#one internet cookie if someone can guess what was the race of the character I played first in a forum

[leidensygdom]

I need the world to understand that I'm not a general fantasy artist dabbling in robots, I'm closer to a secret robot artist who pretended for years to be into general fantasy finally revealing the truth-

I spent most of my early RP days playing artificial characters, to which someone in a forum had a very succinct message: "[Syg], have you ever played a character that has come out of a vagina?"

and now. now i'm finally coming back to my roots, a decade later.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hello!! Its heathen!

First of all, doing this out of order is my jam. Second of all, I am answering this right after reading the one I sent about the garbage gnomes. Third of all, if your master post need doing then do it now and I'll give you an Internet cookie.

The mental image of Sophie trying to draw and then hating it and then a gnome coming over and gobbling it down is amazing and I will keep it near my heart.

Crystal buildings are entirely impractical and honestly ugly, who the fuck would want to live in that all day. Like the green of the tribunal hall would just set me off like, sense wise. I guess this is what happens when a pretenscious species decides that they're too good for wood and stone and brick, because no matter how much they want to preserve there has to be excavation for all that crystal, like for a race who's entire thing is being peace loving hippies who don't want to hurt the earth, they sure are hurting the earth (I read like. A small bit from the first book online and apparently they made the core of the earth habitual?? Like that is just straight up impractical especially for a prison. Just put them in some city catacombs like a normal person.)

Also I have not gotten around to reading your wings au yet but! The mention of Keefe doing the bird thing of pruning someone's wings on instinct is fucking adorable and I love it and I need to read that bit but I don't want any other spoilers.

Also, are the time zones addressed in kotlc?? I remember reading a post somewhere that mentioned that they don't really but i don't know if it was from you or not

(Please ignore the spelling errors, I mess up so often that my auto correct incorporates them now)

heathen! hello! I am doing so many things out of order so plenty of jam to be found here! Once a group of asks gets old enough I stop the chronological approach and instead go by vibes and which ones I think I can answer most efficiently, so sometimes I do things out of order. Also if a certain topic is relevant (like wings au day or character/ship hours) I'll prioritize those instead. Essentially: out of order chaos!!

also I'd forgotten about that gnomes eating the trash thing...does this mean they're like compost bins? Are there certain trash items they can't be fed? Or do different gnomes eat different types of trash? now I'm imagining there's specialized gnomes that are equipped to eat the tougher waste. How convenient it would be to have a gnome bodyguard you can always feed your trash! That's Flori's real purpose /j

(also my masterpost does still need to be updated and I still have not done that. Maybe that's a project I'll tackle this weekend. Though I'd like to also go through my bookshelves to make an official TBR!)

The crystal buildings have always been like a "okay I guess we can do that" element to the story for me. Like I have so many questions and would probably never live in a crystal home (well, at least not without asking a million questions about it so I know it's a sound decision) but as far as the story goes I mostly brush it off. I think it's the vibrant colors that are off-putting for a lot of us, at least here in the US. There's this element of what?? Colorful houses?? You can do that? Though it may be more normal to other cultures and areas of the world that have brighter houses (I can't remember any specific ones off the top of my head but I know they exist!) Another aspect of it is that if the house is made of crystal and the crystal is colored...does that mean that's also the color of the inside of your house? So in that sense it's different than having colorful exteriors to your house if your entire house is super bright. Which would probably hurt my eyes depending on the light

The excavation thing! That's a great point. Crystals are a non-renewable resource, and so much use of them for building means they're using a lot and taking a lot. For a species that supposedly values the earth and the ecosystem, i feel like it would make a lot more sense for them to build something out of a renewable resource. It doesn't necessarily have to be a human resource like wood or anything, but crystal feels like it was more for the purpose of making the world seem rich and aesthetic instead of aligning with their morals. Which is fine! Sometimes authors have to prioritize one element over the other! It's just something we happen to notice so we can be like "ah, you see, here's the decision they made and why it was the best decision at the time despite contradicting a few other things." I've done it myself!

(yes, they made the core of the Earth habitable canonically. Though I think that's from book 2, Exile. Apparently the dwarves dug out the space and the Elves made it habitable, or something along those lines. Also the elves are not normal in the slightest and had to be unbelievably extra, making a prison in the center of the earth. They do have other prisons! I think this was in part to make the elves seem really capable and other from humans, and also to add to the drama of the second book)

please don't feel any pressure to read the wings au! It's just there for fun if you want to. And it's very long (it's longer than the first book in the series and getting close to being longer than the second) so if you do read it, please take your time (this also applies to you, Nines, but I know you won't listen /lh). But yes! There's little animals traits in a few of them and preening happens to be one of them for Fitz and Keefe (as they both have feathered wings). It's such a great opportunity for cute moments between them <33. Speaking of the wings au, there's actually a new chapter tomorrow!! I won't spoil anything though, don't worry!

Time zones are not really addressed in the Lost Cities. I believe there's a brief mention in Legacy where Sophie goes from Havenfield to London and comments on how its night in both places, meaning they had the same time zone. But aside from that it's ignored. I don't know if i was the one who made that post (I have so many I've lost track), but it's one of those details that the fandom occasionally bring up like "hey guys this is still a confusing thing" and we all go "oh yea that's weird haha" until we forget and then repeat the process. There are a few topics like that that come up fairly often, usually being reintroduced by new fandom members who have no way of knowing that we've already made that observation! (not saying you're doing this or that it's a bad thing, just something I've noticed)

(also I make my fair share of spelling mistakes and I have no intention of policing anyone's spelling or grammar unless they ask me too, so you're good! autocorrect is not my friend either and my partner and I have had our fair share of funny moments because of it)

there's a lot to the worldbuilding of the Lost Cities--that tends to happen when you create an entirely new world--so it's only natural that we as readers who have the time to think things over from a lot more perspectives are bound to catch a few things that seem weird or nonsensical. But unless it's actively harmful it's usually just good for a little laugh! I have an entire series of posts pointing out the tiniest details of the worldbuilding, and while my observations are mostly valid, it's all in a joking manner.

but it's always fun to talk about!

[raqnguyen]

The Dragon Game, Book 1, Chapter 1 (Prologue)

Mono opened his eyes and saw nothing but black. It was a bright type of black, maybe better described as an extremely dark gray. The monotony of the color made it hard to perceive depth. He couldn’t tell if he was in a room or not, whether there was a wall near or far. 

Where was he? Was this a dream? He looked around but only saw the same gray in all directions. He guessed it was a dream — though he’d never experienced one this lucid before. That was the last time he ate Smith’s cookies before bedtime, he vowed. This dream was trippy on an entirely different level.

Wasn’t something supposed to happen? It was so quiet that Mono could hear his own heartbeat. The quiet drum gradually grew louder and faster as he continued to search for something that could help him orientate himself. The lack of sensory input made the atmosphere feel cramped, quickly growing claustrophobic, and he hated the feeling of being trapped. 

“Let there be light,” he joked out loud. It was both a joke and wishful thinking; anything to break the silence and lighten the mood. There was a slight echo but not enough to help him determine anything about his surroundings. What was this place? Mono was getting a bit panicked now. He really, really hated the feeling of being trapped. 

Suddenly, a bright light flashed and a woman appeared wearing a white dress. She was floating, gradually descending with her eyes closed and arms outstretched as if in imitation of angels found in paintings. She spoke in a light yet serious tone.

“Hello Yamada, and welcome to Passing. Unfortunately, you died saving that girl from the automobile accident.”

As her descent brought her closer, Mono could make out more details about her. She looked to be about his age and wasn’t actually in a dress. It was a white, flowing garment with a golden sash of cloth tied around the waist – probably a gofuku or kimono, though he wasn’t too sure about oriental fashion and their semantics. She was beautiful, but in a way that made him uneasy. Her face was completely symmetrical down to the tiniest detail. It made her look pretty but alien. Like something trying to be human; a painted face on an image.

“We, the spirits and deities of Japan, noticed your courageous act and would like to reward you with a choice while also submitting a request. You see, Yamada Taro, we –”

“Excuse me, but I think you have the wrong guy. And I’m pretty sure I’m still alive.”

When she had first started talking, he hadn’t registered what she was saying. The sudden appearance and her appearance itself caught him off guard. But when Mono heard her call him “Yamada” again, he couldn’t help but speak up. She scowled at being interrupted and opened up her eyes before gawking at the sight of him. 

“You’re not dead!”

“Yeah, that’s what being alive means – though I know a few classmates who’d argue otherwise.”

“Th-this is impossible,” she stammered, her tone no longer as formal as before. “No living person should be able to get here. How did you?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I was hoping that you could tell me. Who are you? Where are we?”

“This is Tsūka, a place where the dead go before moving on into the afterlife. My name is Sojourn, and I’m a greater Dōsojin who is in charge of this portion of the Passing in Japan. I don’t know how you’re still alive, Yamada, but you were brought here so that we, the spirits and deities of Japan, could both reward you with a choice while also submitting a request.”

 This didn’t seem like a dream anymore; she was too real, too concise, and too loud. But this couldn’t be real either, the situation was exactly like a Japanese cartoon he had watched a while back. The main character, a boy who dies in a car accident trying to save a girl, meets a goddess in the afterlife and is sent off on an adventure to another world instead of remaining dead. He didn’t know what to think.

“I was getting to this before you had rudely interrupted, but we actually –” 

“Look, I really think you have the wrong guy.” Mono spoke up again without waiting for her to finish. “My name isn’t Yamada Taro, it’s Mono Somnium. I’m not even from Japan.”

“Are you sure?” Her question was so forceful it took him aback. How could he not be sure? Maybe this really was a dream and Mono was supposed to follow along. No, dream or not, following the script meant that he would be sent to some other world or dimension. On the off chance that this was real, Mono refused to leave his current life behind; he had just gotten it figured out after years of struggling.

“Yeah, can’t you tell?” Mono asked. “We aren’t even speaking Japanese.” 

“I’m a Dōsojin,” she reminded him. “I can communicate with people of all languages.” 

Oh, that explained a lot. As they had been speaking, the uneasy feeling inside of Mono kept growing. Now he knew why. She had been speaking in Japanese to him and he had understood the meaning of her words without actually knowing a speck of the language. When she had said Dōsojin, Mono immediately understood that she was a Japanese god of travelers – specifically, she was a goddess of foreign travelers. This also explained why he kept hearing the name Tsūka and the word Passing interchangeably. A chill ran down Mono’s spine. The reality of his situation was starting to sink in.

“That’s awesome, and this has been a really interesting experience,” Mono began. “But since I’m clearly not who you think I am and this wasn’t meant for me, I’d like to go back now or wake up. Whatever is convenient for y–”

“That’s not possible,” Sojourn cut in. 

Mono’s palms started sweating and his heartbeat, which had slowed down after she had shown up and saved him from that swallowing emptiness, started racing. He felt trapped. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Tsūka is a place of passing,” she explained. “If you enter here, you have to leave a different way you came. Normally, I’d offer the choices of either entering the afterlife or going to a different world. But since you’re alive, you don’t get a choice. You have to go.”

“Can’t I just pass over to the new world for a brief second and then come back?” Mono agitatedly asked.

She shook her head. “Passing between worlds is extremely difficult and can only happen once every twelve full moons. Once you go through, you’d be stuck until this time next year.”

That was not what he wanted to hear. Mono could feel his chest start tightening, he almost couldn’t breathe. This was really bad. What was he going to do now? He was going to lose everything and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Don’t worry!” Sojourn had noticed his anxiety and tried reassuring him. “In a year's time I can call you back here and you can go back. That’s not too bad right? Spending a year away from boring, normal life in a world with magic?”

The tightening eased up a little. “Magic?” He repeated. 

She smiled. “Yeah, magic! It’s not like the magic you find in most books on Earth either. It’s unique for everyone and changes based on their perceptions, beliefs, and values. The world you’re going to is one of infinite possibility – especially for someone from Earth where encountering creative writing on a daily basis is normal. You won’t be able to do anything at first but you will once you get the hang of it.”

Mono loved stories. When he was younger and before life had taken a hard twist, he used to read as many fantasy stories as possible. His mother had once scolded him for trying to sell his clothes on the internet so that he could buy more books. He couldn’t help himself, the worlds he read were amazing and kept him up late at night thinking about the “what if”s that they created. What could he do there? Would he be able to fly? Fling spells from wands like his favorite characters? Mono stood there for a moment imagining the possibilities.

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.” He said at last.

“Great!” Her smile grew wider. “I’ll just finish the process and you’ll be on your –”

“Wait.” She frowned as Mono interrupted her yet again. “How will I speak with people I meet? Doesn’t this world have different languages?”

She scrunched her face in annoyance. “I almost forgot about that. You’re right, and I normally give people who decide to go my blessing so that they can talk to people like I do. I’ll do it right now by putting my symbol on the side of your forehead.”

Sojourn raised her arm, her index finger pointed at Mono, and began to walk towards him. Instinctively, Mono took several steps backwards.

“What’s wrong now?” She huffed. 

“Can you put it on an item or something?” Mono asked. “And make some way so that I can toggle it off to be more immersed in the languages of people I meet.”

The truth was, Mono hated being touched. It didn’t matter if they were average or attractive, no one touched him and especially not his face. He knew he couldn’t say that to her though, because he was certain that would have offended her somehow. So instead, he said the first thing that popped into his head to get out of that awkward situation.

Sojourn gave him a hard look and stared at him for a few moments. At last she raised her hand and light began to coalesce in her palm. It grew so bright that Mono had to look away until it dimmed. When he looked back, a white stone sat in the palm of her hand. Sojourn extended the stone to Mono and he took it.

“I’m a goddess of Japan, so my presence in the other world is limited,” she warned him. “If you lose that stone, I won’t be able to locate you to send you back.”

“Got it.” The stone was pure white which contrasted with the dark gray surroundings and was slightly warm to the touch. Mono pocketed it and looked back at Sojourn.

“Anything else?” She asked. “No more last-second interruptions or unexpected reveals?” 

Mono shook his head.

“Well then, good luck on your journey and see you in a month’s time.” She snapped her fingers and a glowing circle formed around Mono’s feet.

A month’s time? How would she see him in a month when it was supposed to be a year? Actually, what about his clothes? He was still only wearing the clothes he slept in before all of this happened. 

“Wait! I did forget somethi–” Mono was quickly cut off as the world turned from dark gray to pitch black. He lost consciousness. 

[lunarbranded]

🍵+ gatekeeping

Send 🍵for the mun’s salt! || Meme

gate·keep·ing: noun - the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.Tumblr definition: when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who has access to something .

Boy, you know. I’ve been mulling over how I was gonna work with this ask and how to do this post for a while. Actually had the words a few times that I wanted to use but I waited and thought on it. As it turns out, there’s a lot I want to touch upon with my salt in this post. Most of it is general toxic behavior from the RPC community itself and some of fandom but, for the most part, it’s Tumblr bullshit to the extreme.

If you don’t want to see strong af opinions, please keep scrolling. The salt will be under the cut and I understand that most of what I’ll be saying in this post will not be popular opinions.

Gatekeeping Is A Form of Bullying

Ever heard some dudebro go ‘I bet she hasn’t even read the comics’ about a girl wearing a Marvel shirt? What about someone going ‘If you don’t read the books, you’re not a real fan’ when someone’s in line at the theater? Yeah, those are examples of gatekeeping. A couple of the most common ones actually. 

As for Tumblr RPC gatekeeping, it’s a bit more like this: 

Omg, you can’t write that because it doesn’t fit into what I believe is the only lore that ever exists

wtf why are you claiming that character is gay/trans/bi/ect? they’re not or it would be mentioned in canon

how dare you want representation for your gender identity/race/ect., that’s not okay because it doesn’t adhere to CANON

you can’t ship that because it’s morally wrong and i don’t like it (which sounds a lot like old church people bitching about anything at all really)

if you don’t have the right aesthetic then i won’t follow/interact with you at all

These are just a few examples but most of them are pretty common. And, you know, that’s sad as fuck, to be honest. So many people I’ve met on this side claim to have been bullied but they’re usually the same people who turn around and do this shit to others. It’s unreal to me that they don’t recognize their own behavior. What’s worse is that it can’t be pointed out or people want to use whatever buzzword they can to tell you to fuck off.

If you try to help correct someone, suddenly you’re every -phobic on the planet and you conveniently managed to set their grandmother on fire. The dramatic overreactions of some people have a price and they don’t realize that the emotional response is sometimes not the correct one.

Just because someone is doing something you don’t like doesn’t mean that it deserves a negative action on your part. 

‘That person upset me so I’m gonna post a callout/vague post about them!’ Why do you guys think that literally fucking everything needs a reaction? It doesn’t. You don’t have to react to everything that happens. Sometimes things warrant a simple ‘oh that’s fucked up’ and then you move on with your fucking day. 

Say you have thirty water bottles. Someone steals one and drinks out of it or whatever but you still have twenty-nine water bottles - why the fuck are you going to be angry all day about that one water bottle? What’s the point when you have twenty-nine other water bottles and you can forget about or throw away the one that was ruined/taken? 

You see, that reaction is how you guys act about any one instance that goes wrong on Tumblr except you’re pissed off for a week and you want to ruin someone’s fucking life over a post/thread that you don’t like. Or, in extreme cases, you open blogs to run your mouth at these people. It takes more effort to act like a dick toward someone than it does to just keep fucking scrolling and it’s astounding how ready people are here to wallow in negativity/toxicity.

Puritan Ship/Roleplay Policing

So I mentioned it before, but there’s this super popular idea on Tumblr that if you don’t abide by a certain unspoken ship/roleplay guideline, people will tear you apart over it. But guess what, guys, it’s fucking bullshit. 

Since when were people not allowed to make their own opinions on what they did or didn’t ship?

When did it start that people were considered trash for shipping something?

Who the hell made half of you the owners of the RPC so you think you can control what everyone does on their blogs? 

You see, this is the same attitude that I see all the time in churches. Oh they’ll tell you to your face that you’re welcome to do as you like and come looking however you want but the second you actually fucking do it, you’re ignored and treated like a social pariah. All this because people love to go around spreading rumors and talking shit about one another all over a fucking hobby. 

It’s actually kind of insane when you think about it. Like, you’re arguing over what two people are doing when they’re throwing internet Barbies at one another and you’re stomping across the playground to scream at them because you don’t like what they’re doing when it has nothing to fucking do with you. Remember what we called that in elementary and high school? Oh yeah, there’s a word for it: BULLYING. And now, it’s evolved into gatekeeping.

This attitude is literally as bad as someone going ‘you can’t sit with us’ just because you don’t like what they’re doing on their blog. 

Now, I called this section ‘puritan’ for a reason - “practicing or affecting strict religious or moral behavior.” Does that sound familiar? Because it should. Tumblr wants to call everything wrong and, from what I’ve seen, the hivemind doesn’t want people making their own opinions. Oh and don’t forget, if you don’t already know something then tough fucking luck because it’s ‘not our job to teach you.’ Thanks for the reminder, Susan, but we all know that you’re going to resort to calling people toxic abusers just because they weren’t given the chance to learn something like you were. Because that’s a fucking great way to help people to understand things from your point of view.

Look. What I’m saying is that trying to force everyone into your moral alignment isn’t okay. Some people will write murder and abusive relationships and not romanticize them just fine. The same goes for incest, rape, dysphoria, and a great number of other things. Believe it or not, some RPers actually take the time to look this shit up so they can make sure that they’re doing it fucking right and avoiding romanticization. You know, what you people want them to do but yell at them when you see it trigger tagged without bothering to take a look at the entire thread in question. Goes right back to that knee jerk reaction people like to rely on - not everything is the end of the world.

Callout/Cancelled Culture

This one’s going to be fun.

So we all know that people love their callouts but we also know that people just fucking love cancelling people. Guess what though - you cannot cancel a fucking human being because they’re not a television show. Shocker right? I know.

Now, I’ll admit that there’s some callout worthy topics but there’s some callouts that are so goddamn stupid that I just can’t take either party seriously. Now Tumblr loves dividing people, especially in the RPC. Don’t fucking tell me that cliques aren’t a thing in the RPC because ‘RPing in your bubbble’ is the same as having a clique. It’s the same concept hidden behind another name, don’t try to tell me otherwise. 

And yes, sometimes people want to run around and start ‘clique wars’ like it’s fucking high school all over again. Sorry, but no one has time for that shit. Do your replies and keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong, Barbara. But, of course, people have trouble with this concept and get into fights. It’s natural that no two people are going to agree on the same goddamn thing. It would be ridiculous to expect this, especially on this website, but just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean that they’re cancelled. 

What you think is problematic and what someone else thinks is problematic are likely two different things. And sure, you’ll have people who agree with you and you’ll want them on your side but that doesn’t help because now you’ve created that divide. So things fester and get worse because you want to use your mental illness as an excuse (a popular choice from what I’ve seen) as to why you can’t communicate with someone. Next thing you know, there’s a huge callout against someone and that person didn’t expect it at all.

Knee jerk reactions. Fight gets worse. Divide gets bigger. Toxicity festers. 

Well now, there’s this new thing in the RPC where you can get a PSD template and fake fucking screenshots. Sure, it’s for musings and character profiles for things like Tinder, Facebook, ect. Just fun little things for you to throw your characters into and stuff like that. But there’s always that 1% who decide to use it so they can make it look like someone’s said something when they haven’t. So, when that person tries to defend themselves with a full-screen shot of their own (whole desktop or mobile version), things get worse until there’s a giant blowout. 

Once the dust settles you get this nice little ‘if you follow x, y, z then you can just block me bye’ behavior popping up. Well, that’s just childish. Unless something happened that was almost a ‘they found out where i live and they’re sending me glass filled cookies in the mail’ situation, then I have no reason to bother with that shit in your rules page. No one is obligated to tell you who they associate with just because you had a disagreement with them. However, if that person chooses to take your side, that’s up to them. 

I’m sure damn near everyone has had a similar situation to this happen to them on Tumblr before and, if it hasn’t, were you the one making the call out? If you were, was it worth it? Did it make you feel better? Sure, it might have in the moment but if you’re having that much of an issue actually communicating with others then you should take a step back and work on yourself before you involve other people. It’s like that one saying I keep seeing running around ‘if bad things always happen to you, you should make sure that you’re not the one causing it.’ 

Now, that’s not to say that I’m trying to gaslight anyone, but 9 times out of 10, I’ve looked back and realized that my own knee jerk reactions have caused a lot of turmoil that I could have avoided had I stopped and thought on it. I’ll admit that because guess fucking what, humans aren’t perfect. 

That’s the biggest issue on Tumblr. Half of you expect people to come on here and be perfect from the get go but humans make fucking mistakes and we learn from them. Do we not? How many of you can say that you were perfectly rational and amazing 15 year olds? Absolutely no one because teenagers have a lot of stress and expectations thrown on them while they’re going through a rough growth phase at that time. Things are unpredictable for them and they have school, teachers, friends, and parents throwing all of this shit onto them and then they come on here and have full-grown fucking adults slamming all this shit into their faces. It’s fucking ridiculous. And that’s another goddamn topic holy shit. The way some adults on here act is absolutely barbaric.

Sharing IP Addresses Out of Revenge/Anger

Oh this is something I’ve hated since I found out that Statcounter was a thing. Yes, I run it on my own blog but you’ll never see me sharing IP addresses on the dash. I’ll just quietly IP block you and go about my day, idgaf.

So there’s this huge trend and I’ve seen this on my own dash before (it was fucking disgusting, the response was atrocious on that person’s behalf, and I’ve since hardblocked) and it’s something I’ll hardblock over in a heartbeat. 

Now, for those who don’t know, Statcounter has a little piece of code that you can put into your blog theme and it’ll track the IP addresses of people who visit your blog. For me, I use it because I’ve had two stalkers in the past and yes, I keep screenshots of their visits for my own records. Fuck them. First one started the trigger for me and the second one recently exacerbated it. Anyway, if the person doesn’t have something on their browser to block it, Statcounter will pick up on their visit, what links they look at, how long they’ve been looking, their ISP, general location (never their precise home location, just the ISP’s area), browser info, and screen resolution. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I recall for now. 

Having it so you can protect yourself from stalkers is one thing but having it and using it to throw someone’s IP out there is another. When I say that people weaponize Statcounter, I’m not joking. People will go on there after getting what they believe is anon hate and see who the move recent /ask visitor was and start blasting their IP all over the place.

For one thing - people can send asks via the dash. They don’t have to click onto your page at all so, there’s a HUGE risk of throwing out an innocent person’s IP address. 

Say someone does this - mistakenly throws out an innocent person’s IP after receiving anon hate. That person is likely going to have a panic attack. Not only have you shared their state and general location but you’ve blamed them for something they didn’t do. Throwing that IP out there, to any fucking extent can create a witch hunt for anyone who has Statcounter to try to figure out who the owner of that IP is. 

This is related to gatekeeping because you’re essentially blacklisting anyone who lives in that state/general area from the RPC all because you saw they were in the /ask page. How fucked up is that? It ties right back to the knee jerk response and it shows that people given even a modicum of power abuse it at the first chance. This isn’t even addressing how vicious some people answer anons.

Sure, posting an IP address on it’s own isn’t illegal but when you tack a name onto it, then it is because you’re essentially creating a threat toward that person.

Point of this section - don’t fucking share people’s goddamn IP addresses on the dash, it just makes you a douchebag. I lose all respect for anyone doing this when I find them - fuck you for doing that.

Activism Forced into Roleplay

I used to be in the Marvel RPC. Key here: used to be. Part of the issue that lead to me leaving was how much people slammed IRL issues into RP. Yes, I’m well aware that Marvel comics has a long and deep history of taking on IRL issues and the comics themselves are quite political.

However my issue comes when this is happening outside of the Marvel community.

I’ve seen people trying to force IRL events down people’s throats. ‘You shouldn’t be happy - x, y, and z are happening right now and don’t you dare tell me to be quiet about it!’ Good way to get yourself blocked. People RP as a hobby and, for some, as a form of escape. Immersing into a character to find out what makes them tick is a form of method acting, so it could be said that we’re method writing out characters to an extent. So shoving IRL issues at some RPers can cause them to lose muse or abandon blogs entirely. 

Of course, in the same breath, I’ve seen people told that they can’t RP something because they’ve never experienced it, people think they’re romanticizing it, or some other bullshit Tumblr reason. Look, I’ve experienced rape, self harm, suicidal thoughts, CSA (incestuous and non-incestuous), as well as mental and physical abuse. Don’t you dare assume that I cannot write about these experiences in an accurate way and don’t you fucking dare tell me that I can’t write it because I’ll tell you first off where you can shove your bullshit. The fact that people have to disclose that they’ve been through these things so people will stay off their ass on Tumblr RPs is fucking ridiculous too. 

You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot write on my blog when I trigger tag the living shit out of everything to make sure that I’m protecting as many people as I can from seeing it. Do not try this shit with me. Censoring someone because it doesn’t adhere to your moral code is just as bad as banning books, televisions shows, and/or movies. 

Censoring something doesn’t solve the problem and boy fucking howdy does Tumblr have an issue with that. Censorship is another form of gatekeeping, by the way! You might not like it but people don’t go to jail for writing about incest or rape, just fucking saying. Oh but there have been crime authors sent to prison, I was suspended from school for writing about murder, but nothing about rape and incest. 

Sure, it may raise some eyebrows and people have to actually use gasp! postblock, tumblr savior, and any other method of tag blocking so they don’t see it but uh… that’s called being responsible for your content consumption.

Tumblr Is Not The Real World

Alright. So I’m gonna close this with a good reminder that I think some people on Tumblr could use. 

Tumblr is not the end-all be-all of the world.

Yes, you can make some good friends here and that’s fine but when you stay on here too long, the toxicity can start to change how you view the world around you. No, not every man that walks by you is going to rape you. No, not every woman that you see is going to be okay with you treating her the way you do female ocs and canons on here (actually, I’ve met some women who were proud they could make a full-grown man cry with the right look so). 

You have to think about how Tumblr makes you view others as well. All this ‘you messed up once so you’re cancelled’ behavior is a social media phenomenon that doesn’t carry on into real life. It just doesn’t. Sure, you can block someone you know IRL but that doesn’t stop them from talking to you if they were a Facebook friend you went to school with. If they still live nearby you, they’ll either talk to you or about you. What are you going to do? Take the Tumblr route and fucking scream at them like an incoherent banshee? No, you’ll suck it the fuck up and you’ll act like a decent person, don’t fucking lie.

You need to understand that Tumblr is it’s own entity, it’s own little sphere on the internet and, by no means, is it appropriate to carry on in your daily life the way some of you do on here. And if you do, please take a moment to stop and look at yourself. 

Self improvement starts when you want to improve but gatekeeping, bullying, and acting like a total barbarian to people you don’t know isn’t okay. This goes for the ones you do know too. I’m not saying that triggers aren’t important in the real world but you need to understand that forcing the social climate to change will only make people dislike you. When they don’t want to change, they’re not going to and some will refuse to change to spite you. 

Forcing anything won’t help. 

Gatekeeping won’t help. 

Censorship has never helped.

People don’t respond to being told what to do, feel, or think. Personally, I’d tell someone to fuck off if they tried doing it to me. So why do you think you can do it to others? Ever heard of ‘treat others how you want to be treated?’ Just be fucking decent and stop acting like other people are your goddamn doormat, jfc.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I'm not saying you agree with that TLJ article since you tagged it 'mh', but I'm very worried but this latest trend 'Your opinion is wrong because of internalized ___'. Some movies just suck? Like, I hated Ghostbusters 2 because it was bad. I was perfectly okay with having four women as main characters, but that can't be your whole idea for a movie.

I do think that article is interesting, and trying to describe what is basically a wider cultural phenomenon. I’m sure on case by case basis you could rarely boil it down to just a few specific factors and “diagnose” someone except for really obvious lifelong character types who would be in the most obvious demographic. 

Star Wars *already* got a bunch of sexist and racist backlash before TFA, so it’s already in the bracket of movies which got thrown together as the collection of SJWs are ruining our childhood movies like Mad Max, Ghostbusters, etc, so it’s also definitely not like this is a wild stab in the dark that it has pre-existing tension, although in this case the reaction is still really split. But I can see why it’s easy to examine it this way and analyse where it might make people uncomfortable, and wonder to what degree people are prepared to let go of Leading White Man formula for mega blockbusters. 

Something like Wonder Woman, people know what they’re getting into when they see it in the sense that the franchise is completely built around there being a female character in the lead role. So that stands quite alone. And it’s not like there haven’t been action movies with female leads in the past either, but the re-casting in the case of Ghostbusters, or just development of interesting female characters who aren’t beholden to a cookie cutter template/romance arc within a supposedly male-dominated franchise (Furiosa, especially) and changing up old franchises to have more diverse cast (Star Wars) or just completely flip the “male is the default” idea like Ghostbusters and Oceans 8, are deliberately challenging and in some cases - the last 2 especially - are pretty much thumbing the nose to the idea of all-male casts being unremarkable and default. Whether the movies are *good* or not (I thought Ghostbusters was about on the level of, say, a Ghostbusters movie for quality and humour, so okay basically :P) they’re culturally significant at a time when it seems both bizarre and horrifically slow and backwards that we *still* don’t have *even just getting male and female representation right, never mind race and sexuality and disability representation* (I mean for that last point - in some ways these films are already going to be regressive by the time other progressive steps are made, for example Charlize Theron wearing a green screen glove to delete her arm, instead of just hiring an actress with half an arm which is the immediately less-expensive and fiddly route to get the aesthetic…)

But idk, it’s not even like Star Wars was either perfect or extremely progressive, it just managed *not* to have 2-3 white male leads + some other people in the background, and to allow the non white male people to have such a stake in the story they could mess up and make decisions that affected the fate of the galaxy - often negatively, as this is the ESB slot of the trilogy aka where everything is supposed to go in the toilet. There was a lot they could have done better and I’m still annoyed that Maz and Phasma both got pitifully tiny roles but were basically included despite the set up of the movie being extremely restrictive to much exploration and with probably the longest time limit they thought they could allow themselves and still sound like there were any tension in the chase… 

I think it’s definitely always worth exploring whether social issues are having an impact on the reception of a film, though, because it’s a way of addressing the issues in our society, which we *know* exist, and when a film is openly critical of our society, and then people are critical back at it, guessing there may be a nervous backlash from people it made uncomfortable for too-close-to-home reasons makes sense. The critique offered by Kylo Ren to edgy white masculinity is really interesting, and I think it’s probably not hard to imagine SOME people especially who fit the profile are reacting against him, or glorifying him anyway unironically while disliking large amounts of the rest of the movie. 

One of the points that article made as well was that other generic or bad films do much better with audience reaction - in fact some truly terrible films do really well as they’re marketed to a niche audience, and that audience gobbles them up and we get the inverse, of critically panned but audience ratings pretty high.

I mean, I’m assuming if you follow me you’re a Supernatural fan and so we’re all here to gobble up the melodramatic pretty boys :P

So, idk, I think in some ways the picking apart of the film and emphasising its flaws is happening in a strange social climate, where in some ways the discomfort about the film not catering with the most “easy” empathy of a white male main character & with flawed but interesting characters in the other roles particularly prone to being criticised in society for existing anyway and that the SW revival has already had one film threatened boycott over because of Finn being a black stormtrooper on his reveal, and I doubt that feeling has just magically gone away… There comes a point where I wonder how much is basically film review concern trolling when it comes to criticising his and Rose’s arc, or the film in general. 

And how much of the film’s real flaws, plotholes etc if they existed in an easier version of the film with all 4 Chrises in the major roles would take months or years to get properly dissected by the internet while it’s basically as soon as you go back online after the movie someone’s complaining about why Canto Bight even existed.

I mean my “Hm” was “this is interesting and I think it definitely could apply to the wider cultural reaction to the movies” while obviously on a personal level if people have certain standards for films (my dad hates basically *everything* so I don’t think his reaction to TFA was categorically racist or sexist, just that he would be inclined to think pretty much anything JJ Abrams makes is garbage and whoops I never should have naively made him watch the first episode of Fringe with me :P) then if any of these movies are things you can tell would have rubbed you up the wrong way anyway, e.g. you didn’t like the original Ghostbusters that much/have found it far cringey-er on adult rewatches etc then you are absolutely allowed to have a reaction to it on a personal level which is not a sign of the sickness of our society :P 

But I think even if you don’t like the new SW film, it’s worth putting aside your critiques of it for a moment to think about this article and the wider reaction - not to make you guilted into enjoying the film, but because it’s worth at least pondering the wider social issues the film’s already definitely caught up in since like, before TFA came out, so we can’t deny that there’s at least some portion of the audience, whether the loud but small group of assholes who utterly invisibly boycotted TFA, or the wider percentage of the population who’ll be consciously or unconsciously turned off by the cast and the power given to their characters in the story, and the possibly even wider percentage who may still struggle to empathise with female characters because Hollywood has so systematically underrepresented like, what can alternately be the literal largest demographic on the planet, and presented just plain old cis women as characters whose inner lives are valuable and decisions should be respected. 

I mean since I came out the movie I’ve been swinging back and forth on “should Holdo have just told Poe her plan or was the point that this man of a much lower station is getting all up in her business demanding to know and questioning her, and I assume that was intentional so I should agree with Holdo but would this have looked just as bad if a male admiral showed up doing the same thing and they accidentally undermine her by it being a bad decision in general, or is the point that if it had been a male admiral Poe would have shut up and not let an insurrection, but I mean it’s *Poe* and I love him and I totally understand and he was made out to be more sympathetic until *after* the twist so did they WANT us to be critical of Holdo or am I just falling into a trap of not giving female characters the same room to fuck up as male characters -” and that’s BEFORE I get onto the internet and read this debate for weeks, just my confusion about this arc and what it was saying and if it was meant to say one thing or the other or if it’s a bit of bad writing (but not something so bad it would ruin the film to the point of only 50% enthusiasm like Rotten Tomatoes is giving it - like, 93% or something :P) or if it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to by making my brain cogs go and making me feel I need to write like, a dozen female admiralty into things to allow Holdo a cultural sisterhood of good bad and ugly admirals to be her own person in instead of the only female admiral to ever stick in my head like this :P So idk. 

Hm. Basically. 

[ickbad-blog]

The internet and you: look what you've become

Gather round kids, it's time for old grampa Ickbad to tell you a story. Back in my college days, long ago in 2012, I had a speech class where we got choose the topic. I was in college for network engineering, and I had the idea that mankind was not mature enough for the internet (a strange topic for someone in I.T., but I'll get to that another day). I made the argument that the internet, while being generally useful and had a lot of good qualities to it, was also leading humanity down a darker road,

I made the aragument that while as a whole, we benefited from the internet, but the individual would suffer from it, and a day would come when the benefits would outweigh the cost and the internet would be detrimental to us. If your wondering I convinced no one and got a C on the project. If only I could go back and show them what the internet today looks like and what it's done to us, I feel like I could make a better case.

I'm going to step back in time some more, just to preface my argument a little and give some background to where I'm coming from (you can skip the next 4 paragraphs if you don't want to hear about my life). I grew up in the 90's, and I lived out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. I had a brother and sister that I fought with, and neighbors we were friends with. I remember running through the woods and finding bottle mines (dump grounds from a long time ago, where most of the garbage had broken down aside from glass bottles) and playing n64 inside. Flashlight tag at night and having bonfires in a fire pit out back. A normal childhood in the 90's (at least I think so, normal is subjective)

But my Dad was also in I.T., and because of his job we had a lot of old computers around and the internet. I grew up playing online with friends, downloading demos and free games to try out. But that wasn't the whole of my experience. I did not spend all day online, and was outside more then online. Then, when I was 12, I moved in with my Mom (they divorced the year before) and lost the internet. I spend the next 5 years not being online and got along just fine without it.

I feel like I was both ahead of the internet ad behind the times because of this split. I had the internet at a young age but not the years that most of my peers were online. I feel like this is why I have such a strange relationship with it, and technology in general, but you can form your own ideas, I don't control you.

Anyway, because I learned computers at a young age I was good at them, troubleshooting games and computer problems gave me critical thinking skills, and that's why I went into I.T. in college. But I never had a want to go online. In high school and college, when I did have the internet, I only had a myspace account to play games, and only last year had a personal facebook account. I used to be very active in gaia online, when that was a thing, but it was in it more to play the games that talk with people.

Back to the point, I feel like the internet is now at a point where it the harm it's doing to the individual is greater then the benefit to us as a whole. The collective of human knowledge and interaction available at our fingertips has begun to divide us and has brought a new age of apathy.

Going back to my story, I remember every Thursday my family would all get together and watch Survivor on TV. I remember staying home from school and watching The Price is Right followed by 7th heaven because that was the only thing on TV. I remember rushing to the bathroom or to do something on a commercial break and channel surfing to find something to watch when nothing was on. But now with youtube, netflix, and other on demand streaming services these things have gone away. No longer does watching something mean scheduling that time. We don't need to worry that there is nothing to watch when we can turn on anything we could ever want. We can stop and come back to something whenever we want rather then being constrained to 2 minutes of commercials. But is this strictly a good thing?  

I like those little wafer sugar cookies, and if I could I would do nothing but eat them. However there are consequences to that path as well, and while in the short term I may enjoy them, in the long term it's detrimental to eat only the delicious wafer cookies. I feel that the same logic can apply to media on demand. Now that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, does the act of watching something feel less special? Growing up I watched Dragon Ball Z, and I remember everyday at school talking with my friends about what happened on the last episode, trying to guess what would happen on the next episode, and filling in who screamed the most to someone if them missed what happened. I feel like these conversations don't happen anymore. Now we only talk about the series as a whole and the excitement of watching once a week, or the heart break of missing an episode isn't there. And if you want to watch every episode of breaking bad in one go, well I don't think a sane person would agree with you but you have that option to stream every episode one after another. And as they come in to scrape you off the couch at the end and rush you to the hospital for any number major health complication resulting from doing nothing but watching breaking bad for 50 hours, you can tell them how great it was. I think I'll have another wafer cookie.

The ability to stream whatever you want also comes with another major issue (at least I think so), creating an echo chamber. Channel surfing wasn't something magical, but there were times when you came across something that you had never seen before, and you would have another show that you wanted to watch and follow. Watching tv when there was nothing directly you wanted to watch meant either looking for something new or giving up and finding something else to do. It would necessitate expanding your views and ideas to find enjoyment, and while I feel like that wasn't a big price to pay to find something new, I'm finding more and more people are unwilling to pay the price, or that there is no way to achieve this. I wish that netflix or hulu or any streaming site would set up a live TV option so when I don't know what I want to watch, I have the ability to surf around to see, and maybe find something new.

And speaking of echo chambers, I want to hit one more topic before I end this pointless rant no one will ever read, Echo chambers in online communities. There was a time where talking about something you wanted meant bring it up in conversation with people and competing with what they wanted to talk about. You may have had different groups of friends that you discussed different topics with (wouldn't bring up what sick fetishes you were into to your office friends), but there was still a diverse topics discussed within a group of people. Now however, there is a chat group or sub-reddit for anything, but trying to bring up a different topic in one of these forms is frowned on. So while there is a group for anything you want to discuss, there is little flow of new ideas outside of that topic in these places. This results in stagnation of someone's views and may even lead to people becoming intolerant to new ideas.

Let me give you an example; racism happens (at least in my point of view) because people are not exposed to different races and thus believe their race is the only good one while needing stereotypes to base their ideas of others. Then when they encounter these races, they have nothing to base their ideas on but these ideas of stereotypes and differences. Now think about this, the current political climate. I'm in the U.S., and the political landscape is a nightmare, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with liberal and conservatives each being in their own echo chambers to the point where stereotypes and misinformation is the only thing we have to judge each other. One side doesn’t trust the other and any notion of working together is all but gone.

Now, I can't blame the dumpster fire that is politics solely on echo chambers, but I do believe it is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I do have one other example of echo chambers gone out of control, and that is tumbler it's self. Without going into to much detail, I believe the current attitude going around tumbler (you know the one snowflake) is because the echo chamber of something that started out noble but was perverted.

Tumbler was a great place for fans and for the LGBT community to find a home. However, because of the echo chamber effects, things went down hill fast. Touching on the fandoms. People started out with fan pages of shows or whatever (I'll use shows for simplicity, but this is true for any fandom),  but then groups sprang up with different ideas about what being a fan meant. Want to portray someone from the show in a different way then exactly how they are, one group may hate the perversion of the character while another will welcome you with open arms. These sub-echo chambers where only specific views of a subject could be related sprang up and further limited the ideas that were exchanged.

On the other end, the LGBT community on tumbler has grown out of control with it's echo chamber, but I feel for a slightly different reason. People would post what they wanted on tumbler, and this gave LGBT people a voice and a chance to talk about themselves. Because LGBT people are in the minority (and yes, we are in the minority), they were different. When someone is different, there are people who want to emulate that to feel special (See black culture in the 90's and early 2000's). However because of the echo chamber effect, other new ideas were not introduced to give variety to the culture and it stagnated. However, people still want to feel different to stand out from the rest, so rather then taking in new ideas, they reinforced their own ideas. Things like gender identity came into the mix and suddenly everyone had to have their own gender to be different. Rather then taking a mix of ideas and becoming someone out of them, they limited themselves to only a handful, and because of that the differences had to be formed within those areas, creating and mutation views and ideas that further lock them into that view.

I didn't write this to be a comprehensive topic on the negatives of the internet, but just to express my feelings on some of the negativity that has come from it. I do believe the internet is the most powerful invention of mankind ever, but the power swings both ways. I'll come back to these topics at a later date and expand my views then, but I've ranted long enough. My final thought is this, the internet benefits society as a whole but negatively on the individual, and eventually the negatives will catch up.

[ickbad-blog]

The internet and you: look what you've become

gather round kids, it's time for old grampa Ickbad to tell you a story. Back in my college days, long ago in 2012, I had a speech class where we got choose the topic. I was in college for network engineering, and I had the idea that mankind was not mature enough for the internet (a strange topic for someone in I.T., but I'll get to that another day). I made the argument that the internet, while being generally useful and had a lot of good qualities to it, was also leading humanity down a darker road,

I made the aragument that while as a whole, we benefited from the internet, but the individual would suffer from it, and a day would come when the benefits would outweigh the cost and the internet would be detrimental to us. If your wondering I convinced no one and got a C on the project. If only I could go back and show them what the internet today looks like and what it's done to us, I feel like I could make a better case.

I'm going to step back in time some more, just to preface my argument a little and give some background to where I'm coming from (you can skip the next 4 paragraphs if you don't want to hear about my life). I grew up in the 90's, and I lived out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. I had a brother and sister that I fought with, and neighbors we were friends with. I remember running through the woods and finding bottle mines (dump grounds from a long time ago, where most of the garbage had broken down aside from glass bottles) and playing n64 inside. Flashlight tag at night and having bonfires in a fire pit out back. A normal childhood in the 90's (at least I think so, normal is subjective)

But my Dad was also in I.T., and because of his job we had a lot of old computers around and the internet. I grew up playing online with friends, downloading demos and free games to try out. But that wasn't the whole of my experience. I did not spend all day online, and was outside more then online. Then, when I was 12, I moved in with my Mom (they divorced the year before) and lost the internet. I spend the next 5 years not being online and got along just fine without it.

I feel like I was both ahead of the internet ad behind the times because of this split. I had the internet at a young age but not the years that most of my peers were online. I feel like this is why I have such a strange relationship with it, and technology in general, but you can form your own ideas, I don't control you.

Anyway, because I learned computers at a young age I was good at them, troubleshooting games and computer problems gave me critical thinking skills, and that's why I went into I.T. in college. But I never had a want to go online. In highschool and college, when I did have the internet, I only had a myspace account to play games, and only last year had a personal facebook account. I used to be very active in gaia online, when that was a thing, but it was in it more to play the games that talk with people.

Back to the point, I feel like the internet is now at a point where it the harm it's doing to the individual is greater then the benefit to us as a whole. The collective of human knowledge and interaction available at our fingertips has begun to divide us and has brought a new age of apathy.

Going back to my story, I remember every Thursday my family would all get together and watch Survivor on TV. I remember staying home from school and watching The Price is Right followed by 7th heaven because that was the only thing on TV. I remember rushing to the bathroom or to do something on a commercial break and channel surfing to find something to watch when nothing was on. But now with youtube, netflix, and other on demand streaming services these things have gone away. No longer does watching something mean scheduling that time. We don't need to worry that there is nothing to watch when we can turn on anything we could ever want. We can stop and come back to something whenever we want rather then being constrained to 2 minutes of commercials. But is this strictly a good thing?  

I like those little wafer sugar cookies, and if I could I would do nothing but eat them. However there are consequences to that path as well, and while in the short term I may enjoy them, in the long term it's detrimental to eat only the delicious wafer cookies. I feel that the same logic can apply to media on demand. Now that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, does the act of watching something feel less special? Growing up I watched Dragon Ball Z, and I remember everyday at school talking with my friends about what happened on the last episode, trying to guess what would happen on the next episode, and filling in who screamed the most to someone if them missed what happened. I feel like these conversations don't happen anymore. Now we only talk about the series as a whole and the excitement of watching once a week, or the heart break of missing an episode isn't there. And if you want to watch every episode of breaking bad in one go, well I don't think a sane person would agree with you but you have that option to stream every episode one after another. And as they come in to scrape you off the couch at the end and rush you to the hospital for any number major health complication resulting from doing nothing but watching breaking bad for 50 hours, you can tell them how great it was. I think I'll have another wafer cookie.

The ability to stream whatever you want also comes with another major issue (at least I think so), creating an echo chamber. Channel surfing wasn't something magical, but there were times when you came across something that you had never seen before, and you would have another show that you wanted to watch and follow. Watching tv when there was nothing directly you wanted to watch meant either looking for something new or giving up and finding something else to do. It would necessitate expanding your views and ideas to find enjoyment, and while I feel like that wasn't a big price to pay to find something new, I'm finding more and more people are unwilling to pay the price, or that there is no way to achieve this. I wish that netflix or hulu or any streaming site would set up a live TV option so when I don't know what I want to watch, I have the ability to surf around to see, and maybe find something new.

And speaking of echo chambers, I want to hit one more topic before I end this pointless rant no one will ever read, Echo chambers in online communities. There was a time where talking about something you wanted meant bring it up in conversation with people and competing with what they wanted to talk about. You may have had different groups of friends that you discussed different topics with (wouldn't bring up what sick fetishes you were into to your office friends), but there was still a diverse topics discussed within a group of people. Now however, there is a chat group or sub-reddit for anything, but trying to bring up a different topic in one of these forms is frowned on. So while there is a group for anything you want to discuss, there is little flow of new ideas outside of that topic in these places. This results in stagnation of someone's views and may even lead to people becoming intolerant to new ideas.

Let me give you an example; racism happens (at least in my point of view) because people are not exposed to different races and thus believe their race is the only good one while needing stereotypes to base their ideas of others. Then when they encounter these races, they have nothing to base their ideas on but these ideas of stereotypes and differences. Now think about this, the current political climate. I'm in the U.S., and the political landscape is a nightmare, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with liberal and conservatives each being in their own echo chambers to the point where stereotypes and misinformation is the only thing we have to judge each other. One side doesn’t trust the other and any notion of working together is all but gone.

Now, I can't blame the dumpster fire that is politics solely on echo chambers, but I do believe it is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I do have one other example of echo chambers gone out of control, and that is tumbler it's self. Without going into to much detail, I believe the current attitude going around tumbler (you know the one snowflake) is because the echo chamber of something that started out noble but was perverted.

Tumbler was a great place for fans and for the LGBT community to find a home. However, because of the echo chamber effects, things went down hill fast. Touching on the fandoms. People started out with fan pages of shows or whatever (I'll use shows for simplicity, but this is true for any fandom),  but then groups sprang up with different ideas about what being a fan meant. Want to portray someone from the show in a different way then exactly how they are, one group may hate the perversion of the character while another will welcome you with open arms. These sub-echo chambers where only specific views of a subject could be related sprang up and further limited the ideas that were exchanged.

On the other end, the LGBT community on tumbler has grown out of control with it's echo chamber, but I feel for a slightly different reason. People would post what they wanted on tumbler, and this gave LGBT people a voice and a chance to talk about themselves. Because LGBT people are in the minority (and yes, we are in the minority), they were different. When someone is different, there are people who want to emulate that to feel special (See black culture in the 90's and early 2000's). However because of the echo chamber effect, other new ideas were not introduced to give variety to the culture and it stagnated. However, people still want to feel different to stand out from the rest, so rather then taking in new ideas, they reinforced their own ideas. Things like gender identity came into the mix and suddenly everyone had to have their own gender to be different. Rather then taking a mix of ideas and becoming someone out of them, they limited themselves to only a handful, and because of that the differences had to be formed within those areas, creating and mutation views and ideas that further lock them into that view.

I didn't write this to be a comprehensive topic on the negatives of the internet, but just to express my feelings on some of the negativity that has come from it. I do believe the internet is the most powerful invention of mankind ever, but the power swings both ways. I'll come back to these topics at a later date and expand my views then, but I've ranted long enough. My final thought is this, the internet benefits society as a whole but negatively on the individual, and eventually the negatives will catch up.