#if you want to engage in negative discourse

[420pogpills]

i really really do not want to engage in further discourse or atleast i want to keep it away from the timeline so please if you want to have more discussions - please come off anon so i can reply to you privately. i'm happy to talk about things and what not, but i don't want to put more negative talks on my dash so no more anons for neg discourse please please please ❤️

[lucienarcheron]

I’ve gotten a few anons since I started doing my rereads (which is weird because I’ve done them before, it was just on my other account that many if not most of the same people interact with) but to be clear: I am anti no one of the acotar series. I genuinely like all of them though some more than others but like…guys, pls. they’re not real people ily but you don’t have to defend their honor in my inbox. I see you and I love your love for these morons but I don’t want to hear how much you hate so-and-so because you love so-and-so. You do you and I love that for you but I beg, leave me out of it 😅

[lord-squiggletits]

It kinda sucks how Optimus Prime is a character who people (in real life) expect to be so Indubitably Good All The Time that they immediately shut down and refuse to acknowledge him whenever he does bad things or fucks up. Like I don't think I've seen any other character in this fandom get the same instantly negative reaction/never talk about him ever treatment that IDW Optimus gets.

Like, it's either him being a cop or the annexation of Earth. But instead of actually engaging with the story and going "so how does being a cop affect the way he treats and is treated by others" or "what led Optimus to annex Earth and how is this a reflection of his ultimately heroic ideal to treat organics as equal to Cybertronians despite the historical racism of his species"

people just instantly shut down and go "oh he's an asshole, he's stupid, he's not my Optimus, he's a bastard, he's edgy" etc etc and refuse to even like fuckin talk about him

It's so incredibly childish lmao especially when the IDW1 continuity in particular is already rife with characters who are also assholes that do stupid/regrettable things but people have no problems talking about/analyzing their stories.

My kingdom for a fandom that's willing to talk about IDW Optimus without immediately shutting down and just going "he's bad he's a bastard he sucks"

[juice-enjoyer]

being on tumblr more and seeing literally no discourse has made me realize

1. how much I need to do a serious purge of my twitter timeline

2. how fucking irritating my twitter tl is

[lunar-wandering]

every time i open tumblr i end up seeing a post or something or other that triggers my intrusive thoughts again. i really wanna come back but it’s becoming really difficult to manage to open up this site and feel happy about being here.

[smp-live]

literally it does not matter if twitter users come here, it does not matter if they start discourse or act cringy, just block and do not engage 😭 the only thing that matters is if enough of them come and complain about the way the site works that staff changes it but I highly doubt the people wanting an algorithm or whatever are gonna be sticking around long enough to make that happen

[incomingalbatross]

Are you going to watch rings of power? I’m enjoying your recaps of other things and thoughts on the episodes

Thank you! I appreciate you saying that. :) But, regarding Rings of Power... yeah no, absolutely not.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't watch it even if I were hearing good things about it, because Tolkien is one of those things where I don't really want adaptations for my own enjoyment--I just stick to the books mainly. Since it also doesn't sound like a good show, though, I don't want to watch it and I don't want to give it views, so I'm doubly turned off.

...And even if I did watch it I probably wouldn't want to post about it, actually, because it's got enough ill-will and controversy around it that it's basically a Discourse Topic. I make it a general policy to avoid Discourse Topics on Tumblr if I can. :P

[rutadales]

in this fandom why is being drolo/drolo leaning acceptable but being a golo/sapolo gets you cancelled?

girl why did u send this twice 4 minutes apart and also to a foolish blog

[mistergreatbones]

I am graduating in two weeks I will not engage in discourse. I am graduating in two week I need to focus on finals. My degrees will worth more than being right online. I will not engage in discourse. I will not engage. I will not.

But I want to 😟

[nothorses]

I noticed that you reposted something that is along the lines of proship

I agree with leaving media alone but I think its incredibly disgusting when people ship, for example siblings, because what it feels to me is that they have an incest fetish or something

I know just because someone writes about murder doesnt mean they support it, and I believe that. but usually when people write about murder it's in a negative context, obviously showing how it is so incomprehensible to outsiders about how someone could do that, or showing how we need to get these people help.

trying to apply this to, for example, incest, if someone ships an incestuous relationship then it seems like it would be in a good context, and it seems like they support it should it be in real life. that's how I view this all. (itd be different if they shipped siblings as a strange headcanon and talking about how it's bad... this reasoning I can understand the most to the point where I can let myself ignore it)

how am I supposed to learn to not care? especially when they are really outward about it?

okay.

I do not participate in shipping discourse because I do not participate in shipping. I'm not really In Fandom anymore like, generally. I don't... care.

Because of this I had literally no idea what you were referring to in this ask. I had to scroll. So far back. To get to this post, which also doesn't refer to shipping discourse.

I also have not talked about incest here, and the post in question doesn't talk about incest.

It's about murder. And gore. Which you say here is fine.

Literally why did you send me this ask.

And like... there's a fair chance this is just bait, and there's also enough of a chance that you're genuinely asking that, like, fuck it. I'm gonna get shit no matter what I do, so I may as well try to do a little good.

You use the words "feels" and "seems" a lot in this ask. And I'm really glad you did, actually, because I think it's honest; you're operating on your feelings and assumptions, and that's really important to keep in mind.

And your feelings on this are valid! It's normal to be uncomfortable with certain content, and it's normal to not want to see or engage in it. You don't need to feel any differently about those things. You don't have to consume incestuous content, you don't have to be okay with it, and you don't have to be around it.

But ask yourself: you assume that other people engaging in this content means they support it in real life, but what if they don't? What if you're wrong?

Maybe they're saying it's wrong in a way you're just not picking up on, or that you don't recognize. Maybe they aren't saying it's wrong; maybe it's in the context. Maybe it's in a genre trope in a genre you're not familiar with. Maybe it's irony or satire that you aren't picking up on. Maybe they aren't saying it at all, but that's still what they think, and they just chose not to put it in that content for... who knows what reason. Maybe they're literally just bad at writing.

What then?

Sometimes you're going to feel or assume that something is going on, and you're just gonna be wrong. And you could ask who's fault that is- did you fail to pick up on something you should have been able to, or did they fail to communicate it well enough?- but like, what are you going to do with that information?

Sometimes people are not very good at literary analysis, and sometimes people are not very good at writing, and that's just part of learning. Do we tell everyone not to attempt to talk about certain topics unless they're "good enough" to do it "right"? How do we know when someone's "good enough", and how do they get to that point without practice? Do we just ban those topics altogether? What topics do we ban- where's the line? How do we enforce it? How do we prevent that from being weaponized against marginalized people?

Anon, you asked me how you can "not care" about these things existing. And I think that's a valid question; you feel there is injustice, and you want to stop it. That can be a very noble impulse, and it can be harnessed for a lot of good.

But it can also be really, really toxic- not just to the people you hurt because you act on assumptions and impulses that are incorrect, but to yourself. You can't control everything. You can't control how other people feel, whether or how they engage in certain topics, or what they do or say. You just can't. And trying, or wanting to try, or thinking you should try- it's going to drive you nuts.

So here's how not to care:

Remind yourself that you might be wrong. Take a moment to think about all the things you don't know for certain, and the things you would need to know to be absolutely, 100% sure that you're right.

Consider how important this is to you. How close is this person to you? How important is this issue? What would it feel like to let this go- would it continue to impact you? Do you have other options? (removing yourself from the situation, blocking tags/posts/people, etc.)

Consider what you can do, and what you should do. Think about the tools at your disposal, the power you have in this situation, and how likely this person is to listen to you. Think about whether those tools are ethical. Again, what if you're wrong? Is there any reason you might regret your actions?

If you still feel like it's worth addressing, start by asking questions. Make sure you really know what's going on, and if (and when) the situation changes with new information, walk through this process again. Repeat back what you believe is happening until they confirm that you're right, decide again whether this is worth it, and then proceed.

Sometimes it's more effective to just vent to someone else, or to make a post about the issue generally without confronting that person- especially considering your assumptions might be wrong! Maybe it's worth it to talk about what you thought was happening, but you don't know that what you thought was happening is what was actually happening. You can still talk about it, just, y'know, without making it an attack on someone else.

And again, I don't give a shit about fandom discourse. This is important to me because these are themes that crop up in regular-ass media all the time, and disagreements that crop up in regular-ass relationships with friends and family and loved ones. I think it's important that people have the skills to navigate disagreements, unintentional harm, and perceived slights in healthy, productive ways.

You can't live your whole life demanding that everyone agree with you on everything, or blaming other people for everything you misinterpret or assume incorrectly. You cannot assume that everything that hurts you was designed to hurt you. You can recognize that these are assumptions and feelings, and that's great! And I hope you're being honest when you say that you want to learn to let things go.

[everliving-everblaze]

Tips for Engaging in Fandom

Here are my tips for engaging with fandom in a productive and healthy way, from someone who has been in the KotLC fandom for seven years.

When engaging with other posts:

Block liberally. I block all confession/anonymous opinion blogs, as well as haters of my favorite characters and ships (and people who hate a lot in general).

Unfollow liberally, too. You can even break the mutual! Nothing is stopping you! I've stayed friends with people after unfollowing them, even.

Don't like, don't read. If something is upsetting you, move on. Don't feed it.

Filter tags you don't want to see. You can do this in Tumblr settings, and posts with those tags will be hidden on your dashboard. I mention a few below that might be a good place to start.

When posting yourself and interacting with other people:

Tag your discourse and negativity. That way, other people can filter it out. The main tag is #kotlc discourse, but some other used formats are #anti [X], #[X] neg, and #[X] hate. For example, #anti alina.

Take a break before replying or posting. It's not going to go well if you respond when you're upset.

When in doubt, ask. Ask if you understand correctly what their post meant. Ask if they like to debate or would rather not. Ask if they're okay with joking insults. Ask if they'll use a tag for you.

A kind person will generally appreciate a respectful question, and if they're not kind, it's probably best to block them.

Ultimately, remember you can't control other people. You can make requests of them, but it's up to you to use these methods to get rid of things you don't want to see.

I hope to have a fun time with all of you!

[thorniest-rose]

Hi everyone,

A lot’s happened over the last few days and I know that I’ve been under a lot of scrutiny and the subject of conversation, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about it with you. I didn't address it last week when I was told that people in the fandom were posting about me and sharing screenshots of my blog. This was to protect my mental health, but now I want to share my own thoughts.

It's really hard not to lash out in situations like this because of how much it hurts. To go through something like this is shocking and humiliating, it rips the ground up from under your feet. But I didn't want to go on the attack because I knew how much worse that would make things. No matter how opinionated I am, conflict makes me feel sick and makes me want to hide. So instead of lashing out, I've done a lot of thinking over the past few days, not just about what's happened to me, but about things I've done and what could have led to this.

Firstly, I want to apologise to everyone whose feelings I may have hurt when I posted certain things in the past. I want any space that I cultivate to be a happy, positive one for the people who spend time here and at times I think I’ve unintentionally created an atmosphere that has felt combative or alienating. I honestly never consider myself to be a well-known writer or someone whose voice has reach in the wider fandom. No matter how many followers I have or how many people read my fics, I always see myself as a girl just spending time on her tumblr, but that's naive and I should have recognised that in a shared space, all opinions are seen and have an impact. 

Discourse is my least favourite thing about interacting in fandom and there have been times where I’ve let myself be drawn into it. That doesn’t mean it’s ever okay to look down on what other people enjoy and I really regret posting those things now because that’s not who I am as a person. Expressing displeasure and other negative feelings isn’t what I want to engage in and I should remember how easy it is for flippant, spur of the moment comments to be taken out of context. Saying things like “I don’t like this” even on my own blog is immature and beneath me and I’m genuinely sorry.  

I am also in no way any sort of authority on how these characters are written, no one is. A fandom is for everyone. I’m passionate and vocal in my own space because I treat my tumblr as a slumber party with my friends, but in my enthusiasm, there have been times where it seems like I’m saying my characterisations are the only valid ones. I don’t think that’s the case at all, and I genuinely love and admire the creativity in this fandom. I’ve said this before, but just because I have preferences doesn’t mean I want every characterisation to be the same as mine because that would become extremely dull. I believe that any and all interpretations should have an audience.

However, while I take responsibility for the things I've said on my blog, the things that have been said about me in response have been extremely spiteful and damaging. I never wanted a war with anyone. I should know better than to court discourse in such a volatile fandom, even inadvertently. To take issue with me and what I said is fine, I accept the criticism and apologise; at times my comments have been juvenile and mean-spirited. But a group of people targeting me, screenshotting my posts, calling me names and attacking what I write isn’t proportionate at all and encourages a wider pack mentality. I think we should all remember that there is an actual person behind the screen reading the things that we post and that our words can cause real harm. It’s easy to dehumanise an avatar and a username. And I think it speaks to a rot at the heart of fandoms that so many people find pleasure in fighting and where feelings can fester into hatred and vitriol.

I am outspoken and passionate about what I love. I sometimes bristle at things I see that don’t gel with my ideas or at a misjudged tone, and I post about them instead of seeing the bigger picture and moving on. It’s a flaw and something I’m working on, to be more open and less reactive. I don’t want fighting or tension, and I don’t want rivalries. I also don’t ever want to make people feel like their characterisations are wrong/invalid/unworthy or that they themselves don’t belong and that I’m some kind of fandom queen bee trying to ice them out. While that’s genuinely never been my intention, I can see how things have been taken that way and I’m sorry for that too.

Again, I’m sorry to everyone I’ve hurt or alienated with comments that I’ve made. I always want to be kind and compassionate. And while I don’t think what’s happened over the past few days is OK, I can see the bigger picture and why things I’ve said, or the atmosphere I’ve cultivated, has planted seeds of resentment. I've also unblocked the person who's been posting about me, if they want to reach out to talk privately.

I know there are people reading this who have been following me for the past four years, and in that time have seen me struggle, and fall down, and make mistakes, but hopefully grow and learn from those mistakes too. I’m so grateful to you all.

I’m going to take a break from tumblr for a week or so, to spend time away from socials, to connect with friends and other passions and focus on self-care. And to write, of course, because I’ll always be writing, whether it’s here or elsewhere.

See you all soon,

Brooke 💕

[foone]

Alright, listen up:

We need to stop with the anti-rooting attitude for brainpals, alright? You're just doing mnemonocorps job for them. Cut out the discourse about people with modded brainpals, for TF's sake.

(scifi worldbuilding by way of fictional Tumblr discourse under the cut)

There's tons of valid reasons for by people would hack their brainpals! Testing new memory/skills without paying for a dev kit, piracy of skills (and do not @ me with that "but you're stealing from the original skill creator!" bullshit. All the legit skills on the market now are from people who did work for hire by mnemonocorps, and THEY ALREADY WERE PAID. It's only mnemonocorps that is losing money!), home ptsd/cptsd/jptsd treatment, the list is endless.

And before you jump into the comments, YES I KNOW PEOPLE DO SEXUAL MEMORY PLAY. People do every kind of weird shit, name me a technology that no one has used for sex in some way? Hell, the first topless photo was taken within a week of the invention of the daguerreotype. But we need to be adults here, okay? These things can be simultaneously true:

1. People do memory play

2. No kids have memorypals

3. The vast major of memory play is NOT VP.

Mnemonocorps has done a lot of work to try to keep people from using brainpals for memory pal, with their artificial limits on how much you can block at once, but that's fundamentally an over reaction to the negative press from the whole VP scandal. The news loves a juicy story like "people are using a new technology for weird sex shit" because their readers/viewers are always interested in Weird Sex Shit, either because "ooh, sexy!" or "BAN THIS FILTH" reactions.

And like all big companies, the last thing mnemonocorps wants is a new law aimed specifically at regulating them! So they stuck a bunch more restrictions on brainpals so they could say they have taken steps to prevent VP.

Now, I need you to listen to me before I say this: I am NOT saying I condone VP, alright? I'm not going like "oh but no one is hurt, everyone is (technically) adults, it's basically roleplay"? This is not an excuse for VP, alright?

Memory play is not just VP, and it's deeply insulting to everyone who engages in memory play to conflate the two!

The reasons people would do memory play are many and varied, as are the things that people do with memory play. And I think people are extra quick to jump on the "memory play is bad" bandwagon not just because of the spectre of VP, but because it's all "eww, kinky sex things".

And yes, I'm not going to try to sugarcoat memory play, alright? There's a lot of weird stuff going on there, and it definitely isn't for everyone. But the thing y'all need to keep in mind is that it's between consensual adults and they (usually*) know what they're doing, okay?

It's safe and mind healthy and consensual. (yes I know these are the same arguments the veepers use to definite VP but I'm not talking about VP here, damn it!).

People can do CNC play with mblocks. People can do roleplay with temporary personality patches, either because they're too awkward/shy/whatever to have sex or because they (or their partners) want to do some vcheating. All these are perfectly safe if done correctly and don't hurt anyone. Especially not you, who aren't even involved in their memory play!

And I promise the slippery slope argument is bullshit: even if people use mblocks to age regress, that doesn't make it VP, alright? There's plenty of people (especially us elderly trans who missed out on a gender-correct early adulthood. (I wasn't able to get genespliced until I was nearly 60!). If I want to experience how my 25-year-old self would have had sex as a girl, that's my own god damn business! And it's not VP and it hurts no one. And all these non-vp uses of memory play are completely blocked by the stock brainpal software, because of their heavy handed approach to trying to prevent VP.

But with this whole stigma against hacking brainpals means that if I ever even mention I've got mine modded, people immediately start side-eying me because they think the only reason anyone would want to hack their brainpal is VP.

No! Piracy of skills and mblocks and yes, memory play. Which isn't entirely VP, even if it keeps getting tarred with that brush.

The piracy argument you'd think would be an easier one to make. I know half of you have all the PS6 ROMs downloaded onto your tangles. How are you gonna steal half the video games on the iarchive and then turn around and say it's wrong to download fluent-Japanese or woodworking to your brainpal? Come on.

Basically my whole point is that mnemonocorps has done a great job convincing the general public to associate illicit (by their rules) brainpal use with VP, and it's solely because they know the average person (rightly, I would add) thinks VP is abhorrent. They're using that disgust to turn the general opinion against the idea of brainpal modding.

And look, look me in my eye, do you really think mnemonocorps is doing this because they genuinely think VP is bad and want the public to help them stop it by shunning people who hack their brainpals? Or is it, just maybe, because they don't want to lose trillions of n$ on skill piracy? And they're just using VP as an excuse?

It's like, come on gals. No one ever went broke assuming companies are acting out of the most basic capitalistic greed, because THEY ALWAYS ARE.

And don't get me started on the people clitriding mnemonocorps for inventing the brainpal in the first place. Look, we all love the brainpal, yes, but it's not like you owe them endless loyalty over it, okay? They can and have done wrong in the past. Accept that you can love the work and hate the company trying to control it.

(it's like: is Thomas Chellae an abusive asshole who should not be out of crimrehab? Yes of course, no question. Is Shadowed Skies the best album of the last 30 years? Also yes! It can be both! Bad people can make good things)

Anyway: end of the day, stop bringing up VP every time anything involving brainpal modding comes up. Don't judge people for modding their brainpals.

(especially since half the problem people have with memory play isn't VP, it's just y'all being antisex. Which is bullshit given how many people subscribe to those "expert oral sex" skills! You're using your brainpal to have better sex, then turning around and going "but I'd never use it for WEIRD sex!". Grow TF the fuck up!)

Also, just because I know someone would bring it up, the whole mind control thing is A MYTH. There have never been any legitimate cases of people getting hacked through their brainpals, hacked or not, okay? I mean, who knows what the nsa or uhsa can do, but no one has ever been able to demonstrate a remote hack on a brainpal. Anyone being "mind controlled" through their brainpal did it to themselves, either with a ppatch or intentionally routing their admin to someone else. "you'll get hacked and turned into a bpZombie!" is a bullshit reason to be against brainpal hacking: it simply does not happen. I used to be a rengineer, I've looked into the brainpal security: it's well done!

* Yeah, Adrian Reach was a tragic case, but it was definitely a million-to-one case. Make your backups, run the ccheck, and don't try to mblock your whole damn life on a failing bp! You'll be fine.

EDIT: I forgot to elaborate on the "no kids have brainpals" thing: yes, I know there are some kids who do have them, BUT they're not the same as regular brainpal installs. They're only done in some extreme cases of mental distress (like survivors of the cWar) and they're locked down. Only their doctor can adjust them, it's not like regular consumer brainpals where you can just fiddle with the settings themselves. So all this memory play stuff we're talking about is only between adults. REAL adults, alright? Even when people are doing VP, everyone involved is of age.

[asexualityinhistory]

Welcome back!

Today I will discuss “CHAPTER IV Gender and Asexuality in Academic Sources” by Petra Filipová. Today's post will shine a light on how asexuality has been addressed in the past. Following the outline of the previous post, I will provide a summary of the material as it may not be accessible to the public. I highly recommend exploring this source if you have access through your school, university, or other means. It references several resources that go into great depths of today's material and are beneficial in an academic stance and in personal interest.

Richard von Krafft-Ebing provided research or a study on sexualities. in doing so, he considered asexuality and physical/sexual dysfunction and gave it the term anaesthesia sexualis meaning the lack of sexual feeling. It was not considered a sexual identity and was often treated as a physical illness. Outside of this, asexuality, along with other sexualities, were diagnosed as mental illnesses. There were strides made to find a link between sexuality/sexual behaviors and mental illness. Such treatments and diagnoses were apparent in and around the 1880's (Krafft-Ebing published his research in 1886).

Filipová then addresses Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Reports. As a refresher or as newly learned information for some, the Kinsey Reports were made to create a scale of sexuality from 0 to 6, 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 being completely homosexual. Asexuality had no place on this scale and Kinsey made it its own category termed "X". One way to look at this is alienation of a group of people, which fed into the negative connotations of asexuality known today. After a later review, the Kinsey Report showed that women were more likely to be asexual compared to men.

Although there is no clear data on why this is, this source does provide some assumptions or speculations. The main argument was how societal pressures were presented during different historical points. It was often expected for men and women to be 'coupled up'. Women were most likely expected to engage in romantic and intimate relationships with men as our society has always been heavily heteronormative.

One particularly intriguing section is Asexuality in Diagnostics. This section discusses how our society was and is considered hypersexual. Continuing the discussion from above, asexuality was deemed a mental disorder as well as a sexual disorder. The diagnoses within the diagnostics were different for men and women. They were put on a scale of asexuality where women were assumed to experience "a lifelong lack of sexual desire". Whereas men were expected to eventually "be a man" and be sexual. In the past and the present we see the expectation of men to be sexual because that is what defines a man in the eyes of our society.

This chapter also has a section on discourse on asexuality. I encourage you to take a look if you have access as there are multiple discourses regarding the study and understanding of asexuality. For those who may not have access to the material, I will provide a brief summary of the section. The many surveys and other discourse material had flaws that were not taken into account to create fully reliable data. Certain studies did not take into account other gender identities such as non-binary. This mistake left out a potentially key group in their demographics. Filipová includes one study done by Brotto and Yule in 2011 the ‘Physiological and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Self-Identified Asexual Women’. I want to specifically mention this study because it is different and addresses a matter that some may not consider. Brotto and Yule hypothesized that regardless of sexual orientation, women would experience sexual arousal from an erotic film. The concluding results of the study proved that their hypothesis was true. They stated that asexuality is not a lack of sexual arousal but rather a difference in sexual response. These results show that asexuality is less of a dysfunction than it is made out to be.

This source provides multiple resources and insights into the historical research and studies of asexuality, making it an excellent reference. Societal expectations have led to a near alienation of acceptance of asexuality. Such expectations include gender roles/stereotypes, heteronormativity, and hypersexualization. This source provides insight into how research and studies have been used to define and better understand asexuality while acknowledging limitations and room for improvement.

This post is a continuation of defining and understanding asexuality in its historical and modern context. The significance of asexuality will continue to be examined in later posts. The next post will discuss a different perspective of asexuality once more. Thank you for following along and feel free to share your insights!

Bibliography:

Petra Filipová. “Gender and Asexuality in Academic Sources.” In Gender in Focus: Identities, Codes, Stereotypes and Politics, edited by Andreea Zamfira, Christian de Montlibert, and Daniela Radu, 1st ed., 108–22. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvddzn5f.7.

[pixiecaps]

Helloo QSMPblr and new people watching Purgatory for the first time! Heres a friendly reminder since Purgatory 2 is starting soon. Please do not tag your liveblogs or posts regarding Purgatory under the QSMP tag. This is to be considerate of others in our community who will not be watching Purgatory and do not want to engage with any of this events content as it can get stressful. And additionally to avoid filling the main tag with posts that don’t have anything to do with the QSMP itself as the event and server will be running at the same time. This also makes archiving and searching for specific posts easier! Please remember to be respectful to others and to tag your posts properly.

Instead you can use the tag “QPurgatory 2”. Avoiding the use of the word QSMP is the most important part. This is so it does not filter into the main tag. Tags like “QSMP Purgatory” will do that so please avoid using tags like those. Moreover, tag any negativity, discourse, or critical posts during the Purgatory event as this is basic Tumblr etiquette. Be mindful of the people in this community and what you are saying.

And for those who will not be assisting Purgatory 2 there is always people who don’t tag properly so use that filtering and block feature liberally. <3

[genderkoolaid]

I understand if this is not the kind of ask you usually get, but you sometimes post about youthlib so. How would one deal with disliking their peers and some slightly younger people as a young adult? I logically know that no age group is a monolith but I just mean, interacting a lot with people of my age and somewhat younger has really disillusioned me, I don't seem to find any happiness in being around most of them. I sometimes think of my own being a relatively young adult as negative. Im aplatonic and don't want friends and I was miserable when I tried to make myself make friends mainly with peers.

I only talk to people for specific reasons but may just generally joke around with them or make small talk briefly without forming a bond. My partners are mostly somewhat slightly older than me, but one is my age, and I like all of them more than I like other people. Other people I generally just see neutrally and don't wish for them to come to harm.

I think Ive often been annoyed by my peers due to not fitting in and sometimes being treated in toxic or abusive/bullying kind of ways by peers, or from sensory issues because they all talk so much you could probably hear them from another floor. I think its things like that that make me generally unable to feel positive about my peers, along with seeing so many rancid discourse takes online come from the young adults and teenager age groups.

And I understand how being around my age makes people vulnerable to harmful ideology too but its so tiring to see a shit take then see like '22' or '17' on the persons bio.

(Im 21 for reference)

I think it's important to recognize that our emotions and our political philosophies are not tied together. You don't need to feel the right feelings in order to advocate for youth liberation. If you accept these ideas intellectually, and you are cognizant of your emotions and how they affect you, then you can make the choice to not let those emotions shape your actions.

It's important to engage with people outside your age group (or the age group you spend the most time around), but that doesn't need to be friendship. It's alright to engage with others in your communities without wanting friendship. You know, intellectually, that there are young people who are quiet, not interested in friendship, have nuanced opinions on things, etc. It's good to expose yourself to proof of this, but you don't have to do that through feelings of love and friendship.

The Internet is full of shitty opinions and youth, so obviously you are going to see a lot of youth with shitty opinions. But there's plenty of adults with shitty opinions, and youth with solid ones. Confirmation bias is a tricky bitch. I would recommend focusing less on how you feel, & more about how you act. Don't pressure yourself to like your peers or befriend people when it makes you miserable. Put that energy into talking about ageism, fighting KOSA laws, and consciously combatting your own bias. Accept that you feel what you feel, ask yourself what you value, and then find what harmonizes those two.