Queen of the Random

[thememedaddy]

[burr-ell]

Regarding a recent anon, one of the things I've found most disturbing about a lot of stan behavior—not exclusive to FE3H's Edelgard, though certainly a common trait among her loudest fans—is the insistence that their faves can do nothing wrong and actually everyone ELSE is the bad guy, regardless of the clear evidence to the contrary.

It's interesting that this behavior occurs in fans of villains, heroes, and anti-heroes alike. I've seen it in fans of Edelgard and Kipperlilly Copperkettle, but I've also seen it in fans of Starfire and Imogen Temult, in fans of Laudna and Daenerys Targaryen. Well-crafted characters, lackluster ones, heroes, villains, doesn't matter. Now to be clear, the most mainstream and widespread forms of this occur in fans of male characters—Solas and Kylo Ren's fandoms are full of it, as are those of Caleb Widogast and Tony Stark. In those cases the fan behavior often crosses from annoying into explicit misogyny and racism, and it is absolutely correct to call that shit out when you see it.

The thing is, though, it's precisely because that phenomenon is so widespread and the poor behavior so blatant that it gets a lot of discussion, and the behavior of the aforementioned female characters' fandoms is either ignored or seen as excusable. It's understandable not to want to criticize how people support female characters, especially when those male characters' fandoms' loudest voices treated them so poorly. But frankly, acting ugly is still acting ugly no matter who is doing it or why, and under the surface of "supporting a female character" often lies ideas rooted in subtler forms of bigotry.

(It's fine, actually, that Edelgard keeps Petra as a political hostage, and actually, it's a shame Cyril can't join up with her and totally help her end slavery (by killing the person who actually freed Cyril from slavery). Starfire was actually always black-coded because she had big poofy hair and was enslaved as a prisoner of war, and how dare Nightwing and Donna Troy have a problem with her killing her enemies. Deanna will be Imogen's new mom and will coddle and coo over her and Laudna, and her sole purpose in the story is to do everything she possibly can to get them together. Stans consistently refer to their faves as "girls" who never had a choice in anything, unless it was unambiguously heroic, and no matter how cute and soft-looking they look in canon, the fanart will sand them down more. The use of the term "girlfail" has gotten popular in these corners recently, and fans who use it get very defensive when you point out how gross that is when we have a bunch of Christian nationalists in the White House.)

In just about any given fandom, there exists a subsection of fans who will, in defense of their problematic faves, adhere to the Narcissist's Prayer:

That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did... You deserved it.

I'm not calling any of these fans or the characters narcissists; on top of it being irresponsible, I simply have no interest in doing so. (You don't need a clinical condition to be a tedious asshole.) But let's call it for what it is: there are very loud and vocal fans of female characters who want to project onto someone whom they believe is simultaneously a super powerful badass and blameless in everything they do, and they will inflict their nastiest high school bully fantasies onto anyone who pushes back, and will insist that they should be allowed to do this in the name of Defending Girls. I Mean Women.

Of course that's not on the same level as blatant bigoted hatred—but does it have to be before we can agree that it sucks?

[maidenvault]

Not “Only my reading of canon is correct” or “Interpretations are subjective and all valid” but a secret third thing, “More than one interpretation can be valid but there’s a reason your English teacher had you cite quotes and examples in your papers, you have to have a strong argument that your interpretation is actually supported by the text or it is just wrong and I’m fine with telling you it’s wrong, actually.”

[mooncustafer]

If the text says the curtains are blue you can argue about what that means; but if you’re going to claim they’re actually yellow you’d better have a really good argument.

[xwilltruman]

i know the curtains better than the author. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[maidenvault]

Fandom has such unresolved mommy/daddy issues about authors. If you apply a little reading comprehension skills to my original post you’ll see I didn’t say anything at all about the author. You guys always make “interpretation” about your beef with the author. You’re all obsessed with the author. This post is just about deciphering what is there in canon. Figuring out what is being communicated by the canon itself with all the words and images and basic formal elements that are there in canon. That’s all it’s about. It really doesn’t matter if the author intentionally put all those things there in a pattern that might support the idea that this one character’s queer. That’s not what this is about. What matters is if you can compellingly argue there’s a pattern of evidence there. Or not. Everyone is conspiring together to make me go insane still adding shit about authorial intent on my post.

[thefakehedgehogaroundhere]

btw you're allowed to enjoy two differing interpretations of the same character and you don't have to justify why you like it to anyone. you can like your evil character to be malicious and serious and you can like depicting them as a silly goober. you can enjoy seeing people draw two characters in all sorts of different contexts and dynamics without having to pick one over the other. you don't have to come up with a complex reason. you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. you can like a character multiple ways without having to justify why it's not problematic or why it's not weird. do what you want. it's fandom, not a testimony before the court.

[glamrockmike]

realizing that the online sphere and especially tumblr is NOT a good sample for ‘what everyone thinks’ is so, so, so good for your mental health and moral OCD. i swear to god. realizing that you don’t have to live your actual life like you’re being hunted for sport because the average tumblr user will hunt you for sport for wording something slightly weird or engaging in the wrong stuff or whatever is so incredible. like no you’re actually not fucked up and evil for not donating or for watching that one indie cartoon or questioning a post that everybody is agreeing with. that’s just tumblrs georg making you feel that way

[estro-boi]

[sistertaxon]

why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead

[thesylverlining]

this is the only kind of ace discourse i ever want to see on my dash. the only kind. ever again. good job

[kittyknowsthings]

Do you think the sirens would be grateful that they finally get some variety? 

[systlin]

“Oh my god we can finally just sing about pasta thank the fucking gods.” 

[totohoy-blog]

I’m not asexual but I’m fairly certain sirens would do a far better job luring me into the depths with a song about pasta rather than sex…

[systlin]

I mean. 

“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”

“FUCKER THEY SAID THEY HAVE FETTUCCINE CARBONARA AND HOT GARLIC BREAD OVER THERE HANG ON BITCH.” 

[musicalhell]

This is true; Odysseus heard them promising him knowledge of the future.  So the next time you see artwork like this:

Remember those sultry naked chicks are saying “We’ll tell you the winning lotto numbers.”

[fuckstaffposts]

Them: “We have unlimited wifi at incredible speeds~” Me: *diving headfirst into the water*

[rpluvsyj]

This post is a blessing

[wittyusername97]

Congratulations! Odysseus! You’ve been selected as a winner for the free $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X 256G or Samsung Galaxy S8! Claim your prize now!

[kitvalkyrie]

Oh my god sirens were literally scam websites

[10thingsihateabout-all-yall]

Oh my god they were phishing

[dorkish98]

Warframe is so funny to me. Sometimes a family is a robot pretendeding to be your adopted mother who then splinters into three separate but conjoined identities, her child she rescued from a shipwreck who got magic space powers from a god that made them kill their own biological parents for its amusement, an alternate timeline copy of the kid who never got rescued and instead was trapped in a magical fairytale world where they got executed and brought back to life on repeat for years before usurping the fictional king and claiming his power over time, their uncle/fighting instructor who hates their adoptive robot mother, a former mass murderer that regreted being a mass murderer and was turned into a glorifed virtual assistant for crime of not wanting to be a mass murderer anymore, a family of former royalty that got infected with a space virus that made them ten times larger and also meat flowers, the gay grandpa of that family who *isn't* infected but *is* haunted by the same god that made the kid kill their parents and is also the reason the god exists in the first place,-

(deep breathe)

-his butler/lover, their cat, three sapient talking animals, the alternate timeline copy's time-traveling polycule, the robot mom's giant robot dad, his estranged son that joined a cult, a single-minded killer that the robot dad also adopted(NOT a robot), his dead wife, AND their child that (as of writing this) seems to have somehow split into two alter egos that are locked in a deathmatch together that it causing mayhem across Venus.

[emblemxeno]

I always wonder who people really consider to be the most canon mom for Lucina tbh. You talking about FChrobin made me think about it because like I know that just kinda feels like a natural progression or whatever but also the game doesn't have the capacity to change the writing enough to take advantage of the extra drama that would cause in the bad future. Sumia has her super limited pool of S-Supports but even still idk. Sully and Maribelle are honestly just kinda there i don't think i ever paired them with Chrom at all so idk. Olivia is from like one chapter before. Village Maiden is stupid, and also dumb, and also idiotic because I'm pretty sure you have to INTENTIONALLY keep Chrom's supports down for that.

F!Robin, Sumia and Olivia have all been the ones that people were arguing about canonicity for ages iirc. It's the problem with the child mechanic sort of interferring with any kind of canon couples/potential supports from that.

I like Maribelle as a sleeper option because her and Lissa being officially sisters is really cute.

[rei-lynn1989]

I'd suggest that the 'canon' mom's either F!Robin or Sumia, if we look at the game itself. On one hand, F!Robin is the only wife who stays relevant in the story itself, the supports between F!Robin and a Lucina that's not her daughter are weirdly shippy and there's the scene with Lucina that changes if F!Robin's her mom (or if M!Robin's her husband), which doesn't happen with any other scene. On the other hand, Sumia's seen holding baby Lucina in the introduction cutscene that plays before the title screen, the scene where she saves him is naned 'Lovebirds' and she's the game's first choice to auto-marry Chrom if all his supports are equal. (Personally, I don't ship Chrom/Sumia. There will be no bashing Sumia here, though, because I like her.)

[emblemxeno]

can we talk about the fact that corrin being extremely emotional/hyperempathetic Autism coded may ALSO be why corrin is so hated by gamer dudebros considering the raging ableism in gaming spheres? or am i the only one who has a death wish, a dream, and the power of God and anime on my side to notice this?

reminds me of that one post we saw (that triggered me enough to have me be HELD by at least three people) that was like "get an autistic gf, they need instructions, look up at you and buy toys and other shit like that"

like. THE FUCK??? so if a woman does it, they are infantilized AND sexualized, and if a man does it, they are shunned and even abused by other gamers. jesus christ people are just so gross

Now that you mention it, it does strike an interesting parallel to how IRL autistic people are treated. Like you said, autistic women are sexualized and infantilized, and autistic men are kind of treated like shit!

I'm not on the spectrum myself, so I have no backing to make headcanons or the like, but given Corrin's background and lore and whatnot, it wouldn't surprised me if they really were neurodivergent of some kind. Especially given their sheltered and enclosed development. It'd also help explain a lot of the sympathy us fans would have, for lack of better words, because they get treated like idiots or children because they're "naive and stupid and never get punished" when the reality is that they're actually pretty wise and question why things are so cruel in a manner that makes the characters accustomed to a brutal world take a step back and reflect. And from secondhand experience of seeing how my friends who are on the spectrum get treated by neurotypical people, I've seen similar frustrations.

But yeah, again, I have no personal stake in that. Yet you bring up good points!

[rei-lynn1989]

As someone who is autistic (and badly enough that I'm incapable of fully taking care of myself, at that), I think this makes a lot of sense.

[fantasyinvader]

Making the Squall commander deck just had me thinking about FF8 again, and right now I feel like it was ahead of it’s time. That in a pre-9/11 world, one where people missed the satire of Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers and took it at face value, it went over people’s heads that as SeeD, Squall and the others were not just teenagers with attitude. They were full on child soldiers, and this ties into two elements criticized.

First is the reveal that GF usage does make one lose their memories (which is really only foreshadowed if the player reads some in-game text on it and how GF usage is controversial as a result), and the cast all forgot they once lived in the same orphanage together. They lost that innocent part of their childhoods, instead they just have their training as mercenaries. They are trained to be effective with their weapons, junctions and even their behavior. The game even does away with cash drops after battle in exchange for a salary that increases based on the player acting in accordance to how SeeDs are meant to operate, and you can’t simply brute force your way through the game through grinding because the enemies also increase in strength based on your level. You need to know how to junction, and engaging with this system makes the game a lot easier.

It’s like the game is expecting you to play as the professional you supposedly are and no amount of time travel shenanigans in the game will give them their childhood back.

They’re still young, can be immature or make foolish decisions based on their emotions. Selphie is quirky, sure, but she always suggests the most violent course of actions while Zell, a would-be shonen protagonist with a Mike Tyson tattoo, turns out to be the more composed one and even gives exposition. Quistis mistakes her subconscious instincts towards Squall as romantic rather than her being a big sister figure, and makes mistakes as a result leading to her losing her teaching position. Irvine had trouble shooting the sorceress because he still remembered she was their caretaker at the orphanage unlike the rest of the team. Squall is still feeling alone and isolated after losing his sister even if he can’t remember her, causing him to shut himself off (unless the player picks options that effectively have him break character and reveal his inner turmoil, which also strengthens the love story between him and Rinoa.

Which comes to how Rinoa was criticized for being too childish and cutesy in contrast to the rest of the team, since she wasn’t a SeeD. She was meant to stand out compared to them through her language, which the translation took and made her sounder younger rather than being in the same age group. She was meant more to be the normal teen, highlighting how off the SeeDs were but like Squall being colder with his whatevers, this didn’t come out of the localization right.

This is all pretty dark, and it ties the cast to Ultimecia’s motivations... that were only explained in a guide book. But it’s different that other stories we were getting at the time, it emphasized the cost of becoming a badass like the Tomb Raider reboot or Far Cry 3 would do over a decade later, and Undertale coming out a few years after that. No More Heroes or Spec Ops The Line deconstructing simple video game narratives. Hell, Metal Gear Solid 2 came out two and a half years after FF8 and people thought it was a mess at the time, a bunch of nonsense... until we started seeing it come true and other games took to it’s deconstructionist approach. Or we get people saying that this anime deconstructs the shonen genre compared to, say, Naruto... which also basically wants us to ignore the child soldier aspect. Hell, Animorphs ended 2 years later and turned a premise that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon and made it about child soldiers even if fans were upset they didn’t get a happy ending.

Then again, there was a Starship Troopers cartoon airing around the same time.

So for me, FF8 was a game that came out far too early. It stands out for that and while there are elements that could use fine-tuning, maybe touch up the translation, it still holds up. Like it’s battle theme, Don't Be Afraid, it was marching at 5/4 time and as a result was slightly ahead of a lot of where we were at the time.

[rei-lynn1989]

What really amuses me about this game is how easy it is to completely break into pieces if you know what you're doing (especially with the remastered version giving you boosters that make you almost immortal, at least in the Switch version; since that's the only version I played I'm not sure if any of the other remasters/rereleases have those boosters). Hell, if you know what you're doing and focus on unlocking certain GF abilities you can break the game at the very beginning. Add Triple Triad giving you cards that you can turn into items and possibly refine said items into magic and other useful items, and you can have late game magic before the plot gets going.

[fantasyinvader]

You can get Squall's final weapon on disk one through Triple Triad. Or right off the bat, learn how to refine healing magic. Go to the store, buy as many tents as you can, refine them into fucking Curaga's and junction them to your health. Boom, right out of the gate you have 3000 extra HP to one character (and killing those fish enemies on the beach to get 100 waters to junction to your attack stat lasts a very long time).

I remember Projared complaining about this with the tents, saying it breaks the game but the game never tells you to do this. He was complaining the game rewards experimenting with it's system early on, like he was expecting it to hold his hand. But then again, he also tried complaining that the game doesn't want you to play it because the monsters level up with you. It's like, he never really tried to understand what the systems were doing. The monsters leveling up meant that junctioning stats was more important than levels, but at the same time higher level enemies have better chances of dropping high end materials for refinement, allowing access to better magic. And Triple Triad, through refining cards, also plays into this system.

It's what I really love about the game, the mechanics tie into everything including the story itself. It shows how junctioning could turn a bunch of kids into world class warriors rather than having a setting where going out and killing enough monsters would do the trick. It grounds the setting rather than simply being another JRPG.

[rei-lynn1989]

And since you need GFs to be able to refine items into magic or even to junction anything, it gives SeeDs another reason to use GFs despite the memory loss. It really does feel like every mechanic feeds into the story it's trying to tell.

[fantasyinvader]

Making the Squall commander deck just had me thinking about FF8 again, and right now I feel like it was ahead of it’s time. That in a pre-9/11 world, one where people missed the satire of Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers and took it at face value, it went over people’s heads that as SeeD, Squall and the others were not just teenagers with attitude. They were full on child soldiers, and this ties into two elements criticized.

First is the reveal that GF usage does make one lose their memories (which is really only foreshadowed if the player reads some in-game text on it and how GF usage is controversial as a result), and the cast all forgot they once lived in the same orphanage together. They lost that innocent part of their childhoods, instead they just have their training as mercenaries. They are trained to be effective with their weapons, junctions and even their behavior. The game even does away with cash drops after battle in exchange for a salary that increases based on the player acting in accordance to how SeeDs are meant to operate, and you can’t simply brute force your way through the game through grinding because the enemies also increase in strength based on your level. You need to know how to junction, and engaging with this system makes the game a lot easier.

It’s like the game is expecting you to play as the professional you supposedly are and no amount of time travel shenanigans in the game will give them their childhood back.

They’re still young, can be immature or make foolish decisions based on their emotions. Selphie is quirky, sure, but she always suggests the most violent course of actions while Zell, a would-be shonen protagonist with a Mike Tyson tattoo, turns out to be the more composed one and even gives exposition. Quistis mistakes her subconscious instincts towards Squall as romantic rather than her being a big sister figure, and makes mistakes as a result leading to her losing her teaching position. Irvine had trouble shooting the sorceress because he still remembered she was their caretaker at the orphanage unlike the rest of the team. Squall is still feeling alone and isolated after losing his sister even if he can’t remember her, causing him to shut himself off (unless the player picks options that effectively have him break character and reveal his inner turmoil, which also strengthens the love story between him and Rinoa.

Which comes to how Rinoa was criticized for being too childish and cutesy in contrast to the rest of the team, since she wasn’t a SeeD. She was meant to stand out compared to them through her language, which the translation took and made her sounder younger rather than being in the same age group. She was meant more to be the normal teen, highlighting how off the SeeDs were but like Squall being colder with his whatevers, this didn’t come out of the localization right.

This is all pretty dark, and it ties the cast to Ultimecia’s motivations... that were only explained in a guide book. But it’s different that other stories we were getting at the time, it emphasized the cost of becoming a badass like the Tomb Raider reboot or Far Cry 3 would do over a decade later, and Undertale coming out a few years after that. No More Heroes or Spec Ops The Line deconstructing simple video game narratives. Hell, Metal Gear Solid 2 came out two and a half years after FF8 and people thought it was a mess at the time, a bunch of nonsense... until we started seeing it come true and other games took to it’s deconstructionist approach. Or we get people saying that this anime deconstructs the shonen genre compared to, say, Naruto... which also basically wants us to ignore the child soldier aspect. Hell, Animorphs ended 2 years later and turned a premise that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon and made it about child soldiers even if fans were upset they didn’t get a happy ending.

Then again, there was a Starship Troopers cartoon airing around the same time.

So for me, FF8 was a game that came out far too early. It stands out for that and while there are elements that could use fine-tuning, maybe touch up the translation, it still holds up. Like it’s battle theme, Don't Be Afraid, it was marching at 5/4 time and as a result was slightly ahead of a lot of where we were at the time.

[rei-lynn1989]

What really amuses me about this game is how easy it is to completely break into pieces if you know what you're doing (especially with the remastered version giving you boosters that make you almost immortal, at least in the Switch version; since that's the only version I played I'm not sure if any of the other remasters/rereleases have those boosters). Hell, if you know what you're doing and focus on unlocking certain GF abilities you can break the game at the very beginning. Add Triple Triad giving you cards that you can turn into items and possibly refine said items into magic and other useful items, and you can have late game magic before the plot gets going.

[lobsterenthusiastt]

duality of man

[furbearingbrick]

go-karting

[rei-lynn1989]

Scamming Temmies out of their gold, maybe? *shrugs* Not my fault they buy anything.

[toasty-tealeaf]

[janusfnc14]

It ALWAYS hurts with ‘Unethical Science’ Al.

[biracy]

Easily like 70% of the time someone puts some angry addendum about how inapplicable to autism their post about disability is, it literally is applicable to autism it's just that no one wants to consider autism an actual disability anymore

[biracy]

There are autistic people who are or have been in "special ed." There are autistic people who are or have been in psych wards. There are autistic people who are in group homes. There are autistic people who require full-time care. There are autistic people with "low IQs" (and stop treating "IQ" like a neutral measurement please and thank you). For a really long time and arguably in many circles still today, "autistic" and its variants ("sperg" etc) were considered equivalent to if not synonymous with the r-slur (and "slow" and etc). Many autistic people were not only called the r-slur, but were the main representation of what the r-slur looked like to the people calling them that. There are people who want to develop fetal brain scan technology so they can get an abortion if the fetus scans as "autistic." There are autistic people who are and always will be nonverbal. There are autistic people with congenital disabilities. There are autistic people (arguably most autistic people!) who are not "invisibly disabled." Autism is capable of being one of the most "visible" disabilities specifically because it is so wholly un-normalized as a disability. The idea that autistic people are a unanimous front of Kinda Quirky Nerdy White Guys (something I'd argue extends to the "Tumblr fandom blog autistic" stereotype) and thus can never actually relate to your posts about Real Disabilities is objectively ableist. Anti-autistic ableism is so normalized that getting mad (and since this is Tumblr, usually getting hyperbolically violently mad) at autistic people for "not reading the room" is considered, like, #punk and Disability Activist of you. Because those pesky autists need to learn to shut up for once don't they

[biracy]

Kind of reminds me about the time I was applying for driving school and a section of the paperwork asked abt disabilities and I put down autism. And then they were like Ohhh that wasn't we meant lol. With the implication being "we meant Actual Disabilities" but that being in the context of me very obviously taking something too literally and missing a social cue leading to me feeling juvenile and embarrassed and like I should've just asked my mom to fill it out for me. Well it has a poetry to it doesn't it

[biracy]

People really like the lie that autism is "normalized" (either compared to Real Disabilities or to "cluster B disorders" or w/e) bc it allows them to explicitly talk shit about autistic people without even needing to try coming up with a euphemism for it (although they do that too sometimes - "ugh I hate people who don't get sarcasm like stop making me explain the joke what are you stupid"). You can just post "autistic people need to know their fucking place and be able to tell when posts aren't about them and are about Real Problems not their Metaphorical Illness" and people will think that's an okay and reasonable thing to say. Has anyone looked at how really powerful people have been describing autism lately btw

[im-mender]

thinking of calling it the "you people can't do anything" effect. a disability becomes quote-unquote "normalized" to the point that it's fine to make fun of disabled people for shit they can't help

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I cannot believe I have to say this but porn bots and scam bots are not harmless. Spreading them is not justifiable on the very slim chance that they are legit. These bots are used to spread viruses and malware and steal people's personal information, including bank info and social security numbers. Even if all they can get from someone is a one-time payment of money, that is still theft and a loss that many people cannot afford and in a lot of cases, that cash is used to fund things like human trafficking.

We know this. It's a proven fact with tons of studies and investigations. Scam farms are very real, very dangerous, and becoming more and more prevalent.

You cannot share posts that are almost definitely scams on the off chance that they might not be just because "it's only a few bucks!" The majority of the tumblr users making those donations are poor themselves and trying to help out in whatever way they can with the little money they have to spare. That few bucks is monumental to many of us and if we're going to give it away, then we want to know it'll actually go to organizations and people who need it, not to scammers or traffickers.

[purlturtle]

People in crisis do not make Tumblr blogs to ask for help.

(above is from the notes, absolutely agree.)

Anyone who already *is* on Tumblr and is legit asking for help will NOT DO SO by sending spam asks to random people. Or spam message. Or spam reply to a random post. Or spam-@ you.

"Vetting" is one spammer okaying another, and has become UTTERLY MEANINGLESS.

A lot of these scam bots also use heartwrenching, sometimes triggering war pictures (at this point often AI) and incredibly pressuring and guilt-baiting language. "Don't look away!" "We only need x!" etc. - This is all part of the method, to give you a bad conscience, and/or goad you into giving because it's just such a small amount.

I know this can be especially difficult with any form of elevated/divergent empathy, or moral OCD, that kind of thing, but keep telling yourself the truth: the pictures are not real. The messages are not real. This is a bot.

Don't fall for any of this.

Report for spam, block (happens automatically on desktop, you gotta manually do it on mobile), delete.

[dalniente]

Source: UN Office on Drugs and Crime

The other surprising aspect is the contrast between the lives of the people who were forced often against their will to live and work here and the sheer scale of wealth of the people who were in charge of the compound. [...]

[...] people don’t actually have to leave and can stay here for months.

However, even if they wanted to leave, they could not, as we’ve heard from people who were rescued from these centres. Some have been tortured and been subjected to unimaginable violence on a daily basis as punishment for wanting to leave or for failing to reach their daily quota in terms of money scammed from victims. There’s a huge amount of human suffering on this compound.

There are multiple types of victims, the people who are being scammed around the world, but also the people who are trafficked here held against their will and who are exposed to violence.

There are loads of other sources available if you search "scam farm." Be advised that many articles - like this one - contain personal accounts of torture and may be difficult to stomach.

"Signal boosting just to be safe" is not safety. You are handing money to the owners of trafficked slaves so they can expand their operations. If you want to help the people trapped in these compounds, donate to organizations like:

Dark Bali

Chab Dai

IOM Thailand

It may be tempting to think "but if I send money to a scammer, then I'm still helping someone who might really need help," but following that impulse means you are ultimately funding more human trafficking. Sending your funds to a group tackling the problem at its source will help get these people out and ensure you don't create more victims.

[introvertsnation]

@introvertsnation

[cottoncanyon-deactivated2018012]

Reblog if it’s ok for people to give you $599.99