#anyways again not to vaguepost. i would say this to their face if i thought it would help but ik it wont so. just venting

[doebt]

i may be ugly and mentally ill and broken but at least i dont hurt people. at least i WANT to be kind. at least i try. so many of the ppl i know irl, like ppl ive met at school, are like. unfathomably selfish. ive been watching one incident of this unfold for the last couple months and it is like. astounding how selfish ppl can be

[amourete-blog1]

(( opinions.

the “realistic” approach to online interactions doesn’t work. it’s a fundamentally flawed system for several reasons, which is exacerbated by the fact that people on tumblr are afraid of face-to-face interactions. even if one singular person isn’t afraid of it, the community as a whole is, and that’s a BAD habit.

fact: some characters will not get along unless they are literally forced to spend time together. this is one of several dynamics that makes rp interesting for quite a few people. if it’s not your fancy, more power to you, but for some people it is, and the current community approach to rp is crippling their ability to explore that. characters can have WILDLY different views on certain subjects, which are usually formed by people they look up to, people in their life, things they’ve researched or things they’ve personally experienced, among likely several other sources. these differences should be encouraged, not smothered. it’s not fun to rp when every character is exactly the same.

the usage of ic blocking so flippantly is a huge factor in smothering those differences in characters. as rpers, interactions are our lifeblood. without them, we can’t rp. rp is one of the few things a person cannot do by themselves, like it’s literally impossible - if you’re rping by yourself, you’re writing a novel. it’s no longer rp.

when characters icly block each other, that cuts off an avenue for those characters to interact, which means one less interaction for both those characters, ESPECIALLY because again: we as a community are afraid of ftf roleplay, so there’s no other alternative route. some rpers can take that hit, of losing one possible rper. most can’t. if your character is one of the types that is hard to love, you get a lot of people blocking you, you’ve now effectively cut off a whole circle of interactions, and here’s the worst part: when someone blocks you, there is virtually nothing you can do.

therefore, we as rpers learn that we “can’t” have our characters have those opinions/do those things, or else they will be blocked and we will be rendered incapable of rping. for “survival” in this community, we sacrifice diversity, because otherwise we know we literally won’t be able to rp. that’s not okay. and yes, some brave souls will do it anyway, but i would urge anyone to consider: how many people have you actually seen rp with those people? because all the numbers i come up with are typically pretty low.

oocly, it makes sense to block people you don’t want to talk to. it makes perfect sense, and i’ve done it several times myself. blocking is a wonderful tool that absolutely should be used. however, when used in-character, it presents massive problems, like this. rp does not strictly follow the rules of real life. that’s why we have aliens, and magic, and “coincidences” that add up to the conclusion both/all rpers want. if you’re looking for truly, flawlessly realistic rp, go talk to someone offline and have adventures. we write fiction here.

solutions: stop using in-character blocking except as a very, very last resort, and provide a way for the character to be unblocked. if a character blocks another character, expect character b to be unblocked at a later time, whether by character a’s choice, by a malfunction, by outside interference or anything else - and moreover, put plans in place for that to happen. provide a means.

fact: characters do not have their own autonomy. they are fictional. they can’t think or act for themselves, we as muns are always in control. if a mun is not in control of their character 100% of the time, that is actually, truly dangerous to everyone involved, and should not be encouraged.

we make judgements about what our characters would do in situations based on information we’ve gathered about them. it’s a really remarkable ability our brains have. we can put ourselves in their shoes, but at the end of the day, we are still making that choice to have them act on whatever they act on, think whatever they think, and so on. yes, impulses are a thing. yes, sometimes they greatly benefit an rp. no, they do not always have to be followed.

having characters react to every single thing they see can sometimes be good for sparking interactions, but most of the time, it’s exhausting. perpetuating an atmosphere where characters that DON’T interact with absolutely everything they see is frowned upon/discouraged is ultimately harmful. if an rper, ooc, is uncomfortable with something, or just doesn’t want to rp it, the atmosphere we should be perpetuating is one of “that’s okay. you aren’t obligated to rp this.” and if it’s brought up to them personally, rather than just being flung out in the abyss, we should be encouraging them to break character and talk ooc.

reacting to content, whether directly or indirectly (vagueposting, purposefully loudly ignoring by trying to redirect the topic) rewards behavior and furthers that content. if you don’t want to interact with content, don’t. don’t have your character vague. don’t have them scream at the top of their lungs about how nice the weather is where they are. that’s still an interaction. when you interact ic, you are confirming that you are okay with what is going on. if that’s not true, rpers need to stop interacting. they need to break character, and they need to say “i’m not okay with this.”

no, this isn’t a matter of “don’t assume consent.” online we have literally no other indicators of whether someone is uncomfortable or not. we just have the text we’re given. it is impractical at absolute best to constantly ask “are you okay with this,” and impossible at worst, because we’d be accenting every line with that question to the point where it would be just the same as before: assumed. we must, must start pushing for people to communicate ooc, immediately, when they are uncomfortable or otherwise not cool with what’s going on.

solutions: if an rper doesn’t want to have their character engage with a certain topic, have them do something else. not out of spite, not as if they’re trying to distract, just... something else, for its own merit. they can hit someone up in ims. they can start a different post. sometimes this doesn’t work because the discussion is so widespread, but that’s kind of... just how it goes. we as a community should also try to encourage this method by interacting with that content too, but sometimes it’s not what people want to do, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. whatever it is, though, it’s still better than icly interacting with the thing you don’t want to interact with.

that being said, widespread dash discussions of bad shit, like we’ve seen with the hemoism, slavery, etc discussions, are a problem. it would be good to mitigate those, a lot more than they are now. tagging is a good step, but interacting with non-Big Bad Discourse (BBD) topics will help too. like sandwich discourse - that was good. if someone’s trying to make a joke, we can help them! we can interact with them and help them make their joke, then we get something funny and everyone wins. if someone starts dropping hints in a post/dropping interesting information, it’s probably because they’re seeking interaction. scratch that: if they make a post, period, it’s because they’re seeking interaction because again, it’s the lifeblood of rp. it’s what we do. likes are great, replies are better, reblogs are top-tier. interact with content you want more of. we all want more diversity in the content we see here, so let’s make that happen, and “vote with our feet.”

and no this post isn’t actually solely re: hemoism discourse ooc talk. it’s actually opinions i’ve had for a while. i kinda just woke up and was like “hey i maybe want to talk about this.” the purpose of this post is me hoping to make a couple ripples in the community as a whole and maybe change the way we do/think about certain things. i really like this community, i love the people i’ve met, and i want to see it get better. if you don’t agree with me, that’s your prerogative, but i do hope you’ve at least thought about what i’ve said.

floor is open to discussion if anyone has anything to say/add.

[angry-old-asian-man]

"Reblog or Else!" When It's Malicious

Okay, so you all know that it's really hard to get people to care about certain things and reblog things that could save people--I had to beg and made a rant later because people did not care about reblogging that 18, not 13 is the age of consent in Japan (16 with explicit consent of minor's guardian) while thousands upon thousands of eyeballs catch lies that it is flying all around the web like flies on shit and condoning of paedos as long as they only attack Japanese kids. It's never the nicest tactic to invoke absolute sounding judgment, despite its effectiveness. Sadly, people may not otherwise actually care. But see how easy it is to include the INFORMATION that is the key to actually saving children? I just did it. And do you see how actually it is making you an agent of combatting a horrible problem because now you're another person whose followers are going to see and probably also spread info to help alleviate the problem? I see posts from time to time that are dogpiles of how if you don't reblog this vague horrible thing with no names, no resolution, no INFORMATION or resources listed to combat it but uwu don't you feel sorry for vague person in vague stock situation (fun side note: it's always one that white people could totally experience) you're a horrible person and we're all judging you. (I do not mean posts honouring the memories of people murdered by police, for example, just as I don't mean posts combatting erasure that has happened in history books. You combat erasure and fight letting police brutality or other violent injustice slide by when you reblog those posts with explicit names) If it's a current problem that could be happening to any user who could be saved by you reblogging, you know what it will and MUST have? INFORMATION THAT WILL HELP AFFECTED PEOPLE Note what I did above; I rewrote the pertinent information about age of consent. If it's to combat, say, DV, it won't be "someone I know was killed by a partner there is no info or dismantling the relevant oppression anywhere just reblog about this tragic anonymous and vague situation or you'll be sent to Hell" It will be "(link to story on news)/ guys, someone I know was killed by her husband. This is what he always said about her leaving the house. This is what he did to her. If this looks like you or someone you know, get help (and here's a national hotline or two)" Edit: "How can you not reblog this information about how to recognise abuse and get help? How can you not care about spreading this INFORMATION on HOW TO GET HELP OR SOLVE THE PROBLEM" That helps people. Spreading info saves lives. Hypothetical poster is passing judgement from a place of distress because no one seems to want to help them get info to people. "Reblog this vaguepost with absolutely no resources or resolution or you're a horrible person and everyone will know" is meant to make you afraid to their viewcount higher and not intended to help anyone. They're using you with no regard for hurting you (yes, making you afraid is hurting you. Especially when suicidal thoughts are so default they're small talk jokes) The ones devoid of any info or resources or other ways to combat that insist reblogging an empty guilt trip will combat are a violent viewcount ploy. Similar are the "magical reblog" ones. Chain email started in the '90s. I remember the rise of them. Trust me. Often times they were some basement loser (nowadays would be an MRA--I don't mean Japan but America where the economy was great then and it was a total jobseekers' market) who got his jollies off scaring people through chain emails. It was the same for the virus coder back then. Nowadays, scams and viruses seek to do identity theft, but that wasn't possible back then. It was just some damn bullies who got off on making other people's days hard. The same + popularity through fear (yep, just like the damn popular bullies in my school when I was your age, except they aim for viral posts) is behind every "reblog this or you're cursed/going to Hell/horrible" About the "hex posts," even if we posit witchcraft as proven real beyond all doubt, don't you need to at least have some idea of every recipient of a hex? You don't know every person who sees your circulating post. It's impossible to. And the "reblog to combat X" MUST CONTAIN INFORMATION TO EITHER STOP X, STOP PEOPLE GETTING AWAY WITH X, OR PROVIDE VICTIMS OF X WITH SOME WAY TO GET HELP. (Again, posting about erased historical minority heroes or police brutality victim cases itself combats erasure and silence--for a double whammy, say queer Muslim heroes fights Islamophobia and queer history erasure--this is not that. Those posts help just like ones with hotlines. Please reblog those. Those both do save people from a lot) HOW DO I KNOW IF A POST IS A MALICIOUS PLOY OR DOES NEED TO BE REBLOGGED?? Simply, two things: Does it contain any information that combats the problem? If it does, please reblog it. The people making it are probably in legitimate distress themselves and desperate to get the information out. They may even be scared. If it does not and just purports reblogging will keep you from being perceived as bad, it's not gonna do anything but get them viewcounts for using you. They can't hurt you (and if they can--like they go to your school and they weren't also manipulated but are contributing to the shaming, and you fear harm at all, please seek a physically available to be at your side trusted friend or adult if you are a minor. Better be safe and silly). In most cases they cannot hurt you. You're safe. 2. Does it expose perpetrators or combat anything specific in order to warn possible victims who may be viewing? By this, see the example above where the hypothetical poster outlines the abuse her friend went through and urges anyone who experiences that to get help. Hypothetical is trying to let people know what they are experiencing isn't normal. Or consider fighting dehumanising or "you don't belong here" with names and faces. Please do reblog those. All of these contain very specific INFORMATION IF THE POSTS INFORM NOTHING YET CLAIM YOU CAUSE A PROBLEM BY NOT REBLOGGING THEY ARE WRONG AND MANIPULATING YOU. Any post to save people and combat a problem will contain INFORMATION. This is absolutely the undeniable crux of any post that can actually help. So, no, if it doesn't contain any INFORMATION but just moral judgement/threats to reblog anyway, it's no moral statement on you for not reblogging, but it's an awful bad one on them for making it. And also you can't hex someone you don't know from Adam.