In general I think we would free ourselves from a lot of dark content discourse if people were more sincere about the fact that a lot of dark subject matter is inherently disgusting and it is normal and okay to experience disgust after consuming fiction about those topics. but it is equally normal for someone to compartmentalize a fictional experience enough that they're unfazed over it. this sort of compartmentalization is not specific to dark content; you can apply it to nonsexual violence in fiction, non-violent tragedies in fiction (such as a movie about a dog dying), or even things like true crime documentaries. the ability to interface with dark content is not a question of your moral compass, it's a question of your ability to compartmentalize emotionally challenging media from your own life. just my two cents as a dark content writer lol
let me start with tw: discourse. tw: vent. tw: mentions of sexual harrassment.
tl;dr: i got my name dragged through the mud by a mutual who lied about our relationship and took all my friends from me. who lied about my character and targeted people she knew she could turn against me in order to leave me all alone. who set the progress i'd made on my self-worth, people pleasing, and trust issues back years. and i refuse to take this into the new year with me when i've been carrying it for so long.
to the people who stood by me through this, truly heard my side and were witness to the evidence of this all happening… thank you for consistently reminding me that my existence here is okay.
i'd really like to leave this all in this year, so for the last new moon of 2024, in the light of new beginnings and wiping the slate clean... let me get some things off my chest.
i started this blog in 2022 and it happened to be a really hard year for me. the second half of the year left me single after a 2year relationship, a breakup that also left me homeless for a month. this community did so much for me, giving me friends i could talk to and count on that made me happier. it meant the world to me.
that all got ripped away from me in 2023. all the anxiety that took me so long to get rid of when it came to interacting reset fully.
let’s start from the beginning of it all
in october 2022, a mutual of mine came back into tumblr after a hiatus. her name is Lina. (you may know her as her past users @/tsukina @/celcero, @/zorotits @/millionsknive, @/trafaligar, or her current users @/mrscorazon @/mylaw)
we were extremely close before she left and picked right back up. at the end of october, she confessed her feelings to me and i confessed mine back. i thought things were fine, we didn't pursue a relationship but we flirted all the time and were well aware of the feelings that existed. below are messages of when i thought maybe feelings were possible before we confessed and our actual confession.
(i skipped some messages for the sake of her privacy about personal issues because although i owe her nothing i won’t expose those things)
i started making more friends, closer friends in this time. in december 2022 lina suddenly and without explanation to me, stopped speaking to me as frequently and although it hurt, i didn't push it much, especially since when she returned to conversations it seemed like all was fine. i was brought into her discord server and we would talk in there frequently as friends, never cluing people into how we spoke but she would tell me she loved me and tell me i was hers constantly during our personal conversations.
i did have a few friends on here in this time that i confided in. some getting details from the beginning, having consoled my original freakouts when i realized i had developed feelings for Lina and sticking with me. they were there when i cried about thinking i’d done something wrong when Lina hadn’t been talking to me and wondering if i’d somehow been annoying or overstepped somewhere. for a while i also spoke to a friend from here and had gushed about the good things about Lina. that friend was Maple. that is, until Maple also stopped speaking to me as much.
the last time that Lina told me she loved me (to my recollection) was on new years. it was an hours long conversation that included many voice memos that i can’t post here but here are some screenshots of those messages in question. (for reference about what i'm about to say after i understand its a lot of pictures but its important to me that you understand what our dynamic was at this point)
in february of 2023. the day after submitting to an appearance matchup game for Lina’s blog, i woke up valentine’s day to find that she had blocked me with no explanation. on everything. every social media we had together. (i never checked our imessages but i assumed there too.) not only her, but her online best friend at the time had blocked me as well.
i spiraled trying to figure out what i had done wrong and knowing that i probably would never know. i didn't want to cross boundaries of friends and force them in between us by asking them to ask her and i didn't want to cross her boundaries by reaching out that way either. any friend that found out she had blocked me i had assured that i did not want them to confront her nor did i want them to try and choose a side because what happened between me and here did not have to affect our other mutuals.
this seemed to do nothing to keep her from doing the exact opposite though. within a month... besides Lina and the original other, i was either blocked or soft blocked on everything by 4 other mutuals i had in common with Lina with no explanation. i then lost two more in the same way in the next three months. all of those i lost were close to Lina more than me, at least they had been in recent times. i also was asked to leave the server with this as my only explanation:
(this message was deleted within the hour and i was instead just kicked from the server) i had been effectively excommunicated from the friends i thought i had with no explanation. and i would get no explanations until august 2023.
around april of 2023 i became closer to two mutuals that were also her mutuals. this was Cherry (now @/tonedtsumu) and Peri (now @/ghostlygeto). i met Cherry originally in Lina’s server but had really started talking to her after another mutual of mine had brought her into my server. Peri and i met when one friend wanted to include her in the small group of friends i had that we all thought were supportive. after getting to know each other, i finally confessed to Cherry and Peri about what had happened in the past few months and how i had never found out what i'd supposedly done. i’d told them about the fact that it left me with a lot of anxiety, thinking every sentence i spoke was wrong and how i’d pulled away from a lot of people on accident because of this anxiety.
Peri and Cherry at the same time they got closer to me, got closer to her. Peri originally found this strange, telling me that Lina had never attempted reaching out to her as a mutual until they had become more actively interacting with me on tumblr. Peri was invited to Lina’s server to play fortnite when they made the joke that now they could “be the inside man and find out what happened.”
i was repeatedly promised by Peri that if they found out why i was blocked by everyone then they would finally tell me and that nothing they would be told about me would ever affect our relationship. i was also repeatedly told that they weren't "that close" to Lina and her new small group of friends. i felt that i was just being anxious thinking we had started to speak less and convinced myself i was being dramatic. i found out later, however that all of that was a lie as well.
in july of 2023 i took a trip that had been planned for months. the goal was to meet two mutuals of mine before flying to meet Peri and Cherry. before i got to my second destination, i was informed that Peri had gotten an explanation of why i was blocked. previous to this moment, i only had a vague explanation from one person that Lina had said i’d “crossed a boundary” but that she was very nondescript while explaining that.
Peri admitted that Lina had told them the following explanation: Lina claimed that all of my feelings were one sided. that when she noticed i had romantic feelings that she tried to take a step back but i kept lying to Star and Maple about the things Lina was saying to me. and then, that i’d sent a picture that was “too booby” for her appearance matchup and that was a crossed line she couldn’t ignore and she blocked me. (now, this is a picture i have used in many matchups and i was unaware it was ‘too much’ had i known that, i never would have sent it.) she told Peri that she then told this recount of the events to others and they decided to block me because it was “creepy”
i had issues with this story because although, yes, Lina had been distant a bit before i was blocked, she had continued telling me she loved me and my feelings were not "one sided" like she'd claimed (as seen by the screenshots i included above from only a month and a half before i was blocked)
however, i then learned that this is not the only story that Lina told people. Peri went on to say that Lina had told Cherry that i sexually harassed her for months before she finally blocked me. (i can only assume that her story changed for every person)
knowing this made me extremely nervous to visit Peri and Cherry. however, the plans were already made and i was hoping that i could get the chance to defend myself in person.
during my time with them, there were times that i thought my anxiety was just getting ahold of me too much. even feared that they would block me the second i left and they were just waiting for it. i was assured, however, by them that everything was fine on multiple occasions and i chalked it up to my new paranoia over friendships.
all my fears were justified when the morning after i arrived back home at the end of july 2023, i woke up blocked on everything by Cherry. i was heartbroken but i didn’t know what to do, i didn’t have emotional energy to bring the conversation up to Peri yet, or to even really talk to anyone much. especially when i noticed Peri slowly cutting the ties between us one by one. by august i was blocked by Peri as well. both had given me no explanations. and both were now closer to Lina.
august was mostly spent on the couch crying and trying to figure out what had happened. Being incredibly distraught about friendships, believing i didn’t deserve any friendships and worrying that all my friends would somehow blame me for this drama and i would just be bound to lose everyone one by one until i was alone.
finding out Lina had adjusted her story about me for every person left me feeling extremely hopeless. especially when no one had tried to talk to me and give me the chance to show my proof of my side. finding out that Lina said, even once, that i had sexually harassed her was incredibly heart-breaking to hear. the hundreds of text messages and voice memos of her confessing to me and saying she meant it as more than a friend. her asking me to move to her. her telling me how she wanted to kiss me and undress me and the sexual comments she made towards me that i specifically chose to ignore because she'd only get sexual when she was drunk and i didn't want to cross a boundary reciprocating that while she was influenced. having tried so hard to preserve her relationships with people and defend her while she had no problem lying about my character in that way made me feel so broken.
i could have more to say about how she treats the people she calls friends and go on, but i will leave it at this for now and say this:
to lose people from lies, to get excommunicated from a community i found safe, to have the progress i'd made with trusting people get set back by yeeeeaaaars by one girl. one girl who decided to turn people against me for reasons i'll never get to know. the amount of nights i've cried myself to sleep over this, considered deleting my blog over this. the fact she dragged it out for 6 months. i open tumblr fearing i've lost another friend. open discord fearing i've been blocked with no explanation. i hope i can one day but i’m honestly not sure if i’ll ever be able to open one of these apps and just double check i still have mutuals or that people i thought i was close to haven’t randomly unfriended me.
she took all our mutual friends from me. well, took them or dropped them. while i so desperately tried to keep to myself about it, not wanting something that happened between her and i to affect her and other people.
tumblr should be safe for people. it should not be a place where we accuse people of doing things that they didn't. it shouldn't be a place that we fear coming to. it shouldn't be a place that stirs anxiety within us.
and god. to Lina. to the ones who left me after i confessed things to them. the ones who made me trust them that they would tell me what happened then lied to my face... truly i hope karma bites you in the ass.
if you read all of this; i apologize for airing my shit on dash but this needed to get off my chest before the new year. (i will be turning off anon for the time being. if you would like to reach out you may do so privately).
I’d like to preface everything by saying that this will be my last post regarding the situation. The intention behind this post is to provide transparency and context regarding recent events involving @/saintsugu (Ezra). The goal of this post (as was the first) is to promote awareness about this individual and clarify on some points, not to initiate a witch hunt or encourage any form of targeted negativity. I want to make it clear that I do not condone any form of death threats, hate speech, harassment, or violence towards this person.
1.) Turning off asks and reblogs.
I made the decision to turn off reblogs and asks in the original post.
Disabling reblogs and asks was necessary because some individuals were using the situation to bring up their own personal issues, using it as an opportunity to call for the “cancellation” of other unrelated parties and openly harass others on the dashboard. This decision aimed to refocus the discussion on the main issue at hand. It was about maintaining a controlled environment to address the specific concerns without veering into unrelated personal disputes. Nothing else.
2.) Hotline numbers.
There’s been speculation that the addition of hotline numbers was to encourage users to report the individual in question and have him investigated by the FBI, that is not the case.
These numbers serve a crucial purpose in emphasizing the importance of support and resources for those affected by sensitive issues such as CSA. The aim is to proactively contribute to creating a safer online space. The inclusion of the hotline numbers solely emphasizes a more proactive approach towards promoting mental health support and assistance for those who may be navigating challenging situations related to the recent events as well as informs victims of csa of some of their resources.
Even though I provided hotline numbers, it is explicitly advised not to report the situation to the FBI. Once again, the intention is to guide individuals towards appropriate mental health and support resources rather than involving law enforcement in this context. This recommendation aims to encourage a balance between addressing concerns and ensuring that the focus remains on community well-being and support rather than legal actions.
I thought this wasn’t something I would need to clarify, but there are a couple of people who genuinely believe that those numbers served as a way to report to the FBI. That was never the intention and that understanding was (for a lack of better words) made up by someone who wanted to create their own personal narrative, even if that meant making false claims or lying.
3.) The accusations and why shota/lolicon is alarming regarding this matter.
Addressing this specific incident regarding shota/lolicon is not an accusation for the fun of it, but an effort to bring attention to real accounts of predatory behavior from Ezra. There have been multiple “reports” of Ezra’s predatory behaviors. These are not baseless claims.
The intention is to share these experiences without compromising any of the victim’s identities and to maintain a level of vagueness to respect privacy and safety of all those involved while emphasizing the serious nature of the matter. There have been two separate incidents that have been brought to my attention after this discourse and both are highly concerning.
Moreover, it’s important to note that defending the right to shota/loli art inadvertently excuses the actions of a person with predatory and pedophilic behavior. While engaging in discussions about artistic freedom, it’s crucial to recognize the potential harm and impact such content may have, especially when it aligns with real-life concerning behavior.
Furthermore, it’s contradictory to claim your discomfort with shota/loli art while simultaneously defending the idea of such art, especially in light of the real-life predatory and pedophilic behavior exhibited by this person. There seems to be a reluctance among some individuals to admit the real reasons behind their discomfort or lack of support for shota/loli art. Acknowledging these reasons might expose inconsistencies in their discourse, making it challenging to maintain a cohesive stance. There is a time and a place to give your “hot take” and unfortunately, this wasn’t the correct time.
There’s a contradiction within the community. On one hand, there’s this outward expression of concern for the safety of real minors, but on the other hand, there is a tendency to dismiss or ignore concrete instances of predatory behavior. The hypocrisy lies in the disconnect between the stated values and the actions taken when faced with real accounts that genuinely raise valid concerns about the well-being of vulnerable individuals.
Where is the support and concern for the minor in his following? The fact that Ezra attempted to deflect responsibility by claiming ignorance about the minor’s age, citing a changed pinned post, raises concerns because it is a blatant lie.
Looking at the history of the account’s pinned, they have always had their age in their pinned, nothing was changed. This doesn’t make sense because if a blog with a “MDNI” policy follows an account “exposed” for being underage, it raises questions. Ezra was consciously aware that this person was a minor.
The others have asked me to keep their identities and information confidential to protect themselves from any doxxing and harassment. These are not baseless claims, however I will respect their wishes for their own safety.
4.) Defending art over real life and hypocrisy in the fandom space.
Another noteworthy point is this phenomenon where individuals are so in their fervor to defend certain forms of art (that they don’t actually support personally because they themselves know its pedophilic depictions), end up dismissing real-life concerns. The intense focus on defending artistic expression is overshadowing the potential harm caused in actual human interactions.
There’s a notable trend where the keyboard justice warriors in the fandom are in such pursuit of moral superiority and advocating for “community improvement,” when they’re prioritizing the appearance of self righteousness over genuine concern for real individuals. You’ve gone so far right that you’re wrong.
There’s a noticeable pattern where accounts are often granted permission to engage in frivolous, petty discourse, taking it to public spaces and sometimes even resorting to sending unwarranted anonymous hate to individuals who don’t deserve it. However, when faced with a serious issue such as this, the narrative completely shifts to a collective call for community improvement! This is a double standard where harmful behaviors are tolerated in less significant situations, yet the same community is urged to “do better” only when confronted with more substantial issues.
5.) POCD
Employing the concept of POCD (Pedophilic Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) as a.. justification for the individual’s actions is deeply troubling and deplorable. It not only misrepresents the nature of mental health disorders but also risks perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Using POCD as an excuse for predatory behavior diminishes the seriousness of mental health discussions and dismisses the victims of the predatory aggressor.
Such a manipulative use of mental health terminology not only undermines the genuine struggles of individuals dealing with mental disorders but also risks normalizing predatory behavior in today’s society both in real life and online. MAPs use this terminology on X in the same form user @/critical-thoughts is using to make their argument. Yes, it’s very crucial to recognize that genuine mental health challenges should be addressed with empathy and support, but employing them as a shield to excuse harmful actions is unacceptable.
It is harmful to imply that someone with POCD needs an outlet for the pedophilic fears they experience. That perpetuates the idea that people who deal with these sorts of intrusive thoughts, secretly harbor the desire to view the material they are so afraid of engaging with. P/OCD is rooted in fear and anxiety. The intrusive thoughts tend to stem from a fear of becoming a pedophile, while your brain tells you that you secretly are one. It’s a nasty thing and difficult to deal with, but implying that people who live with POCD require some sort of access to media like that is incredibly harmful. People with POCD, oftentimes, do not want to engage with that. They often do not want to provide ammunition for their brains to continue doing this to them (though with this disorder, ammunition isn’t necessary) and it is a fear to begin doing so. To imply that someone with POCD would seek out content of children (fictional or not) that way, is harmful and perpetuates a stereotype about POCD that makes it difficult for people living with it to open up or seek the help they need.
It's also “insane” to me that someone can blindly defend someone they do not know. Moreso, someone who has real accounts of predatory behavior not even taking into consideration the art found on his X account. The art itself is what’s alarming because this individual has had actions/interests that align with pedophilia and predatory behavior.
What a lot of you aren’t understanding is that: this isn’t about which dark content is bad and what’s worse, this is about a real danger in the community.
6.) Closing.
In conclusion, it’s my personal belief that some individuals within the community may harbor feelings of resentment towards my original post because they themselves are proven to be proshippers or my other theory is that: lacking critical thinking skills and reading comprehension paired with a sense of self worth that surpasses what they experience in their daily life makes for a very unsafe environment because of the need to want to feel like they’re on the right side of the fence. It’s “block and move on” for a lot of you until its you actually getting blocked. I personally do not and will not support a predator as many of you are so inclined of doing.
Okay, today is officially a new day in my time zone, so that means no more discourse. I know I don’t like it when there’s a lot of discourse stuff on people’s blogs especially when they’re repeating words they’ve already said. This means that I will not be posting anymore hate or anything related to discourse. I appreciate the love you guys have given me and the support from you all, but I will not be answering those if they mention anything about the discourse that has transpired.
This is my place to write and your place to sit back and enjoy my content, not delve into toxicity within fandoms and deal with discourse.
posting my thoughts about fandom spaces sorry 😔 this gets a little bit into interaction discourse but not really in a judge-y way it's just observational about old fandom vs new fandom
the reddit thread that morgan linked made me realise that a fundamental shift in platforms, which younger people don't understand and older people perhaps have forgotten, is that the vast majority of active fandom communities used to be moderated. forums were moderated. LJ communities (which were huge and largely shaped fandom culture) were moderated. it was not unusual for smaller archives like lunaescence to be moderated as well. and unlike large archives like ao3 or ff.net etc, in these places you could actively connect with other fans and develop a community, so that fandom didn't feel so lonely, and people who were fuckoff rude could be banned. the really convenient thing is that they were still all technically public or semi-public spaces though - people could lurk, learn etiquette, and still participate and easily meet people. they just had to play nice or they'd get kicked out.
of course this was not a perfect system (I personally saw some LJ comms and archives explode with drama, including ones I modded LOL), but imo it was a lot easier to find and maintain a sustainable fandom space in those days. you don't have semi-public, moderated spaces for fandom anymore. there are completely public spaces which can feel hostile or lonely: ao3 is not really a space that facilitates connecting with fans, and tumblr and twitter are public and unmoderated so once there's drama in a community it's a pain in the ass or sometimes impossible to reverse. on twitter and tumblr you also have the agony of an algorithm that is probably working against you, which simply didn't exist in LJ or smaller archives. exclusive discord servers *can* be moderated, but then you get into "gatekeeping" discourse (see reddit thread). and like how are you supposed to get into an exclusive server with good vibes in the first place if you're new to fandom and don't know anyone? how are you supposed to lurk and figure out if it's a good match for you if you need to be vetted before joining?
on a related note, think this is why "curate your own experience" is so important now. you have to block the content you can't stand, you have to unfollow blogs that make your day worse, you have to leave the discord server that is stressing you out, you have to turn off anon asks or just delete the hate messages if people are treating you like shit, you have to block the empty blogs that upset you because they never interact meaningfully with your stories, you have to figure out who's causing drama and block them to avoid it getting to you, you have to do the work of searching out people who will enjoy your work and vice versa, you have to manage your expectations about how many people you can find. you will go completely fucking crazy if you don't do at least one or all of these things. if you are a writer then you have to create the positive and sustainable space where you can connect with readers and writers, because there are no more moderators, no more communities, and no more community rules. you are now your own moderator, and you are also moderating for all the people who follow you. but imo, this is an infinitely harder way to operate versus old fandom.
Hello miss Mao. I've been a lurker in your blog for a while and I just wanted to ask how do you write for such heavy themes and topics like sexual assault and violence. You've been an inspo of mine for a while now and I've been having an og story brewing in my mind that deals w such things but I'm not sure how to do it without feeling shameful or scared or chickening out on the last min bc I've never been a victim of it but I still do want to do it can you please give advice?
hi anon!!! thanks for the very kind words first of all!
I think you are asking a very emotionally charged question that a lot of people struggle with. I would love to say that you should just remember that fiction doesn't affect reality and to ignore the haters. however, I know it is not that simple for a lot of people as they try to navigate present-day anti discourse (which is really just censorship discourse), in addition to the effects of systemic violence that they may see in everyday life.
I think what really helped me get over the barrier of shame when it comes to writing/reading this kind of content was to develop a very clear, internally consistent and externally validated stance on censorship. every time you feel guilt, shame, or doubt, remind yourself of your own arguments and logically demonstrate to yourself why your desire to write your story is inconsequential and not going to hurt anyone.
a while back, cielo wrote a really nuanced, thoughtful essay on the implications of writing taboo topics in fiction and the censorship surrounding it. if you have been struggling a lot with clarifying your ideas on this topic, I would highly recommend reading it as a starting point!
as for myself, here are some details that personally helped me in unlearning my own shame/fear/judgment around this stuff (warning that some of this borders on oversharing lmao):
a fictional depiction of crime is not the same thing as real-life crime, regardless of the crime being depicted (e.g., gun violence in GTA vs. sexual violence in a fic) or the nature of the depiction (e.g., tasteful vs. voyeuristic). in writing or reading about a fictional crime, you do not have to feel the kind of a guilt that a real life perpetrator of violence would feel. no real, living person is reading any kind of ao3 fic and then going to the hospital, getting flashbacks, failing in school, struggling at work, filing a police report, or experiencing literal injury to their body just because the fic exists. you click out of the fic and nothing has happened to anyone in real life. I cannot stress this enough as a survivor of assault who actually had to go through all those things - it is utter delusion to think that my experience and a fic are in any way equivalent.
fanfiction reflects reality, not vice versa. ao3 wincest did not exacerbate real life cases of incest. not even game of thrones has caused real life cases of incest. claiming this is another case of complete delusion, with no real life statistics or evidence to back it up.
on the other hand, when people must contend with either the experience or threat of sexual violence (as most people in fandom do) - it is natural that it would come up as a subject of writing, or even fantasy. this is just a human response to fixation or fear; you make art about whatever is on your mind a lot, and sometimes you end up eroticizing it for various reasons. as long as the eroticization remains in the realm of fiction, no one is being hurt.
the people who wish to equivocate fictional crimes with real-life crimes, or who wish to claim that fanfiction can directly perpetuate real-life crimes, are not actually interested in helping real life victims. they had a disgust response to a piece of art, and they are now taking out that disgust response on real people. sometimes they even get social validation out of it or they get to publicly harass a person that they have personal beef with. regardless, this is a them problem, not a you problem.
this is the most helpful thing I've done to get over the fear of posting a dark content fic - after solidifying your position on this stuff, you need to heavily curate your space. only follow people who are anti-censorship and believe that it is acceptable to create dark content. block followers who are pro-censorship or harass people over fictional crimes. keep a low profile if you have to and don't put yourself in the main tags. make the warnings on your fics INCREDIBLY clear so that only interested, good faith readers will engage with your work. surround yourself with people who are not delusional about these topics, and chances are that no one will bother you about writing even the nastiest of stories!
the tags on that reblog poll scare me lowkey bc if people only reblog when they enjoy something it means that if you have like 500 likes on a fic and 50 reblogs then only 25% of people enjoyed it 💀
This might sound kinda mean of me, it just makes me mad when people ask for a part 2 of a stand alone fic that made. I don’t know maybe it was the tone that they asked in or something, because they didn’t even comment on the fic itself 😭
Have you ever experienced this or am I just insane and rude?
no you're not being rude, most writers I know hate "part 2?" or "please update" comments. it kinda makes you feel like a content machine and gives no consideration to all the time and effort and passion you put into a fic, which they could easily comment on and say thank you but actively choose not to </3
when I get these comments/asks I either delete them or openly reply and tell them not to make those types of comments. or I ask them to pay/sponsor me LOL
