#if you find yourself getting worked up over petty online discourse ask yourself:

[tinyfantasminha]

Hi I’m not sure if you’re aware put people are going around screenshotting your tumblr and sharing it on callout and adult yume hate tweets. I felt so weird messaging that’s why anon but I wanted to let you know about it, with the harassment and doxxing that has happened recently! I’m a fellow Jack yume and adore your art so this is sad to see.

This is one of the occurrences.

x(DOT)com/riddlehoe_/status/1729650574541406714?s=46&t=kTkdN9P14joudjwCx7-lhQ

So called ''normal people'' when they got nothing to do

Yeah I'm aware of the rabid anti-yume swarm in twitter..... I've seen plenty of moots getting hate campaigns and being doxxed to the point where I'm almost desensitized to it. What's the point of persecuting yumeshippers?? Especially the adult ones who quite literally keep the game alive and running for consuming and making content and buying merch? So they can feel entitled to the non-existent anime boy and feel morally superior for not having ''disGusTInG THOUGHTS'' about an imaginary little guy despite literally commiting a cybercrime and thinking they've just did a favor society?? Truly a priviledged chronically online teenager moment™

I was already expecting to get hate at some point but thankfully I've been focusing on my academic and social life lately so discourses online just seem more and more insignificant and irrelevant (as they always should be) going outside and touching grass is really healing and important to make you realize that there are greater irl problems to worry about than protecting fictional characters and harassing strangers on the internet, everybody should do that methinks 🧡

I might be a target of doxxing one day and honestly??:? I don't care. It's gonna be funny as hell. Cause it's probably some american teenager who thinks that doxxing an user in another country is gonna make the FBI arrest me for kissing my fictional blorbo in my head and that I'll be beaten up on the streets lol. Mini Karen, I assure you no one in south america cares about fictional character discourses to the point of making threats as much as people in the US do (and u guys somehow think that's normal behaviour) much LESS in my city, it's gonna do nothing 😭

Anyway, thanks for the heads up!!! I hope you thrive with your yume with Jack, he needs more love, don't let gatekeeper losers ruin your vibe 💗💗💗💗

[royalberryriku]

Just a tiny PSA for young people/ teens on Tumblr who might be new to a few things if this is one of their first social medias or if you're just new to it in general:

• Boycotting is done to stop a certain company from earning money, not denying yourself the ability to talk about what is made by said companies; you can still enjoy these things by pirating them or getting them via a means that means the developer isn't receiving royalties or pay from it. And, of course, simply talking about what you like will not grant them money. If you need help pirating, it's okay to ask a friend you trust who knows more about tech and downloading things.

• Callouts aren't going to always be honest and out of concern for safety. Just like irl, people can be petty and may have made it to create rumours for personal reasons; such as trying to get back at their ex or a friend who did something small but meaningful to them and to get back at that. People are people, offline or online, please be safe and aware that people lie.

• If you're a minor, please be careful about sharing your age, any photos or information about yourself, including even basic things. Actually, just in general be careful please.

• Discourse isn't always going to be about what's right or just, sometimes it's about winning an argument to a person on the other side of the screen. The best thing to do is not to argue and just block. I know that's hard sometimes, but they want engagement and they want your anger. With that, it also isn't always obvious when it's someone looking for a response. Sometimes they act polite at first. Be careful out there and it's always okay to block if you feel uncomfortable. And yes, even if you're just a little uncomfortable or they just don't seem quite right. You can always opt out and you're not doing anything wrong by setting boundaries.

• Always do your own research as well, don't just take what someone says on here at face value. I know, not everyone has bad motives, but it's important to still do what you can to stay informed. Sometimes people are just incorrect or haven't done their research fully either. It's always good to fact check!

• Just because someone is similar to you and has the same background experiences and identities, just as being a fellow queer or a woman or any other marginalised group, that doesn't necessarily mean they're trustworthy. People are people, and individuals are always capable of both good and bad. Please don't trust people based on identity and similarities. They can be petty too and they can definitely lie and abuse your trust. And not even for obvious reasons like abuse, but sometimes to tell rumours to get back at people or to just use you for whatever petty reason.

• Online links and adverts for protests aren't always doing to be honest or genuine. Some of them are scams and others are just badly organised. Please do research first before thinking of going to a protest and always make sure you have a friend with you and someone to help you in case of trouble. Preferably, make sure you have a safe support network to return to and people who can back you up financially and legally.

• Check the privacy settings on your apps, including Tumblr and especially places like Instagram and Twitter to make sure data isn't being misused by said apps without your consent.

• Be aware of reposters and AI generated images from people when you post your art online. Always make sure you date your work and, in cases where you're extra worried, add a watermark over your art.

• Use the mute/ filter tags option in settings to avoid topics that make you uncomfortable. You can also filter out nsfw tags as well there.

• Vapes are not only unhealthy and worse than cigarettes, but they also find Israel's genocide. Use gum instead or look into nicotine patches to stave off the craving. There are also helplines out there that can help.

• (This also relates to the above). Certain things are sometimes needed, such as straws for some disabled people, or sunscreen to avoid skin cancer. You're not a bad person for having needs and while some things do impact the environment, it's important to realise that you're one person with a need, not the cooperations burning fossil fuels. Please don't let people pressure you into getting rid of your own needs or making you guilty for them. This also does apply to addiction and if it's hard to quit, not to guilt yourself into feeling worse over it.

• Always ask for help, even if you aren't sure if you'll receive it. If someone is making you uncomfortable, tell. Offline or online, always say when something is wrong and find an adult or close friend (irl) you trust and tell them what's going on. Yes venting to online friends can be helpful, but if you feel in danger, please tell someone in your life offline who can support you.

• If you ever feel like the events in the world are too much, you're not a bad person for switching off and taking time for yourself. I don't mean this in a condescending way but as someone who was a teen who did this exact thing; there are people out there doing the work, adults with support and years of experience for dealing with this sort of stress. As much as it may feel bearable now, it can become overwhelming over time and you can definitely end up in really bad places mentally without realising and thinking you're doing fine. Take time away and please don't doom scroll. Adults are out there and able to handle this, please give yourself time to grow before launching into the world of activism. Preserve your energy and your mental health.

And that's all I can think of right now! Please stay safe out there folks and remember to let yourself enjoy being a kid, a teen and being young. You have all the time in the world ahead of you.

[theexistentiallyqueer]

"but he murdered people”

This is a post about Goro Akechi, murder, its aftermath, trauma, and two things that are in real short fucking supply around here: critical thinking and empathy.

Listen, I’m a veteran of the Dragon Age fandom. If you want to talk about toxic fandoms, they’re your Bible. As far as your Judas Iscariots and Nebuchadnezzars go, I was one of them. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, and I’m done with it. It’s exhausting to carry that much rage inside of you, to live it actively every second of every day, and to inflict it on other people and laugh about it. So I’ve been disengaged, largely, for a few years. 

And now I’m in the Persona 5 fandom and find myself enthusiastically appreciating Goro Akechi, because who doesn’t love complex, morally flawed, ambiguously gay-coded characters? Shit, maybe you’re not on board, but I’ll sign right up. I’m a relative newcomer, despite being a longtime Persona fan and playing P5 around when it came out, because I didn’t engage with the fandom then. I jumped back in with the Royal announcement and absolutely saturated myself in this vibrant fan space. Invested in the idea of Akechi being explored as a fully fleshed-out character, I find myself following Goroboys. Which is great! Because so far, they’re all great! Nicest bunch of people you could ever hope to meet!

Except there’s Discourse. There’s always been Discourse, I find, but this is my first exposure to it in this fandom. This weekend was my first week of seeing Goro antis active, seeing people I follow, people I like and appreciate and some I considering genuine friends, actively attacked and harassed because they like a fictional teenage character who killed some other fictional people in a fictional world where you, playing as the main character, have the ability to perform a metaphysical lobotomy on people who literally can’t consent. Here I thought the only people who hated Akechi were white cishet men who saw his rage against a parent and said, “Nah, too bitchy for me,” because they’re too afraid to look in a mirror and see Masayoshi Shido’s fascist, misogynistic mug staring back. 

Are you awake yet? Have I woken you up to the fact that Persona 5′s premise is a wish-fulfillment fantasy of “what if I could make the person who took advantage of me when I was a teenager apologize in front of the entire world by using an alternate fantasy dimension to completely violate their brain”?

I see my friends saying, “Wow, it’s amazing how people who hate Akechi can’t leave people who like Akechi alone,” and within an hour they have replies saying MURDER IS MURDER as if they know what murder actually is.

We’re about to get real personal up in here because maybe, only then, will some of you people take the hint that your behavior borders on actively bullying other people on the internet over a fictional character.

Ready? Here goes.

Murder is your mom picking you up from summer camp three weeks after your ninth birthday, driving you to your grandparents’ house, and telling you that when daddy was at work today, someone tried to steal the money, and they had a gun. Daddy was brave and Daddy died.

Murder is blacking out when you’re nine years old and coming to to yourself two houses away on a neighbor’s swing set with crickets chirping in your ears and the crushing reality of never seeing your father again turning your brain into static.

Murder is asking your mother if she asked for the death penalty, and your mother telling you, in a pleading voice, that she didn’t because he was mentally ill and it didn’t feel right. Murder is feeling angry afterwards because you feel like something was taken away from you, and something should be exchanged for that. Because that’s how fairness works, right? If you steal candy from the store, you have to give up your allowance for the next five months.

Murder is realizing you’re an atheist at fourteen and driving past the cemetery where your father’s remains are interred, and having the gut-punching, soul-suffocating realization of what never ever ever actually means. Murder is building an internal cosmology where forever means my atoms and yours, creating new life in perpetuity as the comfort you drag out of the west’s cold, uncaring atheism that never found its own poetry.

Murder is your first two years in college, when you discover social justice and realize the world is bigger than your own life experiences, and that violence at the bottom is a reactionary symptom against violence at the top. Murder is understanding the fact that the man who killed your father was himself a victim of a racist, ableist, capitalist society with a morally bankrupt healthcare system, and that every single one of those things is in and of itself is more hateful than the act of your father bleeding out in the parking lot, in the ambulance, on the operating table.

Murder is your mother confessing to you in college that your father was physically abusive of her and that she had threatened him, only weeks before he was killed, that she would leave and take her daughters with her if he didn’t change. Murder is knowing that your father ran after an armed robber because he was raised by a Sicilian father in a household overflowing with toxic masculinity, and what killed your father wasn’t a man with a gun: what killed your father was the patriarchy whispering in his ear, This theft emasculates you. 

Murder is looking your own mother in the eye and telling her that one day you want to visit the man who killed your father and open your heart to him, because all you can think is, He didn’t plan this. He can’t have wanted this. What must it feel like to kill someone without intending to and then have to live with that for the rest of your life with no one to help you? Murder is the sound of betrayal in your mother’s voice when she responds, disbelieving.

Murder is spending years wanting to at least write to him, and then forgetting, and then going back, because you are a fluid, impermanent, imperfect person with your own flaws and failures and mental issues that hold you back from being the paragon you want to be. Murder is throwing yourself into the left and embracing prison abolition so hard it hurts, because you know that if the state can lock up someone who doesn’t “matter,” the state can lock up anyone. 

Murder is throwing away or selling every childhood thing you ever possessed because you are not by nature a sentimental person, but never giving up that doll you were gifted, the doll you coveted and wanted more than anything else, three weeks before your father was shot and killed. You have no pictures, no mementos, no nothing, but she sits at the top of your bookshelf to this day, a weighty child goddess, the symbol of your torn and labyrinthine childhood.

Murder is having to see a bunch of petty-ass people using actual trauma that real life people have experienced and continue to experience to directly and repeatedly harass your friends online (and yourself, indirectly, by tagging their hateful shit) because you and your friends like a fictional fucking character who, by nature of being fictional, did not actually murder any real existing people.

Murder is building your entire identity around how you sympathize, deeply, with the person who killed your own father, because that takes hard work and deep empathy and the ability to see past a lot of bullshit just to get to that point, and having some fuck-ass anons act like none of that matters because there is (apparently, I must assume) some omnipotent god of justice saying “Fuck you and everything you’ve been through” that apparently only these bullies can hear.

Murder is seeing fandom moralizers talk about murder like they understand it. Like they’ve read this, plus the last ten-plus paragraphs, and decided they know best anyway because mommy and daddy always told them Criminals Are Bad and walked wide-eyed and innocent into a social network overrun with TERFs, exclusionists, and a rotten segment of the political left that acts like some extras straight out of The Crucible.

I have never once been triggered by anything relating to my father’s murder. I cried at the Resurrection Stone scene in The Deathly Hallows, I cried when I completed when I completed the DA2 DLC Legacy after the end of act 2. When I see a parent die, I have an emotional reaction, because it’s familiar.

But the Akechi antis who all say “but he killed people!”, The Akechi antis who say “murder is still murder”?

The murder of my father is still murder. The man who killed him, his murderer, is still regardless a human being, the man who killed him deserves sympathy and compassion and understanding and respect and, above all, a chance.

I am a living example of what’s left behind when someone is murdered. You can walk into the mausoleum where my father is interred, face his headstone, and let the earth open up beneath you and drop you into hell.

So most sincerely, from someone who lost their father to gun violence, to armed robbery, to murder: Stop fucking using our lived experiences as your justification to harass and bully people online for committing the Grave Moral Sin of just liking a video game character.

Between the fact that the American government is keeping real people in concentration camps and a bunch of strangers on the internet liking a twiggy teenage anime boy who used a fantasy world to kill people who don’t exist, which one is actually important to deserve your moral outrage?

You’ll die eventually; fascism won’t kill itself.

[putschki1969]

A reply

vyselegendaire I don't know why there is bad blood between CPM and Putschki.  Each forum has its plus and minus.  CPM forums have had trolls, but since its a forum I feel people have a chance to be a bit more expressive of their opinions, and thus there is negativity, but frankly its mostly in the forum of  humor and farce.  There are almost no dedicated haters on the site who don't wish to see more great music from our favorite artists.

vyselegendaire Additionally, amidst all of the complaints of negativity and dreariness, lest we forget the scourge of censorship - which is on the rise across the internet - before we cast shade on those we disagree with as being bad.  Censorship and content removal is the tool of tyrants since time immemorial and don't think you are immune, ask

vyselegendaire Just ask Solzhenitsyn

Hi there!

I thought it best to make a proper reply post because I have a few things to say in response to your comments. These comments were made on THIS post here where I am talking about online fandoms in general....It took me a while to get back to you, sorry about that.

All right everyone, strap in for a LONG (and slightly petty) reply...

It feels like in all my previous replies I have been talking to a wall…I have said it before and I am gonna say it one more time, there is no war between myself and CPM, there is no ancient feud and I wouldn’t even say there is any “bad blood” between us. I haven’t really engaged with any particular member enough for there to be “bad blood“. My main issue with CPM is that I do not enjoy the toxic atmosphere over there. Why would I willingly subject myself to all that negativity? I might be the only one out there that feels this way but I wanna ENJOY my fandom. All the nitpicking, bickering, gossiping, bullying and bashing, it’s utterly exhausting and it sucks the life right out of me. I don’t wanna waste my time engaging in polemic discourse and childish quarrels day in day out. I mean, even responding to all those recent asks/messages has been utterly exhausting because I feel like I have been put on trial for simply wanting to be a decent human being.

CPM has had a few trolls....? No kidding....Please don’t get me started on the trolls.... I haven’t even been active on CPM but I still had to deal with them. Why you ask? Because we have had at least two people from CPM terrorise the tumblr fandom in the past….those trolls actually made the effort to come here and cause turmoil just for the fun of it…that’s how fucked up they are...As you can imagine, I wasn’t impressed…

Unlike you, I just don’t see the merits of posting on CPM. Yes, I have been in some lovely forums in the past and they certainly do offer a few advantages but when it comes to CPM, the negative aspects far outweigh the positive ones. Yes, a forum is better suited to interact with people but then again, I have plenty of ways to interact with fellow fans here as well. And if we are being honest, I am not the type of fan that actively seeks out interaction, especially not with people who suffer from a serious case of entitlement. You could call it a pet-peeve of mine but I really can’t stand it when fans act all entitled as if they were owed something. And you know what’s the worst thing about it? The most annoying entitled haters on CPM are usually people who are not invested in the fandom at all! Yes, they are very much invested when it comes to hating on and complaining about stuff but aside from that I don’t see them do anything else “productive”. They just sit back and let other people do the work. They don’t bother to seek out new information, they wait for someone else to do it.... Most also don’t bother to learn Japanese in order to get a better understanding, they wait for someone else to make all the translations or they just pretend to know everything and come to absurd conclusions which usually results in heaps of misunderstandings... Often they refuse to buy releases, they would much rather wait for downloads in order to then declare they are happy they didn’t spend a fortune on that since it’s trash anyways...They also typically don’t attend any lives but they are more than happy to complain from the distance... It baffles me how people like that have the nerve to act so entitled even though they don’t show an ounce of support.

There is another reason I do not wish to interact with a majority of the people on CPM. Many of them find pleasure in ridiculing me. I know everyone over there is making fun of me for being a “pussy”, for playing “Kalafina-police”, for apparently seeing everything through “rose-tinted glasses”. It seems like in their eyes nothing I write can be taken seriously because I am neither “honest” nor “objective”. I guess in this day and age you have to be a disrespectful asshole for people to consider you “honest/objective” and for someone to actually pay attention to you... But really, that’s just not who I am. I have zero tolerance when it comes to any sort of bashing of the people I adore and respect under the guise of so called “constructive criticism” and I do not wish to interact with anyone who thinks that’s okay. And before anyone misinterprets what I am saying, no, I am not implying that Kalafina are above criticism or that every kind of criticism is bad, that’s not the case at all...but as I have pointed out numerous times, it’s all about HOW you criticise...

As for your point about being able to be more expressive in a forum, that is completely untrue. Nothing is stopping me from being as expressive as I want to be on this site. Free expression does not equate negativity, if you think the opportunity to express yourself is somehow a free pass for being an asshole then you are wrong.

“There are almost no dedicated haters on the site who don't wish to see more great music from our favorite artists” Uhmm...and that somehow absolves them of all their wrong-doings? NO! This statement makes me really angry because it embodies the fucked-up mindset of so many haters in fandom. At one point in the past I used to like it so that gives me the right to bash on everything now and I refuse to find something else because I know for sure that one day they will create the exact thing that I want. THIS is how these people think...And it leads me right back to the point I made about entitlement. Throughout many years these fans have created an unattainable image in their mind. Everything that’s not in line with that idea is automatically written off as trash... Fact is it is very unlikely they will ever get what they want. So consumed with bitterness and hatred it’s almost impossible for these people to see greatness in anything. It’s a vicious cycle and the only way to escape is to move on to another fandom.

Your second comment is a tad over-dramatic wouldn’t you agree? It also sounds like a low-key threat and I really don’t appreciate that. I am very much aware that I am not immune to censorship but I am not sure what your point is. Are you trying to tell me that my only chance to avoid cencorship is to relocate to CPM? No thanks. I would rather find another platform or get my own website. Also, I have invested way too much into this tumblr blog, it’s not something I can simply give up and move on. I know many tumblr users have relocated to other platforms as a sort of protest but I will definitely not do that. If things become worse I will have to think of something but as of right now, I can live with the situation on tumblr. Let’s see what the future holds...

I guess instead of replying to questions about CPM you want me to write essays about censorship on tumblr which is - according to you - the very scourge of humanity? Sorry, I am not the type to use my blog for political statements. Yeah, I will admit, things have been a bit troublesome on tumblr but it’s certainly not as bad as some people make it out to be... I don’t necessarily agree with the methods they are using but they are par for the course...And I definitely wouldn’t compare the regulations that are implemented on this website (however sloppy they may be) to actual censorship that has happened and is still happening to people in the “real world”.

Okay, I think that’s it for me...