#i also put my tweet of it in the source if anyone wants to use it as a fancam LOL

[heyftinally]

https://www.tumblr.com/heyftinally/748388217187958784/i-love-bitching-about-taylor-swift-and-im-glad?source=share

Hi I saw this on my dash and wanted to say I agree with your anon and your reply so much. The thing that annoys me the most isn't that she stays silent about x issues it's that she constantly claims to be a massive ally/activist for x groups/issues but when it's actually time to be an active ally she says NOTHING. It's clear in her doc she only said all that she did about being an ally and how actions speak louder than words to make herself look good bc people were calling her out, not bc she actually cared. What has she done since that doc was made in 2020? She hasn't done many actions and even with just words she's been mostly silent on things.

It's like her constantly claiming she is a massive feminist and cares about women's issues but when many women [along with trans men and NBs] had to deal with abortions being banded/illegal on a federal level in the USA she didn't say anything until after the decision was finalized why bc she's billionaire rich and worldwide famous so it wouldn't effect her. Her fans claim her speaking up before hand wouldn't have done anything and that is the dumbest shit I've heard given her fame and power status. She only cares about feminism or any women's issues when she gets to be at the center of it and she just uses it as a weapon so others can't hate on her.

Let's not even get started how she's the appitmy of "white feminism" [or how I see it caring about feminism only when it benefits herself] bc she screams feminism but I didn't see her saying anything when a poor innocent young woc was getting racist death threats from HER fanbase bc of a tweet SHE made. Wasn't the actresses fault that one line joke was made blame the writers of that netflix show! This situation alone tells me she hasn't "changed/learned" like she claimed in her doc.

She's the exact same as she was back in the day when she was silent on the fact white supremist groups idolized her and claimed her as "one of them". She was silent for years on the matter and only said something when she changed from typical southern country gal to liberal pop girlie and her older pop fanbase was like umm what is this? I honestly don't understand how ANYONE over looks the ws group situation. It's very alarming. She's not a kind of done some questionable things person it's VERY red flag things she has done or in this case not done.

When it comes to the music portion it's just like you said if she wasn't shoved down our throats 24/7 and treated like the greatest artist who ever lived we wouldn't care so much her music is average and her latest album was awful. All the lyrics I've seen on SM are so wtf? Who wrote this? THIS is the "greatest writer of our generation"? Outing her ex as someone with mental health issues and how you just wanted him to "easily get better" so you could love him? Outing yourself as awful [yet again] by saying the things your other ex did was just "bad jokes" and you thougut you could fix him bc racism, misogyny and SAing workers on stage at your concerts are just "bad jokes". Romanticizing 1800s America. Acting like you had a lower class upbringing with many bills to pay when really you had a rich upbringing and your daddy bought your way into the music industry.

Also her putting out 20+ versions of one damn album so she can make as much money as possible and have as many streams as possible is so 😵‍💫. It was such a cash grab when she had the backs of midnight vinyls be a puzzle picture that forced fans to buy 4 vinyl copies of 1 damn album or it just looked like an incomplete shelf piece for fans.

Lastly it's just like you said most of us who dislike her don't dislike her because she's a women it's bc she's an awful person who uses x issues and people to further her own agenda and only really cares about herself and will step on anyone just to make herself look better and more of a victim. The only victim thing she has actually dealt with was her music being bought from under her BUT now she owns her own music and found a way to make it a huge cash grab for herself so she could get that billionaire status. 🤩 She needs to stop using feminism as a means to try and stop people from calling her ass out for being problematic!!!

The post anon is referring to is here, for those wondering

Anon, you are so very, very right, and I personally want to give you a round of applause: 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

One thing I want to elaborate on (because I find it endlessly funny/ironic), is where you said "She was silent for years on the matter and only said something when she changed from typical southern country gal to liberal pop girlie..."

Taylor Swift was *never* a "southern country gal". She's from Pennsylvania. A big white McMansion with a swimming pool in Pennsylvania. All those old songs about summer nights in the country? The cowboy boots? Sweet Tea (referenced in an unreleased song)? Yeah, lies. She painted the image of a good ol' Tennessee princess pretty darn well, didn't she? I'll admit, she fooled me for a while on that, too. But no, she built her career on fraud from day one.

The rest of your ask I'm going to hit point by point, because it's beautiful and made my day and you deserve it.

Performative is her middle name. I about choked when she - a self proclaimed LGBTQ+ ally (side note: you don't get to just decide you're an ally, it's not that easy) - got up on stage in a known LGBTQ+ safe state to make a statement about queer rights, and somehow left queer people out of the statement. It was all "it's so hard for us as friends, family, and allies to see our loved ones face such hatred". As if being an ally is harder than being the queer person actively afraid of getting hate crimed???????? She somehow managed to center herself even when actively talking about an oppressed minority group she has nothing to do with unless she can profit off of us. And she can't even put us at the center of our own oppression. If I hadn't stripped her of her ally status before, that would have done it.

If Taylor Swift can make the impact that she does on economies, the environment, and social trends, she could absolutely speak up about human rights and make a positive change in the world. But she doesn't. Her feral mob loves to brag about how much power they have, but they/their hive mind leader never uses it for anything good. They're just her minions to go bully whoever she's decided deserves her high school mean girl nastiness next. So many artists with ⅛ the reach she does make positive change every day, and she can't be bothered to pay someone to tweet her fake support for oppressed minorities or to stand against a genocide. And it's because she cares about money above all else. Her fans accept the bare minimum of scraps, so she's able to play both sides - before it was the white supremacists and people who weren't raging bigot trash, and now it's homophobes/racists/genocide supporters and people who don't see those things as bad enough to stop supporting someone who happily aligns herself with bigots. It's pure self serving greed.

Is her music shit? Yes. Has it been shit for a while? Yes. But there's alose a lot of music I don't like, for one reason or another. I've never been a fan of "Hey There Delilah" even though it was a MAJORLY popular song. I'm not much of a fan of Maroon 5, or Post Malone, or Yungblood. But unlike those bands, if I turn on the radio at any point, I *will* hear a Taylor Swift song withing twenty minutes. And another one twenty minutes after that. Despite having her blocked/filtered on every social media possible, I see more about her than artists I actively follow the personal accounts of. That's a PROBLEM. Because it's not just that I think both she as a person and her music suck - I'd ignore her as much as I could if that were the case - it's that despite ACTIVELY trying to avoid her, I'm forcibly subjected to her shitty music and shitty actions daily. And her shitty actions aren't just annoying! As a queer person who has queer, black, and disabled friends, her bullshit actively impacts our lives. One of my disabled friends was totally blindsided by this recent "asylum" bullshit, and was so shocked and hurt because, in a different time, they would have been sent to an asylum. They're physically disabled with a degenerative condition. They would have been sent away, drugged up, and forcibly given electroshock and brain surgeries until they died/were murdered. And Taylor Swift is using that aesthetic - disabled people being exploited, abused, tortured, neglected, and murdered - to be "edgy". In turn, she's minimizing just HOW bad that abuse was. That waters down disabled history, and considering disabled people still have to fight SO hard just for basic respect, nevermind access rights and fair treatment, it's an overall thoughtless and disgusting thing for someone with so much money and access to feedback to do.

The multiple releases of albums is nothing short of a scam that her fans keep falling for. I've never in my life heard of an artist doing such a thing. Sometimes you'll get a platinum or deluxe edition if they hit a milestone with that album, which usually has 4-6 new songs and some new art/bonus pictures/a mini poster/etc inside. And that's it, that's the only "duplicate" album we got. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift will release the same album five times in one day, each with one different song and a different cover. She's actively preying on consumerism to line her already fat pockets. At least donate the money to charity! Pick an album = pick a charity? Nope, because she's incapable of not scamming her fans. Case in point: all the Eras merch that requires a masters in chemistry to wash without destroying you $60+ shirt.

She truly has such a huge victim complex that it might ACTUALLY be bigger than her ego. She's no feminist - she'll tear a woman to shreds as soon as it serves her purposes. Hell, she'll tear ANYONE apart just because she's bored. Whether it's siccing her fans on an actress for reading a script she didn't like or basic her ex (AGAIN) for the "crime" of having a mental illness, all she cares about is how other people effect her. She's incapable of compassion, yet weaponizes is and cries big white woman crocodile tears any time her conniving bullshit comes back to bite her in the ass. Then she begs for all the compassion she never shows anyone else. Hell, remember the fan that DIED at her Brazil show? Yeah, that poor girl's family had to CROWD FUND to afford to bring their daughter's *dead body* home for the funeral. Taylor Swift posted a half assed "thoughts and prayers" on her Instagram story - gone forever in 24hrs. But as soon as she gets called out for dating a known racist who gets off to abuse porn? She has every defense in the book as to why "poor little Taylor" doesn't deserve all that mean ol' accountability for her actions. And if she doesn't have the defense? Doesn't matter, her fans can - and have, and will - justify everything up to and including racist harassment, stalking, and death threats!

Genuinely, my dislike of Taylor Swift can be summed up in this: she's a shit person with shit music who uses her disgusting amount of power and money to do nothing but serve herself, regardless of who she hurts in the process. And the rest of us are forced to watch it happen because if you don't worship the chair she farted on people act like you're either stupid, a piece of shit, or both. And then those same people will go on tumblr and post "eat the rich" and "be trans, throw hands" memes as if they didn't just give $300 to a billionaire who couldn't give less of a fuck about any minority to ever exist.

Anyway, thank you again for this, anon. You cleared my skin, watered my crops, and gave me a small amount of faith in humanity back.

[ktempestbradford]

UPDATE: He's home and tweeting.

UPDATE: Ekpeki is on his way back to Nigeria.

This tweet says that he was denied entry to the US and was sent back yesterday. I don't think he's yet in Nigeria, which is why no one has heard from him so far.

Original Post

SFF Community, some of you may be aware of the situation regarding author and editor Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. If not, the short version is that he flew into LAX on Thursday to attend the NAACP Image Awards Friday and has not been heard from since landing.

Obviously, people are concerned about this. Ekpeki is Nigerian, here on a famously fraught to acquire visa, and US CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) doesn't have the best reputation for treating brown people like humans.

CPB took his phone and that's probably why no one has been able to communicate with him. And some friends of his claim they contacted CPB and got confirmation he was detained by them, but no updates since. I've seen lots of people calling for action and contacting US electeds.

I don't think that will work. Unlike when Ekpeki got the visa, putting pressure on Congressbeings isn't likely to have an affect here because it may be that he technically broke the rules or at least ended up on the wrong side of not very well spelled out rules.

The "best" scenario is that CPB sent him back to Nigeria, though why he's been out of communication so long is a mystery to me. (If anyone has insight, please share.) Here's what may have happened, pieced together with what I'm seeing on Twitter.

Ekpeki initially got his visa to attend WorldCon in September. The B1/B2 visa is for business purposes and tourism and is valid for 2 years(?) but it doesn't mean you can stay in the US for those whole two years. It means you can come in and out for that time.

When you enter, you get a stamp telling you the date you must leave by, though you can leave before then. And as this article explains, sometimes the entry stamper will default to 6 months, as that's the longest, or specify a shorter timeframe.

After WorldCon, Ekpeki wanted to stay in the US to attend World Fantasy a few months after. Not a problem. At the time he indicated that he planned to stay the full 6 months, go back to Nigeria, then come back for ICFA. The timing of all this likely changed when he got the Image Award nomination.

Regardless, he went back to Nigeria for a week, I believe (this is fuzzy and my sources aren't good, so I welcome corrections) before coming back to the US. And this is where I think he made a mistake. Again I point to the article I linked above.

Twitter user DuertoD pointed out something called Visa Carouseling, where a person leaves the US for a short time to then come back and get another 6 month stamp. It's apparently not really allowed to do that. (He goes into a bit more detail here.)

The thing I don't know is whether this is stated anywhere in the documentation. As in, do they say you have to be gone for a certain period before coming back explicitly? Or is it one of those fuzzy things that are up to whoever is working the desk you get to that day?

At any rate, DuertoD also pointed out that Ekpeki said publicly he intended to stay the whole 6 months and also that he had to buy a return ticket he "wouldn’t need", meaning that when he entered the US the first time the US thought he was leaving on a certain date, yet he didn't.

I do not know the details of when that return flight was supposed to have been. From what I gather talking to folks, open-ended stays on this visa are not to the US gov't's liking.

Complicating this whole thing is that a group of trolls have been stalking and harassing Ekpeki for a while now and I know they were aware of him going out then coming back into the country. It's entirely possible they maliciously reported him.

It's entirely possible that CBP wouldn't have noticed or cared on a normal day, but did once they'd been alerted. Also entirely possible they wouldn't have cared if they'd been alerted if Ekpeki wasn't Black, or Nigerian. There's a whole constellation of annoying possibilities.

The reason I said that I don't think getting Congressbeings involved will help is that, in the end, CBP may be entirely within the law to have detained him over concerns of Visa Carouseling. And his rights, such as they are, are very limited from what I understand.

I've heard that there are some efforts by a lawyer to help out, and that may be why Ekpeki isn't already tweeting that he's been sent back to Nigeria (which would be a "best" case at this point… cuz being in CBP custody as a Black person is cause for concern).

In this case, it may end up being a sad but not tragic outcome for Ekpeki. Others who've been flagged for this have been barred from the US for a time, and maybe that will be the case for him.

Thinking to the future, I'd like to see SFF community entities do some work around this whole US visa process and how we can help writers and editors from marginalized groups and countries navigate this better. For now, I hope we find out soon that Oghenechovwe is okay.

If I have any of the details or legal stuff wrong, please let me know! I want to spread good information and will update this post accordingly.

ALSO NOTE: The trolls I mentioned have been all up in the twitter replies and may come here as well. Do Not Engage With Them. They find harassing and provoking people fun and exciting. Block or ignore.

[blanketforcas]

A guide to real-person shipping and tinhatting

Most of this can be applied to general tinhatting but I will mainly be focusing on RPS and using examples from cockles fandom. This is based on my experience and what I’ve personally come across. Examples I use are merely illustrative and not meant as shade to anyone.

Let’s get some ethics of rps out of the way first

*disclaimer: this is what I would advise, I know opinions on this do vary

Try to keep it off main as much as possible (ie twitter, tiktok). You can’t always escape the algorithm, some stuff does get seen by the actors. Every actor’s comfort level with this is different, but as a general rule let's say tinhatting stays on tumblr or group chats

Try to avoid stating something as truth unless you’re quoting the actors

This goes without saying, but don’t ever mention the ship to the actors and if they bring it up themselves, don’t forget that’s not a free pass to just say whatever

Now, moving on to some pitfalls and tips

Do some basic research

Is this tweet/post reflecting the truth? Do multiple sources confirm this? Is there video? What was the context? What is happening right before and right after this particular moment? Does that change how you think about it?

When you see a picture you haven’t seen before, are you sure it’s not a manip? Use reverse image search and if nothing comes up, try to look up the event using key words to see if you can find the picture. If it’s hard to find and friends can’t help you either, it’s probably a manip. Obviously also look for signs within the picture itself (strange lines/different lighting on one person/missing limbs etc)

Are you projecting?

We all do it! It’s normal, just try to be aware when you’re doing it. Sometimes actors might indeed be similar to you when it comes to [whatever your theory is about], sometimes not at all. Fact remains you’re more likely to run with it when it’s something you do or feel yourself. Try to ask some friends what they would do/how they would react and maybe you’ll find out it’s less common or obvious than you think.

Confirmation bias is one hell of a drug

It’s surprising how easily a pattern can be found if you actively try to find one. Try to keep thinking critically: do I too quickly add something to the list of evidence because I really want my theory to be true? Does it really belong in that pile or could there be another reason why X happened the way it did?

The more effort it requires to make your theory sound plausible, the less likely it is to be true

Does it need a lot of explanation? Are you having to find a lot of excuses when an alternative explanation is presented? Are there inconsistencies in your theory that are difficult to explain away?

These are all red flags and should make you question the validity of your theory.

You as a fan are always going to be far more invested than any of these actors will ever be

Whether it’s about the show they are on or their social media behaviour, you will always care more and inevitably find details that weren’t put there intentionally.

No, the actors aren’t constantly leaving clues about the show you love (“you’re not crazy” tweets aside) in their everyday posts, they are just living their lives and sharing it.

And no, actors aren’t hiding secret and very obscure messages in their posts about how their relationship is real. They will simply quote Casablanca on the other person’s birthday and assume you get the memo

Remember they aren’t as obsessed with us as we are with them

This ties into the previous point about hiding secret messages. It’s a consequence of parasocialising which is something I talk about later in this guide.

Actors may or may not care a lot about us as people/as a fandom, and sometimes they do like to play with us in a general lowkey sense, but they aren’t looking for a “special” group of people who Get It. They aren’t putting in the time and effort to find a way to communicate with us on some secret code level. An example within cockles fandom I’ve seen is the stoplight system (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, this was an idea proposed by a fan via text messages that Misha could use red/yellow/green to communicate how loud we could be about cockles – the day after, the official Gish account’s activity was seen as possible confirmation Misha actually adopted the method).

Which leads me to my last point:

Watch out for conspiracy thinking

I know, I know. It’s kind of in the name. Tinhatting implies some sort of conspiracy, but this is a bit too simple when it comes to RPS and especially cockles – where you have two people who make a lot of references themselves and like to have fun with it. There’s different levels of tinhatting one can do, my goal is just to try to make you more aware of some of the red flags and pitfalls that I’ve mentioned throughout this post.

Okay maybe one final point about mental health

You’re more susceptible to falling for some of these things if you’re parasocialising hard. It’s something we are all familiar with because how else did we end up in this dumpster in the first place?

It doesn’t need to be problematic – it’s almost inevitable and comes with being a fan. With tinhatting It’s important to check in with yourself from time to time how much you care about a particular theory and why you find it so important.

More generally when you find yourself spending more and more time in these fandom spaces – ask yourself if there’s something else you’re avoiding or feelings you’re repressing that need to be dealt with. Reach out to friends (those can and do include the people you spend all that time discussing RPS with), try to distance yourself a bit etc. Take a step back if needed.

With all that being said, you can still do whatever you want and make your own judgement. I just hope this can help at least one person to be more cognizant of how they engage with RPS. I know I’ve personally fallen for some of the traps and I learned and still learn along the way.

Yes, this is a little bit silly, it’s a silly subject matter. The reason I care so much and wrote this guide anyway, is not just because I like tinhatting to be believable (cause I do, I can’t deny that) but also because a lot of these critical thinking skills are helpful in for example preventing people from falling for actually dangerous conspiracy theories, cults and cult-like group structures, and toxic relationships.

Now I feel like I ended on such a serious note but I want to emphasise of course the most important part of RPS is to have fun – and this is hopefully just a tiny toolbox for when you want to do more of a deep dive.

Happy rps'ing!

[yinwaryuri]

I've held off posting for a long time about the issue regarding Build and Poi.

A lot of things have rubbed me wrong about the way it went down, how the people involved handled it in the beginning, I am severely allergic to Twitter, and all in all, it's been so much to take in and digest over the past few weeks. I have no real understanding of law for any fucking country and I am not a source blog for news or updates or translations. Speaking in support of anyone, to me, seems perfectly inappropriate and useless. As much as I have my own personal thoughts and feelings, I'm aware of biases and that's no basis for an open conversation.

That, and well....I've been here before. I don't mean with the thing about the dug-up tweets that caused a riot a few months ago. I don't even mean controversial celebrity trials in general. I'm talking about people I personally knew very well being in a lawsuit where some hefty accusations were made and the community got split over their feelings about it. It's a fucking nightmare. I don't need to repeat those details because it was a different case and projecting any of those circumstances onto the one in question would be wrong.

So I'm only going to say this once.

Cut it out.

Stop being self-righteous. Stop taking extreme positions and cutting off friends whose thoughts and views vary. I don't care how convincing one side or the other is to you right now - we do not know the truth and there is a fairly long wait for us to have it laid out for us. If you look at those supporting the opposite side as you and don't think of yourself as also potentially supporting a guilty person, please take a moment to reflect. What is your goal by acting that way? To be right? To feel right? To "weed out the idiots"?

Curate your experience all you like, but cutting people off to such extremes is going to make for very small corners and very nasty echo chambers. This fandom looked itself in the mirror and got so ugly the mirror shattered and we're all just shards now. Little pods of pro-this, anti-that, unsure-something-or-other, etc. There's still so many unanswered questions, and evidence to be reviewed and cross-examined. Some of you will still choose to deny the outcome because it doesn't match the narrative in your head. But before you reach that level of desperation, I simply ask that you put your energy toward making and keeping this fandom a place where people can come for escape.

I won't judge you for being open about who you support here, if you have chosen a side. But attacking and othering people really doesn't make you the better person and you're not gonna get some kind of badge of honor for being woke. A lot of us are just people who come to fandom because it's what brings us joy in a world that is very fucked up, so coming into that space to start fires and burn bridges is really shitty. Making people feel uncomfortable to speak up because they might be attacked or cancelled for merely wanting a proper discussion is awful and I've seen enough.

For those of you who could really use a shoulder to lean on, my offer is here. I can't promise to be a perfect support, and if you're looking for some kind of mediator in an argument that won't be it. But I encourage anyone who needs to get their thoughts and feelings out to take that opportunity privately. Take a step back or a break if you feel like that's gonna help. If you're still unsure, do not hesitate to use any resource you can think of until something works. This has been hard on mental health for some people and it deserves to be acknowledged and given the attention necessary to help people recover.

I still love many people in the KinnPorsche fandom. I still love KinnPorsche. I would love things to heal, regardless of whatever comes out of this lawsuit. I would still love another season of the show if it were possible, for current and upcoming BOC projects to do well, and for the other actors and creators impacted to still enjoy happy lives and careers. I hope this post encourages thoughtfulness and honesty, and most of all, unity. If you've read this far, thanks for at least considering my input.

[tyrianluda]

(Context: This is part of the Narrator essay I'm writing but I think this section was broad to taken outside of the essay. Take this as a little PSA)

(A Short Word about Boundaries and Parasocial Relationships: This is a Serious Section; FINISHED)

(Also a quick note: If you see a post or person that does something similar to what I'm writing about, please do not harass them. Especially when it's people having parasocial relationships. They just need to be careful to not have a unhealthy attachment over people since it hurts them mentally in the long-term. I chose to not name anyone or use specific pronouns for the sake of anonymity; not for any malicious attempt.)

For people in the fandom who are wondering, I have unfortunately seen people border on the line of sexualizing the Narrator’s VA, Kevan Brighting. More specifically, disregards his boundaries for how he wants his voice to be used and not used; especially in context to…not safe for work uses of his voice. I want to say this now before this escalates into people genuinely crossing this line and I feel like it’s a good reminder. We should care about making Kevan Brighting as comfortable as possible when engaging in the fandom, as he now knows what we say about him. As funny as his “sexiest man in Britain” tweet was, he knows. We should care because he does connect himself quite often in fan-made and Stanley Parable-inspired projects. He has always absorbed himself in the fanbase when he didn’t absolutely need to since the original game came out, and it’s best to have him stay comfortable doing this. Since his level of involvement in the fandom is not very common, to begin with, it’s not wise to give him a reason to stop. Also, more generally because it’s not okay at all to disregard anyone’s expressed boundaries and it shouldn’t be a normal thing to do. Actually, in this case, it’s really creepy and disrespectful and did I mention creepy?

For context, a Tumblr user by the name of @/shinakazami1 contacted Brighting to ask for his thoughts on his voice being used for AI. This was his response;

“...Regarding AI - I hate everything about it. The idea that someone could use my voice for something I don’t agree with is abhorrent. A voice artist must have artistic control over the work he/she does…” - Excerpt of his response

Tumblr Post; for Context: https://www.tumblr.com/vega-482/711812424798535680/kevan-brightings-opinion-on-voice-ai?source=share

You must be wondering about the connection between AI and the sexualization of the voice actor. See, the reason the user contacted Brighting, to begin with, was because another person on a Stanley Parable Discord server posted an NSFW audio of the Narrator. Using the AI of Brighting’s voice to do so. Pain. Agony, if you will.

There are a lot of ethical issues behind this action. Aside from the reason Brighting stated directly, this could also affect him financially; as he is a voice actor and general voiceover artist. AI audios of his voice would certainly impede his career. As an artist, this is a genuine thing he would probably worry about; and rightfully so. In the case of NSFW audio, this may also overstep a potential boundary he may have. Especially when it is NSFW without his permission. Even if he had no issue over NSFW audios particularly, he would have an issue about being in audio where he didn’t even get the chance to accept/deny. Even if you’re embarrassed, just ask him about his boundaries. Like, he should at least have a choice to say ‘no, fuck off’ and take requests on his own terms. Hopefully for obvious reasons. …but people kinda suck.

Unfortunately, it’s not just that one Discord user. Bro, I’m at my limit. I’m gonna have to talk about TikTok. God damnit. I said TikTok was its own beast about the Narrator for a reason. TikTok as well as Instagram, are mostly known in fandom spaces for containing edits of whatever character in whatever media. There’s a lot of work and effort that is put into making edits, and many are rewarded by people barking in the comment sections. As someone who has seen edits from different fandoms for about three to four years, I respect many editors and I understand why some would edit certain characters. Of course there are going to be edits of the Narrator; especially if you include Sad-ist’s Clock 0ut animations that are inspired by the Stanley Parable. It’s a hot old guy with a hot voice; I’m not exactly shocked by that in itself. By extension, of course some of those edits are suggestive or lean into NSFW territory. It’s understandable and it can be fine to make those edits if it doesn’t impede on real people’s boundaries or if the involved people openly say ‘It’s good, bro’. Now here’s where the problems start. 

At least a few TikTok edits have used AI of Brighting’s voice for parts that have NSFW. Whether it’s having the AI say NSFW things, having it be implied or even having it whimper, the main gist is that his voice is used for NSFW; despite the voice actor not directly consenting to a part of it. I’m so done with you people. Many potential problems would occur because of the decision of doing such. I already brought up how Brighting’s career of voicework could be affected financially by the use of AI but there’s another potential issue. It could probably also affect him socially and his involvement in future projects. The fact that these edits featuring AI don’t get that popular, is kind of a miracle. If those edits ever went outside of the fandom and into a more professional setting, it would be unnecessarily difficult for him to explain that he wasn’t even a part of those edits. I say ‘unnecessarily’ because you don’t even need AI to hear him in that context. 

You could’ve used a scene from one of his audiobooks. They work for their intended purpose and you don’t even have to buy the books. I understand not doing some things because of money problems but… NSFW audios aren’t a necessity and the audiobooks are free! If it’s because of convenience, then how is AI any more convenient? It’s not hard to find the audiobooks at all! Some of the audio files are on Tumblr for fuck’s sake. There’s no logical sense of why the decision of using AI is okay because it’s not okay. It is very disrespectful to disregard his boundaries and if I really wanted to go there, this borders on harassment. It’s not difficult to respect open boundaries that are openly stated with absolutely no ambiguity. Look, at least for the audiobooks, Brighting did them willingly. You did not need AI; you really didn’t. 

Some people even go as far as to say his tweet about him being the sexiest man in Britain was indicative that he’s fine with the sexualization of the Narrator and by extension, NSFW edits featuring AI. Well, that’s a fucking reach if I ever saw one. Even though the sexualization of the Narrator wasn’t even the issue stated, Brighting responded in an email stating how much he hated AI. The AI is the issue; not the Narrator simping. Kevan Brighting can think the sexualization of the Narrator is funny because the Narrator isn’t real. But Brighting is real. He’s a living, breathing, voice-acting guy with boundaries. You couldn’t be bothered to have the NSFW audios be from the audiobooks he agreed to be a part of and consented to do? If you could put enough effort into making a TikTok edit, you could put enough effort into not being a smooth brain. You don’t need a fictional character’s consent, but you do need consent from real-life people who are affected if you don’t respect their consent. If you can’t understand the difference between a fictional character and a real person to where it affects real people in reality, you shouldn’t be trusted to post anything of that nature.

It’s one thing to not know and later to apologize for your mistake. But, it’s another thing to hear his response that he doesn’t like AI of his voice period…like at all and it’s just…one ear and out the other. The people who make these edits with AI did not understand why he said this and should have apologized or deleted them after being disclosed of his boundaries. It won’t kill you to have basic courtesy. I assume most people don’t know of his thoughts on AI before making the edits because if they knew already, it would make the situation so much worse. Still, it’s worth an apology. (See Also: Hanlon's razor)

(Parasocial Relationship Part)

AI is not the only issue since TikTok also blurs the line when talking about the Narrator and Kevan Brighting in some unrelated cases. Some people forget that Brighting is a real guy and they think of him as like a fictional character.  

I saw a TikTok post that wondered why Brighting was wearing women’s frames for his glasses in one image and half the comments were like ‘bully him’. First of all, I don’t care about what kind of glasses he’s wearing so the post already feels a bit weird to me but outside of that. If these are jokes and I hope these are jokes, they are jokes that you would make for a fictional character. Similar to “I wanna stick this fictional character in a blender”; but that’s obviously a joke because the character can’t actually get hurt. There’s no tangible effect if you shoved a fictional character in a blender. Except these are jokes about a real person; not a fictional character. There would be a tangible effect if someone were to actually bully Brighting for wearing women’s frames. Which is also stupid because even if he did wear mainly women’s frames, why does it matter? Is that really something that would make you feel less about a person? Hopefully not, because it really doesn't matter and I can't think of a way where it would. Also men can wear women’s frames as long as the frame size is right for his proportions, and most frames are labeled as ‘unisex’ so it matters even less. Imagining genuinely having the want to bully an older guy because he doesn't present himself in a completely masculine way, despite him wearing different frames in every other photo and not even wearing glasses in some. This is why I’m dead set on these being jokes because if they aren’t, as a gender-non-conforming person, I would be so mad. This is a weird thing to fixate on because glasses frames are unisex; so not even people who are weird about gender roles give a shit. Even my 70+ year old grandpa didn’t care when I was trying out new glasses. It really doesn’t fucking matter. Though on the plus side, the other half of the comments were like ‘Leave him alone. He just wants to and he can do what he wants”. Though there were a few people that called him ‘girly pop’ in Brighting’s defense, I'll get to that. It does show how easy it is for people on TikTok to think of reality similar to fiction; which makes some users say stupid shit about the real person. 

Some people are also way too comfortable when talking about Brighting, thinking of him as a best friend or an ‘icon’. That one person who called Brighting “girly pop” is a good example of how comfortable people can get when talking about him, despite not even sharing the same air as him. Like I see people respond to his tweets with “bestie” and “I love you”. It could be just me but it takes years for me to be best friends with someone and to tell them “I love you” is even longer. So the words and phrases I associate with long-lasting friendships are being used for someone who hasn’t even talked to you. If that isn’t parasocial, I don’t know what is. In one case I particularly remember, I saw a TikTok of someone thinking about Brighting as like an adoptive father figure. Basically wanting Brighting to adopt them. Which…I'm not gonna completely disregard the entire idea. I understand the want for a respectable father figure in your life; hell, the relationship with my dad is nonexistent. I can see how people think of him in a parental way and in most other positive ways. However, I worry for the people who attach themselves to Brighting in this one-sided way if they aren't careful. Especially if they perceive him as such a personal figure, like a best friend or family member. Because when you perceive someone in this regard, you're going to feel the same emotions that you would with actual friends or family members. This goes for positive  emotions, and unfortunately, this also goes for negative emotions. And don’t even get me started on perceiving him romantically or… suggestively because those emotions are even stronger. I’ve even seen people on TikTok openly say they’re “simps” for Kevan Brighting; the real guy that can easily see your comment and understand what you’re talking about by looking it up. 

The emotions towards the person are increased to such a strong and personal level, simply put. So when he disappoints you or does what you perceive as disappointing, it’s going to be more difficult to brush it off than if you thought of him as just a guy. As someone who had parasocial relationships like that at a young age, it’s very difficult to get over it and it’s even more difficult to recognize that you’re doing it. So the one thing I just need to say that you have to know is the famous person of your attachment  doesn't know you exist. Kevan Brighting is not your friend. That’s not his fault and that’s not your fault. He’s just not reasonably going to know every person that knows him, and he’s probably not gonna be on-board with every person’s perception of him. If I was in his position, I would not feel comfortable being regarded as a parental figure or a best friend by people that I don’t even know. But I’m saying this to myself as much as I’m saying this to other people because I make this mistake as well. I get too comfortable talking about people I know nothing about. I’m not innocent in this regard. I get too fixated over real life people sometimes. Despite me knowing about Brighting’s career in voicework and broadcasting, I really don’t know him personally. I don’t know his age, his height, his favorite fucking color and I certainly don’t know how he is as a person. I can make guesses but they are just guesses. Just because I have the opportunity to acknowledge him doesn’t mean he has the opportunity to acknowledge me, and that’s fine.

It’s fine to talk about how talented his voice acting is, or even how attractive/hot his voice is. Because he’s indeed talented and his voice does sound very attractive. But there’s gotta be a limit. I also understand thinking positively about him because he seems like a genuinely friendly and down-to-earth person. But notice how I said ‘seem’? That’s because, to reiterate, I don’t know him personally. He could be eating souls and I would be none the wiser (THAT IS A JOKE). Kevan Brighting is a real-life person with thoughts and feelings and his bounds should be respected. Don’t be like the people I just talked about. He’s talented as hell in voice acting, and that is enough for the community to talk about. It definitely was for me; like look at my “Narrator’s Voice” section again. Straight up 10 pages. Hell, I’m planning on writing something else about his other performances because his voice is just…too good. Yeah, that’s right! I’M NOT DONE!

(We Are Experiencing Some Technical Difficulties)

TL;DR: Don't be weird over real people

[agardenofbasil]

before the injury against athletic, pedri received a knock in training just before christmas and was subsequently out for like two games (which is nothing basically and can totally happen), but because he had already been injured from sep-nov 2023, he got a ton of hate and criticism from the media, including people making up stories about him, so he felt the need to go on live stream of a spanish stream to clear things up and tell his side of the story. anyways what i was trying to get at was, that during that livestream he said that when you get injured you go from being around the team all the time to being on your own and that you start to feel forgotten. and that on top of that you have to deal with everyone writing things about you, that they have no clue about. and that it’s tough to mentally bear that at times.

(https://www.tumblr.com/pedripics/738427331694215168/pedri-im-fine-but-not-at-my-best-it-wasnt-the?source=share)

i think this stuck with me for several reasons, first of all because i think it’s incredibly strong to open up about all of that at such a young age but also because it’s an aspect that rarely gets spoken about in the context of injuries. both the injury against athletic and the injury at the euros weren’t that bad from a physical point of view. but i personally think the players reactions towards pedri and their immense support both times show that there’s a lot more to it than just the physical side. and i was honestly quite happy that pedri got to stay with the team at the euros, that they included him in pretty much everything and made sure to remind everyone that it’s his win as much as theirs. like when unai said that pedri is in good spirits and that it speaks volumes about the kind of person he is and that they want to give some of that joy that he always brings them back to him by winning ❤️

(https://www.tumblr.com/pedripics/755457925906153472/how-has-the-family-national-team-taken-pedris?source=share)

Anon friend, you have me busting out the google doc to answer you.

I did read a bit about Pedri’s injury history while I started writing Longing for the Shore because I listened to a reel that was quite critical of Pedri’s absences. It was some guy with a microphone, so I didn’t give his opinion any weight. But I made the mistake of reading the comments and Tweets and, simply put, people are absolutely fucked. There was so much hate for someone who wants to fucking play football. And that was baffling for me. (Mind you, I used to watch casually, for years. I am only watching more seriously now.) But this mentality around injury has existed for years and years, especially when it comes to men and contact sports. 

So when you think about someone, in pain (in whatever definition of pain anyone wants to use), because of an injury. Now think about that someone who plays such a rigorous sport like football. Think of them being young: 20. Think of the mental pressure on them, not just from themselves and their expectations of themselves, but the expectations from the club, media, fans, and teammates. And now that someone is having to go out there publicly and address the vitriol and media… that’s intense. That’s not something that anyone who’s injured should have to do. 

Basically, I am glad Pedri made that comment and did that livestream because you’re right; he’s spotlighting a problem that contact sports has long dealt with: pretending that these are superhuman athletes who are void of any emotional depth. He was brave for doing this, and he was so mature. But he shouldn’t have had to do that, in my opinion. 

I know I am going off the rails here, but to me, a lot of this is tied back to economics and the body. Because people really do believe that if someone is being paid millions of euros to kick a ball around, then they should move past injuries easily. They should play despite injuries. But… If anyone is looking at Pedri, or any player, and thinking, “Man, he’s just making a big deal out of nothing,” I beg you to think of your own body. Would you put your body through all of that for a certain amount of money? How much is your body worth? Just to give perspective, let’s look at Robin Le Normand from Atletico Madrid. After the match with Real Madrid, he got diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (subdural haematoma). Is 30 million euro a good enough price to permanently affect your body, at the age of 27? When you have at least 40 more years left with your body? Of course, people work very dangerous jobs all over the world for much less money, but very rarely do those people have strangers on the internet or media sending them hate, death threats, etc. (And even on the other end of the spectrum: let’s look at my Basque giant. Unai Simon played the Euros with a broken wrist. Now he’s out until January, and while Athletic has great second and third keepers, you can’t have both. You can’t ask for injured players to push through and then be surprised/upset when they’re out for a long time afterwards. And this was Unai’s choice to play with the injury!)

Pedri’s comments here stick with me too. He’s incredibly strong for taking a stand and speaking about his injury. Because let’s face it… as talented as athletes are, it’s much better to talk about your body in the context of victories and matches rather than talking about your body in the context of injury and recovery. So to be that honest and open is admirable, and like I mentioned before, I can see why Barca added him to the captaincy. And I wholeheartedly agree; Pedri’s teammates know Pedri will come back, inevitably. Because physically, Pedri will be fine (which he is!). It’s the mental anguish. It’s seeing Pedri being distraught on the bench. This is a player who is very aware of himself and has very high expectations. Daresay, Pedri seems like a bit of a perfectionist. And when you have that mentality, dealing with loss or injury is so hard because one becomes susceptible to blaming themselves. 

My favorite moments from the Euros celebrations are when they’re all rallying around Pedri. When they’re taking the photos, and they literally carry Pedri into the photo because you just know Pedri was trying to step away. [x] Or Morata carrying Pedri as he sings. [x] Or Lamine and Nico supporting Pedri as he dances. [x] Because all of them know how much this affected Pedri and they still want to include him and celebrate him because he played a huge role in getting them to the final. And it’s easy to forget that when you’re alone, in your house, with limited mobility, reading all the trash the media throws at you day after day. Healing isn’t just physical, it is so mental for someone like Pedri.

And I guess I’ll round this out with 100% agreeing with Unai Simon. When you recognize someone who is a literal beam of sunshine, you begin to rely on them to give you that joy. And Unai would know, considering the own goal fiasco and how it impacted them both. And when that person that brings you so much joy is in a bad place, you’ll do anything to help them back on their feet. And I think the Spain NT and Barca do that for Pedri, as Pedri does for them.

[wyrvel]

how do you analyze characters yourself and/or what resources (wikis or other stuff(?)) do u use to like,, figure out their inner workings and nail them down as like. this is this character in [canon universe], this is how they act, so then for you can go, okay. if they were in [au scenario] they would act like this.

also what guidelines do u set for yourself to keep the silly guys in character when ur writing them ,

u seem very knowledgeable about these things so i had to ask

I reread the source material, mainly, wikis tend to skim some details. I tend to treat characterization in a very ADHD conspiracy theorist way where I extrapolate and try to find links between small moments. WIkis are useful for gathering small moments I might have forgotten, which I need to do because ADHD conspiracy theories get out of hand VERY quickly and I need to control that impulse.

I've accidentally made the same tweet about it more than once so Minegishi & Shimazaki are probably good examples. A lot of people default to Shimazaki being a soulless child-beating asshole, but all of the people in Claw do that. What I find relevant:

He does this for fun, and hasn't really come across anyone who can stop him, making him complacent in how much powers are worth

He focuses very hard on Teru, the only psychic strong enough to fight him

He is the one who instigated Serizawa's hazing in the omake

He asks Minegishi to stop being mean to Serizawa when he commits to the bit too hard, it made him uncomfortable

When he sees Serizawa talk to Touchirou like he's the boss of a company, he's uncomfortable and weirded out

So what I get from this is that he has an inflated perspective of his status in the world due to his psychic powers, and enjoys flaunting that, but in social situations he's pretty mild and doesn't enjoy antagonism or misleading others.

AKA he probably would not beat the ass of a regular middle-schooler and maybe not even a psychic middle-schooler but if the middle-schooler has psychic powers AND wants to stop him he'd LOVE to beat their ass because it means winning in a duel using what he thinks makes him special, reinforcing his status, which ties in with the general theme of Claw. Somewhat of a foil to Teru and a reinforcement of Touchirou's perspective here.

When writing fics, my first instinct is to keep this web of factoids in mind and see if there's any other details that can slot in. For example, what if Shimazaki is uncomfortable with actively misleading others because he's blind and he's often had that done to him? Not like he has any trauma about it or anything, it just puts him off a little.

Blindness is a REALLY juicy factor to extrapolate from though. Like did he have the resources available for his disability? How much has he depended on his powers? He definitely seems like the kind of dude who gave up on schoolwork. I mean, why worry about work? Why worry about accommodations? He's hot and can fucking teleport. Stuff like that.

Meanwhile Minegishi

Has killed people. Has the only canon kill count in claw arc

is used as an example of a "bad person" for Mogami

Incredibly serious and grim among the group but joined in on Shimazaki hazing Serizawa and doubled down immediately

Minegishi turned over a new leaf just from being vouched for

Minegishi was angry with Touchirou for discarding Serizawa even though they knew Touchirou was ruthless

Afterward, they changed their mind about using plants as tools

According to the databook, Minegishi 19, so if they were in Claw when Serizawa joined they joined at 16

After re-integrating with normal life they express gratitude

The vibes I get from these details is that Minegishi is antisocial but likes feeling included, and Touchirou recruited them when they were very vulnerable. They could have benefited from a workplace with friendly coworkers but Suzuki wanted them to Kill. (Another strong reason for Mogami to single them out. See something you don't like king? 💔) And also Minegishi has Super Autism.

I like the idea of Minegishi and Shimazaki hanging out because the traits "extremely aggressive and cruel with his strengths but socially a normie who tries not to push it, made it deep into adulthood this way" and "cold and utilitarian with their strengths but socially straightforward with a sahara-dry sense of humour, is young enough to not be sure of their sense of self" is an incredibly disjointed combo. I need them to be best friends. I think Shimazaki doesn't really care if people hate him and is blind so he's immune to Minegishi's attitude and Autism Death Glare its perfect

Sorry, lost track. Anyway just collect small facts about the character and do your best to connect them into their greater characterization. Don't be afraid to put your thumb on the scale for the importance of certain traits, every author does it

[talenlee]

A Year of Blahaj

You know I feel like I don’t talk about my work enough. Or rather that now as part of a sprawling internet presence that covers a bunch of different platforms and front ends, I don’t feel like I talk that much about the individual components of that very often. I rarely reflect on what I’ve done and how good a job I did doing it, whatever it was. Which is funny because when I’m looking for stuff to write about, it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, because I’m one of the topics I have complete control over and can’t get copyright struck over. After all, things I create, myself, are entirely and surely under my control and I don’t have to worry about things like copyright law for my own work, right?

Right?

Let’s talk about this blahaj sticker I drew.

This sticker, which you can buy at Redbubble, if you want, and if you see me at a convention you probably can buy one off me for a dollar, too. It’s a fun little sticker!

The original genesis for the Blahaj sticker was a joke I remembered making on twitter. I’m not linking the source material any more, but it was a joke I made, off-handedly, as with many one-off jokes I made on the regular. It was like many such jokes on twitter, where it was both made into an open space where anyone could see it, and also, made without much forethought. I threw it out there and off it went, and a thousand retweets and six thousands like later, I thought that it was a funny idea, and I should do something with it.

I doodled it in my notebook, then took a photo of that doodle. I sent the photo to my copy of GIMP, then used the vector pen tool to simplify the design, which is how I make most of my ‘drawing’ designs. When the drawing was done, I coloured a few versions and put it up on Redbubble for people to buy, imagining that it would be, like many of my other designs, something someone would say ‘oh I want that on a shirt’ and then never bought the shirt.

How’d that work out?

Well, one year later, here’s how it looks:

I sold 278 designs across the year. Of those, 199 of the designs sold are of Blahaj, and of those, 189 of the designs are the trans flag design of Blahaj. It’s not quite ⅔ of my sales, but pretty close. It would not be inappropriate to say that my Redbubble store sells Blahaj stickers. For perspective my next most popular designs are Cassowary and my Demon Core design, which each sold five products in a year.

This is pretty cool, I made a joke, people liked it, I drew a thing based on that joke, and people liked it, and people bought it.

Cool!

Right?

Right?

That’s it, right?

Well, no of course it’s not it, because my joke, made in a vacuum, was not made in a vacuum. Just in the same way that several hundred thousand people all made the joke ‘But Doctor, I am Dril,’ because we all love a good Pagliacci joke, I was not the first person to make a ‘friend of blahaj’ joke. Turns out somone else had, too, and that person was a trans woman with a much smaller following.

And it didn’t go viral when she did it.

I hadn’t seen it, I didn’t know about it, but the thing is, people she knew did see my tweet, and shared them and that result was getting to see, months later, some stranger – a boy, no less – being retweeted making the joke she did. She was, naturally, upset by this, and pretty reasonably, at first, thought that I had copied her.

There’s a science to how tweet virality works. Or rather, there’s a science to how tweet virality couldn’t work. If you have zero followers, your tweets won’t go viral, because the network of people around you are limited. This is a thing my classmates learned the awkward way. Back in the class, we were trying to make something digital as a product, like a podcast or a web gallery or something like that. What one group wanted to make was, as part of their marketing degree, a ‘viral tweet.’ They took a picture of one of our professors and shared it to their twitter account and then instructed the rest of the class to retweet it.

Now, this didn’t mean anything. This didn’t go anywhere, because that classroom was full of students who had exactly as many followers on twitter as were contained in that studio, minus the ones they thought were icky. This was not connecting to anyone or anything with a broad following, no way to escape the environment of the small community they had. I know that when I was sharing tweets, if I didn’t have a ‘big’ follower near me, or a chain of follows to a big follower, I wasn’t ever going to get my stuff in front of a large enough number of people.

Anyway, it’s just one of those things that twitter promises, numbers and values and the way our brains respond to them. Either way, it meant my goofy tweet, and the image associated with it, made someone feel shitty. And even if it wasn’t what actually happened, it’s still a pattern that so often happens: Someone monetising the work of trans people.

I wound up talking to her and buying her a pizza. Since falling off twitter, I don’t know what’s going on with her. I hope she’s doing okay.

But!

It did make me mindful that sure, while this is a joke I made and art I made and then art I converted into a saleable form, this is still a product that is ultimately about and for the trans community. And sometimes, the money it’s made has been useful for paying for things like food and rent, and that’s not a small matter, but sometimes it’s sold really well and I’ve had, functionally, just… well, money that I would normally spend on something like a board game or whatever.

In deference to the community that’s responsible for the joke, and that inspired the art, I gave a chunk of the Blahaj money to a queer-as-in-not-made-up-of-cis-gay-men anarchist co-op I trust. I didn’t give it to a charity with a big name, because I know those are often fraught with bad experiences for people and I didn’t want to give it to just some random ‘queer’ project because those so often are thoughtless outputs for people who can raise money. I wasn’t giving a lot so I wanted to maximise it.

Make no mistake, by the way: I was trying to buy away guilt that didn’t make sense. I know I haven’t done anything wrong, and I also think that artists getting paid for their art is good. It’s not even non-queer creators monetising queer work, because I’m a queer artist. There are a lot of justifications I could give for how I shouldn’t feel guilty.

But I do.

So, sometimes I spend this money on other people who I know have it harder than I do because of their access to things based on how their gender is valued in our society. I can’t say it’s an incredibly well reasoned moral framework and I don’t even know if it makes me feel better but I think it’s part of the story of this sticker I drew. How apparently, the ‘support’ this sticker offers, the art made for people who wanted it, is in my mind, is Just More Cis Bullshit.

Thanks for buying my sticker if you liked it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[drawnaghht]

tag guide anyone? + differentiating between usagis (thinkpiece)

I'm really just curious now if something like a "tagging guide" would help? If you would like this, or know if anyone else has posted something like this, sound off in the comments or like/reblog to agree ^^ 

I posted a poll about this on twt and it looks like 13 so far really want one, so I’m putting a lil test post around here too. I also found while researching for this post that apparently on tumblr, the first 20 tags show up in search! so I guess they changed that from 5 to 20 at some point. huh. that’s a bit more helpful than just 5 tags!

I’ve noticed sometimes people have no idea what to tag with a show like Usagi Chronicles that is less than 2 years old and is based on existing IP, but also that ppl use a lot of tags in general, perhaps confused about what is the “main tag” or most used tag for a character in rottmnt for example. So I started writing a little tag guide, which I’ll post the draft of at the bottom this thinkpiece. The main issue around tumblr seems to be excessive mis-tagging or multi-tagging i.e when a character isn’t there. I think I’ve seen this in some other fandoms too (primarily bigger fandmos), but I’m not gonna get too deep into it. You can skip to “tagging guide” via CTRL+F to search it on the page. I’ve also included a little character “separator” part with graphics, cuz it seems some are having trouble seeing the characters differently from fanart alone. I thought it would help to post more of the “source” materials ^^

Also if you have problems differentiating between the two in general…aside from both being white long-eared rabbits they are almost as different as night and day, at least on the surface ^^;; Here is a helpful post by Freakova, about how to tell the difference between Miyamoto Usagi and Yuichi Usagi, ancestor and descendant respectively: 

https://freakova.tumblr.com/post/707461151549702144/i-made-this-for-my-besties-to-help-explain-the

But I kinda get it! Especially if characters are intentionally obfuscated a bit (e.g. there are characters in the show who can’t tell between Miyamoto and Yuichi Usagi, but it is mostly used as plot hook/humor). But they have different names and characteristics and slightly differing fanbases on a site like tumblr, so separating them in tags is helpful. I think part of it also comes from the name confusion, but I already wrote a post about that. Imo, if you have your own design already and it looks like neither of the two characters, you can just use “Rise Usagi” or “rottmnt Usagi” or other variations as tags, those are popular and used enough already that you don’t need to use the main character tags ^^

Personally, I would only like to see Yuichi Usagi in his own tags when it applies (he’s in the pic/fic), but if he’s not, well, what are you doing tagging him there?

I also get that some newer/younger TMNT fans apparently didn’t know the Usagi characters are from their own franchise for a short while last year (but ppl probably learned, right? I’ve literally only seen posts/tweets asking what the series is abt and unrelated posts exasperated that ppl don’t know) but visually they’re quite distinct, even if they are all white rabbits. I’ll post these comparisons just so I can use the tags properly and not piss off anyone else.

We have the original Usagi and his 1000-years later descendant.

Stan Sakai based Miyamoto Usagi largely on his childhood inspiration of samurai films, mainly “Samurai Trilogy” starring Mifune Toshiro playing Miyamoto Musashi, a real-life samurai who inspired many other films and adaptations. You can hear more about how Stan created Usagi here in this Portland Art Museum video where he explains and draws his Usagi. The story usually goes that he drew a rabbit with a chonmage (the edo-period top-knot) and suddenly, Usagi was born.

In the show he has a slightly older-looking design? but in the comics his look varies slightly because the series has been going for 40 years and the character has developed over the pages. so he can look slightly different cover to cover, page to page, but mostly it’s all him, the same character, just different situations, life periods and emotions. So he can look different in official material depending which publication period you start reading from, but mostly the same. 

Then we have both the Miyamoto Usagi’s in different animated mediums,

And Yuichi in different media (show itself in 3D and 2D and merch by Stan)

And then there’s also Jotaro (very important Usagi Yojimbo character introduced early on/vol 1) and Yamamoto Yukichi(introduced in later stories/vol 4), who I think people aren’t mixing up with any of the previous rabbits yet, but who knows, i don’t look through absolutely all the tags myself after all and tumblr seems to have a problem of not showing much older posts in the public tag search anymore, so I can’t find older posts I used to see anymore ^^;

More thoughts on tagging + being a fan under cut. 

This … is not really a vent or analysis post, I can't get that upset about it myself. with real life worries etc - fandom is supposed to be a fun outlet for creativity, at least for me. So I try not to feel anything about it. But tagging has always seemed fairly straight-forward to me and it’s mostly to organize a blog/find other people with similar interests. Writing non-structured non-essays is basically how I interact with a piece of media when I feel like fanart is not enough. And because tumblr posts now apparently Do Not HAve Limits, this is a better alternative to tag rambles.

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So when I saw the post about the Miyamoto Usagi tag I remembered that this was why I didn’t use the “follow tag” feature + the “your tags” tab as much myself (aside from not having it before and not being used to it on tumblr). Because usually with bigger fandoms, people do mis-tag or tag their other shows/fandoms into it without including the main character, this happens on occasion because there are a lot of people using the tag. I also don’t follow the Leosagi tag anymore for the same reason, that people can’t seem to differentiate between the characters and it becomes hard to tell what they want to post or which character they are talking about/drawing ^^;

As pointed out by Tamalinvonpineapple's post about it, people mis-tag Yuichi Usagi and Miyamoto Usagi and that’s a problem for people who would like to see just one of those characters but not mis-tagged as the other. I’m not gonna assume these are made in bad faith e.g. intentionally to piss off other fans, cuz there can be so many different reasons for people doing this. This post is also not gonna get into ship tags much because that is a contentious topic and tbh, left for a separate thinkpiece (I also already wrote smth abt tags for myself).

I tried to find out more possible reasons for mistagging in general or what the general consensus on tumblr is about tagging but it seems (or we can assume) it is a “bad practice” from how social media sites have given a slightly different use for tags tiktok/instagram/twitter - “tag for reach” - so like those social media accounts for companies that spam other tags. I do see this in anime/manga fandoms occasionally. Not just for the different spellings of characters (e.g, when a dub would give the character a new name; japanese vs western way of writing names) but specifically when 1 character is the only one there and the tags then have 30 other characters listed as well so the post/media would show up in search. But I wonder where this habit is from? Aren’t people curious to see what other tags their character/show have? I remember that on sites like blogger, we only tagged so that we could find things later, so people often made their own custom tags, i.e. "my work on the show" or "midnight doodlies". if a show got tagged, for example TMNT or Usagi, it would probably get 1-word/1-phrase tag (i.e. “turtles” “turtlies” “mutant turtles”) or just the series title tag - either the abbreviation or full name of a series/comic/cartoon depending on content. When it comes to tumblr tags, I remember getting annoyed at NOTPs permeating the tags as well. Or just posts about other seriesM multi-crossovers where your blorbo is only there to die, but then is still tagged after that; edits that have no relation to the character but they share a name or tag for whatever reason and you keep seeing these unrelated posts in the tags. I’ve seen more than enough from almost any of the fandom tags I’ve visited on tumblr. So I get how annoying mistagging itself can be.

But basically in regards to tags on tumblr itself, it seems people misuse them mainly because they don't know or don't like the tags for the other shows. Folks also like to see their posts get to as many people as possible, which I understand, I do the same on instagram, cuz that’s what I’ve learned by other artists example. Seems to make sense that more tags = more views. On tumblr, this sort of doesn’t always work this way. I could post a drawing from a popular cartoon and get maybe 5 notes total in 12 years, while a scribble I deemed too ugly to tag properly might get 54 notes on it’s first day. It’s almost like a Murphy’s Law of Tumblr that what you expect to do well, doesn’t. It’s just how it is here and I’m so used to it, it feels weird to complain about it, even on other sites with actual algorhitms and working apps etc.

Well, as a fan of the Usagi Chronicles show, perhaps what makes me more sad is that this has had the adverse effect of older TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo fans being so angry that they can’t stand the show/character itself now, even if they already disliked it before seeing other fans post about it. Which is just plain sad because some people even make up stuff about it just to discredit it as a show that Stan Sakai worked on. I understand that people have different reasons to dislike the show, most probably valid, but they also assume many things about it, to the point of stating them as fact when the opposite is true. I have… a different post about it. In general, we can say that being online seems to be the common thread between fans annoyed at fans.

In some ways, what’s even sadder however is an empty or unactive tag. Imagine that the last post you saw in that tag is still the one from 2013 you made yourself. It’s a bit annoying seeing people mistag or post unrelated fanart in it but hey, maybe this means they also read the tag? A chance to educate or get more views on your own fandom? Just a chance for communication? I know that doesn’t seem very appealing when those same fans are the ones mis-using the tag, but it just seems better than something completely empty. Of course, this is not a problem for TMNT fandoms perhaps, but from my experience in smaller fandoms, or being a fan of smaller/less popular media. And with how much there is mainly ship-related posts in almost all the Usagi Chronicles tags, this seems to be a matching experience I’ve been having so far in the Usagi tags. The comic series tag itself is also often full of other things, or only ship things, or sometimes only TMNT things for a short bit, but overall, I guess at least people use it?? But I would still like it that Samurai Rabbit, SRTUC, etc stuff gets tagged with those tags so I can actually find it instead of combing through multiple tags at a time just to see something new. While the newer “Your tags” feature on tumblr makes this a bit easier, I can see the easy annoyance at when people tag a character but then don’t include the character. and to add insult to injury, they tag a different character, but without acknowleding the first character at all.

But this is now like a joint fandom for a crossover for two franchises which have had crossovers before and now… there’s sort of a joint fandom? Sort of? So because it’s a bit bigger, it feels nice when other fans are considerate of small things like tagging. Now, on the whole, while many do still mistag and the leosagi tag is still mainly yuichi x leo for many, I’ve also seen in my own tagscrambles that not as many do this as much anymore, or going through a tag in time, the newer stuff seems to do this less. So like I’ve written in previous posts, my honest hope is just that fandom will adapt and grow into healthier online habits. Still, there are a few other things in the tags that I just can’t help but notice each time. it’s also why I don’t bother too much with repeat-viewing tags unless I’m looking for something specific.

It often feels like people just make up their own versions of any Usagi and/or write off the show as “too bad to watch”. And. idk, this just makes me feel sad about it because as mentioned above, I’ve seen it before in other smaller fandoms I’m in. In transformative works, it’s fairly normal that people make their own versions of a show or it’s characters, because that’s something fun to do with fanart and fic. But to openly hate a character? idk man, just feels weird to me personally. Like I don’t have the energy for hatedom. I know my little sibling really gets into hating one series that really disappointed her as a viewer, but even she now says that it’s an odd way to spend time, when she could be making fanart of something she likes instead. And I get that. I also spent my earlier non-internet days being more hateful of new media I disliked at the start, and while expressing that isn’t always bad (it’s just an iopinion), it became weirdly detrimental to me actually enjoying stuff in my tweens. Everything me and my friends and their friends ever talked about, was related to somehow being more above others or knowing better than others, being hateful of anything new or popular. And without quite realizing it right away, that was really tiring. Even if I spent time on things I did like, hobbies I enjoyed, that hate and childhood snobbishness sorta simmered there. I remember that for me it mainly came from “oh, I want to be a real animator one day, I should act like a real profesional adult and always be critical of the media I view, because that’s how I see adults treat real serious film.” Fast-forward 15 years, I’ve been through making comics as a tween, making fanart as a teen, I’ve been making a lot of different kinds of “cartoon art” in general as well as some actual art education, thinking, maybe I want to have some more general art schooling too. Later in my mid-twenties, I met someone with this similar mindset to my childhood self, who at first I got along with. We laughed at cartoons we didn’t like and made fun of the bad endings of those we did. At some point, I listened to them talking about getting to visit a big animation festival. And how they completely unironically expressed their hate directly at a leading crew member of a cartoon they didn’t like. And then I realized like. Wait a fucking minute. I don’t wanna act like this to other people! And this is why I don’t really “shoot the shit” about cartoons I don’t like as publicly anymore as I maybe once would have online on tumblr etc. Like I just don’t get it anymore. At most I’ll write down my thoughts somewhere private or to friends and try to understand why I don’t like the thing. And if it’s a very simple dislike, I just don’t spend time on it.

So like, I don’t get the hate the show (SRTUC) and character(Yuichi Usagi) get. Like I can understand sort of where people are coming from. but I don’t get why they gotta publicly tag it, announce it, or put it in the reblogged tags sometimes. the og poster sees that after all? so that’s like a bigger thought for me when it comes to tags.

I believe people can learn to be nice about a show they don’t like, but if they start to feel annoyed at fandom parts of the web they see online, they also start to feel hate toward a specific show, even if the show or thing itself might not be as bad. Example - I have this toward Star Wars for example, it’s a big fandom. I feel indifferent now, but in my youth, I found it annoying that everyone was talking about it as if it was the best thing ever, when it was spoiled for most of my childhood for me, and also felt like a generic movie series after all that. Something growing in popularity, or being really popular in a niche fandom can make ppl dislike it in general and that’s fairly ordinary as fandoms go. Often, people just don’t like a popular thing. Just think of series of like GoT/ASoIaF or HP. But then again those go down the cultural road so easily, I suppose in countries where western-media is really popular/common, it becomes like a cultural osmosis and fans can assume *everyone* likes it, even if not everyone does. I’m thinking about the fresh 30+ dads from 10 years ago I read about who only interacted with their kids through their own nerd interests. Pokemon is such a culturally permeated thing, it’s everywhere and everyone seems to assume everyone has played it or at least knows about it, even if at some point, some of us were big fans of Digimon instead, or some don’t like it at all. At some point, my dad gifted me a Harry Potter book, even though I (non-vocally) disliked it, but it was in the cultural osmosis here so strongly that it was everywhere and he just assumed I was into it (bless his heart, he genuinely didn’t know). HP was something that I initially disliked because it was so popular, but the idea of a “basic magic premise, but extended” seemed interesting, and it was required reading in my middle school, so at 11, I went to see the movie and thought, alright, maybe I’ll give it a chance. But reading the book I found things that didn’t make sense to me, that didn’t match what seemed like the themes of the book (the whole slave freedom plot for example) so I always sort of kept it at arms-length - not quite getting into it, but also not turning it away if I found anything, not saying anything upsetting to people who were fans of it. Everyone at my school read it though to varying degrees, or at least everyone knew things about it even if they weren’t fans or weren’t invested at all. (This was all before we knew JKR is a vocal TERF, so now I feel a bit validated in my dislike, even if I feel sad for the fans who got something positive out of the series).

So point being, fandom can have different types of people in it. A type of media will often accrue a specific type of fan and sometimes it won’t match what the show itself puts out. E.g. fans acting in ways that go squarely against what the media talks about (Steven Universe is a popular show with many fans that comes to mind), or a show having an unexpected viewership next to it’s intended demographic (us 90s kids still being cartoon fans in our late 20s/30s/early 40s). It’s slightly unpredictable in a general way. 

Of course, TMNT fandom is a bit different from those bigger properties because it was an indie comic made in the 80s that was so different and off-the-wall indie for a comicbook, it sold out and gave its creators Eastman and Laird a hefty legacy, lasting careers and actual money. Good for them! Personally I think it’s thanks to how genuinely creative and collaborative their work was then. Like Usagi Yojimbo, it’s an old comicbook/franchise now, so the “fandom” as such differs from generation to generation, from childhood to childhood. I met the turtles for the first time with the 87 series in the early 90s, then the next time w the 2003 series, which i initially hated as that angry, cartoon-critical tween, but was surprised at how much it seemed to take from the comics. I think I was initially angry about it for different reasons, mainly, “why is it so serious? why are the jokes so lame?” and also because I had invested so much emotionally into the idea of seeing something as good as the 80s cartoon again... but then found that it grew on me and now 20 years later I can look at it with nostalgia. As a result, my reaction to the 2012 series was mostly “wow another TMNT cartoon?” and “huh it looks interesting” and “oh I’ve seen this person work on another cartoon before”. My little sibling on the other hand only saw the 2003 cartoon and their reaction the the 2012 adaptation was “Wow, THEY’RE FINALLY TEENS” because as kids, we thought the 2003 TMNT looked and sounded “too much like boring adults”. But from many online fanspaces back then a lot of the more vocal reactions was around “THE 3D IS SO UGLY” and “WHY ARE THEY SO YOUNG”. You’ve probably heard similar sentiments of various degrees if you’ve been a fan or viewer of any TMNT cartoon. 

Usagi Yojimbo is unique in this sense because Stan Sakai has been the only one drawing and writing the comicbook for 40 years. Some of the visual style and writing tone change from book to book, but it’s gradual because Stan has changed as an artist and writer too. If you look at any comic series like this, it’s actually a natural part of many comics i.e. webcomics used to be a prominent example of this, as the creators were often complete novices at the beginning and graduated to a more consistent style. But even from a surface level view, lets say, reading other people’s reviews, you can see that people really enjoy Usagi Yojimbo for how consistent it is with it’s treatment of its characters, story and Edo-period culture. Stan Sakai really does his research and puts respect back into fiction inspired by samurai. Even though guides will often tell you that you can jump into the series from any point in the series, there’s just something really consistent about it as a whole. Sakai gets to do whatver he wants with his books and what he does seems to be thought-out usually. Even if the early animated adaptations were a bit incorrect, comic readers in general have a lot of respect for Stan and his work. My favourite part about this all is how Usagi Yojimbo is actually used to teach about japanese culture in a college course in the US.

Because both TMNT and UY are originally creator-owned comics (still so with UY regardless of publisher or adaptations but not so much TMNT as Viacom bought the rights in 2009), perhaps the general fan experience is more similar to original comics fandoms in Japan. Although whether a series is creator-owned varies from series to series, the manga and magazines culture in Japan seems wholly different from what US comicbooks were in the 80s and even what they still are now in that regard. Because a series will more often be written and illustrated by the same creator/artist/team, there are less variations and book-to-book differences both visually and tonally. In the US, a comicbook series can start with an artist-writer team, but then switch if the editorial decides some change is needed. This is something that often affects consistency and a story or character’s canon eventually and in a convoluted way, it’s the reason why we got “alternate earths” and “multiverse crossovers”. Which, while fun, make american comicbooks hard to read for some newer readers. Even with TMNT, once Eastman and Laird started having less time to make the comics and their other problems, it led into breaking off their creative partnership and never speaking again. But they had to continue the comic. If before the feud, they would just have fun passing the pages between each other, now they actually  so they wrote it he series became different based on who was writing it. One more sci-fi leaning and one more martial-arts and mysticism leaning. You can see this difference in the TMNT animated adaptations as well. The 2003 series namely is more based on Laird’s storylines in the comics and he was also consultant on the series. After the 2009 sale of Mirage to Viacom, we get the 2012 series, where Eastman acts as consultant, so it’s more heavy on his ideas of what the TMNT are. In 2019, the documentary series “Toys that made us” brought them together for the first time in almost 2 decades. And then we fans got to have The Last Ronin, a collaboration between the two again.

(What I’ve paraphrased here is mostly based on this video overview of how the comic became a franchise “How did a violent indie comic become a $15,000,000,000 franchise?” by matttt if you’re interested in seeing and hearing a more picturesque summary of this)

So getting back to fandom, because it’s mostly been one comicbook series, both the more avid and casual UY comics fans might not be used to there being adaptations of Stan’s Usagi. Yes, even with the visual examples I brought up above, perhaps some simply haven’t seen the animated adaptations because these are still marketed “for kids”. This is like the only reason I can think of that people who are 30+ adults, go online to complain about the Chronicles series online, even though it’s obviously for kids, meaning they probably didn’t even watch it. Folks are “surprised” Stan “let Netflix ruin his series” etc - even if it’s explicitly in a new futuristic setting to avoid affecting the comics canon. It will be interesting to know how people react when or if Sakai puts out his “Kagemusha” anthology, where the idea is about different creators telling different Usagi stories.

Even TMNT fans, many of whom don’t know Usagi beyond the animated adaptations, might jump in with this similar mindset of “different = bad”. Maybe there’s a manga/anime adaptation out there with the fans having similar concerns about their adaptations. Sailor Moon comes to mind, but as always, people’s grievances with an adaptation may have good reasons underneath. But also I’ve personally never seen an avid Sailor Moon fans be as annoying as the casual Star Wars fan. It might also depend on the age and lifestyle of the fan. Someone who is a teacher or parent, maybe they’ve met more people, put more thought into it, might feel milder about new or different things vs someone who is used to going online to see people angry and enjoys getting into arguments.

If I start to think about it, I can get a similar reaction out of myself. It was hard to look at mid-00s fanart of Usagi because it always felt a bit “extreme” like fans changed things about Usagi to suit their own understanding or image of samurai, which was always more based on popular movies or anime rather than the comic. I think this is just a general thing about fanart over the times. I still balk at some fanart, either UY or SRTUC, if for example the sides of the clothes are opposite - right over left, for burials vs left over right, like the letter ‘y’ - because it just means the fanartist didn’t bother to look up even references. Most times people just don’t know about this sort of stuff, they might be anime fans or they might even be part of a different asian culture, but it it’s not something that’s taught, of course it won’t reflect in something like fanart. But then, it’ll just be something new to learn. To me it also speaks of a wider annoyance of people liking things only for the surface-level appeal.

Usagi Yojimbo I’ve noticed has much more of a fanbase than fandom. I know fanbase doesn’t get used much as a term these days as more and more media gets an active fandom rather than staying at a fanbasem but it’s a term I’d like to use in this case. “The Wilkes Beacon” in 2014 defines the difference so: “Not everything with a fanbase has a fandom, because a fandom is a group of committed fans who are always vocally interested in their “thing,” usually expressing that on a social website such as Tumblr. Just because you’re a fan doesn’t mean the fandom will accept you.” Indeed sometimes fandom feels almost like being in a separate part of the club, only for people in the know about it. The origin for fanbase is attributed to early 20th century baseball fans. The origin of fandom, most well-known as a portmanteau of fan + kingdom, is often attributed to the original Sherlock Holmes fans who actually gathered to mourn the character when Arthur Conan Doyle decided to kill him off (bless your hearts and souls, sometimes it feels like fandom has never changed) but also from early 20th century sports fans and 60s Trekkies, who saved their show. A lot of different sources give different origins and histories for these words and many will also equate them as synonymous.

My own experiences tell me that a fanbase is more general - any fans of a thing, whether they attend conventions, buy the media or no (i.e. Sherlock Holmes readers, sports fans) and will comprise the “base” of any activity - the larger number of fans that exist for a piece of media/sport/celebrity. A fandom will be the more “active” part, more interested in being connected with each other within that fanbase. Of course, to any other person outside of fans, both of these will be synonymous and a fan will look weird and fanatical regardless of how little they invest themselves into a media. But I’’m making this distinction to describe what I see as more casual and more active “fanbase as a whole”. Fanbase as a word feels more general, while Fandom sounds more specific. So as an example, the One Piece “fanbase” might feel large and more everywhere, like with pokemon or Sherlock Holmes the book, but the OP fandom can feel more active and particitative, like the .It’ll depend entirely on what way each person interacts with the media. Do you have friends who are also fans of the series? it’s like a fandom. You just watch it but don’t participate as much? You’re in the fanbase, but you might partake in fandom activities if you feel like it. You might be a more casual fan, but you might have more avid feelings about the series as well, but you’re not that interested in making fanworks or posts or reacting to other fans at all. A fandom might be big, but more ubiquitous, more silent and conversely, some fandoms may be small, but still very active and vocal. I’ve often theorized that this is because So UY online fandom sorta feels like the latter, but more under-the-radar. Small and active but also more silent and appreciative. With the previous “big fandoms” example, it’s also the juxtaposition between Old and New that comes into play. An old Spidey fan from the 70s might have become an official Spiderman fanartist, but they might not partake in all the fan stuff they used to anymore. Still a fan, but maybe the newer and younger “fandom” as such is just not appealing to them in the same way.

The larger or more advertised a TV series or book is, the larger and more annoying its fanbase in general. If a piece of media has less popularity, it will ergo have a smaller fanbase and sometimes no “active fandom” at all. So now with the Samurai Rabbit: the Usagi Chronicles TV show as an animated spinoff-adaptation, we have a similar problem that TMNT fans have been familiar with over the decades. Thanks to the show, there’s a more active, slightly younger fandom who want to connect over the series and maybe even read the comicbook, know more about the source and origins, they might want to even know how the show was made, make fanart or fic. So fans like any other, but just that the media they’re a fan of now, is still relatively new. Maybe these newer fans act or write differently online from how older fans are used to. Maybe they even treat the original source comic differently or just don’t know anything about it. In any case, new series and new fans will generally seem annoying because culturally that’s what we’ve started to associate some of fandom with. Otaku culture etc. So it and it’s fans might get the “new thing” treatment as mentioned above with the TMNT animated adaptations.

The difference here is that Stan Sakai has been wanting his own animated adaptation for a long time (just look at the Space Usagi pilot for proof) and while many suggested projects to him before, this one actually piqued his interest bc they did something new with the characters. You could say that what people don't like abt this series are some decisions resulting from this being a netflix cartoon for kids. the decision to set it in a near-future with a new younger for example, was made in the beginning by netflix and I haven’t found any articles yet that’s found a legit reason for why it stayed this way. My guess based on interviews with Stan and crew is that Stan found it interesting as a possible new way to get more readers to the comic. Something for the younger generation. Although many readers and even parents will attest that the comic is child-appropriate (and really, it is), the TV-Y7 ratings and so on exist for a reason. And while I would love for more western studios to get funding for more adult animation in general (I’m not from the US myself and animation such a large medium, the way that genres are explored or what gets made for adults vs kids feeks so different elsewhere), I think it’s good that the first full series based on UY is this “non-violent” (your mileage may vary). Because a lot of the more vocal adult fans of UY seem more focused on the violence vs what kids might get out of it. A popular quote from Sakai is “Once, a mother asked me, 'What is Usagi Yojimbo about?' and before I could answer, her son said, 'It’s about honor.'"   (Komai for JANM, 2011). Sometimes it seems like the “older adults” or the “more casual” fans of UY sort of don’t get it.

Even the naming of the series and character has reasons, which I’ve seen some Rise Leosagi shippers make their own reasons for. So the various hate from “older fans” I see about it is strange because all evidence points to the show having Sakai’s approval and his full involvement. Of course, I could also be wrong, but watching the series, it doesn’t feel to me like an “empty cashgrab” as one angry TMNT fan put it. It feels more like something made by other UY fans, those more familiar than I was at the time, with both Usagi Yojimbo lore as well as the culture and lore behind it. In their quest to properly honor the comic series they loved, crew put a lot research hours into making sure both edo and post-edo periods got to be part of their show. Like “trips to japan during a pandemic” type of research. The show is an interesting fusion of old and modern in futuristic setting and feels wholly unique as an experiment.

Another aspect of course is also the shipping parts of fandom. I can never quite get my head behind this “arguing about ships” because it just reminds me of my Grandma and her older sister fighting over their soap operas and who should get together with who. And alright, maybe this was fun for them...? I’ve never been that invested in this myself but it can be fun to have a pairing you root for in a show, when it’s just a bunch of connected ideas over the story, there really seems like a real genuine connection between the characters or if there’s a chance to connect with other fans over it. That’s kind of what fandom is for me in general, but with crossover ships, it’s like a strange and interesting combination of “oooh what interesting similarities and differences” and “lets find out” with fanworks. 

This is the main way I enjoy making crossovers in general work, even if I’ve never finished an actual fic (I’m more of an artist) and even if the works sometimes don’t go together (it’s like a fun challenge). I wonder sometimes if the SRTUC crew also imagined crossovers with TMNT? As in this fanart post on facebook by Samurai Rabbit character designer Andry R, I wonder what that could have been like. After all, if many of the crew are fans too, it just makes sense to think about that? it’s fun to think of crossovers after all! And since it’s fanwork, I personally don’t feel as obligated to make some of the quality as insanely good as I would have in my younger days. I want to enjoy the art making process too, so putting research and sketches into a piece is sometimes my own “enough”. So I don’t really care about views either because I know even now, tastes might still just be not geared toward something sketchier that I make.

Even so, despite the experience with online sites and social media people have in general, or other artists/fans encouraging to feel a bit less worried about socmedia algorhitms, it might be frustrating that posts are not as popular even if your idea feels great.

So connecting all of that fandom talk, I can only assume people mistag between a popular and non-popular series for similar reasons. As said earlier, fans might assume everyone prefers the popular thing and that it’s better to tag that popular/bigger/older thing. Because at least that So in our case, I’ve noticed more that ppl tag Yuichi Usagi with the Miyamoto Usagi tag. From the surface, it seems like people don’t know about the Yuichi tags/show or they just don’t like it for some other reason. Now Tumblr is more a “home of fandoms” than casual fans, as most of the user-generated content is entirely by people who get much more invested in a series than a casual fan. Similarly I’ll see people tag their TMNT 2012 inspired fandesigns as ROTTMNT as well, because that is simply seen as the popular fandom at the time ergo, more attention on your post.

Maybe a solution for the mis-tagging could be smth as simple as fandom outreach, something active to unite the different types of fans into using tags correctly, but of course, something more active and social might feel more unnatural, as most of us are more wall-flower than social butterfly - working off the assumption here that most fans are shy. I used to be pretty shy as a fan and now I’m more active and out-going in general in my adult years, but at the same time, doing something socially more active is still a scary thought in my brain so I can understand that it’s easier to just tag and hope it’s correct. Or easier to make ticked off posts vs something with a different kind of effort. But then again, as brought up in my examples of other fandoms, being a fan can make people very active in taking part in similar fan activities. As we all enjoy the same thing in different ways or different media in similar ways, we are all still fans at the end of the day. Whether casual or more involved, that’s a unique experience that should unite us. So I’ll have my peace with the older cartoon-hating fans who only view Usagi Chronicles as an empty children’s cartoon etc etc. 

So, because I’m an adult, but also an artist and animation fan, this is how I’ve been approaching TV cartoons for the past 5-10 years. Against my first reaction of “oh, this is too slow for me” the way I chose to view the series once I saw more of it was “I’m an adult, and this is a cartoon made my other older adults, for kids - let me see what it’s about”. It’s more about curiosity and seeing what other creatives have done to put connective tissue between one idea to another.

Personally when it comes to tagging I try to keep to a general amount of “minimum amount of tags possible” bc I’m a bit lazy but also, I will never find anything on my own blog later if I used more than 20 tags about a simpler fanart post. So maybe like 1-2 tags for show/series, 1-2 tags for characters and my own art tags. I am lazy but I also like being considerate with other people. But also because of my previous experience with blogging, I like to keep tags I re-use as consistent as possible so I have the same experience. Of course, sometimes I forget what I’ve actually used if there are many tags i.e. many characters. so keeping the tags short is a boon for that end.

Here is the draft version for the UY and Usagi Chronicles tag guide, i'm gonna change this more but this is mostly how I've been tagging stuff (or have tried to so far) and I wrote a small guide back in march before all this, but have been coming back to it now with more general and character tags in mind. 

== Tagging Guide ==

Hello Rise of the TMNT and Usagi Chronicles joint fandom! Here’s a guide on how to tag Usagi Chronicles/Samurai Rabbit stuff! Mostly it’s my own view on how to tag things based on how I interact w the fandom stuff posted here but also from my experience of using tumblr and older blogging platforms - how I see the most common/make-sensical ways to tag characters/shows. But maybe you will find this useful too, fellow fan!

Usagi Yojimbo - the name of the original comicbook series - I decidedly reserve this for posts and reblogs ONLY about the Usagi Yojimbo comic (pages covers,, screenshots, memes), or general fanart of the comic or its characters. This helps me keep it separate so I can find posts about it later.

Usagi Chronicles - personally I use this for all content for the show, but especially the crossover stuff and my own art posts. This seems to be the most commonly used unique tag about this show.

SRTUC - acronym, good for short posts, for quick tagging. but I also use this to tag general reblogged posts about the show

Samurai Rabbit - I only try to use this if it is about the official stuff, like interviews and GIF/screenshots in bulk (more than 2). This tag gets used a lot for both the series but before that it was also used for posting general UY comics content and alternate covers by other artists, as well as for original samurai rabbits unaffiliated by UY. It is too general for me to use it on my own posts outside of text posts maybe.

Samurai Rabbit the Usagi Chronicles - mostly I use this tag for more general posts, but also reblogs if someone else has made something directly related to the series.

SamuraiRabbitNetflix - lol I only use this one on twitter, bc I saw someone from the crew use it and it has stuck for most of my more finished posts I guess ^^ Literally nobody else on tumblr uses it which is fine, but I think it’s a good way to separate the series and the more general posts people make about the comic or guest art of it (or sometimes original art unrelated to UY)

Characters:

Miyamoto Usagi - I try to mainly use it for just comic Usagi and fanart, but occasionally I will use it for fanart depicting

Rise Miyamoto Usagi - Any Rise!versions of comics Usagi. Usually these are fandesigns, but sometimes fans will adapt it wholesale (usually adapting him from his younger years). Sometimes it is unclear which version it is based on or it is a completely original version so I simply tag these as Rise Usagi.

Yuichi Usagi - pretty self-explanatory! I only use this for posts/fanart including Yuichi Usagi (but not when he is only mentioned in passing). Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between these versions however, 

Usagi fandesign/Yuichi Usagi fandesign/Miyamoto Usagi fandesign - I use all these tags to organize the fandesigns ppl make of all these characters, reserving “Usagi fandesign” when it’s really an original design based on various canon Usagi concepts or more of a “general” Usagi than a specific one i.e. meant for the Rise or 2012 TMNT crossover AUs. This counts for me in reblogs also when the OP hasn’t really decided what the character is and has tagged both characters. Lol there is a lot of different fanart of these characters and for my own sake, I tag these separately where possible so I can find the fanart easier later (especially if the posts themselves have text which doesn’t use these names, or if tumblr search is not working on blogs)

UY character - I use “UY” as the common acronym before characters from UY, but I also generally tag their names in reblogs. idk, this just makes it easier for me to find them later in my own blog and that’s all (Kenichi and Mariko for example are quite common Japanese names)

Tomoe Ame - This character just deserves her own tag, but also, I think the 03 version, while quite different, can fit in the same tag because people don’t post about them as much ^^;;

--

And now for the TMNT tags!

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the official name! long, but good if you are tagging official stuff i.e. screenshots, gifs, concept art, tweets from crew etc

ROTTMNT - good short catch-all tag, lots of ppl use this to tag their reblogs quickly, but shorter posts can also go under here

Rise of the TMNT - Slightly longer tag than the full acronym, but more descriptive, if you wanna make sure people know it’s a TMNT show

Rise TMNT - I’ve seen a few ppl use this as a tag and it’s a valid way to tag (short and unique) but it’s not as popular as the others

2018 TMNT - again, general tag for the series. Common way to make a tag for a TMNT series - adding the year of airing before the TMNT acronym. Same with TMNT 2018. Same for the comics! I’ll use IDW TMNT as a tag for example, bc it seems widely used and understood.

TMNT18 - same as the previous one, but shorter! There are a lot of TMNT media besides the comics, (movies, animated series, etc) so it’s a general easier practice to tag via year. Ppl also sometimes use the variation 18TMNT. Anything is basically fair game with these general tags as long as the author of a blog finds stuff later.

Characters![I’m not sure about the characters yet bc I use the tags differently than other people apparently. my blog my rules i guess!]

rottmnt [character] - reserved for when i tag this character in crossovers, eg rottmnt April, rottmnt donnie. I generally use nicknames for the rottmnt boys cuz I am lazy.

Rise [character] e.g. Rise Leo, Rise April - I try and use this just for 

April O Neil (full name) - for when I’m tagging them in general and just want to see them in this tag with the other versions

12 April or 12April - for the 2012 TMNT versions of the characters. I often write the tags together bc I am just lazy but in the case of numbers, I can also forget. On tumblr I try to remember to use spaces cuz that is allowed here lol.

----

And that’s it! I have more in the list, but that is the gist of the style of it. Basically hust explaining what I���ve seen and if/how I use it on my own blog. Let me know if you have more thoughts about this. I’m curious to know what other fans of both series think!

[sansa286]

You being anti Zionist is the bare minimum and idk if anyone has ever told you that before also you’re a hypocrite saying people shouldn’t watch’s jk Rowling new show but your publicly tweeting about a show apart of bds !!! But ok girl

When did I ever say or act as if I was doing anyone some sort of grand favor? When did I ever say my politics start and end with me merely stating I have a stance? Who said I am not participating in BDS? I'm currently boycotting several brands, including Disney.

Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling are nowhere near the same level of awfulness. J.K. Rowling is an active and intentional bigot, and her works and essays are used to justify anti-trans legislation even in countries outside of her own, which she has absolutely no problem with. She dines with transphobes who run entire organizations to delegitimize trans people. She donates to said organization, and effectively uses her twitter account as bullhorn to release her trifling views to a wide audience, primarily composed of hardcore fans who won't hesitate to lick her boots because they haven't read a single book since The Deathly Hollows. Rick is by no means a perfect ally (I have many criticisms, especially for his earlier work, i.e. Medusa's depiction in The Lightning Thief), however instead of blowing his fans criticisms off, he actually put his money where his mouth was and simply wrote stories that included more types of people than just cis, white, and heterosexual. On the topic of Palestine - him working with Disney is far from ideal, but they've been his publisher since 2005 so unfortunately that bed has been made. He actually has spoken up about Palestine, called what Israel is doing a genocide, and promoted charities to Gaza. Again, not a perfect ally by any means, as he supports a two-state solution, which just simply isn't realistic and would still deny Palestinians their right to self-determination, and makes him comes off as still quite ignorant about the plight of Palestinians, but that hardly makes him Ben-Gvir.

And then, if you want to look at it from an artistic point of view, it's quite obvious what Rowling is trying to accomplish. The original trio - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, have all called her out to various degrees on her blatant transphobia, and she has essentially shunned them. This reboot will serve as her way of erasing them from the franchise, and I am willing to bet money that her "second draft" of Harry Potter will highlight the already high mountain of issues that was present in the initial run just to serve as another middle-finger to her fans who felt legitimately hurt at her transphobia, fatphobia, antisemitism, racism, internalized misogyny etc... At least Rick has a legit reason for wanting a second run with Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the movies sucked ass and betrayed the source material to an obscene degree. On top of that - the show has already corrected some of the glaring issues with the books - such as Medusa and yes, a lack of diversity.

By all means if curiosity gets the best of you, then pirate the show. But promoting an author who only stands for hate just isn't my jig, sorry not sorry.

[best-fictional-cat]

Honestly really disappointed in you for including Harry Potter characters

You have no idea how ready I was for this question anon. If it's any consolation, Professor Mcgonagall would've given you a cookie for punching JKR in the face, so the queen is in. Also, she was suggested by two people and was the only HP character (I was honestly expecting Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris, and would've included them with even a single submission, but alas).

I'm going to talk politics now so if anyone doesn't want to read it, keep scrolling. I just want people who are mad at me for including Harry Potter to understand where I'm coming from and what's my stance on this whole thing. Just know that I am also LGBTQ+ and I support you, but the world doesn't support us.

So, the politics part is that I live in a country which has recently passed actual laws against the LGBTQ+ and nobody cares, at all. Gay marriage has never even been a thing you may hope to be legalised one day. Well, now we can't write, read or watch anything about it. Basically, it was a law about LGBTQ+ propaganda. The fun part is, they're not quite sure what exactly constitutes said propaganda. There was some beef with somewhat rainbow-coloured ice cream a little while back. Parents actually complained about that. Another example is that some of the politicians who passed the law are now complaining about a really old cartoon where a male wolf found and raised a bull who is now calling him "mom". Wow how come everybody in this country has not been turned trans after watching this as children. Sorry, irony is the only way I can cope with this shit. It's all very scary actually. JKR with her dumb tweets honestly does not feel very significant in light of all that, because words of someone who lives in another country are not real, and local laws are. Besides, I never cared about her twitter and all the additional dumb facts she was shitting out and I feel like we as a fandom should have been doing a better job of enjoying the source material and not paying attention to its creator.

Anyway, I wasn't going to exclude Harry Potter from the start. It was an integral part of many people's childhoods, including mine, and I don't see the point in denying that. So JKR turned out to be a transphobe. Well, you've bought the books like fifteen years ago. It's not like you can get a refund. If you don't want to support her, don't consume any new media. Or better yet, if you still secretly enjoy it in the closet society is putting you in, pirate it, for chrissake. People are suddenly finding so many faults in what they universally considered to be the best books in existence mere years ago. If it proves anything, then it's the power of universal hysteria over the minds of people and how much people can be forced to abandon what has been bringing them so much joy because they don't want strangers on the Internet to judge them. Also, I've come across some footage of people playing Hogwarts Legacy and honestly I just wish people were complaining about the actual game, not the politics. Because it's objectively shit and boring and isn't worth it's money at all and the only thing it has in common with the source material is that it's set in Hogwarts. Otherwise it really does piss poor job of following what was even shown in the movies, let alone the books. Don't even get me started on their pseudo-historical clothing. Or whatever it is they call side missions in this shit-show.

[talokanda-forever]

While I agree with you in the news aspect of this whole thing, I'd like to point out that (and this is my opinion based on experience) this is the take they do on situations that start and develop on Twitter. You might read a media outlet talking about the topic, linking the tweet and then a second paragraph related to something about the people involved so they can get you to click on a different article (ie. Linking it back to the polemic over the rebozo). That's how they work bc usually there's not much money to be out and about investigating. They just want to publish first so they get the clicks and therefore money and a good SEO position. The people behind the news are probably having to meet a quota of about 6-10 news per day so they also don't have the time to look into it. I see the treatment of this news is almost like another celebrity news (break ups, pregnancies, etc)

There isn't a tmz that's out with the information and talking with the people involved. I think, depending on what he does or says next, we might get the TV involved and trying to get a quote from the people involved and that's the most investigation there'll be, unless it escalates if more women come forward. Maybe other news outlets will pick up on it bc he's worked in marvel. I'm not sure international folks will get involved, especially because there's a language barrier. I'm guessing they'll just wait to see what happens and report on what Mexican media outlets say....

Again I might be wrong but this is my experience. It's a heavy situation and it's world shattering for the fandom but when you think about a news outlet they have to prioritize and put the money on other news like politics, crime, etc, especially if they're just digital and not an extension of a TV channel or something like that.

In regards to the victim's portion of the post you wrote, sadly, she did say she was assaulted by him in the replies to that same tweet (https://twitter.com/_ElenaRios/status/1667439041451642882?s=19). She also posted again after those tweets accusing him of power and emotional abuse and called him a narcissist.

*sighs* it's a lot.

Idk if this is any help but I wanted to share what I knew in case it serves anyone.

Thanks so much for that detail. I've been on the fringes of the world involving "SEO", "clicks," and driving traffic to particular sites in a previous life but was never that deep into the technicalities. 🙂 What you've called out is precisely my point. I have a huge issue with the dissemination of information that is not properly vetted. And any organization that doesn't have the time or resources to do so should NOT be considered a reliable source. Yes, it is all about the clicks, and making money. And even if these outlets aren't explicitly stating they are news organizations, they are at the very least implying it by their branding and the way they package their messaging. So the general public sees something "news-ish" and there is some expectation that it is reliable info. The lines become more and more blurred everyday. My fear (which extends FAR beyond this situation with Tenoch) is that although we have access to more information than we've ever had, I don't think that's translating into us being a well-informed, or better-informed populous.

[feral-cockroach]

hey can someone tell me how to properly do image IDs? i want to reblog stuff w IDs to make them more accessible but i dont know how to do them in a way that conveys all necessary info

like if someone posts a screenshot of a tweet would it be like

[ID: a screenshot of a twitter post by [username]. the post reads [post content]. end ID]

or is that not specific enough? the wrong info included or incomplete info or?

i want to ask people who use screenreaders directly (or those who benefit from image ids period), but i also dont want to go into their askbox and put the burden of educating me on them if that makes sense? but ive tried to educate myself on it and keep seeing lots of info from lots of diff sources ab lots of diff things and i just dont know what the census is?

also please if someone can educate me on ways to make my textposts more accessible aswell and what text-based things i should provide alt texts for i would appreciate that sm aswell!!! because i know if someone types in leetspeak or leetspeek or wtv (the way terezi from homestuck does) i need to provide alt text but are there others?

thanks vvvvvv much in advance to anyone who helps!!!! /gen

[tanner4105]

This is obnoxious but I’m doing it anyway

I’ve been trying to put my thoughts into words on the current changes at Twitter for a while now, so I’ve finally taken the time to write this out the best I can. Who is this post for? I don’t know, I just felt like I had to get this off my chest. I really liked using Twitter and the decline in quality has been obvious over the past few weeks. I think Twitter’s strongest point is entertainment. It’s great for memes and entertainment, but it’s also a great place to get real-time updates in some situations. I browse the #dfwwx tag when there’s severe weather in our area and it’s very helpful. Selfishly, it’s also the place where I get the best engagement for my music and other projects. The problem is Elon seems dead set on making it THE place for political discussion and debate, and the internet is the worst place to have those conversations.

Just because the internet allows us to communicate with more people than ever before doesn’t mean that it’s the best place to do that. When you’re talking with someone in person it’s much easier to tell whether the other side is trying to have a good-faith discussion or not. There’s physical and tonal feedback you can get from the others when you’re talking face to face. Over the internet you really have no clue what the other person’s intentions are. Is it a troll trying to rile people up, or is it someone who genuinely wants to understand the other side? You can probably tell if they’re laying it on thick, but I imagine a lot of times they just want to make their point, not hear another word about it and move on. Or as I’ve seen a lot, eventually just break down the conversation into personal insults. 

Elon himself and his ongoing campaign of “Anyone who doesn’t want to support Twitter hates free speech!” is an excellent example of the bad-faith conversations you see over there every single day. He likes to put an on act that he has good intentions but his actions have always proven the opposite. If the public has a criticism about him he’s, at best, going to respond in memes or give some reply that purposefully ignores or misconstrues the point trying to be made. At worst, he’ll publicly accuse you of being a pedophile to millions of people for simply standing up to him. I think this is what makes him one of the worst people to run Twitter, let alone make it a genuine platform for serious discussions.

People are also likely to be more inflammatory to others online than they would be in person. There’s a LOT of people you see on Twitter being rude or verbally abusive to others that wouldn’t even think about saying these things to others in public. Some would, but most wouldn’t. You just aren’t going to have the same quality of discussion on Twitter as you would in person.

Then there’s the case of character limits. You can reply to your tweet over and over again until you’ve gotten the point across, but the way threading works you may not actually see everything someone wrote and part of the discussion just gets lost in the back and forth. The way Twitter is set up is inherently bad for long-form discussion because you have to reduce your thoughts down to 280 characters for your best shot at everything being seen. This is not good for discussing any issue. Twitter is a good source of entertainment, and sometimes information, but it’s a terrible place to have a serious discussion. I haven’t bought into the belief that Twitter will be dead in a few weeks or months, but trying to force it to be something it is inherently not will lead to the collapse of the site eventually. Somehow, I don’t think that attempting to bully people into using and advertising on the site is going to help either. 

[thilsworld]

[Oct 25th 2024]

Dear diary

It has (once again) been a while since I posted, but this time instead of it being cause I was being forgetful about it, I had a genuine breakdown and couldn't get myself to open any social media at all out of fear.

I learned how to add a read more so I'll put one below this since this post will be LONG but I guess a small introduction for what it's about would be smart so people know what they get when they might decide to click read more

Basically on Instagram I have a kpop trading account. And there I made an infographic about the ties to zionism of one specific kpop idol, saying I was dissapointed in that singer and hoped to see change. And well... fast forward and my actual face was the first thing you'd see on Twitter when you looked up this idol, and people were bullying me for my appearance and telling others to report me on every social they could find me on, as well as me receiving hundreds of death threats per minute

So yeah this post will be entirely about that experience, since this blog is basically my diary

Okay time for the cut off

Where do I even start with this.

⚠️ Trigger warning! Mention of threats of murder, suicide, voilence, assault and rape, mentions of homophobia, transphobia, ableism and fatphobia, and mentions of my own depression and a previous suicide attempt. Yes it's a lot...

To protect my privacy, I'm not gonna name what kpop idol this was about. The pictures of me are still out there, so I want to avoid the chance of someone seeing this, looking the idol up, scrolling a bit and finding my face all over twitter. So I'll be replacing the idol's name with Bob LMAO

Bob is from a MASSIVELY popular kpop group, however for some reason I had not seen anyone talk about the zionism that was both prevalent in their career and what we know about their personal/social life. So I collected some sources and made a short post about it, just for my instagram mutuals to be informed. My account is quite small in following (about 1k followers, which isn't much for a kpop fan account of any type) so I didn't really think it'd cause any issues if people would be upset with the facts being shared, since my mutuals are all very understanding people and we have a nice openminded community within my circles.

Fast forward a few weeks, to my birthday actually, and suddenly a MASSIVE account messages me, telling me to take down the post and "stop spreading misinformation", while using homophobic and ableist slurs in the same sentence. I just blocked them and posted on my instagram story something along the lines of how weird it was to randomly receive that. But then it was like the floodgates were opened. HUNDREDS of DM requests came in with all sorts of things to say. Death threats, rape threats, people telling me to kill myself, lots of slurs, all out of nowhere. At first I tried responding but it was no use (obviously).

After having guessed that massive fanpage might have sent their followers to harass me after I blocked that person I just turned off DMs. But that didn't help cause by then they just went to the comments of all my old posts.

As I was talking about this on my instagram story one of my closest friends informed me a tweet was made telling people to report and harass me for "bullying and harassing Bob". The tweet had over 50k views at that point even though it had only been up for about half an hour. Needless to say I was terrified.

My twitter, which has the same username as my instagram, was also being bombarded with messages and notifications of people mentioning me in their tweets.

As I was figuring out how to change my account to private (since it was a business account and I needed to first undo that), someone actually found a picture of me. I don't show my face online often and only on my instagram stories and not posts, but somehow one of those people found it bt combing through my archive/highlights. That picture was than posted on twitter with a text along the lines of "why are all Bob antis always ugly pigs" and my username attached to it. Fatshaming and bullying for my appearance then started blowing up.

To try to explain what I was doing at that moment: panicking. My instagram, which was my go to place for doing my biggest hobby, was being mass reported and could be banned at any moment because of that, my face was leaked on twitter with hundreds of quote tweets and comments calling me all sorts of things, and before I was able to finally private my account I had received hundreds upon hundreds of death threats among other things. I was crying, on the edge of a panic attack, all cause of one "i am dissapointed in Bob even though I am a fan of his" post.

I made a new instagram account and started messaging my friends the username so they'd be able to find me still if my main account got banned. I started making backups of all my posts, I took those really long scrolling screenshots of my entire following list so I knew where to find everyone in case my account would dissapear. Since my account was for trading photocards (which means sending mail to each other) I had to start unsending EVERY message containing my information like legal name and address in case I'd be hacked. I also deleted twitter cause there was no way for me to stop people from posting about me as I couldn't just make it impossible for those to be visible for me.

After a few more hours a friend informed me that the 2 tweets (the "report this person" and the picture) had both passed over 100k views. If you looked up Bob on twitter I was the first thing people would see.

Now I want to just say here, my friends and mutuals, and even followers I had never interacted with before, were all such a huge help with my mental state. Due to all the death threats I was spiralling BADLY. I have a history of very severe depression and have attempted suicide at one point, by now 8 years ago. But having so many messages come in telling me to try it again did a big number on my well being.

But my friends, mutuals, and other followers really came through, sending me supportive messages, offering to help report the bullying on twitter since that way I wouldn't have to see what they said, people started sending me videos and pictures and memes to distract me from the negativity, all in an effort to protect my sanity. And for the most part it worked! Sure the tweets were still up, and if I were to unprivate my account the threats would immediately come in again, but for a while I felt very loved. Still stressed beyond believe, but loved none the less.

~

Right now it's 3 days later. My instagram is still on private and I have no plans to download twitter again (ew).

My mental health is in a very weird place right now.

I am at peace, ish. Emotionally I am doing quite alright as long as nobody reminds me of what is happening. Well... If you consider no emotions at all "quite alright" I guess

But the stress of it all, the fear of being hacked and doxxed, the intense spiral I went down, the panic, it drained me so much mentally.

I left the house today, and almost got hit by a car cause I am so out of it mentally I couldn't focus on where I was cycling. I keep dropping stuff, and if my mom tries to talk to me it just goes in one ear and out the other, no matter how hard I try to listen. It's like my brain has no space left after all that happened.

I don't know when I'll be able to open up my Instagram account again. Considering photocard trading and collecting is my biggest hobby, and you can't trade with people unless you can talk to them, I need it to be open again at some point. Otherwise I can't do this ever again.

But according to my friends who keep an eye out, the tweets still get replies, the views on those tweets keep increasing, and they keep calling for people to report me or to wait until I unprivate my account so they can harass me again. It's less and less people per day, but it's not done.

I've learned a lot from this. Like "don't say anything that can be interpreted as hate for a famous artist, unless they can't trace it back to you". I've learned to immediately unsend my address information after a trade is done, so I don't have to do it all at once over the course of hours if it's suddenly at risk of being seen and leaked.

But I've also learned my friends, mutuals, and even kind strangers will be there for me if needed. Them reporting the tweets, sending me lovely messages, distracting me from it all, protecting me from looking at twitter myself, it all helped me so much.

Oh yeah and I learned some very creative ways people can insult you. Most of then sucked but by the time I was kind of doing okay I could actually laugh at some. Being called a fa🐐 is definitely something. Or "🪢 use this to 💀" which is a very creative way to make it understandable by the AI that checks reports. And at some point I did start feeling hungry from seeing all the pizza and fries emojis LMAO

So yeah... Dear diary? People can be extremely toxic online and make you want to dissapear of the face of the earth (or internet). But other people will give you hope in humanity again. If I was writing this on a paper diary it'd probably be drenched in tears right now, and I can only imagine how long it'll take for me to unpack all of this in my next therapy appointment, cause I fear the current lack of emotions is due to me subconsciously repressing them for my own safety. And I can't listen to music by Bob without literally bawling my eyes out. But hey at least I already have therapy! Now I don't have to wait months to get help.

And in 2 days my family will visit for my birthday celebration. So hopefully that'll make my birthday better than the actual birth date was

Signing off now. Much love,

Thil ✨

[odinsblog]

i usually use the anon function bc im embarrassed to ask people things sjfjfjhs but I've never sent anything horrible to anyone!! I'm sorry you've had negative experiences with the anon function before, you don't deserve that at all!! sending love!

[re: this post]

Thank you. I genuinely appreciate you rn

People like you are literally the only reason why I don’t completely disable the anon feature, because I understand that sometimes people are shy, or they want to express themselves without taking shit. I actually dO get that

But alas, as with everything, there are those who abuse what really should be thought of as a nicety, or privilege—some people just abuse it

Very long rant, incoming

So here’s the thing, right? Sometimes when people are online, they act and behave in ways they wouldn’t dare to irl

I’m not the government. I don’t have a staff to edit my posts. I’m not anybody special. I’m just some dude on the internet who enjoys sharing my opinions and other things. If YOU don’t like or agree with my opinions or something else that I post, you are completely free to keep scrolling or to block me. That’s fine. But when anons begin demanding that I phrase things the way that they’re more comfortable with, then we got serious issues

And another thing: people need to not be so quick to assume malicious intent where none exists

For example, I have accidentally typed the number 500 in a post when I meant to type 50–now, in the specific post, it truly was a significant error. But an anon immediately jumped into the comments and self righteously accused me of lying to make a point, rather than saying to themselves, “Hm, maybe Odin just made a typo”

And my personal favorites

them: YOU’RE SPREADING MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION !!!!

me: um, it was a fucking joke? do they have jokes where you come from?

Or,

me: posts a video of an alligator and some cranes, and adds a bit of whimsical commentary

them: WELL ACTUALLY, THAT IS PROBABLY PREDATORY BEHAVIOR AND I THINK YOU SHO-

me: no. goddamn, I can’t be fucking whimsical on a social media site? eat shit. stfu

And also,

them: well technically, it’s not really fascism

me: maybe not, but it’s fucking close enough. I’m not gonna wait for people to start getting marched into ovens and say, “now can we call it fascism??”

I have literally had all of these dumb, stupid ass conversations (almost verbatim) here on tumblrdotcom, and lemme tell ya, it’s frustrating af

And other times, when I author a post containing a hyperlink on desktop but then later edit it on mobile, sometimes the hyperlink doesn’t carry over to mobile and you’re left with a post that may say “source,” but is not clickable. It happens sometimes, and it’s not a big deal, right?? WRONG! Instead of sending an ask to ask me what happened to the link, I’ve had anons accuse me of “not crediting” a source

I’ve had people use anon to accuse me of cropping videos so that I could somehow “steal” credit from others, and I’m just like … What??? Who does that? Who has the time for all of that? Are you aware that sometimes people on the internet see something like a video or a photo from somewhere else (also uncredited from twitter, reddit, facebook, etc), and then just post it here on tumblr??

And no, I am not talking about reposting someone’s art or other works

Look, if YOU get your thrills from finding out who/where/when the very first instance of every single cat or dog video came from, that’s great! Do you. Knock yourself out. Have fun. But don’t try to shame others because we aren’t all humorless poindexters like you

If I post something from tiktok, the video generally tells you where to go to see it there. If it’s a tweet or from reddit, again, there are usually twitter or reddit handles in the tweet. And NO, I am not putting a link to every single tweet or reddit thread or facebook post — if that’s that important to you, then figure it out. It’s not hard, and in the year 2023 most adults should have the necessary skills to find an original tweet, if that’s something that’s important to you. I’m not doing it for you, not sorry

(SN: I’ll never forget when I took my first college English literature course, and at the end of the semester I was on the bubble for getting an A or an A+ in the class, and our final exam was a written essay that would decide my final grade. I didn’t quite score the A+ that I wanted, and when I looked over my essay, the professor wrote on it: “Odin, you are the quintessential college freshman, and your inquisitiveness has made this semester one of my most enjoyable.” And after class, I walked up to him and thanked him, and asked him what quintessential meant? He opened his mouth and was about to answer me, but then he smiled, wagged his finger at me and said, “you should learn to look things up.” He was one of my favorite professors (had a British accent, eyeglasses and reminded me of Giles from Buffy), but I’ve never forgotten that lesson. Some of you very obviously need to learn it too)

I’ve also made what are very obviously jokes online, only to have people accuse me of misrepresenting facts—and then I’m like, do I really need to explain the concept of what a joke is to you people??

Like, I could see if it was something racist, trans/homophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, etc, BUT I DON’T DO THAT

I think that some people need to be seen as, or have a desire to be known as a gatekeeper, and instead of using just a tiny bit of common sense, they try to make mountains out of molehills to elevate themselves in the eyes of their followers

The people who act this way are truly joyless human beings, and they probably suck all the fun out of parties and other events that people are forced to spend time with them

Maybe try socializing a bit more? Learn to read (online) cues. Don’t be so eager to accuse everyone of doing something wrong just so that YOU get to look like the good guy

And all of that’s without even addressing all of the straight up racist anons that I constantly receive

Like, do people even understand that we aren’t inside of each other’s heads? Sometimes we’re all dealing with life and other stuff. And just maybe people are busy trying to have just a tiny bit of fun, and then the mf fun police come along and try to ruin shit? Because I don’t use a word exactly the same way you do?? Or because of an obvious joke?? You guys who do this kind of shit really SUCK

I feel sorry for you

I almost can’t believe this is the piddling little shit that some people choose to be upset over

Please find some REAL things to be upset over

Try learning to use the feature that lets users (gasp) make a post of their very own! instead of fixating on one goddamn mutha fucking post that wasn’t worded to your liking

I am not here for the discourse with anyone with an internet connection and a keyboard

Please go touch some grass