A fan with three blades

lost the fourth one somewhere i just reblog stuff now TME

[problemnyatic]

"Punishment works!!!" We're drowning in three to four generations of people so pants-shittingly terrified of ever being wrong that half of everyone has constructed a worldview wherein they never even consider the possibility that they could be wrong and the other half behaves like one wrong move will make anything or anyone explode violently into a million irreperable pieces. I don't think it works guys

[problemnyatic]

I know this might be a bold take but maybe teaching everyone from a young age that ever making a mistake will be met with unimaginable pain and misery doesn't actually encourage learning or correct behavior. If anything it creates a sense of terror so powerful it completely suffocates curiosity and exploration, thus leading to people knowing absolutely nothing but whatever is brought directly to them, which is a big problem in a world where information is so tightly controlled that a very small number of very powerful people basically have complete power over what people see and hear on a day-to-day basis when not actively seeking new and rigorously verified information from diverse and trustworthy sources.

[problemnyatic]

if any of this sounds like you, start by looking up the definition of words you've heard and are pretty sure you know what they mean, but haven't actually double-checked for yourself. Just like, whenever it occurs to you. Great first step

[problemnyatic]

This post goes out to the "we need to bring back bullying" crowd. Just because you aren't hitting someone physically doesn't mean you aren't being punitive. Maybe it isn't actually healthy to believe it's necessary to harass and humiliate anyone who makes you upset or uncomfortable. That sounds like a you problem actually.

[problemnyatic]

Anyways, breaking the cycle of abuse starts with you and how you treat yourself. You have to give yourself grace and room for error or you'll never be able to cultivate a healthier mindset than your trauma left you with. It's not easy, but you have to trust yourself that whatever seems kinder than however you usually treat yourself is probably a good enough start.

[inkfire-scribe]

Okay, so...

Storytime

(I promise I will definitely overuse this. XD)

Recently a community my spouse has been part of for several years almost literally imploded, led by the example of that community's leader. (For the sake of privacy, none of the names shared here are real.)

The leader, Dave, was a pretty nice guy. Established a community around a fandom he loved and saw decent success at content creation in that fandom. Even got sponsorships and could quit his day-job to become a full-time content creator. So far so good. But every 3-ish years, the mask would slip.

His wife Susan was also a part of the community, and while somewhat inconsistent in her contributions, was well-loved by all. Then she moved out. No warning, just packed her bags, and told Dave as she was walking out the door that she was moving out.

Over the last three days, the Whole Story has spilled, throwing the community into chaos, and dividing it into two camps:

Camp 1 says "Susan felt unsafe and had the right to leave when she didn't like how she was being treated."

and

Camp 2 says "It's not abuse! He never hit her."

🚩🚩🚩

Now, I definitely shouldn't need to spell this out, but fellas - the phrase "physical abuse" exists because there are in fact many kinds of abuse, and not all of it is physically violent.

"Abuse" is in fact a synonym for "maltreatment," which means "to treat (someone or something) badly, or to cause harm or injury."

If the defense of a pattern of behavior is "well, I never punched you in the face," that's not a defense. That's an admission. "Sure, what I did was bad but it wasn't as bad as it could have been."

This ^ is bullshit.

You do not have the need or the right to punish the people around you. If you feel punishment is necessary, please interrogate that - it usually means that you're attempting to control things over which you have no real authority.

The science has consistently shown that positive reinforcement (the addition of pleasant things to a person's situation as a reward for desirable actions) is significantly more effective than either negative or positive punishment (the removal of pleasant things or the addition of unpleasant things in response to undesirable actions). This is true in raising children, training animals, and leading communities.

PUNISHMENT is not only ineffective, but abusive.

[four-bladed-fan]

[captain-price-returns]

oh no they’re going to start calling democrats the same thing they’ve been calling democrats for 20 years now

[hotvampireadjacent]

[thewellofastarael]

"Here’s a trick I learned during the Obama presidency for handling certain types of political labels. Take, as an example, the Tea Party claim that Obama is a Communist. Don’t take the word of the person making the claim (Tea Partiers). Don’t rely on the rebuttal of the target (Obama), because that will just be dismissed. Go to the group itself (Communists) and ask them. Ask an actual Communist if Obama is a comrade and see how they answer. Watch as they laugh at you, then explain in great detail how they wish there was a Communist in the White House, but here’s a long and exhaustive list of why that just isn’t so. Now apply this logic to the claim that Hillary is pretty much the same as a Republican. Ask an actual Republican if they think Hillary Clinton is one of them. Watch them laugh, and then explain in the same exhausting detail why that just isn’t so. Some of them might concede that she’s better than Trump, but that’s not the same thing. Finally, go ask a White Supremacist if Trump is one of them. As they excitedly explain how Trump is the guy they’ve been waiting for all these years, and how he’s really empowered their movement, use this to guide how you will be voting in November."

Source: a 2016 facebook posts by Craig Enan, since then deleted (OG link here)

[witchofanguish]

You see this sort of post a lot in left circles, and it's a very cute idea, but conservatives aren't actually that dumb. You might be able to make them nod along to what you're saying (assuming you don't hit on the big ticket culture war issues, this absolutely would not work for immigration and probably won't work for climate change), but you're not actually going to change anyone's mind like this.

[jessiewithaj]

i'm so sick of "reach across the aisle" and "let's find some common ground" bullshit. call a nazi a nazi. the only things fascists seem to understand are violence and shame.

[tamabula-rasa]

​

[tamamoland-with-a-gun]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH EVERYBODY*

here's the lgbtq tag trending as it does regularly due to multiple porn bots catfishing using the same stolen pictures of the same trans woman on the same page

remember the year in review? this was one of the featured tags. note that despite neither the image nor video in the posts in this screenshot being marked as mature content, this screenshot of them is going to mark this post as mature content as soon as I post it

here's some of the lovely messages of positivity you can expect to get if you're a transfem on this platform! I cropped the real-life gore images out of the first one, the person in the second one has made multiple posts like this + pedojacketed me and still has that same account and does that same shit, and the the person in the third took weeks for tumblr to do anything about, because:

here's tumblr staff stating that making explicit death threats towards transfems is not a violation of the ToS or user guidelines!

and here they are stating it again! and while we're on the subject of who the user guidelines apply to:

here's SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY MY CONTENTLESS REBLOG of a year-old post with 15,000 notes being flagged as sexually explicit (over 100 times in case you thought it was maybe a fluke) despite the image in the post not actually showing anything, SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY MY CONTENTLESS REBLOG of a heated rivalry gifset showing two fully nude dudes fucking center frame getting flagged as sexually explicit, which it is according to tumblr's definition, but despite that it has tens of thousands of notes and in fact is so popular and shared that if you look over to the third image you can see that same gif as one of the trending tag thumbnails! and on that note:

here's an episode of an anime available on youtube with a TV-14 age rating that I posted a screenshot of that got flagged as sexually explicit, had the appeal denied twice, got fully nuked off the site, and then got my entire blog marked as mature for posting!

and here's that same already-marked-as-mature blog curiously being marked as mature a second time out of the blue 15 minutes before they dropped the age verification update that would hide mature content!

and here's my first blog of 13 years getting a SPECIAL type of mature flag that marks all of my posts as mature content individually and separately from the actual mature content label!

you don't get to appeal these terminations btw! they automatically and instantly deny your appeal and send you the rejection before you even get the email telling you they got the appeal and will carefully review it

not that appealing will do anything anyways! here's tumblr staff terminating me for explicit content when I appealed the explicit flag on a post that they accepted the appeal on after terminating me for it,

and here's tumblr staff denying my appeal on that termination, lying about why i was terminated, terminating my already-and-still-terminated blog a second time to change the termination reason to one i can't appeal, which they then upgraded from an account deactivation into a postmortem full account nuke! isn't that wild?

here's them doing it to me a second time

and here's tumblr staff terminating me FIVE TIMES in multiple weeks it took them to do anything about a burner blog and a post pedojacketing me and encouraging people to harass me forever over completely fabricated claims that everyone spreading it around admitted were false on the post itself by the way! note also how only the burner blog got deleted - but the main account? just a post removal. after weeks of it being reported and spread around. the fastest of my terminations during this period was three hours after making the account by the way!

which isn't an isolated occurrence, either! they'll pass over multiple open, avowed nazis posting swastikas and slur-filled nazi race science shit about how they think black people are biologically inferior subhumans for months on end to nuke some random transfem off the site in as little as 10 minutes after account creation, then take MULTIPLE MONTHS to respond to your report of someone sending you harassment messages to tell you that the content you reported has already been removed (because it's an ask in the inbox of an account they already terminated along with four others in the time it took them to respond)!

And to really send a clear message about where they stand, they've REALLY ramped up the termination of transfems since the start of pride! And everybody will act like you deserve it and are a subhuman unworthy of life if you don't openly support the multiple ongoing harassment campaigns against transfems, all enabled and quietly endorsed by tumblr staff and moderation!

*except transfems

[tamamoland-with-a-gun]

[tamamoland-with-a-gun]

if you had a reblog of this from my original reblog queued or in the drafts this will have broken it btw you will need to queue/draft it from literally anywhere else except that original reblog

[tamamoland-with-a-gun]

can you believe they actually tried to hit this with the explicit content flag

it's not just staff either it's the userbase being enabled and encouraged by this shit

[tamamoland-with-a-gun]

they denied my appeal

[tamamoland-of-the-black-sky]

get outplayed you stupid fucking assholes

[tamamoland-of-the-deep-abyss]

[tamamoland-of-the-deep-abyss]

12 days and counting on the termination appeal

[balaclava-trismegistus]

I really need to do more studying and write an essay on how Americanism is a genuine folk religion which reveres capital and the vague concept of “the free market” as a god of providence to be pleased in order to lead a prosperous life, also that the founding fathers are prophetic, perhaps even messianic figures who basically gave birth to this god through the revolutionary war, and that the vast majority of conservative Christians in America revere capital more than the god they claim to serve in an ironic sort of golden calf situation.

[balaclava-trismegistus]

I think you’re just stupid, bro

Apotheosis of Washington

1800–1802 John James Barralet

There is a trend amongst depictions of the founding fathers to show them as literal christ figures, a trend that started very early in the nation’s life.

I’d also like to point out Washington & Lincoln Apotheosis, artist unknown, about 1865, the same year as lincoln’s assasination

The personification of America in the form of Columbia, a goddess of both the land and the concepts that America tends to inhabit. A pre-anime Hetalia. She was often used in depictions of Manifest Destiny, a religions ideal that stated that America, by God’s will, must go from coast to coast.

American Progress by, John Gast, 1872. Note the indigenous people cast in literal darkness, away from the light. The religions deification of America relies upon colonialism and white supremacy

[kereeachan]

Like, there are actual studies on this stuff. Look up “American civil religion” if you’re struggling for search terms. Or “American founder worship.”

also worth noting the vatican lists americanism as a specific official heresy. so even beyond the mountains of scholarship on the religion of americanism from various religious & secular perspectives, the roman catholic church itself officially recognises it as a religious heresy in the general region of idolatry that can be used in official church courts as grounds for excommunication. and it’s a religious view that’s drilled into americans so aggressively that to them it seems perfectly natural, whereas to most of the rest of the world ‘america’ seems more like a terrifying mind control cult than a country. this has led to large swathes of american catholics being members of a different religion than that of all the worlds other catholic populations and is a big part of how they became the closest thing to a pan-catholic in-joke, a global laughing stock if you will

[sapper-in-the-wire]

[aerialsquid]

Bioshock Infinite wasn’t ideal but making this subtext into text was probably one of the better things it did. Real interesting vibe, and they didn’t have to work hard to get there.

[t4t4t]

I’d like to remind everyone that Mormonism is a form of this “Americanism”

Also. There is never a moment to hand it to the Catholics, they’re also colonial bastards.

[violence-doggos]

Under no circumstances is catholocism, or the pope, “based”

[redstonedust]

the whole "insulting someone based on their appearance is bad because it could indirectly hurt people you like who share that feature" is a good start for unlearning body shaming but i do think we need to go further and remind people that even if there was some physical trait that was magically 10000% exclusive to conservatives and creeps and nobody else ever had it, we still shouldnt be insulting them based on that. because the problem with them is not their appearance its their ideology and actions. by insulting their appearance you arent just indirectly insulting others who look like that, youre literally not making the correct point. stay on topic ya know.

[legsdemandias]

Do you think tumblr will ever learn the difference between “I’m defending this person because I agree with them wholeheartedly and I am also like this person” and “I’m defending this person because your behavior is dangerous and you need to stop”

[legsdemandias]

IMO, blurring the lines between “I’m defending them because they’re right” and “I’m defending them because you’re taking this too far” is step numero uno to cutting down the very existence of fair trial and democracy–even in places where saying that might seem a little dramatic. 

Mob mentality is extremely strong in humans and it’s also extremely dangerous. Mobs don’t think things through. Mobs kill and they destroy and they can’t be reasoned with. Someone trying to calm a mob down isn’t someone defending the ~problematic party~ It’s time we re-learn that.

[kayla-denker]

I think one of the best counterarguments I can make against the "humans are inherently evil" line of thinking is to simply point out that *every* *single* person or group of people in all of human history — going all the way back to the very first written acounts in the Bronze Age — have always had to make an excuse for their actions that paint them as the victim of those whom they are victimizing, or some other excuse that justifies their evil actions morally correct. No emperor, king, autocrat, or warlord has ever said "I am going to conquer these people just because I want their land and I like committing genocide." Even the Mongols, who came the closest to doing this, still had to give the excuse of "we're conquering you because you disrespected us", not simply "because we want your stuff and we like killing."

The truth is that homicidal malevolence is **antithetical** to human nature. Humans are inherently empathetic and cooperative, which doesn't take a biology genius to understand; humans are herd animals. Those qualities are **essential** for the survival of herd animals. In order for humans to overcome those good qualities they have to invent an excuse that makes their actions justified, an excuse that paints the people they are harming as the actual aggressor and them as simply defending themselves.

[kayla-denker]

Someo e just shared this almost year-old post, and it got me thinking about the "conquered, not stolen" line that American conservatives like to use about the European conquest of the Americas. Because it stands in such stark contrast to the above fact about humanity.

Even Ghengis Khan didn't do what American conservatives are doing. He, like everyone else, made up excuses to make the Mongols look like the victims and the people they conquered as the agressors. Hell, even the fucking NAZIS didn't do what American conservatives are doing. They made up lies about how Jews, Communists, and Queer people secretly controlled the world in order to justify their genocide.

But now, for the first time in human history, a large politically powerful group of people is openly reveling in being evil. They look at the evil that was done to the native people of the Americas and they proudly say "yep, that was evil, and thats why we like it."

Conservativism is truly antithetical to human nature.

And what's almost more insane than that is that American liberals still claim that these people can ve reasoned with, that we need to "reach accross the isle." American liberals still proudly declare that they like to work bipartisanly with the people that proudly call themselves evil and openly celebrate the mass murder of innocents.

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I think those fancomics where Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is transgender are cute and fun but I also think it's a deep misunderstanding of Calvin's character to think he would transition into a heterosexual normie who goes to her high school reunion. That girl would have neopronouns and fang implants

[butch-king-frankenstein]

Adult Calvin is a tattoo artist named Panthera who is the bassist in a terrible metal band called Captain Napalm and Hobbes helps do faer E injections

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I know it's like 2 weeks too late to change it but I'm so mad I didn't realize that the band would obviously be called "Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS". I walk the road of shame

[parawyrm]

[parawyrm]

More from that one post

[parawyrm]

[parawyrm]

[parawyrm]

[orphanedsource]

the place I work at remodeled these split gendered restrooms into “inclusive restrooms” and never told us what they meant while construction was ongoing. I need you to know every atom of potential criticism or whining that could’ve happened disappeared when people found out this meant we got 10 fully separate private bathrooms with sinks inside. I’ve not heard a single person crack a joke about the inclusive signage. this is the world TERFs are trying to steal from you

[moishe-pipick]

[coredumpproject]

Some of this is just called 'monkey wrenching', it's the lost art of simply throwing a wrench in the gears of the system to bring it down.

ICE driving behind you? Forget where you're going and Just ... sit through a green light. Don't have to keep doing it, or get caught ... just PERFORM YOUR TASKS POORLY.

Drop a wrench and say 'oops'.

You can resist while saying sorry, and pretending to comply. it's still resistance.

[lost-and-kinda-dumb]

got pissed off and made this

[pocket-deer-belly]

i will go to bat for the fact that most of the queer coded villains you see aren't queer coded but specifically transfeminine coded

[pocket-deer-belly]

i think if you can explain the queer coding as "character displays femininity while being a man/mannish and it's portrayed as humorous or monstrous" what you're dealing with is transmisogyny, not some ephemeral "queer coding"

[sowbear]

okay imma try and explain myself properly but know i am bad with words. Know if i use the words "men" or "woman" I'm taking about it from the transphobic world view

This is totally it. The biggest problem people have with ""gay men"" ie drag queen and why they are often villians, is rooted in transmisogynistic ideals. "Feminine men" are way more of a crime "masculine woman". This is why drag queens are way more targeted. In a way drag queen are a overdramatize proformance of "womanhood" Which lead people to believe gay men are inherently feminine.

Now this wouldnt have matter is the world didn't inherently seen woman are lesser, weak, or inherently sexual. Therefore any man trying to be a "woman" or act in a feminine way is trying to mimic that in a way to trick the "upstanding, and rightious man"

Which is why "gay coded" villians just end up being like "drag queens" with is to say the most over the top transfems in there minds.

So the top is homophobic yes, but it is way more rooted im transmisogyn than homophobia (still both just especially transmisogynistic) . Especially since half of these villians aren't even know to be attracted to men.

I hope I'm making sense but im trying to see if i can explain it for others.

TLDR:

Ursula, Him, and many others are a good example of femininity in "men" = evil and not the act of being gay itself.

[pocket-deer-belly]

exactly right. none of the famous queer coded villains ever make sexual advances towards heroic characters of the same gender, if they did i would classify that as homophobia, the act of homosexual attraction being targeted as a sign of villainy. instead, "queer coding" targets transfemininity.

[fabiansociety]

leaving aside the main point of this, which i don’t necessarily disagree with, ursula didmake repeated advances toward prince eric in the little mermaid. she nearly married him!

in a broader sense, though, queer coding isn’t about making characters gay, it’s about applying the stereotypes of queerness to textually straight characters to render them strange or funny or threatening. ursula, while modeled on Divine, is textually a straight cis woman. having male queer coded characters hitting on men would make them by definition no longer coded.

[pocket-deer-belly]

ursula is a character who steals the voice from another woman to go be a deceitful fake woman and marry/steal a man from the "real" woman. i'm sorry but wether or not a character is "textually" cis or "textually" a man does not matter in portraying a transmisogynist caricature. next you'll tell me buffalo bill couldn't possibly be a harmful transfeminine stereotype cause the movie tells you he's not one of the real trans women or whatever the fuck

[mysharona1987]

[okiitos]

Rescue professional here:

If you need rescuing or help, DON’T FUCKING MOVE. You are so much easier to find when you stay put.

[thegreenpea]

Credits: @foxes-in-love

Your most important survival skill is asking for help

[existential-dread-in-the-am]

Goddamn preach this

[rogue-cyberman]

"Your most important survival skill is asking for help." THIS, it makes me so damn pissed off when parents try and normalize that asking for help is a taboo thing!

[isthescavengervideocute]

This feels important to reblog

[pocket-deer-belly]

still one of the most insteresting patterns i've seen with internet harassment campaigns is this agonizing habit to combine or even frontload extremely serious accusations with extremely bullshit ones, or even just like, petty critiques or cringe reacting at art their target has made. one of salem's most prominent harassment blog accused him of all sorts of serious (though obviously spurious) accusations but a lot of them were buried under posts nitpicking how he draws guitar straps. the rodfellows callout doc proclaims to contain a serious accusation of grooming before bogging it under layers and layers of quite frankly embarassing accusations of intelectual property theft cause sometimes the artist drew mickey mouse. any moralizing about christine weston chandler's behavior is rancid transmisogynist dogshit, but it's noteworthy that the harassment campaign started because she made some comics people thought were embarassing.

it's impossible to hide that the serious accusations are post-hoc justification for cringe, people can't handle not liking the thing so they have to accuse of pedophilia, grooming, etc. it's more convenient to argue that the silly puppy art is pedophilic than it is to just not like it and leave it alone.

[pocket-deer-belly]

patrica taxxon made another really incredible short video that talks about this pattern with regards to melanie martinez that's worth checking out

[pocket-deer-belly]

I think in the case of Salem, the rodfellows movie callout doc, and christine weston chandler, the many many tiny nitpicks build up a volume of weak "evidence" so that it's easier to believe the more serious accusations even in the extremely likely case that the accusations are completely unfounded. The extremely serious accusations then provide moral justification for perpetually needling the victim of harassment, and the stalking generates more evidence. We can pour over every single one of Salem's drawings and nitpick the guitar straps because you see, not only is his art morally bad for depicting fat and trans people in a way that makes me uncomfortable, but he's also a terrible person. We can endlessly extract wealth from making content about Christine, and don't worry, we're actually good people for doing this, because she actually raped her mom [CITATION NEEDED]. It's assurance that you aren't a bully for participating and it's pressure to participate and become part of the hunt, which mostly consists of endlessly stalking and needling every tiny social interaction and every piece of media.

[grithogirl]

the attachments mincecraft creators have to their rp characters is really fucking unhealthy, immature and would make people less likely to hire you in professional acting spaces but that opinion wont be commonplace until like 2036 so im gonna get crucified

[grithogirl]

telling actors, artists, art creators in professional spaces how their characters will be used by the public is commonplace for a good reason, "rule 34" exists for a reason, most humans inherently have romantic and sexual desires and a wish to express them in fiction. being uncomfortable with this is immature, not to mention actively being public with that distaste. roleplay characters are just that, characters. i am of course annoyed but im surprising even myself at how overshadowed that is by genuine concern for creators mental health and well being, this way of thinking isn't healthy at all and im fed up of it being normalized. you cannot go into an acting/character-playing career and be genuinely upset when character interpretations turn romantic, you're going to mess yourself up health wise, this isn't normal

[falloutingenue]

(op) thought these were good tags