#you could probably dox me through this post but please don't

[ephemeral-winter]

lmao so i signed up for a grad student mentorship scheme at the main professional org in my field of study, and who should i be matched with but the woman who has the amazing job that when it was posted a few years ago all my friends joked i should apply for despite being an undergrad, and also secondarily happens to be a book review editor for the journal published by the main professional org in my field of study, which also happens to be where i currently work

[paintingwhiteceilings]

❃How EXO acts around their crush❃

a/n: This is 10000% just for my own pleasure. I may have had this in my drafts for weeks... I am totally okay with all the Kyungsoo solo content and EXO ladder dropping. Totally. Super functional, delusional who?

ALSO to any EXO-L that are sharing Chen's LEAKED wedding photos. Please be respectful and either delete them or, at the very least, blur out his wife's face. Chen has gone to great lengths to safeguard her privacy, as she is not famous nor wants to be in the spotlight. Not to mention that there could be crazy sasaengs out there with ill intent. Sharing her info is basically doxing, and it is insane to me how many people shared these posts without much thought. Anyway, I needed to share my frustrations.

Xiumin/Minseok:

✾ He is a lot shyer than the other members; where most of EXO probably feels comfortable enough to act on their crushes, he is a bit more reserved. He wants to test the waters first, ascertaining whether the feeling is mutual. Whenever you are around and are talking to other people, he sits back silently, observing your reactions.

✾ Xiumin is smiling so widely around you that the other members worry that his muscles might start cramping up soon. The moment he sees you, his bubbly personality starts to really shine through, and sometimes you can't help but wonder whether this man truly is 33.

✾ That being said, from the moment that anyone offers Xiumin a couple of drinks, his confidence spikes, and he will start flirting with you. His flirting is still extremely sweet and cute; Xiumin can be incredibly charming when he wants to be.

Suho/Junmyeon

✾ He is such a gentleman around you, trying to make you feel at ease with his kind gestures. Whether it is him pulling back a chair or opening a door for you, he will do anything to make you feel like a princess.

✾ Being one of EXO's proud black card owners, he will casually buy you whatever you need. He keeps repeating that he wants to treat his friends when you try to interject. You can't completely refute it; he does spend a lot of money on the members. Yet, you can't help but feel like his gifts are slightly too expensive and excessive for 'just friends'.

✾ So. Many. Soft. Glances. Suho looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars; you catch him staring at you almost every time you look over. Conversations with him can, therefore, be a tad awkward. He doesn't always register what you are saying; he is so absorbed in watching you that he forgets to listen.

✾ The other members relentlessly tease him for it. If you don't catch on based on Suho's actions, you will definitely catch on due to his members' relentless teasing. Whenever he does anything remotely romantic around you, their faces light up like Christmas came early. The members are not subtle about it whatsoever, thoroughly enjoying putting their leader in a slightly uncomfortable position.

Baekhyun:

✾ The members didn't think it was possible, but Baekhyun somehow became louder. It is as if he wants to draw your attention simply by screaming, as he no longer has any volume control when you are around. Everyone can hear your conversation from across the room, and his laughter becomes borderline obnoxious as it overpowers any other sound.

✾ He is such a tease and a suggestive one at that. Considering he has no problem revealing intimate, not suitable to be aired on national TV, details about the members' bodies, he won't have any trouble suggestively flirting with you. Where Xiumin's pick-up lines are cute, Baekhyun's are far from it. Give this man some holy water, Jesus.

✾ He is so intense with his flirting that it sometimes crosses the line of sexy to parody, coming off as a joke. Baekyhyun has a very flirty personality and isn't above flirting with his friends. Even though he isn't subtle about his crush, he can accidentally fall into the "he flirts with everyone" category, making you question whether he genuinely likes you or is just being friendly.

✾ He really enjoys the chase when it comes to relationships. Thus, it will take him quite some time before he asks you out, simply because he likes the push-and-pull game.

Chanyeol

✾ There is nothing subtle about Mr. Park Chanyeol. The moment he sees someone he wants to date, he is going for it full steam ahead. Puppy Chanyeol is momentarily retired as he makes his way over to you; Chanyeol knows that he is handsome and sexy, and he is ready to show it to you. I hope you weren't interested in anyone else because the moment you return any of his interest, he will be flirting with you like there is no tomorrow.

✾ Internally, he is so excited to be talking to you, and sometimes, you will see glimpses of his cute puppy-like persona, especially once he feels like you are just as interested. Still, the words coming out of this man's mouth, Jesus part two. Please go and ask Baekyhun to pass the holy water.

✾ That being said, he will get embarrassed when the other members are around or slightly bashful when you return his flirting at full force. I don't think Chanyeol is used to anyone sharing his level of intensity, so once you do, he gets a bit flustered. He absolutely loves it, though. Your compliments got him grinning from ear to ear.

D.O./Kyungsoo

✾ Don't get me wrong, I adore this man to a delusional extent, but he is absolutely hopeless when it comes to communicating with his crush. He won't go anywhere near you if he can't help it; he prefers looking at you from afar. He is someone who favours being approached first over approaching you himself. It isn't that he doesn't want to talk to you; he simply isn't the type of person to initiate contact with his crush and tends to stay back when he can tell that someone else is interested, too. 

✾ Even if he finds himself near you, don't expect him to have a full-blown conversation with you. He already tends to be a man of little words, but when it comes to you, he is a man of not a single word. Being around you is enough to make him happy; he doesn't really need to have a deep conversation. 

✾ Nevertheless, his actions make more than up for it. He is such a gentleman, being the definition of preferential treatment. You don't have a chair to sit on? He will quietly offer you his. Your sweater got caught on something? He will silently help you get it out. Although he may not say much to you, he communicates his feelings through his actions. 

Kai/Jongin

✾ If you think Xiumin or Kyungsoo are shy, you have not yet met Kai with a crush. He turns into absolute mush the moment he sees you, giggling and blushing whenever you do as much as breathing. You can't even see him because he has resorted to hiding behind the other members, preferably Sehun or Chanyeol, as they are tall enough to obscure him completely.

✾ If he somehow musters up the courage to talk to you, good luck having it go anywhere because he can barely make it through a sentence without giggling. It is obvious to everyone around him that he is smitten with you; his laughs are awkwardly loud, and his eyes are literally shooting hearts.

✾ The moment he manages to ask you to dance, his shy demeanour completely changes. His movement… His expressions… The way he is smirking at you… Maybe you should go and ask Chanyeol whether there is anything left of the holy water he borrowed from Baekyhun.

Sehun

✾ He has one of two ways of acting around his crush: either he acts super bratty or becomes painfully shy. It depends on whether he has met and talked to you before. But, if you are complete strangers, he would be so quiet, hiding in the furthest corner he can find.

✾ He will pester the members to go over and collect as much information as they can about you. They will do it because he will whine the entire night about it if they don't and, repeat with me, what Sehun wants, Sehun gets. The members try to convince Sehun to go talk to you himself, but Sehun stubbornly refuses. Bro will be playing the Maknae card harder than he ever has in his entire life.

✾ In the end, he will drag Suho with him, trying to 'casually' strike up a conversation with you. The small talk is painful, and in all honesty, Suho, with his dad jokes, isn't helping in the slightest. At the very least, it provides the two of you with a new conversational topic: the teasing of Suho.

masterlist

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

A vent about the poll runner that got doxxed:

I was originally going to reblog the post, as many people have - and I don't blame anyone for doing so, it's something people will want to spread awareness about, especially among other poll runners, because the stakes just got a lot higher. It's not just worrying about mean and hateful people in your inbox or your notes - which can be extremely harmful on its own and has led some mods to abandon their polls - but it adds a new layer of concern.

doxxing is very serious, it comes with it's own mess of fears to the victim: there's the same psychological harm you might get from the hate, but also a physical danger, because letting someone know you have their address is a threat. It's a very clear and serious threat, even if you don't say you'll do anything. It can be traumatizing, a lot of us are already neurodivergent and/or mentally ill in ways something like that can cause more harm than it would to a mentally healthy/neurotypical person, and those would probably be heavily affected by it as well. If you struggle with paranoia as a symptom of anything, or just very high anxiety, this could change your life drastically. If you don't struggle with those, you might start to. I don't know what kind of sick fuck would doxx someone without knowing how awful their action is, but on the off chance there's people out there that would do it and somehow don't realize the gravity, please have some compassion. You don't even need empathy, you just need common sense. Think critically about how you're going to hurt that person. Hurt people around them. Why do you want to do that?

In the end I decided against reblogging the original post. I don't know OP, i don't know how they're feeling right now, I can only hope they're as okay as they can be, and they're safe. But I know that in their place I wouldn't want notifications reminding me of the whole thing. I know you can turn those off, but I felt more comfortable not reblogging it. I also won't say who the victim is, I don't feel comfortable exposing them like that, but there's lots of other poll runners reblogging it* and you might find out through them.

*to clarify, i'm not trying to claim me not reblogging it is somehow the "morally correct choice". its not a matter of what's correct, it's just a personal choice. In fact, i'm thankful that people are reblogging it because I was made aware of the danger, as I didn't follow op. There's pros and cons to either decision, mine was to not reblog.

And not to make this about myself, that's really not my intention, but i'm fucking terrified after reading that. I haven't given up on the poll, but I might need some time to recover because i'm not exactly the most stable person and shit like this rlly messes me up. I hope you can all understand if the round one polls don't come out on sunday. I won't apologize if they don't, cause i think this is a pretty good reason to need a break.

Once again, I hope the mod for that poll is safe, and i hope they can recover from this soon.

[foone]

Please don’t feel obligated to reply because this might be a touchy issue, but i see on one of your posts that you hate Hacker News. I just discovered HN a few months ago and have been enjoying it, but as a fellow trans person i’m curious if they’ve been transphobic or the like (based on the context of your comment) and if i should stay away

OKAY SO here's thing thing: as a reader, HN is... fine. They're not great. They have a history of sexism in what posts get boosted and a history of various shades of transphobia in the comments, but that's not particularly unusual as far as internet forums go. Reddit is much the same, for example.

My problems with HN are related to getting posted there. The way the site works when you're reading it and when you're getting posted there are very different. More explanation under the readmore since this got long. (warning: some talk of transphobia and doxxing)

The site is not avoidable. Back when I was still on twitter, getting posted on HN meant your notifications were useless for a week, because they are scraped by endless bots trying to farm for likes and reblogs, and every single one of them ends up tagging you. And even now when I'm off twitter, getting posted there means you still get informed that you've been posted there, by well-meaning people who know you hate it, or are just innocently commentating on how it's neat to see you on HN. Or hey, in the latest iteration, you find out because your askbox is now full of slurs (and not just the ones you'd expect!). Basically, it is impossible to be submitted to HN and not know about it.

And then it gets worse because it's now a known fact that I don't like being on HN. Meaning every time I AM on HN, it turns into a big debate in the comments about why I don't like HN, why I post the way I do, and people arguing with the explanation of my opinion. I'm not even there, and people are mad at the phantom of me for not doing things in the way they like.

Because how I post is part of what they always get mad at me about. I have severe ADHD: This is a well known fact about me, I post about it a lot. It means that I used to post on twitter a lot, because twitter was (at the time) one of the only sites I could post on at all: The way it makes you chop up your line of thinking into small chunks, each of which is small enough that I can focus on it. I've since managed to handle tumblr-posting, and I occasionally post on mastodon now, but for most of the time that I was posted on HN, I was posting this way, only on twitter, in long threads where I don't think much ahead or do editing/revisions BECAUSE I CAN'T.

And here's the thing about people who prefer more "traditional" geek news sites like HN: A lot of them are there because they hate the bite-size nature of sites like twitter and tiktok. And they are Not Happy with people submitting twitter threads to HN: They hate that kind of formatting of content, and announce that fact, loudly.

And then people in the comments point out that I have ADHD and can't post in the style they'd prefer (long well-edited blog posts), and then it turns into an argument there, often with people happily brining up their opinions on whether ADHD is "real" or things like that. Again, I'm getting argued about without being there to defend myself.

And this is where it gets transphobic, through the indirect route of sexism: Someone says something innocent but vaguely dickish like "well he should just hire someone to rewrite all his twitter posts as blog posts!" (like they think I am doing this as a job and can afford to pay an editor, rather than just some weirdo who rants because that's what they do). They assume I'm a man, because most of the people who get posted on HN (and especially the ones who get upvoted) are. They just assume everyone without an Obviously Female Name and a profile picture that's a photo of a smiling woman is male, and honestly they're probably right most of the time, because that's just how the gender balance on HN ends up working.

And then someone points out I use they/them pronouns, and it just goes to shit. You get people yelling that it's not their job to figure out the pronouns of everyone they're talking about, like it's a perfectly normal thing to just assume everyone is male, you get people arguing about how "he" used to be the gender neutral pronoun, you get people arguing that singular-they is ungrammatical, you get people taking offense at the very idea of they/them pronouns because "you can't force everyone to follow your religion" (as apparently either trans or non-binary is a religion now (well, I am a pope)), and then a bunch of "[post flagged]" and you can only speculate about how bad THOSE posts were, if so much other transphobia is still sitting in the comments, untouched by the supposed moderators who are supposed to delete it.

You get people calling you mentally ill, and then getting in arguments about how they mean YOU SPECIFICALLY for the crime of "wanting to not be posted on HN", and not all trans people. Because apparently the HN rules are fine with you saying "this specific trans person is mentally ill and should be locked up" as long as you don't imply that your statements also apply to trans people in general.

And then you get hate in your contact forms for days because people realize you're not active on the HN comments and need to bring the "fight" to you directly.

And frankly, this whole mess is made worse by the site's userbase treating it as a joke or something easily fixable. Like, aside from making my pronouns "obvious" (I'm not sure how, exactly? it's already in all my profiles) which wouldn't help, they want me to just move to a different site, one where I can easily block incoming links by their referrer? They always point to JWZ's blog as an example of this, but he's hosting his posts on his own site. He fundamentally is doing something very different than I am, and I really shouldn't have to CHANGE WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS I USE just because they're being a butt.

And treating it like a joke? oy vey! I once posted a rant on tumblr about WHY EXACTLY I don't like getting posted on HN, and guess what happened next? SOMEONE POSTED THAT THREAD ON HN.

They also have a history of getting mad at me for not wanting to be posted on HN, like it's prima-dona behavior or "egotistical". Like I should be just happy that my stuff got posted there, something that has only ever brought negative attention. I think maybe they assume I'm doing this as a job, and every time they link to my stuff, I make a bunch of money? That's not the case. I don't make any money from them. I don't have ads. This isn't my job. (Fun fact: I know at least one person who has their blog set up to show ads only when HN links to their content, and not otherwise)

I really don't know why they think it's egotistical of me to not want to get harassed, dismissed, and spammed by their site and their users. It's almost like they think it's me posting my content on HN myself, which I would never do because it doesn't aid me in any way. If I was making content for them, I would make sure it gets posted there. I'm not, so I don't. I post for the sites I post on. I could blog in a way they'd like and then post it to HN if I wanted to. I don't. I choose to tweet (in the past) or post on tumblr or post on mastodon, because I'm posting for those specific communities.

And the thing about it is that all these points are, to some extent, obvious. And people know them. Maybe not the people posting the most unthinking takes on HN, but others will point them out. So this just contributes to any HN thread on my posts turning into a big argument.

And there's always people going "WELL JUST DON'T READ THE POSTS ABOUT YOU" as if that's a reasonable option. first of all, I can't be ignorant about them, as mentioned before they kick down my door and go HEY FOONE YOU'RE ON HACKERNEWS. But more importantly, I'm trans. Do you know what happens if enough people get mad at you online? They start posting your home address, phone number, and pictures of your face and relatives. I have to stay at least SLIGHTLY aware of how the discussion on me is going, or I'll be completely surprised when someone shows up at my house with a gun. (This isn't hyperbole: I have gotten doxxed before because I made a twitter thread that got the wrong people a little too mad at me)

Anyway I've talked to the admins of the site and they have basically refused to do anything about it. They admit that they can block my posts from showing up on the site, but they don't want to because people enjoy my content. My wishes don't matter.

And anyway the epilogue is that this has mostly worked out by now. I stopped posting on twitter, not because HN was pushing me to a site where I could better control my post's reach, but because Elon destroyed it. I'm posting longer-form content now, not because my ADHD got better, but because years of training myself to write this way has made it so that I can handle writing as if I was on twitter-like sites, without the enforced restrictions of them.

And I have countermeasures against HN now. Offensive and defensive ones. I'm a little less likely to be posting Cool Tech Stuff here on tumblr now (because every time this happens it severely dampens my enthusiasm for the subject), but I'm a lot less worried that something I post will end up on HN now, as I have options. (I don't want to go into them because HN being HN, they might take preemptive counter-countermeasures to try to disarm them).

Anyway, tl;dr: it's okay if you like reading the site. my problems with it are with getting submitted there, not with reading it. As long as you don't submit my content there, that's 100% okay with me.

[torchickentacos]

For those of you who have followed or seen the chronicles of my lost great aunt (surprise 5 hour road trip), here's a recap and some added context.

I heard there was family coming over from another state. This has happened before with no issues. Now, I won't dox myself but I will say I live decently far from this state, about 12 hours.

Enter my Great Aunt. She's a bit eccentric. An oddball old lady. She seemed to have a few issues getting to our state. She got turned around, ended up a couple odd places, but as far as I know she stayed, like, reasonably on-course over the course of a couple days. People were keeping tabs on her but not concerned from what I gathered (which was admittedly not much since there's communication issues lmao, but this story will be way longer if I get into that so let's move on).

And then she got into our state and hit one of the main cities on the third day. All she had to do was stay on the interstate. It was a pretty straight shot. And somehow, she ended up 120 miles off course. Two and a half hours of a drive. In the fucking mountains.

My grandmother had been calling her to see where she was, since she should have been there by now. And let me tell you, the BAFFLED SILENCE when we heard where she was. ("what do you MEAN she's in (area)?") At first, we gave her directions and let her drive more. We called again later to learn she took our directions and ended up MORE OFF COURSE. She ended up SOMEHOW going south (wrong direction, like, entirely) (again). Again, interstate highway, all you have to do is go north. It's not that hard. I don't know how this happened. Cue the concern setting in and my mother deciding it was probably time to take an impromptu road trip to go get her, lest she end up even further off course and driving at night on top of that. So, within the span of ten minutes, I went from chilling with relatives to getting in the car to drive out into the middle of nowhere to find my VERY, VERY LOST GREAT AUNT in a 5 hour long round-trip. The drive was gorgeous, though. It was mountains and wine country almost the whole way through.

I WISH I could post the map of where she ended up. If we're discord mutuals then I'm fine showing you since you already know what state I live in, probably. just dm me because it's SO????? CONFUSING? It's fucking BAFFLING, how far off course she got. ALSO this is the version of the story WITHOUT the intrapersonal drama, conflict, epic highs and lows of having a parent you argued with that morning and suddenly end up in a car for 5 hours with. God. Anyways here's some pictures lol. My phone camera is shitty enough that you shouldn't be able to triangulate my location via street signs lmao, plus I looked over them pretty carefully so there's no identifying stuff. Besides, she was so fucking out of the way that this isn't even an accurate representation of where I live, if one of you is a nosy weirdo who figures it out (please... like, don't though???).

[daily-french-words]

Daily French words!

Intro:

Hi! I'm a French college student, and I study English literature and civilisation. I'm starting this page because I have a shit ton of extra French vocabulary to learn for exams, and it's a lot more fun to learn them through a tumblr page rather than just reading a piece of paper for hours!!!! All credits for the ideas for the first 160 main posts of this page goes to both of my French teachers this year, they're the ones who gathered up the lists- I obviously can't name them because I'd rather not dox myself (or them), but thanks!

Form :

(French word) : (French definition)

(example of the word's use in a French sentence)

(how common the word is out of ten, 1 being so uncommon people will look at you weird if you use it and 10 being common knowledge people will go "duh" at. please note this section will be the most subjective of the bunch and is purely based off my impression- the factors, such as social circle, time and place make it too difficult to have a more objective knowledge of how common said word is.)

(a possible translation in English) : (a definition in English because I like definitions)

(extra notes and precisions for context use, potential irregularities if it's a verb, other possible definitions, similarities, faux amis (see frequently used terms lower) or etymology because I'm a nerd)

Schedule :

Each week, ten words will come out : one each Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and two each Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday!

Posts will be uploaded around midday CEST, so between 11am and 2pm, depending how I schedule them/at what time I eat.

Extra requested words can be uploaded anytime from 6am CEST to 2am CEST (the next day).

Every main daily post will be gathered under the "main" tag, extras will be gathered under the "extras" tag, and other random posts I may feel free to upload about the most random college life shit ever (even if probably really rare) will be gathered under the "baguette" tag.

Things to note :

These words are not common! This is vocab improvement. If you're looking for basic knowledge of French vocab or common phrases, you may have to look elsewhere.

I sadly only speak two languages, English and French, so this blog is only accessible to people speaking one or both of these. If you'd like to translate it to other languages (especially since the additional notes are all in English, and a lot of notes and translations vary), feel free to do so but please DM me about it before starting the blog, and of course credit me!

If you'd like to request a word, do so through the page's asks! That's mostly useful if you'd like extra context on the word, its etymology or its history, or if you feel like it could be a cool word to be featured on this page. Of course, these extra words may take time to appear and will be scattered quite a lot through time since they require extra time and research, and I may refuse some of them if I don't think they'd be a good fit on here. Requests made through DMs will not be taken into account. Please only make requests through the ask feature, and wait until the asks open again if they're closed while I sort through them.

At the moment, I have 160 words, so enough content for four months (see schedule above to see how I count them). I cannot guarantee this page will update with the same schedule or update at all once I run out, depending on whether I still like doing it by then or prefer to stop. If it does stop updating though, I will leave all the posts up because knowledge is knowledge, and I may pick it up once in a while if I ever get bored and want to have fun with it again or if the asks supply me enough to sustain the page.

Frequently used terms (that you probably know already but I want to make sure everything is clear):

n. : nom/noun

nf. : nom féminin/feminine noun

nm. : nom masculin/masculine noun

nn. : nom neutre/neutral noun (we probably won't encounter any, but just in case, I'm putting this here!)

v. : verbe/verb

adj. : adjectif/adjective

sy. : synonyme/synonym

ant. : antonyme/antonym

litt./lit. : littéralement/literally

faux ami : expression that refers to a word that resembles another one in the same or a different language but that differs largely in sense.

About sources:

For most definitions and translations, I use the online Larousse dictionary (https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/), the Wikitionnaire (https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/) and WordReference (https://www.wordreference.com/).

For etymology and word history, I use a mix between the Wikitionnaire and the Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicale (CNRTL)'s website (https://www.cnrtl.fr), along with paper versions of etymology dictionaries.

[trainsinanime]

i saw your post on drachenlord from march last year and the consensus amongst us german ppl is that he "deserves" it bc hes genuinely antisemitic, racist, pedophilic and an unpleasant person,,, he claimed hiroshima was "a pretty nice thing" for example... people that first have the displeasure to know him DO feel sorry for him, however as you start to know more about him that empathy for him fades as you realize that he rlly does deserve it

Just for context, I am German myself, and you are not convincing.

For one, I have no idea whether you are telling the truth. First, you're on anon, so you could be anybody. And the fact that you care so much about the topic that you're digging up year-old posts from random folks on the internet makes me doubt your intentions.

I am aware that he said some very nasty things. Perhaps even the things you're claiming, who knows. Even if, does he actually believe these things, or was he goaded into saying them by the people who made hating him their entire life? I don't know, and I doubt you'll give me an honest answer, but that is rather relevant.

But also, on the other hand, it is completely irrelevant, because even then, I don't see how he deserves a constant hate mob outside his house, doxxing, all sorts of surprisingly elaborate plans to humiliate him, attacks on his family and neighbours and such. I'm all for strongly disagreeing with people, but anyone can see that this has gone beyond disagreement. It's just entertainment for the perpetrators. There's a reason why it's called "Drachengame", after all.

This becomes very obvious in comparison. This dude is just some guy on the internet. He doesn't have power or cultural influence. He isn't a politician or a thought leader or whatever. There are plenty of people in Germany who have truly terrible opinions and hold them with conviction. These people are actively working towards making the world worse for everyone. If you want to find themgo through the list of political parties, alphabetically, and they're right there at the top. I am not saying anyone should form constant hate mobs outside the houses of leading AfD politicians and make their lives a living hell, because I think saying that might be a crime; but if someone went ahead and did that, I certainly wouldn't cry. But the mob isn't going after them, it's going after some guy, because he's funny when he's angry, and that tells us something.

Note also that if we ignore all human dignity arguments (Grundgesetz §1, give it a read sometimes), and go strictly utilitarian, then it's also clear that it's not working. He hasn't stopped saying horrible things (prompted or not). The thing he probably does "deserve" is being ignored and forgotten, but instead, he has become famous all over the country.

That's not a mistake, that's by design. The harassment campaign isn't trying to get him to stop, it's trying to make him worse, because that's fun. All that stuff about "he's a terrible human being", even if true, isn't the point, it's just what the harassers use to justify their inhumane behaviour.

If you want a more eloquent discussion of the whole topic, here's a good summary that matches my own thoughts.

And if all of this sounds like I'm very hostile towards you, I'm sorry, it's just because the only thing I know about you is that you're a terrible human being. If you're not too far gone, then please, take a moment and think: Is all of this harassment working? Are its methods suitable for reducing hate and such on the internet? Is all this energy directed at the right person? And are these methods valid at all, or just fundamentally inhumane? I think the answer to all of these is clearly no.

[mariaiscrafting]

ahhhh ty ty ty <3

ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.

he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:

• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.

let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo

my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.

• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)

(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2

pt. 2:

Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2

Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):

Speed of Dream's rise to fame

The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase

Post-MCC HBomb stream

Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans

Manipulation & RSD

Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand

The “just a dude” argument, flipped

First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.

Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.

Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.

Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.

Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.

Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.

I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.

Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.

Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.

[witchcraftingboop]

Further Insight on Briar's Recent Discourse & Prim's Apparent Grooming of Younger, Newer Witches

It was suggested to me that instead of making one long post (which I was genuinely sorry for creating in the moment as well), that I should offer the second half in a separate one so that it is easier to share and harder to simply ignore as a wall of text.

Here is the link to the first half of the current JBird and Briar discourse floating around. I highly encourage everyone involved in the Witchblr community to review both posts and not just this final addition. 

Regarding Prim stirring the pot, I actually do have proof of that on my page somewhere if you wouldn't mind my sending it to you? The person I reblogged it from, Mahi, also received death threats from Prim when they were only 16 and Prim was 20 (I can't ask him to share that though because Prim has since used her following to drive him off of Tumblr and he's still fairly [and justifiably] sensitive about it.)

Regarding Briar's statements more specifically though, I can see where the confusion is coming from. After the "in France" part, she's just defining a relevant term (hence the use of "irrelevant details) and then giving an explanation of how she came to be so knowledgeable about that term/concept. I wouldn't say she's calling Prim's activism an "irrelevant detail," but pointing out how Prim uses it as a shield against backlash whenever another blog (not just tradcrafters) calls out her platform. I don't expect you to fully understand or see what I mean when I say that, of course. Because you are still new, and these are habits I've observed of hers from nearly a year of following their interactions. I would, however, like to point out that Briar doesn't say anything racist about Prim and does not once bring up her race. In fact, I think if you read her entire post and not just point 3 as Prim has it cropped out in all of her mentions of it, you would see more fully the depth and amount of frustration Briar is trying to express. Similarly, Briar never threatened to dox Prim. She has, in fact, repeatedly tried to point out that Prim should be protecting her online information and be more aware of how to stop others from finding out about her private life/situation. These statements, however, have since been warped by Prim and her followers to come off as a threat on her life. Briar's statements above aren't a threat of doxxing. She's never once posted Prim's personal information or told others to find it or use it in any way. She has, however, searched for Taglocks on Prim, something witches especially are known to look for. In that search she found more than she was even looking for, despite trying to tell Prim repeatedly to stop being so open online with the information she posts about herself. Doxxing though is not racist. It is something used by them, sure, but it is not inherently racist.

Additionally, Prim has raised money, sure, but I still have not seen any actual receipts as to her *actually* donating it to any public or private organizations. This, for me, is highly suspect. In reality, we still have no idea where that money is. Whereas with Briar, she took no money in for a couple days on her readings and instead merely asked that those requesting a reading first submit proof of donation to an organization linked in the post. She raised substantial money for the BLM movement, but no one seems to want to bring that up in all of their "she's a racist" discourse. Also, the observation that someone is misleading or gaslighting their following is not racist. Just because she said Prim was recently using her BLM reblogs & promotions to do it *this time* still does not make it racist. Questionable wording is just something the reader disagrees with, in my opinion, and should be addressed as such.

I'm not going to lie, I do feel a little frustrated at this point. I was really hoping to come to you and see that you had concrete proof to offer that Briar is a racist. I do understand that you have your own reasons for feeding into the assumptions and twisted outlooks already taken on Briar's words, but I don't have enough energy in me to fully swallow my tongue on this one. I really do hope that you at least consider what I've said here. I'm not sure what I can say at this point because all of the information I've read from you thus far has been purely conjecture or assumptions or just "not feeling right" about the wordings on a single post. A racist, from my perspective, is not something I would ever feel comfortable calling someone off of this lack of evidence.

I understand it is hard to separate preconceived notions from your mind when reading through the words of others, but I really do miss when you were more open to the words of others. If I could ask one thing of you, it'd be to please try to read Briar's post again but from the perspective of seeing it how it was meant to be: a witch who has been on the butt end of Prim's harassment for going on three years now. She is tired of the wild accusations and constantly having to defend herself, and even when she supplied her proof a couple years ago, no one wanted to hear her. She has, largely, given up on being heard, and now screams into what feels like a void when attacked.

Proof of Prim stirring the pot that I offered: An example of Prim actively seeking out the community and trying to stir the pot with an already dealt with situation that had passed over a year ago.

A direct source that I offered as further proof of what has occurred already: This is one from the account mentioned before who was directly involved with the previous discord server where the Trio incident took place a couple years back.

[A Reply.] I think, to be fair, I saw your comments on her previous posts through your main, and with how much aggression you packed into those messages, I don't necessarily blame her for deciding not to engage with your private messages. As I've said, she's very used to people attacking her like that, and in her mind, unfortunately, you've probably been added to the list of aggressive people ready to fling the blame at her rather than look at the situation as a whole. I do apologize for the way her post may have made you feel, but I think it's also important to remember the potentially aggressive things you left on her page (I'm not saying you meant to come off that way, but even I couldn't help but read that way). Also, regarding the ask, it's no small secret that the occultists of the tradcraft group are skilled and well-versed in hexes and curses. When reading her posts about how she may respond to further antagonism on Prim's part, I see a fully realized occultist wielding their most well kept and trained weapon: baneful magic. I'm sure Prim herself also understands that the "threat on her life" she's saying she's so afraid of, isn't a physical threat, but a metaphysical one. She has repeatedly and continually tried to drag these people through the mud, and now that they're refusing to just sit back and be canceled, she's afraid. She knows how strong their magic is, and they aren't shy about it 🤷‍♀️

[A Reply.] No, I completely understand where you're coming from. I, personally, have seen your willingness to talk things through, despite how aggressive you can come off at times in the things you say, so I think that's why I was genuinely so surprised to see your comments on some of her posts. But I do think her response and refusal to further directly engage with you is warranted and her right. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell who is genuinely open to talking and who is just trying to bait and add to the problem. And with how aggressive your comments were, 8 honestly think she most likely was responding from a place of "oh look another young Prim follower here to bait and berate me." I don't think she looks down on you for your age, but her views are likely a reflection of the fact that a lot of 18yos follow Prim and have openly harassed her without even asking for her input on the matter.

At this point, I would like to talk about the second half of the title of this particular post. Grooming. This is a very serious allegation against Prim that I have not spoken on previously because I had no proof that it was happening. With this person's permission, I would like to share how exactly they wound up fighting Prim's battles for her.

I will note: I am highly disgusted by what follows.

[A Reply.] Oh no! You cannot fault yourself for this! Prim is a known manipulator, and the fact that she was able to make you somehow think this is part of your being "gullible and naive" is just testament to the fact that she's gotten wayyy too good at what she does. This is in no way your fault or because of some fault within you. Practiced manipulators are cunning and dangerous even to the best of us. It was unfortunate that she chose you, but her twisting you around is in no way a bad reflection on you as a person!

I've chosen to include my reply to this person rather than our continued discussion because of how personal and involved our conversation turned. I've included it to show, as well, that grooming others to fight your battles is (though this should go without saying) NEVER OKAY. Prim has shown her true colors, in my opinion, and while I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt time and time again, I simply cannot permit myself to ignore the harm and damage she's inflicted on not only the tradcraft community, but also this innocent group of friends. A group who that has hitherto dedicated their time to sussing out predators, terfs, nazis, and racists. A group that should never have had to deal with being gaslit and manipulated by a well-known and respected blogger on this platform.

I cannot reiterate enough how sorry and deeply shocked I am at the information this person has brought to my attention. I am still stunned by Prim's activities and unable to fathom how many other potential individuals are out there being groomed to support and fight for her cause. I am sorry to the Witchblr community as a whole. I feel as if I have sat by and watched as Witchblr has been manipulated and am therefore complacent in the damage and needless hurt that has been allowed to spread throughout our community. I am just so very, very sorry.

I will be taking a couple days off of Tumblr because of this, as I feel as if I need space and time to think, but my inbox is always open and I am always available to speak with others on my return.