#stolen from Twitter because i do not respect Twitter users

[transgirl-link]

[biblicallyaccuratefour]

|No Mercy Rants| Rant post: Profily, the puppeteer and hiding from the truth

AND ANOTHER ONE DOWN, AND ANOTHER ONE DOWN, ANOTHER ONE BITES DA DUST- /ref

Anyways, hello, lads, lassies, fellow letter mafiosos and attack helicopters, since this is my THIRD rant on this blog, I decided to make a series out of it called the ‘No Mercy Rants’, which is a play on Undertale’s ‘No Mercy Run’. Now, to stop myself from further digressing, I’ll put in a disclaimer. (I know that PAF was done to death at this point, but bear with me- T^T)

(Disclaimer: This rant will be discussing topics of harassment and theft. If you’re not a fan of these topics, then please click off and view something else. Do NOT harass anyone mentioned, as I don’t want yous to stoop to PAF’s level. All of the testimony is screenshotted with the users’ consent.)

Now, the next one on the chopping block is @profily-and-friends, which I’ll refer to as PAF for short. So, let’s start from the beginning. In around August, 2023 (I was on my summer holidays, btw-), PAF had started posting several artworks that have been stolen from Twitter (or X, as Elon Musk puts it. Such an eejit-), Deviantart, Tumblr, and other sites. Somewhere around that time, maybe later, @knighttobreath, a user on Tumblr, started the spree of crediting the stolen art to their respective artists. This is where the drama and the beef began…

Now, a few months later, @akalikestodraw, a mutual of mine, was harassed multiple times by PAF because she ‘allegedly stole her art’. Now, take note that this is false, and that Aka has made amazing artwork on her own. She was also accused of tracing artworks. There’s also been asks sent to other users, like @justapplenothinghere, @galaxy-brushs-posts, and many other users, telling them to cancel Aka. Fortunately, no one took the steps to cancel Aka. They instead supported her. PAF told @wowwzaaxei-aster, that Aka was deactivating her account (also false). I’ve interviewed Aka on the matter, and she sees this as them trying to pin the blame on her. All of this had happened on her birthday. (Wow, that’s a shitty way to celebrate one’s bday… ) This whole thing made Aka, and her partner worried, and I’d be worried too, if I was in her place.

Another sin that PAF has committed was the harassment of other artists, requesting them to draw Profily with multiple asks, presumably using alternative or burner accounts, otherwise known as ‘sock puppets’. For some unfortunate artists who fulfil said requests are met with harsh criticism from PAF that they drew Profily ‘incorrectly’. They even get upset when their request is ignored, spamming the artists’ inboxes. I’ve seen them and their sock puppets interact with some of my posts, and the only criticism that I had from them was asking where were the other algebraliens when I made the Eight as Sans post. (In my defence, I was lazy af, and I had school shit going on).

Now, another thing I’d like to mention is that they’ve tried to cancel @talkingteardrop, another mutual of mine. There was a conversation between PAF and their sock puppets about how TD was ‘allegedly racist’, (another false claim) because they ignored PAF (I smell insane troll logic here-). They even claimed that they and TD were ‘best friends’, which they weren’t. (That pissed me off the most, as assholes in my school claimed that they were my friends, even though they’re not.)

Now, as the drama goes on, it becomes even more apparent that PAF is a manipulative puppeteer who’ll harass others to get what they want. They actively hide from the truth and tries to bend the narrative as to how they see it. Their actions have real life impacts, as it has made people feel terrible and having anxiety about going on with their business.

With that said, “What the fuck do we do now..?” Welp, for starters, block every single alt and sock puppet PAF has and report them all for harassment and art theft. Do NOT engage with them, just for your own mental health and to not waste your time and energy on them. (The fact that they use sock puppets reminds me of ZR0finix).

Make sure to drink plenty of water, get plenty of sleep and stay determined, lads. It hurts me to see that people like PAF are making this much trouble in our little community on Tumblr. (I guess my work on rants will never be done-)

Evidence under the cut-

Evidence and testimony from these files:

Knighttobreath's testimony

Talking Teardrop's testimony

Aka's testimony

Screenshots

[triforce-of-mischief]

🚨Head's up, artists!🚨

There's a couple of new users who think they have to gain popularity by any means necessary. I've tried explaining that this is not Twitter/Insta but they are now completely ignoring me.

illusion984 is stealing art and reposting most of it on their sideblog illusion984zeldaedition. Supposedly it is all taken from DeviantArt but I have seen them repost a few things I know from Tumblr.

pennydog2020 is reposting art as well, along with reblogging illusion984's stolen art.

Again, I have tried reasoning with them since they are clearly new. pennydog2020 appeared to be guilty, but they are now ignoring my asks telling them to take down their reposted art.

The hyperlinks lead directly to the respective blogs so you can block (and report if that's an option). I didn't tag them directly because I want to do this as peacefully as possible.

Please reblog to spread the news! Thank you! 💚

[bobbiedebruyn]

We need to talk.

Hello there, fellow gifmakers. I’m writing this post to address a phenomenon that's been happening for years both here and on Twitter – gif stealing. However, today we will talk about Twitter only (kinda ironic considering the circumstances, I know). Today we’ll talk about one particular person, whose whole Twitter brand is based on getting hit tweets with stolen Tumblr gifs, and it’s been happening for years now. So why we’re talking about this now? Because due to Twitter turning into a dumpster fire Tumblr welcomed a lot of new users, including that one person.

The person in question is @/red3corat3 (both here and on Twitter). Unfortunately, I already had an encounter with them a year ago, last summer when The Fear Street was trending. They screenshotted my gifset and posted it on Twitter with a same caption. When I asked them for credit – they simply blocked me. 

My post: https://deenafier.tumblr.com/post/656902582632136704/when-6-hours-chemistry-read-pays-off

Today I noticed that this person followed me on Tumblr (thankfully I remembered the username from that situation). I decided to check if they still were doing the same thing, and to no surprise it turned out to be true (I'm adding some screenshots, in reality there's even more posts like this made by them). Currently their main interest is Warrior Nun so their account is full of stolen WN gifs, however they’re also in fandoms such as Motherland Fort Salem, Station 19 and House of the Dragon.

What can we do? Block them on here, make sure their access to gifs is limited, let them know gif thieves are not welcomed here. Here's their tumblr blog:

We, gifmakers, spend hours on gifs, we’re doing this completely for free, simply out of passion for our favorite things. We don’t expect anything in return, but a simple credit or respect when a person says “I don’t want to see my work on other platforms” would’ve been enough.

[yukipri]

hi, i love your work and i know you have a lot of experience handling reposts, and i really need help.

i’m an artist who has their work reposted on facebook. i filed two dmca reports with links to the original posts on tumblr and twitter and to the post im reporting, but facebook denied both of them. both for the reason that they couldn’t be certain i was the rights owner.

in the first report i filed, i didn’t put the address in the correct format so i thought that was the problem. the second one, i don’t know what i did wrong.

do i have to use my real house address? the one i provided is the workplace of a family member. do i make “name of rights owner” my full name? i put my username minus the underscore both times i filed. i sign my works like this and it’s visible on the artwork (username minus underscore). do i put back the underscore to make it match my twitter name? my tumblr varies slightly. do i make it match tumblr instead? is there a specific thing i need to write in the “please provide any additional information…” box? do i need a facebook art account to report the post? or is it not working because it’s fanart? i know of artists who were able to get their fanart taken down on facebook so is where i live the issue? i’m really sorry for all the questions. i just don’t know what to do.

Hey there, I am so incredibly sorry this has happened to you. I'll do my best to help.

I'm not sure if my advice is the "best," and if there are legal professionals here who can provide better advice, definitely listen to them! But here's what I have done, with success having DMCA takedowns go through, including on Facebook:

1) I have always used my full legal name, sometimes with a parentheses handlename (tumblr user YukiPri, and/or Twitter user YukiPri_Art, depending on the platform) afterwards. When adding your handle, it should be formatted exactly the way it is to find your various socials, as that is likely part of the verification process. If you have slightly different handles on different platforms, I recommend doing what I did in the example and specifying "Tumblr user XXX" etc for each one. I do believe they still require your full legal name, and you should make very clear which parts of the name field is your legal name, and which parts are social media handles.

2) I have always used my full home address. I completely understand how deeply uncomfortable this is, and I share that discomfort and I am so sorry that you've been put in a situation where you have to experience. I understand the fear of doxxing. But I believe this is also necessary for legal reasons.

I'm not sure if a family member can consent to have their full name/address used in your place, perhaps as a "representative." But I feel like that makes things more complicated, so I've never used it and have always filled out my full info. If anyone with professional legal experience has different advice, I am all ears.

3) You do not need a facebook account, though sometimes it unfortunately is helpful, especially if the post is in a locked account. Either way, you need the link to the EXACT link with the infringing work.

4) Likewise, you need to provide the EXACT link to the work that was infringed, preferably that matches your watermark, since it appears you use one.

From the info you've given me, the only thing I can think of is that they were not able to match your legal name to the address you provided, and therefore cannot verify that you're a real person. I could be wrong. It's stressful, but at the same time I'm glad they have a process in place for making sure not anyone can file DMCA—imagine the chaos and evil people could do if anyone could claim anything was theirs!

It's a horrible and incredibly stressful process to file DMCA claims, and I am so frustrated that we artists have to feel this immense stress to reclaim our stolen work instead of people simply respecting that they have the privilege of viewing our work for free.

I really, REALLY hope this helps you, Anon. Please be assured that Facebook HAS removed my art for me before via DMCA (though sometimes it's taken a while), and I really hope the above works for you.

In addition, while I hate that you have to do more to protect yourself and your work, please consider the following in the future, if you haven't already:

-Add your full url/handle, not just signature to your watermark. I know it's ugly, i HATE having large watermarks, but my watermark has evolved into this for a reason:

My watermark, shockingly enough, isn't actually for people who have stolen my work, or the few people who might see my stolen work who might decide to follow it back to my socials. I mean, that'd be nice, but I know how rarely that happens.

My watermark is designed more so that it's easy for social media staff to verify that my work is my own when I file a DMCA. I want it to be as easy as possible for them to look at my art and for them to say yup, this is definitely by YukiPri_Art @ Twitter and YukiPri @ Tumblr!

Also use simple, legible fonts. I know it can be ugly, so I do try to color them all or choose different fonts to match the work in question. But again, the main point of this watermark to me is so that staff can read it quickly. I want their job to be as easy as possible.

-I also explicitly state "Do Not Repost" on my artwork itself. I have heard "Oh but I didn't know," too many times, dozens, no hundreds of times, even if it's on the post itself, even if it's in my bio. None of that means anything anyway once someone reposts it. But if I stamp "DO NOT REPOST" onto the art itself, there is no denying that the thief reposted with full awareness that they are stealing, and it is a sign to EVERYONE that they did that. More often than not, people have come to me to tell me about my stolen work so I can file a DMCA because of this line.

-Place your watermark somewhere hard to crop out. If it's near an edge, anywhere that you can square marquee and crop without chopping off essential parts of your art, people will crop. I absolutely despise that I have to do this to my art, but placing it near the center, close to the face/body so that cropping it out would mean chopping most of the image and therefore making it unattractive, usually will discourage the thief from editing it out. After all, art thieves are at heart lazy and do not want to do work for attention.

-In that same line, if your art has relatively flat colors, consider adding a bit of a gradient or pattern/texture, at least to the part with the watermark. Or, simply place your watermark in an area with multiple colors/complex lineart (yeah I know, I hate covering up those parts too). This is also so that a thief at least willing to open photoshop to attempt to erase your watermark will have a more difficult time. If it's too much of a pain, they usually won't bother.

I hope this info was helpful, and again i truly hope you get your case resolved, and that you never have to experience this again!!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

[discluded]

Hi discluded,

This is about your post about Build Poi situation. This is me asking permission to make my own post and reblogging with yours .

I just wanted to address some things in your post . I want to continue from where you left off. Is it ok if I reblog your post with the new addition?

The most important thing is the medical misinformation in your post . Anti depressants don't cause abortion and if they do the doctor and the entire hospital will be held accountable. Depression and stress may lead to abortion but not antidepressants. I want to clarify this in a clear and detailed manner.

And about your sources from Twitter,

There is a credibility issue. I want to clarify all these issues in my post.

I am not contesting the fact that Build made terrible tweets.

But the sources are unreliable.

1. @allecsirp48 has been caught committing identity theft. They have been making racist comments against Chinese people , Islamophobic comments and mysogynistic comments using stolen pictures from another person. This is an ongoing issue with them.

2. @idcabuu account has now been deactivated most probably fearing the legal consequences. All their tweets have been deleted. They also spread a lot of fake allegations. So they will also most probably have a lawsuit now.

I just want to update this situation and determine the truth. We can all stand with whoever we like,but at the end I think we should present the truth.

Though Poi is the defendant now,she is still innocent until proven guilty.

I wanted to ask you permission to update this, because this documentation was initially started by you. I just want to continue from where you left off. I didn't want to reblog your post and address all those issues without your permission.

And I didn't want to ask you this behind an anonymous mask.I will respect whatever decision you make. If you don't like it,I will make my own post about it,but please make sure to address that medical misinformation in your post.That is a very serious thing.

Thank you very much for reading .

please make your own post... you can link mine but I'm not looking for additional notes on the post. thanks!

edit: also I don't care about the case but I do work in public health so I care about medical misinformation and I want to correct that you said about increase risk of miscarriage with anti depressants. the results are mixed but here's some more recent research using the Danish registries and a more specific analytic plan to tease out the results.

Conclusions: Antidepressant use in the first trimester is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage when compared with either nondepressed or depressed unexposed women, even after accounting for induced abortions. The [increased] risk of miscarriage relative to unexposed, nondepressed women was 30% for antidepressant-exposed women and 10% for unexposed depressed women. The miscarriage [increased] risk for antidepressant users compared with unexposed depressed women was 20%

citation: Almeida ND, Basso O, Abrahamowicz M, Gagnon R, Tamblyn R. Risk of Miscarriage in Women Receiving Antidepressants in Early Pregnancy, Correcting for Induced Abortions. Epidemiology. 2016 Jul;27(4):538-46. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000484.

Epidemiology is one of the preeminent public health journals. Often, there aren't data to corroborate whether or someone should stop or start medication and leave the advisement to personal choice and/or what their personal physician thinks is best.

[skrunklowumbo64]

Sega Forever Discord Experience

Note: Do NOT witch-hunt & harass SF Discord members & moderators on various social medias.

Hope I'm not the only one who has issues, but I was kicked out of the Sega Forever Discord server for unexplained reasons.

My guess is that, I called their moderation poor due to little to lack there of enforcement to their #1 rule, "Be excellent to each other." (Said rule never specifies if they condemn users using slurs or not & tons of grey areas for what the mods think is bullying & what isn't.), then some arrogant guy (not a moderator) tells me to cry about it, he then denies all the toxicity happening in the Sonic the Hedgehog channel through out the years & claims saying "cry about it" is just a joke to save face.

My last comment on the server was to trying to prove him wrong, my examples were...

The mods did nothing till last month to do something about one user harassing someone over their contrarian views that's been going on since 2022.

Asking one mod about users using slurs, they didn't respond & they didn't delete comments containing slurs, nor punish users for it.

Two different users insulted my former Discord username over pinging the mods on two respectively different situations.

The arrogant guy reacted to me with a nerd emoji 3 times on three different posts of mine & I can't tell if the mods allow this or not.

Don't have any screencaps since I never expected to get banned, but I'm gonna talk about the other negative experiences about the server by memory.

Made a wish list of improvements & features for a Sonic Adventure remake, some insulted me over it & telling me to just get the modded Steam version, at least one mod step in without being pinged to defend me.

A contrarian girl calls & blocks anyone (including me) who got annoyed by her spamming the same unpopular opinions (i.e. Sonic Mania bad!), trolls/jerkfaces & she had said some perverted things about Amy's... you know what at some random point, the mods did nothing to her for either.

Some users got mad at me for frequently requesting almost every obscure Sega game ever made in the port request channel by saying I don't care & didn't bother to provide gameplay footage for any of them, even tho they could've just easily look them on YouTube themselves instead.

Post a link to repro copies of Dreamcast games, anti-piracy crowd tells me to back up my own ROMs & one mod recommends me to just buy a GDEMU instead, despite the fact that Sega doesn't make profit from the Dreamcast anymore & GDEMU mods & the games are expensive. It's cheaper to just download a free emulator on your PC or phone instead.

Wanting specifically the original Dreamcast versions of the Adventure duology to get new physical ports on multiple platforms, too bad cuz the Steam/PC supremacy crowd will call you delusional & tell you to just get them on Steam & only Steam, with mods. Also, some Apple bootlickers were making fun of contrarian girl for rightfully being critical of Sonic Dream Team being stuck on Apple Arcade & potentially be lost media due to said app's streaming digital only nature.

Say, A.I. art needs to be banned from the server, mods delete it without warning. Gives me the impression that they're pro-A.I. Art because of it.

One mod accidently shared stolen artwork from an art thief on Twitter, I tried to inform them by providing an archived link to the original artist, but they didn't respond, nor removed the stolen art piece.

In the Sonic the Hedgehog channel, not all, but several users enjoys making "make fun of Sonic fans" their entire personality & sometimes calls Sonic Team incompetent/idiots. It's unknown if the mods condone this type of behavior or not.

If you also had negative experiences with the server you like to share, reply or reblog if you want.

[mack3030]

Things the Sims 4 Community Can Do About Paywalls...A Post...

[This is going to be a bit long, so you may want to save it and read it when you have time, or just...you know, buckle in.]

I thought I would ring in the new year by talking about something that I feel we as a community need to finally decide on. (It’s been debated since 2017 or so, and it’s now 2021...) I’d like, if possible, to try to suggest some real solutions and choices that we can make that will hopefully create a better and more honest community out of all of us.  Now I would like to start by making some postulates. In geometry, postulates are facts that do not need proven with a mathematical proof. They are assumed to be true. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers would call these “Self-Evident Truths”. I would like to use these as a bit of a basis for my arguments. 

Truth: The Sims 4 has been enough of a cash cow for EA.  If you buy the base game ($40) plus all expansion packs (40 each x 10) + all game packs (20 each x 9) + all stuff packs (10 each x 17) you would come to a total of seven hundred and 90 dollars ($790) plus tax. This is of course, without sales, bundling, etc, which many people DO take advantage of, but STILL. That is a TON of money for EA’s pockets.  EA makes a majority of its money on the fact that the Sims 4 is an “incomplete game”. It “completes” the game further and further by adding more “expansions” to the game to the point that it seems almost useless to buy the base game alone without adding to it. 

Even with sales and other things, it’s easy to spend over $500 dollars on the sims 4 game + expansions. Still a lot of cash for a game that is years old. This is just money that is spent on the game that goes to EA. This does not account for:  * Money spent to buy a new computer because your old one wouldn’t run the sims.  * Money spent supporting CC artists who have donations open or early access.  * Money spent on access to sites that have ads/paywalls/exclusive sims 4 CC such as Leosims, etc. (Which are the problem, frankly)

We should be able to respect the fact that a majority of us paid a hefty amount for this game. It is unfair, and frankly greedy to REQUIRE people to pay MORE just to unlock or gain access to specific user created content. 

I am not talking about a VOLUNTARY support or donation because they like what you offer. I am talking about FORCING people to pay if they want to ever be able to use the CC or mod you offer. 

Now, the typical defense for this is “Well, I’m an artist! I spend time/effort/etc working hard on these meshes, the code, etc to make this content!”  Which leads me to point #2. 

Truth: Mods, CC, and other content for the Sims 4 are useless without the game. Once they are created/uploaded to the game, all copyright to those objects IMMEDIATELY transfers to EA. 

I teach art in a Missouri public school. Our state standards dictate that when art students are in middle school grades, they have to learn about copyright, fair use, and creative commons. While I am not a copyright lawyer, I have had to learn enough about this subject to teach it. So allow me to break down a few facts about copyright: 

First, when ya make it, ya own it. There’s not a process to apply for a copyright. The moment you create something that is 100% your own work, you hold the copyright to it. 

Second, when you make something that is created based off of or USING someone else’s intellectual property as a reference or resource it is a fan creation. In art, we call this “fanart”. It is not 100% your own work. Someone else’s intellectual property is involved. 

Fan creations always have tread a very thin and shadowy line when it comes to different companies and the legality of them. You can easily search google for various articles explaining it, but to summarize it in a short method: 

Most companies do not actively go after those who create fan creations unless they are making profits that could instead be going to the creators of the intellectual property. If the fan creation is discovered to be making profits and/or taking the intellectual property in a direction the creator does not approve of, they have legal options to pursue (court, cease and desist letters, etc). 

Third, Copyright can be transferred from person to person. In most cases this is done through a written document that both parties sign, however there IS an exception to this that EA uses to allow itself to transfer your copyrights to your content to them: 

EA’s agreement with you is non-exclusive, meaning that the moment you hit “agree” on the sims 4 terms and conditions, you have handed over your rights to any CC you create for the game. 

If you want to maintain full creative rights over the mesh/mods/etc you make then, you have to not make that content for the sims 4 and make your own platform to host it on. This is way easier said than done. 

Truth: There have been various examples in the past of CC creators who have stolen meshes, bases, bits/pieces of work, or “inspiration” for CC from other sites/companies, who have been called on it publicly. 

The most recent event concerning this was drama concerning itsbrandysims and their use of meshes from imvu/secondlife (you can see my opinion on the subject HERE), but there have been other documented cases. Leosims, for example, has been listed as an example of someone taking meshes from secondlife creators and reuploading them (when it was told to me, I was shown THIS thread as evidence). Another well known creator was accused by a former sims 4 cc creator (who now makes content from second life), and was called out in THIS post in 2019. 

The horrible part of this? Many of these creators are charging people (often at not so great rates as well), for STOLEN content. Content they don’t even own, that they ripped from another place. This should not be accepted by a community that loves a game as much as the Sims 4 community.  Truth: EA has provided a way for people to make money while not hiding content behind paywalls entirely, and the INTENT of this was to OFFSET COSTS.  Almost every post about content locked behind paywalls features this post found on the Sims Forum from 2017. In it, SimGuruDrake, who was the community manager at the time (she has since left the Sims 4 team for another job).  Most of you who have seen this discussion topic before know this post by heart, but I’d like to highlight one important aspect of it: 

One thing that is always important about communication is the intent behind it. The intent for people to be allowed to make patreons and allow early access wasn’t so people could just make money for themselves, the idea was to offset costs to buy programs to make the content. For example, a yearly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which has photoshop, illustrator, etc) costs a couple hundred dollars US a year. If someone was using photoshop to help them create their CC in addition to blender or other free programs, EA/Maxis wanted to allow the creator to not have to pay for making the CC out of pocket.  Can EA/Maxis control what people spend the money they make off of patreon on? No. But it should be noted that the intent of this action was to help people pay for supplies for their hobby more than to make a business out of it. 

Onto the next truth! Truth: There is an image that disputes this post above, however the authenticity of it and timing of it are very disputed. 

This image is often thrown around by people who lock content behind paywalls, but I would like to take a second and try to provide an honest assessment of it.  First of all, I have a bit of a problem with the fact that the original person who “messaged” SimGuruDrake this question has not been identified. This image was not posted on the tumblr of a CC creator who claimed “Hey I reached out to a sims guru and this is the answer I got!” The main pages that have this image are either tweets from CC creators using it to defend their stance on paywalls (ex: here), or tumblrs/tweets “debunking it” (ex: here, here).  I even reverse image searched this image using google, and another platform and could not figure out where this originated from. Of course, I’m not an expert, but...still. 

The fact that the origin of this picture is unknown casts doubt on it. If it were a well known CC maker who is known for being honest, that’s one thing. But the fact that we don’t exactly know where it came from is suspicious. Because frankly, anyone with some decent editing ability could photoshop this. 

Here’s my imperfect edit, but I’m just a self-taught graphics nerd and I am not as dedicated at faking screenshots as some. (And the crap photo quality didn’t help.) Another common issue is that at the supposed “time” that this question was being asked, some state that SimsGuruDrake had already left the Sims 4 team. I will admit, this photo is within the correct timeline, as SimsGuruDrake did not officially depart the sims 4 team until February 2018. (There is a post on the sims forums that has a timestamp that confirms this.) But, if you were in the process of leaving your job within the next month (as a two week/30 day notice is common when leaving a job), would you REALLY be answering questions in DMs on twitter, or be focusing on packing up, and training your successor?  The last thing that really makes me doubt the validity of this picture is the fact that it’s not really easy to message the sims gurus on Twitter. This appears to be twitter from the screenshot (although there are some things that are a little out of place from the current UI): But when I attempt to direct message a sims guru I get this message: 

I even tried seeing if I could reach out via DM to Drake herself, (who now posts under a different twitter) to see if it was possible: 

Could the policies have changed since 2018? Possibly, but I feel that opening up direct messages is just asking for Sims 4 team members to get angry messages, so this could very well be a long running EA policy. I have also reached out to her via a twitter tag (as of 1/2/21), and will update y’all if I get a reply:

Okay, so now that we’ve gone through all of this, let’s talk about the last truth that’s really important:  Truth: Putting content behind paywalls has generally been considered disgusting by many in the sims 4 community, and TAKES AWAY the choice of people to support CC creators they love/appreciate WILLINGLY.  A few notable posts sharing the disgust with this practice can be found: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE). And these are just what I can find from a simple precursory search.

Okay, Brainiac. So what can we do to solve this problem? 

Well, there’s a few methods we can employ, and sadly, it’s going to take a bit of a commitment and concentrated effort from the community. 

Step #1: Make the COMMUNITY the VICTIM instead of EA. 

Now when I say this, I don’t mean we’re actually victims, but mean that instead of constantly saying things like “WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU VIOLATE EA’S TOU!”, thus making EA the “victim” of the crime. We change the dialog to saying “When you lock stuff behind paywalls, you cheat the sims 4 community and disrespect their choice to support you or not.”  Because let’s be honest. Maxis/EA really doesn’t give much of a care about if people aren’t following this rule. You can report people to the team, but as far as most people have seen, it doesn’t get anywhere. But if we make it where the community is the party being “wronged” it is much harder for those who have paywalls to not be scared. Because the community, in the end, has to be with them.  DepthofPixels had a really amazing post about this HERE. 

Step 2: Decide to not support anyone who puts their content behind exclusive paywalls and do not hesitate to spread the word about why you choose not to do so. 

By that, I mean

not paying any patreon accounts that don’t offer either their content 100% for free, or offer early access.

And sharing about why you choose to do that on your social media. Something I might suggest would be to make it a bit personal and share something like:

Instead of spending $15 a month to get exclusive content from Leosims (or any other patreon/paywall creator here) I’m spending that $15 supporting creator x, creator y, and creator z, who don’t put their work behind paywalls! 

Link their patrons, share why you like their content, and why you take the stance to make the community better. Make it a positive thing, praising the people who are doing RIGHT by the community. 

Yes, you may not get their content for a while (although there are some different places (

x

,

x

) to find them *cough*. But in the end, is it worth supporting someone’s content when they’re treating the community badly? 

Step 3: Report creators who actively steal content from IMVU/secondlife to those respective companies, and all others to EA. (Even though nothing may happen.)

Here’s the deal. When people steal from either of those sites, they are infringing on someone’s copyright, as well as Imvu/secondlife’s copyright as well. It’s not okay, and they should be held accountable for it. Here’s the LINK for submitting a ticket to Secondlife. I haven’t been able to find one for IMVU, but maybe someone else will find one. Let those companies know and allow them to handle those specific creators.  As to the other creators, EA may not handle them at the moment. But IF (and this is a wishful thinking “if”) there were suddenly a flood of messages about certain creators...? I think they might have to pay attention to some of those messages. There is an official report form, but it might even be worth tweeting to SleddingGuruFrost, who is the current community manager asking about their stance on paywalls.  And last but not least: 

Step 4: Make sure that those who are doing the right thing and not putting their work behind paywalls feel appreciated. Show them some love via a tumblr ask, or by tagging them on twitter, or by going up a tier on their patreon (or pledging for the first time). Celebrate these heroes who are creating content and not forcing it on us. 

Us asking for people to give us a choice to support them isn’t being greedy, or disrespecting their time. We just want transparency, and respect from those who create content for the game we love so much versus them treating us like we’re just a source of income. I know it might seem a bit hard to do this for some of you, and for some it may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but we have to decide where we stand on this issue and stop letting those who abuse this system keep doing it. We can make a difference if we decide as a COMMUNITY to work together.

With commitment,  ~Sunny

[chem-24]

some thoughts on one of the datamined/leaked characters and Inazuma

Specifically, about this funky Aetherface-looking dude + some stuff about the Electro Archon got in too, somehow :/

(watch as this gets debunked into the ground when the Inazuma update is released)

What are the scraps that we know of him so far? Well, his name is “Kazuha”, and he’s going to be an Anemo Sword!

Yeah there’s been some prior misinformation about him being a pyro polearm (even I thought he was going to be pyro sword), but that was more just him getting confused with this other guy called “Tohama” (who’s also supposed to be Ayaka’s (arranged) fiancée? No idea how that’s going to turn out). Plus, you can see Kazuha’s Anemo Vision on the second pic here:

It appears to be an autumn motif instead, which is also pretty cool and can still tie into the wind theme

The second thing I did notice though (first being ooooo new pyro character) was that he looked like a samurai. It’s also why I had doubts about him being a polearm user.

*[Yes I know historical samurais have used bows and spears in the past. But even Japanese media pushes the “samurai = katanas” angle, and Kazuha strikes me as more of a “pop culture-style Japanese swordsman” than a historically-accurate one if you get what I’m saying.]

To digress a little; how’s Inazuma looking? Well, according to Zhongli: the Electro Archon, also known as “Baal” or “Raiden”, has issued a “Vision Hunt Decree” to confiscate her people’s visions and decorate them on the hands of a “thousand-armed statue”, as well as closing off the country. Furthermore, it is said that no one has received an Electro Vision in a year in-story by “the will of the Electro Archon”.

There is a runaway NPC from Inazuma to Liyue called “Atsuko”, who provides a tangible picture of Inazuma’s current state of affairs:

As pointed out in this reddit post, Baal’s actions are a parallel to other real life Japanese rulers such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi & Tokugawa Ieyasu; from closing the country and confiscating swords (visions) from the populace, up to melting all the swords to create a giant metal statue (that one didn’t work, but it’s the thought that counts).

**[my personal thoughts on this is that someone or something else has either succeeded or stole Baal’s position as the Electro Archon, which would explain the sudden extreme personality change.

Like, try to think of this in terms of the in-story timeline - the lockdown specifically happened a year ago; no one knows what’s going on inside Inazuma, nor does Inazuma know anything about the outside world. Thus, the Electro Archon shouldn’t know about ‘recent events’ like Venti getting his gnosis stolen or Zhongli’s “”death””, so her/their(?) current actions are definitely not influenced by what’s happening to the other Archons - this was something the Electro Archon decided to do on their own, independently of the Tsaritsa’s/Fatui’s plans.

Venti has explained before that anybody with a vision is capable of becoming a god, so the possibility is there. Hell, they may even be posing as Baal and hiding the truth of their ascension for some reason.

If you’re familiar with Japanese history, then think about how Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa came to power in the first place.

To summarize briefly: Hideyoshi was originally a vassal of another warlord called “Oda Nobunaga”, who united most of Japan. However, Nobu was betrayed and killed by another one of his vassals known as “Akechi Mitsuhide”, so Hideyoshi stepped up and finished the rest of the job.

After Hideyoshi’s death, Tokugawa (and 4 other men) was supposed to look over his son until he was of age to rule. But Tokugawa was growing in popularity at the time, so he stepped to take power himself.

So in the context of the Genshin story, perhaps the “Toyotomi Hideyoshi” and “Akechi Mitsuhide” figures are being fused together (aka: this person killed the previous Electro Archon and took her place). Or it’s a Stanley/Venti’s friend situation 2.0

Plus, it’s added dramatic irony to the whole ‘God of Eternity’ also being the god of lightning; something fundamentally transient and brief. Their so-called ‘eternity’ is as fleeting as a lightning bolt, or something.]

~

Anyways, back to Kazuha.

If we’re going with the implication that the Archons are responsible for giving out their respective elemental Visions (others have theorized about this too); then what does that say about Kazuha, who has an Anemo Vision (proudly displayed in full view too!) given by the God of Freedom?

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Kazuha may turn out to be a “wandering vagrant” or “ronin”-archetype character; kinda like what Miyamoto Musashi does. A vagabond that wanders the land and maybe hides in a village once in a while, but never having an established home.

Of course, there’s still plenty of unknowns such as what his actual personality is like - but I think that with this, we can narrow down one part of his character concept at least.

Take another look at his character design: Kazuha is associated with “autumn”, which invokes the imagery “falling leaves in the wind from a tree” and “the passing of something”; possibly exemplifying Kazuha’s nature as a ‘wanderer’ who never stays in one place for too long, and perhaps the presence of a former/deceased master or organization(?).

Furthermore, Kazuha has very albino-esque features with white hair and red eyes, which could further indicate him being a “outcast”. Razor is another character with white hair and red eyes, and he’s very much an “outcast” from ‘normal’ human civilization too - what with being raised by wolves and all. (there’s also some people who think Kazuha and Razor could be long-lost brothers, which is kinda eeeeehhhhhhh 🤷 for me)

Combining that with the historical context of “confiscating swords = confiscating visions”, that would make Kazuha either:

A: a wanderer from the start, and thus far enough away from Inazuma’s capital to avoid the initial Vision Hunt order when it started

B: went on the run after the “Vision Hunt Decree” was issued

Either way, by refusing to give away his “sword” (vision), it would most likely make Kazuha a high-profile criminal and wanted target in Inazuma. Possibly with a bounty included too.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the way, as some have already pointed out: some significant characters (interestingly, most of the gods) in Genshin share design similarities with other Honkai Impact characters (another Mihoyo-made game). For more examples, here’s official art of Fu Hua (a Honkai character) that makes her look suspiciously like Zhongli.

I’m bringing this up because some twitter users have pointed out that Kazuha seemingly looks like Fu Hua in her [Phoenix] battlesuit:

Is this just a coincidence, or does it really hold some deeper meaning? Personally speaking, I’d prefer that Kazuha stays human, but I guess another god isn’t too bad either :X

and with that design significance, my dreams of obtaining Kazuha as a 4* are flushed down the drain

[rechoired]

A problem with the Tales Of Arcadia community

First and foremost, I’d like to ask anyone taking the time to read this to please read the post all the way through before commenting on the matter. There is a lot of dirty laundry to unpack here, and some points will be building off previous ones.

I’ll get right to the point. Most everybody in the Tales of Arcadia fandom will have heard of the blog imthegingerninja / ginger-le-gay. She is one of the most well-known ToA-centric blogs, after all. (If you’re wanting to avoid her on Twitter as well, her account is Margaret Bell, or @The_Book_Bell.)

This is your PSA, TOA fandom: Ginger is a toxic, manipulative person.

This is not a claim I like to make lightly, but it’s long overdue that this issue is properly brought up within the fandom. 

I’ve seen so many people wonder why the Tales of Arcadia fandom is so small. Well, I and many others very strongly believe that Ginger is one of the main reasons for that, if not the main one. To make matters easier, I’ve tried to break this down into some main points. So let’s take a look at how Ginger falls under this category.

Disclaimer: Please DO NOT look at this post as an excuse to harass Ginger or any other blog mentioned here. This sort of behavior is NOT acceptable. The point of this post is to educate those who may not know the extent of her harrowing behavior, nothing more.

1. Dishonesty and Death Threats

[EDIT: Shortly after this post went up, she started blatantly lying about me to try to cover for herself. You can see those lies being easily disproven here]

Ginger has been kicked from at least three Tales of Arcadia servers, all for similar reasons of violence. While I cannot provide screenshots as I am no longer part of the servers they were in, there are multiple witnesses that can verify the disgusting behavior she engaged in. The one I saw specifically was her saying that certain members of the fandom should be gathered up and hunted for sport, among other gross things. (Elaboration of why can be found in point 3, though it still doesn’t excuse this kind of talk)

Here is some points made by another blog that also sums up similar issues with Ginger, though:

While there were multiple instances of her inciting violence towards others, this is unfortunately one topic I cannot provide specific screenshots for at this time. But I will add them in as I can find them. That being said, I want to move to the dishonesty, something I do have a screenshot for.

While you could argue that people sometimes notice the similar things, this is far too close together to be considered an “original find”. The reblog button is there for a reason, but she instead decides to steal the OP’s premise and present it as her own original thought.

There have been a couple other blogs that have confirmed that their theories and analysis posts were often stolen and presented as Ginger’s own as well, to the point where they stopped bothering even making such posts, as the above blog points out. (Out of respect for their privacy, I will not be naming these blogs. Say what you will about that possibly weakening my point, but if she’s willing to so blatantly steal from that person shown above, it shouldn’t surprise you that she’s so willing to do it to others.)

Theory-making and analysis posts aren’t as solidly “original content” as a piece of art or fanfiction, sure, but it’s still common fandom courtesy to give credit where it’s due. Ginger has intentionally avoided extending that courtesy far too many times.

2. Hypocrisy

Most of this is going to be about past Merlin vs. Morgana drama, though there are also words to be said for the incredibly shaky relationships she forms with “friends”.

But first let’s talk about those wizards.

This is a topic I’ve tried to approach with Ginger before, but she borderline refused to acknowledge any of the points I was trying to make, and when she did, I don’t know if I just wasn’t being clear or what, but it honestly looked as though she was purposefully trying to misunderstand what I was saying in her bizarre responses. (To be fair, I was sending messages out of anger because she vagueposted about a blog I admired, calling them a “disgusting creep” because of them simply saying they’d hoped Jim and Merlin would be able to actually bond at some point... Not really a justifiable reaction to such a harmless thought, in my opinion. But my point is, I recognize that the circumstances may have clouded my ability to vocalize my thoughts clearly.)

That aside, we should first acknowledge this post Ginger made to save face after having gotten some backlash about hate-train related things (Side note: I couldn’t find the original post, so this is a screenshot I got from someone else. I did not add the writing. The text underneath it should still be slightly readable, I hope.):

Taken at face value, this is a very reasonable post. I think everybody would and should be able to agree on it. Hate-meme him for fun, sure, but don’t actually harass or insult others over a fictional character. Simple, right?

Apparently not, because Ginger’s done loads of that to others. Probably why the “LOL” was added in, I bet.

This post confused me. First of all, exploring dark topics (”angst”, as you put it) has never been a rare occurrence, every fandom has that content, most in heavy abundance. I’ve noticed no staggering difference in volume of this fandom compared to others I’ve been in. People enjoy angst not because they think the character “deserves to be in pain”, they enjoy a fictional blow to their own emotions. There’s lots of different reasons people like angst, but it’s barely ever been out of a genuine hate for whatever character’s the focus, from all the things I’ve seen. Your own friends have indulged in Jim angst and body horror posts before, does that mean you think they’re awful people? I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain something like this.

Also, way to basically admit you think all Merlin stans get off on child torture. So much for “If you like Merlin as a character, you’re valid”, am I right? God, what a mess of a post. (It’s been very recently deleted, which makes me wonder if she got more backlash on it, but just... wow.)

Let’s look at another one.

Again. Vagueposting about someone specific, I’d wager, since most of the people I’ve seen comment on this topic either think both characters are morally gray, or hate both. 

But of course, when it comes to Morgana, suddenly excusing bad behavior can be justified. Ginger can call someone a disgusting creep because they want a familial bond between Jim and Merlin, that’s just wrong, but pushing the Mom-gana narrative with the genocidal abuser and Toby is completely fine, folks.

(Note: I would like to point out that I really don’t care about what theories and hopes people have for Morgana. You should be allowed to love that character in any way you want, same as I would say for Merlin. My issue with these examples is the completely brazen hypocrisy in which these two characters are treated. You’re obviously allowed to love Morgana without consequence, but the same should be said for any character of the show, and yet it’s not.)

The most obvious instance of this double-standard is well observable here, I believe: 

... I think this mostly speaks for itself. Sorry, but this is very blatantly trying to excuse Morgana’s actions, here.

Oh hey, remember that post about Ginger saying that liking Merlin must mean you want to see Jim in horrible pain? 

Say anything similar about her with Morgana, and suddenly she takes issue with this line of reasoning! 

I’m sorry, but if you can’t take this sort of thing, then you shouldn’t be dishing it out. One of your own friends is still getting hate over the simple fact of liking Merlin, and all this mentality is exactly why.

Let’s look at one more.

Fun fact! Morgana horrifically abused somebody for centuries, tried to kill multiple kids, took horrible advantage of Claire (probably traumatized her), and canonically wanted to genocide humanity, not to mention all the OTHER murders she's committed, both directly and indirectly.

But somehow pointing any of this out “doesn’t count”. This is why the fandom keeps saying more and more things like this: 

And this:

I could be going through her constant hating on Merlin and people who like Merlin for days straight, but I hope you all get the idea by now.

Again, I would like to just reiterate: You can like whatever character you want for whatever reason you want. The problem with this case is the hypocrisy and mistreatment of others, not your taste in characters.

Now interestingly enough, she’s lately been singing a different tune about the guy, switching from the “I hate Merlin I hope he dies!!!” mentality to “Oh he should get a redemption arc too :)” sort of thing.

I’m highly convinced that the only reasons for this “change of heart” is because of the constant backlash she was getting for the obnoxious amount of hate posts being thrown around all the time, but also because Aaron Waltke keeps tabs on the fandom more lately, and has spoken himself about Merlin not being a villain.

I could go on about this point forever, but I think I’ll just leave the Merlin topic with this post going through the hypocrisy of the Merlin Hate Train. In fact, here’s two just for fun.

Now onto more real-world focused areas of hypocrisy. One such instance can be found in Ginger’s Janus Disorder server. 

Just take a look at this post.

While the offender in this case isn’t Ginger specifically, it still takes place in her server, and she made no moves to enforce her “No discourse” rule. All over... what? A random kudos on a fanfiction that’s not even about anything controversial since all characters involved are adults? I immensely don’t understand the point of why this ever had to be an issue, or why nobody spoke up about how ridiculous this is.

I’d also like to point out a certain user called firecat17. For some quick context, waaay back in the Kung Fu Panda fandom (around 2018), this user had been harassing people and saying incredibly vile things, a person of which Ginger had a bit of a feud, but firecat’s anon threats had gotten to the point where Ginger ended up having to block their IP. 

Obviously, the user firecat was the one in the wrong, here. (Also, the irony in this comment is through the roof...)

Interesting point there, Ginger. Sure would be nice if you practiced what you preached.

Why am I bringing this random old drama up, you may ask? Well, it just strikes me as strange that someone who was so vile to Ginger is suddenly on her okay-list again, sending her asks and getting casual responses as if nothing ever happened.

To be fair, there is the possibility that they worked out their differences in private. But given the severity of the kinds of words being exchanged, I would still find that rather suspicious.

When someone who’s said things so vile can be so easily forgiven, yet something as harmless as leaving a kudos on some random fanfiction is considered grounds for harassment, it’s obvious there’s no stability or room for trust among this group of people. Unsurprising when there’s been several instances of this “friend group” turning on each other.

If you think you’re somehow different, that your “friendship” with Ginger or the others is more valued than that, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but it’s likely not true. She’d throw you under the bus at the hint of you doing something she deems problematic, as it’s happened to multiple blogs before you.

3. Demonization of and insensitivity towards s*xual abuse victims

(This topic is one that’s hard for me to talk about, being a victim of CSA myself, so I’ve gathered some different sources to do most of the main talking for me. I tried to form more commentary on this myself, but I get too emotionally charged in my responses, and I don’t want that to cloud any reader’s perception of what I’m trying to communicate here, so I’ll try to keep most of my comments brief on this one.)

One thing recently brought to my attention about Ginger and her squad that especially bothers me is their rashness in labeling people p*dophiles and p*do apologists. If these claims were true, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But these people are accusing others of these horrible things and threatening them on the sole basis of fictional content.

Now before you fly off the handle at me, let me be very clear: I absolutely understand that there are gross people out there who use the “It’s all just fiction” argument to hide their actual, pr*datory behaviors. (We’ve all probably seen at least one or two neckbeard memes of that caliber)

But like it or not, exploring traumatic themes through a fictional lens is something that has been studied and proven to be a genuine coping mechanism for some. It’s not something that works for me, but I knew a few people from past therapy groups that it worked surprisingly well for. Bringing a trauma into a controlled environment and processing it through fictional means can and does help some victims deal with what they went through. 

It’s important to understand that not everyone processes their experience in the same neat, little boxes you have laid out as the only “acceptable” ways of coping. Trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy are commonly used by victims, and it does help some people, whether you like it or not.

I’m already dragging this on too much, so here are some sources for better-worded information on the topic (Warning: Most of these deal with highly sensitive themes such as gun violence and s*xual abuse.)

Source 1 - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5 (pages 61 onward, specifically) - Source 6 - Source 7 - Source 8 - Source 9 - Source 10 (and believe me, if those all don’t satisfy you, I can easily supply more.)

And this quote from source 9 I think sums it up best:

“Fiction works differently. My imagination gives me a framework to process the grief and terror and the consequences, even when I myself have not found any resolution. It allows me to enter my own traumatic experiences sideways and linger inside them, if I know I can give them to characters who might be lucky enough to find the antidote: love, connection, community, family. In other words, I can enter — and exit — the trauma loop through stories that are not exactly the same as mine.

This goes for the reader also. Recent studies periodically assure us that stories — literary fiction, hardcover books, even the simple act of reading — promote empathy. We rarely have identical experiences, so fiction is how we practice linking our similar or parallel realities so we can feel them. This seems particularly useful in our current society, where we are all so separated, and are working so hard to block the violence that keeps happening to us from our minds.

Fiction connects us, and it can also contribute to our healing. When we see ourselves in worlds we don’t live in, like The Handmaid’s Tale or The Color Purple, sometimes, that very different violence helps us finally process our own. Because as much as our memoirs and testimonies are brave and validating, fiction does not just mirror our truths so they are safe to experience; it also helps us endure the aftermath. Because long after the immediate experience is over, survival struggles onward, in every moment of our daily lives.”

While most professionals have in the past advised that victims keep their trauma-related works more private, to only show it to your trusted friends or family, the fast-growing use of the internet has led more people to sharing it in an online platform, which is not unexpected behavior.

I unfortunately don’t have the screenshot of the original post, but there was a post made some time back literally telling a fandom member to go and hang themselves over this garbage. A survivor of s*xual abuse, no less. And to top that off, one of Ginger’s squad @emmy-puff commented in support of that violent post, as well as blatantly misgendering the target of it. While, again, I was unable to get screenshots, there are multiple witnesses to this instance, one Anonymous even having called them out on it back when it happened. (I suspect that Emmy deleted that answer due to how bad it made them look.) If anybody reading this has screenshots of the initial post or the ask that came of it, please feel free to share.

I don’t care who you are or who you’re talking about, if you use misgendering someone as a way to hurt them, then you are an insult to the trans community. That is an awful thing to do, and you lose so much credibility if that’s the only thing you can fall back on when getting in a fight with someone. While this post isn’t about Emmy specifically, this is exactly the kind of hateful rhetoric that’s being encouraged in the environment Ginger’s made.

Another thing I would like to point out on this matter is an instance that happened in the ToA fandom a couple years back. I, again, don’t have screenshots available (I believe the original post ended up deleted) but the post in question caused enough of a fuss that I’m sure a few people must remember it... 

A while back, there was an artist that posted uncensored, untagged r*pe art of Aaarrrgghh, Gunmar, and Jim in the main Trollhunters tag. As you can imagine, this infuriated many people. Many of which are among the list of those who’ve been labeled “p*do apologists”. Almost the very minute that post showed up in the tag with no trigger warnings of any kind, the fandom immediately got on OP’s tail about it, because they all shared that basic understanding of “This is a traumatizing subject for many people and they should have the ability to avoid it”. If the people you’ve labelled as pr*dator supporters were really as awful as you say they are, they would’ve jumped to that person’s defense, too. But they were completely against OP’s horrible lack of consideration of survivors, right alongside the rest of the fandom.

Am I saying you have to like trauma fiction? Absolutely not. Are there people that make trauma fiction that are actual pr*dators? I’m sure there are. But those people would be that way whether trauma fiction was out there or not. Gross people have existed and will always exist regardless of what media is out there.

I deeply understand the controversy, uncertainty, and stress that surrounds this topic, I promise you, I do. But the fact of the matter is, some people actually do use trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy as a way of coping, as has been observed in people even from ages as young as 5. To say otherwise is blatantly untrue. This isn’t a matter of opinion or morals, this is plain, studied facts that you cannot change about human psychology.

Nobody should ever have to go through something as horrible as s*xual abuse of any kind, and I know how deeply upsetting it can be to see certain images or stories with those themes in play. Those users with a sense of decency and understanding for fellow victims will tag their posts with the appropriate warnings. After that, it’s up to you to filter out what you don’t want to see. You curate your own internet experience, and it’s just plain irrational to try and harass everyone into conforming to your rules. While it’s an 18+ blog’s job to make sure to tag and label their content appropriately, it is your job to block the things you don’t want to see, whether you’re an adult or a minor. It is YOUR job to blacklist content that you know will upset you, because it is always going to exist on the internet, and any internet user needs to know and understand that. Multiple times I’d seen people going off about posts that were already appropriately trigger-tagged. If you don’t have those upsetting tags blacklisted by now, then the fault is mostly on you in that kind of case, not the OP.

Before I end this topic off, just one more example of blatant disrespect towards victims:

I’m sorry, but the absolute nerve of comparing some random fictional character you’re petty over to an actual pr*dator who’s terribly hurt real children is just awful. Imagine how insulted one of Onion’s victims would be if they saw that. Lord.

Ginger claims to care about victims, but she’s made it abundantly clear that she only cares about those that behave the way she think a victim should.

4. Ableism 

I’m going to just show a couple posts here and let them mostly speak for themselves. 

Just... my God. You looked at the definition of psychopath and decided that was enough to give you qualification to speak like this about it? Do you realize the extensive work and study of human psychology goes into the diagnosis and understandings of psychopathy? Not to mention, you just admit to thinking people deserve hate because of a mental disorder they legitimately have no control over? I’m sorry, but that is just cruel. Demonization of the mentally ill is not cute or funny. Next.

While I’m still annoyed with Emmy’s transphobic treatment of another user mentioned earlier, they make a very solid point in this instance. (The first post they referenced has since been deleted, but here’s the second one speaking out against the ableism.) I feel I don’t need to add much to this, as these points have already been argued very well by users better qualified to speak on the subject than I.

5. Manipulation tactics

This part is more observations of two kinds of abuse tactics Ginger appears to demonstrate, using the above as points of reference. 

First, there’s DARVO.

Then, less formally, there’s this good point about online cult mentality.

Before you say anything, obviously I don’t think Ginger thinks of herself as some sort of deity. While it could be argued that she considers herself a point of authority within the TOA fandom maybe, I haven’t seen enough of this to say for sure how far that goes. So that point can be ignored, because it mostly doesn’t apply in this case. (The “Dictating parts of your online life” might also not apply, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t gotten any confirmation of that sort of thing in Ginger’s group.)

But there are grains of truth in the other four points, especially that last one. Plain and simple, she’s made people afraid to speak their minds about even harmless things such as character analysis.

Ginger is someone who can’t seem to comprehend different viewpoints and life experiences. She’s extremely unsympathetic towards people she doesn’t understand, as can be observed in above examples. Assuming malicious intent from everybody you can’t understand is a dangerous and hurtful mindset to have, for both you and those who you unnecessarily scorn.

There are a few outcomes I’ve speculated should she ever come to see this post.

1. She will ignore this post completely, pretending as if it doesn’t exist

2. She will dismiss me as being some sort of horrible person, a p*do apologist or something of the sort (despite being a victim of that myself, clearly she doesn’t care about who’s actually been hurt by real p*dos or not if they don’t conform to her narrow worldview), and claim nothing I’ve said bears any meaning, despite the extensive evidence I’ve provided.

3. She will get people to try and attack me. 

4. She will actually address these points in a tactful, mature, and serious manner instead of her usual act of trying to dismiss everything at the slightest hint of non-conformity. (The least likely outcome, but one can dream.)

I could add to this post all day, but it’s long enough as it is and my focus was on getting the main points out of the way. I understand that I lack some of the receipts necessary to back myself up in a few parts, but I know that many other fans have bared witness to those things, so I know there will be at least some people who’ll know what I speak of is true, and that’s good enough for me.

That being said, if anybody has screenshots of the instances I wasn’t able to provide for, it would be greatly appreciated if you could add them into the conversation.

!!!-If you have screenshots, but are too uncomfortable to get involved in this, then you can private-message them to me and I would be grateful and more than happy to add them in while keeping you completely anonymous.-!!!

(I've removed the section with all the tags, as I recognize it was probably going overboard. My goal was just to spread information, not to try and involve those tagged, but I understand how that may have gotten lost in translation and made people uncomfortable. Also, it apparently was showing up multiple times in people’s notifications when I only tagged people twice, so I’m not sure why that glitch happened, but I apologize for that annoyance as well.)

Now, to end us off, my responses to questions or angry comments I’m probably going to get:

You don’t even have all the evidence! How are we to know you’re not just lying about some of this?

Admittedly, I don’t have as much screenshot proof as I would like, that’s true. But for most of the instances I couldn’t provide for, there were other witnesses to her bad behavior. I don’t really have the need to lie when there’s already a lot of knowledge out there of the bad stuff she has done. Nor do I really have the emotional investment in this fandom anymore to lie for the pointless reason of causing drama.

Why post this on a throwaway account if you think people are on your side?

I just don’t really want my main blog associated with TOA anymore, to be frank.

You tagged a bunch of people, so you must be trying to get them to attack Ginger!

No. I tagged a bunch of people because I think this information should be heard on a wider scale, considering the position Ginger has in the fandom. I don’t want her or anybody else to be attacked, but her negative impact on this fandom deserves to be acknowledged.

Again, I don’t think Ginger or any of the others deserve harassment or cyberbullying or anything of that manner, that’s kind of what this whole post is against. And it just hurts the situation more than it helps it. What bothers me is how she’s never apologized for or even once acknowledged the gross way she’s treated people. While she might be more low-key about it now, she still treats people who don’t deserve it like garbage. There are still several people upset about the damage she’s caused to this fandom, rightfully so. I wouldn’t be so loud about making this post if I didn’t think it was something worth drawing attention to. 

Thank you for reading.

[aenslem]

ATTENTION: REPOSTER ON TWITTER/INSTAGRAM - glojo3798 / GlojoCuscuhing

Hey guys, I will take some of your time here by writing about this particular Star Trek gifs reposter that’s been brought to my attention, but first let me provide some links explaining what reposting is and why it is bad. See posts here and here. A lot of gif makers and other content creators have faced reposters since tumblr exists and I myself wrote a lot of posts about it, but those sum it up well.

Recently I was notified by @ansonmountdaily that there is a massive reposter who’s been going through tumblr stealing thousands of Star Trek gif sets over the course of at least three years, and reposting them on their Instagram and Twitter accounts glojo3798 and GlojoCuscuhing, 99.99% of the time without giving credit to the original gif makers on tumblr, which come from every Star Trek fandom (TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9, Discovery and Picard) See list by AnsonMountDaily at the bottom of the post for a sampling of gif makers that have been targeted. The purpose of this post is to let people know their work has been reposted offsite without credit. It is not meant to attack the reposter in any way.

This individual has reposted 7000+ gif sets for which they’ve received thousands of views and likes from their 4100+ Instagram and 1700+ Twitter followers. Reposts include gifs clearly watermarked with the gif makers’ names but conveniently re-cut by them to make the watermark on gifs harder to see. Glojo also has the habit of combining stolen gifs, creating a collage, changing the size and order of the gifs, putting additional text over the graphic, and sometimes even their own watermark on stolen edits (original), giving the impression they’re the creator of those works. To top it off, Glojo has turned other people’s gifs into “birthday gift” collages, tagging Star Trek actors’ Twitter/Instagram handles on the reposts, again making it seem as if the gifs were their creations.

Glojo knows where the gifs originate from because the captions on the reposts are often the same as on the tumblr posts, and on the rare occasion they do admit the gifs are not theirs, it’s done in a vague manner, in the style “credit to the owner” (“gif from tumblr”) which is not credit at all, it’s merely acknowledging the platform the gifs come from, when credit should be given to specific users.

Before AnsonMountDaily told me about the reposting I did not know about any of this and am pretty sure the gif makers on the list didn’t either. They have since been notified. Glojo was contacted via Instagram about giving credit more than once, only to block those users. I myself wrote to them (also commented) about it, but they were not even bothered to answer me, but still continued to repost my works after i wrote them.

I want to ask those who see Glojo’s reposts or already follow them on social media, to NOT like/follow reposters or give them views. Please encourage the content creator and not the thief. We know it can be difficult sometimes to recognize an account as a reposter, and that net etiquette about reposting and ”resharing” isn’t immediately clear to everyone browsing social media, which is why we’re alerting people about this particular case, and spreading the word to other graphics makers who have been affected.

If you respect content creators who provide you with fanart and gifs for your favorite fandom, if you appreciate the love and dedication and energy they put into their work, and don’t want them to lose interest in giffing (a skill that takes time to practice and learn, and a process that is longer and far more involved than non-gif makers tend to believe), do not encourage people like Glojo into stealing more because it is very upsetting. As a member of @startrekladies I had a hard time going back on posting there because a lot of Glojo’s stolen works originate from said blog or got reblogged by it. More than that, Glojo went through my old blog @spockemon and reposted 50+ edits and gifs, and even my Doctor Who gifs (original), and that’s just what I found from browsing their instagram a little, pretty sure if i scroll down to the end i could find more :/ which is very upsetting.

They reposted not only Star Trek gifs/edits, but also Doctor Who, Farscape, Stargate and Star Wars gifs.

We do hope that if they repost more they will give a credit to original creator, but as someone whose gifs and edits were reposted a lot and even re-edited and watermarked by glojo, i prefer them to not repost my works at all. Even if it is just a small screencap edit, I still put my time and effort into it and using it as a base for their work and even claiming as theirs is disrespectful.  The worst is - Glojo is not the only one who does this, there are more accounts stealing works from creators and getting praise for it, never mentioning that it is not their work. That is why my recent gifs are all watermarked. I put in my about page that if someone reposts my works outside tumblr at least give me credit, linking back to my tumblr, that is not much to ask and all the time I ask for the credit I get rude answers and get blocked. or no answer at all :/ I hope you will have better luck with it.

Feel free to reblog this post to help us spread the word, thank you! If your gifs have been reposted and you wish for them to be deleted, we suggest you either contact Glojo on their social media and politely request a removal (please, DO NOT harass or attack them!), or report the reposts to Twitter/Instagram.

Thank you very much for reading!

The following are gif makers’ names and examples of their gif sets that have been reposted on Glojo’s Instagram and/or Twitter that we can recognize. Please note this is just a small sampling of gifs Glojo has taken from each gif maker, there are many more, just like there are numerous other gif makers not covered on the list! (if you want to be removed from the list, contact me)

@anneboleyns: Janeway’s hair (repost)

@ansonmountdaily: Pike, Spock and Number One (repost + another), Ensign Spock (repost), Pike’s thruster suit (repost)

@bamfness: Saving the galaxy (repost), We are Borg (repost + another), Seven (repost)

@burnhamandtilly: Burnham outfits (repost + another + another), Sarek outfits (repost)

@carlithiel: Disease (repost), Infinite Regress (repost), The Thaw (repost), Seven (repost)

@claudiablacks: Intendant Kira (repost), Jadzia outfits (repost + another)

@cowboyjimkirk: Spock beanie (repost + another), Talos IV (repost)

@cuddlybitch via @picardsource: Clancy and Picard (repost + another), Locutus (repost), 218 warbirds (repost), Picard’s wine (repost + another), Airiam (repost)

@danvers-carols: Pike (repost)

@discovernow: Jet Reno (repost), Spock on the bridge (repost)

@e-ripley: Pike’s winter uniform (repost), Pike and Spock (repost)

@gatissed: Are we safe here (repost + another)

@gayparmak: Odo and Quark (repost)

@gayspockk via @picardsource: Raffi’s fave holo (repost + another)

@geordilaforges (@jane-foster): Troi (repost), Crusher (repost)

@haybalemaze: Enslave them (repost + another), Seven drinking (repost + another)

@indianajcnes: Pike (repost), Pike in the chair (repost)

@intergalacticexplorer: Number One as Admiral (repost)

@jeor: Pike’s traits (repost)

@leisylaura: Kate Mulgrew (repost)

@likefreedominspring: Pike and Georgiou (repost)

@lovely-trek: TOS happy cast (repost + another), Kirk and Tribbles (repost)

@marcygoomen: Kate Mulgrew’s Birthday (repost)

@mindmeld: I do love you (repost)

@mistressvera: Heads up (repost), We have to stop them (repost + another)

@myrcella: Beverly (repost), Beverly and Jean-Luc (repost)

@onaperduamedee: Georgiou (repost), Burnham white undershirt (repost)

@philippageorgiou: You had it coming (repost + another), Pike on the bridge (repost), Beverly (repost)

@readysteadytrek: The Voyage Home (repost)

@ssaalexblake: Sarek and Amanda (repost)

@startreksource: Pike (repost)

@static-warp-bubble: The Pikes (repost), The Ensign or Cadet (repost)

@toboldlyblahblahblah​: Tasha Yar (repost)

@whatelsecanwedonow: Hubris (repost), Romulan lives (repost), Shields up (repost)

@youmissedthewholeshow: Hit it (repost), Number One (repost)

and mine (@sopheirion): Pike and Spock (repost), Pike’s goodbye (repost), The Orville (repost) Rand and Uhura (repost), Original (repost), Kirk (repost) - and many other recent gifs of mine and not only from @startrekladies and @sci-fi-gifs.

[meowlayn-art]

Hello! Not sure if you speak Spanish but as a fellow spanish speaker i am quite ashamed of the audacity of that person who sent you the message...i cant help but wonder if maybe translating the reasons why reposting is bad in different languages could help decrease the amount of reposts granted it should be common sense but i guess ppl either just dont know or dont care...

Hi Anon! :)

Thanks for your message and support ^^ It was quite a bold move from them indeed haha but I am aware that their nationality has nothing to do with them being rude so you shouldn’t be ashamed at all!

I do not speak Spanish but I am French, and Italian was my 2nd language - I say “was” because I am more proficient in English now but don’t tell my grandma ( ˙▿˙ ). So I got the overall idea of the messages (still used 2 different translation websites to be sure I understood correctly though).

It’s a neat idea! And it would probably help spread the message a bit more. :)

That being said, I don’t think that excuses their behavior nor should it be the artist’s only responsability to educate people because:

Those posts surely already exist somewhere in the internet (you could probably confirm that there are at least forums explaining the subject in Spanish and other languages, if they bothered Googling it)

in my experience (at least) most people don’t want to be educated on the subject once they are caught red-handed

it’s literally written THRICE on the stolen artwork to NOT REPOST and I shouldn’t need to write an essay in the first place for them to respect my wishes and boundaries (kinda like how consent work).

Let’s take my most recent repost experience : the reposter, alongside stolen artwork, posts screenies, edits and analysis (in Spanish) of the otome game MLQC - a game that is only translated in English for “Western users”.

There is a fairly good amount of dialogs in this game, which means that the reposter, although they didn’t feel like answering in English to my DM, understands both the game AND my message. Still, they :

lied to me even tho I have SCREENSHOTS of my reposted artwork before it was taken down

blocked me and then changed their username + pfp after I sent them said screenshots asking them not to lie to my face + explaining in 3 sentences why it’s bad + asking them not to do it again.

And unfortunately, that’s not uncommon. When I DMed reposters, I used to accompany my message with a link to this very clear Twitter thread made by GraphicFighter on the subject, as a mean to help them understand me - because I believe that if people get educated on their mistakes, it lessens the chances of them repeating it. The reactions were either :

total silence

a “polite” apology and “promise” they’ll never do that again (but I am not sure they read the thread)

a rude answer, from a litany of bad faith arguments, to literal insults, or a lie.

I am sure there are people who changed (I hope so), but in my experience, people would rather close their eyes than own up to their mistakes, learn from it and apologize.

TL;DR : spreading the word in different languages should lessen the risks and we still need to help educate people on the subject BUT people should still respect “DO NOT REPOST” signs even if they don’t understand why + there will be reposters who still don’t want to educate themselves even tho it’s super easy to find infos on the subject nowadays.

Thanks Anon! It was a very interesting message :) And thanks again for your support!

Have a great day/night!

[triforce-of-mischief]

I posted 2,584 times in 2022

That's 2,584 more posts than 2021! (surprised pikachu face)

286 posts created (11%)

2,298 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@silvercaptain24

@squigglywindy

@hyah-lian

@zartophski

@socialc1imb

I tagged 2,338 of my posts in 2022

Only 10% of my posts had no tags

#lu - 643 posts

#lu legend - 236 posts

#fable's asks - 185 posts

#writing - 135 posts

#fic rec - 133 posts

#lu warriors - 121 posts

#lu wind - 109 posts

#botw - 97 posts

#demigirl - 96 posts

#chatting with squiggles! - 95 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#wanna show you're legit without having to interact while you're still shy? customize your picture and background and description! it's fun!

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Don't mind me I just need to Look At Him

164 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

#4

No Hat Legend Compilation 

167 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

#3 (dont freak out theyre both deleted now)

🚨Head's up, artists!🚨

There's a couple of new users who think they have to gain popularity by any means necessary. I've tried explaining that this is not Twitter/Insta but they are now completely ignoring me.

illusion984 is stealing art and reposting most of it on their sideblog illusion984zeldaedition. Supposedly it is all taken from DeviantArt but I have seen them repost a few things I know from Tumblr.

pennydog2020 is reposting art as well, along with reblogging illusion984's stolen art.

Again, I have tried reasoning with them since they are clearly new. pennydog2020 appeared to be guilty, but they are now ignoring my asks telling them to take down their reposted art.

The hyperlinks lead directly to the respective blogs so you can block (and report if that's an option). I didn't tag them directly because I want to do this as peacefully as possible.

Please reblog to spread the news! Thank you! 💚

189 notes - Posted October 17, 2022

#2 (ooh i love this one)

Trypanophobic Whumpee ✨

Whumpees who hide their wounds to avoid medical attention, out of fear rather than pride.

Whumpees who scream and sob and plead when Caretaker brings them to the medic/doctor/hospital.

Whumpees who are too quiet and submissive, terrified to act out.

Whumpees who are jumpy and completely snap at the first sudden move.

Whumpees who lock themselves in the bathroom to delay the inevitable.

Whumpees who want to be sedated but not with a syringe/IV, anything but that.

Whumpees who can't stop reliving the trauma of being physically restrained in the past.

Whumpees who try to flinch back, to run away, and find themselves in Caretaker's gentle but unyielding embrace.

Whumpees whose hands shoot out in self-defense only to be grabbed and held by Caretaker.

Whumpees who have to tell Caretaker, voice hushed, about their phobias, and watch the horror and sympathy spread over Caretaker's face.

Whumpees who only trust Caretaker to get anywhere near them, even if Caretaker is holding a needle, not knowing why they feel safe when they should feel scared.

****

Caretakers who can't decide if it's better to tell Whumpee where they're taking them or if it would be a mercy to keep the secret just a little longer.

Caretakers who know about Whumpee's phobias and feel the crushing guilt as they force Whumpee to live through their greatest fears for their own good.

Caretakers who don't know what's worse, the utter betrayal in Whumpee's eyes or the resignation once they stop fighting.

Caretakers who have to tell Whumpee to Don't look over there, eyes on me, you'll make it worse for yourself if you look.

Caretakers who know if they should stay quiet, tell Whumpee what's happening, soothe and distract with words, show them how to breathe deep and steady.

Caretakers who scream just as loudly as Whumpee when the medics/nurses have to hold Caretaker back from fighting the ones who are holding Whumpee down because Caretaker knows it's wrong.

Caretakers who apologize and praise Whumpee, even- especially- when Whumpee knows they were not brave, but they got through it anyway.

****

Please reblog if you like these, and tag me if you use them or have any recs that use them! I would love to read! 💜

315 notes - Posted October 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

reblog, don't repost! 💜

864 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[adzoic]

[Community Beware] @theeggoman Thread

It’s 8 in the morning, I’ve had like six cups of coffee and I’m ready to go. Today, we’re focusing on a user that’s been repeatedly called out for tracing and theft.

I want to start out by telling you not to send harassment or death threats to this user, as they’ve proven time and time again that they will use and run with it in order to garner sympathy and place the blame on other people.

That is not what I want. What I want is for @theeggoman​ to take full responsibility for what they’ve done and what they continue to do each time they are called out for a situation like this. Which is a lot, mind you.

Tumblr user @theeggoman​, formerly known by these names:

Fooperdoodle, PleaklyandJumba, Pleakly, jombasworld, mistskistrawberryblonde, Jumba, etc.

Has been called out for tracing, scamming, etc. on many an occasion. Their (and I’m using they pronouns because I’m unsure of which pronouns they use. A bitch can be respectful and still call you out.) most recent dive into tracing artwork being taken from the artist Grendel Menz on twitter.

Grendel posted on 12/28/2020 that his vent art was stolen for a Hannibal animatic using the the song Butch 4 Butch Simping by Rio Romeo. Grendel follows this tweet up with two more, confirming the identity of the art thief.

Big yikes, but wait! There’s more. A reply to Grendel’s original thread blows this shit wide open, revealing the fact that Tumblr User @theeggoman​ has, in fact, been at this for quite a long fuckin’ time. 

According to Kyosein on twitter, this shit has been going on since forever.

And it just. gets. worse.

Quoting Kyosein, the twitter thread states:

A follower found their comic, and then noticed similarity (pretty obvious) with some of my work. So they messaged me about it and here all it starting.

Once again, according to the twitter thread: After they had been caught, Theeggoman began to go into hiding. They changed their names multiple times on all of their accounts, hence the laundry list of alternative usernames at the beginning of this thread. 

All of the works they had claimed, with little acception, are traced and copied from different images. Example:

Now, while the thread mentions Theeggoman faking harassment and copying art styles ( I don’t see that sort of shit as the crime it’s made out to be. Seriously, we all take inspiration from somewhere), I don’t think that takes precedence over the art theft and scamming that’s going on here. While on the topic: Yes. Tracing and taking inspiration from someone’s art style is completely separate.

More importantly. Let’s talk about the issue of tracing for profit.

You heard me. On their previous patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/fooperdoodle, now defunct.) Theeggoman made commissions at $50 USD. In which, you pay $50.00 for a traced drawing. 

Additionally, Theeggoman made buttons! That just so happened to also be traced. Example:

The original, adorable illustration by Floofyfluff on twitter:

Versus, Theeggoman’s direct fucking rip-off of a button:

They also had a Youtube channel! A channel where they posted speedpaints. In a video (now either deleted or private, like all of them are) talking about their situation, the fucking “tumblr” layer was visible in the goddamn video. Seriously, Eggo. Do you think people are that stupid? 

Versus, the two works they traced from! Originally by @furpocalypse​:

Y’all need more proof of theft?

‘Cause I’ve got more proof of theft.

Not to mention that the 2019 cover of their Tapastic comic looks suspiciously similar to this tweet back in 2016.

Finally, we’ll get to the aforementioned scamming.

To quote Kyosein’s twitter thread:

They did open an donating money page, for their "goal" to go to an "art chool", showing traced drawing as examples.

And from an article found on Theeggoman in the twitter thread:

SHE GOT IN TO A SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM WITH  STOLEN ART “She has been accepted to Columbia University, CAL Arts and Savannah School of Design and is weighing funding and options.” “She said she prefers a smaller company that cares about the artist.”

 Everything she did until now is using plagiarism, tracing, copying art. To enter school. Making money. Taking all the "rights" on the back of real artists. Promoting their stuff. Lying to their community. We're about to contact the reporter of this article.

And thus, Theeggoman absconds with all of the money they’ve scammed with a sweet little “lol k thx, byeeee” at the end of their donation page:

Here are the screenshots for the article quoted above, or you can really just go to Kyosein’s original twitter thread.

Alright, I think that’s all of this bullshit so far. Again, I’m not asking anyone to deplatform or send death threats to @theeggoman​. That’s not something people will learn from, and as we’ve seen time and time again, it only allows shitty people a platform to whimper about being cyberbullied on the internet. 

However. People should be made aware of what’s happening, what they’re paying for and who they’re supporting/giving their hard earned money to. And making money off of shit that isn’t yours? C’mon, Eggo. You’re an adult and you should know better.

I’ll end this by saying thank you. Thanks for sticking around and reading through the muck of shit with me. I hope you’ve come away from this a little more informed than you were before. 

And finally, to Eggo:

Shame on you.

[shijiujun]

On Translations

Once again, I’m just plain incensed by dumbasses who think it’s okay to firstly, steal someone else’s hard work and secondly, think they’ve got some right to edit that person’s work because they think they’ve got a better grip on English (not true btw) - It didn’t happen to me (well, as far as I know) and I’m not in the Guardian fandom and I don’t personally know the person who’s dealing with this ridiculous shit, but oof am I angry after seeing the tweet.

Just saw on twitter that some asshole stole a translator’s works (Guardian, Chinese to English) and edited it - Yes it’s just like the MDZS saga a few weeks ago when some white person who doesn’t have any Chinese language knowledge, tried to ‘improve’ translations done by another person who actually knows what they’re doing in both Chinese and English - And then put in on Wattpad with a ridiculous letter and intro where they said: “Great things can be made greater” to explain why they edited the English of the original translation.

“Great things can be made greater,” said the thief.

“I hope my actions will be appreciated,” said the thief again.

Like wow, once again, the audacity - There’ve been extensive arguments on translations since the MDZS saga a few weeks ago and obviously the fan who took ExR’s translations and ‘made them better’ stupidly stepped on a landmine by fucking with the MDZS fandom that has a longer history, more resources and clout than the amount of time she’s been exposed to MDZS via CQL, and got bitch-slapped by the rest of the fandom where there exists a majority of fans knowing clearly what to do and not to do.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of all fandoms, especially smaller ones - The user i saw is a translator for Guardian and the mofo 1. Stole their translations 2. Edited the translations to ‘better english’ 3. Wrote that they don’t know who did the original translations but “they know where to find me” *cue my eyeroll* 4. And after op commented to say please credit at the very least in May, they’ve been ignored so far - but luckily they’ve got some supporters as well to help report the mofo.

Aside from the ridiculous thievery (not crediting, blatantly lying and stealing, being an arrogant, indecent person stuck on that high horse) of course, the “I believe that great things can be made greater” is a fucking load of bullshit in this instance, and I mean taking someone else’s translations and adding your own spin to it because you think you’ve taken tests in English as a first language in school all your life (fuck off, a lot of these translators did too), that you’ve got some superiority over English or because you think it reads funny?

Granted, most fan translators don’t put up flawless translations (once again, these translators are FREE LABOUR), but you get it for free and you don’t have to (and can’t) read the original text, so suck it up.

Moreover, the disgust that I feel at the claim that the thief’s work is now ‘greater’ is extremely visceral - It’s not a greater piece of work because the thief stole it, period. No one asked for the thief’s help.

(In case you guys are curious the stolen post on Wattpad is here: https://my.w.tt/7dehLj7D56 and if you’d like to report just follow the instructions)

On Chinese to English translations:

1. If you don’t have good grasp of the original language, you have no right editing the translated work after, regardless of language. Until you can clearly understand the original idioms, context, characters etc. or have at least lived with the language for a substantial part of your life, honestly, just stop, you’ve got no right! 

Sure, some translators aren’t as good as you like them to be, but the argument is always, well, you wouldn’t even have this minimal translation if they didn’t do it, so yay you’re like a few sentences and words closer to the text than you were before. If it’s really that bad, hopefully there are better translations and you can ignore the one you’re looking at, but the same rules apply across all translations!! Don’t disrespect the translator (especially when they’ve done nothing wrong except try to give you access to more content).

2. For Chinese, it’s even worse because the language is known for its hidden nuances and complexities within just two to four characters that, when translated into English, can sometimes take up to two long sentences to explain. That’s why sometimes shit reads funny. It’s not that these translators can’t do English, but Chinese to English acrobatics is beyond your comprehension, hell sometimes it’s beyond translators’ comprehension, so thanks for editing something you’ve got no idea about. This user Bee made a very good argument thread IMO about this on Twitter which I suggest people read

3. Adding your edits to a translated piece of work especially without permission or discussion with the translator, honestly who the fuck are you to do that? Either work your damn ass off by painstakingly translating the original and then editing it however you like, or just... enjoy the free content. Chinese BL novels (in this instance and as in many instances i’ve seen) and some of these translators have been around for longer than you’ve been in the fandom, so suddenly when you have an interest in the content, in a culture and language that you’ve never seen before, are unfamiliar with and have zero knowledge about, you think that as a fan you now have the right to edit someone else’s work that was already done correctly? 

The fact is if the translator wrote a bogus line in the English translations, you wouldn’t have known, and when you upload it as your own and ‘improve’ it, you would be a joke, but you didn’t read the original text did you, so what makes you are any sort of authority to edit the translations?

4. Of course this is not to say that non-Chinese speaking people can’t enjoy the same content or have excellent, poignant discussions and understanding over the content, but honestly a lot of translations don’t capture 100% of a Chinese novel because the nuances are just that complex, and translators do their best to convey it regardless - This is why RESPECT FOR THE TRANSLATOR IS IMPORTANT. And I don’t mean simply paying lip service and typing “we respect all translators for their hard work on this work”, and then disrespect it entirely by not crediting, by the simple act of editing without permission etc.

Respect their interpretation and translations, because it can differ from translator to translator translating the same sentence (and people who don’t speak the original language want to compete with that, I don’t understand?!)

5. Honestly, considering how people are still arguing on the semantics of the Bible for example, not only in its original language but also in English alone - if people can’t agree on every sentence of the holy text and what each sentence means to different people, fan translators get a fucking pass

6. I read in Bee’s threads where someone disagreed with their argument of ‘only people who understand the original language can translate and edit’, saying that it’s okay if the editor doesn’t have a grasp of the original language - I understand that yes, someone else’s English might truly be better (for e.g. actual editors but also please don’t proclaim that you’re one just because you think the translator hasn’t lived with English for most of their lives or whatever), but even then, the editor has to work really closely with the translator because the translator is the primary source of the translation i.e. they know exactly what is going on in a particular sentence in their heads that may not have been translated fully, so how can non-Chinese reading editors truly understand the translated text on its own, editing in silos?

7. Perhaps in actual publishing houses that deal with official translations, this is a fallacy that is ever-present and editors do that anyway without understanding the original text (not sure about this, I’m bringing up the point for consideration, hypothetically putting this out here), but my issue with ‘editors’ in the fan translations space is that they come off sitting on some high horse because they think they’re better in English than you are (which of course yes, might be true, but then read points 1-6 again)

8. A thief is a thief, don’t put up an open letter or disclaimer explaining your motivations. It’s plain and simple, you stole someone else’s work, claimed it for your own and are riding on the great (sometimes not so great but still great, if you get what I mean) work that the translator did. You don’t get to claim ownership for any part of it, even your edits. And once again, “original work belongs to the translators” without actually naming the translators? Fuck off.

9. God, I hate Wattpad and Instagram (okay sometimes Twitter but Twitter seems to be a halfway point) - The Sanctuaries for Lazy Content Thieves Where The Platform Endorses Their Shitty Behaviour

10. Aside from translations, I’ve also seen assholes stealing like shitposts and jokes - These are the hardest to prove as well and it’s almost impossible to claim ownership when someone steals your jokes. Thieves only wish they had as creative a brain as some of you (didn’t happen to me but to a mutual) do. The audacity. The audacity! if the work was actually done and paid and recorded, if TurnItIn.com was available for fandom posts, these thieves would be out of gas.

11. Fan translators are not obligated to answer to any of their readers when it comes to why they translated something a certain way. You don’t like it or don’t agree with it, simply ignore, close the tab and go find another translation you like, it’s that simple. Nowadays readers 1. Threaten/Diss the translator directly and rudely 2. Steal the work 3. Add their own spin on it without understanding the original content and say: Yay! Look at this I made it so much better so give me some attention 

*****

The point of this post is not to claim ownership over any fandom or content just because translators or Chinese-speaking/reading people in the fandom know the content better. It’s also not to say that non-Chinese speaking/reading people can’t enjoy, understand, have great discussions over original Chinese content, because just from MDZS alone you can see that they can. Of course there are also individuals who might not be able to speak the language but are familiar with Chinese culture etc. because they’ve studied or lived it well, or maybe they’ve actually watched decades of Chinese drama to be able to analyse it properly now, all that’s awesome. 

Also, I’m all for people who are learning Chinese (or any language for that matter) to translate something as practice. That’s great, that’s good, that’s to be admired!! 

It’s non-Chinese speaking/reading people who claim they know the original content better than translators without any discussions, claiming some superiority over the content because they think the translation is not done well enough without doing any of the ground work that I really have an issue with (and also the fuckers who steal of course XD).

*****

And unfortunately I had too much time on my hands today and got pissed off after seeing the tweet so some of you have to read through this drivel XD

[kreekey]

what's your opinion on the Yoko Julien stuff? Like how she treated him after John died

I have no definitive judgement of it, to be honest. Julian (and Cynthia) would’ve, ideally, been treated with the utmost kindness after John’s death, and their relationship with Yoko would’ve been better. That was not the case. However, Yoko also experienced great trauma after witnessing her husband’s death, and her relationship with John’s first family was not very close. @withthebeatlesgirls s​made an excellent post on this here: X. I agree with a lot of what they say, and the screenshots from Sean’s Twitter are telling.

I recently found a Reddit comment on this subject that I found interesting, please read all. Credit to /u/texum for the fantastic write-up. (Link to original thread).

Oh, neat, a bunch of hearsay that's been proven wrong.

>Yoko made Julian, John's first born son, buy back his letters from his deceased father.

This isn't true. First of all, they weren't letters, they were postcards. As Julian wrote in his book Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection:

>"I had to buy all the postcards back. It's more than likely that when we [he and his mother] moved house stuff got lost or somebody would steal something."

He lost them in a move in England with his mother, some collector got them, and Julian bought them back at auction. John and Yoko never had them--the book reproduces photos of all the postcards and you can clearly see the UK postmarks on all of them. They're all dated 1971 or after, and John never set foot in the UK after that, and neither did Yoko until years after John died.

But at the same auction Julian bought these postcards, he also bought a sheet of recording notes for the song "Hey Jude" that had once been in the possession of Yoko. The recording notes are also reproduced in the same Memorabilia book. These notes had been in a suitcase of memorabilia owned by Mal Evans which Mal's book publisher had lost after Mal died. They turned up in the New York book publisher's basement about 15 years later, and the publisher gave them to Yoko to return to Mal's family, which she did. Mal's family then sold all the memorabilia at auction, and Julian bought those "Hey Jude" notes. Later interviewers conflated the two events, and Julian didn't bother to set the record straight, but if you notice Julian's wording in those interviews, he always carefully sidesteps the accusation that he actually bought the postcards from Yoko. He just says he's been using his father's money to buy his father's things back at auction.

If you think about it for two seconds, it's never made any sense: how would John have postcards he sent to Julian if Julian lived in the UK and John lived in the US? The answer is, he didn't. Julian received them, lost them, and then ended up buying them back from a collector at auction.

>John's will left nothing to Cynthia and Julian, and Yoko...fights him in court for years

First of all, why would Cynthia be part of John's will? Who puts an estranged ex-wife in their will? She already got a divorce settlement and was receiving alimony. Though she had got pretty screwed in that settlement, that's not Yoko's fault, and no second wife I've ever heard of has ever forked over money to a first wife who already took a part of their husband's earnings.

But secondly, this isn't actually true. Julian was included in John's estate. It's just that John didn't leave much of a will. It was basically a boilerplate, "If I die, my wife gets everything" except that John had set up a trust fund for Julian and Sean to start withdrawing from when they each turned 21. Julian John had started by contributing $100K per year for Julian, and then when Sean was born, he upped it to $250K per year to be split between the two of them.

But John died early, and had only been contributing to this trust fund since his divorce from Cynthia, so only about 10 or 11 years. There's was only a couple million dollars in it, and it was supposed to be split between the two sons.

Julian sued on the basis he would have got much more than that if John had lived, and he was trying to take as much as he could get. As far as Yoko was concerned, anything taken by Julian was taken away from Sean, so it took them about a decade to settle the lawsuit. In the end, Julian walked away with about $20-25 million, which was about 10% of the value of the estate at the time of John's death. He was also the sole heir to whatever value of John's estate had already been given to Cynthia through the divorce (which was considerably less, but again, that's not Yoko's fault, that's Cynthia's lawyer's).

Another really interesting comment from the same user, very much related. (Link to thread)

What did Yoko do to Julian? Julian wrote in his book Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection that the postcards he bought at auction were ones he likely lost, or else were stolen, during a move from one house to another while living with his mother in the UK. The four postcards are reproduced in that book, and three of the four are also reproduced in Hunter Davies's book The John Lennon Letters. All are postmarked as received in the UK. The earliest of the four is from late 1971, where John sent his new address and phone number in New York to Julian. Meaning, those postcards were never in the possession of John or Yoko once they were sent to Julian in the UK, since John and Yoko never stepped foot in the UK between John's move to New York and his death.

There were some interviews in the late 1990s where interviewers said that Julian had to buy these postcards from Yoko, but if you actually listen to Julian's responses, he's always careful to avoid accusing Yoko directly, instead saying something more general about how Yoko never gave him anything for free and he was now using his dad's money to buy stuff he received from his dad. (Well, by his own admission later, he should have kept better track of the postcards.)

In Davies's book The John Lennon Letters, there is a letter that John sent to his cousin Liela in Scotland that details some of the drama. While Liela's letter to John isn't in the book, John is responding to her letter discussing some failed get-together between Julian and John's sister Julia. It seems that Julia wanted to visit Julian, and John had made some arrangements for it to happen, but when Julia arrived on the arranged date, Cynthia said that Julian wasn't there and turned Julia away (who had driven several hours to make the trip). John goes on to say in the letter that this was part par for the course, and he suspects Cynthia was keeping him and Julian from talking. John made weekly phone calls to Julian, and when John was separated from Yoko, these calls went right through. Julian and Cynthia even came to the US to visit once for an extended vacation. But as soon as John was back with Yoko, Julian never seemed to be there whenever John called, and John suspected Cynthia wasn't relaying his messages to Julian that he'd called. In the series of letters between John and Liela, it seems that Julian had an open invitation to come visit in New York any time he wanted to (John couldn't leave for most of the period due to visa issues) but there were only a handful of actual visits between 1971-80. John believed Cynthia was deliberately distancing Julian from him.

That's not to say John was a good dad. He hadn't been a good dad before the divorce and he did move to a different continent. But Yoko wasn't the issue. It seemed to be rather run of the mill arguments between the divorced parents, John and Cynthia.

The only other "bad" thing Yoko has ever been accused of regarding Julian is the lawsuit over John's estate. But again, this isn't really Yoko's fault. John died without any estate planning, just a boilerplate will that said his wife gets everything. He had started a trust fund for Julian and Sean, but at the time he died, it had a couple million dollars in it, or thereabouts, to be split between the two sons. Julian sued to get more, and there was surely some settlement offered along the way, but any smart lawyer is going to try to get as much money for their client as possible. It eventually was settled, but it took ten years. The amount was undisclosed, but the rumor is that Julian got around $20 million, which was around 10% of the value of the estate at the time of John's death. Maybe that's "unfair", but keep in mind also that John had already given a large chunk of his estate to Cynthia during their divorce, so Julian was heir to that, too. (Though Cynthia did get pretty screwed in that divorce - but again, that has nothing to do with Yoko, and everything to do with John and Cynthia's divorce lawyers.)

Overall, though, Yoko never really did anything in particular to Julian. Julian may have been upset about some money issues, but again, that's due to John's shortsightedness more than anything. Yoko and Julian never had much of a relationship from 1971 on, when Julian was still only eight years old, because there wasn't much visiting going on. And the reason for the lack of visits doesn't seem to be attributable to Yoko.

Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of misinformation or conflation about Julian and Yoko’s relationship. Sorry I quoted a whole bunch, but this user put it better than I ever could and actually made me aware that I held a bunch of assumptions that were actually incorrect about how Yoko and Julian's relationship functioned.

Here, Julian states that he’s forgiven Yoko:

I would assume that Julian and Yoko had time to reconcile and if he’s forgiven her, then fans should respect that and I think their relationship has bettered. And I think that if he had forgiven her, there must be a reason. Fans may not know the exact details why Julian forgave her, but there is no obligation and I’m just happy to hear that peace has been given a chance, using that same cliche from the video haha.

I do not think Yoko’s relationship with Julian makes her an evil person, though, not at all. I earnestly think she tried to do her best, but after seeing her husband's death, it changed her for a while. But her actions regarding Julian are sometimes twisted to make her sound like a deliberate villain, which I disagree with.