#something about curating your experience on tumblr because I have never heard of this person at all until just now-

[battle-subway-ghost]

//Response to the PSA thing (your tags)

//No someone did that, I saw it, I unfollowed the person because of it because it was starting to make me intensely uncomfy how often they pounced on real issues while rping- (I rp to relax not talk about what's going on in the world-)

// Originally I wasn’t gonna respond to this until I reread it and saw that this isn’t a one time thing. Oh. Oh….

I don’t wanna like- publicly shame this person or anything, from what I’ve heard privately they’re coming from a place of concern and care for the topic(s) at hand!! I can understand that. But also there’s a time and a place for this… and funny Pokémon roleplay is absolutely not the place.

I hope this can be a learning experience for everyone involved if anything else? Nobody go out and harass this person- they don’t deserve that kind of malice over this.

[nothorses]

Heya, I had a quick question and you're like the only person I can think of that wouldn't mock me for asking, that said, I understand that this isn't really something you talk about, so please don't feel pressured to respond! I saw a post earlier that said it was for people who were on Instagram, tiktok, (I think also reddit?) before they moved to tumblr, and it was saying that you should reblog things instead of liking them. I then saw a reblog (I can't remember if it was from the op or not, I'm sorry) that said that people who like posts instead of rebloging them are ruining tumblr, and that's what staff wants people to do.

Is that true? I haven't been on here for long, and I never reblog things, only like them, because I just don't want anyone to see me talking about anything, or really know anything about my opinions, I just want to be invisible to other people on here, and I don't feel like rebloging would give me that. That said, I also really don't wanna ruin your guy's website. Is there anyway to like quietly (?) reblog things? Are there other rules like this on here that I'm not aware of? Because I keep seeing people say things like "duh, I've been hearing people say to reblog instead of like since I've been here", but like, I've never heard it and I'm a little worried there's other rules about this that I have no idea about.

Again, please don't feel pressured to respond to this at all! Thank you!

The reason people say that is because Tumblr doesn't have an algorithm, which is why most of the people here like the site; we get to "curate our own experiences", there's no magic mystical force determining who gets promoted and who gets buried, etc.

So the only way anyone sees anything is if it's posted directly, or reblogged, by someone they follow (or posted directly into a tag they follow, but that's less commonly used). Nothing and nobody else is promoting it, it's just other people.

So if you never reblog anything, you never promote anyone's work, and the content stops with you.

Now, I only explain all of this because I think it's not super well known, and for folks coming in from most other social media sites, that's not a thing they're gonna intuitively pick up. That's all just so you can make an informed choice.

And like, all of that's not actually that bad of a thing; you're not talking away anything anyone already had, you're just not adding anything new. It's neutral.

If you have your reasons for not wanting to reblog stuff, that's fine; you're not obligated to, and like, it's nobody else's place to judge! The whole point of this function is that we get to curate our own experiences, and you are curating your's. It's okay if that's different from how other folks use the site.

[intheholler]

ive been noticing this for a while but i just gotta say that the way ppl act on this blog, gettin all defensive and vitriolic all the damn time over EVERY lil thing u say, i swear they must think ur gonna take away their appalachian card or somethin. as if u arent just a person with a tumblr account.

anyway, as a born and raised eastern kentuckian, i love your blog so so much. its my lil slice of internet home.

right. i actually really appreciate you saying that because i am actually incredibly bothered by those responses and woke up still thinking about them. so i hope you don't mind me using this ask to talk about it.

it kinda sucked to read the one ask, because never have i told any of yall the way you experience appalachia is invalid. if anything i have tried to go out of my way to help yall feel more connected to it, no matter how distant your connection may be.

i have expressed several times in different ways/places that i do not think of myself as, and do not want to be thought of as, some authority on the region. my opinions are just that--opinions.

how many times can i say 'i'm just an asshole with a blog' before it resonates? (or as this anon put it more politely lol 'just a person with a tumblr account')

it means a lot to me, how much weight yall seem to place on my opinions, because it makes me feel heard and validated, but it can feel like a lot of responsibility at times, and results in things like this.

this blog was never meant to gain this sort of attention, and while i am so, so grateful it has become what it is and hope i never have to leave, my intention here was always simply to process my individual appalachian identity--originally through curated pictures, but now much more.

i'm going to keep doing that. if you like what i have to say here im so touched and love to talk to yall, but if following me makes you mad or something when i goof around, you really don't have to follow, u know.

and in retrospect i suppose i am not obligated to answer every ask i receive criticizing me for it, either.

anyway, love kentucky and i feel like i learn new reasons to love it every day! thanks for being here <33

[scummy-writes]

Scum's Anon Tips

Hello 👋 I have been on tumblr for around 8-9 years and have seen this website change a lot! Nowadays, I notice old information circling around regarding anons, and I wanted to share some information I've experienced through my time here.

This is not meant to be mean spirited, it's just meant to be helpful since I am noticing a trend of anon hate in the circles I'm around. Please feel free to add any corrections that you know to be true, or any additionals.

1. Blocking an anon does not put the user who sent the message in your block list.

(Tested and verified)

I see this one spread a lot and, from what I believe, this is from Way Back on tumblr from around the time I joined. It's possible that this was never a thing, and people just said it was, or this was a glitch that happened eons ago. Who knows! This site is held together by sticks and gum, so shit happens.

What happens instead is that it blocks the anons IP address . This is verified here by the site themselves (under 'other considerations'). Before they implemented having to be logged in to send anons, this made dealing with anon hate a bit more difficult since dedicated folks could try to bypass the IP block.

2. Blocking one anon message, out of a group of them, then refreshing, can show you how many of those anons were sent by the same person/IP.

(Tested, verified with note)

This is something I would do when I would seemingly get a batch of anon messages from 'multiple' people in the last few years (and recently as of March/April-ish of 2023), only to block one and then refresh, and have all of the hateful messages suddenly gone from my inbox. It's a helpful way to help realize that no, 282973 people are not slamming in to get mad at your characterization in a fanfic, its usually just one dedicated asshole.

Side note: last time I tried this, I did have a notif for one of the anons in my notifications, but not actually in my inbox. It's possible that this may be buggy at times. In my experience, aside from that single instance, it's repeatedly gotten rid of other hateful anons in my inbox.

3. Blocking someone who you believe/know sent the anon message does nothing to the anon message in your inbox.

(Tested, verified)

Until recently, I thought that this would work! But as of 07/09/2023, I realized that this does nothing to any anons in your inbox. I had my roommate send me an anonymous message, then I blocked her account and refreshed my inbox multiple times: and it never touched the anon message. I think this is odd for tumblr to do, but it may line up with some sort of privacy protection they have.

So if you have any worries if someone sent an anon message, this is not a way to test it out.

4. (A Tip) If you find yourself getting a lot of anon hate...

Not a great answer, but one that is needed to be heard: Stop Answering Them. We've all been online long enough to hear the 'dont feed the trolls' mantra, but seriously. Answering the ask means you can no longer block Or report it. In point 2 I mentioned it's usually one dedicated asshole, but if it isn't, then you're just opening yourself to more anon attacks. If you Badly want to answer it- screenshot it, then answer that way, because at least you can still block and report the OG anon. I think this is even more important now that users have to be logged in to send anon messages. They can't play with IPs as much anymore with this feature, so it's more important than ever to block and report em now.

Reporting can be done on mobile and desktop version of the site, as well as blocking. Please, always utalize these. You're not a 'coward' or whatever for curating your online experience.

Additional Note:

When it comes to information spread about anons, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if it seems to be in line with any possible privacy issues with tumblr. The point of anonymous messages, good or bad, are to be anonymous. It does not make much sense for a site to allow you to easily see who sent the anon in that context. Especially when, on the official Help section of the site, they have confirmed that even staff supposedly doesn't know who sent said anon ask (It's under 'What About Anonymous Asks?'). So why would they have their site (alibet held together with sticks and gum) show you very easily who sent the anon?

On their side of things, I hope this is a little fixed now that we have to be logged in to send messages, so that they can take action on the accounts sending hateful shit.

-----

Please feel free to add onto this list, but I repeat, please add on with things you know to be true. Not stuff you heard through the grapevine, as there is so much misinformation on that vine, but things you yourself have experienced and have Worked. It'll be helpful to know if your tip is something from before the 'must be logged in' change or not as well!

[bringbackmaes14]

I don't think it's ever reasonable to stop interacting with minors. Sociologically, it's really important for people in different age groups (or generations) to interact with each other. That means people who are 17 and 36 or 45 and 84 or 3 and 52, whatever the age difference. It helps us build language and uphold a sense of community, and it's also important to interact with people of all ages to learn new and different things about the world. A Baby Boomer might be able to tell a Gen Z person about things they remember from the Civil Rights Movement in the United States that aren't commonly taught in the school system, and vice versa, maybe the Gen Z person learned something about the Civil Rights Movement in their high school history class from a document that was found discovered in the 80s that the Baby Boomer had never heard of. And you can learn all kinds of things at any age from any person! For instance, statistically, how many adults do you think are learn facts about dinosaurs or bugs from people their own age? Probably most of the dinosaur or bug facts that they hear/learn are from children who in turn learned it from adults on TV or online. It's all a cycle of learning!!!

That's not to say that kids/minors and adults don't need their own separate spaces to exist with their peers, but I think if you turn 18 and you say "okay I'm never going to willingly interact with minors again unless I become a parent or choose a job that requires me to interact with them" then you're losing out on a lot of learning and a lot of community. And you don't even have to like kids/teens! I personally don't particularly like children, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to avoid interacting with them if the opportunity arises either (there are a lot of little kids in my neighborhood who like to ring my doorbell and ask if they can pet my cats and sometimes I have to tell them I'm busy but there have been occasions where I'll let one or two hang out for a minute to pet the cats with their parents' permission, and while hanging out I've found that each of the kids is very endearing in their own way)!

As far as online spaces go, I think the "minors dni" label is silly. For the above stated reasons but also because it doesn't truly work. I believe that (if we're just talking about Tumblr) blogs that are going to post a lot of NSFW things should advertise their blog as such, but it should be kind of the same as the warning on AO3, y'know the one that's like "hey you've clicked on a work that includes mature topics and we just wanna make sure you know that before you proceed, just go ahead and hit yes or no". I'm not saying we should just give minors free access to all things NSFW but like, what teen in the age of computers didn't look up videos or pictures that they weren't supposed to? We've all heard the "yes of course I'm over 18 years of age but just to be safe I'm going to set my birth year as 1934" bullshit. I definitely did stuff like that as a kid when I wanted to access an age restricted website.

Overall, it's probably not gonna stop minors if you have a "minor dni" tag on your blog. And it's up to us non-minor folks to teach those minors Internet safety and decorum. Teach them to check their sources. Teach them how to keep their information private. Teach them reading comprehension. Teach them to look out for warning signs like "NSFW" or "18+" and how to filter tags or posts that might trigger them. Teach them that if a post is properly tagged with all the appropriate trigger warnings and they looked at it and it triggered them, that's not the creator's fault; it is everyone's own job to curate their social media experience and social media works the same way as fanfiction: if you don't like it you don't have to interact with it. It's literally as simple as backing out of the page. Most of all, teach them that they do not have to be afraid of adults or minors on the Internet. Yes, of course there are always going to be scary people on the Internet and a lot of them are adults, but what I mean by the previous statement, especially in a fandom heavy space like Tumblr, is interact with people outside your age range! Get different perspectives on your blorbos! Learn that the Internet, fandom, and the world, are not just for young people, because no matter what age we are, we're all people. Senior citizens are people. Preteens are people. Newborns are people. And ultimately, I highly doubt you will ever run into a single person, online or face to face, that you will learn nothing from. You could learn something from them as huge as astrophysics. You could learn something as small (but just as important) as the name someone chose for their pet fish and what it means to them.

Always keep learning, as long as you are able.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Hello, the “Oldie Chinese Diaspora Anon ™” is back. Disclaimer first: I understand that, in good faith, what other folks have said is based on their experiences. The same goes for what I have to say as well. Depending on our experiences, our views will differ, and your mileage may vary.

To the lovely Anon who thinks the Chinese doll community is “nicer” and more “constructive”, let me introduce you to the Weibo Tieba known as “BJD Tucao Bar” (“tucao” means something like “venting” or “cussing”) http://c.tieba.baidu.com/f?ie=utf-8&kw=bjd%E5%90%90%E6%A7%BD&fr=search The rules for this bar are written right up top: “It’s for fights only. Not open to Recast owners.“ You see, depending on how involved in the Chinese doll community you are, there are a lot of nooks and crannies of places where doll collectors hang out. If you lay them all out, it’s not so very different from the English-speaking doll community. But the pulse (?) of the doll community, the places were folks go to gather information about bad dealers/collectors, complain about bad transactions, complain about recasts and recast owners, etc… well, you have this confession Tumblr in English. And you have the Tucao Bar in Chinese. That’s where the drama lives.

I mean no disrespect – because this is my own personal experience as well – the Chinese social media has its own set of internally-consistent argot to keep out the “outsiders” as well as the State Censors. I have recently shared a complaint from this bar to a friend in Taiwan (who only speaks Mandarin Chinese) and she still has difficulty understanding it. However, the argot is mostly used in safe spaces, therefore if someone is only looking at entry-level comments posted under curated photo-sharing services (like Insta comments in English, for example), you’re not going to be able to see the “other side” of the Chinese doll community.Call me an old fogey with thick skin – but I actually enjoy the conversation that takes place in this bar in the Chinese doll community. I learn a lot from them – much more so than from curated photo-sharing services (RED is the new one right now). 

I have seen both pro- and anti- artist folks starting flame wars; shouting down each other with words that I wouldn’t repeat to my mother. I’ve seen women complaining about how “Creepy” the men in the doll community are. I have seen rumours about faceup artists smashing recast heads sent their way (in fact, the Chinese are the only folks I know who are rumoured to do this for real). I’ve learned where recasters got their dolls in China, as well as the (so far unsubstantiated) rumour that recasts are cheap because they use recycled plastics – some may have even come from illegally harvested medical waste. You name it, they’ve got it, and in spades. (One of the latest entries in this bar is a victim spreading the word on a scammer who impersonated a famous faceup artist on social media so this person can take their money and the doll heads. Now that’s something I haven’t heard of here yet! Post here: http://c.tieba.baidu.com/p/7974698494 )

I do have to say, a few topics almost never shows up. We see them all them time in English-speaking doll communities, but they do not show up in Chinese ones. Mind, it’s not because the Chinese are “nicer” in anyway – it’s because these are “non-issues”. The Holocaust is a “non-topic” – don’t get me wrong, these folks are not Holocaust deniers, but the government and the platform will censor the living daylights out of anyone referring to State-sanctioned actions (sorry, Anon who mentioned D. Shoe’s comments re: Solar Marine doll. The “truth” is a lot more complicated than folks let on). The Chinese would love to tell you how they have their own Holocaust (The R_ape of Nanking) which is OK to talk about, but you will not find any Chinese mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. LGBTQ+ topics are “non-issues” because it’s illegal to depict in media; simple as that. Opportunistic paedophilia is rampant and children as young as 9 can be sold by starving parents to paying elites – accusing someone of being a pedo means it’s probably true but it’s you that’s going to get into trouble.

Oh, and yaoi/BL? It’s considered a form of feminism, a way to buck the “family-first”, “have kids”, “grow up and get married” traditions through fiction and fantasy. Most consumers do not know much about real-life homosexuals; in fact, most of them know very little about sex in general. The characters are never overtly sexual (because that would make them illegal), so there’s a lot of half-baked erotica but no sex. This means Chinese BL is pretty much pure fantasy, no real LGBTQ+ humans were involved in the conception or production of this media output. Therefore hot-button social issues that take up a lot of confessions here on this blog (and elsewhere, of course) are actually pretty non-existent in China. It’s easy to create the illusion that the Chinese doll community is “nicer” and “more fun.” But the reality is the “we’re all nice here” illusion is just that – an illusion; a carefully-curated Truman’s World that’s used more to placate the Chinese population and to peddle to everyone else as a sign of China’s “Soft power”. Just look at how they went out to censor movies to pass the Chinese censors: https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gbyz/is-china-involved-in-hollywood And perhaps you can tell me if you would rather live in a world where Tyler Durden blew up the buildings at the end of the Fight Club or that he ended up with 20 years in an insane asylum.

~Anonymous

[billfarrah]

Hi, I just want to get something out that has been bothering me a little bit. First of all, I really love this season, the first time not as much, but after some analysis and repetitions I appreciate it more.

What annoys me is all this Wille vs Simon and Simon haters in general. Like, a lot of people dismissed Simon's problems, I think not most of the fandom, but a lot of people still.

He did questionable things this season? Yes, but he also start to acknowledge it and it's far from being the villian they say he is. It's most for his interactions with Wille and Marcus but someone even say he was mean to Sara (?????).

And yeah, he needs to be empathic with Wille situation, but from that to affirm he wasn't a victim is a big difference. They are working for both be empathic with each other and form a team. The difference is that Wille gets appropriate help this season, and there is always talking of the great support system Simon has but he kind of hasn't (at least this season).

Idk if it's because it's more difficult to empathize with him for his way of keeping his problems to himself or something else but I hope in s3 (beside Wilmon) we get more acknowledge of Simon's problems and the Eriksson's in general.

Sorry for the rant and my bad english.

I’m sorry if this is your experience, but I personally haven’t seen anybody villainizing Simon. I’ve heard people TALK about people hating on Simon, but I’ve never actually witnessed it myself. Everyone that I talk to and follow on here and even all the stuff I see on Twitter is very supportive of Simon and understanding of his actions in season 2. I also don’t use the tag anymore either on Twitter or tumblr; it creates a more curated experience. My advice is to follow like-minded people and ignore the negativity. The fact of the matter is when you’re writing a story there are always going to be people who fail to see nuances in writing and who are looking for a bad guy. What YR tried to do in season 2 was show that everyone is capable of being a bad guy depending on the situation, but it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. If that didn’t come across to a person or it went over their head, then that’s their problem. Don’t concern yourself with it. There were people who didn’t like Simon in season 1 as well. There are people who don’t like Wilhelm as well. There are people who have sympathy for August and people who don’t. It’s all a matter of how you interpret the characters. For example I found Simon’s petty jealousy to be delightful to watch, but perhaps that kind of behaviour is really, really off putting for some people, and it ruined it for them. At the end of the day this is a fictional series and it’s really not worth the energy to fixate on opinions you don’t agree with.

Toward the end of s1, there were a lot of people hating on Wille and since he’s my favourite character I felt the need to defend him, but after a while I was like why even bother? Like I said, it’s just a fictional series.

When s2 first dropped, there were a lot of people who weren’t satisfied with it or actually hated it (whoever did is valid as everyone is entitled to their opinion), but I ignored these comments because I didn’t want to ruin the experience for myself.

Fandom is supposed to be fun, not stressful and disheartening, so my best advice is if you see a post trashing a character you like, just don’t read it. Scroll past and move on.

I love both Wille and Simon and empathized heavily with both of them this season. I understand both of their perspectives and I’m glad you did too.

I will say though I don’t understand why someone would say he was mean to Sara 😂 when?

[donnerpartyofone]

Sometimes when I see someone get accused of racism or terfism or fascism or full-on specifically being a nazi on here, whether I've ever heard of the accused before or not, I go down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out what they did to deserve that, and it VERY rarely goes anywhere. Like the accusations are exactly as passionate and incendiary as they are empty, and most often it seems like they have to do with this relational algebra that links together masses of other blogs that have been accused of the same thing, and it's impossible to know which one of them, if any, has ever posted something that literally, genuinely impugned the rights of other human beings. The point of origin could easily be something totally spurious, a personal attack based only on pettiness, or a mythological belief about the secret significance of some celebrity, or something similarly insubstantial, but you'd never figure it out without like hiring a sociology intern to interview every single person repeating the accusation. In my direct experience, most of the time you try to follow up on the accused, you can scroll their blog forever and never find anything construably political, or even anything that's particularly connected to reality. And the accusation usually comes in the form of often-anonymous messages to other users ala "you should delete your reblog from X they are fash", and sadly the recipient very often replies "omg thank you for telling me" and immediately does what they are told. I assume they're just afraid they'll wind up on the blacklist if they don't, because I can't imagine being so trusting! But I love the reply I saw this morning to that kind of message where anon was advised to "go outside and practice talking to people" so they can work on their persuasion skills, because their current approach is totally not working. Meanwhile on Twitter I see people posting about their relentless process of reporting accounts with usernames so flagrantly vile it makes your eyes water, and Twitter does nothing about it even though the name itself is hate speech, you don't even need any further context to identify the problem. Like I'm 100% sure bigotry is alive and well on tumblr, all I'm saying is that the accusations of full-blown nazism dramatically outweigh the number of posts I see that are actually suspect. Maybe I'm just "curating my online experience" correctly. Anyway when I typed the word "nazi" way back at the top, my keyboard autocorrected it to "nation", so now my phone is canceled and I have to throw it in the toilet, bye.

[roundtriptojupiter]

i hate user submission blacklists so much

like if you give people in a discord server the power to ban ANYTHING from a server you end up with the most insane untrackable list of things that include but are not limited to: random unrelated ships and characters. random unrelated media. really broad topics. people’s actual fucking names. numbers. dates. the most specific video you have literally never heard of. and really common phrases.

and im not making fun of anybody’s triggers here, let’s be clear. my issue is more with forcing the moderators/allowing people to force the moderators to ban literally ANYTHING. because this leads to some really big inherent issues

namely: if someone’s name is on the blacklist. an ordinary name. like, say, john. and then someone whose name is john, who goes by john and nothing else, and really likes the name john, joins that discord server. what the hell do you do???

like- do you ask that person to change their fucking name??? what about someone’s birthday? what if someone blacklists a date and that date happens to be someone’s birthday? are they just not allowed to talk about their date of birth at all????

im all for respecting other peoples triggers but ultimately people have to curate their OWN experiences and forcing entire large groups of people to conform to a long list of banned topics and getting into impossible situations simply because the name “john” triggers one person is just fucking insane

it is literally not the responsibility of other people to solve your problems for you. and nevermind the fact that seeing your own name or birthday or something you really love on a trigger list is absolutely fucking heartbreaking for some reason

moderating topics in a discord server? sure. just don’t let people be able to submit literally anything to those moderated topics, because eventually you’ll find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place with no sensible way out

if you have serious triggers that you need to be accommodated for that are common names, words, phrases, etc, maybe a large public discord server isnt the best place for you to be hanging out. come back on tumblr and filter things instead.

sincerely, someone who has literally been told to change their name or leave based on user-submission blacklists in the past

[hisomachiweek]

About the recent drama going on...

I didn’t want to address this issue anymore because I think fandom drama is just pointless and tiring and I have better things to do but since I have been accused of some things that don’t make sense at all, I think I have the right to respond.

Of course people can believe whatever they want and yes, I know there are some chess pigeons in the middle, this is why I won’t discuss it individually with anyone, especially those who are harassing me. If you want to know my point, I’m grateful, if you don’t, you have all the right to ignore me and do your thing.

So, the fact is: when I created the HisoMachi Week account on Twitter, I quietly searched for “hisomachi” there and blocked people who:

expressed dislike/disgust/hate towards the ship;

interacted with said expressions.

That’s it, nothing else.

My reasoning is:

I have been in this fandom since 2016 and I know how much people spread hate against this ship. As a shipper, of course, I’m annoyed by it, and you would be too if it was your ship people were talking about the way they talk about HisoMachi. Since:

I don’t like fandom drama;

I want to be able to search for the ship without coming across the hate;

I wanted to run an event for the ship without getting haters involved;

I thought people who expressed their bad feelings towards the ship or could relate to it enough to interact with it wouldn’t want to come across this event just as much as I didn’t want to come across their negativity;

I thought it would be reasonable to preventively block those people so everyone could stay unbothered in their lanes.

I do block people who I see expressing hate towards HisoMachi / Machi / Hisoka in every fandom account I have. I’m just curating my space and avoiding uncomfortable interactions. I just naturally did the same with Twitter, especially because I know Twitter is a harsher social media than any other I’m in.

So this is not something personal against anyone. You’re entitled to hate the ship, I’m entitled to not want to see the hate. Twitter block button is a free feature and it’s not against its policy to block people who have never interacted with you -- it may be against a Twitter etiquette I wasn’t aware of, my bad. But the reactions I saw about this issue just showed me I wasn’t exactly wrong blocking some people.

If you do ship HisoMachi or like to see fanarts of them and I’ve mistakenly blocked you, I’m sorry. If you don’t ship HisoMachi but felt personally offended by the block, I’m sorry as well, it wasn’t my intention. But after years of hate and discourse against a ship I’m only quietly shipping, I have my point too.

Now, to some particular accusations I’ve seen:

“You have only blocked people who ship X or Y because you’re a X or Y hater”

No, as I stated before, I’ve blocked people who have already tweeted something against HisoMachi. If they happen to ship X or Y it’s just a casualty. To say “you’ve blocked this user and this user ships X, hence you hate ship X” is a fallacy.

“You’re copying this other ship event”

I have a whole timeline on my part on this one.

I've wanted to see a HisoMachi Week happening since 2016 when I got into fandom. I’ve been away from fandom for a while and came back last year in October. The first time this year I have mentioned wanting to run this event to anyone was on May 28th:

I have talked about it with other people too early June:

At the beginning of July, I did a public Interest Check form and spread it on Tumblr:

And all the event’s accounts were created in July, as I got the results from the Interest Check:

Julho is July in Portuguese btw, my native language, but anyone can access the Twitter account and see for themselves. Also, note that my first post with rules and prompts on Twitter is from Aug 2nd.

The first time I ever heard about the other ship’s week was on Aug 4th when @/hxhevents shared the event’s post on Tumblr. I don’t hate this ship but I'm not invested in it either, so I don’t follow anything about it and I know only what my mutuals who ship it post or share.

Objectively, what happened is: two ship weeks, in which the ships involve the same character with different characters, happening some weeks apart.

“You’re saying HisoMachi is canon”

I have never said that or expressed any doubt on other ships being canon. Besides, people can run events for any crack ship, so… yeah.

“You’re trying to push your het shit on us”

First, I don’t headcanon either Hisoka or Machi as het. I just don’t headcanon them as gay and lesbian either. And I’ve never called anyone out for headcanoning them as such. I’m aware there can be homophobic people who do use the ship to say Hisoka is straight but I’m not one of them.

Second, how blocking people can be read as me pushing something on someone? I was minding my own business until someone got offended because I'd blocked them and decided to expose me to their followers.

“You’re just proving how dumb / insecure / childish / trashy you are by blocking people”

Maybe I was oblivious to some unspoken Twitter fandom etiquette, that’s ok, I understand it now. But blocking someone without causing any drama is just… me curating my online experience. And yes, even if the event is open to others, I still can decide the rules to it and I don’t want haters or people who are uncomfortable with the ship around (honestly, I don’t know why they would want to be around either). You can still think whatever you want about me, I don’t have to prove who I am to strangers on the internet.

“You’re pushing people who could be supporting the event away”

I’m not new to this fandom so I know for sure people who hate this ship would never support the event. Again -- if I mistakenly had a shipper blocked, I’m sorry, but you did interact with ship hate before so how could I tell. If you’re a shipper, you’re probably gonna understand my side here and I’m sure you’re also tired with all the illogical flame this ship gets. There are other ways to reach me. And if you’re a shipper and still don’t understand my side, that’s ok. Shippers can disagree with each other’s opinions and actions.

In the end, there may have been some confusion or miscommunication and again, I’m sorry about it and about people who got caught in the middle and were offended by it. But I have no obligation to leave a door opened to haters and I’m ok with burning bridges with harassers and drama stirrers.

[foxgloveprincess]

hello, i don't understand why likes don't mean as much as reblogs (i'm not in any way undermining your effort or anything like that) i genuinely don't understand because it means these people saw my work and liked it right? If it says 300 likes then that means 300 people have seen my stuff and liked it so why is it bad if one gets more likes than reblogs?..

Hi Nonnie, 

I’m sorry if this took me a while to respond to. I wanna make sure I can say this well (and I’m sorry it kinda turned into an essay, I’m probably over explaining but there might be someone out there who needs to read this whole thing to understand). This question holds a lot of weight and there’s definitely opposing opinions out there. 

Firstly, I would like to say that this is my own opinion and can only reflect my experiences, knowledge, and biases. Other writers may feel differently, others may feel slightly similarly. But this is just me, Rach, answering your question the best way I know how.

Now, Nonnie, just to be clear, I appreciate all the notes that my stories receive. Likes, reblogs, comments—it’s all seen and appreciated. However, what you’re asking brings other factors into play. And I hope to go over some of them in my response. 

Tumblr, as a social media platform, was created for the purpose of blogging (in whatever genre/fandom/method the user prefers). Though I cannot say what the initial intentions for the site were when it was created, it has evolved and become what we know today. The way the app and website are set up is to make it easier for people to post or reblog content. It makes sense to me that the expectation is not for user to solely create original content (though they totally can and I follow a handful of blogs that do!). Because like I said, this is social media. There’s supposed to be interaction going on. Therefore, there is an expectation for people to share blog content and pass it around like a potluck. You bring something to the table (if you’re so inclined) and you pass around or take what you want for your own plate (aka your blog). 

Since the crux of your question is about the difference between likes and reblogs, I’ll address that next (now that we’ve established the type of platform Tumblr is, which comes into play as context). Tumblr is not really like Instagram in the way that likes help with the algorithm and promote posts (though to be honest I’ve heard that Instagram changes its algorithm so much likes practically do nothing there at this point as well). And you are correct in saying that a like on a post can convey the message: “hey! I really like this! good job!” 

However, as a social media platform predicated on the sharing of posts, the like function on Tumblr mainly acts sort of like a bookmark. It’s a great tool and can help people compile their favorite posts or important posts or posts they don’t have enough time to check out right now, etc. I’ve seen people say they use it to create a reading list of fics. I personally have my likes full of writing tips and advice to scroll through. But let me take you on a metaphorical journey. 

Your blog is like a personal museum. What you post and what you reblog are the art pieces hanging on your walls and the statues standing across the floor, the art installations and performance pieces. A compilation of your personal tastes that can be whatever you want it to be, showcased for an audience (your followers). They can browse through what you have and maybe find something they want in their own museum and walk past the things they don’t. By posting or reblogging content, you are adding to the display as a curator. Likes, on the other hand, are your archives. No one but you really sees them. They are in the back, in a dark room, and they just sit there. Because that’s what the likes on this platform were created for, despite the ability to share your likes on your blog page, I would posit, most people use the dashboard and will never see them.

This brings me to the writers, gif makers, photographers, picture editors, fanartists, video editors, and content creators on this platform. As we sit at our screens, we can consume a massive amount of media over Tumblr. We can see gif sets and read fanfiction and watch videos and listen to songs, in a matter of minutes. But behind that is a lot of effort and work by these artist who produce their art and share it for people to see. That’s their expectation—for people to see it. I mean, for years, I wrote fanfiction solely for myself (and a few friends). And it was fine. I was writing for an audience of me and telling the stories that I wanted to tell. And then there was this realization that I had one day. I lived for the positive feedback people would give me. (I am convinced every creator has some kind of praise kink inside them, but that’s not something I’ll dig too deep into.) I yearned for approval and what do you know? There’s a whole world wide web that allows me to share my work with a vast, global audience and receive positive feedback. Getting comments and kudos and reblogs and likes feed my soul. It’s what I crave. The way people have interacted with my work has made me friends, has changed the way I view things, and has challenged me to become a better writer. And I do it all on my free time when I’m not working or busy in my personal life and share it at no cost. It can be difficult, but those instances when a comment brings tears to my eyes or when I see a streak of someone reblogging my fics make it all worth it. 

Seeing likes in my activity feed for my story is nice, and I really do appreciate them for the pat on the back that they are. However, there’s also an understanding, in my eyes, that a like is very limiting. It’s isolating my audience to just my followers when it could possibly grow exponentially. You said in your ask that if you get 300 likes, that means 300 people saw and liked your work. That is true. However, if those 300 people reblog instead? More people see it. Each of those 300 people could have 5 followers who see it and enjoy it. They can reblog it and their followers can share it. That’s what Tumblr’s for, right? The sharing, the community, the social interaction with blog content. 

And I know that there’s a tagging system where people can search out fanfiction through tags (and that can help artists grow their audience), but it’s also unreliable. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen complain about their works not showing up in tags. It would take me all year. It’s the fact that the tags and reblogs are meant to work together to spread posts across Tumblr. To help people discover something new. Likes lock posts away until the initial burst of interaction fizzles and dies. Reblogs keeps the momentum going to help more and more users see it. 

And I’m human, I want that approval and interaction. Seeing massive amounts of people simply liking my work (despite knowing that it shows their approval) feels like they’re writing all my hard work and energy off as if it’s unimportant or unworthy. I’m not a machine that can just pump out new fics at the drop of a hat and not be attached to them. Each story I write is deeply personal and is written to create my own enjoyment, true, but I share it with you because I want you to enjoy it, too. It’s hard to not feel like a failure when you post a story and realize your reblog ratio is below 20% (if people even bother to leave any kind of note after reading it). Can you blame artists/creators for feeling discouraged and burnt out when their efforts feel like they’re wasted? 

Now, I’m not trying to shake my finger at people who solely like posts and choose not to reblog. That’s not my job and you’re allowed to make your own decisions and curate your blog as you see fit. I’m only here to tell you that reblogs are the best way to support and uplift the artists that you love. You don’t really need to leave a comment. Or even tag it. Just reblogging can help someone feel better about what they’re creating. And it will keep them here, on Tumblr, where you can see their work. Otherwise, they might find the grass greener on some other site. That’s just the way it goes—artist look for a place where they’ll feel appreciated.

I hope you’re not put off by this response. I just think it’s important to consider. Lots of other writers and artists and creators and editors have made similar posts about reblogging content on Tumblr. And I realize it’s highly unlikely anything will change drastically. But, you know, I’m just saying it anyway. 

TL;DR Support creators through reblogs on Tumblr, that’s what the platform is designed for. 

No one goes to a museum to look at blank walls.

(Remember, this is just my opinion on the matter, and I invite other creators to share theirs if they so choose.)

[fromthefishbowl]

People who complain about Ao3 don’t remember what sites like ff.net were like

Every few months, a bright-minded Tumblr blogger peeps up with the never-heard-before: “Ao3 is a completely amoral site. If they want to prove to us they have a moral backbone, then they need to purge X, Y, and Z tags, and then create a team of mods who will regularly check the stories that are reported because since now there aren’t tags that tell the readers about X, Y, and Z, these goddamn perverts will slip through the cracks and create toxic environment in which children shouldn’t be” take, and the posts routinely receive thousands of notes.

Well... let me tell you how things actually work on sites that don’t use tags but have a team of mods that checks the authors and stories that are being reported.

I’m a fandom old: even if I’m young, I began reading and writing fanfics back in September/October 2012. I’ve used a site that was basically ff.net’s twin, Wattpad, and then Ao3. I was there, when Wattpad slowly turned into a money-making farm and implemented micro-transactions and ads. I have seen how these platforms evolved and who they were protecting, and it really doesn’t matter how much you whine and complain about Ao3, but it’s the only platform that actually protects both its writers and readers in equal measure.

According to the many theories made by people who have already forgotten how actually lawless fanfiction sites were, having mods would solve all the problems regarding the “moral issues” presented by Ao3. In their opinion, mods would be these perfect creature who never take sides and are always impartial, ready to defend ThE cHiLdReN from the evil, amoral content. They’d scrub the site clean from the “toxic” and “dangerous” content in order to create a wholesome environment where parents and kids alike can happily frolic together.

In truth? Nothing about mods ever worked like that. No one is able to be completely impartial, and some people only need to be given an ounce of power to lose their minds and do as they please.

On the site similar to ff.net, people were encouraged to report all the stories that didn’t strictly follow the rules of the site, including the ones where the spelling wasn’t as great as it should’ve been. It wasn’t rare to find that users had reported an account or a story simply out of revenge, because said author hadn’t commented their work favorably. If you were a fandom favorite with a lot of readers, it was also possible to find in your DM box people asking you to report and ask your readers to report someone, even if you had to make up things in order for the report to go through.

Thankfully, mods were extremely lethargic (I love the idea that people think that they’d act briskly and not sleuth around the site, posting stories with their modding accounts in order to receive a higher number of comments), so most reports ended up in stand-by, catching proverbial dust, for years and years, until everybody forgot about the report itself as well as the story, the author, and whatever had happened there.

But when they acted? Ooooh, and here’s the interesting part, because there were three options!

The story was taken down, the account banned, and the only thing left of them would be a notice from the mods that they had been stricken because they had done this, this, and a little bit of that too. But do you know who was usually hit, by this? Smaller writers, writers whose stories didn’t pull in a lot of views and comments, people who were “forgettable”. It also happened a lot with writers who would put themselves against bigger authors by writing negative reviews for their stories;

The mods closed an eye because the people and storied reported where at the top of their category in a very trafficked fandom. There was a case in which people were so distressed by the presence of a very specific story (Jewish girl falls in love with the Nazi guard that abuses her while she’s in a concentration camp), that the headmistress of the site had to write a special comment that could be viewed by all the people who were going to review that story that said that there was no reason to leave a negative review nor to report it to the mods, as it followed the rules of the site (it didn’t, but it brought in a lot of views and attention to the platform, so... it could stay!);

The mods would hunt the authors on their social medias too and ban them from the site because they’d been rude. It happened more than once, that an author was reported or they were the ones reporting, and have found themselves submersed in insults by members of the mod team on their Facebook page. Two cases:

An author was accused of having plagiarized a story written by another, more famous, user. The author denied, and asked for proof of it. The mod taking care of the case didn’t offer any, but deleted their story and blocked their account until they said they were sorry to the more famous user. In order to have their account back, the author said they were sorry to the famous user, but on their Facebook page wrote that it was a crock of shit: they hadn’t copied from that person, and the fact that the mod hadn’t offered any proof of it was suspicious enough. The mod saw that Facebook post, sent them a DM with nothing but insults, and then banned them permanently because they had been rude to the administration;

An author posted a story, and two other users plagiarized it. The author reported both stories and waited a week for the mods to send them a DM telling them to screenshot all the passages that had been copied and put them all in a document because they didn’t have time to read three different stories. Although the author complied, they wrote a post complaining about this lousy job on Facebook. The post caught the eye of another moderator who blocked their account and told them they wouldn’t have had access to the site unless they apologized to the entire team of mods, to the users they had accused of plagiarizing their story, and took down the Facebook post. In the meanwhile, the first mod was caught chatting with one of the two other users on the forum. The author didn’t back down for another two weeks, when the headmistress of the site herself showed up and told them she would’ve been the one to take care of the question. In the end, although it was clear that the two users had copied the author’s story, the author still received nasty and threatening messages from the entire mod team because of that Facebook post, to the point that they decided to delete their stories and their account altogether and move to another platform.

This is what happens with mods that are always asked to answer to reports and to take care of stories personally: authors are not protected against anything unless they are big enough to be an attraction people subscribe to the platform for. Fics with “moral backbone” issues were left up if they had the views and the comments for it.

And the readers? Well, the readers used to get the short end of the stick too, as those sites didn’t have a tag system and there wasn’t a way for them to know if a story contained something they didn’t like to read about, nor a way for them to “obscure” the ones that did. Finding specific things was a mess too.

This to say: you need to curate your own fandom experience. You are in charge of what you read, and it’s not my place to take care of the children and make sure that everything they put their saintly eyes upon is wholesome. Ao3 is the only platforms that allows the readers to have an absolutely complete control of what they consume and that allows the writers to warn the readers of every single issue their story can contain that might trouble them. Learn to curate your own fandom experience, rather than spending your time whining about “moral issues” and “think of the children”, coming up with ideas that are simply not doable on a massive site like Ao3.

[divinaes-bookofsecrets]

Add something if you'd like?

Whats your thoughts on this upgrade or is it 🤔

Please share your personal experience too, to show off 😏 jk

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Techno Witch

Filed under: Pagan Life, Spells & Potions — Leave a comment

I work with technology a lot, including virtual reality, and it made me wonder what or how it could pose as some good use for magick and witchcraft.

At the start of being Pagan, many things I did were very offline. I read physical books, went to physical locations such as the library and metaphysical shop, wrote in my physical B.O.S., things like that. If anything, I preferred it that way, things were very much in reach and given the history of magick is very much more so on paper than in bytes, it made better sense to me.

But eventually, technology got better and easier. More and more resources were online, and reliable resources at that. Granted, there is still a lot of bunk and dribble on the internet. Why people like to pick up spells from random corners of the internet is beyond me. If they are easy to get and plain out there for the world to see and, even worse, come with a price tag, it is probably fake. Some witches do indeed do paid spellwork/pay for pray but not to the excessive number that exists on the internet. More on that later, but basically, tech made witchy info collecting easier. It has probably been a while since I have penned in my B.O.S. but, if anything, I have more of a Disk of Shadows (D.O.S.) now. I have particular tumblrs and tags that I follow or curate on my own that are informative and helpful to my works and endeavors. They’re sometimes really hard to find, and sometimes they are not (if you know what to look for). There are more digital groups for Black Pagans and other minorities/poc now than when I started over a decade ago. Due to the internet, there is better access to much better information about non-European cultures that is not filtered through the perspective of a random White academic slathering on a layer of their own personal bias to the details and calling it “correct, accurate and objective information”. People can do their own research and not be blocked by institutions or paywalls.

But there’s still a lot of bunk on the internet. Due to the pop culture sensation of “witchiness” (basically think of anything American Horror Story, The Craft and the Sabrina reboot has pumped out, add some culture-vulturing via “I am a bruerja” and you got it), it makes decent info still rather hard to find. Since books and old texts that may or may not be translated well or correctly are not that popular, it is easier to find people who, frankly, don’t really know much of what they are doing, they just really like sage, cultural appropriation, gothic clothing and perhaps nursing a drug habit. They’re all over Instagram with their filter-laden pictures, offering to cast spells and do divination (usually tarot, because, what else are they going to learn? Cartomancy? Numerology? I Ching? Elective Astrology? Not as popular) but don’t seem to really know much about ethics and the other boring stuff of learning actual, proper witchcraft. It’s easy to blame just about everything on Mercury retrogrades but if that person has never heard of an ephemera before, they probably are also dead wrong about anything retrograde as well. Spells are cool and mysterious (not really), reading and research is … well, how many pop culture witch characters have you seen buzzing around countless books going “I thiiiiiiiiink this is definitely super old school Congolese – liiiiike, way, way, before colonialization. And of course, it’s a half-page passage in an out-of-print book and features a next-to-dead language. So we should either pick a different spell, or start bothering really old people who may or may not remember such a language – assuming the invading White folks did not torch or steal their cultural history – oh wait, it’s sitting in the British museum, with an incorrect placard and everything. Great, now may we have to talk to stuck up, myopic, well-dressed thieves that think they’re not stuck up, narcissistically stupid, or sticky fingered because ‘I have a degree and institutional prejudice is on my side’. You know what? Killmonger had some good ideas. Someone grab some coffee, that is probably the easier option”? Outside of Hermione Granger, not really anyone in witchy pop culture is very “research is good, research is great, research keeps random entities you summoned and can’t get rid of out of your home and life.” So it can make good info hard to break through the ether. Nothing is wrong with liking pop culture depictions of magic – I get a kick out of Doom Patrol’s magnificent depiction of chaos magick – but it is a bit of a problem when people try to base their practice on movie magic. Yes, psionics is real, yes, magic is real but no, it doesn’t look exactly like the tv and movies. If anything, they can be a lot more stressful and annoying.

I think being a technology-based witch, for me, is simply involving technology in your practice. I have thought of the idea of making a virtual space for spellwork and personal practice but then I think about my track record with magick, energy movement and electrical items. VR systems are pricy and I have made electrical items go ka-put. And, again, VR systems are pricy. But others could benefit, especially those who may not have the space or safety to comfortably practice in the real world. You can make whatever you want in the virtual world and it can be your own spot. A digital altar, a digital casting circle, the list goes on and on.

At first, I wasn’t too sure of these things because, well, they are new. No one was using computers for such practices – or any practices – centuries ago. But all technology, no matter how rudimentary, was considered new at one point. All creations were considered new at one point. From the typewriter, to the wheel, to fire itself. Certainly the deities can be understanding of some of these changes. As long as the changes are relatively seamless, especially for some deities. For example, some sun gods probably would not be too keen on the use of cell phone flashlights vs. actual natural light sources, like a flame made from the sun’s rays. I imagine working with water deities would be stress-inducing unless you are very confident in the IP rating of your technology and trickster deities + internet is probably literal trouble if you do not know what you are doing.

Has all my practices gone digital? I don’t think so but I do think a vast majority of it has. It has been the easier option for me but I always bear in mind that it is good to at least have back ups and that not everything worthwhile is on a computer. There is still always going to be a need for physical things. Links die, computers break and sometime technology can over-complicate simple processes. That and not everything is on the internet, not everything has been digitized and some things are simply harder to find digitally because the metadata is not up to snuff or it is plain incorrect. Thus it is good to find a decent balance, even if that balance is majority tech with analog supports.

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[niuniente]

Can I as a 15 year old say that we dont find the general 30 something fandom goers problems and we definitely dont go around calling everyone a pedo. When it becomes an issue is when adults go into fandoms of media like say bnha where the main characters are 16 and create porn of those minors especially sense the fandom space is filled with kids that same age. Spop is perfectly fine to do what ever you want sense the youngest character(well that is skippable) by the end of the series is 20.

Hmmm I have sort of a double edged sword in my hand regarding what you say.

First, what are the fandom places for minors where adults shouldn’t exist? Tumblr? Twitter? AO3? Pillowforth? Intagram? Are adult banned from certain fandoms that have lots of minors there? This goes again to the old struggle whether adults should think about minors or whether minors should control their own fandom experiences. I think it’s both; adults tagging their stuff properly and marking their spaces as adult spaces, and minors making sure that they don’t venture out there where the markings exist, and also knowing that you CAN see things you don’t want to. You absolutely can. So blacklist words, block people, read warnings, do what you can to avoid seeing things you don’t want to. I have a separate nsfw accounts with warnings simply because I know I have minors following me so it’s the best that way.

Now, what it comes to adults making sexual art and fics of teenagers, I think there are two things. First, adults were teenagers do. We have lived through those years, struggles, worries, sexuality etc. you are going through. We KNOW teenagers have sex and are sexual beings in general. I’m worried if someone is picturing like 12-13yo and younger in fanart/fanfics being sexually active. That’s not OK in my books. But 15-17yo? That’s fine. Teenagers do have sex. That’s the second thing. I don’t think that adults are lusting after teenagers (though it’s OK to be careful with fandom people, not everyone is nice). I mean, at least when I do some erotic art or fics, I’m not like “OOOO SO HORNY I WANT TO DO THIS CHARACTER AAAAHH OOOH” but it’s more like “This character is a combination of many things and my view of their sexuality is one, and I want to explore the character and their behavior through that theme now”.

IRL pedophilia and child trafficking are absolutely horrendous things (I support groups rehabilitating victims of child prostitution irl), so please, I ask young ones not to throw around a word like pedophilia so easily in fandom places. I’m not saying that YOU ANON are doing this. This is a wish for everyone out there.

I have heard that there are some adult in Twitter which lure minors into seeing pedophilia content. Like they scream that there’s that happening here by this and that person, horrible, dm me if you want to see it! And then the minors dm them and get pedophilia posts in return and the minors are shocked because they didn’t expect to see anything like that. Absolutely vile shit! You just don’t do that! If you encounter this, immediately report to Twitter about it and block the person.

There are many reasons for drawing and writing sexual stuff. Perhaps adults weren’t allowed to express their sexuality when they were teenagers. Perhaps they did and they had bad experiences and they want to go through those things now for their own well-being. Perhaps they’re into darker themes. Perhaps they never fitted in the sexual norm and have come into terms just now with it. Of course, this said, rotten bastards do exist. If you get bad vibes from someone, avoid them. But  know that what they produce as artists or authors don’t tell much about the person. I think the Western fandom is putting too much emphasis on “what you draw/write and ship, it tells all about you!!” where the Eastern fandom is just “You ship this? You draw/write this? OK. It doesn’t tell anything about you as a person except that you are a fan of this ship”. That’s my view, too. Always has been. I think it’s partly because I consume absolutely horrible stuff at the best but in real life, I’m the mellow introvert pacifist who just wants everyone to be happy as they are.

I’m personally very laid back and I was like this when I was a teenager what it comes to sexual themes in art drawn and written by adults. As long as it’s not pure pedophilia with literal children, I’ve always been OK with it. But you don’t have to be! Absolutely not! You just have to remember that you can curate only your own fandom experiences and make sure, as well as you can, that the things which upset you are and stay hidden by following proper tagging, guides and warnings, and also blocking and hiding things you don’t want to see. If someone isn’t tagging their work properly and setting warnings right, they’re an idiot.

All the teenagers out there: if you encounter something unpleasant which is clearly violating the TOS of the site, let the people running the platform know! It’s much better than campaigns against real people out there.

EDIT: I FORGOT! Please if you are minor and you see fanart or fics of characters of your age having sex, it doesn’t mean that YOU should be having sex, too! No, absolutely not! Don’t take any pressure over sex or sexuality. You are allowed to be who you are, from sex repulsed to sex positive, in any sexual orientation. There’s no hurry to start your sex life.

[levyfiles]

I want to start a shyan blog but I’m so scared because I don’t know how Shane and Ryan actually feel about it which makes me nervoussssssss help

Ohhh boy, brace yourself, nonnyhunny. I’ve got some word vomit for ya

To start off with, I just want anyone and everyone who is currently new to navigating this terrain we call the internet to know one thing and that is this one very important concept. Embrace your own insignificance! The internet is a big place. I once read a post on here that encouraged new users to think of Tumblr itself like you’re walking into a Walmart. You’re not here to make friends and you’re not here to shop for everyone else; you’re filling your own cart with the things you need and like and if someone comes along and takes a long good look at the things in your cart and says, “WOAH there, eating trans fats is unhealthy for you! I never eat trans fats because of a big list of reasons! Stop buying trans fats!!” you’re gonna be both puzzled and annoyed because it’s your cart, your Walmart experience; why the hell do they care what you’re gonna get?

However! I get it, the internet is now comprised of six different websites/apps and if you’re on there, there is no way to avoid or curate a completely ideal sense that you’ve made a space that’s all your own. There are going to be people who disagree with you, people who decide they don’t like what you do, but ultimately, in the midst of all that, you’re going to find people who feel the same in whatever regard you express yourself and that’s why it’s important to just express yourself because otherwise you’re going to develop a lot of disingenuous connections with people who would likely try to ruin your life if you disagree with them on some subject or other.

Now with that whole disclaimer in mind, I also understand where you’re coming from. Putting myself in the shoes of someone just trying to participate in a new fandom where there is a lot of contention among the masses about the rights and wrongs of RPF and whether the concept fits in with a philosophical debate about human nature and the way we interact with each other, witness each other’s journeys. That’s simply it, however; it’s an ongoing debate and where philosophy and debate are concerned, I always hold the belief that an individual’s right to ground themselves and say “These are the principles I wish to abide by” is sacred and ultimately, no amount of anonymous hatred or shrieking messages of outrage is gonna change that until you yourself decide that the principle isn’t working for you personally. My principle is that it’s fiction; an AU to explore as valid and sweet to me as demon!Shane headcanons are, but moreso because I identify with queer love stories and friendships forged by strangely deep similarities and complementing souls. I also love personalities like theirs, love the idea of said friendship and what it would bring to a story about two human beings who meet by happenstance and end up building something world-changing together. Still, because I am just a writer and a consumer of media, that’s the nicest thing I can give myself, a fictional account of these things while witnessing the real version happen in parallel. I get to celebrate in the overlap of similarities the real world and my fictional account take and watch it inspire my friends and mutuals to build their own universes and it’s beautiful. 

With that point being made, I also understand the reason a lot of people are nervous about being open about shipping. The backlash from a bunch of strangers seems to take on a note that would make even the nicest person sound like a puritan about to hold some extravagant witch trials. Nothing more interesting than a person claiming to do good in the world using words like “exterminate” “cleanse” or my personal favourite “purge”. I’ve read rumours being spread about shippers that take on their own life especially because it’s human nature to let other people handle the research; it’s human nature to just take a believable narrative at face value. One rumour being that shippers of this fandom write stories where we kill off Shane and Ryan’s significant others. Myself and my friends who are avid readers of the ao3 tag know that that hasn’t been the case since 2016/17 and by all accounts, I have yet to find the fic where this happens (barring a tinsworth fic I’ve only heard about). Mind you, not many of us check out Wattpad but even there it’s more self-insert friendly with themes I can’t even stomach. 

Which leads me to the last point and the main reason you sent this ask, I’m assuming. Ryan and Shane’s personal thoughts on the issue. Now, it behooves me to supply screenshots and proof when I make a claim but let’s consider if instead from the perspective of two adult men who have operated online far longer than a lot of their audience. Given that I am the same age as Shane, I know what the internet used to look like and how far it’s come and RPF is not a brand new thing neither did it pop up out of nowhere when One Direction debuted. And just like fanfiction in and of itself had its pushback from media because of its demographic and absolutely because of its queer-leanings, RPF appears to get a lot of that same energy, but it’s not an inherently toxic past time. Much like any fandom activity, it can get bad because fandom is not a monolith; it’s a bunch of individuals enjoying a medium in the ways they have learned to. You’re gonna get some individuals who “do it wrong” and some who do it differently, but ultimately, just like the forums and the reddit threads Shane and Ryan trawl in their past time, there are circles you learn not to veer into and terms you learn to blacklist/block/mute. With that being an indication of where they’re coming from as internet creators, I am confident when I say that, as long as it’s not being mailed to them, linked or quoted at them, they don’t care. They would know something that gets popular on the internet summons a brand of transformative art and fiction but much like they tend to ignore thirst tweets in their mentions or the repetitive requests for the same things over and over. They’d see it and gloss right over it. Shane is the type who writes long essays on reddit addressing the things that bother him, Ryan is weird and vocal and an oversharer sometimes when it comes to things Shaniacs say to him (i.e. that Voice he did for the occasional Shaniac who approaches him). It’s just one of the incarnations of fandom that they choose not to engage with, which, good? Because it’s a fan-specific activity. Once in a while you get a creator who wants to interact with fanfiction and it goes sideways because not all stories are written for them, much like not all fanart is made with the mindset to share with them. 

It’s just a regular old fan interaction and community habit that builds bigger followings. 

All in all, I’m not gonna tell you what to do. Unless you mean to be in their @’s all the time or link them on discord, or put any of your content in their hands, they are not going to see it. They don’t care. What they do care about is that you’re watching, that you support them and send them encouragement because they’re creating their own medium of content and a bigger following means more people get to see it and extract something positive from it.  

[leqclerc]

diff anon but i agree bcs i had similar experience! 2019 was hell, some ppl on here even refuse to speak of charles by name when talking about him. it was so hard to find ppl who support both seb & charles. but my IRL friends don't know F1, i usually also watch with my dad but he's just a casual fan, so sticking it out here is the only option. now the atmosphere is much better, in part bcs of blogs like you! thank you for simply spreading good vibes & positive energy ❤ (& sebchal worms ofc 👀😳)

Ah, thank you 💕🥺 I’m happy that I can help in some small way! And yes, the worms are vital 👀👀

I’ve heard the same thing, yeah. :/ I understand having favourites - and, equally, having people/characters you just can’t stand - but for the most part if I don’t like someone I just...don’t blog about them? Whereas I feel like some people absolutely revel in their hatred and vitriol and take more pleasure in tearing down the person they dislike (and their fans) than they do talking about things they actually enjoy. 

I have to say I’ve been in...worse fandoms in terms of fan behaviour, where bullying was “normalised” by people who felt they had the moral high ground and that their horrific behaviour was somehow “justified” because they were the self-appointed good guys...where influential groups/users actively encouraged witch hunts and harassment and sending threats and all of that disgusting stuff. I’ve seen far too many real people be hurt and made to feel unsafe and uncomfortable in fandom spaces because some of the more rabid fans felt the need to defend fictional characters to the point they blurred the lines between reality and fiction, and on top of that felt absolutely no remorse. But that’s less of a compliment and I guess more of a commentary on what’s, unfortunately, seen as “normal” in certain fandoms/fan communities and...honestly it’s horrifying and inexcusable. 

Not to mention the past year has been extremely difficult for a lot of people for a variety of reasons. Many people use fandoms as an escape or respite from their real lives, to talk about the thing they love and share or make content. So I would never want to contribute to making this a negative, unsafe space for anybody, because no one deserves that, regardless of what they ship or who they support. There’s an actual person behind that screen, and some people should really think twice before typing something that could potentially have massive consequences. 

But also...I think everyone’s entitled to curating their own online experience by utilising the tools that are there for that purpose. If there’s content out there that’s upsetting to you, or that you’re just tired of seeing, there are ways of filtering tags, either through Tumblr’s built-in feature or third party extensions like XKit. If someone’s behaviour is upsetting to you, there’s always the block feature. It’s not personal, and it doesn’t make you a bad person or anything. Those tools are there for a reason. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s not real or that it can’t hurt, or that your trauma is somehow less valid. Take care of yourself, always 💕