#if running a kink blog is a large cause for drama then that might be a red flag? Unless you're cheating on someone through it...

[greatbigbellies]

Question for you, do you ever tell romantic partners about this blog or your kinks, and if so, how does one go about doing that?

Yes, actually!

I'm gonna preface this with my usual "take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm not you and your partner is not one of my partners" but since it's pertinent and might help with someone's confidence I'll kinda run through how it's happened for me.

I've had 3 serious partners so far through my life, and all three have known about my kinks. In all three cases, it was basically them inquiring about it first, I didn't broach the topic. It was pretty much always an angle of "we should know what the other person is into for relationship reasons", so there was never any prying. I'm always a liiiittle nervous telling people for the first time, since I've had my kinks, specifically my pregnancy kink, very poorly misinterpreted before. But in each case, they were always super chill, there was very light, brief teasing at worst. It never felt bad or like I was being made to share. TBH the thing I've run into most is me going "I have a pregnancy kink" and someone going "oh so like you're into breeding" and I have to go "no, no, not breeding. Not the baby making. Like, pregnancy, like that process and the visuals that come with it. Belly, stretchmarks, waddle, that stuff".

As far as knowing about this blog? That's a smaller sample size, because this blog didn't exist during the first two relationships. The one person I was with at the time did know about it, but it wasn't even a matter of me telling them outright. It was literally like... a little after I did writing commissions back in 2021. We were chatting and discussing "would you write smut for money" and I just straight up went "oh I have lol" and when they asked what platform I told them here on tumblr. It was a pretty one-and-done thing. Very nonchalant. Honestly they respected the hustle more than being jarred that I had a kink blog.

I realize these anecdotes are probably not super helpful, especially if you're looking for ideas to tell a partner about having a kink blog. The reason I didn't feel the need to like... expressly "come clean" about it is because, at least for me and my partner at the time, we didn't need to know each others full internet presence. If you think the person you're dating would be upset to learn that you have a kink blog that they don't know about, then maybe it's a priority? But honestly, it's... functionally like owning a porn collection. It's just digital, and people can follow it, but really that's kind of all it is? It's not traditional "two people banging" type porn but like, we know why we're here. IMO it's not something super important that needs announcing, unless your partner is looking for ideas of what you like to spice things up.

[indigodice]

START AT THE VERY BEGINNING, A VERY GOOD PLACE TO START

i’ll probably edit this gradually out of this being too much to read in one sitting maybe that means this should be more than one post what a mistake i’ve made its time to iron out some kinks in this blogging thing

For us the beginning was probably in high school. On and off games of Traveller and Shadowrun which weren’t overtly terrible, just unmemorable. I can only remember a handful of moments but they largely weren’t tied to a particular narrative. They were very singular drops in an ocean of wasted time. Maybe they were terrible after all. From early on there was a sense that combat was taking up hours while actual role playing was taking up minutes.

The most memorable thing in Shadowrun was the infiltration of a mansion by circulating rumors of a rave and party supplements. The plan had two parts, a coordinated dispatching of the mansion’s guard and relocation of the guards that hadn’t arrived yet. It was a largely successful, noisy, but bloodless smash-and-grab. We had time for another module which the GM then randomly generated using the random generation rules. We tried to replicate this plan with moderate failure, destroying a wyvern’s eggs then turning in look-alikes.

This form of random generation was most of what we did in Shadowrun, and probably the reason the experiences were unmemorable. We gathered to role play, and ended up wargaming. As things go on we have particular problems separating role playing from wargaming and expression becomes narrowed down to mechanics decisions on our character sheets. Compounding this problem is the lack of even binary choice in the narrative. When Mr. Shadowrun says we have a mission, it’s a single mission instead of a selection, so the extent of our choices are constricted within that predetermination. We’re our character sheets. And that means players rebel. Given our not-a-choice my character convinces another character that its suspicious a Mr. Johnson found our HQ so quickly, so we explode our HQ and have to find work elsewhere.

When Mr. Traveller is pushing us through events, we’re only given what he comes up with to work with, the narrative didn’t care about what our characters cared about. Eventually those games wound down as that groups’ GMs disappeared. We met someone willing to GM consistently, only we weren’t aware of his mental instability. And when we became aware of it, most of us recognized we weren’t equipped to handle such a someone. I didn’t share that thought because I was naive, but luckly I went with the group decision to cut him out and maybe we’re the better for it.

I might have brushed that aside, but that mentally unstable GM hosted an AdvancedDND module, Caverns of Chaos, which was meant to be an introductory look at ADND. During which we added players which the GM accepted in word, then rejected through gameplay. The game was a party and everyone was invited. Our complaints of the game moving slowly were responded to by accelerating rewards through a sentient reward room that responded to our whims. As my whim was suspicion it became a curse room. Our complains of the slow momotonous wargaming became an accelerated wargame where they were revealed by a wizard to be the machinations of a mind flayer. Then the wizard to transported us to another place where our skills were arbitrarily needed. Maybe a day had gone by in the game. But outside, months had gone by.

Then a combination of player drama resulted in the GM’s mental instability reaching a breaking point through rather violent expression. And so the group was reformed. Following that we had a few attempts to salvage that now lost campaign. Each player was given a chance to GM to salvage the game, and eventually we decided on restarting, scrapping the old characters for new ones. We picked up a new system called Pathfinder. Before our first moments role playing we’d looked at 3.5 books and heard Pathfinder was supposed to be better supported. So we began.

This worked for a while, as the new GM brought us though the Crypt of the Everflame. We reached the next town after a few months out of game. Crypt of the Everflame was intended to be a few sessions. The GM was experiencing burnout and never told anyone. From a personal standpoint I resent how that was handled, since it resulted in the group meeting, playing maybe an hour of combat, then everyone splitting off to do something else. Sometimes we wouldn’t be informed until arrival that nothing had been prepared, or that the GM wasn’t feeling up to it. Due to circumstances, this GM reached his own breaking point and was going through a kind of personal transformation, and dropped out of the group.

Those that remained tried to continue on. We hosted more one-shots trying to continue from those Pathfinder characters. After reaching the next town SEPIADICE creates one of my most memorable moments. The town had reached a breaking point because one of the partymembers was hellbent on creating mischief. Another decided the problems within the town were because of their systems of governance and took to trying to rally them against their leadership. The de facto town leader didn’t have the strength of his knights that usually kept the peace. We’d been sent here to retrieve them. He’d been trying to maintain the peace with martial law. And so he banished our party fearing more mischief. My character was infuriated that the de facto leader transgressed a rule of hospitality as he’d been on the road because of his own town’s leadership, and so my character confronts this town’s leader. He was steadfast in his decision since we were outsiders to him. We’d gained entrance because of a squire’s word. The fight first in words comes to blows. Another party member supported me with her magic, and the squire comes to the leadership’s aid. At that moment the fighting stops, and we make our escape.

The casters of the group splinter off, while those that remained travel presumably with the squire to retrieve the knights. The game ends and is never picked up again. We have a round of one-shots and eventually we decide we want a consistent game. We vote on the next GM. Notably I voted against SEPIADICE because the other would be GM was the more experienced, and I was hoping for something sustainable. So she wins four to three. It turns out her game has the same problems all the prior GMs had. Eventually SEPIADICE gets his turn to GM and does an adequate job. And I realize where I wanted to build on the other GM’s experience, she didn’t actually have the potential to change. While the muddle of one-shots never became anything particularly memorable. Sometimes we’d make decisions that felt meaningful, but then the one-shot would end and we wouldn’t get to witness the outcome of those decisions.

If SEPIADICE had continued I’m sure his game would have been enjoyable. As a GM he’d produced most of the memorable moments I enjoyed. But he’d become frustrated because I hadn’t managed to leave the headspace of the character I was playing, and consequently decided on playing that character in his setting. Causing two other players to also choose prior characters that had been there with him. So it became a cascade of insolence that I both didn’t see and didn’t dissuade by not seeing it. The difference was that I had asked and they hadn’t, but the result was the same. Old characters with old ties that didn’t fit the requirement he’d set down for character creation.

From the start of pathfinder up until the very end theres this looming question about what makes unable to role play, or why we’re bad as a group. There are answers ranging from “our group is too big” to “we’re probably just bad” to “its the ruleset we’re using.” Actually I’ve cherrypicked the ones I believe. I don’t remember the rest. From beginning to end our groups tended to be too large which muddled other problems. It was hard to role play because everyone needed some time in the spotlight and it was easy for us to get distracted either by the many bored players. Realistically the GMs shouldn’t have used combat as a crutch to stretch the time we were playing. It wasn’t fun. But it didn’t help that we were playing in a game that revolved around combat and the flow around actual role playing was snuffed out both by needing wait for long stretches of time for anything cohesive to happen. Things got gradually better after the Crypt of the Everflame because players started losing interest. But at the core we didn’t as a group understand what made role playing games good.

They certainly had potential, but most of what we did was wargame, and frankly video games were better for that. We couldn’t tap into what made role playing games good. Except for that moment where SEPIADICE banished our party. That was a damn good moment because that was a man with his back against the wall trying to give himself some more space, only he accidently makes things worse. The conflict they had against each other was not something they could resolve, it wasn’t either of their fault, and they both refused to bend. So they fight. And they fight because they refused to bend, and that’s how violence happens in reality. And so much of the violence in our role playing games has that weird circumstance of oh they show up while you’re travelling so you have to fight now. That’s not giving violence any respect. And any expression during that kind of violence falls flat when there’s nothing tangible at stake. Sure you could die, but you’re not really dying if you don’t have any connections to anything. Dying because you have too much pride feels better than the nothing of a random bear encounter. And to be honest SEPIADICE you should have died when you encountered that bear, instead you bit it and it ran away because the GM thought we would run, but adventurers aren’t reasonable people.

So maybe that’s one of our problems with role playing. Adventurers aren’t reasonable people, they encounter unreasonable things, and are expected to act unreasonably to resolve unreasonable things. Oh god there are so many paragraphs now and why is there only personality at the end who the heck is going to read all of this?

[monsterqueers]

So I debated a long time about making this post(its been in my drafts for over a year, oops), but I feel like its necessary as ive yet to see a post like it in my time on this site, so here you go;

Red Flags To Watch Out For, Tumblr Edition

Disclaimer- These are not necessarily abusive behaviors on their own, but if a person checks many of them, they may be a toxic/dangerous person to be around.

Please also refer to general abuse, bullying, and cult red flag lists to accompany this.

If you would like to add more red flags that I have forgotten to this list, feel free to do so!

General Evasive Behaviors

Excessive changing of urls

While changing ones url just happens on this site, this person is changing their url every other month or more and never returning to their previous ones- often with little warning or explanation. 

Does it feel like they are running from something or someone with all the changes or trying to confuse people who knew their name before? Is the url long or nonsensical? Does the change coincide with any kind of drama, falling out, or vagueposting?

NOTE- this is also employed by survivors trying to get away from abusers

Frequently making new blogs and trashing the old ones

Changing blogs happens. Sometimes the old one was mired in a Brand, or someone just wants a fresh start. This person, however, remakes multiple times a year and frequently deletes their old blogs.

Are you ‘mutuals’ who talk frequently but they never tell you when they switch blogs and then act like nothing happened? Do they do this specifically after drama/wank happens? Does it seem like they are trying to purge their name of evidence of their identity or actions through this behavior?

NOTE- this is also employed by survivors trying to get away from abusers

Deleting large portions of their blog often

Again, it happens naturally, but this person is excessively removing more than half the things they post -frequently purging their personal posts and conversations despite much of their content being those things. They may also change the content of their about pages radically multiple times a month.

Does every ‘blog cleanup’ always end in them deleting everything but some images, maybe some generic ‘reblog to slap a terf’-esque sj posts, and some fandom even though they talk or argue with other people very often and make personal posts daily? Do they do this after any kind of drama happens?

General Aggressive Behaviors

Claiming to ‘love the discourse/drama’

People who show this trait by itself, unlike many of the others on this list, usually ARE toxic or dangerous. Straight up avoid these people for your safety and/or comfort.

They delight in causing strife and ‘punishing’ people, treating intracommunity discussions like a fun game to win or as a badge of honor -as though they are a better person than others because they ‘fight the nasty xyz group’(usually meaning sending hate all day).

Do they seem to enjoy lashing out at people in discussion? Do they encourage their followers or mutuals to attack people they are arguing with? Do they treat social justice as a way to get glory and notes rather than a serious discussion? Do they seem to desperately claw for more people to harass and rant about/at- regularly trawling tags that squick/trigger them to find new people to ‘discourse’ with? Do they refuse to tag any of these arguments?

Most of their personal posts are negatively flavored or standoffish

While many people vent on their blogs, this person seems to be venting exclusively to get notes. All/most of their negative personal posts have a variation of ‘lms’ on them or they frequently post vague messages about people never liking their personal posts.

Do they constantly ‘vague’ people? Do they make regular posts about how people aren’t cooperating with their ten-step follow/unfollow directions? Are these constantly stressful posts rarely tagged or put under a cut even though they tag everything else? Does all of this seem geared more towards getting notes and manipulating people into giving constant emotional labor than to express their feelings?

Reacts to people asking questions with rude, cruel, or inappropriate responses.

This person is dismissive at best to people making innocent inquiries and clarification questions- at worst they spew psuedo-sexual harassment, suicide bating, and insults as a ‘joke’.

Do they constantly use ‘tumblr insults’(ie, barely disguised ‘socially acceptable’ suicide bait or sexual harassment) like ‘Piss your pants!’ or ‘Go choke!’ on people who question them? Is this ‘mean’ persona seemingly geared towards trying to get notes for being ’funny-mean’?

General Isolating And Controlling Behaviors

They have a cult, or a cult-like circle of friends/followers

While some people have a dedicated network of friends and acquaintances, for these people, networking is Serious Business. They tout their friend circle as an exclusive club and advertise themselves with frequent promos, aiming to ‘collect’ as many friends as possible. They have a strong ‘mutuals’ culture- they feel the only reason to follow people on tumblr is to have ‘mutuals’ and much of their activity on the site is geared towards getting more mutuals and guilt-tripping people into staying in their circle. These groups frequently make joint efforts in drama/wank and pressure followers to join in- unstated that you will become ‘cool’ and viable to join the inner group if you just do enough for them.

Does this mutuals circle have a significant moral crusade or spiritual element? Do they have a formal name(ex- something like ‘Twice-Born Elven Society Of Earth’ or ‘The Great Canadian ‘Were Pack’ or ‘Tumblr Cleanup Club’) that feels kind of pretentious or all-encompassing, as though they speak for everyone in their demographic? Do they frequently ask followers to ‘recruit’ for them or pressure you to reblog their moral crusade/spiritual-related posts?

Refer to the Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Evaluation Frame(http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html) if this sounds at all familiar.

Excessively long following instructions

While having restrictions is fine, this person has so many instructions and restrictions they might as well just not have a tumblr. Not only that, but their list has many relatively harmless things paired with actually bad things, the position of which implies both are equally bad(eg- has ‘no terfs or people who reblog anime’ or ‘no homophobes or non men who ship m/m’ as one Whole bullet point). They may also have a multiple-step process you must go through to ‘prove’ you read it, with social shaming or a block as punishment if you don’t, despite not stating any of this in their mobile bio.

Do they effectively forbid you from freely unfollowing under the pain of callouts and anon hate? Do their byfs contain radfem dogwhistles? Do they seem not to distinguish between things like ‘person with a kink’ and ‘following/liking from a dedicated nsfw blog’? Do their byfs have a vague enough wording despite the length that things like ‘homophobes’ could mean ‘trans or BPQ+ people’? Does this byf update frequently and without warning- forcing people to stalk their blog weekly to make sure they are still Acceptable?

NOTE- BYFs are fine. Some are just unhealthy for both the user and the follower, and many behaviors surrounding them are likewise toxic

Forbids you from interacting even indirectly with certain kinds of people

Similar to the one above, but more specific, this flag involves the user forbidding you to interact with, reblog posts mentioning, or following certain groups of otherwise harmless people- even if it was an honest mistake. They will frequently lash out in anger if you cannot name the history of every person you reblog, wether you follow them or not.

Does this user seem to want to limit your ability to get information outside of an approved ‘bubble’? Does this user make callouts of people who so much as ‘like’ a post that is otherwise harmless for someone on this list? Does it feel like reblogging from anyone but them and their circle is dangerous or that you must trust their judgement always if they tell you a user/group is bad without ever giving proof?

Otherkin Related

Switching IDs/Kintypes often

While some people may have an unstable identity and use the incorrect definition of otherkin when they should be using ‘copinglink’ or are still questioning and not sure of their Alterhuman Identity yet, these people are the epitome of ‘ID culture’. Not only are they working on an incorrect definition of what otherkind and fictionkind are, but they refuse to be politely educated on the correct ones or shown to a community that would work better for them and may even become aggressive and hateful towards you for it.

Do they have 10+ anime characters -who all have a similar aesthetic- on their ‘kinlist’ and keep adding more? Do they drop most of these a few months later? Is this person very aggressive about ‘doubles’ or force followers to never interact with them? Do they call people ‘fakes’ frequently?  Do they police fandom on what headcanons, aus, or ships are ‘allowed’ in their source?

Sets themselves up as a ‘kin of authority’ in something 

These people think they know everything there is to know about a nonhuman identity and only they can answer your questions.

Do they assert that their theory on why and how otherkinity works is the Only theory(ex- ‘otherkin are spiritual only and only occur when someone was supposed to be put in an animal body! All others aren’t otherkin!’)? Do they claim they can tell you what your kintype is- often due to some spiritual power they claim to have? Do they instruct their followers to attack people who say otherwise or do so personally? Do they sound like a cult leader? Do they excessively grill people(ie- effectively requiring a 10 page essay full of just the right ‘proof’ for them to consider you ‘valid’)?

Frequently takes trolls seriously and reblogs from people who think they are real without using any critical thought.

These people claim to be fictionkind or otherkind, but will reblog obvious trolls like carrionkin, eggkin, and that one person who claimed they were Hitler in a past life.

Do they seem to be doing the anti-kin and troll’s work for them? Do they try to put down one ‘type’ of Alterhuman, as though they all act like that troll. Do they constantly act like an anti-kin despite claiming to be Alterhuman themselves?

SJ Blogging Related

Don’t practice what they preach

Pretty self explanatory, but they do things like reblog the ‘reblog to punch a terf!’ posts but still tout radfem beliefs and say ‘don’t be ableist!’ but encourage the bullying of the ‘weird loner kids’. These people are often cruel but turn around and say ‘abuse is wrong!’ They refuse to apply the social justice they claim they support.

Are a frequent user of The Ship Of Theseus

This video->  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui-ArJRqEvU explains it better than I ever could.

Frequently makes and spreads callout posts

Callout posts have their place occasionally- provided they are something like ‘be careful of x person because they are genuinely dangerous’. However, this person spreads and makes callouts very frequently and with dubious sources.

Is the callout post pretty much just a ship war hidden under a Ship of Theseus (ie- calling someone a child predator for retweeting shippy art on twitter for a fandom they aren’t) ? Is the callout post largely easily faked screenshots and not links to archived posts or conversations? Have they made multiple of them, or spread multiple in a year? Are the callouts seemingly always for minority content creators and stated in a way to gain maximum outrage?

Fandom Related

Strongly encourages you to call them the fandom  ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ and to come to them for advice despite being relatively young

Do they constantly advertise themselves as the ‘fandom mom’ or ‘fandom dad’ here to protect everyone else? Are they barely an adult themselves but act like their followers should look up to them as an authority or parental figure? Do they interact heavily with their underage follower base in rps, fanfic, headcanons, or fanart circles despite condemning the same in other people? Do they advertise themselves as ‘actually minor safe’ and warn their followers off of ‘other nasty creepy adult fandom presences’ frequently?

Fear-mongers about other popular bloggers in fandom

Do they claim every person over the age of 25 in fandom is a potential child predator and only they are safe because they actually care about being ‘minor safe’ and being ‘pure’? Do they constantly reblog callout posts for ‘pedophilia’ that are just easily faked skype screenshots vaguely alluding to a paring involving two adults or something equally Not Provably Real CP Or Abuse Of A Real Child? Do they then use those callout posts to argue every adult(but them, if applicable) is a creepy monster?

Participates in ship wars, ‘tag bombs’ or insists on their ship being 100% definitely canon

Do they describe themselves as anti-’specific ship’, pro-’insert other ship’? as a major aspect of their identity? Do they frequently send hate to anyone who doesn’t ship their ship or ship a different ship? Do they participate in ‘tag bombs’ where they mass post hate, spam, and their ship in the rival ship’s tags? Do they try to argue that anyone who doesn’t ship their ship is an immoral, evil person? Do they insist that their ship is canon when it is not, in fact, blatantly confirmed within canon?

Tries to police/run the fandom

Also self-explanatory. These people act like they must ‘clean up’ and ‘organize’ fandom, and often believe that they only people who can. They slew hate to anyone who they dislike and try to dictate how others engage with the media even in the privacy of their own sub-communities or locked blogs. They may claim that you must only ship canon ships, or that you must only use a specific set of headcanons or that no erotica or gore is allowed to be made whatsoever to ‘protect the children’ even on sites and locked communities where children are disallowed.

Refuse to operate with tagging courtesy

These users will post graphic content and neither flag their blog, nor tag it with even a catchall ‘graphic’ or ‘viewer discretion advised’ tag. They will often post this content in the main tags without regard for the wellbeing of anyone else in the tag. When asked to please tag their mature content, they refuse, and may even post more of it just to prove a point.