BOLDNESS IS ALL [faceplants]

I mean, I already knew about it, but I just learned about it

Did you know that the target audience for Farming Simulator is actual real-world farmers? Because I didn’t. I just assumed that farmers probably don’t want to go home from a day of farming to do some (presumably highly inaccurate) virtual farming?

Like, imagine if the target audience for Power Washing Simulator was actual professional power washers.

Farming Sim gets sponsored by companies and shit to put ads in their games. But since the game is for farmers, all of the ads target farmers. Advertising products that, realistically, only farmers would be interested in. Aka John Deere tractors and shit.

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

you can't just put the work of someone who's currently trying to eradicate trans people on display without being questioned about it, especially if you claim to care about us.

Let's think this through. If you tell your fandom to police what other fans make and inform you if someone is breaking your boundaries... and the main topics you ban are gore/sex/'mature' content... and a fairly large subset of your fans are teenagers/children....

what do you think is going to happen?

The answer is an army of children harrassing people on your behalf, while constantly exposing themselves to smut & gore. They will then either write callout posts to try to punish the creators (often reading/examining the content in-depth to do so) or sending the porn/gore/mature content directly to you (or older fans with more social clout who loudly proclaim their dedication to this fight¹) to deal with, in the name of protecting their fave.

To be clear, I have seen this happen before in other fandom contexts, it is not a theoretical outcome. And it is FAR far more dangerous than any story someone could write and post on AO3, or any art posted to Twitter.

This is an environment that will get kids/teenagers hurt, regardless of intention. It's the underpinning of why I'm so vehement about freedom of speech and creativity within fandom, because no matter what intentions are, the reality is that 'cc boundaries' create an environment that is extremely hospitable to abusers.

when I was younger, I got food poisoning. I was supposed to recover from it, but I wound up with a bunch of nasty medical conditions instead. I never imagined I would become disabled from food.

so I am really glad I have been able to help spread the word every now and then about food safety and recalls, since it hopefully means a few less people going through what I have.

while I have your attention, I do not post every recall, even just for the US, so here are a few of the links I use!

recalls.gov/recent.html <- aggregate of official government recall links for the US! food, drugs, products, child safety seats, motor vehicles, and tires! (half the feeds are broken half the time, but hey, it works™! check the FDA enforcement reports for a more complete list of recalls, especially drug recalls!)

recalls for canada <- recalls for canada!

RASFF <- food recalls and safety alerts for the EU!

food safety news <- news about food safety in the US, canada, and around the world!

I was poisoned <- see where people have gotten food poisoning near you, and report your own! (worldwide!)

It. It literally did. That was literally precisely the point.

grace instinctively grabbing rocky when he sees what happened and burning the palms of his hands on his carapace

grace calling rocky a “crazy bastard” for saving him

grace also burning himself all over his arms while trying to get rocky onto his back to carry him

grace carrying rocky’s body UP A LADDER

grace wondering incredulously why rocky would risk his life to save him, about 2.5 seconds before grace risks his own life to put rocky back in his atmosphere

grace taking off his IV and oxygen mask as soon as he regains consciousness to be able to sit as close to rocky as possible

grace pressing his hand to the wall that rocky’s body is leaning against and then pulling it away because it “feels too melodramatic”

grace checking on rocky about 100 times

“I want to sleep, but Rocky is more important”

grace DIYing a leafblower to try to help rocky heal