#i am packing my little rucksack and running away gang hope yall have fun on this post

[t-citurnity-moved]

Some Discourse (???)

DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE MY THOUGHTS AND YOU ARE FREE TO DEBATE THEM CIVILLY. I will not tolerate hate or aggression on this post.

The community needs to be better.

That’s the short of it and more importantly, that’s the truth.

I’ve always advocated for community improvement, ever since I joined; anyone whose been around on my blog has probably seen me talking about how the community needs to be more aware of how bad it can be at times.

Especially to smaller blogs.

Especially to LGBT+ blog.

Especially to POC blogs.

The community needs to recognise the awful way some of our peers are treated. There are people who do not get much attention, or hell, any at all; there are people that get hate for simply loving fictional fucking characters, same as anyone else in the community.

These people deactivate because the community can be so nasty sometimes; ignorance, bigotry, or simply because they do not feel as if anyone cares about their content, because they do not get any attention from anyone. And often times, these things go hand and hand. It happens so much more often than people think. They’re simply not “popular.” Popularity is so much more than numbers, as well; it requires being “liked” by a majority of people. You can still get hate when you have a huge following.

I am not a popular blog by any means. My followers are still in double digits unlike most of the community and I do not get much attention at all - in fact, some of the attention I got in the past was more than often hate or general nastiness. I’m not a content provider. I cannot speak for people who are. But I can speak for the group that I am apart of. I’m only trying to offer my point of view on things, my feelings on how things work around here and some thoughts on how the community can improve.

I love self shipping. I love seeing what other people post and say about their ships. But honestly, I can see why some people would choose to leave the community. When faced with hate or lack of interest in their content, or even a mixture of both, it’s not hard to imagine why people would want to leave, why they would want to deactivate their blogs, why they would feel like they’re unwelcome in the community.

I have never felt better than I do than when I decided to take my hiatus. I understand what some of these people are feeling, wanting to log off and never come back; I don’t want to delete my blog, because there’s some genuinely good content I’d like to see again, but I have heavily debated leaving and never coming back before. I understand what some of these people are going through. And it is beyond awful.

The only thing these people are trying to do is have fun and enjoy themselves. Just like you. Just like me. And yet they get greeted by nothing whenever they log on, unlike a fair amount of popular blogs (and there are quite a lot of them, I can assure). Even worse, they get greeted by people trying to force them to leave simply because they’re not “typical,” because they’re not “ideal.” Because they do not fit the “mould” of what people think self shippers are supposed to be.

Much of the community operates like a clique and that’s one of the single most disappointing things. It’s such high school shit. And I understand, some of the community is decently young, but there are also plenty of adults that can call out this behaviour, that can talk about why this kind of behaviour isn’t right. But they either choose not to or simply don’t see that content, because other people choose to ignore it, because people refuse to see the bad in the community.

We, as a community, need to improve.

We need to call out those who are nasty towards others; those who send hate, those who are racist, who are homophobic, who are transphobic, who are predatory. Everyone who are, verifiable, awful people. I want to stress how important it is to make absolutely sure we have receipts of these peoples’ awful behaviour. Anons marking themselves as others do not count. This community is so deep into callout culture that it fails to actually look at the real facts and simply chooses to believe what others say without doing their own research. We must do our own research to weed out through the actual awful people instead of taking things at face value and cancelling people who do not deserve it at all. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. If you see someone on a “callout list” or a “block list,” DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH INTO THEM. Learn about them and figure things out on your own.

DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

And we have to uplift those in the community who are in the minority. LGBT+ shippers, POC shippers. Shippers whose ships do not fit the “mould” of what people believe ships should. We need to stand up and be there for these people, because they deserve to be here just as much as anyone else. We need to give these people more attention, because they hardly get any at all. And much of the attention they do get, is often hate or people trying to shove them out of the community.

The community needs to be better. That means you. That means me. That means every. Single. Person. Needs to do what they can to make the community better and more open to those who do not fit the mould.

I am so tired.