recommend is considering targeted mass reporting to be a policy violation. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would improve things and there's precedent for it in other site moderation policies (like AO3). If we can bend our energy towards that one change, we can then identify other specific policy changes.

it's so strange to see the response whenever someone gets banned that this is like. Intentional targeted banning from Tumblr. It's not! It's almost always someone getting brigaded until the autoban gets triggered, which is bad but it's a different category of problem and much, much harder to solve.

If what you get from this is "Tumblr bans trans women" and not "transphobes in particular have organised methods for report brigading accounts until they get banned" you will misunderstand the problem and why it persists. It's not a secret that the people getting banned are usually highly visible and/or get into fights a lot!