#Not everyone wants to have to block every tag associated with that fandom to avoid spoilers

[damiemontclair]

This blog is a spoiler safe blog. All spoilers will be reblogged with appropriate warnings for at least 2 weeks after the show is done airing. Spoilertags to block will be listed on my pinned post

[lesbiansanemi]

Caught up on jjk. opened the jjk tag. saw the first post was a straight x reader post. IMMEDIATELY closed it and opened your blog instead. o7.

I'm so glad to be a safe haven from the hellscape that is tags. I hope you enjoyed your scrolling o7

Nah, x reader shit is a literal fucking inescapable plague and it's so fucking infuriating, I can't lie

Like, I truly have no issue with x reader stuff in general. Like the actual fics and art, of course. I have no interest in it, but other people like making and reading it, so good for them! Like, glad you're having fun

The broad community around it is fucking insufferable though and they make me kinda fucking hate anything associated with x reader stuff in general, to the point that I literally block anyone who posts/reblogs it on sight.

They are so fucking inconsiderate of everyone other than themselves in fandom spaces and ignore so many of the social niceties pretty much all other communities use to make fandom a habitable space for everyone en masse. The way they flood and abuse tagging systems is so fucking infuriating. Like, using the jjk fandom as an example (as its x reader community is one of the worst I've seen in this regard, though kny isn't much better), you shouldn't be fucking tagging your x reader smut shots with every goddamn character in the series. You want to write something of getting dicked down by Gojo? Sure, put it in the general jjk tag as well as Gojo's tag. That's valid and fair. Why tf are you tagging Maki? Or Yuuji? Or literally every other character in the series? Why are you tagging unrelated ships? It's so unnecessary and rude and self centered.

I also hate that the vast majority of them won't tag their stuff with a general x reader tag that's easy to blacklist. If I want to avoid their posts in totality, I'd have to blacklist "gojo x reader" "satoru gojo x reader" "gojo x fem reader" "gojo x gender neutral reader" "gojo x you" etc etc you get the point.... but for every fucking character in the series. Why not just add literally one general "x reader" tag that would mean people like me could easily avoid your stuff and we can both blissfully enjoy our lives? Tagging isn't just for getting exposure, it's for allowing people to avoid your work as well. That's more than half the courtesy of it

But no.... they want to shove their shit into as many people's faces as possible because they think that will get them more exposure, not just piss people off and make tags uninhabitable for literally anyone who isn't interested in it

They also have a tendency to not put their graphic, explicit porn under read mores, which is also just basic decency. Never mind that I then have to scroll through all 4K words of your OOC daddy kink nanami porn, but I had to see it when I didn't consent to it, potentially in public. Thanks for that! Also especially dumb when you put MDNI on it and then... just post it openly without even a single click to keep it off the screen. Great job! Not that MDNI always keeps minors out (obviously) but it's a useless shiny sticker when you then post the porn just out in the fucking open, not even offering one fucking click for people to consent to seeing it

I've also noticed they tend to use uncredited art in their stuff super fucking often? And no "art not mine" doesn't fucking count as credit.

Idk, I just truly have no fucking respect for the x reader community at this point considering their blatant lack of respect and courtesy for literally every other fandom subculture.

Sure, they get some hate for being "cringe" or whatever (which I admit isn't fair. I def don't get the appeal, but I don't think anyone should be getting meanly ridiculed for it, you know?) but I wish they would realize that the fucking disdain they get from the rest of the fandom is for these reasons.... Not necessarily the self shipping or even the blatant mischaracterization for wish fulfillment purposes

Idk, sorry for the rant, but the x reader crowd fucking infuriates me. Like I said, I block them all on sight (probably have upwards of 1-2K blogs blocked at this point because of it), and have blacklisted as many tags for it as I can.... and while how often I see it has definitely gone down and makes tags slightly more bearable... it's still, fucking somehow, like 50 fucking percent of them

But anyways, back to the main point! I'm glad I could curate a jjk tag that is more enjoyable and to your tastes! I know I very much like having one I can scroll through that's art and meta, rather than.... that

[kitkatopinions]

Hey guys, new RWBY season drops in like two days, so I just wanted to make a post because every time we get a new season, we also get A. An increase in people posting RWBY criticism. B. An increase in people complaining about seeing RWBY criticism. And C. An increase in people asking what RWDE is. So I thought I'd give some advice on how to avoid criticism (if you want to) and posting criticism (if you want to.)

This is one of the only times I'm using the main RWBY tag, I usually try to avoid it since I'm a RWBY critic. I'm using it now in an honest effort to help, please no one send me hate anons. :)

What is RWDE? RWDE is a tag used for any and all criticism of RWBY. The fact that it's a play on the word 'rude' doesn't actually mean the criticism must be mean spirited. Most people who post in the rwde tag were ordered to by other rwby fans who demanded we use the tag as a filterable (and not use the main rwby tag either,) so we didn't really choose the name, and use it as a courtesy to other fans. RWDE is used for anything from complaints saying the whole show is a wreck to the tiniest nitpick. Like any tag, people who use 'RWDE' range in opinions, there's no 'rwde hivemind,' I myself have been in fights with other RWDE posters in the past.

What to do if you don't want to see RWBY criticism? Filter out the 'rwde' tag, as well as 'anti rwby' and 'rwby criticism.' This is pretty simple. Just go to your settings, scroll down to the 'content you see' section, go to filtered tags and click the little edit icon, you'll get the option to add a tag to filter. If you do this, then Tumblr will hide posts tagged with 'rwde' from you, and you'll have to make an active choice to seek it out. If there are certain characters you'd like to avoid seeing criticism of, rwde posters frequently use anti character tags as well. I personally have 'anti Blake Belladonna' filtered out because I don't like to see too many posts complaining about her. Another trick is looking up rwby with a hashtag # at the front like #rwby, which I've heard helps avoid the 'this post mentions rwby and therefore appears when you search 'rwby' even if it isn't tagged' feature (which I know is a headache to deal with.) Also please don't avoid blocking out of some belief that it makes you a coward or a bad person, the block function is for everyone's benefit, and if you continuously see someone posting things that annoy you or are just taking up space or you just don't really wanna see, blocking them is a good way to get them out of your life without any fighting.

What to do if you want to criticize or critique RWBY? First off, criticizing RWBY at all in any way is something that does come with a risk. This fandom can be really toxic towards critics and defensive of the show to the point where even minor objective nitpicks will be called hysterical fits of rage. It's unfortunate, but if you want to post criticism, it's best to be aware of what you're getting into. I suggest using the rwde tag when you criticize despite the venom against it, because that's the most well known criticism tag and is the one most likely to have been filtered out by people that don't like seeing criticism. Not using the rwde tag might result in you getting people in your comments or ask box angry at you for the fact that they saw your posts. If you want to critique without being associated with 'rwde' and don't want to use that tag there's only so much you can do (popular RWBYtubers have been labeled rwde just for criticizing RT,) but you can use tags like 'crtq' and 'rwby criticism' and 'rwby critique' that might get less of a venomous response. Also I would again suggest that you be free with the block button.

If you heard something about how horrible rwde and rwby critics are... Please actually look into actual rwde posters and read actual rwde posts (in their entirety, not just screencapped parts of posts) before you believe anything from other people. Just because someone says 'rwde posters think X, Y, Z' doesn't mean it's true, and again there's a wide range of opinions you'll see from rwde posters. I'm not saying you have to like us or seek us out or anything (again, you've got the filter and block option and I suggest people who don't like criticism do so and we'll leave each other alone,) but don't buy into the 'htdm' stuff without even looking to see what's true and what isn't please and thank you!

Anyway, whether you're looking forward to the new RWBY season or dreading it, good luck on Saturday!

[ofgravitation-moved]

about the recent anon i recieved:

i appreciate you reaching out and letting me know. however after learning more about the situation and doing my own research, i've made a decision that's best for me and unfollowed the blog.

we all can create our own dash experiences: block blogs & blacklist tags / content that we don't want to see. when i first started this blog, the rpc wasn't like how it is now. things were more relaxed and casual. which is when this person was followed, years ago. but, even in the last few months a lot has changed. i try and stay up to date with everyone's rules to the best of my knowledge but i work full time, i just had a wedding and to be honest, my irl life takes precedence. i do not read every thread and post that crosses my dash.

receiving this anon made my anxiety go through the roof while i was at work. i posted a small post about it & then was flooded with messages after: and while i do appreciate the concern, i'll be reflecting my rules in the future to please avoid doing this. unless of course there is action that needs to be taken.

the situation was handled in private. the person has been unfollowed. however, in the future, please-- if i am roleplaying with someone that you are uncomfortable with, please act accordingly and do what you need too to curate your own dash experience: i.e - block the blog, softblock myself, or that blog. i do know sometimes tumblrs block system isn't the best, but please do what you need too, in order to protect yourself.

roleplaying shouldn't be like this. it should be fun, and we should have fun doing it. but, lately? i'm more upset and anxious than i am happy here. at one point, years back, things were said about myself in a fandom and lies were spread that still affect & trigger me --- even now. i stopped rping all together. left tumblr, and didn't come back for over a year. i don't want to do that again because of all of the wonderful friends i've made & enjoy writing with.

i cannot believe i have to say this, but: i am not proship. none of my muses are proship. i do not condone it. i do not associate with it. please, leave me out of it.

thank you for your attention to reading this. i'll be updating my rules soon to reflect changes being made.

[of-suns-and-guns]

I know you don't like responding to antis but if you got one saying it's selfish to risk triggering survivors by posting your content, how do you think you might hypothetically respond? Only because I know blacklisting and blocking aren't perfect catch-alls and I hate to give purists credit but not everyone tags every trigger and that is a really good point and I feel guilty that our ship may be triggering people because most of us avoid tagging the /i/ word. What are your thoughts?

Oooo, purists; good word. Might catch me using that in the future.

But to your point:

I have actually confronted this kind of anti argument before (of-suns-and-guns is the only blog on which I maintain such a strict non-reply policy) and it’s actually probably #2 on my list of most UTTERLY DESPISED arguments an anti could possibly spew across my screen in the name of pRoTeCtInG sUrViVoRs’ SaFeTy.

Such arguments basically uphold this idea that triggers as the worst possible thing that could happen to a survivor, post-trauma, and because of that, demands all fandom-spaces in all corners of the internet must be completely free of all triggering content, just in case.

It’s utter bullshit and they are actively lying when they claim that’s what they’re trying to do. (Case in point: one of their strategies involves happily retraumatizing CSA survivors in the name of “warning them” that someone they claim is a pedophile—despite all evidence directly contradicting such a claim—is reblogging their posts and interaction with their content/blog).

The hard truth when it comes to triggers is, no matter what ship you’re in, what purity rules you adhere to, or how thorough and conscientious you are with tagging, every single content creator will trigger someone, perhaps without ever knowing it’s happened.

And that really is okay. Being triggered sucks, but if it’s still bad enough to legitimately upend any meaningful amount of recovery already made, then that person is not yet stable enough to safely exist in shared internet space, and no amount of anti-proposed practices will actually protect these people, full stop.

We tag for the most commonly squicky elements like non-/dub-con, abusive parent/partner, drug/alcohol abuse, etc, and as long as the readership uses these tags to avoid the content they know will upset them, then the creator will have successfully avoided triggering the EXACT SAME amount of people as they would if they’d never uploaded it in the first place (i.e. all of them).**

But we don’t generally tag things like cyber-/phone-sex, implications of disrespect between sexually-involved characters, peace-sign/laughing-while-crying/eye-rolling emojis, specific mundane words or phrases. These things are my responsibility to navigate, and it’s not the op’s fault when I get triggered by them, because the onus falls on me to recognize, navigate, and ultimately deal with triggering incidents, and if being triggered stood to impact my long-term recovery, and there was no way for me to blacklist for such things, then it’s also my responsibility to remove myself from the space in which I’m being triggered.

In a world where antis win the internet tomorrow, and were magically able to remove all the “triggering content” they declare as the only fail-safe way to protect survivors, I would still be triggered at the exact same rate as I am without their self-righteous intervention. And if I were to confront an anti with my specific triggers, I’d bet hard cash we would not suddenly see them campaigning against emoji-use lest that emoji hold a triggering association with someone’s abuser (which I have little doubt is a BIG trigger for a large portion of millennial and gen-z survivors).

Because that’s the thing; antis don’t actually care about me, about survivors, about helping people avoid their triggers. And they have no qualms about guilting you for supposedly, “selfishly triggering a survivor by letting your content exist,” despite how many survivors they actively seek out and retraumatize in the name of supposedly protecting them.

As a content creator, you just have to worry about tagging the Big content warnings, treating survivors as competent human beings who understand their own limitations, and flipping off (and blocking) antis who really, really like making it seem like survivors are too traumatized to know what’s safe for them.

- - -

**Note: this is the same reason we’re better off tagging “kalex” instead of “incest.” There are a THOUSAND reasons someone might not want to see ship-related content that have NOTHING to do with a squick against foster-sister relationships, so those people might not have "incest” blacklisted, especially considering the technicality involved in claiming it incest, so “kalex” ends up having the highest commonality between those varying perspectives.

[lunarbranded]

🍵+ gatekeeping

Send 🍵for the mun’s salt! || Meme

gate·keep·ing: noun - the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.Tumblr definition: when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who has access to something .

Boy, you know. I’ve been mulling over how I was gonna work with this ask and how to do this post for a while. Actually had the words a few times that I wanted to use but I waited and thought on it. As it turns out, there’s a lot I want to touch upon with my salt in this post. Most of it is general toxic behavior from the RPC community itself and some of fandom but, for the most part, it’s Tumblr bullshit to the extreme.

If you don’t want to see strong af opinions, please keep scrolling. The salt will be under the cut and I understand that most of what I’ll be saying in this post will not be popular opinions.

Gatekeeping Is A Form of Bullying

Ever heard some dudebro go ‘I bet she hasn’t even read the comics’ about a girl wearing a Marvel shirt? What about someone going ‘If you don’t read the books, you’re not a real fan’ when someone’s in line at the theater? Yeah, those are examples of gatekeeping. A couple of the most common ones actually. 

As for Tumblr RPC gatekeeping, it’s a bit more like this: 

Omg, you can’t write that because it doesn’t fit into what I believe is the only lore that ever exists

wtf why are you claiming that character is gay/trans/bi/ect? they’re not or it would be mentioned in canon

how dare you want representation for your gender identity/race/ect., that’s not okay because it doesn’t adhere to CANON

you can’t ship that because it’s morally wrong and i don’t like it (which sounds a lot like old church people bitching about anything at all really)

if you don’t have the right aesthetic then i won’t follow/interact with you at all

These are just a few examples but most of them are pretty common. And, you know, that’s sad as fuck, to be honest. So many people I’ve met on this side claim to have been bullied but they’re usually the same people who turn around and do this shit to others. It’s unreal to me that they don’t recognize their own behavior. What’s worse is that it can’t be pointed out or people want to use whatever buzzword they can to tell you to fuck off.

If you try to help correct someone, suddenly you’re every -phobic on the planet and you conveniently managed to set their grandmother on fire. The dramatic overreactions of some people have a price and they don’t realize that the emotional response is sometimes not the correct one.

Just because someone is doing something you don’t like doesn’t mean that it deserves a negative action on your part. 

‘That person upset me so I’m gonna post a callout/vague post about them!’ Why do you guys think that literally fucking everything needs a reaction? It doesn’t. You don’t have to react to everything that happens. Sometimes things warrant a simple ‘oh that’s fucked up’ and then you move on with your fucking day. 

Say you have thirty water bottles. Someone steals one and drinks out of it or whatever but you still have twenty-nine water bottles - why the fuck are you going to be angry all day about that one water bottle? What’s the point when you have twenty-nine other water bottles and you can forget about or throw away the one that was ruined/taken? 

You see, that reaction is how you guys act about any one instance that goes wrong on Tumblr except you’re pissed off for a week and you want to ruin someone’s fucking life over a post/thread that you don’t like. Or, in extreme cases, you open blogs to run your mouth at these people. It takes more effort to act like a dick toward someone than it does to just keep fucking scrolling and it’s astounding how ready people are here to wallow in negativity/toxicity.

Puritan Ship/Roleplay Policing

So I mentioned it before, but there’s this super popular idea on Tumblr that if you don’t abide by a certain unspoken ship/roleplay guideline, people will tear you apart over it. But guess what, guys, it’s fucking bullshit. 

Since when were people not allowed to make their own opinions on what they did or didn’t ship?

When did it start that people were considered trash for shipping something?

Who the hell made half of you the owners of the RPC so you think you can control what everyone does on their blogs? 

You see, this is the same attitude that I see all the time in churches. Oh they’ll tell you to your face that you’re welcome to do as you like and come looking however you want but the second you actually fucking do it, you’re ignored and treated like a social pariah. All this because people love to go around spreading rumors and talking shit about one another all over a fucking hobby. 

It’s actually kind of insane when you think about it. Like, you’re arguing over what two people are doing when they’re throwing internet Barbies at one another and you’re stomping across the playground to scream at them because you don’t like what they’re doing when it has nothing to fucking do with you. Remember what we called that in elementary and high school? Oh yeah, there’s a word for it: BULLYING. And now, it’s evolved into gatekeeping.

This attitude is literally as bad as someone going ‘you can’t sit with us’ just because you don’t like what they’re doing on their blog. 

Now, I called this section ‘puritan’ for a reason - “practicing or affecting strict religious or moral behavior.” Does that sound familiar? Because it should. Tumblr wants to call everything wrong and, from what I’ve seen, the hivemind doesn’t want people making their own opinions. Oh and don’t forget, if you don’t already know something then tough fucking luck because it’s ‘not our job to teach you.’ Thanks for the reminder, Susan, but we all know that you’re going to resort to calling people toxic abusers just because they weren’t given the chance to learn something like you were. Because that’s a fucking great way to help people to understand things from your point of view.

Look. What I’m saying is that trying to force everyone into your moral alignment isn’t okay. Some people will write murder and abusive relationships and not romanticize them just fine. The same goes for incest, rape, dysphoria, and a great number of other things. Believe it or not, some RPers actually take the time to look this shit up so they can make sure that they’re doing it fucking right and avoiding romanticization. You know, what you people want them to do but yell at them when you see it trigger tagged without bothering to take a look at the entire thread in question. Goes right back to that knee jerk reaction people like to rely on - not everything is the end of the world.

Callout/Cancelled Culture

This one’s going to be fun.

So we all know that people love their callouts but we also know that people just fucking love cancelling people. Guess what though - you cannot cancel a fucking human being because they’re not a television show. Shocker right? I know.

Now, I’ll admit that there’s some callout worthy topics but there’s some callouts that are so goddamn stupid that I just can’t take either party seriously. Now Tumblr loves dividing people, especially in the RPC. Don’t fucking tell me that cliques aren’t a thing in the RPC because ‘RPing in your bubbble’ is the same as having a clique. It’s the same concept hidden behind another name, don’t try to tell me otherwise. 

And yes, sometimes people want to run around and start ‘clique wars’ like it’s fucking high school all over again. Sorry, but no one has time for that shit. Do your replies and keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong, Barbara. But, of course, people have trouble with this concept and get into fights. It’s natural that no two people are going to agree on the same goddamn thing. It would be ridiculous to expect this, especially on this website, but just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean that they’re cancelled. 

What you think is problematic and what someone else thinks is problematic are likely two different things. And sure, you’ll have people who agree with you and you’ll want them on your side but that doesn’t help because now you’ve created that divide. So things fester and get worse because you want to use your mental illness as an excuse (a popular choice from what I’ve seen) as to why you can’t communicate with someone. Next thing you know, there’s a huge callout against someone and that person didn’t expect it at all.

Knee jerk reactions. Fight gets worse. Divide gets bigger. Toxicity festers. 

Well now, there’s this new thing in the RPC where you can get a PSD template and fake fucking screenshots. Sure, it’s for musings and character profiles for things like Tinder, Facebook, ect. Just fun little things for you to throw your characters into and stuff like that. But there’s always that 1% who decide to use it so they can make it look like someone’s said something when they haven’t. So, when that person tries to defend themselves with a full-screen shot of their own (whole desktop or mobile version), things get worse until there’s a giant blowout. 

Once the dust settles you get this nice little ‘if you follow x, y, z then you can just block me bye’ behavior popping up. Well, that’s just childish. Unless something happened that was almost a ‘they found out where i live and they’re sending me glass filled cookies in the mail’ situation, then I have no reason to bother with that shit in your rules page. No one is obligated to tell you who they associate with just because you had a disagreement with them. However, if that person chooses to take your side, that’s up to them. 

I’m sure damn near everyone has had a similar situation to this happen to them on Tumblr before and, if it hasn’t, were you the one making the call out? If you were, was it worth it? Did it make you feel better? Sure, it might have in the moment but if you’re having that much of an issue actually communicating with others then you should take a step back and work on yourself before you involve other people. It’s like that one saying I keep seeing running around ‘if bad things always happen to you, you should make sure that you’re not the one causing it.’ 

Now, that’s not to say that I’m trying to gaslight anyone, but 9 times out of 10, I’ve looked back and realized that my own knee jerk reactions have caused a lot of turmoil that I could have avoided had I stopped and thought on it. I’ll admit that because guess fucking what, humans aren’t perfect. 

That’s the biggest issue on Tumblr. Half of you expect people to come on here and be perfect from the get go but humans make fucking mistakes and we learn from them. Do we not? How many of you can say that you were perfectly rational and amazing 15 year olds? Absolutely no one because teenagers have a lot of stress and expectations thrown on them while they’re going through a rough growth phase at that time. Things are unpredictable for them and they have school, teachers, friends, and parents throwing all of this shit onto them and then they come on here and have full-grown fucking adults slamming all this shit into their faces. It’s fucking ridiculous. And that’s another goddamn topic holy shit. The way some adults on here act is absolutely barbaric.

Sharing IP Addresses Out of Revenge/Anger

Oh this is something I’ve hated since I found out that Statcounter was a thing. Yes, I run it on my own blog but you’ll never see me sharing IP addresses on the dash. I’ll just quietly IP block you and go about my day, idgaf.

So there’s this huge trend and I’ve seen this on my own dash before (it was fucking disgusting, the response was atrocious on that person’s behalf, and I’ve since hardblocked) and it’s something I’ll hardblock over in a heartbeat. 

Now, for those who don’t know, Statcounter has a little piece of code that you can put into your blog theme and it’ll track the IP addresses of people who visit your blog. For me, I use it because I’ve had two stalkers in the past and yes, I keep screenshots of their visits for my own records. Fuck them. First one started the trigger for me and the second one recently exacerbated it. Anyway, if the person doesn’t have something on their browser to block it, Statcounter will pick up on their visit, what links they look at, how long they’ve been looking, their ISP, general location (never their precise home location, just the ISP’s area), browser info, and screen resolution. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I recall for now. 

Having it so you can protect yourself from stalkers is one thing but having it and using it to throw someone’s IP out there is another. When I say that people weaponize Statcounter, I’m not joking. People will go on there after getting what they believe is anon hate and see who the move recent /ask visitor was and start blasting their IP all over the place.

For one thing - people can send asks via the dash. They don’t have to click onto your page at all so, there’s a HUGE risk of throwing out an innocent person’s IP address. 

Say someone does this - mistakenly throws out an innocent person’s IP after receiving anon hate. That person is likely going to have a panic attack. Not only have you shared their state and general location but you’ve blamed them for something they didn’t do. Throwing that IP out there, to any fucking extent can create a witch hunt for anyone who has Statcounter to try to figure out who the owner of that IP is. 

This is related to gatekeeping because you’re essentially blacklisting anyone who lives in that state/general area from the RPC all because you saw they were in the /ask page. How fucked up is that? It ties right back to the knee jerk response and it shows that people given even a modicum of power abuse it at the first chance. This isn’t even addressing how vicious some people answer anons.

Sure, posting an IP address on it’s own isn’t illegal but when you tack a name onto it, then it is because you’re essentially creating a threat toward that person.

Point of this section - don’t fucking share people’s goddamn IP addresses on the dash, it just makes you a douchebag. I lose all respect for anyone doing this when I find them - fuck you for doing that.

Activism Forced into Roleplay

I used to be in the Marvel RPC. Key here: used to be. Part of the issue that lead to me leaving was how much people slammed IRL issues into RP. Yes, I’m well aware that Marvel comics has a long and deep history of taking on IRL issues and the comics themselves are quite political.

However my issue comes when this is happening outside of the Marvel community.

I’ve seen people trying to force IRL events down people’s throats. ‘You shouldn’t be happy - x, y, and z are happening right now and don’t you dare tell me to be quiet about it!’ Good way to get yourself blocked. People RP as a hobby and, for some, as a form of escape. Immersing into a character to find out what makes them tick is a form of method acting, so it could be said that we’re method writing out characters to an extent. So shoving IRL issues at some RPers can cause them to lose muse or abandon blogs entirely. 

Of course, in the same breath, I’ve seen people told that they can’t RP something because they’ve never experienced it, people think they’re romanticizing it, or some other bullshit Tumblr reason. Look, I’ve experienced rape, self harm, suicidal thoughts, CSA (incestuous and non-incestuous), as well as mental and physical abuse. Don’t you dare assume that I cannot write about these experiences in an accurate way and don’t you fucking dare tell me that I can’t write it because I’ll tell you first off where you can shove your bullshit. The fact that people have to disclose that they’ve been through these things so people will stay off their ass on Tumblr RPs is fucking ridiculous too. 

You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot write on my blog when I trigger tag the living shit out of everything to make sure that I’m protecting as many people as I can from seeing it. Do not try this shit with me. Censoring someone because it doesn’t adhere to your moral code is just as bad as banning books, televisions shows, and/or movies. 

Censoring something doesn’t solve the problem and boy fucking howdy does Tumblr have an issue with that. Censorship is another form of gatekeeping, by the way! You might not like it but people don’t go to jail for writing about incest or rape, just fucking saying. Oh but there have been crime authors sent to prison, I was suspended from school for writing about murder, but nothing about rape and incest. 

Sure, it may raise some eyebrows and people have to actually use gasp! postblock, tumblr savior, and any other method of tag blocking so they don’t see it but uh… that’s called being responsible for your content consumption.

Tumblr Is Not The Real World

Alright. So I’m gonna close this with a good reminder that I think some people on Tumblr could use. 

Tumblr is not the end-all be-all of the world.

Yes, you can make some good friends here and that’s fine but when you stay on here too long, the toxicity can start to change how you view the world around you. No, not every man that walks by you is going to rape you. No, not every woman that you see is going to be okay with you treating her the way you do female ocs and canons on here (actually, I’ve met some women who were proud they could make a full-grown man cry with the right look so). 

You have to think about how Tumblr makes you view others as well. All this ‘you messed up once so you’re cancelled’ behavior is a social media phenomenon that doesn’t carry on into real life. It just doesn’t. Sure, you can block someone you know IRL but that doesn’t stop them from talking to you if they were a Facebook friend you went to school with. If they still live nearby you, they’ll either talk to you or about you. What are you going to do? Take the Tumblr route and fucking scream at them like an incoherent banshee? No, you’ll suck it the fuck up and you’ll act like a decent person, don’t fucking lie.

You need to understand that Tumblr is it’s own entity, it’s own little sphere on the internet and, by no means, is it appropriate to carry on in your daily life the way some of you do on here. And if you do, please take a moment to stop and look at yourself. 

Self improvement starts when you want to improve but gatekeeping, bullying, and acting like a total barbarian to people you don’t know isn’t okay. This goes for the ones you do know too. I’m not saying that triggers aren’t important in the real world but you need to understand that forcing the social climate to change will only make people dislike you. When they don’t want to change, they’re not going to and some will refuse to change to spite you. 

Forcing anything won’t help. 

Gatekeeping won’t help. 

Censorship has never helped.

People don’t respond to being told what to do, feel, or think. Personally, I’d tell someone to fuck off if they tried doing it to me. So why do you think you can do it to others? Ever heard of ‘treat others how you want to be treated?’ Just be fucking decent and stop acting like other people are your goddamn doormat, jfc.

[discoursecatharsis]

This might not be true, but I personally feel like the Voltron fandom on twitter is somehow even more toxic then they are on tumblr. Like obviously it gets bad on this hellsite but there’s something about twitter that just inspires even more toxicity. I can’t pinpoint it, but there’s some part of twitter that just encourages discourse and overall nastiness. Idk whether I’m making any sense or not. But I try my best to stay FAR AWAY from toxic vld stans on twitter.

Idk if it’s more toxic, but it’s... kinda harder to avoid the toxicity? Which is weird because I think twitter has better blocking/muting features than tumblr, but I see negative stuff more often on twitter. 

1) The search just sucks. Period. At least searching fandom stuff like character names and ships. (Search in general is fine otherwise.) On twitter, antis don’t tag their stuff, they just tweet “i hope sheith shippers die” which shows up when I search “sheith” then I’m just like “welp” and sit there fuming for a few seconds convincing myself to keep scrolling even though I really want to tell them off. At least on tumblr some antis have the courtesy to tag their posts as "anti ship” so I can blacklist/filter it. But 9 times out of 10 when I go into twitter search, I see something toxic, especially if sorted by “latest.” I’m just not gonna bother anymore. 

2) Muting accounts is great. Muting words? Not so much. I’m tired of a mutual constantly saying “Klance is cannon king” and crap because that peeves me since I associate it with antis, but I don’t want to mute the word “Klance” because then I won’t see fanart if the word Klance is in the tweet. I’m annoyed with my mutual making obnoxious tweets, but I still wanna see cute Klance fanart, so muting the whole word is useless. I could mute the mutual, but then I’d miss out on their other non-Klance related retweets. 

3) Twitter for some ungodly reason decides to expose peoples’ likes to everyone. So someone I follow may have not retweeted a negative salty tweet, but they LIKED that negative salty tweet, and now boom there it is on my timeline. Not annoyed with the user, they can like whatever they want, just annoyed with twitter for thinking I want to see every post they heart, because I don’t. 

Overall, I still kinda prefer twitter to tumblr? There are more people who make fun of/drag antis there lol. Just the logistics of the twitter timeline have started to bother me recently, but I may just have to bite the bullet and mute some folks.

But I also understand what you mean. I don’t see it too often, but I know others do, because Vld fandom is often the butt of many jokes and the subject of polls about “what fandom are you tired of?” So yeah twitter as a collective is sick of us haha

[the-condesce-did-nothing-wrong]

The Toxic State of the Homestuck Fandom (Mainly the Femslash Fandom)

Y'know, I feel like the Grimdorks Uprising is a representation of everything toxic in the Homestuck community, and it especially shows just how toxic the Femslash fandom is.

I’m not trying to resurrect a discourse here, but I am using it as an example. There’s a lot of things that showed me just how entitled, aggressive, and straight up petty the HS femslash fandom can be.

Now, disclaimer before I get started. This is very much about the extremist femslash fans who feel the need to:

1. Shit on any ship that isn’t Femslash (mostly het) because it’s not Femslash.
 2. Express Blatant Biphobia and refuse to acknowledge or outright bash Bisexual headcanons. See: constantly claiming Roxy or Terezi are Lesbians despite clearly being Bisexual and getting angry with people who headcanon Rose as Bisexual. 
 3. The rampant Misandry. I get that you’re not going to focus on men, but repeatedly bashing male character or stating they’re all incompetent while the girls are all perfect competent badasses is fucking gross. Stop it.
 4. Bully and harass fans of ships because the ships in question are ‘bad’, either because of subjective tastes or because it violates the tumblr shipping principles, mainly the ‘Don’t ship characters outside of their sexuality (unless they’re straight)’ rule. 5. Adding to the above: Spamming the tags of said ships either with passive-aggressive art or just accusing everyone who likes the ship of Then getting mad that the shippers are upset and/or retaliating, as if you didn’t just; oh, I don’t know, accuse people of being hateful or inherently awful people just because they like a ship with different characteristics from yours. 6. Acting incredibly entitled to female characters. 7. This cancer, which is a combination of the first three.

I’m certainly not trying to say that all Femslash fans are like this. In fact, I see several Femslash fans who are actually respectful, nice, and generally just cool people. But the toxic and extremist parts of the fandom is hard to ignore. It gets to the point where I’ve pretty much experienced Pavlovian conditioning to avoid nearly every Femslash fan I come across because I’ve associated them with this toxic behavior.

But what I really want to stress here that your community isn’t doomed. I mean, the more forgiving part of me even believes this Toxicity is a side effect of this hellsite we use. Not saying that the toxic aspects of the fandom is excusable, but it just explains where they may come from and why. Calling out this behavior is the first step to making sure it’s healthy and generally non-toxic to everyone involved, even to people outside the community. When you let this type of behavior go unchecked, sooner or later you’re going to have some problems. Ex: Voltron Fandom. Or, fuck, the DDADDS fandom. That game hasn’t been out a week (As of when this post was made) and look what this hellsite did to the fandom.

To Clarify one last time before I get started: It’s the Femslash extremists I have a problem with, not the lesbians or the Femslashers in general.

Now, I believe this Uprising has it’s origins in a post (That I cannot find right now, nor would want to because I don’t want the OP to be harassed) where someone basically said ‘Grimdorks works better for Jaderose because they’re both dorks who went grimdark’. I don’t think it really blew up, mostly because the last time I remembering seeing it had… maybe less then 50 notes? So the only explanation I have is that the creator or the people who interacted with the post agreed and shared it with other Homestuck fans on forums, tumblr, or discord.

Pretty harmless in and of itself, since everyone knew the ship name belonged to Johnrose (As the reasoning behind it was John and Rose were dorks and Rose went Grimdark) and it was mostly just a joke/fun little introspection by someone.

I don’t know what happened in the days leading up to the Uprising, but I imagine it went something like this (Note: Since this is me theorizing; I could always be wrong, so PLEASE understand that when reading this):

1. Some people are talking about Jaderose or just ship names in general, and someone brings up how Grimdorks would fit Jaderose. 2. Some people agree, and some point out that Johnrose is already called Grimdorks. 3. There may or may not be some people in this discussion who hate Johnrose. Perhaps they just find it boring, maybe they just don’t see it, maybe they dislike it because they feel it erases Rose’s relationship with Kanaya or her sexuality, and maybe it could be all of the above. 4. Someone with any of the reasons listed or not listed above could have suggested taking the Grimdorks ship name for Jaderose. 5. People agree, they start discussing it, and some people or just one person decides to make a blog to spearhead the Uprising. 6. Blogs similar to the original crop up. 7. Grimdorks fan wakes up and sees a random Jaderose post on their dash thanks to Tag tracker. 8. ??? 9. Shitstorm.

So, first off: I think what this best shows is this bizarre sense of entitlement Femslash extremists have. I mean seriously, the idea that you can just ‘reclaim’ a ship name that’s about 5+ years old is pretty damn entitled. You’re kind of implying that it’s stolen, even though it was possibly made by Johnrose shippers and it was certainly made for them. If anything, Jaderose shippers were the ones trying to steal it, even though they have the arguably superior stand ship name ‘Guns n Roses’.

Next is the general hypocrisy of the discourse.

Now, we can argue about Rose’s sexuality until the cows come home, but one other reason I see being touted around for why you can’t ship Johnrose is ‘Rose is married’. The main problem I have with this is how these people say this… then turn a blind eye to any other ship that includes Rose. Hell, they might even multiship Rose. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to multiship, but when you say ‘Rose is Married’ against a ship that includes Rose, then ignore another ship that includes her, how do you not see the hypocrisy? This is especially jarring since the Grimdorks Uprising was done by Jaderose shippers, or at the very least people were using Jaderose as the ‘face’ of the Uprising, so to speak.

Next up is some of the more… uh, Biphobic stuff in the uprising. Now, I understand that Rose’s sexuality is kind of vague. I mean, sure, it’s entirely in character for Rose to have been flirting with Dave ironically. But can you really blame some people for having trouble sifting through Rose’s lavender maze of irony and Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness? Even Kanaya had trouble understanding this snarky broad.

Regardless, telling people thay can’t Headcanon Rose as Bisexual because it’s ‘Erasing Lesbians’ is um… kinda… I dunno, sketchy? I mean assuming you’re not just saying it’s because lesbians untainted by men are rare, what part of ‘Bisexual’ is scary to you? It’s not like saying Rose would enjoy kissing boys is going to degrade her canon love for Kanaya. Or, hell, even that she would do so while in a committed relationship with Kanaya. So… I guess it’s just down to preference? There’s always going to be headcanons you don’t like, but I suppose the best thing to do is just leave these people to their own devices. :V

And finally, the pettiness and aggression of the whole thing.

When you look at this whole discourse, it’s just petty. You’re trying to take a ship name and claim it for a different ship, and you’re just being a giant asshole on top of that. I know it was a stupid thing to get up in arms about, but really, with all the factors I listed above, it’s a little difficult not to get annoyed. Especially when you combine it with shit like this, it’s just icing on the cake of shitty behavior! Seriously, how else is a Johnrose fan supposed to take people spamming their tag with an irrelevant ship and accusing them of being an inherently awful people just for shipping as anything other than aggressive?

Even worse, when people start calling them out for it, these people have the gall to play victim and hide behind their labels as if it justifies this behavior! Or, even worse, try to make it one big joke. Sorry, but bullying is bullying, no matter what reasoning or intentions you have behind it.

Now that we’ve reached the end, I’m sure at one of you is wondering how to fix the fandom. The most simplest solution I have?

1. Don’t partake in behavior such as the six points listed above 2. Actively discourage such behavior 3. Understand that you do not run the fandom 4. Understand that you no say in how a person wants to enjoy Homestuck 5. Understand that shipping has no bearing on canon or a person’s beliefs and morality. 6. Understand that you have the responsibility to blacklist, block and distance yourself from ships you don’t like 7. Only step in when you believe a fan is hurting others, such as harassment or bullying.

[sulphur-crested-cocktease]

Please protect yourself online because it's not my job to make you comfortable

I am not an abuse survivor, and I can only imagine how horrible it would be to be constantly in a frame of mind that caused me to equate anything that even remotely reminded me of my abuse/abuser with the abuse I suffered. Just thinking about it actually makes my heart hurt!  To anyone who feels this way, or has experienced abuse at all, I am so very sorry!  Under no circumstance did you deserve the abuse you suffered!  You are not worth any less and you should not feel ashamed because of the deplorable actions of another person, but I really do understand if you do feel that way sometimes because I know I would really struggle with that if it ever happened to me.  You are unbelievably strong! If you need to step away from people, or communities, or fandoms, or anything that reminds you of your traumas that is 100% okay! You have every right to dislike and avoid things that upset or trigger you; you have every right to vent about those things on your own blog; you have every right to feel the way you feel. You should always be your own most important person. Your wellbeing should be your number one priority, always. Even if you are responsible for the care of others, your own physical, mental, and emotional resilience and fortitude are what will allow you to be there for them. You are important! Please understand though that this same self-affirming, self-care centred mentality applies to *everyone*. Not just you. Not just abuse survivors. Not just minors. Everyone!   Who experiences your feelings and understands you and your needs better than you do? The answer is probably "No one".  Of course, the flip side of this question is, who will always place *your* needs and *your* feelings above even their own? The same answer likely applies: No one. Certainly not some random person on Tumblr--and that's as it should be. Everyone else on this site, like you, is just living their life and doing what they feel is right for them. Maybe that's something they want to do because it makes them happy (or cathartic-sad, or makes them think, or allows them to experience some of the emotions and feelings associated with a situation that would be dangerous or traumatic in real life in a way that's totally safe).  Maybe that's something they personally feel they need to do to in order to cope with things that have happened in their own lives. It doesn't matter. The point is that you, as an abuse survivor (or anyone really), have things you don't want to be exposed to and that's completely understandable and totally fair. That's why we have tools for tagging, blacklisting, and blocking content we find triggering, or distasteful, or, heck, just don't want to see appear in a search on a shared computer. There are ways to report content that is in violation of a website's ToS or content that is *actually* illegal (not just triggering, distasteful, or against your personal values or beliefs because we have blocking and blacklisting for that). What isn't understandable or fair is to make your personal wellbeing (particularly in an online space like Tumblr that is populated by millions of random strangers) the responsibility of others. And, you're not just making your personal wellbeing someone else's responsibility--you are esentially telling that other person that your personal wellbeing is their obligation because you and your likes, dislikes, triggers, traumas, wants, and needs are more important than theirs. You, some random stranger on the internet whom they do not know, trust, or have any real reason to sympathize with.  Do you see why this could start to rub some of us the wrong way?  It's not a nice feeling to be told you're not important, that you don't matter--that you are, in fact, disgusting and wrong for the way you enjoy things that are not illegal and not a violation of the rules. Someone else's icky feelings about something you enjoy that is not actually harming another person (a REAL person) should never overrule your right to make decisions about yourself, for yourself! There are many benefits to social media and online communities. A sense of belonging or kinship; shared enthusiasm for a television show or maybe a character or pairing that is a better representation of you/your feelings/your life than is typically depicted via mainstream media; exposure to different attitudes and opinions than are espoused by the people you interact with face to face; support from other people who have been through the same sorts of traumatic experiences you have, etc. The complete paradigm shift that has occurred over the last few decades in the way we use technology in a social sense is testament to the fact that these interactions are valuable and sometimes sorely lacking in the real world. There is, however, an inherent risk in exposing yourself to online content. Your control of your online space is limited to the choices you make *for yourself*.  The space beyond that belongs to hundreds of millions of other people in a way that we don't really experience in our physical real world communities. The internet provides us access to a much wider, deeper pool of knowledge and human experience, but it does not qualify them for us; it does not tell us which part of the pool is safe to swim in versus where we might find ourselves in over our heads, which is fair because some of us, if you'll forgive the extended metaphor, are taller or more experienced swimmers than others.  Basically, there are no buffers between you and the content you specifically do not want to view, except those you erect yourself, and they can't always guarantee that you will be 100% protected from the things you don't want to see. It's a risk you take when you go online. Exposure to different points of view and alternate opinions and media on the internet is wonderful, but it's also without the strict social framework and safeguards we grow up with and are used to navigating in real life. The fact is, people who share some of your same interests may also like something that triggers or upsets you.  This thing might not technically be illegal or even against the ToS of the website you encountered it on, but say it really, really disturbs you. Other people with similarly traumatic experiences to yours might also morally object to this content. It might even trigger you or make you feel unsafe.  *You* need to take steps to protect yourself.  Why would you ever rely on some faceless stranger on the internet, someone with no personal connection to you, to ensure *your* safety? That seems like a pretty bad idea, quite frankly. Please do not assume that your shared participation in fandom and the social awareness that comes with belonging to a subculture that is made up of those who are often somewhat marginalized themselves will prevent other people from doing things that may impact or jeporodize your physical, mental, or emotional safety.  That's a huge fucking assumption!  One that you have no right to make if you aren't even willing to take the most basic of precautions to protect yourself first by employing the tools provided (namely, blacklisting tags and blocking) for that very purpose. Content that you disagree with, that isn't actually illegal and does not violate the ToS of the site on which it is posted has a right to exist. Other people have a right to create it--for whatever reason they choose, whether they choose to divulge those reasons or not.  And, those of us who choose to consume it have a right to enjoy it without being slandered, harassed, told to kill ourselves, doxxed, or sent material that is, in fact, *actually* illegal (to even distribute). Because, what you are saying when you do these things is that, despite ostensibly being against inequality, you believe yourself to be more important than everyone else. Despite claiming to be morally superior to others, it's your values that are fickle and situationally dependant.  Despite your insistence that it is other people who are out of line, you are the person insisting that it is everyone else's responsibility to protect you (or some hypothetical minor) from your own feelings, and that isn't how feelings work. You can't claim another person "made you" act a certain way.  That's fucking childish, but it also denies your own autonomy.  I promise you, there is freedom in choosing to walk away.  Hitting that block button actually feels fucking great! :)