#i'm not sure if this is a general statement or a reblog-and-put-it-in-the-tags post

[eriyu]

please talk about things you're still unsure of in your WoL's story

parts of their backstory you haven't worked out yet. a part of the game you're not sure is canon. a character whose relationship with them you haven't figured out yet.

i know my WoL is still a work in progress, and always will be so long as XIV is still going. how about you?

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Tumblr has been working on implementing a Communities feature here, and they've gotten to a Closed Beta stage. There's more details in this post, but basically, some people will be getting emails with information about filling out a form if they're interested in a community and ideas will be selectively approved and created. There will be a community member cap while in Closed Beta, and taking part in feedback will probably be inevitable.

I'm honestly not sure if there's an underlying reason for who gets sent emails or if I was randomly chosen, but I have the opportunity to fill out a potential community form. Someone would have to approve it, and at this stage, allowing duplicates or communities that are very nearly duplicated with minor differences will probably be unlikely. Considering the tag spamming in Jumblr, I thought it might be a good idea to suggest some sort of Jewish themed Community.

If anyone else has gotten an email about creating a Community and has had this idea, I would absolutely like a response about it. (I have no idea if this is a 'first come, first serve' sort of thing, but I'd rather not make a duplicate suggestion.)

There is a note in the email that not every suggestion will be approved, and they're looking for a spread of different types of Communities. However, it also can't hurt to at least put forward the suggestion.

I haven't looked at the form in great detail yet, but it will probably ask for a name, description, community guidelines, and if the Community will be public or private.

Name: I'm not 100% sold on using 'Jumblr', 'Jewish', or 'Judaism' since those are so broad and general. However, if enough people like using 'Jumblr' or something that does seem personally broad, it's still on the table for consideration.

Description: A space for Jewish Tumblrites...? (Jews of Tumblr?) To be determined, really. (Should it be a space also open to gentile allies? Probably see the private vs public section.)

Community guidelines: Some will be the usual matters of what posts will not be allowed, how to tag for certain topics, and what conduct could lead to being removed from the comm. Specific guidelines to this comm are definitely where I'd appreciate some degree of input, though.

For example, it's entirely possible that someone interested in joining this potential Jewish themed Community will want to avoid examples of antisemitism. Does this look like a guideline about not posting antisemitic anon hate or reblogging conversations with antisemitic responses in the reblog chain into the Community? Does this look like needing to use a specific tag so other community members can blacklist or use Tumblr's filtering feature? What if someone wants to talk about antisemitism they've recently faced?

The Israel-Hamas war. Do the community members want a space free from news updates? Or would a guideline about not showing gory imagery or videos, but allowing text only updates, be alright? (Do community members want a space free from larger I/P discussions? Or as long it's tagged for filtering purposes, do they want to be able to talk about I/P without having trolls and random antisemites wander into the replies/reblogs?)

Zionism. I don't want this to be another space where people face the 'are you a Good Jew or a Bad Jew' sort of questioning. However, does this look like a statement in the description welcoming everyone including Zionists, or does there need to be a guideline about talking about anti-/non-/Zionism within the Community?

Other: I don't know what the community member cap will be in the beginning, so I have no idea whether there'll be a need for mods immediately or not. The only language I'm comfortable doing any modding in is English, so at the very least, I'd probably need someone who knows Hebrew at some point.

Public or private: I like the idea of a public community that's not dissimilar to the Jumblr tag, but you know, I'm not sure about how comfortable community members will be with a public community given the compilation of blocklists based on interacting with a particular post/user.

From the Communities Help page:

Public communities can be seen and visited by non-members, logged in or logged out. However, only the feed of posts in each community tab, and the About page, are accessible. Non-members cannot view the member list, see who reacted with what, or see community comments. Non-members with an invite can see everything a member can see, but cannot interact with anything until they accept the invitation. Private communities cannot be seen or visited by non-members at all. The existence of a private community is not hidden, however, if someone has the URL (they’ll see a message like “this is a private community”). Non-members with an invite can see everything a member can see, but cannot interact with anything until they accept the invitation.

-

Not directly related but notable enough to mention: I can easily imagine that some people will not be enthusiastic that I'm volunteering for this effort. This is the main associated with a conversion sideblog, but I have not felt comfortable with revealing my sideblog, especially after October 7th. However, I don't think a Tumblr Community can be associated with a secondary account, so I can't really change that my not-really-Jewish-looking account is the one associated with this idea. If someone likes this idea but still would rather have someone else try to implement it, I guess we'll cross that bridge if we get there in the response to this.

[rhythmelia]

Support a Translator of Color (1 day left of Crowd Justice fundraising!)

Fresh post for the tags! As I've shared extensively in updates on this post since 2023.06.24, my friend Yilin Wang (yilinwriter on twitter) has had their translation work stolen and used uncredited by the British Museum in a major exhibit on The Hidden Century in Chinese history that featured major feminist revolutionary Qiu Jin, and when called out on that behavior, the museum chose to remove Qiu Jin's poetry and Yilin's translation, silencing both of them. Instead of, yanno, naming the translator and giving appropriate credit and payment. ....yup.

So! Here's the Crowd Justice:

Case updates can be found at that fundraiser (especially as the muskrat has made twitter into an epic trashfire at the moment) but some key points, in Yilin's words:

I need to raise at least £15,000 by July 10th to enable me to instruct expert lawyers in London to initiate a claim of infringement of my copyright and moral rights. I will be working with lawyers in the UK to bring a claim against the British Museum for its infringement of my copyright and moral rights in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), which is a specialist court and part of the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice in London. ......

Please contribute and share if you can - each and every small contribution is very much appreciated! Let’s hold the British Museum accountable together!  I realise that this is a lot of money at any time, and especially in the current economic circumstances, but the cost and difficulty of taking legal action is a huge barrier when it comes to access to justice. My hope is that if I am able to generate enough support to take this point of principle forward, it will give the British Museum and all similar institutions the maximum possible incentive to avoid similar conduct in the future, because they will see that there is collective power in communities who feel disrespected and insulted. .....

Why This Case Matters This case matters to me not only because I believe both my work and Qiu Jin's work should receive the credit and respect they deserve, but because it affects the copyright and moral rights of all translators, writers, and creatives. 

The British Museum has not issued an appropriate apology or taken proper responsibility for its actions, so if it is not held accountable, then this is a cycle that stands to be repeated.

Yilin was able to make the minimum to retain a lawyer, and is now working towards the stretch goal. Here's part of the statement from the lawyer on the crowd justice page:

Accordingly, it is not giving anything away to say that we sincerely hope that the British Museum come to recognise the shortcomings in their conduct so far, and move to make amends rather than fight Yilin all the way. We will make Yilin’s funds go as far as we can, but there is a real prospect of the case being drawn out beyond the funding she has available, so it continues to be the case that every pound she raises towards her stretch targets puts her in the strongest possible position - a position that the British Museum has extensive visibility of - to hold out for what she deserves with help of expert legal assistance.

Currently it's at £16,722 pledged towards the stretch target of £20,000 from 573 pledges in small amount donations. Help Yilin be able to keep going if the British Museum continues to behave badly and try to fight until Yilin's out of funds. Please consider reblogging and/or donating a small amount if you can - about 1 day left to July 10! (I'm in UTC-7 and it's the 8th for me but I'm not sure what timezone the fundraiser site is in, since it says 1 day left there)

tagging @copperbadge, @vaspider and @prismatic-bell on the off chance they might be interested in signal boosting? No pressure though!

[ifellinlovewithpersona]

Okay but last post I reblogged really made me thinking so it will be quite a long vent post/rant about toxicity in the fandom (as a space in general not only megaten) because i just need to let it out now rather than abusing the tags in the random person's posts so i'm putting the cut here and the rant will be under the cut lol

Sorry if that post might be chaotic or english will be really bad, there are my thoughts that i'm freely writing that I have right now so sorry if this sounds super chaotic lol

Also i won't tag this not to start any discourse because some of the takes will be very hot and controversial for some of fans like that and I just need to let it out, that's why I'm making this post, not to argue with others

Okay so it's so weird how some toxic statements in the fandom (like in general not only megaten) stays with you and affects you in your fandom experience, even if you know they are a total bullcrap

Like i remember reading somewhere (either here on tumblr or ao3 subreddit) post of someone who was like "if your fic don't have 1:10 kudos to views ratio I won't read it, it's a bad fic" and even though I knew it was bullcrap, I laughed at it and other people were laughing as well now I have this little voice in my head who is always like "are you sure your fic is good enough? You don't have that many kudos comparing to your views you know?" and I absolutely hate that voice, like I hate it so much and even though i know it's a bullcrap theory it somehow stuck within me

Another (more related to megaten fandom because I heard it from someone from here actually) statement that stucked with me and affected me negatively was "you can't consider yourself true xyz series fan if you hadn't played at least half of the series" and tbh I was so, so insecure about that, like I constantly felt not enough like i can't engage with idk smt fandom as much as i wanted to because i only played 2 or 3 games, i need to do more, i need to experience more etc etc. And like now I see how stupid that was and I knew it was stupid but again, there was an evil gremlin in my head that kept repeating this toxic statement over and over again

So yeah, my first message to fandom would be: think before you invalidate something/someone or gatekeep. And in the best scenario - don't do it at all, because you never know how long your statement might stick to someone in the future

The other thing that piss me off in megaten fandom specifically is, as previous post stated before me - the endless war between persona vs smt and oldsona vs newsona

It's so crazy to me that not only there is a fight between series, there is also a lot of wars within the same series and that's crazy to me. Like I see some SMT fans being like "oh if you liked apoc and that's one of your favorite smt games, you are cringe, just admit you are persona fan" and UGH this is pissing me off so much. Like so what if you like hopeful stories/power of friendship endings? Doesn't that mean you can't call yourself SMT fan anymore? That's so dumb. Especially when I liked games like Nocturne as well so it's not like I don't enjoy dark and serious themes as well (besides unrelated but apoc also has much darker, more typical ending where you kill all your friends so...? i don't understand the hate, just go play that route if you like stories like that more and leave me the fuck alone). Same with newsona/oldsona war - P5 is a game that I love dearly mostly because - firstly, it was my first megaten game I played ever so I have deep sentiment and secondly, it got me trough a very dark period in my life, I am thankful for this game to exist, even if for some of you is "too mainstream" or "cringe". And I still like oldsona as well, even SMT because those games were with me during other periods in my life and I have different sentiment to all of them and I like them for different reasons. On the other hand neosona fans being like: "But p1/2 has bad mechanics how can you like it???" Okay, but did you considered for a second that some people (shocking, I know!!!) perhaps... don't mind it? If you don't like games like that then don't play them but why are you talking shit about people who like them like ... that doesnt make sense for me honestly

So yeah my second message to fandom would be that cringe is dead, let people enjoy whatever they want lmao

Okay, now I'm more calm hahaha, if you survived my rant here's a cookie for you 🍪🍪

I'll make another post with some fandom positivity now (that I think I'll pin as well maybe idk) because boy oh boy we need it so much haha

[utilitycaster]

Putting this below a cut as it’s long and is a response to a callout of me. If you'd like to ignore, I wouldn't blame you. Currently rebloggable; will be made non-rebloggable if people cannot behave themselves.

This is in reference to this post. It’s also going to reference ongoing, though, to be honest, relatively minor harassment by at least one other person who ships Imogen and Laudna.

The person making the callout came to my attention shortly after Laudna’s death, in which I came across this post while looking for content on Laudna. I recognized this was in reference to these posts from me, and I've kept an eye on them since. I finally blocked them about a month ago in the hopes that if I did so, they’d stop obsessing over me as they have since their very first post; they even say they made this blog because of me. Unfortunately, they seem to only have escalated in this obsession. 

[Sidebar: it is very interesting the inciting cause was that I seemingly liked Imogen more than Laudna, and now I don’t like Imogen enough, when I’m pretty sure I’ve been about the same on Imogen throughout, but that’s a tangent I’d love to get into another day.]

Anyway, here’s what’s I've done:

I post my opinions a lot on my own blog. This is how blogs typically work.

In those posts I sometimes disagree with statements I’ve seen other people in the fandom make, in a general sense.

I truly almost never reblog someone else’s post with commentary outside of tags unless it’s their reblog on my original post, which is what has this person in a snit right now. (Note: it is not even their post.)

I sometimes disagree with people who ask me questions in my inbox

I don’t find im*dna compelling

That’s it. You’ll have to take it on my word, but I do not send anon hate or indeed any questions other than the occasional ask meme. This is a side blog (which I’m open about in my bio), so I don’t even post replies. It’s reblogs with tags and original posts and that’s it. I don't consider myself an arbiter of the fandom (I actually, in one of the two posts from me linked above, outright say I'm not) and I doubt anyone thinks that of me. I write meta and funny posts and I reblog things. That’s it. Any popularity I have stems from that alone. Honestly, I’d be more popular if I did post positive things about im*dna.

It is not policing or shutting someone down for me to express opinions - even if they are in disagreement with other people’s. It is not policing or harassment to respond to comments on one’s own posts. And it is the tantrum of a spoiled child to claim that it is.

For those wondering: in terms of shutting down and harassment, another blog unrelated to the person I'm linking above (here shown reblogging my post) regularly harasses not just people who don’t ship im*dna, but people who don’t ship them in the same exact way they do. I’m pretty sure this is their side blog, incidentally, given the patterns of fandoms they’ve been in, which, if true, would mean that the second post is block evasion since I’d blocked them on their other one. 

Now, obviously, that’s only one case, and a couple bad apples in a large ship says nothing about most people, but here’s the truth of the matter: despite the harassment above and the general victim complex on display here, Im*dna is far and away the most popular ship for Campaign 3. A check of other popular C3 ships did not even give me a tag follower count. It’s also worth noting Laudna is by far the most popular of the C3 characters; FCG and Chetney don’t even get follower counts on their tags. Im*dna has almost as many fics as some canon Campaign 2 ships do, after far less time. If such a thing as a fandom arbiter existed, and I were one of them? I’d be failing miserably.

Here’s the other truth of the matter. I don’t have any secret insight into Marisha or Laura’s decisions nor any control over what happens in canon. I could stop posting today and it wouldn’t change a thing about what happens on the actual show. I think it’s worth considering why someone primarily known for textual analysis isn’t terribly enamored with a ship, the bulk of the canon content of which stems from unseen backstory or scenes when one of the parties wasn’t even there, but if you're into it? Go ahead.

You know those videos in which a dog is desperately trying to reach something outside of its cage, and they pan out to show that the door is fully open? This is me telling you the door is open. No one is forcing you to see my posts and no one is stopping you from saying what you want. You’re getting in your own way and making yourself mad. If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but leave me out of it.

[chaossequence]

I have a serious question regarding donation posts,, I have a tag for donation posts as a way to go back to them if so ever have money available and if necessary. I understand "don't tag as ANYTHING" and don't when prompted, but how would this affect trigger tags?

since donation posts are often made in medical emergencies or other tragedies, these involve mentions of it and sometimes pictures as proof,, I also have mutuals who really need certain triggers tagged for understandable reasons. Would trigger tagging a donation post come off as inappropriate or insulting? Would not putting tags on a "don't tag" donation post despite the strong needs for that trigger tagged be bad?

I've thought of it for some time now and I always try to tag what I can remember on here but I feel I would also need to respect whatever rules surround donation posts here,, I'm especially curious about posts with a lot of proof and explaintion of a certain trigger. I want to reblog it with only tags that won't detract from the post itself but I also don't want to put a mutuals at risk of anything,, sometimes I avoid reblogging some bc i just sit there wondering about this

I had an idea of tracking all necessary trigger tags all my mutuals need and their special "blank don't look" tags so there isn't any direct trigger tags on the reblog but I haven't gotten to this and I remember someone a long time ago to don't do this at all because it's frankly insulting to trigger tag a donation post. I'm not so sure this was a general statement on triggers or a specific "#donation tw" some people had,, I don't remember that much, but the "don't trigger tag donation posts" stuck with me and I'm in this situation

[willel]

Why is twitter so toxic? I think you wrote something about it some time ago, that on tumblr, for instance, there’s no immediate incentive to write a hit post and then to come up with the most outrageous claims that create "engagement"? Or because it’s not really about direct conversation made of short messages when everyone wants to "win" the argument, but favors calm analysis instead. Anyway, I just can’t go there anymore right now, too much hate and stupidity, I’m glad there’s still blogs like you and a few others to enjoy some ST escapism.

Twitter's short form context was pretty great when it came out years ago. "Tweets" were generally someone putting random thoughts out in the aether or a quick notification or an alert to check out news on this site or that site. I feel like it wasn't meant for what it is today, for people to be interacting with each other in a meaningful way. Like, what are you gonna talk about in 100 characters or less? That's why you'll sometimes see old tweets of celebrities floating around of the most random nonsensical statements with no context. That's what twitter was as its core.

Now combine that with people starting to use twitter for more than just random thoughts that popped into peoples head. It started to be used for political activism (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and fandom activities.

We all know how bad politics fandom can get on long form sites like tumblr and reddit. Imagine how much worse it is when you cut away all context and nuance to fit in a tweet.

Imo, it set twitter on a downward spiral. Doesn't matter how much they increase the character limit, the culture now is tweet fast. React fast. Argue fast. If you lose, resort to other means. Anything to win. Anything to get your tweets more attention that the other person.

It's like a game. I'm sure that plays into the desire to be "famous" that a lot of social media enjoyers crave.

I'm not saying tumblr is much better, but I feel the culture here is more like "take your time" or "time doesn't matter, old stuff is good". Tumblr does have an issue with people not reblogging content, causing good posts and content to go unnoticed given there is no real algorithm here, which is sad. But for the most part, ain't nobody here trying to get famous. Everything is talking and creating stuff for the sake of it.

Most of the time even the people arguing here are arguing about stuff that happens off site or they stay in their corners and tag correctly. (if you don't tag correctly and start fights on purpose, I immediately assume you must be from twitter)

People who have been here on my blog for a while are probably thinking "Tch, what do you know about fandom conflict?" and let me tell you, in my youth I participated in a ship war. It was just one,but still. I didn't resort to name calling or doxing people though, that's for sure. I wrote essays and essays in response to people, defended my ship, made stuff for my ship (which I still do), the whole shebang. It was all here on tumblr and deviantart. I do have a twitter for that fandom but I don't use it for any drama. I can say the drama on twitter is MUCH WORSE than anything I experienced on tumblr.

That is the ST fandom on twitter in a nutshell. No one can mind their own business. They're constantly spying on each other, posting using common search terms of the people they don't like and then acting surprised when the people they don't like respond to them. It's all like a game. Every blue moon when I go there to see if there's WillEl things, inevitably I will see shippers using it to fight against each other or crap on Will or El.

Once a week it's the same suspects saying the same things over and over again. Finding something pointless to be mad about. Sending angry anon messages. Never actually sitting down to enjoy the ships/relationships they claim to be a fandom of. Cannot mind their business and always have something negative to say. Denying what is literally in the show because they personally don't like it. Literally the worst kind of people to have in your fandom. (I associate that kind of behavior with like.... Riverdale drama or something. Sorry if you're a Riverdale fan. Lol)

In conclusion, yeah. I think twitter is that way because the short form context has breed a culture of "win or lose". Mixed with a little bit of celebrity idolization and a desperate desire for people to interact with you even if it's negative.

[found-the-secrets-in-your-eyes]

I posted 17,498 times in 2022

That's 11,918 more posts than 2021!

987 posts created (6%)

16,511 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@anuraboy

@draculagerard

@the-ghost-king

@sam-winchester-kinnie

I tagged 4,900 of my posts in 2022

#ghost - 343 posts

#tagged in or something - 248 posts

#divide a whole into thirds thirds thirds - 244 posts

#flying guy core - 229 posts

#art - 149 posts

#milo - 133 posts

#ofmd - 117 posts

#love is a practice - 113 posts

#religious imagery in poetry in queerness in sin - 104 posts

#hi emily - 90 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#it wòuld make a lot of sense for me to have pots but once i start thinking i have something i feel like im looking for it and now i think i

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

32 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

#4

"you even managed to bring history's greatest pirate to ruin" okay but what a fucking flex imagine making someone love you so much that people say you brought him to ruin. someone like blackbeard. goddamn. and he didn't even do it on purpose he was just that genuine and in love with Ed that he ruined him. fuck. they make me feral

32 notes - Posted April 18, 2022

#3

"writing smut about children is wrong" a) a LOT of the people writing smut about children are... teens themselves. there's nothing wrong with exploring sexuality through fiction and in general it's a pretty safe thing to do b) adults writing it either age up the kids or write about it not in a pedo*hilic way but in a way that's chanelling their inner teen which guess what is also pretty healthy and safe c) can we stop throwing around pedo as a buzzword you literally don't know what it means if you use it against other people like that d) simplifying the statement like that erases a lot of nuance surrounding this like sure if you put it like that it seems simple enough but by doing so you neglect so much of it e) stop drinking the terf kool-aid "but I'm queer I'm trans" you are still drinking the terf kool-aid you are feeding into radfem rhetoric

71 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

#2

honestly fuck november

87 notes - Posted November 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

oh, he was a lawyer. this explains the devastating psychological defects he has.

225 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[linelpisffxiv]

Hokay, so... If I do the thing (Though I'll probably pop a poll again cuz only 4 real responses, though it still gives a majority pangender sexiest) I'll have guidelines

Can I propoganda?

Yep. But keep it propaganda, not antipaganda

That's not how the word works.

I don't care. We both know what I mean. Tell us why to vote for who you want, not why we shouldn't vote for who you don't want moving on.

But what if it was a counterpick?

Look up why fans like the character and use those.

Can I Counterpick?

Sure. I do it all the time when I'm neutral on one character but don't want the other moving on in polls.

Why aren't the twins/Lalas in the sexy poll?

The twins are 16. I know there's some debate and they could be over 18 by now, but until the powers that be say they are over it, we're not touching it. Yes, it says 16 is Sharlayan Adulthood, but there's still laws in the real world about this. If it helps, I HC the twins as 18/19-ish by the end of the quest "Endwalker." But again, until we're shown a growth spurt and they're explicitly said to be over 18, I'm not touching it.

As for Lalas, my reasoning comes from my FC leads when they did art. We all know they're adults. Many have facial hair, and many talk about sex/are implied to be sexually desirable, but if some friend sees you reblog a poll where one of the images is of Tataru and the header says "Sexiest Final Fantasy XIV character" would your non-XIV mutuals understand "Oh, this is a dwarf race"? Or would they wonder why there's a toddler in a poll like that?

(Kan-e-Senna is removed for the same reasons as Lalafell. Yes, she's in her 20s, but she canonically stopped aging in her teens and uses makeup and shapewear to look more mature than she does naturally. She may be the oldest-looking of her race, but I still feel uncomfortable with putting her in, even if she's more borderline than the others)

It turns out X character is under 18!

If this is after the poll concluded, I did my best to try and find out how old these characters are, and if they're using an adult body, unless I had some reasons to doubt, I let them in.

It turns out X Non-Lalafell character you refused is over 18

Again, if they're using a child body, I chose caution.

So-and-so is brigading against X character

Honestly, I don't care. Even if it's my favs, I don't care. I tried to give my favs rougher first rounds for this reason. Even if they're putting it in the tags on the poll itself, I don't care. I suggested otherwise, but I don't control it. And while I'm also not fond of Brigading, especially in the thread of the poll itself, nothing I can do. We all know this is really a tournament of most popular/has the most popular fans/Is a really lucky guy who keeps ending up being used as a counterpick.

What is a counterpick? You keep using this word

When you're not so much picking the person cuz you like them, but because you hate/disagree with the other option. Like when you said Die Hard is your favorite Christmas movie 10 years ago. You aren't saying it's your favorite cuz you actually like it (you may or may not) or think it's a Christmas Movie. You're picking it cuz it takes place on Christmas and you hate traditional Christmas movies. (These days, the statement isn't exactly as provocative as it was. We all get it. But it's the best generic example I have.)

Or in this case, if... say... the fight is Vauthry against G'raha and you hate G'raha because he's a nasty little fanboy who should have stayed dead in 5.3 or even 5.0 or 2.5 and is a homewrecker, you pick Vauthry. Not cuz he's hot. You just want to make it one vote harder for G'raha to win.

Just remember to put Heimlich and Sqiudward memes in your propaganda post and I'll be laughing with you. Vauthry didn't need any submissions cuz I knew you'd all flock to those.

Alternately, your blorbo is Gaius. He's safely winning his poll against Erichthonios so you're not too worried, but the next round he's up against the winner of Vauthry vs Hien, which is pretty tight (Within oh, about 15%, which is less than you expected Vauthry to trail). You know that if Gaius goes up against Hien, he's probably going to lose handily, so you vote for, and post propaganda for Vauthry with all those Squidward and Heimlich memes, because despite the fact that his Innocence form is hot, you know it'll be easier to win against him than Hien.

Will you be sharing Propaganda?

If I find stuff for both sides early enough, sure. Or if there's funny posts of the two kissing.

Do you want your Blorbos to win?

Fuck no. I want them out as fast as possible and I deliberately messed with the polls some to make the first two rounds tougher for them to advance. I'm sorry to those who I gave tougher polls to as well for those two rounds, but if my faves won, it's the will of the people.

What about your BEC? You want him to win or lose?

Eh, lose if I'm being honest, but I left his bracket alone for the first two rounds. If he wins, it's the will of the people.

[ranboo5]

So I usually only put organizational tags on anything I rb because a reblog is me saying I like your art? If I ever leave a like on something I make sure to reblog it as well. I'm kind of confused about why leaving comments in rbs is a big deal, i honestly don't think I would reblog as much as I do if I tried to make an effort to add a comment to every piece. I don't know, I'm genuinely confused if you can explain your side of things?

That makes a lot of sense! For me like . As you can probably tell organization does Not come easily to me, and neither does shutting up, so it is very unintuitive in my mind to tag organizationally but not leave commentary; this is obviously not universal and I suppose like if one has a habit of organizational tagging it would be easier to do that than think of comments so it does make sense it is just a bit alien to me

It is again less that like . Not Everyone does it that is my pt of confusion as it is that so few people seem to?? Like this is just a strikingly low statistic to me, especially with how like many people I know make active efforts to like, comment on fic and such

I dunno maybe it isn't if I were to look into like, comment/kudos ratio, but man I just don't know

As to why I think it's significant at all like . This is again a me thing but for me any kind of "oh that's cool" is immediately followed up in my mind with Why? I suppose it's similarly relevant with art and meta actually bc like . I dunno I post art because I like to talk and to some degree when I post the ideal outcome is conversation. Also cards on the table I do just think it is nice in a particular way like people engaging with one's posts actively just kind of hits different which is smth that I do think is a choice that people . I dunno at risk of sounding entitled should make more? Like it's good for the space heth, it feels nice, and imo it's extremely fun, and I think that as a trend it's good 2 promote. Again this isn't really an individual thing as in "you personally should make more effort to reblog with comments Always" and more a general thing as in "I think we should talk more as a community"

I also think some of this must be like . Because people don't know what to say (this is a learnable skill!) or are shy or worry it will be unwanted (the VAST majority of the time it won't) and like... idk

I just think especially fandom spaces and such thrive on that conversation and on mutual support and thus on active engagement with content, and that that engagement is just . Weirdly low around here sometimes to my eyes (which is not really a statistical statement I would need to do more research and like . I still have to sort the survey . (I didn't forget I'm just having a Moment))

Ty for sending this in (and ty for reblogging things... u are essential to the ecosystem o7)

[lesbian-shiny-eevee]

Yeah idk if I'd recommend tumblr

I mean, it is nice getting a dash that's only the people you follow, and not having to rely on algorithm, and instead just having a system where users share other users posts through reblogs which they can do as many times as they want, as well as tags where people can find the things you post

It's a pretty nice app for privacy too, from what I know tumblr doesn't really sell their users information to advertisers as much as they do on others (it's part of why the ads you might get here can seem very weird and unrelated to you), in fact I've heard when you do click on ads it's literally hard for advertisers to tell which customers come from tumblr because of how much tumblr is designed for privacy

People here also incurage privacy in general better then most places I feel, like on most social media you're expected to have an icon of your face, to post videos and photos of yourself and to not be anonymous at all really, but on tumblr not only could having an icon of yourself make you look like a bot, it's pretty incuraged to be as anonymous as you please compared to others,

there are a few exceptions, like people here who share their ages on their blogs, but you don't have to do that it's perfectly fine to keep it to yourself, the main thing I'd say that gets pretty close to pressuring people to share too much are posts that incurage you to reblog and answer a question in the tags, they can be quite fun but it is good to keep in mind how much you're sharing in those

The humor can be good here too, granted it can be a bit NSFW at times depending on who you follow but I'm sure if those kind of jokes bother you you can find the people who don't reblog that kind of stuff

That's one of the nice things about tumblr as well, it's a pretty good app for setting up your dash to be the kind of things you want to see and keep the things you don't want to see away from yourself, if you find someone you follow posts about something you don't like too much you can unfollow and not have to see it again, to take it a step further you can also block tags to make it even mroe easier to avoid seeing things you don't like (these can also count towards a down side though, it can be very easy to put yourself in an echo chamber where you're convinced most of tumblr (or even most people in general) are one way just because thats the part of tumblr you stick to, its important to consider that there's probably parts of tumblr you don't really see because you don't go there)

But, there's also a huge pornbot problem here, if you go through a popular tag it's bound to be filled with unrelated and malicious crap, and that's just the current version of it, bots can attempt to follow you, send you dms, there was a time where they would go to your askbox and send a porn video straight to you without your consent (thankfully by the time one did this to me tumblr had the function where it blurs videos amd images people send automatically so i didnt have to see it)

And the staff of tumblr, while they are currently trying to please the user base more from what I hear (like the fact they're getting rid of tumblr live thank god) they are a bit bad at keeping the users happy, maybe you could blame it on a hard to please crowd but still

As for the culture, eh I geuss it depends on what crowd you end up in but it can be a bit iffy, from my experience there's a lot of moral guilt tripping to convince you to reblog things, people will tell others to kill themselves if they don't like them (depends, there are also those on tumblr who really hate using that against anyone), misinformation can be a problem here but there's also the people who will tell you when something is a lie (to be fair misinformation is something to worry about on the internet in general)

This is a neutral statement, but tumblr culture in general I would say tends to be kind of, hipster? Is that the word? Anti pop culture that's the best way to put it, once again this could just be the part of tumblr I ended up on but the part I'm on deffinitly is full of people that are kind of the black sheep of the herd I would say, maybe you'll end up on a different part, maybe you won't, I have no idea if this sounds good to you but if it does then welcome

Idk if I covered all that could be considered bad and good about interacting with the tumblr user base, but I feel like anything else I could think of could apply to any socail media and for the most part, I tried my best to list things that specifically apply to tumblr, but I will admit my view may be a bit biased because I'm not really on any other social media other then tumblr and anything I know about other apps is from other people

In general I think that's about all I can say about tumblr, in some ways it's pretty great, I get why the users here prefer it to any other social media app, the fact it doesn't really need an algorithm is a pretty rare thing to find in a social media app these days, there's also a lot less censoring, which while that can mean people can say awful crap easier it also means you don't have to constantly censor yourself, you can say any swear word, death kill murder, things related to sex and you don't get in trouble for it, it's a nice bit of freedom compared to tiktok where the people on there expect you to say unalive, and its a decent place to find other people like yourself as well

thx

[i-stand-with-survivors]

I know you mean well, and Johnny is NO saint, but Amber is not innocent either. I really did want to believe her, but there are so many inconsistencies in her story. Many of her ex partners have restraining orders against her and she even had a DV charge before Johnny. She was abusive to her personal assistant and even stole her rape story. You can also clearly see her posing for the camera in the court footage. Please pay attention to objective facts, not Vox articles.

I've watched dozens of hours of court footage as well as gone through many court transcripts and pieces of evidence (photos, text messages, audios, etc.) submitted by both teams. Given I've posted and reblogged many of these (many can be seen in my evidence tag, alongside some analyses and out of court statements and the like), I have no idea how you concluded I based my stance off Vox articles.

Since I do make a point to seek out objective facts, I'm happy to speak to the debunked myths you've named here. With the one caveat that I would need examples of these inconsistencies to speak to them specifically since I don't know what you're referring to (e.g. certain things may be a misunderstanding, or her forgetting a detail).

"Many of her ex partners have restraining orders against her"

This claim is new to me. Please send me your source. I tried googling it, but all of the results I could find (I went a few pages in) only talked about her TRO against Johnny, so I'm unable to evaluate this.

"[S]he even had a DV charge before Johnny."

She was arrested for DV and spent one night in jail, however no charges were actually filed (source, source). Tasya, who is still friends with Amber to this day and is on her witness list (source), has issued a statement:

Amber was wrongfully accused for an incident that was misinterpreted and over-sensationalized by two individuals in a power position. I recount hints of misogynistic attitudes toward us which later appeared to be homophobic when they found out we were domestic partners and not just ‘friends.’ Charges were quickly dropped and she was released moments later,” Van Ree told Us. “It’s disheartening that Amber’s integrity and story are being questioned yet again. Amber is a brilliant, honest and beautiful woman and I have the utmost respect for her. We shared 5 wonderful years together and remain close to this day.

(source -- also quoted in UK trial documents, which also give further evidence of the two's continued friendship)

A cop has come forward and said that she was the one who arrested Amber and she couldn't be misogynistic or homophobic because she is a lesbian (source). However, in the UK trial, Amber testified that the officer who put her in handcuffs is a man (source), which would fit with Tasya's statement. Granted, Amber obviously would have had a motive to lie there, so that's where we need to consider what makes the most sense, because something isn't adding up.

What would Tasya's motive be for lying? We don't have any evidence to suggest she is afraid of Amber. If Amber had abused her, it's possible we can't entirely rule out trauma bonding and as a result trying to cover for her, but that doesn't seem very likely a decade later (they were together 2008-2012) -- not impossible, but unlikely.

Ok, so what would the cop's motive be for lying? Well, we know there's an expectation for cops to cover for one another (collection of sources here). We can't prove to what extent Leonard specifically feels that pressure, but it is a potential influence. I also don't consider the police to be the most trustworthy source in general (given their tendency to murder People of Color, murder people with mental health conditions or other disabilities, and higher than average rates of DV). We don't know Leonard's specific stances; sure, there is a possibility she had good intentions and wanted to change the police force from within and was not complicit in the system. However, without evidence to prove that she was trying to be a change agent in the force, it seems entirely probable she would have reason to lie to cover for the other officer

We can't say with 100% certainty what happened until when or if additional evidence is presented. However, after evaluating the evidence, it seems to me more likely that Tasya was the one telling the truth.

"She was abusive to her personal assistant [Kate James]"

I'll set aside Amber's description of James as difficult to work with and drinking on the job (which we don't have proof of other than Amber's word), as well as my own thoughts about James' demeanor (which isn't evidence), but I do think it's relevant to mention Depp's text to James inviting her over to "fix her [Amber's] flabby ass, nice and good" (source) which suggests she may have motive to lie (to support Depp).

We don't have proof Amber abused James aside from James' own claims, and we don't have proof Amber did not abuse James aside from Amber's own claims. Since they both could be argued to have motive to lie, let's look for other evidence.

The UK trial judgment says, "I am afraid that I did not find Ms James a satisfactory witness. She had been dismissed by Ms Heard in February 2015 and the circumstances of her termination still appeared to be a cause of rancour with Ms James." So a judge already determined that it is unlikely James' testimony can be trusted. It doesn't guarantee her to be lying, but it definitely tips the scales more toward doubt.

Amber "stole her [James'] rape story"

James' story (from her second witness statement, UK trial): "When I was 26 years old and traveling in Brazil, I was violently raped by an unknown male at Machete point, having been woken by the perpetrator whilst sleeping alone in my dwelling. This ordeal went on for 5-6 hours and I narrowly escaped with my life."

Amber has recounted three instances of sexual assault: one in Hicksville in which she says Depp claimed he was conducting a "cavity search", one in the Bahamas in which she says he "shoved his fingers inside" her, and one in Australia in which she says he used a bottle to assault her.

The only similarities I can identify would be that both involve rape (obviously), both perpetrators are male, and both feared for their lives (extremely common during rape). I do not see any basis on which to conclude that Amber stole James' story.

In the aforementioned witness statement (dated July 12, 2020), James makes the claim that she became aware of Amber's story on June 25, 2020 when reading documents she received in preparation for her participation in the hearing.

It should be noted that the allegations of sexual assault were confidential in the UK trial, as we can infer in the judgment linked above, with sections on Hicksville, the Bahamas, and Australia all saying that "Further details of this incident are contained in the Confidential Schedule to the Re-Amended Defence." (There are other references to the confidential schedule, such as in Amber's 5th witness statement, however this is the most clear tie I've seen because all three locations match.)

On day 7 of the UK trial (July 15, 2020 -- 3 days after her second witness statement), James is asked, "Have you seen any confidential statements that Ms. Heard has made in these proceedings?" and she answers, "No, sir" (page 1229). This means that at the time she alleged Amber had stolen her story, she hadn't even read Amber's allegations.

The other possibility would be that James did hear Amber's allegations in some way, but lied about how she heard of them. We can't prove that either way with the evidence at hand, however it remains relevant that their stories have nothing significant in common aside from the topic (sexual assault). I'm not sure how one could compare the stories and argue that Amber "stole" James' story.

"You can also clearly see her posing for the camera in the court footage"

I assume you're talking about this. Well, I don't know about you but if I was blowing my nose and realized someone was about to take a picture of me, I would probably not want to pull the tissue away until after. Would you want to risk someone photographing you with snot hanging out of your nose or something??? Obviously I can't say for certain that was her intention, but neither can we say for certain her intention was to seek sympathy/publicity, because we aren't mind readers. As such, this doesn't go very far as evidence.

I have also heard that Amber didn't want the trial televised in the first place, however I am not using that as evidence because I haven't been able to find a primary source for that. If anyone has one, please link it to me.

.

Hope that helps! Of course given she is human, Amber is not perfect, but she should not need to be perfect to be believed.

[sixthwater]

Our Curious Little Beautiful Communities

Intro:

As someone who has been on tumblr since about the early 2010s, I've seen quite a few cycles and 'episodes' within our...community, if I can call it that at this point. I, myself, am usually an observer and end up being a mediator. So you will end up seeing me looking at things from both sides because this world is grey. There is no right or wrong, and each side has a point unless they're just uuuhhh ignorant. Objectively. I'm going to be discussing some issues that have been bubbling up a lot more consistently than they used to within the astrology and tarot community as of late. Warning: I talk a lot, but I'm organized. If you don't have the time or patience to read it, then dont, no big deal, or skip to what you want. For those that like to look at people through their charts: Cancer mercury, Virgo Mars, 6th House Stellium. If you like degrees, I have heavy air degrees, some of them being Libra. Like I said, I end up being a mediator a lot. Anyway, let's get into it.

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Astrology

I'm going to split each section into people who consume content, and those that make it!

Consumers

Appreciation / Spreading Content

So, as you know, every website works differently in how they spread content around. Twitter & TikTok work by likes, Youtube by bias also by likes I'm sure? Insta too. Tumblr doesn't work that way. The only way you're most likely going to see something is if you head into the tag yourself, or people put something onto your feed. Which is why the reblog button is important. I'm now going to go through some popular creators and show the like to reblog ratio!

See the pattern here. Hilariously enough, despite the notes on these posts, if I don't make the usual trip into the tag, I would've never seen these posts myself. Now, on one hand if you only kinda like a post, then by all means just like it. However, what this feedback is sending us is that either this post is not good enough, or this isn't the content you guys want, etcetc. This isn't a call to 'reblog every single post you see to make us feel better!', but the responses to our posts will sort of drive our motivation in either direction. Do we want to make a long in depth post for it to barely go anywhere or just do a quick one because it's going to match the reception. Unless we really like the content we're making, the output is going to match the feedback about 6/10 of the time.

Formalities

So you found a creator that is really accurate with descriptions of placements or aspects or is willing to put in a lot of time and detail to answering asks and what-not. So you head into their inbox and hit them with a 'Moon in 5th' request. However that's the entire ask it's just the placement, a statement that's posed as a request. Please understand that on the outside/surface this may seem very easy and it's just 'you are happy when you play video game', there's more stuff that goes into than that. The creator themselves have a life outside of this website (god knows what responsibilities they have; a job, school, family, just not being tied to this place as if its a career). They will Probably want to actually give you a good response, which is more than just two sentences so not treating them as if they're a machine shooting out information would be a good start to the interaction. There's some things that could contribute to this like language barriers, but just saying 'please', or 'could you do this'--anything that. Humanizes. the person on the receiving end would be super duper great. Also, as mentioned before, spreading their work or showing appreciation afterwards Really helps the creator as well and shows that you are at least thankful or appreciative of what they did and not that you just want your goodies and you're leaving now.

Creators

Rejecting Foundation

This one is a bit. Tricky. The one thing I love about the newer generation is that they are very explorative and they dig and dig and dig until they uncover something and they do extensive research on it. They're open to new ideas and possibilities and looking at things from different angles. However, at the same time, they will completely snuff out the foundations said research is based on which is--on one hand it needs to be done because considering the way this research has been passed down and who has touched it, it's been passed through some pretty cis-heteronormative white old male hands. However at the same time, it's been documented for a reason and just needs to be viewed in a different light, and isn't that what this generation is good at doing. Let's take Venus & Mars, and LGBT+ astrology for example. We Should dismantle the very close-minded idea that Venus is how a Woman loves or pursues someone, and Mars is how a Man loves or pursues someone. I should not have to explain why this is an old-aged idea and we're already halfway through dismantling it anyway. As for LGBT+ astrology, a lot of people are hesitant when it comes to it, in terms of 'these placements could show that you are lgbt' or whatever. Besides there being some personal proof of people resonating with this theory (including me myself, but of course at the same time, not everyone will resonate either so--), you can Also just morph it and look at it from another point of view. If we are so stuck on the idea that Capricorn's influence will mean that someone is traditional, why not Aquarius' influence will make people try anything at least once. They don't necessarily have to be LGBT, but having open relationships, being polyamorous, not marrying but having a committed relationship, being married but living separately, etc. Old research is always founded in Something, but considering it's old, the viewpoint is probably just Fucked up sometimes.

Theft/Sourcing This one I am Neutral one, because it's more of something to just be aware of. Obviously, straight up theft is shitty. If a person doesn't want their content taken, don't take it. If they request credit, credit them. Very basic, simple rules to follow. At the same time though, I have noticed some people, of various status, post content along the lines of:

'I'm not sure where I got this from but-' So it gets a little blurry.

While this isn't like a detrimental issue, it's sort of like glossing over one issue and calling out another while they're both in the same pool. However, at the same time, we live in the age of the internet. Information is being shared at the speed of light and sometimes gets deleted Just as fast, so in the same sense it's understandable if that source is hard to find for you to credit them for it. The best bet for this is to just bookmark whatever you find interesting and hope for the best, or just note that if anyone remembers or knows the source of this reference, to comment on the post then? Like I said, this point is a liiitttllee blurry because it's not necessarily theft but then again it's sort of like.....awkward considering. But eh.

Now to piggyback off of the previous point, I've also noticed some people making really good observations or points, and then sliding in a '___ are manipulative, never trust them' basically. Giving off really strong uuhh:

We should be over this whole generalization thing, and letting a few bad interactions with a person blind the astrologer in you. There's a difference between making roasts about signs and just. Disrespecting people or blowing negative traits of a sign into a billboard. Remember that at the end of all this, we are all just people? So get to know someone as such before even bothering to know their chart. It helps you get better at astrology anyway. If you're surprised about how they're a certain sign or have a certain placement, look closer at their chart and see how it's playing out and figure out why. Astrology is just glamourized math.

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Tarot

I'm going to split each section into people who consume content, and those that make it!

Consumers

Entitlement

Besides the many other issues that have been running rampant (don't worry, I'll talk about 'em!), I've noticed that a looot of people have been feeling mighty cocky lately, but not cocky enough to put a name to their statements. Now I'm going to be, a little bit more harsh than the other sections in this post but: if you want this service then learn the craft and do it yourself. Just like Astrology, this service takes a lot hard work and energy, and considering what type of work it is, it's exhausting. Depending on the question, the type of reading they have to do, or how deep it ends up being--the reader you're asking might need a good hour or more to get to your request. If it's free, you definitely should be thankful for their service as well. Now there's a limit, which I will get to for the creator portion, but by no means should you stomp into their ask box, make sure they know you're ashamed of them, and then leave. Either just leave or put a name to it so you guys can talk it out. You have no idea what's happening on the other side of the screen after you send in your request. You may have asked a simple question, but like I said, depending on how convoluted your mind or emotions are, the reader is picking up on that or might have to pull more cards to figure out what's going on--your energy and the situation affects them at the end of the day so be understanding, not entitled.

Dependence

Not as bad as a problem, just the normal general concern or warning. Tarot it meant to be guidance to help you Live in your current world. It's not a substitute for Anything. Your guides will absolutely stop telling you information or they will just tell you that you're obsessing over the subject if you keep looking for information (and no, this is not just about future spouses because this applies to Everything, even healing, because to do so you actually have to take steps to, you know, heal). I've mentioned this before in a response to someone, but you should try and think outside of the box when getting guidance sometimes, because guides aren't always the most direct for a reason. If you just continuously ask readers about a topic of concern or pull cards, you're still going to be stuck and you're not making any movements towards your goal so those answers, in retrospect, aren't really helping. They might help you with a different perspective the first few times, but after a while it's either going to get aggressive or you're not going to get anything. You have to live your life because as much as your guides love you, they cannot live your life for you and I Promise you, they want nothing but the best for you and they want to see you thoroughly enjoying your life. So do not use tarot as a crutch please (a video from a reader I admire on her old channel). That's why I always explicitly state that yes I am delivering the message but You Know Yourself Best.

Creators

Free Games

Yes, I want you all to take care of yourself and put yourselves first. However, that does not mean 'finish it whenever I want because it's free and you should be happy that I'm even doing this :\', that's not how that works. There will be things that get in the way obviously, and just give a heads up that you're busy, it's whatever things happen. It's Not reasonable though to just tell someone that since it's a free game, that yeah you'll get to it within a month and just relax whatever you'll be okay. Think of it like this: you're in a store like Costco or Sam's Club. A store where they give out free samples. You come up and ask if you can get one and the clerk goes sure. Then they just get on their phone while prepping the food. It's taking a bit so you walk around in the area for a moment and you come back, and they're still just. Working on it. So you're waiting a bit more and it's still not done. So you ask them what's up and they tell you that hey, it'll be done when it's done. It's a Sample Size though, right? Yeah. Now yeah, the tone of the inquiry can affect your response, and depending on the game can affect it too. There's a lot of things that can go into it, but straight up, if you don't think you can do a game or you know yourself and you're going to get bored, just don't do the game. The querents shouldn't be giving you hard trouble over it, but at the same time...? It's a lose-lose here. I'm not saying don't take time to yourself or stay offline while the game is going on, but be mindful of stuff like this and where the querent is coming from (if they aren't an ass <3).

General

Celebrity Readings (Which let's be honest I'm talking about K-pop because which massive group is out here trying to read for Ricky Martin)

Let's get CoNtRoVeRsIaL even though it's really not. This is very simple I don't understand why it's an issue. So the thing about Celebrity Readings is, the first layer is that you have your own stance and opinion on it, that's that. There was a statement by a reader (who I will list later) that said something along the lines of 'readings on celebrities can be seen as tests or training because they are public icons. They are already out there, there's not much privacy to them' something like that, which is...yeah pretty true. A general energy check or reading on them isn't necessarily harmful because it's General, and if their guides don't want you to know certain things, trust me, they won't let you know lmao. Guides are powerful, they're protective, and I'm starting to believe that some people really underestimate them. If you know your guides have your back, what makes you think that those for celebrities won't Check You. If not just straight up lie to get you off their back, because you cannot begin to imagine the amount of people trying to get ahold of their energy, manifest them, curse them, etc. Yes they're going to be insanely protective or tell you to fuck off. Especially those doing anything beyond a general check (which, most definitely isn't reliable by the way because now you're being invasive or way too specific). Speaking of which, wouldn't trust long term readings on them either. You have to remember that Celebrities have more money, connections, and resources than us. Besides their guides muddling information, they can change that reading at the drop of a hat, easier than we can. These readings are for entertainment just like the celebrities themselves, and should be left at that. Readers who deliver their readings as fact or scolding tea, know what they're doing. Consumers should Also be wary of what readers they are following. Are they saying this person is a piece of shit? Bad reader. They're saying they're perfect? Bad reader. Celebrities are just people who have a talent they can profit off of lmao. If a reader can't put some logic behind their reading, especially those associated with corporations who love to abuse parasocial relationships which are the real enemy here, then they're a bad reader. Of course I'm not perfect--I get bored and put some on in the background when I need noise, but I can pick up on who's embellishing or just wants views. There are two readers I came across that I don't always agree with, but they're the most tolerable and usually accurately predict things and those are the ever so popular Antphrodite & Trinity Oracles (it's ok to disagree with the people you like or admire always remember that!). I could go on for hours about this but honestly the bottom line is just...use your brain lmao. Also, as a note, it's more reliable to go off of their birth charts anyway, especially for long term things. However, I Don't Blame these people for being hesitant or Never dropping their birth times because think about how easily you can read someone off of a birth chart. Especially a Good reader. Would you want to drop yours in a climate like this.

'Future Spouse' Readings

So. Hm. So the thing is I can understand the frustration with the overwhelming amount of spouse readings considering I'm grey-spec, because I also used to feel that way, but here's the thing: constantly doing shadow work is fucking tiring lmao. For people who are able to read, I know part of it is this weird idea that people after 21 just die on social media and we don't exist but fun fact hi we do! Not everyone asking or reading about these are 17, as your go-to complaint is. You can also just make other readings if you have the time, which is what I did because I want other readings LMAO. but like i was saying ABOUT that though: if you are someone who is constantly going through transformations, looking at your flaws and seeing how you can overcome them, going within and all of that--doing it for other people, 4-5 piles at a time is fucking tiring. Sitting there, deciphering the issue, walking through it, and then becoming a therapist multiple times through the year for free, sometimes I want to have my head empty and just talk about an imaginary little person and about their energy and write a little wattpad fiction for someone and have good energy for a moment because at the end of the day we are all dust...having light-hearted energy after all of that...murkiness, is Very nice its Very good. Now, also at the same time, there's an inherent issue with the heteronormativity of spouse readings where sometimes the reader assumes its a female reading and the spouse is always male, or the central idea of 'spouse' may turn away people who aren't that attached to marriage but still want to read about their forever lover, etcetcetc. Now besides the whole obsession thing, my only legitimate worry is that people should remember that Divorce exists, and what we are reading is an Energy, and multiple people are picking the same pile as you. There are no exact copies of pile #3s just running around waiting for you. Also, in another sense, shouldn't you also be worried about next partner readings too. If we have to do the work to reach our spouse, that work would also include lessons in love so technically really we shouldn't be doing Any prediction readings (like in general) because that takes a lot of the learning away from us and I had a Very long conversation with an ex-cw of mine about this so, again, I could go on for hours but Anyway--Once again, just...think rationally lmao. There are readings that I wouldn't put Too much emphasis on (like 'how would my fs react to me sneezing' or something), but also like, you want to read something cute you want to read something cute. For readers, you can only warn people so much. If the cards stop you from reading or you Clearly get the message that someone is obsessed, relay it. However if it doesn't come up sometimes people just want to know because there's Nothing Else they're worried about or need a reading on lmao, it's not that deep. If you give the warning and they ignore it, then well. I guess their guides will teach them well enough. Can't really hold everyone by the hand can we.

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Overall

That's about all on my mind, it wouldn't leave my head for 6-7 days and that's usually when I figure I need to say Something because my attention span is Shit. I did want to bring up the uh.

Mass Ignorance

That has been popping up lately, but it feels out of place in a pretty light-hearted post like this so if something pops up again I'll maybe make a separate post like that but my efficient way to deal with that is to look at how people respond to it, and just block them lmao I do not like being stressed out or bothered on my phone So. Love you, feel free to discuss talk complain yell at me whatever, just felt the need to Discuss what's been up lately. I don't have a clean way to end this because I just talk a lot without grammar or anything formal this is literally what it looks like when I'm not trying to be formal my thoughts are just rapid fire like this i have a third house moon the inside of my head is Hell have fun trying to figure out what tone this is in love u

[rpbetter]

Wha-? Now people are labeling muns who just play devil's advocate and don't have strong feelings either way about what other people write? I didn't sign up to be a 'proshipper' just for not caring what other people ship. I don't care about a lot of things. Why the label for this particular thing? It sounds so dumb, like a way to yank in more muns who just want to mind their own business into drama and 'sides'. I agree with your post, I'm just angry at the rpc for being babies. And the labels...

I'm always angry at the RPC for being babies and the labels, it's alright, Anon.

I believe (and I could be wrong, because for the most part, I tried to stay out of any and all fandom-related things for years and years - I just want to enjoy the movie/shows/books, I don't need or want to discourse about that shit, you know?) that all of those terms originated in fandom, outside/predating transfer to the RPC.

I know when I encountered them initially, it was in fandom, not the RPC part of fandom...and at that time, it was just the label of people being "antis." A label they gave themselves by, literally, asserting themselves as "anti-character here-."

It's been my supposition that the RPC's transition to being more canon character and fandom-based than OC-preferred led to an organic transfer of more fandom-specific terminology (and behaviors). As places like twitter and tumblr became hubs of fandom and RPCs, they brought tags to the table. While that is an absolutely wonderful thing, it also means that we all started out tagging things with good intentions, only meant to be tags. You could tag something, pulling from a random fandom here, "anti-Daryl Dixon" from TWD and the plethora of fans who love that character could block it. It was a peacekeeping measure at that state, not a flag for discourse and drama.

Tag-language influencing and becoming an organic part of language, in general, is a whole other, though fascinating, topic, so I'm going to just leave that there. The point is, it happened.

And unfortunately, you quickly got people popping "anti-whatever" in their bios and blog descriptions. Not as a means of allowing others to avoid it, but as a means of making it really clear that they despised the character, fandom, ship, whatever. With purity culture 3.5 hitting in earnest, the reasons for despising those things became raised stakes. It wasn't a basis of simply disliking them anymore - you needed a dissertation how this thing was morally objectionable and destroying the world. Anyone disagreeing with you, by that logic, is morally reprehensible themselves and must be stopped. Raised stakes.

Actions cause reactions, too. People started making it clear that they were "pro" whatever, too. These became opposing designations, and honestly, I'm not sure who started up "proshipper" first. I only know I saw it being used negatively first, that doesn't mean it happened that way! What I've seen has been the entire ship/write/like what you want crowd being given that label negatively and taking it up themselves in the same way people are given to take up a lot of things they've been negatively called.

By "what I've seen," I don't just mean witnessing it happening in the wild lol it happened to me, as well. I reblogged a post about how shipping wasn't activism, and got an anon informing me that I was a disgusting proshipper (every time I reblog that, I get at least one person popping off in my RP inboxes, actually, it hasn't slowed down any). At which point, I, too, was very much like, I'm a what now? Yes, I am okay with shipping? What the hell is this person even on about?

So, it's my theory that in response to the anti movement, some people stated that they were "pro-ship and let ship" and thus...we got to be "disgusting proshippers."

Regardless, it absolutely is just another way of labeling people in order to single them out and/or keep feeding drama, yes.

And again, I feel you. I know labels, good, bad, reclaimed, whatever, seem to give a lot of people a grounded sense of identity, but I've always been uncomfortable with them. I don't understand the need for them, even if I get that they make others feel a certain way. I just want to feel the way I do, be the person I am, and have that person engaged with based singularly on my actions.

It's alright if someone else wants to freely label themselves in a way they feel is positive (though, I do wish that younger people, especially in the queer community didn't have this batshit pressure to do so, and correctly, the first time), but they've always felt threatening and restrictive to me.

As such, having people create and bestow a label on me for the purpose of designating me a problem is kind of an uncomfortable realization of why I feel negative about them. I don't like it, and it's part of why I don't like the bullshit of making this distinction in DNIs. By doing so, they're literally as hell singling people out...with a negative label they gave them for the criminal act of feeling like it's absurd to police fiction, instead, expecting adults to behave like adults when engaging with fiction and each other.

It's honestly forcing hostility and drama, when the point of being ship/write/like and let ship/write/like is not having that hostility and drama. It's merely a live and let live mentality, that's what y'all are attacking! The labeling is a rotting cherry on top that is so indicative of this same, legitimately problematic, behavior that goes on in the extremism I talked about in the post you referenced. It's...gross, let's just say that.

And I'm really sorry that it makes you upset, too! You don't have to label yourself, you can reject that and refuse to engage with those using it in this negative way. That makes me feel considerably less annoyed and disturbed! I'll totally joke about it, as I do fall into the designated parameters of being both "proship" and "anti-anti," but I don't actually label myself thus. I only consider myself a reasonable adult who has better and more serious shit going on than to worry about what fiction someone else is writing or enjoying.

Just...do be aware that, like myself and others, you're likely to be labeled if one of these hostile parties sees you reblog the "wrong" thing or make the "wrong" statement. You are being labeled in those DNIs for your viewpoint of wishing to avoid absurd drama. So, I'd advise, for your peace of mind, to try to avoid blogs stating that they're "anti" anything but drama/bullying etc., or who feel it necessary to put up those DNIs. You are who they're talking about, they just don't know it because you're not labeling yourself or being otherwise obvious about it :/

Try your best to avoid that changing, you deserve to peacefully enjoy RP! As disturbing as it is, as rightfully upset about it as you are, maybe it's a good thing you found out? In this way, I mean. Without someone bringing it to your inbox hatefully. Now you know what it means, that they mean you, and you can stay away from it! Try to look at it that way - there will always be people weirdly desperate to make their drama hobby everyone else's problem, you can only make an effort to stay out of it if you know what to look for, right?

I hope any of this made you feel better about the fresh hell that is the RPC lol keep doing you, Anon! You're not the problem, infantile drama mongers are <3

[thedreadvampy]

this is kind of a Hot Take (and rlly long) so don't feel pressured to post this

also no one cancel thedreadvampy over posting this ask if she does these are my beliefs and not necessarily hers kthx

I'm honestly really uncertain why people are so militant about aphobia on this site. like obviously aphobes are Not Nice People and it's good to be against their shitty beliefs. But I've been on this site for ~5 years and I have never, in my memory, seen an aphobe (with the few exception of like. literal nazis but their main label isn't aphobe). I have seen a lot of people who were then harassed/cancelled being called aphobes in addition to a lot of other things like (homophobic, racist, abusive, etc) but as far as I bothered to figure out, the label of aphobe came from one specific phrase they used or one post they reblogged (though I can't be bothered to Deep Research so I genuinely don't know on this one).

(I have seen casual acephobia in my own personal life. however, that is not Tumblr.)

I have seen scores of posts along the lines of "aphobes are bad" "aphobes dni" etc etc.

Maybe it's just who I follow, but it seems like there's a lot more anti-aphobe sentiment than aphobes. Which is good! It's the goal! However, I think it's possible that that anti-aphobe sentiment has not become "look how few aphobes there are! yay!" it's "there are hidden aphobes all around us and you have to interrogate everyone to know who to ostracize"

You're a fairly popular figure in the mechs/tma fandoms and the thing about Tumblr is that it hates popular figures. And more than that, you're visible, so a) people will see if you answer a bunch of questions about ace things, and b) you exist in everyone's brains more than little blogs.

to be clear. to be absolutely crystal 100% clear: I am not saying that people got together and went "let's interrogate all the popular blogs so we can pretend theyre acephobic and have fun bullying people," I'm saying it's possible that what was once a positive emotion, "we don't tolerate intolerant people" has possibly, in some people, morphed into a fear that intolerant people are hiding all around them. And frankly, that fear can be understandable (not right, not kind, but understandable), especially if they face hate irl and their only outlet for emotion is tumblr. shit, Tumblr is one of my emotional outlets.

I don't think it's bad to engage with these people in good faith, or to answer questions, but I think it's possible that some of them are coming from the "intolerant people are hiding all around us and must be ferreted out" kind of perspective instead of a "hey I wanna check that this person isn't an intolerant asshole before following/supporting them" or "I want to engage with a person who may be ignorant" (I'm not attempting to imply that you're ignorant). Im not saying "not answer their questions" this is just, like, my opinion. I'm not making a lot of actionable statements here.

that's my whole Hot Take, hopefully I made some kind of sense, I just honestly feel kind of mad on your behalf that you have to go thru an interrogation to be Not Tumblr Cancelled. If people were generally having a nuanced discussion then that would be fine but you've already stated several times that ace/aspec people are valid and deserve love and respect etc etc. which as an aspec person makes me feel that your blog is safe for me, and I don't feel the need to play 20 Questions Are You Sure You Aren't An Aphobe

I don't know how much of this I entirely agree with and I refuse to think

(not about this. just in general. today I refuse to think)

my main response to this is:

a) I think my confusion is I have less than 1500 followers I think I always assumed the You Are Now A Public Figure People Have Opinions On mark had to be higher than that but this appears to have been a totally incorrect assumption

b) I don't feel like. a threat of Cancellation except inasmuch as I don't want Kofi to eventually get any kind of kickback if I turn out to be or people understand me to be a shitty person. I didn't ask for a platform or do anything to deserve it, if I get distressed it's largely just that I don't want to be a shitty person! and I have a whole thing about. I don't ever feel secure in my ability to say I'm NOT being shitty so like if enough people start saying AH RUTH THEDREADVAMPY IS A GARBAGE PERSON I definitely do stay wondering if they're right even if I think my position is morally defensible. like I'm very easy to get into a spiral of I think that's highly defensible but maybe I'm just in denial/trying to cover my ass/self-justifying so I can avoid accountability/etc. like this is a thing and it's why I'm very uncomfortable with absolutism, a lot of my family in my experience have a phenomenal capacity for denial and for rewriting reality into something they Fully Believe despite all the evidence, and so I'm really conscious of the possibility that I'm doing that and I wouldn't. know about it. it's a really really powerful subconscious force and that's been like. a big fear point for me my whole life. that I could be being a cunt and be obviously being a cunt and be so deep in denial that it just doesn't register at all. this is like. the thing I fear most. So I DO want people to tell me if I'm being a dick because the only way I can 100% know I'm not just in denial is if I can trust people to call me in, but I really, really, really struggle with when people say I'm being a dick and I disagree, not because they're harassing me necessarily but just because it really sends me into a spiral of doubting my own ability to be sure about like, anything. at all. it's a whole unreality thing which is, uh, it's MINE to deal with, it's not something I would want to put on other people, but it very much does affect my responses and I didn't mean to write this but hey, no therapy last week and it shows.

oh also c) on reflection I don't agree that there's very little aphobia on Tumblr (although as I've said I'm not ace or aro so my opinion should hold little weight) but I do think that there's a lack of give and take, not just in aphobia stuff but also in general, in these kinds of conversations, like sometimes yeah people are actively hateful but I don't think there's any room for misunderstanding, poor phrasing, or questioning, and I understand that that's coming from a really genuine place of pain and devaluation of aro/ace experiences but I also think people jump straight to assuming active malice very fast, and often explicitly consider "actively not stating an opinion" to be an offence on the level of "actively staying a harmful opinion," which I think is unhelpful. like. we learn by listening, there are times in my life where I would have been lying at the time to agree unconditionally with something like "I think we should believe survivors" (I was a 2000s teen who hung out with 4channers) but I also was conscious of the harm that it would do to publicly debate from the perspective that No We Shouldn't Believe Survivors, so you know I waited and I listened and I thought about it and ultimately I came to a position I could say with my chest. but like. The online social more that you Have to have an opinion and I Have to hear it to prove that you have the Right opinion is. uncomfortable to me to say the least. I don't think it gives you much room to learn and improve, especially given that everything on the internet is permanent and often treated as if it forever reflects your current beliefs. like I have changed my opinions So Much since I was 16 and if someone went back through a tag on my blog to Prove My Bad Opinions they could paint pretty much any picture they wanted with 12 years of changing opinions.

anyway yeah like. no I don't fully agree with this ask but I appreciate the alternate perspective. I also did not mean to write another wall of text I'm just very much In A Brain Hole today and sometimes words Just Happen.

[spearxwind]

am a little confused as to what you meant by requesting people not put your ocs and fr content in the same general area :? am mostly concerned because I tend to reblog untagged flight rising art because it looks fucking dope and I think your art is super gucci too, and I'm not sure if that crosses a line :? if you could explain that'd be super helpful but you dont have to !

yea its kind of a vague statement i guess but i mostly mean not tagging them as fr, reblogging them to fr exclusive blogs etc and by any means write ur headcanon fr stuff on my post lmao 

i know its probably a rly bad overreaction but it kinda sucks to see my ocs being passed around as flight rising stuff since all the hard work i put on them could be swept under the rug as ‘oh yeah this is all based on a chunk of fr lore/ these designs are just a new take on the fr breeds’