#I have one irl and they don't know how to tumblr even if they wanted so no.

[luciandloathing]

hi it’s me anonymous i think tumblruser luciandloathing is actually fire as FUCK and life is beautiful and joyous

LMAO it's. it's ok. you don't gotta do that.

that's me omg I'm user luciandloathing???!!! :o wow I am 'fire as fuck?' oh! yea! yea! life if beautiful and joyous!

[ilovedthestars]

honestly the biggest Competing Access Needs issue that I personally have run into in online spaces is this:

people need, deserve, and should have space to complain and critique. that includes critiquing things that I (and they!) care about and find valuable, in order to make them better. those conversations are often necessary and healthy, and they should be allowed to happen.

however, I find those kinds of conversations incredibly stressful, often outright upsetting. especially when it involves people I like/respect arguing with or criticizing other people I like/respect. my instinct is to try to mediate and smooth things over and acknowledge the points of both sides, but often that’s either not my place to do or would be actively unhelpful. so I just end up torn in the middle of what feels to me like a barrage of negativity, filled with the unhelpful desire to be like “can’t we just all get along????”

the only and best solution to this is for me to just remove myself from conversations like these, and I’ve gotten better at that, but. It’s still difficult for me to deal with, even though I know that despite my hangups, it’s sometimes better for those conversations to happen than not.

[sureuncertainty]

at least now i've gone through an important tumblr rite of passage, watching a longtime mutual become a radfem :/

[iguessitsjustme]

work rant feel free to ignore i just need to get this out of my brain before i esplode:

My job not having any social media presence actually drives me insane...I'm going to try to rant without giving away where I work but my god. I work for an extremely well known (at least in the USA) organization and there's a lot of misinformation flying around out there and we do have a website, but just a website. That no one goes to or looks at unless they call and we direct them to exactly what they're looking for because they ask if we have it written down anywhere.

And I think it's incredibly...obtuse...to not have any presence at all. I'm not saying we need to have an extremely loud and huge presence. But even just like an official reddit or an official tiktok (we do have a twitter kind of but it is never used and I honest to god don't think anyone has access to it anymore) and even if those pages just have the most basic information on it, I think that would help. Just like "here's a link to our website. Here's our phone number. Here's which department handles what if you want to be asked for that specific department." I spend so much of my day on the phone with people that have questions that are so easily answered by just going on our website but no one does. Also don't even get me started on what they did to the website it looks like it got hacked now but it didn't.

This is a strange work rant for a Sunday night but I find myself annoyed. My coworkers and I send each other reddit posts of people misunderstanding things. I mean, they are willfully misunderstanding things they were previously informed of. In writing. But if we really want to make it better and more accessible for people, I think having the information presented in multiple ways would be best. Especially when we're dealing with children. These kids are on reddit and on tiktok and on twitter and they have questions and they are more likely going to go searching in those places to find information. And there are people that claim themselves as experts on all of those platforms but none of them work for or have previously worked for my organization. So they don't know. So these kids are getting incorrect information and then I get angry parents and children on the phone because they listened to the wrong person or organization and I'm standing by our policy and our rules and they don't like that.

Also sometimes they aren't angry on the phone because they were misinformed about something saying that they can't do this this or that and it turns out they can. And if they hadn't called they would have entirely missed the opportunity because they're going to the wrong sources because we, as an organization, refuse to be the source on a different platform other than our own.

And I get it. They don't want to hire someone to be the social media person because we are small and don't have the budget for that. But it's 2024. There are many people. Many staff. That have a lot of downtime (not my department unless it's the summer) and this could be the perfect task to give them. Even if it's just coming up with ideas to present. Not even necessarily filming anything. And videos don't need to show anyone's face or voice. We could literally do the most basic shit and it would be beneficial. It would count down on the number of calls we get and my coworkers and I would have time to do our jobs instead of spending half our time on the phone (do not ask how behind we are because it is sad).

There's something else I want to say about a different organization that I think this would help with but I cannot say without giving away where I work and also I can't bitch about our partner without causing problems. But if you live in the USA, you know about our partner, and I guarantee you hate them. But not as much as me. Never as much as me.

[noxtivagus]

nah fuck

[astrxealis]

aaaaaaa

[brazen-art]

Chiropractors near you:

(continue your art journey today by looking at this cool murkrow that my friend drew!)

[ao3commentoftheday]

how can i start writing more often?

That's going to depend what's stopping you from doing so. I'll tackle some of the common ones and see if that helps you out.

You're working or going to school full time or otherwise have a lot of responsibilities that fill your days

Writing doesn't have to be done in large chunks of time. You can write for ten minutes and still get something onto the page. You can also write by dictating a voice note into your phone and using speech-to-text to transcribe it. When you have a day off or a larger amount of downtime, try to block off some of it for writing or for editing those speech-to-text transcripts into a more polished story.

You don't have any ideas

Seek you writing prompt blogs. Make a post on your tumblr asking for requests. Expand the type of idea you're willing to write - not everything needs to be a 100K multichap, so think of a oneshot idea and write that instead.

Every time you think about posting a fic, you get so anxious you just stop writing

Write something that you're not planning to post. Write something by hand so that you can't post it without making the decision to transcribe it and post it later. Focus on the writing instead of the possible audience reactions to the writing.

You have an idea you love, but writing all of the backstory to get you to that point is so demotivating you can't even start

Make a bulleted list of all of the backstory components that need to be in place before you can get to the part of the story you want to write. Now write the part you're actually interested in. After you write that, check in with that bulleted list and see if any of those parts are more interesting now. If they are, write those too. If they're not, you're done and can move onto the next story. You can post those criteria as your summary or author's note or tags.

You have an idea you love, but all of the research you have to do first is so demotivating you can't even start

Do you actually need to do the research? Can you write the story in a way that hand-waves things (bring in some pseudo-science or a Fantasy Costco or something to get around what you're trying to figure out). Is there someone else who has done this research already? Do you know someone who loves researching that you could get to help you out? Is the research just an excuse for procrastination because the idea isn't fully baked yet?

You spend so much time researching that by the time you're ready to start writing you don't have any time left

Do you enjoy researching more than writing? Is there someone you can partner with to write the story based on your idea and research? Do you tend to research and write in the same block of time? In that case, separate those activities out. Research until you get to a good stopping point and then write until you run out of research and need to learn more.

Every time you start writing, someone interrupts you

If the interruptions come via social media or other online means, mute your notifications while you're writing. Change your status from online to do not disturb. If the interruptions are IRL, have a conversation with your family or roommates and work out an agreement where you can get blocks of time without interruptions or where you can put up a signal that you're writing and can't be disturbed. Get a whiteboard or sticky notes or something so that people can write down what they need from you and you can check it when you're done.

Every time you try to write, you get distracted by a bunch of other things and can't actually get much writing done

If you write on a device that connects to the internet, you can get really distracted by the internet. There are lots of tools out there to block out those kinds of distractions to help you right (example). You can also try writing by hand on paper so that the internet is further away from the task.

Writing is really intimidating. The blank page taunts you.

Start by writing out your idea at the top of the page. It doesn't have to be in-depth, it can just be something like "A and B are stuck in different locations for a long period of time and they discover they're in love with each other while writing letters back and forth." By doing this, the page is no longer blank so you can fool yourself into thinking you've already started writing and just need to continue.

When I sit down to write, I don't know where you start.

If you're in the process of writing a story, try not to end a writing session on the end of a scene. Either write the start of the next scene or stop writing before you hit the end of the current scene. Then the next time you write, you have a place to pick up from and don't need to make a choice of where to go next. If you're starting a new idea, start at the point where it's interesting. You can go back and write the boring part later if you decide you really want or need to.

There are lots more things that stop people from writing, but I'll let people in the notes add more examples. If you're a writer, how do you make time for writing?

[itspyon]

how to adapt into dtblr culture for twitter refugees

so you've decided to move here from twitter. welcome and congratulations. this post is basically a big warning that goes THIS ISN'T TWITTER, DON'T BEHAVE LIKE IT IS, LEAVE THAT AT THE DOOR

i'll be teaching you two things, how the site works, and how to adapt your behavior to tumblr ( and really, normal human being ) culture. believe me, it's not that hard and it will actually feel very productive

let's start with the basics and frequent questions

your username can be anything, don't stress about it

your picture can be anything. a lot of us don't even have dteam related stuff up on our profile

your display name doesn't have to be your name. nobody is going to see it when you post, only usernames are visible

check your settings. do it. get familiar with them. turning on and off asks, turning anon off, turning submissions off. click on your blog, go to blog settings, check things there, go to account, your muted things will be there, go to dashboard and customize that. use your settings !!!

yes, pinned posts are fairly important and they tend to be pretty extensive. name age what you post about ( a lot of people here are multifandom !), just don't overshare ( no locations no trigger lists i beg you ). they also usually have a breakdown of your tags at the end

tags

it's a whole thing. some are actually useful. some are just passive commentary

the tags you put on posts ( both when you made the post and when you're reblogging something ) are both global and hosted on your profile. it's why you'll see things like "nameofperson art" rather than just "art". using just "art" will put you in the promoted tag, in this case

you can use spaces on your tags

usually you will tag what type of post you're making ( art, text post, ask post ), and then the contents keep in mind this is how people often mute things, some people tag the current situation, people use and mute ship tags. but this is also how people find things, like the specific asks from one person to another, so "username ask" is commonly used, "irl person ( dream, dnf, etc )" is also seen a lot just watch how others tag things and copy them. nobody will get offended you took their tag formatting, most of us will appreciate properly tagged posts

you do tag when you reblog people. you use tags to comment on things. don't really use replies unless you're, saying thank you to someone or pointing out a spell mistake or asking to add an option to a poll, etc. we don't do replies, just rb your reply

quick reblog and like deets

post popularity is measured in "notes" which is the sum of replies, reblogs and likes. we don't really care much about numbers here and if you start getting crazy about it people will not like it. this is more of a talking and showing site

you can reblog without tags, feel free to

you can hide your likes. you can and should like as many things as you want. they don't alter any algorithm, since there's none. a like is a "i saw this post" notification to the poster

actually posting

people talk a lot. a fucking lot, and it's something you will have to get used to, because it's very different from twitter

there are no qrts. callouts are looked down upon. breathe. if you don't like something MUTE IT DON'T POST ABOUT IT, because no one is going to listen to any callouts. you will have to learn to live with the fact people like things you don't. this will, with time, make you feel very free

the bulk of posting here is asks, as you might notice soon. asks are fun and encouraged. just don't name drop if you're talking about drama please ?

don't be scared to send asks off anon, this is how people will find you and get to know you really. people are also more likely to reply to you

block bait anons. yes you can block anons. yes it will block every blog they make

culture time

i've said this. tumblr is unserious. drama here is approached very differently and with several less layers of panic. you will see death threats. you will see slurs ( said in non derogatory ways ). you will see jokes about serious topics. you will see people say "i didn't like this" and nobody will care

tumblr is a community of individualism. you will like your own things within the thing we share we like. you might not like dream's music, you might not find irl streams entertaining, as long as you're fucking normal about it ? nobody will care and you're free to express your opinions. people will even come ask you about it and just have a chat. we're here for the same content to some degree

tumblr is also a bunch of people who understand they like another bunch of people. that none of the streamers have stopped being human. so you might see people defend things that, maybe, you'd not have thought to defend before. maybe you're even uncomfortable seeing them defending it. this is something you will experience a lot, and you'll learn to properly deal with it as time passes

because again. no one does callouts here unless it is extremely bad. no one cares if you don't really like them. and they also accept people might and will not like them. and that is fine. and that doesn't make either person horrible. you're just different people. and you don't even have to interact

you want to make friends ? ask people things, compliment people's work, genuinely attempt to make conversation. this is not an impersonal website the way twitter is. people don't care about your opinions because they care about you, and you are more than what you don't like

the more positive and jokey and interactive you are the more people will talk to you. there's no "hitting the algorithm", there's no "engagement", it's just people talking to people. so don't be a neg posting bot, and be a person

you will learn to be less miserable. you learn to stop giving a shit and just do what makes you happy. they cannot get you here. there's no qrts. the few antis you'll find can be blocked and you'll never have to directly interact with one. don't be mean to the people in your own community, even if you disagree

again, you are more than what you don't like. learn to be what you like instead. and leave the dooming at the door

[growling]

*average self-proclaimed safe space tumblr blog voice* I soooooo support people with schizophrenia that must be so hard to you anyway I just saw some weird looking woman talking to herself right outside my house im fearing for my life should I call the cops. Yeah dude I support all the adhd havers in the chat just try to pay attention when I talk to you it's not that hard it's like the least you could do to show some regard for the other human being in front of you. Like it's fine to have memory problems but why did you forget this one thing in particular that was important to me do you like not care or anything you should try harder. I am one of the only real mental health advocates to still exist in this world I hear your struggles that being said I hope I never get to meet one of those irl sociopaths or people with aspd whatever they call them now they're so freaky and they can blend into society so well you might never know if you're actually face to face with an actual socio i mean person with aspd in the store absolutely one of my biggest fears what if they torture me in their basement. I absolutely empathize with all the people in here suffering from delusions as long as they like, don't actually show it or have one concerning me that'd be highkey uncomfy leave me out of this dude im not talking to you until you get help, anyway my fav character from my anime just presumably died but i still think they actually survived im sooo delulu lol. We should push for more wheelchair accessibility in our cities I agree but like it's so difficult to tell how many people are actually disabled and who are actually faking it, like, ummm why did that "wheelchair" "user" guy stand up just now cover blown lmaoo…. Yeah I support people with facial differences but I still have a right to be disgusted you can't control my emotions anyway can you tag your selfies as #body horror this deeply triggering to me. Speaking of triggering can you also pleaseee hide your scars or at least warn us beforehand jesus do you know how many people genuinely do not want to see it. Here is my extremely fast strobing lights and flashing gifset #epilepsy. Yeah I loveee girls with bpd beautiful princess disorder am i right they're so interesting the stigma sucksssss i'd love to get to be one's favourite person as long as they don't actually have any of those weird or violent symptoms or don't go into any of their "episodes" near me like that's a bit dramatic….. I deeply feel for those who had underwent narcissistic abuse from the hands of an npd I think my shitty ex boyfriend was a narcissist too tbh #surviving narcissism here are 10 signs you are dealing with a narcissist and here's a tutorial on how to trigger a narc crash to epically own them anyway does anyone else think we should start enforcing mandatory castration of all the newly diagnosed narcs like you know what happens when they reproduce right. But I am willing to support them as long as they go to therapy to get that fixed it's just you know. Anyway sometimes hospitalisation is fine if they're genuinely a danger to themselves like what do you want them to go live on the streets or actually get help?? I support all the people dealing with being a professionally diagnosed disordered system and I think it's sooooo terrible how literally 99% of the youth population nowadays is purposefully faking it for attention I did my research (1 minute google search, 2 minute r/fakedisordercringe scrolling session and consulting a single system that agrees with me). It's just not believable to me that there's really that many people with it isn't it supposed to be rare… Also are we really sure all those alleged people in their heads are really real or just their imagination maybe all of them are actually faking it huh food for thought. I am very uncomfortable with nonverbal high support needs ppl actually having sex like consent is supposed to be explicitly verbal only and, are we really sure they can even consent arent they like basically children. You can't call me ableist I'm literally autistic

[homunculus-argument]

hey there! this sounds like a bit of a silly question, but as a trans guy, you’re one of the few trans people i’ve been following almost since i joined tumblr, so based on your other anon ask and answer i figured i’d pop in and ask if you have any advice? if you want to answer, ofc :) — i foresee this being a bit long, so i totally get if not

so i’m also a trans guy, but i haven’t been able to take any steps toward medical transitioning before since i live with my parents. but i’ll move out soon, and i still can’t decide if i should take any of these steps even once i do. i’ve never felt like i particularly wanted to medically transition (i don’t really care about how my body looks + i’ve never really cared about changing any of it), but i would like to be seen a guy — i don’t mind if not so by strangers, but maybe so by like, my friends. but i can’t help but feel like i’d be laughed at for wanting that — i’m not naturally androgynous or masculine looking to others and i have never been mistaken for a guy, because i have really long hair, d cups, and curves. and without medically transitioning, i also kinda feel like i’m… betraying the trans community, since i’m not really putting the effort into my transition and so i’m just ‘pretending’, even though i do know i’m not.

so my question would be: as a trans person who has transitioned, socially and medically, do you think people are more understanding than i think they are currently? do you know of any trans people who don’t want to medically transition, and do you think it’s possible to live fulfilled that way? or even: do you think it would be easier for someone like me to just live a lie? i usually tell people i’m a lesbian, because they definitely would not look at me and assume ‘straight guy’, but also, as a trans person who doesn’t want to medically transition, i’m just always worried that i won’t be taken seriously. i feel like your experience of being trans and probably interacting with the community is much more than mine, which is why i ask this last one — i would try being open myself, but again, i’m still living with my parents unfortunately.

I'll be honest I don't actually really know much "community" save for former art school classmates. I've only known one trans person irl who chose not to medically transition - at the time, Finland's trans law was still shitty and required sterilisation for legal sex change, and all that. She didn't want kids or anything, but refused to engage in the process as her own little personal civilian protest. I don't want to paint some caricature picture of some Sharp Dommy Tall Scary Goth Trans Anarchist, but I was deeply impressed by the way she didn't do a single thing to try to seem smaller, softer, or in any way submissive or docile to be ~feminine~ the right, socially accepted way.

She wasn't just taller than most men but usually the tallest person in the room, and she stood out in a crowd of cis women like a crane in a chicken coop - a bird just as much as they are, but a different kind of bird. And I remember thinking that I could never do that, being so unflinching and unhesitant about standing out in the crowd because assimilating and muting yourself is beneath your dignity.

Honestly, I don't know what to tell you about being openly trans without transitioning medically, save for that it takes more guts than being able to just go stealth. I had physical dysphoria about the way my body was, and was desperate to get top surgery just for the sake of my own physical comfort, and I like the convenient anonymity of being able to just be Just Some Guy who doesn't attract anyone's interest or curiosity.

It's a smart move to not come out to your parents before you're out of their house and not relying on them for anything - this is something everyone should use their own judgement for, but I stress it to every queer kid to not take the risk if there's any chance that they'll react poorly while they still have power over you. But living your whole life in the closet - "living a lie" is a good way to put it - will corrode you from the inside.

It's better to live in peace with yourself and against the world, than in peace with the world against yourself. There is absolutely nothing in your power that you could do to change the minds of people who have already decided that they don't respect you, and if they try telling you that they would, if you only met their approved criteria, they are lying. That's bait they're dangling in front of you, and there's no "earning" the respect of such people.

Stay true to yourself and be good to people, and you'll have the respect of people who are capable of respecting you. Don't waste your time and energy on people who won't respect you, every thought and effort you spare them is wasted on them.

[decolonize-the-left]

.....does anyone else get the vibe that the limitless expanse of the internet, media, and consequent ability to interact politically, spiritually, and apathetically with people locally and globally maybe had an influence not only on the individual's relation to the collective but also their ability to participate in it and see their significance to it?

Can we talk about it?

Like I feel like as some who was a frontline activist and now is a disabled social activist who dabbles in radicalizing liberals... The wall I and my peers continuously keep running into is the collective feeling that someone else will do it.

"it" being whatever action.

For me it's signing a petition, protesting, donating, community organizing (both online and offline).

We get tons of interest on stuff. Interest which very rarely translates to doing more than showing a poster to the friend theyre with before trashing it, reblogging a post, or hitting "interested" or like when we post local events.

And on All these platforms posts gets to a point of "enough" responses where ppl just stop responding and sharing, too.

On Tumblr you see this a lot with donation posts and people constantly having to make new ones. Cuz they're getting notes, but not tangible assistance that will help them. And the reblogs stop because there are so many notes that ppl start assuming that the goal was met or will be met soon.

But that isn't what's happening. And like I said this isn't just with donation posts or money so the answer isn't "well ppl are broke" which would be an easy and sensible answer.

Honestly, I've been thinking that with so Many people easily accessible online with so many opinions and varying levels of popularity and followers that it's easy to lose yourself in them. Especially now when so much of life takes place online.

It's so easy to think you're just one of those many people. ....So surely nobody would notice if you were being a little facetious, right?

Gonna be real, it seems a lot to me like a lot of people are trying to hide their lack of integrity through the anonymity offered online.

And like sure maybe nobody would notice if it was just a few people being facetious about supporting something but it's SO MANY (in my experience? Upwards of a thousand once) and Everywhere. Online, offline, and apps.

And the thing that makes it weird is that every one is assuming that people are being more helpful than they are. That more people are showing up.... Even though they themselves are not showing up either. Like I said reblogs for donations stop, shares stop, and only a handful of ppl show up to events irl. You can literally compare reblogs to the signatures when a petition is being shared.

Wanting to show up isn't the same as showing up.

"People" are not coming to change or show up to the revolution. It's you. You are the people. You are the people that need to show up. Not just as a notification on my screen but actually, because you think someone else will have enough integrity to show up for you but they don't.

Your integrity matters.

You matter so much. I don't know what it is behind this mass behavior that has y'all acting otherwise but I'm telling y'all right now that YOU and the choices that YOU make matter. The events that you choose to spend your time at and how you spend your energy and protecting your rights matters!

That isn't some "im just another drop fighting an endless battle in the ocean" kind of deal.

I'm telling you from experience: there is no ocean! We are in a fucking drought and every drop matters.

Show up. Nobody else is doing it on your behalf.

.......or is it just me? Has anyone else noticed this

[spacelazarwolf]

Maybe i just need to vent.

I fucked up. Got called out. And wouldn't you know it, the callout has done nothing for me a trans man but isolate me, make anyone scared to speak up for me, and now i have fash chuds spoof calling my phone! No matter how bad it gets and what they are told about it by concerned parties in private these people won't even update their shit to say "we don't endorse harassment of this user, stop. " which tells me they just endorse harassment of me.

It's like it's just cool to harass an autistic trans man! It's like if you direct fashy chuds to the lowest common denominator, no one will acknowledge you're being as bad as those chuds.

Maybe people should stop unintentionally creating a police state online because they're used to it? IDK

imo "callout culture" is entirely antithetical to concepts like prison abolition and restorative justice, which a lot of people who perpetuate callout culture claim to support. i remember reading years ago about how "callout/cancel culture" was a concept that originated on black twitter to let other black people know about businesses and people that weren't safe for black people to go to or interact with. so it makes sense that, like intersectionality theory, it was co-opted and bastardized by white people and turned into a bludgeon against other marginalized people.

and like. this is something i've been talking to my irl friends about a lot lately. because what's the goal? what are you trying to achieve by making that callout post? what happened to prompt it? did someone prove a pattern of dangerous behavior, or did they just fuck up and now you have an excuse to put them on blast to feel morally superior? are you making this post so people are aware of someone with a pattern of dangerous behavior and can stay away, or are you making it knowing that it will prompt the people in your circle to go after that person and "punish" them? do you want that person to learn from their mistake(s) or do you want to brand them as a bigot forever? do you want the world to be a better place, or do you want to be angry at your (perceived) oppressors?

so yeah, if you're going to say acab and if you're going to say you believe in prison abolition and restorative justice, you cannot turn around and make a callout post for everyone on tumblr dot com you think has wronged you.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for going off on my boyfriend for going in the wrong hole?

Sorry for something so obviously NSFW and TMI, but I don't really feel comfortable asking anyone I know IRL because I don't want it getting back to my friends and family who don't know I'm sexually active. (yes I'm an adult and it's perfectly legal but my entire community is very religious)

I (F19) have been courting a guy we'll call Alex (M22) for about a year now. Alex is a really nice guy and has always been respectful of my boundaries. I'm kind of soft spoken and he advocates for me harder than I do. If one of our friends interrupts or speaks over me he'll stop them and say "I'm sorry, but she was talking and we should let her finish." He's even defended me like that to my parents a few times. He also gives me rides to and from all my classes, and is always so attentive to me. He is so open with his feelings and communicates with me openly and freely, so much that he has made me a more open person as well. I genuinely feel like he brings out the best of me, and he says I do the same for him.

I say all this to emphasize that is absolutely the only aspect of our lives I've ever had a problem with him with. I told Alex pretty early in our relationship that I wasn't a virgin (a very bad thing in our community), and I understood if that was a deal breaker for him. He said it absolutely wasn't, that he still liked me and still wanted to court me. That he would keep that a secret for me no matter how our courting ended, either in break up or marriage. And that there was absolutely no pressure to ever have sex with him if I didn't want to.

I was also the one who told him I wanted us to be sexual before marriage and he agreed. The first time we did it he asked how I felt about anal, and I said it was a hard no go for me. He just said "okay" and never brought it up again.

But a couple of weeks ago we were doing it and Alex was behind me and suddenly it went from V to A. I screamed because I was surprised and it hurt a lot, and he immediately stopped and started apologizing profusely. He seemed so upset by it I ended up being the one comforting him and telling him it was okay, but obviously the mood was killed so we just stopped. But then a week later it happened again the exact same way. And again he seemed so upset by it and it immediately killed the mood.

Alex has tried initiating a few times since then but I really don't want to have sex with him if this is going to keep happening. He said he feels hurt that I cringe away from his touch like he's a monster, and I snapped back that he should quit hurting me like one then. That once I could understand but he did it twice and I would be stupid to trust him not to do it again. He looked really hurt by that and said it was just a mistake, that it happens a lot to everyone. I said it never happened with me and my previous boyfriend. He said that's just because we got lucky, that he has had more sex than me and he knows this sort of mistake happens all the time.

Then he said he could tell I was still in the feelings stage about this and not ready to work it out, so he would wait as long as it takes for me to come around and talk to him. Because he loves me and doesn't want this small disagreement to hurt us. That made me feel really small. Like I was a kid being scolded by a parent. Now I'm kind of feeling like maybe he's right? He does know more about sex than I do, and both times it happened he immediately stopped and we didn't get to finish having sex, so I have a hard time believing he enjoyed doing it?

So I'm here to ask tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[kalfui]

been thinking about aroace alastor a lot, in the sense that ofc this is simply canon and i wouldnt even BE thinking about it beyond a simple "woohoo this is fun, let's think about how that might have affected him and his relationships both whilst alive and after his death and fic and art and the usual joy of character analysis" if it weren't for the fact that it seems to be a flipping fight to just. Have that canon be acknowledged, which is taking up so much energy that it's honestly hard for me to enjoy him as much as I wish, considering this rep is supposed to be For people like me

and I think that's so much of my frustration around all of this, which IS mitigated by just finding a few chill people to follow and focusing on that -- but even then most of my "suggested for you" for this show is alastor x [insert any random main character] shipping/sexual content -- is that this is an offering for people to learn something new and delve into experiences that they may not have thought much about and the ones who know what aroace means, and in particular within the realms of how this character is being written within this particular very-sex-heavy universe (so, not so different from real life), by and large decided to just go "nah." people aren't interested in aroace experiences, and it's weird from a "so you just don't like a large part of this character's canon traits then, do you like the actual character, or just the OC you've made up in your head that happens to look like them?" perspective, but mostly for me it's that a lot of the way people talk/write about this it's like aroaceness is something that needs to be Fixed Somehow, and thank Goodness there's a neat little loophole that we can utilise in the form of "well sooooome aroace people do want to have sex and be in a relationship"

so many of the things I can't help but see, block, move on from, and in the ao3 alastor tag (which, it's frankly wild to me that aroace alastor has to be a specific tag, because so much of it ISN'T that, and even then we have to sift) is either just the equivalent of going "lalalala if I don't think about the aroaceness it's not real" or the even more disturbing "now how do we fix this so that the ace character can still fuck somehow." it's really creepy, and very much how people talk about aspec people irl. it's just incredibly poor taste and shows that this community is still so invisible

people really ought to think more about why this is such an important hill for them to die on that they want to Fix aroaceness in one of the only genre-fiction characters to be canonically such, ON a show where every other character enthusiastically enjoys sex and most of them are in established relationships or various slowburns -- why is the character that is not interested the one that is shipped with every other character to such an extreme?

I feel like anyone writing an aroace alastor that mysteriously can be compelled into sex and a romantic relationship needs to give me a 3000 page essay on the history and philosophy of aspec identities with a special section on aroace representation in media

but ultimately it's just a "look. please be kinder. if you look in our sandbox we have barely any toys, why are you coming into this sandbox to take more of them and then rubbing our faces in it and THEN being rude to aspec people when we say it makes many of us uncomfortable to be sidelined like this?"

I keep thinking of that one screenshot that was going around tumblr of the person who wrote straight brokeback mountain fic that everyone was going WTF about. why is it alright to "headcanon" away canon aroaceness (and mock people who point out its canonicity), but it's largely agreed to be in poor taste to do so with other canonically established queer identities?

I get fandom's not activism, but it sure sometimes can be a yardstick for how much I'd trust people to respect me irl, when I cannot enjoy aroace escapism without being talked over/mocked/yelled at AND having aspec theories appropriated without any understanding of what they actually mean or how they apply -- this history and community is a part of my life, and it's like people are just traipsing mud through it with the lack of respect for it (as lucifer would say "you come into MY house bitch???")

(apologies this got long. you don't have to post if you don't want to, I get that it could be inflammatory and don't want to put that on you, I've just been needing to vent. I just feel like I'm going a bit crazy with how nigh-impossible it is to avoid this -- why am I the one who's having to make all that extra effort to enjoy a character written with my community in mind? don't y'all have enough toys???)

Don't apologize, I absolutely love reading how others feel about this situation, and I completely agree.

I think it's sad how people don't want to think about a characters aroaceness and how it affects them and instead just throw that part of them out of the window. I think it's even more interesting since Alastor canonically thinks that he's straight, but hasn't found the right one yet.

"Headcanoning" a canonically aroace character a different sexuality is so.. I don't even have a word it. Many people "headcanon" Alastor a different sexuality, but keep it canon when it's Angel Dust or Vaggie. Personally, I think it stems from aphobia. Just like you mentioned, people feel the need to "fix" aroace characters, like their sexuality is a messed up or broken part of them. It reminds me of when I used to hear teachers talk about how everyone will someday find love, and the ones who don't will have a huge gap in their heart and be empty. It's quite terrifying just how similar it is. The fact that he, as the only confirmed aroace character, is shipped the most, too, is quite saddening.

It's disturbing how they search and search for stuff to use as excuses when they ship aroace characters. "Aroace people can still date," "It's just headcanons," "Alastor is not canonically aro," and so on.

Ao3 scares me, especially with characters like Alastor. You don't even wanna know how many times I've seen people say, "I know Alastor is aroace, but we'll just ignore that" in fics. Most of the time, they even change his character completely, and he's so out of character.

It also kinda disgusts me with the stuff people say about Alastor, I can be scrolling on Tumblr and a post comes up saying how Alastor would fuck the living shit out of you and it's so fucking disturbing and graphic, I guess this is just how it is generally when people talk about fan favorite characters, but when it's an aroace character too, like.. no, he wouldn't do any of that.. It's so weird. This is what people care about, sexualizing. They don't even seem to care how much of a complex character he actually is, but only how he would be during sex, and it's quite disturbing that most of the time he is the victim to these type of comments.

And, with the amount of hate I've gotten from tiktokers in my comment replies saying how either Alastor isn't aro, how he's just fictional and it's not erasing any representation by shipping him, how aroace people can still date, how Viv allowed them to ship him, and even saying that it's okay to ship him because he's a stereotype and bad rep (???) and whatever else they have to say, I quite literally do not care. I'm not gonna be humiliated into silence, I'm not ashamed about the fact I'm trying to keep these crumbs of representation we have left. "Boohoo, you talk too much about Alastor being aroace," and I'll continue, I think that's a lovely and very interesting part about his character, especially from the time period is from, and the fact he's unaware too.

it's kinda sad how a lot of people don't even know that he's aro, I wouldn't either since all the fandom does with him is ship him. There are so many other relationships people could dive into, Husk and Angel Dust, Charlie and Vaggie, Vox and Valentino, and many more, but yet they go for the aroace character.. Also the fact that since the pilot the character he's mostly been shipped with is Angel, a character who makes a lot of sexual remarks towards Alastor which he very obviously feels repulsed and disgusted by, is kinda just.. where's the appeal when he's clearly disgusted? Is that part of it? I'm glad that there is a side of this fandom where people actually love him for his character and not just because he's attractive.

Other than that, I'm very glad the show itself knows how to show he can have meaningful friendships and platonic relationships with people, such as Rosie, and didn't make him an edgelord that hates everyone and doesn't have friends for some random reason.

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me, I enjoyed reading through it, and again, I completely agree. I just hope the fandom could realize he's a lovely character and that him being aroace is just a part of him like it is of us.

[sailor-aviator]

Hey.

Go ahead and get settled because this will be...long, in true Liz fashion.

So, by now I'm sure most of you have heard what's happened. If not, you can search this blog for some answers or others for more.

I joined this fandom offiicially at the end of September after being a long time lurker. I had just lost my job and times were uncertain for me. I felt inspired to write, and as someone whose formative years were shaped by the fandom experience, I wanted to feel that sense of belonging again - to feel like a part of a community. I've talked about it on here before, but I started my fandom days in the original Hunger Games fandom when the first movie had just come out, and then I shifted gears towards the SuperWhoLock fandom. If you know anything about SuperWhoLock, then you know you had to have pretty tough fucking skin to be a part of any of it.

Of course, this was back in the day when fandom was an actual community and not authors having to beg for scraps of engagement and people thinking its a numbers game. I was a fairly large blog within the SuperWhoLock community (Waywardly-Carrying-On was the username), but I left fandom for a few years because life got hectic and I felt like I had outgrown the fandom itself as I was no longer watching any of the shows. As the years went on, I started to yearn for the fandom experience again, which is how I found myself dipping toes into several different ones.

I was so excited to publish my first fanfic. I had convinced myself that I wasn't a good writer (much to the chagrin of my irl friends), and I had put a pause on writing my original story. I wanted to write this idea about a cowboy and a girl using characters that I had grown to love like I did way back in my older days. So, I started posting, and I was so excited for the story, that I kept posting almost daily. MamaMay was one of the first people to embrace not only my story, but me as a person into the fandom. She made me feel welcomed and wanted.

Pretty much right off the bat I was already getting anons telling me that I was being too much and that I needed to calm down with all the posting. I was confused because...this is Tumblr. It's literally a blogging website? Why wouldn't I post? I decided to ignore the mean words (not before giving my opinion, of course) and kept on doing my thing. Well, the anons got continually worse and worse. I had a suspiscion as to who the anons could be, but I never had concrete proof. So, I experimented with blocking suspects until finally it worked. I'm not naming names because that's not my style, so don't even bother asking.

The fact of the matter is, some of you have entered fandom spaces for the first time, and you don't know how to act. You don't care to learn fandom etiquette as you've made abundantly clear by calling fandom olds every name under the sun while utilizing the anonymous feature. Newsflash, you're part of the problem. You're the reason why authors don't want to publish anymore. You are the reason that something that's supposed to be fun is starting to feel like a goddamn chore.

How many times can authors on here say that we aren't machines? We have lives outside of this website: family, friends, jobs, school, etc. Some of you really are just hellbent on making everyone around you miserable, and it's sad. You can't just leave well enough alone and let people enjoy something, no you feel like everyone has to enjoy it the same way as you.

Some of you go after authors on here because of some weird sense of jealousy too. I don't know why my shit blew up, babe, I really don't. But I started out with no followers and no support just like everyone else. I'll tell you what helped me though: following fandom etiquette and reaching out to other creators to build an actual community. None of this "I've reblogged three of your things and now I'm messaging you so that you return the favor." No, I reached out to make actual friendships which is what fandom is SUPPOSED to be. If someone was clearly not interested, it was fine!! I backed off and kept doing my own thing.

Some of you think being mean on the internet makes you big and bad. Guess what! It doesn't! It's loser mentality and I feel genuinely sorry for you. I'm sorry that people in your own life made you feel so small as to feel like you had to lash out at strangers on the internet who are just trying to have fun.

Anyway, this is my really long way of saying that I am taking a break for a little bit. I have no idea how long it will be - could be the weekend, could be a couple of weeks, could be forever. I need time to decide if this is something I want to keep persuing. If I come back, I don't know if I will remain a TGM blog or if I'll shift gears and hop into another fandom with a rebrand. Guess we'll just have to see.

To the people on here who have been a constant source of joy, laughter, and support: thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Your presence has meant everything to me, and I hope that my break sees me wanting to come back and giggle about the silly plane movie with you all again.

Nothing but love,

Liz 💛