#community ethics

[wetwareproblem]

When your community’s interaction with the outside world is 500 assholes and like 3 decent people, and the decent people just stand around while the assholes do their thing 90% of the time, you really don’t get to say “not all of us!” any more.

[adamoonriver]

Quiet Closure: When Accountability Isn't Yours to Enforce

Sometimes you see things from a distance—patterns, contradictions, harm that gets swept under the rug—and you wonder if you're the only one who notices. You’re not close enough to be in the room, but close enough to feel uneasy. That tension sits with you. You don’t want to start drama. You just want to understand.

So you dig a little. Watch quietly. Ask questions that no one else seems to be asking. Not because you’re nosy or bitter—but because you care about truth. About safety. About people.

Eventually, you see what you need to see.

You realize the problem isn’t hidden—it’s just protected. Hidden in plain sight, behind shiny accomplishments, performance activism, or curated vulnerability. You realize some people are shielded not because they’ve done the right thing, but because they’re politically useful, or publicly sympathetic, or simply too “connected” to be questioned.

And that’s when it hits you: there won’t be justice here. Not the kind that restores, or transforms, or tells the truth out loud.

But there was truth. And you saw it. That matters.

You walk away not because you're defeated—but because you won’t waste your life chasing people who’ve mastered the art of being untouchable. You’re not here to be their mirror, their enemy, or their footnote.

You're here to live in integrity. To move forward with softness and strength. To remember that silence is not complicity when you’ve already asked the hard questions and listened deeply for the answers.

Sometimes the most powerful kind of accountability is the kind you keep for yourself.

[da-at-ass]

Btw I understand people are afraid of getting ganged up on and look at the Arcanemysteries situation and say “oh gosh what if that was us?” Well uh... it WAS one of you - it was @starlight-and-promises for a long time. She was @constantine-spiritworker at the time and I saw plenty of people I followed just blithely ignore AM slinging baseless accusations at Jess and getting his crew to gang up on Jess.

If you just didn’t notice it happening, then bless you, but if you just gave AM the ‘benefit of the doubt’ at the time, just assumed his boyfriend really did buy something from Jess that she didn’t deliver when AM presented NO EVIDENCE of this and Jess presented evidence he was lying? And quietly watched that shit happening without giving Jess any support, public or private?

Then you’re afraid of getting ganged up on because you’ve built the community you deserve. Like seriously. What makes Jess not one of you? What makes her and me and other people who have come forward about Arcanemysteries NOT ALSO PART OF THE TUMBLR TAROT COMMUNITY? What makes the people AM stole from (there’s so many levels of proof already, but if you need someone else’s word that it happened, go contact someone the evidence shows that he stole from instead of waiting for him to speak on it) not part of the tarot community at large? Why does AM deserve the protection and forgiveness of the tarot community, of people he STOLE from, but Jess and other people speaking up about AM’s actual acts committed against other tarot readers don’t deserve that protection?

You want forgiveness for him? I forgive people when they sincerely perform an act of contrition. Not just say “I’m sorry” but make an effort to rectify the harm they have caused to the people they have harmed. I’ll wait around for when that happens before I say that a thief is gonna be welcomed by me. He committed the acts, he gets to fix it. You’re afraid of being treated like him? You’re afraid you’re next? Dude, I’ve been afraid I was gonna be his or his friends’ next harassment target after Jess for awhile now. Don’t tell me about fear.

[oopseedaysee]

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to cooperate

Aldo Leopold, "A Sand County Almanac"