#i don't know if racist is the right word but that's my existing tag for culturally insensitive barbies

[barbielore]

I will be very honest that I do not know much about the holiday of Diwali, but I have seen a handful of signs locally for celebrations occurring on November 12. I am given to understand that it is a light festival though this is approximately the limit of my knowledge.

In 2006, as a part of the Festivals of the World series, Mattel released a Barbie to represent Diwali.

The Festivals of the World collection was a bit of a strange one, as there are some tonal differences between different festivals represented in the collection. For example, on the back of the box you can see Diwali being displayed alongside Kwanzaa and Oktoberfest.

This was not the first time that Mattel explored this area. I have found multiple articles referring to Mattel creating a Diwali doll in 1998 as part of an attempt to expand the Barbie line into India; I haven't been able to find this doll specifically, but there are a number of Barbie in India and Expressions of India dolls from around this era.

The articles linked above are critical of Mattel for showcasing a stereotypical and at times inaccurate/disrespectful display of Indian culture, including the claim that the 1998 Diwali Barbie I can't find had blue eyes.

Of course, there's no way to know if Mattel were earnestly trying to showcase diversity and falling short, or if they were just trying to market to a new audience. We can make our assumptions, but we don't necessarily know for sure.

If anyone who has more knowledge and understanding of this area I would really appreciate their input. My apologies if any of the above is controversial or incorrect; please correct me if so.

#barbie #barbie history #barbie collectibles #dolls of the world collection #dolls of the world #festivals of the world #diwali #diwali barbie #stereotypes #racist barbie #i don't know if racist is the right word but that's my existing tag for culturally insensitive barbies #cw cultural insensitivity

[justalilpearlie]

Introduction/Fun Pearlie Facts

Was abt time I did one of these.

Hello everyone, my name is Pearl, Pearlie or Sam/Sammy if you're feeling like it. Friends also call me Martini sometimes.

I am a minor, my labels... we dont talk about them (fem presenting ftm gay/mlm + trying out gendervoid and verinix + bigender??) uhmm and I go by He/She, tho mostly He/Him by strangers- I can She/Her myself and close friends/mutuals are allowed! (I also go by neos: Void/Moon/Sweet/It/Fluff/Love/Fizz/Paw)

I'm from Argentina, born and raised, never moved. Speak fluent english and spanish.

I got the 'tism and the adhd, aswell as BPD and a few other things I wont list right now! But yeah I'm psychotic (ooo scary word.. lmao)

- -🌄-📀-🌙- -💚- -💛- -✨-🌄-✨- -💛- -💚- -🌙-📀-🌄- -

I'm an IRL of many, mainly c!Pearl (mcyt), Samuel Emily (fnaf [games canon]) and Shin Tsukimi (yttd). If you don't like it you can leave, block me, or whatever, cause you aint gonna change my life or how I am. I'm in therapy, which unlike random hate and harrassment online, does help me :)

I like to roleplay, draw, sometimes make playlists or moodboards.. And my biggest interests right now are Life Series (+ evo + new life), Empires1(+ a bit of e2) and FNaF! (i dont rlly like the books tho lol..)

I use kin tags for reach cause I'd love interaction from any fellow lifers or empires ppl, hermits aswell!! Tho I havent finished s8 or s9 yet...

Fictionkins, therians and traumagenic systems all welcome!

- -💥-🐺-🌙- -❤️- -💛- -✨-💥-✨- -💛- -❤️- -🌙-🐺-💥- -

DNI prefferably:

- Basic DNI criteria (proshippers, homophobes, transphobes, racists, TERFs, ableist, etc)

- Endos/non-traumagenic "systems" DNI. block me if u want, i wont argue abt it in the comments/reblogs. or interact if u want but im not gonna follow u back or anythin shrugs.

- reality checkers or anti-IRLs DNI. I aint "romanticizing" shit, I'm existing and living my life, if thats a problem to you too bad cause my psychologist aproves of what I'm doing, since I aint harming anyone and I myself am doing dandy.

- anti-kin also DNI cause most of my friends are fictionkins and if you talk shit abt my fellas idk i wouldnt like having u around much

CCs interact at your own risk. This is my domain, cyan man & moon lady. /hj

- -🪸-🐸-🌙- -💙- -🩵- -✨-🪸-✨- -🩵- -💙- -🌙-🐸-🪸- -

"Disclaimer"

- I talk about MajorMoon (Scott x Pearl) a LOT, if u didnt notice by the acc theme. These are my romantic memories, its a gay ship, not woman/gay man, so if it makes u uncomfortable or u hate it or whatever then ur probably not gonna like my content lmao. COUGH, consider joining us if you do like what you see... /nf We're a small comunity of supporters.. just me.. and a few of my peeps... that was a joke, sir. /ref

- This isn't roleplay, its my main acc where im ""unapologetically"" myself, but if u do wanna rp life series/empires u can always shoot me a dm and maybe I'll give u my discord.

- I talk about myself (c!Pearl) using 3rd person in many posts tagged with main fandom tags. This is to cause less confusion to casual fans slash ""normies"" (lhj) that well.. don't know what IRLs are! Also that way I feel safer and don't have to worry as much abt getting harassed and such for my identity.

- -🌸-⛰️-🌙- -💚- -💙- -✨-🌸-✨- -💙- -💚- -🌙-⛰️-🌸- -

Special People Mentions!! fps = * (1 or more.. wouldnt say in a priority sorta order but. more or less yea)

Family! <3 🌼@pehpurr* SISTER!! super duper cool, her art is great and you should check it out!! YOU. You're the brightest little girl (i say like ur not older than me) I'VE EVER MET ACTUALLY! You're so passionate and loving I freaking adore you!! I love you so much Scar, you're one of the best things to ever happen to me, Kanny &lt;3 ⚙️@gentlexmadman DAD!! you are my daaaad, you're my dad! woogie woogie woogie! ANOTHER amazing artist! mr "I know that guy-", very funny, Henry "Autism" Emily... the copper king, my father. Speaking to you is always comforting. Love you so much papa, you're amazing :)

Simply special <3 ☕@insomniac-coffeehouse** You're all simply so very special to me. I love spending time with you guys and playing stuff together, you mean a lot to me and I'm so glad I met you. I hope we're still close for this year and many more! You're incredibly talented, not only at art, at everything you do. You spark joy in my brain and my heart <3 From the bottom of my heart, I'm in love with the hope you bring to this world. 🍊Jack***, oh my dear Jacky, where do I even begin, sport... you really are my other half. Mi media naranja if you will. haha.. I love every second we spend together, I love your voice, I love your eyes, I love your smile, your laughter. I love your use of words, the way you speak, your humor, your seriousness and goofiness. You stiff fuck, you were made for me and I was made for you, and I wouldn't have it any other way. You're my everything, mi vida, mi luz, mi estrella. Mi amor, mi mundo. <3

New friends! 🍓@strawberrystarfield I know we met fairly recently but you're all incredibly fun to talk to, your art is also amazing, your accent is real pretty (cough for a bri-💥), you're real sweet and I love reading all your thoughts and critiques about things :} (love ya Aspen /gen) 🏜️@fagdykegtws My right hand man! I know we just met through the rarepair server but oh my god we're in the same brainwave!!! You're so fun to vc and chat with and you got the best ideas ever fr fr, love ya Chewy, you're real sweet even w how lil i know you ;)

That's it folks, love yall and see you around!

#intro post #introduction #c!pearl irl #sammy emily irl #delusional attachment #fictionkin #fictkin #fnaf irl #life series irl #empires irl #mcyt fictkin #mcyt fictionkin #mcyt kin #system friendly #endos dni #mcyt irl

[captainsvscaptains]

If you're new here, it might be the first time you hear me talk about anti-propaganda. Others... well, I can be quite stubborn. Some might considering my investment in this fight ridiculous. Well, it's your right, block the "not polls" tag if you must, but I think this particular piece everyone should read

You can not always tell, because bias may have made you assume a brown character is merely tanned, or there wasn't official art, but some (I know the proportion is low but people can only submit characters that exist, and popular media's providers still find ways to make their casts whiter than snow / are not willing to promote products with BIPOC main protag(s), which mostly leave us all with indie creators to rely on) characters in the polls are Black or Brown.

Reading "Kill him with violence" about a brown guy, be it a fictional person from an imaginary world, feels very, very wrong, especially when they're against a white character. Possibly the person saying that didn't realize how it'd sound to strangers / didn't notice the character wasn't white (the alternative is quite concerning).

This is also why I've been insisting about not using propaganda. You wouldn't believe how many times someone knows nothing about a media they criticize.

Many times, you don't know the history and ethnicity of a character, or even what kind of media they're from, when you vote against them. Or their gender, for instance. So many people called Jihye a guy when two seconds in the comments' section would have helped you determine her gender (when they just didn't go straight for racism and decided that she must be an anime character. I've seen people literally call her a generic anime boy). Just use "they/them" when you're not certain of a character's pronoun.

Racism isn't always the big, obvious thing often portrayed in media. Yes some people will use the n word and make fake, hurtful and offending comparisons. But racism is much more insidious than that most of the times and here this is what it is about : microaggressions

As a white person -which is also my case- , you will certainly commit some, even if you'll do your best to fix it when you've given it some thought. Apology when you have to and learn to do better. Racism is not always intentional, and you should be aware of that. Just thinking "I'm not racist" doesn't make you not racist. That'd be wishful thinking. European and US cultures are full of racist things most white people wouldn't be naturally aware of since we don't suffer from it. Racism appears in our structural systems and we have to address that.

Anyway, I'm running out of time but take a moment to think about why someone (possibly but not necessarily a teen) would feel the need to threatens a non white character of violent death (even if we can agree characters don't get hurt and hopefully that person would never have acted this way irl), as if death wasn't enough

Don't threaten characters. Or people. It's really not necessary and could easily be interpreted as systemic racism in some cases.

Also remember than China and Japan are not the sole Asian countries and that many art forms exist in such a vast and populated continent

#not polls #about antipropaganda

[musical-chick-13]

The workshop thing wasn't great in that respect but it wasn't that bad either because it was so clear that people were jealous when they were being harsher than the professors, who did step in at points when it veered from critiquing stylistic choices into doing exactly what people who think tagging fics on that post is okay are doing. It didn't discourage me from writing but it did solidify my decision not to major in creative writing (this is probably also why I in particular was a target: it wasn't my major, it was a hobby, but I was as qualified as them and got as much praise as they did and even one time more than them on the very first exercise of my first workshop, which probably didn't sit right with them, but only fueled me further because I am nothing if not a creature of spite).

And that's the thing too: so many people can't grasp that there's a huge difference between "this isn't for me" and "this has a lot of issues". Which to preface, unless someone's asked you to beta for them keep your mouth shut. They're doing this for free. Exit out if there are too many errors or whatever (and errors isn't even exactly the word I want but I'm exhausted and didn't sleep enough last night). Not that those people SHOULD beta either even if they were asked, honestly, because they clearly do not have a grasp on what constructive criticism actually is or how it works. You don't need a workshop to learn that either, just basic human decency and Google.

But like anyways. In the workshops I read plenty of things I just Did Not Vibe With, but were objectively very, very good art and you could tell how much care the author put into them. Sometimes things just aren't for you and the author didn't poorly execute that concept, actually.

I ran into this a lot in Performance World, too, back when I was trying to get a singing/stage performing career off the ground. There are SO many threads of that part of my life I can relate to this discussion and it would take far too long to explain them all, but there VERY much was a culture of perfectionism. Jealousy and extreme competition were incredibly prevalent, lots of "stay in your box," lots of complaining if people didn't stay in their box. Even when we were learning (or doing community theatre just to stay in practice or build up a resume), the stakes always seemed astronomically high. Someone could do a passable or even genuinely good job; but if it wasn't good in the "right" way, then it was still seen as meaningless.

For courtesy's sake, I'm putting the rest of my thoughts under a cut, because. Well. This got long. As answers by me are wont to do.

There also was a lot of "pick a genre" and "this is the only MEANINGFUL type of music/art/etc." The opera crowd hated that I liked musicals and pop music because those styles were all "stupid" and "frivolous" and "simple" (which isn't. even true, no art form is a monolith, and what those words mean is going to be different for every person, but, you know). Everyone else hated that I sang opera because it was a "pretentious art form" and "boring" and "sexist/racist/etc." (Those first two are incredibly subjective, and plenty of modern opera works exist that seeks to not uphold those forms of prejudice.) There was "if you look like [x], then you can't do [y performance type]." "If your voice sounds like this, then you can't EVER pursue ANY roles outside of this small pool of stuff because you need to know your place; if you don't, people will think you're making Bad Art." And then you, at best, get shamed, and, at worst, can't make a living.

All of this, of course, was a matter of opinion. Most of it, like you said, boiled down to the fact that people were doing things that weren't, actually, bad or untalented or ineffective--they just didn't work for people. They didn't meet some arbitrary, subjective standard that had no real, concrete, actual meaning. But when people with any degree of power start taking their artistic opinions as immovable fact, we end up with...well, we end up with the current theatre climate, and we end up with whatever is happening in fandom communities right now. (Because just as there are some people who, for insisting on a lack of constructive criticism, should not be beta readers, there are some who should not be educators or directors.)

There were a lot of reasons that I eventually stopped performing publicly/on stage. But a big part of it was that I just didn't want to deal with that culture anymore. When I made the decision to walk away, I had gotten to the point where I'd started to hate singing. My primary form of expression, of catharsis, of solace, since I was eight or nine years old. And luckily, withdrawing from a professional pursuit of art has helped me get some of that back. But I see those same issues--that same negativity, that same judgment--starting to pop up in something that isn't even meant to be for money or a career or anything other than personal expression. I see so many people getting discouraged, starting to lose the love they had for that expression. My love of art was almost taken away from me, to the point where for a very long time I couldn't even do it for fun, alone, in the private comfort of my house. And if I can do anything to prevent that from happening to someone else, I sure as hell will.

I'm glad that you were still able to get some good out of that workshop, because that's not always easy to do when the people around you are acting like that. (And kudos to realizing that you didn't want to do this as a major/career, that's not always easy to do either.) And I know I've talked more about professional art, but this is so prevalent in the way people talk about community theatre, too. Being upset that a student production doesn't have Super Stellar Voices/Acting, ragging on amateur singers just for posting a karaoke video on their personal Facebook page, expecting Met-opera-level singing quality or Shakespeare-scholar levels of acting text analysis from a group of volunteers who are spending their precious few after-work hours to put on a musical, just because they want to share that story with people. I've seen lots of comments that it's not meaningful because it's "bad." When. I've done a lot of community theatre. Plenty of it is not bad, actually. If you hate it that much, you don't have to attend a production. (Just like how. if you hate a fic. you can hit the back button.) And even if it is "bad." It's still going to be meaningful to someone. Even in a "bad" production, at least ONE of the actors or crew members will have a good time helping create it. And at least ONE audience member is going to have a good time; whether that be because they simply love theatre, someone they love is involved with the production, or because they don't care about an arbitrary "quality" measurement. And I absolutely think the same thing is true of writing, and of fanfiction especially.

If, for example, someone goes to karaoke and screams "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis extremely off-key and grating, because they're experiencing a shitty situation and just need some catharsis? I don't have the right to rag on them for that, I would be an asshole. If someone posts a cover for fun on YouTube of...I don't know, "Take On Me" and can't hit the high notes, but wants to pay tribute to a song they love, who the fuck would I be to take that away from them? So if someone writes a "silly" or "stupid" or oh-God-forbid "cringe" piece of fanfiction (which. AGAIN. do not have any concrete meaning because those are SUBJECTIVE TERMS) to get some feelings out or to talk about how much they love a fictional character. Well, I think if you call them names over that and try to publicly shame or harass them, then, quite frankly, you are engaging in pointless, cruel, and braincell-less behavior. And you can stay 10,000 feet away from me.

#mc13 lore #oh my god this is so long I'm so sorry #multi t(ASK)ing #amateur art #fanfiction #taking my life in my own hands by putting this in something other than just my ask tag but so be it #there have been a lot of productions I've seen or been in--both professional and not--where I thought the overall vision didn't #translate very well or I didn't enjoy it or I thought that the artistic choices people made didn't successfully do what it seemed like #they were trying to do. but you know what? I've never seen a production. not even of HEATHERS the show (which is my absolute #least favorite thing in the world). where there was not even ONE good moment. there was always someone whose voice I liked. or a line #delivery that I thought was executed well. or a joke I thought was funny or a passage that I thought was raw/emotionally resonant. #and I think you can tell where I'm going with this but: yes this is true of fanfic too.

[fouralignments]

Well I just found out that people hate me.

It was because of my Magnus the MUGGLE-BORN fic.

People did not see me tags nor did they read the damn fic. Or maybe they did and it's a bunch of racists.

Yeah I saw that...First your a god damn lovely person. Fuck those racists.

I know there's a intellectual quote somewhere on this site stating that fandom and the creation of fanart, fanfiction, and fan creations is a way to take back the power from corporations and billionaires, de-commodify storytelling and returning it back to a communal roots. Don't get me wrong, we should undoubtedly fight for shorter copyright b/c right now its the author's life + 70 years; its bad for creativity, but also creates more inequality. (See more here)

I think one of ways is to write fanfiction that 'fixes' cannon. You should feel proud of your own work. Its a 91,838 word way to say It's one of the biggest fuck you Rowling that I can think of.

I must confess, I do read Newt Scamander/Percival Graves BDSM smut, its some of the hottest, queerest shit I've ever read on this side of the internet. Another fuck you to the TERF Rowling,

Also taking those tropes that Who should not be named, because come on its incredibly derivative (like come on, magic schools: The Worst Witch, Discworld, The Once and Future King, etc. theses tropes existed before her make it queer as fuck and trans inclusive.

In addition, it will give new books for the younger generation to fall in love with that act as alternatives to the Harry Potter series, thus diminish her power.

I just hoped I helped!

#ask4align #tw jk rowling #tw terf #tw discussions of jk rowling

[bewareofdeaddove]

hello! since this is a discourse blog, introducing myself isn't a priority, but i'll do it anyway.

you can call me whatever name you want on this blog. i'm a minor. i use it/its pronouns. i will provide tw tags simply: no "tw" or "cw", just, for example, "blood" or "queerphobia". please block tags you're uncomfortable with!

i have no dni; i believe in fostering open and good faith discussion on this blog, as that's the point of making it! telling me to kill myself will get you blocked.

as a quick tl;dr before i conveniently list out some of my opinions: i am against harrassment and censorship, and i don't care what people decide to write fanfiction about or draw.

i am wholly against any form of harrassment. this includes calling people pedos for fictional ships, telling people to kill themselves, and anything else. if you really hate someone's posts, complain in private with your friends like everyone else does, don't harrass people.

i am wholly against censorship. media, no matter how bad or "irredeemable", always has a right to exist. all art has inherent value.

i don't judge people's morals over fictional content. as long as whatever you're posting is tagged properly and can be blocked if neccessary, it's not my business.

fiction and reality are not equal, but do have some effect on each other. i, of course, have issues with trends in media that, for example, downplay abuse and sexualize/"adult-ify" teenagers, but fanfiction is, like, the very end of that chain. it doesn't affect anyone. because of that, i don't care about it.

i don't care what you make if it doesn't hurt anyone, but being a bigot in your fiction does hurt people. the way people behave towards fictional characters, i.e. racist comments towards characters of color, can still be bigoted. it doesn't hurt the characters (obviously) but it does hurt real people, and that's where i draw the line.

i only have an issue with fanworks when they begin to perpetuate actual, real-life bigotry. this leads into my next point...

what are your personal limits regarding fiction?

aren't you basically pro-ship, then? well, yeah, i guess. i don't identify with the pro-ship label for many reasons, though. most of all, though, i don't want people to put words in my mouth; i have no desire to be called a pedophile because of the pro-ship label. i have no desire to have people assume that i want terrible things to happen in real life over internet discourse. i will never tolerate these accusations, and i don't use the label in order to avoid the possibility. you can call me whatever you want, though.

i don't particularly like anti-shippers. this is mostly from experience. i have been deeply entrenched in anti-ship communities, and i have come to only think one thing of them: the people themselves have good intentions, but the mindsets they foster are incredibly harmful. i'm open to discussion about this.

i avoid anti-shippers because of their tendency to harrass people, also. like... big tendency. community-built-on-the-idea level tendency. pro-shippers also harrass people, which is another reason i choose not to label myself as one. this i know from experience.

as a general rule, i am uncomfortable with:

shipcest

minor/adult ships

lolisho content (i have complex feelings on it, but i'm just uncomfortable with it as a whole and ask that it not be brought up with me)

rpf, but i only draw a hard line at rpf of minors and generally tolerate everything else, however begrudgingly.

i am fine with:

aging up underage fictional characters

selfcest (although i usually call it selfslash for comfort)

"rpf" of fictionalized versions of real-life people, like idk, hamilton characters.

just about anything else, honestly. we'll see about specifics.

in addition, my boundaries for this blog are as follows:

i will not respond to anon hate, including anything with death threats or anything accusing me of, like, being a pedo.

i will try not to reblog from people who have neutrals in their dni (as that's what i consider myself), but i don't really check dni pages, so i might make mistakes in that regard.

i will not reveal personal information about myself to justify my opinions.

#pinned post #pro ship #proship #profiction #neutralship #neutral ship #ship discourse #<- Ok

[rodismancave]

RULES / STATEMENTS

My first language is not English. I may make grammar mistakes, use a word improperly, or just fuck up in general. You are free to correct me if I make grammar mistakes, or confuse a word, but if I make a lot of typos in a IC post assume that's just Rodimus making his own spelling errors.

Personal blogs: you are allowed to send in asks and I’ll answer IC, but please refrain from reblogging anything that isn’t tagged. If you’re unsure, you can ask.

My portrayal is heavily based on IDW/G1 and headcanons. I can adapt to other universes if asked to do so, but they will be headcanon based. Rodimus is portrayed as per my understanding of his character.

DMs open! Don't be afraid to hmu on DMs or respond to my posts. Talk to me about ideas, dm me for plotting, go crazy. I love interacting with people, and I love participating in IC bits.

I am just here to have fun. Try not to take me too seriously. I can and will RP serious stuff, such as diving in Rodimus' questionable actions, but I will do so in very evasive ways. Don't get frustrated if Rodimus brushes your character off or acts mean.

Please be 18+ when interacting.

I may be selective. Please don't be sad if I don't interact with you. I will always do my best to interact with people, but sometimes it just doesn't click for me. I have a very particular taste for writing, which brings us to the next point.

I have reading difficulties. This may get worse some days but most days it is nearly non-existent. No, this does not mean I have dyslexia, not that I know of, It just means I can misinterpret texts or straight up be unable to read or write texts for a few hours. If I write a response, and it makes 0 sense, sorry. My brain was acting funky and I tried to push forward. The text won’t make sense to me either.

Shipping is okay! But I will be selective. Rodimus will frankly flirt with anyone, and I'd like to state it now that it doesn't mean he is romantically interested. Sometimes thats just how he shows he cares.

OC, AUs, crossovers are free to interact!! Feel free, be not afraid, etc. This does not mean I will always respond but please don't take it personally. Sometimes I just have no idea what certain things are.

Please read my headcanons before interacting. Your character isn’t going to know certain quirks and bits about him, but if you’re going to pretend to be a part of his crew and like you know him at least read a few of the stuff that’s Lost Light-relevant.

Basic DNI criteria goes. Do not interact if you are proship, LGBT+phobic, racist, etc. If you do, and I find out, I’ll soft block you. Upon insistence, I’ll permanently block you. I don’t need to tell you why.

I have the right to refuse any RP and to block whoever I want. If you start any sort of unnecessary trouble, or overall I just don’t feel comfortable with the content you reblog/interact with, I’ll unfollow you and move along. But if there’s insistence on interacting with me, I’ll block you.

#rules post #ooc #ooc post #heeyyy aha... #tf rp #transformers rp

[firespirited]

Today I fixed up a steamer/vacuum which will probably go to the second hand store, attempted to clean and revive an old Siemens pre-smart phone.

Got a Fidgie Friends head and took measurements of the eyes and replaced them with something less glarey. (ultimately I think it's simpler repaint the ones they come with to have bigger irises and might make a tutorial for that) - pics tomorrow.

I impulse bought a Beauty Cuties arriving next week- i know i know. Head the size of a football, neck peg 1/6th size so rebodying on a large doll is not only an engineering puzzle but finding a skin tone match from the mostly white disney animator dolls is going to be rough.

But i'm not feeling guilty about still engaging in the doll hobby and bringing in new stuff that's hard to flip though because it's keeping me sane until I can find something else. Turns out something that doesn't engage the shoulders and isn't strenuous is not easy to find. Keeping me busy and using knowledge has it's own value, I'll worry about the clutter later.

I left a repaired VIP pets at the phone box library a kilometer down the road this weekend and she was gone and not trashed the next day. 😁 A trial balloon for rehoming dolls when the local 'toys for tots' type charity takes new in box only.

I'm also planning to visit the upcycling and second hand shop this month and maybe I can offer my services wiping or repairing devices (can't do the fiddly work of screen replacement or anything with my hands but I'm quite happy to do the tedious work of scanning, formatting and installing). Idk.

Lily the dog is feeling better, her arthritis flare up is calming a little though she's still a little stiff in the back legs. She's back to mischief which is a great sign, she had me so worried when the pain was making her lethargic. I've looked at various harnesses in case she needs long term assistance getting up and being carried down stairs.

Turned off anon again. Don't want to end up between proshippers and antis when my argument is for critical creation and 'consumption' (I hate that word but reading, listening watching is a mouthful) not purity culture. I believe horrible things have their place in fiction because life has horrid parts but they have to be well handled not just there as a narrative device or shock value.

I can see a whole spectrum ranging from people protecting healthy representation of real life horrors from blanket censorship to folks who just feel entitled to write whatever they want without thought of its impact because right now they find that as exciting and for some it's exciting in the same way as saying the n word.

How about we have some introspection about how open honest discussion in the bedroom seems so improbable and cringey to many people that they'd rather imagine a mind reading lover who doesn't ask... and if writing fiction to normalise having so called 'awkward' talks that 'interrupt the passion' might work as well as all the folks who've successfully turned the condom from annoying formality into sexy foreplay.

Whether we're examining the widespread misconceptions about torture that spread via fiction and have become part and parcel of the carceral and military systems or having complex conversations about whether to put sexual assault or suicide in a story and how to handle it with the utmost care...

My life has been changed for the better by stories that handled dark subject matter respectfully with the weight it deserves. So my argument isn't pro or anti. It's let's do something constructive: the way we ask people to unlearn racism and learn anti racist thought: how about the guidelines on death by suicide in mass media, how about we ask people to apply that to their fiction and get to tag their work as tw: suicide but with a second tag that it's been checked for that guideline compliance.

I want to open the scope from whether or not AO3 should exist into how we can help eachother engage in more thought-through creations and more importantly real long term support networks for all sorts of survivors with all sorts of messy ugly thoughts.

But any time I write a post it's a whole ordeal to dare press send. I really hope folks know that it's always a 'yes and' or 'I wish this were true but it's debunked/mislabelled'

Just realised I didn't get anything on my to do list for today done. Eeesh. Well, that's tomorrow's problem. 😅

#saf #Ramblings

[alittlemoth]

Hiya I'm Moth

This is my little corner of the internet where I exist.

Do not interact (dni) if you're a pro shipper (the kind that ships pedophilia or incest specifically) (reylo and catradora shippers or anyone who ships people who abuse each other y'all scare me and I will judge you but don't harass people about it and you're fine I suppose, but I also ask you to consider therapy, abuse isn't romantic and if you think it is something might be going on so please be safe!), pedophile/map, anyone who thinks that being Ace or bi ect aren't real sexualities can fuck off. Transphobes, racists, sexists, and so on can also fuck right off.

I tend to incorporate words or phrases I hear a lot into the way I talk and I swear like a sailor so just a heads up lol

My fanfiction post request requirement thingy is here but I don't open requests frequently so...

I might make a master list but don't count on it sorry ):

Hi there are things that I need to get out of the way immediately! My name is Moth she/her they/them anything but he/him really.

I have trouble with social cues so tone indicators are useful and helpful for me, don't be afraid to tell me if I did something fucked up or if I need to tag something! If I reblog something that has incorrect information let me know so I can correct that mistake (please provide a source first)

In general howdy hey motherfuckers! don't be a dick and we'll get along just fine! I'm just a weird little bug.

#pinned post #about myself #about me #howdy hey motherfuckers

[something--wicked]

I.am.tired. "can we all agree that billy is a villain and" or "can we all let him be a villain" No. We cannot ALL AGREE. Why WHY are people so obsessed with their viewpoint being the one and only true one of a planet over 7 bilion people? You want to see Billy as villain? Go ahead, the fuck do I care. But why have the arrogance of wanting everyone to agree with this? It is SO annoying I don't know how to deal with this anymore... Sorry for coming to you with this but you and several other blogs I follow are my heroes for having the energy and courage to call certain people out on their bullshit with class and facts while I can't and instead hide behind anonymity... Thank you. <3

hi anon im sorry im just now seeing this message!! but yes i agree and thank you for the kind words. i welcome you and anyone else to come to me with anything if you wanna chat or if you just want to rant its totally fine!! my response under the cut bc i went on a bit of a rant myself lol

I agree that it is extremely annoying and exhausting (which is why i dont really get involved, instead i just say things in the tags and reblog things others have said) because honestly i dont have the time or energy to constantly fight a losing battle against strangers on the internet who dont know me or my life. Honestly you shouldn't give me much credit because i dont fight nearly as much as others in this fandom do, i sort of just mind my business most of the time lol. I commend the ones who do actively engage with antis and try to have discussions with them! If i were better with words and had more time id be right there with them. Honestly, the reason its so bad right now is because st is so popular in the mainstream rn. Once the hype dies down, itll get better, and once the show ends itll get wayyy better. (honestly thats why im glad my favorite shows are older/lesser known. Like, no one is getting this worked up about fringe lol)

When it comes to antis, unfortunately, people have always been obsessed with their viewpoint being the correct one. Since our species gained sentience the thing weve used it for the most is to fight with other humans over who is right and who is wrong. religion, politics, wars are fought in the name of one viewpoint being right and better than the others. Not to compare fandom drama to literal war and historical events, but you see my point. Its just the way people are. People can be kind and arrogant and nice and nasty. We all have the capacity and the right to get upset when our views are challenged, but what matters is how we respond. I literally used to be a billy anti, (i was 17 and still living with my abusers, had a really fucked up worldview) i wasnt rabid about it and didnt really talk about it but i agreed with people when they said he was racist and a bad person and didnt think twice about his character. (honestly forgot he existed until recently.) but eventually, i grew up, i got out, and i got help. I didnt even like billy until less than a year ago. im 23 now, and im a very different person than i was when i was 17. I went back into the st fandom spaces when st4 came out and somehow ended up in the billy corner, and i listened to what they had to say. And i realized that i was wrong, and changed my opinion. I started to see what i couldnt before. I even talked to my therapist about it (and even her, my 72 year old fan of stranger things therapist, agreed that billy is the most complex and interesting character) and using him and his story, I was finally, after almost 6 years of being free from my abusers, was able to talk to her about what I went through and start processing my trauma. I realized how similar lives me and billy lived. I realized that i wished someone would have helped him the way my loved ones helped me. I wish all antis had the capacity to have calm back and forth discussions about the media that they claim to be fans of, but not everyone is capable of that. This is the internet. Most people here are incapable of that. All media is meant to be discussed and interpreted and debated. Its an art form meant to make you think, not something to base your moral compass and worldviews on. Despite that, Billy’s story is something that many real people go through, and insisting that someone who relates to his abuse and wants to explore it in a fandom space (art, fic, etc) is an evil person just because you personally don’t like his character is just straight up disgusting.

So for the ones who just want to ask questions and discuss things, thats fine. Most of us are happy to talk. For the ones who just want to troll, invade our space, say inflammatory things and hurt people just because we have differing opinions on a fictional character? The best thing to do is just block them and move on. Because they dont want their minds changed, they just want to cause drama for the sake of drama because their own lives are so sad and empty that they need a strangers vitriol to fill the attention void. They're just schoolyard bullies, desperate for a reacton. And i deal with them the same way i dealt with bullies in my school days: id stare blankly at them until they got bored or uncomfortable and left me alone. Because all they're looking for is a reaction, and i refused to give them one. I deal with anon hate the same way. Before i started posting about billy, i got anon hate maybe once or twice in the twelve years ive been here. Now, i get it at least once a week. And im not even a dedicated billy hargrove blog. I just post whatever catches my eye at that moment, so i cant even imagine what its like for the people in the fandom who are completely dedicated to billy. But my followers have never and will never see the anon hate i get, and the senders will never see my response to it. Because you know what i do with anon hate? I delete it. I delete it and forget it ever existed. Eventually, when they see that im not responding, they give up and stop. Its slowed down considerably, so i guess theyre getting tired lol. Non-reaction is a totally valid way of handling harassment, and the most successful one, in my experience. I dont need to fight to prove to strangers behind a screen that im not a racist or an abuser or evil just because they say that i am for liking a fictional character. I know im not racist, and i know im not an abuser, and i know im not evil. Im a regular person who does their best to be kind and respectful to everyone and be better every day. Im a regular person who goes to work, hangs out with friends, takes care of family, looks at silly little memes on the internet, minds my business, and lives my life.

Dont ever feel bad for not engaging in discourse. Whether its because its taxing to your mental health or you dont have the energy or because you just dont want to, youre not obligated to do anything. You arent losing points by sitting back on the sidelines and letting others fight. Its social media, not a life or death warzone. If all you wanna do is reblog some posts and chill then more power to you. Thats what i do for the most part. I very rarely ever get involved in anything, cuz im content to sit over here in my corner and reblog things, and not let things people say on the internet affect me in real life because none of it matters. Just because antis forget that life outside of internet fandom exists doesnt mean we have to as well.

#long post #ask #anonymous #sorry its long i had a lot to say ig #billy hargrove

[twst-discourse-bot]

You guys may not have liked Ray for what they did, but they did not deserve the harassment they got. I noticed it only increased after this blog was created. Some of you all were just using this as an excuse to be anti-black, transphobic and lesbophobic. It's stupid that genshin fandom says that most of the fandom is sinophobic when they are more anti-black. Ya'll need to get your facts right. You aren't as oppressed as black fandom members. please let us solve the anti-black issue first

Alright, since it appears I can't leave people to their own thoughts for longer than 24 hours before their brains try to smooth-ify themselves, I'll answer this as clearly as I can.

You do not get to play Oppression Olympics and claim that Ray did not deserve the amount of backlash they received because some of the anonymous asks they got were racist towards her. "You aren't as oppressed as black fandom members. Let us solve the anti-black issue first.", what an absolutely disgusting dismissal of everything that other fans of color experience.

This isn't a matter of people "not liking" Ray, she was actively racist towards east Asian fans and characters of the media she claims to like, has committed acts of cultural appropriation several times and rebuffed any attempt others made to correct them, and made statements that can only be summarized as her refusal to acknowledge the existence of dark-skinned east Asian people, SEA people, and Middle Eastern people.

Her being black does not give her a free pass to do whatever she wants because "black people are more oppressed in fandom spaces". What a load of bullshit. Obviously, people are going to be mad when their genuine attempts at getting her to change her behaviors are responded to with some variation of "I'll do what I want, your culture isn't that important".

And don't try and twist my words to say that I don't think anti-black racism is an issue, of course it fucking is. I'm not even in the Genshin fandom and I know that. Believe it or not, more than one issue can exist at the same time and an oppressed person is just as capable of the same acts they are oppressed by. If she was someone making anti-black posts and spamming the fandom tags with OCs that are clearly whitewashed versions of canon dark-skinned characters, I would have done the exact same thing.

Furthermore, we have already stated countless times that no one believes the messages she receives are real anymore because she has cried wolf so many times, why should we start now? If she wanted the so-called harassment to stop, she would have removed her burner accounts and taken a break from being a public presence until the excitement around her dies down. We've given up on her becoming a better person, so we don't bother with that anymore.

There are so many indications that she's playing you and anyone who supports her for idiots, but you just refuse to see it because you take everything on her blog at face value. She's not a brainless child, she's fishing for sympathy and caught you hook, line, and sinker.

#answered asks

[nothorses]

I’m having a shitty day and then I go on the transandrophobia tag cause ig I’m a masochist, and the top post is one calling us whiny losers. Yey, now my day is even worse.

Don’t feel the need to if you don’t want to, but the part they compare about us using transandrophobia as a word to white women making up a word for misogyny against them is bugging me. Can you like… idk. Refute that. I could do it myself but I’m just kinda wallowing rn, everything just hurts emotionally.

(It’s not mainly the transphobia getting me down, something really shitty happened today.)

Anyways, thanks for reading this, I appreciate everything you do, dude

I mean, the simplest refutation is that trans men do not gain privilege or power for being trans men. White women do.

This comparison is based on the idea that intersectionality is just addition and subtraction: racism + misogyny = misogynoir. Transphobia + misogyny = transmisogyny.

Therefore, transandrophobia must = transphobia + androphobia (or misandry), right?

And that's just as silly as claiming that misogyny against white women is a combination of misogyny + reverse racism. Right?

But the thing is that this isn't how intersectionality works. It's not just a combination of two separate experiences happening at once. "Misogynoir" is not When You Are Racist To A Woman, or When You Are Misogynistic To A Black Person. It's a unique axis of oppression with unique tactics that target black women specifically, not just for being black or being a woman individually, but for being black women, as a separate class of person.

Transmisogyny is not just When You Are Misogynistic To A Trans Person, or When You Are Transphobic To A Woman. It is, again, a system that singles out and targets trans women for being trans women, specifically.

Reality is more complicated than Pokemon damage types. Shocking, I know.

So: white women are uniquely privileged for being white women, in a way that is separate from the privilege white men gain for being white men. There are, for example, tactics they can employ to garner sympathy in any given situation; white women literally instruct each other to fake cry if they ever need to win an argument (source: I was one.) This is a really great article on the unique ways in which white women enact racism.

This is not +white privilege, -misogyny. It's a unique manifestation of white privilege that applies to white women for being white women- none of these things are true for every single white person, nor are they true for every single woman. These are not tactics that people who are not white women have access to.

How do trans men factor into this?

Well, for starters: society does not see us as men. It also does not see us as women.

That's true for all trans people. We inhabit unique spaces within the gender "binary" that cis people aren't typically aware of, and certainly won't acknowledge, but are taught to respond to anyway. We're "other". "Failed women" and "failed men", maybe, or "lost women", or just "wrong", or "monstrous". Whatever fits the particular bill.

Transmisogyny is an experience unique to trans women, constructed of tactics and marginalization targeted at and tailored to trans women, because trans women are viewed as a separate class of person. Not as women, not under patriarchy; as failed men, lying "women", wrong, monstrous, etc. As something other than "man" or "woman" the way patriarchy defines those categories.

Trans men are also viewed as a separate class of person. We are not Trans + Man, we are Trans Men. Failed women, lost women, wrong, monstrous- whatever fits the bill, but never Men.

We don't conform. We challenge the gender binary through existence alone. Patriarchy says that men must be awarded manhood, and women must fulfill their obligations as women, and trans men say no. We say that we can assert ourselves as men, and that we aren't obligated to do shit. And patriarchy fucking hates that.

What results is a unique form of oppression, composed of unique tactics targeted at and tailored specifically to trans men, because trans men are viewed as a separate class of person.

White women do not challenge whiteness nor patriarchy by being white women. They are not existing outside of any binaries; they are conforming (in at least some respects) to what patriarchy says a woman should be, and they are certainly not challenging what white supremacy says whiteness is.

White women were factored into whiteness from the start.

Trans men were never factored into manhood or womanhood.

#long post #transandrophobia #intersectionality

[maxemilianverstappen]

Half of this fandom every fucking day of every goddamn week, tirelessly, on and on:

1) You'd think I am quite decent until you'd see me sending anons because I don't have the spine to spew hate at people's face unless I hide behind anonymity.

2) I am a huge supporter of "love and peace" in the fandom space, but it doesn't exist for the ones I don't like to the point of me having o/rgasms while grouphating on those rotten sods. Damn them.

3) Any form of criticism of my fav will be dealt with hate anons, mocking, outright name calling in the tags even though I know deep down that it is valid and the criticism was done in a polite way.

4) I can't stand when some people's voice's are louder than mine. So, I have to be the victim in every possible chance and I have to get all the brownie points of being a woke elite of this fandom until having a normal discussion with me is impossible because how dare people can't see I and my group are the oppressed and overlooked ones.

5) My poor meow meow, who is filthy rich and who is privileged as fuck, can stay silent and enjoy himself as I defend his honor on the internets against people I don't know but I hate their very bones simply because they don't like my poor meow meow.

6) Have I told you how my meow meow needs my godly defense against these faceless internet people? Now I have.

7) I have every right to automatically assume that you are a racist, an ableist, a/an *insert whatever negative shit comes to your mind here* simply because you like a particular driver that I hate with the force of a million suns. Yes.

8) As a side note to the above, I see no fault in watering down the meanings of words like "racist, ableist, homophobic" and such as long as I can use them as labels to categorize the people that I hate even though I have no evidence of them being such other than knowing that they support that one particular nasty hoe of a driver.

9) Hating a particular driver is a part of my personality and is a character trait i am proud to display in my bio.

10) I am aware I turned my fandom presence into simply being here to spew hate upon people on the internets and I am enjoying it so much! I feel I belong to my group more the more I post ugly hot takes and unsolicited opinions.

11) I love posting hate on the normal tags, because in the anti tags no one sees me other than my hate mates and by God I love the attention I get from the people I hate and I enjoy angering them.

12) But anyone posting any criticism on my fav's tag can burn in hell and I will tell my friends and we'll send them hate Anons until they feel miserable.

13) My fav is always right and while yours is the scum of the earth, my fav can make mistakes, can say problematic stuff, can post shit takes about the world issues, because they never mean bad and they will surely learn from their mistakes and we all give them a chance to grow up as a person, because they are my fav.

14) My fav can stay silent and is not responsible while us his fans rain abuse, racist slurs, death threats upon anyone we see as being against us. But your fav is 100% responsible of all the nasty his fans say and do. Because I hate them.

15) In the same vein of 13 and 14, if you are the fan of a particular driver, it means you are 100% standing behind all his fallacies and support and condone those fallacies and are also responsible of all his wrong doings and sayings. Yes, you are his mom.

16) I don't care about the mental and physical health of the others unless they are my fav. But by God, I love preaching people about it because they are insensitive savages who need to learn.

17) It is alright to use racist and misogynistic speech against people as long as it is not my fav. But I fucking love being the advocate of human rights and yada yada, you know all that stuff.

18) I feel so at peace with all the hate I have inside of me and spew it regularly on my socials for everyone to see, because I don't see the objects of my hate as human beings and they 1000% deserve all the shit thrown at them.

19) It is alright to dehumanize the ones I hate. I don't see them as myself, as a normal human being. Because it helps me feel alright about wanting to do inhumane stuff to them or wishing them to have a deadly crash. Thanks for the feeling of detachment from how horrid my wishes are.

20) Body shaming and objectification is hilarious and I am so funny for coming up all these jokes, because that guy can burn in hell.

21) Oh, I love spreading misinformation, too. I love taking a part of a quote out of its context and posting it on my socials in a way others can misinterpret it and rain more abuse on the owner of the quote. And then ignore everyone who points the real context, because it doesn't fit my agenda and I don't care *flips hair*

22) I reserve the rights to reflect all these nasty stuff that I am doing upon the the other party and act as if they are the ones who are doing this and not me and continue my righteous search for justice and peace.

23) And we are the best and you all are the scum and the world will be a better place when you're all gone. Peace out, fuckers ✌️

#eri.exe #send me anon hate about this and i'll immediately block your ass #this is my blog and you have every right to fuck off from here if you don't like it #long post

[datsderbunnyblog]

I posted 7,217 times in 2021

737 posts created (10%)

6480 posts reblogged (90%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 8.8 posts.

I added 3,274 tags in 2021

#gnu terry pratchett - 1329 posts

#havelock vetinari - 369 posts

#sam vimes - 323 posts

#discworld art - 253 posts

#neil gaiman - 229 posts

#good omens - 185 posts

#always reblog - 160 posts

#vetvimes - 159 posts

#bbc ghosts - 139 posts

#susanna clarke - 128 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#this has completely organically turned into a sybil ramkin apprication and body positivity post and i haven’t been this pleased in a long ti

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I love the dynamic in the Discworld fandom on this site, I think it's mainly because there are a lot of dormant fans, if you will, who've read and loved the books for years but haven't engaged much recently, who sort of reappear whenever a fun post is doing the rounds. It's fantastic. We get the cozy small fandom vibe without the screaming matches, but also get the popular posts from time to time, y'know?

3401 notes • Posted 2021-05-24 12:14:47 GMT

#4

Normalise autistic adults voluntarily wasting an entire day on special interests and then posting a bad selfie with a glass of wine on Facebook like a white Autism Warrior Mommy™ with the caption "Autism won today" x

3429 notes • Posted 2021-10-02 22:23:45 GMT

#3

I’m always mildly surprised when books have chapters.

That’s it, that’s all I have to say. Discworld people will get it.

4617 notes • Posted 2021-01-14 17:37:49 GMT

#2

I think it’s becoming clear how difficult this is to appreciate in certain social media bubbles: Transphobes (including terfs) read Discworld and don’t think it applies to them. Racists read Discworld and don’t think it applies to them. I’ve seen far-right MAGA hat gun-toting white supremacists talk about Discworld and they simply haven’t noticed that they’re openly being mocked for their narrow-minded bigotry with every page.

They’re out there, and they really aren’t as rare as you’d like to believe. When you believe that you’re the default setting, you can simply decide that you’re going to live in a world where you can just ignore anything that doesn’t align with your prejudices. They don’t even notice.

4858 notes • Posted 2021-07-31 22:03:08 GMT

#1

This is your friendly (but autistically blunt) reminder that the term "neurodivergent" has always included mental health conditions, and the disabled woman of colour who coined the term, Kassiane Asasumasu, did so precisely because we were missing an inclusive umbrella term for anyone whose brain operates differently.

Not only do you sound clownish when trying to suggest that there is such a thing as neurotypical mentally ill people, you are slamming the door of neurodivergence on people who are also ostracized and marginalized and I have to wonder about your motivations for being so keen to distance yourself from us.

And as Asasumasu herself has said when y'all try to bring up the "but you have to be neurodivergent from birth or it doesn't really count" definition that people keep plucking out of thin air for no apparent reason, the term you are looking for already existed and it is "developmental disorders".

TL;DR Stop trying to retrospectively change the definition of a word if you don't even know its history, neurodivergence includes mental illness and that is not up for debate.

5604 notes • Posted 2021-10-05 17:42:44 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #okay that's pretty funny #was it worth waiting 2 hours for? nope lol

[firelxdykatara]

Hello! I say this in the kindest way possible, but can you please provide evidence that theowelspeaks is a terf? I'm a black zutara shipper and for years have really felt shoved by the fandom and it hasn't been my safe space. But YOUR blog and you made me feel better. I'm not in your discord but you're being accused of racism. I don't follow the owlspeaks and wanna support you but if you're being accused of racism why are you calling someone a terf?

Can you please show where they are a terf? I'm only asking this because I really REALLY love you and I support you. And if they are a terf, you need to provide evidence. It is heavily suspicious when a person of color calls out a white woman on racism and you don't address the accusations but just call them a terf. I want to support you I really do because you made me feel comfortable in the fandom, but I need to see concrete evidence that they're a terf. Never mind, I saw the whole situation and honestly I'm disgusted I ever follow or looked up to you. You're literally no different from other racist white shippers. I think there went my love for zutara.

I'm going to take this at face value--not that, on any real level, I actually believe you were a follower of mine or did anything close to due diligence, because if you were or had then you would know that I never actually called that blogger a terf--and answer as respectfully as I can. Mostly because I want anyone who has genuine issues with anything I've said or done to know that despite whatever's going around about me right now, I am willing to listen to criticism if it comes from a place of good faith.

(You can think whatever you want about my insistence on 'good faith', but the fact is that I have weathered being slammed with accusations of pedophilia and other horrible things over differences in headcanon of shit like character ages or writing a fic set years post-canon because I felt like it, right down to the insistence that I'm a horrible racist because of my url, so no. I'm not going to listen to someone slinging slurs and buzzwords in my inbox just because they claim to be a poc. And before that sets anyone off, the slurs I'm talking about are aimed at my queerness. I do not consider being called racist or a white bitch or whatever slurs, because they aren't.)

First of all, once again, I never called that blogger a terf. You can easily read my post about them for yourself and see that--ctrl+F for the term 'terf', and you will not find it. Why? Because I called them out on peddling radfem rhetoric, (which they are) not for being a terf. All terfs are radfems--it's in the name--but not all radfems are terfs, although all radfem rhetoric is exceptionally harmful to queer people in general, and queer poc more than most, as is the nature of intersectionality.

Anti-kink rhetoric, and the insistence that some kink is inherently harmful and that no one could legitimately have these kinks or fetishes without being mentally ill or traumatized, is radfem rhetoric. That's where it comes from, that's where it leads to, and I'll be honest here, 'radfem' is not an identity label. It's an ideology. You do not get to parrot core tenets of that ideology and then claim to not be a radfem. That simply isn't how this works.

Furthermore, I have no idea who the person behind theowlspeaks blog is. I will take them at their word that they are not white, but that doesn't exactly narrow things down--and considering the fact that they chose to put me on blast for their small but dedicated ring of followers rather than actually coming to me personally first about any of this (their blog is very obviously a burner, and it wouldn't have been that difficult to approach me since I've only ever turned anon off once, for one night to give myself some breathing room, and otherwise my asks and DMs have always been open), I have no reason to actually care about what they're saying. But I point out the lack of knowledge of their identity because a) they didn't even reveal themselves as not white until.... yesterday? or something, when they were directly asked about it, and b) trying to frame this as 'white woman accused of racism calls person of color a terf' is... disingenuous at best given the fact that I have been calling them a radfem (which they are) since well before they posted that screenshot and my name wound up on their blog, so you got the order of events just a little backwards.

I blocked them initially because of the radfem rhetoric they were peddling about kink and fetishes, and I have the right to establish that boundary. This blog is for me, it is my space, and I do not have to expose myself to views I find gross or harmful just because they dress it up in faux-woke terminology and try to pretend they actually care.

If they cared about real people more than the fictional characters they are so adamantly 'protecting', then they wouldn't have brushed off the actual racism (from one of their followers--they're more than happy to blast me without any evidence, but that's hardly out of the ordinary for people like that) that was brought to their attention by refocusing the discussion on the fake people who literally can't be hurt by any of this because they don't exist. They wouldn't be ignoring the two woc who chose to contact them and tell them why they made the choices they did regarding both the discord and the smut week event, while being perfectly happy to platform anons who may or may not be who or what they say they are.

I, for one, am not going to apologize for caring more about real people than fictional characters. I'm not going to apologize for thinking it's absolutely ludicrous to pretend that fiction is somehow harmful just by existing, especially when it's appropriately tagged so that anyone who finds the content harmful can avoid it. I'm not going to back down from these opinions just because a handful of people have apparently decided I'm a horrible person because of it. And I'm certainly not going to apologize for thinking it's despicable that someone who was not involved in the conversation chose to leak out of context screenshots rather than privately contacting any of the people involved or even going to any of the mods, before going right to an anonymous blog. You may not care about me or my mental health, but I had panic attacks because of that leak--not because I said anything untoward in that screenshot, not because I've ever said anything in that discord that I wouldn't happily stand behind on my blog, but because I no longer felt safe. And I am not going to bare my trauma to a complete stranger to justify that lmfao.

So, like, think what you want to. I'm pretty sure that blogger is getting high off of the drama they are creating, none of which would actually have happened or been any real issue if more people were able to think, gee, maybe this work that is tagged with things I don't want to read about is not for me! Maybe I shouldn't read this piece, since it would probably upset me, and there's plenty others around for me to consume! I do not trust that blogger's intentions. I do not trust that they actually give a shit about any real people, or they wouldn't have posted an out of context screenshot of... literally nothing tbh, when they had no right to and are now protecting the identity of the person who leaked them instead of giving a shit about any of the real people in that space who no longer feel safe because we aren't sure who we can't trust.

But you've already made up your mind, and I can't change that. I genuinely hope you have a nice life, and find fandom spaces more suited to your tastes.

#Anonymous #asked #anon hate party #fandom racism #salt for ts #theowlspeaks discourse #idk what else to tag this #i'm not putting it in the zk tag cause there's been enough bs lately

[a-dragons-journal]

tbh the only thing about my dnf that i actually enforce is no minors but that's because i'm an erotica artist and sex worker and sometimes talk about it. Even tagged I don't want the chilluns seeing it. I can't stop a transphobic racist from following me if they really want to but I can block and put a big beacon that their nonsense won't be tolerated for the sake of making the people it affects feel safer.

Yeah that's entirely fair tbh - I'm never against the "hey we talk about sex stuff sometimes" warning/18+ bar.

To be perfectly honest, if I may soapbox for a moment: the "it's not actually to keep transphobes/racists/etc. out, it's to let the people affected by that know I'm safe" argument has rubbed me wrong since I first heard it, and I finally put words to why today - there's two reasons, really.

First, I don't like the Internet's recent trend toward performative activism, and I feel like DNIs are a part of that - I've seen enough people actually saying "if you don't have a DNI I don't trust you/you're creepy" to be skeeved out by it. I don't like people demanding/expecting me to announce all my political opinions right out the gate. It should be my decision whether or not I want to share sensitive information about myself (and if you're scoffing at the idea of a political opinion being "sensitive information" - if it can get you harassed and attacked by a complete stranger, it's sensitive information).

(And, oh by the way, this is going to be an unpopular statement, but the only way to change a (mildly-to-moderately) bigoted person's mind is by interacting with them, and I don't mean in a debate (usually). The easiest way to get someone to realize their bigoted worldview is wrong is to accidentally befriend them without either of you realizing that your opinions clash there, so that they learn you're a person (and a good person that they actually like) before they learn you're part of a minority group they think they hate - because then when they do learn that, they have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of those two things clashing, and frequently "maybe I was wrong" comes out on top and they change for the better because of it. I'm not saying people of minorities are obligated to expose themself to bigotry for the sake of that possibility - absolutely not - but I've seen in person how effective it can be and stripping away even the possibility of it by expecting everyone to abide by this judge-based-on-a-five-word-DNI thing is not something I'm a fan of, honestly.)

Second, and probably more importantly, unfortunately all "it's to let the people affected by [bigotry] know I'm safe" means is that the bigot in question only has to put up a DNI to make the people they're planning to target lower their guard. And I've seen that happen multiple times, and I've seen posts by, for instance, TERFs laughing about how all they have to do is put a "transphobes DNI!!1!" at the bottom of their cryptoTERF rhetoric posts, and suddenly a bunch of "trans-supporting" people are reblogging it because they lose all sense of reading comprehension, because the DNI made them feel safe. Suddenly all they have to do when the dogwhistles are pointed out is point at their DNI and say "but I can't be transphobic/racist/etc., see?? it says "transphobes/racists/etc. DNI" right there!! you're just reading too far into it!"

People seem to forget that people can, will, and do lie on their DNIs and bios. Predators will lie about being "under 18" in order to make minors they're interacting with feel safe and let their guard down. TERFs will lie about "transphobes DNI!" to ensure their crypto rhetoric spreads and gets a foot in the door of trans-supporting people's thought processes. There is nothing guaranteeing that someone actually believes what their DNI implies they believe. It's an illusion of safety that just doesn't - and, really, can't - exist on the internet, by the internet's nature. And people thinking they're safer than they really are is what gets people hurt because they stopped being careful. I'm not saying people need to (or should) live in fear, but relying on DNIs is not a sustainable solution, imho.

But that's just my opinion, of course - take what you like, leave what you don't.

#dni critical #asked and answered #anonymous #rani talks #y'all surely knew this was coming if you sent enough asks about this jfdkdsjg #sooner or later i was gonna crack and soapbox about it