Crystal Gems :)

What’s a motto? Nothing. What’s a motto with you?

You seem to be laboring under the misconception that I am responsible for internet teenagers’ poor choices. I’m not. Neither is any content creator. Do you spend your free time going after the adult film industry and asking whether they’re ready to “take responsibility” for teenagers that deliberately ignore the 18+ notification and click through to their weird diaper fetish porn?

I was a teenager on the internet once (I’m not going to say back in the day because I have followers that were on Usenet and that’s REALLY back in the day). We didn’t used to have any kind of content warnings at all. I say this jokingly a lot but seriously, back in my day, you could trip over xeno tentacle non-con in the middle of a fic that didn’t look like it was going in that direction, and it wasn’t labeled at all. Ever! You know what was labeled and warned for, left right and center? “This story has slash in it! That’s GAY KISSING!!!” 

Seriously though, there used to be a time when the fandom and fic-writing atmosphere was so toxic to same-sex relationships that the content was usually hidden behind a splash screen with an obnoxious warning in cyan comic sans. Sometimes there were “secret instructions” on the disclaimer page - people would hide how to get into their website (“if you read the disclaimer you’ll know to click on the ^_^ face in the bottom left corner of the page to get to the site!” and such nonsense). I grew up in a time on the internet when it was easier to find graphic torture porn and rape-as-woobifying-backstory than it was to find fluffy hand-holding fic with my gay OTP.

And all I can hear when y’all roll up all “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” is all the people who forced slash and femslash fans out of their archives, away from their internet space, and into the loosely-organized circle of Geocities webrings that defined fandom in the early 90s. Eventually we all started to congregate on LJ, where content could be locked behind a friends-only filter and people could gather in closed communities where we could be free from harassment by homophobic morons. When the Great Purge of FF.net happened and NC-17 was officially added to their rules as banned content, guess who was most reported to the moderators and most impacted by the policy change? Slash fans. And when Strikethrough happened, it disproportionately effected slash fans. Again.

You know what happened?

Nothing much. Sometimes I’d read something that made me feel weird and gross. Sometimes I’d close out of the window and clear the cache and stay off the computer and do something else for a day or two.

It says a lot, I think that I don’t actually remember the content of most of the fic in question. I remember the feeling, but from years later, I honestly couldn’t tell you most of the actual content that made me feel squicked and gross.

(I know the very first one I Noped out of when I was 11, because it was just, like. Ridiculously tame. But Hermione started to give Draco Malfoy a backrub, and I decided this was Inappropriate For Me. So I stopped reading it.)

I didn’t die.

It didn’t contribute to any of my myriad mental health issues - those are all either hereditary or a result of the actions of actual, real life people.

I didn’t “copy behavior” - the idea is laughable. I was a nerdy teenager with no IRL friends, you really think I was running out to … what, exactly? Manipulate or torture people with Unforgivable Curses/dark magic/alien brain slugs/insert-setting-appropriate-evil-thing-here? Have an orgy?

I’ve made bad choices at different times in my life, but none of them were a result of fictional characters modelling bad behavior. (Mostly they involved me not knowing how to handle something, or not being very good at boundaries.)

talk then

“Person going to work on a windy day"

“Woman who’s having her bang cut but the hairdresser is nowhere to be found"

"Zookeeper in charge of the pandas"

"Not pregnant lady when someone yield seat to her on subway"

And my favorite

"Person on thermal infrared camera"

Starbucks barista working her ass off on Halloween but gotta keep up that smile

Person who sits on wet paint

Person who's still loading

Boyfriend carrying girlfriend's shopping bags

But institutional racism is imaginary, right?

This Pride, don’t forget about us

ID: “This Pride remember to respect all trans people : Trans women who don’t shave with a drawing of a woman whit a yellow and pink beard, trans men who don’t bind, masculine trans women and feminine trans men with a drawing of a trans woman with short pink hair wearing a yellow baseball T-shirt holding hands with a trans man with a yellow crop top and short curly blue hair, fat trans people with the drawing of a fat trans woman with short white hair, dark skin and a pink cropped top, disabled trans people with a drawing of a wheelchair and a walking cane in the color of the trans flag, neurodivergent trans people with the symbol of the autistic community, trans people who are sex worker with a drawing of blue bra and pink underwear, poor trans people who can’t afford transition, trans people who aren’t out yet with a drawing of a closed door, trans people who don’t plan on transitioning, black trans people with a black fist holding a trans flag, and any trans people who isn’t white with multiple hands of different skin tones, muslim trans people with a drawing of someone wearing a hijab in the color of the trans flag, jewish trans people with a drawing of someone wearing a white shirt and a kippah in the color of the trans flag, non binary people even those who don’t identify as trans with the non binary flag, those whose identity you might not understand with the genderfluid flag, the agender flag, the demi gender flag and the genderqueer flag, trans people who don’t pass and don’t want to with a drawing of a trans woman with a beard and dark skin raising her fist, every pronouns with dialog box in which are different sets of pronouns, trans people of every identity with the gay flag, the lesbian flag, the ace flag, the bi flag, the pan flag and the aro flag, every trans person is beautiful and deserving of so much love so don’t forget the T.” End ID