hi, sorry if this isnt a good blog to send this to i just dont know where to turn atm (if this isnt a good blog to ask for help plz lmk where would be better, soz). im 22 and figuring out im sapphic & im trying to join online lesbian spaces but everyone seems so anti-babydyke and im starting to notice that being a lesbian is more about discourse and infighting than it is about wanting to kiss a lady. i thought it was about kissin ladies and thats what i want but how do i make other lesbians not hate me? i feel like all of the other lesbians expect me to have a PhD in lesbianism before i call myself that, before i consider a femme attractive, its like i have to pass thru all these hoops to prove myself even to other queers that im a real lesbian because i can name every lesbian historical figure. again super sorry if this is a bad blog to send this to i do not have a clue who to ask about this or anything im totally lost rn lol (genuinely sorry for literally being that annoying baby dyke ppl complain about rn. ignore me if you want im not gonna be tilted. thx for listening

This isn’t a bad blog to send this too. I’m just genuinely sorry you are going through this and I’m sorry if I don’t have a way to help. But I’ll try my best!! And maybe some more people in the comments will be able to help in ways I can’t.

But just know I’m sending you lots of love and that there isn’t anything wrong with you. At the end of the day, regardless of whatever else is happening, your sexuality really is just simply who you are attracted to. And that’s okay. You are enough ♥️♥️

(I’m also going into this assuming you are at least 18+, so I apologise if I’m wrong on that )

Firstly , you aren’t just seeing things. There is definitely a lot of infighting in the community. Like a lot. I would say it’s typically more intense and in your face online then it is IRL, but I’ve also seen IRL gay groups go really deep off the end with with this stuff.

From what I have read and from people I have talked to, this has sadly sort of always been a thing. We just have different waves of it and different things it might be focused on based on the time period and the world events affecting that at the time. I think in general it’s a very human thing that allllll groups do, but when you are in a marginalised, oppressed and small group of people it can feel a whole lot more concentrated and obvious because there is less room for it to go.

Again, this is just based on conversations I’ve had and things I’ve read, so take it with a grain of salt. But there has also been misunderstandings, disagreements and different beliefs on what things are , what they mean and who should do what in the community. Ranging from politics to fashion to marriage to sex to identities around butch/femme and what it means. For one piece saying something you have another saying something different.

This can cause a lot of confusion and infighting amongst people. A lot of tension at times. And because of trauma a lot of people tend to want to be around people with similar alignments in understanding and belief.

A lot of things can affect that like age , location etc.

But none of that is a reflection of you or your worth or your sexuality. And there ARE people in the same boat as you. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

There have been waves in the past of some women using and or claiming lesbianism to be a response to sexism. We are currently living in the time after that. And because of that a lot of opinions and thoughts and actions taken place are in a response to that wave. Be it people trying to push it , denounce it , confused by it or hurt by it.

I think this has lead to some of the scaffolding of the current culture we have today.

I understand that need and drive for community and the horrible feeling that can come along when the said community feels like it is in shambles. I feel that way a lot too. And I’m sorry I can’t take that away.

I feel like I’m rambling at this point I’m sorry.

I just want to say though there is nothing you have to prove to anyone. We all figure this stuff out at our own pace. Anyone who treats you poorly for not knowing something or just genuinely not showing interest in it is on them. Your lesbianism doesn’t mean you owe anyone an opinion or a certain way of dressing or feeling. The only person you owe is yourself and that is to show kindness to yourself and be around people who respect you and love you for the wonderful lesbian that you are.

EDIT : I just re-read and you said you are 22 I’m so sorry I missed that 😩

Hello there! Apologies for asking but is there any asks from me in your inbox? I cannot quite remember if I sent anything recently or if Tumblr has been eating my asks.

Secondly, I come to you with a question. How do you avoid/disengage in discourse within the alterhuman community? I am asking because, as of recently, the amount of discourse has gotten to me and I want to be able to take a step back from everything before I have to leave like I did with other communities I am in. Apologies if this isn't something you can answer, but I thought it would be worth the shot.

- @batty-babbles

Hi batty! I do have something, here it is:

I took a little break from answering asks because I needed to recover my mental health before giving any detailed responses. Instead of making a whole new post, I'll just answer it here and say thank you for the kind words ^^ I'm gonna go ahead and delete the ask since I pretty much addressed it here.

As for your second question, I've definently been there before. Discourse sucks, and the are three ways I've been able to deal with it:

• Laugh to yourself about recurrent gatekeepers or bullies.

- If there's one person that keeps getting on your nerves, you could try to laugh when you read their posts. What kind of a clown would have a take like that?

• Take a break or step away.

-If the discourse is happening on a specific platform, try exploring the community on another platform. I stepped away from Reddit after discourse and debating and gatekeeping because popular, and I cane to tumblr where I'm having a good time.

-Also, from what I've noticed, Tumblrs algorithm will show you content related to whatever you've previously searched or interacted with, or it will even reccomend new blogs from other blogs you already follow. If you want to stop seeing so much discourse on your Tumblr feed, search up other things your interested in or interact a lot with the blogs you can trust.

• Know that you're mindset is all that matters.

I'm not sure if its personally affecting your identity or not, but I think this is helpful advice anyways.

You know yourself best, more than anyone else does. Only you know what's going on inside your head. Therefore, only you can know what you identify as, and only you can define alterhumanity for yourself. If you don't fit the mainstream-gatekeeping-antifake definition of whatever you are, no one will know, nor will they care. They can't see inside your mind, remember? We all identify ourselves, and no one can tell us what we are or aren't. That makes us all valid on the basis of alterhuman identities. It doesn't matter if you aren't mainstream---thats the whole point of alterhuman, unique experiences that aren't like any other.

Even if you aren't feeling this way about yourself, it applies to everyone. If you see someone you disagree with and they're spreading discourse, keep this in mind for whoever they're targeting.

I hope this was helpful :) let me know if you need anything else ^^

Hi how would you accomodate Obito's character to match, as you said, the fake ideal Kakashi has of him in his memory at the beginning of the series (if you want their relationship to go that way, which is 1000% more interesting than what the manga gave us) ? Like, if Kakashi has a fake idea of Obito in his head, Obito must have been at least something remotely heroic in the past, no ? Also, in this configuration do you think Adult Obito should be acknowledged as 100% Creepy in the story to contrast Kakashi's memories, and how ?

i fear that i may have opened a giant can of naruto discourse worms but since i actually have opinions on this i might as well share. its not really changing obito's character in any form its just genuinely how i read this relationship because thats the way it makes the most sense to me.

obito was genuinely just some kid who had a good heart but was a little annoying and wasnt terribly punctual or collected and was more than happy to mildly buck his responsibilities and the expectations people had of him to help people out which isnt inherently bad but also easily lends itself to endangering the mission/task at hand and as a result baby kakashi thought he was annoying and stupid and a spoiled brat who doesnt know what the real world looks like. they were literally not even anywhere close to friends until like the 5 minutes before obito epicly dies by which i mean. and this is like so so so tremendously important to understanding my view of this relationship. kakashi barely knew obito at all, and he didnt know him because up until those last 5 minutes he barely even respected him as a person and therefore had absolutely no vested interest in learning. this, combined with the fact that obito was . again. just some kid who was trying his best but wasnt like outstanding is absolutely crucial because its directly because of kakashi's growing insane survivors guilt complex that his perception of obito goes from "kid with a good heart who did the right thing when i did not" -> "paragon of justice and morality and everything that i am not".

like kakashi as a guy is somebody who very consistently takes far more responsibility for bad things that happen than is deserved - if kakashi and obito had gone to save rin earlier it literally would not have made a difference, but because kakashi knows he made the wrong decision in trying not to save her at first he blames himself for obito's death nonetheless. as rin dies by his own hand (both thereby being "his fault" + violating the deathbed promise he made to the last person he got killed) and then minato kicks the bucket not too long after, kakashi's survivors guilt complex balloons into something genuinely kind of deranged. like seriously kakashi really truly does hate himself so so so much and its a bit dire. he blames solely himself for things that are not entirely or even mostly his fault and at multiple points in the final arc literally talks about how prepared he is to die and when he's saved is caught entirely off-guard and immediately starts talking about how worthless he is (GUY WHO WANTS TO DIE SO BAD ITS CONCERNING) and asking why obito bothered moving kaguya's attack and when anybody ever tries to give him credit for the positive things he did contribute he immediately moves to give it to somebody else and minimize his own impact.

with this in mind you can kind of see what happened with obito - while kakashi is a tremendously skilled ninja on his own, it was the sharigan that ultimately became the centerpoint of his abilities - the sharigan that obito gave him. with this comes the ability to attribute all the good he's done for the village/people in it to obito while bolstering his already preconceived notion that it wasnt obito who shouldve died back then but him because if it were obito he wouldve been able to do everything that kakashi has done except he also has the added bonus of being fundamentally a better person who wouldve made the right choices who wouldve been a good leader who wouldve saved rin who wouldve saved everybody who was the one out of the two of them who truly understood sakumo's will and would have always always always succeeded where kakashi has failed time and time again but because hes dead because kakashi got him killed the best he can do is try. and he cant move on he cant ever move on because this eye of obitos is always always always there and he'll never be able to forgive himself because he's failed in every way he could have and would never deserve it. by the time the main series rolls around obito really isnt a person in kakashis mind but a very prominent focal point to project his insane deranged guilt complex onto and then feel miserable about because he has serious mental issues. like its truly not about obito as the guy he actually was because kakashi barely even knew him at all, its that because so so so many of kakashi's biggest achievements and regrets in life are tied back to obito's death its just entirely inescapable and especially so for somebody as riddled with guilt and self-hatred and responsibility as kakashi.

like people like to pretend this relationship is romantic but if im being honest. that is objectively 1)stupid but also more importantly 2) BORINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG ITS SO BORING ITS SO BORINGGGGGGGGG when your other option is kakashis deranged mental scape projection bag turning out to be an actual real person who shouldnt have been put on this massive pedastal, causing kakashis entire life and meaning up to this point to come crumbling down because it turns out obito's been spiraling off the path that kakashi has been obsessing over for years except in the end this too is kakashis fault because its always kakashis fault and worse yet its not even him who convinces obito to turn around because no matter how hard kakashi tries he'll never ever ever ever be good enough he'll never be able to fix his mistakes he'll never be able to be forgiven and he'll never be able to forgive himself.

also side note while i find obito's fixation on rin to be insanely annoying and notably weird and definitely in poor taste, intentionally making it creepy is doing nobody ANY favors and i would decidedly not want that in any direction. the contrasts between what kakashi remembers and what obito has turned into have to do with selflessness and maturity and the consistent choice to do the right thing into assisting in the murder of thousands of people for an incredibly childish and selfish pipe dream - imo intentionally focusing on how its frankly a bit weird for a guy pushing 30 to still be hung up on a girl he knew when he was 12 is detracting from the main point and serves no narrative purpose and what id much rather do instead is chop the romantic beat entirely because that would do wonders for his entire character in making him at the very least less annoying.

also also the way this ask is worded is a bit weird imo like its not like obito started out being a terrible person and if he was all along then itd kind of suck and also defeat like 100% of the point. like i would definitely say throwing yourself into a pack of overwhelming enemies to save a friend falls into the heroic category, and, while him giving kakashi the eyeball is absolutely horrifying and appalling and 57 different levels of messed up, from kakashi's pov<- authors note interruption: originally i was typing this up in the tags but then it became too long i have to give my opinion on the eyeball scene. i have to. we're side tangenting here but okay like because the thing about naruto the series and kishimoto and their respective politics is theyre kind of at odds with each other and a solid 50% of the things kishimoto says in naruto i think he like doesnt actually agree with or is alternatively too scared to commit to so im not really sure how exactly we're supposed to interpret obito giving kakashi his eye. and im aware to some extent that the shippers are like omg….. sooooo romantic while throwing on the veneer of omg child soldiers…. so horrible……. <- purely for the ~angst~ factor but. My Opinion. and we're back at it again with the mildly edited "discord messages from when i was watching" copy-pasting:

frankly imo if you make the focus of this scene on literally anything other than how horrifying the system is 1) you kind of suck and 2) youre tremendously dumb. because like there are so many tremendously bad implications going on here between the fact that kakashi who is clearly 13-14 max despite what his voice will have you believe is a JONIN without ANY of the necessary leadership or experience skills was sent with two other twelve year olds on their own with NO adult supervision (!!) on a mission to blow up a bridge in the middle of a war (!!!) and that when one of them got half crushed by a rock his only thought was to get one of the other children to TAKE OUT HIS EYEBALL WHILE HE WAS STILL CONSCIOUS (!!!!!!!) AND STICK IT INTO ANOTHER CHILD’S EYESOCKET (!!!!!!!!!!) WHICH STILL CURRENTLY HAS AN EYEBALL IN IT EVEN IF ITS NO LONGER FUNCTIONING MEANING SHE WILL HAVE TO GRUESOMELY SCOOP OUT THE REMAINS BEFORE SHE CAN PUT THE OTHER GUYS EYEBALL IN IT (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) AND NONE OF THE CHILDREN INVOLVED HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) this is NOT romantic this is horrifying the fact that a child had to do an EYEBALL TRANSPLANT on TWO CONSCIOUS PATIENTS in a BATTLE FIELD because konoha lost a sufficient amount of adults that they decided that in order to win the war they were okay with putting CHILDREN in horrifying situations and nobody DID anything about it !!!!!!!!!!!!! and the fact that these children are so completely desensitized to this idea that again obitos first thought is "yeah here let me give you my eyeball so you can fight" IS SERIOUSLY SO BAD LIKE HELLO.HELLO. HELLO?!??!?!?!?!?!?! THE KONOHA WAR MACHINE SITUATION IS DIRE.

^in the whole context of this i was complaining about shippers but the same sort of sentiment still applies to glorifying this in any manner. like as an outsider looking into this fictional world i can very easily go "wow! this is horrifying! this is not heroic this is tremendously messed up and a society that has allowed this to happen needs to kind of be razed to the ground."HOWEVER. this does not mean that kakashi himself does not see this as something indescribably heroic and in fact he would have an incredibly hard time seeing it otherwise given The Mental Illness and also his entire childhood and way of life from birth. like if we're being honest im always thinking about the scene where iruka and kakashi are arguing over whether or not team 7 is prepared to take the chunin exam because iruka rightly points out that theyre very young and inexperienced with the implication that given people older than them have literally actually died in these exams they really should not be doing this and kakashi responds that he was six years younger than naruto when he became a chunin as a justification and its just so insanely illuminating to his perspective on a lot of this because its been so insanely twisted by having literally grown up on the battlefield and then after that joining anbu bc from his perspective theyre twice as old as he was with the added bonus of it being peacetime so its literally fine even though for the viewers it is decidedly not.

and like in some instances he does recognize how badly the ninja system has screwed over everybody personally (see: when sasuke fights all of them after killing danzo and kakashi notes that sasuke is absolutely a product of his environment) but in other cases hes just so completely blinded by having been intrenched in war and child soldiering from birth that its very very hard to be able to take a step back and look at it objectively (and especially for somebody like kakashi who if he genuinely acknowledged this might also have to confront the fact that if child soldiers absolutely 100000% should not exist in any situation ever several of the things he blames himself most for in his past would really not be much of his fault as the adults who put him in those situations in the first place. which he would rather kill himself than do). also real quick id like to take a moment to share this parallel because it SERIOUSLY makes me deranged IM OBSESSED WITH ITTTTTTTT

^ and added commentary from cartoonrival who put anything i couldve said about this into a single line

so while as viewers we ought to think the entire eyeball scene is genuinely horrifying and, in the words of my dear friend goosewhisker, "a commentary on how [the ninja] system feeds on the corpses of the people who protect it", kakashi absolutely views this as something to be aspired to and incredibly heroic because hes messed up in the head a bit as a result of growing up under the konoha war machine and if you were to go "well actually obito sucked all along" it would literally only be undermining the point the story is trying to make imo. anyways this has gotten severely derailed but this is has been my thesis on kakashis relationship with/at obito and if youve stuck around this long.well thank you for reading

Twitter is dumb for writing longer form opinion pieces so I'm going to put this here: On Twitter there's been a lot of heated discussion over the way the IDW artists and writers handle their depictions of the characters. And if you genuinely feel they've done a disservice to them, its fine, your feelings are valid, and the point of this isn't to tell you that you're wrong and that the people working on IDW Sonic are infalible. Where I take issue is people trying to paint them as the sole destructors of this franchise. That artists like Evan Stanley are warping characters like Silver to fit their own preferences or that Ian Flynn is hellbent on destroying a well grounded world so that his visions may overtake it. I'm not being hyperbolic but during my relatively short time in this fandom I have been seeing more and more harsher statements regarding these people under the shield of "criticism". There is nothing wrong with criticism, but how can it be good faith when you're attempting to directly attack their character. You could dismiss it as just banter, but fandom in general tends to have an issue with dehumanizing creators, either by creating a boogeyman out of them or speaking of them as a monolith, and in the Sonic fandom, there's a long history of examples as how nasty this can get with people like Ken Pontac, Warren Graff, Takashi Iizuka and yes, Ken Penders. Ken Penders especially is the grand example of what can happen when this is left unvetted for so long. Is there any reason why people continue to devote so much negative energy to a man who hasn't been relevant to the series in like 20 years? Is this someone that still needs to be a butt of a joke or have hundreds of YouTube documentaries made out of them. All because he made weird hedgehog comics? I could talk about CWC as well and how the internet will never take responsibility for their fate, but that's a whole other road. Admittedly one of my initial responses to the recent discourses directed at Evan's depiction of Silver on Twitter was more emotional, but as I hinted earlier, there has been more and more targeted comments at her, and I felt it especially reached a boiling point once she confirmed on twitter that two background characters in the Trial by Fire arc were gay. Something like this a major change to the status quo of Sonic, so it's not unreasonable to think many see her as a threat to the franchise. Why all of a sudden after her many years of working on Sonic, is there so much attention being put on her like this? So far none of this has anything to do with the contents of IDW Sonic, because I feel thats not really where I take most issue with all this controversy. But I did some more thinking and I will still engage this. As far as I know, IDW Sonic is not some unmanageable operation. SEGA/Sonic Team are heavily involved in its production, as a response to what transpired with Archie Sonic. It's stories and new characters all go through a thorough vetting process, there's a lot of back forth to ensure whatever gets printed meets their apparent standards. And yes, this gets as strict as the facial expressions.

I agree that facial expressions are an integral part of understanding the soul of a character. It is something that should not be taken for granted. I personally don't feel that the artists in question break off more than what is necessary given the context of the situations and the medium of comics itself, but again, if you feel otherwise, then I don't think the blame is just solely on the artist when the approval process is this tight. People like Evan and Ian are freelancers at a third-party company handling the IP. I don't think they have as much leverage as people seem to think they do, ESPECIALLY during the early run of the comic. Again, you can say that the artists dropped the ball here, but I think SEGA had all the power to give them the appropriate notes and those artists would have complied because well... they're professional artists. And if this is something they're truly incapable of being subordinate to, then they could've been terminated from their jobs a long time ago. Now don't misconstrue this as me trying to say "WELL IF SEGA APPROVED IT, THAT MEANS ITS GOOD ACTUALLY XDDD". No actually, if SEGA approved it, and things still aren't up to par, that means there must be a systematic failure that goes down the entire line. In fact I'm willing to bet most critics would agree with that since there seems to be a sentiment that Sonic as whole has been in limbo for a very long time, it goes way beyond IDW. Games like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 are apparently ones that Sonic Team will never be able to live down. Sonic Forces was also seen as a large failure, and as a result, demands for an actual proper game were pretty high when Frontiers was announce And then the day the IGN Gameplay footage dropped, I was demoralized to read many foul things being said about Sonic Team and Morio Kishimoto. It made shockwaves throughout the internet, with every content creator and influencer hopping on board. It wasn't just about graphical/gameplay concerns, it was straight up calling their competence into question, calling for the team to be terminated and replaced by people who could supposedly do a better job. I'm sorry, as much as I've grown to love this franchise, I can not value the perceived quality of a product over the hearts and efforts of artists who work under strenuous conditions to make it possible. People's tones have cooled since the game's release, but I don't think being "proven wrong" is what should've been required to respect these people. Hell, even YUJI UEKAWA, whose artwork is supposedly the gold standard for how Modern Sonic should be depicted, and whom many of his contemporaries are compared to, has recently been under scrutiny by fans, saying that he's become a worse artist over time. At the end of the day, remember we're talking about living breathing people. Don't turn them into scapegoats when everything about creating works is a collaborative process. There are no heroes or villains. Their humanity should be respected when critiquing their work, and the same when praising them. I don't think most people actually enjoy being put on such a high pedestal anyway.

I have a little rant lol.

In general, the entire acotar fandom is immature and toxic (I honestly think its gotten so bad since nesta's book came out). Most of these people are grown women and men arguing back and forth about characters and ships. It's bad enough that its been going on for years that its sad. "I'll laugh at the elriels or gwnyriels or the eluciens if their ship isnt endgame" Do the people who say that realize how embarrassing they are? Many people are going to have good and terrible theories but bashing people and harassing people over fictional characters is just immature. I also hate when they say "its that [insert ship] the one who is being the most toxic and weird" NO. its all of you. None of us know who is going to be endgame no matter the theories you have or anything. YOU DONT KNOW. So, please, can we stop this already? its getting annoying and weird. This fandom has made it incredibly difficult to know who the next book is going to be about when its right in front of their eyes. Sarah has not made it impossible to know who the next will be about and I think thats why shes been so quiet about because everyone is being so aggressive about this ship war. I just know the moment she announces the couple, she'll get a ton of hate when its not even her fault because people love to twist her words on paper and thinks she's probably doing that but it could mean a whole other thing. Yall have let theories get to your head and twisted words so much that I think it's incredibly unhealthy for all of you to be acting this way. Stick with who you ship or love and of course, you can have beautiful theories, but toxicity is not necessary. No need to go back and forth about who is the real "endgame".

I mean yeah this fandom is insane. Sometimes as I'm aggressively typing out a reply to an anon who calls me a delusional psychotic bitch bc I made an Elriel post they didn't like, I genuinely just blink and think what the fuck am I doing?

It's partly why I didn't want get involved. At all.

I still try to keep to myself. Only even entertain the antis if they come to my posts. I stick to my own tags.

But there are people - and you're right they are from both sides, as I have also said multiple times on my blog -that go out of their way to start a fight on posts they know aren't meant for them.

These are the people that are making this fandom so toxic. Like I understand, no one person can be responsible for a fandom's collective behavior, but you can be responsible for yourself at the very least.

I have always made it clear what i believe acceptable behavior for discourse in this fandom is and isn't. It's not something I can personally enforce for others, but I can follow myself.

It really is crazy how out of hand this fandom has gotten because other people can't control themselves. If I see an anti Elriel post I don't like (and I don't follow any tags, actually, so I see ALL the ships posting), I have the self control to ignore it and keep scrolling.

This fandom has been overrun by childish adults, intent on being louder than the rest. It's crazy how many disgusting things have been said over just fictional characters, it makes me wonder what these people are like in real life.

At the end of the day - there's going to be a book and one side is going to be proven right. It's not worth all these vitriol that's been spewed across all sides just to "be right". I at least, would be perfectly fine to read an Elucien book. If Elriel does happen, I'm certainly not going to lord it over anyone's head and laugh.

Not worth my time. Not worth my energy.

rant about the qsmp as a story and how i interact w it

honestly at this point i think ive blocked every single discourse neg crit tag about the qsmp bc lately theres been this big influx of people complaining about the direction the story seems to be going in and some of the choices done by the writers -- which is FAIR. everyones allowed to feel a certain and wish things were different. i can understand where a lot of the criticism comes from specially with some recent narrative developments

the thing for me is just that.... i dont really understand the point of picking at the story's faults past the initial feelings everyones entitled to have. like "constructive criticism" towards the actual plot is all fine and well but i feel like by now we all know the writers most likely WONT make any big changes based on the publics response (bc... for one we all want very different things. its not easy to find middleground solutions in live rp) and therefore engaging in discussions like that just kinda sours the fun for me a little bit

sure theres things in the story i dont like! but that also happens in ANY type of media ive ever been interested in like ive never once liked something ive been 100% satisfied with and for me thats what makes it cool like specially in fandom spaces if that makes sense? i dont CARE if a narrative choice is a bit dumb or isnt super rewarding or whgatever bc well . we're all people here who can also create stuff. we can very much create our own little pockets of "canon" with the bits we wished wouldve been included instead

i wish the elimination of the green ninjas had had more impact! i wish we'd gotten the spiderbit murdering workers together plotline! i wish we could see sofia again! -- i can just . go and write it myself or discuss these ideas with other people who also like them and its FINE like its just as well

maybe its the dsmp fandom experience in me but i KNOWWWWWW canon will never be perfect like theres no way in hell they'll tie up all the loose ends in ways that cater to me specifically. and i dont careeeeeeeeeeeeee

i can pick and choose the bits i like and set aside what i dont care for and get real creative with patching up whats left!!!!!!!!!! its all good . i dont know what im trying to say anymore the big wave of story crit just REALLY tires me out and im sorry if i unfollow or softblock anyone over it but its very much not my vibe

ok hold on just for clarification are you like. pro transid etc.

i try and stay out of transid discourse for a variety of reasons:

with transdisability / transneurodivergency, i find it difficult to understand who the discourse serves? like, witch-hunting transautistics is not beneficial to me, as an autistic person, and if a transautistic is helping with fighting systemic anti-autistic ableism/sanism, then good.

i also find it difficult to understand exactly how transdisability / transneurodivergency is harmful beyond the emotional response of "how dare you romanticise my suffering". it's an extremely niche online discourse, online resources (i.e "tips on managing autism" posts, pages/blogs about disability, etc) cannot be depleted, and irl resources are either locked behind a diagnosis, difficult to get ahold of, or both, that i have no concerns that a transdisabled/transnd person will ever meaningfully take resources or whatever. the worst that could happen is that some impressionable preteen gets a really weird perspective of disablity/neurodivergency but like, they do that already

like even if some department of work and pensions dickhead is like "people on the internet are calling themselves transdisabled we need to develop a more rigorous screening process that will make more disabled people want to die when trying to get on benefits", thats not really the fault of transdisabled people? that's just systematic ableism.

it's not a discourse i'm currently capable of participating in or even researching without the kneejerk "they're romanticising my suffering" reaction, and if i am going to participate in it then i want to do so with a clear head and an understanding mindset, both of which i can't achieve right now

and there are, of course, cases where someone who is autistic finds transautistic to be a helpful "gateway label" (where their previous/current identification as transautistic helps them in realising/acknowledging/accepting their autism), there are probably people with a super weird relationship with being autistic (like, someone who was diagnosed as a child, and then their family hid this from them or gaslit them about it, etc, and then they later find out that they're autistic) who find transautistic to be a useful label,

with transrace, i'm white and i do not have a strong enough understanding of race like at all to have an opinion on any of it.

so like, idk if i can really be described as pro or anti transid? i try not to make myself the arbiter of people's internal experiences & i want to extend compassion and understanding to as many people as i can. i dont know enough or care enough to really make a comment on it.

my opinion on transplural is different because its like. a thing that you can do? no matter whether or not it's a good thing, or should be done, or if certain groups of people should do it, or what it should be called, or how it should be done, it is possible for someone who has been a singlet for their entire life to create a new guy in their brain and thus be plural.

is transplural a super good term? is it transphobic? i mean, i don't think so. other people probably disagree with me, but i don't really find that relevant. i don't see a way that it's tangibly harmful or transphobic beyond, again, "youre romanticising my suffering", and i don't really have an interest in discoursing about whether or not something is harmful based on my or someone else's kneejerk reaction to it

and honestly, if someone considers their plural journey to be similar to transitioning, hell yeah! queer the identity.

but i mean, with the post i made, the person did literally say "i am in support of people creating systems" (which is what willogenic means) but then also said "i am not in support of people creating systems". if it were the term transplural specifically, they made no indication of that

I think most VC fans agree with Anne's take on Lestat though, they see him as faultless which the narrative validates cause no one ever challenges his version of events, like we are all just supposed to assume it was Louis who lied and nothing else, that's why they're all up in arms about what happened in the show cause "he would never do that". Hell even with the show some of them think he didn't deserve the murder and fully blame Claudia for causing the rift.

yea, its tricky cuz no one not the meta narrative or in universe actually challenges lestat when it comes to his response to louis’s interview, but id say characters in tvc absolutely challenge lestat’s character [his disposition, ways of thinking, actions& shit] & get on his ass heavy. so i feel like that implicitly should put his perspective in question the same as any other character’s [at least it did for me] but ur rite in that the vc fanbase esp the OGs do fall in line w rice’s own opinions. it certainly didnt help that shed get on ppl’s asses for writing fic, disagreeing with her, had a wide variety of contradictory, differing opinions on her own work& ppls interpretation of the text that didnt agree perfectly w/ however she felt at the time.. yk the whole interrogating the text from the wrong perspective essay on amazon reviews lol. yet certainly we are all bonded in discussing an adaptation of her literary canon which says sum yk. i think expecting a visual medium to perfectly adapt a book line by line is impossible if not borderline ignorance, but an excellent adaptation will show what made the source a good, veritable commentary on humanity. i dont think ppl should fly into deranged clear the searches campaigns when amc does use the merits of rice’s work & interrogates lestat’s crueler ways more than his cruel actions that was glossed over in the source [bc rice had diff intentions/views on it]. i think the nature of visual adaptations done decades after the source mean as viewers, we are already exposed to multiple threads from tvc (tvl, tva, allusions to the mayfair family, the talamasca, the whole impending vampire apocalypse which may or may not be a red herring this time, claudia’s diary, etc) that show this is not only louis’s interview, but a question on the fruit of memory itself. what is recollection to an immortal creature but a drop in the ocean? what does it mean to be immortal, if not living the same live over. and over. and over. again? anyways likeeee tbf at least anne rice had an excuse for why she was so crazy about lestat, he was her muse & based off the man she stayed with all her life. honestly if i made a trio based off me, my old work& our abortion and it blew up like this id delete my presence from everyone’s minds lol. but. them fans dont have an excuse cuz thats not what lestat means to them. ofc these books & lestat’s chara may have been pivotal in their coming of age but i also think as now adults, they should accept w the infamy of tvc & its adaptations mean varying ppl w different frames of reference will have different takes on this. yea, as kids we cant articulate an understanding of dv and intimidation tactics , but as adults u should be able to re evaluate fictional dynamics & have mature discourse w/o flashing out on ppl or going on clear the searches campaigns. i guess the existence of rl martyrs for these fictional vampires answer the question ppl had yesterday on antoinette too? lol

"Soft confirmed lesbian" it was a deleted tweet from one writer that no other writers corroborated, it's not any sort of confirmation at all, and chances are valve probably made him delete the tweet because it was misinfo.

it's also uncomfortable that you refer to it as "straight shipping" when (if I'm telling right from the current influx of Sc*utP*uling posts in the tags rn) the person in question headcanons both P*uling and Sc*ut as bisexual, and while I can somewhat agree with the concern of it attracting the wrong people, there were better and less biphobic ways to express that.

(Words censored so they don't show up as keywords in searches, because I figure you might not want that given how some people act about this stuff, slurs and dudebros and stuff)

My public response ig. Firstly I did not mean this to be biphobic I didn't know who i was talking about headcanoned them as bisexual. if we are even talking about the same person. (one of the downsides of being vague lol)

In defense of me saying "Soft confirmed lesbian" sorry for feeding off the scraps that get thrown to me. I didn't know he deleted the tweet either. Also we don't really have any proof one way or the other valve being the ones who made him delete it, i remember him getting a bit of harassment from it back in the day so it could also simply been because of that. (sorry ik thats a big nitpick but like there are other reasons lol) Also saying that it has no weight because none of the other writers said anything about it doesn't really make the tweet more or less proof. Once again I picked my wording carefully, i referred to it as a soft confirmation exactly because he was the only writer to say it. And her being a lesbian doesn't show up solidly in any cannon content. This is like a dumbledore is gay situation but in my opinion less shitty.

And I referred to it as "straight shipping" as that was what the original discourse was called. As sc*ut/p*uling was a very popular straight ship in the tf2 fandom when i first joined, expiration date making it even bigger than it already was. So jay saying he wrote miss p as a lesbian was kind of a big deal and a lot of lesbian fans took it very seriously (myself included for a while). So of course there was a lot of arguing and drama over it. Which kinda tainted the whole ship for me. And seeing the discourse get revived live on my dash with only input from sc*ut/p*uling shippers who were regurgitating the same arguements I and i'm sure other have heard before without any voices from people who HC miss p as a lesbian was annoying so I complained.

TLDR i don't really care one way or another about sc*ut/p*uling it's just a ship and it isn't hurting anyone. I personally just think its kinda mid and the discourse surrounding it is annoying.

Once again I am sorry I didn't mean for my post to come across that way, I was simply frustrated to see a pretty watered down version of the same discourse that been happening on here for years. So i decided to complain about it on my own personal blog with what i hoped to be as little context as possible to have it be brought back to bother the op or myself.

ok ive alluded 2 this b4 and i wanted 2 talk abt it 4 ace week so if anyones just dying 2 get in on an internet strangers Dramatic Queer Backstory im ready to overshare. its about my history with sex negativity and how its affected me.

so i grew up with an lgbt+ irl friend group of about 7 years. it sounds totally fake but for the love of god just trust me on this. Friend A was your typical anti-aspec, anti-mogai, anti-kink exclusionist with internalized homophobia and Friend B was a sex repulsed asexual. these two people were my best friends, we were all nd, we all liked fandom stuff, and we all found out we were lgbt+ together.

now with that context in mind, im letting you know right now that our relationship with eachother as lgbt+ people was utter hell. we werent CONSTANTLY at eachothers throats, but there had always been an air of uneasiness any time any topics about our identities or lgbt "issues" were brought up. there was no solidarity, and any support for eachother had always been one-sided. when tolerance HAD failed us, it resulted in arguments and shade-throwing. and it was all fueled by tumblr funnieman internet discourse brain poison. i was unable to feel pride within the presence of these two people, and the damage this did to me as an aspec person alone is a post all on its own.

these two friends, as you can imagine, were also very sex negative people. as was i. for me it was from a weird mixture of repulsion, and repression. but the nuances of my mess of an identity is, again, an essay for another time. but anyways, my own issues combined with both Friend A's internalized homophobia and Friend B's repulsion lead to us being neck deep in a miserable cycle of both sex and kink shaming, of either people we knew or people on the internet, amongst ourselves (i guess this was the one thing we could all agree on. isnt that just swell). this had been disastrous for my self esteem as someone who, later realized, wasnt "as asexual" as they thought, for lack of a better phrase.

i cant begin to describe how psychologically damaged this behavior has left me. to be stuck in such a toxic, harmful mindset during such a crucial period of development, between the ages of 13-20 years old. that i still struggle immensely to unlearn. it feels permanently ingrained in my subconscious, its just completely automatic to react with disgust or anger towards anything sexual. i always thought myself to be the perverted freak of the group, because of what i only relatively recently realized was actually normal human behavior all along. but the guilt of simply having any sexual thought continues to eat me alive to this day. and i must reiterate, the shaming wasnt just from my friends. i take just as much responsibility for the harm i caused. and i dont doubt my old friends are also just as fucked up from it as i am. i dont want to blame them for what happened. there is a part of me that wants to be angry, but thats mostly at the exclusionist shit. which i, big shocker, also had a hand in as well. funny how that works. its just. sad it had to be this way. this month is the 4 year mark of when i finally stopped talking to them for good. and i can only hope theyve grown up and gotten better.

Listen..

I really don’t like serious discourse. I’m not the biggest fan of call out culture.

I’m someone who wants to understand where other people come from, and then base my decision on the kind of person they are. I forgive when mistakes are made. People need to learn what they do is wrong, and how to improve.

I try not to use violence, or be cruel, or get angry. Yes, trauma can get the best of me, but I want to show compassion towards people who don’t understand the bad mistakes they make.

NOW.

I’d like to make something very clear

There is a BIG difference between someone who makes a very bad mistake, VS someone who IS JUST PURELY BAD AND EVIL.

I am Christian, and the question of “is violence right?” comes up. A lot.

Let me tell you something, if you go to any pastor and ask this question, if they tell you yes, they are wrong. If they tell you no, they are also wrong. 

The answer depends. Fuck. Look at the bible. You got them 10 commandments and I swear to heck one of them says “do not murder”. So why is it that God deliberately commands his people to go and kill those that stand against him?

((you think about that))

Now I wonder why the rise in transphobia is really bothering me.

Listen, @smstransformers @tilallareimagined especially are going through a lot of hatred and I’m genuinely disgusted.

More and more, Trans people in my community are murdered and kidnapped all the time. Today I met a two spirited person that had 7 of their trans friends disappear, die etc within this year alone. 

I’m done. I don’t want to watch my family get killed and murdered by these toxic transphobes.

Yes. I am kind. I give compassion. I want to understand, and I want to educate those who don’t understand what being Trans is like because let’s be real I’ve been in that situation and learning about what Trans is and the whole notion of it can be very intimidating.

I am also a fierce warrior. I intend to protect my community, and my family no matter where they may be in the world (that’s right. Trans people. You’re my children now).

I’d be careful. I don’t tolerate transphobia, racism, antisemitism , homophobia, sexism, etc.

You all disgust me that you have the audacity to pick on people that haven’t even graduated high school.  

I am an mentally ill. I am Asian. I am a trans Christian ADULT.

More importantly, I am a solder. I am a warrior that is here to protect my community.

To those who show this kind of blunt hatred with no regard or decent respect for human lives that don’t replicate your own, get the FUCK out of my blog NOW. 

It’s not for you, and a place like this will never be here for you.

I am forgiving, but don’t fucking waste my time spewing hate all over my community with 0 remorse or guilt.

You can come back once you realize your sins and vow to never spread that kind of unethical nonsense.

okay.

--inhales deeply--

--waits four seconds--

--exhales deeply--

I don’t think people understand what it’s like to watch people you know and love disappear and die mysteriously due to the discrimination and oppression. 

Tl;Dr - To ALL YOU transphobic, racist, , homophobic, sexist (etc) people. God bless your soul becuase with the way you are headed, judgement will be served and it will be hot and it will melt you away the same way your stomach acid eats away at everything that it touches.

.

Idk if you know what's been happening on the Hermitblr discord but It's been burning down for some days now.

Would love to hear your thoughts about it but I know you rarely touch that server, it just reminded me of how well you handled conversation about 2019 Hermitblr /lh

I've been 👁 at it LMAO

(disclaimer THIS IS ALL MY OPINION I am not an active member of the hermitblr discord, nor do I know anybody involved in this personally! i am not speaking about anybody specifically because I neither know enough specific informations nor know enough about the people involved to make those judgements. this is just based on what I've heard others say, what I've seen myself in the discord's channels, and what I've discussed with others. some of my opinion is formed by being a server owner myself, and by hearing the opinions of my friends who have experience with modding servers.)

it actually reminded me of a lot of aspects of 2019 discourse, due to most of the conflict/blowing up that happened seeming to be behind closed doors. I, and most people, have not been privy to seeing exactly what toxic stuff some of the mods mentioned/apologized for, so we have no idea what to make of it all.

however. I DO think that its telling that for a lot of people, the hermitblr server felt unsafe or unusable - and even for the regulars, there were mods that they felt unsafe talking to.

in the end, the mod team was not capable of the emotional maturity needed to moderate such a large server, and genuinely I'm not saying that to be rude - modding is hard, and it requires being understanding of a lot of peoples perspectives, and trying to keep everyone's best interests and safety at heart. It's a big responsibility and thats not something that should be given lightly, especially in such a large community. It bugs me a bit that it seems they failed to do those things, and of some of the mods/veterans who remain, I think I can still see some deflection of blame off of themselves and immaturity/impulsive action.

Hermitblr as a server feels a little bit like a snowball rolling down a hill. The mods picked up a snowball and pushed it, and tried to keep their hands on but as the server got bigger and bigger gravity started taking it out of their hands until the now massive snowball smashed into a tree and revealed that inside the core of the snowball was a rock; that all along the mods were both in control and not in control, always acting to "keep up" with the community but also abusing their power or ignoring people's concerns.

idk. It's telling that to a lot of people it blindsided them, and to others they could smell the whole thing coming a mile away - it goes to show how there were warning signs all along, but also that the community brought people genuine happiness, too. I hope those folks are able to build that again, in a way and place that's safer this time.

I was gonna send an ask about rad fems and terfs yesterday but didnt. Very self conscious. I was wildly uninformed about transphobia in the broadest sense of the word. so I read as much material as I could stomach from both sides yesterday. I’m queer af but I might as well have been living under a rock for the last 5 years when it came to this terf and rad fem divide, I’d never heard the term truscum or transmed.. I’d heard of “political lesbians” tho reading through old queer literature.

my trans friends and I don’t really talk about the queer community as a whole or the politics in it. Just our friends, games, our lives and whatnot.. :/ I feel so wildly ignorant. I didn’t use social media like at all until last year. Like I finally made an insta.. for my bunny tho. And I use imgur and tumblr for memes and reading material. I just got back into tumblr a few months ago.. I deactivated my old blog in 2014 around when this rad fem thing resurfaced.

I found a bunch of terf carrds somewhere with pages and pages of twitter and tumblr screenshots. Calling lesbians transphobic for not wanting to deal with p*nis. Thats how I found you. you were the only person who answered a young lesbian about transphobia in a kind way, that’s why I followed you.

Anyways I’m sorry this is so long.. I’m not even sure what I’m really asking. It was just shocking to see how much has happened in the queer community.

Thanks for being one of the people trying to bring young people back into a trans inclusive space instead of like these more militant black and white trans and trans allies. I really saw someone call young lesbians transphobes for having rape trauma around p*nises. There was even one anon who threatened a 15 year old with very graphic rape via girl dick :/ That doesn’t seem right.

Okay so I was gonna answer this when I got it, but then my power went out and I don't like to get into complicated stuff on mobile because of the difficulty typing stuff.

Anyway, I'm glad that post stood out. I'm not always able to be kind all the time and a lot of the times radfems (radical feminists, basically a broader term for terfs, swerfs, aphobes, biphobes, etc) tend not to engage in ways particularly conducive to real conversation.

I'm gonna go off on some tangents about radfems and honestly if you're happier not being deep into gender politics or whatever, no harm in skipping. As long as you're kind and respectful to you queer friends of all stripes. you're good. And it sounds like you are, and that makes me happy to hear. Not everything needs to be discourse-y but also I kinda am so here we go!

There's some interesting stuff in the ask you're referencing. It's one of my favorite bits of writing because it's pretty unrelentingly positive and while I don't have much ability on the emotional labor scale to engage with full on radfems and terfs, I hope maybe someone sort of teetering on the edge sees it and maybe pulls back from going into a full on hate group. It's really great they have it screenshotted. I couldn't ask for a better way for it to find its target audience.

What I think is most interesting personally was that primarily I was discussing how a question could be or seem innocent, and put someone on the track to being groomed into an exclusionist hate group. It's fascinating to dissect the responses, which tend to try and distract from the core point (don't let this hate group recruit you) in a way that suggests that central point very much hits home with radfems. There was a bit where they found the post and en masse tried to shout me off Tumblr which wasn't super fun, but I'm here and they're blocked.

Anywho, the tricky bits I wanted to dwell on here are terfs and screenshots. Let me preface this even further by saying: not all trans people are angels. Trans people are people - some of us are assholes, some trans people are even genuinely horrible and nasty. So when I talk about those screenshots, I'm not suggesting all trans people are good and pure, but a specific issue about the screenshots you were mentioning.

This plays back into some of that earlier post and it comes up sporadically, but radfems and especially terfs habitually capture information out of context so they can use it to push an authoritarian and oppressive agenda. What's most common is to engage in campaigns of long term harassment in hopes of provoking an anger response either from one particular target, or harass someone with a larger social media presence to provoke anger responses from their followers. They collect the enraged responses and post them as if some trans person (or queer person, or asexual person, or etc) has just without provocation said terrible things and behaved in a dangerous or threatening way. That doesn't necessarily make all that stuff good, but it's a bit like the kid who hits back after getting shoved a dozen times by a bully being the one who gets punished.

Also, radfems have got notoriously terrible senses of humor, and pulling dumb comments out of context is another way they make it look like they've been terribly harassed. Point being, take terf screenshots with a big dose of salt.

This is why I tend not to engage with radfem narratives when they talk about a trans cult or whatever. They're operating on a false premise with the goal of making someone validate it by debate. You'll probably find a great deal of them with supposedly legitimate articles or studies suggesting some sort of inherent criminality for trans people, lack of medical safety, hurting or endangering cis women, etc. What you'll find, if you feel like it, is all of those stories inevitably trace back to either a blatantly made up story on some variety of white nationalist website, deliberately misinterpreted data often supporting the opposite point, or a story taken completely out of context specifically to make a trans (or etc) person look cruel, dangerous, etc.

By way of example, there's an absolutely wonderful interview with Judith Butler which has an interviewer trying to lead them into a terf narrative, only to have Mx Butler flay the premise of the questions. If you go through the notes, you'll find radfems levying some horrible accusations and eventually far enough down someone posts context and shock of all shock it was radfems taking something out of context to make it look like Judith Butler supported awful things while the opposite was true.

Now obviously I have a vested interest in this, as a trans woman, and I'm sure it's arguable I'm doing the same thing. But think of it like Fox News versus something like, I dunno, MSNBC. You know MSNBC has a slant, and you have to question what they say and how they present it. That's good and right. But you also know Fox News is about 90% blatant falsehood and while you could spend your days unpacking every wrong thing they say, if you never listen to Fox News again, you'll be fine. Your life will probably be better. If you never listen to a radfem again for the rest of your life, you're not missing any real information, and your life will be better.

I'm making this post the disclose my current opinions on the Dndads discourse and how frivolous its become.

I would like to preface with one thing;

This post contains content of grooming and manipulation, as this has been the main discussion in this fandom and the issues. I am speaking from my own personal experience, as a former victim of grooming who only recently escaped my abuser. I will not say their name, those who I feel comfortable knowing further information on this already know.

this is my trauma, and I am speaking from my experiences. This is one of the hardest possible topics I could touch on, and I beg anyone who still cares to listen, whether I change your mind or not. Listen.

I've wrestled with my support of this podcast for eleven weeks now. Maybe longer. Since before the discourse became a major thing. I've wrestled with this since episode 34 was released, and I need you understand that.

I need you to understand that I believe the hosts have done what they can to fix these issues. And I genuinely do not see what people still want from them. I will address each topic one at a time, and if I touch on things lesser than others, please understand that this discourse triggers a trauma that I underwent less than a year ago. a trauma I am still processing.

1. Grant, and his over sexualization.

The jokes revolving Grant and his sexual orientation or exploration were sometimes in very poor taste, I am not that blind. I will not defend them or say they weren't as bad as they are. But here'd what people have to think about when we talk about this; Those jokes are already in the episode. They cannot be removed, and the best the hosts can do about that is avoid that humor in the future. Humans are not perfect, and humor is ever growing part of a person, its always a tossup of if a joke will land or not. These did not, and they have not made these jokes since they got called on it.

On the Discord claims about them discussing his porn history, I can say nothing on that. I've seen no sources or proof that that happened. I won't make any opinions or comments on that until I've seen concrete proof that these conversations happened.

2. The Unsafe Discord.

They're Discord is no longer unsafe. Blanket statement, no discussion open. Here's the thing and here's where I'm going into my personal experience; Discords minor precautions arent up to par either. The DnDads hosts have made their 18+ channels, they've made the Discord clear to not be a totally kid friendly place and has tried to separate adults and minors. But they genuinely can only do so much. Minors can easily bypass these guidelines, and that is where we get to the whole grooming argument.

As a grooming victim, this is not the slippery slope people make it out to be. And adult fans,,this is where I'm telling you to sit down and shut up for a minute. Listen, for just a moment. I know I'm "just a kid" but, I've lived the possible outcomes you've thrown out. I lived that experience, and I lived. I survived, and the way you talk about it is so invalidating to me its absolutely disgusting.

I'm prefacing this with this may sound ineloquent, and not as "pleasant" as I usually like to sound. Because with this I expect people to listen. Its not in the public ass Discord server where you should watch out for the child. Its if you see an 18+ individual actively DMing that person, and this minor speaking about this person as if they're a major part of their life.

I need you to understand that I was genuinely wary of one of our own community members when I first began speaking with them, because of this trauma. I wary of ALL of our community members. I didn't share my other socials with people in this community unless I knew their content first. There have been multiple times I've stopped myself from messaging who I will call "My Annus" because of this trauma I've endured.

And I'm sorry, but Waterdeep genuinely has no precautions set in place to separate adults and minors that the DnDads Patreon does not. You cannot act like saints and villainize them, when they adjusted and became you. Then either both of you are saints or both of you are demons.

Children interacting with adults is always a bit set back at first. But I've been groomed. Twice. And you people act like its obvious, like it can happen so easily. And it does, it happens easily. First its them texting you so much you feel overwhelmed, then its them becoming someone you rely on. Someone who makes you pity them.

And its not gonna be people who are SIGNIFCANTLY older. (i.e, I feel much less worry interacting with 30 year olds than I do 18-22 year olds.) Because the adult people that feel 'more understandable' to be friends with cause their just barely adults? they tend to pry harder. They can get away with it. Thats just fact. The people who say "Oh I'm eighteen, but I just turned eighteen" I'm always the wariest of. Not because I'm convinced they're bad people or whatever, but because both times; my abuser was one of those people. This was two different people as well.

And thats what the adults of this fandom won't address. That its not the slope they've made it out to be. Because then they have to retract statements they made, and a lot of people, minors and adults, just don't have the humility to do that.

The only advice I can give to people in the server, who are worried for the minors. These are the only signs I can give you, and this is from my experience or the experience of other survivors I've spoken to, and I'm by no means saying this is concrete.

Abusers tend to be /just/ enough of an adult to be considered on, but not so old that it'll be considered weird for them to befriend a minor. The age gaps I see most often are 14/19 or in that kind of range. They'll go for the lonelier or newer folks, the ones who haven't built their group in the community and are just entering. The ones looking for their place in the hierarchy. If you want to help protect us, you watch like a mother bear when a new minor joins.

A lot of us don't realize its happening until its too late, and by the time we realize the situation we've fallen into its too late for us to get ourselves out. The majority of us have weak wills and a fear of conflict.

3. What the Hosts have done in response.

I honestly, genuinely think the hosts have done a lot of steps in the right direction. And in recent episodes? man, they've tagged their shit better than the McElroys, and no I'm not reaching there.

Honestly, they kind of did before to, on topics they knew were really rough for some people.

When they warned for the Willy Stapler stuff, I was grateful. They warned me I may be triggered by Ron and Willy's dynamic before I was forced with it. The McElroys had a scene with grooming in Grad, and I wasn't warned. I couldn't mentally prepare myself and I had a minor reaction to it. And thats not at all to shit on the McElroys, anyone who knows me know I love that family more than anything. That they saved me. Thats just a statement I need you all to understand.

The Hosts aren't "ignoring us" they're listening to us. They genuinely are. They saw we wanted content warnings, and they gave us some of the best content warnings I've seen. They've content warned episodes I didnt see reason for content warnings.

4. The Transcripts.

Look, this is beating a dead horse at this point. I, personally, have debated beginning to transcribe episode. I know they said they will, and I trust their word. But thats all we can really do, right?

I've transcribed things myself before, guys, and thats hard. and it takes time. and knowing them, they'll want to get all the current episodes up at once, and thats gonna take a hot minute to get down. And we can go into "Well why didnt they transcribe from the beginning?" and well, that's because transcribing just wasn't a thing until recently? Like again, going back to MBMBAM and McElroys, they don't even have all of TAZ transcribed last I checked (I believe their transcriptions go from Grad-Stolen Century, and anything before Stolen Century doesn't have one yet. I may be wrong on that.)

I will not speak on the other grievances and issues people have brought up in the show. The topics I covered are the only ones I feel comfortable speaking on on a public platform, where my words can sway opinions.

There is no TL;DR, because as I said in the beginning; if you can't read this, you aren't listening well enough nor willing to actually discuss the issues you have. You're looking for something to be mad about. Period, end of discussion.

I don't say that to act like I'm some authority on this, or some higher being above all of you for "being forgiving." Because, frankly I don't forgive them. I will continue to support them for making steps in the right direction, and upping their game. But, I won't forgive them for their jokes or the brief lack of precaution in the server. But, I will move on and I will support them. Because, as a victim of the problems people brought up in those situations, the steps the took are the best ones they could have. And I am grateful for that.

If other survivors read this and disagree, you're perfectly valid in that. We all went something, and it effects each of us differently. My heart goes out to you, as well, I know how isolating and genuinely terrifying those experiences and situations can be.

To those who aren't survivors and have read this; I beg you to think about this.

I am open to discussion further on this, but to an extent. There are some opinions I hold in this message that I will flat out tell you to not debate me on, not because of anything other than what I said in this post was hard enough to me to say.

Thank you for your time. EDIT: I implore anyone reading to the read the notes on this post, more information and discussion can be found and all of it is just as important. 

Rusty Quill Official: My thoughts

First I’d like to point out that I’m literally a nobody. I’m not a mod, I’m not a crew member of Rusty Quill, I am literally just someone who hangs out in the Rusty Quill Official discord (I AM a patron though, so I do have access to the Patron only channels). 

I’ve been seeing the people that are in this ‘group of 10 or 11 people’ stir things up in the server for a while now, and I thought I’d just give my own experiences and thoughts on the subject.  Firstly, the fact that I even have to ‘give my credentials’ about this is ridiculous, but these are the type of people who if you aren’t ‘xyz’ and you disagree with anything they say, you are automatically deemed racist, homophobic, ableist, sexist, etc etc, so I’d just like to point out I am a queer woman with both mental and physical health disorders and disabilities. I’m also white, cis and allo, so I do admit there are only so many things I feel comfortable commenting on without getting piled on for ‘not being allowed’ or ‘not understanding’ (because thats 100% what the folks who are responsible for that doc do in the discord) First of all, I’d like to discuss the fact that the RQO server has grown RAPIDLY in the last few months. I don’t have access to the statistics but I’ve seen them in the past, and the server went from less than 2000 people to over 8000 in a matter of like two or three months. The mods of this server are all volunteer, besides a select few(Anil(Community Manager), Bryn(who is a voice actor/talent for Rusty Quill Gaming) and now Autumn, who literally was just announced as Anil’s new assistant community manager YESTERDAY. Before yesterday, April, the production manager, was also a Mod. Besides those people NO ONE works for rusty quill. Everyone is a volunteer and a fan. Rusty quill is a SMALL PODCAST COMPANY that has seen a rapid growth of their fanbase over the last 9 or so months. They have stated many many times that they are working behind the scenes to plan a server overhaul, and have given us a suggestion form. They all work very hard to try and make RQO a place where people feel safe. There are topics of conversation that NEED a more intense style of modding to be handled correctly, and at the current moment they don’t have the ability to do that so that things can be discussed safely for everyone involved. They have stated multiple times that is being worked on as something for the server revamp, and it just seems to not click. There are conversations that happen in this server that they have a problem with getting ‘sideswept’ that I KNOW make MANY people uncomfortable, and that is mainly the policing of headcanons. Saying ‘it makes me uncomfortable when Elias/Jonah is portrayed as trans or gay’ is one thing. Its completely another to call someone who HC’s Elias/Jonah as trans or gay as transphobic or homophobic, use vomit emojis and basically sit there and completely bash someone for having that headcanon, which is what tends to happen and makes people SUPER uncomfortable, causing the mods to come in and go ‘okay enough of this’ (but they didnt screenshot themselves being nasty because why would they?) They also straight up bash you if you like certain characters, Daisy and Gertrude being two main ones I’ve seen. I understand the discourse surrounding Daisy, I really do, but to be treated like the scum of the earth for daring to like Daisy as a character, for automatically being labeled as racist or pro-cop just because you enjoy a FICTIONAL CHARACTER is...absolutely ridiculous. Its THIS that the mods are reacting to, NOT calling the characters themselves out. Its them blatantly being rude and making people uncomfortable about liking a fictional character.  Another thing I’d like to address is the server being ‘ableist’  towards people with ADHD by being strict about going off topic. This is something I’ve been EXTREMELY vocal about myself, as someone with ADHD, I DO feel frustrated with the fact that if things veer off topic we get told to take it to another channel. Its jarring, as someone who tends to go on tangents and it doesn’t feel great but I understand the need for it. There are specific channels for a reason. Just because something inconveniences you doesn’t mean its automatically ableist. if every conversation was allowed to run rampant in every channel it would be chaos. AS IT IS so many of the channels are far too busy for my liking and I don’t feel comfortable in them with the amount of people (something that has zero to do with the way RQO runs the server and everything to do with the fact that its just a very large server with a lot of people) I tend to like to stay in the Patreon section because its much smaller and calmer. Also the Gen channels for me(General, Court of Nobles) are great because unless its something super specific(a long discussion about food, a specific character discussion, etc etc) there isn’t a topic to follow, therefor my ADHD can run free. Thats just...how things have to be sometimes. Once again its something thats been told is being worked on for the server revamp, possibly adding more gen channels or such things because the server is getting so large. I’m sure there are other things I could address here, but Honestly I am tired. I’ve been in a LOT of Discords only to nope out of them within a few weeks because I don’t feel safe or welcome. Rusty Quill Official is the first server I’ve been in where I don’t feel like I am just a number, just a nameless fan, despite how large the server is. Its the first large server where I feel like I have a sense of belonging. Its a place I hold very dear to my heart. It might not be for everyone. It might not be everyones cup of tea, I certainly don’t blame the servers I’ve left for not being something I vibe with, but to hear it be ‘called out’ and bashed like this is really sad, especially when SO MANY of the screenshots were taken out of context/not shown the whole story/had bits cut out that would importantly show another side to everything.  To call the RQO server an unsafe space would be extremely unjust. If its not something you enjoy, then thats unfortunate. There are opportunities for you to maybe meet people in the discord that you vibe with and break off to your own smaller server. Thats perfectly valid, and in now way us telling you to ‘leave if you dont like it’. Do what makes YOU comfortable, but to continuously cause issues and drama on purpose when things have been addressed and you simply dont like the answer... Its not fair to everyone else on the discord who IS having a good time. Allow Rusty Quill time to grow with its fanbase. There are going to be hiccups. There are going to be snags. People are HUMAN and to expect things to be Absolutely Completely Unproblematic Or Else is unrealistic. Things ARE being addressed. things ARE being worked on.  Thats all I’ve got to say.