I think I'm going to step away from Tumblr, but I wanted to rant about a few things first.
TL;DR — I became too peeved with Deltarune / TADC fandoms, I am bothered by sexism / transphobia against men, and all of this made me want to avoid openly coming out as agender online, which makes me think Tumblr is doing more harm than good, and so I want to move on.
In recent months, I have grown more and more tired of this platform. Today, I came across one straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back of a post that made me realize the experience I've been having with Tumblr is barely any different than the experience I had with Twitter, and I do not miss Twitter. I'll go over a few different subjects in this post:
• Head Cannon Toxicity — With Deltarune: Hypocrisy regarding staying true to the confirmed gender of each character in the case of Kris vs. Ralsei. With TADC: Hostility towards transmasc Jax theory, despite details in the show possibly supporting it, and hostility towards those who head cannoned Ribbit as a non-cannon gender, despite a cannon gender not even being implied until some time after the character's reveal.
• Sexism and Transphobia — Sexist and transphobic remarks and discrimination I have seen against cis men and trans men on sites like Tumblr and Reddit, how it reminds me of an old transmasc friend, and me briefly touching on how I changed my own past behaviour and came to accept people, and that I am upset others can't do the same.
• Agender Confliction — How both the first, but mainly the second subject listed above, got in the way of me posting about being agender, as I wasn't sure if such a detail being public would influence people's thoughts on the gender-related subjects I had been wanting to write about.
• Conclusion — Explaining that I will go on to use other sites like Bluesky instead, but will continue using Tumblr for my private venting blog.
• Head Cannon Toxicity
One thing I should maybe start with is a certain type of people within the fandoms of two pieces of media which I am fairly engaged with; Deltarune and The Amazing Digital Circus. I guess the right way to describe some people within these fandoms is that they are overtly serious about things. I don't even think it's wrong to be serious and passionate about stuff, but this feels different to me.
I have no issues with people having head cannons or anything like that. I certainly have head cannons when it comes to media, even when it's confirmed to not be cannon. For instance, Pluribus was outright confirmed to not be a part of the Breaking Bad universe, but I find it funny to imagine that it is. I do have issues, however, with people acting like their head cannons are cannon, when they are not, with some even going so far as to claim that others are somehow worse people for not treating their head cannons as actual cannon.
With Deltarune, it's sort of a meme at this point that people really want everyone else to know that Kris is nonbinary with they/them pronouns, with their completely fair, reasonable and logical reasoning being that they are only referred to with "they" or "them" throughout the actual game. This is perfectly fine, of course. Initially I was one of the people who were of the belief that Kris was a character you could slip into the shoes of, where their gender could be your gender, a.k.a., a character that can be thought of as a self-insert. I still don't think there's anything wrong with that, but the fandom did convince me to look at Kris as their own independent character.
But then people turn around and refer to Ralsei as female, with she/her pronouns. Like, yeah, I get gender swapping characters, and again, I think that's perfectly fine, but I've seen some people go a little too far with referring to Ralsei being female as somehow being cannon. If at some point in Deltarune, Ralsei actually went through a gender transition, well then I guess it would be cannon at that point, and it'd be perfectly fine, but I think going all in on "well he wears a dress so he's a she actually" is quite a shitty thing to do.
I should note, however, that I have not actually seen people misgender Ralsei for quite some time now, so perhaps people have moved on from that, however, it has stuck with me.
Then there's Jax from TADC. Good lord.
I should state first and foremost that I believe transfem Jax is a more plausible theory than transmasc Jax, for one particular reason actually. If each TADC character is based off of Gooseworx, a transwoman, in some way (which I believe I read to be true, though I can't be bothered to find a source), then I believe Jax probably represents Gooseworx pre-transition in one way or another. Granted, this reasoning is based on something outside of the context of the show itself, and disregards Jax as his own independent character. However, I also believe that the theory regarding Jax's flashbacks in episode 7, if they were real, could support transfem Jax as well, if an unsupportive family really was what he was afraid of.
With that being said, it is peculiar to ignore the fact that there are undoubtedly numerous details in the actual show that point towards the possibility of Jax being transmasc. Now, I can't pretend I'm transmasc or transfem, but if a character sleeps in what can be considered a feminine room, is put in an actual feminine dress and openly, visibly, obviously hates it, but still goes on to describe themself as "masculine," then to me that comes across as that character having ties to femininity in one way or another, but personally relating more to masculinity, and so given that they openly reject femininity in favour of masculinity… I'll let you decide what that could mean.
The aforementioned post-that-broke-the-camel's-back was one that called people "misogynistic" if they believed Jax may be transmasc, and included a shitpost doodle made by Gooseworx of Jax talking about progesterone as a sort of "proof." At its core, this is no different from my own head cannon of Jax possibly being transfem for no other reason other than "Gooseworx exists," however, needlessly shitting on others for not agreeing with your own head cannon is something that should be frowned upon a whole lot more, I think.
I suppose I should also mention Ribbit from TADC, which ended up becoming a much bigger deal than I ever would've expected. Literally nothing was known about Ribbit initially, so all Ribbit was to anyone was whatever their own personal head cannon of the character was.
Have you ever heard of people online talk about "comfort characters?" Well, I have that, but for gay relationships when it comes to fictional characters, sometimes. I don't know specifically why, I just do. So, with Jax being male (as far as we know), I head cannoned Ribbit as being male as well, since both Ribbit and Jax had some sort of connection.
Then, Gooseworx (somehow infamously) posted a confirmation that Ribbit's pronouns are she/they. I remember jokingly replying to that post with "damn, Gooseworx just unyaoi'd my yaoi." I for one did not seriously care though, since again, nothing was known about Ribbit prior to that point, and so anything was bound to change.
I did sort of regret making that joke reply though, because it sort of implied that I may have believed pronouns outright confirm any gender or sex, but I did think the reply was funny enough to keep.
Afterwards, however, I noticed shit sort of hit the fan regarding Ribbit, with infighting taking place regarding people who supposedly "assumed" that Ribbit was male. I remember even coming across a Tumblr post from the actual honest-to-god voice actor for Gangle, claiming people were "assuming" Ribbit was male purely because they had a bow tie(?) Because apparently people think only men can wear bow ties? I've honestly never considered bow ties to be strictly masculine accessories, I know I've certainly seen women wear bow ties before. Maybe I don't think about bow ties often enough, maybe bow ties are more of a masculine thing in the United States, idfk.
I guess this is all to say the whole situation regarding Ribbit proved that having fun was not exactly allowed. Like, if people actually were having problems with Ribbit due to the confirmation of their pronouns, then that would be a whole different story, but to have a blank-slate character, with literally nothing but one single drawing of them to go off of, for anyone to create head cannons on, just to go back and shit talk everyone who had a differing head cannon from the confirmed cannon by the creator, which was only posted on a later date, I think is pretty shitty.
I also want to add, as someone who has gone through shit, that I am somewhat disturbed at those who point at Jax giving up and nearly dying, and go "ha ha, deserved, damn it's a shame he didn't die/abstract though." Like, I guess it's funny to shit on the fictional character, but it still bothered me a bit, idk.
TADC is what got me into using Tumblr, so it's sort of disappointing to think that TADC is now a part of the reason as to why I have since got fed up with Tumblr.
• Sexism and Transphobia
Well, I went over gripes I had/have with two fandoms. Now, I'm going to go over the main factor in me abandoning Tumblr: Actual, real sexism and transphobia.
I should mention that this is not at all unique to Tumblr; I have also seen it back on Twitter, and I have seen it on Bluesky and Reddit, but again, I have come across it on Tumblr as well.
For some inexplicable reason, some people believe that every person of a masculine gender/sex simply should not exist. On Tumblr — and also on Bluesky, but less so — I have seen posts outright detailing how men "should all die" or "should all be killed." This is known as sexism, and transphobia in the case of trans men, and if somehow all men were killed, then it would also be known as genocide.
Also; on Reddit, there have apparently been some honest-to-god trans-oriented subreddits that have went out of their way to specifically remove transmasc people, which is known as discrimination. However, despite that, I have not personally seen people actually post negatively about men / trans men on Reddit. I think that is especially fucked up, too.
I have known a trans man IRL, in fact, he was the only trans person I have ever known IRL. I live in an area that is extremely openly against trans people, and so I really worry about him. In 2023, I was way too pushy with trying to make sure he was OK, and so he cut me off. I hope he's doing good, but I don't know how he is right now.
I was depressed for quite a while after he cut me off, knowing I only made things worse instead of helping. Whenever I see blatant transphobia against trans men on Tumblr, Reddit, or anywhere else, I think about him and how that would affect him.
I don't want to go too much into the type of person I was prior to 2021, because even though people can and do change for the better, some people will just use things you no longer believe in against you. It is a shame, because I think going into detail about how I changed in 2021 would be a pretty important and meaningful thing to talk about.
To state briefly; I grew up in a small, far-right town with shitty beliefs, and so I also developed shitty beliefs, until 2021, when I properly learned that everyone truly matters: Men, women, transmen, transwomen, nonbinary people, just as the tip of the iceberg. Really thinking about now, I think it's hard to overstate just how much I changed in 2021, I pretty much did a 180° from the person I used to be.
People aren't bad people because of their fucking gender or sex, and treating them as such is fucking wrong. Today, I quite literally see everyone as the same and equal, when previously I did not, and so it pains me to see people I have came to respect in queer communities sharing similar shitty beliefs I had prior to 2021.
• Agender Confliction
I've wanted to write about all these issues, mainly the actual, real sexism and transphobia issue, for quite some time now. What initially kept me from writing about it was fear of any sort of backlash, though I also felt that the reason that I at all would've faced any backlash for denouncing sexism and transphobia was all the more reason for me to actually write about it.
However, coincidentally around this time, I began thinking back on my life and realized I never exactly cared about how I portrayed myself, at least not too much, and I realized this would've made me agender. I thought about it for quite a while, and came to the conclusion that being agender does in fact accurately describe me.
After officially becoming agender, I began thinking about whether or not I should post about it online. However, the issue of sexism and transphobia which I had wanted to write about on Tumblr crept back into my mind.
Suddenly, I was faced with a conundrum: Should I openly come out as agender online? I want people to take me seriously when I denounce sexism and transphobia, so would they take me more seriously if I were openly agender, or would they take me more seriously if I weren't?
This started back in September, and I had thought on this conundrum for about three straight months. Obviously, I never bothered to actually write my post about my issues with sexism and transphobia until now. Prior to writing this very post, I just gave up on it — I had decided not to write my post, and I didn't even end up openly post about being agender either. I guess I was defeated.
• Conclusion
Ever since I recognized that Tumblr got in the way of me wanting to post about something personally positive regarding myself, all because I wanted to write about how I think bad behaviour is bad, it made me ponder whether or not it was a good idea to remain on Tumblr. Of course, since I ended up writing this whole post, I decided that I would be better off stepping away from Tumblr.
I am instead going to continue using Bluesky, and I've also been wanting to get into using Mastodon more as well. I am, however, going to continue using my private venting blog on Tumblr, since Tumblr is the only platform I currently know of where I can password-protect my venting posts. I will move my venting blog off of Tumblr and onto my website once I am able to set up some password-protected thing on it, though.
