#i'm still not sure if i believe that reddit user

[pynkhues]

Sam also talked about having an Intimacy Coordinator (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/interview-with-the-vampire-series-intimacy-coordinators-1235338511/) and the writer’s account also tweeted about it: https://x.com/iwtvwriters/status/1885428614256021722?s=46

Nice! Thank you for the links!

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

I've almost reached my breaking point with this genocide in Ukraine. I'm older than most Tumblr users, so I was being yelled at in university tutorials in the early 00s for talking about the Holodomor, and being told that "If it happened, Ukrainians deserved it for being Nazis".

I was out there in 2007 when we had the worldwide march for the Holodomor to be recognised as a genocide, only for so many countries (the USA being one of them) to tell us that they won't do it because it might upset russia.

I remember when russia invaded in 2014 and Obama said it wasn't his business, and that russia can decide what happens in Ukraine. And then he sent Ukraine fucking helmets and "hygiene kits" instead of the military aid he was supposed to.

My family in Donetsk walked out of their homes with their lives packed in plastic shopping bags nearly eleven years ago. But people prefer to believe the russian lies that Donbas wants to be part of russia.

I remember sitting at home on the 17th of July 2014, hearing about russia shooting down MH17, and feeling my blood run cold because the initial reports said the aeroplane was full of Americans. Being so sure that the USA might finally live up to the Budapest Memorandum and get involved in the war.

Of course they didn't.

And then the Malaysians went and protested at the Ukrainian embassy, as if they were to blame for being invaded by their genocidal neighbour.

I remember being at a protest at the russian embassy in Canberra just after Crimea was annexed, and the only people who turned up for us were other Ukrainians. Soon after there were massive protests for Palestine and BLM from Melbourne to Dublin and beyond. Ukrainians are too white for leftists and too foreign for right-wingers to care about.

More people dumped buckets of ice on their heads than supported us.

I spent Easter 2016 in a hotel in Ukraine. 8.5 years ago I was the only guest who wasn't a soldier on leave from the war.

Now I go on reddit and see that Americans are discussing how Ukraine "has a neo-fascist problem". Um, you guys just voted for Donald fucking Trump?

Then I see an Australian journalist say that the US election result means that America is "becoming like Eastern Europe". No. Eastern Europeans aren't Nazis. They suffered more under the Nazis than anyone.

We're always on our own. Millions upon millions of Ukrainians have been killed in the last ninety years, millions more sold into slavery in Germany (including my grandparents), hundreds of thousands sent to gulags (including the entire population of my grandmother's village), and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands dead or missing now, but we're still not seen as worthy of caring about.

I have family members whose dead bodies have been lying on battlefields for over a year. One killed in Bakhmut, a city that no longer exists. Another taken hostage from Mariupol, a city russia bombed to the ground. The mass graves there can be seen from space.

We can't get the bodies back because russia has colonised the area. I have a relative who was moved on from fighting in Vovchansk because there was no point fighting for another city that no longer exists. My relative who was taken hostage in Mariupol was starved and tortured for 2.5 years.

And then last week our city's magazine had a three-page interview with the russian ambassador, explaining why his country "has" to commit genocide in Ukraine. The editor laughed at my aunt when she phoned to register a complaint.

But teenaged tankies on sites like this will mock Ukrainians' deaths, stick a fucking hammer and sickle in their profile, and lecture people like me about things they know nothing about.

The world needs to end its ridiculous love affair with the russian federation.

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[hearts4werka]

There's a new account I'm sure is ran by a man because no fan of ariana greenblatt would post this stuff just so normally and call her goddess. I also found very horrible sexualization pages from reddit that could be one of these guys.

please don't put the ariana tag in here because they might hide and change their user. they also post IN the ariana tag. she is 17 years old btw. a minor that alot of creepy guys have been sexualizing lately.

their user is @ ggarianagreenblatt

PLEASE SHARE THIS AND REPORT THEM. they don't need to be on here.

Any interaction with this post that you’re comfortable with is deeply appreciated!

જ⁀➴ I can’t believe he’s back at it AGAIN, like jesus man catch a break. It’s so disgusting and seriously this needs to stop.

જ⁀➴ It doesn’t matter if you have a small following but you still can help spread the word and help us once again ban this man from continuing his disgusting acts! I’m not pressuring anyone into anything they don’t want to do, if you want to help you’re more than welcome to but if you’re not comfortable with sharing things like this, that’s fine!

- 𝐁𝐲𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐬!

[nabbit-unmasked]

Thinking about when time when I was in Reddit therian and otherkin communities.

Once time, I made a google slides presentation for myself with positivity about being C.A.R. kin, and every single being supported me except this one exclusionist guy. He called me controversial and had a whole argument with me in the comments.

He was very strict about who he saw as a valid otherkin and gatekeeped others to hell and back. It wasn't just with me and being an African nation, but he pretty much nitpicked everyone he saw. If there was anything about them that didn't match his perfect standard of being an 100% involuntary, monokin/very few kin, non-physical, completely serious, not seeking validation, mythical creature otherkin, he found a way to argue with you and tell you what he thought you should be. This man was in his 20s and talking to a bunch of experimental/new-to-kin teenagers about this stuff, mind you.

Later on, my and a fellow otherkin friend messaged a user that he was, once again, gatekeeping and invalidating. I believe it was because they were original species kin, but I'm not quite sure. Either way, they reported him and he was banned the next day (thank goodness).

When I was in Reddit spaces, this wasn't all that uncommon either. He was just a more extreme example. People did make fun of "tumblr kins", which I believe was a satirical/troll movement a couple years back that made fun of bizzare kintypes and experiences. But the same idea still stuck; sometimes, tumblr was known as the place with a bunch of fakers and confused teens with 50+ kintypes, which is extremely indicative of "faking" in reddit spaces.

I admit that I partook in it gatekeeping, too. Specifically in therian spaces: it was extremely common for young & new therians to come in and ask if they were a valid therian, and a few people would reply and tell them the usual spiel: "as long as you aren't controlling it and you dont think you're physically an animal and you identify as not with, then yes!!!!"

When I found the r/alterhuman subreddit instead of other big kin subreddits, I totally changed my views on who counted as a "real therian/otherkin/whatever-else-kin". If you identify as it, you are it, and only you can decide that for yourself. It's no one else's decision, because they aren't in your mind.

That's when I left Reddit and came over here.

I realized something that could have been useful years ago when I was experiencing impostor syndrome over my plurality.

If you think you're faking, what's the reason for that? Is it because you feel like you subconsciously chose to be the way you are? Is it because you got hyperfixated on the community you're in? Is it because you dont experience any of the common or "more serious" traits of your identity?

Chances are, whatever it is that's making you feel that way is actually valid. Gatekeepers will try to shape their communities into the perfect mold that their brain sees them as, or as the people around them have made it out to seem. In reality, the ideal community is completely subjective and imaginary. There is no one, no force, no ideology that can stop you from identifying the way you do. It's entirely mental, individual, and personal. Theoretically, I could put on any label that I wanted to right now, and no one but myself could stop me.

After I realized I could apply that to myself, I understood most of my imposter syndrome came from the fact that my autism clung to communities and made me subconsciously gravitate to them due to hyperfixation. I always tried to find reasons why that couldn't be true, but I realized I didn't have to do that anymore. I accepted that was essentially what was happening. If someone did develop their identity, subconsciously or not, due to a hyperfixation, that was valid. When I built my own moral compass and stopped gatekeeping others, I was then able to stop gatekeeping my own self.

[dollypopup]

So, I wasn't gonna post anything about this, honestly, but because I was directly asked, here's my 2 cents!

First, I want to thank you for saying you trust me with this! I'm also on the ace-spectrum, and I'm a queer, bisexual woman, so I do have a lot of empathy with you and everyone else who was down for queer rep.

(Also, I do not have Anon turned on for my asks. I absolutely respect your privacy, but I've been harassed before, and if people want to come at me, they can do it with their whole chest. Similarly, if people want to come TO me, I'd love to be friends!) I want to start off with the fact that whilst I understand that you believe the article, I don't. Call it the skeptic in me, or my media literacy classes during my grad program or denial or what have you, but we live in a huge era of misinformation. A tabloid is not likely to be any kind of reliable source, and a random reddit user even less so. It's like making a balloon full of pudding and having a clown say it's helium. We're not going to know until the needle pops it. Surely, no one would ever lie on the internet.

That being said, as much as I yearned and wanted for Demi Colin to be confirmed, it's not set in stone, and so it couldn't have been taken away from us. Honestly, even being ace-spec, a lot of the HC of Demi!Colin started putting a bad taste in my mouth when I realized that a lot of this predominately cishet fandomw as doing it as a means of keeping Colin 'pure' for Penelope, and that struck me as incredibly acephobic. Sure, they were HCing him as one of us. . .but not because it fit with his character or provided a rich and interesting arc for him to explore, but more so that his identity was an extension of their hopes and wants for Penelope. It wasn't for him as a character, but for him as a prize. And that made me so very sad, so my dream of Demi!Colin died when I saw that happening so frequently. Us Demi and Ace folks deserved better than that, and we continue to.

Either way, I think you are absolutely allowed to feel your disappointment! This is a frustration safe zone! There was a lot of potential this season, especially for Colin, that I feel has been dropped. But even IF that article contains some truth (big, heavy IF). . .idk, I see it through the lens that lot of us Demi folks have had sex. Even no strings attached sex. I know I have. Was I disassociated from it for a lot of the time? Yeah. Was it satisfying? No. But did it happen? It did. I chose to take part in it, and they were experiences that helped me grow. And I am no less Demi for it! IF this article is true, instead of us freaking. . .I feel like it could tell us a lot about Colin's character.

He is a man who has had, largely, no good role models in his life. Not in this regard. Who does he have to guide him? Anthony? Literally said he should have taken Colin to brothels. Benedict? Hell, he had a threesome himself. Why wouldn't Colin be out here thinking 'This is what Men do, this is what my brothers do, why not?' Colin is young. He's 23 still trying to find himself. And the entire idea of 'oh, he's a nerd! no way he's had threesomes' lol, like nerds aren't kinky? Come on, I'm a nerd and I've done way more than people would assume I have. He was traveling for months, and I think this really isn't as huge a deal as we're making it out to be. I ship Polin exclusively, and I love the idea of them having their firsts together, but I'm also not angry otherwise. In my mind, he's still demi. Just like he'll always be ND, even if it isn't confirmed.

Sidenote, o want to touch on something that is somewhat unrelated to your post, but something I'm seeing a lot is the whole 'it's dehumanizing for him to watch two women!' or 'it's lesbian fetishization!'

from the very bottom of my heart, as a gay woman, people saying that can eat me. These are the same people who didn't care about any of our representation, before. They didn't care about having lesbian characters, didn't bring them up. Now that it affects their (largely) het pairing, and specifically Colin as a perfect prize in a pairing he has largely been denied a narrative within, we're talking pieces and pawns for their discontent? No, I refuse. There are legitimate criticisms that can and should take place about Bridgerton's lack of care toward wlw, and especially that our only representation may actually just be a lesbian performance for the sake of a threesome, but this is not a criticism on COLIN. It is a criticism on the PRODUCTION. Because if we had queer women in the series before, it wouldn't be an issue. However, I refuse to have my sexuality used as a 'ewwww gross! look what they're doing! isn't that soooo wrong?' gotcha moment by people who just don't like his character. If we're gonna have a conversation about it, we should have a conversation about it based purely on our actual desire to protect and care for queer women. Not using us as stepping stone soap boxes to prop up an argument.

Queer people are really done dirty in the Polin fandom, and this is proof of it. Demi!Colin is important to me, and he continues living on in my heart and my fics, and even if it turns out that he's fucked up and down the Amalfi coastline and watched live porn, that won't make him less demi to me, personally. Ace spec people's experience with sex is all unique, and honestly, watching seems very in line with Colin's character. I don't agree with peeps who call it weird or gross that he watches porn.

This is an incredibly puritanical fandom, and I find it more and more evident as I spend time in it. The entire 'suffering' 'penance' 'deserve her' 'grovel' train was already very clear in that regard, and then people only wanting Colin to be a virgin so he remained 'pure' and 'untarnished' (legit takes I had to read with my own eyeballs) for Penelope was so Catholic on main that it made me feel insane.

Us ace-spec peeps deserve to be and should have the space to be upset at any developments taking place! We also deserve to be free from people doing pseudo pearl clutching and hiding behind feminist and queer-friendly language to disguise that they're just upset that Colin is getting anything at all in his storyline that centers around him and his own discovery outside of Penelope. Even if he isn't a virgin, he can absolutely still be Demi, Anon! And I hope that brings you some comfort.

Am I a fan of the threesomes foursomes moresomes and live porn speculation? No, not particularly. Am I livid furious throwing up about it? Also no. This series has betrayed me and disappointed me in so many ways, but so has the fandom. I guess I'm accustomed to it, now. But I want to reiterate that we should not believe everything that is posted. Some rando on a reddit forum confirming a tabloid article does not investigative journalism and peer review and confirmed sources make.

But in the event that the season does disappoint and gives us some baffling storylines: this is where fanfic can be such a comfort. It's how a story lives on in perpetuity. I've written trans!Colin and queer!Colin and demi!Colin and virgin!Colin and bdsm!Colin and all sorts! We can give we everything we want. It's our playground and it's meant to be fun.

But over my dead body will I believe a Sun UK article lol

[andrew-thy-accursed]

hello to my favouriteee black metal artist on tumblr ( artist as in like, art artist not music artist lolol )

just took a peak at the posts about your blog on that sub and holy fuck do the people commenting on it sound like total losers lolol! some of them sound straight up thirteen… or people who just never matured, i suppose… anyways, sorry you had to turn off your anon for the time being but it was probably for the best as to just let this storm of losers from reddit blow over… those comments from the person who posted you saying your art is not even good is so delusional, i have people who i dislike but that i can very much still admit that they make good things like art or music! sure, they can dislike you and what you do on here but saying your art is not good is just a straight up lie! anyone with eyes can see that your art is beyond amazing and you clearly have so much talent in the art field… also what the hell was with them constantly calling you “ girlie ” and “ girl ” ? they want to call other people cringe but seemingly cannot read their own comments where they type like a young teen attempting to be sassy…

i honestly cannot believe they have not posted anything from my blog on there yet, they seem to love posting fanfiction about band members! hello blackmetalcringe reddit users, post all about me on there if you would like to! my black metal fanfiction blog is @world0fmadness and i will be completely unbothered by you losers! i would actually love to see what little quips you guys can come up with and what names you think will hurt me the most

but yeah, sending love and hugs to you! fuck ‘em right up the ass with a sword because they will never be as awesome as you are <3

Hiiiii, thank you so much,,

And yeah they do. Sometimes I wonder if it's just other teenagers insulting each other and adults because it's behavior that's just like the mean girls who would go to my highschool..."you can't sit with us" type shit yk?

With regard to the art comments...if I don't like someone I tend to not even touch that with a 30 ft pole...because I know I'm skilled at art!! And their comments on me being "shit" does nothing but hurt other artists who are just as skilled or less skilled! Like damn!! The girlie thing I just think was mean girl behavior because what else could it be 😭 unless that OP knew I was trans bc if so then we're gonna have transphobia (which is typical) 😂 But I try to even give people who hate me some benefit of the doubt/good faith because if I can't even approach someone else's hostility with good faith I can't ask for that faith back. (In my experience, but it's something I gotta get better on lol)

And if you do get posted I wish you luck lol 😂😂 I get death threats and SH threats in my inbox from time to time and i delete them right off the bat because it's not even any fun!! Like just the old "Kys" that's all you got??? Not even gonna make it fun and detailed? Lame if you ask me

thank you for the hugs and support though I really appreciate the love 😭🖤🤲

[mecachrome]

i absolutely LOVE mixed media outsider pov 🥹 social media fics in general! i think a wag oscar fic vs wag lando fic is so fun. bcs wag oscar WOULD be so private facing like personally i do not think he is an “offline” person at all, he just has locked accs everywhere and maybe 1 burner account where he goes crazy sometimes (also, love your q&a fic i was nodding to the reddit part bcs that was so believable to mee). wag lando would not be like, a mega influencer i’d say, but very open about the lifestyle he is leading. i guess kinda like maxf rn 😭

++before i even got into f1 i was obsessed with that one landoscar mixed media fic where they communicated through playlists. i had no context of them whatsoever but it was just formatted SO well!!

beloved anon ARE YOU ME!!!??? i think that was literally the first landoscar fic i read when i was still in my like "🤔 who is worthy of being shipped with miss oscar" phase (sorryyy) and it completely rearranged my brain chemistry 🧡 it's always one of the first recs i give i hope user Anonymous knows how instrumental they've been to the 814 archives!!! i thought the spotify idea was sooo unique and executed perfectly; in general one of my fav things in mixed media is when people incorporate unconventional platforms that you wouldn't typically expect :') a personal classic is this haikyuu fic that's written like imageboard style which is peak comedy to me unfortunately... there's also a suits fic from the livejournal era that's like even though I too was on lj in 2012 it kind of feels nostalgic now yk?! which pleases me greatly... the sheer hilarity of fictionalized bnf politics

but anyway!!! i love juxtaposing wag oscar and wag lando because you're right that you can really go off in totally opposite directions which is sooo fun. your oscar characterization is truly me so i endorse it (too embedded in online culture but also has 0 public irl social media presence 😭) like this guy is reading the Takes he'll just never get caught engaging in them! and imo lando's 1230481324 adhd hobbies are so perfect for inventing random offshoot aus LOL like sure driver oscar and dj lando loonavoice why not??? u can take the lando norris out of f1 but u cannot take the questionable microinfluencer vibes out of the lando norris 👆

T__T also personally incapable of reading q&a back because it's too cringe now hlaskfdh i'm glad you still enjoy that bit... <3 much love anon thank u for the fun ask!!!!

[gayflagblog]

hello, a reddit user is claiming that he made the flag and you didn't, is he telling the truth?

asking because idk who to credit the flag to since he seems sincere :/

No? I haven't had a reddit account in years, and unless this is the account of Mod Hermy from ask-pride-color-schemes (who spoke on the original flag here), this is someone Lying On The Internet Again

EDIT: This seems to be someone who made a similar flag and claims they made theirs with "the exact same meanings as [this one]" to claim I "plagiarized"

You can see the original post they made in this reblog chain from June 10th 2021, and the edited version with the meanings of this flag copy pasted onto their post from September 9th, 2021. I also can't find any other reblogs with those meanings or even mentions of them prior to the Sept. 9th, 2021 one above. (Wayback Machine links)

for clarity this is the flag they designed and this is the reddit thread from the ask

Which this MLM flag looks much more similar too than mine does. Mod Hermy's flag was also made and posted earlier than this flag on August 24, 2016 (a point people mention to them on the reddit post they don't seem to have addressed, see the first link on this post) so that's still the original flag, however this person is claiming to have made "the first flag" and as I mentioned, wants "credit" for "plagiarism".

I find it very hard to believe they didn't reference Hermy's first design or that they were completely unaware of it (since it was pretty much the only flag design that popped up consistently pre-2019 for gay men.) I originally had a section here about convergent flag evolution trying to be charitable, but seeing as they're trying to actively claim they made the meanings that both I + my followers came up with together, I've decided to remove it.

This really is just someone Lying On The Internet and I'm not sure why. Getting "credit" and "recognition" for the flags I host here has honestly just gotten me a lot of harassment and has left a negative impact on my mental health at certain points.

Again if anyone would like a more comprehensive history of both the original design and the flags I've hosted here (with dates/screenshots/links and all that good stuff), you can head on over to @archivalflags or you can browse through the /archive here (as well as the posts on my Twitter/X account, if that site is still functional)

[chimerafflesia]

Yuri Duel Links 2024

(this is literally just a masterpost of everything that made me insane over the course of the event so I can reflect and laugh/cry/etc)

first of all the sentence "Yuri Duel Links Event 2024" would have put me in a coma if you told me that say like. a month and a half ago. when Lulu and Rin came in September I was SURE it was going to be at least early 2025 before we got him. and Yet,

I was in the middle of getting ready for a concert when I got a notification from the DL subreddit of all things that said "He's Finally In" and I saw a little picture of Yuri and I was like Lol. Yeah Ok. so then I opened duel links and checked and was hit with This:

and I was like Okay. okay. cool cool cool cool. I'm gonna be so normal about this. *narrator voice* "via the tags on this post, you could see they were indeed not normal about it"

and girl sorry I wasn't gonna be normal about it like I've wanted this cunt in duel links since he landed on my radar. I knew from the first episode he appeared in that he was going to be my favorite arc-v character because I tend to have a Type when it comes to characters. it's been the same since I was like 8. sue me.

I even started getting into theory territory I was SERIOUS

(this ended up not being the case but congrats to Dumon for being the July unlock that was a lot of fun)

HOWEVER SPEAKING OF PREDICTING UNLOCKS I DO HAVE TO SAY I made this list back in MAY predicting the rest of the characters for 2024, and while some of these are very out there and Not Happening (sorry Marik and Atticus) I DID ORIGINALLY PREDICT YURI FOR AN OCTOBER UNLOCK. (Dumon for July as well) I AM LITERALLY JOHN KONAMI I GUESS.

so time goes by and I have a month to grind gems for Yuri's box because OBVIOUSLY I need a full character deck for him. would tumblr user chimerafflesia do anything less. I achieved this btw. 9999 gems the day before the event started. I was READY.

October 23rd. I literally wake up at 6am because I was so excited I was like a kid on christmas. I am hit with these screens and actually got kinda misty eyed because it was Happening

I waited 5000 years (about 7 months) to see that "Event Exclusive" in front of him and it was real and happening like CHEERS I'LL DRINK TO THAT!

I recapped a lot of my initial reactions on day one here and here but it just doesn't do it justice like I was just so excited and happy and having the time of my life playing this little freemium mobile game. I've said it like 348735 times now but duel links is genuinely so fucking amazing to me I love this game so so so much.

AND THIS EVENT WAS SO WONDERFUL!!!! THEY DID RIGHT BY HIM I WAS (AND STILL AM) SO HAPPY. HIS CHARACTERIZATION STAYED INTACT. WE GOT SOME NEW LITTLE FLAVOR DETAILS FOR HIM. THAT MAY HAVE TO BE A SEPARATE POST BUT GOD. YURI FANS WE ARE EATING GOOD.

here are some personal favorites. little problem child 🩷💜

and course this instant classic:

but there are so many. I point to this video which has all his dialouge including taunts.

look at these screenshots man like come on. I can't believe these are real. they look like images that would've been posted on reddit like 3 years ago with the caption "This Will Be Duel Links in 2024" EXCEPT IT IS.

I set up this board with all the predap extra deck mons + starving venom and was staring at it like Man We Really Won. this shit's beautiful

Just. man I feel like there's so much more I wanna say but overall it was just a really fun event. this might sound silly to some people but I really do have a special connection to yugioh in general and I do feel like it was fate when it came into my life. I really got into yugioh in April 2021 during a particurally dark time in my life and yugioh became like a lifeline for me. it was an escape. it still is. I'm always going to be grateful for this franchise.

I watched arc-v from March-April of this year (immediately after finishing zexal btw, which is the first time ever I watched two yugioh anime back to back) and to say it fried my brain is kind of an understatement like I still think about this show every day of my life. to quote my own tweet:

like. YEAH.

Yuri in particular is a fusion parasite all on his own he wormed himself into my brain and hasn't let go. I've rewatched his episodes so many times but I think I've seen arc-v episode 135 in particular roughly 124 times. could be more. it will be more.

I can't help but feel like watching arc-v this year was meant to be. (first of all, the same year I watch it FOUR arc-v characters get into duel links? divine timing if I've ever seen it) but in particular the timing of the Yuri event feels very nice. I've been dealing with some personal woes (particulary surrounding employment, amongst other things) and again this event was such an escape for me, even if just for a few hours each day. I can't wait until he's back in a few months. we will be there :)

I'm at the point where I don't really care if it's "cringe" to get this emo about shows/characters/games etc cuz at the end of the day this shit really does mean something to me man. I know what yugioh has done for me and what it'll definitely continue to do for me and I'm grateful for it <3

(PS it is really really fun to wreck people on ranked with super poly) here is a live image of me playing online duel links

[oleworm]

@bacchanalium that's Americans not seeing foreign people as human beings. That's why they always put people to the impossible standard. Like when they tell refugees who fled extremist violence. "Co co co go back to your country where you can be killed and fix it. I am so smart!". And when people do oppose extremism by supporting education and human rightds, they are still called slurs, accused of being "not real" or "as bad as", ignored or further insulted

It's like people who come from the situations like the one in Afghanistan are doomed if they do, doomed if they don't speak about their experience or seek better life. They have impossible expectations on them to not only fit Western sensitivities, but Western imagination of them.

Hope that it's OK to reply like this, if not tell me and I'll delete it!

I don't think it's only people from the United States, though a lot of them are from there, but also those who spend too much time on social media and watch people get piled on for having a slightly different opinion than a bully.

I remember that we had a conversation once about how you could go on Reddit and find that the top comments were indistinguishable from each other, even on threads about different topics. That is, you wouldn't be able to identify any of those users because of their ideas or speech patterns because users tended to upvote those that had references they recognised or ways of writing that they identified with. And that's talking about people who use it to share a positive feeling I would imagine--you approve of the thing, you belong to the group of those who approve of the thing. On Tumblr and Twitter I've seen a more aggressive way to promote sameness, where if you don't follow the script it means that you disagree and that's bad, and then people allow themselves to talk to you in a way that would be considered very offensive if they did it in person. Some people are very hurt by this! It's also creepy because it gets to the point where you literally wouldn't be able to tell any of these users apart.

I refuse to believe that any one nationality is full of idiots. If I could talk to a regular person about the problems that people face in different parts of the world, I am sure they would understand that it's not nice to live through all of that and that no one should be punished for suffering in a way that does not fit your mental schematic of the world. It might take a moment to explain the situation but I think most people would get it.

But with a lot of what you see online, it's like they're just repeating what their cooler friend told them. They also want to be cool, so they repeat it to someone else without understanding it. It might not make any sense but they'll sure as hell say it. After all, it takes a few seconds to type. It reminds me of when I was twelve and pretended to be more familiar with certain bands that the other kids were listening to, but now they use the same dynamic to talk about what opinions are evil and racist.

It could be that we're bombarded with the real-time thoughts of twenty-one year-olds that are specifically fluent in English, with all of their cultural biases and the issues a lot of people have at that age, and because of how social media works, this is what ends up being pushed--the half-baked thoughts of the average teenager or very young adult--not the most mature, well-read, or most empathetic person in that age group, but the most average. Whatever that means. I know that at that age I was saying very messed up things. Definitely not ideas that I would like to be amplified in any way.

You see some adults acting that way, but I don't know if it's adults acting more like teenagers nowadays, more eager to impress and with a lower frustration threshold, or if it's because when I was a kid adults weren't losing their temper in front of me and when they did it was so rare that I considered it the sign of a person being very mentally unwell. I'm not a scientist, I really don't know. People definitely have always had thoughtless opinions but now you see it all the time and it continues affecting what others think and say long after the fact. I can't say I like that.

[renapomissing]

Comic Sonic Super Study 12

Man, this thing was supposed to be out two days ago. Anyway, time for issue 26!

First story

Back up a second. Robotnik took two weeks of meteorology class at night school, and he was able to do all of this with it? Lowkey this dude is more impressive than Eggman in the games.

No, Sally, you can't say that word; you're gonna get demonitized.

I choose to believe that Antoine was just being a smart aleck here. Probably not, but I'm gonna keep pulling for his dignity, all the way through this comic.

Also, bad day for Sally to go back to the naked look.

A Sonic-cicle, you say?

Credit to Reddit user Dominick128 on this Reddit thread for the image. I needed this image to be period-accurate, and that meant I needed Classic Sonic.

Yep. It's gonna be one of those Super Studies.

See, these types of group dynamics, and how Sonic relates within them are the things we don't get when the games have him work alone.

Y'know what? This is pretty goated on Snively's part. I also love how evil he and Robotnik are, for seemingly no reason at all.

Issue 26: Second story

Eyyyy, we got Art Mahwinney on here. One of the best to ever do it, as far as I'm concerned.

"Where's Bunnie" indeed; she hasn't shown up for a few issues, now.

As a side note: Sonic can't run right now, and he's taking it pretty well.

Sally's ancestors built log fortresses, apparently. I actually really like this idea.

Bunnie seems to be okay with making jokes about her robot parts.

Firstly, Rotor's pocket laser can cut through metal... but it's not strong enough to make for a decent weapon...? Are you guys one hundred percent sure about that? I was gonna point out that their enemy's forces are mostly metal, but if it can cut through metal, it can definitely cut through flesh.

Secondly, I love the detail of Sonic messing up his ankle again. They didn't have to do it, but it adds a certain life to the scene. I'm not sure if he decided to test it, or if he just did that out of habit, and forgot about the injury for a second, but I like both of those explanations.

Actually pretty raw

I liked this story a lot. Sure, not everybody gets to be useful, but hey, it's not a full issue story, and we still get Sonic managing to think his way out of a problem when he can't run, and we get Bunnie getting some much-needed time to shine, and Rotor helping by putting the suit together. Sally and Antoine at least helped by carrying Sonic when he was injured. But really, the story gets to the point with a very good tone-setting panel of the Freedom Fighters in the middle of a confrontation with Robotnik, desperate, in the forest.

There's a general tone of camaraderie in this story, and to me, this is when the Freedom Fighters as a unit are being written at their best. Hell, this is what I feel a team book should be: The dynamic is thoroughly established, and we saw how they work together in tight situations.

I didn't cover it, but one point of note is that Sonic doesn't stop making jokes when the team doesn't know what to do, and Sally sternly asks him to be serious. I tend to get tired of the "constantly quipping" style that you see in a lot of media, but this is how I would like to see it handled: It's limited to a single character. This establishes the quipping as a character trait, instead of having it be a generic point that everybody has.

Anyway, this ended up being another long one, so I'll leave things here, and catch you next time!

[puppyluver256]

It's that time of year again, when everyone and their brother has Opinions (both justified and ridiculous) on the holiday season, specifically what is considered the Dominant Holiday in most countries that have a large share of the demographic of Tumblr users. So I have a few things on my mind that I want to say and I am going to say them.

To my fellow non-christians, whether you're of some other religion or an atheist like myself:

"Christian Atheist" is a specific label for an atheist who follows the non-magical parts of philosophy supposedly spread by someone named Yeshua/Jesus. They take on this label willingly, believing that the teachings associated with this individual had good merit without believing him to be the literal son of a god or that he literally turned water to wine or healed people with god-magic. The venn diagram between them and atheists who happen to come from a christian background is NOT a single circle.

"Cultural christianity" is a valid label for groups, whether small as a friend circle or large as a whole country, where one is implicitly or explicitly expected to be or at least follow along with christian practices. It is NOT something that can be applied to individuals willy-nilly. If someone does not want to be referred to as "culturally christian", you need to respect that regardless of their upbringing.

Yes, many atheists come from christian backgrounds. This does not mean they are still somehow christian forever. They are atheists, and unless they specify anything else that is all that they are. Do not apply a religious label to someone who is not part of that religion, as you have no idea whether or not that label may bring up old trauma and make them feel they can never escape from something they may have left, especially when that thing they left is constantly around them as just a normalized part of the surrounding locale.

Sidenote, not all atheists were raised in a christian setting. Some were originally from the other abrahamic faiths, some were from non-abrahamic faiths, and some were not raised in a religious setting at all. Some are completely anti-theist, some appreciate the positive affect other people may get from their religion(s). Don't assume that every atheist is the same cookie-cutter "reddit atheist" (whatever the association with reddit is supposed to mean) mold that seems to get applied to all atheists indiscriminately.

Another sidenote, atheism itself is not a religion. It is a lack of religion, outside of religions that are specifically atheistic (ie. without gods). Yes, it is protected in the idea of freedom of religion, as that includes freedom FROM religion.

Yes, Christmas is primarily a religious holiday, and yes, it DOES have a secular component despite what some people will insist (on both sides of the aisle). Don't assume that because someone wants to have fun with a tree and decorations and food and presents that they want the weird magic baby worship nonsense. Some people just want an excuse to celebrate after a long year regardless of whether or not they even have a religion, and we only have one widely-known holiday (sorry, Newtonmas) at the end of the year that can mostly be considered truly secular AND EVEN THEN there are cultures that ascribe religious aspects to it so we take what we can get. Excuse us if what we can get is what's most prominent in our area or what our loved ones already know. You wouldn't say an atheist that celebrates the big holidays of Judaism or Islam or any other religion is doing something religious just because they wanted to spend time with their friends and family doing something fun as part of a special occasion, so stop saying everyone who willingly participates in Christmas is willingly participating in christianity.

To the christians, specifically the ones who are more obnoxious about it:

Don't get on people's case if they don't care for or even legitimately hate Christmas. I'm sure there's something that "everyone else is doing" that YOU don't care for, so let them be frustrated in peace. At the very least, lend a shoulder and let them vent, but don't pressure them into doing the Christmas thing if they don't want to and would instead prefer either celebrating something else or nothing at all.

There is no "war on Christmas". Secular people have never attacked Christmas to the degree that the right-wing nutjobs pushing this rhetoric have insisted. In fact, the only times that anyone has proposed or even enforced a ban on Christmas, it was another sect of christianity. Someone saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" is not going to kill you, and no one's trying to "take the christ out of Christmas" by merely celebrating a holiday without the religious trappings. Get over yourselves and take your persecution complex to the garbage where it belongs.

Remember there are other holidays in December and that some people have better things to do than be pestered and bothered by the constant reminders of your holiday. Let people live their lives without trying to wedge your religion into it.

[staringdownabarrel]

My conspiracy theory--a conspiracy theory that I'll never be able to prove--is that corporate advertising firms probably are way more active on Tumblr than most people would like to believe. Like yeah sure, maybe not every single movie is getting its own ad on the sidebar or anything, but I'd be shocked if there aren't people being paid to spread memes of whatever new movie is coming out or whatever.

It's not like this would be a particularly unusual thing to happen. On Reddit--don't hate me; I migrated here before it was cool--it isn't so unusual for companies to try and do marketing disguised as regular comments. It's common enough that r/hailcorporate was once dedicated to posts that looked like they could have been made by a company's PR department. (It's since been watered down to just being posts that mention a brand on the site, though a lot of them could still be attempts at soft advertising.)

The other thing that happens on Reddit is that people will occasionally sell their accounts. How much they'll get varies, but for a year-old account with average karma, they might get between $5 and $50 for it. Sometimes people will just buy an account because they don't want to fuck around for a few weeks trying to get enough karma on their accounts to post on the subreddits they're actually interested in, but a lot of the time it's probably also just so they can go straight to marketing mode.

Plus, y'know, it's been a bit of a meme for a while that half the people on subs like r/selfie are people who are trying to advertise their OnlyFans content. (No shame if that's a thing for you, by the way; but this is a real thing a lot of people on Reddit actively try to do.) Basically, the entire site is filled with soft advertisements that are trying to pretend to not be that.

My other piece of evidence stems from something that came up in a Swell Entertainment video a couple of years ago. I don't have an exact time stamp for this because, like any good conspiracy theorist and true to my brand overall, I haven't proofread this post at all before I posted it. Anyway, at one point in that linked video, she shows a screenshot of a sponsorship deal that basically amounted to the company asking that she have a poster in the background for a certain number of videos and not mention that it's meant as an advert. Basically, just sell it off as a background decoration she was trying out for a bit.

I wouldn't be too surprised if this kind of thing also happens on Tumblr. The major companies are clearly of the opinion that user-generated content can work as an advertisement. I think it'd also be a lot easier on Tumblr in some ways because people are kinda used to Tumblr being the fandom website, so seeing posts for an upcoming movie or show isn't going to trip any alarms the same way they might on some other website.

I think also, on Reddit people were generally much more aware of this being a thing, so they were a bit more vigilant for it. There were definitely a couple of times when I got a reply to one of my comments where I wondered if it wasn't a celebrity's PR team trying to counteract negative opinions, for example.

There's definitely a few things that have come out somewhat recently that have made me wonder if there hasn't been an active effort to do some grassroots-style advertising for the movie on Tumblr. (Yes, I'm thinking of Barbie specifically.) Sure, it's not unusual for a big budget movie to get a lot of hype, especially if it's part of an ongoing franchise, but usually that level of hype doesn't start until the movie's already out.

I feel like the hard part of this style of advertising on Tumblr is that this site isn't really as easily monetised as some other social media sites. Some of this is because Tumblr has traditionally been pretty resistant to any kind of social media-fication of the site in general, so there isn't really an algorithm that can be gamed the same way you can game the algorithm on Reddit, YouTube, or Instagram.

Because of that, a lot of the ways you'd advertise on Tumblr are very dependent on you being able to "breach containment". Maybe you'd have to buy an account with x number of followers to get the chance of a certain gifset reaching a larger audience, or find a way of convincing some larger accounts to follow you.

This is really the area where I feel like I'm not ever going to be able to prove it definitively. On other sites, especially ones with a fairly well developed influencer culture, you'd just have to pay off a few people to start the trend. Even on Reddit, where there isn't really an influencer culture the same way there is on Instagram or YouTube, you just have to know how to work the site's algorithms a little bit.

I don't really know what the beginning stages of doing that kind of soft advertising on Tumblr would look like. At least in my corner of the site, there's an active rejection of that kind of culture, so someone who'd try that would probably get rightfully shunned. Maybe a newer account could follow however many other people who are posting about a certain thing, show off some gifsets based on a trailer, and that'd be the starting point, but it'd be a slow start; not the kind of thing you'd necessarily want for an advertisement where you want as many eyeballs as possible.

Still, in some ways, that might actually make it work even better. Because it's coming from some nobody from a very specific corner of the site, nobody would be expecting it to be a corporate account.

[randomnessunlimitedblog]

i just checked the reddit and didn't see anything like that... How do you know what happened? Were you a mod?

Nope! I'm not usually super active on Reddit (as I tend to post most of my Kaeloo stuff on Instagram or Tumblr) but I got informed of the whole story thanks to the other mod in this scenario. I believe her story wholeheartedly due to having had several interactions with the user in question myself, who was the person who harassed me to the point of deleting my old Tumblr blog.

I'm also 99% sure you're them by the way, there's no reason for anyone else to be as interested in this drama and still be on anon. You can deny it all you like, but the last time this happened I blocked your side blog and stopped getting asks like these for ages. Are you going to threaten to use this as "evidence" for that fake cyber police investigation you made up? Lol. Lmao, even.

[dottanachorism]

Jasoninhell

I'm watching a video on the Reddit user u/Jasoninhell and the video just played the 911 call of the wife of Jason. I have heard it and this whole tragedy before but god damn....still suuuper fucked every time I hear it. The tone of her voice is chilling to the bone. Completely void of any emotions. You can tell she is truly numb to the core. Going off what the general public now knows of this situation, she was wack-ed out the entire time. Snapping to the point of murder puts into perspective how crazy she was to start. Brandi, I hope you rot eternally in prison. Death would be too merciful for what you have done.

Jason, I am sorry for what you have been put through. What happened to your kids and to you is unfathomably cruel and gut-wrenching. If you believe in an afterlife, I'm sure your children are living happily there. Maybe you'll see them in another life, perhaps the next life. May you live the rest of your life in peace. I hope you someday find happiness.

Video in question: