#this is meant to be educational not a callout post | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceilidhtransing · 4 months ago

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I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of ��lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

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agro-carnist · 2 years ago

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Now that I'm slightly less in the spotlight, I'd like to talk about what has been going on and give my side. I'm sure you've all seen what has been said about me, but in case you haven't, this will include a discussion about zoophilia, zoosadism, pedophilia, and taboo kink/fetish.

I've taken several days to write this because I needed to clear my head so I could write something concise. I did not want to immediately write something too quickly that I couldn't think through.

I don't expect anyone to completely understand me or totally agree with my opinions, but I am writing this with full sincerity. I'd just like a little bit of faith when you read this. My positions are based on the science that I read, and I try to be someone that sticks to the side of evidence, not one of pure feelings or assumptions or what we think is common sense, even when it is difficult to understand or seems counterintuitive. I've always preached this principle on here, so I hope you all feel the same way. I ask that you read this with that in mind. Even if you don't reach the same conclusion as me, consider what I say and what I give with good faith.

All linked sources with restricted access can be read by copy/pasting the url or title into sci-hub

First, that twitter account is mine. The art contained on the twitter account is mine. Yes it is graphic. No I am not a zoophile, zoosadist, or pedophile. I understand this kind of art is disgusting and/or disturbing to many people. That is why I kept it on an account specifically for this kind of extreme art. It is why I don't advertise it. I am not secretive about my kinks/fetishes - I enjoy things like gore, noncon, and animal characters - but I know when and where these kinds of things are appropriate. Some of my art is not meant for a general audience. I won't advertise it to anyone and everyone to see because it can be upsetting to most people. That's also why I give plenty of content warnings and include the twitter censor that blurs the image and you have to click 'show' on to see. And that's why I believe posting screenshots of this material with my username, showing everyone exactly where to go to find this content, is irresponsible. I know the people that posted it think they're doing a service, but this is how children find content they shouldn't see. Callouts are how people find things they otherwise would never see. I, personally, don't think calling people out this way helps kids. I think it does more harm than good. My twitter was public but is now private because I don't want curious minors to look me up and look at what is on the account.

I understand that it can be hard to know why someone would enjoy erotic art of violence between animal characters without being a zoophile/zoosadist. But there are many reasons people enjoy taboo erotica without desiring it in the real world. About half of people experience paraphilic sexual fantasies, and the fantasies alone are not indicative of pathology. Deviant sexual fantasies are, in fact, "within the normal realm of human experience." There is little evidence that fantasy alone means someone wants to or will commit a sexual offense. Forced sex fantasies are extremely common. Violent sexual fantasies are not abnormal. Sex therapists and educators acknowledge that fantasies are not necessarily repressed desires. Sexual fantasy is not sexual desire. It's ok for our sexual interests to not reflect our moral code. Often taboo sexual fantasies are a way to explore how we feel about things, like repulsion. Humans are curious animals. We have morbid curiosities. Fantasies can be a way to experience something that would be immoral to act upon.

Why I am into taboo kink is hard to explain, and a lot of it I don't understand myself - human minds are very complex - but I can try to explain some of it. I enjoy exploring the darker parts of humanity. We're still animals and that means we still hold onto aspects that don't align with our morals. We have morbid curiosities. When we pass by a car crash, we want to see it, or when someone tells us something disturbing is spreading on the internet, we take interest in what it could be. Art is a way to fulfill that curiosity without any victims. Another thing is that it can be fun or therapeutic to imagine yourself in situations of bodily harm. That's probably confusing, but I like to explore what my body looks like on the inside, or what it would feel like to experience certain physical traumas, without the threat of dying. Fear and arousal are closely intertwined. The animal characters I draw are also very far removed from real world animals. They are sapient and behave very human. To me the only difference between them and an anthro furry character is the number of legs they walk on and the lack of clothes.

Because I draw this kind of content, many people are claiming that I am faking having ZOCD and my intrusive thoughts, or that my intrusive thoughts have turned into wanted thoughts. They say that if I really was distressed by these thoughts, I wouldn't engage with them through art. But my intrusive thoughts are about real people and animals. I do not have intrusive thoughts about characters. I watch movies and read books with murder, kidnapping, torture, disease, and freak accidents and enjoy these pieces of media. This does not negate the fact that I have intrusive thoughts about these things or the distress I feel regarding them. Someone getting hurt in a movie does not distress me. My intrusive thoughts include ideas of me or a loved one getting hurt, or me suddenly hurting someone. Intrusive thoughts target your fears and your morals. They make you question who you are as a person. That's why thoughts of real world violence are so distressing and depictions of violence in media are (usually) not. I fear losing someone I love, I fear losing a part of my mind or body, I fear losing control of my humanity and hurting someone, I fear loss of inhibition that makes me do things I wouldn't otherwise do. I don't fear hurting a character or a character doing a bad thing to another character. When I'm obsessing and becoming paranoid it's not over things that happen in fictional worlds. My therapist doesn't have to reassure me that I'll be ok if something bad happens in that fictional world. She does have to reassure me that the world isn't out to get me and that I don't have to act on a thought. Others with OCD might find media that resembles the content of their intrusive thoughts triggering, and that's normal, but not everyone will react the same. Not everyone copes with their mental illnesses the same way or has the same triggers. Most violent depictions just don't garner that same reaction from me because I don't have any moral qualms with fake people or animals getting hurt since they aren't real victims. It doesn't attack my moral beliefs that way. It may be upsetting to see, but doesn't make me fear for my or others' safety.

I love horror movies and haunted houses. I love the adrenaline and fear I experience during them. But I still metaphorically shit my pants at the thought of an actual serial killer stalking me and jumping out of a hiding spot. The difference is that the former exists in a safe space that I can leave and where I know it's a script. How I feel about a scenario in fiction does not dictate how I feel about it happening in the real world. To tell me that I don't actually have the disorder that I've been diagnosed with is extremely upsetting. So is to tell me I'm hiding secret bloodthirsty desires behind a mental illness or that I'm making OCD look bad by not having a moral conundrum about fake people or animals being hurt. I especially don't appreciate people that don't have OCD preaching about what "real" intrusive thoughts are or what I should or should not be doing while having OCD. The things that have been said to or about me have been undeniably ableist. And the distress that has caused me has just been brushed aside because I don't adhere to what people think I as a person with OCD "should" act like. I feel like I'm not being granted agency over my own experiences.

I am even being compared to some of the worst people like Kero the wolf or HypnotistSappho. I hope you believe me when I say that is truly disgusting and offensive. These were the kinds of people that belonged to groups for sharing material of real animals being tortured for sexual pleasure, or tried to start an organization to promote bestiality, or openly promoted zoophilia and pedophilia as normal sexual orientations, or actively abused children and animals. I have not done anything like that. My artistic expression is nothing like their real world, extensive and widespread levels of abuse. I am so offended that I'd spend years spreading animal welfare advocacy, including explicitly anti-bestiality rhetoric, only to be lumped in with monsters, like my art erases all the work I've done. How someone could believe I actually desire to torture animals baffles me. How someone could think all this work was just master manipulation to con everyone so I could secretly abuse leaves my head spinning.

I also haven't ever claimed that my nsfw art is a coping mechanism for my OCD/intrusive thoughts. This is an assumption people have made. Occasionally elements of my intrusive thoughts will make their way into my art as a way to confront them head on on my own terms, but almost always are not a factor in my nsfw art. Art based on my intrusive thoughts as catharsis I don't share publicly.

Yes, I enjoy hurting fictional characters. They exist in a world with no consequences. Nobody actually gets hurt. Anything can happen to them and nothing about the world changes. I have no desire to hurt an animal, because that impacts the real world. I have never looked at an animal and felt excitement at the idea of hurting it. I have never felt attraction to an animal. I have never felt the urge to make sexual contact with an animal. I have never experienced attraction to a child, either.

I am also being accused of being a pedophile. This is because I made a tweet saying I enjoy explicitly abusive relationships between adult and minor characters, but don't enjoy minor/adult ships depicted as cute or wholesome. People interpret this as me having a malicious desire to abuse a child. But here's the thing: you don't know why someone enjoys a certain dynamic. Many people that like to see abusive relationships depicted in stories or erotica are survivors of abuse themselves. Many people use kink as a coping mechanism, and the stigma of their kink play often hinders them from trauma recovery. Like I said before, kink and fantasy are not morality guidebooks. This also assumes every character drawn in ship art or erotica is an object of attraction to those that create or consume it. But even porn can serve a purpose other than arousal. Personally I just like these dynamics because they offer a compelling story and/or character interactions that can explore trauma and its effects and can feel therapeutic to work through.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. I don't argue it does. Art is influenced by its creator. But you can't look at the content of someone's kink or fantasy to judge the quality of someone's character. This is the position of professionals that study and counsel people. Whether or not someone commits a sexual offense is more influenced by that person's personality traits, moral positions, pre-existing positive beliefs about offending, environment, and negative emotional states. And, look, fiction does indeed effect reality, but there is little evidence that porn encourages someone to offend or results in more violent offenses. Availability of porn may even be associated with lower levels of sexual aggression. This professional report goes into great detail on sexual offending and concludes that there is no reason "scientific or otherwise" for criminalization of any type of virtual porn because it does not lead to offending, and may even provide a substitute for people that may otherwise offend. Even if you find that content reprehensible. Offensive art has its place and deserves to exist. That is the position I have come to based on the scientific evidence.

And I want to make another thing clear: I am not a proshipper. Disliking the position of one group does not make me a member of a different group. I have no desire to put myself in a category, I just have my own opinions. I also have plenty of issues with the proship community. I just now look at fiction and kink with more nuance than I used to. I don't participate in fearmongering based on knee-jerk reactions to media anymore.

Going forward I'm going to do my best to be more responsible with my nsfw accounts. Any interactions I've made with minors are honest mistakes. I genuinely don't want to expose minors to my nsfw or interact with them. I don't go out seeking minors to talk to. But I know interacting with minors through an nsfw account is serious, so I'm going to do better to police myself and always check that no one I'm interacting with is underage.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Sadly I expect many people won't read this, they'll just continue to repeat "zoophile" and "pedophile." But I really appreciate you if you took the time to read. I know many people really do want to be good and believe they are protecting people by engaging in callouts against people for their fictional interests. I think most people have their hearts in the right place but are misguided by the current culture. And I don't mind if you disagree with me, but I always want people to take their positions with the most information. I want there to be honest discussions about these topics, not naming and shaming people.

I might make updates to this post if I think of things I forgot to address. Like I said, it's been many days of my head buzzing and this post is also very long. I welcome any good faith questions or concerns. People that come just to attack in bad faith will just be blocked. I won't humor that. Please meet me with the same honesty I came with. I want to continue to do good.

-Agro

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is-the-owl-video-cute · 2 years ago

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here's the whole post if you want it. it's very predictable. Really love the "I'm not a proshipper!!" part. Agro, you're not getting any favors by lying lol. you are literally a proshipper and even say that directly on your pedo tweet about previously being an anti lmao.

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Agro-Carnist:

I've taken several days to write this because I needed to clear my head so I could write something concise. I did not want to immediately write something too quickly that I couldn't think through.

All linked sources with restricted access can be read by copy/pasting the url or title into sci-hub

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Oh, and for that last study they linked? Here's the abstract:

Abstract

Whether pornography contributes to sexual aggression in real life has been the subject of dozens of studies over multiple decades. Nevertheless, scholars have not come to a consensus about whether effects are real. The current meta-analysis examined experimental, correlational, and population studies of the pornography/sexual aggression link dating back from the 1970s to the current time. Methodological weaknesses were very common in this field of research. Nonetheless, evidence did not suggest that nonviolent pornography was associated with sexual aggression. Evidence was particularly weak for longitudinal studies, suggesting an absence of long-term effects. Violent pornography was weakly correlated with sexual aggression, although the current evidence was unable to distinguish between a selection effect as compared to a socialization effect. Studies that employed more best practices tended to provide less evidence for relationships whereas studies with citation bias, an indication of researcher expectancy effects, tended to have higher effect sizes. Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level. More studies with improved practices and preregistration would be welcome.

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So even the abstract of the study itself admits almost everything was flawed.

It should also be noted the rest of this study is locked behind a paywall, so there's no way to tell exactly what kind of 'sexual agression' the Study was..... well, studying. But I sincerely doubt it was about the effects of pedo or zoo porn, let alone fucking snuff porn.

Oh, and for that "half of people have fantasies considered paraphillia" that study's Abstract mentions things like exhibitionism, voyerism, masochism, etc-- literally zero things about pedo and zoo shit.

And we all know they used that wording in their post to imply 50% of people think animals or kids are hot, because that's the first thing that comes to mind when people are discussing paraphillias, especially on a post defending creating fucking snuff porn of cats being tortured and raped to death.

It just really boils my blood to see people like this still having a following, the only thing he admitted to doing wrong was "i should never have interacted with minors on my nsfw account, and I will do a better job of policing myself in the future"

Which, even the wording on that statement was a way to gain symphathy lmao. "policing myself"???? Seriously?

Anyway, for anyone still unaware, this is Agro-Carnist aka Angrysnakes aka another Warrior Cat's themed blog I don't recall the name of.

the other warrior cat blog is minkpool.

But yeah this says more or less what I expected. Guy who claims to not be a proship uses every proship talking point and whines about antis anyway.

I’m going to be fully transparent and say that I am not inclined to read that entire thing because it is an incredibly long statement and the parts I did read weren’t anything I wasn’t expecting really.

He’s more or less just breaking it down to “just because I love sexualizing and masturbating to cartoon children and cats being raped to death doesn’t mean I’m sexualizing those in real life 🥺” which is just a bit hard to believe because, as I have said before, drawn pornography exists to satisfy fantasies that can’t or won’t be shown involving live actors but ultimately is made as a stand in.

Attracted to a fictional character? Well, the most accurate way to satisfy that is to find drawn or written fanmade porn because the cartoon character doesn’t exist and couldn’t film a porn shoot if they wanted to. Into something like vore or inflation? Well you can’t do those in real life, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t fantasizing about that happening in real life, it just isn’t possible, that’s what the drawings are there to emulate.

So when you’re drawing little kids in a sexual situation? What is the appeal going to be for most people?

It really isn’t much deeper than that.

#Agro-carnist #mainly posting for people who wanted to see his response #AND SO PEOPLE REALIZE YOU CAN PUT HYPERLINKS IN ASKS #and will hopefully not ask I do surgery on a link anymore amen

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all-doggirls-go-to-heaven-2 · 8 months ago

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Man some of you really just want to hear "its okay to bully this specific type of person" to be REALLY evil. Which is partially why callout posts work but some of you are really yearning to be the opressors.

I guess freire was right. If education is not transformative the opressed's dream will be to become the opressor. I used to think that line was meant to represent only things like cops and the like, but more and more I see it in normal people that consider themselves progressive, this NEED to be bullies. Its an infinite punch-down vortex.

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silver-heller · 11 months ago

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So um, I've been vaguely informed (the details aren't really my business) there's been a situation so I just want to clarify something:

My vent posts are just that, vent posts. They're not me making an educated callout on an individual and they shouldn't be seen as THIS PERSON IS JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON AND HERE'S THE 100% LOGICAL REASONS WHY. I only put it in caps to clarify I think that's how I came off, my vents don't reflect how I actually see people, they reflect how I see people in that hurt state.

Does that justify not adding clarity to begin with? No, and I will definitely do so in the future, but I feel clarifying now is better than just leaving this confusion in the air. So here it is.

I will be more careful in the future that my vents don't breach containment, I tried to be clear the goal was not harassment and I do genuinely feel bad that apparently someone saw and took it as quite genuine. In this situation, it was less about the person and more a trend of people accidentally making a character's "evil side" into an alter like entity because they think it's cute, funny, or hot. People are often way more willing to accept that than actual system relationships.

It ended up hitting on a sour spot because for a long time I've had a deep and extremely important relationship with an alter of mine, but I'd constantly worried due to the nature of said alter, it would be heavily judged and not as accepted as if I just saw him as a fictional character. This is not a justification, but an explanation for the layers of hurt on top of it being a very bad stereotype. The fact I haven't been more open about the relationship is on me, and you know what? I should be, even if others will look down on me for it. That's their damage.

I can't speak for the original intent of the user I was venting about, and I should have been clear I was reacting to how it all came across rather than knowing their full intent. Which yes, it came across really bad but, people make mistakes. People get scared and do dumb things. It happens, so again, should have been clear their intent was unknown, it just came off bad in a way that made me feel like I had to block to protect myself.

I'm not going to tell you not to "tattle" on me. That's really 100% up to you, but I do ask you to keep in mind the point of my vent posts before you do. Cause yeah, me venting because I am upset or triggered or what the Hell ever is going to sound really bad, but if you asked me once the dust was settled I'd probably just say, "yeah that user made a mistake, and it was enough to deeply hurt me to the point I don't want to talk to them anymore. I don't think they're a bad person, I just don't want them in my space to avoid future issues". But, next time I will try to cool down and be more open about my process, as I realize how bad some of the things I said sound.

I shouldn't have painted them as a bad moot, I should have just explained I didn't think they were very conscious of the fact I was plural, so I wanted to be more careful about moots from now on to ensure that part is understood loud and clear in ALL its regards before I accidentally put myself in (unintentionally) triggering spaces.

So uh, if it wasn't clear please don't harrass this person. Also please don't judge my friends for just trying to be supportive. Most of them only vaguely knew about the situation and only two of us were involved. They were responding to what they knew at the time and were extremely protective due to the hurt I was feeling.

I'm gonna try to make this the last post I make about this, but I just genuinely never meant to hurt anyone so I wanted to say my peace.

#tw discourse

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agentmarcuspike · 9 months ago

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“i just don’t understand why we’re making that conversation be about which words we use to DESCRIBE what we’ve written here in this little corner of the internet when it’s so much bigger than that”

This is such a cop out. Because this issue is “bigger than our corner of the internet” we shouldn’t do something about it?? This issues extends to all media yes but it’s easier to start here, where we can have these discussions with writers one on one. Im not talking to some large studio executive or writer who is never going to hear or care about our plight. Im talking about the fanfiction community, where the best comparison for fanfic is a home cooked meal, and if you don’t care that your readers or followers may feel disheartened by being excluded, then that’s kind of concerning. We should listen to when POC tell us about their concerns, instead of trying to find gray areas or things in the fine print to disprove their points or invalidate their feelings. If a person of color is telling you that what you’re doing or saying makes them feel excluded, you should listen to them. Point blank.

I’m sorry if that was a lot and a very long and winding response thought process wise but I’m sick and tired of white writers only catering to white readers. And yes I know there are thousands of writers on this website but it’s hard to not feel upset by this when the most popular writers on here are literally writing the most egregious white and skinny coded readers. People have a right to be fed up.

answering your long ask with an even longer answer because i feel like we’re talking past each other

it wasn’t meant as a cop out, of course we should still try to do something about it. i was trying to give some perspective that a bunch of people seem to be missing rn and the way you’re going about this, i’m sorry if it came off as invalidating

i’m obviously not disagreeing with your point, like i said. everyone should feel seen and welcome and understood, and if that’s not the case then we should try our best to change that. but this is a completely different conversation than what i set out to have, because of course i think people have a right to be upset. i’m trying to criticize the way a lot of you guys are going about this over and over, and not your cause.

“(…) where we can have these discussions with writers one on one”

but we’re not doing that, are we? this conversation right now is between you, who has the safety of anonymity, and my blog followers, who are the people that will see this. the conversations people are having are through posts saying they want change, without addressing who needs to make the changes, leading people to send writers anonymous hate, which is absolutely not making any changes, rather the opposite.

it would be much more fruitful if the people who feel hurt would tell the writers directly, so that they could be educated, if they’re not, instead of attacking people with vague posting, rallying people to send them completely unrelated hate, which is what’s happening, and what keeps happening every time we try to have this conversation. if people then choose to keep writing stories about white and skinny people then i’m sorry to say that that’s their choice. yeah it sucks, and you have a right to be upset about it, but what you don’t have is a right to demand they change, because this is people’s hobby, and if they want to write about only what they know then they should get to do that. and if you have suggestions for how they can be more inclusive and diverse, or want them to add certain tags, tell them personally, and don’t make a vague post about it. doing the latter makes it seem like you don’t actually care about change, and only want people to feel bad

if there’s anything you suggest i do to make my writing more inclusive then please tell me off anon so we can have a proper conversation about it, i would love that. if not, please take it up with the people you think about when making vague callout posts instead of my inbox, because this is not gonna lead to any change

#anon ask

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wvrlock · 1 year ago

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This post will get rather long, please bear with me while I post all three parts of it.

People have blocked me in the past few days, and I'd rather it is for my own words than by association. I owe that to my mutuals here who have not heard from me in a while, especially those who like to form their own opinions. And I owe it to myself, because I won't keep being hypocritical thinking and talking about how people should handle things like adults but not do it myself and fade without a word.

Racism isn't petty drama, but the way it is handled can be, as it works with everything. I am not here to defend Bunny, or the other person, whose name was not stated "for the sake of their privacy" but King @ anyway — I will keep their name private as for their wishes, and call them X.

The callout was initially intended as a way of raising awareness to Bunny posing as a black person, meant to protect and validate POC. Although I have had ooc contact with him, I honestly cannot tell if he was posing as black, or how they were doing that (I am not American, and what I know of black culture in my country is most likely untrue for others, especially US), so I won't question the many people who spoke of their experience. It did catch my eye, as an external observer, that a few times it was mentioned that he "never claimed to be black", only thought to be. I don't know him or any of the people affected, but I was left with the impression that these claims were a thing brewing in a different circle, and were never brought up to him until it exploded. I don't doubt it is true and harmful for the people affected, but I have yet to see proof that it was intentional and malicious. If you have it, and will be so kind as to educate me, I would want to see it.

He addressed it in his own blog, all of the claims from the callout blog, so they weren't a secret even to his followers outside the bg3 rpc. He mentioned the past callouts, the sexualization of his character and pretending to be black. I think people are smart enough to make their own minds after seeing it there — if they thought he was black, now they knew for sure he wasn't, if they had sensed something odd with the sexualization they knew they weren't alone, and for the past callouts… I had been following Bunny for a while, and it isn't the first time I have heard about them from him. They were not public, but they weren't a secret either.

When I asked for the callout blog, I wanted to see proof of the things he had said, to cut ties with him after reading the testimonies of the affected people and forming my educated opinion. But I found nothing. All of it was telling me that what Bunny said was true: people saying they believed him to be black, people uncomfortable by the sexualization of his muse, and victims of his past. It gave me exactly nothing, except the word of strangers. Sure, I can trust POC's word about this or that being racist, because they know better. But I want to know what 'that' is. As a person who interacted with Bunny, and as a white person who writes some POC and highly sexual characters, I am not interested in "the drama", I want to know what they did wrong so I can learn from it: make sure I don't do it myself, educate my friends, stay away from others who replicate that behavior.

I thought at that point the deed of "keeping the rpc safe" was done. People had their thoughts validated, the person in question had addressed the issue, and most importantly he had added it to his rules. If it was indeed a malicious, intentional racist move, it had no room to ever happen again, and even followers from other rpcs knew of the claims and could form their opinion.

I positioned myself after Bunny's last post, when the issue of misgendering was mentioned, in his tags. I cannot possibly believe that none of the many people publicly or privately involved with the callout read this post. Be said he uses he/they pronouns (and those who follow him know that he's been using he more prominently as of late), and she is reserved for close friends. All over the callout blog he is referred to by the wrong pronouns, not just by people in screenshots, but for OP as well — recently for the excuse that "he has used them in the past, and it is what everyone else is using", but never once correcting it or addressing it. Perhaps people will call this a stretch, or a "desperate excuse to defend a racist", especially coming from a cis woman like myself, but this is a hard line for me, so I don't care. No matter the claims, no one deserves to be misgendered over and over again by dozens of people on a viral blog. It is cruel and dehumanizing. Even if there wasn't a conscious, malicious reasoning by OP, I can't possibly believe no one involved knew he was being misgendered — no one knew beforehand, or read his post, or got anons mentioning it? I don't know if they didn't speak up, or if someone did and wasn't listened to. I don't care. This alone makes me sick, and I don't wish to keep interacting with people who have seen this and did nothing about it.

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inneskeeper-receipts · 2 years ago

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Hi, I'm someone who knew and dated inneskeeper for a while, back when his url was thetatteredveil.We began dating early on into 2020, almost immediately after I was emerging from an abusive relationship that made me genuinely fear for my life.

He was emotionally/psychologically and spiritually abusive towards me throughout the relationship, and despite me cutting contact in early 2021, the ways in which he manipulated me were so twisted that it took me until December 2022 to realize that it was abuse. I don’t think this is intentional necessarily. I think that he is very sick & needs help.

He is a self-admitted sociopath and compulsive liar, a scammer, and I'm tired of seeing him everywhere on here with absolutely no criticism. He makes a lot of lofty claims about himself and his education which were never backed up once by any proof throughout the whole time I knew him.

Feel free to reblog my posts or DM with questions. I can't promise you that I will always answer, because this is a lot for me emotionally and I try not to look at this stuff very much. I saw other people criticizing him after the Ohio post of his blew up, recognized his behavior with this perfectly pattern matches to how he treated me, & feel a little bit safer coming out about this than I did before.

edit 2/13/23: I felt it went without saying but please do not be purposefully inflammatory and/or harass this person, especially not on my behalf or anything weird and white knight-y like that. this is mostly me venting and is not meant to be a callout, I just didn’t know what url to throw on this blog when I made it.

that being said, at this point I would like Innes to be held accountable in some way for the dishonesty he’s built his platform on, and how this dishonesty has hurt people. the lack of integrity is upsetting & as someone who once knew him I know he is capable of doing better.

edit 2/15/23: He is, for some reason, claiming that I am block-evading. I have had him blocked, immediately, on every new blog I make for years because of how much I do not want to directly interact with him because of how unsafe I feel doing so. I haven't sent them a single ask, anonymous or not. Anything I have said, I have said on this blog explicitly. Innes is continuing to lie and misrepresent the situation, downplay the psychological and emotional abuse they did to me, and continue to make me look crazy. There was no point in trying to engage with them in good faith I guess.

edit 7/10/23: after speaking with multiple other people who have known Innes throughout the years and, like me, wish to remain anonymous: Innes should not have a platform. The lies, misinformation, misappropriation of donations repeatedly show that innes cannot responsibly have a platform online, cannot responsibly be a custodian to the community they have cultivated, and, if I'm being perfectly honest, will probably repeat the pattern of abuse they enacted upon me. I'm sick of how I cannot go to most reaches of the internet without seeing my abuser's jokes screenshotted knowing what I know about Innes. Again, don't harass them, just block them and gently let other people know what the deal with them is. That's seriously all I can ask.

#inneskeeper #pinned

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the-girl-with-the-glass-heart · 2 years ago

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Shout out to all my fellow ND people who constantly feel burnt out cause all their hyperfixations/special interests keep getting called out for being problematic in some way.

Ofc it's very important to point put problematic media, criticisim is the only way things can improve and it's good for people to know the people they support is problematic, alot of people don't wanna support terfs on accident. Problematic media can also really harm people irl by contributing to stereotypes and funding racist organizations so it's good we are learning about this, you should totally take time to listen and educate yourself.... But also hnnnnggg it gets so fucking exhausting sometimes!

you hyperfixate on one thing and then bam you find out it's got a problematic history and you feel like complete shit for liking it in the first place. It's even worse if your community has been actively hurt by the people behind the hyperfixation, like if you're trans and love harry potter or jewish and love disney.

There's no solution, we can't just not talk about this stuff, it's just super fucking exhausting to deal with and really sucks tbh. It certainly does not help that ND people often aren't on the same wavelength as NT's so then they get onto us for not immediately understanding their long af callout post filled with words that once meant something important but now have been reduced to mushy paste.

I think the best thing we can do is just remember that you're not a bad person for growing attached to this media, especially if it's something from your childhood you just now realized was problematic. Special interests and hyperfixations are a necessity for us, alot of the time it's the thing that reminds us to keep living, as long you know it's wrong and you are trying your best you are okay.

You also don't have to listen to NT people trying to shame you into giving up your hyperfixation, especially if they aren't the minority being affected and you are. You do what you can when you can.

With all that being said though, there are still ways around supporting problematic creators that you shpukd try, ad blocker, piracy, buying merchandise from independent creators. All of it would be really helpful. I still understand thought if you are unable to do these things, not everyone will be able to.

It's just like with plastic straws versus paper straws, you know plastic harms the environment but you can't help it if the paper straw gives you sensory issues so you can't use them. Your hyperfixations are a necessity to keep you comfortable.

#neurodiversity #neurodivergent #adhd #autism

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themomsandthecity · 10 months ago

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As a Parent of Gen Alpha Kids, I Promise: They Are Not the Worst in History

Dennis the Menace terrorized adults in the early 1960s. The kids on "Saved by the Bell" made life for Principal Belding total hell circa 1990. And the Plastics had no respect for authority when "Mean Girls" first came out in 2004. And yet, Gen Alpha - the kids of millennials, born between 2010 and 2025 - is being labeled as the most "defiant, disrespectful, and rude" kids in history. TikTok creator and teacher Teresa Kaye Newman certainly isn't alone in sharing her opinion that today's youth are "entitled" and "lazy." As she said in a viral post that is meant to serve as a PSA for parents, "Your children are missing the mark on discipline, they're missing the mark on education standards, they're missing the mark on literacy, they're missing the mark on socialization." I know this TikToker wasn't addressing me directly - but actually, she kind of was. I'm a mom of four Gen Alpha kids, and I'd argue that they deserve far more grace than is being afforded to them. Here's the reality: today's children aren't that bad. If my Dennis the Menace callout wasn't enough to convince you, consider that since the beginning of time, kids have been testing limits. That's what kids do. And, news flash, kids make mistakes (so do adults, but we'll get to that in a moment). First, I want to point out the biggest difference between Gen Alpha and previous generations: nowadays, if a child is rude or misbehaves, we can always rely on someone to shame them or their parents on social media. Kids need compassion, not condemnation. We can also thank social media for pressuring our kids to live up to impossible standards of perfection that don't even exist. I mean, I'd implode too if my whole social standing revolved around whether I had a Stanley water bottle at the age of 10. Can we really blame kids for feeling overwhelmed by all the lofty trends they feel they need to adopt just to fit in? From endless makeup tutorials to body ideals that aren't attainable for 99 percent of young people, to shoes and clothes and accessories you'd need Kardashian money to afford, Gen Alpha is just trying to keep its head above water (a recent warning about the impact of social media from the US Attorney General confirms that). Kids need compassion, not condemnation. I'm sad to think that anyone who had the luxury of growing up pre-pandemic, and before school shootings were monthly occurrences, would turn on today's kids. The stress and lack of stability these kids deal with on a daily basis is unimaginable for those of us who remember life before cell phones and, gasp, the days when you couldn't skip commercials. Speaking of parents, we're facing unique pressures as well. Aside from our own unhealthy relationship with social content, raising a family has never been so expensive. My husband and I pay more now for our home, heating, electricity, food, cars, and healthcare than ever before. Like many Americans, we are a two-income household, and having to work long hours can mean less time to spend with kids doing homework or eating dinner as a family. But like generations of parents before us, we are trying our best day in and day out. Many of us strive to raise our kids to be respectful and hardworking, and I assure critics out there that I know a lot of truly amazing young people at my kids' school, on their sports teams, and out and about in our community. A final word on the topic: I also feel for teachers. Like today's kids and parents, they are dealing with their own set of unique pressures. From attempting to get students' attention in a world saturated with viral content, to overcoming learning loss from the pandemic, to coping with their own fears about school violence, you have to admire the many dedicated educators doing their part to help raise responsible, kind, caring, and ambitious citizens of the future. The takeaway here is that these kids do exist - we just need to look a little deeper at each individual and the… https://www.popsugar.com/family/gen-alpha-criticism-opinion-49330518?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

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thegoosetyrant · 11 months ago

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Person with a bachelors in business here. I know this is long but I think I can contribute to this meaningfully.

It is important to note that my business degree was very different from average, as I went to a college with incredibly left leaning students and faculty, so there was a massive focus on ethics in my education. But even so I think I generally understand why so many people like this come out of business education.

I have no sources for this other than my own experience in business classes, interacting with faculty, students, business owners, critically engaging with the curriculum, and being an employee, this is just my personal understanding and observations. In business classes, quite simply, you are taught capitalism, and you are taught how to win at capitalism. You are taught about the stock market and that shareholders are the top people in the world who you must always report to and treat like gods, without being encouraged to question why these things are the way they are. You are told that knowing these things will give you a leg up in the world, that you are now a master of the system of capitalism, which can give some an inflated sense of ego.

Adding onto the ego of it all (this is a callout post for Ayn Rand as well I hope she’s burning in hell) you are also taught a specific attitude alongside actual information. I remember in my senior year, alongside regular curriculum, we read and watched a number of “inspirational” talks that were more so meant to give us life advice correlating to our careers. Much of it was good advice I will say, it was an alright class, but it was odd that we were doing a literary analysis of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, which don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic novel, but it’s a weird thing to do in a business class. My fellow students also seemed confused by this, mind you we were not the common business students, the majority of us were commies or commie-adjacent who were only in the business major because our parents wanted us to get a “useful degree” so we got one at a liberal arts school so we could all do other things on the side, who rejected the very systems we were being taught how to “win” in. So when we were showed an inspirational talk from Eric Thomas (once again no shade) where he very aggressively stated his famous quote “you need to sacrifice who you are now for who you want to become” and talked about how you need to commit yourself fully to your work, using examples like Beyoncé forgetting to eat all day because she was so focused on work, we all rejected this idea. We told our professor that no, we thought that was legitimately unhealthy advice. This self-focused attitude of the death of self to become a self that is almost all powerful I think is legitimately damaging to a person’s ability to be humble.

Now for my actual point that connects to the original post. What is business? Business as a school, as a career, as anything, cannot exist on its own. A business provides a service. Let’s say there is an engineering firm. The business provides the service of engineering, a business cannot exist without a service to provide. Engineering requires its own degree, the engineer is truly the heart of the business, the engineer is the reason the business exists. Now imagine the accountant or the marketer for the engineering firm. While a business provides the service of engineering supposedly, it is truly the accountant and the marketer that provide a service for the engineers, right? Because a marketer or an accountant aren’t really anything without something to market or account for, but the engineer is still something without a marketer or accountant. This is commie-101 stuff I know, the workers are the real people doing the actually important work. But what I want to talk about is how this affects the psychology of a business student. This whole rant, being pushed by anti-capitalists for ages, makes a business person, a marketer, an accountant, a manager, an administrator, it makes them useless on their own, doesn’t it? If you are a marketer with nothing to market, who even are you? How are you even important? How are you supposed to feel like your career is meaningful?

Hbomberguy explains why people plagiarize with this exact emotion. The feeling of being nothing, of being useless, of not being good enough, so you steal somebody else’s work. The business student feels this exact same emotion, and it is caused by the very nature of being a business student in this day and age. The business student is taught that they can win at the system, they are shown inspirational talks to make them feel powerful, they are taught that participating in capitalism will gain them fortune and happiness. They are taught that they are on top, and the workers are on the bottom. This may be true in the way that the workers and creators earn less money, but when it comes to having a meaningful life, to having a purpose, to feeling fulfilled, all the promises a business degree made to you, well, in the end, you are nothing on your own. You can’t build a house, you can’t write a great script, while you may earn lots of money, you will always be watching on the sidelines as the important work gets done. Not to mention that some companies just straight up make office workers do busy work for their entire lives but that’s a whole other conversation. People like James Somerton are marketers without anything to market, so they throw something false and dishonest and stolen together in order to have something to play marketer and accountant and business owner for to feel like they are doing something. That guy really fucking sucked. He was a real asshole. The capitalist, Randian way of thinking that business students are taught turns people into assholes. Ironic considering he made a video essay about her.

But here’s another thing! Business people and marketers and accountants are not useless! Not at all! They are just taught in school that they are to be the ones on top, and when they don’t feel like they are, they feel betrayed and useless because they are promised to much but received so little. Administrators and marketers and accountants, you are important! That excellent low budget indie film that had something important to say artistically? Nobody would know about it if it wasn’t for a great marketer that helped the filmmaker get their art into the world. That musician with incredible live shows? They are so busy making music and creating a perfect onstage performance, they have no time to keep track of all of the massive expenses that come from touring, they could never do that without a good accountant. Every creative talent needs their numbers guy. It is a partnership. Everyone is important. You aren’t better than anybody else, and nobody else is better than you.

Sorry if that was long and weirdly structured I was doing a midnight brain vomit.

What the fuck is going on in schools of business?

It seems like so many grifters come out of business and marketing.

I think I'm missing something, some nuance, but it seems like there is a very serious lack of accountability and ethics in business and marketing that isn't as prominent in other fields.

I gotta finish up my shift, but man, I wanna look into what ethics are taught in business classes in the U.S.

#hbomberguy #plagiarism #grifters #business major

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bbq-hawks-wings · 5 years ago

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Art reposting etiquette

I see art theft happen a lot, and whether or not it's true or has just been happening more frequently in the circles I follow I can't help but at least feel like it's becoming more and more of a problem.

To be clear, "reposting" is downloading art from a website that you did not make or own, and uploading it as a separate post, regardless of where and how it's presented - with notable exception of header and profile pictures assuming they are not trying to imitate the artist. Not all art theft is reposting, but all improper reposting is art theft.

As cut and dry as "stop art theft it's bad, don't repost art" posts make it sound, there are several benevolent reasons people may want to repost such as:

Believing they are spreading the artist's influence around the internet

Adding intrigue or a visual aid to a fanfiction

Sharing some neat art they thought was really cool

Just to name a few

Assuming the best in people, these are not necessarily bad reasons and DON'T MAKE PEOPLE BAD, but many often don't understand there's a dark side to the reposting issue.

People who may want more art may be unable to find the original creator

People may not realize that the artist makes rent with the very artwork you're enjoying and they may be looking at stolen premium content meant to put food on the table

People take art and further edit it so that it becomes even harder to trace back to the original

Malicious websites and bots find popular fanart and illegally use it to produce bootleg merch. This has a double-whammy effect when someone sees the merch IRL when out and about and wants it because it's cool art of their favorite character but don't realize the artist is actively being robbed.

Reposting art makes it harder for the artist to track down the thief and take legal action as well as actively funnels traffic away from their business. By and large it should always be assumed that reposting for any reason is damaging to the artist's wellbeing; and frankly, if you don't care you're actively hurting someone, it makes you the asshole, not me for calling you out.

But, that isn't to say reposting is NEVER allowed, but ONLY UNDER EXTREMELY SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. That's the point of this post.

Before you can decide if you should even attempt to repost art, check these things first:

If it says directly on the art "do not repost" don't waste your time. They are not going to make an exception for you.

Check to see if the art is already on the platform you're planning to upload to (especially here on Tumblr). Often, artists make it a point to put their work in very specific locations for their own reasons. They may not want their work on your website at all and you need to respect that.

Gain the artist's explicit permission after explaining where you want to repost their work, which work you want to repost, and why with how you plan to credit them. If you gain permission, keep a copy of the conversation for your own protection. If you do not gain permission, don't repost at all.

If you gain permission to repost art, these things are an absolute necessity:

Mention of the artist's name

THEIR main platform of choice

link to the original piece used

It would likely look something like this:

Artwork uploaded with express permission by @[artist] on [website], found here - (hyperlinked to original piece)

Bonus information to include:

Additional social media handles of the artist

Link to the artist's Patreon and/or Ko-Fi if available

Link to artist's store if available

Hyperlinking the image itself so other users can just click it to find the work/artist

Remember reposting should be about the artist, NOT YOU. You didn't create the work, and even if you supported them via Patreon it still doesn't belong to you, nor are you entitled to it. A commission you personally paid for is the only piece of work of that artist's creation you are ever entitled to unless otherwise stated in a contract when you bought it.

To continue to cover my bases I'm going to address some stances that may pop up about the issue:

"I didn't know reposting was that bad!"

It's okay. That's why I made this post. In general, as a supportive fan and consumer you should try to learn how artists are rewarded for their work on different platforms. YouTube is different from Instagram is different from Facebook is different from Tumblr. Learn which best ways to support your favorite artists in the ways that are most beneficial to them, even if all they ask for is respect and a little appreciation. And do take down any art you may have reposted. It can continue to do damage by remaining up, but removing it almost always mitigates any future harm and genuinely helps. Now you know better and can be better moving forward!

"I can't get ahold of the artist for permission."

Don't repost it then. Remember, at the end of the day reposting is only good for the reposter in fake internet points or actual money/intellectual property stolen but always tangibly hurts the artist. It sucks, but they have a right to determine where and how their hard work is displayed.

"Whatever, I'll do what I want. Lol"

Enjoy your takedown. Hey, artists, did you know you can find each website's terms of service and figure out how to submit a report with the offending post and user, and they're usually good about getting it down within days?! Look for "misappropriation" that's your ticket! 😊

But seriously, repeat offenders can get permanently banned from sites and even sued for actual real-world money and damages over your precious fake internet points. It actually pays to not be an ass!

"But I just want to support the artist and reposting is so easy!"

You know what's even easier?

It's literally only one or two clicks to support the artist or tell them how much you love their work! Most other platforms make supporting content creators just as easy, and some platforms even PAY the creators based on them or enable them to grasp opportunities to be paid!

"But I don't want to bog down my followers with a huge reblog dump of one person's stuff."

Put it in queue to space it out, then.

"I don't have money to support the artist so I repost instead to give them exposure."

Time and time again it's been proven that reposting actively funnels money AWAY from them. You don't have to monetarily support them with much. Buy one thing from their store or give them $1 on Ko-Fi. If you can't even do that, tell them you love their stuff and shout to the rooftops where someone else can pay them; but don't make it harder for them to get paid. Too many artists "die of exposure."

"Why do you even care?"

I AM an artist. I currently support artists with real money monthly because I love their work. I only ever make money off my own art on commissions, and that relies on people being able to find me. I'm not even the one supporting my two children, husband, pet, and medical expenses with only this option to pay for it, and you bet your butt I still would be pissed if I ever found out my art had been misappropriated. Some people do this to SURVIVE and I want to see that those who do have as little unnecessary struggle with it as possible.

"It's fanart/fan content put on the internet for free I can do whatever I want with it!"

At least in North America the law says you can't. Did you know that the way laws are currently written, if someone takes a picture of you and finds a way to make money off that photo they don't owe you a dime? They hold the copyright to it. When art is displayed publicly, that copyright is not surrendered and is automatically afforded to the artist by virtue of it being their specific expression and work. By being their work, they can actually sue you for stealing their property.

Ask Disney, they're really good at it.

And to close this out I want to say one more thing: the internet has changed a LOT in the time I started browsing from the early 2000's. Rules are different, cultures are different, and for younger people especially you may not understand how some have had to (and still do) fight tooth and nail over this internet space and still make it.

If you didn't know all this, THAT'S OKAY! You're learning, and the internet is more or less a wild west right now. That means it's equal opportunity to be a killing field or a place we can lift up and support each other. Reposting is just one corner of the bad things that can come of it, but now you know how to help and even start reversing the damage.

Learn about how people who upload free content make money. When you find misappropriated work, report them to the site and try to inform the artist - don't even acknowledge the thief, just slap a ticket on them and move on. Teach others how and why reposting is bad and what they can do to help.

If you love free content, show respect and protect it. Otherwise, artists will have to put it behind a paywall and that content you loved will disappear over time. Respect will get you a much greater return than entitlement.

#she speaks #this is meant to be educational not a callout post #do not harrass anyone you find reposting art #never do it - you here me!!!#i see it all the time #stop it #and if you reposted it's ok #i'm not after you #i just want you to know and learn

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avarindigenous · 2 years ago

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Finrod, the Edain, and Mighty Whitey

(a note:

there are going to be people who read this and disagree with me. there are going to be people who are deeply offended because I’m talking about something that’s clearly supposed to be cute or innocent and framing it in a light of racism and racist stereotypes. this is a good thing. all I can speak to is my perspective, and I want to begin a conversation, not end it. I’m addressing something that makes me, as one colonized person, incredibly uncomfortable, because I firmly believe it is not on purpose. it makes fandom spaces inhospitable and unwelcoming to me, and if I’m uncomfortable enough to make a post about this it’s probably concerning and upsetting to others. that’s why I’m bringing it up. if you disagree with me I welcome your conversation. if nothing else, at least consider my perspective.)

there’s been a trend of recent posts (I am not going to link any of them, because this is not meant to be either a callout or an incitement to harassment) portraying Finrod’s first contact with the Edain as something they find deeply culturally significant on more than a historical level, and placing Finrod in a role of “benevolent pet owner” or “spiritual advisor”. the Edain, particularly Bëor’s children, regard him as a saintlike figure to be revered and venerated if not outright worshiped, and his impact on their lives and culture is presented as downright religious. there are several art pieces going back years depicting Finrod’s first meeting with the Edain in an almost hagiographic way, with him angelically lit while wide-eyed primitive humans stare up at him in awe and wonder. other fanart draws on real-world iconography to paint him like a Catholic saint.

seeing these posts makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I’m not sure if the people involved are aware of the racist tropes they’re drawing on to facilitate these kinds of reads of the text.

when Finrod meets the Edain, they are a nomadic culture that has been traveling for generations. they have distinct languages for their different ethnic groups, they have family structures, and they have music. they are, in short, a fully-fledged people group. Finrod denies being a god when they ask him if he is one, and from that point forward they do not seem to have any kind of lasting religious tie to him. they don’t have the technology elves do, or the textiles, or the language, or the religion, but this is not because they are primitive. it is not because they don’t understand that different races exist. it is not because they need to be educated or awakened or guided into a better, more “modern” way of being.

now. Tolkien has a race problem. none of his work fully escapes it. as a result, while the text itself is clear that the Edain are not below the elves when it comes to their self-awareness and their abilities, the tone and style of the narration will often present the facts in a biased tone. if you’re not firmly convinced of the fact that nomadic or preliterate or otherwise non-Western societies are not primitive, there is ample room in the way that particular scenes are written to interpret them as if Finrod is lofty and high and advanced while the Edain are guileless and soaking up knowledge. there’s even a parallel between Finrod finding them and Oromë finding the elves in Cuiviénen. however, this is based on racist understandings of contact between different peoples. putting Finrod in a position where he treats the Edain like they’re adorable pets and the Edain treat him like he’s a religious figure is leaning into one of the oldest tropes in the book, quite literally.

there is a long history of “white or white-coded person comes into contact with primitive tribe only to be mistaken for a god” as a trope in historical and speculative fiction. examples include Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Road to El Dorado, and The Return of the Jedi. many people now understand that this trope is racist, but it’s not solely racist because the “native tribe” or “primitive people” are presented in stereotypical ways. even if the natives are intelligent and innovative and given autonomy, like in The Road to El Dorado, the trope is still racist, because it assumes that no matter how good we are at other things, we’re always going to be simple religiously. it also centers white people in the spiritual and religious beliefs of those they have historically conquered, and sets up a power imbalance where our rituals and our traditions are mere superstitions to be exploited or dismissed.

this becomes even more of a problem when you consider that Finrod is almost always depicted as white, and canonically, the house of Bëor was darker-skinned. (Tolkien uses the antiquated and racially charged term “swarthy” to describe them in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, but this does not erase the fact that they aren’t white.) putting a blonde-haired blue-eyed white man at the center of the spiritual lives of brown people is not good. prioritizing the purity and pure intentions of a white man is not good.

Finrod is also a canonical colonizer. he built Nargothrond in a place already inhabited by the petty-dwarves and drove them out of their own home. I don’t say this to argue no one can love him. many characters in the Legendarium do morally dubious and terrible things, and many good or heroic people are also colonizers. it’s a reality of the text. now, liking him does not make you evil, and neither does minimizing those aspects of his character. there are any number of reasons someone might disagree with this interpretation of him, or might choose to ignore parts of his biography. but responding to the presence of a colonialist by further pedestalizing him in the eyes of people he then goes on to have power over is troubling.

I’m not saying we can’t keep having fun posts about Finrod’s relationship with the Edain. there are many ways to reparatively read the text, focusing on the good things and acknowledging the flaws while also downplaying their importance in our own conceptions of Tolkien’s works. writing Finrod as having an equitable relationship with the Edain, where he’s close to them the way he’s close to his Eldarin friends, is one way to do that. another is featuring more cultural exchange - Finrod teaching them how to play the elvish harp, and them teaching him about bone flutes or jaw harps or drums, is an example of that.

all I’m asking those who read this to do is to consider that putting Finrod above his newfound friends treats those friends like they can’t understand he’s not divine, or like they would automatically assume he was despite his denial. Finrod is not a Mighty Whitey. he isn’t saving the Edain from themselves. he’s made first contact, and befriended them, but they’re people, not strange animals he’s studying, and not lapdogs he can’t fully communicate with who only love him unconditionally. canonically, he treats Beren and Barahir like valued allies and friends, not like unusual oddities who add flavor to his court. he lets Andreth insult him and shout at him and criticize him. he sees these people as people, and that’s one of the best things about him.

#silmarillion meta #silmarillion #finrod #finrod felagund #finrod meta #first age #meta #fandomconvo #noldor #edain

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jazzybot4 · 4 months ago

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Massive Call of Duty fandom wank post breakdown here: Please take care of yourselves folks this one is going to be rough. Putting it under a readmore so you don't have to be subjected to the truly inspiring vitriol that is coming from the Anti camp this time 'round.

OKAY. So. The core of this callout/rant/screed is the fact that one of my friends, someone I have SHARED a HOUSE with for a trip before, has left Discord entirely after handing off the very large fandom server he inherited from a, quite frankly, incompetent moron. Leech (fandom name) is a goddamn delight, a truly sweet guy, and has never in my entire time knowing him been anything but reasonable about moderation things. He has not deserved the shit that these people have done to him and frankly the moderator team has been handling this whole thing with the kind of grace and patience and care for the community that I've been genuinely glad to see. If you've never run a Discord server of over 1000 people, you don't know how that shit can get out of hand really fucking fast. One or two truly wanky voices can start dragging out some genuinely evil sides of people. SO, the anti-camp callout post is here: https://www.tumblr.com/zyomih/756612456311341056/i-used-to-own-this-server-before-i-gave-it-away-to so that I can address it point by point, line by line, and dig into the real meat of what this is actually about. Names to be aware of as I rant: Leech, formerly Maggotdweller - now-former owner of one of the biggest Call of Duty ship fandom servers on Discord. Population north of 1k people, most inactive.

Zyo, currently @zyomih here on Tumblr and twitter for your block list - former owner of the Ghoap server, generally an unpleasant person, raging howling screaming tantrum throwing Anti. Currently doing a lot to boost the drama and trying to get yet another witch-hunt started. @Aquasuperbat on Twitter, @asgardswinter here on Tumblr- General fandom wanker, massive Anti, unpleasant to interact with in general which isn't a crime but it is annoying. Source of the current big callout post that's not doing a lot of numbers on Twitter, but did tangentially result in Leech leaving the Discord to another mod. Potentially a source of private harassment towards people, known sock/alt account user. @mozz1egoose on Twitter - One of the people that are harassing people from the Discord, potentially one of the sources of death threats and allegations sent to Leech. (This has not been confirmed-confirmed, but it is highly probable. If it's not true I'd love to see the receipts, I'll edit this post about it.) Is actively pretending to have DiD/Dissociative Identity Disorder, generally only interacts with fandom to be a massive source of wank. The Incident: On 07/20/2024 at 4:19 PM Eastern standard time, user Jellycakes in the big Ghoap server comes out of a months-long silent spell to say this:

And Nox, a top-level mod and general voice of reason stepped in to moderate the comment. I think that reasonable people here can agree that this is not a comment meant to be informative. That's the bitching that the Anti camp have been doing, that Jellycakes here (who was last active in the server in march!) was trying to educate people about Elliot Knight being a Zionist. (More on that allegation later.) The last thing Jellycakes said in the server before that message:

The general takeaway that I have is that Jellycakes was not in fact being genuine in trying to educate, and was instead being purposefully inflammatory. Nothing about how that single line was written was meant to be informative. IF the actor in question WAS a Zionist, supported Israel in the current war, or had even taken a strong stance one way or another, I'd have come with receipts in hand so that I could genuinely educate. I would have backed up my allegations and I wouldn't have made a comment like that with the tone of someone trying to make other people angry or upset. This post was either designed to start a fight, which got shut down hard, or it was designed to break the server rules, which include a pretty standard 'please don't talk about politics or current critical events in this particular server'. The exact rule is here:

Which, in a fandom server is standard practice. Most servers tend to be pretty good about this rule. (Holla to all my Discord mods and the discord members in general for being truly chill with the separation of reality and fiction, I appreciate your work so goddamn much.) But this means that while the mods can't see EVERYTHING, they do their best to be gentle when they're asking people to not talk about political topics from real life. In a game like CoD, politics and world events are important and sometimes mirrored, so some overlap is going to happen, but for the most part 99.99% of the server is chill with people keeping fandom and politics separate. After this moderation, which to me is business as usual, the Usual Suspects took to the Town-hall chat where people can directly talk with server moderation out in the open, instead of in a private ticket. The general tone of this conversation was in good faith, but some people there stood out to me as trying to create emotional reactions instead of hear the moderators out.

The now-server owner ANT-chan posted this genuinely thoughtful response to the town-hall anxiety whipping:

The question:

The Response:

And that should have been the fucking end of it. No, no these people are STILL going. To date: Leech has received death threats. Been called a pedo and a zionist. This is absolutely not the time to be getting random hate on Twitter from a maximum of six people since these anti fucks can't stop being awful for ten goddamn seconds. I'm pretty sure that at least two of them are using socks to bypass block listings.

The server has been put on blast, with several prominent fandom members being 'called out' for participating in events that the former mods find distasteful. The Dead Dove exchange, as well as making art that they find objectionable. These users are not in fact doing anything beyond existing in the fandom in a place that these Antis do not like. I've been personally inconvenienced by these people because they decided that people I care about are acceptable splash damage in their quest to be the bigest three-ring tantrum in town, and I'm absolutely about to make that a Problem. So yeah, yeah these users are being blocked by the mod team for harassment, they're acting like every Anti I've ever had the displeasure of knowing, and they absolutely don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They're throwing around allegations without proof or even the balls to make it a direct accusation, they're sending the kinds of threats that get you visited by the FBI, they're actively trying to harm a community that I've grown to enjoy in a way that is so utterly 2002 ff.net drama-mongering fandom wank that I want to personally sit them down and ask them genuinely if they know what the fuck they're talking about. I'm certain I wouldn't be impressed. This probably isn't the last I'll write about this. I'm still livid about all of this and I just wanted to make sure that people knew what kind of behavior these people were engaging with behind the veneer of their histrionics. For the ones that will see this and try to call me a Zionist:

Free Palestine. Free Ukraine. Stop the killing of innocents in Palestine, in Darfur, in Iraq, in China, in Myanmar, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine. My heart weeps for the children who will never get the chance to be grown, for the mothers who have to bury their daughters, for the fathers who must grieve their sons. For the children left behind when everything they have known is obliterated by foreign weapons and familiar hate.

Colonialism is an insidious poison and we have to recognize it and weed it out. We must recognize the role of dictatorship and totalitarianism to the continued efforts of colonialism, and in Israel it is called Zionism. I've spent so many years trying to learn the shape of this poison in my own mind and words, and I am endlessly grateful for the friends who have shown me the shapes of cruelty and thoughtlessness that I have since been unlearning. I'm not perfect, I slip up, I'm American and that comes with all the baggage that being an American does. I try my damndest not to be cruel, ever. My activism is not centered on Tumblr or on Twitter or on Discord. I don't want my fandom space and identity to interact with my activist space and identity. I don't want my activism to be celebrated, I want my activism to be effective. I will continue to do what I can to educate, to inspire, to aid. I don't do it here. To insist that my fandom self must be my activist self reeks of the same performance as doing nothing for Rafah or Sudan or Ukraine beyond circulating images of their stolen children. But you had better be damn sure that if you're going to level allegations at my friends, you had best be prepared to back those allegations up with facts and evidence. Otherwise you're just a coward trying to get other people to do the harm for you that you won't stand up and do yourself.

Your stolen valor will not shroud your grave, your self-righteousness will not crown you in this life or any other, and your puritanical authoritarianism will not endear you to those who might have once upon a time been a friend and ally. Your activism is nothing more than a smokescreen, a demand for attention, and your voice is not directed with us towards the ears that must hear it, but instead towards those that would walk beside you in cause, and you are determined to drown them out since they don't believe or behave or look like you. Keep my friends names out of your mouths, you monsters.

Writing a massive CoD tea post, if you don't want to see it please block the tag CallofDrama. Love you guys take care of yourselves watch this space.

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kurulover · 2 years ago

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https://doctorspiral.tumblr.com/post/684387803062288384/httpsdoctorspiraltumblrcompost68438113299908

Anon again:

Bpdpetergriffin2 has a lot of evidence of 4lung's shit.

This is the post I found when I searched for that url. Fortunately someone was able to give me the post I assume you meant (tw for alleged csa, idk how to tag).

So as I can tell, someone accused this artist of interacting inappropriately with a minor, she denied it, they faked the screenshots in the other post and then later admitted that they faked them, but I can’t tell because I can’t verify because they got suspended from Twitter for breaches of ToS, which judge as you will. I also can’t verify info about the other people she’s accused of knowingly interacting with from 2019 who make (or made, this is years ago) content for subcultures I don’t know about and would have to find multiple sources to educate myself with because there’s not a set consensus about it but it’s supposedly bad.

I want to step back. I really want to believe your heart is in the right place, but I have to admit I’m pretty frustrated right now. I don’t think that digging though suspended accounts for Twitter drama from three years ago is protecting or helping anyone. Personally, I think it’s unhelpful sidetracking when our energy could be spent on far more important things. What I do know is that the person I was three years ago is quite literally not the person I am now. I hadn’t met my friend groups or my partner yet, I hadn’t been diagnosed as a system or with OCD, I hadn’t learned about transmisogyny in media or the land back movement or ten other things. I hadn’t started to tell stories yet, for better or worse. I literally couldn’t imagine becoming who we are today three years ago, and I assume the same is true for this artist. But I don’t know because I don’t know the artist!

What I do know is she is terrified of this, because she’s said so herself. And I completely understand, because this kind of thing doesn’t help people, at the end of the day. You can’t shame the shameless. They’ll still be there under Elon Musk’s twitter, and we’ll have attacked artists and traumatized people for nothing. It would be easier to say “oh shit really? she did? that sucks I won’t listen” without any evidence. But like… I can’t do that to a person, anon. Maybe I’ll regret it if something shit comes out tomorrow. But like… it’s not about 4lung. It’s about the fact the whole sort of callout thing is shit. I did my best to verify everything, and all it’s left me is confused and tired. If this is… not to your liking, or not good enough, I don’t know, I just hope you’ll block me and move on.

Have a good day. Here’s a picture of my cat to cheer y’all up.

#asks #anon #callouts #csa ment #4lung

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i-like-gay-books · 2 years ago

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lately been seeing a lot of pushback against the pushback against intellectual elitism, crying anti-intellectualism, and there are a few reasons this is bothering me which i’m going to try to list here to the best of my abilities all in one sitting because otherwise i’ll forget to finish it:

1. the whole attitude against consuming “easy” media like marvel or mainstream movies or books, etc, is intellectual elitism no matter how you sugar coat it. im not saying it’s intentionally malicious, in fact i believe most people doing it are unaware they’re doing anything at all. the thing is that privilege can affect you in many different ways, and the level of media you are able to consume and have an enjoyable experience with is one of those ways.

i am very well educated in language and writing, so reading experimental stories where the syntax and turn of phrase is almost more important than the actual plot or characters is easy and even sometimes enjoyable for me. however, i have next to no media literacy when it comes to films. i can watch something more artistic or experimental, but i likely won’t understand it even close to the amount i need to in order to enjoy it. it would take a lot of effort to fully understand and even if i got to the point of understanding it the effort it took would make the experience much less enjoyable.

i hope i explained that well enough. it’s kinda hard to put into words

2. it’s ableist. full stop. i’m not even joking here i saw someone seriously type out and post something that said people are using this callout of intellectual elitism as a way to hide the fact that they’re all just “jocks who don’t play sports.” that doesnt directly relate to this point in particular i just remembered it.

yes, less artistic or intentionally intellectual/ thought provoking pieces of art are easier to consume. speaking as someone who has not only dealt with chronic burnout myself but who is part of a generation of people living day in and day out with chronic burnout, sometimes easy media is all i can handle. by which i mean, most times. and its easier to consume again. and again. and again and again.

burnout is just one example of course, many disabilities can cause a lack of energy to devote to activities that are for leisure. and even without disabilities, humans are meant to rest. nobody wants to be thinking critically or philosophically 100% of the time.

3. communities are much larger surrounding mainstream/ easy to consume media. obviously that doesnt make it more worthwhile, but it does come with its own certain set of benefits. also you know what mainstream fandoms have a shit ton of? fan work. look at fan fiction and fan art and fan theories and tell me those people are not thinking critically and engaging meaningfully with their source material. just try to tell me.

some people work better with more hands on, creative pursuits. my favorite subjects growing up were always math and english, because there was a way to be involved, and not just be told the answers, the story. science and history never offered me that, at least not as openly. learning styles are different, and just because we’re talking about a leisure activity here doesnt mean that fact changes or becomes irrelevant.

this is just me word dumping onto a document because i didnt want to hijack a post at 12:30 at night, but these are a few of the reasons this “anti-intellectualism” accusation has been leaving a bad taste in my mouth for the few months its been going on. feel free to add on or ignore or whatever, i dont really care. i just needed to write it down and get it out there.

#anti intellectualism #intellectual elitism #media #disabilities #burnout #media literacy #privilege #cloudy rambles

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