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It's my 12 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳
#12 year tumblrversary#tumblr milestone#my my my how time flies#fun fact: this was my second tumblr blog AFTER i accidentally deleted my first one and I WAS DEVASTATED#but that happy accident led me to make THREE blogs#which at the peak probably had around 100k+ followers in total with this personal blog being the least popular but my favorite because#this is where all my interests live#not curated#and messy AF#as opposed to my other two very specific ones (It was one of the first book blogs years before it was even a thing and my holy trinity blog#for you guys who didn't unfollow me although I never tag and during my prolonged break#and for the new followers from my newest obsessions: smosh and starkid - hello and enjoy your stay#I love you all and thank you
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xKIT PART 3: EDITABLE REBLOGS (now known as Trim Trail Items)
So, for this example, I'm going to be using a few friends' posts that I've seen go wonky (their text and images will be blurred, it's simply for example purposes) to show you some little errors that don't happen in comparison to the new version of xKit.
Now, I'm someone who is newer to xKit, but I've used both versions.
*There is no preferences section, which is why it's not included.
Part 1 || Part 2
EDITABLE REBLOGS (because that's what us roleplayers really want, let's be honest.)
HOLD ON--PANIC MODE! I CAN'T FIND THE REBLOG EDITOR!
First of all--take a breath. Cutting posts is easier, but it's located in a different spot.
Step 1 is to enable the beta editor on Tumblr.
If this is what your editor looks like, then you are currently still on the legacy editor. You absolutely need to switch to the Beta Editor. If you're not sure how to do that:
Looking in the upper right hand corner of your browser, you will see the toggle for your beta editor. Make sure you don't have a post in there. It will absolutely wipe whatever content you have in there. Save it to something else and you should be able to paste it back in, though you may have to contend with fixing a little formatting.
Most keyboard shortcuts still work in this editor, and for the most part, it appears the same as the legacy editor. You have your title, your blog dropdown, your option to add cuts/readmore, music, links, all of that. Some options, like changing to indented, bulleted lists, numbered lists, or bigger text are found when you select a block of text. This is the same way that it functions on the mobile editor.
FUN FACT: Ever resize your window and have your entire post disappear because it switched editors? This is because the "mobile" version of Tumblr uses the Beta Editor as its DEFAULT EDITOR. When you resize your browser window down, it detects the resolution of your browser, and will automatically switch to a more mobile-friendly (or reduced screen size) view for you. If you're using the beta editor, you can resize all you like, and you won't lose your posts!
Now, let's see what the Editable Reblogs actually look like now.
The posts above are all from DASH VIEW (or blog view, in this specific case -- as I was viewing one of my dud blogs. I was going to rename this blog, but I don't play to play this character, so I'll leave the blog up for people to actually view and see how it works. Panicking because you forgot to cut your draft? Don't-- you can cut right from the dash, too. Look for the little scissors!
This portion is actually from drafts. What it effectively done is just "removes old trail items" -- meaning that it removes everything BUT the last item. See that cute little scissors icon? THAT'S IT. THAT'S YOUR EDITABLE REBLOG. THAT'S HOW YOU CUT. You click that cute little scissors icon, and bam. THAT. IS. IT.
No backspacing.
No fucking up when you delete too much. (been there, done that.)
No fucked up formatting for your friends who use icons looking weird among the indents.
It preserves it. It preserves the new formatting. It does not accidentally post your drafts when you go to save the draft. THEY STAY.
*one small issue I have noticed is that you need to cut BEFORE you post. It was giving me issues before, but it's possible that the issue has been fixed. It did not appear to cause an issue in these drafts but be forewarned about it. Just hit cut before you edit the draft! Remember - draft, cut, write. DRAFT, CUT, WRITE. DCR. DRAFT CUT WRITE.
SO WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE?
Let's remember for a second what the old cut reblogs look like... and what funky things happened to them.
Now, let's look at something in the new post editor. Here's what a post with some images looks like that's saved in my drafts:
Here's what it looks like after we've cut it. Note that the new xKit version does not, in any way, alter the actual FORMATTING of the original post. This is what the legacy editor does; it changes the formatting of the post, which is why you get all kinds of weird issues like images making your first paragraph indented and no matter how many times you mess with it, it just doesn't work. You don't have to remove images from your partners' posts so the formatting works, because there's nothing being changed with the formatting in the first place.
THE FINAL STEP: MY OLD REPLIES ARE STILL IN THE LEGACY EDITOR. WHAT DO I DO????
Sometimes, you may run into the issue where, in attempting to cut, it will tell you that legacy posts cannot be cut/altered from your drafts. There's two workarounds to this.
Workaround #1: REPOST IT! This one is the simplest. Take your last reply, copy it into a new post, and start again from there. The same way you might when moving asks to a new post if someone didn't already make a new post from it.
Workaround #2: Edit from the mobile app. Note that I specified the mobile app; this is the only way I've found that works for me. I went into my original post (meaning the VERY FIRST POST OF THE REBLOG CHAIN -- so the very first post you posted to start that thread), edited it from the mobile app (iphone, ipad, android phone or tablet, whatever fits your fancy) and just changed something small--bold a word, italicize a word, change a punctuation, something that made the post fundamentally different.
This pseudo-forced it into the new post format, and from there, I was able to cut. Posts made in-between that were edited with old xKit won't matter--they'll just stay as they were, and you don't have to touch them. Only the first post of the thread matters in this case.
REGARDING USERS USING OLD XKIT:
Please note, if you're still using the old xKit for editable reblogs, but your partner is using the new one, they will not be able to cut your posts. The old xKit outright changes the reblog structure and puts their old reply as part of your new reply, while removing EVERY old trail item including their old one (and it appears as nothing more than indented text in your response). As a result, there's nothing to actually cut for the new xKit, so your partners won't be able to cut. You need to be aware of this if you've decided not to make the transition. Don't go bitching to your mutuals for not cutting their posts when they are using the new version and you're still on the old one. Either run both if you're still going to use an old, glitchy addon, or switch entirely. Otherwise, deal with it.
#xkit for roleplay#it's less complicated than you think#it'll take a touch of a learning curve#but you won't be scrambling when the legacy editor is nuked#this has more than my other psa but i added images to make life better#huge shoutout to the friend(s) whose posts i am able to cut with xkit for visual purposes for this!
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Finding the Streamer I want to be
My first Tumblr post on this new SFW blog! As you may know, after SESTA/FOSTA Tumblr changed their policy to no longer allow adult content on the site. I tried to delete one of my blogs, however, I accidentally deleted all of them. 😂 So here’s to a fresh new start! 🥂
My thoughts about my streams right now are conflicted. I really enjoy my job and what I do, however, the way I want to stream and manage my chatroom has changed over the years. I am struggling with how to make changes to my style and be more authentic to who I really am, without upsetting members by revealing what I no longer feel is authentic for me.
The challenge for me right now is to strike the best balance I can. Currently I have been trying to keep up my streams “as usual”. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult because activities I used to enjoy on stream, no longer feel authentic to the vision I have of my ideal chatroom. It leads to me needing to take more emergency days off and it fuels thoughts about giving up streaming forever.
We’ve all heard the cliche, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” As a self-employed person I feel like I really have an opportunity to acheive that. The truth is, even though I am 100% in charge of my job as a self-employed person, I continue to do stay the same because I’m afraid of negative reactions from my members. I am attempting to implement little changes over time to slowly sculpt out my ideal chatroom.
The first step I have made in this journey was to join the Nood TV 🐥 community and start streaming more on that platform. I enjoy the sex-positive and supportive environment of the platform, as well as its ability to stream in UHD. I also appreciate that the founder and community manager of the site are also streamers and are knowledgeable and compassionate about struggles that may come up for the streamers on their site.
I also enjoy Nood because I have more control over my room. The site encourages us to be less transactional and more about performing our own authentic show. The hope is that viewers who enjoyed the show will contribute what they can because they want to, not to get a specific action performed in return.
The issue is that I have not been able to establish enough regular supporters on this platform to cover my living expenses. My dream would to be stream soley on Nood, however, in order to do that I need to stream on Nood WAY more often than I am. I want to do this, but for the past few weeks I’ve felt like I’m on a fast track to burnout and possibly a rage quit--not something that I want to happen. I feel exhausted and I spend a shit-ton of energy everyday on meeting my basic needs. Just taking my medicine, getting food into my system, staying in contact with friends and family, and getting in healthy exercise has been very difficult this winter.
The good news is that I suspect that once springtime gets closer to reality, my energy will pick up and I will be able to dive into the creative work I want to do. My first responsibility is to my health and wellbeing. I need to be careful not to take on more than I can reasonably handle right now.
Other changes I have made are to reduce the amount of times a day I check and update my social media. My goal is to still post the same amount of content, but to concentrate it to once or twice a day. I do not want my Snapchat to be an extension of my chatroom where people expect me to text them back multiple times a day. I don’t even text my best friends every single day!
In the past, I have been snapped at, sworn at, or been the brunt of passive-aggressive behavior for posting new content on my Snapchat story without reading and responding to people’s texts right away. This behavior from members was EXTREMELY hurtful to me. It made me feel like people think because they tipped me, I don’t deserve a personal life or free time away from my job. I understand that many people rely on me for friendship and human connection, and all humans want and deserve that. However, I have boundaries like everybody else. Streaming is fun, and at the same time it is my job. It is impossible for me to work from the second I wake up to the second I go to bed. Answering Snapchat messages from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed IS work and it is unreasonable to expect me to do that. MOST members do not do this to me, however, it only takes a couple of people to behave like this for it to hurt me.
As I write this, I feel like the main point of what I am feeling is that my vision and boundaries for my room are evolving and I would like to follow that positive energy with the intension of feeling happier about my job. I am struggling with how to pull this off without completely failing miserably.
Another point of this post is to be transparent about where I am right now as a streamer. I am exhausted from the emotional labor I provide everyday. I am frustrated and feel pressure to provide more emotional support than is possible without me burning out and quitting. I would like to also be honest of the fact that though my job is fun and I enjoy the company of the members I have met, streaming and adult content creation IS legitimate work and it IS emotionally exhausting at times.
A big part of this is also during the winter, it is SO much easier to feel surrounded by negative thoughts. However, at the very same time, there are so many amazing parts of my job. I get to connect with real people across the world with the hopes to make them smile and make their day better. I think acknowledging the aspects that make me feel yucky and identifying the parts that make me feel excited is important for me in moving towards creating the vision I have.
I hope that my transparency hasn’t made anyone feel personally attacked or nervous if they’ve contributed to my negative feelings. This is not my intention. It is MY job to be open about my boundaries and it is not members’ job to guess what they are. My intention is to be honest about how I am doing right now as a live streamer and to commit more to making my work and entertainment more authentic to who I really am.
Thank you to those who took the time to read this! 💗
#streamergirl#live stream#burnout#positive mental attitude#mental health#boundaries#authenticity#content creator
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One of my grandfathers died of AIDS complications before I was born.
There, that's my pound of flesh. You have to present those before anyone listens to you on this fucking website.
I didn't delete my tumblr because oh no I'm the Hamilton cannibal mermaid freak. I have been that for years. And, for what it's worth, I never interacted with Israa as Israa. She tried to interact with me, once, two years ago, about the intentionally dumb garbage I wrote in my spare time. I ignored her because I didn't know who she was and I didn't care.
Nah, I deleted my tumblr because you freaks kept sending me death threats and I couldn't exactly deal with that after being awake for four days and trying to manage the emotional fallout of this monster.
Don't send people death threats, you fucking loons.
This was not about fandom, because I do not orient my world around fandom. This was about my grandfather, and not just him, and not just the other people I have known who have had their lives irrevocably altered by HIV, and not just the fact that she stole money. This was about basic common decency. It's not about me. I'm not going to pretend I'm an angel or anything but I have never done anything like this.
But this is not about me.
The person behind hivliving, Alix McLiar:
1. Lives in a $500,000 waterfront house in a wealthy suburb in the US with her married and very wealthy parents, both of whom have terminal degrees in the sciences
2. Goes to a prestigious private out-of-state university on a merit scholarship worth approximately $250,000 over four years. Or maybe not. Maybe she got kicked out. Still not sure. Her school has been contacted multiple times by multiple people, and the chief of police of her university told me that she would be punished appropriately. I believe, at least, that she's no longer involved in the school's anti-racism groups as an administrator, and I know that her advisor knows, and that the head of the diversity office knows, and that her friends all know and have completely stopped talking to her. Rephrase: she went to a prestigious university while this was going on, majoring in a healthcare-related field.
3. Went to one of the best high schools in the United States
4. Started racefaking on the internet early in her senior year of high school, possibly earlier - she was 17 at the time and is 19 now
5. Vacations internationally with some frequency
6. Is white and cisgender and REALLY FUCKING RICH, meaning she definitely used the money she got as “Israa” for drugs or something
7. Is probably going to do this again
She used the following identities:
1. Israa, Liar Prime - bigender bisexual Chinese-Pakistani 19-year-old, from the China-Pakistan border (once or twice specified as westernmost Xinjiang), HIV+ after being trafficked into sexual slavery by her parents as a young teenager, Muslimah, hijabi, once had her eye popped out of its socket after someone found out her HIV status, once raped and robbed by police at gunpoint, pregnant, miscarried, married, living in India with her wife - blueskysapphic/hivliving/angischuyler
2. Muk(h)ta (she spelled it different ways) - Somali, Catholic, raised in America by her American father who was implied a few times to be a diplomat of some sort, 18, trans woman, lesbian, married to Israa, trafficking victim, not HIV+ - thewarsnotdone
3. Naj, American lesbian POC (never specified other than that), congenitally HIV+, fairly active in ace discourse -allolesbean/hivliving
A bonus identity discovered while investigating:
4. Alix, Lebanese Jewish lesbian, self-identified as an Arab, from Lebanon, living in the states for college - lesbianeclipse
(the Jewish community in Lebanon numbers about forty, by the by. She's fond of doing this)
Israa lied a fuckton but she didn’t just pop out of the blue. She had put together the biracial trafficking victim persona before she started posting her fic. She had convinced other people of this persona before she started writing fanfiction - named the wife, picked out Chinese and “Muslim” names (yes she called Israa her Muslim name), found a beta for her fic, made up a backstory.
And it wasn’t just hivliving that she was involved in. Israa and friends' modus operandi in fandom was to declare someone a pedophile over fanfiction, sic followers on them, threaten to dox them, force them to divulge (often sexual) traumas, and then use those traumas to harass them into self-harm. She did this multiple times, mainly to young gay teenagers and young trans men and young impoverished women. Some of those people did self-harm. And she knew it. And she kept on bullying, and told anyone who said “Stop it” that how DARE they, she is HIV+, she can do this.
And, given that Israa and her crew placed so much emphasis on IP address hits to Tumblrs as "stalking," it is absolutely impossible that none of them - including the one who followed her on her "Lebanese Jewish" tumblr and Facebook-linked twitter - did not know. This was a squad of teenagers dedicated to threatening and sexually harassing rape victims over fanfiction, with their core defense being 'Israa has been much more traumatized than you, by people like you, and she's protecting other people by hurting you.'
Yeah, no. Weirdly enough, most trauma victims don’t go out of their way to tell victims of child sexual abuse that they should kill themselves.
Israa used the social capital and following she gained being a moral arbiter and Teller Of Wise Truths About HIV in fandom (she and her crew also picked on an HIV+ member of the Hamilton cast on Twitter such that I believe he blocked them, by the fucking way) to start hivliving.
The person behind Israa is not Muslim. Or Jewish. Or HIV+. Or Somali. Or biracial. She was not trafficked to another country by her parents. She grew up wealthy. It was incredibly obvious she was not who she claimed she was. A basic knowledge of geopolitics would have nipped this shit in the bud literally years ago, because nothing Israa said made any sense. This should have been caught day of. Other people knew and let it ride because it’s fun to cloak your repulsive behavior in the language of social justice to get away with it. Other people should have figured it out.
Point by point:
1. Language
Israa claimed to speak Chinese and Urdu natively and English, Spanish, and Kannada as second languages. She exclusively used English on her blog. She learned English as an adult and yet had absolutely perfect grammar, spelling, mastery of American slang, etc. Is this impossible? No, of course not, but learning a second language as an adult - especially in a non-immersion environment, especially one from an entirely different language family, presents a ton of difficulties. I am currently learning a second language in a non-immersion environment. Writing and reading are easier than speaking, sure, but they do not come easy.
Israa wrote like a native English speaker. She never made the mistakes in grammar or spelling common with people learning English from Chinese. She never had slightly odd turns of phrase borne from not grasping all the tiny nuances of a given English word. She never had an accidental character inserted when she forgot to rotate the language on her keyboard. (I rotate keyboards. Lemme tell you, it happens frequently.) She used British spellings pretty consistently, but not British or Indian English phrasing. Her slang was all American, young, Tumblr-approved. The media she talked about was almost all in English, minus one Chinese-American film and one Chinese novel available in English translation. She never used Chinese or Urdu on her blog, except to write brief greetings or her name. She never talked to anyone in Chinese or Urdu or Kannada. Her punctuation was completely American. She never, ever forgot a word.
This person, from a family poor enough to knowingly traffick a child into sex slavery, was fluent in 4-5 languages, presumably literate in at least 3 (meaning she could effortlessly cycle between 3, possibly 4 different writing systems) and somehow so fluent in a language she had started learning only two, three years before that she was indistinguishable from a native speaker.
How?
How was her English so native-perfect after only two or three years?
Because she didn't only have two or three years to build on. Because she was a native speaker. Duh.
2. Offensive racial stereotypes
Israa consistently presented herself as from western China, right along the China-Pakistan border. Never specified city or town, presumably because Alix was not invested enough in the character to pick a random town name off of Google Maps. She also once posted about her family having a dispute about the family rice farm.
There is almost no rice agriculture in extreme western Xinjiang. Not none, but almost none. Too arid.
But rice, China, right?
Also, bit of a digression as the character could have started wearing it while not living there, but about wearing hijab in Xinjiang: it's not exactly legal, right now. Crackdowns on specifically Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang have been front-page news in major English-language publications for years. Crackdowns on Hui Muslims (the ethnic group she occasionally claimed to be a part of) are less common, but they happen. And, of course, not all Muslim women wear hijab...but all Muslims are the same, in Israa-world. Speaking of.
Israa claimed that she had relatives in Gaza and that she did medical research at a clinic in Gaza under the auspices of her university.
1. How did she get a passport? It would have to be either a Pakistani or Chinese passport. Traveling from India to the Gaza strip on a Pakistani passport would be, shall we say, extremely difficult. It would be difficult for her to acquire a passport in the first place (did she have any documentation before she was trafficked? After? She was trafficked into India and India repatriates trafficking victims. Presumably she would have been repatriated to China. Would she, an HIV-positive member of a Muslim ethnic minority breaking the law in Xinjiang, be allowed to acquire a passport? How would she afford a passport? etc) 2. How would a 19-year-old non-medical student undergraduate receive permission to enter the Gaza strip, especially if she was traveling on a Pakistani passport? 3. Current Israeli law gives the Minister of the Interior the right to deny access to Israel (and thus Palestine and Gaza) to any HIV+ alien or migrant worker. Presumably Israa counted as an “alien or migrant worker,” so how did she get into the country to travel to Gaza in the first place? 4. Did Israa not realize that Pakistan and Palestine (and China) are culturally very dissimilar because they're in very different parts of the world? This is another China = rice moment. Alix assumed that all Muslims are the same? How would the aforementioned impoverished ethnic minority family be wealthy or mobile enough to have relatives at the other end of the continent?
I'm pretty sure her logic there was "Chinese Muslims are oppressed, Palestinians are oppressed - basically the same, right? Family!"
Oh and by the way she seemed to not remember if her family was based in western Xinjiang or in Karachi. She had sisters living in Karachi at some point and then she told me and, apparently, told quite a few other people, that she would be moving back to her loving parents in China soon after graduating university, at the age of 19.
Her parents who trafficked her.
Hokay.
Oh and besides the 80s high school AIDS crisis AU fic she wrote a lot of seriously offensive “Muslim AU” fic that trafficked in a lot of incredibly harmful and racist tropes about Muslim women but I said I wouldn’t mention fandom
3. Her wife
Mukta/Mukhta - Somali, Catholic, raised in America by her American father, somehow ended up in India as a trafficking victim, monolingual in English. She implied a few times that her father was some kind of diplomat. Muk(h)ta married Israa and they lived happily together as an interfaith couple, doing such coupley things as packaging Christmas care packages at Muk(h)ta's church and having wanted pregnancies.
1. As far as I can tell, Mukta and Mukhta are not Somali names, and if Muk(h)ta was monolingual in English wouldn’t she, like, spell her name in the Latin alphabet consistently 2. There are approximately 100 Somali Catholics. (Like I said, she liked doing that.) 3. An American-raised child of a diplomat being kidnapped (?) and trafficked for sex in India would have made international news. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERNATIONAL NEWS. 4. Legal gay marriage does not exist in India. I wouldn't bring this up, people can call their partners whatever they want in the absence of legal recognition, but Israa made a distinction between "wife" and "girlfriend" and talked about having a wedding in a religious space, so - 5. How were two married female teenagers living together with apparently no problem in Bengaluru? 6. Muk(h)ta and Israa ended up in the same brothel together after being trafficked and one day decided to take the bus out. TO WHERE. HOW DID THEY GET THE MONEY. How Israa talked about the brothel was completely bullshit too and seems to have been based on legal brothels in Australia or Nevada - personal amenities, private bathrooms, private rooms, et cetera. 7. Again, India repatriates, or attempts to repatriate, known minor victims of trafficking - so why were either of them still in India?
Oh also Muk(h)ta's blog literally only talked about how awesome her wife was and Hamilton and she almost never interacted with other people by herself and she would have had the same non-Bengaluru IP address as Israa (same blog organization, frankly, as allolesbean), so -
4. Being a student in India
Israa insisted she, a Chinese (and?) Pakistani national, was a science student at a university in Bengaluru. She would not have been able to do this without documentation and you have to apply for a student visa in India outside of the country.
So:
1. Again. How did she acquire a passport? 2. How did she prove her residential address outside of India? 3. How did she put together the money to pay student fees? 4. How was Muk(h)ta living with her in the interim, if Muk(h)ta wasn't an Indian citizen? 5. How did she overcome the language barrier in either English or Kannada in enough time to start studying science? 6. Where was Muk(h)ta during the application process? In China? In Pakistan? In India? How?
6. The pregnancy
Jesus Christ where do I start
Israa always, always insisted that Muk(h)ta presented as a woman, was understood as a woman, etc, and the pregnancy was expected and wanted - the old ladies at church (who 100% accepted her) cooed over her baby bump.
Two AFAB people and their magic desired child baby bump.
NO 19-YEAR-OLD HIV+ PERSON IS GOING TO RECEIVE IVF. ANYWHERE. EVER.
When someone pushed back on this, she started insisting that Muk(h)ta was a trans woman, taking hormones, and then later she conveniently miscarried.
1. How did Muk(h)ta access hormones? 2. How did Israa access her HIV medications such that she was fine with having unprotected sex (she stated a couple of times that she and Mukhta were a serodiscordant couple), and/or how did Mukhta access PrEp? 3. Why would two impoverished teenagers living on student visas (and it had to be student visas as, again, India repatriates foreign trafficking victims) plan to have a baby? 4. How did Muk(h)ta, a devout church-going Catholic living in India, safely and successfully navigate as a lesbian trans woman married to a Muslim woman such that her church accepted her and the pregnant partner unconditionally? 5. Same question but about Israa and Israa's mosque, which she apparently attended regularly 6. If the child was planned, how did Muk(h)ta, a young (17? 18?-year-old) trans woman on hormones, access the healthcare that would have assured them both that her hormones weren't interfering with her fertility? 7. How did Israa access neonatal care? 8. How could they afford all of this and yet Israa needed to ask for donations on hivliving to deal with vague miscarriage-related medical bills?
And on. And on. And on.
Am I saying it's impossible for someone to learn a language quickly, or to be Pakistani and have relatives in Gaza, or be a victim of trafficking, or be a lesbian in India, or any of the other things she claimed separately? No, of course not. I'm sure there's actually someone who is very like Israa out there, minus all the lies.
I'm just saying - are you fucking kidding me? Are all of you so illiterate about how the entirety of the world works that this bullshit was allowed to pass unchecked for two fucking years??? Are all of you so illiterate about how the world works that no one wondered why a person with this background would be spending her internet time primarily writing god damn Hamilton fanfiction??? Yes, you are, because instead of putting together this incredibly obvious idiotic racist garbage in a post to point out the many insane consistencies, I had to wade through the goddamn cash.me terms of service LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER SHE STARTED DEFRAUDING PEOPLE.
And that was obviously not the only time she'd demanded money, she just deleted her tumblrs before I could find the "friend's paypal" she had used earlier on blueskysapphic/angischuyler.
Did she ever talk about living with HIV in any meaningful way? Did she ever talk about it in a way that wasn't just yelling about not blaming asexuals or complaining about people twenty years older than her not using Tumblr-approved phrasing or whatever? Did she actually do anything with hivliving besides reblog things other people had posted and tell people to pm her for more information? The real Alix is a 19-year-old college sophomore who is so stupid about public health that she told people RENT is a good introduction to the AIDS crisis in twenty god damn seven teen and told me that she checked herself into a hospital for narcissism (spoilers: there's a huge lack of beds in psychiatric hospitals and no psychiatric ER is going to admit a person not immediately in danger, especially not for NARCISSISM). She had absolutely nothing of value to contribute. She was clearly not talking from a place of expertise. She did not sound like she knew anything about anything and what she did regurgitate was highly Americanized. If her value as the person who ran hivliving was as an HIV+ pregnant married nonbinary non-American trafficking survivor, then it should have been obvious earlier that she was none of those things.
It is not difficult to figure out things like it is costly and difficult to move between countries, or that midcontinental aridity precludes heavy-water-using agriculture, or that adults who are learning English as a third or fourth language from a non-Germanic language will have quite a bit of trouble with grammar and vocabulary even several years in, or that a nineteen-year-old bigender woman-aligned person would have difficulty living safely with her wife anywhere, or that it’s nigh impossible that a person holding a Pakistani passport could get to the Gaza strip, or that most Somalis are not Catholic.
BASIC KNOWLEDGE. BASIC COMMON SENSE. BASIC GEOPOLITICS. A few hours on Wikipedia could have thrown all of this into the garbage.
Why did any of you believe this garbage?
Easy! Because:
1. Tumblr fetishizes oppression, especially that of trans people and Muslim women, and Alix made herself a persona that hit every jackpot possible 2. Tumblr consumes only fanfiction and thus elevates it to an insane level of importance in culture, therefore fights over fanfiction content are actual justice (it's not that fucking deep) 3. Tumblr has an extremely warped understanding of social justice theory and abuse dynamics 4. Tumblr refuses to absorb any news or history besides that which is presented on Tumblr 5. Alix was so prone to leading harassment mobs that any pushback would lead to more abuse 6. Tumblr hates gay men and would rather listen to an obvious bullshit artist than anyone the community that is primarily affected by HIV
Really can't stress that last one enough. REALLY can't. I remember some big name ~tumblr LGBT-community famous~ blogger telling their thousands of followers that the pogrom against gay men in Chechnya wasn't happening, partially because they were so stupid that they didn't know how to click through on tabloid publications to the serious reporting done by actual journalists, but mostly because Tumblr has decided that gay men aren't oppressed and AIDS is over or some bullshit.
At least five people, five men, five GAY AND BI MEN, came to Alix with their status, begging for help. She fed them garbage and lies. She looked them in the face and decided she would continue with this monstrousness and you just fucking let it happen and then you made it about fanfiction because you don’t understand that there are things way beyond fandom. She was a psychopath who OPERATED IN FANDOM and 15 years ago she would have pulled this shit on the TWOP boards or the scarleteen message boards or neopets or something.
God, fuck all of you.
I have a tiny bit of money spare this month. If you send a receipt of a donation to an HIV/AIDS-related organization of your choice to [email protected], personal information redacted as you so choose, I'll match it, multiple its, for a total of $50 from my end. If that doesn't happen by February 15, I'll just send it all to one of my choice. I can hold a couple bucks spare each month so that, God willing and my rent don't rise, I can consistently send to Rainbow Railroad or my home LGBT center's HIV/AIDS program.
Nothing is going to fix what she did and she's never going to get held to account in the way she should but I'm going to post receipts every so often anyways because I am nasty and angry enough to care about other people. I am angry enough to do penance on her behalf. I have been furious and horrified and sick about this ever since I found out and dealing with her vileness has caused actual tangible harm in my life but again, it's not about me, and I'm going to remember that even if you motherfuckers won't.
I would seriously advise anyone under the age of 21 to get the fuck off of this website and go learn how to communicate with other people in a healthy manner. Go outside! Interact with other people in the real world! Read a book. Read a fucking newspaper! Learn about the world. Or you can stay here and burrow in the echo chamber and become credulous fauxwoke racist homophobic morons who prioritize calling other teenagers pedophiles til they try to kill themselves because Steven Universe or something over doing literally anything that could help the world. Your choice.
The rest of you: comport yourselves like normal fucking human beings for once in your fucking lives and sort out your goddamn priorities. Read a fucking newspaper. Stop giving obvious racist fraudsters like medievalpoc and Israalix the benefit of the doubt and actually think about the information that is being presented to you and then maybe do something more useful with your time than getting into internet fights. For example, I organized an auction in my spare time that, with the help of another lovely person and dozens of wonderful donors, raised $3,917 for various charities over six months, including $200 for GMHC and about $75 for an HIV/AIDS organization in Wisconsin. Go do something similar or get off the fucking internet! It’s 2018! You’re adults! Try tangibly helping other people, at some point, instead of engaging in this terrible narcissistic performative circlejerk where trauma has become a cudgel to beat others!
If any of you do anything like this again I will find you and I will fucking destroy you. That is a promise.
Go to hell.
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sorry im kinda new to your blog and i dont really understand this drama or whatever with the people that keep sending you asks? are people mad at you for writing rpf or the shipping or something? i have no context for whats going on
Oh hello friend let me tell you
THE DRAMA
There’ll be a tl;dr at the bottom but i really wanna tell this story cos it’s so funny to me
also read more because it gets LONG
So once upon a time Natalie got into a group called TWRP. Amazing wonderful LOVELY group of aliens (aliens and robot, technically? lore is silly fun and also part of this story so get ready to return to this) from the future of the 1980s -glorious chorus of heavenly angels in the distance-
at the same time! natalie was also drafting up the VERY beginnings of her space pirate epic SWIFT LIKE MERCURY, the idea was this: Julian a space pirate, ding dong the reluctant alien space prince, but who would be in julian’s crew!? lots of suggestions were thrown around in YE OLDE DINGDULIAN CHAT back in august and none of them worked. maybe this wouldn’t be a fic, maybe it was all for naught.
and then the sexy sexy cone man hip thrusted his way into her life.
that IS to say I fell in love with TWRP at the NSP show i went to with my best friend. i didn’t know WHOMST the fuck they were so seeing them come out in stage in full costume HIGH OFF MY ASS was probably one of the most memorable things in my life. We drove back to the hotel, DD and Julian were streaming katamari, I bought tickets for ANOTHER TWRP show in my hometown that were twelve dollars and then I found
THE WIKI
COMMANDER MEOUCH SOMETHING SOMETHING SPACE PIRATE
I was flabbergasted. NOT ONLY was there lore for this amazing band BUT here was the answer staring me right in the face. JULIAN WAS A FURRY, HIM HAVING A LION MAN AS HIS SECOND IN COMMAND WOULD BE PERFECT. i quickly told the chat (to which they all went ??? and didn’t quite take to it at the time) and then promptly CRASHED until the following morning.
so! i woke up, our CO adventure continued (we saw IT) and I started to discuss some plot ideas with the chat. At the same time I started to actually glance at the tumblr fandom. Oh wow! Everyone HAD THEIR OWN IDEAS! It was open to explore! How fun! They created face canons and personalities and stories for the boys and I’d be damned if my crazy plot making ass (who years before had looked at supernatural and said “crowley become the first cross road demon by making a deal with judas which killed judas and brought jesus back to life, thus creating the resurrection story” and was going to write a whole past lives destiel fic spanning back to ADAM AND EVE) wouldn’t take that and run. I made the post. TWRP IS GONNA BE IN MY OP FIC!!! I was so excited to start this, to make something amazing.
“dont put twrp in your OP fic”
I looked at the ask in COMPLETE confusion. wait! they didn’t even know HOW I was going to put them in! they could literally just be playing music in a scene! my petty scorpio ass felt a rage of which i had not felt in months. “fuck you.” it said. “NOW I HAVETO WRITE THE FIC YOU BITCH.”
(spite was one of the biggest driving forces in creating SLM and to me that’s why i think you see the story and the voice of it change over time because it became a thing of love but thaT’S NOT THE POINT)
so here i am having a grand ol’ time and im coming up with my boys and im like YEAH HELL YEAH and all my dingdulian friends are like oh hey i actually LIKE TWRP? and i got a PM from someone who will remain anonymous but who is a close friend of mine now
“hey, loving all the new stuff you’re bringing to the fandom!” they started. there was a bit more conversation and then IT happened.
“Just be careful about shipping.”
I looked at the message and another quickly followed. “nsfw gets weird too”
my scorpio ass, also fueled by love of all things sexual and romantic, looked at this with a growing sense of dread. I HAD ACTUALLY BEEN SETTING UP A SMALL SUNG AND MEOUCH SHIP. WELL SHIT! THAT HAD TO GO APPARENTLY?! I told my friends and we all rolled our eyes but we ACCEPTED IT. That’s what it was apparently.
Until I thought about Havve fucking Ding Dong with his robot dick while Sung held him in place and played up to DD’s praise kink
“oh no.” i said softly because that one fucking day dream planted the seed of needing to do something. sung would be so loving and so wonderful and who was i to let that just slip through my fingers! so i just approached cremedoodle (creator of WW, RR, and FF) and went “haha uh, what about ww chris and sung for a threesome in the fic crazy right”
and it wasn’t THAT crazy
especially when it became just WW and Sung
and god damn it were they in LOVE
“we can’t do this.” i said after a few hours of us coming up with all this ROMANTIC shit and some sexy shit too let’s be honest, it’s me after all. “oh god we’re doing this, aren’t we?”
so we decided to do it. fuck it. all caution thrown to the wind. the moment sung and ww “met” over the vid feed in chapter 6 i got a feeling of intense dread in my stomach. i couldn’t believe it, i was really doing this, they were really going to be in LOVE oh my GOD.
no comments.
oh.
beach bonfire chapter where julian and dd point out how fucked sung was since he was obviously into ww
no comments.
CHAPTER WHERE THEY WERE DRUNK AND MAKING OUT.
NO COMMENTS.
In that moment i realized something very sad but also very liberating.
the twrp fans that were all fucking awful weren’t reading my fic.
i wanted them to read it. i had put time into it. i wanted them to see my budding lore and like it, but at the same time the OP fandom was taking to it so well and enjoying TWRP so i said fuck it, ill take it.
We started to talk about Ring Rang and Phobos, sarah and I started talking about Meouch and Liara. it was going to be good, it was going to be fun.
and then i fucked up
that’s right
me
i came home from a crazy trip in MN and I was in a shit mood and I accidentally published Sung/WW fluff drabbles in the tag
I got fucking ripped a new one. i was a piece of shit for even ever thinking that was okay. “YOU’RE BEING DISRESPECTFUL! THEY’RE REAL PEOPLE! DON’T DO T HIS!”
yeah you read that right.
TWRP fanDUMB thinks that my adorable sweet Lepid Phobos, with his big eyes and his missing wings and his penchant for romance novels, my hyperactive sung with his star singing and his empathatic core WERE THE SAME GUYS ON STAGE.
This is literally what all of this drama is about.
It was in that terrible slew of fucking stupidity that I realized I didn’t care. It was TOO late at that point. They should have seen it sooner. They should have gotten me sooner. I had somehow slipped under the radar and I had beat them, in a strange sense, because not only did I care
i was going to keep doing it.
FAST FORWARD TO THIS YEAR (i know, this story is still going) i make a nsfw, i start posting my sung/ww extra chapters there because im too much of a pussy to put them in the fic still. my friend gets me to write a meouch/dd/julian fic. im just about to post a havve/sung thing when IT happens.
The fake screenshot.
a blog that posted jUST this and a post about the device (an album by the band) put this out into the open and deleted IMMEDIATELY afterwards. the fandom went into shitstorm mode. i cried on and off the whole day because i was being harrassed by anons and my friends were too.
but the more i looked at it
the more i started to REALLY understand how it was fake.
not only does it not have the usual bubble to the right (it should show that twrp has seen the most recent message even if it’s their own) it doesn’t touch on the fact that the OP said something about lore? even to say “hey, lore’s cool! that’s not the problem” would make more sense
also
they never responded to any of my friends
sure they read it, but following a slew of desperate users trying to get answers they never made an official statement so my gay ass pulled out the wine and said YOU’RE GOING TO MOPE AND THEN YOU’RE GOING TO KEEP DOING YOU.
So we’re here now, with the fact that I know things about the band irl and the fact that I have shipping and people are pissed and I really don’t care. the info i know about the band i keep safe and SIMPLY SAYING A GENERIC WHITE DUDE NAME IS NOT REASON TO START A WITCH HUNT (not going to elaborate on this, this is only posted for the sake of anyone who is on the hate train who may be reading this) this is where fiction does not equal reality. i dont look at havve and go AH YES THERE IS MURDER MAN, IF HE IS NOT MURDER MAN WHEN THEY GET OFF STAGE ILL BE UPSET because thats STUPID? Like literally the IRL band members created personas and lore that they then gave to the fans to expand upon and also sorry guys,,,, it’s the internet,, in the words of DD “it’s weird” but you can’t ask people to stop. it won’t stop. that’ll just fuel the fire
so yes, i like twrp shipping and i like shippng with my ocs and i like writing about how sometimes when you touch sung’s core it turns him on and about how meouch has a knot because im a fucking awful skanko but at least im having fun lmfao
so
TL;DR
shipping is apparently illegal and so is nsfw in the twrp fandom and i do both unapologetically and i hope i inspire other people to start doing it more often.
the twrp fandom is not like this anywhere else btw. this is just tumblr being tumblr, as usual. you’re not going to get brownie points because you didn’t let me write sung fucking his hot gf you absolute dumb dumbs, you’re not going to get anything from it except for an inflated ego which you’ll lord over everyone, so do me the favor of expiring in a trench and let the fandom do what it’s supposed to do
HAVE FUN!
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Blood And Ink: The Other Notes
It’s been a while since I last posted an update and the situation hasn’t improved. You guys and girls and ghouls should know why. Even if you just recently found this blog, you’ve probably seen the posts, the photos, and the glitched out text.
It isn’t exactly subtle in its goal. It hasn’t tried to hide from you all. It knows that you’re reading this and won’t stop drawing attention to itself until I do what it wants.
And I’ll get to that later.
So, here I am.
I didn’t use my laptop for a week after reading the second note. I kept it behind the bookshelf, unplugged and turned off. It wasn’t because of the note itself, though. I understood what it meant and while it was definitely unnerving, it didn’t really bother me that much. Something about my stories has inoculated me against real life oddities. Write enough stories featuring the paranormal and you get used to weirdness.
My autism might have helped, too. I tend to adapt easily to a schedule, especially at school, and I will ignore any difference present in the environment.
Of course, I might just be speculating. Or exaggerating. Or lying. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I don’t have a better explanation.
Anyway, it wasn’t the note that unnerved me, but the fact that something had used my laptop without me knowing. That it knew me. My hobby. That it could communicate with me. And that it could leave me notes.
There was also the subject of whether it would leave me another one or not. I had no clue.
What could it do?
Could there be another note waiting for me?
I would stare at the bookshelf and the spine of my laptop. A part of me itched to turn it on while another was screaming at me to take a hammer to it. But I couldn’t really destroy it. Not without getting into trouble at least. My reluctance to satisfy my curiosity grew with each passing day.
I eventually started to make excuses. I had to work. I had to study for the EOCT in Economics. There were too many things I had to do. The week passed by fairly quickly though.
Finally, the break came around and I had no excuse.
The Thing started to move here. When I posted an update explaining how I had been taking a break from writing due to school, several letters were emboldened. They spelled something out. The word “lies”.
I didn’t know how to react to its assertion and decided to ignore it. But someone sent me an anon message. I got the notification on my phone.
“Are you okay?”
Once again, I brushed it off. I lied and said that I was fine.
In fact, I posted a selfie saying so.
A couple of minutes passed before I got another notification. Another anon message.
“What’s with the sickly photo?”
I opened the Tumblr app and came face to face with myself. A selfie that had been distorted to the point where I could make out each and every pimple in crystal clear detail. Shadow clouded. Gray. And underneath it were the words, “IM FiNE Im FIne iM fINe IM FINE IM FINE IM FINE IM FINE”, accompanied by a few tags.
“I’m fine”.
“Nothing to worry about”.
“Don’t worry about me”.
“Don’t you trust me?”
The Thing was taunting me. It knew that I was lying to you guys and wanted me to be ashamed. And its attempts were working. I felt sick to my stomach.
I was raised in a Christian household and I’ve always been told to tell the truth, lest I’d be damned to Hell. It worked for a while. But as you should already know, I lied about the weird text posts. And I kept on lying.
Another notification. Another anon message asking me about my health, this time a lot more reactionary. Some social justice warrior called me a heartless and disgusting person and threatened to report me to Staff. I assumed that someone who had suffered from depression had read one of my more graphic stories and been offended. I checked my blog.
But when I saw the post, I felt my heart drop into my lower intestine. The Thing hadn’t posted a picture. It had posted some text. I braced myself for what I could only assume was a demand.
It was worse than that.
“i did it. i opened my skin for the first time and it was excruciating. but it was also fun. pulling out my Bones and severing veins and siLencing my screaming nerves. this must be hOw he feels. this is wrOng though. i shoulDn’t be hurting myself for such An occasioN, no matter how exciting. but i’m just so happy. he’s starteD wrItiNg again.”
I wanted to scream after I read it. I wanted to die. The Thing was glorifying self harm and had decided to post its musings onto Tumblr, of all places. And it had done so on my blog.
My confusion turned into panic as I scrambled to throw out a decent apology. I brushed it off as a joke. A terrible, terrible joke. I knew that was another lie, but I had to do something to not be crucified by the hoards of SJWs who were knocking on my front door. It worked and nobody even noticed the tasteless portrayal of such a sensitive subject. I was relieved. For the moment.
I went into the post’s available options. I meant to select the delete option, but the screen flickered and I accidentally reblogged it. I had to issue another apology.
The Thing wasn’t done yet. It took me a while to notice them, but there were words in bold that were hidden in my apologies. The first contained “check the” and the second held “laptop”. Put those together and you get: “Check the laptop”.
Check the laptop.
My laptop.
It wanted me to check my laptop. I glanced at my bookshelf and shuddered when I saw the silver spine poking out of the darkness, just where I had left it. The rational part of my mind was in a screaming match with my curiosity. This could’ve been a trick. Another ploy to get my attention. But at the same time, it could’ve been a honest request.
My curiosity won in the end and I reluctantly pulled it out. Dust had settled around its screen and the battery was dangerously low, about twenty percent. I didn’t plug it up though. Didn’t really care.
It worked fine enough.
A familiar feeling raised its ugly head as I opened Notepad. It had been weeks since I read the notes, but I could still remember how uncomfortable they made me feel. The Thing knew a lot about me. It knew things that were meant to be private. It must have been stalking me.
There was a new file folder in Notepad. There wasn’t a title and it didn’t appear to be that big. Just a couple of gigabytes. I opened the file, coming face to face with six documents. Two of those documents were the first notes I had read. I scrolled down to check if the first notes had been deleted or just simply transferred or copied, but I couldn’t find the originals.
The third document was titled “I’m Sorry”. From the information displayed, it was created a day after I had hidden my laptop. My fear almost won the argument. All of the shock and confusion from earlier returned as a fire. But it was already too late for self preservation. I opened it.
“You’ve been gone for quite a while now, Evan. Is everything okay?
I’m sorry for making you upset. I shouldn’t have pushed you so far. You needed some time to get back into the groove. You weren’t ready. Hiatuses can be hard. I can respect that.
But you can’t just leave me alone.
Not like that.
You didn’t even respond.
Just understand.
I need you.”
The fourth was titled “Why”. It had been created a week ago. A very short note.
“Was it something I said? Why would you keep me like this?”
The fifth was titled “Remember Me”. Created six hours earlier.
“Did you forget about me?
Hm?
I’m sure you didn’t. You couldn’t have.
But I can’t shake the feeling.
Maybe I need to jog your memory.”
It was obvious what it meant. It had posted about self-harm in order to get my attention. All its other attempts had failed and it knew enough about Tumblr to fire a warning shot. And that strategy had worked.
I had denied its authenticity and accidentally reblogged it. Reacted to it. Surely, that was what it wanted from me.
But there was still one more note.
The sixth note was titled “Everything”. Created an hour before I had decided to check on my laptop.
“I hate you.
I've tried everything. Everything.
It doesn’t matter how many notes I write. You still haven’t realized how much it hurts.
You probably think that you can just stop and I’d no longer exist. Well too bad. I’m not going anywhere.
So what will it take to get you to write again?”
To write again.
I swallowed some spit. As soon as I read those words, everything clicked. Made sense.
It didn’t just want my attention. It didn’t just want me to respond to its constant inquiries and notes. It wanted me to write again. It was waiting for me to come up with another story or poem. All this time, after everything it had put me through for the last month, it wanted that?
I exited out of the document and closed the file folder. My head started to hurt.
I created a new document, stared at it, and typed a single word. A question.
“Why?”
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you likes hetalia ??!?! who was your fav mine was spain!
yeah i was actively in the hetalia fandom years ago! livejournal days up until my early days on tumblr, so nostalgic!!! (i did fanart for the fandom but dont ask me for samples cause im embarrassed hahaha) Im kinda sad there isnt much content in my hetalia tag actually, cause this is my second blog after i accidentally deleted my first one *sweats*ahh gosh it's hard to find a fave character, there's so many. I loved spain's design, too! Cheerful guy but a fearsome conquistador. His accent was funny!!Other than that, I loved the FACE family (france/america/canada/england) and the bad touch trio (france/spain(again)/prussia) shenanigans lol. And I was a multishipper but mainly USUK/FrUK!! when you compare them for similarities w/ iwaoi you'll find i have a ship type lol. (like...a couple w/ a long history where one guy is cheerful type character!! it's my jam)also, did u know I actually started shipping iwaoi partly because of Gusari?? She did hetalia doujinshis before ("long november" is my fave) and I was checking out her new works and I was like...?? Oh??? Her art improved? Oh it's a haikyuu ship...I've watched that show before.....iwaoi?? mhmmm....I like it???? *ships*ahh what a long answer. I just *clenches fists* had a great time with the hetalia fandom! The inside jokes and the fun historical facts as well as the very many and quality fanworks (and official stuff?? so many) produced!! I look back on my time there w/ fondness!!! Glad to see someone who likes hetalia too!
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