summer vacation

whatever just call me celcius : 21 : i look forward to the day you lot grow the fuck up.                          ☆ ☆ ☆          I don't publish any asks unless I get explicit consent. I can also publish a screenshot of the contents without the name, if you'd rather stay anonymous.                                  ☆ ☆ ☆           (I take breaks for the sake of my mental health frequently. Thanks for understanding.)

[killowave]

[supremeshogunrj]

The longer it takes for this to come across your dash the funnier it is

[halfblood-demigods]

I’m

[evilneo]

Maybe I'm just bitter but fuck anyone who "used to be an aphobe but isn't anymore" and they just move on. Like do they not understand the damage they all did to the aspec community. Do they not get it.

[genderfluidlucifer]

Plus a lot of these people horribly stalked, abused, sexually harassed and made false rape/pedophilia accusations about ace inclus under the guise of being true gay allies. Many of them even guilt tripped “LGBT aces” into going back into the closet. They aren’t allowed to move on from that. Especially when they gave their victims NO chances to take a break from it. They can die mad about that.

[renthony]

I ran a decently popular asexual support blog for a couple years, quietly, never putting my real name on it. It's gone now, and I'm not going to tell you which one it was, because I don't want people tracking me down to continue the harassment I finally got away from.

But I need you all to know the sheer level of awful, vile hatred that got dumped into my inbox. I need you to know how many times I got messages from a "new ace support blog trying to get traction, so can I get a signal boost?" that turned out to be a secret aphobe collecting urls to harass on their main account. I need you to know that I had LITERAL CHILDREN coming into the blog's ask box telling me they were going to kill themselves because it didn't feel worth it anymore, because they thought they'd never escape the harassment and abuse and hatred. I talked them down. I told them I loved them. I told them that eventually, if I had a single goddamn thing to say about it, that it would be okay.

None of you get to just ignore all the harm that has been done to ace people.

None of you get to act like "remaining neutral on the discourse" was anything other than being complicit and passively allowing abuse to happen, all because it was swept under the rug as "childish petty discourse."

[timemachineyeah]

Gen Z is awesome and generational fighting is bad, but I do sometimes talk to Gen Z folks and I’m like... oh... you cannot comprehend before the internet.

Like activists have been screaming variations on “educate yourself!” for as long as I’ve been alive and probably longer, but like... actually doing so? Used to be harder?

And anger at previous generations for not being good enough is nothing new. I remember being a kid and being horrified to learn how recent desegregation had been and that my parents and grandparents had been alive for it. Asking if they protested or anything and my mom being like “I was a child” and my grandma being like “well, no, I wasn’t into politics” but I was a child when I asked so that didn’t feel like much of an excuse from my mother at the time and my grandmother’s excuse certainly didn’t hold water and I remember vowing not to be like that.

So kids today looking at adults and our constant past failures and being like “How could you not have known better? Why didn’t you DO better?” are part of a long tradition of kids being horrified by their history, nothing new, and also completely justified and correct. That moral outrage is good.

But I was talking to a kid recently about the military and he was talking about how he’d never be so stupid to join that imperialist oppressive terrorist organization and I was like, “Wait, do you think everyone who has ever joined the military was stupid or evil?” and he was like, well maybe not in World War 2, but otherwise? Yeah.

And I was like, what about a lack of education? A lack of money? The exploitation of the lower classes? And he was like, well, yeah, but that’s not an excuse, because you can always educate yourself before making those choices.

And I was like, how? Are you supposed to educate yourself?

And he was like, well, duh, research? Look it up!

And I was like, and how do you do that?

And he was like, start with google! It’s not that hard!

And I was like, my friend. My kid. Google wasn’t around when my father joined the military.

Then go to the library! The library in the small rural military town my father grew up in? Yeah, uh, it wasn’t exactly going to be overflowing with anti-military resources.

Well then he should have searched harder!

How? How was he supposed to know to do that? Even if he, entirely independently figured out he should do that, how was he supposed to find that information?

He was a kid. He was poor. He was the first person in his family to aspire to college. And then by the time he knew what he signed up for it was literally a criminal offense for him to try to leave. Because that’s the contract you sign.

(Now, listen, my father is also not my favorite person and we agree on very little, so this example may be a bit tarnished by those facts, but the material reality of the exploitative nature of military recruitment remains the same.)

And this is one of a few examples I’ve come across recently of members of Gen Z just not understanding how hard it was to learn new ideas before the internet. I’m not blaming anyone or even claiming it’s disproportionate or bad. But the same kids that ten years ago I was marveling at on vacation because they didn’t understand the TV in the hotel room couldn’t just play more Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on demand - because they’d never encountered linear prescheduled TV, are growing into kids who cannot comprehend the difficulty of forming a new worldview or making life choices when you cannot google it. When you have maybe one secondhand source or you have to guess based on lived experience and what you’ve heard. Information, media, they have always been instant.

Society should’ve been better, people should’ve known better, it shouldn’t have taken so long, and we should be better now. That’s all true.

But controlling information is vital to controlling people, and information used to be a lot more controlled. By physical law and necessity! No conspiracy required! There’s limited space on a newspaper page! There’s limited room in a library! If you tried to print Wikipedia it would take 2920 bound volumes. That’s just Wikipedia. You could not keep the internet’s equivalent of resources in any small town in any physical form. It wasn’t there. We did not have it. When we had a question? We could not just look it up.

Kids today are fortunate to have dozens of firsthand accounts of virtually everything important happening at all times. In their pockets.

(They are also cursed by this, as we all are, because it’s overwhelming and can be incredibly bleak.)

If anything, today the opposite problem occurs - too much information and not enough time or context to organize it in a way that makes sense. Learning to filter out the garbage without filtering so much you insulate yourself from diverse ideas, figuring out who’s reliable, that’s where the real problem is now.

But I do think it has created, through no fault of anyone, this incapacity among the young to truly understand a life when you cannot access the relevant information. At all. Where you just have to guess and hope and do your best. Where educating yourself was not an option.

Where the first time you heard the word lesbian, it was from another third grader, and she learned it from a church pastor, and it wasn’t in the school library’s dictionary so you just had to trust her on what it meant.

I am not joking, I did not know the actual definition of the word “fuck” until I was in high school. Not for lack of trying! I was a word nerd, and I loved research! It literally was not in our dictionaries, and I knew I’d get in trouble if I asked. All I knew was it was a “bad word”, but what it meant or why it was bad? No clue.

If history felt incomprehensibly cruel and stupid while I was a kid who knew full well the feeling of not being able to get the whole story, I cannot imagine how cartoonishly evil it must look from the perspective of someone who’s always been able to get a solid answer to any question in seconds for as long as they’ve been alive. To Gen Z, we must all look like monsters.

I’m glad they know the things we did not. I hope one day they are able to realize how it was possible for us not to know. How it would not have been possible for them to know either, if they had lived in those times. I do not need their forgiveness. But I hope they at least understand. Information is so powerful. Understanding that is so important to building the future. Underestimating that is dangerous.

We were peasants in a world before the printing press. We didn’t know. I’m so sorry. For so many of us we couldn’t have known. I cannot offer any other solace other than this - my sixty year old mother is reading books on anti-racism and posting about them to Facebook, where she’s sharing what’s she’s learning with her friends. Ignorance doesn’t have to last forever.

[looney-toons]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[sleepeys]

i don't know who needs to hear this but "parasocial relationships" aren't inherently a bad thing. they're just things. like all relationships, they can be toxic, but just because you enjoy a cc and are invested in their content and personality does not mean you're doing anything bad. we gotta stop giving it such negative connotations lol

[tobi-smp]

parasocial relationships are only a problem when you’re Dependent on them or when you overstep boundaries because of them, just like any other kind of relationship

human beings are made to form emotional connections, it’s completely healthy to have some level of parasocial relationship as long as you stay aware of it and don’t let it run your life

[roach-works]

yeah the problem is in not recognizing a parasocial relationship for what it is, and so talking about the nature of those relationships is actually really good, because it lets people understand what’s going on. it’s good to arm people with the vocabulary to articulate the difference between ‘i really like chris evans! i watch his shows, read his tweets, and i care about his wellbeing!’ and ‘i feel like i am actually friends with chris evans’ to themselves, and to other fans.

parasocial isn’t the same thing as parasitical, even if it sounds similar. there’s nothing wrong with uneven relationships, that’s just the nature of media. a writer's book is read by more people than she can talk to, an actor’s face is admired by more people than he ever sees. it’s okay. especially when you know what you’re doing.

[olderthannetfic]

Yeah, exactly. People have loved celebrities from afar since forever. If you’re cool with that one-sided love, carry on! Just don’t expect them to interact as though you guys know each other, and that means, among other things, refraining from tweeting jokey violence or other shit your friends would understand was all in good fun but your rando celebrity crush will just find bewildering or frightening. That nonsense is why youtubers talk so much about this term lately.

[qweerhet]

i don’t know how to get across to internet-bound discoursers that “cishet people who engage in kink” wasn’t like… a thing 20 years ago. the thing that happens now, where cishet couples engage in some kinky behaviors in the bedroom and otherwise live totally normative lives, is actually a very recent occurrence–one that was primarily sparked by the kink community being thrust into the mainstream in the mid-to-late 2000s, particularly because of 50 Shades of Gray.

“are you saying that cishet people who engage in kink are queer” doesn’t make sense as a response to talking about how kink spaces were built entirely by and for queer people, and were inherently queer spaces, because like… no, and we never thought we’d have to have this discussion in the first place?

kink was a word for a type of community, not a kind of sex. it was a word for a type of community that was full of queer people and was based around non-normative negotiated styles of relationships. those relationships weren’t even always sexual (and still aren’t); like, as an example, plenty of puppies and handlers have had historically and still have totally nonsexual platonic relationships where they just… feel comforted by having a close friend they can pretend to be a dog around. kink was about the space where those people could be themselves and create safe spaces away from the heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy and negotiate relationships together, not necessarily about what they did as individual couples in the bedroom.

that’s not to say kink spaces were inherently nonsexual; like in queer spaces in general, sexuality has always been intertwined with kink, it’s just not the entirety of it, nor the basis of the community. and, like, kink was a term for so much shit–genderfuckery as a whole was integral to kink spaces and they were some of the only spaces (that weren’t owned by the literal mob, at least) that closeted trans people could feel safe and explore gendered presentation and play.

“are you saying that cishet people who engage in kink are queer” completely misses the actual point, because that just. didn’t happen. kink wasn’t a thing monogamous couples did separate from a community. cishets certainly weren’t interested in the community, either.

(caveat that this post, like most tumblr posts about queerness and kink and nonmonogamy, is USA-centric and only examining the current discussion around queer history in the USA.)

[celciusdiscourse]

guess who's back for a moment

[solarianvulpine]

[starscream-has-adhd]

I-??????? I can't really get that my brain hurts

[solarianvulpine]

Grammatically speaking, Pronouns are a game we play with society.

A crew of sailors discuss their ship. "her mast is strong but the sails need changin. She's a beaut though."

I see a fancy rock on my hike. I pick it up, turn to my friend and say "Look at him, he's so handsome"

A group of our sparkling Gay gentlemen meet up for a night out. "Girl, Daniel's serving up looks tonight. Queen! She's stunning love. She's killin it."

My neighbor needs a cup of sugar, I take some to them.

My lesbian friend wants to introduce me to her fellow female partner. "There's Star, he's wearing the blue jacket. Let's catch up with him"

What's real is how respect for one another makes us feel. He/him lesbians deserve your respect.

[gendermunch]

Pronouns are also more related to gender presentation than gender itself for some people!

Lesbians calling themselves "fathers", "husbands", "boyfriends", "handsome", and other words associated with men are a part of their gender presentation as masculine women as well as their reclamation of the idea that "lesbians just want to be men". He/Him pronouns is just a part of that!

[hogmilked]

thank you @national-shitpost-registry

[twitblr]

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

[isa-ghost]

This is one of the most adorable Pride posts I’ve ever seen

[granola-peasant]

What I love about the imagery of the turtle is that it’s sending the message that they are protecting themselves by being in their shell. It’s not about deceiving straight people (like we are often told), but about the turtle’s own safety. They’ll come out when the time is right and they feel comfortable. 💕🏳️‍🌈

[loveistrueblue]

I don't know how a lot of people have turned "Having a crush on a straight person isn't a bad thing, but you should not try to 'turn' then or disrespect their boundaries," into "Having a crush on a straight person is weird and I am a much Better Gay because I don't ever have crushes on straight people, ever."

[loveistrueblue]

Here is the thing: people cannot help the way that they feel at times. I do not mind at all if a straight boy has a crush on me; it becomes invasive when he ignores my boundaries and the fact I am not and will not ever be interested in him because I am a lesbian.

He can’t help the way he feels; he can, however, control the way he acts.

It is NOT inherently predatory at ALL to have feelings for a straight person. You are not violating them. However, you can control the way you act! If you cross their boundaries or continue to go after them, even after they tell you they’re straight and not interested, that is what makes it weird and shitty, NOT the initial feelings!!!!

That’s my point here. Having feelings is not wrong. Crossing a person’s boundaries is.

[deddie-eddie]

The belief that the people who will tell you to die or graphically describe how they'd like to skin you alive are somehow less abusive than the people shipping two fictional characters together is so fucking wild to me. Like I could be minding my own business, drawing fanart in my own home, then get the dm "hey you nasty pedo, I hope you step on a nail and fall headfirst into a knife, you're scum and you should die" and somehow in their mind I deserved it

[butterflyinthewell]

Important online safety message to minors.

I’m almost 40. I’ve seen some scary stuff online.

It’s a sad world that someone has to tell you to be more situationally aware of creeps, but I hope this advice helps you be safer online.

🗣

You don’t have to specify your age, but make sure it’s clearly known that you are a minor if an adult engages you online.

If it makes you more comfortable, you can put something on your profile like “I am a minor, 18+ please do not interact.” Add it to your posts too if you have room (it depends on the site). One unfortunate part of Web 2.0 social media is not everyone checks a profile before they retweet / reblog / share someone’s stuff.

If an adult keeps engaging with your stuff and you don’t want them to, it’s okay to block them.

Stay away from spaces adults have marked as nsfw, off-limits to minors or unsafe for minors. Chances are there is material in those spaces that you may not be ready for, or it will shock, offend, frighten, disgust and/or trigger you.

Some adults will pretend to be minors, and unfortunately I don’t know what kind of “tells” give away that they’re lying about their age, but I’m sure someone who knows more about that can reblog this and add that info.

Now, here’s what to do if a creepy adult starts creeping.

If their profile states they’re a MAP or NOMAP, block instantly. MAP / NOMAP means Minor Attracted Person / Non-Offending Minor Attracted Person. These people are pedophiles. Some of them identify themselves with the acronym PEAR or the pear emoji. 🍐 Be wary if you see this in someone’s profile info.

PEAR stands for Pro-Expression Anti-Repression. That’s something you apply to fiction, NOT reality. Fiction can be turned off, flicked off a screen, a book closed or otherwise disengaged from the moment someone doesn’t like it. Real life doesn’t work that way, and don’t trust anyone who claims it does.

It doesn’t matter if a MAP / NOMAP claims they’re getting “help” for their pedophilia or not, they should not be engaging you in any capacity.

If you engage them and discover they’re a MAP, disengage and block.

If an adult sends you anything that is sexually explicit, no matter the form, be it art, fanwork, videos, audio, roleplays, etc, screenshot it for evidence, block that person and tell someone you can trust.

Even nudity that is not sexual (this includes furry art with exposed genitals) should be treated as suspicious if an adult knows you’re a minor and still sends it to you despite being told you’re uncomfortable with it. They might be trying to desensitize you to the sight of nudity so they can show you more and more explicit stuff. Do as above; screenshot, block and report to someone you trust.

+ Part of the grooming process is the adult tries to reach you somewhere private, like DM’s or a messenger app and desensitize you to stimuli you would normally reject by exposing you little by little to it. Think of it as a twisted form of exposure therapy for phobias, but you don’t want this exposure. They want you to get curious and will up the ”intensity” of the explicit material.

The media itself existing is not the problem (unless the adult using it on you made it), the real problem is adult using it specifically to desensitize you into thinking that kind of stuff is okay in the real world. If an adult engages you, shows you media with questionable material in it and tries to tell you “see, it’s okay because it’s being done here” screenshot it, tell them fiction is not the real world and break off contact.

Most creeps stay hidden, so their blog may not contain a trace of anything weird, but when they engage you they send you all kinds of creepy adult stuff. An adult who is engaging you to groom you will use pretty much anything to try to make you think it’s normal and okay for them to do that to you. Remember always that it’s not. Remember the line between fiction and reality.

No adult should be sending a minor any pictures of naked people (or naked furry art with visible genitals) of any age no matter how innocent it seems!!!

If an adult sends you pictures or videos of themselves in their underwear, naked, showing their genitals or showing themselves doing sexually explicit stuff, screenshot the evidence, block them and report it to someone you trust.

If an adult asks you about sex toys or sends you info about them, that is really suspicious. Screencap, block and report to someone you trust.

If an adult asks you questions about your body, like what your hair ‘down there’ looks like, or how you’re developing, or if they ask if you touch your private parts, screenshot the evidence, block the adult and tell someone you trust.

If an adult asks you questions like “do you know what a (something sexual here) is?” or any questions that are sexually explicit or makes you uncomfortable, screenshot that crap, block them and tell someone you trust.

If you’re a creator and an adult tries to commission materials with nudity or sexually explicit stuff, refuse and tell them you’re a minor. If they persist, take screenshots, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult sends you violent or gory stuff and you don’t like it, demand that they stop and block them if they don’t. Screenshot anything they say if they keep doing it, and tell someone you trust.

If an adult demands you get on camera for them, do not do it. Screenshot the evidence, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult is threatening to reveal secrets you told them unless you do what they say(ie “send me a closeup of your private parts, or I’ll email all our chatlogs and your old naked photos to your whole school”). DON’T DO IT!! Screenshot the evidence, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult threatens to hurt themselves if you stop talking to them, stop talking to them anyway. This is especially true if they actually harm themselves and show you pictures or videos of it. That is a classic abuse tactic and it’s not your fault if they hurt themselves. Block them.

If an adult you blocked makes more accounts to keep contacting you, or starts showing up on other sites you visit trying to contact you, screenshot all the evidence and tell someone you trust.

If an adult (or anyone)tries to smear your name because you wouldn’t obey them, use any evidence you have against them in your defense and tell someone you trust about the situation.

If you run a blog talking about your abuse or experiences and an adult engages you to ask uncomfortable probing questions about the details of your trauma / abuse, be very suspicious and block them.

If an adult talks to you like you’re their special friend, or if they say you’re their very special friend, be very suspicious.

Acting like a sole source of kindness is one way an adult can groom a minor. They want you to feel like they are the only source of good that you can trust because they want you to gravitate more and more to them.

If you tell an adult you don’t like it when they swear while talking to you privately and they stop, but gradually start to do it again, be wary! An occasional oopsie slip or typo is one thing, but slipping in swear words when they know it makes you uncomfortable is suspicious. They may be testing your boundaries.

If an adult tries to set up an in person meeting, refuse it and talk to someone you trust about it.

If an adult (or anyone) tries to tell you that you should only trust them and nobody else, expects you to behave a certain way to be accepted, or if they act as if you’ve wronged them for trusting people other than them, that is a huge abuse warning sign. They are not safe to be around and you should break contact immediately.

If an adult compliments you in ways that makes you uncomfortable, break contact. A grown adult should not be telling a minor “you’re sexy” or “you’re hot.”

If an adult makes frequent comments about how mature and grown up they think you are, be suspicious.

If an adult learns you’re trans / non-binary and asks questions about your private parts or whether you plan to get surgery, be suspicious.

If an adult asks if you’re alone at home, say no even if you are.

If an adult asks if they can come visit you, say no.

If an adult asks for your phone number, don’t give it to them, no matter how nice or tempting they may be.

If an adult is making you uncomfortable in any way, it’s okay to block them and disengage.

Do not approach an adult with nsfw stuff you made. If they run across it in public on your blog that’s one thing. Sharing it with them in private can get both of you into trouble. Don’t do it.

🗣

Note: if you, a minor, did any of the above because you didn’t know better at the time, know that you are not a bad person. No adult should take advantage of your youth or innocence to hurt you.

🗣

To adults out there:

Do not approach minors with anything sexually explicit!!! This should not need to be said.

If you send something and find out they’re a minor after the fact, apologize and don’t do it again. If you think it’s proper to avoid any more private contact, do that. If you think breaking all contact period is proper, do that.

Make sure minors know you are over 18, whether it’s somewhere on your profile or tacked onto your posts. Something like “over 18, minors DNI” is helpful. I personally have my year of birth (1980) on my profile because that’s easier than changing a number every year.

You can’t prevent minors who fake their age to see naughty stuff from engaging with your stuff, but you can make it clear that you will not engage them back. And do not engage them. In fact, if you’re worried about that, block them when you discover them.

Private conversations with minors is okay, but make sure you tell them you’re not comfortable talking about something if they mention something sexually explicit. Even if it’s fandom related stuff, keep the conversation away from anything more than talking about characters dating or kissing or whatever.

If something you ship has an underage character, do not talk about it in private with a minor, not even if the character is aged up to adulthood.

Got nsfw stuff on your blog? Tag it that way.

I use “n s f w post” for stuff I want to show up in other related tags, “nsfw post” for reblogs, and “nudity” for nonsexual nudity like mermaids with bare chests or artistic nudes. Those tags are specifically for minors to blacklist or mute. (I don’t usually reblog nsfw artwork, but sometimes I post nsfw fanfics, create nsfw text posts or reblog nsfw text posts / fanfic. If I feel it’s nsfw, I tag it such even if most people don’t think it’s nsfw.)

If it’s fanfiction, I make sure the rating is listed and that it’s nsfw, and I try to warn for triggers as best I can.

If your blog or website features a lot of adult or violent content, mark it 18+ and tell minors to not interact.

If a minor approaches you and tells you a harmless secret, fine, keep it secret. You, the adult, should never approach a minor and tell them you will keep their secrets.

If a minor is expressing a desire to harm themselves or someone else, don’t keep that secret. Tell them to talk to someone they trust irl or put them in contact with a hotline or website where they can get help. Be supportive in talking them down from immediate harm, but do not become their therapist. (It’s tempting, you see a kid in trouble and want to help, but always be careful!)

If a minor tells you they’re being abused by an adult in their life, put them in contact a website or phone number where they can seek help. Be supportive and listen, but don’t become their therapist.

If you run a role play blog, state explicitly that you will not engage in nsfw rps with minors.

If you’re roleplaying with a minor and the story takes a nsfw turn, tell the minor you will not role play a sex scene with them no matter how much they want to. Either fade it to black with a time skip or bail out of the rp.

I say this because I forgot the age of someone I was rping with on AIM a long long loooong time ago and it got explicit, and they got in trouble with their parents for it. Their parents contacted me on AIM without their teen’s knowledge and reamed me out so hard I was scared for weeks. They were right to do so! I told them they were right, apologized profusely and swore to never rp with or speak to their teen on AIM ever again, and they agreed to those terms. I kept that promise. Any contact with that former rp partner was done in public, such as via deviantart comments or LiveJournal comments. It was a major learning experience for me and it stuck because this happened almost 20 years ago.

As an autistic adult I feel more like a kid with all kinds of adult knowledge and privileges (ie can gamble, drink, visit adult places) that most kids don’t have. I relate more to people who are younger than me, but that doesn’t give me the right to assume their level of knowledge or lived experience is equal to mine.

What I’m trying to say is always be aware of the age of the person you’re rping or speaking with!

Do not commission sexually explicit or violent stuff from creators who are minors.

Do not engage with a minor who sends you sexually explicit stuff. Tell them that’s inappropriate or you’re not comfortable with getting that from them.

It’s okay to agree with a minor that an adult celebrity or character they have a crush on is attractive or whatever, but if the celebrity / character is a minor or the minor talks about wanting to have sex with that character / celebrity, tell them that’s not an appropriate topic of conversation because of your ages.

This also applies to them sharing fanworks with you depicting explicit nsfw stuff. Deflect them and tell them it’s not appropriate due to your ages.

Do not ask minor for personal info like their school, phone number or address.

Don’t do any video chats with a minor unless they’re family or it’s a group thing like a Zoom event.

‼️ TAG YOUR STUFF APPOPRIATELY!! YES, EVEN STUFF YOU RESHARE!!

‼️ USE APPROPRIATE WARNINGS!! YES, EVEN STUFF YOU RESHARE!!

[uponmelancholyhell]

so apparently cultcore is a thing now?

i feel like that HAS to be mostly made up of edgy teenagers trying to find some sort of dark community to be a part of, like i can’t wrap my head around an actual adult person being into cultcore?? what kind of bullshit?

and yet i know that there ARE adults in the cultcore community. and probably just a lot of people who’ve never stopped to think about what the implications of such a community are. so here’s a brief explanation for why this shouldn’t be a thing!

cults are very very real, and cult survivors are way more common than one would think. cults aren’t how the media portrays them to be, all weirdly glamorous and full of powerful evil forces. they turn people’s lives inside out and mentally torture and brainwash people so that they can never lead normal lives without intense therapy ever again. a lot of people are so deeply financially or socially entrenched in their communities that they can never leave. it’s a miserable and very real existence, it’s not creepy or edgy, it’s just very draining and ugly.

i grew up in a cult myself, and while I’d never speak for another person, it seems other survivors feel the same in that we aren’t happy about this romanticization of our trauma. please stop joking about cults if you’ve never been in one yourself, you don’t understand how painful or misguided your humor can be. if you’re going to continue engaging in the cultcore stuff on here, PLEASE tag ur posts with “cult tw”, for the sake of those of us who are trying to heal from our trauma or trying to find other people with similar experiences.

[unpretty]

Is there a good alternative to the term ‘queer’? I’m Aro Ace and I wish there was an easy label I could use that covers ‘not straight’ and isn’t awkward to use. I know there’s debate whether aces are LGBT and also ‘queer’ has history that I shouldn’t use because I was never oppressed in that way. But I don’t know what other words there are that describe my situation in an easily understandable way. I think i mostly just wish Asexuality was common knowledge. I’m tired of having to explain it.

i'm not ace but i'd say you're queer because

you are

anyone who has a problem with you self-identifying as queer is a shithead and you might as well get them to declare themselves before you make the mistake of giving them the time of day

[jackironsides]

Ace exclusionism as well as trans exclusionism is EXACTLY why there has been a VERY RECENT push back against 'queer', OP. Queer encompasses ace and allo alike; queer encompasses all manner of trans people, from binary to all shades of nonbinary.

I've been identifying as queer for 20 years, and it has literally only been in the last handful that a few nasty people have started causing trouble. Come join us in the queer corner. You're very welcome here.

[jackironsides]

Also, ace people have always been welcome in the LGBTQIA community. We have textual evidence of that going back to the 70s at least.

And 1) ace people have been persecuted for being ace, although I'm not going to get into the details here, and 2) your level of persecution is not a requirement for being part of the community. Not being both cis and straight is. By 'straight' here I mean allosexual and attracted to a gender that's not yours. Conventionally, this means men who are attracted to women and vice versa. People on the ace spectrum who are attracted to another gender are not straight, and are welcome in our community.

Exclusionists are a tiny minority; they're just a loud one trying to make you think they're the dominant viewpoint. They're not.

Please don't believe the lies of a minority of bullies and bigots. Please don't repeat the lies of people who hate you for being who you are.

[star-anise]

The people saying aro/aces shouldn’t use “queer” generally aren’t queer themselves. They’re gatekeepers who loathe queerness’s inclusivity and don’t want anyone to use it.

I was queer before I ever faced blatant homophobia. I was queer when I only faced the epistemic injustice of not knowing what my deal was or what the queer community was. And I’m queer now especially when my major connection to my community is the Tumblr bi/pan/ace/aro/trans/nb alliance against invisibility and exclusion.

[celciusdiscourse]

And if ever there was a community that included aces and aros, if truly the LGBT+ community didn't already, then the queer community would absolutely be the one for you. The very point of the queer umbrella is to include everyone who diverges from the cishetero norm, everyone who's doing sex or gender "wrong".

Even IF there was no space for you in the LGBT+, there would still be some in the Q. This is exactly the term you can use, if LGBT does not feel right for you.

[just-antithings]

that’s not how that works, but hey nice try

[celciusdiscourse]

Is this not literally the argument homophobes and racists make to defend their right to be publicly homophobic and racist? "You claim to be against discrimination yet you're discriminating against me for my opinion!!!!!!" Like wow this is some BASIC paradox of tolerance shit, but I should know by now that "reading something other than fanfic I claim to hate" is a bit too much to expect from certain people.

[just-antithings]

IM YELLING

[anti-anti-a-la-bi-bi]

'Star wars probably, Reylos suck'

So it IS about the fanbase??? What???

Also, I have played through all of Mystic Messenger, and it does not have sexual assault in the good endings??? Any assault is portrayed as bad??? This makes me think that they have never consumed over half of the content on this list, nor that they know anything about it.

Future Diary is not supposed to be wholesome. Someone get this person away from the internet.

[problematic-butnothateful]

ok what the FUCK is problematic about howl’s moving castle????

[tired-fandom-ndn]

This person just listed a bunch of anime and manga with absolutely no explanations (Azumanga Daioh? Fruits Basket???? Sailor Moon????????) which is making me really fucking suspicious considering how antis talk about Japan and Japanese media.

[anti-anti-a-la-bi-bi]

Most media listed is indeed made by either Japanese people, Korean people, or other people of colour. The majority that is listed is anime. Also, mostly horror anime or anime that have nsfw stuff in there and relishes in that.

[celciusdiscourse]

Im most bothered by the fact that shit like shadman, redkatherine, and blaire white are listed next to things like "carmen sandiego for cultural inaccuracies", "star wars probably idk", "heard abominable had shitty propaganda", "anything by george orwell", and ""miraculous butterfly"" (couldn't even get the name right?)

It's hard to convince myself this is legit and not a troll trying to express exactly what I'm abt to say, but just in case it's not a troll - dumb shit like this is exactly why black and white thinking and equating fictional crimes to real ones is not only ridiculous, but harmful.

Real bigots and abusers were hidden in a list of innocuous, even wholesome, fictional works. Crimes like "cultural inaccuracies" in a cartoon were put on the same stick as transphobia, racism, and sexual assault. Progressive works (yoi, c&t, carmen sandiego, zombieland saga, bojack horseman) are cancelled for being imperfect, and treated as equals to real people who have actively and purposely hurt others.

What the fuck.

[emblemxeno]

“Don’t harass and send death threats to people over fictional content” shouldn’t be a controversial take.

Your fictional favs aren’t gonna thank you for your service, all you’ve proved is that you’re willing to inflict emotional and physical harm on a real, living person because of fiction and shipping.

You’ve proven that you’re not a good person.

[space-coyote-judal]

*turns on mic*

M/F ships aren’t all boring, you just assume everyone attracted to the opposite gender is a carbon copy 1950′s stereotype and don’t understand that people can have varied personalities regardless of who they’re attracted to.