[insert title here]

Mel | 32 | I like fluffy kittens, metal music, fantasy novels, and monsters. My home is a dark cave where I play video games all day and nap under a pile of blankets. I write stuff sometimes. I'm boring. Feel free to say hi!

[pangur-and-grim]

I swear to GOD I’m not vagueing my situation, but I made a post recently about books I was planning to read this year, and I find it very….. interesting that multiple people came into my inbox afterward to tell me that all the queer authors in the bunch had sinned. like maybe they had, I dunno. it wouldn’t stop me reading (I love Interview with the Vampire, I have Thoughts about Anne Rice, etc). but it is interesting that none of the non-queer authors merited this whisper campaign, despite some of them honestly deserving it. not saying anything outright here, just making an observation. listening and learning. you know

[pangur-and-grim]

[pangur-and-grim]

I'm still thinking about the time that someone came into my dms to tell me that Gideon the Ninth's author had written problematic fanfiction.

maybe it's because I don't read or write fanfiction, so all related discourse has always been an iceberg sailing past me, but I just can't imagine who would give a shit. like oh, they wrote about a taboo topic? is it well written? should I read it?

and also, I'm reading work by wife abusers, religious fanatics, old timey racists, antisemites, misogynists, fascists, murderers...... knowing how these people conducted themselves in life gives context to better understand their writing, but that's about it. the only authors I'm actively boycotting for moral reasons are Neil Gaiman and J. K. Rowling, because they're using the money from their book sales in present day to harm people.

[svadilfari]

recently ive been thinking more and more about my experiences pre figuring out im trans and ive come to the conclusion that the trans community as a whole places way too much emphasis on Being instead of Doing

[svadilfari]

like. when i was trying to figure myself out, spending cumulative hours staring at the mirror wondering who i truly was deep down inside did not actually help me figure anything out. i had to actually go out into the world and do things. i had to find out what i liked and how i liked the world to percieve me. and i think that this line of reasoning can be applied to a lot of things

[svadilfari]

even though i no longer consider myself strictly asexual, i still consider myself part of the ace community because the attitude of celebrating the shifting of identity when confronted with new experiences and life circumstances felt genuinely revolutionary to me, in a time where mainstream online queer culture heavily emphasised creating specific flags for increasingly specific identites, splitting hairs over similar sounding labels, and attempting to slot the entire queer experience into neat boxes with no overlap. like idk i think at a certain point the focus on Being hinders more than it helps. like sometimes it really is about the material experience of your life. and it does make me feel a bit silly that it took so long for me to figure that out. but i guess having a clear concise identity label does have a certain comfort to it

[sincenewyorks]

at some point yall just gotta join a religious group and preach bc im tired of yall acting like sex/porn/poly/etc is bad every fucking month. we are one discourse cycle away from ‘sex before marriage is bad’ like go be a mormon and gtfo

[toskarin]

do you think insight can be gained about an author from the stories they write?

no. authors are like squids and can only be understood through spirited but ultimately futile combat

[notlayingroses]

in my opinion, the question isn't "Is RPF ethical?" but rather "Are you engaging with RPF ethically?" and even more importantly, "Are you being stupid about it?"

I personally hate any kind morality thought policing. I'm not Catholic or religious and I do not feel guilty over my thoughts. You are not an inherently evil person because you saw two athletes in an interview and went "Hmmm...... what if...." The Feds are not going to come banging down your door because you wrote about one band member dicking down the other and sent it to your friend.

Wondering about other people's lives is very human. Being nosy about their personal lives is very normal. People have been writing fiction about other people's lives since the dawn of time. Some people even manage to write New York Times Bestselling Books that are "historical fiction" or "alternate reality." It does not make you inherently bad to be curious about the details of someone's personal life. That's being human. Being nosy is kind of fun.

The problem, however, comes with the ways in which people engage with it, and involve the real people in this. Harassing an musician's real girlfriend because it doesn't fit into the RPF ship. Showing up at real sporting events holding signs about how certain teammates should kiss. Trying to get actors to sign art of them fucking their coworker. Flooding social media with comments using the celebrity's full name and speculation. There's a line, there's a fourth wall, and there's fandom etiquette.

I hate the question of "Is RPF ethical" because it feels like morality thought policing. Post your fics on locked accounts, censor someone's name when you tweet about it, blow up your groupchat with hundreds of "DID YOU SEE THE WAY THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER??" texts. It's not inherently evil to wonder what other people are doing when they're out of the spotlight. Kill the cop in your mind.

But just have some basic decency and do not involve the real people. Don't cross the line without caring how it affects them. This is basic fandom 101 and lately we have been flying too close to the damn sun! Everyone get more normal about RPF so major news outlets and magazines stop posting articles about "Is RPF ethical?" and blowing up our spot!

[wizardarchetypes]

as we see reprisals of Y2K skinny culture (as part of fascism) people are making a lot of posts like ‘if you’re too young to remember, it was so toxic. people shamed [skinny woman] for being fat!’ and perhaps it’s useful to bring up someone like kate winslet circa 1999 being fatshamed to express how truly dire the situation was/is but i find it increasingly frustrating that the response seems by and large to be ‘wow that’s awful! she wasn’t even fat!’ [so clearly that was wrong!] and not the real point: ‘so imagine how horrible it was for actual fat people, who also don’t deserve the far worse treatment they got/get.’

[wizardarchetypes]

tl:dr if your response to fatphobic bullying/harrassment is “but they’re not even fat,” you have not gotten to the core issue. you haven’t even considered the core issue.

[wizardarchetypes]

lots of people in the tags pointing out the same thing about transphobia and especially transmisogyny where instead of centering trans women in conversations about transmisogyny, it turns into defending cis women who are mistaken for trans women like “and she’s not even trans!” instead of saying “we shouldn’t treat trans women that way.” you’re not derailing you’re 100% correct

[utilitycaster]

no DNIs we just post content specifically catered to ourselves that will coincidentally alienate anyone with whom we would not want to interact

[jungwildeandfree]

and while we’re at it, fuck this idea that ONE ACCOUNT has to belong uniquely to ONE PERSON. This is the same thing these silicon valley fucks want; their vision of the future where everyone has a unique biometric ID code implanted in their body is the ultimate extension of Netflix’s “no password sharing” policy. You want to use your friend’s car? Sorry, you can’t, you need to be an authorized user. Your mother wants to let you look something up on her OED account? Too bad! That’s only for her! The concept of perfect market efficiency gives them greedy little money bag eyes.

If I pay money to have a newspaper sent to my house, they don’t charge me extra when I show it to my dad. This password sharing thing isn’t just a Netflix problem; don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in other forms. Stamp this idea out now or we’ll be stuck with it.

[jungwildeandfree]

This is by far the most popular post I have and I have to say: good, I’m right. Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet. not oooh in 50 years. in like 5 more.

[trans-masked]

If you’re not a trans woman you need to get way more comfortable with trans women talking about issues that don’t affect you. If you’re not a trans man you need to be ok with trans men talking about their own experiences that don’t affect you. If you’re not non binary you need to stop being weird about nonbinary people talking about the poor treatment they get for being nonbinary. If you’re not intersex you need to stop inserting yourself into conversations that aren’t about you and begging to be centered. Everyone get less self centered NOW!!!!

[stjohnstarling]

The reason most indie novels are written like the author is terrified of doing something wrong is because the overwhelming majority of indie novelists get their start by networking in the violent panopticon of the social media indie publishing community, which favours the people who are able to win at the social policing game. The authors really are all terrified of doing something wrong.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Everyone stand back I'm about to kick a hornets' nest

[imsobadatnicknames2]

A fun thing about the kind of person who sees a post about how it's actually really fucked up that the default way for imperial core internet artists to produce merch is "outsource to services that pay pennies to workers somewhere in southeast asia to produce cheap trinkets with your designs on them" and decides to leave this kind of comment

Is that if you go to their blog it'll usually be full of posts talking about how generative AI users are irredeemably evil for using a service that exploits the intellectual work of widdle indie artists and pollutes the environment. Very fun kind of cognitive dissonance.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Using the evil slop machine to produce any kind of picture is a deeply morally reprehensible and exploitative act. Using the system of global imperialism to get acrylic charms with your drawings encased inside them made in a sweatshop somewhere in indonesia without having to pay anything close to a living wage for the people making them is the god-given right of any Artist and Creator™, and don't you dare criticize them for it, why are you pressuring small, independent creators?

[segamascott]

[pjharvey]

we have to start running a massive PSA campaign to young gay people so everyone understands there is a difference between being a dom and being a top and between being a sub and being a bottom. and also that sometimes you are neither a sub nor a bottom and you're just like shy. we need to be handing out flyers we need ads at every train station spreading the word

[identitty-dickruption]

there is also something kind of gross to me about the constant insinuations that the "questioning social norms" component of autism immediately turns every autistic person into a genderfuckery kinkster leftist who don't give a fuck. and I say this as someone who is a genderfuckery kinkster leftist. autism isn't a political alignment, it's a disability. sometimes the autism 'sense of justice' is wrong. sometimes an autistic person will find a home in conservative ideologies for many of the same reasons as other autistic people will find a home in communist ideologies. sometimes the autistic communist will come up with dogshit analysis even as they're guided by their sense of justice, because good political analysis isn't a feeling or a neurotype, it's a skill that you cultivate. I know it would be pleasant and emotionally soothing for you to be able to believe that autism turns someone into a superpowered leftist but it's a politically fraught and deeply questionable line of thought to be feeding into

[splattergutz]

i feel like i’m cursed forever but other than that i’m doing alright

[turnipfritters]

[str-ngeloop]

everything you see on tumblr is biased towards the perspectives of the types of people who post a lot on tumblr. this is essential to remember

[renthony]

I was 12 when the first of my siblings was born, so I have very vivid memories of the way my mother was excluded from a lot of spaces because people find children annoying.

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

What the fuck was our family supposed to do? Never go to the grocery store? Starve because strangers couldn't handle a toddler existing in public?

[renthony]

I am incredibly fucking disturbed at the way this post has brought people out of the woodwork who really want to tell me all about how hitting kids isn't actually abuse, how they think babies are the spawn of Satan, and how being confined to the home is an acceptable punishment for women who dare to have children. People have told me all about how they think children should be banned from airplanes, that I'm being inconsiderate to childfree people, that allowing crying babies in public is ableist against people with sensory issues (I have those, too, and so do many children, which is often WHY THEY ARE CRYING, jackass), and that people who have children are "irresponsible" and "selfish."

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

Children are people.