#internet norming challenges

[in-sightpublishing]

On High-Range Test Construction 6: Chris Cole on How to Protect High-Range Tests

            Publisher: In-Sight Publishing Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014 Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal Journal Founding: August 2, 2012 Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access Fees:…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"Efficiency" left the Big Three vulnerable to smart UAW tactics

Tomorrow (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tomorrow night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

It's been 143 days since the WGA went on strike against the Hollywood studios. While early tactical leaks from the studios had studio execs chortling and twirling their mustaches about writers caving once they started losing their homes, the strikers aren't wavering – they're still out there, pounding the picket lines, every weekday:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/how-hollywood-writers-make-ends-meet-100-days-into-the-writers-guild-strike.html

The studios obviously need writers. That gleeful, anonymous studio exec who got such an obvious erotic charge at the thought of workers being rendered homeless as punishment for challenging his corporate power completely misread the room, and his comments didn't demoralize the writers. Instead, they inspired the actors to go on strike, too.

But how have the writers stayed out since May Day? How have the actors stayed out for 69 days since their strike started on Bastille Day? We can thank the studios for that! As it turns out, the studios have devoted so much energy to rendering creative workers as precarious as possible, hiring as little as they can getting away with and using punishing overtime as a substitute for adequate staffing that they've eliminated all the workers who can't survive on side-hustles and savings for six or seven months at a time.

But even for those layoff-hardened workers, long strikes are brutal, and of course, all the affiliated trades, from costumers to grips, are feeling the pain. The strike fund only goes so far, and non-striking, affected workers don't even get that. That's why I've been donating regularly to the Entertainment Community Fund, which helps all affected workers out with cash transfers (I just gave them another $500):

https://secure2.convio.net/afa/site/Donation2?df_id=8117&8117.donation=form1&mfc_pref=T

As hot labor summer is revealed as a turning point – not just a season – long strikes will become the norm. Bosses still don't believe in worker power, and until they get their minds right, they're going to keep on trying to starve their workforces back inside. To get a sense of how long workers will have to hold out, just consider the Warrior Met strike, where Alabama coal-miners stayed out for 23 months:

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/warrior-met-strike-union/

As Kim Kelly explained to Adam Conover in the latest Factually podcast, the Alabama coal strikers didn't get anywhere near the attention that the Hollywood strikers have enjoyed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvyMHf7Yg0Q

(To learn more about the untold story of worker organizing, from prison unions to the key role that people of color and women played in labor history, check out Kelly's book, "Fight Like Hell," now in paperback:)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

Which brings me to the UAW strike. This is an historic strike, the first time that the UAW has struck all of the Big Three automakers at once. Past autoworkers' strikes have marked turning points for all American workers. The 1945/46 GM strike established employers' duty to cover worker pensions, health care, and cost of living allowances. The GM strike created the American middle-class:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

The Big Three are fighting for all the marbles here. They are refusing to allow unions to organize EV factories. Given that no more internal combustion cars will be in production in just a few short years, that's tantamount to eliminating auto unions altogether. The automakers are flush with cash, including billions in public subsidies from multiple bailouts, along with billions more from greedflation price-gouging. A long siege is inevitable, as the decimillionaires running these companies earn their pay by starving out their workers:

https://www.businessinsider.com/general-motors-ceo-mary-barra-salary-auto-workers-strike-uaw-2023-9

The UAW knows this, of course, and their new leadership – helmed by the union's radical president Shawn Fain – has a plan. UAW workers are engaged in tactical striking, shutting down key parts of the supply chain on a rolling basis, making the 90-day strike fund stretch much farther:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-18-labors-militant-creativity/

In this project, they are greatly aided by Big Car's own relentless pursuit of profit. The automakers – like every monopolized, financialized sector – have stripped all the buffers and slack out of their operations. Inventory on hand is kept to a bare minimum. Inputs are sourced from the cheapest bidder, and they're brought to the factory by the lowest-cost option. Resiliency – spare parts, backup machinery – is forever at war with profits, and profits have won and won and won, leaving auto production in a brittle, and easily shattered state.

This is especially true for staffing. Automakers are violently allergic to hiring workers, because new workers get benefits and workplace protection. Instead, the car companies routinely offer "voluntary" overtime to their existing workforce. By refusing this overtime, workers can kneecap production, without striking.

Enter "Eight and Skate," a campaign among UAW workers to clock out after their eight hour shift. As Keith Brower Brown writes for Labor Notes, the UAW organizers are telling workers that "It’s crossing an unofficial picket line to work overtime. It’s helping out the company":

https://labornotes.org/2023/09/work-extra-during-strike-auto-workers-say-eight-and-skate

Eight and Skate has already started to work; the Buffalo Ford plant can no longer run its normal weekend shifts because workers are refusing to put in voluntary overtime. Of course, bosses will strike back: the next step will be forced overtime, which will lead to the unsafe conditions that unionized workers are contractually obliged to call paid work-stoppages over, shutting down operations without touching the strike fund.

What's more, car bosses can't just halt safety stoppages or change the rules on overtime; per the UAW's last contract, bosses are required to bargain on changes to overtime rules:

https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Working-Without-Contract-FAQ-FINAL-2.pdf

Car bosses have become lazily dependent on overtime. At GM's "highly profitable" SUV factory in Arlington, TX, normal production runs a six-days, 24 hours per day. Workers typically work five eight-hour days and nine hours on Saturdays. That's been the status quo for 11 years, but when bosses circulated the usual overtime signup sheet last week, every worker wrote "a big fat NO" next to their names.

Writing for The American Prospect, David Dayen points out that this overtime addiction puts a new complexion on the much-hyped workerpocalypse that EVs will supposedly bring about. EVs are much simpler to build than conventional cars, the argument goes, so a US transition to EVs will throw many autoworkers out of work:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-20-big-threes-labor-shortages-uaw/

But the reality is that most autoworkers are doing one and a half jobs already. Reducing the "workforce" by a third could leave all these workers with their existing jobs, and the 40-hour workweek that their forebears fought for at GM inn 1945/46. Add to that the additional workers needed to make batteries, build and maintain charging infrastructure, and so on, and there's no reason to think that EVs will weaken autoworker power.

And as Dayen points out, this overtime addiction isn't limited to cars. It's also endemic to the entertainment industry, where writers' "mini rooms" and other forms of chronic understaffing are used to keep workforces at a skeleton crew, even when the overtime costs more than hiring new workers.

Bosses call themselves job creators, but they have a relentless drive to destroy jobs. If there's one thing bosses hate, it's paying workers – hence all the hype about AI and automation. The stories about looming AI-driven mass unemployment are fairy tales, but they're tailor made for financiers who get alarming, life-threatening priapism at the though of firing us all and replacing us with shell-scripts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

This is why Republican "workerism" rings so hollow. Trump's GOP talks a big game about protecting "workers" (by which they mean anglo men) from immigrants and "woke captialism," but they have nothing to say about protecting workers from bosses and bankers who see every dime a worker gets as misappropriated from their dividend.

Unsurprisingly, conservative message-discipline sucks. As Luke Savage writes in Jacobin, for every mealymouthed Josh Hawley mouthing talking points that "support workers" by blaming China and Joe Biden for the Big Three's greed, there's a Tim Scott, saying the quiet part aloud:

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/republicans-uaw-strike-hawley-trump-scott/

Quoth Senator Scott: "I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely":

https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1704136706574741988

The GOP's workerism is a tissue-thin fake. They can never and will never support real worker power. That creates an opportunity for Biden and Democrats to seize:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

Reversing two generations of anti-worker politics is a marathon, not a sprint. The strikes are going to run for months, even years. Every worker will be called upon to support their striking siblings, every day. We can do it. Solidarity now. Solidarity forever.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule

[landminelacey]

I refuse to beat around the bush regarding the termination of Jirai blogs. I am not afraid.

Many of the blogs I followed back when this blog was new are gone, wiped from the face of the internet like they never were here

This is deeply upsetting, those people may never find their friends and mutuals again. The loss of spaces that dare to challenge the norm or be unconventional in the slightest is horrific and scary.

[genericpuff]

I've been griping about the normalization of identity outing via social media for a while now. To put it simply, it's become almost some weird societal requirement that if you don't have every detail listed about yourself in your Twitter/FB/etc. bio, then it means you have "something to hide" or that you're not as "verifiable" because your account looks indistinct from that of a bot.

But that societal norm has really only benefited the people who profit off of that information in some way, whether it's through selling user data or through weaponizing details about a person against them.

I know that a lot of us love to use the fun little labels and acronyms in our bio that help others like us identify us as a 'safe person' or as someone who's in the same social/racial/identity groups as them. We're humans, we love to categorize things, it's in our nature (and it's fun!)

But if there's any time to start regulating that habit and challenging the norm that you're obligated to include all your personal info online - it's now.

There was a time when sock puppet accounts were expected and typical, not "suspicious".

There was a time when even age-sex-location was considered "too much information", but once it became the norm, we only EVER gave our personal information beyond generic ASL to people who we knew both online and in real life, or at the very least, people who we had known online for a significant enough amount of time that they had proved to be trustworthy (and even then, we didn't owe that information to anyone, ever; there are forum friends who I made online 10+ years ago and still talk to who do not know my personal information beyond broad strokes).

There was a time when simply being an avatar with a funny username was enough. And it still is enough, but massive platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been brainwashing us for years to believe that's not the case, under the guise of, "You wouldn't want to be dishonest, would you?" Through these same norms, we were led to believe that anime profile pictures are cringe, that having a fake online name is stupid, that the photos of you having fun at social events have to be taken JUST right otherwise you might imply to others that you're not actually having fun.

And considering how long these platforms have been around now, we have entire generations of children now who have been born and raised on that version of the ZuckMusk web, who have been taught that it "protects them" to express to everyone publicly their age, their school, their workplace, their family members, everything about themselves, because to not do so would be disingenuous.

None of this is to imply that the Internet was "safer" back in the day. I definitely should not have been on the Internet as much as I was when I was 13 in the late 2000's, it definitely did not benefit my brain development or my social skills. But the version of the Internet we currently exist in now is one that's been predicated on the false sense of security - the belief that if you're honest, everyone else has to be, too.

We've always had ways of identifying our safe people - by participating in the communities that we know are designed around our hobbies, our interests, our people. They might be small, they might not be as "cool" as the idea of netting yourself a big following of thousands of people, but they're also a lot safer and more genuine than that idealized following ever could be.

Don't feel pressured to include every bit of information about yourself in your bio. Even on Facebook, there's no rule that says you have to list your workplace, your school, your family members. There's no rule that says you have to list your personality type, queer labels, and neurodivergent disorders in your Twitter bio. There's no rule that you have to "prove" your life is real and fulfilled through the verification of photos, location tagging, and open-book sharing. If you share those photos, it should be because you genuinely want to share them, not because you feel some societal pressure to live up to others' expectations.

And I guarantee you, even your local mutuals on Facebook - your former classmates, family friends, distant relatives, coworkers, etc. - do not actually give that much of a damn about your personal life that they should be owed that much of a look into it on a daily basis. They've got their own shit going on, they literally do not need to know every detail about you.

I know it sounds scary. It also sounds kind of boring, when we've been used to a certain "way" of browsing and participating for years, that if we don't do so, it feels like being in the "out group" and that we're "breaking the rules". But I promise you, after spending over half my life online, those rules do not exist or benefit anyone who wouldn't profit off that information.

If you're wanting to learn how to branch off from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter and/or become more self-sufficient online, here are some guides to navigating the Internet like an old schooler that may help you!

FREE SITE BUILDER:

DIGITAL PIRACY 101:

(also in addition to everything mentioned here ^^^ they neglect to also mention Tor Browser which is a light and free-to-use browser software that allows you to browse anonymously; note that it's similar to a VPN in that it helps hide your identity online, HOWEVER it won't mask you from your ISP quite as effectively as a VPN, and if you sign into personal accounts with Tor, that's still going to obviously out you online lmao but I love using Tor for the odd time when I need to make a sock puppet for something and don't want it linked to my IP! and unlike a VPN, it's free to use!)

LEARN HOW TO USE RSS FEEDS:

People still use these! They're especially helpful for getting updates from your favorite pages and sites directly to your browser WITHOUT having to worry about stupid algorithm bullshit picking and choosing what you see. And many sites DO have RSS support once you know how to find it! (like adding in /rss at the end of a URL! Like this!)

FAKE EMAIL SERVICES:

LEARN HOW TO CODE IN HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT (AND MORE!):

DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:

I hope this helps arm you with some new knowledge in how to navigate the Internet like a Certified Old Person™️(like meeee!) Make your secret alt blogs for besties! Make your formal Facebook accounts that are clean of personal information and present the most neutral, safe-for-work version of yourself and keep the fun stuff to the secret profiles and chat groups that are just for you and friends/family/etc!! It might be "inconvenient" to have multiple accounts for the same purpose, but it's also INCREDIBLY freeing and can make your online experience both safer and more enjoyable.

Being "less" of yourself online does not make you any less you. It is your identity - you do not owe any amount of it to anyone beyond yourself. And in times like these, your identity is your greatest asset. Protect it.

[directdogman]

Each Dialtown cast member shares their favourite Muppet!

Idea: Characters from the cast of Dialtown are asked to share their favourite characters from The Muppets, in order to get the Muppets fandom on board with DT, which winds up being a largely fruitless ordeal.

Gingi insists that Grover and Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street are Muppets when asked, and takes it badly when Gingi is instead asked to name a character FROM The Muppet Show. The ensuing discussion that follows is much too rancid to be published online, making the time spent trying to calm Gingi down entirely in vain.

Karen's comments are not published as she refuses to do ANYTHING other than vent frustrations about Kermit the Frog, making her comments unusable as they would undoubtedly piss off a large section of the Muppets fandom, who largely venerate Kermit the Frog.

Randy tries to make an argument for Scooter being the 'best one', feeling that he, himself, is the scooter of the Dialtown cast, and thus, must stick up for one of his ilk. This answer is NOT published because the internet would tear him to shreds for playing devil's advocate for the worst Muppet.

Randy is then given another opportunity to pick a favourite Muppet, provided he selects a different Muppet. Randy picks Pepe the Prawn. When asked why Pepe is his favourite, tears well on his screen and he asks if he can leave to get a glass of water. Upon leaving the room, Randy never comes back. The answer isn't included in the article, as it's impossible to discern whether Randy feels that Pepe the Prawn is truly a kindred soul or if he was simply put on the spot and felt pressured to simply name the first Muppet he thought of.

Oliver answers by explaining Gonzo is his favourite but every time he's given an opportunity to explain why, his explanation inevitably transitions into a rambling endorsement of anarchism. Each time, after he's been given an opportunity to explain himself, Oliver is asked to rephrase his answer to be less political and he accepts, apologizing for his mistake and swearing that he understands what the blog is looking for now. Oliver then proceeds to somehow transition back into an endorsement of anarchism until the interviewer gives up and decides to leave him out of the article.

We're not actually sure who Norm likes the best from the Muppets cast because before we could get to Norm, Gingi (irate that Grover/Oscar the Grouch were rejected as its answer) told Norm about Big Bird dying in the Challenger explosion (which happened in DT's timeline), prompting Norm to get really upset and leave before his turn came up. Norm's favourite character is PROBABLY Sam Eagle, but now, we'll never get to know for sure. Thanks, Gingi.

Mingus, when asked, declined to answer out of sheer disinterest. Upon being shown a photo of the extended Muppet cast, she arbitrarily pointed to Robin the Frog and said "That one, I guess." Upon being asked why she would pick Kermit's nephew of all characters, her response was: "It's no business of mine who this frog is related to. Nobody is well-connected enough to ensure they'll live if I deem them a threat to my success." After being reminded that Robin is canonically a child, Mingus retorted by pointing out that Robin is, in fact, a fictional frog puppet. Not sure what to do with this answer, but we certainly can't include it.

Stabby + Shooty are asked for their favourites and they pick Statler and Waldorf respectively. When asked why, they explain it's because they're cool, wear suits, deliver CUTTING jabs, and each hang out with their best bro all day, not unlike themselves. The blog operator remarks: "Oh. I figured it was because, like you guys, they're kinda interchangeable and are pretty much overlooked by everyone", causing Stabby to angrily flip a table and storm out of the room. Shooty apologies meekly for his outburst and leaves to calm his companion down. The answer is not published as the interviewer had no clue which was Stabby and which was Shooty, thus being unable to accurately attribute the answers to either of them.

Bigfoot's favourite character turns out to be Animal, and this is the only answer that ends up being published.

Here's the finished article:

DIALTOWN ARTICLE, EACH OF THE CAST'S FAVOURITE MUPPETS: BIGFOOT'S IS ANIMAL.

The article only gets 3 likes.

[astrologydray]

🤩Aquarius MA and how you can achieve fame🤩

A Aquarius Midheaven (MC) achieves fame through innovation, uniqueness, and breaking societal norms. Ruled by Uranus, this placement gives you an unconventional, rebellious, and forward-thinking public image. Your success comes from your ability to challenge the status quo, introduce new ideas, and connect with people on a collective level. Aquarius MCs often rise to fame through technology, social activism, avant-garde creativity, or being unapologetically different.

👽 Fame Through Innovation & Originality – You are meant to stand out, not fit in. Aquarius MCs gain recognition by doing something new, revolutionary, or ahead of their time—whether in science, technology, art, media, or activism.

👽 Unconventional & Rebellious Public Image – You’re not the type to follow traditional career paths. People may see you as a visionary, trendsetter, or even a disruptor, depending on how you use your influence.

👽 Technology & Social Media Can Skyrocket Your Success – Aquarius is the sign of the internet, digital culture, and futuristic trends. You might gain fame through online platforms, viral content, or pioneering digital movements.

👽 Success Through Activism & Humanitarian Efforts – Many Aquarius MCs become famous for their social justice work, progressive ideals, or ability to unite people under a common cause. You’re drawn to challenging outdated systems and making the world a better place.

👽 A “Love Me or Hate Me” Persona – Aquarius MCs often provoke strong reactions. Some people idolize you for your genius, while others misunderstand you—but either way, you leave a lasting impact.

👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽

Tips for Maximizing Fame:

‼️ Be unapologetically yourself – Your uniqueness is your greatest strength.

‼️ Use technology & digital platforms – Your influence expands when you embrace social media, AI, or emerging trends.

‼️ Engage in activism or advocacy – Speaking out about important issues can boost your public presence.

‼️ Stay ahead of trends – Your success is tied to introducing groundbreaking ideas before the world catches up.

‼️ Be comfortable with being polarizing – Aquarius MCs often gain fame through controversy or radical change.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Pop Culture Terms

Brat - someone who is confidently rebellious, unapologetically bold, and playfully defiant. This new definition celebrates individuality and a carefree attitude, often with a hint of sass and a love for fun. Being labeled “a brat” or “bratty” in this context is more of a compliment, recognizing a person’s ability to challenge norms and express themselves freely without concern for conventional expectations. It is widely used by fans of Charli XCX and similar artists, as well as by individuals who identify with the rebellious, free-spirited attitude it represents.

Clickbait - describes misleading internet content or shocking headline titles that aim to drive traffic to a website. Since 2017, clickbait has been used in tandem with another internet term fake news, as fake news stories are often dressed as clickbait.

Clout chaser - a critical term for a person who is thought to be intent on attaining fame, especially one who tries to do so in ways considered desperate, such as leveraging their proximity to famous people or doing things considered foolish, degrading, or dangerous. It seems to have emerged on social media around 2012.

Compulsion loop - (or core loop) is a cycle of activities that are encouraged to be looped or repeated because of a neurochemical reward (in the form of dopamine) released into your brain. In other words, it’s when you continuously do something because it provides pleasure. Evidence for the phrase compulsion loop dates to the 1990s, though it was applied to technology at least by 2001. If you’ve ever checked your Snapchat, then Twitter, then Instagram, then Snapchat again because, well, it’s been ten minutes and maybe something new came in, then you’ve gotten stuck in a compulsion loop. This happens when you are compelled–often by design–to habitually repeat an activity, especially on the internet or a video game, because it gives you pleasure. And the tech companies know it.

Dream gap - describes a phenomenon where young girls, due to social constructions that women are less capable and valuable than men, are held back from living up to their full potential. It’s notably featured in the Dream Gap Campaign, toymaker Mattel’s efforts to empower young girls.

Grandfluencer - an older influencer, especially one who seems at least old enough to be a grandparent. The popular sense of the word influencer refers to a person who’s known for being influential due to having a large social media following. Though the age of people considered or called grandfluencers varies widely, the term is most often applied to people who are older than 60. It is thought to have been popularized in part by a September 2021 Associated Press article that prominently used the term to discuss the growing trend of older people developing large social media followings.

Mermaid effect - coined by the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, states that, the more time a man spends with a woman, the more he’ll find her sexually attractive–even if he initially finds her unattractive. It’s also sometimes used to refer to a trend in beauty featuring such styles as holographic pastels or mermaid-inspired details. It’s related to a real phenomenon in psychology. The mere-exposure effect says that humans are more likely to develop a preference to familiar things.

Pay it forward - an expression for when the recipient of an act of kindness does something kind for someone else rather than simply accepting or repaying the original good deed.

Pretzel logic - an expression used to describe someone’s “twisted reasoning.” The term spread in the 1980–90s, but it is closely associated with the acclaimed 1974 album and title track Pretzel Logic by rock band Steely Band. The song is, apparently, about reckoning with the passage of time.

Weeping Angel - a type of monster with the capability of sending others back in time by touching them. They are unable to move while being watched by any living creature, including their own kind, and are turned into stone while an observer’s eye is on them. It first appeared in the 2007 Doctor Who episode “Blink.” The episode’s title comes from the advice the Doctor gives: “Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good Luck.”

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[neuroticbookworm]

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

[destinationtoast]

I know this is the least of our problems right now but do you think the US election results will impact ao3?

I am not a lawyer, nor a founder of AO3, nor a volunteer there, nor a fandom journalist or historian, so I'm pretty far from the best person to ask. I encourage any and all of the above to please chime in with more knowledgeable answers.

That said, I don't think the next few years will probably directly limit AO3 or its umbrella org, the OTW.* But that depends in part on members voting for board members who will uphold the organization's current principles. (Vote! Become a member if you're not already, and vote! Vote in ALL the elections you are eligible for and will be affected by!) And that doesn't mean a bunch of works won't become private, orphaned, or deleted.**

*A couple reasons for my cautious optimism: The OTW was formed with the preservation and maximalist defense of fanworks in mind. So the shifting US cultural norms and increasing purity culture can't easily change the OTW from within (as we've already been seeing in past years when some fans have disliked some content). And in spite of everything scary happening externally (and there is a whole fucking lot), the US still has far more constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech protections than most places in the world. It will take a long time to tear all that down. Some states and locales are doing a lot to try to challenge free speech, especially queer content and sexual content, and there will be more challenges. But many of those challenges will be defeated because of the First Amendment, and it'll take a lot of time and effort to push through any constitutional changes. You can donate to organizations like the ACLU and the EFF to help protect against the erosions of rights, in addition to supporting the OTW and the Internet Archive who work to preserve free speech rights and online rights. (Other suggestions of where to donate or volunteer are welcome in the notes!) Also, perhaps best of all, the OTW is a non-profit who owns their own servers, which makes it MUCH harder to change what they choose to host than if they relied on any external hosting services and/or had advertisers.

**The archive already has had a whole lot of fanworks shift from public to private due to external events, including the AO3 ban in China, and recent AI scraping of web content. I'm sure more AO3 users will choose to make their content private over the next few years out of a fear of potential personal risks of them being found, and/or due to new attempts to ban content. (Some users will also delete their works for similar reasons, though I urge people to consider orphaning them instead!) Downloading for personal use any fanworks you love is always a good idea, and even moreso at a time of great heartbreak and panic, like now.

*hugs* Hang in there, all, and continue to take comfort from AO3 & OTW as you survive the upcoming hard times.

[bitchslapblastoids]

interesting but predictable how some of the inherent uncanny valley strangeness of bringing something that exists in the chronically online space into the real world can manifest. I’ve noticed this at all the other tours of theirs as well - some people can have a hard time separating internet behaviors from irl behaviors, and the sudden merging of these compartmentalized ways of being (online vs offline) can be hard to navigate.

I think it can also make people uncomfortable to see their comedic silly billie faves being serious, and there’s a dissonance to seeing them, these characters who live on our screens, along with the audience around you who are typically just avatars and usernames shitposting in lowercase, all suddenly in the same physical room. And suddenly that often completely disparate, scattered, semi-anonymous community needs to adapt to social mores and group norms in a new social context. It’s taking a community with its own set of rules that were designed for and in response to a digital landscape and plonking it into a completely alien environment. And yeah, we’re all humans who exist in public outside of our internet lives, but it’s different when that happens but you’re still in the context of the phandom.

Which I think is what leads to things like shouting out rly profane, out of pocket things during the quieter moments of their shows. because if you comment something like that online, you won’t rly be interrupting anything. you might be ignored, you might get some laughs, maybe you’ll get a notice bc haha unhinged right. Or like treating an evacuation drill as a lol pass the tea yas mommy daniel moment instead of an oh we’re actually here in real life moment.

I went back to my tatinof review bc I remembered writing this - “someone behind me kept screaming at them to "GET NAKED" (particularly during silences in the 7 second challenge) to which everyone in my area responded with claps and laughter.” During my second TIT show, there were people around me who wolf whistled and shouted “kinky” and “ayo ok freaky” during totally inappropriate moments. I remember during Dan’s quieter bits of WAD people could not seem to just stay silent. (I have suffered complete amnesia when it comes to ii so I can’t speak to any part of that experience lol.) after the preshow and during intermission at tit, I heard separate people at separate times making a range of critical comments about Dan and Phil’s bodies in ways that were downright shocking and not how I hope they’d typically feel comfortable speaking about other humans.

I think on the whole, phannies are so lovely and kind to one another. I feel deep gratitude for this community. And I know this isn’t just a phandom thing; I think how we treat one another in public spaces has generally really eroded, and concert etiquette has become abysmally poor. But phandom, as always, is a little unique, because of the sense of mutual understanding and the co-created dynamic between us and d&p. It dissolves the boundaries, so when Dan tells you to shut up, your online brain tells you that’s just a chance to be funny with your fave. When you have a chance to be heard, your online brain provides a memey shitpost joke and your irl self shouts it out even though that ain’t the move in a theatre performance unless invited to do so.

No real conclusion here, just some observations about the rly unique dynamic this all creates!

[grimmsbride]

❛Can you focus on me?❜ ⸺ Geto Suguru

【⠀♱⠀】 SYNOPSIS. given you endless stressing, suguru just wants to take your mind off of anatomy just for a little while..

【⠀♱⠀】 WARNINGS. ooc suguru (it’s honestly my first time writing for him i think—) | dom! suguru | oral sex (f. receiving) | overstimulation | usage of pet names | finger fucking | etc.

【⠀♱⠀】 AUTHOR’S NOTE. short & sweet thing i randomly came up with after completely anatomy assignments <3. as usual please excuse any typos & grammar mistakes.

The screen was a blinding white, the naked body of a typical white man drawn upon it; little white boxes hanging off and labeling each body part. A few were filled in, whilst others remained blank. You’ve been stuck studying this for about an hour— worrying over body parts, functions, and much more.

Despite how challenging this current task was, you loved anatomy. A body part wasn’t always as simple as an arm or leg, this class helping you see deeper then that. It was interesting; all the different names for a single limb.

However, it didn’t matter how much you enjoyed the class if you were currently stumped. Your notes simply weren’t helping like they should, and you refused to use the internet. There was no learning from that.

Continuously you would slide back from the desk you were seated infront of, using a finger to point out the body parts you knew for certain. The accurate names escaped your lips in a soft mantra, eyebrows knitting close together whenever you stumbled or forgot a word. The frustration was growing, a telltale sign you should leave this assignment for now.

But, you were stubborn. And very intuitive; if you stepped away now, there was a chance you wouldn’t come back to the assignment.

A sigh of escaped your lips, catching the attention of the man currently laying amongst your sheets. His hair was loose from his usual lazy ponytail, and eyes focused upon the tiny book resting within his hand. Though, the gaze did. switch over to you in a second.

“You should step away for a moment, [Name].” Geto spoke. Your studying antics weren’t a surprise nor out of the norm; your mind simply believed cramming it in a single session was the most affective method. While he couldn’t exactly agree, you were a great student so the man couldn’t totally find fault. Still, hearing your unhappy sighs whenever you didn’t understand material was enough for him.

At his words your head lifted, turning your swivel chair to glance at his direction. That was tempting, both the suggestion and him; laying across your sheets in nothing more then sweatpants with the waistband of his boxers poking out. But, you refused— head shaking to effectively rid any second guessing out of your mind. “If I do that, I’ll never get done.”

The corner of his lip rose in a small smile, hand falling to allow his paperback to rest on his lap. “Maybe.. but you’re burning yourself out.” A worried tone hugged his words, eyes dipping across your form. Again, it was common for Suguru to urge you to take a minute. Just a single minute away from the stressful task.

And most times, you refused.

“I’m almost done anyway, Sugu. I promise.” You weren't completely lying. The diagram you were currently labeling was the second to last question, which made this so much more aggravating. You were right there, you simply needed the final push.

Suguru stared at your back for a moment, unmoving and searching for the solution to your stubbornness. Most times he could never find one, given it’s a trait that has seeped into odd aspects of your life— and relationship. He found it endearing at times, cute at others. But downright irritating at most. Especially when your stubbornness came at your own expense.

A soft breath escaped from his lips, pushing his forgotten book to the side before swinging his legs over the bed. With a single rise, and two long strides around the furniture he was approaching you; coming right at your side.

Noticing him, your hand quickly moved to grip the top of your laptop. Suguru was notorious for grabbing it off your desk or even closing it after assuring your work was saved. Such antics you were used to, and couldn't afford to happen.

But, it seemed his focus was elsewhere completely. Suguru’s hands rose and found your armrests, gripping them tightly. He switched your chair away from the desk, hovering above you. “Take a break.” His sweet voice urged again, lowering to allow your foreheads to brush against one another.

You glanced up at your lover, feeling your eyes flutter the moment his lips ghosted your warm skin. You always wondered if Suguru practiced magic in his past time, given how easily you could fall under his spell. His touches, gaze, and cool breath rolling against your skin. You were leaning into the man as his lips lowered to the side of your neck, nibbling against the skin gently.

Tempting.. tempting, it all was. You nearly shot up from the chair in desperation. But, your work came first. A steadfast commitment you had to keep.

Your hands rose against his chest, gently pushing him away from your neck. “Suguru..” You murmured softly, fighting yourself on this decision.

He was sighing even softer at his point, hands sliding from the chair and down to your thighs; uncovered given the nightshirt you wore. “You’re gonna burn out,” Suguru spoke, lowering before you until his knees hit the floor. Your eyes widened as they followed his movements, lips parting as his grip on your thighs tightened.

“— get upset, tired, and become unable to focus on anything.” His words were true, quick observations and results he’s took in since the beginning of your relationship. Suguru’s hands lifted your thighs, pushing you back in your chair until it bumped against the wall. With this leverage he was raising you even higher until your covered cunt was flashing him, the thin fabric of your pajamas pushed up to your waist.

“Suguru, yo—“ The words were caught in your throat the moment his lips traced the inside of your leg, a shiver running through your body all the way down to your toes. You felt him laying your legs on his broad shoulders, leaving you wide to accommodate his large size.

Suguru’s fingers then rose, delicately gliding across your panties before pulling them to the side— allowing them to stay caught on the junction between your thigh. He got closer, pressing his lips against your mound gently and squeezing you close the moment you twitched.

“Just a small break, love. I want you to step back and simply focus on me.” Suguru spoke right against you, lips traveling to your slit before you could even reply. A hand slithered between the two of you, thick fingers separating your wetting folds. Eagerly, your lover’s tongue escaped his mouth to lick a bold stripe along it; the flat of it catching your swelling bud.

You gasped at the feeling, leaning back into the chair and melting within moments. Here you were again, succumbing so easily to his spell— this pleasure. His tongue had only just started gliding across you and you were already keening; thighs twitching with each swipe across your hardening clit. Every pass you were getting wetter and wetter, arousal growing in large waves.

Your breathing was getting heavier, head lighter, and your mind emptier as Suguru continued. What’s more, the moment his lips wrapped around your clit— your thighs were squeezing his head, his name falling from your lips in a heavy cry. He moaned against you, soft mmms vibrating against your pussy as he devoured you entirely.

Releasing your clit, his tongue went flat against you; circling your heat. A mixture of the man’s saliva and your arousal dribbled down from between your thighs and to your taint, surely staining the leather seat under you. Your stomach was clenching, hands abandoning your shirt to instead curl your fingers through his hair.

Little tears were forming in your eyes, slamming them shut as the pleasure consumed your body. You were shaking, a bubbling storm ready to burst within minutes. It felt as if Suguru had only just started to toy with you, and yet you were so close already.

“Fu—fuck, fuck..hm—!” You gasped out, fingers tightening on his hair, pushing your pussy right into his face. This alone caused his hands to fall under your ass, assisting you in rising your hips even higher.

Suguru always loved this part of it all; the desperation. There were times you were so shy and reserved whenever his mouth was on you— as if scared to express yourself. But that’s exactly what he wanted, for you let go. Every twitch, moan, gasp, and more; Suguru would stay here for hours until he got every single one.

A prize that wasn’t only for you.

His hand slipped between your thighs again, pushing two thick’s fingers inside your wet entrance. Not even a second passed and he was curling them, pushing against the spongy spot within you just to feel you shake even more.

“Suguu.. fuck—!”

A breathy chuckle fanned right against you, his messy lips rising into a sweet smile. “Oh, look at that.. making such a mess for me.” Suguru breathed right into your pussy, fingers plunging in and out of you at the perfect angle.

Your hips were rising to meet the thrusts, clit throbbing as your hands trembled. Cries of pleasure escaped your lips freely, pornographic sounds that had his cock straining against his sweats.

“Not a single thought in that pretty little head, huh?” Suguru’s eyes dipped across your form, lidded and filled with lust. It was no secret he was proud of himself at the moment, fully stealing your attention away from the silly assignment. The smirk on his face even deepened the moment he noticed your computer screen had gone black.

“That’s it sweet girl, release it all for me. Let it out..”

His thumb rose to rub tight circles upon your bud, coaxing you with a come hither movement within your wet entrance. Your walls pulsed around the digits, thighs closing around his arm as the pleasure began to peak. Suguru’s eyes were focused completely on you, savoring the woman before him that twitched so uncontrollably.

Your head knocked back against chair, crying out as the pleasure surged through you— releasing all over his fingers. Which didn’t stop, continuing to fuck into you until harsh, overstimulated whines were escaping you.

“Fu—fuck, Suguru— I get it, I..” You cried out as little tears lol spilled from your eyes, trickling down your hot cheeks. Despite your protests and trembles his movements never stopped, continuing to curl his fingers to allow his finger pads to grind against that special spot

“Mm.. don’t think you do. Anatomy still on your mind, sweetheart— huh?” He was torturing you now, fingerfucking you with no concern for your well-being. Despite your weak cries and trembles, he fully expected a reply; shown in Suguru’s raised eyebrow and rising to be face to face.

“It is, isn’t it?”

You quickly shook your head, arousal pooling with each thrust; making a sticky mess between your thighs and the chair. Your walls were clenching around his fingers harshly, chest raising and lowering at such an intense pace it was nearly concerning. The burning yet pleasurable sensation of your orgasm was licking at the pit of your stomach, threatening to explode at any second.

Suguru leaned down, using his free hand to grab your throat and move you closer to him. His thumb rose to press against your cheek, planting his lips against your own in a deep kiss. He swallowed the sweet mantra of his name you bellowed, feeling your thighs shake before your hips rose for the last time.

Your release was dripping by now, coating his fingers. Unlike before Suguru withdrew his digits, allowing you to finally breathe.

The kiss broke apart shortly after, a single string of saliva connecting your lips. You leaned into the man, panting softly as you felt his hands fall to your hips.

“When’s your assignment due, love?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Suguru chuckled softly to himself, rising you up from the chair and moving towards the bed.

“You can pick it back up tomorrow morning.”

COMMENTS & REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!

[baublekute]

baublekute: origins

@luvwich tagged me to share the origin story of my tumblr username!

My first major username on the internet and the one I used the longest was Athedwyn (on tumblr too). Since I was 13. Since I still use that one on occasion, I will also cover that one.

Athedwyn - created from Lord of the Rings lore. A combo of the healing plant Athelas and Eowyn/her mother Theodwyn. It represented two sides of me. This healing side and the shieldmaiden side.

BaubleKute - more straight forward in its purpose, but has a lot more depth to all its potential meanings. I wanted a name that was easier to pronounce for others (which was not Athedwyn lol), one that could follow me more with my art. I wanted something silly and memorable. I also have it as part of my pinned post.

Bauble; noun 1. a showy, usually cheap, ornament; trinket; gewgaw. 2. a jester's scepter.

As a court jester's scepter, it's a symbol that communicates life realities with humor. Seeing the world as it truly is, but surviving with humor. Twelfth Night is my favorite Shakespeare play, and Feste the Fool is an inspiration for this. "Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit." I love the fool archetype in Shakespeare's work. The Fool also represents my love for Tarot as well and everything it represents - optimism, intuition, spontaneity. I've gravitated naturally towards jester-like characters my entire life (Harley Quinn, Kuromi, etc.) without realizing the pattern for a bit. I share traits like playfulness, mischievousness, and a tendency towards the absurd. Representing chaos/rebellion by challenging norms through humor and unconventional behavior. On less deeper notes, I also enjoy collecting cute trinkets, the "baubles". The 'K' just indicates my first initial as a little personal twist.

There you have it!

Tagging no pressure! Why are you called... @ghostoffuturespast @shimmer-like-agirl @elmknight @clockworkvenus @harellan?

I feel like I might have some idea for a few of you from a similar post, but remind me anyways! My memory is not so good so it will be new and novel to me anyways lol

[hergan416]

Coming across another please comment post, specifically about people who say nice things about fics to their friends but won't tell the author, and how betrayed authors feel by private book rec servers and stuff.

And yes, that's not an adequate substitute for talking to the author and isn't motivating and I don't think we should be privatizing our community. But the idea it is a generational fault kind of is bugging me because I notice myself doing some of that too- reading something recc'd to me and only responding in depth in the server or in priv instead of on the fic, and I didn't used to do that five years ago. Granted sometimes that person is in the server or I'm talking in private with the author, and that's... something different? But regardless, it's still not completely generational, it's a changing norm and I want to examine my experience to figure out why that might be.

And for me, I think it comes down to safety and vulnerability. It's easy to see this from the perspective of an author. To post a work for the judgement of The Internet is to be vulnerable. Comments help sooth over that moment of vulnerability. They help make it worth it. Whether the work is low or high effort, doesn't matter.

But commenting is also a moment of vulnerability. It is becoming visible to the author, for a brief moment, and writing down your thoughts when your interpretation might not be "as intended." I've known friends who anxiously waited to see what an author would say about a comment- would it be well received? Would the author be happy?

I feel that too when I comment. I reread the thing and try my best to not impulsively edit it over and over again to be more clear with what I want to say. That this is meant as a compliment, please don't assume malice with my words.

I didn't used to feel like that.

Where did that anxiety about being misinterpreted come from? Why do I feel I have to say everything perfectly or not at all, unless I know you well enough to know you will tolerate a mistake?

Is it of my own making, having had a reader look at the events I wrote and coming to the exact opposite conclusion about the morality of the situation as I did? I was so confused about that, think it ended up being a cultural difference, but I'm not sure because I had the last word, and I still feel terrible about that interaction. I wish I knew how to properly express how fascinating it was to be challenged on my assumptions like that, even if my definition of what constitutes rape didn't shift at all.

Or did it start before then? Was it because of that one time that I got all the way to the end note of a story to find out that alwill shippers weren't supposed to interact because they didn't want readers to interpret an interaction between them as anything but brotherly? (I hadn't read it that way, the fic was tagged sherliam and they hadn't wrote it that way. I left a comment anyway at the time, but I don't think I would have done that if I came accross that fic today.)

In fact, the fact that a loud and vocal subgroup of people simply don't want you to exist because of your taste in ships makes it hard to engage with any people you don't know in fandom at all. What if I leave my comment then click on the author's socials and see that their bio says proship DNI? What happens if they click on my profile and get mad at me for existing around them, like AO3 is Twitter or something? It hasn't happened yet but what if it does?

I'm basically "out" about shipping dark and disturbing content and so this next one doesn't apply to me per se, but what if a group of antis trolls the comment section of my fics for people to harass over their tastes? That's a public admission trying you to me. That could be dangerous in the current internet environment.

And my friends ... know who I am and know I say stuff stupid and largely don't care. So it's easy to tell them "hey look at this, it's y ship and does h really well."

I have no idea if these experiences line up with anyone else's. I don't want to say this ought to excuse me from trying to also tell the author they did h really well. I just am trying to parse through some of my own fears and anxiety and seeing how that relates to the current state of things.

Because I also want more comments. I just also empathize with people who might not always leave them. I don't think it's a moral failing to choose not to comment on a fic you liked. And also I know many of my original core readers have left the fandom/gotten busy/etc. And I know that my writing is probably "tolerable and I finished it, but I am not excited about it enough to talk about what just happened" to a fair amount of people. (And the barrier to talking about it just keeps getting steeper and steeper for me, so maybe that's what's happening with you too.)

[catboybiologist]

In the quiet, unassuming town of Willowbrook, lived a young man named Sierro. Online, he was known as "catboybiologist," a name that had earned him a modest following on Tumblr for his unapologetically explicit artwork and commentary. Sierro was a marine biologist by day and an artist by night, channeling his creative energy into works that challenged societal norms and celebrated queer identity.

Despite his bold online persona, Sierro was introverted and often felt misunderstood by those around him. His Tumblr blog was his sanctuary, a place where he could express himself without fear of judgment. His followers adored him, and he found a sense of belonging in the online community that he had never felt in the real world.

One evening, after posting a particularly provocative piece, Sierro received a message from an anonymous follower. The message was unusually aggressive, accusing him of corrupting young minds and spreading harmful content. Used to trolls, Sierro dismissed the message and moved on. However, the messages kept coming, each more threatening than the last.

Sierro's friends urged him to report the harassment, but he shrugged it off, not wanting to escalate the situation. "It's just some internet troll," he told them. "They'll get bored eventually."

But the threats didn't stop. One night, after a long day at work and an intense drawing session, Sierro decided to take a walk to clear his mind. The air was crisp, and the streets were empty, casting an eerie silence over the town. Lost in thought, he wandered further than he intended, finding himself in an unfamiliar part of Willowbrook.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. Turning around, he saw a shadowy figure lurking in the darkness. His heart raced, and he quickened his pace, but the figure matched his speed. Panic set in, and Sierro broke into a run, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

He darted into an alley, hoping to lose his pursuer, but it was a dead end. Trapped and out of breath, Sierro turned to face the figure. In the dim light, he could make out a mask covering the stranger's face. The figure approached slowly, a menacing aura emanating from him.

"You think you can corrupt our society without consequences?" the masked figure hissed. "Your filth has no place in this world."

Sierro backed away, his mind racing for a way out, but there was none. The figure lunged at him, and Sierro felt a sharp pain as a knife plunged into his side. He screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the empty streets.

The attack was brutal and relentless. Each stab was filled with a hatred that Sierro couldn't comprehend. His vision blurred, and the world around him faded as he collapsed to the ground, blood pooling beneath him.

As his life ebbed away, Sierro's last thoughts were of his online sanctuary, the community that had accepted him for who he was. His art, his voice, silenced by the cruelty of the real world.

The next morning, the residents of Willowbrook were shocked to find the lifeless body of the young artist. The police investigation revealed little about the attacker, who had vanished without a trace. The news of Sierro's death spread quickly, and his online followers mourned the loss of "catboybiologist," a vibrant and courageous voice silenced too soon.

In the aftermath, his friends and followers rallied to honor his memory, sharing his artwork and stories, ensuring that his legacy would live on. Yet, the senseless brutality of his death remained a haunting reminder of the dark undercurrents that could surface in the most unexpected places.

Honestly the most insulting part about this is calling me an artist

Its insulting to actual artists

[thebutchfemmebar]

Before you knock on online relationships and connections, platonic, romantic, sexual or intimate, consider the following.

Marginalised groups do not have the same privileges as the dominant cisheteronormative group, and even amongst themselves, do not share the same privileges both within the same local systems and around the world. Many heavily depend on accessibility that the internet provides, to:

Organise sociopolitical resistance

Share, develop and pass down knowledge

Find safe communities not policed by hegemonic systems and norms.

Form intimate connections.

Online relationships, like face-to-face relationships, does have its own challenges, unique characteristics, advantages and disadvantages.

But in no circumstances is it less real, important or less valuable. I understand that persons say “just log off”, but bonds and attachments formed, experiences shared and emotional impacts are real—even if these seem less directly tangible.

[cepn]

a lot of people online are finally finding their backbones re: feminist issues like porn, prostitution, kink culture, etc. and it's kind of encouraging but i would love for people to stop pretending the average internet leftist/liberal did not voluntarily flee from basic feminist principles into the open arms of men's rights activists and the like at the slightest provocation. everyone likes to say "the terfs pushed people away from feminism..." no lol. liberal feminism did that by pandering to patriarchal norms that insist women are the property of men (whether we're considered private or public property being a debate between the mainstream left or right, at this point). worse, a lot of well-meaning people were pushed away from feminist theory by liberals conflating every single feminist argument, theory, or writing older than the last ten years with "terf rhetoric" if it challenged you to think about your own choices or to question your values around porn, entertainment culture, day-to-day interactions with other people, etc...

the only reason someone might think that terfs are a huge and influential faction of feminists is because 1) people have decided that holding any feminist belief more radical than "let women do porn if they want! :)" means someone is a terf, 2) people have decided that every transphobic person is a terf, and 3) a lot of women are scared to go against the grain or talk openly about having feminist values because they will be deliberately misunderstood, rallied against, and ostracized from their online communities. and this is made worse by most internet "theorists" refusing to actually create and utilize consistent, meaningful terminology. instead of addressing transphobia thoroughly, people would rather fling around words like "terf" and "radfem" to create implications about a person's beliefs and values and shut down discussion. criticizing patriarchy in a thorough or materialist way makes you suspect because nobody apparently has the capacity or desire to read closely, discuss their thoughts, or engage with actual theory. the existence of the pejorative label "swerf" and the subsequent uprising of violently misogynistic rhetoric says everything you need to know about what "happened" to feminism between 2012 and now. but of course it's easier to just blame women for it, again.