#wholesome textpost

[alvivaarts]

Internet Safety Tips for Folks Under 18! <3

I'm writing this because it was brought to my attention that at least one of my followers/readers is 11! Years! Old! How do I know this? Because they publicly announced it! AHH!!! OH NO!

This made me practically lose my mind, because holy shit, internet safety is NOT taught like it used to be!! Are there no more assemblies or class gatherings where you watch internet safety PSA videos anymore? Or learn about it in the library? Like shit!!! Anyway, here is, in the simplest terms, tips I learned when I was under 18 that have kept me not only alive, but thriving and happy on the internet.

What Information is Appropriate/Safe for Me to Share Online?

Very little! Very, VERY little! It would be easier if I told you what NOT to share online! DO NOT SHARE: -Your age/that you are a minor. -Your state, province, or country of origin. -When you are going to school/if you are starting school. -Establishments (restaurants, activity places, etc) that may or may not be in your local area. -Any medical diagnoses (mental or physical). -Any traumatic events or triggers. (We'll come back to this). -Any other details of your day-to-day schedule. -Details about your relationship with family members. -What you are/are not allowed to do. -Passwords or personal emails/phone numbers/contact points.

It's completely fine to share: -Your interests. -Fun anecdotes from your day. -Things you are excited about (not relating to your daily schedule). -What you're eating/drinking/making. -Etc.

I know it sounds cheesy, but you should make it your goal to be unidentifiable online. People do genuinely want to use this information, information about YOU for bad reasons. We already know that data brokers exist- and that there have been massive data leaks in the last few years regarding adults/18+ folks personal information. Those people usually have the agency and ability to reclaim some of that privacy and get their lives back on track. You don't. In addition to that, sharing little snippets of information about yourself from the 'do not share' category can build up over time. It might not feel like much at the time, but it can become pretty easy to identify you with even two or three of those pieces of information. We've seen no-profile having folks on TikTok be doxxed with less.

By that extent, I recommend minimizing the images you post of yourself online, especially if you cannot monitor/approve of who follows you. It can be equally as easy for strangers to figure out where you live based on images you share online, especially if those show your face and places your frequent. We can doubt that the GeoGeussr guy might not use his powers for evil, but plenty of other people absolutely can.

Who is Trustworthy Online?

Short Answer: NO ONE!

If someone you meet in a server says they're your age? No they're not! If someone says they want to be your friend and give you free things/games/etc? No they don't! If you think someone is safe enough to share something personal with online? No they're not! If someone randomly adds you for the purpose of making friends? They are not your friend! If someone says 'you're mature for your age'? No! You're! Not!

It's easy to form attachments to people online. It might be because everyone is 'anonymous' (which is also not true, no one is every truly anonymous online) that it's easier for you to imagine a stranger to be a certain way. Or you might look up to someone a lot because of the things they make or produce. These people, even if you get along with them or share interests with them, are not your friend- and will never be 100% trustworthy. (Of course, there are very rare acceptations- I don't want to be a hypocrite. Two of my very best friends are people I met online and have now met in person. When you become an adult and are able to more easily move around and escape situations -via transportation, access to your own money, not needing to rely on others/adults to assist you, then you can decide to proceed with relationships.)

Additionally, people online especially will never offer you something 'for free'. It will always have a cost- that might be your time, your personal information, or access to you via video or audio call or other personal things.

1- Never accept random phone, audio, or video calls on any social media platform. Do not accept random friend requests either. 2- It is absolutely okay to say 'no', to block people who you don't like or make you uncomfortable, even if those people get mad. Your safety comes before other people's happiness. 3- Never accept 'gifts' from online friends, especially if they are much older than you. 4- Do not click on random links sent by friends or shared on uncertified websites, especially download links. Even mod packs or pirated games can hide viruses, malware, or phishing links- things that can steal your personal information saved to your devices, or that can destroy your devices from the inside out. 5- If you feel uncomfortable or unsure of how to handle a situation, report and block the person involved, and/or contact a moderator, site-manager, or trusted IRL adult.

Online harassment and bullying is also quite scary. This can come in many forms: -People trying to steal information from you. -People shaming you for your appearance. -People shaming you for engaging in the things you enjoy. -People shaming, name calling, or ganging up on you to make fun of you. -Targeted crap-talking towards groups of people by other groups or individuals. -Being told to harm yourself, or that life would be better without you (not true!).

If this occurs to you, block and report the user/s. If you happen to know the person harassing and bullying yourself and others in real life, inform someone in real life as well. Make sure to take screen shots and save them! However, make sure you understand the difference between bullying and someone trying to correct bad behavior or help you. Both can feel very embarrassing at first, but most of the time, people trying to help improve online communities (and you!) will not be shameful, harassing, or bullying. It's okay to feel embarrassed for not understanding particular rules or community standards, but do not take that embarrassment out on others.

Managing Your Own Online Experience

This one might sting for some folks, especially adults who haven't learned it yet, but: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ONLINE EXPERIENCE!

We're circling back to telling people online what your traumas and triggers are. Of course, a lot of things happen offline. It can be frustrating to come online as an escape and find something that triggers you or reawakens trauma, or even things that simply discomfort you. When it comes to things that traumatize or trigger you, block the source: Block people who cross your boundaries. Report those who break site guidelines (not people who do things you don't like- who break site guidelines). Block pages that might show things that frighten you. Do not visit websites that are known for certain traumatizing/inappropriate content. Turn on SafeSearch features. You don't even have to inform these people- do not engage, just disconnect. It's not cringe to want to optimize your online experience for your own safety, happiness and comfort!

When it comes to things that make you uncomfortable: Understand the difference between things that are traumatizing/triggering, and things that make your unhappy/uncomfortable/that you personally dislike. There is a difference. While you absolutely should have a safe and comfortable online experience, it is not appropriate or safe to approach people telling them to change X Y Z thing about what they post, discuss, or share. It's not appropriate to threaten, harass, or shame others for engaging in content that you might not like personally, or even engaging versions/aspects of that media in a way you might not yourself. The easiest way to avoid it? Don't engage with it. The instant you start to comment and complain, you're potentially outing yourself as a minor, AND telling the website algorithm that you want to see MORE of this thing you dislike, simply by engaging with it. It's a double whammy. Remember that, while your happiness and safety comes first, that does not come at the expense of other's wellbeing or enjoyment, unless that wellbeing or enjoyment is an active risk of physical or genuine harm to you that you cannot otherwise block yourself.

Finally, keep in mind that Adult Spaces/18+ spaces ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU, WITH YOU IN MIND, OR FOR YOUR BENEFIT! It might feel and sound very exciting and even satisfying to get into an adult space unnoticed. However, these spaces are not meant for you- they often do NOT have all of the same safety tools as other 'public' online spaces. You are also putting yourself and the adults in the community at risk: Adults who may engage with you as an adult, because it's an adult-only space, without knowing you're a minor- as well as potentially engaging with adults who won't care whether or not you're a minor. Be especially mindful if an adult has a DNI specific to minors: that person DOES NOT want to engage with you. You wouldn't want your boundaries crossed, right? Don't cross theirs!

Some general rules to monitor your own online experience: 1- Block any potential sources of trauma/triggers. However, do not report them unless the subject matter genuinely breaks website rules (these differ DRASTICALLY depending on the site. Understand them before making any reports). 2- Live and Let Die (or Ship and Let Ship). Especially in fandom spaces. It's okay for you to have a particular take on a media, character, or ship. It is not okay for you to demean or diminish others for engaging in that media, character, or ship differently than you would. It isn't a competition about who's 'right'. Just enjoy yourself! 3- Turn on SafeSearch and Private Account settings. This minimizes potential triggers/uncomfortable subject matter, and allows you to monitor who engages with your account. 4- Do not actively pursue 18+ spaces. You don't have to stay 'in the kids zone', but don't try to insert yourself in a place where you cannot control what you might encounter.

----

I think that's about it! I'm sure there'll be other folks with plenty more to add, but these are the basics. Keep them in mind and try not to let yourself learn the hard way like I (and many others) did that The Internet as not as safe and fun as you might think it is. Of course, it is- but it's also full of unfun, or even dangerous things and people. Take care of yourself!

[diagonal-queen]

rimbaud birthday meme time (stormbringer spoilers ahead)

one of the babygirls ever methinks

[legohotel]

one thing that always gets me is when you watch someone try to throw something into a trash can from afar and they act like they’re playing basketball and then get that triumphant smile on their faces beaming right at you when they succeed bc they saw you cheering them on?? i really do love humans

[tsundereition]

omg guys proshipper isn't "basic dni criteria", like that list is supposed to represent actual irl issues(*), not some 2020 internet discourse. you guys are so annoying like if you're uncomfortable interacting with proshippers i understand and respect it, although you probably have a very twisted idea of what the word means (would make a separate post abt it but there are hundreds already). but please don't equate it to actual crimes. (*)also do you seriously think that a bigot troll is going to read your dni and be magically expelled from your strong aura. if anything it's going to make them want to harass you more. it's obvious that those lists are just a pose like "if i don't put racists dni they're gonna think i'm racist" NO aaagh you don't have to over-specify(?) everything about you when interacting online can we please go back to being normal istg. reject modernity embrace not writing a dni list and just blocking people like a normal person <3

[incandescentlycursed]

the theater kid feeling on closing night.

went to a waterburger’s post show, paid for my friend and felt like a grownup looking at the menu. had the mamma mia soundtrack on background while we played show trivia - gave and received so many hugs. so many tears. so much food. listening to ‘the last one’ by maisie peters on the way home. bouncing down the hallways of the school, high off so much energy - can’t tell whether you want to pass out or jump off a roof. tearing up the moment curtain call comes - dramatically bowing, stepping back and cheering for your friends in the main cast, whooping their names and hollering. embraces, signing autographs of the friends you’ve pushed so hard to come to this show - you’ve spent so much time busting your ass. running around the school, taking down posters as memorabilia. quick changes, girls screaming the descendants soundtrack in the bathroom. and then - it hits you, the bittersweet pang, when you realize your friends will be gone next year, and this feeling - god, this feeling - it’ll be gone tomorrow. there’s no more show, and even though you despise your costume - you’re saying goodbye to these characters and the exhaustion of eight-hour weekend rehearsals.

can’t really explain it, but this is as close as i come.

[alfiely-art]

You know, my favorite thing about the Makoto × Sans ship is that it genuinely makes sense when you think about it. I don't know if it was submitted to my tournament because "Kodaka twink × sans hehe" but I can actually see it being a legitimate ship dynamic. This is not to be biased at all but I do think it works actually. Sans × Makoto being the only crackship to make it into the actual tournament feels Correct to me.

[teathattast]

Normalize being nice, kind and compassionate to urself and others : )

[tiredblanket]

In a dog eat dog world, we were dawgs

[staticbluue]

Today's reminder: She only has eyes for you. She'll sell kidneys and livers to just about anyone, but not eyes. The eyes are just for you.

[lightgriffinsect]

[cdawgcaps]

I indulge myself in y/n ass fantasies in which Connor takes me under his wing and teaches me how to become a great voice actor. Never goes further than that, but sometimes when I’m unhappy, I go “that’d be cool.”

I know it’s tame compared to the Connor Voodoo Doll guys, but I still feel massively embarrassed, hence the anon. Thanks for doing Lord Bubi’s (who has absolutely nothing to do with Connor, wink) work

🐒

Aww that's actually so wholesome. 😭😭😭 i have like a whole ass catalogue in my head, of fantasies regarding him, and two i started to write but never finished them. 💀 I definitely feel you on the embarrassment. I respect Connor so much, i would never want to even possibly make him uncomfortable. (god i try my best not to call him handsome in twitch chat.) When you're in a parasocial relationship its... so, so important to remind yourself that it IS parasocial, that the other person is human.

Uuh sorry for rambling 😭

[fitscientist]

Hey!

Hope you're having a good day!

That's all

Byyyye

awww thanks anon! Hope you're having a good day too! <3

[purpleyearning]

Some random positivity; Now that my grandmother lives in town, my mom and I (and sometimes my brother) visit her every Saturday after work. About two years before my grandfather died, my mom managed to gather some money to work on our house. We're not very handy, so my Grandpa would come over with my grandma every Saturday and work on it then we'd all order pizza and wings.

When I got my job, he left work at the same time I did and worked in my town so he'd pick me up and take me home. Since I was now working Saturdays, we began going over to his and my grandmas house every Sunday and getting pizza.

I've always been close to my grandparents, but I was now seeing them nearly every weekend. It's like some divine being knew he would get sick, saw how much we loved and adored him, and put together a sequence of events that would allow us so much more time with him. I miss him everyday and no time with him could ever be enough, but I am eternally grateful those two years of seeing him and it makes me value the time Saturdays I spend with my grandmother even more.

He was everything to me and my family, and those memories are everything to us now that he's gone. Since youngest my brother could talk and count, he has ranked his favorite people as grampy, grammy, and then mommy. Mine has always been mommy, grammy, and grampy. He and grandma are the top two people of every single one of their grandkids and great grandkids. My mom and her sister are not biologically his, his family has always treated them differently than they treated their brother who was his, but he never treated them any differently. He was the best most supportive grandfather and father.

And if the immense love a family can have for just one man is not wholesome enough, here is the last conversation we ever had before he died;

[the-crow-binary]

Castlevania AU...

Vampires can't have kids (because dead seeds and all that). Alucard is actually the son of Mathias and Elisabetha, who died a few weeks after giving birth (still from an illness. She was actually sick while pregnant and everyone thought she wouldn't survive childbirth. When she did, it gave hope to everyone, Mathias included... and then it got shattered to pieces once she died anyway)

Mathias, though he loves his son, is too overwhelmed with grief and hatred (towards god) to take proper care of him. So his servants do most of the work. They often push Mathias to hold Adrian, in hope it would make him feel better, but it did not have quite the effect expected...

Because his mother was sick while pregnant, and after, Adrian was weak. In fact, no one was sure he would even make it to the end of the year. Mathias realised that, and it only fueled his hatred towards God, on top of giving him an idea. He was going to save Adrian and take his revenge on God, by giving his son and him immortality. Thus came his plan to overthrow Walter.

Everything goes pretty much the same as in Lament of Innocence, but once Mathias was turned, he went back home to get his son, sparing the (terrified) servants' lives as he was thankful to them for taking care of his child, and fled the place. With Death as his advisor, he went to Transylvania, giving a few drop of his blood to Adrian as to slowly turn him... He didn't give him too much, though, as to not complete the transformation right away. If Adrian were to be turn as a baby, he would never be able to fully grow.

They arrive in Transylvania, find the perfect, isolated place, and give life to the new Demon Castle. Begins the new life of the Cronqvist family, and Death. As the years goes by, monsters, heretics and other night creatures come live within the walls of the Castle, welcomed with open arms by Mathias himself. Adrian grow into this weird environnement, never questioning it. The Night as his family.

Once he came of age, Mathias decided it was time to complete his transformation. Adrian was fully turned, and at that time, he took it as a gift. And for hundreds of years, he won't stop seeing it in a good light... but then Lisa appeared, and she changed everything.

Mathias often talked about Elisabetha to Adrian, he even had a painting of her. And when Lisa arrived, she reminded them both of her. Even though, at first, Adrian wasn't so fond of the woman. Her arrival disrupted the peace they had, shaken up the status quo, forced him and his father out of their comfort zone... but as time went by, and Lisa became more and more part of the Castle's life, he learned to love her, like the mother he never had the chance to know. Just as Mathias learned to love her like his wife.

With her, Mathias rediscovered what being human is. With her, Adrian discovered it for the first time. He grew closer and closer to humankind, but, at the same time, it only took him farther and farther away from the Night. It made him realise how the creatures he had known all his life as his family, were terrible monsters. And the humans he had hunt in the past were more precious and important than he once thought. He was like a child discovering the world for the first time. Lisa really made both father and son feel like they were alive, once again... and then she got executed.

It was the last straw for Mathias. He rejected completely his humanity and took the name of Dracula, ready to unleash his rage upon humankind, in his wife's name. But Adrian , now valuing human lives and life in general, thanks to wich he consider to be his mother, took the name of Alucard and went against him, in her name.

In the end, he realised the "gift of vampirism" his father gave him was actually a curse. And he was not able to bear it any longer. The rest of the story goes the same as we know it: once he defeated his father with the help of Trevor, Sypha and Grant, he went to put himself in an "eternal" slumber. And well, nothing much changes from there.

[manawari]

How Jin-ah and Jin-ho met:

It was when Jin-woo was in the shower. His phone was at the kitchen table when it began to ring. Jin-ah, who was in the living room, groaned and got up from the couch to check her brother's phone herself. Who could it be? That mysterious girl whom he had been smiling about? His comrades from the track team?

She picked it up and didn't bother reading the name as she swiped the button to the left. "Hello—" "HYUNG! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?! YOU BETTER NOT BE LATE OR ELSE I'LL—"

"Uhm, who is this?" Jin-ah asked.

"Wait. This isn't hyung." The caller said from the other line.

It earned her a scoff. "Obviously, this is his sister."

"Ah, really? Can you give it to him then—" Jin-ah hung up the line.

She began questioning her brother's choices of friends.

Jin-woo was not a very sociable person she knew. He preferred to be left to his own devices sometimes ever since they were little.

A few days later, Jin-woo came home with a guest. He was a few inches shorter and had custard-colored hair that was curled and shaved on the sides. He had a crooked grin, contrasting the neutral expression on Jin-woo's visage. However, it wasn't long before Jin-ah managed to recognize his voice

"That was you?!" She yelled out.

Jin-ho's eyes stretched at her. "Me?!"

"You're that annoying guy on my brother's phone!" "It is not my fault that a different person answered my call!"

Meanwhile, Jin-woo watched the exchange, not knowing when he should interject or if he should interject.

[dothsexth]

Harry : I made some pie for you love.

Draco : Did u just call me love?

Harry : I mean if you don't mind?

Draco : ( a literally blushing mess) I- yes if you want to Potter