We should normalize being the average artist who never really goes viral and is happy in their lane creating for their own sake (be it commissions, or art for themselves).

The clout chaser mentality of all social media sites rotted our brain where we can't find value in our work unless it has a big number besides it.

Create for yourself, not to please some elusive algorithm that changes on a whim and pushes you back to square one.

I understand that there are young people on here around age 13 that are new to both Tumblr and AO3 and you're confused how it works because it's very different to other social media and websites you've used. I have a 13 year old. I understand the confusion

And I know on the surface the pro censorship stance of: "ban stuff that has paedophile and incest" seems reasonable

We all agree that stuff happening irl is bad! So why should stories be different?

And there are reasons it will not work especially not for an archive like AO3

1. Content about those subjects ≠ favourable. There are a lot of published works, famous works, that cover these topics in your local library. They cover these topics to challenge people to stop ignoring that these horrible things happen. To raise awareness, to give victims a voice, to help victins know "that wasnt normal and that shouldn't have happened to you". And those stories are extremely important.

Yes some authors write it to just write it. But if you throw out those stories you also throw out the important ones. And a story that seems to be romanticising to one person is something important and supporting to another

Also a lot of the more "for fun" underage content on AO3 is written by teens exploring their own feelings which will get more into later

2. As soon as people start censoring they start twisting what comes under the objectionable content. I have seen people argue that a relationship was paedophilic because one character was 18 and the other was 17. Which is silly. Or that a relationship between two adult characters was paedophilic because there was an age gap. It becomes ridiculous really fast which means...

3. ...any and all lgbtq+ content will be censored as our existence is often seem as inherently sexual when it's not. We're already seeing that happen in the real world. But queer people just existing is enough for people to want to censor us. We know this because it has happened many many many times. People call for censorship and the first thing to get censored is any mention of being anything other than straight and cis

Censorship laws and rules have always been used as weapons against the community.

It doesn't matter if they say it will be different this time. They always say that and it's always a lie

4. This is purity culture 2.0 and purity culture messes you up. When I was 13 I read a magazine at my church that was aimed at young teens. It told me that feeling sexual desire as a teenager and handling those feelings alone meant you were definitely going to grow up to be a paedophile and a rapist and that messed me up so bad.

Obviously what the magazine said was not true . It is perfectly normal to feel desire and attraction as a teenager (also normal not to. Asexuals are valid) and having those feelings doesn't make you a monster

and even though my feelings were normal and I wasn't hurting anyone I had such shame and guilt and it really fed into my self loathing and depression and self worth for a very long time. It led to me hurting myself in many many ways. And I know many other people who were hurt by purity culture. Made to feel shame over the smallest thing. I don't want anyone else to experience that

And censoring fanfiction will do that. Telling teenagers that they morally degenerate for writing fanfiction and exploring their sexuality in one of the safest ways possible is damaging. Writing for self expression including sexual expression is healthy and very normal

It's definitely not something to shame someone for

-

All of this to say AO3 will remain uncensored because it is an archive, not a curated list. It has a great filtering system that allows you to filter out just about anything and a careful reading of the tags will also help you.

A lot of authors who write more intense fiction put more trigger details in the author notes so you can make an even more informed choice or tell you how to skip any specific scenes

It is one of the best websites for avoiding content you don't want as long as you know how it works.

Now I'm not an expert but I am willing to answer any questions on how to use AO3

I know it can feel like everyone is looking down on you but I promise I'm not looking down on you for not knowing

On that I will also say for Tumblr it's pretty easy for you to filter out tags now and filtering out stuff you know will upset you makes your life much nicer

Anyway I hope this helps explain why people are so anti censorship

There are more reasons and I could have gone more indepth but I only have so much energy but I truly hope this helps

Support Earthspark

now, guys, just because we analyse a show we love with critical thinking, doesn't mean we shouldn't show it the love it deserves. and i don't mean that in a bad way, this is simply a post to boost ways for supporting Earthspark, because god knows it needs that right now

promoting it on social media is a good way to start, not only on tumblr (the fanbase here has been very positive and i love you guys a lot), but also on twitter (or whatever you call it these days), where most people can know about it. it's very important for writers to know that we appreciate their work on this show, we accept it with all its flaws, and want it to grow

buying toys helps, even if it doesn't feel like it. especially if you live in the US!

Paramount+, as much as i hate to admit it, does depend on views and watches. either get it for free, or buy a one-time subscription, it helps with ratings. watching it live on Nickelodeon can help too, if you have cable

last thing i want to mention (feel free to add your own methods in reblogs) is to look forward to Earthspark Expedition, which comes out on October 13th, on most platforms you can think of (gameplay and trailer). i know it's not the best game in the world, but it looks like simple mindless fun. even if you don't want to play it, consider buying it, depending on the price

don't let Earthspark become the next StarTrek: Prodigy. or Inside Job. or Rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, god forbid

No, but like, WHY do people care so much about other people ship preferences?

I get it, I don't ship the obvious ones or the "right" or what was given to me by the author, but IS JUST A SHIP.

Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at other preferences when it comes to this. What I get annoyed at is that when there is an illustration, an edit, a fucking fic, any kind of media, that shows that romantic dynamic between the characters they will be like

"siblings 🩷" "omg no how could ship that? They aren't like that." "Have you read the books ?" "Omg, people actually ship them?" "The author said..." "omg but this (name of other ship), it's so much better," and so on.

My beautiful person who comments in every edit of (some examples, but I'm sure that there's more) harmony, lunami, zutara, sasusaku .... do you really think that they/we don't know or care about this ? Do you know what you look like when u comment stuff like that? An idiot who can't let others have a different opinion on literally fiction character's romance life, like that one kid in kindergarten who saw another kid getting a toy and go's on about how that toy is lame compared to theirs, a spoiled brat.

You have so many things to be arguing about in the actual plot, but you can't cus you think that the idea of nami and luffy together is so wrong that you go around in every media of them "oda said..." But with other members of the crew, oda said absolutely nothing... not only that, but are we really discussing this ? Can we be talking about I don't know... how racist and hypocrites are some people in this famdon? Really give your disappointment and disgust to that(what is actually important).

Harry and Hermione are another great example of "I know they aren't like that but I like the idea of it" WE KNOW THEY AREN'T LIKE THAT but we think is cute it could HAVE BEING cute, sometimes people just grow up shipping and seeing they as a possible couple, like people who grow hating sakura and now simply can't have a actually good argument of why she should be hated on... that was an ironic comment by the way but also not, ( no, her not liking the main character the same way shouldn't be one, or the author not giving her screen time either much less cus of the fact the the anime did her dirty with so much disconnect things from the manga, like her relationship with sasuke <his perspective of it > or naruto himself for that matter, hate on a literally 12 years old for saying shit that every fucking person in the village grew up thinking, funny, why not hate on the thirdkage then? The person who could have actually stopped the hate on a little kid) [Sorry that got out of the main point]

Or zutara, my God, people get personal with just as harmony, relax, just cus I like them doesn't mean I hate kataang, surprise or not I do think they are indeed very cute, I'm pretty sure some other people who ship zutara too... we just see the potential, what could have happened, once again, enemies to friends to loves, the plot, you know ? There is no need to get offended by the IDEA of it. We love the drama and the fic, the illustrations, the edits are just a format that represents and shows it, share if people who likes it, you don't like it ? Oh well, let me tell you a secret, ignore it, you probably ignore so much more important things, why not a fucking edit of ship you don't even like ?, oh you can't ? You can't see other people "toy" and shut about your disappointment on it, is it that hard ?, oh well, have you actually not known that there's an amazing thing within social media, when you hold/press or simply click on the 3 dots on the top of the post, there's a option there, that's right, BLOCK IT the algorithm will understand if you continue blocking it, unlike some people.

I'm just rambling about this because I'm sick and tired of people being such a killjoy, I just want to enjoy "my ship" and see the comments of people who actually likes it to, not yours "siblings 🩷" in post which is definitely not about that, or "oda said..." when i didn't ask what he said, you know people have different things that brings them a scape from reality that brings them a funny giggle (no killing others people joy, when it's such a basic no harmful thing), wave of emotion for those who don't get to feel much in the day-to-day life or simple just cus.

It just petty of you, be better.

Ps.. There is no offense for those who ship other characters within these plots(or different ones), original, popular, or unpopular. Do your thing. Be happy. Just don't spoil others.

Ps2... NO I'm not defending incest that's no it at fucking all ( sorry if I didn't make it clear). I said "siblings" when it came to lunami and Harry x Hermione (cus people like to comment that on posts that aren't even about it < the platonic soul mates comment>), they AREN'T related or grown up at such. Point is you hating the idea of it and going on every post about the ship and hating there. hate all you want, but not on ,obviously, posts that are for the fans of the ship.

i know u received a lot of asks like this before but i seriously i don't know what to do anymore. this whole affirm and persist thing really drained me so i wanted to learn more about states and read neville, but i just don't understand anything. i can't grasp the concept about imagination being the only reality and the fact that we shouldn't care at all if our desire will appear in the 3d. it's been so long since i discovered the law and i wasted so much time that i'm starting to think that maybe it's not for me and i should just give up. i want to manifest my dream life so bad and runaway from my circumstances, but i don't know how. i would be grateful for any advice you can give me.

"i can't grasp the concept about imagination being the only reality..."

Imagination: the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

This simply means imagination is what matters most because imagination creates. Before it became reality, everything around you was once merely an idea: the internet, social media apps, technology, electronics, the model of your home, cars, freeways, haircut trends, the design of the clothes you are currently wearing, the very idea of even wearing clothes, art as a whole, it doesn't matter what you point at; EVERYTHING was born from imagination. What does that tell us? Imagination is the starting point of everything all around you.

"I and my father are one, but my father is greater than I" = Imagination and reality are one, but imagination is greater than reality.

I reckon what make have sparked confusion in you is the implied dichotomy of the 3D and the 4D in that statement (imagination is the "only" reality) when that isn't the case. The 3D and 4D are symbiotic, the only thing that "separates" the two is man's capacity to perceive it through the senses. Imagination comes first because it's where ideas originate from, the 3D is simply a mirror that reflects what you are conscious of (accept to be true [assumptions persisted in]).

The beauty of imagination is the fact that you can very much bear witness to whatever it is you would like to at any point because imagination is devoid of logical limitations. You can always turn to imagination to identify with something because you can feel something in the present moment without any tangible factors you would've otherwise depended on to spark an idea or a feeling. If I asked you to simply recall what it feels like to drink ice cold water after chewing minty gum, you would immediately start to remember and feel your mouth growing cold. Or if I asked you to think about your favorite song you'd be able to listen to it in your head without it even playing. Neither of these recollections were limited by the fact that you weren't chewing gum or listening to that song at that very second. You were capable of imagining on the spot through your senses and feel their reality.

Let's recall the basic tenet of the law: an assumption, though false, if persisted in until it has the feeling of reality, will harden into fact.

The barrier that confines an idea to stay an idea is the absence or presence of belief. Limitations can never be placed upon imagination or god, except for belief. Ideas you conceive through imagination with the use of the senses will help you bring forward the reality of whatever it is you desire to be, but these ideas mean nothing if you do not feel their reality and identify yourself with them until you become conscious of them. (This also goes back with what is said about you not caring whether or not it'll happen the moment you become conscious of them, more on that right after this.) If you dare to believe in its reality, no power on earth can stop it from coming to pass.

"...and the fact that we shouldn't care at all if our desire will appear in the 3d."

Now, I understand why this is said but I don't like speaking about this angle solely because I understand that a lot of us were drawn to manifesting due to the fact that it could give us something we wanted, so hearing something like this may not make much sense. This is an unpopular opinion (understandably so) but I don't think having this approach towards manifesting is particularly wrong. I felt compelled to include this to let you know it's okay if it doesn't resonate nor make sense to you, it can be quite annoying and maybe even upsetting if you're in difficult circumstances and someone is telling you that you shouldn't dwell on whether or not it happens. We are here to experience the 3D after all, so of course it makes sense that you care about it happening.

Nevertheless, that sentiment in itself is 100% sensical and valid for the following two reasons:

1. The goal is always to free ourselves from the feeling of desire. You appease hunger (desire) by experiencing that idea with the use of your imagination and consequently, you will feel fulfilled. It's like when you're starving but once you enjoy a wonderful meal, you're no longer hungry. When you feel fulfilled, you are free from desire. In this case, that would look like no longer craving food since you've already satisfied your hunger. 2. Imagination creates reality. Anything that you imagine impressed with belief/acceptance of it will give it cubic reality. That's law.

Back to my unpopular opinion, although I do turn to imagination for enjoyment, I also turn to it with the intention of causing something to happen in the 3D, it's fine to see it as such. However, I do think that the idea of not being concerned with whether or not it happens may be much better in approach so you're not overwhelmed by the compulsion of doing in order to receive or even be haunted by whether or not you did it correctly. I highly suggest you read everything I wrote in the post I linked above as well as my guide if you haven't already.

I don't want to get too off topic from trying to clarify your confusion so I'll stop explaining here, but I hope I was able to bring some clarity to the concerns you brought to my attention. Lastly, there really is no "advice" I can give you aside from stick to a single source, apply the information you've learned and persist. Above all, have faith.

I don't know enough about Taylor Swift's new boyfriend to judge him but there are few things I dislike about this situation. I read somewhere he participated in a reality show to find a girlfriend. Do I think someone like him, a famous football player, needed it to find himself a woman? Of course not. Women fall like flies for men with his dating profile. Do I suspect he did it for the media attention that participation would bring him? Of course yes. And people like him do not change. Taylor seems to be ok with it which is where the problem lies to me because it throws a doubt on everything she has been saying for years. Did she really mean it when she said she wanted to live her relationships in private? Did she really mean that deep feelings grow outside of the public eye? I do not believe for a second that she acted the way she did and said what she said because Joe made her. She's always held the power in their relationship, even at the beginning. So what's left? That she didn't really think/feel it and did something against her own nature because she wanted Joe so badly and she knew she would've never had him or the world would have interfered if she had acted differently? Or did she really mean it and is now acting like she's ok with someone wanting and living differently as the pathological in this case boyfriend pleaser some accuse her of being? Is it something that people like me have any right to know? Of course not but you can't stop people from asking themselves questions when you start "showing" so much to the them.

So, I get your pov but I don't think I agree.

If I'm not mistaken, Travis said he did that dating show because he needed money. Now, would a televised dating show where one man gets to choose a woman be my first option to gain some income if I found myself struggling financially? Absolutely not, and those dating shows can be criticized in a thousand different ways (not Travis's one in particular, just in general). But it's something he did like seven years ago when he needed money, and he seems to laugh about the show and not take it too seriously now, which is actually very healthy.

I think people can change. This is true for Taylor and also for Travis.

Also, Taylor's relationship with Joe and its level of privacy wasn't the norm for her: her rs with CH and TH were much more "public". When she got together with Joe she was going through some rough stuff (to put it mildly), and it makes sense that she wanted to protect what she felt was the "one right thing" she'd made in her whole life (per her own words). Even so, her relationship with Joe became more public at times too (whenever Joe posted pics from Taylor's home or with the cats, for example, or when they attended award shows together), it wasn't always strictly private.

I think she meant every word she said while she was dating Joe, but that doesn't mean that she can't act differently now, now that she has different needs and she is in a different relationship with a different man who has a different personality. I just think we shouldn't hold what she's said years ago against her.

Finally, I think she's keeping her rs with Travis way more private than people seem to think. Yeah, we have the pap pics and she went to his games, but, beyond that, they haven't shared anything on social media and he's politely said a couple of words and then changed the subject whenever he got asked about her.

anon who asked about Lisa's twitter comments: I'm really not gonna get into the topic itself because there's no way to discuss it in a way that is going to be acceptable to everyone

what I will say is:

boomers are bad at social media and don't know how to respond to any kind of mass questioning (I won't call it dogpiling because it's people who are hurting) without getting defensive, and when you're defensive you just get worse and worse at putting your arguement across, even if you actually DO agree with the people you're arguing with, as people pick apart your words trying to look for the "gotcha" moment and try to trap you into saying something worse or that you don't believe, because taking you down is like a game. when people keep repeatedly misconstruing what you said and accusing you of worse and worse things as a result you lose sense of what the arguement was about and just feel attacked as an individual. yes there were genuine people involved in the arguement trying to engage in kind conversation and learning, but not all of them were, and she wasn't filtering out the difference between them and Jimmy03738272 with three followers. it's not a topic you can discuss without someone getting hurt in some way and she shouldn't have waded into it to begin with. she hasn't gotten used to the power dynamic of having a platform as large as hers and so when things come up (like the arguement about soap operas a few months back) she doesn't know how to step back from it and digs her heels in because it feels like a personal attack she has to defend herself and her public persona from, rather than where you or I would recognise that it's ok to just ignore some people who read what you're saying in bad faith and recognise they're just lashing out because they're hurting.

equally, I will warn and remind that if you're going to dedicate your personality to stanning a celebrity over 50 and expect them to be good at expressing hot button political takes on social media with any kind of nuance or agree with you on all social issues you're gonna have a bad time because that's just the material reality of generational divide, but this is why social media managers exist and should be utilised, so that there's a filter between what they say and what they think so that situations like this don't happen and if they have to say something, it's expressed in a careful and sensitive way instead of mouthing off without thinking. it's why lynda carter's socials are so good, because she has a team helping her make her content engaging to interact with. the way Lisa behaves and interacts with fans on twitter in general is not healthy at all and fed into why this became so emotive, because the girlies on there felt like this was a deeply personal betrayal, like they "know" her, or thought they did, until they bumped up against something that didn't align with their internal version of her. parasocial relationships are dangerous to feed.

I don't want this to come across as me defending her because she was a big ol' bitch to some well meaning people last night. but I think it's important perspective to remember that most older people did not grow up with technology the way we did, surrounded by discourse like this as background noise every day, with the ability to filter it out or know how to engage with it with a level head. I mean, hell, have you looked at Sheryl's twitter lately? She's sharing math riddles and bitmojis and stuff about the dangers of aspartame. She's your aunt on Facebook, they both are. Just because they're famous doesn't mean their online literacy isn't more or less the same as your Uncle Alan who reposts chain mail on his Facebook feed.

it's absolutely valid if some of what she said last night hurt you, and you're right to feel that. I'm not defending the things she said. but I also think it helps to look at the bigger picture of how your Mom, or your Uncle Alan, would responded to 30+ people online accusing them of believing horrible things they don't believe, even if they were just reading bad faith into your words because they were hurting - would your Mom be able to tell the difference? Mine wouldn't.

Hey, I just wanted to tell you thank you so much for making this blog. It means more than I could possibly tell you to see support that isn't just "move out", because so many of us just simply can't, or even if we can we don't want to. I shouldn't be expected to uproot my entire life because of other people's bigotry.

Things are getting worse here, and I'm scared. My mom told the doctor that my period was normal last time we went to the doctor, and refused to elaborate. She said that she didn't want specific information about my cycle on file, in case I went on puberty blockers for any reason. My school canceled the Scholastic book fair, because it's a charter school and they were scared of getting on DeSantis' radar. There's uncertainty over if we'll have a psychology course back by the time I reach the age to take it.

Even on a less political front, gay and trans are making a massive resurgence in terms used for bullying. I'm clinging on to my silly little microlabels like a lifeline, because even though it hurts to know that nobody outside of our community is going to know about them, at least that means they aren't going to be slung back in my face like a bullet.

It's really scary, and seeing how people are actually making efforts to combat this means more than you could ever know. It gives me hope that I can stick it out, and make my state a place where the kids younger than me can grow up safely and happily. Seeing adults openly wearing pride pins even in the midst of everything makes me feel safer with them than can be put into words. I hope that by the time I'm an adult and have control over my own life I can be that person for someone, but I also really hope I can help make it a world where that's not needed. And seeing that there's people here that care about us gives me hope that we can accomplish that.

Much love, a queer kid living in central Florida <3

Hello there, wonderful anon & thank you so much for reaching out 🫂💖 It is so meaningful to hear things like this and I'm so grateful that you took the time to write this message. I know so much seems bleak rn, but your message made me think about the world I grew up in when I was a kid / teen. I didn't even really know trans people existed. Queer people barely existed, either. There was no mainstream celebrity for any of those identities and social media didn't exist. I know it feels absolutely terrifying to see this happening now and wondering where you'll go and what life you'll have, but trust me - we'll always be here. We're targeted so much now because people are afraid of change and because these systems of oppression need a constant mark to aim hatred at in order to function. But we're louder than ever now and there's people like you who exist now who are aware of our existences and aware of themselves more than we ever used to have. That's powerful. That gives me hope for the future. YOU give me hope for the future. I look at you the same as you look at us who are older and you inspire me as well. I know this is painful and I know you're scared but know that you're not alone and you never will be. Remember that even if certain laws are passed and attempts to silence information and truth occur - there are still always ways to access that information and keep it alive. These TFR accounts look to BIPOC lives because those are the groups already living under so much oppression who can teach the most about persistence and resilience. Read about other social movements, look to past leaders, look to current events like the people in Gaza right now. Even through tragedy, the spirit of resilience remains. It's still possible to find happiness and fulfillment and build a life somehow. We are not at the mercy of any of this, we just need to learn how to best adapt & keep moving. It's not easy and it's not fair but it is doable. You will have a beautiful life and trans people will always exist. We are still thriving here. Florida (& the south in general) will always have a strong LGBT community no matter what. Let me drop a few links for you or anyone who might need them. CampOUT Florida is a week long summer camp in July for LGBT youth, located around Ocala. Queer Expression St. Pete finally got a permanent home & routinely offers a safe space for LGBT families & youth, especially. If you are struggling and need someone to talk to, Trans Lifeline and Thrive Lifeline both offer peer to peer support (meaning anyone on the other side is also LGBT and/or other identities as well) & also will not involve police / involuntary psych holds. They have a variety of options to communicate with them for support & Thrive even has a trans discord server for anyone 16+! We are also working on a discord server for trans Floridians, which should be available soon, and will have a dedicated channel for teens only (with support as needed from queer & trans adult moderators from a variety of racial backgrounds & who have professional experience working with children / youth). These are just a few things that exist as well. More and more are out there and will also soon be created in the face of increasing pressure on our community. We keep us safe 💖 You are loved, you have value, you have community, you have family, you have a future!

I really hope this isn’t disrespectful, if it is please feel free to ignore and I’m very sorry. I saw your recent post about diaspora and as someone who has gone their life never really knowing anyone irl who’s jewish and all I knew about antisemitism in school went as far as giving context for the Holocaust, just that antisemitism existed in Europe and was growing during the time.. I knew that the Jewish people had been persecuted in centuries before that, but never really the why of it. After reading your post I was wanted to try to find out why, and I feel so baffled rn. Christianity is not only a gigantic perpetrator of homophobia and an excuse for modern bigotry, but it’s also an origin of anti-Judaism in the early centuries? (If the articles i found were accurate in saying that Christians blamed the Jewish for the death of jesus) Doesn’t that mean that the prejudices that lead to the Holocaust were Christian-originating/perpetuated? How on earth can a religion that calls itself the “love thy neighbor” one be okay with this? How is the Church still around?? How can Christians justify themselves believing in a god and Church that has spread so much hate?

… my large bias against Christianity aside, it reminds me a bit of how social media and algorithms nowadays are designed intentionally to induce feelings of frustration and anger because statistically your investment in the thing/paying attention to it lasts longer and is more immersive. I wonder if it’s because of the .. “united prejudice” that has allowed Christianity to survive and grow throughout the centuries, spreading its ideas of hate and prejudice against the “other”, the outsider, while offering a sense of community and small little “love thy neighbor/thoughts and prayers/you’ll go to heaven” nonsense to the individuals who join and stay. It’s so evil. But I’m curious to hear more of your perspective on this. It’s easy to be upset in my own little bubble, but i wanted to ask more for your voice and perspective on the subject, if it’s okay. Thank you for reading either way and I hope you have a wonderful day ^^

Hi anon, I would have liked to reach out to you privately as there's a lot to parse here - so do feel free to unanon yourself if you want to chat.

I feel like there's a lot of pain here, which makes me wonder if you come from a culturally Christian background? I think that with these things, it's easy to get lost in the weeds of guilt, but we need to remember that there is a difference between being the recipient of privilege and being the guilty party. I know that might not always be in vogue to say, but you're not to blame for other people's harmful actions. Reducing antisemitic harm by recognising the weight of it is important. Getting crushed under that weight helps nobody.

(If that's not what's motivating you here, then please feel free to ignore. I don't mean to be patronising. It just felt like you were crying out under the weight of something that shouldn't be crushing you.)

To your more technical question about Christianity:

Antisemitism is a tricky thing to define. As long as tribes have existed, there have been insider-good-outsider-bad notions. For the first thousand or so years of our existence, things happened to the Jewish people which were awful, but were also typical. The Assyrians decimated the Northern Kingdom, and then the Babylonians destroyed the Temple and brought us into exile. When we returned to the native homeland and rebuilt our Temple, the Greeks came in and desecrated the Temple with idol worship and banned the study of Torah. Were they targeting us for being Jewish? Sometimes yes, because monotheism was a weird and wild concept. But they were doing the same thing to everyone else.

Our relationship with the Romans was also pretty terrible, but... well, the Romans didn't always have wonderful relationships with the indigenous peoples they were oppressing, y'know. We weren't really unique there. Again, something something monotheism something, but it was still fairly even-handed.

Christianity is, I think rightly, seen to be where antisemitism changed from general disdain for the Other to an insidious and in some ways unique hatred. I don't want this to turn into too much of an essay, but I'll list a few reasons this happened, which are not just "Christianity is evil at its core" (I don't really think many religious cultures are; religion is a natural human response to the search for meaning, so it's rare it's that rotten):

Christianity has a baked-in disdain for Judaism, because the originators of Christianity were all Jews who were engaged in criticism of their own culture, and this got lost when it became a Gentile religion. Jesus almost never spoke with non-Jews and his message was utterly rooted in Jewish custom and culture. I've lost count of the number of times I've explained to a random Christian friend what their own scripture is referring to, because the NT was written with the assumption that you understand its context. When the NT paints Jews with a broad brush, it is the way that we would speak about our own in-groups. However, Christianity after the time of Jesus quickly became a Gentile religion, and the Gentiles who were reading their scriptures understood that disdain for Jews from an outside perspective instead of an inside one.

Christianity then started to gain political power, and the early Church Fathers engaged in pointed anti-Jewish rhetoric because they were struggling to maintain boundaries. In those very early days of power, the Christians were moving into Gentile territory, but on a ground-level, they were still engaging with Jews because... well, monotheists (kind of) are going to interact with one another over the pagans, right? This led to some confusion among the laity, and the early church fathers were concerned that those blurry boundaries were going to cause issues. So they started preaching against the evil Jews to get their good Christians to separate themselves.

The second Jewish exile begins, and the native homeland is all but closed for business. Jews had a first exile and a smaller diaspora due to the Babylonians, but it was short-lived. We were able to return to the homeland and rebuild, albeit with restricted power. The second exile - the one we're arguably still in - is what led to the sprawling Jewish communities you know today. From the first century until the 20th, there was no place for Jews to go with any sense of guarantee of staying. This meant that Jewish communities would rely mostly on one another, and be seen as overly weird and unwilling to assimilate and convert. Before modernity, there was an assumption that Jews could and should convert to Christianity, which would solve the Jewish problem*. Lots of forced conversions occurred, but it didn't generally go well, because forcibly-converted Jews were suspected of... well, secretly retaining their Jewishness. And actually, a lot of them did, so it was a pretty accurate suspicion. Then a lot of Jews were killed under that suspicion.

In the Crusades, the Jews were the "enemy at home". Christian soldiers were marching off to war with the Muslims, but the Muslims were so far away. They would often attack Jewish communities either en route or instead of continuing farther, because the fervor to attack the enemy didn't really require you to march all that way.

Because Jewish communities didn't want to assimilate, they were often pointed at as an explanation for bigger problems. Yeah yeah, I know we all learned the term "scapegoat" in school, but it's important here. You have the mixture of: 1. they should be Christian because Christians are Good and Others are Bad, 2. they absolutely refuse to assimilate and like to be very insular, and 3. they're right there around the corner! This was a terrible mix of issues, because then when a little boy turns up dead or an illness spreads, there's a very easy finger to point. And the world is much easier to live in if you know whose fault a problem like that is. (And then add to that: Jews got less sick because we have religious rules about, um, washing our hands.)

Racialised "science" gets added to the mix. The term "antisemitism" was actually coined as a replacement for "Judenhass", or "Jew hatred", because there was a desire to say that Jews were racially different, not just religiously different. This was happening as race "science" was happening more broadly. While beforehand, the Jew could theoretically convert to Christianity and the Jewish problem could be solved (though that wasn't necessarily the case in practice), now, the Jewish problem was seen as inherent.

Money lending lends to conspiracies about Jewish control of capitalism, etc. I'm just bored of explaining this, but the bottom line is: the Christians made us deal with money lending because they wouldn't do it themselves but it's necessary for a functioning economy, and then they blamed us for making money. This is where you get conspiracies about Jews running the world from. What I hope you can see in that brief (and very much incomplete) history of antisemitism, lots of things are rooted in the cultural genesis and theology of Christianity, but it's not as simple as "Christians invented antisemitism". Let's be clear, for a start: antisemitism exists very firmly in non-Christian areas of the world, too. It might not have been like this without Christianity, but it also wouldn't have been like this without Christianity switching to a Gentile majority, without the Romans so thoroughly destroying the Jewish homeland, etc etc etc.

I mentioned harm-reduction rather than guilt above. If you're interested in harm-reduction, then one of the best things you can do is recognise where wider culture has pushed you into buying into prejudices. Here are some hallmarks of modern antisemitism that are very much rooted in the above: conspiracies that Jews run the world and are behind big catastrophes; beliefs that Jews poison the wells and drink the blood of babies (yes, people still believe this, but it's more common in the Muslim world than the Christian one now); stereotypes about Jews loving money; ideas that Jews are overly hostile to the countries who have so nicely taken us in and not murdered us recently, usually because we are too insular or because we won't eat everything; believing that Jews are the only people who don't deserve to have any self-governance even though it's been proven time and time again that Jews can't trust Gentile governance; defining terms to specifically exclude Jews; ideas that Jews are secretly not the "real" Jews; claiming the Jewish God (or "Old Testament" God) is bloodthirsty as opposed to the loving Christian God (said by people who have never read the Bible, I assume); concepts that you can't trust Jews because they only care about other Jews... and there are many more, unfortunately.

Anyway, it's really late and I didn't mean to provide such a long commentary. I hope this was helpful in some way? Feel free to message me if you want to chat more.

BRICK! I AM SO FLIPPEN LUCKY!

I accidentally thought I deleted your ask which instead got posted and then deleted, but I got lucky and had copied the questions to answer qwq. I've been using control z too much... So thank you thank you for all the questions on Jornos and here you are! (Sorry I took so long to answer lol) @brick-a-doodle-do i can see a lot of awkward conversations between tommy and emduo + wil. like a lot of sarcastic comments towards tommy that have a secret meaning to tommy! lots of tensing up at the softest of questions

Yesssssssssssssssssssss! Many many awkward times! Tommy just a lil anxious boi :3

for the thing with tommy knowing things he shouldn't, how about a scene with tommy accidentally humming a tune he'd heard wilbur play before? maybe even accidentally murmuring the lyrics while wilbur only plays the melody! :0000 *yoinks this idea for later* Oh I likes this a lot >:3

do you have any design ideas for tommy's borrower home? is it very innovative with crazy cool designs, or something more basic that he'd thrown together with whatever he could find? I have many ideas for his home but nothing specifically made or set yet. Been thinking about that a lil bit atm lol. While I don't have any designs for Tommy's room, I have made a floor plan of the Crafts house to make sure I'm being coherent to the story and scenes so have that!

how does tommy react to the internet? does he find a means to conquer it after seeing how intimidating it is, or does he immediately fall victim to social media? maybe he finds some good ole schlatt videos and bonds over them with wilbur! Oh he's infatuated with it. He loved to try and watch Tv of Beans in the past but actually gaining access to the internet blew his mind! Learning so many new things and not understanding how some stuff was possible was insane for him! And Canon! Def bonds with Wilbur over the old vids!

does wilbur absolutely drag him into the world of music? i can see wilbur making a mini-him with his new younger brother! 100%. To Wilbur, Tommy is free blank slate brother. Time to educate the child in the world of music and properly!! (as well as everything else lol)

in a lot of fics, techno has swords n knives pinned up on his walls or leaning against his walls, do you follow through with that here? lalalala *yoinks another idea* :3

that also leads me to the question does tommy, as a borrower, find this threatening or interesting? and similarly, when he's a human, does he struggle with hiding his interest/fear of them depending on his borrower-selves reaction? Boi is both terrified and drawn to the blades. There's one sword displayed on top of the book shelf that Tommy often likes to marvel at. It's part of why Tommy tried to go for the craft knife that Techno left out on the table when he first moved in because he wanted to wield a sword like that too.

i bet tommy might have a strong reaction to flavorful things, especially something spicey, sour, or even really sweet, since borrower's grow up mainly on grain with the occasional addition of fruit or dessert. does this spark interest between emduo + wilbur or do they just bond with him and call him a child over it? I think I mentioned in a previous ask that Tommy just goes into sugar rush overload when he gets access to sugar so in a similar way, he'd have an extreme reaction to spicy, sour or bitter things too. If given any of those things tho, I'm pretty sure once comfy with the rest of sbi, would scream: ARE YOU TRYING TO POISON ME?!?!?

tommy using his skills as a human! i can see him offering to fix the craft's ripped clothing with his sewing skills orrr maybe they go hiking or smth and tommy's climbing instincts kick in and he just fucking climbs a tree like it's nothing lol Yesssssssssssss. That was one of the only things he could do at the colony and not get into trouble for it. Often he'd hide out and fix clothing for others so he loves to get his hands on stuff to mend for sbi. When they notice this, they actually get him proper sewing equipment and nice fabric for Tommy to experiment with and he goes wild with new clothes and bags. He adores it!

on the note of instincts, how are tommy's instincts? i always see borrowers listening to their instincts more than humans but still not always listening to them. does he got like really good reflexes that earn him the nickname spiderinnit? (to which he is extremely confused cause huh? maybe that leads to a movie marathon :0) Brick. How? How are you having all the amazing ideas?? *yoinks this too* He is spiderinnit damn it and they watch every spider man movie. So Tommy's instincts are a bit nuts atm. Normally his first thought when in danger is to run and get back to the walls or somewhere safe, but when he shifts he is so out of it, he kinda just shuts down because he can't just run back to the walls. Later on when he kinda works out the sizeshifting abilities, it takes a lot of will power to not let himself just run from everything and hide. But he will often react a lot to footsteps of people coming or animals because he still semi associates it with danger.

birthdays! i don't know about you or this au, but i like the idea of borrower's not really celebrating birthdays, and even if they do not every single one. so what's tommy's reaction to possibly having a party thrown for him? Sometimes Individual bdays are celebrated within small family's when borrowers see fit, say they turn 1 or 13 but yeah most of the time bdays aren't really celebrated. The celebrations are more of a celebration of surviving to an important point in life, not making it another year older in age. (that makes no sense becky. Good job :'D) Colonies will usual celebrate a borrowers coming of age for all the borrowers going on their first successful borrowing trips (of course Tommy isn't allowed at those though)

^^ on a similar note, does tommy know his own birthday? and if he doesn't, how the hell do the craft's react to that ?? He does not. He was abandoned by the colony and they kind of just guessed he was like 2ish when found so they make his bday just sometime in April because that was the time he was found. Tommy doesn't even really think about not having a specific day till he's asked and the Crafts are just so shocked that this kid has probably never had a party in his life and literally throw him a party within the next few days. Tommy is just so touched that he decides the date is April 9th because that was the date. (Even if it was actually *enter different month here*)

I have no idea what else you said about the ask but at least I had the questions so thank you for sending them in and your continued interest in the story! Jornos chapter 2 is almost done and then just needs to be proof read so keep your eyes peeled :3

I’m not in the snc fandom by any means and I have no plan to do so but being just a causal fan of them, I have seen the way their fans act towards them, especially Colby. It always leaves a horrible taste in my mouth.

I sincerely wish these guys would start setting more boundaries with their fandom. There are sometimes where I see replies to their tweets or just looking up their users on twitter because I’m a nosy rosey sometimes and the things some of their fans say to them, especially Colby is just horrendous and down right yucky. It seems to be getting worse in my end too. The way some of their fans treat Colby likes he’s stupid, slow or like a child is just so gross. He’s a human being. It’s one thing to make a joke, but it’s another thing to treat him like he was born literally yesterday. It sometimes feels like infantalazation. Like this is a huge problem and I just wish that Colby would put his foot down about it. Hell, when everytime there’s a girl involved in his life everything goes haywire towards him. I just feel so bad for him at this point. if I had fans and they were pulling stuff like this, I wound definitely say something, and start muting/ blocking people if it started getting too much. Maybe Colby hates confrontation which I can totally understand. Maybe he hates drama as well. But if his fans keep getting away with basically being overbearing and weird, they’re never gonna treat him like a human.

I also have a hunch that he might be neurodivergent and has anxiety. I see a lot of myself through him. He does a lot of things I do. But I don’t wanna diagnose him because I personally don’t know him like that. I just hope he has a good head on his shoulders when it comes to this type of stuff. and I also just hope one day some of his fans grow up and stop treating him like he’s a dummy when he’s a very intelligent person. It drives me nuts when people do that to him. He clearly is very smart and very empathetic. A bright soul who deserves so much better. 🩷

this ended up being extremely long so... sorry about that haha

i getchu. i understand not wanting to join this fandom. tbh i only really enjoy the fandom on here and that's about it. insta there barely is a fandom, the tiktok fandom is too young and just makes shit up 90% of the time, and twitter…. is insufferable lol

and i completely agree with you about the treatment of colby. it's a weird mix of both treating him like a sex doll and treating him like a baby, which makes both behaviors all the more gross.

like i'll be honest, i don't love all the decisions he makes, and i have talked about that on here countless times. however, i don't actively tell him on social media how to live his life (aka i don't @ him on twitter when he does something that annoys me like a lot of other fans do). and at the end of the day i accept whatever he wants to do with his life. me complaining on here about some of the questionable ppl he has in his life isn't even half as bad as what i've seen on twitter, especially when it comes to some of the girls he occasionally is seen with.

over the years it's gotten worse, and i'm not sure for what reason. it feels like the fans started out on the right foot. they care about colby and don't want to see him get hurt. and i get that, i feel the same way. but at the same time, he's an adult. and in life you're gonna make some dumb decisions, and be friends with dumb ppl that you shouldn't have been. and that's your choice. and that's your mistake to make.

i think part of it is a lot of fans think they are owed a part of colby's life and having a say in it. maybe bc they've put time, effort, and money into being a fan, maybe it's bc they feel like they are friends with him and thus think they can say shit that a friend would say even tho they are a complete stranger to him. and while i can understand somewhat why someone would feel that way briefly, it doesn't change the fact it's not true. you aren't owed anything just bc you've been here a long time or bc you buy merch. so what. you aren't special in either one of those regards.

and when it comes to colby and his dating life… oh boy, that's where most of the drama lies. again, a lot of it comes from fans not wanting him to date a questionable girl. understandable. i get that protectiveness. however it has become very apparent that NO GIRL is good enough for him. fill in the blank on whatever reason, it doesn't matter. there is not a single girl that exists that everyone in the fandom can agree on. and that just shows that a lot of the concern comes from both jealousy and, if we're being completely honest, misogyny.

certain fans are jealous they will never get a chance to be with him, no matter how many y/n insert fanfics they read. and no girl is good enough bc nine times out of ten the reason is bc of something sexist like she's a slut or a gold digger or isn't pretty enough or is too pretty or isn't as good as other girls.

my favorite phrase, highkey, is when a girl is seen with colby, ppl start hating on her and then when asked why someone doesn't like her they respond with "idk she just gives me a bad vibe." lmao happens like clockwork.

all of this is to say that a lot of fans, while they love colby, don't respect him. they don't trust him to make his own decisions bc in their minds, he can't make the "right" ones. and thus needs to smothered into making the right one. and if he doesn't do that, then he deserves to be bitched at for eternity.

tbh i'm surprised colby tolerates half the fanbase at this point. if the fandom isn't yelling at him for breathing wrong, they're making fun of him. and while it's fine to be playful and banter with him, there's a difference between a one off comment and constantly picking at everything he does down to whether or not he has facial hair. like… why are we talking about his body hair? yall are weird for that one.

if i was colby, i wouldn't have fans anymore. bc i would blocking ppl left right and center. idc that you supported me for a long time, if you're mean to me, you're gone. and i ain't gonna listen to (usually) a child yell at me for fucking a random girl (or maybe not even fucking a random girl). that's why last year i wanted him to go chaos mode. i wanted him to fuck every and any girl that said yes strictly so fans would come to the realization that YOU DON'T CONTROL HIM.

get over it or gtfo. it's really that simple.

and as for whether or not he's neurodivergent, that's obviously something he would have to explore himself. i personally have always thought he might secretly have depression and definitely anxiety since he's talked about that part himself. there's a lot of things he has done in the past that make me think there might be something under the surface and reminds me a lot back when i was in denial of what was going on mentally. and there are times he gets into funks, and you can just see the light drain out of him for a bit. but in the end, that's for him to explore and seek help for if he so chooses and feels the need to. i would hope if he truly did ever feel bad he would ask for help.

he's a very strong person and has such a love for life. i just hope he lives it to the fullest. i truly just want to see him happy.

going to share here what's probably my most controversial theme park opinion and by that i mean "i've been blocked by people over this before" but. thoosies need to stop using GP as an insult not just because that's inane, but because there is no meaningful difference between a coaster enthusiast and another theme park guest. you're both members of the general public.

like, the interests of a theme park guest who isn't a ride enthusiast are not actually that fundamentally different than the interests of guests who are. ride enthusiasts like to frame themselves like because they know a lot about theme parks, ride systems, etc, and maybe they prefer more thrilling rides, that they're fundamentally a different type of guest than every other guest in a theme park. but that's just... incorrect for a lot of reasons?

like if your argument is that a coaster enthusiast is going to prioritize thrill coasters over other rides at the park, that's fine and it makes sense for some things, like, famously, the defunctland queue line video's analysis of wait times. but i don't think the venn diagram between "people who will prioritize thrilling rides over doing anything else in the park" and "coaster enthusiast" is as circular as ride enthusiasts think it is. growing up i definitely didn't consider myself a thrill ride enthusiast but i still prioritized thrill coasters visiting theme parks. working at thrill rides i'd say most of the guests i meet there fall into this category. they don't really identify as ride enthusiasts but they wait in line for big rides because other rides aren't fun for them at all.

there also are plenty of coaster enthusiasts who can't really handle high G forces like you'd expect, and have to take dramamine/etc just to ride anything, but they're still enthusiasts because they like the design. the fact that there are people who call themselves ride enthusiasts while refusing to ride anything at a non-disney park should be evidence enough that coaster enthusiasts aren't the monolith people think they are.

but i think the real root of this belief is--and this is the worrying part for me as an ex-op, and an engineering student with connections working in the A&A industry--that these people genuinely believe that the act of trying to learn a lot about rides makes you on a level similar to an industry insider. which is absolutely batshit to me. and this manifests itself in a lot of ways. even the regulars at my theme park that i liked working with the most, ended up crossing a lot of work-life barriers with ride operators that made ops uncomfortable. sometimes they would expect us to tell them insider knowledge about the parks that we couldn't tell anyone, just because they were regulars.

a more concerning facet of this is how many regulars will go out of their way to like, FOLLOW RIDE OPS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. some RO's love this and love the clout they get from working at a theme park, but when you work at a minor-to-medium size park, guests finding and following you on your socials can be terrifying. one of my friends had a regular message him about something random on his story that the guest took as an innocent question, but the answer to that question had identifying information that a customer just shouldn't know about an employee at a place they happen to visit a lot.

(side note: instagram in particular is really annoying about this! ops follow each other, so a guest who only follows the ops whose pages are About Being Ride Ops, will ultimately be recommended pages by ops who aren't open about it on their profiles. the app will recommend you to follow friends of friends and if you go to the park enough, you can definitely pick out ops just from their profile photos... it's super freaky! especially since my park employs minors in rides!)

and honestly? it also applies to the mess that happened at iaapa expo last year, where specific ride enthusiasts/channels that cater to them started harassing AMUSEMENT RIDE CONTRACTORS. because these people dont understand exactly how removed the average theme park guest is from any decision being made at the DESIGN LEVEL of amusement rides. im gonna level with you, that's a problem - it's how you get NEW COASTERS that aren't accomodating for larger guests (hi velocicoaster!) but like, fundamentally, paying money to attend a HUGE conference for industry insiders and trying to argue with people on camera isn't "putting pressure on them" in the way that you think it is. these companies are completely divorced from the reality of the people they build rides for. i'm a huge fan of b&m coasters, but like, they haven't even built a single ride in their own country. if you knew jack shit about the industry you'd know it's gonna take more than like, yelling at some sales reps about the problem to fix anything.

and even then, they weren't even mad about anything that's current inside the industry, or even real problems like the ones i mentioned above! they were just upset because they didnt like some companies' coasters very much. what's the fucking point?

tl;dr the only effective difference between a coaster/ride enthusiast and the rest of the GP is what exactly they were more likely to verbally abuse me for back when i worked as a ride op. the ONLY other difference i can think of is general entitlement, but plenty of other subsets of guests are entitled (such as first-time parents of small children).

also if you've never worked anywhere in the industry and you're insulted by the idea of being GP, dont try to argue with me lol.

E*elstans get a life challenge.

Yeah. :/ No idea how people can spend so much time enjoying getting involved with things that have nothing to do with them and being so hateful toward other people. Even if I can understand being angry about people tagging hate in pro tags, it's another thing entirely when they seek out totally unrelated content and make it about something it's not. My post wasn't even tagged which means that person just searched out keywords that the non-tagging system will pick up (and also replied with nothing to do with the post and made up a scenario about the point of the post, then tried to attack me for uwu hating their ship uwu, except I don’t hate that ship so welcome to talking out of your ass about a person you literally don’t know a thing about).

Like, honestly people, get a job or something because you evidently have too much time and spare energy. e.e

I'm baffled we even have people like that in the world. I shouldn't be surprised after I've been part of the Naruto and AoT fandoms in my time on Tumblr, but ngl I'd actually genuinely tell you I think the stans in the Houses fandom are actually worse than both of those fandoms' problems combined. The stans here have been some of the worst people I've seen in my entire life.

I can't even say "maybe they're mostly teenagers" because even as a teenager basically all the people around me knew better. Bullying pretty much stopped when I was in high school. You know how kids bully other kids in grade and middle school if you have those types of schools in your area (1-5 or 1-6 is grade school in my area, and 6-8 or 7-8 is middle)? Like, when I was in high school nobody did that shit anymore. Nobody cared anyone. Either my high school was relatively tame or people in that age group just don't care anymore, but I've been to two high schools and nobody did the shit these people do (and the youngest of them probably don't want to embarrass themselves in front of 17-18 year olds tbh).

Even then though I can't fathom how people can be so malicious, and over such stupid shit. These people aim to get random people they've never met off social media through bullying and by totally destroying them. I mean really, what the fuck. No idea how can anyone grow into being such a disgusting person. :/

Really sucks because I love Houses but it's infamous now because of those exact people.

Lol the stories about the child sacrifice and abortion parallels plus the boy wanting and mutilating himself to be an animatronic as a trans allegory are pretty based and at least the last one seems quite likely to be based on that if the original creator was the one who came up with the idea. how in hell did people even find out he was a registered republican voter? how do you even register yourself as a voter for a particular party?? in my country, things don't work like that so I'm lost. your vote is completely confidencial so it shouldn't be possible for anyone to know such info unless someone close to him decided to spill the beans.

I think i've heard before something about the creator of fnaf being cancelled but for some reason I had the idea it was for being christian, perhaps i'm confusing him with another game creator...

like i said i only play minecraft and pokeymon, but notch, the creator of minecraft, has also had his heated gamer moments too. he said trans women aren't women, he said people who didnt believe in a straight pride parade deserved to be shot, said feminism was a social disease and called a feminist a cunt, said there was nothing wrong about white pride (then later kinda recanted by saying something like "I didnt know there were only some groups allowed to feel proud of who they are"), and something else about not giving in to mentall illness in reference to transgenderism, though later kinda apologized saying he didnt understand trans identities very well. obviously, references to his name got erased in many products and even the game itself, only visible once after you beat the ender dragon, and microsoft banned him from their events ever since.

pokemon creators havent had these type of controversies which i attribute to having a better pr team and not growing up alongside social media and decide it's a great idea to post any thought that passes through their head. theyve had some though, like with jynx believed to be a racial stereotype (supposedly though she's based on ganguro fashion and the "fat lady" of an opera) so her skin was changed from black to purple. interestingly, ludicolo is a very obvious mexican stereotype yet nobody cares lol.

i do think its kinda funny when these authors get cancelled but they stil keep them/their product around to milk it to death.

and I might or might not watch the video. ive watched some youtube essays before but never that long, so we'll see...

I mean only mentally ill people like me would be dedicated to watch a 9 hours lore video essay, so I don't blame you anon lol

I am too very confused about the registred political alignement thing but I gues that's yet another dystopian US lunacy. In my country this stuff doesn't exist neither. I heard some celebrities/influencer get flack for being Republican (Jaclyn Hill comes to mind) but I have no idea how people/haters manage to get this information. I guess they are available on public record or stuff like that.

Since FNAF has a VERY dedicated fandom, I am not surprised some fans went as far as to sleuth this info out.

That minecraft guy sounds like a legit asshole though and he deserved to be canceled idc I HATE when people make foul out of themselves for the whole world to see, and then act shook when people don't want to have anything to do with them anymore. I hope he didn't have the audacity to whine about "Mh fReeDoM oF sPeeCh" because dude was apparently saying it was ok to kill people for having disagreeing opinions🙃

On the opposite, Scott Cawthon is SUPER lowkey & private and never explicitely said anything rude or insulting. People just started hating him for being Republican and allegedly Christian (which I think nobody found actual evidence of)

And animatronic aren't allegory of trans people, it was only the B-7 story of a boy butchering himself as one. The whole FNAF story is Scott Cawthon creation. He just co-writes the book with a female author, but only him creates the lore. Animatronics are regular robot who are possessed by the spirit of dead children.

I didn't know they changed Jynx color 'o' I never thought anything about this design - I felt like she didn't even have skin, but but more like a void lmao (like these spectre type pokemon)

I roll my eyes at article defending this design à la "oooh but Sugiomori didn't want to offend anyone uwu" ok but Pokémon is now a game with an INTERNATIONAL audience. If Nintendo wants to keep making bucks out of their game, they have to adapt themselves to foreign audience. This sort of "purity complex" when it comes from japanese cultural assets coming into the West is insufferable. No culture is immune to criticism.

Ganguro started around 1996 which is the year when the first Pokémon game came out...so I highly doubt Sugimori would be already aware of this trend during the game development. Japan already had a weird thing with dark/black skin, so Jynx simply might be yet another design celebrating this brand of "quirkiness".

Hi! This is like my first time asking any advice so sorry if this is a bit tmi or a weird ask 😬 So for religious reasons I'm not doing the do until after marriage. The problem here is, all the guys wont really date you unless your down to do smth with them ( which i'm not!!! ). I know i shouldn't really rush into a relationship cause i'm literally only 15 and their overrated and romanticized by the media anyways, but i'm an absolute hopeless romantic 😔 I just really wanna have a romance book typa relationship. I wanna send gm and gn texts w/ someone and be on ft with them for hours just talking or doing nothing and just basically have someone to obsess and rant over to your friends. But I don't want to have the superficial relationships that my friends/others have in my school.

Like majority of the guys in my school are racist, colourist, homophobic and are just mean people in general. I would NEVER wanna date a person who acts like that, let alone be friends with them! But it seems like everyone doesn't really care in a sense because they're cute/popular. I feel like the odd one out because everyone has been in a relationship or had a crush or like a fling and I haven't. I'm always left out of these conversations and just feel like i'm missing out on the high school experience! ( i'm literally finishing grade 10 in 2 weeks and haven't even talked to a guy romantically )

In a sense i feel like because of that ( and since i went to an all girls private school from gr 3-8 ) I tend to romanticize the smallest things a guy does or says to me which is such a big problem!!1! Like you crack a joke with me? In love. Pick me first in gym when making teams? Brb i'm writing our wedding invites. Even my cousins around my age were shocked when I said I haven't talked to a guy romantically before. Its even worse that I'm so shy around guys and just overly insecure considering I NEVER had any boys in my school. Everyone always calls me a grandma already because of the way I talk and act and now i'm really starting to believe it.

My parents are pretty strict about this kinda thing and my sisters are all older then me/are naturally extremely pretty so they didn't have to worry about being unlikeable ( people had crushes on them in high school AND they were in relationships ). I just feel really lost and unlikeable :(

Hi,

So I think waiting till marriage is a totally fine thing and waiting in general would be a good decision for a lot of folks, not just you. I didn't wait till marriage, but I did wait a long time for the right person and in my personal experience it made it significantly more fulfilling when comparing it to how almost all of friends lost their virginity during teen years. I really wish that more folks had the opportunity to wait.

Wanting to be in a relationship this badly I think is something MANY people your age feel and I think it is totally normal. This feeling you're feeling, doesn't really ever go away I think. It may come and go in intensity, but if you at this age feel like wanting to be in a relationship, then you can expect to buckle in for a lifetime of this being at the back of your thoughts.

"Like majority of the guys in my school are racist, colourist, homophobic and are just mean people in general." Unfortunately, this is just "Welcome to Teen Boyhood", most of these guys (God willing) will grow out of it, though I've met a lot of men who never emotionally/mentally went past age 16.

There are some dudes who are not terrible people at ~15, but usually those guys do not attract girls easily. Less popular guys definitely, but solid dudes at heart. It could be that maybe you are also just hanging around the wrong crowd? I doubt your whole school is like this and you should be able to find someone your age who shares your values. They wont be the perfect guy, no one is at 15 or really any age, but they'll be better. I know it is SUPER incredibly indescribably tough to shift social circles and meet people within your own school, but I suggest that you try to simply make more guy friends in general and look for the sweet spot of dudes that are decent guys. It will also help with your anxiety around boys and may help smooth you out so you're used to talking to them. Once you find a guy you like, then you can work on building up the courage to ask him out.

Maybe join clubs at school, look into after school programs (tutoring, co-ed sports, etc.), or check with your friends to see if they know anyone they can introduce you to. When I was in high school, some people would also just date guys from other schools because they weren't down with the ones who were immediately around them. They usually met through mutual friends or at non-school events.

Also, you telling me that you don't want to date guys because they want you to be down for something while your sisters were in relationships at your age. I mean, I feel like put two and two together. It's not JUST because your sisters are pretty 👀. But gossip aside, your parents can't be that strict if they let your sisters see guys or if your sisters found ways around not telling them. So I wouldn't worry about them too much. As a former teen, there are always ways to getting around parents.

All in all, I think it sounds like you do have a good head on your shoulders and you know what you want. Being a grandma isn't always a bad thing, it just means that you don't take BS from other people and you know what will make you happy. That's something that takes almost a life time of development and you've got that now at 15 so I've got confidence in you that you're going to be alright.

As a side note: I do appreciate you listing out how you romanticize the situations. It gave me a laugh and this is definitely one of my favorite asks I've gotten in a while. Talking to people about navigating teen dating is like one of the funnest topics period.

June 13, 2023

You know there IS a lot to be said about how social media favors simplifying information into short bites and the algorithms are very much preying on the human tendency to be drawn to sensational takes and rapid-fire dopamine hits but some of you take that criticism and just veer hard into being really ableist about ADHD, like - not everyone who gets bored and understimulated easily and has to really struggle to stay engaged with things that don't immediately hook them and might want to avoid that struggle as much as possible in their leisure time after having to do it all fucking day at work or school has "TikTok brain poisoning".

But, in fact, fuck it, I'm gonna take it a step further and say, if anything we should be wrapping this into the conversation about how the environment is disabling people - physically and mentally - and then blaming and exploiting them for being disabled. Yeah, actual ADHD may have a known genetic cause and understood neurological mechanism, but...as an adult with ADHD, who does love the curb cut effect, I do catch myself wondering if this current wave of ADHD/autism "curb cuts" is really just because the things that are growing more popular are just near-universally beneficial, or if it's partially because this online environment is actually inducing ADHD/autism-adjacent traits in more people through actual, literal, clinical addiction. Which we ALSO shouldn't be ableist about!

And no, I don't mean this in the "WE MUST STOP SOCIAL MEDIA IT IS A PLAGUE BEING DISABLED IS A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH" kind of way, and anyone who treats this that way will catch a block and these hands. I don't even know for sure whether it's really happening, or just an illusory effect of those traits being more okay to talk about and having more spaces to see people's mostly unfiltered thoughts - though the political landscape irl, election results and the like, do seem to imply to me that it's at least a little bit of both.

We do not appreciate enough that the quick and easily accessible dopamine hits generated by social media can become a literal, physiological addiction. Like, this is the actual, literal chemical pathway by which addiction happens. Yet, unlike other potentially addictive things, at this point in our culture, you are, at best, considered a social pariah if you're between the ages of 11-65 and don't use social media at least somewhat regularly, and at worst it can actually materially harm your career prospects to abstain.

I honestly suspect there's a lot of overlap between symptoms of ADHD (and some autistic traits, for that matter) and symptoms of clinical social media addiction, and this predatory, potentially addictive use of social media algorithms, especially in the post-No Child Left Behind education environment leaving people with limited tools to question misinformation and spot baseless sensationalism...much like overwork-related burnout, genuinely strikes me as a mental parallel to how we're "handling" covid: demand that people live in the environment that can cause an acquired disability, and then when someone gets it, either deny that it's a problem (long covid is "just something you have to push through, it's normal to still be tired after getting sick", burnout from overwork is "just buy this nice home spa product and you'll be fine tomorrow", and loss of attention span and new sensory-seeking behaviors are at best "oh everyone gets like that sometimes" and at worst "well maybe you're just stupid"), or when that's impossible, blame the person experiencing the problem ("well you should have worn your mask and sanitized your hands more! You did? You should have worn a better mask! You couldn't afford it? You should have budgeted better!" or "well you should have taken care of yourself better before it got to this point!" or "well you should just put that damned phone down sometimes, it's easy!").

And holy fucking shit, even in disabled spaces, we STILL treat addicts like shit. There's this horrible, pervasive attitude that they don't really count, because they brought their problems on themselves by engaging with the thing in the first place when they should have known the risks (unlike the guy who lost a limb in an extreme sports accident, that's totally different*).

(*Note that I recognize that there are tons of abled people - and even some disabled people - who absolutely would also blame this theoretical guy as a reason to discredit them, but I'm talking about a specific brand of individual hypocrisy I have seen many times within the disabled community, anyone who reads this as "yeah! NO ONE would say that about someone with a PHYSICAL disability!" - after reading the previous paragraph no less - can also catch a block and these hands. The fact that some people would be equally ghoulish about both doesn't take away the fact that enough people do carry that double standard to make a significant impact.)

In fact, even if I'm 100% wrong and there is no even semi-common problem with clinical social media addiction...we very much do use that very same anti-addict victim-blaming template to demonize victims of predatory online fuckery anyway. "It's your own fault because you just refuse to put down the damned phone." Because it's so easy to break a habit, let alone an addiction, right? And of course, you end up victimized by disinformation and predatory marketing practices because you know better. [/sarcasm]

What people need is coping strategies, not shame, because shame doesn't magically make people stop being disabled or having symptoms of a disability, but coping strategies can help make those traits and symptoms a lot less distressing and exploitable, whether they're innate or induced.

Tl;dr: Yeah, the companies behind the major social media platforms ARE a plague, now stop using that as an excuse to be ableist, forgetting what the real problem is, and crying about how Idiocracy was a documentary.