#i'm deleting the ask because of the naming concern so just wanted to acknowledge I saw this

[scoobydoodean]

@lonelygodscompanion said: apparently sam and dean make some explosives out of medical supplies in croatoan? I didn't really remember it before looking it up but even if that isn't what anon is referring to, it is another instance of this occurring

I'll be on the lookout for this! Thanks for the heads up!

[sweetjazzygirl]

Ngl, i was thinking of making a video talking about this topic about Edd dating a minor but out of fear, i don't want to get in trouble, especially from the Eddsworld crew and the fandom.

Keep in mind, this isn't me trying to cancel anyone (if it was, i'm sorry) but to let the fandom know about this as this information has been hidden from the crew and Cal themselves as i know some people in this fandom would hate the fact that they have been supportive of someone who's been dating a minor until his final days.

Especially considering Cal didn't want anyone talking about it because unfortunately, they were convinced that this relationship isn't wrong, they were convinced that it was okay for an adult be in a relationship with a minor. (Even if the age of consent says so, i still can not accept that)

It's the whole reason why everything related to that was deleted (except a few) in order to hide the fact that Edd dated them when they were a minor. (They even knew about people being concerned about it for valid reasons.)

There's a whole archived posts about it, including that part where Edd was excited about them being under a mistletoe knowing fully well that Cal was a minor, another where someone asked them if the two were in a relationship, the answer to why they were deleted (the original, not the achieved posts) is obvious, Cal doesn't want to believe that this relationship is wrong and don't want Edd to be seen as the "bad guy" by the fandom.

I know someone is going to say how wrong it feels to consider Edd being a groomer because he had cancer at the time and was in the merge of dying from it but seeing how Cal acts and the fact they don't see anything wrong with it, i'm afraid that's the case, grooming can actually affect you where you're going to normalize this kind of stuff and i'm afraid because of their relationship with Edd, it makes sense why they don't consider a minor with an adult being in a relationship wrong and that's what has me concerned when you convince a minor that adults and minors can have a romantic relationship "as long as they're okay with it", not acknowledging the fact that this can be grooming.

Any person is smart and sane enough to know that this kind of relationship is wrong like, find someone your age or someone who's already an adult in 20s.

Not to mention before anyone come at me with "well, they were happy so it's ok—", this statement will encourages groomers, mostly grown adults to come after minors just because of that.

There's an archived document about it but not going to share it as not only did it have Cal's deadname and the misgendering at the start, including photos of their face when they were younger with the Eddsworld crew, it also reveals Cal's accounts which will lead people going after them to ask them further questions and worse, harass them, Cal didn't even want this document made because of that and it's no wonder it was gone because Cal was deadnamed and misgendered there.

I do want to post the archived evidences but for the sake of Cal, i can't as i don't want this fandom finding their accounts and i know most people in this fandom are going to be transphobic af to them. My friend told me they're still active somewhere but with a new different name where they're doing commissions.

All i could get from the information is that, Cal was a fan since they were 14 (according to the document) when they first met Edd and the two continued chatting, in person and through online messages until they started to have a relationship.

His irl friend, Steph even confirmed it in one of their blog that Cal was dating him, i got the screen recorded just in case.

So yeah, have these as well, including the part explaining why there wasn't any sources about it. the doodle one was made when Edd was hospitalized (The nosebleed one).

[chaifootsteps]

I saw people asking about me, and wanted to clear things up in case of confusion - this is coming from my own bias because it's my side, but I try to be as objective as possible.

When I was younger I ran a webcomic and went under less of a handle and more of a personal name. Viv sent her friend at the time, Faust, to bully me (they were already bullying a bunch of other artists at the time too), I THINK for "similar styles" since that was something Viv got defensive over and a lot of people compared our art very publicly. This was years worth of bullying, too, so when people say "it happened years ago", yes, and it carried on for years.

Eventually, Faust also bullies another friend of mine, and this causes a mutual friend between the two of us (who ran an HH fan blog) to leave the fandom and announce by on the blog. Viv commented directly on it, and called the blog owner a liar and my other friend a liar. I reblogged the post on my main account, and basically said "My friends aren't liars and here's the proof of what they're saying about what Faust did." Some time after this, Viv started going to her crew and friends, and started telling them to actively block me and stop supporting my work (we had a lot of mutual supporters). I got blocked suddenly by anyone connected to her that I was connected to, and later this was confirmed when one of her former Patreon mods let it slip to a mutual friend between she and I. This was grounds for financial damages technically, I'm not as concerned with that because I was such a small fry in a big webcomic pool, but it did hurt a lot to hear that someone with hundreds of thousands of followers had it out for me because she couldn't beat me into the ground years prior.

Trying to keep a long story short, she sent her sister to apologize to some other victims, and the victim I talked to told me to reach out to said sister since Viv refused to apologize herself and made her sister into a proxy. I DM'd said sister, asked for an apology, got blocked, never tried to contact anyone in her family again. In the apology the other victim got, Viv's sister fully admitted that Viv had an issue with cyberbullying and had in fact sent Faust to attack other people "all those years ago". Viv posted about me by name on Bluesky where I didn't have an account at the time to contest anything she said with - she said I was a stalker (I've never made an effort to find anything that isn't public or sent to me), that I meant her physical harm (I do not, I would never, and I have repeatedly said that what I want in an ideal world is for her to apologize to all her victims, myself included, and then do some soul-searching and come back a better person), that I harassed her family (as said above, I went to her sister on advice from one of the other victims, because Viv used her sister as a mouthpiece and that's on her), and that I ran multiple accounts to do all this (I deleted my old accounts under my personal name because of the personal hurt I was going through, I took a break from the internet for months, and then I came back on this account with a handle that's very sentimental to me - the two accounts never existed at the same time).

Faust may have grown in that time, I only mention them in this story out of wanting to keep clarity, and honestly if they have changed then good for them and I wish them the best. I don't like everything they've said and done, especially where their treatments of clients has come in, but I know they've gone through some rough stuff and also been thrown under the bus by Viv so... I'd appreciate if they at least fessed up to their culpability in it, because that would help vindicate a lot of the victims, and I think a lot of people would be willing to forgive them if they just acknowledged the hurt they caused instead of pretending like it never happened and they never helped Viv do it. That said, Viv was still the one who sicked them on me, and she was still the one who went out of her way to try to hurt my work and myself.

Thank you for your story and clarification. Not gonna comment too much because I want it to let it stand on its own, but it really does sound like everyone else grew up and Vivzie just...never did.

[just-antithings]

I don’t want to start an argument and I’m glad we’re on the same page that this kind of content involving real life minors should not exist, but you can’t just dismiss these concerns with “go make your own site”, if you love AO3 then wouldn’t you want to see it improve? wouldn’t you want to hold the people that not only write it but also allow this kind of stuff because “oh its legal” accountable? You see twitter users and tumblr users complain about bad decisions the websites make all the time, I don’t see how AO3 is exempt from criticism.

Except AO3 is made to be an archive, the whole point is that they don't arbitrarily delete fics like every other hosting site. So honestly go somewhere else or make your own are the only appropriate answers to give. You are asking them to police fics when the whole reason AO3 started was to not do that. So ultimately the reason it's been "free from criticism" is because they do what they say they will, a lot of the tumblr and Twitter criticism is them actively adding features people don't want while ignoring the ones they do. Your complaints are about what they host which they have been clear about from the beginning so what exactly is there to criticize on that front. We authors have been saying this forever but Don't like Don't read. Or make/use a different site.

You can't go to a bar and be mad about alcohol being there.

Honestly I don't care for underage rpf, but I am only in one rpf fandom and all the people are adults so 🤷 it's not really something I think about ever since I can simply ignore it. Also in my view I'm not shipping the real people I am shipping their personas, cause what you see and who they are in their private lives will be different. So I don't see the real problem with it, of course I don't think they shouldn't have an opinion. Rooster teeth thinks its hilarious that people ship them but it did make some uncomfortable, they solved that by making rules (ex. One said he was fine with people acknowledging his kid but said that he didn't want people using her real name it fics.) And honestly I think they made the right choice. People are more likely to listen to rules then bans.

However I can't stand cheating nothing will make me drop a story faster than cheating. Cheating is never right in real life, same as a lot of other issues antis are pressed about in fiction. But cheating is super common in fics, so I simply don't read the.

Honestly and personally, I don't think any minors should be streamers. They put out their faces names and ages everything adults used to warn you about. So over all these kids and teens need to understand that when you decide to put yourself out on the internet is that they need to be prepared for the consequences and dangers. Stop listing your personal info stop trying to turn yourself into a public figure, wait till your an adult to do that kinda thing.

Also removing it from AO3 doesn't solve anything lmao, they will simply post it elsewhere.

TDLR underage rpf has a lot of problems however AO3 isn't one of them.

[consult-sherlockholmes]

hi again sherlock. i'm the same anon that wrote that very long ask about growing tired with other people asks and demands,currently the last ask you answered anyway. ah,my name is sil if that matters at all. john may know me already.

so,everything that you wrote is very interesting and has to be taken seriously. it must be confusing and/or scary to be continuously asked to explore things you didn't even consider to start acknowledging.

" Neither am I a fan of 'exploring my emotions', and I would just rather ignore them all or delete them. Much easier. Starting with such things would cause much more troubles than it would result in positive outcomes."

I do think that some people went a bit overboard,not calling out anyone in particular,but Sherlock,i... am so sorry that you actually feel this way. I feel like i shouldn't tell you to "try it and then you'll see", i truly just want to express my thoughts: you have...all the time of this world. you have time to do this,that,and that again and maybe not that but this and maybe that, and when i say that nobody will actually rush you to do such things,believe me. don't let them take over your time and just...live.

"When people start telling me what to do with my life, and if I don't oblige, they start to insult my intelligence or start to get angry. I do understand people trying to give advice, but it is still my own life, and I would have to live with the possible repercussions of suggested actions for the rest of my life."

That is why you should take how much time you'll need to experience things,isn't it? at the end of the day,YOU are going to be the one (if you want to,of course) to do this and that,nobody else,so why not take time to think about the possibilities,consequences,ecc...

" It seems as people want to rush us into something, which we don't even know is possible, and haven't even taken a single step towards. "

Stop answering those asks. right now. even if your answers are entertaining for most people,if you feel like you're being pushed around too much, stop. It will do nothing but harm.

"I am bored, and asked to be entertained and distracted, but some things start to tire me. I do enjoy receiving challenging asks, discussing possibilites and receiving new ideas, but something which I haven't exactly determined yet, is causing confusing, exhausting and complicated thought processes these last days. And I don't know what to do with them."

New ideas and new thoughts,new concepts and new possibilities are so fun. They're fun just to think about. but... if you let other people push you into them,then what will be the result? I'm pretty sure you can already deduce it. You don't have to do anything sherlock. anything. and i'm actually pretty sure that john,does not want to make you do stuff you don't wanna do.

YOU get to decide about what things you want to explore,when,how,if,with who,in how many days or months or years.

take it easy. easy does it. <3

I assume a 'thank you for your concerns' is adequate here. It probably would be the best course of action to just wait it out now, see if this passes again. To wait until we return to London, to truly determine whether it is just a phase caused by our dislocation to france. Because I don't know any other course of action. But I am fine, the sun must have just gotten to me yesterday.

[dolcetters]

Munday Asks • 17 & 30 !!

munday asks

17) what was your first muse?

my first ever, ever, ever, ever muse was one of my Unis on Neopets. >xD i couldn't for the life of me tell you which one, though, because i had dozens and most of their names are lost to time. i tried googling my original account, just now, but i guess... it got erased? does neopets delete/deactivate long-inactive accounts? idk.

THAT SUCKS, because i had some rare ones--i've never been more betrayed in my life [/hasn't acknowledged them for years]

my first muse as far as tumblr is concerned is THIS fella. pretty sure i started RPing for dol back in 2011. it was either toward the end of my freshman year in college or the beginning of my sophomore year; but i want to say the former. i've literally been writing this asshole for a decade. what the fuck.

30) what are your favorite RP tropes to play? (angst, hurt-comfort, etc…)

that KIND OF varies with who i'm currently writing because my favorite RP tropes change with what my character "needs" or areas for them i really, really want to explore. so, i'll answer with dol in mind!

with him i definitely love writing hurt/comfort situations, and not just with him as the focus--i like having him on the comforting end because he is NOT GOOD at it and getting to write him struggle to figure out how to most effectively help someone (while not making the situation worse) can be really interesting.

if i have an opportunity to explore his softer side as a whole, i love taking it. he tends to be blunt/hard/biting/purposeful in driving people away from him. so, give him a moment where he lets himself be a bit more vulnerable or actively goes out of his way for someone else is 👌 and i enjoy angst in the light of him opening up about stuff, be it his past life with his biological family or lab experiences or hating how quick his temper is to consume him. i don't enjoy angst for angst's sake, if i'm going to write it i need him to grow from it somehow. if that makes sense!

and, of course, i love writing with the handful of ships i have BECAUSE they tend to lead into dol's softer side and pieces of himself that he reserves for those he feels safest around and trusts the most. like, if i get to write him letting out a genuine laugh at something and being unguarded? i've ascended. any day i get to break out one of his icons with a sincere smile or grin is a good day.

[bigskydreaming]

On behalf of someone who wasn't involved in fandom spaces during all that stuff you have talked about and doesn't know what most of those terms mean, could you explain a little more? This is mostly confirming what I already suspected about ao3 (and fandom in general) but it's good to know exactly what I'm talking about

So in a nutshell, LJ Strikethrough was back in 2007, when livejournal was the centralized heart of most fandoms. And the owners of the platform one weekend without warning just kinda up and purged a bunch of explicit fandom journals. (Strikethrough refers to the fact that a deleted and/or purged journal would have a strikethrough over the username).

Fandom of course was not slow or quiet about expressing its outrage, and Livejournal quickly backpedaled and said they’d been notified of problematic content by a concerned group of users, a right-wing Christian group called Warriors For Innocence.

Thing is.....this was ALWAYS bullshit, and everybody knew it.

Oh, its not that Warriors For Innocence didn’t exist, or that they hadn’t likely been spamming the hell out of LJ with complaints about content....

Its that they weren’t remotely anything new, had been around forever, are STILL around today, and NEVER HAD ANY KIND OF ACTUAL POWER.

Warriors for Innocence, you’ll find, had been an online presence for YEARS before LJ Strikethrough, and fandom content on LJ? Had been present and consistent for YEARS before LJ Strikethrough as well.

There is absolutely no stretch of the imagination in which WfI ‘just’ became aware of LJ fan communities and started spamming LJ with complaints in 2007.

And there’s absolutely NO reason why LJ would have all of a sudden felt any more compelled to GIVE their complaints any weight or feel beholden to cave to them in 2007....

Other than the fact that.....sixapart, the owners of the livejournal platform, were trying to sell said platform to a Russian corporation.

Now as to racefail.....again, in a nutshell, it was a MONTHS-long series of conversations and arguments between fans of color and professional sci-fi/fantasy writers of color, and white fans and pro sf/f writers.

And I do mean MONTHS. When precisely it began, depends on who you ask - some people cite a series of posts by sci-fi writers Jay Lake and Ben Peek saying that the sf/f genres needed to be more open and accommodating to fans of color and put more effort into representing marginalized characters, with this inciting pushback from (primarily white) fans who objected on the basis of ‘why should two white cis male writers be raising this conversation.’ While others cite it as beginning with a post by white sci-fi writer Elizabeth Bear called “Writing the Other” with this inciting pushback from primarily fans of color who objected on the basis that the post was patronizing and offensive as hell, and so were all the white writers and fans who rushed to her defense.

But regardless of when exactly it began, it most definitely did last MONTHS, with all kinds of back and forth across multiple writer and fan blogs, flamewars, etc....it ‘reignited’ with the publication of Patricia Wrede’s alternate history fantasy novel a few months after Bear’s initial post (if it ever really died down at all), and Jemisin and Nalo Hopkinson and a number of other writers of color were pretty constant presences in pushing back against the vitriol from white fans and writers, so they’re good places to start when looking up posts from the time period.

In particular though, one of the key elements that kept cropping up throughout racefail - and see if this sounds familiar - is that a recurring theme was white fans and writers being as angry at the anger expressed by fans of color as they were about the topics of racism that incited all of this (if not angrier). There were a LOT of not-so-subtle opinion pieces about how fans of color didn’t deserve to be listened to on this subject if they couldn’t be polite. Which - anyone who has followed me long knows my opinions on tone-policing (spoiler: they’re not good).

But by and large, the objections to Racefail were pretty much unilaterally about the fact that it was a conversation about racism in fiction that was happening on a large enough scale and with people of color speaking in loud enough voices that white fans AND writers COULDN’T avoid hearing about it or acknowledging it....

Because make no mistake - 

THAT was what was really pissing them off.

And then, not so coincidentally, racefail started to die down.....as more and more of fandom began migrating to other platforms....and centralizing fandom fiction on Ao3. Which - its not like I was ever tight with the particular writers who spearheaded creating Ao3, so I can’t actually speak to when and why they were inspired to create Ao3 specifically, though I do concede the timing fits for it to have been directly inspired by the events of Strikethrough...

BUT I can speak to the fact that Ao3 had existed for a good year or two by the time it really started picking up steam....

With this happening in 2009....

Right on the heels of Racefail....

Which took place almost ENTIRELY on livejournals from various sci-fi and fantasy fandoms....

Again, just to reiterate....in 2009....

A FULL TWO YEARS AFTER STRIKETHROUGH, BECAUSE LJ VERY MUCH WAS STILL A FANDOM HUB TWO YEARS AFTER EVERYONE SUPPOSEDLY ABANDONED SHIP FOR Ao3 IN ORDER TO AVOID FURTHER CENSORSHIP.

Nah.

Bull to the power of fucking shit.

(White) Fandom abandoned LJ in 2009, when fans of color got too vocal on the subject of racism to be ignored any longer.

And its not REMOTELY a coincidence that the new centralized hub of fandom, Ao3, just so happens to be infamous with fans of color for....ten years and running....ignoring every single criticism brought to them about the rampant racism present in many fandoms on their site, among other things.

Like, there is direct linkage here. Cause and effect. This is not a random series of events and never was.

Just like, after a good couple YEARS since people were even TALKING about Strikethrough anymore, let alone even recognized the fucking NAME “Warriors for Innocence”...

Strikethrough didn’t start getting pointed at as the ‘reason’ for the demise of livejournal fandoms...

Until well AFTER Ao3 was the new face of fandom.

Can’t imagine that has anything to do with fandom wanting to push a narrative that wasn’t “well actually, livejournal kinda died out as the go-to place for fandoms cuz white fans couldn’t get fans of color to stop talking about racism while they were on there, the way they happen to be able to thanks to Ao3.″

But I mean hey, what do I know? I was only there, after all.

Anyway, I think that’s the terms you were looking to have explained anon, but let me know if there was something else you were looking for.

[fair-fae]

this is nervewracking to ask, but i'm going to do it anyway. what did cyril do that was abusive? i can't see it, and honestly that just makes me scared that i do some of the same things and don't recognize it.

Hey, anon! This is a perfectly fine question and there’s nothing wrong with asking it (the issues lies in people who don’t see the abuse and then decided obviously that means it’s just not happening… and then go the extra mile of harassing the victim and their supporters). Thank you for asking! I’ll try to explain as best as I can, but the best advice I can give is to Google signs of emotional abuse and you can find a lot of lists of certain behaviors. Most are framed in terms of romantic relationships, but they can happen with friends, family, RP partners–anyone, in real life and online alike.Cut for length and general sensitive content dealing with emotional abuse and the dreaded “drama”

Here are some common ones that imo appeared in the logs:Isolation

Abusers often try to isolate victims from their friends/family and any other relations they might have. A sad and lonely victim makes for an easier target, as does one with no support network to help them escape their abuser. It also means less people around to find out about the abuser’s true nature. In the logs we see him try to cast doubt on her friends, telling her that her friends were bothering him and calling him “her keeper” or coming to him about her private conversations with them that they were displeased about (yet refusing to say who, to leave her questioning everyone), not mentioning her friends and tumblr followers were worried about her and trying to reach her until after the fact, etc.Walking on EggshellsA lot of people in abusive relationships describe it as feeling like “walking on eggshells.” They try to avoid doing things that might set off their abuser… but their abuser has to keep them from being content and confident to keep them in control, so they’ll find smaller and more irrational things to get upset at them about. Replying “if you want” to being asked about taking screenshots becomes a point of contention. “When are you going to stop being sad?” becomes an angry question. She’s blamed for deleting her own blog even though he knew she did it for her health/happiness. She’s blamed for the smallest inconvenience of people asking him if she’s okay even though she has no control over them choosing to reach out to him and for the most part didn’t even have any knowledge of it. Rather than answer them or ask them to stop contacting him, he ignores them, then blames her for him continuing to receive questions from them and the perception he believes that people think he had a falling out with her.

Gaslighting

This is what I saw the most of them in the logs and the most alarming thing. Gaslighting is turning everything around on the victim and making them doubt their own memory/sanity/intelligence/credibility. No, that didn’t really happen, you’re lying. No, what I did to you wasn’t that bad, it was normal, you’re just dramatic. No, I didn’t really say that, you’re misremembering. It’s a lot of lies, justifications, twisting words and scenarios, and taking things out of context.You can see how everything is spun as her fault and actually hurting him. Her deleting her blog is her fault. Him receiving messages about it is her fault. Her not doing anything about the messages is her fault, even though he just now told her it was bothering him, even though he just now told her he was still even receiving them past the first couple ones. Her being unhappy is her fault and a bother for him. Her not being enthused enough to do things with him is her fault, why doesn’t she appreciate that he so generously offered to hang out just to make her feel better? Obviously it’s all because she just hates him. He’s not treating her like an inconvenience, that’s just her mental illness telling her that. She tries to talk to him about her feelings and the way he’s treating her, and rather than acknowledging it, he turns it around–rather illogically and irrationally–about how he is actually the one being mistreated and inconvenienced.Passive Aggression 

A classic way to make people feel like shit but then pretend you did nothing and act like it’s all in their head. Look at the language he uses. Calling her “childish and rash” for “expecting” him to answer messages about her even though she never said she expected that. “It’s better than nothing” when she tries to do something to address the people messaging him as soon as she finds out it’s bothering him. “I don’t think you handled something well -  whatever -  people handle things in different ways” in regards to her deleting her blog for her own happiness. “I would have hoped we could resolve the problem if we’d talked it over” as if he wasn’t the obstacle in that.Those are just a few examples from the first album (the others get into less passive aggression, and more… downright aggression but still have plenty of examples, “delete them - so you don’t just repost them later without my knowledge again.”).ControllingnessThe staple of abuse is an attempt to control the victim. Look how weirdly hung up he is on her deleting her own blog and not doing it in a way he approved of (I almost wonder if he’s upset because he lost the status points of having a “tumblr famous” ship partner?). Look at how, even after they stopped being friends, he wants to keep her character on his ship page after she’d asked him to remove it and he admits to intentionally doing it to make her talk to him and give him leverage over her. Look at how he won’t let her go talk to her own friends in private for advice regarding him and shames her for it being an invasion of “privacy,” as if the logs showed some personal/RL info and not just him being unreasonable. Look at how concerned he is with people on tumblr not assuming the two of them are on bad terms. Look at how, even after they stop being friends, he browses her blogs for posts he believes are about him and tries to tell her what she can and can’t say on her own blogs.It’s evident in his branding post, as well. If people cut ties with him on terms he doesn’t like, they can’t RP having a brand–because he said so. Even if they change the story of how they received it and what character gave it to them. Even if they had that idea before they met him and asked him to RP it with them. Even if they change the look of the brand so it’s no longer his design. This isn’t even a unique idea or something he came up with on his own. Branding slaves has been a RL practice. It’s been made into a trope with… pretty much every fictional slave storyline.And while I’m generally of the opinion of the opinion that IC =/= OOC, IC does not exist within a void unaffected by OOC and vice versa. It’s just speculation since there’s nothing wrong with RPing the type of character he does, but there could very well be a reason he’s drawn to an antagonist/rapist/slaver/abuser/sadist/kidnapper type character.Lack of Care for BoundariesShe says she doesn’t want to be friends anymore, she blocks him, she asks him to delete her number, so what does he do? He not only keeps her number, but texts her because he hopes she hasn’t blocked him there, too. Not even to make an apology, just to say “I would have hoped we could resolve the problem if we’d talked it over” as if he hadn’t been an obstacle in that and “if you change your mind, I’ll be here” to put the onus of fixing the problem on her. When that doesn’t seem to get a response? He keeps their ship on his page despite her asking him to delete it and says, “I used it to make a point, since I knew that you wouldn’t continue the conversation unless I had something to get your attention.” He knows she doesn’t want to talk to him, so rather than honoring it or even finding a respectable way to approach her and make amends… he’s does something against her wishes that he know will upset her so she’ll feel compelled to reluctantly reach out to him. And when he gets that platform he wanted, does he use it to apologize? Nooope! He uses it as leverage to make her delete her screenshots of their conversation.Ultimatums How do you make someone do something they want to do? Give them an alternative that’s even worse. You want your name removed from my ship list so people don’t think you’re associated with me after you’ve realized I’m not someone you want to be around? You have to message me, delete your logs of our conversation, and not say anything about me. You don’t want me to embarrass you by posting logs of your confession to me and me rejecting you? You shouldn’t do things I don’t like, then… oh, but I’d never actually do that, don’t worry, silly! :) :) :)General Narcissism There are numerous times he demands he should be more appreciated. I did all these things to try to cheer up you, be grateful no matter how I’m treating you now. I’ve been so nice to you, how dare you say you feel like I don’t care even when I’m disregarding your feelings. Heck, look at the posts about his rules regarding his branding. He acts like it’s a revolutionary idea he came up with all his own and anyone he’s RPing with is being graced with this groundbreaking idea and if they keep some element of it in their RP after cutting ties with him they’re just “piggy-backing off" his time, effort, and energy to make up for their “lack of creativity” like srsly dude??Even though he refuses to apologize or acknowledge any wrongdoing, he really wants her to forgive and her to make things up to him, to still be his friend, to still have a positive opinion of him so he won’t lose that control. He can’t just let things die. Look at how many times he brings up being “villified” to her friends, the community, etc. He is desperate to have the world see him in a good light, which goes back to the other things mentioned. Control over the perceptions people have of him. The power of popularity and being liked to better isolate victims. Respect from the community to lend credibility that he’s trustworthy and definitely not gaslighting.

And not directed at you, anon, but in general.. for all the people trying to spin at as someone mad they got rejected who was actually terrorizing him… really? The only person who brought up her feelings in the logs was him doing it to spite her. idk I’ve dealt with a lot of admirers not taking rejection well and lemme tell you, I don’t invite them to hang out IRL (I try to avoid seeing them IRL, actually), I don’t ask them to hang out with me in game, I don’t go to lengths to contact them when they’ve blocked them, I don’t ship with them and try to parade it on my blog even after the ship has been retconned, I don’t desperately try to stay in contact with them and convince them to see me in a positive light, I don’t manipulate them into messaging me when I know they don’t want to talk, I don’t try to control their lives and their blogs, and I definitely don’t threaten them with ultimatums. Honestly, nobody deserves that in any context, even if they were a terrible person themselves.

[queenlokibeth]

Right? So okay i curse the day I added this reblog to this post bc it will haunt me forever because a lot of people get really pressed and i really don't want to start shit but like i ignored their comment first and then i was like *sighs in civic duty* because an 18 year old dating a 15 year old IS indeed very much literally illegal in parts of the world. That isn't som haha "illegal" as a joke, i meant that literally. I so not have the energy to elaborate on the 20 vs 29 yo example because i have already answered like 5 lengthy asks about it in the past buy basically one of those people literally has almost 50% more life experience than the other. No one says it's doomed, but it's worth being cautious about.

Lastly, the person who wrote that is 19. Honey, I'm mot much older, but i AM older, and trust me, people change a alot between 18, 19 -their early 20s. We're talking from experience. We HAVE been outside, LONGER THAN YOU HAVE. Maturing means acknowledging that you've got.. more maturing to do (read: 14 yo going "omg mom im not a kid anymore i know what im doing!" Vs 25 yo going "yeah man idk im just winging it i wasn't prepared for this")

Edit: I'm also going to take the time to address EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO GOT RIDICULOUSLY PRESSED IN THE NOTES: i'm not giving anyone guidelines, i'm not "sticking my nose" in anyone's business, this has nothing to do with "someone else's relationship making me uncomfortable" (idk what kinda sensitive assholes y'all gotta be to get uncomfortable by what other people do in their personal lives, i genuinely couldn't care less), i'm not trying to determine new legalities, etc. I've seen a load of fucking bullshit comments like those and more from bitter people who immediately jumped to conclusions and twisted what i said because they were READY to hate on someone. I've been called all sorts of names in the notes and in my inbox, all because YOU, THE PEOPLE GETTING PRESSED, lack any critical thinking, the ability to just ignore things, or simply not go around thinking the worst about people. These were examples, not just for kids but for young adults who might be in vulnerable positions without realising, because it happens and no one is invincible at any age, and YOU PEOPLE PROVE THAT because instead of critically thinking about a situation you'd just fully go in because of pride or some shit. If you're a 20 year old I'm not dictating your life and preventing you from dating a 29 year old. You can go ahead and the relationship might be fucking fantastic for all I know, or it could also be and entire trainwreck due to power dynamics. That's where the critical thinking comes in. Evaluate the situation, because it's a reasonable concern.

I regularly wish i never made this addition because i made it quickly without stopping to consider that I might need to clarify every. single. fucking. thing. To prevent drama. But of course, this is tumblr. I never would've thought that it would get this big and that I'd get so many vile comments because of it, plus my deepest apologies to OP who deleted the post probably because they were tired of getting a billion discourse notifications.

I've already seen discourse on Twitter about Keanu Reeves and his girlfriend bc apparently, 46 ISN'T age appropriate for a 55 year old man or something and I'm starting to think some people don't understand the discussion about age gap relationships....it's not about age gaps themselves, it's about adults dating people who aren't adults (usually teenagers). But also, 46 and 55 is age appropriate jfc

[izzy-ikigai]

I don't think Mastodon is the saviour everyone makes it out to be

TL;DR I'm not saying you shouldn't use Mastodon but it might not be for you and I want you to not just listen to the voices that praise it as some sort of amazing wonder technology that solves all problems that exist with current social networks. There are drawbacks(like with any website you can register an account with tbqh) and you should probably know them. I also specifically do not to recommend any other social networks.

(~1200 words, 6 minutes reading time)

People flock to Mastodon now because Twitter's a giant dumpster fire and my timeline over there is full with people telling others to just use Mastodon because it's so much better. Because it's decentralized and it still looks like Twitter.

And while I don't condemn the technologically less literate following what people they trust say, I do condemn the those who are trusted by others blindly pushing Mastodon onto people without clarifying the caveats. Like... that is pretty much the same ideological blindness to a technological concept that people had towards crypto currencies and look where those ended up after tooting their own horn for almost a decade.

I have quite a few gripes with Mastodon's conceptual decentralisation.

First there's end-user experience. I've seen non-tech people confused about what server to choose, what the differences between servers is, etc. And then there's people telling those non-tech people that it doesn't matter which instance they're using, which is a fundamentally wrong answer. The correct answer is "There's a lot of factors that should go into that decision and for most of them you probably need someone to guide you to make everyone happy, like will the amount of followers you attract kill the instance? Is the instance up to date and running with the correct settings for security and privacy?"

There's the waste. It wastes a lot of resources on basic functionality. A larger creator was talking about how they're hosting their own instance(or rather letting it host by someone else) on a server and for just 20k followers they already need quite a beefy machine because every time they send out a message it racks up a number of processes that send out the "notifications" to other instances that there's new content from them. When countries like Germany and France have to shut off power partially to get through the winter, I don't think we can afford that level of energy waste. Especially when those servers aren't in countries that can provide green(er) computing. But that's a technological issue that can get a technological fix.

There's also the ethical, legal and security implications like with all social networks, but I've seen too many Tooters(or whatever the name for people on Mastodon is) who were like "well this doesn't concern me/the admin because [insert cheap excuse here]". Social problems like these don't really have technical fixes.

Let's say you're a European. If you're on a Mastodon server, ask yourself - where does your data get sent off to. Do all servers that process your data(i.e. those with users that follow you or that you message with) comply with the European privacy laws? Would they hand off data on you to a hostile party? Will their admins wiggle their way out of a conversation concerning privacy and refer to how they aren't affected by those laws because they're "not technically a company" or some other excuse? What happens if you delete your account? Will all other federated servers acknowledge that deletion and delete all data linked to your account? What happens if during deletion a server is offline? What happens if a Server that hosts some of your data like DMs got blocked or otherwise moderated or firewalled and doesn't ever see that deletion?

Then there's the obvious ethical and political issues. When a server processes data of someone who's considered a doing something illegal in a country - will the server operator give that country's law enforcement/secret service/etc. access to the data? Will the operator know how to check if e.g. a subpoena is legit? Will they stand against a government if content is considered illegal but handing out user data would be unethical? What if the next time a country comes knocking it's a country with a questionable track record in human rights?

Don't get me wrong, I know one or two Mastodon admins and I like their other opinions quite a bunch but I don't think that outweighs the impact of these oversights(or features as they're sometimes called) in core concepts of ActivityPub / Mastodon.

I don't think Mastodon will scale to the amount of users networks like Twitter or Tumblr have. The biggest instance at the moment has <900k users, which is ~15% of all Mastodon users*, and sports a mere 42.5m statuses(of a total 568m statuses*). Twitter did 500m Tweets per day in 2013/2014. So they're a decade behind in volume and the 4 biggest instances in terms of user count(>200k users) have uptimes between ~82 and ~95%. That would mean even the best of these 4 instances is (somewhat) unusable somewhere between 8 and 9h a week. That also reminds me of Twitter a bit more than decade ago, back when the fail whale(which funnily enough could have ended up being an elephant, see the stories about Yiying Lu) was still a meme. It took Twitter engineers years to make the service stable, I doubt this'll be much different with Mastodon.

Scalability of federated systems also leads to other issues with features you might be used to like global search, global hashtags, etc. If you're a content creator hoping to get discovered by others - this makes it a lot harder for people to find you unless you already have a larger following you take with you to have some word-of-mouth advertisement. There's a decent write-up on issues like these and Fediverse fragility on communitywiki.org. There's also articles about issues like far-right servers, servers for 18+ work and how the latter had to close down, the former is still up and just blocked by many servers.

That last link also contains a paragraph about the DSA:

In the European Union, providers of Mastodon services will have to follow the rules of the Digital Services Act(DSA), which enters into force in early 2024. Mastodon administrators will have to set up reporting mechanisms, for instance. They will have to act “without undue delay” when presented with an order from law enforcement. Perhaps more frightening still, they will have to read the 102 pages of the DSA to understand what obligations they face.

Basically making that issue of servers being responsible for user data even worse for admins, especially those that host medium and large instances.

All in all I'm still glad to see some form of development happening in terms of non-commercial social networks, but given the above reasons, I don't see myself on any Mastodon instance(or any other compatible instance for that matter) anytime soon. Maybe I'm just getting older and I'm past my days of being an early adopter. Or maybe my general gut feeling about this from what I know will be confirmed or disproven. We'll see what the future will bring you.

* Cumulated numbers come from instances.social