#if you see me liking things i'm just bookmarking for when i'm fully back online

[bunnions]

taking a longer hiatus as everything in my life is kinda crashing down all at once. hopefully i can be back online over the holiday break 🙏

[wenamedthedogkylo]

Apparently my big gripe today is how many people on the internet, and especially on this site, just kind of... refuse to actually read news articles and just assume that headlines are supposed to tell you the whole story.

It's the same assumption, I think, that leads to so many people getting angry when someone's name isn't listed in a headline. Headlines are fundamentally not supposed to tell you the whole story. They are there to give you the most bite-sized summary that inevitably will leave out key information, because the headline is supposed to intrigue you enough to make you want to read the article in full.

Case in point, I'm still seeing a ton of posts where people are assuming that Netflix has completely backtracked on its plans to stop password sharing. And that is fundamentally not what happened at all. The only reason anyone would think that is if they only read headlines like this

If you only read the headline, yeah that sounds like a win on the level of how WotC backtracked its new OGL plans pretty quickly. Here's another one:

You wanna know how I know for a fact that so many of you didn't bother reading more than just the headline of this? Because look at the tagline that is literally right underneath it:

Yeah! That "mistake" was not even close to the same thing as WotC's "draft" that happened to roll out with a legally binding contract. The password sharing policies were literally posted by mistake to regions they were not yet intended to affect.

In fact, Netflix is STILL fully planning to implement anti-password sharing policies! And is doing so slowly, to other countries outside the US.

And they still plan to eventually roll all these policy changes out to the US, as well! They always have!

And this is why it's fundamentally important that people actually take the time to sit down and read the damn articles, so you can get all the facts.

"But I don't always have the time or energy to read something right when I see it." Neither do I! That's what bookmarks are for. Or even just sending yourself the link in a message or something, so that you can save it and come back to it when you do have time and energy.

But to be perfectly honest, sometimes you really should just read the damn thing as soon as possible, even if you're not in the most perfect, relaxed, open-minded place at the time. Because when it's a topic that the search engine rating industry calls a "Your Money or Your Life" topic—any topic that could impact your health, finances, or well-being—you need to be aware of what's going on so you can make decisions accordingly. So that you don't get caught off guard in two months when Netflix finally starts charging you $4 extra or whatever for your sibling in Ohio using your account.

"Why can't someone just summarize the article for me?" Multiple reasons, friend. Just like you don't always feel like you have the time and energy for reading a whole article, not everyone has the time and energy to read it and post a coherent but brief summary for you. Also, no one owes you that! No one else is responsible for you informing yourself about the world you live in! It is not the duty of random strangers online to make sure you personally are informed of things that might affect your life. You and only you are responsible for learning and staying informed.

"But it's so boring and I don't wanna!" Hey buddy, it's your life, you do whatever you want. I can't force you to sit and read, or even just skim through, an article on what Netflix's plans for wringing your bank account dry are. But if that's how you're gonna approach it, then you don't get to be righteously indignant when you get blindsided by stuff that you could have very easily known about beforehand.

"But I'm disabled and accessing this news is difficult for me!" I'm disabled, too! And I fully get it, there's still A LOT of stuff online that is straight up not accessible for people with different disabilities. My disabilities don't require a screen reader or anything like that, so I'm lucky in that sense. But at the same time, it's still not the responsibility of strangers online to process your information for you. Direct your frustration at the news sites and corporations who are making this information inaccessible to anyone but neurotypical, able-bodied people. If random strangers online have the time and energy to help make something more accessible for you, that's amazing and they should be thanked profusely! But it is not their job to do so—it is the job of news outlets, and that's who needs to be taken to task for this shit.

Idk if this will even go far on this site but the point is, please stop expecting your news to come pre-summarized in a perfect little bite of info that you can consume in less than 6 seconds. It's genuinely concerning how much misinformation is being spread not by malicious people looking to hoodwink you, but by sheer laziness. This is actually one of those instances where "adults sometimes have to do stuff they don't want to do" is perfectly applicable and true. It's YMYL, Your Money or Your Life, and if you don't want either to get completely screwed over, you have to—horror of horrors!—actually read the news sometimes.

[mylordshesacactus]

thank you for the further bookmark issue. as someone who doesn't really use ao3 (fic isn't so much my thing, etc) but is y'know terminally online it's interesting to see the difference in which bookmarks function there as opposed to most every other site. I had no idea there were people leaving comments and notes on things that could just be seen??? like i hear bookmarks and immediately think 'ah yes the websites i would like to save for later in completely bizarrely named folders that i will most definitely forget about in about 20 seconds max' and not what appears to be a secondary (tertiary?) personal tagging system. and so out of genuine curiosity are there other things on the site that don't really work the same as one might assume? like i'd just default assume that a bookmark would be private and lost to the ages in three sub folders of whatever. again; haven't really used ao3 since um...probably shortly after launch and so haven't ever really like gone into explore more of how it functions beyond the basic tagging system. alternately tho, have bookmarks everywhere always been public in which case i am so sorry to anyone who has opened their how two guide on [random special interest at the time] only to find that somehow it's been associated to a sorting solution that makes sense to no one (especially me.) sorry, hi, not trying to be rude or continue drama just a little lost on the sidelines here.

You're fine!

The thing about AO3 bookmarks that you're (totally understandably, since you don't use the site!) not quite grasping is that, again, it's blatantly clear simply from using the site that they're public. There's a button on every single fic that leads to the bookmarks, and a hyperlink under every single fic summary that does the same thing. The bookmark is a site feature that links back to the original fic, and you can clearly see bookmarks on other users' profiles.

I totally don't blame someone for briefly, initially, assuming bookmarks might be private! My condescending bitchiness is specifically aimed at people who make heavy use of the feature for YEARS and STILL have no concept of how it works, and get angry when corrected--at a certain point, it becomes willful ignorance. You gotta LOOK at the site you're using, and if you refuse to do so, the people around you have every right to get sick of your shit, you know?

So, bookmarks are just really not an example of unintuitive design. Honestly, most of AO3 is extremely clear in how it functions. On any site, it's worth taking five minutes after joining to open different menu options and see what all is available, and AO3's menus are really thorough and very easy to use.

Furthermore, a lot of the things people complain about as if they're...well, for example, the definition of Mature vs Explicit fic, or how archive warnings work. I've seen a lot of people act like it's mysterious or impossible to learn or like it's purely Terminally Online Acquired Fandom Knowledge, and get frustrated by being expected to "just know" how ratings or relationship tags work. And I'm FULLY sympathetic to that! There's nothing more frustrating or upsetting than everyone around you acting like you're supposed to "just know" how something works, "just know" an entire subculture!

Here's the thing though.

AO3 has tooltips built in to explain those things.

They're not esoteric nebulous Fandom Knowledge TM that you have to learn by meditating on a mountainside! And they're not totally meaningless terms that people being sticklers about are just gatekeeping over. On AO3, they have specific meanings and usages, and the explanations DON'T require you to go poking around the FAQ or Q&A sections of the site! They're easily accessible right from the relevant pages.

(I realize that I am, in general, kind of a sarcastic bitch, so I want to be very clear that my tone in this specific post is NOT sarcastic and I am NOT trying to come across as pissy or condescending--you asked a legit question in good faith and I'm happy to talk about it.)

I don't know that this is really the answer you were looking for, but I think it's the most productive answer I could give! The site is very self-explanatory for anyone who cares to use it.

It's a little like hiking. It doesn't matter how well-marked the trailheads are if someone refuses to pay attention to their surroundings.

[threenorth]

Today i woke up to fight again.

Tw; r slur against myself. A slight mental health warning.

I'm stable for now but my journey into the unknown has only just started.

I made bookmarks to keep me company, i hope you like my shitty tt content.

I wrote out a letter but tumblr destroyed it ao here's a v2 again...

Revisiting of the past, i guess this year i got many things I've never been able to do but i was hoping I'd have a psych to med me but covid has wrecked everyone left right and centre and for me it also has ruined some of my stability.

There's alot we could talk about but for now the only next siganfant date might be right.

I'd tell you it was the day we met not in person but online.

It seems to far i say but but it's been 7 years for me to be awoken to forgetting your out there, i don't know what tommrow, brings or my programs or anything but i wish you were talking to me but that's a risk i can't afford.

But i would send you some of my paycheck because it's your money just as it is mine.

Vemmo doesn't work here but paypal, i hope you don't spend it all on lingerie but if you did I'd understand.

I need to sort a few bills that I didn't plan for such as moving and storage but i might be back in Wellington next year.

I'm not sure how long I'll be gone everyday is another day to wait for the mental health service team to transfer notes and files.

This year has been a roller-coaster and I'm sorry i dragged you into it i had to wait but i couldn't stop thinking about you for 7 years so something had to break, i guess it was my old mind and my fragments of time.

I've done many things but not everything i saved some for you.

I must admit these muscles are kinda nice but not finished, but my shoes that let me walk without pain not knowing i had flat feet this year I've done my head to toe but my head ended up costing me more then i relaized.

Especially that one night in a bar i remembered the movie trilaier you must remember that, it reminded me of you and hurting you so my thoughts got stuck in bewteen loving you and seeing you hurt badly because of a fucking movie trilaier.

Now I'm stable but not fully recovered.

Keep an eye on my social media, i hate that you call me weak you don't even know how strong i am for putting up with mental health issues for 22 years and ultimately being destroyed... I like indie and alt because it's my safe music but i listen to anything from jazz to metal it depends on my mood but i didn't want to scare you off but if you looked at my playlists it's not like we both like the same things anyway deathgrips to hardstyle oh hardstyle 2012 headhunterz i wonder if you kept my music taste pdf now it's been destroyed by time.

I hate to admit it but I've tried dating but it's always you that it comes back to.

When someone asks about forrest gump and i explain that life is unplanned but you go where the wind takes you and i wanted to say my wind is a girl that loved me even if she didn't know everything about me but knew enough to say she knew i was troubled.

Unfortunately she tried to help me but now it's psychologists unpick my brain I tried to explain things but people don't understand my words...

I wish you were holding my hand but i can feel it from afar.

No matter how far i am no matter how close i wanted what's best for you and it came across in all the wrong ways, mental health issues and autism combo...

I cared so much about us that I told myself i was the reason you were sad and dragged down so i left, you couldn't see it but i was fighting myself.

Now I'm home and rebuilding awaiting more tests and intake for a program, I wish my country had better mental health systems but I've been low priority because I'm not at harm to myself because i made you a promise and harm to others i explain what happened and they don't care.

If only you could see what's going on behind the screen. But i know your smart, but i know I'm currently a fucking retard.

If only we had a normal relationship building bridges would be easier but now i relaize the only way we could of was digital again but i told you to ignore me because i was starting to feel things i hadn't in years such as happiness and love and ultimately the bad side of my mental health came back..

I guess i learnt we have to be more careful.

I blame myself for this because i lied to you.

I broke my rules i had in place but maybe there had to be new rules...

There's so much i could tell you.

A

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[thedreadvampy]

Like idk what you want from me here. If you want to engage me in a specific question about ace/aro identities, as I've said several times and nobody has ever actually done, then ask me the specific question. Don't fuck around with vague gestures at Points of Discourse and then get cross with me because I haven't answered the Exact Question you Didn't Ask But Expected Me To Intuit.

Preface: If you don't want to answer any of these because you are allo/allo and don't have a say because its not your place, say that. In fact, I'm asking these because you seem to do have opinions on things you shouldn't based off things you have said in the past.

I also want to state that I agree fully with your points about Martin- minus the blatant aphobia. Not just acephobia, arophobia as well.

1. Do you think qprs are problematic? I believe you once made a post saying roughly that qprs are just normal friendships, or something like that, that has since been deleted. What is your current opinion?

2. Are het aros lgbt?

3. Are het aces lgbt?

4. Cis aro/aces lgbt?

5. Cishet aro/aces?

6. Do the spectrums and micro identities exist? You've implied in the past they don't, in the post about how they were supposedly created from sex positivity

7. Can aros be in or desire romantic relationships?

8. Can aces have or desire sex?

9. Does the split attraction model exist and does it benefit people?

10. Can teenagers identify as aro/ace or do you think they're too young?

11. Can you be, say, an aroace lesbian, or an aroace gay, aroace bi, etc. Idk how to phrase this one but like can you be aroace and still id with another orientation?

I could send another anon detailing the aphobia in the post, because I at least am certainly not upset about Martin being sexual, rather it was the very blatant aphobia. It could have stemmed from ignorance, and if that's the case I don't mind explaining it.

Ok this is a lot of questions, some with quite involved answers, so I'm gonna answer them chunk by chunk so it's a bit more manageable, and then I might come back to some of the surrounding message. This isn't gonna be an immediate bang bang bang, but I'll try and work through them over the next couple of days.

Question 1

1. No, I don't think qprs are problematic. I don't necessarily understand them but I don't need to understand them to understand and respect that they're a thing that's important to a lot of people. I don't know what post you're referring to, but I'm surprised that you say it was deleted, because I very rarely delete posts except, occasionally, reblogs where people have flagged up misinformation or dogwhistles or which I reblogged by accident. tbh I'm the messiest online presence I'm way too lazy to delete past posts or block people even when I probably should bc I don't like to feel like I'm ~hiding evidence~. So I'm not saying you're wrong, you're probably totally right, but I'm surprised.

I'm thinking about what posts I've made that you could be thinking of, and obviously I don't remember everything I say on here bc I say A Lot and I actively post to get things out of my head so 🤷‍♀️ but I do remember making a post a while ago where I said that it was a normal expectation of friendship to have some friends close enough that you'll live with them, raise kids with them, etc, and I'm wondering if that was the post you're thinking of? I did have qprs in mind while writing that to a degree, but only because I think 'you wouldn't do this with your friends' is a very common argument people put forward about qprs and I think it's a weak argument, because many people have different definitions of friendship, and the only argument I think is needed for any sort of I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing is...I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing. Like you can't offer a universal materialist definition of the differences between romantic, queerplatonic, sexual and platonic relationships, because the boundaries are very personal and it's really an emotional and experiential difference. so if that is the post you're thinking of, I wasn't criticising The Concept Of QPRs as much as saying that I thought trying to put hard lines around What Friends Do Vs What QPPs Do was a) counterproductive when arguing with someone who thinks QPR is Just Normal Friendships bc. if they do those things with their friends then saying NO THIS IS A QPR THING just reinforces their existing belief that you're talking about the same thing as they mean by friendships and b) to me seems to set a painful expectation to young people that you can only get these kinds of close friendships occasionally and in the form of a QPR and it will be stigmatised and misunderstood (and depending on how people talk about it, is only accessible to aspec people and allo people should only expect it to come through romantic/sexual relationships), when in fact most people of most ages I know have friends with whom they can share things like housing, deep feelings, futures, finances, who they miss if they don't see for a few days, who are mutually supportive and vital to their wellbeing. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with the existence of QPRs though - like I personally don't know what the difference is between a QPR and a close friendship, but I also don't know what the difference is between a romantic relationship and a close friendship but I know there is one and I know it's not a question of What You Do but a question of How You Feel And Interact, and that's pretty hard to define in unambiguous terms.

Like generally I don't Not Think QPRs exist, and I think it's a dick move to try and tell people they're wrong about how they experience and define their relationships because???? how are you meant to know that better than the person whose relationship it is??? but I do think the way people talk about QPRs (both from the perspective of defending them and from the perspective of attacking them) is pretty rife with problems and I don't think it's invalidating the reality of QPRs to talk about where the arguments and language around them potentially falls down or has unexpected consequences.

On the other hand, I don't know if that actually is the post you're referring to - the reason I'm calling back to that is that that and a few resultant asks are the only time I remember talking about QPRs on here in the last year or so. So like, several of these questions reference past posts, which is very fair, but I do need it to be clear that, since I don't really tag anything and I don't have a great memory, I can only really speak to What I Think Now In This Context, not to what I posted in the past and what I was thinking when I posted it. Like, this isn't too deny responsibility - I reckon I'm responsible for what I post even if I don't still agree with it, which is why I don't tend to delete my own posts on purpose - but just to deny capacity, I guess? I don't really KNOW what I've posted so if you talk about it in vague terms (and I do understand that if it's been deleted there's not a lot you can do but that) I may not necessarily be responding to the part of it that's worried you, so if I'm not speaking to something specific I've said or done, it's not because I Don't Want To, I just don't necessarily know to.

I'm waffling about this because looking through your messages there's a lot of "you said X" and like. given that the intended message of the post that's kicked this off was very different to the message people have taken from it, it feels important to me to know whether if I looked at the posts you're referencing I'd be like "ah yeah I did believe that but now I believe X" or if it's more a situation of "oh right I can see how you took X from that but my thinking was more Y".

(also sometimes when people say "you made a post" they mean "you reblogged a post" and I am a compulsive discourse scroller so sometimes I reblog a random post to bookmark my place on someone's discourse blog or I accidentally longpress the reblog button while scrolling - I try to delete reblogs that I don't agree with but sometimes I miss some, all of which to say if there's a post on my blog that doesn't seem to reflect what I say in my original posts then it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a crypto-whatever so much as I'm very lazy and messy with my blog. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for reblogs but it's useful to know if we're talking original content or reblogs bc I'm unlikely to fully accidentally make a post. but I quite often accidentally reblog stuff. I doubt this is the case with this sitch just bc of your phrasing but I want to cover my bases)

anyway tl;dr: no I don't believe that QPRs themselves are inherently problematic, nor do I think I have at any point believed that, but I do think that a lot of the language and ideas used to talk about them are based in miscommunication or absolutist ideas about relationships and can have damaging knock on effects.