I’ve been putting this post off for a while now but it’s becoming increasingly more important as the situation progresses.
I have been a part of the NanoWriMo YWP for four years now. I joined at a generally bad time and found some wonderful companions via the site. In my years there I have made connections, found community, improved and renewed my love for writing. That is not to say that the experience was entirely good, however. I will be forever grateful for the friends I’ve made and the outlet it gave me in rough times but I have been left disgusted overall by the site.
This site is promoted for anyone under 18, the forums available to anyone 13-18. The program is not only readily available with no moderation as to verifying users (allowing for many spam accounts and ‘backups’, as I will address in a moment) but is promoted in schools nation-wide. Without any protection and moderation on a global site, the YWP creates a breeding ground for predatory behavior in a place advertised towards children and teens. It’s my firm belief that yes, the YWP is a fantastic concept- most teens are not able to find supportive communities or allowed to express themselves and the site acts as such, This is a horrifying notion but it’s realistic when children are continuously and purposely overlooked for the purpose of ‘saving face.’ The YWP has done exactly that. It has failed not only me, but my friends, teachers, and schools.
I have been present for a mere fraction of the garbage the site allows to fester within it. I cannot speak from experience in all events but what I can speak for with certainty, I will.
1- Predators and predatory behavior. One of the greatest flaws of the site is that what could have been avoided genuinely avoided if its users taken seriously or given an ounce of respect. Predators being allowed to run rampant is not in the least new to the site and it’s almost entirely up to its users to keep themselves safe. Mods have continued to err on the side of perpetrators. Perhaps if this happened once, it could be excusable by some great reach- but this is repeated behavior from the people entrusted to the site. Time after time I have engaged in “flagging battles”- the only thing users have virtually with no in-site blocking system- against users telling teens to kill themselves, to doxx themselves, to engage in sexual activities. Let me remind you that YWP is a writing site for children- and if accounts can that simply lie about their age, I can assure you there are users younger than the 13 minimum roaming around the site.
2- Harassment and bullying. As I said above, anyone can make an account. This includes troll/spam accounts, and sheer amount of repeat offenders on the site is repulsive. In the rare case mods do anything about what occurs in-site (rather than ban users that are self-moderating and genuinely trying to help), users are just able to make a new account. The sheer amount of times I have seen backup accounts log made for the sake of spamming “KYS” is almost astonishing. I could talk for ages on this; how the same user has come back and perpetuated racism, sexism, homophobia- anything just to ‘piss people off’. The YWP is allegedly a ‘safe space’ for its large queer community and a neurodivergent populous. With this rampant behavior the site only works to perpetuate hate.
3- Moderation. I am aware that this is a subject of controversy, many vocal points screaming out at the YWP- “why don’t you just ignore it if you don’t like it?” And to that I ask you if ignoring a prevalent problem truly makes it dissipate. Although the answer clear, we are still told our anger unjustified or methods fear-mongering. This disgusts me. We are justified. We are allowed to be as vocally angry as we wish because we have been wronged and have virtually no other power to do anything about it.
There are endless ways that the mods have failed us. By refusing to listen to the community they only work to make the space less safe, banning those who speak out and ‘hurt their feelings’ or by kicking dirt over incidents of their own failure. This is non-conducive work and I have no idea how it passed for it for so long.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
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//I'm going to send this 2 days early because I don't know if I'm free tomorrow
Can I request a ficlet of Safrina video calling Brandy(cause she's still in bed) and showing her ranger in training duties around galar? You can pick what duties it is, Safrina's just happy she can talk to a ranger that's willing to talk to her
//Hihi we dm'ed so you already know but for the other readers' sakes saf's mod is in a totally different time zone so I was fine with the early submission!
First fic, hot n ready and full of fluff! Under a readmore for length. Saf n Brandy have a lil video chat.
@safrina-shards
It was a quiet night. Or rather, if you want to be pedantic, a quiet morning. A quiet 1:16 in the morning, if you want to be both specific and pedantic. Brandy was sprawled out on her bed, her good leg hanging off the side and her face alight with the dull blue glow of her phone as she aimlessly scrolled. She knew she should be asleep. Sleep was important for proper healing, and the recently stitched up gash on her leg needed all the healing it could get. But she had been on strict bedrest for the past few days, and barely able to hobble around even her own apartment in the cast they had set her leg in to keep it immobilized. The first day the immobility left them fidgety, and they spent the day bouncing between trying (and failing) to learn how to crochet, reading, talking with her poochyena, and texting anyone who might text her back. That energy evaporated over the next few days, leaving Brandy with a dull headache and the urge to do nothing other than lay in her bed, cycling between restless sleep and scrolling through her phone.
Their scrolling was suddenly interrupted by an incoming video call. Brandy furrowed their brow at the number, which caller ID did not recognize, and which seemed to be coming from outside Paldea. Probably a telemarketer, given the time. Although telemarketers didn’t typically try to videocall people. Confused, Brandy accepted the call.
“Hi, Ms. Brandy!” A familiar face popped up on screen. Safrina, described by Brandy as “the only child I will ever interact with” was smiling brightly and waving at the camera. She appeared to be outside, a backdrop of snow complimented her bright red winter jacket. The bright sun confused Brandy for a moment, before she remembered that the two of them were in completely separate time zones.
“Whoa, hey Saf. Was wondering what that phone number was. One sec, you probably can’t see me, let me turn on a lamp.” Brandy pushed herself up, careful to not jostle her wounded leg. Michael and Macaroon, who were both sleeping with her in the bed, huffed slightly in annoyance. Brandy clicked her bedside lamp on and leaned back against the wall. “There we go.”
“Wow, I’ve never seen you before! You look…” Safrina paused, taking in the face that was looking back at her from her phone. Brandy looked, in a word, bad. Dark bags hung from dull, red eyes and her dark hair had clearly not been washed in a good long while. “…Kinda like papa! A bit.”
“Yeah I guess I don’t…really…post pictures of myself-“ Brandy started to respond, speaking slowly as she took in what Safrina was saying, “-wait, what do you mean I look like your papa?”
“I found your number in the ranger database! Raixu showed me how.” Safrina brightly plowed on, ignoring Brandy’s question.
“…Guess that makes sense. Is something up? You need advice?”
“Um, sort of? I thought that since you’re sad about not being able to go outside that I could call you and bring you on patrol with me. Like a virtual patrol! So maybe you won’t feel so stuck inside and so you can tell me stuff about how you patrol.”
‘Little scamp’s tryna get free training out of me.’ Brandy thought, a small smile briefly pulling at the corner of her lips. “Sure, kiddo. Sounds nice. Let’s rock and/or roll. Flip that camera around so I can see what you see.”
Safrina beamed, and seemed to bounce slightly on the spot in excitement judging by the sudden shakiness of the camera. The camera flips around, and Brandy is shown a view of the snow-covered hills surrounding Circhester.
“I’m not too far from the base today, since I’m by myself. They wanted me to take a look around and just look for anything weird or out of the ordinary. They tell me to do that a lot, but I don’t actually know what’s supposed to be weird, really. Oh, and there’s a bergmite! We get lots of those guys…” Safrina happily rambled on as she started marching through the snow, being careful to hold the camera up and point it at whatever she was looking at. Every now and again she would steal glances at Brandy’s face in the camera, trying to gage the older ranger’s reaction. Brandy’s face, however, gave next to nothing away. She continued to show almost no expression, looking almost bored as Safrina chatted away.
‘Maybe that’s just what she always looks like.’ Safrina tried to console herself, her stomach clenching in nervousness at Brandy’s continually bored stare. She lifted her water bottle to her lips for a drink, trying to figure out how to keep the conversation going.
“Oh, hey. Piece of advice. Staying hydrated is important or whatever, but you don’t want to be too hydrated.”
“So I…shouldn’t drink lots of water when I’m working?” Safrina asked, somewhat confused.
“Nope. If something happens and you get knocked out or badly injured you do not want to have a full bladder.” Brandy rolled her eyes to the side, clearly remembering something unpleasant. “Trust me.”
“Oh…okay.” Safrina replaced the bottle of water into her bag, clearly still conflicted about this particular piece of advice.
Finally, after a few minutes of trekking through the tundra, Brandy’s expression shifted from neutral to inquisitive, her eyes narrowing as she leaned in far too close to her screen, giving Safrina a great view of her greasy, pillow-creased forehead.
“Hey, Saf, what’s that plant over there?” They asked, still squinting at the screen. “I think like 20 meters ahead and slightly to the left, about a foot tall. The little clump.”
“Oh, that?” Safrina spotted the plant Brandy was looking at, stomping over to it through the snow and crouching down. “Um, I’m not really sure. Raixu told me about some of the edible plants and berries around here, but he didn’t mention this one. I think it’s really common, I see it around a lot.”
“Oh, hell yeah. I don’t know it either, we can go through how to identify it together.” A proper smile appeared on Brandy’s face, and her apparent excitement eased some of Safrina’s nervousness. “Do you have a field guide? Also, do you know what to look for when identifying plants?”
“Um, there’s a field guide back at the base, but it’s supposed to stay there. And I think, kind of? You gotta look at what it looks like, right?”
“Yup, visual appearance is definitely an important piece. What shape are the leaves? Are they toothed or smooth? What colour is it? Is the stem hairy, or thorny, or smooth?” Brandy propped herself up further, going into full lecturing mode. “There are other things you want to look at too. Like, what state is it in at this time of year? Is it blooming yet? Also, what kind of conditions is it growing in – is it in direct sunlight, shade, on a hard or soft surface, what kind of elevation is it at, that kind of thing. And then also, what else is growing around it? Is it mostly others of the same species, is it growing next to a particular type of tree or bush, is it growing in a clump or more spread out? Getting the whole context of where and how it’s growing is super important.”
“O-okay! That’s a lot, let’s see…” Safrina crouched down, getting a better look at the plant she had seen a hundred times before. She furrowed her brow, trying to remember the long list of questions Brandy had just rattled off. “It’s got long, thin leaves, kinda like grass. And um, the stem is green and smooth. It’s got a big white fluff on the top, it looks like a cute little buneary tail. It’s in a big clump of itself, and there isn’t much else nearby. Oh, there’s a couple trees way over there.” Safrina points the camera away for a moment so that Brandy could get a look at 2 trees visible in the middle distance. “I think they’re pine trees.”
“Yup, those are white pine. Good eye, kiddo. White pine has nice, long, soft needles that act as a natural dewormer for wild pokemon, and the fallen branches and stumps make for a great fire starter. And they smell amazing. Great trees, white pines.”
“Okay! The plant is also in direct light, and the ground underneath it is pretty hard, and we’re up in the mountains so I guess the elevation is…a lot?”
“Got it. Good stuff.” Brandy was visibly excited now, smiling as she scrolled through whatever it was she was using to look up the plant using the details Safrina had provided. “Looks like that’s probably fluff grass, as you said it’s pretty common in that area. The cottony fluff breaks apart in the wind to spread its seeds, and is sometimes used as stuffing. It’s got lots of medicinal properties – the leaves can be used to treat diarrhea – must be high in fibre – and the stem can be used to treat tapeworms in humans and pokemon. It prefers high elevations with more acidic soil – which the falling needles from the pines would provide. That would make them a great litmus test for the overall health of your area. If they start to wilt out of nowhere there might be something wrong with the acidity of your soil, which could point to something wrong with the pines.”
“Oh, wow!” Safrina blinked, pulling out a blue, sparkly notebook to write down everything Brandy had just told her. “They can do so much, I thought it was just normal grass!”
“That’s the amazing thing about trees and plants and stuff.” Brandy was beaming now, clearly happy to have learned about a new plant alongside Safrina. “Everything is so much more complicated and cool and intertwined than they look. There isn’t a single plant out there that isn’t worth learning about. And once you learn about one it tells you so much about everything else around it.”
Brandy’s excitement was clearly contagious. Safrina’s eyes were practically sparkling as she looked around eagerly for more plants to show Brandy. “There’s some bushes over that hill over there, can we learn about those too?”
“Fuck yeah we can! Look at you, knowing immediately what’s in your area. You’re killing it as a ranger, Saf. Let’s go look at those bushes.”
Safrina beamed at the compliment, and shot off over a nearby hill to find the bush she had mentioned to Brandy. The two of them spent the next couple of hours hunting down as many plants, bushes, trees, and lichen as they could find, both of them equally delighted at every new fact they discovered about the world around Safrina’s base. It wasn’t long before Safrina’s notebook was filled with notes and drawings of everything they found. It wasn’t until a notification came through on Safrina’s phone that they finally stopped.
“Aw, I just got a message telling me to head back to the base,” Safrina said, clearly disappointed.
“Yeah, I guess we have been at this for a while. That’s fine, that gives you a chance to cross reference everything we found with the field guide that’s at your station.”
“Oh yeah, that’s true! I’ll do that. Thanks for teaching me how to look up plants! I had lots of fun.”
“Same here, kiddo. Hold onto that sense of wonder, it’s what makes this job worthwhile. Thanks for the call, Saf. It was super helpful.” And indeed, even though she remained greased up, unwashed, and eye-bagged Brandy looked leagues more alive than she had at the start of the call.
Safrina beamed, pleased that her plan to cheer Brandy up had worked out so well. “I’m glad! Byyyyye, Ms. Brandy!”
“See ya, kiddo.”
The two of them hung up. Safrina started heading back towards her base, a spring in her step as she walked. And Brandy put down her phone and finally, blessedly, was able to catch some real, actual sleep.
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