#shockingly most people are just misinformed

[chimaerabutt]

If you’re afraid of reading anything written by anyone with conflicting views to you because you think consuming media of “the enemy” will lead to thoughtcrime, you should perhaps do some deep thinking on the religious trauma you still need to deconstruct, and examine why you have replaced religious dogmatism with an ideological dogmatism your belief in is somehow so fragile that simply reading the wrong thing could shatter it.

It is important to read things, even doctrine heavy manifestos, by those ideologically opposed to you. It is important to understand their viewpoint and the people that wrote them.

Understanding is NOT agreeing with. Reading is NOT agreeing with. If you do not understand, do you even know what you are opposing? If you do not understand what you oppose, do you even know what YOU believe?

The less you understand those you are against, the less you understand about their beliefs, the shakier your own arguments, the more susceptible you are to propaganda, and moreover, the more likely you are to Other them. Normal human beings are capable of absolutely terrible things. YOU are no less capable of absolutely terrible things because you think the Right Thoughts ™️

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Do not cling to political ideology as though it is a new religious doctrine with its own forms of “Sin”.

Important and Good are not synonyms. Many important things are terrible.

They are still important.

[sophieinwonderland]

The hatesub r/systemscringe are being full-on transphobes again!

Reminder: a huge number of systems have alters and headmates with completely different genders and sexes from the body.

Anyone who has ever studied any type of multiplicity is aware of this fact.

And not-so-shockingly, this makes gender complicated.

Let's just see the screenshots they're angry at today.

So the body has transitioned to male but this one headmate identifies as female and identifies as a trans woman.

In another screenshot, the system says they aren't "invading trans spaces." Which is such an absurd thing to have to defend yourselves from accusations of when you're a part of a trans system.

Even if you do take the position that spaces for transwomen should be exclusionary AFAB people, one would at least expect the male headmates to be able to feel safe in the trans community without being made to feel like they're "invaders."

Unfortunately, many pluralphobes and queer exclusionists have decided the gender identity of headmates in systems is less valid than that of singlets.

This is another pretty common thing. Especially with introjects who have source memories. It's common to have memories of lives you may not have actually lived but still feel pretty real.

I did a Tumblr poll last year. About half of systems responding had at least one trans headmate with the same gender as the body's AGAB. Nearly all had cis headmates with the opposite gender of the body.

Of course, if you heard it from r/systemscringe, they must be faking being trans entirely!

And takes like this throw not just systems under the bus, but also people who are genderfluid or otherwise nonbinary as well.

And if you're thinking, "wow, that comment sounds like something truscum would say," you aren't wrong!

Here are some unrelated posts this same user has authored:

Back to r/systemscringe, most of the comments were more of the same, stopping just short of calling them transtrenders but clearly very much wanting to!

By the way, all the censors on the names of the system and alters were mine. u/superthrowawayEEE censored nothing. When a user points this out, moderator u/DizkoLites says they considered taking it down but chose not to, saying their name was common enough that it wouldn't matter.

To be fair, the mods did end up taking it down... after the system got harassed for their gender and contacted the subreddit directly.

So congrats on waiting until after the harassment to enforce your own rules!

But don't worry, you're free to make a brand new post mocking someone for their gender identity! r/systemscringe's mod team is totally cool with that! Just gotta hide the name because that's apparently the only problem here!🙄

(You know, unless they're on the mod-approved hit list. Then you can name them too no matter how much harassment they get.)

The other day, someone asked this question on the hatesub:

Here's the answer:

Stop being bigots.

Stop being ableists.

Stop spreading misinformation.

Stop mocking people for their genders.

Stop harboring truscum and parroting transphobic talking points!

Try to be decent human beings for once in your lives!

And then... well, I guess that wouldn't leave much of a subreddit would it? There's no r/systemscringe without ableism, transphobia and queer exclusionism. It's baked into the DNA of these groups.

But maybe that would be for the best.

Nothing from these cringe communities is salvageable. And nothing should be socially acceptable about groups founded on cyberbullying.

[a-beneficial-union]

Heya howdy, it’s my day off and hotter than sin out there, so instead of picking the grapes before we reach lethal temperatures (like a sensible person), I would like to procrastinate by rambling about an idea that’s been increasingly taking hold of my thoughts.

To put it simply, I think that Ben Tennyson, Rex Salazar, Danny Fenton, and Zak Saturday would be very interesting to compare and contrast in terms of their backgrounds and how their occupations are either matters of passion or functionally forced.

Ben and Rex are the most similar to one another in that they are deeply entrenched in the heart of organizations which can, and have repeatedly threatened, to severely punish them (through captivity or execution). They are both viewed as inherently irresponsible in spite of the fact that they show shocking maturity in how they act given their circumstances. Rex gets a bit more leeway in this, as his makeshift family (Dr. Holiday, Six, and the monkey) make compromises with him so that he can still live his life, the way any healthy relationship should allow for, and overall there is mutuality between this group’s members.

Ben, on the other hand, is lambasted constantly by the people he cares about for not being responsible enough, for not being constantly around. When you remember that he is a child (and later a teenager) working for a relative, it feels less like trying to teach him and more like trying to wring him out for all his worth. Moments where characters other than Rook show concern or regard to Ben are shockingly scarce, often reserved for climactic moments or as ways to demonstrate severity. I think Ben is seen hugging his grandfather one time per series, in spite of the fact that he’s demonstrated to enjoy physical affection and in spite of the fact that his grandfather is the sole generative figure actively in Ben’s life at this point. (Rex isn’t shown receiving much physical affection either, but in his case it feels like he prefers it that way?)

Danny and Zak both live in a part of larger organizations/communities which have threatened them, but it’s always clear that the people closest to them would never do them harm, and are very loving. There’s an entire episode dedicated to Maddie fussing over her son, trying to spend time with him (and having to protect him). Fenton Works might hate Phantom’s guts, but that’s because they’re misinformed due to some unfortunate scenes causing them to perceive Phantom as a threat. A lot of Maddie and Jack’s theatrics in the house about how they’ll take Phantom apart “molecule by molecule” starts feeling less like proclamations of aggression and more like wrongheaded attempts to comfort their children, one of whom is repeatedly seen fleeing at the sight of ghosts.

In regards to associations with peers, Ben and Danny were both ostracized (with Danny having a small friend group and Ben being part of a soccer team, who dump him without much hesitation) whereas Rex and Zak were isolated. Rex and Zak still had friends, but they were always long distance. Zak’s peers were most often species other than his own, generally his pets and the sentient bear-thing that is his adoptive brother (Fisk).

All four accidentally wound up in their respective fields due to family matters, with Rex and Zak becoming what they are very young (Zak being Kur from birth); Danny and Ben become what they are just after their formative years. That said, Ben is an Anodite descendent, which was from birth (the relevance of this varies based off of interpretation of canon), and he has a fair amount of close family who are nonhuman, all of whom are either implied or explicitly stated to have hidden their natures.

Onto deceit. Danny and Ben’s life orient around how well they can misdirect, confound, conceal, dissuade. Both were keeping their natures secret from the people close to them, including their housemates and families. They had two or so people who were aware of what they were or of their activities, and that’s it. For Danny, discovery is dangerous. With Ben, as aforementioned, a lot of the people in his life growing up were keeping pretty massive secrets from him. Was he truly ignorant, or did he clue in on the fact that no one could know? That would be a good explanation for why he’s so practiced in discretion and perfectly fine with not telling people what’s going on in his life. His grandfather and cousin knew right from the get go, but even then his grandfather was very obviously hiding things.

Zak’s family and family friends pretty much always knew what he could do and what he was up to. When he does start hiding things, it clearly pains him with guilt and he’s incredibly unskilled at covering up his activities. His parents know he’s up to something almost immediately, recognize that life has been stressful of late, and make the choice to give him some space while reminding him that they’re there for him.

Rex…doesn’t really hide things from Providence, at least not from what I can remember. He runs away at one point and the people in his life are talking to/at him over the phone the majourity of the time.

The subjects of Rex’s work often lack self awareness, being generally destructive because their bodies (and brains) have just been violently reshaped into large, dangerous beasts. His work is intervention and captivity.

Danny’s work is with more sentient beings; the undead and the effected living. Some are maliciously violent with premeditated plans to harm others since they’re no longer mortal, therefore can act lawlessly. Others are obsessive and unbidden, the abilities granted by their new existence drastically changing their capabilities compared to their much more fragile peers. It’s easy for such people to get carried away, and their undeath is broadly believed by the fandom to have given them all aggressive monomania. For them, they need to be either redirected, made aware of how their actions are effecting those around them, or be brought to safe places where they can continue on without putting others at risk. The last ghostly group are those who are aware of their deaths and are acting out. How should young Danny approach them? If they try for vengeance, are they not justified? (We see him point a group towards the one who wronged them at least once, when he steers a group of animals to the person who cruelly experimented and killed them.) At the same time, he has to navigate a world where people have seen the chaos brought by the ghosts and who would probably have some strong feelings on the matter. Some would be worshipful, others enraged as their homes and lives are desecrated. Valarie is shown loathing ghosts on principle and goes on to target the demographic as a whole, do we really think she’s the only one?

Zak’s subjects are, well…his subjects. He has inherited governance over a class of life collectively referred to as “cryptids” and whom he can twist the minds of. This ability extends only to what the subject is inclined to, but how far can that go? We see him and his family tempt subjects with external stimuli, granting him the opening to slip into their consciousness and persuade them to his will. He works exclusively in intervention and relegation, if it weren’t for his immense empathy and genuine desire for both the cryptids and humans to live peacefully, he could very easily abuse his position. He verges on this one time and it is the conflict of the episode, and it is something he is called on by those around him and which he quickly rectifies.

Ben’s lot is a more diverse bunch. While Zak’s focus is mostly on animal-adjacent creatures, a few being cognizant, Ben deals with people. He handles war, conflict, invasion, opportunistic cruelty, the beginnings and ends royal lineages, hostile takeovers, the list goes on and on. Rex and Zak dabble in this, bur those are exceptions. Danny has to contend with it on occasion, as powerful people lord over him with threats and control. Ben is often a delegate, but can be far more easilt be called a warlord or living weapon.

I say “living” because I question how truthfully it can be said that Ben’s human. The Anodites are claimed to be all or nothing, but real people say that about ethnicity and so the claim comes across as in-universe bigotry. It feels like someone looking to their children and thinking “You’re Americanized, therefore you have no claim to your ancestors” or “They’re not dark enough”.

Speaking of colour, they’re all white passing with Ben being on one end, Zak on the other, and Rex and Danny (jet black hair) being intermediaries. Ben gets immediate White privilege where Zak might get it denied in the wrong circumstance. I don’t myself adequately knowledgeable to discuss their ethnicities or races, but colourism is something I have quite a bit of experience in. I am the palest person in my family and grew up being teased that I must have been adopted because the Italian and Syrian seemed to have skipped me, and I know others who have similar issues of not having the traits of their predecessors. I have siblings who have some slight Black traits and have been ostracized for it by our parents, and I have listened to the trash people say about my clearly Mexican siblings (and their father) because they assume I’ll be on their side.

I think Rex is the only character whose ethnicity is explicitly discussed, since he’s an amnesiac and gets to reconnect to the surviving member of his original family. His older brother openly finds hilarity in Rex’s Americanization, up to and including Rex’s poor fluency in Spanish. Ben is directly denied his heritage when he meets his grandmother, who takes one look at him and blatantly decides him too dissimilar (which she is implied to have done to her children as well). Zak gets to learn of countless cultures through being shuffled around the map, and Danny is an Illinoisian (he is of the corn and soy).

Back to the human aspect, Ben’s human status is dubious whereas Zak’s is questioned but concrete. Rex and Danny have their humanity and legal statuses questioned repeatedly. Rex, Danny, and Ben are all shapeshifters with nonhuman attributes; Zak is human through and through (ironically enough).

Each of these characters have grown around their work, with it informing their personalities, boundaries, and affects. A neat comparison between Ben and Zak is how they relate to cage fighting— but I really need to get a move on, so that’ll have to wait ‘til next time.

[gayhenrycreel]

#ftm is a fetish tag

disclaimer, i am a trans man

#ftm is a fetish tag. i dont know if its always been like this but it is a problem.

i can hardly find any transmascs in that tag.

there are cis women misgendering trans men as a kink, and talking about our bodies like sex dolls everywhere in that tag. its mostly cishet women using OUR tag to objectify our bodies because they are too afraid to consider that they might not be straight. it is at least half detransition kink. im very uncomfortable with cis people doing this, but if they want to i wont stop them.

but this is in OUR TAG. this is horrible. they write disgusting smut about women who are short twinks with soft tits and dripping cunts and no dysphoria at all.

they just call them trans men.

ive seen other transmascs complain about this too.

these fics are written by and for cis women. they are chasers. the way they talk about our bodies is revolting. they know nothing about trans men at all.

i know that not all trans men feel dysphoric about their bodies, but these women are still treating us like a fetish that only occurs in fiction, rather than people who have emotions and often want to have a flat chest and/or a penis.

in particular they fetishize gay trans men. all these fics are about femboys who are horrified by the concept of transitioning getting fucked by bears. the people writing this view transitioning as mutilation. its very obvious.

ive noticed that this occasionally extends to fetishizing cis men with gynecomastia. its clear they want to fuck women but think lesbians are disgusting, so they call the women in their fics men, but misgender them throughout the text.

i hardly see any representation for trans men who even want to transition. newsflash: a lot of us do want to transition. many of us have already had surgery.

if you genuinely do want to write smut with GOOD portrayal of trans men, heres some tips on what we want in our representation:

trans men who dont want to transition deserve rep too, but many of us are entirely uncomfortable with our bodies. very few of us want any attention given to the parts we are born with. a lot of pre op trans men wear a binder during sex. we're not all bottoms, and some of us wear strap ons.

when we're on testosterone, it causes vaginal atrophy, similar to menopause. it gets very dry down there and easily irritated. this means that vaginal sex can be very painful and could even damage tissues. even without T, vaginal penetration is usually no where near as fun as it is for cis women. anything being in there is awful and sometimes painful.

anal sex is a thing. its not gross. its perfectly normal. it just requires some lubricant, and for a trans man, is a lot more comfortable than vaginal sex.

shockingly, most of us do not want to be called girls.

dont misgender a trans person in a sex scene. at all. some of us like to be called good boys during sex. stop calling us girls.

some of us have had surgery. it is NOT mutilation. it is life saving. top surgery is one that we get most frequently. the results do look just like a cis mans chest. there are long thin scars under the pecs, but these fade after a few years. they may not even be visible. bottom surgery exists too.

metoidioplasty creates a micropenis out of the clitoris. it does look real. it looks like a regular micropenis. it has full sensation.

phalloplasty uses a flap of skin, usually from the forearm, and turns it into a penis. this surgery is more complex and is done in multiple stages. after it is complete, it looks like a circumcised penis. its size is dependent on the flap of skin used to make it, so it can actually be larger than average. (on r/phallo someone even got a reduction surgery because his dick was 7 inches long). the area the skin flap was taken from has pretty big scarring. it looks like the result of a severe burn. it is sometimes covered by a tatoo. there is a lot of misinformation about phalloplasty. it is a big surgery, but it is no where near as dangerous as the internet would have you believe. after it has fully healed it does look real, and a genital nerve is usually hooked up to the penis. it can take a while to heal (years), but after a few months sensation begins to return as the nerves heal. the clitoris is often buried in the base of the penis, and if a genital nerve hook up is done the penis can have full sensation, including the tip. not everyone gets full sensation, and it can take years for sensation to fully return, but 93% of men who get phalloplasty are satisfied with the results. that is a lot. it is quite rare that sensation is fully lost, so yes, you can orgasm after phalloplasty. one thing to note is that a phalloplasty penis cant get hard on its own. there are two types of implant for erections. one is a rod inside the penis, which can last over 20 years before needing a replacement. the rod is flexible, so can be positioned as an erection. the other implant is a internal pump that is more complicated than the rod, and needs to be replaced roughly every 15 years. it is filled with water and sits inside the penis. to get an erection, you squeeze one of the testicles, which is a pump implant, pushing the water into the penis, causing an erection.

most importantly, we are men. we can be feminine. we can be masculine. we can look exactly like cis men. dont forget that we are people, we are real. we are not some sex fantasy.

[starfieldcanvas]

hi not an expert but i thought i’d say something about the sysmed thing you posted

systems are formed by trauma at a young age causing a child’s personality to not form into one singular personality and instead split into multiple.

but theres also some people who “create” their system because they wanted to be a system, which just really isn’t possible. (or also “will” their system into being)

but i know most systems problems with the people who “create” their system (endogenic or willogenic) is the massive spreading of misinformation

i know people with did or osdd who when first realizing they were a system, and even still now, are told by endos that their trauma “isn’t enough” and that they’re endogenic too which also hurts people just discovering their a system thinking their endogenic because their trauma wasn’t enough or they don’t remember their trauma (which is a big part of did & osdd anyway, systems are typically formed to help the person deal with (by not dealing with) their trauma) and then people aren’t able to get the help they need

so, to someone pretty thoroughly outside the discourse, this largely reads like you've just got two different groups of people with similar conditions, and some people within each of those groups loudly assert that the other group cannot possibly be having the experience that group claims to be having. some traumagenic systems insist endogenic systems are "not really possible" and some endogenic systems think traumagenic systems "aren't really traumagenic" instead of both groups just taking for granted that obviously multiple kinds of experience can coexist without either invalidating the other.

it sounds strikingly similar to transmed discourse, so I understand why the "-med" language got borrowed.

about a dozen years ago I was up to date on the DID wiki page and was therefore fairly confident that so-called "multiple personalities" were all (I had to look this term up just now) iatrogenic, that is, caused by psychiatric leading. So when I came around to accepting that systems did seem to exist even in people who had never been to therapy, I assumed we were all lifting a middle finger to psychiatry's attempt to dismiss the system phenomenon. It's rather odd to learn that now there's a contingent insisting that they have psychiatric legitimacy but their endogenic "cousins" do not. like... y'all trust psychiatry to know what does and does not exist? when they largely didn't think traumagenic systems existed until very recently, and many within the institution still think it's 100% iatrogenic?

(i double checked with my local psychology graduate and indeed he was taught in school a decade ago that DID was a fringe diagnosis that did not really exist in modern practice.)

it's really just like transmeds then, isn't it? traumagenic systems have only barely gained a little bit of respect within the system and are still widely disbelieved, but instead of taking that as a sign that maybe psychiatry has only a very limited understanding of this phenomenon, some have decided to throw their endogenic cousins under the bus in a feeble, futile attempt to legitimize themselves.

whether or not endogenic systems really do "exist" in a meaningful way, i find the insistent rejection of them by people who are also frequently disbelieved by the institution to be shockingly shortsighted.

the primary objection to the possibility that endogenic systems exist cannot really be "some of them are assholes who spread misinformation". as that has literally nothing to do with whether or not they exist.

(and I feel obligated to ask if the "misinformation" in question is more often than not just "it's possible to be an endogenic system." because aphobes used to claim the statement "it's possible to be asexual as a minor" was grooming. so I don't take those kinds of accusations at face value anymore.)

or is it really just "the field of psychiatry has not agreed this experience is possible yet, so I am obligated to argue with anyone who reports their lived experience as counterevidence"? because as I have said, that just sounds like every past failure of the psychiatric imagination. advances in psychiatric research are very valuable, but if you're not familiar with the ways in which psychiatry as an institution tends to fall short of capturing reality, then you can't be trusted to wield its evidence in a responsible way.

are there contingents among the endogenic and traumagenic folks who simply believe in describing their own experience in appropriately limited terms, rather than aggressively insisting their experiences are universal for all systems???

[goshdangronpa]

Danganronpa THH characters as types of Twitter users

Sayaka: becomes a main character after sharing something horrible she did, but in a way where she wanted people to tell her she's still a good person

Junko: runs a massive celeb account, gets on Trending every so often with posts calculated to squeeze engagement from both fans and haters

Leon: painfully embarrassing reply guy for hot female celebs, has had his DMs screenshotted for public schadenfreude

Byakuya: constantly gets owned for awful smoothbrain takes, yet can't resist arguing with randos in the replies

Kyoko: the "Users" in "Users have fact-checked this claim," seethes at getting less engagement than outright misinformation

Makoto: uses Twitter as God intended, namely, posting trivial updates like "just made breakfast !!" for an audience of three IRL friends

Kiyotaka: swerves between sharing activist posts ("IMPORTANT INFORMATION") and grandma-style positivity memes ("INSPIRATIONAL")

Celestia: shits on her peers and boosts her own numbers through an army of anonymous sock puppet accounts, tells herself it's satisfying

Toko: prone to uncomfortably long threads lamenting the toxicity of Twitter, despite being shockingly toxic in her own right

Aoi: aggressive stan, but not the kind who doxxes or swats people

Sakura: only follows a few official accounts for groups and organizations that she's part of, otherwise completely above the drama

Mukuro: just a lurker, really - never posts, never comments, just doomscrolls until it makes her mentally ill

Mondo: dangerously deep into the manosphere, but mostly in a funny way

Hifumi: posts genuinely interesting threads on a variety of subjects in a distinct and fun voice, but do not look at his Likes

Chihiro: Most Likely to Secretly Be Dril

Yasuhiro: crypto grifter

[specialagentartemis]

you bring up women and female too much... feeling pretty terfy tbh

This is so fucking funny. As bait it’s like you’re not even Trying

(for context: transphobes just found my post about why it’s important to not spread historical misinformation and they are mad about it. This is from a transphobic radfem angry that I said trans people exist and existed in the past too.)

Shockingly I bring up women and being female because I am a woman and I care about feminism and women’s rights. I firmly believe most people should! Being a woman kind of makes it pressing in a certain way though.

I went through the whole gender questioning and gender exploration thing, thinking about gender and womanhood and femaleness and what they mean and how I relate to it and don’t. I was a tomboyish girl who liked to read and climb trees and hated shaving my legs and participating in gym class and was resentful and resistant to Rules but also enthralled by history and particularly suffragists and women who Did Things. But also, for a while, as I started to increasingly reaize I was queerer than I supposed and felt alienated from other girls my age, I felt pretty disconnected from womanhood; I didn’t know what it meant to me. I’m aromantic asexual, and that self-knowledge was hard-won and required a lot of soul searching and fear for the future and trying really hard to be allo and crying alone at the dining hall. And the question of “what is my gender for, anyway?” felt pertinent in that regard. If it’s not there to structure romantic/sexual attraction and relationships, what is it there for? What does it do for me?

Reading feminist texts by cis feminists was important for thinking about political organizing and political necessities of combating sexism and misogyny in its many pervasive and awful forms, but it didn’t really make me feel any more of a personal sense of womanhood. Political coalition building is not necessarily the same as personal sense of self, nor should it be.

You know what made me feel more secure in my gender? In feeling like A Woman?

Reading the work of trans lesbians.

I mean it. Reading trans women lesbians writing sci-fi stories about apocalypses and AIs and identity, and realistic stories about longing and coercion and freedom and joy and fear and just being, is what made me go, oh, this is it. This is what it’s all about, this is what it means to be a woman. You get it. And you make me feel it in a way I haven’t in a long time.

(I’m also an anthropologist. Thinking about human societies and social constructs and performances of identity is my job.)

But if you want to read the work of the trans woman who really made me feel comfortable and seen and resonant in my womanhood for the first time in a long time, I highly HIGHLY recommend Jamie Berrout and particularly her Portland Diary: Short Stories 2016/2017. They have a spark of brilliance. This Pride month treat yourself to these stories. (This is a direct download because unfortunately Berrout scrubbed her entire internet presence, including any place to legitimately buy her work, but I paid a fair price for these before she did, and I think they deserve to be read.)

(I won’t currently link the other trans woman writer who helped my through my Gender Epiphany, because unlike Berrout who has gone off the grid, she has an internet presence and I don’t want her to get targeted by any transphobes camping my page waiting for my response to their brilliantly crafted bait.)

TERFs, and some overzealous tumblr/twitter users, want so badly to believe that feminism and trans rights are at odds, that if you believe in one you can’t believe in the other. That’s bullshit, of course. My feminism is fully bound up in trans rights; non-discrimination by sex and gender means non-discrimination by sex and gender. Bodily autonomy and authority on one’s identity are the rights of everyone. We need to end sexism and part of ending sexism is ending the belief in gender essentialism; we need to end transphobia and part of ending transphobia means ending the idea that women can only be One Thing and men can only be One Thing and there are unbreachable distances between them. I believe in gender equality and that means the equality of all genders. And from personal experience, I believe that trans women have a lot to say about feminism and what it feels like to be a woman.

Also I have a lot of trans and non-binary friends and I like them much better and trust them much more than I like or trust transphobes. So.

Women’s rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights. Trans rights are women’s rights. All of these things are true, and inextricable.

[katsu-curry835]

I cannot stress this enough tiktok has a policy whereby it CENSORS CONVENTIONALLY UNATTRACTIVE PPL. They will demote your video if you have wrinkles, an obvious beer belly, are too fat or too thin or have dwarfism. Among other horrid policies of course. The below is a leaked document from the moderators detailing what should be demoted by the algorithm.

I’m aware that most social media apps harvest your data, are prone to pipelines and shadowbanning and don’t pay their creators enough but TikTok is genuinely the w o r s t in every category. You genuinely lose nothing by not using it. Below is another image of a glitch that showed activist hashtags such relating to BLM with 0 views (they got shadowbanned)

Another huge problem that exists on the app is the radicalisation pipelines are so strong because the three minute vid and 150 character comment format completely flattens nuance. All it takes is for someone to sound confident and talk fast enough with a vaguely coherent argument before you start thinking that overpopulation is a myth and engaging in needless drama (see: Drew Afualo and Bela Delgato, Danisha Carter and her critics etc.) This is poisoning how we interact with politics. YouTube is nowhere near perfect but it at the very least rewards longer form content this stuff like video essays is promoted on there. Tumblr has no character limit so you can read the entirety of this shitty essay without me needing to cut things for brevity. Typing a TikTok comment has driven me insane before because 150 characters is not even close to enough to have an informed discussion. Who is correct has now become who can slam dunk on someone else the best.

I do genuinely think that Drew Afualo is a net positive for the world and I’m glad she’s using the TikTok algorithm to spread good messages. But let’s be honest here, her videos aren’t well researched takes on misogyny. And I don’t think they’re trying to be either. Drew shouldn’t be expected to sit down and research a TikTok while she’s shitting on some asshole; that’s not her style. I think the problem is beyond her control. People are taking her quips and one-liners to formulate their opinions on the world around them. This is ok in this example given that Drew a positive influence. But this can and has been weaponised so easily to spread harmful rhetoric left and right and when you’re on political TikTok it’s impossible to tell which is which. Misinformation is also shockingly common and incentivised by the format.

Finally, your attention span is dying. Let’s look at YouTube. YouTube’s policies make it so that longer content is rewarded and, and this is a crucial point, you choose what you want to watch. On TikTok, because you are given content with the assumption you’ll enjoy it, you have to decide while watching if you want to scroll or not. Eventually your window of tolerance of videos before they get good shrinks and you’ll end up judging the quality of the content based on the first seven seconds. Comparatively, YouTube has you choose videos assuming you’ll like them and therefore you’ll spend more time with the art before you decide whether or not it’s for you. When your attention shrinks to seven seconds on TikTok, this bleeds into other aspects of your life and is incredibly unhealthy (speaking from experience). I had to watch two hour long video essays to compensate for how TikTok was just wrecking my focus.

Most people know TikTok sucks and use it anyway but then encourage others not to get it. Why don’t we delete it? Here’s an idea, if you have TikTok, get rid of it now. Destroy its ubiquity and only use Tumblr and YouTube /j No but seriously delete the app I’m so happy I did. My life has improved infinitely since.

[thisvisionofmyspirit]

​This is the same anon who sent the ask about leather that was longer than I realized! I wanted to thank you for reading all of that and being kind about it, and I hope that it didn't seem judgmental or anything like that. Getting tone to come across correctly with just text can be difficult! Also I really hope it didn't seem like I was suggesting that you blamed poor people for pleather, or that I blame people for that either, because of course income can be a huge barrier for people when they are making purchase choices, and I didn't think that you were trying to fault individuals for that. I don't mean this to seem argumentative either, just sharing some information.

That is absolutely also true that something that happens to be free from animals doesn't automatically mean that it is safe or environmentally friendly, especially looking at something like palm oil and the harm it causes (many vegans also avoid palm oil for that reason actually), and I don't like seeing false or exaggerated claims about that either, it is just that there is also a lot of misinformation about vegan and plant-based products that frames those as bad even when it isn't backed up by evidence, and there are some people who put blame on vegans specifically for failings in those products, when, realistically, it isn't possible for anyone to live in a way that has zero impact on the world, but even though plant-based and vegan lifestyles have significantly less of an environmental impact, they still get a lot of blame for not being able to live perfectly. But I do think it is understandable that people who aren't vegan aren't going to be as exposed to as much information about vegan and plant-based products and the environmental impact of those things simply because they aren't as involved with plant-based products and the research being done.

Also, in your reply to my ask, you brought up plant milks like almond and soy, and I can't send links over ask, but there is a really good article from Our World in Data titled "Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?" that has a chart showing the comparison of land use, greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, and eutrophication of different kinds of plant milks versus dairy, and it does show that dairy is shockingly worse than even the most damaging of plant milks, and like with almond milk you mentioned, it does use a concerning amount of freshwater, but the amount of water used is nearly half that of dairy, (though I do still think it is important that people try to lessen their impact even when choosing the less harmful options). That particular article also has information about deforestation in the Amazon and how the soy being grown there is largely used for animal feed for livestock animals, rather than being the soy that is most used for humans. The article includes sources for the information from reputable organizations so a person can do further research on it.  

If you are interested to learn more about the environmental and human impact of leather, here are some studies that you should be able to find easily by searching for the titles :

Pollution and environmental impact of leather production

• "Leather tanning: Life cycle assessment of retanning, fatliquoring and dyeing" Website: Science Direct

•  "Measuring the Environmental Footprint of Leather Processing Technologies" Website: ResearchGate

•  "Treatment of leather industrial effluents by filtration and coagulation processes" Website: Science Direct

Environmental impact of raising animals to slaughter weight before they are skinned

•  "Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture: More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories." Website: Our World in Data

•  "A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products" Website: Springer Link

•  "Global greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods" Website: Nature Journal

•  "Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector: Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption"  Website: Chatham House

Health hazards to humans in leather tanning

•  "Occupational cancers in leather tanning industries: A short review" Website: National Institutes of Health

•  "Occupational health risks among the workers employed in leather tanneries at Kanpur" Website: National Institutes of Health

Health hazards to humans in slaughterhouses

•  "Workers in the animal slaughtering and processing industry have higher incidence rates of injury or illness than the overall average for private industry workers" Website: United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

•  "The Psychological Impact of Slaughterhouse Employment: A Systematic Literature Review" Website: National Institutes of Health

•  "Respiratory Disorders Among Workers in Slaughterhouses" Website: National Institutes of Health

This really isn't to try to portray pleather as being faultless either though, only showing it in comparison to leather, but using neither or purchasing second-hand is definitely best whenever possible if a person does need something made from leather or pleather. 

Thanks again for all the info and the sources! And sorry if I appeared defensive in my first reply. I didn't feel attacked in any way by your tone. The continued attack on consumers - as opposed to corporations - is a much bigger pet peeve of mine so I wanted to make sure whoever read my reply knew that I agree.

I'll definitely check these out!

[egg-emperor]

I hate to ask this, but do other eggman enjoyers... Want him not to be evil? I mean this in the most respectful way, but eggman doesn't have a whole lot going on canonically besides being evil. If someone doesn't like that part what part are they into?

I regret to inform you that it's been a very shockingly controversial aspect of his character in recent years, despite him being the main villain of the series and it confuses and frustrates me to no end lol. I think part of it is because of small things outside of the game canon media, where he has vastly different portrayals and isn't anywhere near as evil. Which is all fine and good for them to like of course but then they dislike and can't accept that the original Eggman in the games has always been pure evil without any genuine good morals and traits, and no chance of redemption. And they'll get mad and judge one's character over those who actually like it.

And as a result of them liking those lesser evil versions of him more, they will attempt to ignore or highly misinterpret Eggman's scenes in the actual games, because he's one of the most unpopular versions for actually being a lot more evil and doing so is the only way they can like him there at all. And if someone actually likes that he's evil and chooses to acknowledge and embrace those things and correct the misinformation instead, they will tell them to stop ruining their fun and accuse them of being a bad person for caring. I've unfortunately been a target of this for appreciating his evil and making passionate analysis and writings based on that.

Eggman has become the subject of a lot of tropes based around giving him redeeming qualities that he doesn't have that doesn't make sense for the character he was established to be and has remained consistently so. The most popular fanon Eggman interpretation is vastly different from the game canon and liking him as he appears in the games and expressing that openly gets you alienated. It's at the point where I'm being kicked out of the fandom by newer fans that have only liked him for as long as the nicer versions and fanon of the character has existed and some older fans that latched onto them while ignoring and misinterpreting game canon.

And yeah you're absolutely right and that's especially wild about it, he doesn't have anything going on canonically in the games that doesn't involve his evil in any way at all. Even if people like his charming funny and casual moments, his evil is still a part of everything he does, it defines him, his personality, his actions, his beliefs, even his humor. He was even given the first name "Ivo" because its pronunciation is supposed to sound like "evil"! So his name is literally "evil" and 99% of what he does on screen in the games is evil - yet that's controversial, disliked by Eggman fans, and it gets fans that actually enjoy it shamed. It's so ironic.

I can't imagine that fans of him enjoy actually consuming the game media much when they don't actually like anything he's doing. And I don't know what they actually want him to do, if not be evil because they want him to become a better person despite everything he does coming from the fact he's evil, his entire character is built around it as the villain. In all the games where he doesn't have an active villainous role, he's just sat there doing nothing. If he somehow stopped being the villain after 30 years then he'd barely be used as a character anymore. I don't think that's worth occasional scenes of nice pure wholesome Eggman for people to coo at.

All of the things that make Eggman so charming, entertaining, and lovable all stem from his evil and it's involved and evident in every aspect of his characteristics and actions. He's a very evil and selfish character that will gladly do terrible things to accomplish his just as evil goals in conquering the world, he's motivated solely by that and even finds sadistic enjoyment in it. The way most the games' adventures even begin is by Eggman kicking it off with another evil scheme. It's a very important part of his character at the very core and it's important to the overall plot in most games, nothing would be the same without it, there'd be no conflict and nothing interesting left.

It saddens me that it's something that's so disliked or ignored by fandom but you know people can be when it comes to villains, they don't like it when they're genuinely evil and don't have good redeeming traits so they can have something to be interested in and feel justified in liking them because they don't like his evil and think it's wrong to enjoy it like I do. But I love seeing Eggman being his best true self as a super evil and dangerous threat and all the thrilling badass scenes that come out of it when he's in action and being a real diabolical bastard, which is 99% of the time he's on screen, and I'll always give it the love and appreciation it deserves! 🥰💜💕

[lnkedmyheart]

i've seen people say that dazai only uses chuuya, dehumanizes him, and that it is one sided sm on bsdtt and bsdtwt so often. this is why bsdblr is simply better, there's actual media literacy here 💀

I think its less about the platform tbh. More about how many people are on those platforms. Tumblr is sort of harder to use for people used to the easier structure of Twt and tiktok. With tumblr its easier to curate your timeline and control your fandom experience because you will only see takes you agree with on your tl for the most part. With twitter people have no tagging etiquettes in general and are constantly looking to pick fights but also everyone sees everything. Not to mention a lot of the tl experience now is just random shit that may or may not be from related tags. On tiktok its just bad takes taking off due the sheer amount of misinformation and just how many people with shockingly little common sense flock together into specific videos. Also once misinfo spreads on tiktok it is impossible to correct.

That being said, the Dazai treats Chuuya as subhuman takes are getting so tiring.

Sidenote- I think its really odd that none of skk's bond is even brought up on tv tropes when mlm ships with barely a fraction of their interactions get mentioned on there.

[shitty-adblr]

Hello fellow enraged Tumblfolk!

This is a sideblog where I verbally defecate on the most laughably awful, offensive, bizarrely targeted, vague, clickbaity, low effort, hideous, and otherwise shitty ads on Tumblr.

As the transphobic and ableist pissbaby coward CEO drives Tumblr into the ground, the advertisers that are being platformed here are getting weirder, more unhinged, and more comically misplaced. I hate it, but I feel compelled to mock it.

The "inspiration" for this blog was an ad for a WordPress blog written by an incredibly ableist quack claiming to "heal spiritual autism." That's part of a trend of ads which are some combination of anti-science, right-wing, evangelical christian, or the worst kind of appropriative new-age quasi-religious fuckery. In other words, Tumblr is actively promoting misinformation, dangerous pseudo-science, ableism, hatred, and cult-adjacent bullshit. Because of course it is.

*heavy sigh*

There are vulnerable people on this site and many of these ads are run by predatory people and organizations who are looking to fleece, defraud and indoctrinate. Those ads are the worst of the worst, and I want to dunk on them like an enraged English teacher - bleeding red pen all over a half-assed attempt at cleverness.

There are also a lot of people without a lot of resources and yet tons of ads promoting *ridiculously* expensive and useless products and services that I seriously doubt anyone on this site would ever buy, especially not when shiilled through the poorly designed and written ads on here that just seem so laughably out of place. They're still predatory and some seem downright fraudulent, but they are at least more amusing.

There are ads that are hilariously terrible in that they don't even make it clear what they are trying to sell. These are just plain hilarious because why bother paying to run an ad and not even get someone to write decent copy? Is it just farming confused clicks from people asking themselves "what the hell is the point of this?"

And finally, and most rare, there are ads that are okay, or even (shockingly) good. They advertise things people might need, or even things that are socially positive and that fit Tumblr's demographic. They are like Unicorns though. I won't be posting those for now because Matt and his sycophants will probably take any praise as proof that they're not horrible bigots doing a massive disservice to the userbase. Fuck that - I'm going no quarter.

Grades will be on the A, B, C, D, F scale, with + and - as appropriate, and with edits, critiques and commentary. One caveat: You're not going to see any A's or B's until things change here. This is a no positivity zone. The highest praise here is "C+ - It's fine, I guess"

Grading is entirely subjective and fully informed by my very conscious biases. These biases include but are not limited to:

- I hate advertising and marketing on general principle and see it as inherently manipulative and cynical. It's also full of bigotry and is a field populated by some of the most cruel and exploitative people on the planet.

- Every fucking platform being ad-filled garbage is one of the main reasons that all techbros should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

- I also hate buzzwords, trends, and am appalled by the enshittification of the Internet.

- Stupid rich assholes should all take short trips to the bottom of the Atlantic in imploded submarines.

- AI content generation is ruining two generations of a free and open web crafted by humans and is a self-defeating bubble waiting to explode.

- All authority is harmful. The worst abusers in the world insist on being called "Doctor", "Father", "Pastor", "Officer" and especially "CEO". Telegraphing your power is a warning of the harm you can inflict.

Extra points off for ads for WordPress blogs because fuck Automattic. Extra points off for shilling religious bullshit.

[pojkflata]

Seeing critiques of transandrophobia makes it quite clear to me that most detractors believe this came out of nowhere, as if somebody rightfully called out a trans man on his misogyny once and he instantly snapped and became a reactionary gamer bro. So I'd like to tell you that at least in my case, this has been brewing in me for some time with the rise of a new transphobic movement that specifically targets transmascs, and I gave you not one, not two, but three chances to take my worries seriously. If you don't like seeing me discuss my oppression like this, it's your fault for not being there for me when you had the chance.

April 2019

The Swedish national broadcaster puts out a documentary about trans healthcare. It's bad. It's really bad. It lies about the ease of access to HRT and concern trolls about an "explosive rise in mentally unstable girls identifying as transgender". It cites an at the time obscure study suggesting that being trans, specifically transmasc, is communicable. It's pseudoscience, but nobody cares. A woman goes on national television funded by tax payer money to complain about being silenced. Parents come in to misgender their sons, and shortly thereafter one of these sons talks on social media about how his mother was lying through her teeth the entire time. No trans person is allowed to speak. The documentary is mass reported for its obvious bias, misinformation and invading the privacy of a trans man. In the end, it's only charged for the privacy breach - in the eyes of the public, the bias and misinformation are forgivable. A sequel is released in the fall of the same year when they actually bring in a trans person... a trans woman. As if to say "this is what a real trans looks like, unlike you mentally unstable girls". They then announce that they are detransitioning and calls themselves a "effeminate gay in a woman's body". Now the narrative is more like "if even this real trans wasn't actually trans, what makes you think you could be?"

My mental immune system went into overdrive, I panicked. This was new to me but I knew we would have to deal with this brand of transphobia for a long time going forward. I also knew that these people obviously hated trans men and trans men specifically, this was reactionary pushback against increased visibility. "No, you can't take up space like this, what about the children?" This rhetoric is also literal gaslighting - it teaches you that if you happen to be a trans man, especially if you came out as a teen and/or you're ND, you can't trust what's going on inside your own head, you're delusional, and you certainly don't deserve healthcare. I write a tumblr post describing to the best of my abilities why this is dangerous. It gets a couple of dozen notes, but not much else. I try to rationalize it - the post was written in panicked delirium and I didn't know what to call this rhetoric, I knew calling it "transmisandry" would get me laughed out of the room. Additionally, this isn't happening in the US (yet), so I have to be happy I even got notes at all.

I was pre-T at the time and I was terrified that this would prevent me from transitioning. Knowing that this documentary is now what most people in my country believe about me is a horrifying thought. At least one Swedish trans man attempted suicide following the documentary. As for me, I started crossing streets without looking for cars.

Strike one.

June 2020

An author whose work I never particularily cared about has a twitter meltdown over language designed to include me. She cries about feeling dehumanized by being called a person. Shortly thereafter she writes a full manifesto justifying her TERF sympathies. But this doesn't look like the typical TERF rant. While she goes over some very classic and violent TERF rhetoric like calling trans women predators, she spends even more words on regurgitating the rhetoric I knew from more than a year before. Some people sound the alarm about what this might mean for trans men, but they're shut down - TERFs don't hate trans men! Look, she said she included you! Just don't think too much about the fact that the reason this happened to begin with was that she threw a hissy fit over having to include me.

I try to rationalize this response again - this is many people's first exposure to this rhetoric, they just might not know quite what to make of it.

Strike two.

Summer 2020

A book is published once again rife with the rhetoric I was now very familiar with. The author is invited to the biggest podcast in the world where she says word salad about how people like me are women with unresolved body image issues and that's why we transition - T redistributes fat storage, that must sound awesome to women who hate their bodies. Just don't think too hard about how T actually allocates more fat to the stomach and how a woman with body image issues would realistically react to such a development.

The book itself is also vile. It misgenders trans men whose lives were lost to hate crimes. It fetishizes my reproductive organs, claiming that maintaining my fertility is more important than my wellbeing. I'm reduced to a breeding stock, what a shockingly feminist move.

It openly hates trans men who are out and proud with their experiences, it accuses them of stealing their children in a manner not unlike how autism parents talk about autism. But this might be worse - these are individuals who are being blamed. It makes uncomfortable remarks about their bodies and many of them are harrassed following the publication of this book.

At this point you have to stretch ridiculously far to claim that this isn't about hating trans men. I gave the people who should've been there for me the benefit of the doubt, and they proved me wrong. "Who do you think she believes is doing the seducing? It's trans women" I actually paid attention and she clearly blames trans men, why are you being this willfully ignorant? Does acknowledging the truth force you to reconsider your worldview?

Strike three.

That's when I ran out of patience. I realized the larger trans community was incapable of handling my issues with any tact or grace. We needed new terminology and rhetoric to address this emerging reactionary movement that specifically and obviously hates me and my brothers. And I refuse to back down now.

[twinklebitch]

i hate that dsmp has breached containment thanks to constant twitter trends, so now some people on tumblr think we’re all supporters of horridly racist trump supporters when, if you actually look into any of it, that is… blatantly not true at all.

in reality we’re fans of regular people who play minecraft and are, shockingly, human like the rest of us. human enough in fact that they make mistakes sometimes. and the nature of the parasocial relationships you find cultivated on twitter means those mistakes are often perceived as incredibly personal and malicious slights that get scrutinized, miscommunicated about, spread like a game of telephone, and overall blown up.

i don’t think people understand that parasocial relationships aren’t just toxic positivity. there’s also toxic negativity. you can scream about how “they’re not your friend so you don’t have to feel bad about calling them out.” till the cows come home, but don’t pretend there’s not another side to it. the side that is “they’re not your friend and you don’t know them, but they are a person, and you have no idea what a mass attack campaign is doing to them behind the scenes.”

the reality of it is a 17 year old boy was trending negatively for 2 days straight and it affected his mental health so badly that he had to leave twitter and get a therapist. and when he did a stream to explain what was happening, he got trended even more.

and i hate having to pull my fucking minority card to get people to listen to me on these topics, but if that’s what i have to do then fine. as a black person, calling someone a white supremacist for a racially insensitive twitter comment is supremely unhelpful to any black people you’re claiming you’re trying to support, considering there are actually white supremacists on the platform actively tweeting racist bullshit and getting away with it. pretending that the fandom is full of a bunch of white kids who just want to ignore a racist cc is actively ignoring all of the fans of color working to make the fandom safer for each other. most of the time, when a cc does something wrong, we aren’t trying to cancel them, but hold them accountable - not in the often seen twitter version of holding someone accountable, where you actually just yell a bunch and think that will do something - but genuinely. and 9 times out of 10 it gets co opted by white saviors who turn it into what i said above, and no one gets to learn anything of substance. and then i guess those leftovers get regurgitated on tumblr.

so seeing random white kids on tumblr reblog dream “call out” posts that’s just a google doc with a bunch of out of context screenshots (and some that are just faked entirely. whoever faked a screenshot of him saying the n word, fuck you entirely) and misinformation and then don’t bother to look into more than that? y’all make me fucking exhausted. i’m not asking you to like the guy or any other cc on the dsmp. i don’t give a shit what you enjoy. but you don’t have to justify your dislike of them by calling them racist and the ignoring and fans of color that tell you otherwise. he’s by no means perfect, but he and the other ccs on the server have shown time and time again that they want to be called out anytime they say/do something offensive so they can learn and better themselves. so many of them are donating everything they make from streaming this month to the trevor project! (and that was somehow twisted to be wrong and performative?)

you can dislike something without having to find a reason to justify it. so leave the fucking black fans you’re lumping with so called “racist supporters” out of it.

white people don’t clown in the notes

[sleepy-shutin]

(system community anon) honestly thank you, you just resonated with a lot of things i’ve felt since i figured out i’ve had DID but didn’t have the words to say or was kind of too scared to tbh. i started accepting my DID in later 2019, and started interacting with the online system community at a distance, and then when the pandemic hit i felt really isolated and stressed so i started seeking more friendships and connections with other systems but never really found them tbh. and honestly my opinion of why this is suddenly such a huge thing is primarily due to DID youtubers, particularly dissociaDID if you were also unfortunate enough to witness that whole situation go down. i think it’s youtube in particular because youtubers are sort of the big fandom (for lack of a better word) for a lot of teenagers rn, and the way the algorithm works on there in combination with clickbait can become a dumpster fire of misinfo very quickly. and then this spreads to system tik tok etc etc. but going further back i do think the release of split also has something to do with all of the sudden hypervisibility because that movie i think marked a huge uproar among DIDOSDD systems (rightfully) so there was more of a push for accurate information and representation, but then it’s kind of like the wrong voices were uplifted for the wrong reasons. and then ofc i think this was all exacerbated by the pandemic. sorry to drop another novel in your inbox lmao but i completely agree honestly. i just wish the system community would realize that anyone trying to spread scientific information about DIDOSDD is completely pro-psych or, like, a fakeclaimer or r/fakedisordercringe user or something like that.

yeah, dissociaDID in particular definitely has a hand in everything, for sure. her newest videos just make me recoil.

shockingly though, people like fragmentedpsyche, multiplicity & me, the entropy system if you remember them, etc, have been pretty good resources on DID. but dissociaDID just got the most popular, with her makeup and clickbait and constant milking of all kinds of drama. i used to be a fan of hers back in the day, actually, before shit hit the fan. still wouldn't recommend her even back then, though. she was always spreading misinformation.

yeah, things like tiktok, split, twitter, the pandemic, confusing teenager feelings, etc, all came together to create the perfect storm of massive amounts of DID misinformation.

and yeah--i'm not an FDC user for correcting misinfo or using clinical sources. FDC is a massive proponent of misinformation on DID, lol. i go there to correct misinformation on DID, and then i get downvoted even when i provide sources, lmao.

but sooo many people are just, like, not receptive at all to corrections on misinformation.

i'm so tired, man 😭

[groovygardenfart]

A Longer Take on Censorship and Policing in the RPC.

I have two family members who have been consumed by QAnon, a discredited and absurd far-right conspiracy group that preys on people who want to be heard, who want to feel superior over others in an intellectual and racial way, and who want to feel like they're in a special privileged group, in which only "that group" knows certain secrets; "the truth", and which only that group "can fix the world". It is an entirely delusional cult, built upon misinformation, small statements that have been blown out of proportion or misinterpreted entirely, and mob mentality, and it was responsible for the horrific insurrection in the US among countless other events. This group consists of people who insist their delusional way is correct, just, and logical, when it is not. If you try to dissuade a QAnon person with valid, rational information, they shut you down and say it's either not real information, fabricated, or that you are referencing scientists and other accredited people who, to a Qanon, is part of the whole conspiracy and not to be trusted. You can't rationalize with them, because they are so absorbed in their new beliefs and they don't want to lose the sense of community, even if it's based on rage and hate, with other QAnons. Any attempt to make them see the light only makes them dig their heels in more, and is used as "evidence" that the world is trying to "silence them" and "cover up" all of the conspiracy events they believe are happening, or going to happen. It has been heartbreaking to watch the two dearest people in my family succumb to this, and I no longer speak with them.

More heartbreaking is how I'm retrospecting on many people's behavior on tumblr, and how shockingly similar these people seem to QAnon and the mentalities shown in this cult. I'm talking about blog police, people in favor of censorship, and people who refuse to acknowledge fictional characters are not a direct reflection of a writer's own personality. Like in Qanon, you have the following: the belief that only their opinion is right, and everyone else who disagrees is either in on some kind of sick fetish, or they're a closeted axe murderer (or worse) who gets their jollies on writing endless CSA fixes. These people also have the need to "fix the world", to "cleanse the world", but in this case, it's the RPC that needs to be fixed and cleansed of bad subject matter. They do this by running people off blogs, and vagueblogging until the cows come home, which allows this rhetoric to spread rapidly (it has already consumed much of the RPC).

There are two main ways it seems to be spreading. First, when roleplayers are exposed to vagueblogs about "sick people writing (subject)!" on a regular basis, they start to believe it too even if they spend a long time fighting the belief, simply due to familiarity bias, which is a genuine cognitive phenomenon. As for the people who are actually writing this dark content, they are made to feel broken, defective, or worse. Also similar to QAnon, you have the "digging in heels" part where, just like how a QAnon takes any rational argument against their delusions and turns it into a belief that the person is trying to silence them, automatically discrediting anything they say, people in the rpc will take anyone writing certain content, or defending the freedom to write certain content, and call them pedophiles or other horrendous terms related to that specific situation, which again, immediately discredits anything they have to say. Because in their eyes, just like how a QAnon will see a normal person as inhuman and not worth listening to (which just gives them more confidence and firepower to attack them), these people see rpers who write dark content as inhuman. This is why, I feel, so many of these rpers receive asks telling them to "kill themselves", "get a life", and "get help", regardless of whether or not they respect the material and subject matter they write. For a QAnon, everyone who isn't a QAnon is part of the problem, part of a conspiracy, subhuman, with no exceptions. It is black and white thinking. It is easier for them to think this way. It also helps them feel closer knit to other Qanons, who also "know the truth". Tumblr users in favor of censorship share those qualities, the black and white thinking, and when questioned, falling back on toxic echo chambers that only reaffirm their beliefs that tumblr needs some kind of cleansing, regardless of whether or not that's the particular word that is being used.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. If you understand how cults like QAnon work at their most fundamental levels, however, as I've tried to elucidate here, you will see so many similarities with endless internet mobs, including the growing rhetoric on tumblr here. And it is beyond horrifying. My parting message is, please don't allow yourself to be taken for a ride by these groups, and especially people on tumblr. They are delusional, and to be taken out of their delusion would mean giving up a sense of belonging and purpose, which nobody wants to give up, so they will not change their ways unless THEY make the conscious effort to. This is not likely to happen. It is a losing battle to argue with them, as I'm coming to terms with only now, and it will only hurt you and stress you out. My advice is to cut all ties, not entertain them, use the block button liberally, surround yourself with kind people who continue to use rationality and good sense, and hopefully the fire will die out, at least in your corner.

Thanks for reading.