#tagging with various punk labels

[tucuteboything]

If your "punk" label promotes exclusionism, it's not punk. Likewise if you use a punk label and you're exclus, you're not punk.

<3

[babyitsgayoutside]

I went viral on instagram for being a Pro-shipper

Before I even knew what a pro-shipper was.

Around this time last year I had just gotten back to the states from being in Japan for 3-ish months. I posted a reel jokingly showing off some of the BL Manga that I had bought during my stay.

In the video I showed Volume one of Yarachin Slut club and volume one of Hitorijime, my hero.

If you don’t know these series. Yarachin is about a group of boys who run a high school sex club it also has various degrees of dubcon and gang rape. The other deposits an age gap relationship teacher/student.

The reel where I showed these manga went viral on the wrong side of the internet and In 2 months my instagram received over 80,000,000 views across all my reels and I’m averaging at this current moment 10-20,000,000 views a month.

the comments I was receiving and have been receiving since are beyond words.

Some examples of what the more tame comments

And if you think the comments are bad (not shown are the hundreds of comments telling me I’m not trans or gay, that I’m a cis woman pretending to be queer to garner support from the queer community, misgendering and deadnaming me, threading to dox me/send my address/personal info to people via DMs. Not to mention the newest group of people who found out I have a dead sibling and are using that as a way to attack me now as well. My DMs are also terrible.

These people are mad about two volumes of manga. Manga I bought in a brick and mortar store in Japan. Manga that have official anime adaptations.

They are calling a manga you can currently buy at Barnes and Nobel child p*rn and calling me a p*dip hole becuase i own it.

I don’t know what the point of this post is really, I’ve come back to tumblr and realize the entire internet does not in fact hate me, and people on here actually can logically think about things like this not in black and white.

Am I a pro shipper?

I’ve heard if the term, I’ve seen it around and always thought It was for extreme niche interests in fanfic, fictional media and general fictional content that I don’t particularly find myself reading or interacting with ever.

But then I looked into it after being called it 1000000 times a day on my social media and I relaxed it’s not about normalizing incestfics or spreading niche fan art around tags like antis would have you believe. At the end of the day it’s a group of people online with a very punk aligned mentality that censorship is wrong. Fiction is a place for self expression and understand that fiction is fiction. It’s not about individual tags on a03 or black butler ships. It’s about the freedom to express yourself thought fucking fiction. Weather it be to cope with trauma, or to just get some fucking weird feelings you are having out on paper through fanfciton, through projecting into a character from media you like.

I’m not big with labels, so I’m not a “proshipper” but I’m on their side, because it’s the right side.

You can argue all you want it’s not, that they are “horrible people” for the fictional media they consume. But the opposite side is literally telling me to “slit vertically” on a daily basis. You are no better than the people you hate.

Anywho, yeah. Going viral sucks.

[spidey-bie]

Guess who unwillingly read a smut work again? Yay 😑. (It was the first thing I saw when I first woke up. I started this at 7 am yesterday morning.) I will admit that it was kinda on me this time for not having the Miguel smut tag blocked but there was nothing that could've led me to believe that it'd be smut in the first place so my point still stands. Label your smut works.

TW: More pet names and nicknames. (I am a romantic aromantic I'm so sorry 😔) This is a loose continuation of the previous one.

You were awaken, unfortunately, by the jarring sounds of your morning alarm. You groggily look over to surprised to see your beloved s/o Hobie Brown still dozing away. Usually he'd sleep in his own room but you both had decided to have a sleepover the night before. At least this meant that you didn't have to make a trip to go and wake him.

"Bie." You shake him lightly. You only get a groan. "C'mon Bie you gotta get up."

"Just five more minutes." You thought about taking him up on his offer but, history has shown that this only led to you both sleeping in till noon. You had plans for the day and they required the both of you to be up at 8. Unfortunately Hobie had no plans on budging. Usually you'd gently ease him awake but time was ticking away. You had to take a more direct approach.

Begrudgingly you leave the comforts of your warm bed and head towards a window. If you weren't awake before the cold air had woken you up now. You open the curtains to let the sunlight pour in and wrestle the covers from his arms. (At least you knew that if a criminal attacked in the early morning Hobie would be fine. Unfortunately your blanket was not.)

"UGGGGGGH." He groaned as he tried to shield his eyes with his hand.

"Nope. I can't leave you here. You'd never get up before one if not for me."

Hobie grumbled something about time being a concept and moved his hand away.

"Bug must you torture me like this?"

You give him a tired giggle.

"I'm sorry Bie but it was the only way."

He sits up and yawns. This was a good sign. Hopefully he'd soon make his way to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Hopefully.

"I'm gonna get started on breakfast. Please at least be out of bed before I get back." You wait for his reply.

He wipes the sleep from his eyes and nods. You head to the kitchen.

You pop a couple frozen beignets in the oven and throw the rice that you prewashed into a pot. By the time the rice had finished Hobie had emerged from the bathroom much more chipper than before.

"The bathroom's all yours." He gives you a wink.

"I leave the rest to you sir." You give him a mock salute and he rolls his eyes. Quickly you make your way to the bathroom.

****************************************************

You turn the water on and throw on a clear shower cap over your neon purple bonnet. You take note of Hobie's matching neon pink one laying on the vanity. He hated it when you first bought it for him. Yet, without fail he wire it every night. Whenever you offered to buy him another he refused absolutely offended that you even offered in the first place.

"Pink is punk. You think I'm getting rid of it now?Come off it." You chuckled at the memory.

After your shower you finish getting ready for the day. The final task that you had left was your hair. You applied a light oil to your hands and got to work. You had to unravel all of the twists that Hobie had done only a couple days before. After you finished you look yourself over in the mirror, make some final adjustments, pop on your black ring, and head out.

Immediately you are met with the smells of onion, chilis, and various spices. Hobie must've made that one dish again. When you arrived in the dining room you had found that you were right. Alongside the rice and beignets you made you find a mock ackee and saltfish that he makes with eggs, as well as bacon on your plate. You mentally cheer and sit down. Hobie smiles.

"I've been waiting ages for you to get out. Almost checked to see if you were alright."

You scoff and roll your eyes. "Bie, hush."

Grabbing your fork you dig into your plate. The first bite in and a whirlwind of delicious flavors hit your taste buds. You set your fork down and stare at him. A few years ago you couldn't ever imagine something like this. A familiar warmth and a shared meal with someone who cared for you.

"Bug, is something wrong?" He looked at you worriedly. "The food's good init?"

You nodded and smiled.

"Yeah." You pick back up your fork. "It's absolutely delicious."

A/N: Was this rushed? Most definitely. Do I have any regrets? No. I love this sm and if you don't go kick rocks (this is a joke).

I debated on whether I'd do shared rooms or separate but it is what it is. I stole the bonnet hc from @/murdrdocs.

Fun fact a black ring on your middle finger is supposed to be a subtle sign for asexuality if you didn't know. (I have a black and a white one.) Also i'm Creole not Jamaican so forgive me if I got something wrong here. Finally, beignets are heavenly and I'd eat them all day if not for my gluten intolerance.

[jasperthehatchet]

🌟🌿welcome🌿🌟

🦎 My name is Hatchet! I'm an adult human who uses any/all pronouns

🌞 I'm an anarchist, passionate about disability rights, inclusivity, queer trans nonbinary and intersex rights, indigenous rights, environmentalism, prison abolition and restorative justice, and all those wonderful things <3 as well as fighting against racism, antisemitism, police brutality, fascism, capitalism, colonialism and oppression/bigotry of all kinds

*** Tags with resources and donation links include: #palestine, #sudan, #armenia, #congo ***

🌵 Hobbies: sewing, mending, upcycling, painting, embroidery, bookbinding, dream-journaling, thrifting, cooking, jewelry making, basket weaving, and various other punk crafts as well <3 basically I was put on this earth to Make Stuff. I'm also a collector of shinies and trinkets like dice, coins, shells, rocks, crystals, rings, keys, thimbles, bells, etc. Any shiny trinket you can think of I probably collect it

Hobbies I'm looking into starting: paper making, paint/ink making, stone/wood carving, leather working, terrarium building, gardening and lino printing/stamp making :)

🌻 I am very active on Pinterest for art inspiration, if you'd like you can follow me here (or search @juno_monsoon)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

• IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE •

1. I block empty blogs

2. Minors: I have no authority over you but please beware. This is not really an NSFW blog but I do reblog stuff about sex/kink positivity

3. You can dm me or send me asks whenever, i encourage you to reach out if you want to talk about hobbies, politics (in good faith), crafting, art, music, fandoms, or whatever! Just don't be a jackass

4. I don't respond to being tagged in chain posts

5. DO NOT repost ANY of my art or creations please and thank you

6. I tag critical role spoilers with #critical role, #critical role spoilers, #cr spoilers and #critrole spoilers

7. Spam liking/reblogging is perfectly fine I don't mind it at all. Go nuts

8. Things I've made/mended are tagged with #hatchet mends things and #hatchet makes stuff

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

YOU'RE GETTING BLOCKED IF:

- you are a terf, swerf, radfem, transmed/truscum, "gender critical" or exclusionary in any capacity whatsoever

- you're "anti men" or into that "i hate men" nonsense. It's not cute, its annoying and shitty. No anti-masculinity nonsense here

- you're antisemetic. If you're weird towards/about Jewish people in any way you will be swiftly blocked. I mean it. You need to be okay with hearing about leftist antisemitism and how deep it runs in leftist/pro-palestine circles if you're gonna follow me

- if you're islamophobic, weird towards/about indigenous people/cultures, or or even just racist/xenophobic in general, that will not be tolerated and you will be blocked immediately

- if you're (loudly and annoyingly) anti-porn, anti-kink or anti-fetish in any capacity. It's okay if you're personally uncomfortable with those things for any reason obviously just don't make it other people's problem

- you're against: xenogenders, multigenders, aro/aspec people, mspec people, mspec lesbians/gays, intersex people, non binary lesbians, he/him lesbians, she/her gays, amab transmascs, afab transfems, or any identities or labels that "don't make sense" or are "contradictory". Queerness cannot be sorted into any boxes and labels don't matter so if you're gatekeepy or gross about identities you don't understand then this blog isn't for you

- you're fatphobic. If you're in any way fatphobic or infantilizing towards/about fat people? Blocked. Don't be weird about people's bodies.

- you're not normal towards/about deformed or disabled people. If I see any kind of ableism or weirdness about any disability or disorder? Blocked. Don't be weird about people's bodies.

- if you're a blog that promotes or romanticizes dangerous things like eating disorders, self harm or anything like that you will be blocked immediately AND reported.

- I hate reblog bait and guilt tripping posts. I don't care what they're about, if I see that on your blog or my dash I'll block you because I think those posts are annoying as hell. Also of you think suicide baiting and telling people to kill themselves for ANY reason is okay, get blocked. No exceptions to this.

[ravenkings]

[...]

The Kremlin has never been especially fond of feminist ideas. More than a decade ago, members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow church. But pressure against feminist thought and activity has been ratcheting up. A domestic abuse law introduced in the State Duma in 2019 went nowhere. The next year, authorities designated the prominent Russian nonprofit Nasiliu.net, which supports domestic violence victims, as a foreign agent, a label regularly applied to critics of Mr. Putin’s politics. (Nasiliu.net’s founder, Anna Rivina, was personally deemed a foreign agent.) In 2021, they shut down a major national feminist festival, Moscow FemFest. “They didn’t refer to any laws but simply said, ‘We need to clear the space,’” the festival’s founder, Lola Tagaeva, told me.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Feminist Antiwar Resistance quickly formed and became one of the loudest protest movements in the country. More than 100 of its activists have faced various forms of persecution, the organization says. In one of the most high-profile cases, the artist Alexandra Skochilenko was recently sentenced to seven years in prison for swapping price tags in a St. Petersburg supermarket with statements highlighting civilian deaths in the conflict. Other political and social women’s initiatives have gained momentum since then, including mothers worrying about their sons being sent to war.

This summer, Russia’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, criticized women putting their education and careers ahead of having children as “improper” and announced a national initiative to control the circulation of abortion-inducing drugs in pharmacies. At least two Russian regions have already outlawed “coercing” women into abortion, and in two other places, annexed Crimea and Kursk, private clinics have nearly stopped providing abortions altogether. Women nationwide have been panic-buying emergency contraception pills amid fears of a national ban.

Until now, the Russian state has typically opposed women’s groups by blocking their efforts to change laws or by issuing “black marks,” such as the foreign agent designation, designed to complicate lives bureaucratically. But a month before Ms. Berkovich and Ms. Petriychuk were arrested, a Russian lawmaker, Oleg Matveychev, claimed he had drafted a bill recognizing feminism as “an extremist ideology.” The bill has not advanced in the Duma.

[...]

Konstantin Dobrynin, a Russian lawyer based in Britain, said that under that law, it is possible that an official charge of radical feminism might stick, given “the darkest times we live in today.” If that happens, he said, it could very likely lead to the criminalization of feminism as an ideology in Russia. It would be, he said, “a witch hunt and the Holy Inquisition in the most literal form.”

[impunkster-syndrome]

thanks for responding

well, i’ve interacted with ppl of various stances, but what’s more important is that i’ve never been victimized by either of them, that’s for sure.

yes, i am aware of most thing you have listed, tho that’s not really what my ask was about.

i should’ve explained my intentions or something ig. and yes, i do mean no disrespect, as in “i have no beef with your views in general or with you personally, i’m not trying to defend or call out or proselytize any syscourse position” and i’m not here to invalidate your personal experiences, okay? i’ve read a post in my recs and i felt like i don’t agree with this wording yet am unsure if i’m on with this sentiment, so i wanted to challenge the part i’m weirded out by and mb see the logic behind it. that’s all, basically.

i believe i don’t owe my medical information to anyone? i’ll just say that if i didn’t think it’s appropriate for me to speak on this i sure as hell wouldn’t. anyway, you don’t have to believe me and i have no way to prove that my intentions aren’t sinister, so idk whatever.

frankly, i personally really dislike online discourses as a whole - it’s just an unstructured swamp of polarized radicalizing opinions that lead to no factual real-life activism, breeding hypervigilance and hostility instead, perpetuating constant infighting and harassment. i do understand where both positions are coming from but imo both “camps” suck if you dig deep enough and i’d say the “pro-/anti-endo” and “anti-/sysmed” labels are entirely useless beyond mentioning in DNIs and blacklisting tags, but i digress.

back to the ask. what i said wasn’t just “the experiences are different”, i specifically stated that disabled disordered systems are generally more vulnerable to ableism, saneism and stigma cuz of the symptoms that the disordered dissociation has vs. cases where plurality is non-disordered and non-disabling. so how is it “punk” and “pro-disability” to claim otherwise? i agree that disregarding any non-dissociative case as not oppressed is unfair, but if such case has any other stigmatized or systemhood-adjacent mental health issues then i wasn’t referring to that as “non-disabled” in the first place. or is that literally what you meant by “regardless of the intersection” bit in the og post?

the second part of the ask is settled, i agree to that.

Nowhere in either the ask or the original post does it say "regardless of intersection." It does mention intersectionality, but you're literally putting words in my mouth that never were there. At this point you are coming at this from a defensive perspective because you just keep making up shit like the idea of sysmedicalism being useful to disordered systems and making up your whole ass new definition of it (Plus the idea that plural always = dissociative disorder when that isn't the case even for some disordered systems!). Go reread the first post because you clearly didn't remember jack shit from it.

I have DID. Professionally diagnosed and medically recognized before then. I've been denied psychiatric and medical care due to it. We're RAMCOA survivors and have multiple sidesystems. We have experienced ableism from anti-endos and pro-endos. And I used to be a sysmed right before finding out I was a system at all. I've seen people actually fake systems and get outed due to admitting it- and funnily enough most were sysmeds.

My idea was that all plurality is a mental illness that was inherently always medical and is something to be "fixed." I saw a lot of chronic conditions like that. Now that I've gone through the journey of discovery, I don't see the state of being plural as inherently medical- but the distress and trauma can be. That's the big difference. Sysmedicalism sees the state of existing as plural as inherently from trauma and suffering, and therefore inherently a disorder and medical.

I don't think every system should have to see their existence as something that is inherently disordered or from trauma if they personally choose not to. Forcing disabled systems (Because, let's be real here, disordered systems are disabled and you brought it up) to view their existence as inherently medical, as something defined by suffering, is cruel and allows for no diversity in our disability. We aren't allowed to be happy in how we exist- we have to see ourselves as ableist singlets see us. Poor disabled things so broken by our experiences that we cannot know ourselves.

Sysmedicalism has this kind of ableism too since it bases the view of systems on the ideas of the ableist people who want to "cure" us of plurality. You see it in the "endos just don't know they're traumatized," "(introject) is too popular so everyone with it is faking," "you have to be traumagenic to really be a system," etc. The term itself- "system medicalist" is not useless. It is specifically for describing a set of beliefs that do actual damage. Calling it useless or performative to have a stance on something that is ableism that is extremely common online and so frequently has lead to doxxing, suicide baiting, threats, and no progress on actually talking about plural unity just shows how disconnected you are. So many people are so "Oh this is just online" when you do realize that these beliefs are held by people when offline, right? Online is just where people can be as rancid and ignorant as possible with little to no consequences.

You're playing defense for ableism because your whole ass first ask was going "Oh sysmedicalism isn't too bad because of my personal definition of it and inexperience with being impacted by it." Do you realize how you sound to anyone actually in tune with disability advocacy and has been in many plural spaces for years? To someone who has actually seen what sysmedicalism is and how that is the same beliefs of the neurologist who believed my DID makes me unlikely to actually know what I am experiencing just coming from the mouth of often a singlet inserting themselves into our discussions with tokenization or another system?

You keep making shit up. No one is saying that disabled systems are not impacted by ableism. What I am saying is that the idea of all systems being disordered, traumagenic, needing to have arbitrary criteria hit, and defined by our suffering is not helpful to fighting the ableism we experience from each other and others. This is on you for not knowing what sysmedicalism actually is and making it my problem that you keep pulling shit out of thin air to say I am saying it. Send me an ask one more time and you're getting blocked because I have repeatedly told you what sysmedicalism actually is and you're just being intentionally obtuse if you send another ask making shit up.

[the-crystalized-cosmos]

Welcome to The Crystalized Cosmos

[PT: Welcome to The Crystalized Cosmos /end PT]

This is a place for us to coin terms, share our wordmojis, as well as just kinda do our own thing. Everything will be tagged, so if you don't want to see one of those, feel free to block that tag. Most of the terms we use are easily found upon googling, but feel free to ask what something means! General Heads up that we are not consistent! We may post several things at once, then nothing for a week. Energy varies, we'll be back soon enough.

There's a lot more under the cut, including a general "About Us" section, BYF/DNI, how we handle various accessibility features, and a general overview of our tagging system. Fair Warning it is long, but sectioned to help against some of the visual overwhelmingness.

Pronouns and general info can be found on our pronouns.cc (link). All terms and flags are free to use by anyone. Anyone can make an alt flag/synonym for our term. Please just give us credit for the original coining.

[ID: A thin light red line. /End ID]

About Us

[PT: About us /End PT]

We're a system primarily made up of 2 side systems and a large sparsystem, and a second sparsystem. We're a mediple mixed origin specutien system, however specifics differ between sisasystems. Our overall host (and main blog keeper) is Zev, who has been frontstuck most of our life. Overall we're trans nonbinary genderfluid, aspec omni, and polyamorous, though obviously this differs by headmate. We're also intersex.

We are both neurodivergent and physically disabled in several ways. This includes Autism and ADHD, Multiple Personality Disorders, RSD, a Tic Disorder, Breathing Problems, and more. We are currently a nearly full time cane user (full time when not home, part time at home), and are a part time AAC user due to speech and typing ability loss episodes.

More info on individual blog keepers can be found at on our pronouns.cc (link), but it is a huge wip currently, so be warned.

[ID: A thin light yellow line. /End ID]

BYF: (Before You Follow)

[PT: BYF: (Before You Follow) /End PT]

Our "Before You Follow" list is a list of our identities/beliefs that may make you want to not interact with us, however we have no rules around any interactions revolving things on this list.

We are bodily a minor

We are not comfortable using Tulpa for our created headmates in any way, however do not care if someone else uses it.

There will probably be cussing on this page. It will be tagged, but you've been warned.

We reclaim slurs, a lot. We, collectively and as individuals, find them important to our identity. They will be tagged, but not TW or CW.

[ID: A thin light green line. /End ID]

DNI/DNF: (Do Not Interact/Do Not Follow)

[PT: DNI/DNF: (Do Not Interact/Do Not Follow) /End PT]

Anti Endos, Sysmeds

Anyone fine with sharing anti-endo rhetoric/post into spaces that are supposed to be safe spaces for endos. We're fine if you interact (comment, reblog, etc), but don't want you following. An exception is wikis and archive blogs. This rule is loose, and we are more lenient on it, but trust our personal moderation for us best.

Anti Mspec Monos (bi lesbian, omni turian, etc)

Anti Lesboys, Turigirls, etc

Don't believe being any form of Aspec or Intersex is inherently queer on its own.

Anti Xeno- or otherwise Neo- genders, Anti Neopronouns or other form of Pronoun Nonconformity (She/Her Gays, He/Him Nonbinary, etc)

Believe non-physical disabilities belong in cripple punk (I will not debate what counts as physically disabled. If you use the label physically disabled, you can be a part of cripple punk, if you do not, you are not a part of it).

Radqueer/TransID (TransID in the Radqueer way specifically, not from the communities they stole terms from)

Generally a bigot (Homophobic, Transphobic, Racist, Ableist, you get the point)

We reserve the right to block whoever we want for any reason we want (and do), and encourage you to do the same.

[ID: A thin light blue line. /End ID]

Accessibility

[PT: Accessibility /End PT]

Plain Text:

Plain text is text that a screen reader can read without breaking, and in Tumblr is needed for everything that is not regular text (like this), a list format, and indented text.

We add plain text in the following format you've seen throughout this post which is [PT: example /End PT]. We also make it indented for easier visual separation.

"Why do you bother using formats if you have to write plain text?"

We mostly use plain text for Header formats. This is because headers help us not get visually overwhelmed when reading our posts, and make it easier for us to read.

Image Descriptions:

An Image Description is a text describing what an image looks like. We will primarily do these for flags, emojis, and dividers as we don't plan to post any other pictures (but will describe all images we post).

Image Descriptions follow the format you've seen in this post, and look like the following [ID: example /End ID], and are indented for easy visual separation.

"Why don't you use alt text?"

We don't use alt text for a few reasons! 1: it commonly breaks on tumblr, while in-post IDs don't. 2: we actually find them inaccessible! While we don't need them for most posts, images with a lot of words are inaccessible to us, as we cannot highlight to keep track of words, and cannot read it otherwise. Alt text is not highlightable! So it is just as inaccessible to us as the image itself for us.

Dividers and Headers:

As mentioned, and as you have likely noticed, we use both dividers and headers a lot in our posts. While we understand this isn't the most accessible to screen readers, we tend to get very visually overwhelmed when looking at long posts without separation. Headers and Dividers make finding parts of a post fast, easy, and mean we can read back our own posts. But as stated we always transcribe these for screen readers, and keep it simple too avoid overwhelming everyone.

TQs:

This is a section we will add to, once we've decided how we plan to handle this.

However, some of us do have involuntary TQs, and it causes us the same pain to translate in the moment as it does trying to force a not scribal headmate to type. It doesn't work.

They are allowed to make posts here. This is not debatable. We are currently trying to figure out the best accessibility option on posts, that doesn't require completely erasing their TQs, as that is a part of them and deserves as much recognition as a member not being able to talk or type.

These posts will be tagged, and we understand sometimes access needs are incompatible. However, if you will be pissy about this, get out. We will not debate the validity of what you think members "can" do, or "should" do.

[ID: A thin light purple line. /End ID]

Tagging Format

[PT: Tagging Format /End PT]

This is not a comprehensive list of common tags on post, but just general guide to how we tag stuff.

Poster:

Each post will be signed by who posted it with a dash (-) after the hashtag and before the name (ex: #-Zev). If multiple folks post together, each name will be separate (ex: #-Scribs #-Adrian). You may also see roles if it's from just most or all of the folks who have that role (ex: #-NPD Holders).

Along with this, you may see #-Translator for some folks who cannot type on their own. We wont put who the translator was as to keep the focus on who created the post, whether they typed it or not.

We also tag reblogs as #-Reblog and add the member who reposted it (so if Zev reblogs something, you'll see both #-Reblog and #-Zev)

Accessibility Tags:

We tag posts as either #Has PT or #Needs PT if they have or need plain text respectively. Same with #Has ID or #Needs ID.

We will tag any posts we suspect of being eyestrain-y as #Eyestrain. This helps us immensely, and helps a lot of others too. However despite being heavily affected, we may miss something. If you find something eyestrain-y that we do not tag, please either send us an ask or message us! Preferably with the link.

We also plan to tag any posts with a non screen reader safe Typing Quirk as #TQ and #No PT.

We will not be posting any videos with jump scares or flashing lights, and therefore do not have tags for them.

Please let us know if we need to tag anything else for accessibility!

Slurs and Cussing:

We will not tag usage of slurs with a TW or CW. We will instead tag them as #Reclaimed Slur as well as the slur itself like #Cripple.

We do not tag individual cuss words, nor do we tag these as a TW or CW, but just tag them in general as #Cussing.

Creations:

We plan on coining terms (as well as flags to go with most if not all the flags), as well as wordmojis (emojis of words) that we use for communication. While we don't actively advertise requests, we are willing to at least contemplate requests (and very likely to do it for wordmojis, terms take more energy).

We will tag terms as #Terms, flags as #Flags, wordmojis as #Wordmojis and #Custom Emoji. They will also be tagged as other things related to it (so queer centered wordmojis will be tagged as #queer wordmojis and what the actual words are such as #lesbian wordmojis).

However #Terms, #Flags, and #Wordmojis are good things to search if you're looking for something here!

Other Things To Look Out For:

This blog will likely have bug talk, and bug pics, tagged as #Bugs #TW Bugs #Bug Talk and #Bugs #TW Bugs #Bug Pics respectively.

We are also likely to posts Vents (#Venting), and Complaints (#Complaining) so feel free to block that if you want. (Vent is more heavy than complaints, complaints tend to be little things that annoy us).

We also tag especially system/plurality focused posts as #Pro Endo and #Endo Safe.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but might help some folks better filter content.

[smoov-criminal]

intro

mj/maja

24

black, multigender, bi, and poly

xe/it/she

health stuff

auDHD, OCD, cPTSD

strongly suspected PPMS, fibromyalgia (?), hEDS, POTS, and a bunch of undiagnosed shit

crutch, rollator, and wheelchair user

this'll be mainly cripple punk/disability stuff, but expect queer and poc related content as well

i dont really like doing DNI, but th!nspo/pr0ana blogs, trans-id/radqueers, and truscum/transmeds get an instant block. devotee blogs stop fucking following me that's also an instant block. i also support all good faith queer identities, including 'weird' or 'contradictory' labels. also i dont care about syscourse. just dont be shitty basically

minors can follow, just block the nsfw tag (i post very little of it, and it's always disability related)

common tags are on this post, lmk if u need anything tagged!

main: @mj-theskywitch

cane-you-dig-it -> smoov-criminal

ven and cash are both mjthehooman :3c

server for rare/underrepresented conditions

server for disabled people of color

[icon description: picture of maja in her new apex a rigid frame wheelchair. the chair frame is black, and the pushrims, caster bumpers, and removable frame guards are red. the picture shows the whole chair and maja sitting in it. she's wearing a black crop top with a red kieth haring dancing dog figure, green jeans, and combat boots. shes also wearing red black and white gloves and a battle vest with various pins and patches. shes holding the rims and looking forward with a slight smile. /end ID]

[header description: a picture of the back of mj's vest with four patches, one large back patch with the bottom half visible, and three smaller ones below it. the first large one reads "thank you" in large red text, then "for the venom" under it, in the style of takeout bags. going left to right, the smaller ones read "limp wrist raised fist" "keep abortion legal" and "cripple punk". each patch has red embroidery around it, as does the bottom edge of the vest. /end id]

[userbox description: 1. a dark red userbox with medium-light grey bolded text and border. The image on the left is a black transparent male symbol, a black circle with an arrow pointing to the top right. The text is center-aligned and says “This user believes in transandrophobia”.

2. a userbox with the same formatting and color, this time on the left is a transparent black outline of a derby handle cane at a diagonal tilt with the handle in the top right corner. The text says “Don’t ask me if you’re crippled”. /end ID]

userbox credit: @fageles

[mogai-headcanons]

I saw in a post that you said that 'liom' is more accurate to the theme of this blog than 'mogai', how are they different? I can't find any definition for liom and the tag is identical to the mogai tag /lh

here's a carrd on liom! it stands for 'labels, identities, orientations, and other minorities' and includes queer terms, alterhuman/nonhuman terms, various 'punk' terms (like voidpunk and amatopunk), bipoc, mad pride and physical disability pride, plurality of all kinds, kink, and basically anything else you can think of that constitutes a marginalized identity.

you tend to see a lot of the same things in the mogai and liom tags because liom inherently includes mogai and was coined by someone who used to be in the mogai community.

when i created this blog, the liom acronym didn't exist yet and the mogai community was much smaller, so this blog was entirely focused on mogai. however, i now would be fine with someone sending in a req that, say, only includes disability/mental illness headcanons or only includes alterhuman headcanons, etc.!

[runway-houses-city-clouds]

can u tell me about your record collection pls :)

show me some cool records !!! (for the music asks but its not really on the list but its in the tags)

ooooooo yes i can!!!!! /vvvvvpos

there's a lot i have to say so i'm putting this under a cut :]

so this is my record collection in full!

(sorry for the shitty camera/photo quality /genuine)

i currently have 89 records, but it'll be 90 soon because i've ordered francis trouble by ahj! (this is counting each single in the strokes box set individually btw)

i've gotten them in various record shops, online and as gifts too. i've been collecting them since around 2019 i believe! the first records i bought were ten by pearl jam, foo fighters' greatest hits & the 10th anniversary edition of all hope is gone by slipknot (oh yeah i used to be into them, not so much anymore-)

there's a few artists i listen to where i own their full discography (excluding eps as they're usually mega expensive & very rare), so far i have everything by gorillaz (including g-sides and d-sides), the strokes (including the singles collection - volume 01 which im super happy i have) and tame impala!

ok so my favourite records i actually own tend to be ones that are coloured! i have too many to list here but my favourite ones are:

the tron: legacy soundtrack by daft punk because it's blue and glittery and translucent!!

my copy of melodies on hiatus by albert hammond jr:

and my copy of conduit by machinegum:

also. there's some records that i do have duplicates of because of the artist releasing anniversary editions (like daft punk's random access memories or tame impala's lonerism)

however i think some of my most favourite records i own overall are my Roulé original pressings of both music sounds better with you by stardust and spinal scratch by thomas bangalter (who was one half of daft punk)

the thing is with these Roulé pressings, as far as i'm aware there wasn't many re-releases of records on there, if at all. and like. these single were released in the mid to late 90s plus the fact the label no longer exists, so basically quite rare is what i'm saying-

ok i think i've gone on enough so i'll stop here-

[oxygenatedbots]

We're The Oxygenated Bots! Welcome to our blog! Our name is a play on the quote "you must put your mask on before helping on the plane of there is an emergency", and we use it in relation to our metal health, and how we must help ourselves before helping others.

We have many names, but you may call us The Demons or The Bots or Oxygenated/Oxygen (or even just Bitch lol) here. It/gore/it&/any pronouns except for they/them. Full set of neos are gore/gore/gores/gores/goreself, and it&/it&/its&/its&/it&self.

We don't tag reclaimed slurs so block us if that makes you uncomfortable.

We don't have a proper DNI, infact we're probably that "freak" in YOUR DNI as we keep a lot of labels on the down low to avoid harassment lol. We'll just block you if we're uncomfortable and we have motivation to check your blog.

We don't check others DNIs unless we're following you. Don't like it? Then just block us.

Pfp made by amyume on deviantart!

More info under cut.

Plural traumagenic + esogenic + tidegenic + distorpidsystem system/collective.

We love: FNAF, Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, DSMP, religious things, minecraft, squishmellows/plushies, rubber ducks, and various other things.

Terms we coined so far are: Distorpidsystem and Speedrunner!

We keep most of our discourse opinions to ourselves here. But there may be a stray post occasionally.

Collectively:

Disabled and neurodivergent.

Strongly ACAB and BLM.

Strongly anti harassment.

Fallen angelkin, crowkin, robotkin, enderman-hearted, and connection to dogs and cats. Questioning zombiekin

Evilpunk, voidpunk, and cpunk. We don't feel comfortable reclaiming the C slur for now but have no issues with others reclaiming it.

Multiposic, objectum, fictoqueer, and autosexual/romantic.

Tranny fagdyke, genderfreak, genderfuck/punk, queer, mspec lesboy and on the aroace spec.

We vent here sometimes. Block "tw vent" and "vent post" for those

@evilvoidautisticqueers is our DSMP + CC from there specific blog.

Feel free to DM, send an ask, or ask to be friends anytime.

Previous names: birchbirbs > TheCursedCorvids > TheCursedFallenCorvids > TheHopefulDemons > TheSpookyDemons > OxygenatedBots > OxygenatedBotsInnit

Random userboxes. We unfortunately don't know where most of these are from as we took them from pinterest. Those we do will be under the userboxes tag:

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

GRAPHIC DESIGN FROM A WORLD ON THE BRINK -- HARDCORE '82 IN REAGAN'S AMERICA.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on another collage piece from the lengthy vinyl insert to "Plastic Surgery Disasters," the second studio full-length album by American hardcore punk band DEAD KENNEDYS, released under the Alternative Tentacles label in 1982. Artwork by Winston Smith.

Resolution at 1217x2338 & 974x1085.

OVERVIEW: "Winston Smith, surrealist master of the collage has some deep rooted connections to DEAD KENNEDYS and Alternative Tentacles Records (since before both their inceptions). In addition to having designed both the iconic Dead Kennedy’s “DK” logo AND the AT record label logo, Mr. Smith’s art has also been showcased throughout many, various DK inserts, as well as a handful of Jello Biafra-related album releases. His art for the back of Jello Biafra with D.O.A.’s 1989 "Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors" was featured on the cover of "The New Yorker" back in 2000."

-- THE PRUDENT GROOVE (vinyl record appreciation blog)

Source: https://prudentgroove.com/tag/1982.

[happy-and-gay-tortoise]

hey sorry to basically be on 'anon' bc i really can't send asks from my main account lol but ANYWAY i'm sorry it looks like someone made u feel like shit about posting in the crust tag but i wanted to mediate if thats ok. im sorry someone made u feel you couldnt post in there but at the same time i get it, if ur not reaaaally into crust then it's weird to establish yourself within such a politically vocal and tight knit community.

i know if you go to them with open hands about how into crust u are they would welcome you and give you recs and support you, you just have to show u are into crust. there are a lot of people that come into crust punk without knowing what it is except for 'fashion', and crust punks are actively trying to remove 'fashion' punks from crust, so it doesn't become corporatised like punk rock did.

so i think with ur jacket not having any crust and your outfit of the day posts being non-crust music and your playlist not having crust on it until i assume someone said some horrible shit i think that becomes a point where the fear is realised as 'oh my god, here's another fashion-only prson who doesn't know/doesn't want to know what this is' and it puts this very tight-knit community on edge

that didn't give any one the right to be horrible about it tho like there are better way to do these things but crust is a negative-type community that is very violent? maybe? in various ways. full of people with big problems with a real hatred of the world. which is where that reaction came from. i honestly wouldn't take it to heart too hard and i know ur only a kid so that'll be very hard. but if u ever want to get more into crust i promise ask people for recs and they will help you and be so kind.

it's just worth remembering, sub cultures don't like to be stepped on bc the world is hellbent on making it digestible and corporate for the masses so you gotta come at it honestly. ok anyway sorry for pseudo anon again and have a nice day

(The pseudo anon is ok dw)

I appreciate this ask a lot! Funny thing is I'm mostly just not rlly labeling myself as crust anymore bc I'm not the biggest fan of the music in general and I don't wanna use the tags that are not accurate to me! I respect the crust community a lot and yall are always welcome here, I'm just more personally into what a lot of my asks have called "easier to listen to punk" I love the noise not music movement and I do listen to some death metal n stuff, but ska and ska punk are more my cup of tea yk!

The crust community is also, as you said, very full of (most of the time justified) violence and hatred, and as someone that is like an eco-anarcist, optimist punk, and just trying to consume as much positive content/ neutral content as possible it tends to not be my vibe! I totally understand why yall have the community tho as someone who is that kind of angry a lot if the time, yall are the people that make change, and when it is needed I join you, but at least rn, I won't be engaging with that (also due to personal circumstances)!

Also I understand how it gave that impression, I want to make it clear I understand that crust punk was/is a movement centered around the music, the heavy emphasis on politics, and the anger towards the systems that push us down. "Crust pants/jackets" are just things to show that! I very clearly do not fit one of those criterias tho and that's ok! I don't have to use the label crust punk to still be someone who is a valid member of the punk subculture! Plus, yall don't need to know what exact labels I use anyway lol. You are a community that has been fucked with and torn apart for years, and it's not my place to call myself a part of that community when, frankly, I'm not! Again, I am in full support of the crust punk movement and stand by your sides, any crust punk that comes onto this page is fully welcomed with open arms! <3

[exquizite-gemzs]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: H&M small made in Cambodia 🇰🇭 US sm CA smalls CA P petite CN 165/88A MX CH 🤍㋡.

[pentanguine]

30) What does Genderqueer mean to you?

I love the word genderqueer because of its expansiveness. It lets me say what I am, not just what I’m not, but it doesn’t pin me down with precise, rigid language that ends up becoming prescriptive rather than descriptive. It lets me define myself without being defined, thereby satisfying my neurotic impulse to put everything into categories and my visceral aversion to be being oversimplified and palatable.

And it’s about so much more than gender, too. It’s about the worldview that comes out of my being (gender)queer, and the political ideals that I want to do a better job living up to. It’s about fucking with gender expression and gender narratives, like the “right” way to be trans. It’s absolutely a choice to identify this way, and that’s why I love it, because I know that anyone else who identifies as genderqueer in 2020 has deliberately chosen it in favor of nonbinary (or at least alongside it), and they’re my kind of people.

Nonbinary doesn’t appeal to me as much because it’s very…empty, I think, and clinical. It just says what you’re not, and it says it neatly in prefixes and suffixes that look organized and polite on drop-down menus. And in an ideal world, everyone would be nonbinary, wouldn’t they? Not in the sense that we’d destroy gender (gender is important to many people, including me), but in the sense that “man” and “woman” would just be two random genders amongst a whole nebulous cloud of them, and there’d be no binary to exist inside of anyway.

I think I’ve probably talked about this before in several of the other questions, but when I say that my identity is weird and unresolved, I mean that being weird and unresolved is my identity. I don’t feel like I’m moving closer toward an ultimate truth; I don’t think there’s an ultimate truth to uncover anyway, and even if there were I wouldn’t want to find it. I want to be at peace in the lack of resolution. Everything in life is composed of certainties and uncertainties, and I think I’m fine with my gender being an uncertainty. Genderqueer is a way of pointing to the uncertainty and claiming it as my gender without having to explain something inexplicable.  

Basically, I refuse to be made to cohere. It seems like everything always coheres with gender; in the end, everything’s always a category and there are qualifications and boxes to tick and linked chains of traits that you can follow, inevitably, toward order and cohesion. I don’t want any of my traits to imply any of my other traits. I don’t want people to look at my body and think woman; I don’t want people to hear they/them and think neutrality; I don’t want people to look at my masculine clothes and think power. I don’t want people to immediately Know what I am.

I do feel like I leaned pretty hard into the transmasc angle with these questions, which makes me feel a little over-explicated, but I wanted to, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Transmasculine is something that I am! It’s a word that makes me feel comfortable with all the nuances of myself, and more fully able to be otherwise contradicting and queer. It’s a word I want to be proud of and open about identifying with! As an afab person who is not physically transitioning, masculinity is what I have to work to get people to acknowledge in me, and claiming that on my own terms is very personally meaningful.

(As an aside, something that I never got around to mentioning any other place is that I’m a boy! Not male or a man, just a boy: boy as in “relating queerly to time,” boy as in “masculinity that holds no power,” boy as kind of a playful queer affectation. Maybe I’m an agender boy??* It’s something that I made up off the top of my head and am totally winging here.)

All of that being said, though, I’m still genderqueer, as in a mess, as in outside of gender, as in genderfucked, as in invert, as in weird and ideologically disturbing and no more a man than I am a woman. My gender is something that I get to create and name, and I choose to be queer.

 *I did not actually make up the idea of being an agender boy**, and I’m not saying this person did either, but they’re at least one of the other people who got there before me

**also I’m not actually agender?? I definitely have a gender, but I just always feel compelled to add “agender” before the “boy” for some reason. I guess because the way I use boy I don’t actually mean it as a gender. Like, my gender is queer and then boy is just something else I am, like I’m a Capricorn and a bookworm.

[not-your-desi-girl]

The Siren Song of Dark Academia

Tweed uniforms, reading Kafka by candlelight and sitting in the university library for as long as there is more than one star twinkling in the sky. What do all of these share in common? A passion for knowledge and antiquity integrated with the soul of chaos and the tortured artist. That’s the shortest description I could think of when trying to describe what dark academia is. Dark academia has transformed into a complex aesthetic that consists of dark and earthy tones, old books, and a lack of modern technology. The theme has made its way through various forms of media, such as film and literature, but has truly been seized by Gen Z during the past couple of years. It’s accessible escapism available to anyone who feels the flames of chaos licking their ankles in midst of a global pandemic and political upheaval. 

As a university student who was sent home during my first year due to the pandemic, I’m not surprised at the rise in dark academia and aesthetic lifestyles in general. When told to essentially stay in one place, you start to pine for something different than the life you have in front of you; the idea of the life you could have on campus becomes exciting and romantic, and an “anything but this” mindset is the fertilizer an aesthetic needs to become pervasive. Dark academia creates this fantasy world where scholarship is beautiful and seems to offer more than just a way to find a lucrative career.

I’d be a hypocrite if I said that I didn’t love dark academia itself. I can’t pretend that I haven’t stayed up late to do homework while listening to a playlist that consists of Chopin and Debussy, or that I’m not doing that in the campus library *right now*. However, I believe that the aesthetic has a certain ugliness to it, one that can get especially worse when given the chance. Social media sites -especially Tumblr- can quickly lead users to view unhealthy content and does a pretty good job of keeping users stuck in a chasm that endlessly echoes back at them.

How does an aesthetic go wrong and what happens when it does?

How Tumblr Created Aesthetic

Of all the social media sites out there, Tumblr is the least expected to be unfamiliar with the aesthetic, or event the term “aesthetic” in general. In more ways than one, Tumblr birthed the concept of online aesthetics. Older users know that the website was one of the first to be image-centric when it was launched in 2007 (Mirny 2021). The emphasis on imagery as content combined with the utilization of tags called for a culmination of users to curate communities quite literally with the touch of a button (or maybe a few). Using tags to label images are posts makes searching a lot easier, but because Tumblr tags allow so much creative freedom, it can become difficult to describe a community when it consists of so many different ideas and images. Naming an aesthetic “dark academia” is much easier than saying “things that look like Dead Poet’s Society” and hoping for the best. 

In philosophy, aesthetics refers to the principles that govern perceived beauty and artistic taste. Tumblr is no different. The various aesthetics you see such as “basic”, “cottage core”, “retro”, “e-girl”, etc. are all forms of artistic expression that resonate with specific groups of people. Even the aesthetics that are very apparent forms of rebellion against beauty standards have some type of standard themselves to constitute as an aesthetic, such as “goth” and “punk”. Users will create image posts and connect them with their respective tags. Images that users feel make the most sense in the aesthetic receive more notes and reblogs, and reach more users exponentially, while images that don’t cater to the target community tend to dissolve. This system pushes communities to create a concentrated aesthetic that shares a very specific feature. 

When a majority of Tumblr users are young, that no doubt significantly influences what the mainstream aesthetics will look like. 

Though not the majority, a large portion of users consists of people between 15 and 25 years old. People can struggle at any age, of course, but the 10-year period is difficult. Imagine going through physical puberty, immediately followed by emotional puberty. Younger users are more likely to yearn for a sense of community to feel like they belong *somewhere*, meaning that aesthetic communities are bound to be more popular with that demographic: “Access to the public sphere in traditional ways has decreased substantially for youth during the past two decades, while surveillance by parents and institutional authorities has greatly increased. Teens' use of social media is a reflection of their need to find new ways to achieve privacy and assert some control over their personal space” (McCracken 2017). The very need to gain back the control McCracken mentions is reflected in the rise of online aesthetics. It serves as a form of self-expression in a place that the self is otherwise restricted, and users can portray themselves however they see fit. People want to be with others who understand them. But it’s in that sense of community where users can stumble into something that would’ve been better off left alone (this seems to happen so often that the site should be rebranded to Stumblr). 

Romanticizing Mental Illness

***Content Warning: Discussion of eating disorders and self-harm ***

Those familiar with dark academia imagine a flurry of images when they hear the name of the aesthetic. Among those images are primarily scholars. Dark academia concocts a reality where chasing your thirst for knowledge is for your own personal development and enrichment. In the 1989 film Dead Poet’s Society, teacher John Keating tells his students, “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.” Passion for knowledge is at the core of dark academia, but eventually to a fault. The b-side of the aesthetic includes dark circles and eye bags, madness, and the ever infamous “thinspo”.

Anima Shrestha cites 16-year-old Tumblr user Laura who wishes she could be “mysterious, haunted, fascinating”. The transition from demonizing mental illness in media to desiring it is largely due to the “echo chamber” sites like Tumblr provides (Shrestha 2018). Vulnerable teenagers and young adults will go into Tumblr seeking advice or sympathy and find themselves accidentally caught in a riptide of negative content. Once the algorithm catches onto a user’s preferences, the user will see more of that type of content. Repeating the beautification of mental illness within this closed space may eventually lead to impressionable/vulnerable users to desire mental illness for themselves (Shrestha 2018). Black and white images portraying melancholy and despair remove the very real pain of mental illness and converts the concept into its own aesthetic. This simultaneously harms the people with desire who do not have a disorder and delegitimizes those who do have a disorder. 

The the two most inescapable disorder-based posts on Tumblr are arguably depression and anorexia, especially within dark academia. As mentioned earlier, the core of the dark academia aesthetic is a burning passion for knowledge. This can materialize in the form of a student who stays up for hours on end to research their interests, or an alcoholic professor who is a nihilist because he “just knows too much”. More often than not, “the tortured artist” is the most revered trope: a misunderstood character in pain over the unfair nature of the world; someone who is too intellectually profound for their own wellbeing. Nihilism and depression combine to create this image of superiority because “nobody gets them”. Physically harming and neglecting the self is an integral part of the tortured artist archetype, so it will surely flow over if one embraces the aesthetic wholly. However, how a user connects to this archetype can turn into a “what came first”-type riddle. In the height of Covid-19, students were already at the mercy of academic stress, so it’s not impossible that the tortured artist/scholar serves as a figure of relatability and comfort. In a sense, the character makes the pain feel like it’s all in the name of something greater than we can comprehend, making it worth it. However! Users are still at risk of exacerbating the situation if they stay within the echo chamber.  

On to thinspo: the first time I searched up “Dark Academia” on tumblr I saw an image-post of very thin white women with the tags #an0r3x!a (leetspeak for “anorexia”) and #I will get skinny.

I was horrified - why is it so blatant and so accessible?

Not surprisingly, it’s because we like skinny women. Using the royal we, our online society prefers thinner woman to the point where 97.7% of them were the subject of a photo (Wick and Harriger 2018). I don’t think anyone will fall out of their seat in shock when I say that we still have exceptionally strict beauty standards online for women and femme-presenting people. They are expected to be skinny, hairless, and white (or European-looking at the very least). Placing people with these features on a pedestal further separates people and creates a homogenous community. With dark academia being an aesthetic, it will inevitably prioritize how things (and people) look.

Classism and Racism in Dark Academia

A quick question: did the photo I included at the very top of this post seem out of place? Did anything about it scream “THIS ISN’T DARK ACADEMIA!!!!” ? I’d be surprised if it gave off that impression because most results when searching for “dark academia” show images of preppy-looking students, marble statues, and old European-style architecture. The fashion, architecture, and very interests of dark academia are heavily Eurocentric. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is potentially THE template for the aesthetic, with it’s preparatory school, white students in uniforms, and mystery. 

Is there anything wrong with thinking that Oxford University looks nice and that French seems like an interesting language? Of course not! But the fact that the aesthetic is so blatantly European begs for questioning. 

Dark academia associates itself with decadence, elite scholarship and mysterious prep schools, all of which have been historically exclusive to wealthy white men. With the efforts of British colonialism, nations have been ravaged of their wealth and knowledge, leaving few resources to recuperate in time before Western ideology became the mainstream. Dark academia preserves the past and remains within the aesthetics of 19th and 20th century England and the east coast of the United States. Even the fashion of it is that of the modern-day Tory (wealthy and conservative English people). An overwhelming majority of images with the dark academia tag depict white people, and they are treated as the default. If you want to find traditional/cultural dark academia, you need to specifically search for it, showing us that BIPOC users are not included within the aesthetic normally. 

The lack of BIPOC people within the community reflects the reality of how academia tends to bar People of Color from entering the space, especially women. BIPOC women who do enter the sphere of education face microaggressions and betrayal from colleagues and mentors alike (Marbley et al. 2011). 

The aesthetic contradicts itself because it’s very presence on social media makes it *not* elite, yet somehow it is gatekept. Dark academia prides itself on individuals learning about and embracing culture, but only European cultures and languages are treated as classy. There is nothing inherently white about wanting to chase knowledge, but because of colonization and mainstream Western ideology, non-European cultures are erased and ignored by the aesthetic. 

Poetry and literature from all cultures should be celebrated in the community because it only provides more perspective on how the chaos of the world around us falls into place. Luckily, users are slowly integrating more content that features people of color in dark academia. 

Resources

Marbley, Aretha, Aliza Wong, Sheryl Santos-Hatchett, and Lahib Jaddo. 2011. “Women Faculty of Color: Voices, Gender, and the Expression of Our Multiple Identities within Academia.” Advancing Women in Leadership 31: 166–74. http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/Vol31_2011/marbleyfinal207_31.pdf.

‌McCracken, Allison. 2017. “Tumblr Youth Subcultures and Media Engagement.” Cinema Journal 57 (1): 151–61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44867867.pdf.‌

2021. Proquest.com. 2021. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2506736471?parentSessionId=mW4hWlzgSS8EN%2FZpFGJqHDUuHtxx6kwfnPofMsRtdFM%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=9703.

‌“Elsevier Enhanced Reader.” 2017. Elsevier.com. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.11.005.‌

“(PDF) Emotion Regulation and the Disappointing Gift Task: Implications for Understanding Children’s Development.” n.d. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reeya-Patel-7/publication/327321983_Emotion_Regulation_and_The_Disappointing_Gift_Task_Implications_for_Understanding_Children.

“U.S. Tumblr Usage by Age 2020 | Statista.” 2020. Statista. Statista. 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/202359/tumblr-users-demographics/.

‌Jewett, Emily. 2021. “Dark Academia Has a ‘White’ Problem.” Study Breaks. January 18, 2021. https://studybreaks.com/culture/reads/dark-academia-diversity/.‌

‌The Rise of Dark Academia — Pro Tem | York University Glendon student newspaper. 2020. “Pro Tem.” Pro Tem. October 28, 2020. https://www.protemgl.com/articles/the-rise-of-dark-academia.‌