#but yeah. i can provide screenshots and everything if anyone genuinely wants

[duskythesomething]

to anyone who wants to commission custom plushies, absolutely do not go to BlueberryBits on esty. i can put together a whole ass post about why but long story short is i've waited a year and about 3 months for custom plushies because they PUT OFF DOING THEM and then WOULD NOT message me back for months at a time. repeatedly.

[profounddefendorcrusade-blog]

A Long Rant About The Koffin Trio

Note: So, this is my first (really) long post about this fangame, and to be honest, I was debating whether or not to even publish it. I still decided to do it since not a lot of folks talk about ts!underswap, and I wanted to give my two cents regarding my three favorite characters.

More important note: If you think it's gonna trigger you to read about Harry/Larry and Harry/Larry/KK as a found family, better click off this post. Maybe it's my inner aroace speaking, but I personally don't see the romantic appeal at all. Good for you if you do! I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's opinion; diversity is great after all :)

For those of you who are still here, I will start off by saying this:

Harry and Larry depend on Count Koffin-K for so much. I'm tempted to say EVERYTHING.

He genuinely feels like their father figure. I mean, this sentient fedora gave them a job while they were both living lives that were... bad.

He isn't cruel when they do something stupid and instead just looks deadpan. Sure, Koffin-K's not a perfect boss; he yells at the two of them and insults them (dude really needs to work on his temper), but I found it sweet how both Harry and Larry felt safe enough to tell him the truth here, which to me counts for something (pun intended) ↓

He even pranks them sometimes ↓

Koffin may not be perfect (he's gotta keep up the "evil" persona) but at least he 1) tries to give Harry and Larry a hint that he cares for them (has them both secretly do his laundry without them telling each other) 2) actually admits that he cares for them both equally (in his own way) 3) attempts to solve their disagreement despite him not gaining anything out of it

How they met is also interesting to me.

Based on their backstory, Harry and Larry were clearly hesitant to work for Koffin, but when they actually started the job the next day, I imagine that their conversation went something like this (either during the first day or at some point early on in their career):

H: "Larry, he could be like the dad we never had and provide for us and we could have all da money that we never did, see?"

L: "Huhuhu, yeah! Don't forgets da food!"

...and that's how the parade float came to be. I think Koffin secretly appreciates they made it, even though he says how he wanted the thing "as far away as possible" right after saying this line ↓

He also makes this face later on at the festival when he sees the float again cause it reminds him that the three of them are a family despite Harry and Larry getting on his nerves half the time but I can't include the screenshot bc of the picture limit

Heck, the two even built their house outside the keep, which to me suggests that they don’t ever plan on leaving Koffin.

Harry does mention his mother, and we learn that he's into embroidery (both making me think he's a a 'mama's boy'; maybe she taught him how to embroider)...

...but even on the ts!us wiki, the only relationship dynamic the two have is with Koffin-K himself.

Weirdly enough, we only know that Harry has a mom, but not a dad

Even though he was definitely unaware of this, Koffin liked Harry and Larry FOR BEING THEMSELVES. This is really important to me.

He saw something in them that others did not, even if it was initally just "your names rhyme and you give me the 'goofy henchmen' vibe." He sees them both as useful for what he needs them for. It may not be much, but it's exactly what Koffin's looking for.

In other words:

THE WAY HARRY AND LARRY ARE IS ENOUGH FOR COUNT KOFFIN-K. I mean, why look at resumes of competent potential employees when you can hire two idiots who are just as goofy as you

Exactly why Harry and Larry are so loyal to Koffin-K is unknown, but based on my interpretation, it has to do with 1) them desperately needing a father figure/someone to rely on 2) Koffin giving Harry and Larry a home, food, money, and a job that also allows them to slack off and finally enjoy life, and 3) him making them feel needed. Maybe not appreciated, even though he subtly tried to, but definitely needed. Serving under him became their purpose.

In other words, I think they're so loyal because Koffin "chose" them, even if he did that subconsciously.

Harry got the chance to be more than just a janitor. Imo, he was hesitant to work for Koffin at first because he was afraid that he would lose the only sense of security he had. I think he lived with his mom at the time, considering his low-wage job This explains why he wants to be rich (to make up for all the things he couldn't afford).

It also explains why Larry loves food so much (he literally slept under a dumpster bag and if he was both homeless AND unemployed, it would mean that he had to either be a beggar or eat from the trash. Either way, eating good food was out of the question.

It's also possible that Larry had a janitor job just like Harry (but unlike him, nowhere to live). I say that he might have been a janitor, since Koffin mentions how they could both do better than mopping floors forever, but maybe it was just an assumption on Koffin's side.

Whatever the case, their lives sucked.

There was also this one moment I wanna talk about, where Larry called Koffin-K stupid, and Harry pretty much agreed. So I asked myself why they reacted this way.

Maybe because it was easier to convince themselves that they didn't care about their boss than deal with the fact that he (maybe) always saw them as nothing but 'lowly servants'.

Seriously, Harry said out loud what they both wanted most of all. And that something was for Koffin-K to value them. This was more important to them than money and food COMBINED, considering their entire arc was about learning that Koffin needed them both equally

Maybe they were worried about getting fired, but I honestly don't think Koffin ever wanted to do that to them, no matter how many times they messed up.

Maybe they didn't want to be honest and admit to Koffin that he's a total dumbass so they wouldn't get in trouble with him. I mean, they did want to gain his validation/appreciation/approval/love, so it makes sense that they would do anything to get and remain in his good books.

I think the third scenario is the most likely one, tbh.

Might be a nitpick, but notice how Harry and Larry are walking next to each other here, but Koffin-K's at the back, just sorta... isolated, like he's not their equal? This is why I'd rather see him as their father figure than an older brother. The way I look at it, the oldest sibling is usually in charge, yeah, but there's still a level of closeness and familiarity between the siblings, whereas Harry and Larry hardly know anything about Koffin-K, ESPECIALLY how lonely he really is. Koffin's the one who gave them a purpose, became their boss, and as a result, they began looking up to him. In contrast, the two spend 24/7 together, bicker, and are practically inseparable, like brothers

Larry also explains how Koffin-K doesn't like leaving his study, but clearly neither Harry nor Larry reflected on why that is and just assumed it's because Koffin's 'stupid.' This reaction kinda rubbed me the wrong way at first, but then I remembered both of these dudes are street rats who don't know any better.

Look, I know the Boogiemen were supposed to fit this common "goofy villain's sidekicks" trope, but both of them clearly grew up in poor conditions, have daddy issues (imo), and feel worthless/useless.

That's why they want Koffin-K's attention so badly.

They need a father figure to reassure them that they're useful, important, and loved.

All this makes them three-dimensional and relatable, just like most UT/DR/UTY characters. It feels like everyone in these games goes through some kind of deep arc, and I feel like this is supposed to be the Boogiemen's

Sure, Harry and Larry are funny at first glance, and they're great at being comic reliefs, but at their core, they are misguided guys who come from poverty/homelessness. I kinda wish the feisty four from uty had more going for them just so I could psychoanalyze them all

Even though it's probably been a few years since they joined Koffin, at least some part of Harry and Larry doesn't seem to believe that they can finally enjoy themselves, even if it means doing hooligan stuff and boring chores. That's why they're 'superficial' and goof off and will grab any opportunity to act childish and materialistic.

A typical case of age regression

What lies beyond the surface is incredibly sad to me.

Now, this is sort of like a bonus section bc I want to explain WHY exactly I see Harry & Larry as brothers, and WHY I think they see Koffin as a dad again, maybe it's bc I'm aroace and I see family relationships everywhere, but the stuff below REALLY REALLY reminds me of these types of dynamics:

They threw insults at each other and had a literal fistfight over which one of them Koffin appreciated/liked more

They cried HARD (of joy) when Koffin told them they're both equally useful and useless, so they no longer had to be at each other's throats. He also said how he recognized that they're passionate about being his lackeys, even if their teamwork needed, well, work

I think it's sweet how they built the float 'within their first days of henchmenry,' according to KK. They could have easily NOT included him, but had apparently warmed up to him pretty soon

Harry wanted to call Koffin to save them + I love how he's CERTAIN he'll do it

Both yelled for Koffin (reminds me of Axis calling out for Chujin for some reason)

Larry called Koffin Keep their home (could have easily said that they left it at the keep...reminds me of the times Starlo called The Wild East Clover's home I really need to stop with the uty parallels)

They cheered for him (and got hit in the face with books)

They get in trouble with him

They apparently copied two of his attacks these 3 are so similar except that Koffin is a more 'head in the clouds' kind of goofy while Harry & Larry are more grounded... but still goofy

And this line... "And quit arguing, you two!" sounded so parental, istg

I forgot to mention some stuff:

After Koffin tells everyone to go to the festival, Harry and Larry quickly look left and right, like they're wondering where he is and/or what to do now that he isn't there. Poor guys really are dependent on him and like to be in his presence

They talked about Koffin a LOT throughout this game. Their conversations are either about 1) Koffin and what they're gonna do to please him, 2) Them bickering, or 3) Some shenanigans they get themselves into. Larry even remembers how Koffin-K always says: "If you're slacking, put some hustle into it"

Koffin doesn't treat any other lackey the way he does Harry and Larry, and none of the other lackeys seek his admiration like the two do

Harry and Larry were both jealous af of Chara for getting all the attention (right after they got into Koffin's study Harry said "Now whaddya need us in here for, see?" and I immediately thought that he wanted to add "you have a new favorite child lacky now so why don't assign more chores TO THEM")

Like I'm not sure if they were meant to come across to us players as a family but for some reason that's how they came across to me since day 1

The actual reason why I see them in this light is not just bc I love found family (even tho I do. a lot), but bc I feel like it would give Harry & Larry more depth than a romance between any of them

[austinslounge]

The PR girl is back.

I feel like we are not getting any screenshots or the pic anytime soon, so I’m just going to share my perception of everything we got so far. I don’t think the pic with Austin is that important, because I believe that sighting, but the fact that the anon said that the pic disappeared is so strange, I don’t know what to even think of it. Again, analyzing the recycled information and trying to make sense of it is pointless. This alleged conversation went from Austin➡️that girl ➡️DM chat➡️the anons➡️this blog. Who knows where the facts may have gotten mixed up and the broken phone game began. So, judging by the information provided by anons, they talked about:

1. Celebrity stuff

2. The Gerbers telling him to just live his life and don’t mind people’s opinion

3. His projects

4. Spiritual stuff

5. Kaia filming

So what can we make out of this? Nothing. It’s literally just a friendly chat with a fan, that’s all. Also, we don’t know this girl. They could have easily just talked for 5 minutes, but she exaggerated the meaning of this conversation. But anyway, let’s look closely at everything they discussed.

First, the celebrity stuff. Typical topic for the conversation. Nothing extraordinary.

Second, the Gerbers. I actually think that they might have been brought up during the discussion of the celebrity stuff, because the Gerbers get bashed in the media all the time and this advice sounds like something they could have given Austin. Again, just because Austin mentioned it to the fan, it doesn’t prove anything. It just means that sometime, maybe it was a week ago, maybe it was 2 years ago, the Gerbers gave him that advice. We also don’t know if it was brought up in regard to Kaia or not. As you know, I’m a big supporter of the PR relationship theory and if they are in one, it still doesn’t mean that Austin never communicates with the Gerbers or just discusses strictly work-related stuff with them. I bet they had many ordinary conversations over three years.

Third, his projects. Nothing to discuss here. It’s something many fans would like to ask Austin if they met him.

Then, spiritual stuff. Also typical. This is actually something that many people talk to strangers about, because sometimes it's easier to open up to strangers and it’s pretty common when small talk turns into something deeper.

And the last, Kaia. I don’t want to shade anyone, but it feels like that girl probably tried to make Kaia come up in the conversation, because I doubt that Austin would start talking about her with a stranger himself. If we throw the PR theory out of the window and look at Kaustin as a genuine couple, then we can see that Austin, super protective and loving person with Vanessa, loves his new woman so much, that he lets her walk on the outer side of the road and won’t mind her getting hit by a car. So, anyway, even though it’s pretty common to open up to strangers, we have to keep in mind that Austin is not a random dude from the street, he’s a celebrity. He has to be careful with what he says and who he talks to. He didn’t say that they are broken up or on the rocks, he said that she’s filming…I mean, what else was he supposed to say? “Yeah, we broke up months ago actually”? Or “you know, things are going bad”? Or “we are in a mutual agreement, look, here’s the PR contract”? He knew he was talking to the fan, it’s obvious that if he said anything bad about Kaia, she could post somewhere about it(that’s exactly what she did btw). I imagine that when Kaia was brought up, he just quickly said “she’s filming” and they kept talking about the spiritual stuff. This man never wants to talk about her, I doubt that he would make an exception for the fan. Also, him saying that she’s busy filming is a certified People.com break up reason. This makes me believe that he indeed just answered quickly and wanted to change the subject, because this “busy filming” excuse is common knowledge and it’s not personal at all. It’s not debunking or confirming anything, he just said the most obvious thing to shut down the topic. Austin won’t discuss his personal life with strangers, being a celebrity I doubt he is even allowed to do it anyway. If they wanted to shut down breakup rumors, they would. It’s very easy, just send an article to TMZ and the discussion is over.

Like I said, it’s just a simple fan encounter, nothing more. Austin doesn’t owe her an explanation of his relationship status and he certainly won’t gossip about his relationship with a stranger.

By the way, I won’t criticize that girl for sharing her encounter with Austin, as she didn’t say anything too personal about him or something. HOWEVER, I will criticize her for sharing it with the DM chat out of all other options. Sharing it with DM automatically decreases the validity of her words. I don’t really want to speculate, but while thinking about this encounter, I had a very nasty feeling, that maybe she really met Austin, but made up the conversation for clout or just to spread gossip. I know that the anons said she was very nice, but polite/nice≠genuine. It just means that the person is polite, not everyone has to talk like a rapid dog(like most shippers do). I know, I said that I tend to believe stories that have a lot of details to them, but not really in DM’s case. When people talked about Austin drinking Corona on Kaia’s story, it was not on DM. DM spread detailed stories about Austin in the past that turned out to be total garbage(for instance, the blond girl at the bar, Austin proposing to Kaia in April 2023). So, yeah, that girl going to DM specifically left a bitter taste in my mouth. Overall, her story is quite wholesome, if you want to share it, why don’t use TikTok or X? Why DM private chat? Maybe because people on DM believe everything and don’t question your words much?

Either way, the key point is that we won’t find out their relationship status from a random girl on the plane. And I talked about it previously, and I’ll say it again, I don’t expect the official breakup to happen this year, I’d aim for 2025.

This is probably going to be my longest ask yet, but while I was thinking about this encounter, I remembered some other weird unrelated Kaustin things I wanted to discuss.

First, I want to talk about Deuxmoi in general. If we allow the possibility that celebrities’ teams can send articles to trashy tabloids like DM and L&S, why can’t they send some stuff to Deuxmoi too? I think that it’s safe to assume that the Daily Mail article is legit, as Austin himself acknowledged it. (Off topic, but I find it absolutely hilarious that Austin follows DM that called him Austin Barnes, but doesn’t follow his girlfriend’s father). I’m still hot and cold with the L&S articles though. I mentioned in my other asks that they were spot on with some things, but I can’t ignore that there is also strange stuff in their articles and some things don’t match up, but maybe I’ll talk about it later. So, the girls that founded Deuxmoi are not nobodies from the street. At least one of them, Meggie Kempner, is somehow connected to the industry through her grandparents. At first, it may have started as silly gossip/fashion blog, but now it’s basically an independent tabloid. Deuxmoi is very big, so it is somewhat logical for PR teams to work with them occasionally. The first thing that comes to mind are those “absolutely candid not staged at all” pap pic of Austin/Kaia/Camilla/Cole double date in July. It’s interesting that Deuxmoi got these pics exclusively, especially since typically they have either real poorly taken candid photos or they just don’t have photos at all. What I’m not saying that the girl from the chat is someone from Kaia’s PR team, of course not. I just want to say that we all should treat DM as a tabloid, which is even less credible than Daily Mail or L&S, at least randoms can’t send them articles(I hope so).

Okay, the next thing I’m going to talk about is a hot one. I may be an absolute minority in this, because I’ve never seen anyone discuss it. I don’t think that what the article says(no matter from what tabloid, People, TMZ, DM etc) is as important, as what the purpose of the article is. For instance, when People reports celebrity breakups, the main purpose is to officially announce the breakup. But if we read the article, we can see that the reason for the breakup is always busy schedules/long distance/growing apart etc. These are typical excuses that breakup articles use. Most likely, the reason for the 90% of breakups is something else. So, we can see that the purpose of the article has been achieved, but the content of the story is not necessarily completely true. I think that the Daily Mail article is somehow similar. Like, this article has a purpose, whether it’s to keep the breakup rumors going, or to make the Gerbers or Austin look bad, we will find out soon, but the content of the article is questionable to say the least. What marriage? What settling down? Hello, your daughter is 23. I doubt they even want Kaia to marry Austin. It seems like the Gerbers treat him as a suitable partner for her for now, while her career is establishing. I think they would want her to marry some millionaire businessman, someone similar to Rande. (And if we consider the PR theory, then every article about Kaustin is just total bullshit lol).

I also want to draw some parallels between Kaustin and some Kaia’s friends’ relationships. First, Charlotte Lawrence, the “best kisser”. They are both models, but while Kaia is inserting herself into acting, Charlotte is inserting herself into music. Kaia dates actors, Charlotte dates musicians and music producers. Allegedly, Charlotte even said on one of her podcasts that she’s in an open relationship with her boyfriend Andrew Watt(I don’t know if they are still dating though) and hooks up with girls. Do whatever you want with this information☺️. (Allegedly it was on the podcast with Rachel Bilson, I haven’t watched it myself, but I saw people talk about it on Reddit, so feel free to watch it and prove me wrong if anything). Andrew is a producer and allegedly produced some of her songs. Then, Camilla Morrone and Leo. There have been rumors going on for ages that all of his relationships are showmances. Switching to more age-appropriate Cole Bennet is a very drastic change. Was it obvious from the start that Leo and Camilla wouldn’t last? Yes, it was. How long have they been together? For no less than 5 years.

So, in conclusion, if the couple seems weird or gives PR vibes from the start, it’s safe to assume that they won’t last or are indeed PR. Examples: Pete Davidson and well, anybody; Harry Styles and anybody; Tom Cruise and anybody; Taylor Swift and anybody; (I’m dying to add Kaia Gerber and anybody); Jared Leto and Cameron Diaz; Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and many many many more. The only exception is probably Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra, they are weird as hell, but they are married and have a baby, so I guess they really are going strong, unlike someone else lol. Kaustin looks like a generated Hollywood couple through a randomizer.

XOXO, this is my tea for today☕️

PR Giiiirrrrllll.... You are dropping some hot tea 🍵 in here! Lol 😆

First of all, I just have to say that you had me dying laughing with these comments:

If we throw the PR theory out of the window and look at Kaustin as a genuine couple, then we can see that Austin, super protective and loving person with Vanessa, loves his new woman so much, that he lets her walk on the outer side of the road and won’t mind her getting hit by a car. So, anyway...

🤣

He didn’t say that they are broken up or on the rocks, he said that she’s filming…I mean, what else was he supposed to say? “Yeah, we broke up months ago actually”? Or “you know, things are going bad”? Or “we are in a mutual agreement, look, here’s the PR contract”?

😅

Okay, back to business --

I agree with a lot of what you mentioned. Great questions to ask. I also agree with everything you mentioned about DeuxMoi. DeuxMoi is basically a tabloid just like DM. You have to take those articles and claims with a grain of salt. I've known of plenty of things mentioned on DM about other celebrities that couldn't be more false. Some celebrities have even threatened to sue. I believe Taylor Swift was one of them. 👀

So, basically, we all just need to take all of these media outlets (even some of the reputable ones) with a huge grain of salt. Like you said, even for breakup announcements, most reputable sources, like People.com, aren't usually going to spill all of the nitty-gritty details on why a couple broke up. Their teams will put out a very nice, amicable statement to the press. Just like how you don't go into a job interview telling your be prospective employer all of the REAL reasons why you left your old job (i.e. your boss was a jerk, they weren't giving you a raise, you hated the management style, you had to do the work of 3 people and felt burnt out, etc.), you make something up that sounds much better rofl 🤣

By the way, I won’t criticize that girl for sharing her encounter with Austin, as she didn’t say anything too personal about him or something. HOWEVER, I will criticize her for sharing it with the DM chat out of all other options. Sharing it with DM automatically decreases the validity of her words.

I agree. Something about that doesn't sit well with me. 🥴

I don’t really want to speculate, but while thinking about this encounter, I had a very nasty feeling, that maybe she really met Austin, but made up the conversation for clout or just to spread gossip. I know that the anons said she was very nice, but polite/nice≠genuine.

This part in bold is so true!

Wrt everything, I would hate to think that someone just made up a whole fake conversation (or aspects of it) just for clout or attention. What world are we living in where people do stuff like that? But it isn't like this hasn't happened before. 😕

That info about Charlotte is ummm... very interesting. 👀

So, she'd rather hook up with girls, but still wants a boyfriend. Okaaaay 🤔 Back in the day they used to call that cheating, but okay. It's their relationship, not mine. I just know that I personally couldn't be in an "open" relationship like that.

Kaia and Charlotte are close too. Interesting. 👀

Anyway, this whole Kaustin thing is a hot mess imo lol.

We're going to need a healing and a cleansing after it's all done. 😩

[bao3bei4]

i have basically covered the material in this post several times on my twitter. but this is, in my opinion, the only s*xy t*mes with w*ngxian take you need. 

(cw transphobia, transphobic slurs, antiblack racism, mentions of csa and bestiality in fiction)

edit 6/10/21: hi! i’m realizing people are still reading this! this was written in response to aja romano’s vox article on the fic that was published in late february of this year. i had been frustrated with how their article seemed to miss the point in many ways, because they never talked about the substance of the fic. which, i mean, fair. i wouldn’t want to read a 1million word fic either.

but i already had, so i thought i’d write about some things that i believed needed to be part of the conversation. namely, that its author wasn’t a harmless troll, but a person i genuinely disliked who i believed should be deplatformed.

i think virtual1979 is a bad person. 

i think a lot of people mainly know about sexy times the phenomenon more than they do sexy times the fic itself. i have the dubious honor of being one of the few people who has actually read large portions of the million word fic, and that’s why i wanted to write this meanspirited hit piece. 

the fic is down right now and the author’s notes and comments have both been deleted, which is why i cannot provide screenshots. however, these are all quotes i have saved from when the fic was online, and i’m happy to talk with anyone if you feel any of these quotes are mischaracterizations of the fic. 

i also want to be clear this is not a “callout post” and i’m not trying to “cancel” them or whatever. i am just explaining why i don’t like them, why i don’t feel bad they’re being harassed, and why i do not find them sympathetic at all, and perhaps why you should also adopt these stances. 

let’s start with transphobia. 

sexy times with wangxian is transphobic. this much is apparent from the tags. virtual1979 tagged the following: F*tanari, d*ckgirl, Sh*male. they use this language in the chapters that include a character with both a vagina and a penis. 

they refer to this character (wei wuxian) with the pronouns “he-she.” the following excerpt is a fair representation of how this wei wuxian is referred to in the chapters where wei wuxian has a vagina and a penis. 

[Lan Zhan] would never be turned on by a female, and he would actually be turned off by a drag queen - but this… this Wei Ying, it’s Wei Ying, and he-she looks [...]

i know these words are common in porn categories, but they are also slurs. virtual1979 also uses hermaphrodite to refer to this set of anatomy, which is not strictly a slur, but definitely a stigmatizing choice of language. 

they have repeatedly made clear they are not open to criticism. they have also since removed the comment section. making an intersex character for the express purpose of using transmisogynistic language towards them in your million word porn fic isn’t annoying the way their tags are, it’s actively fucked up. 

fanfiction has a transphobia problem, and if we’re talking about sexy times with wangxian in any capacity, we must be clear: sexy times with wangxian is part of that problem too. 

secondly, virtual1979 is also complicit in ao3’s racism problem.

i think the way they write about chinese characters and settings is annoying and racist, but they are a malaysian chinese person, so i do have some sympathy for them. i am committed to having some patience for people who are annoying if they themselves are working through the prejudice they have faced. 

they’ve commented as much: 

Not gonna lie, this fic has been a steep learning curve for me despite my roots being Chinese as well, but I have absolutely zero knowledge in some of these aspects!

and i’m happy on some level they can get in touch with their roots. who among us has not been cringe and diaspora. any criticisms i have of their portrayal of chinese people will stay private and be made to other people of color.

i’m going to be clear here i don’t think the actual comment they made makes them super evil or anything. but this essay IS clearly in response to That Article, which did mention racism in fandom. so.

i think we have all seen the infamous karen comment they made, in which they compared people who criticized their tagging with “Karens,” equating antiblack state violence to... mean comments on ao3? and “SJWs,” which, eye roll. no ageism but you’re 41 why the hell are you complaining about sjws

anyway. i am deeply frustrated by the co-option of the word karen. a stand-in for a particular type of racist violence white women specifically can and do inflict has become fused with that reddit-type mommy issue “can i speak to the manager” internecine white resentment. 

so their trivialization of antiblack racism is another reason i don’t like them. again i KNOW it’s petty to point this out here, but this to me shows that virtual is afflicted with the same kind of fandom brainrot that aja is, where everything comes back to that same sort of self-centered bullshit. 

sorry for that jab. julian told me that aja thought that cql was about callout culture and all i could think was “wow! just like virtual thinking that--” because i also have spent too much time on twitter this week. 

this is just like. part of this ongoing pattern i’ve noticed with virtual, where they’re aware enough of real problems to acknowledge they exist (police violence, accessibility issues caused by their tagging) but are determined to double down on their minor relative persecution as king, shittily drawing parallels between like... real problems and fandom problems. equating the two or allowing the second to take priority over the former is like... par for the course for this type of person! 

third, this is just another clarification on more parallels between ao3 discourse and sexy times that went completely unremarked on by That Article. 

i would rather DIE than get into discourse. but why did they write this sentence: 

Lan Zhan’s rational mind finally broke with a tsunami of pedophilic lusts [...]

by the way that is the start of a 430 word sentence. and yes this fic does contain hundreds of thousands of words of aged down wei wuxian. make of that what you will. 

also why would you make wei wuxian teach baby chickens how to sexually pleasure him. do you hate these characters. what’s going on. i think mxtx should be able to sue virtual for that one. 

there’s a very obvious connection between mainstream ao3 discourse and sexy times that went completely unremarked on in That Article. sexy times contains multitudes and some of those multitudes are bestiality and explicit childfucking. 

this is not unrelated to fannish culture, they are not unfamiliar with fannish norms, blah blah blah. this is just normal fandom. they’re not subverting shit, they’re just a normal fan who unlike 99% of fanfiction writers on twitter, spends more time writing than posting. this has taken their fannish tendencies to cartoonish heights. 

finally, they don’t care about mdzs or wangxian. they’re literally just horny and spiteful that’s it. this isn’t a question of like... “ohh they were a good faith participant in fandom until they went joker mode” and the REAL villain is society/ao3. like no they wanted to write shitty porn, and when they found out they were annoying people, they decided to double down because they could be the main character of the mdzs ao3 tag every time they found a spare hour to write. 

here are some select receipts on that topic:

they do not care about canon: 

MDZS has quite a complicated and expansive plot and history, and enough content that one can choose to tune out certain parts and still get to the end of the story in one piece. Also, because of its source, some fans may not fully realize the nuances, cultural aspects (ooh, cultural appropriation is another triggering topic) or the full breadth and depth of the source material, such as a person like me, who is half-baked in terms of knowing what the canon universe is all about. So I end up playing with characters and settings technically borrowed from the story, and make them do things that would otherwise run counter to the original source material - and that draws quite some flak from those opinionated people I mentioned just now. It's part of what makes the fandom toxic. It's like they're the self-appointed guardians of the source material and they act like they own the rights to question such questionble fanworks, and dare I say, try to take down those that cross certain lines too.

they are just horny: 

After that giddines of extra drunken Lan Wang Ji scenes at the beginning, I'm blessed with Lan Wang Ji (Wang Yibo's, actually) fuzzy nips! Bless Bless Bless, and Amen! muahs the nips on the screen

anyway they did get nuked over wishing covid on people. 

so yeah. i want to be really clear. this is my thesis: i do not feel bad for them. you should not either. i do not like them. you should not either. that’s ALL!!!! 

[a-crimson-lion]

A Look At Bakudeku’s Development (Based On That One Instagram Post): A Photo-Narrative Analysis

Word Count: 4,287 (Yikes…)

[This got long. Like, REALLY long. Don't expect too many colors. There's a lot to get through...]

For those out of the loop, I recently came across this Instagram post during unhealthy hours in the morning. The purpose of this post, I’d assume, was to debunk any negativity aimed at the Bakudeku dynamic/ship, claiming it was indeed not abusive and that the antis in question are ignoring canon in favor of playing Bakugo’s suicide instigation on repeat. Before addressing the post in question, I would like to state two things:

I am not stuck on Chapter/Episode 1 in the series. I have been caught up proper with every story arc up to the JT Training Arc and am roughly familiar with everything past that point. I don’t just take Katsuki’s now essentially forgotten suicide instigation into account; I’m taking every part of his actions well beyond that moment and how they reflect on him, internally justified or otherwise.

While I’m among the people who believe that Bakudeku as of the latest incarnation of the manga (up to Ch. 280) is indeed abusive, I am open to discussions on why it is not. In any case, however, I cannot ignore the fact that the dynamic/ship is incredibly problematic besides the skeletons in both Izuku and Katsuki’s closets.

So, in order to address this issue to the best of my half-awake brain’s abilities, I will review the screenshots within said post and break down how they factor into the Bakudeku dynamic and the overall development. Be aware that there are some manga and movie spoilers, and this is just MY OPINION. I could be wrong, and I’m okay with that. If you wanna talk without patronizing me, the comments are open. I also apologize in advance if I myself come of as patronizing. All the screenshots I’ll be discussing can be found in the video link above (or here).

Well then, no point in beating around the bush...

1) Izuku Taking Katsuki Out Of The Final Exam Gate (Anime Screenshot)

The first piece of “evidence” used to show the merit of Bakudeku comes from the Final Exam arc, shortly after Katsuki succumbs to All Might’s assault, only for Izuku to come in and deck the #1 Hero in order to grab Katsuki and carry him to safety, allowing them both to pass.

However, this photo marks a recurring trend throughout some of the other photos: they speak more about IZUKU as a character than Izuku AND Katsuki.

Izuku getting to save Katsuki is a major development… for Izuku. One that we’ve seen before. Think about it. The first time Izuku saves Katsuki towards the beginning of the exam, he has to punch Katsuki in the face because he was considering throwing the match just for working with Izuku. And after he’s been saved, Katsuki blows up (figuratively and literally) before aggressively kabedoning him. In this scene though? Katsuki got knocked the f*** out, so he really has no room to protest if Izuku comes in to save him a second time.

Plus, this isn’t really anything NEW with Izuku. We know that he’s aware in an abstract sense that what Katsuki did to him was “wrong,” but he doesn’t hold a grudge or any animosity to him towards that. He’s one of Katsuki’s biggest defenders and supporters, assuming Katsuki allows it. So really, him saving Katsuki isn’t really surprising or a major step forward, ‘cause he was always willing to do it from the get go. And again, Katsuki isn’t conscious during his second rescue, so we don’t really know if he would have let Izuku save him again or if he would have protested.

There’s nothing new here, and nothing balanced to the overall dynamic. Just Izuku being Izuku.

2) All Might Acknowledges The New Bakudeku Rivalry (Anime Screenshot)

Deku vs Kacchan 2 was a big moment for the Bakudeku dynamic. I’m not saying it’s a positive moment, nor am I saying it was necessary, but it was big. And in the aftermath of that fight, where Izuku and Katsuki are having a back and forth, All Might thinks to himself that the two have become true rivals now, or something along those lines. And it’s nice that he’s willing to spell this out for the audience and all, but uh…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: show, don’t tell.

All Might is essentially telling us that Izuku and Katsuki are rivals now. What does the story have to show for it? A brief conversation during their house arrest, followed by a massive stall due to the Shie Hassaikai Arc and Cultural Festival Arc (albeit with one more instance we’ll cover later), and then what essentially equates to Katsuki yelling at Izuku a lot during the Joint Training Arc.

...that’s ...not much.

And yeah, you could expect me to be a good bean to the author and wait until the later arcs, but even then, the execution… just falls kinda flat, at least for me. Going back to that particular moment with All Might’s thought process, it kind of reminds me of Eraserhead essentially acting as a mouthpiece for the Ochako vs Katsuki fight during the Sports Festival, but that’s a can of worms I won’t be indulging today.

What I’m getting at is this: All Might letting the audience know that Bakudeku have reached rival status is great! Now if only the series could deliver more on that...

3) Standing With Two One For Alls (Heroes Rising)

Okay, seriously, if you haven’t seen Heroes Rising yet, I implore you, GO. WATCH IT. It is an incredible film and I would recommend it with warm words. And I’ll admit, it gives us a better incarnation of Bakudeku compared to the rest of the series.

Yes, I said “better,” not “great.”

Look, I’m all for Izuku and Katsuki working past their differences and the clusterf*** that was their childhood, and maybe Horikoshi not being as integrally involved with the film’s writing as people think he is has something to do with it, but uh… you do not say “put myself as low as to working with Deku” or something like that and expect to be casually tossed aside, at least if you’re me. And while I’m glad there was some genuine emotional tension as Izuku gave Katsuki OFA, some part about it feels… off. Like, nothing was really truly resolved. Katsuki wasn’t given OFA as a sign of forgiveness, as an acknowledgement. Katsuki was given OFA because there was an AFO level villain about to wreck the place and kill some peeps and oh look, the narrative made it so that Katsuki was the only convenient holder around! It kinda stings when you look at it that way.

Not that it matters, because a big thing most people forget is that at the end of this movie, THE ENTIRE THING IS ESSENTIALLY SWIPED ACROSS THE DESK AND ON THE FLOOR. Even if it was going to have some level of effort towards the development of the dynamic, that effort is essentially GONE because Katsuki doesn’t remember SQUAT, and what happens to OFA after the fight is NEVER DISCUSSED. It’s just a hard reset, BOOM, back to normal. *Sigh*

Really, the whole double OFA thing was for convenience, less so for any emotional leveling up that could have been done. And even then, Izuku is still somehow the one putting more emotional input into the entire thing than Katsuki.

4) “I Thought You Were Gonna Get Ahead Of Me!” (Anime Screenshot)

Katsuki’s methods of motivation are… admittedly not for everyone. They seem to work fine for Izuku, as seen sometime after the Cultural Festival Arc, but again, that’s just Izuku. We know how he takes Katsuki’s words and turns it into motivation, but why does Katsuki bother at all?

Well, maybe this comes with desperately trying to find reasons to like a character but progressively despising him and his narrative placement more and more as time progresses, but here’s my angle on it: Katsuki just doesn’t want Izuku dragging his weight for nothing.

Keep in mind, we’re talking about the same Katsuki who held a grudge against Shoto for holding back during the Sports Festival. The same Katsuki who wanted the #1 Hero to go all out and would continuously press to fight him. The same Katsuki who wanted to fight a deadly villain even after being instructed to get back to camp for his own safety. The same Katsuki who challenged Izuku to a fight to finally determine where the gap was, and who was frustrated when he won because the power Izuku possessed was All Might’s, so clearly he shouldn’t have lost.

In short, Katsuki doesn’t like it when people don’t give it their all. And I believe it’s been stated once or twice that once Izuku makes One For All his own, there’s a good chance they’re gonna fight again. So it’s in Katsuki’s best interest to make sure Izuku isn’t half-assing anything, because he wants to prove he can beat Izuku at his best, thus proving that KATSUKI is the best.

So it’s less so for Izuku’s benefit as it is for Katsuki’s own.

5) One Giant Leap (Heroes Rising)

Arguably one of the best moments of the entire Heroes Rising film amongst the fandom is the big handhold scene between Katsuki and Izuku as they make a last gambit effort to take down Nine with two One for Alls. Admittedly this is one of the best if not the best moment throughout the entire progression of the Bakudeku dynamic thus far. I’ll give it that much.

...which makes it all the more frustrating because again: MIND. WIPE. The audience knows it happened, but in canon we never know if Izuku discusses it with Katsuki or if anyone else was aware of the moment in greater specificity. IT ESSENTIALLY NEVER HAPPENED, and I’m starting to legitimately wonder whether or not it was for the best...

6) Datte Atashi No Hero (Anime Screenshot)

First off: how? Second off: huh?

Believe me, the second ending of Season 3 is an absolute bop, don’t get me wrong, but uh… again, it provides NOTHING balanced for Bakudeku, once again relying on Izuku’s perspective on the entire matter. I once read an interesting meta about this ending and how it could be interpreted (take this with a grain of salt), but the biggest contender is that this is in fact Izuku’s fantasy. Think about it:

Izuku is a humble traveling warrior, with nothing to distinguish himself in his own opinion.

Ochako is a magician because she’s alien to Izuku, an unheard of phenomenon.

Tenya being a knight, Shoto being a prince, and Momo being a warrior princess all correlates to their high standings in society, heroic or otherwise.

The reason Katsuki is a barbarian king is because he’s familiar to Izuku in an ancient sense; he’s known him for a long time. The list goes on, but you get the jist.

With this in mind, it’s not difficult to understand that even Katsuki willing to work with Izuku would be another aspect of Izuku’s fantasy: to be able to stand beside his childhood friend once more. And remember the ending of that scene, when Izuku does that big sword slash? That’s him having fully mastered OFA. Both are things that could happen given the manga’s recent direction, but still have yet to happen because this is, again, a fantasy.

And apparently Datte Atatshi No Hero is a reflection on Izuku’s feelings towards Katsuki. Take that as you will, but again, this does not speak for Bakudeku as a whole. Just Izuku’s feelings on the matter.

7) Win to Save, Save to Win (Manga Screenshot)

Since I’ve already penned myself into a short story at this point, might as well take the time to look at this famous phrase from the story.

Personally, I consider it bulls***. It harms both characters overall; yes, I said both. It excuses Katsuki’s need to be a blunt powerhouse that only targets villains, and it redundantly demands Izuku do more of what he was already doing, albeit with less sympathy. I know it sounds corny to say saving is more important than winning, but in the heat of the moment, what gets to the civilians in danger more often? Seeing a guy in a cape deck the latest disaster right in front of them or from a distance? Or said cape guy risking life and limb making sure that this person gets to see life another day?

There’s no perfect answer to it, but that’s my stance.

And this quote, “Win to save, save to win,” justifies the one thing that keeps Katsuki from truly outgrowing his past: his need to be the best. If winning is on the same level then saving, and Izuku has an innate capacity to save, then that means it’s okay for Katsuki to have to win all the time, right?

No. It’s not. And that’s not speaking for all the “Gary Stu” crap, either.

Because being pressured into being the best is what caused Katsuki to hate any kindness offered to him by Izuku. The desire to be the best had him bully Izuku for a decade to ensure that Izuku remained the loser and Katsuki remained the winner. That desire characterizes arguably the worst aspects of Katsuki’s character, and those aspects aren’t gonna fly in the Pro Hero world. Because if Nana Shimura, Shota Aizawa, the Pussycats, Mirio, Sir Nighteye, and a handful of other incidents have taught us anything, it’s that even at their best efforts, heroes don’t win all the time.

Katsuki needs to learn this, or it will crush him in the long term. But he hasn’t. The narrative has kept letting him rack up wins, and his current actions in the manga were spurred on by the fact that he still has yet to truly take a loss.

Say what you will, but I don’t like this line. For what it says about Izuku or Katsuki.

8) The Only One Who Can Accept His Feelings… (Anime Screenshot)

Me @ #7: Wanna see me go off?

Me @ #8: Wanna see me do it again?

Izuku’s perspective on the entire Bakudeku situation is a major reason why most fans condone it. “Izuku doesn’t appear obviously bothered by Katsuki, so that clearly means it’s not abusive/problematic, so just shut up!” or something like that. Well, I’m no psychologist, so I won’t go into a spiel about people ignoring their pain for the sake of others or people trying to excuse others in order to place fault on themselves whether or not it be accurate.

Really, all I can say is that NONE OF THIS should be Izuku’s responsibility.

I’m not blaming this on Izuku because he hasn’t had actual friends or a healthy support system in a long while, but the fact that he decides to take on and enable Katsuki in his element just… doesn’t sit well with me. The logical conclusion would be talking, not throwing hands. I don’t care if they’re “distressed teenagers,” neither of them should be doing this, and Katsuki was fully aware that the teachers would stop them in the first place; that’s not simply adults meddling in what isn’t their business. Katsuki should have really figured out by now that maybe the best course of action is to actually vent to someone without blowing their face off, and I get that he’s absolute s*** at feelings, but really, that’s more of a red flag that he needs to actually get help. And if you think a little too hard on Izuku’s feelings of the matter, well…

Imagine being ostracized for so long that you lose all sense of self worth.

Imagine being told time and again that your worthless, which checks out for you because clearly if your worthless, the guy that enabled that mindset is obviously better than you, and he’s entitled to use you for his own ends.

That’s what I get from this scene.

And again, this is all from IZUKU at this point; virtually NOTHING from Katsuki.

9) Double Detroit Smash (Heroes Rising)

I’ve already said my piece about the film. At this point, it’s beating a dead horse with a stick. Moving on.

10) Word of God (Miscellaneous)

Here’s the thing about Word of God in fandom: the general consensus is that it’s nice to get confirmation from a credible source, but unless it is portrayed in canon, it’s just more words which may or may not be true.

In this case, Kohei Horikoshi, the mangaka for BNHA, is saying that eventually, Katsuki will have to apologize to Izuku. Eventually.

As in, it still hasn’t happened yet.

As in, Katsuki still has yet to decide that what he did in the past was wrong and he should try to fix it.

As in, it currently shows no bearing towards Katsuki’s current character nor the overall Bakudeku dynamic.

Sure, it MIGHT happen, but in another interview (or mayhaps it’s the same one), Horikoshi stated that Katsuki originally wasn’t intended to get as much screen time as he did. Both of these situations are different of course, but with the recent turbulence of the War Arc shaking up the manga, is it really so hard to believe that an apology might slip away from Katsuki’s thought process?

On the bright side, an apology could happen. But until it’s canon, then it’s only a possibility, and therefore can’t be used fully for the intended argument.

11) X-Catapult Handhold (Heroes Rising)

I bet some people working on the movie and some fans on the movie felt spoiled when they included not one, but two handholding scenes for Izuku and Katsuki.

And while the first handhold is certainly a marvel of battle tactics, again, there isn’t much else going on with it. Is it nice to see Katsuki working with Izuku again? Yes, but contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t go past that. Katsuki’s just willing to work with Izuku, full stop. He’d probably be willing to work with anyone because Nine is f***ing tank. And sure, getting a handhold tease is nice, but it’s only to facilitate Katsuki’s subsequent yeeting of Izuku at Nine in an attempt to do damage. Nothing more pressing about the circumstances of their past or anything like that.

12) A Bit of Advice (Anime Screenshot)

Look, this is one of the tamer, better looks at Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship. He’s willing to put his pride aside and give Izuku some advice. But remember what I said earlier in #4?

It’s not just to make sure Izuku gets better, but so Katsuki can feel like it’s a complete win when he beats his ass.

And if we take the line “It pisses me off” into account, we can look at that flaw from the same angle. Remember, Izuku has All Might’s power, the #1 Hero’s power. To Katsuki, that means he shouldn’t have the luxury of making mistakes. But Izuku does. He makes mistakes, and Katsuki sees them and he doesn’t get to exploit them. He still wins, but not because of those mistakes. And part of that pisses Katsuki off. Izuku shouldn’t get to slack. So, Katsuki gives him some advice. Advice that will no doubt help Izuku in the long run, for his (and Katuki’s) sakes. It’s a good outcome from a not very good reason...

13) Have You Made That Borrowed Power Your Own? (Manga Screenshot)

Yeah, no.

I don’t care if Izuku is used to this treatment, it still isn’t reinforcing an overall positive tone.

I don’t care if Katsuki acknowledges at some level that Izuku’s power is becoming his own, he still has the gall to say it was no wonder he passed BECAUSE of his power. Which may be true, but it’s not like Izuku was relying on it 100%, and lowkey comes off as Quirkist.

All it tells me is that Katsuki is starting to acknowledge Izuku, in the “gadfly I can’t get off my back” sort of way. Is this the “best development” y’all are rooting for? Basic acknowledgement of another human being?

14) Outta My Way Punk! (Manga Screenshot)

Katsuki reflexively tells Izuku to get out of his way.

Izuku is used to it, again, that does not excuse it.

Once again, Katsuki reverts back to his usual behavior instead of showing a more subtle approach to show the audience that maybe he’s changing beyond what a chorus of other characters saying “he’s changed!” has to offer.

...even if it’s not abusive, you can’t really say that’s a “good” relationship, either.

15) Blackwhip Training (Manga Screenshot)

Katsuki willing to train with Izuku to help him master his Quirk(s) is nice.

Still blatantly in his element with lots of needless yelling and dominance assertion, but still nice.

And keep in mind, right after it’s clear they aren’t getting anywhere and Izuku tries to rationalize it, Katsuki decides to dip seeing as it’s not worth his time anymore. And even before that, at least in my translation, Katsuki seems to be more interested in beating out Blackwhip instead of having Izuku get a handle on.

Again, maybe not abusive, but not exactly supportive, either.

16) ??? (Anime Screenshot)

I personally have no idea what they were going for with this screenshot, but if I had to guess, that’s after Katsuki gives Izuku an escape window whilst he faces off against All Might alone during their Final Exams.

While I understand that this is early on in their dynamic’s development, the fact still stands that Katsuki still wants to fight for fighting’s sake. He may have been willing to at least give Izuku a chance, but he still sees Izuku’s retreat as cowardly, even though it’s a perfectly valid way to pass the exam. He still just wants to fight.

There’s no mutuality in that sense.

17) Quote from Justin Briner (Miscellaneous)

I don’t have much of an opinion for Izuku’s English VA, but for what it’s worth, I think overall he’s a really cool dude. The same, however, cannot be said for his quote.

I can buy into Izuku wanting to get stronger because of Katsuki, since that is a major plot point. I can’t do the same for Katsuki seeing the good in people because we don’t ever see it, really? In fact, it’s more like people latch on to Katsuki and he just tolerates them until they’ve completely wormed their way into his life. There’s no scene where Katsuki considers someone a good person because of something Izuku did, or anything even vaguely along those lines, at least to my knowledge.

As for their relationship, there have been more downs than ups, and it isn’t relatable to me in the slightest. Maybe that’s just ‘cause I don’t get the overall appeal, but their friendship never really strikes me as a… well, friendship. You could argue that’s the point and that’s what makes them different and interesting, but I would much rather we see more concrete proof of their relationship being at more understandable highs and lows while actually demonstrating it was mutual.

But again. That’s just me.

18) Joint Training Pep Talk (Manga Screenshot)

I’m basically repeating myself at this point. Katsuki might be keeping tabs on Izuku, but again, it’s not entirely for Izuku’s benefit. He just wants to make sure his new “rival” (successor to the #1 Hero, I might add) isn’t dragging his feet through the mud and actually getting s*** done so their eventual third clash will actually be worth his time.

...this relationship is so one-sided in two entirely different ways, I swear.

19) Speaking With Kacchan So Naturally (Manga Screenshot)

Why are we congratulating Katsuki for adding one more person to his already (surprisingly) sizable tolerance pile?

Why are we congratulating Izuku for bridging a gap other people managed to cross with little to no effort even though he didn’t do anything wrong?

Izuku is essentially saying “Good job on me for finally getting the same treatment as everyone else from that one person after over ten years.” Good on him, but uh… that’s not exactly a landmark worth framing the way the fandom does...

The relationship might not be outright abusive, but HOO BOY the bar has never been set lower...

20) “You’ve got a good friend in him” (Manga Screenshot)

And finally, the pièce de résistance. Which is really more narrative mouthpiece-ing.

Even before that, Katsuki yet again can’t take a compliment from Izuku for whatever reason. Yet again, Izuku just shrugs off all of Katsuki’s discouragement, intentional or otherwise. And I love me some Dadmight as much as the next guy, but really, does he have a good grasp on relationships? His only friends in his life were David and Naomasa, and he’s been shown time and time again to not be the infallible man many think he is due to being the Symbol of Peace? But suddenly he goes “Bakudeku rights” and y’all jump on that with no room for argument?

Katsuki has yet to prove what All Might has been saying. Again, telling rather than showing, therefore removing the meaning from the entire thing. Unless Katsuki proves otherwise, I call bulls***.

-------------------------------------------------------

So, my final verdict? Bakudeku is fine. It’s just not as great as the rest of you are making it out to be. I’m not gonna dictate whatever you ship or what you enjoy, that’s not my place, but at least keep these perspectives in mind. You don’t have to believe them, but just… stay aware, y’know?

Alrighty, I’ve wasted enough of your time. If you’ve read it until the very end, then… thanks. Carry on.

-Crimson Lion (10 August 2020)

[blue-shaded]

Hey Dolphin anon! While I respect your opinion, I disagree on some points. I don’t know where the popular sentiment that he doesn’t denounce his stans’ toxic behavior came from but he’s said multiple times that he denounces it (https://twitter.com/PooGnf/status/1399592255657156608/video/1 ignore the user lol :) ) and that’s just what he says on Twitter. Some of it yeah is a little more lighthearted, like when he talks about Detective Dream in some of the tweets, but I’d say that a fair amount of those tweets lack sarcasm and are said in full seriousness. In addition, he’s also said not to send hate on his behalf during multiple of his own livestreams, he said it when he went on Kaceytron’s streams, he said he didn’t condone toxic behavior during Kavos’s video, as well as multiple times throughout various drama like the speedrunning situation and the John Swan situation (for Blue and others, John Swan is a commentary youtubers who basically did a lot of weird shit, who Dream worked with in the past and had a bad experience with. man imitated Dream’s discord profile and pretended to be him while sending sexual things to a minor, and then tried to blame everything he did on his 12-year old neighbor when he got caught, saying he left his computer open and that that neighbor got on Discord and was the one who did all that weird shit. Obviously false and got proven false, but even when Dream was debunking the situation on stream, he said not to send hate). He’s said it multiple times and I agree that he should continue to say it as he continues to grow to remind both new and old fans but he’s said it multiple times and at this point, anyone who Is still sending death threats is aware that it’s wrong and that he doesn’t support it and they just don’t care. I personally think that behavior is disgusting and I know most of the people I interact with on Twitter do as well. At this point, it’s just sort of a question of to what extent do people want him to say it. The most recent time he denounced death threats was on May 31st both on Twitter and on stream, and he’s probably said it at least once a month almost every month since like December, so he says it quite a bit, so going further would be personally DMing each toxic person he sees and telling them to stop which. I just think is a little absurd. I know that others want him to post a video on his main channel about it and condoning it as well, but I sort of disagree? While death threats can be sent on any platform, the platform on which people receive it on the most is Twitter. Anyone who’s obsessed enough to send death threats is going to be following him on all socials so they’ve definitely seen him condemning it as he’s tweeted saying that he doesn’t support that type of behavior multiple times, but of course, others are allowed to disagree with me on that, I just think that it’s hard to find a good course of action past that. I agree that toxic behavior should still be called out, but I feel like a lot of people advocating for him to do it more than he is now kind of don’t understand how out of control toxic behavior is and how they rarely listen to creators themselves.

The speedrunning stuff I kind of agree on, though I’ll just go a little more in depth about the situation. basically, for those who don’t watch Dream’s videos, dream codes mod videos for Minecraft and these mod videos would consist of things like “Minecraft but everything is dark” and “Minecraft but we can only see one chunk at a time”. Now because Dream still runs the dream SMP and did speed running at the time he had to move these mods out of the mod folder in order to do everything else that he was doing when he wasn’t recording videos. This would later on lead to the problem where the speed run moderators would ask for his mods folder and he wouldn’t be able to provide a full copy because he had since moved stuff around because it had been a week after the actual speedrun streams they were inquiring about. The thing that ended up being the problem was a recording mod that Dream had asked a separate developer to create for him and the Dream Team in order to make their recordings smoother. that was sort of it there weren’t any specifics given, he just wanted recordings to be better. Now because it was just for recordings and since the mod ran well dream didn’t ask the developer for the specifics of what they coded into this recording mod at the time. In his mind this recording mod sort of just clean things up visually. And for those who have never really played Minecraft, what I mean by that is if you press F5 in Minecraft you get a whole ton of information on your screen about coordinates and computer specs. When people say that the mod cleaned things up visually, they mean that all of that irrelevant information that clogs up the screen in a video was minimized to just coordinates. he was wrong in this assumption, the Recording mud also included coding that allowed for better trades. again for anyone who doesn’t play Minecraft, Dream and the Dream Team record their videos in the 1.16 version of Minecraft. In this version of Minecraft, it’s a widely used tactic to use piglin trades to get ender pearls. Since their videos aren’t just about beating the game regularly, there’s usually more of a focus on fighting or the specific mod that they’re using for that video, the developer increased the likelihood of ender pearl trades with pigeons in order to make recordings go faster. Regardless of that and his misconception of what the mod actually did, Dream didn’t believe it mattered because there was no record of him having loaded that recording mod during the speedrunning streams in question. This is because Dream uses something that a lot of speed runners use, he uses Fabric. Fabric API is something that both allows your Minecraft to run smoother (which is why a lot of speed runners use it, it’s approved to be used by the speed run moderators) and for those who wish to do so, it also functions as a mod loader. So when I said that he had no record of him having loaded the recording mod, I mean that when he checked the logs of Fabric API, it said that the only thing loaded was Fabric itself. this was inherently a wrong way to go about it because the way Fabric API logs work is that you have to be searching for a specific mod, so you can’t just look at what the log says is loaded on because sometimes the logs don’t show a mod unless you specifically ask the program to look for it. Dream figured this out a couple months ago, he went back through the logs, talk to the developer who coded the recording mod and got confirmation that yes, he did have the recording mod on and yes, the recording mod does increase ender pearl drop rates. He recently wrote a pastebin that has since been taken down by the pastebin staff though screenshots of it are still easy to find. I do wish that he had come out about this sooner because he knew of this information for a couple months before openly sharing, but I do get the situation has sort of faded and that he wasn’t excited to re-open that discussion when he himself had gotten a lot of hate and the threats during that situation.

Obviously as outsiders looking in we will never know how genuine he’s being, if he’s telling the truth, but I choose to believe that he did feel as bad about the situation as he said he did because for a lot of people who do consume his content, it’s been very noticeable within the past couple months that he’s been a lot less active both in terms of streaming and just interacting with the community, but of course, it’s all just personal interpretation and we will never actually know. 

Just wanted to explain the situation fully because people who may not play Minecraft and understand it the developing behind it may not understand how he could’ve possibly not seen the mod or not have a copy of the mod folder. I would disagree with you on the point that the controversy around Dream’s speed runs has delegitimized the rest of the speed running community. As someone who still watches well-known speed runners like Bennex and Illumina (TapL and Punz if they count as well), I don’t think any of them have really argued that they think that situation has delegitimize them, though I guess you could argue that they simply haven’t spoken up because they’re a little too afraid to speak up against a big Youtuber, which is fair. But as someone who has spoken to a lot of people who have sort of slightly read up on the situation without actually caring about Minecraft or Dream, none of them have said that they think that the speed running community is not legitimate because of it. Not to sound flippant because I do like watching speedrunners (albeit the already more popular ones) or anything, but the Minecraft speedrunning community isn’t exactly very mainstream, not very many people care enough to actively oppose it or say that they’re not legitimate, from what I’ve seen it’s either just you support the community or you don’t care. Even people who actively thought that dream cheated from the beginning, never used that to discredit the rest of the community (at least from what I saw). They simply didn’t care. anyone making that argument is sort of ridiculous, before the 1.16 speed runs that got investigated, Dream already had a couple official speed runs on his YouTube channel. At the time they were posted, they were approved and legitimate (though I believe one’s been taken down now), so it’s not like even Dream’s entire time in speedrunning was completely falsified, so anyone using one situation to delegitimize a whole community is being a little ridiculous. In addition, anyone who actually knows and cares enough about the speedrunning community to try to claim that all of them aren’t credible, would know that a lot of the speedrunning community didn’t even like dream all that much, even before the cheating out allegations, and they didn’t really associate with him, so they would know the Dream’s actions don’t define the entire community. If you’re talking about Dream’s more general fans, like those who watch his YouTube who may now be skewed against the speedrunning community, you can look at comments in his community tab on his channel and see that people aren’t actively against the speedrunning community, they just say they don’t care and they want it behind them which is very different from thinking that they are all illegitimate. Though if you have substantial proof of multiple cases of multiple people being biased against speedrunning community and believing that they’re all cheaters after Dream’s situation, I’d be open to see them.

I also disagree with your point over Dream being a “professional speed runner”. He says this in responses to claims that speedrunning is a huge part of his career. And he’s correct when people talk about dreams achievements, none of them really talk about speed running that much it’s always about the SMP, his manhunt videos, and his coding videos. He’s not a professional speed runner in the way Illumina and Couriway and Bennex are. His career isn’t based on professional speedrunning. Citing the Minecraft manhunt series as proof that he’s a “professional speed runner“ is definitely a little skewed and ultimately wrong. If you tried to claim those as official speedruns, the moderating team would likely have a little laugh and then reject it. Yes, he has speed runner in the title and yes in a way, it is a speedrun because he is trying to beat the game as fast as possible, but more so he’s trying to avoid being killed by his friends in the game so it’s about both speed and being smart. Everyone within the speed run community and a lot of those outside of it would know that being chased down by your friends during the game isn’t a real category in Minecraft speedrunning and therefore the Minecraft Manhunt videos aren’t official speed runs. So people claiming that dream is an official speed runner and that that’s his career is ultimately false, which is what he was saying. His official speed runs were all done for fun and have never been the main focus of his content.

When you say that the legitimacy of the speedrunning community was called into question, I will admit, I’m unsure if you’re talking about the community itself and the people with in it, like the actual speedrunners, or if you’re talking about the moderator team or both.  I will admit, even as someone who hyperfixates on Dream, his initial reaction to the moderators video saying that he cheated was godawful. for Blue and others who aren’t as into this and don’t know, basically the gist was he was lashing out and saying it was total bullshit and calling them idiots. He has since deleted that tweet and apologized for it and admitted that it was incredibly childish and impulsive. While I do get why he was so mad since the video had blindsided him after weeks of radio silence from the moderators and as a kid who didn’t finish high school he didn’t really understand the statistics that were being said in the video and since at the time he genuinely didn’t think that he cheated (a lot of people have said that all this combined led to heavy RSD which is why he lashed out like that), I still think that he could’ve handled the situation a lot better.  on the other hand I think the moderators could’ve handled this situation a lot better as well. I don’t want to talk about the whole moderator team but I do want to talk about specifically Geosquare, who is probably the most talked about moderator when it comes to the situation. Dolphin anon, if you’re talking about the legitimacy of the moderator team being called into question, I’m assuming the situation surrounding Geosquare is likely what you’re talking about, which is a slightly different situation from just the speedrunning. So for Blue and others, before the video talking about Dream cheating was released, Dream had been told that there were people on the moderating team who didn’t like him. Knowledge of this bias is also a part of what caused Dream to lash out more in his initial reaction (though again it doesn’t excuse it). The biased moderator in question turned out to be Geosquare. This was heavily proven later on in about March of this year, where Geosquare played a large role in spreading the video of fake ‘dream’ saying the n-word. Geosquare was a speedrun moderator, he Has investigative skills and he got called out for spreading that video without doing any sort of investigating because it was clear to a lot of people that the person in the video wasn’t Dream. There were multiple things that made this video seem not credible, all of which easily could’ve been found by Geosquare.

Firstly, antis of Dream had been saying since January that they were going to try to find a way to accuse Dream of saying the N-word whether that just be through spreading rumors or faking a video or whatever else. Secondly, the video really sounds nothing like dream. Now I will say this video that the clip of someone saying the n-word was from 2016-2017. I’m not saying the video was fake, I’m not saying that someone somehow predicted that Dream was going to become a big creator or time traveled and went back in time to set him up for that. but the most common theory is that and he simply did go looking back through old Minecraft videos in order to find something incriminating. Both the creator of this video and a friend of the person who was saying the N-word in the video have since explained this.  so basically for blue and others, Dream has not always on the Minecraft username Dream. He got it from someone else. And so the person in this video is called Dream. Since it was a while ago the timeline’s a little fuzzy for everyone and it’s unsure if this video occurred before Dream got the username or if it occurred after Dream got the username and the people within the video simply still called the person in the video Dream because that was what they were used to calling them. The clip’s a little too grainy to see the usernames and the video has since been taken down by the original poster. Either way, two different people. Geosquare has since admitted that this was bias on his end and that he apologized to Dream and that they’re all good and has given an apology to the black community for using the n-word as a weapon for his own bias and he has since stepped from the speedrun moderating team. so dolphin anon, when you’re talking about the legitimacy of the community being called into question if you’re talking about the moderating team, yes, you’d be correct, it was called into question, but I would say for valid and good reasons because it ultimately was biased (though again, doesn’t change that Dream was the one in the wrong in the speedrunning situation w how he initially reacted).  I don’t want to fully blame Geosquare and say that it was completely obvious it wasn’t Dream or make it seem completely obvious to you guys, because things like mic changes and puberty do exist, so I’ll give the clips and allow you all to decide for yourselves.

The clip of someone, accused to be Dream, saying the N-word: https://twitter.com/Tommathyinnit/status/1375395156791336964/video/1 (I am not entirely sure which speaker is being accused to be Dream, which was sort of the first indicated to me that it probably wasn’t him because I don’t think peoples voices change That much, but I think he was being accused to be the person who was saying “well you can bring your friend...”) Again, this video is from 2016-2017.

A clip of Dream talking, also from 2016-2017: https://twitter.com/Onciescumbucket/status/1357440678909923335/video/1 (okay so. again ignore the user 😭 but it’s confirmed to be Dream by the fact it does sound like him and his long-time friends Sapnap, who used to go by PandascanPvP, and BadBoyHalo being in the video. I believe the video has captions so even for those who don’t know Dream or what he sounds like, it’ll tell you which one’s him and you can compare that voice to the one in the other clip)

But yeah. aaaaa I’m sorry for such a long submission, I’m hyperfixated on Dream and the Dream Team, though I do understand that there are legitimate criticisms on all of them and that no one’s required to like them, and people don’t need real reasons to dislike them because people are allowed to dislike whomever they want. Definitely not any hate towards you dolphin anon, I think that you do have points, I just wanted to express my disagreement with some of them and it’s nice that you do acknowledge that the toxicity goes both ways for both stans and antis. I think a big problem is that a lot of the creators who condemn or speak against Dream (people like Slasher and Noah Hugbox and Kavos) don’t openly condemn the toxic behavior of their own fans as much as Dream does, so it becomes a very hypocritical cycle where they’re making videos about the toxicity of Dream stans and yet their own fans send death threats to Dream and his community. And since the death threats towards Dream come from multiple different fanbase rather than one centralized fanbase the way it is if toxic people from Dream’s community are attacking someone, he can’t really pin it on one person and ask them to denounce their fans so it just becomes a thing where he’s both receiving a ton of death threats while being asked to denounce death threats towards others when there’s no one really denouncing death threats towards him, which is just discouraging for his community to see, but that’s just how the Internet is, I suppose. Again, no hate to you dolphin anon and I’m sorry if any part of this came off as such, and again Blue, I’m sorry for such a long submission

MY GOODNESS WHAT A SCROLL Not gonna read all of it cuz its clearly dedicated to my dolphin anon.

[lilquill]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve also talked about ethnic clothes I think.

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

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

We’ve talked about health/fitness and exercise.

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

Probably talked about Bollywood movies at some point.

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

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

Okay, back to maybe “juicier” stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, now onto the art stuff.

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

Okay, now the server shutting down stuff!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[gevejsbvdj]

Pt. 2

the continuation of what inspired my leave beneath the cut

I have a friend, who I got along with really well because we are both Afro Latinas (only she can speak Spanish. I don’t, not really) and we are black kids who had an interest in unconventional topics. I messaged her before disappearing about the ending of the server. I was keeping her updated all throughout, but after telling her the ending, I left her on read

I won’t disclose what I got up to during my absence. But again, don’t think that I had a breakdown because of the server ONLY. It was the final straw. I had so much going on in my life and I couldn’t take it anymore. 

Anyways, she took it upon herself to send hateful messages to Ley’s account and thought it was something to be proud of and told me. I...wasn’t impressed. But I still didn’t respond to our chats. Then she (her name is Rex. I’m gonna call her that) dmed Ley and was actually pretty aggressive towards her in an attempt to get answers. Again, not impressed but it was enough for me to actually come online. I feel like that’s why she acted out, to get me online. I don’t think she cared about me and used my pain to hurt others.

I had extremely brief, passing conversations with people who weren’t involved with the situation at all right before I messaged Rex. 

Ley was special to me before her message. I was always very defensive and protective of her like I was everyone else, but her especially because I thought she was nice. And I remembered when people were being mean to me, she reached out. And I still appreciate her for doing that. 

Which was why it was so confusing when Rex told me that they were all mad at me because I ACCUSED JOANE OF GROOMING PEOPLE. They wanted a reason to make me the villain so badly that they made shit up.

Notice how here, she says that I called Joane a FUCKING PEDO. Not even just a groomer but an outright PEDOPHILE. 

I’ve been raped. I’ve been sexually assaulted, groomed, all of that. I don’t say shit. I never say anything. I’ve even been accused- yes, ACTUALLY ACCUSED unlike Joane- to being a paedophile. I’m 19. Not even just that but I’m freshly 19. I got accused when I was 17. But I would never just- ughhhh moving on I don’t wanna get into it. 

When Rex asked for proof, this is way Ley sent her:

In this screenshot, I’m literally discussing how Joane’s childish behaviour could get her killed. I was concerned. Again, where’s the bullying?

Rex told me that Ley said she was wrong for not having proof, and I understand. Ley wasn’t present when it all went down

But really Ley? 

I heard a quote from someone that said something like “if someone believed a lie about you without checking up on you first to see if there was proof, then they were already looking for something to destroy you with to begin with” or SOMETHING like that. So I thought back to that quote and felt awful. I always suspected that they didn’t really like me, but always marked it up to my depression talking nonsense. But after all of this...maybe it was true. Why did I come out the most damage? Why were they making up lies about me? Me, out of all of them. Why was I consistently being seen as the bad guy overall? No really tell me. 

Anyways, this was Ley’s justification to believe that I would say such an awful thing:

Okay. Let’s just say that- Joane WAS a groomer. That she actually is a paedophile and I commented on it. She’s obviously not but I’m pulling a Ben Shapiro here. Everything else is the same only Joane is a paedophile. 

That motherfucking “it’s weird that he only spoke up when they were arguing” argument, and other arguments like that are so fucking toxic. As well as “well it wasn’t a problem that never came up before” so??? That’s what the fucking #metoo movement was all about. Timing means NOTHING when it comes to that. It doesn’t matter if it’s Joane or fucking Bill Cosby. The fact that thought came to Ley’s head is so fucking upsetting and DISGUSTING.THAT mentality is why people never want to believe victims of assault. Same goes for “they could have said that privately” guys she’s talking about that user who said they were uncomfortable with Joane coming onto him. Privately? It was private to him. In that server, we’ve made it known that it’s a very homey and comfortable environment. And who the fuck are you to tell someone where and when they can speak up about something like that???

Also, she accused me of calling her a pedo again. Good for me right? I’m a bully and I’m someone who just blindly calls people paedophiles. Good for me, damn. 

No, you shouldn’t believe someone right away when they call someone a groomer. God don’t I know that. But you definitely don’t say THAT what the fucking fuck. 

Jesus. Okay, moving on. 

Rex aggressively messaged Mel who had something similar to say:

uggh, you WERE the toxic environment i wanted to flee from,.

It hurts. It hurts a lot to see another friend you looked up to call you a bully. And that they just say that you called someone a groomer when you didn’t. 

Mel couldn’t provide proof either. 

Mel also tagged her post with someone kinda ignorant. 

Imagine if (thinking of someone I and others don’t always agree with) someone like James Charles made a post broadcasting all the homophobia he dealt with during his career, and I or some other asshole said something “while I don’t always agree with James…” like now isn’t the time. Now isn’t the time to let people you know you disagree with me ESPECIALLY on a post where you agree with me 100%??? What is the point then? You agreed with me, so agree with me. There. No one is saying that you have to agree with everything I say lord fucking knows I don’t always agree with you guys. fucking DUH. It makes me think you just wanted to put that in to lesson me and my words, even only slightly. Why? That hurts a lot, Mel. It really fucking does bruh.

When Rex called her out on it, she deleted the reblog. Not just the meagre little tag but the whole post. If she couldn’t be slick with me, then she wasn’t going to support me at all. It isn’t worth it if she can’t be shady. That’s the message I got from that. Tells me a lot. 

I am not friends with Rex anymore. She’s always been really aggressive and drama craving and I can’t take it. It’s impacting me negatively as well. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat happy with the screenshots she gave me. Told me a lot about these people I was still willing to talk to. 

Now? I won’t even waste their time.

After all of that. I made the post. The big announcement post. It was too much. I can’t escape the racism in my hometown or in the country in general, but I can leave and distance myself from the fandom. 

I was talking to someone today, and she, as a white woman, admitted that white people act so shitty when it’s implied that they’re racist. Which is so true. 

As I said, people make mistakes. No white person EVER is 0% racist or biased. I’m sorry but it’s not true unless you’re a baby or something. Same goes for other races, but mainly white people who have always had the upper hand, the privilege, the money, the chances, the power, all of that. 

Listen to me. 

When a person of color tells you that you are being microaggressive, biased, ignorant, or prejudice, or straight up RACIST, YOU FUCKING LISTEN TO THEM. Why do you guys get so AGGRESSIVE AND MAD?? That is so fucking WEIRD. 

And yes. I’m talking to you Vulture. 

I really had no ill feelings towards you prior to your comments.

Or your posts. 

peep that clumsily used aave. never fucking talked like that to anyone but me. either way, you sound dumb.

Why?

Why so...mad?

You felt guilty? Why did you feel guilty? 

...I’m gonna let you answer that. 

Moving on. I know that not everything has to be about race. I hate making things about my race. I do, even when I should! But you can be racist unintentionally. Does that mean you’re racist? No! I have yet to receive a genuine apology from any of you, meanwhile, I’ve been over here grovelling and hoping that you like me again. God. Why is it so hard for you to apologize and move on??

No, in that same fucking server, someone sent a racist meme after joking about slavery all day:

And yes, the people in the chat at the time laughed at it... 

I told them that WASNT funny and they freaked out all “WHY CANT I TALK TO PEOPLE IM SO FUCKING STUPID I SUCK” like oh...my god. You guys make it so awkward being black oh my GOD. I- like it makes me never want to say ANYTHING but I know I have to but god what the hell guys???

I wouldn’t really think that the members of the server chat were racially biased if they just accepted the fact that they were micro aggressive and didn’t flip out about it. Not really, at least. That reaction is so- well it’s sus as fuck. People who aren’t prejudiced will apologize, correct themselves and move on. Not dismiss me constantly and DEFINITELY not freak the fuck out. 

I also wouldn’t assume they were racially biased if this SAME EXACT SITUATION DIDNT HAPPEN TO ME BEFORE. 

Yep! On the Beatles Amino, I was called a bully and was reported by the LEADERS. Why? Because I told a curator she was inconsistent with her rules… that’s it. And that was back when I was sugary sweet all the time and was deemed to be a cinnamon roll. Nah. They knew I was black and I got told that people were scared of me and that I was bullying people. Yeah okay. Messaging ONE curator about her rules is the same thing as bullying people. Chile I can’t. And it only happens in the Beatles fandom. But no when someone calls John Lennon a racist it’s all “Zach! Zach! Tell them they’re wrong.” Ugh...

So that’s that on that. I have nothing else to say. Don’t message me about this post if you didn’t read all of this. I’m an idiot and I’m honestly still willing you hear you all out but don’t expect me to ever want to have anything to do with you. Out of the what- 50 people from that server, only two stood up for me? And two separate people APOLOGIZED TO ME. AND THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. That’s a shame. Thank you Johnny, Lenny, Laurie, and Remy. All of your names rhyme and you didn’t make me feel like I was CRAZY, unlike those I mentioned. There’s so much shit going on in the world rn, especially to do with racism. I know that you guys know. But some posts really....really tried me. oh well. I’m black. I like The Beatles. And I’m a victim of microaggressions, false accusations, gas lighting. I’m also out. bye.

black lives matter resources

[clarenecessities]

Queerquiggle/Cybunnypoop

Subtitle: This Again

It’s been around two years since the shit hit the proverbial fan, but seeing as the individual in question has since deleted & remade, some of you may not be aware of whom you’re interacting with.

Queerquiggle & queerneopets are the latest installments in a series of urls belonging to one person, hereafter referred to as the original url, cybunnypoop. Other former urls for his neoblog include (but are not limited to): gaygelatin, shewhoneopetswiththee, neobloq, and candypaintbrush.

I should tell you all off the bat that he’s a Trump supporter, a “recovering” transphobe, and extremely Islamophobic, so this post may contain some upsetting information. There are some instances of misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia, and racism, as well. Oh, and ableism. Honestly, pick an -ism.

None of the information in this post should be a repeat of my first post regarding the matter. Warning: this post is even longer.

As before, I’d be remiss if I didn’t lay out my bias: I don’t like him. He’s been downgraded from “nemesis” to “nuisance,” as he’s no longer harassing minors (as far as I’m aware), but we’re never going to be best buddies.

We’ve spoken several times, though never to any resolution, and with each interaction it became increasingly obvious that it was futile. I ultimately blocked him following repeated propositioning and an unwillingness to engage beyond casting any disagreement as bullying and telling the kids to go back to their safe spaces.

Cybunnypoop is now 25 years old, and he hasn’t started anything major in a while. His posts remain fairly unpopular, though whether that’s the result of the quarantine or simple bad content, I couldn’t say. You’re under no obligation to take my word for any of this. Though I’ve provided links and screenshots where I can, what you make of that evidence is up to you.

TRANSPHOBIA

As it so happens, Cybunnypoop has recently tried listening to another human being, and has been educated about trans issues in a way that ~100 people on the internet offering resources apparently couldn’t accomplish.

What this means is that Cybunnypoop is now IDing with various names (itself nothing new, pseudonyms are an old hat here), gender identities, and pronouns, depending on the platform. I’m sticking with he/him for this post, as those were the last requested on his neopets blog. His description says shey/shem but unfortunately I have no idea how current that is, and his about says “whatever”–so if I’m misgendering here, I apologize; it is not intentional.

I, Clare, Author of This Post, am cis. So it’s not my place to gatekeep or say whether or not he’s ““really trans””. And, as he has expressly admitted to being transphobic in the past, none of this section is really up for debate. I’m just going to provide the information, including his apologies and the redaction thereof. I don’t know that he truly understands everything he did wrong, but he’s explicitly stated he thinks transphobia is bad, so hey, maybe we can all learn something.

I’m gonna try to keep this chronological, so here we go:

A fun little addition to a post via an anonymous terf, “You are still males, you have male privilege, you KNOW NOTHING & NEEVER [sic] WILL KNOW of our goddamn struggles.“ which Cybunnypoop began with “So much agree!”

When asked about the “trans bathroom debacle,” he stated he was, “just afraid it’ll result in sacrificing handicap-accesible bathrooms.” which is only tangentially transphobic but bears addressing: Why would it ever mean that?

Cybunnypoop has something of a preoccupation with the potential negative impact equity would have upon him, and ableism is a convenient vehicle for this–lord knows this country is appalling in terms of accessibility. However, no proposed version of “trans bathroom”s leads to the dissolution of ADA-compliant spaces. Whether it’s allowing trans people to use the bathroom they identify with, or installing/redesignating gender neutral spaces, it remains an issue of improved accessibility, not diminished. A disabled trans person has as much a right to use a bathroom as an able-bodied one.

When he graduated he was questioned on his political beliefs, specifically how he could support Trump and remaining uneducated about trans issues while claiming to be an LGBT ally–and congratulated on graduating. Rather than answering the questions, or thanking them for the congrats and ignoring the rest, Cybunnypoop declared it “harassment”. This is about the standard for what he deems harassment/bullying: Anything that disagrees with him.

Reposted a quote from Dixon Diaz, the alt right guy you may remember him quoting in several citations from my last post, which read, “Liberal: a person who tells you that you’re a bigot if you’re afraid of having weird men in the ladies room, but becomes traumatized if they see “Trump 2016” written in chalk.“ [sic]

trans people bad, diversity bad, children bad & trauma fake

An ongoing problem with fetishizing trans people, dating back long before his identification as trans, and indeed, during the period in which he was a self-avowed transphobe. (Warning: link contains slur!)

This grew more pronounced as he came to understand what it means to be trans, and zeroed in on transwomen in particular. This is itself a complex issue: When is a kink flattering and when is it dehumanizing? Are immutable adjectives inappropriate to fetishize, or is it positive representation?

Again, as a cis person, it isn’t my place to say–I’m just letting y’all know what he’s said, and you can determine how you feel about it. This post isn’t a thinkpiece on my opinions.

Select quotes from The Apology:

“I was transphobic. I was resistant to that term because I felt it was a misnomer. I was more…trans-ignorant, I felt, than “transphobic.” […] I couldn’t see what I was doing because I was too busy, I felt, being attacked.”

“I had a warped view of trans people, and I was too ignorant and stubborn to acknowledge it–to see it, even.”

“[…] it’s hard not to let a jerk taint your view of a minority, especially when that jerk was your introduction to the minority.“

I’ll be honest, my problem with this apology is in how it’s structured, not in its content. It seems to convey genuine remorse, but focuses the bulk of the message on excuses, including that last point, which… isn’t relatable.

Even this I could forgive (after all, he’s new to apologies) if it had heralded a change in attitude–but nothing changed. He continued on as before, and continued to refuse discussions of other issues (which we’re getting to soon).

Which brings us to The Second Apology:

Posted some day and a half after the first, it opens with the artfully passive aggressive line, “I thought this could be over but it’s obviously going to stick around.” And it’s all downhill from there, folks!

“What do you want? What more can I say? There isn’t anything left to say. Nothing will satisfy some people.”

“I never bullied anyone like some do to me.“

“If you don’t want to believe I am different,[…] then the problem is not mine. In these cases, it is a good idea for you to stop talking about me and lying about me“

Here is a glimpse, perhaps, into what he expected. He was waiting for accolades. Commendation. He’d just apologized–and unlike earlier attempts, it was genuine! I don’t know that he anticipated forgiveness, but the outright rejection of that apology by several individuals drove him almost immediately into a bitter tirade, once again foisting the blame onto the people he had hurt or offended.

Aaaand a redaction of former apologies. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a date on this one, so it may be referring to the older apologies, but its content bears addressing:

“Yeah, I apologised like a year ago […], and they refused it, so I’m done apologizing–not that I even have anything to apologise for.

“I’ll sooner die than acknowledge and apologise for their demented reconstructions of my words.“

Which, if this is about the older apologies–oops!

“I won’t deny I said some things that people found offensive, […] but they just took everything and ran apedoodie with it. It amazes me that, for all they claim to hate me, they have this obsession with everything I do and say.”

This is actually fairly emblematic of my own interactions with Cybunnypoop: Specifically, the characterization of all attention as both positive, and obsessive.

What is it about being held responsible for his actions that leads him to cry wolf? Historically, an unwillingness to debate his political beliefs. Oh, he’ll espouse Trump’s “virtues” for paragraphs and paragraphs, but anyone who criticizes him is obviously a liberal idiot who just loves to hate him, and I’ll bet they say “lame,” right? It’s these assumptions about other people that lead him so often to tilt at windmills, rather than addressing the subject at hand.

RACISM

“Obama spending $21 million to put refugees to work…why not spend that money in the inner cities to put young blacks to work… once again Obama and the Democrats have proved the black community is their who’re [sic] because we always come back to them after they screw us” a quote he posted from a Facebook page I won’t even name, because it’s literally got the N-word in it! But he’s definitely not a racist, right?

Obama being (literally) booted out of office, by a Confederate battle flag, symbol of white supremacy since the 1960s. (There’s been some suggestion it’s in the classic minstrel show style. Though he forwent the traditional depiction of red/pink lips in favor of purple, there remains the possibility that he just can’t draw caricatures).

I’m going to address this post more in the ableism section, but it’s worth noticing how often, and how readily, he uses the word c*lored unprompted. This is not the first occasion.

More lambasting of whitewashing as a concept, sarcastically proposing we paint a black person white and mutilate them to better portray Michael Jackson (whom he refers to as ‘Wacko Jacko’, an ableist and derogatory nickname) apparently under the impression that there are no other black men with vitiligo.

I think it’s important to cover this, as from Cybunnypoop’s posts suggesting we be outraged at the “yellow-washing” of Joan Watson (see my previous post) it’s clear that he has no idea what whitewashing means.

It is not literally painting POC white.

The term whitewashing is derived from cheap white paint of chalked lime, used for a long time to refer to a specific means of censorship, “to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data”. Simply put, it’s revisionist history, and the methods used to maintain that illusory timeline.

It isn’t difficult to see how the term came to be applied to the representative censorship in Hollywood.

Shared a Facebook graphic, “Black people who were never slaves are fighting white people who were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by democrats, and why, because democrats can’t stand their own history anymore and somehow it’s Trumps Fault? [sic]“

“Also, you see Blacks everywhere, but they’re still considered a minority.” (He appended some context but frankly it’s even more damning.)

The term “spirit animal” is annoying but not because it’s racist, I guess

ISLAMOPHOBIA

Cybunnypoop’s Islamophobia is tied in pretty heavily with his support of Trump, so I’ll be citing a few of those posts in this section as well.

“Ban seven countries’ worth of ideology which promotes violence against women, LGBT people, animals, and nonworshippers? Sounds good to me!”

The cognitive dissonance of a self-avowed Catholic posting this is… incredible.

“Sorry to inform you, but the terrorists who attacked New York, Boston, Orlando, our embassies, and others weren’t Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, or atheists. They were Muslims.

“It’s not Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, or atheism which oppresses women, slaughters animals, kills gays, and calls for the conversion or beheading of nonbelievers. It’s Islam.

“Until the ideology evolves to be as peaceful and tolerant as it claims, it doesn’t belong in America.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s begin by refuting Trump’s claims that “the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” Plain old xenophobia, not even in the ballpark of truth. Over the past 15 years, none of the self-described Muslim terrorists committing crime have come from the countries on Trump’s ban list. Zero. The country producing the most successful attacks against the USA is the USA itself.

A basic look at the data further reveals that white supremacist, self-described Christian terrorists actually lead the rate of attack and death toll by about 2:1. Yet, bizarrely, nothing from Cybunnypoop about the ‘violence and intolerance’ of Christianity, or even white supremacy… Who saw that coming?

It speaks to Cybunnypoop’s prejudice that he would believe such a blatantly false piece of information with no investigation or critical thought whatsoever. Although, it may speak more to his unwillingness/inability to use Google. We have had some problems with that in the past. 

“Dear Liberals: [sic] You claim to protect women. You claim to protect LGBT. [sic] You claim to protect animals. You claim to protect people who don’t ascribe to the dominant faith. But you’re protecting a violently misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant ideology which still slaughters animals in the name of their god and beheads people who worship otherwise. What the *** is wrong with you?”

Man, for derailing conversations so often to complain about perfectly valid modal grammar he sure loves breaking the English language.

When asked how he could still support Trump, he replied, “Because he hasn’t actually said or done anything wrong. The only thing with which I disagree was the transgender military ban, and that has been shot down, so it’s hardly relevant.”

Particularly in conjunction with his condemnation of liberals on the basis of not like, banning Islam, this is an explicit endorsement of everything from repealing the Alternative Tax Minimum to his sexual misconduct. Everything, except the one thing that directly affects one of Cybunnypoop’s demographics, was right.

HOMOPHOBIA

“I’m not like others in the LGBT spectrum. [bolding mine]

“I hadn’t cared for gay marriage nor had I especially cared to support the cause. […] I’ll fight for the welfare of the many before I’ll fight for the wishes of the few.”

(Well, historically, no, he won’t). Even without the implication that all the gay people who want to get married are selfish, this ignores the reason behind the push for the legalization of gay marriage: The AIDS crisis. Terminally ill gay men were forcibly evicted from their homes after watching their partners die, horribly, because they couldn’t inherit the lease/property. Their partners’ remains were the custody of parents who often wouldn’t allow the survivor to attend the funeral.

Up until gay marriage was legalized on a federal level, these incidents still occurred. One Indiana woman had to pay over $300,000 in taxes upon the death of her wife, and was told by the funeral home she could not arrange for her wife’s cremation as she was an “unrelated third party,” despite having the power of attorney. This is a significant concern.

“I don’t care for "pride.” I’ve actually started to loathe the undertones of the pride movement. […] is it truly worthy of a month and a gold star? […] I think it’s losing relevancy. Can we really celebrate something that’s no longer legally unique? Can we really have pride for… wait, what is it we’re proud of, anyway? We’re legally equal now; we’re socially equal, for the most part.” [bolding mine]

I don’t know if he forgot the homophobia he’s experienced, or if it just doesn’t matter unless it happened it to him.

“The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’“ -Tom Limoncelli

“Another thing–and the most loathsome part–about the “pride movement” concerns the very word itself. “Pride” …be proud of who you are, and be proud of not caring what others think of you. Fine. Sure. It’s fun to wildly flaunt your differences. But what’s the opposite of “pride”? “Shame.” So, if gays are to have pride, does that mean straights are to have shame?”

So why are we to be entitled to pride–why are we allowed to feel good about ourselves and they are not? […] The majority are not oppressive, and even if they wanted to be, they legally couldn’t. 

Good news guys, homophobia is dead and definitely super illegal.

“(Never mind the fact that pride is a negative, narcissistic trait and one of the Seven Deadly Sins.)” [bolding mine]

(We interrupt this post to bring you his “Antipridist Pride”)

“While it seems most of the LGB world makes their sexuality their entire identity, I leave it as just one facet of many.“ Once again, he’s not like Those Other Gays.

“ I’ll bet I pissed off a lot of gays with this post, but I don’t care, and I’m proud of not caring.“ (proceeds to describe the LGBT community as loud, angry, straight-bashing, etc. for a good paragraph or so, obviously very much caring)

That’s enough of that post, huh? Let’s move on.

“I know that a lot of the LGBT community is hypocritical–and intolerantly, angrily so. They scream about others giving them tolerance and respect while they don’t give others such basic rights.

“If there’s Black Pride, why couldn’t there be Caucasian Pride? Gay Pride, Straight Pride.“

As I broke down in my last post, Caucasian≠white, and was first misapplied by white supremacists and popularized by actual, literal Nazis. He evidently doesn’t care, and claims I “created” it. (I can assure you, I haven’t been alive since 1785).

“Is it me, or are there actually very few good gay celebrities?”

Doesn’t like the term “lesbian” because its “image is too pornified”. As I understand it this is fairly common among those who were raised in more conservative or religious families, so it’s not an issue per se; it just becomes weird in conjunction with his wanting to be called a dyke at one point (though I can’t find the post where he said that explicitly, only ones where he describes himself as such).

Said he’d expected Ted Cruz to be a “gay prostitute” because he gave off untrustworthy vibes.

MISOGYNY

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Cybunnypoop is pro-life. From certain parties, that can be motivated by misinformation rather than misogyny (though certainly the misogyny drives that misinformation). In his case? Well, actually only about 75% misogyny. The other 25% is empathizing with fetuses just until they’re born. Idk if it’s because of his parental situation or his existential dread or what, but we’re not here to psychoanalyze him; we’re here to review.

“It’s a point which I make constantly. It’s not hard to not get pregnant. You have a variety of options. There’s birth control. There’s getting your man snipped […]. And there is one absolutely fool-proof, sperm-proof way: ABSTINENCE. It’s stupidly simple, but there are self-righteous women and men out there who say–if you’ll pardon my pun–screw that. Free sex, rah rah. But if you don’t want to “risk” a baby, don’t do the do. There are plenty more things to do in life.”

Yeah, it may be “stupidly simple” for an “asexual homosexual” but other people do, in fact, get horny. “There’s birth control.” Where? You gonna pay for it? You gonna talk their “man” into getting a vasectomy? Pay for that?

I want you all to keep in mind that this is the same person who waxed poetic about his addiction to porn. And hentai. Which he downloaded in a public library, because he was just that addicted. But if someone (god forbid) “does the do,” and their birth control fails? Well, too bad. You should have been able to control your libido.

When Trump was elected he had the following to say:

“This is a time for healing.” No, this is a time for you to suck it up. You may not have wanted this result, but I and half of the country did. So, instead of bitching and moaning and trying to undo what I and half of the country have been working hard for, you need to shut the fuck up, go to school, work, or volunteer, and stop being an intolerant, selfish, hypocritical asshole.

Frankly this could go in a lot of sections but it’s using bitch pejoratively so…

Honestly there are more instances but I feel like you get the picture and this thing is already absurdly long, so we’re going to move along.

ANTI-SEMITISM

On screenshots of a neoboard discussing the origins of the ichthys symbol (the Jesus fish), Cybunnypoop added, apropos of nothing, “Hey, how about the fact that Christianity was originally illegal while Judaism was lawful, and the early Christians had to hold some Jewish mores so they wouldn’t be arrested and executed? Interesting, isn’t it…” and tagged it “two can play at that game”.

Christians weren’t being persecuted for not being Jewish; they were being persecuted for refusing to participate in state events from which the Jews were exempt via religious tradition. Christians were too new to be considered traditional, and were therefore considered in contempt of the state when they refused to, say, make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor. Also, we called each other brother & sister but still got married, and spoke weekly about eating a man alive, so people were kind of concerned.

Also, like, it was an explicitly socialist religion in an empire. That was never going to end well. The “mores” they had to hold were “don’t be anti-fascist” and “stop meeting in secret, we don’t know who you are and it’s freaking us out,” neither of which is explicitly Jewish and neither of which you can blame the Jews for.

Pretty minor, but in a poorly executed attempt to be inclusive, he wished everyone a happy Easter & Passover at the same time, only to be informed that Passover wouldn’t be happening for a month. So more about the assumption that Jews are lesser Christians again than any direct hostility. Perhaps better evidence of his ignorance of Jewish customs/how to hit “search” on Google.

 ABLEISM

Here there be slurs!

Alright. We’re going to begin this with a breakdown of the “lame” issue. Here’s the thing: Cybunnypoop hates it. He compares it (ceaselessly) to the r slur, which he uses liberally in his own defense.

I’m certainly not saying it isn’t a slur, or that you should use it, but to be frank, he’s wrong.

In both severity and time in which it’s been part of the English vernacular, lame is far more akin to other ableist slurs like “dumb,” “stupid,” “moron,” “idiot,”–all words which Cybunnypoop uses on the regular. The closest comparison we have to the r slur would be “cr*ppled”–which Cybunnypoop quotes on the regular.

Dumb is the closest analogue, as those middle three weren’t really popular until the American Eugenics Movement kicked in, but hey. If it bothers him so much, why say any of them?

Simply because, it only bothers him when it affects him directly and is said by his enemy.

For example, no problem whatsoever quoting Trump’s book, Cr*ppled America.

Here he calls someone ableist scum for calling him the r slur, yet here he mocks another’s offense at the term by comparing it to modern medical jargon.

Atheists and Liberals [sic] are “dumb”

“entirely okay” with the R slur

This post, which was also in the racism section, littered with fun slurs and what’s either blatant hypocrisy (see: his regular use of words like dumb/stupid) or one of the most incredible point-dodges I’ve ever seen.

Now we get into a recurring theme, with a recurring character. The problem with most of Cybunnypoop’s legitimate criticisms (e.g. lame is a slur, accessibility is bullshit) is that they’re never even googled, let alone researched, and that they come, 9 times out of 10, at the expense of another minority. Or, through sheer ignorance, one of his own.

“Trans people get [famous trans people]. Gay people get [famous gay people]. Black people get [famous black people]. Who do I get? I get Joe Swanson.”

“While everyone’s battling over how to bend backwards and make others comfortable, I’m just sitting here, cursing out the ungrateful bastards because there are places I can’t even ACCESS. […] And never mind the fact that there is no good disabled representation out there. You know who I get to look up to? Joe frickin’ Swanson. It’s so nice to be a forgotten minority. [bolding his]

Joe Swanson, for those of you who (like me) have no idea who that is, is a character on Family Guy in a wheelchair. This begs the question: Why do you need to shit on other groups and their representation to acknowledge how bad you have it?

There are dozens of famous disabled people I can name off the top of my head. Stephen Hawking, Hellen Keller, Beethoven, Lord Byron, FDR, Frida Kahlo, Sudha Chandran, John Milton–a cursory Google search reveals even more. Saying there are no famous disabled people is a shitty fucking thing to do, both because you’re erasing their accomplishments and you’re depriving other disabled people of that representation by pretending it doesn’t exist. Spreading misinformation so you can complain that everyone else is better off than you specifically is just plain cruel.

“I’m so sick and tired of society catering to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, but never giving a thought to people with disabilities. We don’t get a slice of the “diversity” pie.“

Catering to. … Catering to.

“Until our society can grow to acknowledge, accept, and represent the diverse world of disabilities, then we don’t have true equality and diversity.”

Like… he could have just made a post saying this. I mean, we have diversity regardless of equality, but that’s semantics. We don’t have to tear down other minorities to be heard. There’s enough “pie” for everyone.

Society: You should accept everyone regardless of sex, culture, gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, economic status Person: What about disabled people? Society: Huh?

I’m not a big fan of his little infographics, primarily because he uses them exclusively as a platform to strawman himself, but this one in particular is uh, frustrating. If he’s speaking about popular society, very few people accept all the groups he listed, particularly class/economic status. If he’s speaking about our country….

Federal protected classes include: Race, color, religion/creed, national origin/ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, citizenship. 

It’s the same story.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

BLOCK HIM. Do not reblog his content. Stop him preemptively from reblogging yours. Do not engage with him. 

If you try to debate him, he will probably call you a bully, and you will probably get some not-so-mysterious anons. You will definitely be unable to reach a resolution. I know of at least one individual who’s attempting to “rehabilitate” him, so I guess we’ll see how that goes? I’d be genuinely delighted.

Reblog this post if you can, to spread the word.

Educate yourself about the issues addressed in this post. If you have questions, my inbox is always open.

I am not infallible, and I will also make mistakes. Please bring these to my attention immediately and they will be addressed.

This is a much less urgent situation than the previous post, as he’s (mostly) stopped harassing people, but you have a right to be aware of whom you’re interacting with. Whether you block him or befriend him or whatever is up to you, and I hope whatever choice you make is the right choice for you.

[tgwtgrumours-blog]

oh boy.....

I don’t know, you don’t post for 6 years and the whole fandom explodes.....

 So, I saw my name dropped on kiwi farms (I’ve been a Cwc lurker since Bluespike, yes, I’m old,) I decided that I probably should post with everything going on. 

I had resigned some time ago that I had put my days of internet detectivering (A word I made up) behind me, but I guess I gotta dust off my keyboard.

Who am I:

Ok, I was a fan of the tgwtg crew, a huge fan and I’ve always been strong with google-FYI so I thought I’d use my powers for good.  At the time tgwtg was pretty big and there were a lot of rumours going about, and being the kind of person who is #foreverlurking on sites like SA, the chans, ED, tvtropes, etc,  I was seeing a lot of shit talk about contributors who I liked.  I also saw that Rants who used to run (not sure if they still do) the tgwtg secrets tumblr was getting a lot of stuff at the time about various rumours going around, and Rants didn’t have the information to respond to them.

I thought I would provide my services as a sort of neutral  party who would purely answer this stuff factually and maybe try to stop lies being spread throughout the internet. I think my most significant post was about JesuOtaku, then Hope, now Jacob.

There had been rumours for a long time about homophobia on JO’s part, and I did some extensive research for that one.  On a hard drive I still have the hundreds of screenshots I made of literally every forum post in which JO had said something shitty.  I delved very deeply and spoke to people who knew JO IRL, they said that they felt JO was a nice person who had never been mean or nasty to them.  I concluded that while JO was younger he had made some shitty posts but had since become a better person.  Hence the rumour was technically true, but JO had reformed his opinion. Of course that was before all the stuff with Nash, so..... yeah.

Why did I stop posting:

There were a number of reasons.  I’ve always suffered with mental health issues, namely depression, ocd and ptsd, and that makes me erratic at times about commitments, which was a small part of it.

The other reason was largely to do with a video called “things tgwtg fans say” -this was made by mostly chez apocalypse people and there were two things which began to sit very badly with me in that video. 

The first one was, I believe Elisa, saying “I’m worried about spoony” - this was PRE Spoony meltdown, and I myself was one of the fans concerned about his mental health issues and his erratic behaviour.  We all know how that ended, don’t we?

I didn’t like the idea of this video taking the piss out of fans was not just poking fun, there was genuine reason to be concerned about Spoony’s behaviour, as was proved shortly afterwards. I don’t know who made the decision to include that line, but it made me feel very uncomfortable. 

The second was Kyle aka Oan Citizen saying “I hate Rants!”  Everyone thought that it meant Rants as in ranting, but after Rants of the tgwtg secrets tumblr had said they liked the video, Kyle went out of his way to let Rants know that line was directed at them personally. Kyle didn’t think this was inappropriate at all until Hagan told him off and he apologised and the video was edited to cut that line.

‘Shortly after Kyle’s apology was added to his ‘crowning moment of heartwarming’ section on tvtropes. I couldn’t help but think, “these guys make videos on the internet and get money for watches and they’re openly insulting the people who watch their videos to their faces.”

That made me feel sick to my stomach. 

It STILL makes me eel sick to my stomach 6 years later.  

Kyle had also tweeted (then deleted before I got a chance to screenshot) a tweet saying “I just want some people to know I hate them. Deeply.” This was aimed at Rants.

Rants ran a blog where people made posts about people saying they fancied this producer or thought that producer was cute - so yeah, I didn’t like this.

Then.... ugh...  I’m sorry, I started getting messages about Jew Wario.

I have various screenshots I will share, but can’t share some for various reasons, mostly I’m not at home right now, I’m on holiday abroad, and I’m posting on my iPad. I’m having a holiday because my Dad died last month from a long battle with brain cancer so I need to chill, y’all.

The stuff I was getting was really disturbing so I’m just going to post the one screen cap of me asking Rants if they’d been getting anything, though I erroneously refer to his victim as his girlfriend for some reason, I think I’d thought they were dating. When I get home I’ll go through all my archive and see what else I have saved.

 It put me off the fandom in a big way, I decided to take a break, which turned into a complete hiatus. I was scared of the information. I was just a girl, sitting in her room, watching videos about bad movies, then suddenly I was being told about crimes and fans were being attacked. 

I didn’t want to be a part of it and I ran away. 

I was a coward. 

I was much younger, more naive, and didn’t possess the social skills to be able to deal with it or process it properly. 

I’m sorry. 

I’m so sorry. 

I feel that I have a proportional piece of blame, but after Justin’s suicide I felt the issue was over, in a Jimmy Saville way and tried to move on. Even though I no longer visited tgwtg/channel awesome any longer, I felt intense guilt for years and that is part of the reason I stopped posting. 

Again, I’m sorry. 

During my tenure as internet detective I had the opportunity to speak with several producers, Lupa, Brad, Linkara, Holly and others, everyone who I spoke to personally was friendly and helpful and generally really lovely people. 

I didn’t start the blog to upset anyone, I just wanted to be a small part of something that I enjoyed immensely as a fan and the only talent I had was the ability to read through 149 forum pages in one night and make sense of it all.

I should have spoken up, and I can’t take that back now, but I hope I can find a way to make it up to the people my silence hurt.

Elf xoxo

[gloopyteazsblog]

Ranting Time 😃:

Here's a couple comments that I made that are responding to two community posts about the Dexechii situation:

Dexechii's Response:

I tried to believe that you might be innocent, I genuinely did. But you're "evidence" proves absolute SHIT. Congratulations, I still think you're gross and I really don't believe you. I have seen proof of Jleet being a an awful person and I have seen proof of you making fanart for him. You really don't care about anyone else, do you? You just love to defend your little senpai and act like we're all just a bunch of meanies for criticizing you, right? I hope that you get tf off this platform and never return unless you'll be willing to apologize for your vile actions.

Joycawn's Post talking about her actions:

And of course, Dexechii released a response, and it was absolute horse-shit. I tried to look through the doc to see what kind of evidence she could provide to defend herself, but so far, I couldn't find anything that really proved that she was innocent except for like, two screenshots. And those screenshots didn't even prove much either other than the fact that she's being a piece of shit, and it appears that she's been using them to manipulate the situation into her being innocent somehow. Tbh, I think I've seen all the proof I need in order to believe that she is truly a disgusting individual who deserves only the smallest ounce of respect. Oh yeah, and before someone tries to tell me that I should receive her response positively because everyone else has, do you guys remember all of those situations where we were told to believe that someone was bad because people had all of this "evidence" of their "wrongdoings", and then it is revealed that everything was a lie that most people believed to be true. Yeah, I believe that this situation is kinda like that except the roles are switched around. So, if you guys still support her and will gladly believe everything she says without looking into the situation yourself in some shape or form, then please leave. I used to do that myself, I'll admit it, but it's not something I want to do ever again and I don't want people to repeat my mistakes. Thank you.

If you want to see some proof, I'll give you some places to look:

Dexechii's document that she released: Just to get her side of the story and see all of the "proof" she has

Joycawn's proof of her bad behavior

Dexechii's Twitter account: You should see proof of her making fanart for Jleet, following him (if I remember correctly), and interacting with him

Evidencefound01's video talking about Jleet being a disgusting groomer: Please go watch it if you can, it's very informative

Edit: UNLESS you can prove to me that Dexechii isn't guilty, then I will continue to say that Dexechii's in the wrong.

[isa-ly]

“I HATE MY LIFE, LMAO”

TW: mental illness, therapy, self-hatred, self-deprecation

Let's start this one off with a text I received a few months ago from a friend, who I hadn't seen or spoken to in a while:

For anyone who isn't fluent in German, it reads as follows: "I'm hip and have a Twitter too now, as you probably noticed. Your own Twitter doesn't sound like you're too doing well. Can I help in any way?"

At first, I was like: "Huh? What does she mean?"

But, well...

Alright, I see her point.

And that's what I'm here to talk about today: Tweeting and joking your sorrows away (and why it's so hard to stop doing it). Before we get into it, however, I want to drop one last screenshot, because it just fits this current situation oh too well, and the irony made me giggle:

Okay, enough social media plugging, let's get back to business.

As you can see, I am quite active when it comes to tweeting about my struggles with mental illness. Which, in this day and age, really isn't a rarity. You just need to take one look at Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok or any dank meme, to see that joking, down-playing and iRoniCalLy tAkiNg tHe piSs out of personal problems and issues, has become quite the trend for millennials in general. Once again, I'm not the only one guilty of doing that.

Had you asked me a year ago whether or not I thought that constantly ridiculing very serious and traumatic incidents in my life was maybe a bit worrisome, I would have probably gotten very defensive and told you that "it's called coping, okay?” Because hey, making jokes and laughing about the bad things in your life gives them less power over you and helps distract from the pain. And that's good, right? That's what you're supposed to do. Right?

Well.

Dealing with your own issues, whether that's big or small ones, is a very personal process that, quite frankly, no one really gets to have a say in except for you. And yeah, sure, as we all learned by watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, ridiculing and laughing about something that really scares you, loosens the hold said fear has on you and makes it easier to deal with. However, there is a very big difference between the boggards of life (if you don’t get that reference, you clearly weren’t around when J.K. Rowling wasn’t problematic and transphobic yet) and medical mental health issues and disorders.

I am no doctor, I am aware of that, but even I know that having an ironic laugh about a shitty day is something very different to basically verbally abusing yourself and trying to make your own depression or anxiety relatable to ... well, to whom, actually? Random people on the internet? That are never going to really care or react to your self-deprecating jokes? That doesn’t seem like it’ll do much now, does it.

And that’s kind of the whole point, if you’re really honest with yourself. Social media has made it oh too easy to simply shout those invasive, painful and scary thoughts and feelings out into a void before they eat you alive. The thing about a void is, though: You're still alone in it. It doesn't answer you back. It's empty. And it will make you feel that exact emptiness inside you, too. It poses no comfort, it doesn't offer advice, it doesn't give you a hug, a shoulder to cry on or anything, really. It may swallow your word vomit whenever it bubbles out of you, but it will still leave you feeling drained and hollow because there's nothing you get from it in return.

Twitter, Instagram and every other easy-to-access-and-rant-on social media platform lets you dump your initial hurt all over it, but it doesn't lessen the pain. And neither do the self-deprecating jokes and dank depression memes.

I’ll say this once again, for the people in the back (me, I’m talking about myself here, I am the people in the back): Being mentally ill isn't a quirky personality trait, and making a lifestyle and constant comedy show out of is never, ever going to solve your problems and make you feel any better. You'll still be miserable if you don't actually work on solving your issues because you're too busy letting them define you.

Depression is not an aesthetic. Anxiety is not a competition. Panic attacks aren't funny memes.

I'm not saying that you can't and shouldn't joke or laugh about your own problems. Humor can be a very cathartic thing, I'm the living example of it. But staying put in your depression, anxiety or whatever issues you're dealing with, and trying to make a comedy skit out of it every time someone asks you how you are, is only going to make you more comfortable and validated in your own misery. And there are way better places to be comfortable in than that. Trust me.

You are not your mental illness. You are not your disorder. Those things will never define who you are. They're a part of you, yes, but they aren't you. You will always be the one that calls the shots and you always, always have choice and hope on your side. Even when it feels like you are alone and being swallowed whole by the darkness, it is never too early or late to get help. It might feel insincere, it might feel terrifying and impossible. But it never is. That's exactly what your disorders and problems want you to think. But they are wrong.

I had to accept that too. I had to accept that, once again, I wasn't as special of a snowflake as my mental illness painted me to be. By doing that, it simply did what any mental illness does best: it isolated me even more. With every joke, every #relatable tweet, every "lol" behind yet another truly worrisome sentence, I sunk back further and further into the cocoon of loneliness. And, plot twist, you can't finger-gun your way out of depression. Sorry, babes.

So, every time you’re about to chuck out another "I wanna die lmao" in a casual conversation with friends or yet another self-deprecating tweet, just take a second to ask yourself: Is this really a way of coping? Is it really making me feel better? Or is it actually a subconscious, desperate attempt of getting someone, anyone, to see that I'm slowly breaking on the inside?

Again, I don't want this to come across as a self-help guide on how to battle your mental illness. Not at all. If anything, the reason I phrase this blog and all my entries the way I do, is because it's what I need to keep telling myself, every time I revert back to old habits. It's a reminder. For me and, in case you want it to be, for you too. I'm not here to lecture anyone. Well, maybe myself, a little. But everyone makes their own choices and I'm no one's guide or saviour, nor do I want to be. However, I made a promise to myself to really commit to this blog thing, so here I am. I'm my own harshest critic, always have been, so if anything, this is a call out post for my own self-deprecating habits.

Receiving that message from my friend made me realize that even though I would have never admitted it to myself at the time, all those tweets and casually dropped “I’m gonna kms haha lol”s were nothing but very badly disguised cries for help. I was just too much of a coward to admit that to myself. Okay, maybe coward is a bit of a harsh word. I don’t want to diminish my fear or vulnerability just because I know the reason for it now. It’s just that looking back at my own denial, and still sometimes catching myself in moments where I slip back into this behaviour, makes me want to grab myself by the shoulders and shake me until I snap out of it.

Which is why I’m just going to do this through my blog now – for past, present and also future me: Get it together. Stop yourself in your own tracks when you’re about to word-vomit up another cryptic tweet or self-deprecating joke. Instead, talk to a friend. Type up a text. Call someone. Schedule a therapy session. It's always gonna help, way better than forcing out a laugh about something that is in no way a laughable matter. Reaching out is not going to fix everything immediately, but in the long run it will. And that's what we're in for, after all.

You can ask any of my friends and they will tell you that whenever they express feelings of insecurity about sharing their worries to me, I will be quick to stop them in the middle of their sentence to tell them that they can, and always should, talk to me. About any- and everything, be that day or night. It is something that I have been preaching for God knows how long, and I genuinely mean it, too. So, I’ve kind of just been a huge hypocrite by never listening to my own advice. And I knew that. Deep down, I always knew that I was ignoring the exact thing I kept telling the people I loved to do too. And what can I say, I hate being a hypocrite.

I’m not saying that any of this is easy. Hell, it can be the hardest God damn thing ever, especially when you’re as emotionally repressed and inept as I am most of the time. And yes, venting and shit-posting about how much you’ve been crying all day or how much you “hate your own life” might work as a quick fix to let off some of that frustration steam. But it’s never going to actually repair the underlying issues that cause you to feel this shitty in the first place. The only thing that’s gonna do that, is actually talking to people. Whether that is family, friends or a therapist, doesn’t matter. Because other than an Instagram story that disappears after 24 hours, or a tweet that has a 280-character limit, real life people who care about you will actually take the time to listen, say something in return, and provide the comfort and open ear no social media platform or meme ever could. You know that. And I know that too. 

So, I want to try and quit lmao-ing my way through life and instead do what I actually, secretly know I am trying to do anyway with all those self-deprecating attempts at morbid comedy: ask for help. No lol’s needed.

[lulzyfarms]

Zerxer and Kolink Chatlog

THIS WAS NOT POSTED TO LULZYFARMS.WORDPRESS.COM. IT WAS LINKED BUT ONLY AN ARCHIVE EXISTS NOW, SO I THOUGHT IT IMPORTANT TO UPLOAD AS A SEPARATE POST.

THESE ARE CHATLOGS THAT ZERXER (ADMIN OF GPX) PROVIDED TO THE ADMIN OF LULZYFARMS, BETWEEN HIMSELF AND KOLINK  (NIET). NICK S = ZERXER.

THE ARCHIVE LINK IS HERE: https://web.archive.org/web/20141225204459/http://www.sitexero.net/Zerxer_Kolink_Skype_08-30-2010.txt

I'm releasing a Skype chat log between Kolink and I on August 30th. I'm not going to lose any sleep if anyone discards the following as fabricated as Kolink is depending on the vast majority to do, but kudos to anyone who takes this as unaltered truth. I have no reason to lie, despite the fact that I'm one of the owners of Pokefarm's competition. I'm not scared of his site taking over ours, it will always be a copy of our site that became something a little different.

Basically, I wanted to help everyone from his community realize that this entire thing is based around how much money he can squeeze out of you, and it's disconcerting. You might see it as helping to pay for the host so that the site can stay alive but that's not really it as ads and little donations should already be enough for that. I realize he has a nice underdog story about his family and needing the money but the way he's going about everything is all wrong. You also need to genuinely be a good person in order to earn enough respect to be able to take money from your members. And frankly, trying to profit off of Pok�mon, which is not his copyright at all, by taking money from his members, is just repulsive. He may think that Nintendo cannot sue him at all, it's more like they just don't care enough, because he's not making those millions that he's hoping to.

If anyone reading this doesn't know what my site is that I'm referring to, it's GPXPlus.net I have sent this log to the owner of lulzyfarm, they may distribute it however they wish, but it must remain linked to my site at SiteXero.net to keep the credibility.

[8/30/2010 16:27:58] Nick S: anyways I don't really care what you think about our community, I have little respect for you as a person. going back to you designing the site to rip our site off because you believed we were being stupid in the way we handled things like interactions (and now you've learned what lag is really like), and the kicker now that you're having users pay for premium accounts. you can tell you're in this for the money and that's just pathetic [8/30/2010 16:29:31] Kolink: Yes, I'm in it for the money. Well noticed. Mostly because I need the money. Dad's been working without income for most of a year, and the French tax system is fucked up so we're paying taxes based on his income from two years ago. [8/30/2010 16:29:39] Nick S: and of course your general attitude towards your members in the past, buried back with rokon as if it was all centered around her [8/30/2010 16:29:59] Kolink: I'm about to go to university (again, withdrew from Oxford due to the course not being suitable) and that costs money [8/30/2010 16:31:28] Nick S: it saddens me if I see members on your site being all fangirlish towards you like WE LOVE YOU KOLINK and crap like that when you're a pretty low person when it comes to your memberbase [8/30/2010 16:32:25] Kolink: I've changed since Rokon left. I care for my users (except the downright noobs) because they're potential paying customers (or if they're too young, their parents might be). [8/30/2010 16:32:56] Nick S: rofl you don't care about them then, you care about their money [8/30/2010 16:33:45] Kolink: This is the Real World. [8/30/2010 16:34:57] Nick S: we live in the real world as well and we actually care about our members, we didn't just whip some site together to see how much money we could make. we took the time to make sure things were patched up and whatnot. I still remember pointing out security flaws to you and all you could say was "well the user shouldn't be doing it that way in the first place" [8/30/2010 16:36:07] Kolink: Funny, because I'm "whipping some site together" in an attempt to make millions within a year or two, possibly even months. [8/30/2010 16:36:41] Kolink: I estimate it to have a 4% chance of success, but I have nothing to lose. [8/30/2010 16:37:38] Kolink: (Considering I estimated PF to have a 0% chance of ever being more popular than PokeBattlers was (63 users online at the beginning, never hit 20 after that), things seem quite promising) [8/30/2010 16:37:52] Nick S: good luck with that, too bad the members don't know you're just being a slimeball [8/30/2010 16:38:09] Kolink: Thank you. [8/30/2010 16:38:42] Kolink: Sadly, nobody can tell them, because if someone tries they're labelled a troll. Funny how things work, isn't it? [8/30/2010 16:40:14] Nick S: lol [8/30/2010 16:40:28] Nick S: yes, so you get to hide behind the internet like that [8/30/2010 16:40:37] Kolink: Further, nobody can find out about this conversation unless you leak it, in which case it would probably be seen as a "feeble attempt to make me look bad" [8/30/2010 16:41:19] Kolink: What I find more amusing is that my site is unique in being the only fan-made game that Nintendo cannot sue. [8/30/2010 16:42:51] Nick S: feeble attempt to make you look bad? meaning that I could possibly have made up the logs? [8/30/2010 16:43:36] Kolink: Hey, for all you know, I could have made http://adamhaskell.net/img/convo1.png in GIMP and it never really happened. [8/30/2010 16:49:04] Kolink: Oh yeah, happy belated 21st birthday, btw

By the way, here's a screenshot (that I could have very well made in an image editor like Kolink suggests above) of the conversation window: http://www.sitexero.net/Zerxer_Kolink_Skype_08-30-2010.png

The image that Zerxer linked at the bottom no longer works and cannot be archived, but the on the Kolink linked does and I’ve reuploaded it HERE. Tumblr sucks and makes the image extremely small and difficult to read.