#I'm either gonna experience the media or I won't

[visdiefje]

Went from 150 to about 40 drafts AW YEAH

[icyrambles]

the cassettes are a group of characters where if i think about them for too long i start to get physically ill.

because i really like the cassettes. they're really fun and i adore the concept of a guy who happens to have a gaggle of goons to do his dirty work. the combination of making them actual cassettes who live inside of soundwave (and/or blaster but this is gonna be a soundwave cassette focused post) is really interesting.

unfortunately most bits of canon (and fanon to be entirely honest) do not treat the cassettes as actual beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and personalities outside of "soundwave's little guys."

for the sake of clarity i will only be talking about the continuity that i have the most experience with, that being idw1 and my post will mostly be talking about those versions of the characters. i've been told that the cassettes feature more prominently in the g1 marvel comics but i haven't quite gotten around to reading those in depth so i won't be discussing those.

back on topic.

i always feel so disappointed at the actual cassettes as characters. they're often sidelined into being background characters and the majority of the time when they show up in fics they're never majour characters, just background guys to pad out the cast. i'm honestly not gonna judge fan writers and fan artists too harshly because most canon sources don't really feature the cassettes as actual characters worthy of having attention paid to them.

idw1 is specifically the continuity where i feel a bit sick whenever i think about the cassettes because they go through sooooo much shit and it's never brought up. like okay, laserbeak, buzzsaw, and ravage are mostly chill. obviously they probably have the whole beastformers are lesser beings thing going on but they're overall the most well rounded of the cassettes. (ravage especially since he's actually allowed to be a character outside of soundwave)

rumble and frenzy are were my stomach starts to like... explode. because they didn't get a choice in being soundwave's cassettes and it's never brought up, ever. megatron basically tells them that they're gonna be reformatted and neither party ever brings it up. like do rumble and frenzy just tolerate soundwave because it could be so much worse? do they genuinely respect soundwave and fight beside him because they want to see him succeed in a similar manner as the beastformers? like... phase 2 shows them reformatted again into motorcycles and they seem okay with it, like neither of them seem to be hung up on no longer being cassettes.

but also i have issues and problems with rumble and frenzy always being shown as a package duo. like i think they're a fun combo, especially as siblings because i adore platonic relationships but most pieces of canon treat them as interchangeable. like it's an ongoing joke in the fandom that they swap paint colours to fuck with people and in actual canon sources they don't have consistent colours so it's harder to actually treat them as genuine individuals. and that makes me soooooo mad. i don't like it when twins/duos in media get treated as a weird conglomerate individual with two names. it's boring and it's lazy and i wish it would stop happening.

side tangent. i hate what how skybound treats the cassettes. like okay yeah sure it's fun to see soundwave go "you hurt my ravage" but what about his other cassettes. either rumble or frenzy is dead and soundwave just doesn't fucking care? does he play favourites, boy i sure would like to know but daniel warren literally fucking said that he killed off one of the twins because he found the colour debate to be annoying and that grinds my gears a bit. if you don't like them, don't fucking include them or idk, have mike spicer, the colourist, keep their palettes consistent.

and skybound also treats ravage like an object. he's not an actual character with thoughts and feelings and emotions, he's a fucking toy for soundwave to moon over whenever warren needs soundwave to be less of an asshole than shockwave. like yeah sure, soundwave being so desperate to get ravage repaired in skybound is good for his character but that dynamic, where ravage has no actual dialogue and no actual personality outside of "soundwave's cassettte" makes him so much less interesting to me. skybound is getting a small benefit of the doubt because there's only 11 issues so far, but i will critique it to all hell because any emotional tension involving ravage and soundwave falls apart for me because ravage could easily be replaced with literally any other cassette. he's not special and the comic doesn't do anything to make me genuinely care about soundwave and his relationship.

tangent over. i'm going back to talking about idw1.

specifically it's time to talk about the fucking elephant in the room that i'm always thinking about whenever soundwave's cassettes come up; ratbat.

now to preface this little rant of mine. ratbat sucks. he's a terrible person who actively believed and contributed to the oppression of millions of cybertronians. he used soundwave as nothing more than a tool and proved himself to be a slimy scumbag with the few moments that he was on screen.

however, that does not stop me from feeling just a tad bit bad for him considering how soundwave treats him. it's one thing for the decepticons to murder the whole senate, those characters don't really matter in the long run, they're nameless, they never get brought up ever again and the story just doesn't care about them once they're dead.

but ratbat is different because rather than killing him, soundwave shoves his dying spark into a cassette body and for all intensive purposes, turns ratbat into his slave. because ratbat doesn't get a choice, he doesn't get the ability to say no. he just has to be toted along and do whatever soundwave tells him to do and that alone makes my opinions on idw soundwave.... well they're not great. because later stories treat idw soundwave like he's a good guy, he's the dude who wants to make the decepticons what they were originally, he wants to be done with cybertron's bullshit.

and i have to sit there, fist clenched, wanting to grab him by the fucking shoulders and ask "WHAT ABOUT RATBAT? WHAT ABOUT THE GUY WHO YOU LITERALLY MADE INTO A SLAVE FOR AT FOUR MILLION YEARS AND WHOSE DEATH YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANY REACTION TO WHATSOEVER? DOES LIBERATION AND EQUALITY ONLY MATTER WHEN IT COMES TO GUYS WHO DIDN'T PERSONALLY FUCK YOU OVER?"

ehem, anyways, yeah i do not like the fact that idw just brushes over the fact that ratbat is not willingly soundwave's cassette. they do not ever focus on the fact that soundwave stuffed his former employer's spark into a completely different frame and then proceeded to do exactly what ratbat did to him for around four million years. and then didn't react whatsoever to ratbat dying.

like in early idw1, ratbat doesn't have any dialogue. he's a nothing burger character like all the other cassettes. but idw phase 2 specifically makes him a political rival. he's the guy in charge of the cons (along side shockwave to some extent) and then prowl fucking orders arcee to kill ratbat and no one ever talks about him ever again...

i have complicated emotions regarding ratbat because the story really wants you to see his treatment and go, yes, he deserves this treatment, he's evil and he was mean to soundwave and therefore he deserves to be imprisoned by another and used as a weapon for four million years and once he's dead we'll never talk about him ever again.

and i don't think that's fair. ratbat should've been a crucial character to soundwave after he died. soundwave should've had a moment in phase two where he realises that the decepticons have been terrible from the beginning, that he was actively a part of that terribleness, and he should've made the active decision to change the decepticons into something that stands for equality and freedom and peace.

i'm gonna move onto ravage because i feel so bad for ravage. he got shafted hard. oh the one hand, i love mtmte ravage, i adore seeing the cassettes in environments that don't involve soundwave because it means the writers have to actually care about them as more than just little guys that soundwave bosses around.

unfortunately, ravage goes from being soundwave's little guy to being megatron's little guy in mtmte. which like... okay, fine, megatron needs a guy who he can bounce off of and ravage fits that role pretty well (though i'd argue that having megatron potentially bounce off of an autobot whose morals are a bit lax is much better than simply having a decepticon who already likes him.)

but the point is, ravage, rather than being his own character who has thoughts and opinions, only exists to be a buffer for megatron. the devil on his shoulder if you will, trying to see and understand and coax megatron back into being the fearsome leader he was before. and it works to some extent, ravage getting fatally injured is literally what prompts megatron into ripping the djd to shreds. but unfortunately, that's ravage's only real purpose in the story. we don't see him interacting with any other characters means that he's entirely dependent on megatron for any insight to his character development. nautica is an exception but i have my own issues with the fact that she treats him like a pet upon first meeting him and like... to my knowledge she never really gets over that whole cute kitty aspect of their relationship.

and this makes me so mad because ravage is really interesting. he's older than most of the characters on the lost light and should reasonably be a fascinating insight to how beastformers are treated and discriminated against during the pre and post war eras. but instead he's relegated to a side character who gets murdered to further the arc of megatron, a character who sort of forgets about ravage as soon as lost light starts. this isn't helped by megatron's character arc being rushed and happening mostly off screen but ravage's death feels so unnecessary to me. he would've been much better had he been forced to be separated from megatron for most of lost light.

and unfortunately this is much the same for most other continuities. transformers prime my forever detested treats laserbeak like a fucking drone. it doesn't have any voicelines, it's just a little creature hooked up to soundwave's chest. (i haven't read the books because i cannot be bothered with aligned continuity and also if i have to go to external sources of canon beyond the original show to get key character information, it probably wasn't too important to begin with)

earthspark is fun in season 1, i'm happy that frenzy and laserbeak are allowed a few moments of time outside of soundwave but they're very minor characters and unfortunately ravage isn't much of a character considering he can't speak (which is weird because laserbeak can) and only gets a few scenes throughout seasons 1 and two.

cyberverse only has laserbeak and once again she/he (i don't think they state their pronouns) only exists to be soundwave's little guy.

tfa soundwave is so nothing burger that i genuinely forget that he exists 90% of the time. so his cassettes, as to be expected, not characters and just random objects to be played around with.

my point in all this is that the cassettes deserve better. they deserve to be actual genuine characters who are treated as more than just set pieces for soundwave and the other decepticons. i hope that in later transformers series, the writers give the cassettes the opportunity to shine.

[versegm]

Coming out of my self-imposed tumblr ban cuz this is the third post I see along the lines of "man we gotta jump ship" so here are some other ways to be social/do fandom/ect. I'm not gonna call them "tumblr alternatives" because I won't lie to you these are gonna be very different experiences from tumblr. But if you use tumblr as a way to meet new people/post your thoughts/do fandom/keep up with folks, then maybe one of these is worth looking into.

COHOST

I don't use Cohost so idk if it's good or not, but all the people who use it tell me it's A Whole Lot Like Tumblr. Got pretty mixed reviews on this one, people seem to either love it or hate it, either way you could check it out it's free.

PILLOWFORT

My main bitch, so I can actually talk about it.

Pros:

Lots of cool privacy features

Porn is allowed

Website has been consistently getting updates and listening to the userbase

No ads because it's user-funded

Cons:

Being user-funded means the website is frequently struggling with money

NEOCITIES

This one isn't really a social media, it's a host for websites.

Pros:

You can do whatever the fuck you want here

Cons:

You have to code it all yourself

If you didn't immediately skip this rolling your eyes, here are some ressources to get a blog running with minimum efforts, and a cool zine to figure out what to put on your blog.

FANLISTING

Ye Old internet way to find new peeps in your fandom. It's a list of fans. I'm listing thefanlisting.org here because it's the biggest hub of fanlistings out there, but there are plenty that aren't listed so if you've got a topic dear to your heart it might be worth googling up "[fandom/ship/character] fanlisting" and see what turns up.

Pros:

It's literally just adding your name to a list of fans. Low spoon effort.

Cons:

If you want to talk to any of the people on the fanlisting you have to actually manually contact them via email or website or whatever they provided for contact. High social anxiety effort.

Anyways that's all I got chief. You probably already heard of half of those and the other half might have made you go "hey wtf that's not at all what I use tumblr for why would I need these" and the answer is it's not my problem. I discovered these when looking for ways for me personally to do social media so if you do social media differently sorry I can't help ya. But hey maybe you'll discover something new who knows.

Preemptive answers to things I am sure will clog my notifications for years to come:

None of these are like tumblr! Look bestie this is like the fifth time people consider abandoning tumblr at this point you have to make your peace with the fact that there is no other website like this one.

The websites you mentioned are nearly empty there's no one in my community here! Bro if you want a website with lots of people you don't need me listing off where you can go you already know where people are going (aka: Bluesky) If you're so scared to be alone then invite your buddies to move there together so you can chat together idk. Be the change you want to be in the world.

I'm not gonna use these. Then you've got my blessing to not use these. I assure you you don't need to reblog this post just to tell me you won't use these. I don't care.

Anyways. Peace. Dunno how many people this is gonna be useful to, but if you wanted to branch out of the usual reddit/bluesky/twitter, hopefully this will help.

Bunch of pillowfort invite codes under the cut since I got a bunch. Sorry I got no cohost as I said I don't use that one.

[dr-spectre]

yes!!! Yippee!!! Brainwashing and hypnosis are different things!!!! Good opinions spectre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IVE HAD THIS OPINION FOR MONTHS!!!! I AM THE PREACHER OF THIS!!! I WILL SHARE IT UNTIL EVERYONE GETS IT RIGHT!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

Like... if you took 5 fucking seconds to search up the definitions of both you would realise just how different they both are.

Brainwashing is forcing different ideals into a person's head until they accept them, either via torture or psychological means. Hypnosis is literally all about control of one's self. The person who is hypnotised HAS A CHOICE! IF THE SUGGESTION IS NOT IN LINE WITH THEIR MORALS THEY WON'T LISTEN TO IT!!!! CALLIE LITERALLY SAID "OK fine I'll hear you out." TO OCTAVIO!!!!

Hypnosis is not how it's presented in media, it's not some thing where a person gets swirly eyes and becomes a mind controlled zombie, and then goes "oh man what was I doing?" NO! THAT IS FALSE! LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER SOUND!!!

It's literally just a deeply concentrated state while also being relaxed. Basically, being in a daydream or being in a flow state. THAT'S ALL THAT IT IS! Callie was holding her head in pain after the shades got shot off of her because she literally got flung out of a deeply concentrated state so very quickly. It fucked with her for a bit until she cleared up. THATS ALL!!!!! GOD!!!

Like, Callie is not even vastly different under the shades either, she's just normal Callie but more harsh and violent. That's it. And it makes sense because SHE'S MENTALLY ILL! SHES NOT DOING OKAY!! SHE HAD A FALLING OUT WITH MARIE! SHE GOT BURNT OUT! WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE'S GONNA ACT LIKE?!?!?!

She's not even that obedient to Octavio either. She back talks him over and over again in the final boss. She doesn't get punished for it either. God. People are actually so dumb I'm sorry but fucking hell. I'm tired of most Splatoon fans HAHAHAH! It's been 7 years and yet people still don't care about Callie. No one gives a fuck. God...

Have you seen what a brainwashed person acts like? They act like a robot, they act EXTREMELY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE THEIR BRAINS HAVE BEEN FUCKED WITH! They act so obedient and cold. Does Hypno Callie act like that? NO!

Like a good example is Winter Solider from Marvel, that is an example of brainwashing in a character. Bro literally got experimented on and saying some words activiates him like a cold sleeper agent. Does Hypno Callie act like some cold calculated machine? NO! GOD PEOPLE!! USE YOUR BRAIN!!!!!

Anyways, rant over. I'm gonna keep ranting over and over again about this LMAO!

Also side note, if people keep saying Marina Agitando is just a brainwashed Marina I swear to fucking God bro. I'm gonna... FNEOWODUWO1PDIEM2LSKD

bad media literacy skills detected... commence autistic rambling...

[ixzotica]

PROS 'N CONS LIST FOR MY NEW/BETTER CR divider credits ♡ my anxiety and overthinking has been eating me up abt permashifting so i'm making this to just remind myself why i want to leave in the first place. also i'm just resistant to change (neurodivergence) so this is also to help w/ that.

PROS

I'll be confident in myself in multiple ways (my body, my talent, etc.)

I'll be able to eat whatever I want without judgement or health issues.

I'll have the money I need to buy everything I want and fulfill my spending desires.

I will be able to actually donate to charities, organizations, and other things for good causes instead of feeling useless.

I'll have an enjoyable high school experience that won't consist of me crying and wanting to end my shit every day.

Speaking of ending my shit, I won't want to do that every day. I'll actually wake up and enjoy my life and live.

My culture will be more expanded and even have its own nation which I scripted. We'll also be more respected and considered in online gaming and media spaces.

I'll be able to be any gender/sex I want at will. Never again will I feel trapped in a body that I don't feel is me.

I can do magic. And I scripted that I'm omnikinetic too so like babe I'm gonna be able to be the next Hatsune Miku living inside your wi-fi.

I'll be able to buy and make my own fursuits exactly how I want. I'll finally be able to go to conventions and shit too.

I'll actually be as beautiful and pretty as the version of me inside my head is (because I imagine myself wayyy more attractive in my mind.)

And the list just goes on and on and on.

CONS

I won't be middle class anymore so I won't have those experiences anymore either.

I won't live in my hometown anymore. I'll be in a completely new nation which will be a big adjustment for me since that place is most of what I've known my whole life (aside from travelling but that's not the same as actually living somewhere, y'know?)

Uhhh. Yeah that's it LMAOAO!

if you're also a permashifter/respawner with anxiety and whatnot about leaving this reality, i recommend you do this too (if you want) since this really made me realize how much better my new/better cr is compared to... whatever the fuck this shithole of a place is.

[saintjosie]

I agree the joke was tasteless, no intention of defending it, but assuming bad-faith is a very good way to make using the internet a miserable experience. I'm not saying you have to take the time to educate people who are wrong and saying horrendously stupid or out of touch shit. I'm just saying life got easier for me when I approached situations like that with the perspective of "what's the least hostile reason they could be saying this" bc 9/10 times unless someone is spewing actual hate speech or making threats their either just uniformed or phrased things poorly leading to misunderstanding.

Anyway I hope people stop bothering you about this.

im getting a lot of these in my inbox and this one is one of the nicer ones so im just gonna respond about demilypyro this once

look i get it. i really do. ive been doing tiktok for years and that first year was absolutely miserable because i didnt know how to do that. now, 95% of the time, i just block and move on cause it genuinely isnt worth my time to care about it.

and what ive found is that directly addressing hate speech pretty much goes nowhere and is just bound to end up in frustration for me and fuel for the fire elsewhere.

but i promise that im not just reading with bad-faith intentions. this isn't the first time that something that demilypyro has said that has rubbed me the wrong way. and tbh, i had no idea who she was until i got on tumblr and i saw a lot of people circulating the occasionally very funny things she has to say. i do my best to give people the benefit of the doubt (especially on text based social media) but after following her for a second and seeing a lot of "shitposts" that were questionable at best and several that were just downright distasteful, i decided that i didnt care for her and unfollowed and moved on and since shes fairly popular on here, i also started unfollowing people who would rb her too.

recently i had to unfollow someone who said something incredibly icky involving minority consent and so i went through and followed some people who had followed me and who i thought posted funny things bc thats mostly what im here for. and one of those people just so happened to rb something she said that just triggered me so hard with the sheer stupidity and harmfulness of it.

i have a very very sore spot for religious trauma (something ive always been super open about) and i have little to no tolerance for when people say dumb privileged things AND i have little to no tolerance for specifically when white (or in this case white passing) trans femmes specifically say privileged things. and this just hit all of those spots. it was quite cathartic for me to say what i said and i have no doubt that there's gonna be a lotta people who disagree and unfollow. there's some people who will get it, a lot of people who won't, and maybe even some people who might change their minds and this is important enough to me that it's worth it.

[damagedfletching]

Something else the ship wars have made me aware of (and in turn made me want to rant again, so either buckle up or leave):

It's something that really bugs me, not just in fandom but in real life too- I spent the majority of my teenage years on 4chan, thinking I was a hardcore edgelord with the memes I posted and found funny. When I've had episodes in the past because of my mental health, I've done and said really abhorrent and immoral things. I used to call bad things 'gay' and joke about women 'asking for it'. Considering the way certain members of the fandom are digging up old posts from actors, I'm VERY glad my time in the trenches isn't accessible anymore, because dear god I was awful.

But you know what happened? I learned, I got better, I did my part and changed. Fandom, and the greater media in general, seems to forget (or disregard) that people CAN and do change and grow and learn. There seems to be an inability in general to believe that people can learn from their mistakes, and especially celebrities are constantly reminded of their wrongdoings instead of the fact they changed and the good that did. Some things ARE unforgivable, but y'all act like stupid memes from ten years ago is the equivalent to murder. I know if I was constantly attacked for dumbass 18yo me and their decisions I wouldn't get better, and I've seen others even double down on their bullshit SIMPLY because they enjoy being defiant and edgy.

Maybe I'm being naïve because I prefer to see the good in people first, and believe that everyone can change their views with education. But I've also learned in my optimism that people won't change if you attack them first. I also know from my own experience that apologies are hard, and personally I'd rather show I've changed my views by DOING good quietly than posting about it publicly. People can grow and change, you've just got to let them (and sometimes support them).

The people digging for old drama need to get a hobby, a real one. Posts I made decades ago have absolutely no bearing in the kind of person I am now, and I'll bet real world money that it applies to these actors too. We've all said and done dumb shit- hell, we're probably even saying things now that in another decade we'll hate ourselves for. In order to learn from our mistakes we have to make them first. But it's blatantly obvious these people are digging this up because they don't like a character or ship, not out of any real concern. And as another post I saw said- if you're gonna point fingers at one cast member, you need to point it at the rest too.

Anyway tl;dr- we've all said shit things in our pasts and grown from them, but if you don't want people harassing you for idiotic crap you said decades ago, don't do it to them.

[starsoftheeye]

TMAGP Live Reaction - Ep 13

This probably won't be a regular thing since I usually listen to the new episodes on my way home from school, but I wanted to do it today and no-one can stop me

Pre-Episode

Aw this dedication is so nice, reminds me of how I used to sign off on social media when I was younger

Pre-Statement

omg samcelia date samcelia date

they're so cute omg

"she also said that you dont know how cute you are" alice dyer youre not fooling anyone

i wanna hear what this interaction sounded like between alice and celia

"nobody, i'm mysterious" this isnt gonna come back to haunt us im sure

omg samcelia dating reveal already

JACKS HER SON OMG

"wild couple of years after i moved here" does this mean that celias way of coping with being dropped in a different universe was to just fuck... iconic

either that or jack got brought along with her and shes just covering it up. or jack has some mysterious origins that we dont know about

omg a horror protagonists with loving, alive parents wow

i was not expecting sam to be this relatable oh no

sam :(

oh no an "incident"

alice :(

i love celia just being "i know we're on a date and thats great and all but what do you think about the Horrors"

ofc you know theyre real you lived through the apocalypse

ah hello lena and gwen

ah gwen is learning about the consequences of delivering a random address to a living mr blobby knockoff

ooh are we gonna get some exposition

yes we are

these are our Fears i presume

you work in the government responsible for discarding peoples experiences and traumas gwen you werent exactly one of the good guys to begin with

guys i dont think shes gonna sort it

Statement

hold music?? hello?? do we recognise this voice?? needles??

i cannot understand what the name of this company is but i do not like them

the autoresponder sounds so cunty who are they i must know

oooh a scottish guy we love a scottish guy

"i pay your wages" sounding ass. telling the autoresponder that youre the highest investor in a gambling app isnt the flex you think it is dude

i think if a website that directly involves the handling of your money does "weird background checks" and has a "janky interface", staying is less of a feat of loyalty and more a feat of stupidity

oh this guy does nfts for sure

are you allowed to blame the warning you didnt listen to for the consequences?

oh his friends suck too

damn all jokes aside i feel bad for this dude

ohhh so is this like the dice where things can only get so good before they go terribly? or is it like a "when your life gets bad your money goes up" thing

ah its the second option

tbf if its not against the law its not against the law

this guy is the definition of "20 pounds is 20 pounds"

suddenly i dont feel as sorry for this guy

i have a sneaking suspicion that this guy did not get his money

oh nevermind

OOOOOOH NEVERMIND THAT NEVERMIND

huh

HUH

DID THEY SEND A CREATURE TO GET HIM WHAT

Post-Statement

Alice!!

Ooooh he got pished

Alice really out here dissing every kind of date I've ever been on

oh no :(

sam no :(

sam apologise please

shes right tho youre in the wrong place if you don't want weird

alice :(

this is why a polycule would fix everything

alice i love you

sam i love you but you deserved that

[blubushie]

https://www.tumblr.com/blubushie/761610902932979712/idk-if-this-is-just-my-experience-but-i-noticed?source=share

my two cents on the "problematic" content thing is that tf2 is one of those media where you can lean into both feel good shit and darker topics simultaneously.

a recipe for a good tf2 fic is over the top gore and ridoculously stupid humourous scenes.

but also, If you're upset about people posting blood and a lil' guts, you picked the wrong fandom. that said, writers should of course use their best judgement and tag things appropriately. yk if someone comes in complaining about blood, there's a notice that says "you might see some shit"

and I don't play anti/pro ship games because the definitions of such things are fucking convoluted and meant to incite riots at this point, I do believe... I guess it sounds ridiculous to say it but I have seen people complain about "the mercenaries would never..." in the past. and it's always left me scratching my head.

and like this is tf2 we are talking about, people are going to die, horribly, which includes our main protagonists. there will be violence, fire, and swearing.

but also, If you're upset about people posting blood and a lil' guts, you picked the wrong fandom.

There's a reason I don't tag for blood on this blog and that's why lmao. I'll tag for gore gore (it's #haemocyanin btw—think viscera and guts and body horror) but I won't tag for blood.

I have seen people complain about "the mercenaries would never..." in the past. and it's always left me scratching my head.

This as well. IIRC at one point someone (either Hale, the Admin, or Miss Pauling, can't recall who) outright states that a few of the mercs are sex offenders. And this can be anything from "got slapped with an indecent exposure charge for pissing in public on a wall while drunk and had to register" to "outright assaulted someone" and we don't know what it is or who it is. And I'd personally rather my mercs not be violent sex offenders, but we also don't know, and I'm not gonna shit on someone or harrass them for exploring that bit of lore and what the circumstances might've been behind it.

It's very ironic to me that the "oh we're all freaks" website draws their line at, like... petplay or something and you can't go any freak beyond that. Now, it can certainly be argued that certain acts aren't in character for certain characters, but people as a whole are also highly nuanced. Someone can frequent a prostitue and then go home to their happy wife and happy little family. An alcoholic sociopath with anger issues can hold down a stable job and be a good friend and a good person—is that also out of character? People are confusing, extremely self-contradicting creatures, and it's fun to get into their heads. We've all got skeletons in our closet. We've all got something problematic about us, or our pasts. No one's hands are really clean—there's always dirt somewhere, it's just a matter of finding it. Stones in glass houses. I think harrassing someone for the fiction they create is bullshit, personally, even if I do find it morally reprehensible and disgusting in my own eyes. Depiction doesn't equal endorsement.

And people are allowed to not want to interact with people who depict or engage with certain things! God knows I have a few of my own that I wouldn't want to interact with. I just don't reckon nobody should be harrassed for it. I don't reckon real people should be harmed over fiction. I can recall a few groups to recent memory who ordered certain works destroyed, who demanded certain things not be talked about or written about or art done of them, and none of them were the good guys.

[proto-actual]

Hey tronblr. It's sysop. Let's talk about the Midjourney thing.

(There's also a web-based version of this over on reindeer flotilla dot net).

Hey tronblr. It's sysop. Let's talk about the AI thing for a minute.

Automattic, who owns Tumblr and WordPress dot com, is selling user data to Midjourney. This is, obviously, Bad. I've seen a decent amount of misinformation and fearmongering going around the last two days around this, and a lot of people I know are concerned about where to go from here. I don't have solutions, or even advice -- just thoughts about what's happening and the possibilities.

In particular... let's talk about this post, Go read it if you haven't. To summarize, it takes aim at Glaze (the anti-AI tool that a lot of artists have started using). The post makes three assertions, which I'm going to paraphrase:

It's built on stolen code.

It doesn't matter whether you use it anyway.

So just accept that it's gonna happen.

I'd like to offer every single bit of this a heartfelt "fuck off, all the way to the sun".

Let's start with the "stolen code" assertion. I won't get into the weeds on this, but in essence, the Glaze/Nightshade team pulled some open-source code from DiffusionBee in their release last March, didn't attribute it correctly, and didn't release the full source code (which that particular license requires). The team definitely should have done their due diligence -- but (according to the team, anyway) they fixed the issue within a few days. We'll have to take their word on that for now, of course -- the code isn't open source. That's not great, but that doesn't mean they're grifters. It means they're trying to keep people who work on LLMs from picking apart their tactics out in the open. It sucks ass, actually, but... yeah. Sometimes that's how software development works, from experience.

Actually, given the other two assertions... y'know what? No. Fuck off into the sun, twice. Because I have no patience for this shit, and you shouldn't either.

Yes, you should watermark your art. Yes, it's true that you never know whether your art is being scraped. And yes, a whole lot of social media sites are jumping on the "generative AI" hype train.

That doesn't mean that you should just accept that your art is gonna be scraped, and that there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't mean that Glaze and Nightshade don't work, or aren't worth the effort (although right now, their CPU requirements are a bit prohibitive). Every little bit counts.

Fuck nihilism! We do hope and pushing forward here, remember?

As far as what we do now, though? I don't know. Between the Midjourney shit, KOSA, and people just generally starting to leave... I get that it feels like the end of something. But it's not -- or it doesn't have to be. Instead of jumping over to other platforms (which are just as likely to have similar issues in several years), we should be building other spaces that aren't on centralized platforms, where big companies don't get to make decisions about our community for us. It's hard. It's really hard. But it is possible.

All I know is that if we want a space that's ours, where we retain control over our work and protect our people, we've gotta make it ourselves. Nobody's gonna do it for us, y'know?

[ftmtftm]

Hey!

I enjoy following trans guys on here because they tend to talk about masculinity in complex and interesting ways without tending to fall into MRA type pitfalls that are a lot harder to avoid in a space like Reddit. My question with that as a cis(ish) guy is always like...do you...want solidarity from cis guys on stuff like this?

Given that tumblr is kinda unique among social media spaces in that the norm is posters who are either women or queer, I don't see a lot of conversations between cis and trans guys for me to go off of as a norm. Y'all seem way more busy dealing with (what must be very tiring) discourse with women about whether being dudes automatically rounds trans men up to being oppressors.

Like, the defense I usually see mounted against that very simplistic mentality is--as you've said a fair bit and I would absolutely agree with--that patriarchal society doesn't give a fuck how you identify and short of someone who's managed to "pass" going completely stealth, there isn't even the option of being granted a very contingent male privilege. 

Building off of that response I tend to go further and say "Yeah, and I mean, even if you were a cis dude, the hurdle isn't suddenly over if you're assumed to be biologically male, broad swaths of male privilege are contingent on performing hegemonic masculinity. If you don't, won't, or can't play that role, you're just trading being viewed as a failed woman for being viewed as a failed man. And again, that's only if you're someone who can "pass" and who is willing to go stealth in the first place."

But I don't know if me saying that would be recieved as...helping? Considering me saying "yeah, dudes aren't suddenly welcomed with open arms if they have a "he/him" pin and some stubble, there are absolutely core social advantages compared to women, but there are also punishments for failing to adhere to patriarchal standards that some men will be constantly incurring" causes a knee-jerk "THATS MRA BULLSHIT" response in the average tumblr user, which you seem to have to deal with plenty even when you're just quoting bell hooks or something.

So yeah, don't know if chiming in on the experience of grappling with hegemonic masculinity is like... helpful solidarity or muddying the waters? But I figured I'd offer at least.

Oh this is a very fascinating ask because in many ways I'm inclined to say yes absolutely, it can be incredibly helpful. There are some ideas presented here I'm a little hesitant about and I think it can be situational because of that. Ultimately though it is probably more dependent on your own personal threshold for dealing with bullshit than anything else to be frank.

Like I was just saying in response to a previous ask - some of the most productive conversations I've had personally about gender were actually with an older, disabled, cis man who was my coworker. The social perception of his gender was really dependent on his age as a man in his 60's, his class as a blue collar maintenance man, and the disabilities he had due to life circumstances and his lifetime of physical labor. This was also, socially, at odds with the fact that he was a poet and an artist and a deeply emotionally aware/intelligent person - which goes against a lot of Patriarchal expectations for men. The Patriarchy doesn't really give a shit about the emotionally in touch, disabled, working class, maintenance poet because he is not an asset to maintaining system.

So I do think there is absolutely space for solidarity between trans men and cis men in that regard! There is always more that joins us than divides us. Always.

I do think, however, that it might be smart to gain more experience - of any kind - outside of online discourse before entering into specifically online conversations (though I'm also guilty of jumping into this one too sometimes I'm not gonna lie).

When I say "experience of any kind" I really mean it though. Be that life experience, academic experience, interpersonal experiences, etc. I would just start with talking to people about their lives and engaging with their lived experiences and also letting them engage with yours!

I think here in this specific conversation on Male Privilege cis men hold a dual positionality of both people impacted by the same systems and as allies. To specfically be a stronger ally is to spend a lot of time learning before speaking yourself - while also never forgetting that the learning is never "over" - in my opinion.

Like, that's expressly why I took a break from writing about gender theory for a few years to explicitly spend time just reading racial theory so I could be a better ally as a White person and understand the ways in which White Supremacy both uplifts and harms me and the social positions I hold due to my race. I'm currently spending a lot of time reading intersex theory, but not directly involving myself too much, for the same reason. It's a similar concept here but with gender and Patriarchy.

I do also want to make sure it's very clearly stated that this conversation isn't really a binary "men arguing with women and vice versa" issue - despite it often being framed that way. Many of the people who have been the harshest towards me personally have actually been other trans men and nonbinary people and less so women. At least in this particular conversation, as I've also dealt with my fair share of TERFs/Radfems but that's unrelated to the convo on trans men and male privilege.

All in all it sounds like you're on a relatively solid path though. The solidarity and allyship is nearly always appreciated - especially when offered in good faith and with the intent of growth. I'd still really, genuinely recommend taking kind of a circular path outside of online discourse into academia (institutionally or on your own!!) or ground work or something like that before coming back around into engaging with the internet directly if you're able to though! It does wonders for the brain and helps give you more space to examine potential biases in safer environments than Tumblr or Reddit imo.

[thevioletjones]

Listen, the DNC fucking nailed that convention so hard, I'm positive we're gonna win.

The party platform they laid out is immaculate. The stark contrast in messaging from that of the party of loveless, bigoted, weirdo, grifter, ghouls couldn't be more plain.

Somehow, in just 4 days, the Dems have officially become the party of family values, in addition to being the party of equality and inclusivity. It's actually surreal to those of us old enough to have slogged our way through many contentious election cycles and decades of hypocrytical myopic bullshit foisted upon us by old-fashioned post-Reagan conservatives.

The selection of Tim Walz as VP turned out to be masterful. Next to him, JD Vance looks even more pathetic and stupid than he already did. The men on the republican ticket are fundamentally incapable of acting like the informed, caring adults on the historic democratic ticket.

I'm disappointed in the youth on social media as usual. As an elder millennial progressive, I have always been further left than the tickets I've voted for and the administrations I've supported. Even my favorite politicians have done things I don't like or agree with. But that's the way it is. It's something we as voters and citizens do not have full control over and never will.

I believe in a free Palestine and I in no way condone the US involvement in supplying Israel with weapons in an unjust war. I also am not a fan of the barely disguised antisemitism that's permeating that cause, and I'm smart enough to know that the entirety of the conflict is much more complex than the last year's news cycle. You can seek out documentaries by credible news sources (like the excellent Vice News program previously aired on HBO and other cable channels) that detail bothe the history of Israel, the history of Palestinian struggles, and the history of the US relationship with Israel, and what that territory means to the different religious factions that want it for themselves (and how sects of Christianity have been indoctrinated into the cause of gaining it for themselves).

The thing is that this election isn't about that relationship or that conflict. It's not about anyone else's country. It's about ours.

I'm American, but I grew up in Venezuela. They just had a big election there that resulted in a steal from a dictator-like unpopular president. But unlike ee did with Trump the first time he lost, they can't actually get his ass out of the presidential palace. Chavez and Maduro have ruined that country with the same anti-democratic tactics that Trump would love to employ and pushed millions of citizens to emigrate from the country.

None of that is about the US either.

My point being, every country on this planet has it's own problems that for better or for worse, we have to largely leave in the hands of the citizens of those nations to resolve.

This is your opportunity to continue the slow correction of the path we've been on in America since Clinton and Obama. It's a slow march towards progress that keeps getting stymied and dragged back, then pushed a little bit forward again. These moderate liberals are the only vote we have that will ever possibly lead to a truly progressive hero and champion. You know, most likely someone in one of our generations.

Millenials and Gen Z have a lot in common, but as the older of the two, I'm telling you, only time and experience will prove to you that you can't have everything in one candidate or even an entire party, and wasting your ability to actually make a difference for noble ideals that won't make an actual difference to those lives you think you're trying to save is illogical.

Israel will not stop bombing Gaza because you sat out of a US election, or because you protested the DNC, or protest voted 3rd party.

Until the system is overhauled, there is no point in 3rd party voting. Of course we should have more than 2 options. We don't.

Anyway....... I am joyful this week.

I still can't believe Grandpa Joe actually got pushed out of the nomination. They are taking this swift shift to Kamala Harris and running Sha'Carri Richardson fast with it.

Get on board.

It's nice not to feel doomed all the time. I don't even care if it's partially an illusion. I know the alternative is a living nightmare that needs to end.

[osoreee]

heya! i'm a minor with complex-DID and i wanted to bring up something regarding your thoughts on introjects. this will just be my own experiences, so feel free to take them with a grain of salt!

regarding fictives, in my experience, they primarily split because i take comfort in a media during especially bad, traumatic situations. these parts usually take on the roles of caretakers or soothers. their purpose is to help cope with that event.

i am also very heavily fragmented due to the nature of the abuse i went through. some fragments find it easier to sort of "latch-on" to the identity or idea of a fictional character than to form an identity on their own.

essentially, it's an involuntary coping mechanism. it's not exactly healthy, i suppose. but then again, splitting at all isn't either.

that's all for this ask, but i'd love to have a conversation with you regarding all this. :]

i am also a survivor of OEA, and have a very high amount of parts as a result, so i would be willing to talk a bit about that as well, but i won't go into detail about my past trauma that caused that, if that makes sense.

have a good day!

Thank you so much for sharing! Splitting introjects when you go through traumatic events, because you take comfort in specific media, makes complete sense. I believe in introjects and factives (i might have a factive based of our abuser so theres that), I was around community of fakers for quite some time and how they showed off their fictives, factives all that made me extremely careful around systems with high alter count of these. I'm not saying you can't have high count of them though! Like the person said above, if its trauma related then obviously its valid doesn't matter how many. But not every person will have extremely high alter count with thousands of fictives so I'll remain careful for my own good. While also keeping it healthy and not immediately fakeclaiming every person that experiences the same thing.

I just don't want fakers or endos on my profile I think we all know why. I suppose my private experiences influenced my opinions a lot. So I'm very thankful that you shared your experience! Copying mechanism through relating to characters that are "close to you" throws a slightly different light at fictives and factives in my eyes. It makes a lot more sense now

Regarding OEA/RAMCOA etc. conversations I'm currently not in a place where I feel ready to talk about it. I'm not gonna move this topic on my blog for now- it's too heavy and I don't feel that I'm a person who should be voicing my opinions on it. My current view stays at I believe in your trauma and I hope you'll get better. That's it for now.

Hopefully this post makes sense with sentence structures 🥲 I apologise if it doesn't and I'll change wording later when I feel a bit better

[firstpooher]

As i seen many people pointing this out and I’m really for it, as you said it could be nightmares because of Babe being scared - or it’s his thoughts - Way mentions their “date” - Babe didn’t show up and Tony telling him to work harder - he’s scared that he’s gonna be bad mama and he doesn’t want to let his child down, as well as he doesn’t want to let Charlie down… or it’s the baby. I mean baby development can trigger Babe’s anxiety or it’s connected to baby’s power and it can cause nightmares or visions or so. I know they’re now very much involved into their mama/papa agenda but why did Charlie choose this nickname, I can be delusional but it doesn’t seem like coincidence to me. And I’m also very much for mpreg next season. I think that they should see our engagement and get us the plot we want, I think Pavel will not let us down.

Additionally, I wanted to ask you about one thing. I might be delusional but hear me out. At the end of first season - I mean last episodes (after Charlie’s death) I’m sure that death of the person you live is traumatic but Babe fainting and later crying every occasion, he doesn’t seem to be hormonal for you? I mean I was thinking and amount of tears was hormonal?

yes, on the first point I agree with you, it could be babe scared that he won't be a good 'mama' or as u also said letting the child down, and actually just thinking about it. Their baby. Charlie and babe's baby will mostly be a special one, regardless of his second gender. So maybe babe is also very worried about sth happening to his baby like what happened to him. He is worried about his baby that the baby will be hunted by people like tony too and this appears in his nightmares the chasing the feeling of being caged in way's arms (I applaud Pavel for his acting in this scene and his raw fear and worry) 

The baby will most likely be special. So yes, the baby will be powerful, and it can trigger babe's anxiety a lot, I agree with you. Also yes that specific word used did really confuse us all cuz of all times they said it as i recall starting in EP 6 the word "mama" it was either used as fluff word or a kink (lol we all know charlie fantasies about getting babe pregnant) [fluff charlie first attempt at using was for what?? yeah them having a baby. Running around and calling charlie papa and babe mama after this they used it as a kink lmao] 

But this time it was babe waking up from a nightmare and a word like this can be used like a usual pet name? So charlie would causally address babe by it when he was trying to calm him down (the mere presence of charlie in that time did actually calm babe down, but the word was for assurance) and that it makes me wonder, this little word made my head spin with thoughts the moment I heard and I had to replay it a lot cuz were they trying to really imply he is preggo or those two were fooling around together, still lost in between. 

i hope it will be mpreg too im so excited for it i hope Pavel hears us out, mu is all over the social media so I'm pretty sure he read this a lot lol

he wont disappoint, no.

To address your last question, let me begin by discussing the nature of babe's emotions and feelings from my perspective. He is an emotional alpha male, experiencing raw emotions like happiness, sadness, grief, pain, and anger. These emotions were evident right from the beginning. Personally, I believe he is someone who displays intense emotions when triggered. Therefore, it doesn't seem logical to me. The days when he witnessed the love of his life passing away, seeing their lifeless body, and feeling their absence was too much for him. It was a traumatic experience, and it wasn't the only one he had to endure.

Babe went through many unspoken challenges that we were unaware of. So, when he finally found someone who brought him comfort and peace, only to lose him within a few months, it didn't just break him; I believe it left him wounded, with every corner of his house reminding him of Charlie. It's natural for him to cry his eyes out. If you're considering the possibility of his reaction being influenced by pregnancy hormones, physical sickness could also manifest (depending on the person). However, I don't think his appearance in episode 11, looking pale, supports the pregnancy theory.

[eternal-nyx]

I started HRT!

Whew been a minute since I updated hunh? Well, it's been busy! I got approved to start testosterone HRT on September 25th, 2023.

I was surprised. I live in a bible belt, conservative, state and town. The trans health care here is.....the best word I have is mental whiplash. I started with a PCP at Medical Group A. He said he wasn't qualified for tran's or gender care and that no one in practice A was. He then said that there are rotating residents who DO the gender care and he put me on a wait list with them. I finally got to the appointment after a couple months and it was so easy. They used my chosen name and pronouns. They were respectful. Almost too respectful They tap danced around terminology to try to avoid offending me. It was......strange? Surreal? Twilight Zone? The Matrix? Either way. It felt very formal and professional and I do very much like the resident. It was just a very surreal experience.

But she was satisfied with our appointment and sent out the prescription the same day. She even tried to work with me when I voiced a desire to avoid injections if possible, but that I would take them if no other option existed. She tried hard to make the gel work, but in the end we went with the injections.

Then the next stage of trouble began. My normal pharmacy was out of the medication. It's a controlled substance in my state. So I called walmart pharmacy, but they were out of stock too. So was CVS, but at least they offered to order it if I filed it with them. I called a few other local pharmacies and FINALLY found one with the medication in stock. But everyone was closing so I had to wait until the next day to do the transfer.

I wake up the next morning and call to make the transfer, but because its a controlled substance, and I hadn't filled it before, they couldn't transfer it. My doctor would have to send it to the new pharmacy. So I made those phone calls and got that all set up. The next day it's FINALLY ready for pick up but my insurance won't cover it at this pharmacy. They run it on a discount card and get the price down to approx. $40 USD.

As a low income family we panicked briefly about how to afford the medication. We ended up having to charge it to our credit card. But we got it!

And on 9/27/2023 at noon I did my first self injection of Testosterone!

Day 1: No noticeable changes.

Day 2 9/28/2023 @8pm When I find alone time and find myself aroused, I have a daily habit to get into me and my fiance's shared toy box and do my thing. Well I did my normal thing today, and I noticed I could FEEL things with my fingers. So I did a LIL inspection and it was bigger. Not by a lot but I KNOW my anatomy, and my AFAB parts are heavily hooded and usually don't extend past the hood even when aroused. Today was different, and that is ALL I will say to anyone about my genitals. Then when all was done it was less plump, but still slightly larger than I am used to. I HAD MY FIRST ERECTION! And not only that, but I have growth!!!!!! On day fucking 2!!!! I'm gonna cry.

Also….It's itchy. And I seem to be unable to stop being aroused. Whoops.

--------------

I hope to do weekly check in's on my social media like tiktok and all of my blogs. The journey continues. Stay queer my friends.

Nyx [They/He/She]

[purpurussy]

literally haven't eaten anything all day (it's gone 7pm) or been outside in several days or slept more than 4 hours/night in the last week so im probably just being insane for no reason atm but

i feel like I'm at a weird sort of crossroads with this blog?

when i made this account i saw it as kind of an experiment in vulnerability and positivity. i said i'm gonna try my best to post what's in my heart and not care whether it does numbers or not. if people like it they like it, if not that's okay because i like it and i'm having fun. and i'm gonna practise some kind of general radical positivity/acceptance towards others too. like i promised myself i would not allow this to be anything other than a positive experience, a nice opportunity to express myself in a way that's disconnected from how people see me irl and maybe connect with likeminded people along the way

and once i started writing fic i literally couldn't stop, like the idea of being able to share my writing and have other people enjoy it too is so exciting and motivating to me. there is so much happening in my google docs atm and it feels so good to be writing again after years of feeling too depressed to create anything

however unfortunately i am the grumpiest most insecure person on earth and i have never let go of anything in my life. i've already been unable to stop myself from wading into discourse™ and the general social media fomo/insecurity is starting to get to me. like when did i go from just gleefully shouting into the void, to constantly checking my activity, trying to figure out the best times to post, literally crying when my stuff doesn't do as well as i wanted it to??? taking note of which posts flopped and which ones did well, so i can post more of the popular content instead of just posting what i want. none of this is even real, yet it's been bothering me in a very real way. most of which is just my brain turning it into a negative experience for fully self-imposed reasons

i do think social media is poison in general. and i know it does not work at all for someone who is very prone to having a complete menty b at the first sign of any kind of rejection. and i know a big part of the problem is that i'm attaching too much value to this blog and how people respond to my posts (I have been connecting with my friends irl more lately, but social media is literally designed to prey on the part of your brain that perceives social rejection as a threat to your existence so unfortunately it feels like this matters to me a lot more than it should. also my irls do not want to hear about dan and phil lmao)

idk if i should just accept that this is not good for me and delete, or if it's possible to once again achieve the carefree fun i was having at first. maybe if i can work on my irl issues i'll start to feel a bit better and then it won't bother me as much?

i'm also sort of wondering how much i should reveal about myself? like i want to feel completely free to post as much cringe/insanity/weird smut as I want. and if i was posting in a way that would be easily traceable back to my actual identity then i'd definitely be a lot more careful with what i say. but on the other hand i wanna get to know people better! it would be fun to hop into a discord and actually have a conversation with people rather than just rambling in the tags on their posts. so i'm not really sure what to do with that either. it's kinda fun to truly exist as a completely formless entity in a way, like im literally just tumblr dot com slash purpurussy and there's something freeing about that, even if it does make me feel like i'm missing out on a chance to connect with people properly sometimes

also that idea scares me! everyone on here is genuinely so cool and wonderful and it gives me such a huge dopamime hit when someone i admire likes my stuff. so it's just scary to interact with people more because it feels like oh no they're gonna realize im actually a cantankerous little troll that lives under a bridge and is a nightmare to talk to lmfao

this makes no sense and i'll probably delete it in a bit i just had to get it off my chest