#censored their name to avoid results in tag for a post not even about them lmao

[venacoeurva]

Original post is on reblog lockdown due to an infestation, but here’s the image I switched it to on for anyone just finding that post but also with its own new post. Trans rights TOOL Dagoth, specifically, because spite is a thing I run on

-Please do not reupload, edit, or use without proper credit or linking back. Ask first, please.-

[lifeneedsrot]

⚓️listen up buccaneers! This ship has been real mismanaged lately, but I run a tight ship here. Our main account is starshipsys, and this is our VENT and NSFW account. Expect lots of barely censored triggering topics on this account. I’m talking NSFW as in gore, not porn, but there will be horny textposts. That’s not what this account used to be, but it’s what it is now!

Our system used to be split in half, with one half on the other account, and the other half on this account. That’s not how it’s gonna work anymore. We’re ONE crew, and we won’t be having any mutinies here. I will listen to all crewmates but ultimately I’M the guy in charge, got it? This account is for ANYONE in the system to use. It’s where we put the gross stuff that we don’t want to share on our main. If we’re following you, either you post stuff we want to see, or you’re a friend we trust.

We are proship and proendo. I don’t give a shit what you believe in or how your system formed. I don’t give a shit what you’re into because we’re into weird shit as a coping mechanism, and we’re not about that gatekeeping lifestyle. We are willing to befriend ANYONE as long as they’re respectful and don’t cause us harm. I don’t care what you’ve done or believed. I only care who you are now and how you treat me, my system, the people close to me, and the people close to you. Close meaning both in proximity and in intimacy. We don’t bother engaging with obvious bait and arguments that would get nowhere, so don’t bring discourse here.

With all that being said, here’s a list of alters and what to expect, as well as the ideal way of interacting with them. We are not used to the tumblr tagging system, but I’m gonna try and get us to start tagging things as “[insert alter name] starshipsys” to make it possible to filter certain alters out or search for certain alters in particular. Unless otherwise specified, all alters enjoy being talked to about whatever they’re saying.

🧤Agate, they/them. 8. Childhood trauma venting, general fears and anxiety, sadposting. Please talk to them, avoid sexual subjects and violent subjects.

🪩Boppie, they/them. 21. Wanting to do drugs, wanting to go to parties, generally very bad life advice and unhealthy coping mechanisms. They won’t be able to have a very deep conversation with you, but love talking to people.

♠️Cole, he/it. 21. Venting about lost relationships within the system, references to self harm or alters attempting to self harm, weird sexual stuff about being turned on by sharp objects piercing soft flesh. He holds a lot of autistic symptoms, and doesn’t talk much.

🐰Daisy, she/her. 7. Hypersexual syskid, yes they are real, but we’re not comfortable sharing anything she wants to say anyway. You can only talk to her if she talks to you first, and you cannot engage in any of her sexual nature unless you have our simplyplural and a safe alter is fronting alongside her. Trying to sexualize her without explicit permission from a safe alter and HER will result in us never talking to you ever again.

🔭Estella, she/they. 21. Mostly just frustration with classes. Feel free to talk to her.

🐁Fobi, it/she. Nonhuman adolescent. Panic attacks, triggering situations we experience in real life, irrational behavior in an attempt to prevent abuse from happening again (IE disfiguring yourself out of fear that being attractive will result in sexual assault). Please try to talk to it and calm it down, if Fobi is fronting we are probably in an immediate danger.

🦇Grim, it/any. Nonhuman adolescent. Romanticization of abusive behaviors, fawning stress response. It wants to be abused in every way. Try to reassure it that it can be loved without being abused.

🌺Haven, she/he. 21. Mostly just rambles about the people we love, affection towards friends, maybe even soft hornyposting. She likes talking to people, especially if you’re our friend. He might even make a post about you if you talk to him.

✏️Indigo, they/them. 12. Probably vents about not being able to achieve our dreams and life goals we had when younger. Get them talking about a special interest and they’ll adore you. Sex repulsed, don’t bring that up.

🎊Jynx, she/any. Ageless entity. God complex posting, torture threats, and domination fantasies (sexual and nonsexual). She is actually friendly, despite how mean she presents herself as, and desperate for the approval of others.

🍠Kakxyl, he/any. Ageless entity. He is the alter that changes the roles of other alters, and will talk about everything all of the other alters talk about, but from an outside perspective. He won’t engage in conversation if he’s busy.

🫐Lynx, he/any. Ageless entity. Not much, really. Probably won’t post at all. He can barely communicate, and generally him fronting means we’re experiencing a wide variety of emotions, specifically from an emotional attack on either the inside or outside.

⚓️Maverick, they/he. 21. Goals for the future and plans, as well as general venting about daily frustrations. Assume they’re talking to another alter unless they’re talking directly to you.

🍥Nyan, he/she. 6-8. Whatever kids complain about when they don’t have trauma, idk. Please talk to them and try to cheer them up. If you bring up anything traumatic, though, we will be very upset with you. He probably won’t even be allowed on this account anyway.

🚀Oscar, he/him. Nonhuman adult. Vents about how awful all of our relationships and the people we love are. He specifically holds the splitting towards hate symptoms of BPD whereas Haven and Grim hold splitting towards love. Don’t take what he says too seriously, he is intentionally trying to push you away because he is afraid you’ll abuse us. Don’t talk to him unless you’re in a sane enough mental state to deal with him.

🩵Present, she/it. Nonhuman adult. Sad posts about our relationship with an ex, and attempts to comfort other alters. She likes when people talk to her, but can be a bit of a downer.

🥀Quasiren, they/them. 17-19. Venting about relationships in an attempt to build a codependent relationship with someone. They love when people talk to them.

🥩Raptorse, it/its. Nonhuman adult. Vorny (vore+horny) posting, hunger. Doesn’t hold conversations very well unless they involve food.

🎆Starbound, she/any. Ageless entity. Rage posting, threats to hurt herself or others, general aggression. If you weren’t the reason she fronted, feel free to talk to her. If you are the reason she fronted, you should probably wait about thirty minutes to an hour after she starts fronting. You can ask her if you made her front.

🪱Tazelein, he/any. Ageless entity. Torture posting, threats to torture, horny posting, romanticization of literally every bad thing ever. Yes, every bad thing ever. Yes, even that. He doesn’t represent our “true feelings” about anything, he mostly just provides a source to point to for our intrusive thoughts. He will say some fucked up shit to you, but he loves people very much, and hates death.

🕊️Utopia, they/them. Ageless entity. Weird philosophical or religious nonsense. Will probably try to convert you to whatever religion they’re making up right now.

🦠Vitriol, it/its. Nonhuman adult. Hatred for the system, disgust for all alters, will talk about everything we’ve ever done wrong. Wants to push people away to protect them from us. Won’t want to talk to you, most likely, unless you directly triggered its fronting.

🕸️Webber, they/any. Ageless entity. Abandonment issues, trust issues, soft bondage, probably some hornyposting. Will love talking to you, but tends to ramble and send very long messages.

🔥Xray, he/him or xe/xim/xis. Primordial god. Generic and vague complaints about our daily life. Likes to cut to the chase in conversations and be very direct.

🌲Yarrow, they/it or yey/yem/yeir. Primordial god. Long rambles about various alter’s mental states, similar to what Kakxyl may post, but with the purpose of informing outsiders rather than changing the perspectives of alters. Yey want someone to listen to and talk with, but might stop replying spontaneously if yey get particularly invested in documenting something.

🌊Zenith, ze/zer/zers. Primordial god. Positive things, sexual things, and general bragging about our life and our successes. Ze loves people and would love to talk.

As a general rule, only talk to alters that you’re comfortable talking to. No, this is not roleplay. We have disabling DiD, and yes it is diagnosed. If you do something to upset us, we will tell you directly before we publicly vent about it.

[aromantic-misguide-to-romance]

A Short Guide to Tumblr Culture

If you've set up your account already, for example following this guide, it's also good to know how people use Tumblr.

tags - tagging is great to get your post seen and also great to keep some kind of order in your reblogs, but many people use tags to add an usually appreciative commentary, so the tag section can get... chatty. The commentary is usually meant for your followers and the OP.

do NOT censor words, especially not in tags. NEVER do anything like "#tw sp*ders" in tags - you'll effectively reach people who try to avoid and block this trigger. Name things properly. And also remember to disable iOS app censorship in your settings in browser if you're on iOS.

usually you don't add any captions to reblogs until you have something relevant to add or want to discuss as reblogging often results in a conversation. Starting a conversation on any creative post like fic or art is not very polite.

the comment option is barely used. Many people won't even respond to a comment if the original post was on their side blog (side blogs can't comment), and comments are generally for the OP as no one really checks the comments on someone else's post. You can definitely comment under artworks though! The writer/artist will appreciate every nice word!

you can follow reblog dominated blogs if your taste in posts/art/fandoms match and reblog from them. You'll have a daily dose of nice stuff on a silver platter and no one will really mind.

time doesn't exist on Tumblr. Unearth and reblog that fossiled post if you like it! Others might appreciate your archeological discovery.

you'll generally see plenty of old posts/reblog convos making rounds - heritage posts are a thing! (ex. high geologist thread) They're old, have a load of notes and get back on your dash periodically.

spam liking/reblogging is not a thing. Spam people with appreciation if you binge the blog! Waking up to 99+ notifs because someone loved every single post I made in last 3 years is awesome. If someone doesn't like it, they just state it in their bio or something but I suspect those are migrants from other platforms.

if you're still worried, there's a thing called queue. You can set your posts/reblogs to get auto posted at an interval when you add them to queue in the reblog screen. The interval is yours to decide.

you might see a destiel meme with "I love you" and a reply that summarises some recent real world news. That's how we pass important information around.

if you see a shortened post "Do you like the color of the sky", don't extend it. If it's the original post, it's long. To the point you'll keep scrolling for 84 years and we're traumatised already. And if it's not, it's a meme that references our collective trauma so not aimed at you anyway.

Tumblr is the source of the fandom of Goncharov, the greatest mafia movie ever made. Shenanigans and running jokes like that might happen, if they annoy you, block the tags/words! If you find them delightful, jump into it!

if you post a thing that's not SFW, use community labels. In case of fics, people use Read More option too and often tag it as smut. This tradition is truly worth continuing.

if you're wondering if you can post stuff that isn't very SFW is allowed on Tumblr, text posts are usually fine. Images, despite the rules having gotten a bit less strict, might be flagged more or less randomly and it takes ages to appeal it and no one really knows the rules, probably not even Tumblr staff because all the information is... vague. But appeal it. Who knows.

about Read More option - aside from covering smut, it's often used as means to hide a part of the post that might be upsetting or triggering. It's good manners to make sure that the reader is informed what they're about to encounter and put that Read More in the post.

report spam tagging. It's in your interest not to have your tag feed littered with spam. Tumblr culture is being very passionate about tags remaining relevant.

report and block sexygirlbots. Letting them follow you or spam tags will only result in a bot siege and nothing else since we don't have public stats here.

also XKit (currently XKit Rewritten) is a very popular browser plug-in that adds even more useful features like shuffling your queue or customised timestamps. Scripts that alter the layout are also popular since Tumblr is generally a mess, we just learnt to reshape the interface.

Tumblr is still relatively anonymous. People don't put their selfie, location and name in their profile... bots on the other hand do. And we block bots on sight.

speaking of anonymity, the checkmarks you see sometimes mean nothing. They're a meme. There are no "verified" Tumblrs but you might actually see Neil Gaiman here.

last but not least, if you're confused about reblogging vs reposting, reposting is a no-no. Do not download someone's work to post it as an original post. Reblogging is one of the basic Tumblr feature and is good. It doesn't take anything from the OP, the reblog links to their blog and the OP gets all the notes on the post and its reblogs. The reblogger gets those notes too, but only for their own reblog. So basically, two people get notes for the reblog. That's very nice.

[trecomics]

Mastodon is great for a quiet fandom life

Even before the buyout, Twitter has been an anxious place for a hobbyist like me.

I want to chill in my fandom bubble and find people who like the same characters I like to connect and chat maybe! I want to shitpost in peace!

Because of how twitter’s algorithm and search function works, I don’t want to force people who don’t like that sort of thing to see what I draw, so I’m careful with how I word my post. I mark the pairing name somewhere so people can mute it. (or find it) I censor full names or series titles so it ’s not found in search. I’ve been doing this for so long it shouldn’t be stressful, but getting stray comments reminds me to stay on my toes.

Mastodon, I realized, is close to perfect place for a peaceful fandom life.

Mastodon is compared to twitter a lot. That’s the wrong way of thinking about it. It’s not about trying to be “engaged” with the site 24/7. It wants to work for everyone, while keeping its focus on safety and making it harder to dogpile on others. That’s freakin’ awesome. Once you understand how it works. So how to get started?

These were my top worries while figuring out Mastodon.

There’s so many instances! What if I join the wrong one? This had me stuck deciding whether Mastodon was even viable. But there is no “wrong one.” you can join any instance, you can even make your own as the sole member. It’s simply having an address to be found.

HOWEVER

You might want to shop around first. When you sign up for an instance, their rules and which instances they don’t interact with are listed. I draw NSFW art, so I wanted to join an instance that allows that sort of thing.

AND

There’s no advantage joining a heavily populated instance. it could lag, more difficult to get into contact with the admins/support. The local timeline is a mess. Small and cozy is best. You can follow anyone, anywhere, anyway.

I don’t know how to follow others from different instances. You don't have sign up to different instances to follow others. The easiest way to do that is to copy their profile URL and paste and search into your instance’s search bar. You can also copy and search their account name, usually displayed by their username. They look like “@name@example.social”

I tried doing a search for my favorite thing but got 0 results! I’m proud of this creation, how can others find it? Mastodon’s search will only catch hashtags and URLs from all the instances. While I avoided hashtags with every fiber of my being on twitter, it’s vital to use them if you want public posts to be found by others. So don’t be shy and tag it up, use appropriate content warnings if needed on posts you want others to see! Because of these search limitations, you don’t have to censor words without fear of being found in a random search anymore. It’s great.

Best of all, you can follow hashtags! This way, any post with that hashtag will appear in your home timeline whether you follow that person or not, even from other instances. It’s great to see new stuff without manually searching. To do this, search your favorite hashtag names. Click the hashtag in the search results and in the upper right corner there’s an icon with a plus mark to click. You can remove it anytime by doing the same method.

But I want to follow others who speak different languages, twitter at least has a translate function (for now) Mastodon does too! But it’s up to each instance’s admin to implement the feature. it doesn’t hurt to politely ask them to add it. If they don’t, some apps have it built in! I know Ice Cubes for Mastodon does at least.

Quick tips: —You can change the default visibility of your posts in preferences The default is “public” but if you’re like me, you don’t want every thought out on the public/local timeline. I have mine set for “unlisted” so only followers or profile visitors can see it. The many posting options Mastodon has are almost perfect. I hope someday they adopt Twitter’s circle function.

—You can add filters to words and hashtags you don’t want to see! It just works! This is in preferences.

—No more extra work when you have to delete and repost, the “delete and re-draft” function is the best option ever.

—For the most comprehensive FAQ that answers every little thing you want to know about how Mastodon works and why, https://fedi.tips answers and then some.

I'm still a newb to Mastodon but I love being there so much. If anyone else has tips I've missed I'd love to know!

[blodreina-noumou]

Fandom Etiquette 101 - Top Five Rules For a Fun Fandom

When you first enter a fandom, there can be a lot of unspoken expectations you might not be aware of. Fandoms are self-policing and self-moderated, so certain “rules” form about what to post, how to tag, and how to be respectful to other people in your fandom, even if they don’t agree with you.

Whether or not you follow these unspoken “rules” is up to you - however, be aware that some people may unfollow you or block you if you aren’t willing to help keep the fandom a fun, low-stress place for everyone.

Here are some very basic things you can do to create and keep a fun fandom experience on tumblr:

1 - Tagging

Use tags liberally! Tumblr has a blacklist feature. This allows people to censor posts with disagreeable or triggering content from their dashboard. If you’re going to vent your negative feelings about a character, ship, or your show/movie/etc in general, be sure to tag it #antitopic. For example, if you wanted to complain about Disney, it would be polite to tag your post #antidisney or #anti disney. (My understanding is that tags which include spaces will appear in the search results for that topic - so ideally, you want to use tags without spaces. However, there is very little consistency about this across tumblr, so it’s your choice. I personally use both now, just to be safe.)

What do you not include in your tags on negative posts? The character or show. To go back to our previous example, complaints about Disney are better off not tagged as #disney. That way, people who just want to reblog positive content don’t have to wade through a lot of hate to get to it.

2 - Self-Censoring

In more extreme cases, it may be considered more polite to avoid mentioning the topic at all within your post. This is especially helpful if you’re talking directly about shippers or stans that irritate you. For example, if you are posting about a ship you don’t like, misspell the ship’s name - i.e. C/exa, Rey/o, De$tiel, etc. This also prevents hate from showing up in the search results for a topic. You can be salty and complain all you want, just try not to put it in the search results. Most people know to search anti posts if they want to rant.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to tell your followers a little bit about you in your blog’s header, or in an FAQ post. This lets people check out your blog and decide whether or not they want to follow you. If you know you’re going to be posting a lot of complaining or venting or criticism, make note of it somewhere people can see!

Finally, don’t add negative comments to gifsets, photosets, moodboards, or positivity-specific posts/meta. People work hard on those things because they love those characters, and it can be really disheartening to see negative comments in the notes. Make your own post! 

3 - Unfollow, Block, and Scroll

Someone in your fandom getting on your nerves, and you feel like you want to confront them about it? Hit that unfollow button instead! See a blog that you know will bother you if you interact with it? Block ‘em! See a post that you don’t agree with? Scroll on! You don’t need to fight every fight. Sometimes it’s just better to live and let live. If you really gotta vent, make your own post.

On the flipside, celebrate your favorites! Mutuals, blogs, characters, plots, and ships! Try to be as positive as you are negative, or at least take a little time away from salt-blogging to acknowledge the silver linings. Leave compliments in the tags or on the posts themselves! Follow the people your mutuals follow, if you also like them. Form little communities and you will be a much happier blogger.

4 - Anon Responsibly

Ideally, you never want to use the Anon function as a way to spread hate or negativity. If you disagree with someone, message them privately and see if they’re willing to talk with you. If they aren’t, including if they just don’t respond, respect that and move on. You aren’t entitled to anyone’s time, and no one else is entitled to yours. Be polite, seek out rational conversations, and don’t take the low road when you’re expressing your feelings - never resort to personal insults or putting someone down. In fandom, ultimately, we are discussing fictional topics, characters, and moments. Always prioritize real-life people over made-up ones. This includes sending any sort of hate or negativity to actors, creators, or writers, and also creators of fanfiction and fanart.

5 - The Golden Rule

The long and short of it is - your fandom is what you make it. You are in no way legally obligated to do any of this, and plenty of people don’t. But if you’re having trouble making friends, or feel like your fandom experience has gotten too stressful or toxic, there is one very simple thing you can do - treat others the way you want to be treated. Nobody likes to see people talk endless shit about their favorite things. Everyone likes talking about the things they love. Post accordingly, and you’ll be amazed and how fun this “blue hellsite” can be.

There are others for more specific situations, but these are the top five most common ways you can make your fandom a better place. Feel free to add anything else!

[pickledchickenetti]

So I’ve had something on my mind for the last week or two that I’ve been trying to figure out how to best start a post about and coming up short. We all know that I have a tendency to be long-winded, and some of this post is going to be stream of consciousness, at least moreso than my usual longer posts, which I usually wait to start until I have a pretty solid idea of what I want to say and how I want to say it. I may go back and edit this some at the end, I may not, probably depends on how it comes out. (Edited at the end to add: I’m not editing anything. It’s long and I’m not expecting anyone to force themselves through it, but thanks to those who do!) Since this is partially me using my blog as a place to ruminate on some things, I’m going to put it under a read more for those who don’t want to have it clogging up their dashboard. 

Lately I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings regarding social media and what voices and mindsets I allow to be a part of my everyday life. I put a lot of effort into carefully treading the line between taking unnecessary negativity out of my social media feeds and creating an echo chamber where I only see people who agree with me. Most of the time, the decision comes down to the tone and intent. If someone is consistently rude, angry, or condescending, with very little useful contribution to any conversation I unfollow them. This applies to people on Facebook who constantly use slurs, post hateful things about people with opposing beliefs or political stances (even if I generally agree with that person’s beliefs or stances) with little attention to facts, and it also applies to people here are just needlessly rude with no real contributions to the overall conversation. 

The older I get, the more I find choosing kindness to be a priority in my life. I’m not perfect; I fully admit there are still times when I’m rude or condescending. Sometimes this is an accident, and unfortunately sometimes it isn’t. I don’t like this, and I try especially hard not to be intentionally condescending. Kindness is a choice, and progress takes time. 

As I’m sure most of you know, I am often very critical of @kristagay‘s posts. I still stand by many, possibly even most, of the opinions I’ve shared. Kindness is important to me, but it’s also important to me to not let other people’s hurtful words or actions go unchecked when I have the ability to say/do something. (This applies to everyone in my radar, not just Krista.) I have very strong opinions on a number of subjects, but it’s especially important to me to speak up in defense of others in the LGBTQA community as that’s a community I belong to and those struggles are more personal to me. 

A little while back, I got a string of anons (many were answered, some were deleted) that made it seem like someone was trying to create some sort of feud between me and Krista. As I said in one of the posts at that time, I was under no illusion that Krista was reading any of my posts that didn’t tag her directly, and had no interest in any sort of feud. Krista does not follow me, and in general does not seem to interact much on Tumblr beyond asks to her and posts she is directly tagged in (or reblogs/comments on her posts of course). I would likely be the same way if I stumbled onto a community of people discussing every little detail of people I was friends with in real life. I would want to set the record straight and defend my friends while also respecting their privacy, and as a result I doubt I’d interact much anyway. I respect her choice to not discuss them at all, even the things seen on TV, and hope she will continue to make that choice no matter how annoying people asking her for info might get. (And to Pickles and anyone else who has crossed the line and sent her intentionally inflammatory messages/questions about the Duggars or hate for the sake of hate, please kindly delete your accounts and learn how to interact with actual humans in a respectful way.) 

When I got the string of anons asking me about Krista, I took a step back and tried to objectively examine why I followed Krista, why I continued to devote energy in responding to her posts, and if it was worth my time and emotional energy to continue doing so. The difference I found between Krista’s posts, which do often frustrate me, and posts from others who I have chosen to unfollow and/or block is the intent and context behind the posts. 

At the end of the day, Krista and I are very similar. We were both raised in very conservative families/churches, who had different plans for us than the lives we’ve chosen to pursue. We’ve both come to believe differently about God than the churches we were raised in. And we both know what it’s like to have to keep up appearances, especially online, in order to not destroy (or majorly hurt) relationships with people in our lives offline who it’s still important to maintain a relationship with. 

There are a couple big differences between us. First of all, I’m gay. I came to believe differently than the church I was raised in largely because I’ve had to just to be who I am and not feel depressed and suicidal all the time. When you grow up gay in a conservative family, life gives you two choices: shut off who you are and spend your life convincing yourself you are who you were told you were supposed to be or do major amounts of soul-searching to figure out who you are and how to accept yourself. When you’re already evaluating one major aspect of who you are and what you believe it becomes nearly impossible to not do that same evaluation on the other beliefs you were raised in. Because of this process, I’ve come to see a lot of hypocrisy and downright lies in the belief system I was raised in. This has pushed me into developing a pretty strong set of opinions, beliefs, and political stances that stand in stark contrast to my family and lifelong family friends. 

As a cisgendered straight woman, Krista did not have this huge thing forcing her to do major soul-searching. Despite this, she has done soul-searching, and seems to still be doing it. (It’s really a lifelong process, after all.) She has stepped out into a world that she likely didn’t consider being able to live in as a little girl. She’s pursued an educational and career path that’s impressive for even women who were raised being encouraged to focus on education, so for someone in her church and belief system to get to where she is is monumental, and for that I applaud her. So while I definitely disagree with her beliefs on a number of subjects, and will continue to say so (with thoughtful responses, not just complaints) when I feel her posts call for it, I am doing my best to remember that no one was born perfect, and she is still learning just as much as the rest of us are. I’ve said many times that I really do believe her intentions are good, and I stand by that belief. She’s learning. She’s trying. She may be one of the more conservative voices in our tumblr community, but many of us have admitted we used to be worse than we are now, and she’s come a long way from who she once was too. 

The other big difference between us, at least as far as tumblr goes, is that she has chosen to attach her name and face to her posts on here, and I have not. Many of you know who I am, follow me elsewhere, etc. That doesn’t change the fact that publicly, all you see is a food-based username and (currently) a photo of Jana Duggar on a boat. I share my first name, my age, and my general location. While someone who knew me offline could likely piece together my identity if they paid enough attention, I am careful to not overly-identify myself. This relative anonymity grants me the privilege of speaking freely online without worrying about offline consequences. Krista has not granted herself that same anonymity. I’m honestly a little embarrassed that I had never considered before the fact that she likely does not feel she can speak freely on Tumblr. I am very careful what I post on my other social media platforms. When my name and face are attached, I pretty much never mention LGBTQA issues for fear of outing myself and losing family members I’m not ready to lose. I don’t post about the abuses found in many Baptist churches or the lasting harmful effects I feel from my overly-religious childhood. This is partially to avoid a can of worms with a widespread ripple effect and partially out of respect for my parents and their desire to not have to defend me for believing things they don’t even agree with themselves. For Krista, the things she says here can and likely do affect her life offline, and it’s something that’s important to keep in mind when reading her posts. 

I don’t say all of this to say that Krista gets a pass for hurtful things she says. We all are still accountable for the things we say, and she has chosen to put herself in the position of having to choose between saying things that will hurt her offline life, censoring herself, or staying silent. There are topics I still wish she would just address openly or not at all. But at the end of the day, she has the same right to censor herself here as I do elsewhere, and I will be trying to keep that in mind going forward. When interacting with her privately, she’s only ever proven herself to be kind and open to hearing what I have to say. In the future, I may give her the same respect I often give my offline friends where I just send her a DM to clarify her intent of a seemingly rude or hateful post instead of just calling her out publicly. We’re all learning, Krista included. 

Social media, especially Tumblr, has given in to a dangerous mindset that’s often referred to as “cancel culture”. There are times when it is absolutely the right choice to “cancel” someone. Like I said at the beginning of my post, we have the right to choose what voices to allow into our feeds. We should all take advantage of that right and do what’s best for our mental health. I just think we should also be more mindful of context and intent when deciding whether or not to “cancel” someone. We all say we want young girls (and boys) in fundie communities to get out of that lifestyle and find better beliefs, but getting out doesn’t happen overnight. Many of us have the benefit of getting here after shedding many of our toxic beliefs. For those who aren’t there yet, I hope we will just remember to choose kindness and respect and do our best to be open to educating them without being hateful or derogatory. 

[heliosphoenix]

The sky calls to us

There’s a reason I keep a separate blog where I choose to chime in on some political happening or other. It’s something I take great care in doing. It’s easy to get it wrong (and in my younger days, I often did get it wrong), so I have to make an effort to get my ducks in a row. Even so, it’s nominally something I try to avoid whenever possible, which is why in my srs business blog’s early days, I was focused more on fandom drama.

The problem though is that now it’s become impossible to avoid. I know there are those of you out there who resent the incursion of real world events onto your tumblr feed, or the Twitter’s or Facebook’s of your favorite celebs. I do as well. I personally would rather talk about anything else and I’m willing to bet they would love to do the same. 

But the world has become so volatile now that it can no longer be avoided. And despite the fact that I had literally gone two months without touching this site, even I couldn’t stand idly by while all of us, every lover of freedom wherever it may exist in the world, were being set up the bomb. 

To say the last 48 hours have been surreal is an understatement. But not entirely surprising.

We resent the incursion of these events onto our feeds because we want the internet to be our shelter from it all. I’m here to tell you that it was irrational to think the internet would be immune.

When the world has decided that compromise is for losers and the only thing that matters is to win at any cost, then it stands to reason that the internet will follow along.

Unless it’s leading the way. And in many respects, it’s leading the way.

So where do we go from here? When I say I haven’t touched this site in some time, it’s not exactly a statement of pride. I won’t lie to you all when I say it’s been hard for me to work up the effort to browse the internet these days. If you went back 15 years or so and told my adolescent self, the 7th grade kid who knew what memes were a full 5-6 years before his classmates did, that there’d come a point in time where he’d want to hide from the internet? He’d call you insane.

Part of the reason I’ve avoided this site is because of the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head that resulted in the censoring of many blogs I followed (as well as one I ran). But the other part is that I find I no longer have the energy to engage in the sort of thing that passes for “discourse” here like I did in the past. While it is still my desire, if not my duty, to talk with you all with some candor about what is happening in the world today, I’m rather disenchanted by the prospect of posting an article that gives an update on Brexit proceedings or the state of the Russia investigation and coming back to find sizzling hot takes in my notes that make me want to pay a visit to Comrade Smirnoff. 

And I’ll be honest. The prospect of staring down a smug faced Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as they win re-election and continue to be worshiped by the assholes of the world isn’t exactly appealing to me either. 

Any potential benefits of going back to discussing fandom drama don’t really seem that attractive either. My years in furrydom sapped my capacity for fandom politics long ago. I spoke out in favor of bronies because I could see through the lies and manipulations and it got to a point where I said all that a person could reasonably say on the matter. Considering the success of the show and that the public image of the fandom has improved, I’d like to think my efforts were a success. 

I don’t know enough about the other fandoms making waves right now to offer an opinion, and frankly I’m not inclined to engage. I saw the remastered Star Wars trilogy when I was 7 years old. I went to midnight showings for every movie that’s come out since (even the prequels). I would much prefer to discuss the merits of the new movies with my local group of friends instead of coming on here and writing a 1,000 word dissertation on The Last Jedi that would ultimately end up with me getting dragged into an ad-hominem laden argument with 3 other users.

I see some of my esteemed comrades still have the energy for that. Alas, I am no longer that strength which in old days moved heaven and Earth.

Speaking of which: Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous is, as I describe it, a Space MMO. Set in a 1:1 scale recreation of the Milky Way galaxy that is based on actual astronomical data and scientific principles. 

It’s the closest I’ve ever truly gotten, and may ever truly get, to being the captain of a Spaceship. 

A trip out to the Robin’s Egg nebula envelopes you in a sea of gas, tinted blue by the light of a Blue White Supergiant just passing into adolescence. The nebula is home to a sea of young Red Dwarfs, small rocky bodies, ringed planets who’s metal surface is more of a sea of lava, and even a small Black Hole.

But it’s not just a recreational trip, you’re here at the behest of a scientist who’s willing to pay you a lot of credits to fly out to this stellar nursery. Once complete, you head back to your Space Station in Geosync orbit around Earth. A station named after Abraham Lincoln, as one does when naming starports. You drop your passengers off, get your next assignment, and you’re off to another star system 20 light years away.

The internet is able to get away with a lot, namely because underneath all the memes and controversy and drama are a bunch of people (mainly millennials) who occasionally make some money when their video of them yelling about a bad movie or winning victory royale hits a certain number of views on YouTube. It gets away with a lot because fandoms are real, living, vibrant communities that you can feel whenever you go to a convention or post in the appropriate tags.

In Elite Dangerous, you go into the game not expecting much. And you’re frequently rewarded by visiting strange new worlds that you never thought could’ve existed.

There’s a group of trolls in the game, they seek to cause as much mayhem and chaos as possible because they’re upset that the vibe of Elite Dangerous is not what they want it to be. It’s not the bitterly nostalgic vibe of Valve games, or the hyper competitive alpha vibe of Overwatch or Call of Duty. It’s certainly not the paranoid warmongering vibe of EvE online.

Elite Dangerous is a bunch of people exploring the galaxy.

And, I dunno, I feel that as a culture, a society, a civilization, and a species, maybe we could eventually work our way up to that. 

Maybe not.

There’s a system in Elite known simply as “The View.” 1400 light years away from Earth, it contains a ringed planet orbiting around a Blue-White star younger than the ones in Robin’s Egg. If you set down near the pole of this planet, you get a great view of the rings, as well as a Pulsar and, if you’re lucky, two Black Holes.

 When you venture out further, you see many wondrous sights.

A planet covered in water with massive ice sheets at the poles in an almost comical inversion of the future predicted by those fighting climate change.

Binary stars close enough that trying to shoot the gap nearly burns your spaceship to a crisp.

Worlds with magnificent ring systems that put Saturn’s to shame.

Pulsars with massive jets that swirl and twist like cosmic tornadoes.

And those are just the procedurally generated bodies. Stars and planets and others placed where they are because computer models based on hard science said they should be there.

Still plenty of room for real life celestial bodies. Like VY Canis Majoris, one of the largest stars in the galaxy.

Or Jupiter and the Galilean moons.

Or the Black Hole V404 Cygni.

The experience of Elite Dangerous is truly otherworldly, the kind of thing that ingrains itself in your mind and will not leave. The game is unnervingly beautiful not just because of its technical prowess, but because of what it can inspire.

Right now, this is just a video game, but there’s still the chance that there’s beauty in this galaxy that is not only unseen but completely unthinkable. Without Elite, it would be literally unimaginable. 

It’s this inspiration that pushes me forward, that drives me in my attempt to help enlighten those around me, even if at times it feels the struggle will soon be lost. 

This could be our future, but the only way to get there is together.

Somewhere out there in a sea of 400 Billion stars is a world just like this one. 

We owe it to ourselves to give our descendants a chance to visit. Just in case it turns out to be Equestria. 

[transcendent-paras]

Basic Info on My Paracosm

Don’t interact if you are not a MaDDer or an immersive daydreamer

I’m using paracosm lightly cause it’s like... mirrored thisverse? mirrored and slightly to the left with my paras added in, you know? I went from having paracosms with whole galaxies and gods and languages to thisverse 2.0.

Background/About Me: I'm a closeted trans male. Recently I’ve been hyperfocusing on music - specifically "alternative" music like punk, metalcore, rock, emo, etc  as well as kpop - and it's affected my paracosm. My current paracosm is a Trans punk rock band focusing on one band named Transcendent, and has Incorporated many of the bands I listen to into it. 

Original Paras: 

Parame - Michè Valentino: Lead singer, Pianist, Song writer. Trans male in his 20s, adopted by a family in the UK and has two older brothers. His middle brother is highkey based off  the kpop group *XO’s (to avoid this coming up in the tags) leader Su*o, and he is also in a band very similar to *XO. Michè fell in love with one of *XO’s members but because of the large age gap it was unrequited. Eventually Michè went to study abroad and moved to New York city and met his best friend and later boyfriend Ashley Nolans. Shortly after high school Ashley and Michè moved in together.

Ashley Nolans: Backing vocalist and screams/growls, Lead guitarist. A year older than Michè, he is a former myspace & later instagram drag king when he saw a drag queen at a mall. Slowly he realized he identified as a trans male instead of a drag king. His family was supportive of his whole journey and let him do what he felt comfortable doing, though they did manage his myspace since he was very young. Michè moved to Ashley’s high school and they were in the same music class. Ashley took Michè to his first pride parade. Ashley is slightly insecure that Michè will leave him for the *XO member he had a crush on, but Ashley never brings it up or lashes out/acts on it.

Nikki Archer: Bass Guitarist, Composer. Nikki is agender and has always identified as such even with out knowing anything about gender identities as a child. Their uncle took them to many rock and punk concerts growing up, and bought them their first bass for their 13th birthday, that Nikki still has but has retired it so it doesn’t get damaged on tour. Nikki’s uncle is the most understanding member of the family about their gender, but their parents try to be accepting and not ignorant. Nikki and Emilynn were Vice President and President of their high school’s LGBT Club. Though they went to the same school as Ashley they never met him and graduated before Michè started going there. Nikki and Emilynn dated for a while in high school but decided they were better as close platonic friends.

Emilynn Kay: Drummer, Leader. Emilynn is the oldest member, 5 years older than Michè and is a trans woman. She grew up in the south originally and not only had to deal with racism as a poc, but didn’t even dream of coming out to anyone besides her parents. Eventually her parents decided it would be best for her if they moved. When they moved up to New York she was able to dress the way she wanted and easily took her gender in stride. Of course she had harsher comments and bullying than white trans kids or cis black kids at her school she never changed who she was to fit in. She did percussion in the marching band and acted in theater often. She naturally took on a motherly role to other LGBT kids in the school, especially but not limited to younger trans kids, and they voted for her to be president of the club. She met Michè and Ashley at a pride parade very nervous to admit to being trans and she took them under her wing. When she realized she had a group of trans friends who all were into the same type of music and could play instruments she suggested forming a band.

Alexandria Woods: Rhythm Guitarist, Violinist, Newest Member. Alexandria realized at the start of high school she identified more feminine than masculine and after research felt Demi-girl described her the most. Her friends in high school helped her express herself while remaining closeted, especially from her parents. Her family were for the most part very kind and she got along with them on every issue except for gender. Meanwhile Alexandria also had a youtube channel that she posted guitar and violin covers on, gaining a respectable fan base on various platforms. Michè discovered her when she did a cover of a Transcendent song and he followed her on twitter. One day when she was 16, a cousin discovered one of her skirts in her closet and outted her to her parents, getting her kicked out and they have not spoken since. Alexandria made a tweet that she would have to put a pause on covers until she could find a place to live, and Michè swooped in asking if she need a place to live. After living with Michè and Ashley for a while, the band had a meeting and agreed that Alexandria would be a perfect fit in the band. The fans and later the members joke that Alexandria is Michè and Ashley’s daughter. Fans immediately loved Alexandria as a member of the band, especially since many of them had know of her in vlogs with the band and members retweeting her covers often.

Celebrity paras (censored so it doesnt show in tumblrs search results, if you cant figure out the * feel free to pm me or ask me off anon!): 

*XO: Originally in a past paracosm they were as themselves and a slightly different parame was just friends with them, but over time i latched onto the leader Su*o and started to see him as a brother figure. Not wanting to do culture appropriation I warped them from kpop to western music and made it so Michè was adopted by Su*o’s family. Nearly everything about them is the same including names and achievements, past members, and music. Because I actually know Korean there is no language barrier in music so it doesn’t bother me that they are supposed to be a uk based band and they sing in korean in thisverse, but in paracosm it is ‘in english’. The member that Michè is in love with is Ch****ol

Bl*ck Veil Br*d*s: Ashley and Michè bonded over a love for the band, and later got Emilynn and Nikki into them. Transcendent went from playing basement shows to being signed under Republic Records and it’s subsidiary Lava records, the same labels as B*B. Since they do a similar style music under the same label they crossed paths a few times in company, at warped tour, and eventually Transcendent did a few opening sets for B*B. They became close, and have talked about doing some sort of collaboration. 

P*l*y* R*y*l*: Alexandria really looked up to them, and was beyond ecstatic meeting them backstage at warped tour. The two bands have hung out a few times and they are very supportive of each other on social media. 

Other bands here and there that show up occasionally: P**rc* the v**l, f*ll*ng in r*v*rs* (michè has gotten into verbal arguments with r*nn*e a few times but they don’t hate eachother), my ch*****l romance, as ** is, sh*n*e (kpop).

Transcendent’s Music: 

Respect Existence - First album: Overall theme of the album is celebrating differences and who you are, with elements of punk rock, speed metal, and experimental rock. Usually when daydreaming about this era I listen to B*B’s album Set The World on Fire and P*V’s Collide With The Sky which is sort of the instrumental vibe I picture this album being. After this was released they were sighed under lava records

Who came first - Album: cover album dedicated to bands that influenced Transcendent’s music style. First album with Alexandria. Most recent album, and brought them further into the limelight, being a more recognizable alternative band. 

I’m Not Okay (originally by m*r)

Misery Business (originally by param***)

But It’s Better If You Do (originally by p!*td)

I Don’t Care (originally by f*b)

21 Guns (originally by gr**n d*y)

Bulls In The Bronx (originally by p*v) 

If You Can’t Hang (originally by s*s)

Don’t Feel Quite Right (originally by p*l*y* r*y*l*)

The Drug In Me Is You (originally by f*r)

10 Miles Wide (originally by es****e the f**e)

Can You Feel My Heart (originally by b**h)

The Legacy (originally by b*b)

Expect Resistance - Upcoming album: companion piece to Respect Existence (not a repackage album). Not only does it celebrate your differences but also a call to action to be unapologetically you and to ‘form a resistance’ against those who hold you back. I usually listen to B*B’s album vale and Agai*** me!’s song teenage anarchist when thinking about this time. My paras are trying to see if they can get any collaborations with different artists, Michè especially wants to have his brother on one of the songs.

[migleefulmoments]

On Tumblr people use initials or slashes (dar/ren) to keep their posts from appearing in search results, it’s nothing to do with them being fictional characters in their heads. While that’s true, the censoring is common on blogs that people generally don’t like or get hate. I remember at the height of fandom tumblr tagging was a huge deal. I remember fans of Chris Colfer getting angry because all the posts in his tag were of Klaine and they couldn’t see stuff like updates. It started arguments.

Yes, this is why they claim they use slashes and initials.  But the fact is that  Googling “Chris” isn’t going to bring up one of their blogs. My point was that they may have started to use initials to avoid being detected but it has dehumanized Darren and Mia and also Chris. C isn’t even talked about anymore, D can’t do anything write and is a wuss without a backbone and M is devil personified. Using the initials just makes it easier to see them as one dimensional characters and not real people.   

I use Ryan Murphy's full name every time I talk about him and often Chris Colfer and Darren Criss and I have never had anyone find me from Google or and spew hate or had Chris or Darren or Ryan find me. They don’t need to use initials to avoid detection. Nobody cares what we say. 

[venacoeurva]

It’s the pinned post, READ IT PLEASE

Commissions can be found here: https://ko-fi.com/venacoeurva/commissions

After dark comms are announced on here, posted to my Bsky for that (not my main).

Non-art posts are tagged as “not art”, text posts are “vena vents”. If you don't want to see oc/canon, posts blacklist "TeldWren" (or if you ARE into it, well there you go). Reblogs of my own posts are “Day reblog”

I’m over 25, queer, dude-esque.

I have physical & memory issues, I have limited energy.

Not all content is close to mature or suggestive but I would still prefer you to be 18+ (or more ideally, like 21+). Obviously I can't track every note, but If I see someone underage follow me, engage with mature posts, or engage with my posts in a sexual way, I will block them.

Honestly, sometimes I just block off of bad vibes.

If your handle/reblogs have a suspicious amount of red names, you're outta here. There's accidental and then there's a pattern.

I block inc*st * and a/m shippers, people over like 25 way too invested in ship/fandom discourse (either side, really-- I am so fucking tired), certain kinks, people who are "playfully" rude to strangers, & anything else I get skeeved out/annoyed by. Curation, baby! You can do it, and so can I!

*Censored to avoid going in search results

My art’s not cleared for reposting (REPOSTING =/=REBLOGGING)/tracing/edits/RP without credit/permission. If you want to make merch, even for personal use, ASK ME FIRST if it’s more than printing it on paper & sticking it to your wall. Consider it a “no” until getting a yes. Understand how uncomfortable this can be to just DO that w/out asking (and people have).

My art's not cleared for commercial use but for myself or clients.

Non-OC/non-comm (unless it's a comm you bought) art is fine to use as icons, etc. for noncommercial/non-political-focused accounts w/ credit.

I don’t know how to feel about gift art of my OCs quite yet. I’m protective of them given how “fandomized” original content ended up. Please use common sense wrt other’s creations/chars and don't just use them without permission.

I block h*rry p*tt*r accounts on sight, yes, even people who put it out there that they don’t like the author and only engage in the fandom.

That's the main stuff, more info below

Other Rules:

Yes I make art, no you are not entitled to it (or my time!) and I am in my full right to block you and curate my experience and restrict your access to interacting with it (since some people like to kick up a fit about being blocked but their beef is about that, more on Twitter than here, but hey).

I BLOCK ACCOUNTS THAT LOOK LIKE BOTS. CHANGE YOUR ICONS AND DESCRIPTIONS AND REBLOG SOMETHING. THIS SITE IS MADE TO REBLOG THINGS.

I also block accounts dedicated to reposting (not reblogging) art unless the art is extremely well known, published, or very old.

If I mention a character not present in a post, I censor their name to avoid it ending up in results.

I am very uncomfortable around very churchy people and fertility obsessed pagan people unless they've proven worth trusting due to past experiences and obvious issues with bigoted rhetoric common in those spaces.

I am sex and kink positive (barring things that harm people and/or otherwise cannot be consented to), but that does not equate to trying to force people out of their comfort zones because they gotta ~liberate themselves~ like some people think it is. Also on the other end, stop using fundie talking points whenever someone is horny

Also, just because I am kink positive does not mean I am fine to interact with people into certain ones, or give you consent to try to rope me into one of yours, or for you to involve me in a kink we both have.

I can also tell when someone is fetish-fishing with more niche not-inherently-sexual-at-first-look ones toward unsuspecting people who did not consent to engage in sexual discussions with your weird ass. I am very much fine taking niche kink and fetish comms when I have after dark ones open, but I will not accept them from people who are known creeps who do things like this and steamroll boundaries.

I’m critical of sites/companies/brands, including small ones if it warrants criticism, including A_/0/ 3

I’m not your therapist or a crisis hotline. I cannot stop you from committing suicide or suffering from other severe mental crises and I am not trained to. I have mental health issues, myself, and you will just make both of our situations worse. I will block trauma-dumpers for my own well-being.

l will block if you’re reblogging personal posts for no reason when I forget/can’t turn reblogs off or reblog spamming one of my posts a ton in a row, because reblogging one post a trillion times is just a thing people do now?

I won’t share donation posts unless it’s vetted by others/via a trusted source. I cannot vet them nor do I have the time to.

I know sometimes my art ends up on Amazon, nothing I can do about that.

[pan-xichen]

Why I don't ship k/ance: revealed

(notice how I censored the ship name specifically to avoid people coming after me)

So it's no secret that k/ance is the most popular ship in this fandom. I don't see a ton of it because I mostly follow people who post other ships and non-shippy content but I know it's the biggest ship based on the ao3 tag size alone (I was curious one day okay). There's just this massive amount of people who love the ship and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's great that people can make and enjoy content made by others about their ships. I just have never been interested in k/ance myself. It's not that I've been asked this or anything, I just felt like giving my reasons for not liking it. So here it is, my humble opinion on the ship and why I don't particularly like it (under a cut because this turned into a long ass post whoops):

(warning: this post is opinionated and analyzes the relationship between Keith and Lance from the perspective of someone who does not like the ship at all; please don’t take any of this as offensive if you do like k/ance, I don’t mean to anger anyone)

It just... doesn't make sense to me. It's also the... unsavoury crowd the ship attracts for some reason, but if I liked it or had reasons to like it chances are I'd probably ignore them. There are some cool people who ship k/ance and I love all of them, even if I'm not interested in their ship.

I've always been someone who prefers when two characters in a ship actually get along. I'm not saying Keith and Lance hate each other, because they definitely don't. I just don't see them being particularly close to each other yet. Maybe they'll get there, maybe not. I doubt even if they do end up being great friends later on that I'll start to ship them, though.

I've always found it weird that everyone latched onto the two characters who are consistently at each others' throats, (in most of the first season anyway), and deemed them suitable for a ship while simultaneously deciding that the two male characters in the show who have been canonically the closest since the first episode are related in some way. I just... don't get how people can look at Keith and Lance's dynamic, especially early on, and think they're romantically interested in each other. They have their moments where they do get along in the first two seasons but typically it's for the good of the mission and when they're done it's back to not liking each other. I think at most, Keith wants to be Lance's friend, not his rival, but Lance doesn't want to be friends with Keith at all. He prefers his own misconception of who Keith is to finding out the truth for himself, and Keith gets tired of trying to make friends with a brick wall and just accepts that this is his relationship with Lance. That's just how I see it.

When I look at Keith and Lance, I see Lance unnecessarily vilifying Keith out of jealousy. I read and reblogged a post about Lance causing Hunk to have the same misconception about Keith as a person that kinda spiked this one a bit, because... it's true. Keith doesn't even remember Lance's name in the first episode, which might have also sparked part of Lance's perception of him. Keith, however, was also very focused on rescuing Shiro, and had been struggling through mourning for the better part of a year while isolated from contact with others. Of course he's not going to remember Lance-- the only person he's been thinking of has very likely been Shiro.

What Lance is doing, essentially, is projecting his lack of skill as Keith, someone who is obviously more skilled as a pilot than him, "always trying to one-up him". If Keith really was always trying to be better than Lance, he would've remembered him. Hell, we don't even really see him trying to prove he's better than Lance at anything until their nonexistent rivalry gains merit. Lance doesn't want to accept that he wasn't a great pilot (yet) and also accept that Keith was better than him. That's where that comes from.

Part of why I think that is stems from his family. At a panel at a con (I don't know which one) he was "word of god" confirmed to have been from a wealthy family, and was given plenty of attention growing up. Whether that upholds or not remains to be seen but really when you look at the way he treats Keith, it makes sense. It might be more subconscious than conscious, but Keith was an orphan, probably coming from foster care (or just out of nowhere, maybe he was living on his own who knows) and somehow being an incredibly talented pilot, while Lance, someone with a stable, healthy upbringing was struggling and ultimately didn't make the class he wanted to. He blamed Keith, and thus was more than happy to know he'd taken his place after Keith had been expelled.

This is somewhat of an assumption/headcanon of mine, but I also think Lance may have been jealous of Keith's relationship with Shiro, and that it carried over to when Shiro returned after disappearing. We've had tons of hinting at Keith and Shiro being friends before the series too, and Lance states when they discover that Shiro was in the alien ship, "that guy's my hero". He idolizes Shiro, and especially taking his reaction into account when he sees Keith on his way to rescue him, he may have been jealous of Keith having a close relationship with him pre-series, in addition to envying Keith's talent as a pilot.

So we have Lance being envious of Keith, and painting him as this snobby, arrogant guy in his head (I assume Keith was probably rather selective in who he hung out with at the Garrison too which would add to that). That leads to Lance victimizing and convincing himself that Keith always wanted to be better than him, when in reality Keith is just a talented, intelligent and somewhat quiet person. He was probably focused mostly on his studies and not much else, whereas Lance is very extraverted and invested in his friends. Neither of those are bad things, but are certainly polar opposites.

Keith, in contrast, probably also had his own misinterpretation of Lance: someone who cares more about relationships and goofing off than his work. In reality, Lance really wanted to be a good pilot. Maybe he was a little distracted at the Garrison, as we do see him become a great pilot as a paladin, in which this assumption by Keith would make sense. Keith very much strikes me as someone who had to grow up too fast, and Lance as someone who had ample time to come into maturity. The difference between them with their misconceptions seems to be that Keith is a bit more willing to cast his aside, whereas Lance continues to cling to them.

I know a lot of shippers see the first episode of season three as having a k/ance moment, what with Lance putting his hand on Keith’s shoulder and accepting his leadership, but really... it’s not. I see this more as Lance putting his own wants and desires aside for the sake of the mission-- he wanted to be the black paladin, but the lion chose Keith, so he’s reluctantly accepting. That’s what’s happening there. In my opinion, to say that it’s exclusively a k/ance moment takes away from that bit of Lance’s development. Not to mention that honestly, Lance isn’t accepting Keith as his leader, either. He doesn’t respect Keith any more than he did before. What he respects, is the black lion. He respects her decision to choose Keith over him. He does grow to accept Keith as his leader eventually, but just two episodes later we see him actively jabbing at Keith’s (admittedly poor) decisions and leadership. Keith is in mourning, for fuck’s sake. I know Lance isn’t the only one who doesn’t take to Keith’s leadership well, but really, he’s the only one I can remember who actually went at him. Even after they start to kinda get used to Keith leading, when Shiro(?) returns, they naturally look to him for guidance instead. Lance then tells Keith that he’s worried about his own place on the team, and Keith tries to reassure him as best someone who doesn’t closely know the other person can. Again, as well, Lance is worried about himself (which is fine). 

If this was a shippy moment he probably would’ve been more concerned for Keith, as he’s the one who’s been unintentionally undermined by his closest friend and everyone has gone back to following Shiro instead. Keith pulls back from the team in season four as a direct result of what happened when Shiro returned; he’s putting everyone else above himself. In Keith’s mind, he sees himself as the extra. Allura is fantastic as a paladin. The red lion hasn’t shut Lance out because she wants Keith back, so he assumes she’s done with him. The team already would rather listen to Shiro than him, so he got the black lion to take Shiro back. The green and yellow lions were never involved in the swap. He can’t help Coran with the castle, so he goes off with the Blade of Marmora. He makes a series of decisions in the first episode of season four that separate him from the team, and then announces that he’s leaving. Lance does... nothing to stop this. (Admittedly Shiro also doesn’t try to stop him, to tell him he’s needed, which also makes me more suspicious as to whether or not this really is our Shiro but that’s not what this post is about.) He doesn’t pull Keith aside and ask if he’s okay, find him when he returns to talk to him (like Allura did). He’s vilified Keith again; sees him as selfish, only interested in what he seemingly wants to do, when in reality Keith truly wants to be reminded that the team needs him and probably to be a paladin again. The complete and total lack of intervention on Lance’s part when Keith is clearly Not Okay in the most recent season also signifies to me that they still have yet to be close enough for them to make sense being romantically involved. 

And that’s fine! I’m not saying I look down on the ship or shippers because of it. I just prefer my ships to at least make some canonical sense, and can’t see it happening with k/ance. Like I said at the beginning, maybe they will grow closer together before the series ends-- I’d actually really like to see that happening. I still doubt I’d be interested in shipping it, though. 

I do think it’s neat that shippers can make content for themselves and each other to enjoy, even if it isn’t quite canon compliant. The one thing I really hate to see though is edits of intimate scenes between Keith and other characters, or Lance and other characters, with captions of “this is how it happened right?” or “I fixed it”. Like... how much more fucking pretentious can you get? Edits are fine but when you claim they’re canon or that you “fixed” the actual scene, that’s just disrespectful to the creators of the show. The story they want to tell, is how it happened. You can’t “fix” that.

TL;DR - I don’t ship k/ance because when I look at their canon relationship it doesn’t make sense seeing it as romantic. I’m not judging anyone who does, but this is just a long-winded analysis of what I think of them and why I dislike the ship. I know there are some really cool people who ship k/ance and are more realistic about knowing it’s not logically going to be canon (not just based on my analysis but also the showrunners did explicitly state that it won’t) but enjoy their ship nonetheless, and props to them! For me it’s also kind of a combination of the way some people who ship k/ance treat other fans and the staff and their canon dynamic but I can mostly disregard them in terms of why exactly I don’t ship Keith and Lance.

[orbemnews]

How China’s Outrage Machine Kicked Up a Storm Over H&M When the Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M said in September that it was ending its relationship with a Chinese supplier accused of using forced labor, a few Chinese social media accounts dedicated to the textile industry took note. But by and large, the moment passed without fanfare. Half a year later, Beijing’s online outrage machine sprang into action. This time, its wrath was unsparing. The Communist Party’s youth wing denounced H&M on social media and posted an archival photo of slaves on an American cotton plantation. Official news outlets piled on with their own indignant memes and hashtags. Patriotic web users carried the message across far and varied corners of the Chinese internet. Within hours, a tsunami of nationalist fury was crashing down upon H&M, Nike, Uniqlo and other international clothing brands, becoming the latest eruption over China’s policies in its western region of Xinjiang, a major cotton producer. The crisis the apparel brands now face is familiar to many foreign businesses in China. The Communist Party for years has used the country’s giant consumer market to force international companies to march in step with its political sensibilities, or at least not to contest them openly. But the latest episode has illustrated the Chinese government’s growing skill at whipping up storms of patriotic anger to punish companies that violate this pact. In H&M’s case, the timing of the furor seemed dictated not by anything the retailer did, but by sanctions imposed on Chinese officials last week by the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada in connection to Xinjiang. China has placed hundreds of thousands of the region’s Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in indoctrination camps and used harsh methods to push them into jobs with factories and other employers. “The hate-fest part is not sophisticated; it’s the same logic they’ve followed going back decades,” said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of China Digital Times, a website that tracks Chinese internet controls. But “their ability to control it is getting better,” he said. “They know how to light up those ultra-pro-government, nationalist users,” Mr. Xiao continued. “They’re getting very good at it. They know exactly what to do.” On Monday, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, rejected the notion that Beijing had led the boycott campaign against H&M and the other brands. “These foreign companies refuse to use Xinjiang cotton purely on the basis of lies,” Mr. Zhao said at a news briefing. “Of course this will trigger the Chinese people’s dislike and anger. Does the government even need to incite and guide this?” After the Communist Youth League ignited the outrage last Wednesday, other government-backed groups and state news outlets fanned the flames. They posted memes proposing new meanings behind the letters H and M: mian hua (cotton), huang miu (ridiculous), mo hei (smears). The official Xinhua news agency posted an illustration depicting the Better Cotton Initiative, a group that had expressed concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, as a blindfolded puppet controlled by two hands that were patterned like an American flag. The buzz quickly drew notice at Beijing’s highest levels. On Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman held up a photo of slaves in American cotton fields during a news briefing. The messages were amplified by people with large followings but largely nonpolitical social media presences. Squirrel Video, a Weibo account dedicated to silly videos, shared the Communist Youth League’s original post on H&M with its 10 million followers. A gadget blogger in Chengdu with 1.4 million followers shared a clip showing a worker removing an H&M sign from a mall. A user in Beijing who posts about television stars highlighted entertainers who had ended their contracts with Adidas and other targeted brands. “Today’s China is not one that just anyone can bully!” he wrote to his nearly seven million followers. “We do not ask for trouble, but we are not afraid of trouble either.” A fashion influencer named Wei Ya held a live video event on Friday hawking products made with Xinjiang cotton. In her Weibo post announcing the event, she made sure to tag the Communist Youth League. By Monday, news sites were circulating a rap video that combined the cotton issue with some popular recent lines of attack on Western powers: “How can a country where 500,000 have died of Covid-19 claim the high ground?” One Weibo user posted a lushly animated video that he said he worked through the night to make. It shows white-hooded men pointing guns at Black cotton pickers and ends with a lynching. “These are your foolish acts; we would never,” a caption reads. Less than two hours after the user shared the video, it was reposted by Global Times, a party-controlled newspaper known for its nationalist tone. Many web users who speak up during such campaigns are motivated by genuine patriotism, even if China’s government does pay some people to post party-line comments. Others, such as the traffic-hungry blog accounts derided in China as “marketing accounts,” are probably more pragmatic. They just want the clicks. In these moments of mass fervor, it can be hard to say where official propaganda ends and opportunistic profit seeking begins. “I think the boundary between the two is increasingly blurred,” said Chenchen Zhang, an assistant professor of politics at Queen’s University Belfast who studies Chinese internet discourse. “Nationalistic topics sell; they bring in a lot of traffic,” Professor Zhang said. “Official accounts and marketing accounts, they come together and all take part in this ‘market nationalism.’” Chinese officials are being careful not to let the anger get out of hand. According to tests conducted by China Digital Times, internet platforms have been diligently controlling search results and comments related to Xinjiang and H&M since last week. An article in Global Times urged readers to “resolutely criticize those like H&M that make deliberate provocations, but at the same time, stay rational and beware of pretend patriots joining the crowd to stir up hatred.” The Communist Youth League has been at the forefront of optimizing party messages for viral engagement. Its influence is growing as more voices in society look for ways to show loyalty to Beijing, said Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “They have more and more fans,” Professor Fang said. “And whether it’s other government departments, marketing accounts or these nationalist influencers, they all are paying attention to their positions more closely and are immediately following along.” The H&M uproar has had the presumably unintended effect of causing more Chinese internet users to discuss the situation in Xinjiang. For many years, people generally avoided the subject, knowing that comments that dwelled on the harsh aspects of China’s rule there could get them in trouble. To avoid detection by censors, many web users referred to the region not by its Chinese name, but by using the Roman letters “xj.” But in recent days, some have discovered firsthand why it still pays to be cautious when talking about Xinjiang. One beauty blogger told her nearly 100,000 Weibo followers that she had been contacted by a woman who said she was in Xinjiang. The unnamed woman said that her father and other relatives had been locked up, and that the foreign news reports about mass internments were all true. Within hours, the blogger apologized for the “bad impact” her post had made. “Don’t just support Xinjiang cotton, support Xinjiang people too!” another Weibo user wrote. “Support Xinjiang people walking the streets and not having their phone and ID checked.” The post later vanished. Its author declined to comment, citing concerns for his safety. Weibo did not respond to a request for comment. Lin Qiqing contributed research. Source link Orbem News #Chinas #kicked #machine #OUTRAGE #storm

[hidewari]

I know it's not you or even more than a few people but I'm hoping people might listen to you at least. Can you tell hk shippers to stop posting things like miscarriage or any triggering content in the main touken/touka tags? I know touken people clutter your tags too with shit thats not cool but this is way too fucking far.

I got a couple asks about this incident, and I honestly had no idea that this was going on at all but I did look into it a bit after a few of you informed me and I do think it’s something important to address.

Honestly, it should just be common decency not to put hate in character tags in the first place. It’s okay to make posts about why you dislike characters on your own personal blog, and technically no one can stop you from putting those posts in the main tag, but I just ask that you be considerate with what you tag. People go in the main tags to look at content of things they like; putting hate in those tags is just disrespectful and inconsiderate.

And I know that some people genuinely don’t know this so I just want to point out that this doesn’t only include not tagging your post with character or ship tags, but also censoring those names in your post too. If your post includes the word “touken,” for example (I’ll use this since the word was already mentioned in the ask), tumblr will put that post in the search results even if you didn’t tag the post with touken. Best way to avoid this is by censoring the word (i.e. to*ken) or splitting it up with punctuation (i.e. tou//ken).

I don’t want to mention any names in regards to this miscarriage incident (the person involved will probably see this post anyway, since they follow me) but I really think people shouldn’t be putting that kind of content in the tag, especially when it was evidently made with malicious intent. I find producing that sort of content questionable, to say the least, but at the end of the day, you have the freedom to post whatever you want. I just think people should have some respect for each other and keep that sort of thing out of the tags, at the very least, because it’s honestly just immature to ruin something that other people enjoy, especially when it’s concerning such a sensitive topic.

This has been said a million times, but it really is just fiction, and making real people feel bad about what they enjoy in a fictional story is just rude and unnecessary. Not to mention, using something as potentially upsetting as miscarriage to get reactions out of fans while not dealing with this topic in a respectful way whatsoever is not acceptable behaviour.

That being said, please don’t go out of your way to attack this person; they’ve already gotten a few messages wishing them death and even wishing death on their future child (seriously, what the fuck?). Just block them if you need to without interacting at all. Stop getting upset with people over fictional characters.

Can we please just learn to dislike things without bothering people who like them and to like things without harassing people who don’t?

[monsterqueers]

Note this is just one systems opinion but general rules for interacting with creators of a fictive or with a factive source(this goes for fictionkin too):

Avoid making it the creators’ problem. Dont directly talk to the creator about it, dont go into their discord servers they mod for the thing and mention it, dont send asks or reddit amas or youtube comments or DMs. This is because when people bring it up to the creator the implication is that the person is saying the creator needs to acknowledge they are writing about *a real person*, when they are creating for a character who they made up, as well as implying they know a character you made better than the creator, and thats bad boundaries with fantasy and reality. It may not be true that the system thinks like this, but it comes off that way, and makes people uncomfortable. Yes it would be cool to talk to the entity that created your reality! It would be cool to have the creator validate you. But boundaries! You gotta have them! Its not actually cool to be on the receiving end of this. Even if the creator says they are ok with fictives or whatever else, err on the side of caution and Dont Do This.

Avoid making it the fandom’s problem. In a very small fandom there isnt much content. This means someone posting in the tag is very very visible, even if its an accidental tag (ie- broken tumblr search picking up a post where someone says ‘Naruto’ in the body of the post for some reason but not in the tags and putting it in the search). This is coincidentally why people first started doing ‘Na//ruto’ or ‘N*ruto’ on here- search puts untagged things in the search. It wasnt about the word being bad it was to avid it going in the tags where people may see it and be Upset. Putting a up post like ‘im the irl Naruto I have memories of x though y happened in canon really uncomfortable with x ship’ can make fandom see it and fandom HEARS ‘you cant make y content of a fictional character because im the authority on headcanons now because its not fiction anymore and I have bad boundaries with fiction and reality’, even if thats not whats being said and they know what a fictive is, it feels like it is. Like its a complaint and request TO the fandom, ESPECIALLY in a small fandom because everything feels more like a conversation in a single room. If it becomes the fandom’s problem then it often becomes the creator’s problem in very indie situations. But its also just good kin & ’tive manners to not try to dictate fandom. Its rude and fans the flames of singlets hating ‘introject heavy’ systems harder and people being anti-kin because thats their only major exposure to these kinds of people.

Specific ways to avoid this beyond ‘dont say it to the creators face’ are included but not limited to:

Choosing an alternate name and/or PFP to go by in fandom spaces.

Making another pluralkit profile for the same headmate and having them use that in fandom spaces where the creator is in them and has PK or otherwise being stealth about it.

Keeping the kin/othertive/introject stuff and the fandom stuff separate in terms of account content and tagging (censor names or remove yourself from search results).

For people who are worried about getting introjects/othertives/fictionkind of their creations trying to talk to them:

Put out boundaries ahead of time. Assert you are ok with them existing but you dont want to know about it- make it clear that coming into your inbox and saying ‘hi im x do you want to hear about my memories they can help you write!’ is NOT ok. Be clear and with specific examples about what isnt ok, what personal boundaries you have about it, etc- but be sure to assert that its not their existence that is the problem, its the part where they MAKE it your problem by putting your nose in it.

Know you cant control them talking about being a the thing at all, but you can ask them not to do it in your space. Discord servers you own, your inboxes and reddit ama threads, your DA groups, etc- this you can put those rules in and tell them not to do the thing, their own blog? Thats not a reasonable boundary, thats being controlling.

Remember that most of these people who are sending messages to creators about new introjects of their characters are ND and often traumatized children and likely they never learned boundaries/havent learned them right yet. Be polite but firm and make it clear you wont tolerate people going after the account if they still do it anyway. Its ok to block people who just send you messages like this and reiterate the above rules. Its ok to just delete messages and reiterate the above rules. If your boundaries are clear and visible that you have them and what they are from mobile and desktop its on them not you.

Know that this behavior is not acceptable to the general fictionkind and plural population and DO NOT blame them for the behavior of a handful of bad actors and children. We see a lot of creators who really hate fictionkind and systems and fakeclaim both because they keep getting bad boundary children doing this to them. Know that we as communities think this behavior of Making It A Creator’s Problem against their wishes is not at all acceptable either.

Know that the people cannot help existing, but they CAN help having boundaries about it. Do not fakeclaim (you do not know their internal world), do not imply they are bad for existing. The problem is in their behavior ABOUT their identity, not that they have it.

Just out of curiosity, is there a consensus on ethical behavior when you have fictives of a small creator’s work? Like there was a kid (host was a minor) who had a fictive of a character I created a week before and I had ~100 people who were fans of my work at the time. I was in a discord server with the kid and was freaked out but I want to know what to do it this happens again.

Honestly, I don't know. I'm publishing in case someone can add something useful.

[aragornbang]

The One True King Of Anarchy, May He Be The Last

Aragorn wrote a sneering obituary of Bob Black the minute he stopped being useful; it's only fair that Bob Black now write Aragorn's obituary.

Let's get to it.

The infamously boring would be patriarch of the east bay anarchist scene sometimes claimed the name "Aragorn" was the unchosen result of hippie parents, but still occasionally got mail to Aaron Mosner. Due to this uncertainty over what name was truly Aragorn's adopted name or a parental narrative he reaffirmed, to be safe we'll just refer to him as The One True King from here on out.

The two central claims of this essay are:

The One True King sought power and control through manipulation and viciousness as a would-be "Rupert Murdock" of anarchism and patriarch of a small east bay scene.

His chief campaign was to undermine No Platform, repeatedly fighting to let reactionaries, eco-extremists and national anarchists into anarchist spaces.

The One True King largely avoided making his own positions clear, opting instead to use people and ideologies as pawns and cover. He preferred when other people were set up for conflict so he could delight in the carnage, utilizing gossip from afar. He'd back a noxious individual not so that they'd win but so that in their fight they'd still crack the Overton Window further and make more acceptable his own positions. His other favorite maneuver was sharing articles of his adversaries, specifically ones selected to serve as punching bags for his audience. Because of this curated selection of adversarial content his flagship holdings like LBC, Anews, Anarchy101, and TheAnarchistLibrary all kept up a thin veil of nonpartisanship to the new or naive, some of whom even thought The One True King's adversaries were themselves submitting content. He loved a deniable joke; one vicious enough to devastatingly imply something but hard to describe if anyone was so unwise as to take offense publicly. Hashtags, vaguebooking and implicit damnation by conjunction with an image were his specialty online. Misrepresentation by omission or plausibly deniable implication a specialty in person.

While it is possible his own opinions or preferences changed over time, most who observed him over the years couldn't help but notice an opportunistic pattern: He was always about the idea that was popular among a new group of people he wanted to grab. One year he was hostile to an idea, the next its best friend and champion. He'd even pivot in the same week with different audiences. Because he was a notorious for burnt bridges some would initially miss this politician's flexibility within the circles he was currently using as a base.

The One True King framed himself as fighting for ideological diversity against entrenched leftist scene police (a crusade that justified literally anything, no matter how underhanded). The narrative he pushed was that his noble personal sacrifice and work ethic was all that was protecting green-anarchists, post-leftists, and individualists from the Bookchinist boot and crushing conformity.

This increasingly turned to parody as The Leftist Enemy soon became figures like John Zerzan.

In fact by the end of his life there was no more zealous scene police than The One True King. Even the lightest association with those deemed "enemies" could get you scrubbed into a person non grata, pushed out of projects and circles. His personal sweetness could so easily turn to viciousness because he trained those under his wing to tolerate it as mockery. What's a little caustic ribbing behind your back? And then one day the unseen ribbing would turn to outright conspiring, pressuring, even lying about you.

Of course to many he remained studiously sweet. There is no doubt that he sincerely cared for a number of people in his inner lair, and he could certainly be magnanimous. Although when traveling this often came across as entitled.

His personal life was complicated. But then who among us hasn't left children behind in the midwest to run a creepy cult for young punks in Berkeley? Who hasn't ducked accusations of improper behavior in sexual relationships? The two house "compound" was inherited by one of his partners, and when mixed with the tech money The One True King had access to, provided him with virtually uncontested power. Well, virtually uncontested, occupants of the compound would sometimes get back at him behind his back in petty or sexual ways.

What did The One True King actually believe? What were his actual goals? While he gave several accounts and others have alleged a variety of claims, it's hard to tell what if anything was ultimately behind his crusades. What is uncontested is that he lost friends over his hard work to platform "national anarchists," a uncontestedly fascist current. When Andrew Yeoman launched Bay Area National Anarchists it was The One True King who included BANA members in the Berkeley Study Group (a project he tightly controlled). The One True King also allowed Yeoman and national anarchists into anti-politics.net, a site he administered and, at the time, THE forum for individualist, nihilist, egoist, and post-leftist currents of anarchism. He let friendships within the post-left burn rather than expel these fascist entryists.

This is a pattern that would be replicated almost a decade later with Individuals Tending towards Savagery.

Much ink has been spilled by this point about ITS. What matters to us is the prevarications and obfuscations. ITS had explicitly abandoned anarchism, started claiming murder for sport, and targeted mexican anarchists for murder when The One True King decided to pick up a project by Abe/Art Caberra (exposed as an alt-right catholic-trad paralegal who went to Berkeley named Arturo Vasquez by 325). Caberra had run a website named "Atassa" as the english language press office of ITS (doing their translations, championing them, getting messages from them, and trying to collect texts to defend their ideology). The One True King offered to publish a book version of the website through Little Black Cart, with Caberra as editor. Caberra posted a spattering of ITS memes on Facebook interspersed with alt-right memes. These posts were often liked by The One True King and he would even at points tag The One True King, referencing their friendship. Meanwhile support for ITS had flowed strongly across all of The One True King's captured platforms.

When ITS' actions (an infoshop bombing and one claimed femicide in particular) reached wider knowledge in the north american milieu The One True King was forced to backpeddle and paint his platforming as innocent consideration on the marketplace of ideas. This was his most awkward pivot because many had by this point overheard The One True King praising ITS and because of his personal ties with many explicit ITS supporters.

The One True King's public maneuver was to retreat behind an LBC collective statement and public renunciations of ITS by people in his circle cleaner than him. An inveterate shit-stirrer he delighted in the backlash (just when he was looking marginalized in anarchism thanks to picking fights with antifa groups), here was an excuse to rally the troops against the leftist scene police! But the defense that ITS had interesting ideas "in the anarchist family" didn't work as well as he hoped. Nor was anyone familiar with the situation or the people able to swallow his new narrative pivot that Atassa was totally different from ITS.

"Some defend the publications and discussions (or trolling, as it were) they engender because while perhaps they don’t agree with killing people, the analysis ITS presents is intellectually stimulating and worthy of consideration. If ITS did kill her, Lesvy Rivera can surely appreciate that her brutal murder was found intellectually stimulating for some." --Scott Campbell

Attempting to claim hegemonic control of the green anarchist milieu with "Black Seed" (a struggling but much hyped newspaper printed and delivered on The One True King's tech money) had been rough going. Green anarchists across north america started distancing themselves from ITS and condemning (to varying degrees, in private or in public) LBC for their embrace of Atassa/ITS. The One True King censored the most damaging instances from Anews, and it helped him that IGD was disinclined to publish some particular nihilist figures who turned on LBC.

Even the main person behind TheAnarchistLibrary departed the project in protest of The One True King's control over it to start a competitor that wouldn't host ITS.

The One True King couldn't back down -- he had to pray that "the leftists" hadn't captured enough of anarchism to shut him out. Or that his latest pivot (loudly embracing indigeneity after years of platforming racists and sneering at "idpol") would buy him a new base. And he hoped that the more stable roster of now hated vocal enemies -- like John Zerzan, William Gillis, Alexander Reid Ross -- would take the bait with the second issue of Atassa. Unfortunately they did. But this boost of internal party discipline wasn't enough. In addition to IGD completely marginalizing Anews, LBC was getting banned from bookfairs and quite serious international insurrectionary groups were turning on them. In desperation LBC started tabling American "Libertarian" conventions.

After a meteoric rise and reign for over a decade, The One True King appeared chastised and surprised. He loved inflating the threats and opposition he faced, picking fights with the infoshop that hosted his Berkeley Study Group and then exclaiming about "graffascists" when the lock to his office was glued, or inflating the costliness of getting his tires changed when they were slashed. Such minor attacks were too many to count, just as his enemies were. But towards the end of his life he started to realize he'd made actual enemies, who'd chosen sides and gotten organized.

In private he was certain that this antifa fad would burn out. "We're down today, but we'll be back up tomorrow. There's a lot of anarchists who disagree with that No Platform stuff."

In reality all he had left was an echo chamber. He had overthrown the "leftism" of (early post-leftist) Chuck0 censoring the comments of Infoshop.org, and instead popularized a website where he could sometimes remove comments attacking him or rebutting his side, but at least he would always let people say the n-word and post MRA shit.

Without of note to say himself, and too timid to create anything truly "incendiary", The One True King could only throw the stale regurgitated vomit of other people. How's the saying go? When the only tool you have is a hammer, you interview the national anarchist Keith Preston on your podcast. Previously at Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute, next up on The Brilliant.

An anonymous writer at Crimethinc claims that what launched The One True King's crusade was being put on a house chore wheel to do the dishes. If true this would truly make his life a sublime tale of manarchy. If he did the dishes more often maybe his servers would have been cleaner and less full of exploits that allowed anyone to look at the logs he said he didn't keep.

Also it was really mean that he didn't provide a private security detail to protect me from people upset that I've snitched repeatedly, tried to get Ramsey deported, and was even caught on the roof of Modern Times with gasoline trying to burn it down. That was totally unfair and definitely the worst thing Aragorn did.

Signed, Bob Black, pigfucker

[gyrlversion]

Queer and Feminist Brands Say They Are Being Blocked from Running Ads on Instagram and Facebook

By Mary Emily O’Hara

If you open Instagram, it often doesn’t take long for you to find an ad in either your feed or Stories roll. But some ads, it seems, aren’t seeing the light of day — and for wholly baffling reasons.

The feminist newsletter Salty, which also publishes sex and dating-focused content, revealed on July 9 that it had tried to run ads on Instagram featuring images of its latest magazine cover, but was denied by the platform — with a message saying “we don’t allow ads for escort services.” Readers were understandably incensed; the newsletter is not an escort service, and the images in question showed fully-clothed queer and trans people of color. The implication ignited rage in the community over how frequently Black trans femmes are stereotyped as sex workers.

“There are biases and assumptions built into the algorithms that are designed to silence us,” Salty’s team wrote on an Instagram comment, linking the rules to recently-passed federal anti-trafficking laws known as FOSTA/SESTA legislation which led social media platforms to restrict users from posting sexual content. And in a blog post on Salty’s website, founder Claire Fitzsimmons noted that FOSTA (the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) has pushed sex workers out of the digital world almost entirely. (Ironically, lawmakers who introduced and passed the laws argued that these laws would “protect” women and LGBTQ+ people.) Instagram has since approved the ads in question, telling MTV News in a statement Friday: “Every week, we review thousands of ads–and at times we make mistakes. We made mistakes here, and we apologize to Salty. We have reinstated the ads, and will continue to investigate this case to prevent it from happening again.”

What happened to Salty, as it turns out, is far from one outlying incident. Several LGBTQ-owned, women-owned, and sex-positive brands confirmed to MTV News that they had also tried to run ads on Instagram and Facebook and had been similarly censored by the platforms. All of the companies provided MTV News with documentation of rejected ad images, denial messages, emails, and other proof that they were unable to run ads for reasons they felt were unfair or inappropriate.

Take Morgasm for example: The company describes itself as a “gender-free, all-inclusive streetwear fashion brand with non-binary collections for adults and kids.” Founder Morgan Burton (hence the catchy name) and her partner Tara O’Callaghan have received denial messages from Instagram that say the name of the company is considered profanity. (In contrast, the makeup brand Nars regularly advertises its tentpole Orgasm collection on its popular Instagram; MTV News reached out to Nars to ask whether it has encountered censorship due to the product name but did not immediately receive a response.)

What’s more, Morgasm’s Shopify account has been blocked from selling directly to customers from the brand’s Instagram account. When Shopify, a popular e-commerce platform for online stores, was told it was not allowed to market Morgasm’s line on Instagram, it relayed the message to the clothing company in emails O’Callaghan shared with MTV News. Morgasm tried to appeal the decision through both Shopify and Instagram, but has not been successful.

“We have explained to [Instagram] we are a fashion brand and not a sex brand,” O’Callaghan told MTV News on Friday. “Shopify has been extremely helpful, has contacted Instagram on our behalf numerous times to no avail. However, Instagram will not approve us, even after our initial request and two appeals a few months apart.”

Morgasm has been able to run some ads on Instagram — but the clothing brand is not allowed to enable direct shopping from those ads or from its own posts, the way that other brands do. And it’s costing the queer-owned fashion company dearly.

“Since we were rejected by Instagram, the platform has enabled shopping from Instagram itself, costing us even more on sales since we can’t capitalize on the new feature,” said O’Callaghan. She said the company is “unable to tag the products in posts and make it shoppable,” and, as a result, they tend to avoid running ads on an increasingly valuable platform. “We don’t see almost any return on investment from the ad spend,” she added.

While such arbitrary and misclassified blocks can feel like some kind of absurd mistake, similar denials have left queer publications and brands wondering what is or isn’t allowed. Thomas Brunskill, creator of the British LGBTQ+ project Mundane zine, told MTV News that Instagram rejected an ad for a queer t-shirt line, citing “inappropriate language,” which was Brunskill thinks was triggered by the word “queer” appearing in the ad. El Champ, which bills itself as “the first health and fitness mag for the queer collective,” said it has experienced similar censorship. Founder Matthew Dempsey told MTV News that when the magazine tried to run an ad on Facebook and Instagram featuring a somewhat demure photo of a partial torso, he received a message saying the ad violated Facebook’s Advertising Policies under Section 8 (Adult Products and Services) and Section 9  (Adult Content.) Dempsey tried replacing the torso with a photo of a basketball hoop, and was still rejected.

“I used what I considered a safe option for the ad. This was also rejected for promoting ‘sex toys or adult products.’ I knew there was a problem in Facebook’s system for reviewing ads as the image was of just a basketball hoop,” said Dempsey. He added that he has since been able to get an ad approved, but only after tweaking ad settings in regards to the target audience: “The only real difference was the ‘defined’ target audience. I believe the ‘interests’ filter used to target a market is a tool to flag content clearly aimed at reaching the queer community.”

“We have ad policies that help foster a positive, inclusive and safe environment for the community,” a Facebook spokesperson told MTV News when reached for comment. (Facebook has owned and operated Instagram since 2012, and both platforms share the same essential terms of service in regards to appropriate content.) The spokesperson said that many of the brands MTV News spoke to do run ads on Instagram — but added that some of those ads had been denied due to “policy violations” around profanity or nudity. It’s not clear what the threshold for either category is.

“We recognize that at times we make mistakes when reviewing ads but we are committed to making things right – it is never our intention to silence marginalized voices,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to investigate these cases to improve how we enforce our ad policies.”

When asked in a follow-up email whether Instagram and Facebook maintain a list of unacceptably profane terms, and whether words like “queer” or “orgasm” are among them, the company did not respond.

Trigger filters are one thing; other companies have been told they can’t run ads because the very product they’re marketing is altogether banned from advertising on the platform in a way they say is downright sexist. On March 8, the Los Angeles-based sexual health brand Voodoo tried to run Instagram and Facebook ads promoting a special International Women’s Day sale; the ads didn’t use images of any products, only an illustration of a women’s symbol with the phrase “we cherish you.” The company creates sex toys that are marketed especially to women and the LGBTQ+ community, and says its mission is to remove stigma and shame around sexual wellness. But it was told both platforms ban “ads that promote adult products or services such as sex toys, sexual enhancement products, or sexual videos and publications.”

Voodoo brand manager Sally Cotching finds that puzzling, given that the platforms do allow ads for erectile dysfunction medication, which would seemingly be a direct violation of the platforms’ ban on sexual enhancement products, as well as the advertisement of prescription drugs.

“It is frustrating for us when brands like Hims can promote sexual performance-enhancing products for men — we support this, by the way, they are a great brand — yet a female-focused brand designed for women to enjoy themselves and close the ‘pleasure gap’ cannot, when men report reaching climax during sex far more often than women,” Cotching told MTV News.

A Facebook spokesperson told MTV News that ads aren’t allowed to name specific prescription drugs, but companies can market to people based on certain conditions. So you can’t run an ad saying “buy Viagra here,” but you can run an ad that says “here’s a way to help erectile dysfunction.” This approach would not work for Voodoo’s products.

Cotching pointed out that many of Hims’s ads rely on phallic references, which served as the topic of much contention when sex toy company Dame sued the New York City MTA for denying its ads but allowing droopy cacti in Hims ads that clearly served as stand-ins for penises. “It’s a double standard we see repeatedly,” Cotching said. “Women taking ownership of their pleasure is still seen as taboo and makes people uncomfortable — yet men taking a pill solely for the purpose of enhancing his sexual performance is seen as standard.”

When Amy Nichol started her job as social media manager for the techie-friendly sex toy company Lovense, she tried to get creative by instead promoting the company’s blog posts, but says that even those were denied.

“After reading the terms of use on Facebook and Instagram, I decided that I could try to promote an article from our blog about pain during sex as I thought it would be classified as ‘educational’,” Nichol said. The promotion was blocked by both Facebook and Instagram, even though she points out that “none of the pictures or articles we tried to promote showed a sex toy or anything explicit.”

Moreover, Lovense’s entire Instagram account was recently disabled without explanation, which made Nichols nervous about trying to run ads again. While the company is committed to working within each platform’s terms of service, Nichols believes “it is time that a dialogue is opened about what makes sexual pleasure such a taboo subject and why huge platforms like Instagram and Facebook are so against it.”

And even if you are able to post your ads, there’s no promise they’ll stay up for the allotted amount of time. Body painter Ayja Lanay tried to promote photos of her work, she says the ads ran for a couple of days before being taken down for violating nudity rules. Lanay tried to run a second series of ads after blurring out the (painted) nipples in the torso photos, but was denied again. The artist tells MTV News that she paid for the ads but also hasn’t been able to get her money back.

“I’m not going to stop promoting my artwork. I will not stop posting my artwork,” said Lanay, who added that she felt “harassed” by Instagram and that the platform has threatened to delete her account. “It will only make me go harder as an artist because I’m not only doing this for myself, I’m doing it for so many women who message me and thank me for my bravery.”

Even illustrators who don’t post any photographs at all have felt the burn of what seems to be a generally anti-sex ethos targeting women in particular on the platforms. Exotic Cancer, a popular account that posts blithe cartoons about Tinder profiles and strip club customers in an unmistakable, candy-colored style, was deleted at over 300,000 followers. Readers of the comics came to the account’s aid, successfully demanding that Instagram reinstate it. But the illustrator behind Exotic Cancer has since said in interviews that her account has been “shadowbanned,” or subtly hidden from the feeds of its followers. And like many Instagram artists that find themselves subject to frequent takedowns, Exotic Cancer maintains a second backup account in case the main account gets deleted again.

Illustrator, comedian, and exotic dancer Jacq The Stripper has been featured in Forbes, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, and more — but she recently discovered, with the help of her 162,000 Instagram followers, that her profile no longer pops up when searched for (it’s true, we tried it). Around a month ago she tweeted that the “swipe up” she used to sell her popular clothing, art, and book products feature in Instagram stories had simply disappeared from her account.

According to Salty’s founder, this kind of censorship fueled by puritanism is not new. While certain heavy-handed policies have increased since FOSTA/SESTA — and extend far beyond impacting online sex workers — Fitzsimmons argues that there’s a flaw in the code itself.

“It would appear that algorithms are written with inbuilt bias that reflects the needs and desires of the creators of our digital world: primarily cis, straight, white men,” Fitzsimmons told MTV News on Friday. “This bias ensures that femme, trans, plus-sized, disabled, queer bodies (particularly queer people of color) are more highly regulated.”

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