Sure.

Red means stop. No more negotiation, something has crossed a line (too painful, something bad that wasn’t negotiated, etc.)

Yellow means that you need a break or that something is too much, or that if the top continues then you’re going to “red” soon.

Green means that things are going well and you want to continue if not ramp it up a little.

While a bottom might blurt out red or yellow, I’ve never seen a bottom volunteer “green”. It’s usually said in answer to when a top is checking in to make sure everything is okay. Asking “How are you?” and getting an answer of “fine” or “okay” might mean the bottom is just on autopilot and reflexively answering. Asking “What’s your color?” and getting “green” or “I was very close to yellow when you stopped” is much better.

One of my favorite doms to watch at parties was doing a pre-scene negotiation with someone he hadn’t played with before and said something like “Now, just between you and me here ;-) , my favorite color is yellow. It’s not about taking anything I can dish out. I promise you, I can always go harder. I want to know how you’re doing. I’ll likely yellow you, on purpose, a few times, just to find out where your limits are and then aim for a little below that. I don’t want to hear ‘green green green, green green red’ because then the scene’s over. I want some indication of how you’re doing and when you’re getting close to what you can handle, okay?”

I've been working on this project for a while and I think it's time to show them off. These are propaganda/health and safety reminder posters for the Office for the Preservation of Normalcy, an organization that deals with the supernatural in a canon I'm working on. I have some lore I'm working on, but these posters will be the main thing that exists for now. The "sample" watermark is because I would like to sell higher-quality printouts and files in the future.

Good morning! I’m salty.

I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.

This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.

You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.

“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.

1) chosen to go onto AO3 in the first place

2) chosen the fandom you wish to read about

3) had the chance to filter for the things you do want to see like a specific pairing or a specific AU

4) had the chance to specifically filter out any tags you don’t want to see like, oh I don’t know, incest and non-con and dub-con and paedophilia

5) had the chance to set the rating level if you wish to remove any explicit content at all

6) have read the summary of the story, which aren’t always great but are the only indicator of what the story will be like writing wise so something about it was good enough for you to click on it.

7) have read the tags of the story which will tell you what is actually in the story. If you have used filters to remove stories with things you don’t want then there shouldn’t be anything in here that’s a shock to you but maybe there is. That’s why the tags are there for you to check for yourself.

8) Then you have to actually click on the story. You cannot see anything other than the summary or the tags without personally deciding that you are going to open and read this story.

9) Only here, at step number nine, do you get to the adult content warning pictured above. You have been through eight different steps, the last six of which have also been opportunities for you to see that this has adult content. And AO3 has *STILL* stopped you to ask one last time “are you sure you want to read this because it has things that only adults should see in it”.

If after this point you are reading incest and paedophilia then it’s probably because you specifically went looking for it.

Here's a list of important notes for tumblr usage:

Don't censor words, particularly trigger warnings. Tumblr has a very functional blacklist (found in your settings) that can filter by post content and/or tags. But the word needs to actually be present for the filter to work. Censoring words like r*pe is actively harmful to people attempting to avoid those topics.

Use tags liberally, you have as many as you want, but don't tag unrelated shit. You'll get reported for spam really fast if you do.

Set an avatar and reblog things, otherwise you look like a bot.

You are not obligated to have your real name anywhere in your blog/bio/etc. Most people here use handles.

You can turn your ask box & anons on or off if you are experiencing any kind of harassment. You can also turn off replies on your posts, and turn off reblogs if you need to.

Tumblr has keyboard shortcuts on desktop. You can find them listed under the blog/account menu. Go learn them, they make life so much easier.

Reblog things. Seriously. Also set your dash in chronological order. You can maintain several blogs if need be, but reblogging things is normal, expected, and how you pass along stuff you enjoy.

The majority of people aren't reading your card/dni/blog bio before they reblog stuff. Posts get passed around and the OP often isn't the focal point of the post. Learn to live with it.

Fic writers: you have unlimited words, do not post fics as images.

Reblogs with comments/tags are encouraged. It's not like twitter's QRTs. The OP will see everything there. Know that before you comment.

You have a queue. This means you can set posts up ahead of time to run while you're busy. You can also completely ignore this and just spam your follows whenever you're online. Both are very commonplace

It's not weird to go through someone's blog and reblog old posts. That's actually very normal. If you add /chrono to the end of a tumblr page then you can view all the posts in chronological order to make this easier.

"Spam" liking and reblogging isn't a thing that is a problem. This is invented by people I do not understand. If someone claims this is a problem, they can learn how to turn off or manage their notifications.

The only form of promotional posts that tumblr has is "blaze". There is no ad targeting or any kind of invasions of privacy with blaze. You just get subjected to w/e someone wants to show you. If you want to give tumblr some money to help the company keep going and providing an alternative to twitter, it's not a bad way to do it. You can make people look at cat photos.

Also, we have fun colors here. Plus actual formatting ability. Use it!

People lie on here for fun. Don't accept everything you see at face value, check the reblogs/replies or google something if you're skeptical! Critical thinking is good!

1.) I like a movie, let’s say HTTYD 2.) I say I like HTTYD 3.) People say that I’m weird for being that into a stupid kid’s movie about dragons 4.) Due to a history of ostracism I get scared that everyone’s going to hate me for liking kids movies (welcome to the desperate struggle of “please just like me what am I doing wrong” that’s growing up ND) 5.) I rationalize it by saying I only like it for the music 6.) Quietly shove down how much I actually love all aspects of that movie and never talk about it again 7.) Take years and years to be able to unapologetically enjoy watching it without worrying that I’m going to get mocked for “liking kids movies”

8.) This gets repeated over and over and over again, until you start to worry that there’s something wrong with your taste in stories, if everyone hates the things you like so much, and if you can just only like the Correct media the Correct amount everyone will accept you again and you just have to Try Harder.

9.) Leading to the whole trauma mess of “if someone criticizes the things I like not only do I no longer trust them to accept me as I am, I start doubting my own enjoyment of the thing and whether or not it’s Good, which leads to debating whether or not I’m any Good, which leads to me being unable to watch the thing I liked and enjoy it.”

10.) In the end, I end up constantly being hyperaware of every single wrong thing about a show and ready to debate it and be like “I am aware this is bad but I like it anyways, please don’t make fun of me for it” (and then I get made fun of anyways).

Anyway, calling the Witcher “mediocre at best” actually is still playing into the idea that you have to insult a piece of media to justify liking it. I disagree. Maybe it’s “mediocre at best” to some people but imo it’s great. It’s fantastic. It makes me happy. It’s along the same vein of why self deprecating jokes actually ARE a bad “coping mechanism”.

Calling your hyperfixations or special interests “mediocre” or “terrible” or “for kids” (as if that even means “not as good” kids media IS good) not only makes YOU feel bad about your own interests but you’re gonna end up hurting other people with the same hyperfixations/special interests.

I’m not one of those guys who subscribes to the “Man Cave” idea. That theory that once you’re in a relationship, you’re required to forfeit 99% of your own home and be grateful to have one room in which you can be yourself and have your own possessions on display. I think if you’re in a relationship, you have a right to make your home reflect your personality and interests as much your partner does. I’ve run into a couple of instances where a woman thinking a man has no right to his own possessions has not gone over so well and it was hysterical.

I once knew a guy who worked in the telemarketing department of a company I worked at. One Friday night after work, he told me about how he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend.

This guy was like me, very clean and orderly and liked things a certain way but he wasn’t volatile about it or anything. He and his girlfriend decide to have a weekend sleepover at his house, a trial run in his mind for moving in together. She showed up and the red flags sprang up immediately. “Where’s your bag?” he asks. “For a weekend? I don’t need one.” she says. His mind reels. “So you’re not gonna change clothes…or shower…or brush your teeth…?” “No. Why would I do that in just a couple of days?” He tries to be okay about it but then she starts “cooking” and the kitchen looks like a war zone. Then there’s the fact that her B.O. seems to get stronger by the hour.

The last straw comes towards the end of the weekend when she walks around his place, eyes his Elvis Presley memorabilia collection and says “If I lived here, all this Elvis shit would get set out for trash, I’m not wasting space on all that.” When it finally comes time for her to go back home, she says “This was fun! Can’t wait to do it again.” “Yeah, about that…” and he dumped her in his own driveway.

He said if he had to choose between hygiene and an Elvis collection he’s built for years and her, he’s gonna be happier being single, cleaner and having his collectibles around than he would be with her.

Another instance happened when I had a garage sale and one of the things I was selling was a talking football player action figure from the 90s that someone had bought me under the presumption that because I was boy, I was into sports (I was not). The action figure was brand new in the box because that was how little I cared about playing with it despite my mother’s best attempts. A woman shows up, sees the action figure and loses her shit.

“Oh God, I am so sick of seeing these! My husband has the whole set and all I want to do is throw them in the trash!” A guy at the sale overhears this and says “Well, I’m sure your husband has a list of things that he’d like to get rid of that you’re partial to but he doesn’t say anything because that’s the give and take of being in a relationship” She blows him off and says “I should be the one to decide what goes in the house and what he can buy, THAT is how marriage works for ME.” The guy changes his argument. “Maybe on your husband’s list of shit that needs to go, you should be at the top of the list…” Everyone else at the garage sale (including me) was now watching silently and wondering when the throw down would happen…

“What did you say?”, she asks him a bit taken back. “I said if I was him, I wouldn’t take that shit that somehow being married to you means forfeiture of my belongings and personality and substituting it all for your bullshit. I’d sooner throw you out than my action figures.” After picking her jaw up off my driveway, the woman hurumphs and storms back to her car. I high-five the guy for making an excellent point after she leaves.

I have a lot of collectibles myself and am currently in the creative habit of going through my childhood Power Rangers and Pokémon toys and putting the ones I absolutely want to keep in shadow boxes and hanging them on the wall as conversation pieces and selling the rest.

I have Funko Pops. I have lunchboxes. I have special edition magazines and comic books in floater frames on the wall. I have more books than I have time to count or read. I have tub after tub of Halloween and Christmas decorations because that’s my favorite time of year. I would never throw all of this stuff away because I’ve purged plenty already and kept what I wanted to keep. It’s all a reflection of my personality and my story. If someone came into my life and said our life together would mean giving all of this up and doing what he wanted, I would consider that a toxic situation and I would end it before I got in too deep.

Men, gay or straight, can find themselves in toxic, abusive relationships, this is not a phenomenon only experienced by women. It just seems that way because men, especially straight men, rarely speak up about it and mistakenly settle on what they assume is some unchangable default result of being in a relationship. It’s not.

I would never move in with someone and tell them to throw everything out that has been a part of them or spoken to who they are in order to make room for me. I am all about organizing and making a space feel cozy, functional and fun and would go out of my way to make sure we both had space for our things and our personalities and stories. One does not have to overshadow or overpower the other in order to make a relationship between two people work.

Yeah, that last comment, that's how fucked up our society has gotten, because men have to conceal or hide or at best get ONE room to put their stuff in, and even then it's treated as terrible and regressive and should not be allowed. The 'Man Cave' aka the one space in a person's house where they're allowed to express themselves and their hobbies and it's treated as a terrible thing because he's 'excluding' his wife from it, while the things that are in there are NOT ALLOWED ANYWHERE ELSE.

Sirens learning sign language so they can communicate without enchanting anyone

Disabled fairies who can’t fly pushing for accessibility

Spirits helping save people from fires and other natural disasters because they can access areas too dangerous for the living

Fae snatching children from abusive homes and raising them in safety while the changeling wreaks havoc

Psychic psychologists and medical doctors who are able to figure out exactly how to help even if their patient is non-verbal, young, or afraid of being honest because they’re with an abuser

Griffons policing wildlife preserves and hunting down poachers.

Selkies teaming up with the Coast Guard for search and rescue efforts.

Otomo.

Happy Tuesday Earthbound.