Is This The New Normal?

THISSSSSSS!!!!!!! curate your own internet experience. block them because they’re allergic to peanut butter, block them because they have what you don’t, block them because they dislike your favorite food, block them because you don’t like their layout, block them because you can.

blocking is NOT a personal attack against someone. it’s you curating your own internet experience and catering for your comfort, and you have every right to do that.

you, yes, you!!! you CANNOT tell other people to censor themselves for your own comfort and personal likings. you CANNOT tell them what they can or can’t post. you CANNOT tell them what they can or can’t write. you CANNOT tell them what they can or can’t draw. BUT you CAN block them for whatever reason.

ABSOLUTELY

I love Bratbean and Chiefeen

Honestly, don’t know how I haven’t drawn them yet

And here’s a Chiefeen

I am once again begging people to realize that AI checker doesn’t work. it’s never worked. it’s notoriously known to have flagged human-made works as AI and AI-generated works as human-made. and by feeding it people’s works, you are feeding more works to AI, because apparently the machine itself is AI.

Taking responsibility for your limits means that you finally and blessedly admit that no one but you can know what they are. Sometimes even you don’t know what they are. It means you don’t expect others to guess correctly, and you stop blaming them for not being able to do that. There are situations in which it may be easy to speak a limit and other situations in which it’s harder. This is natural. The practice gradually enlarges the situations in which you can easily notice and communicate your limits. It teaches you how to do that, and you can then take that skill into the rest of your life.

A thought experiment. Imagine you are going to walk into a room of people, and you are not allowed to say no to anyone there. They can ask you to do things and can do things to you, but you can’t say no. Would you enter the room? Of course not. You can’t afford the risk of having anyone ask you for anything. Suppose you did enter—what are the options now? Constant tension and worry. You could try to suss out who is “safe.” You could hide in the corner and hope no one sees you. You could walk in with a bluster and roar, hoping everyone will be sufficiently intimated to not ask for anything. You could acquiesce to every request, hoping everyone will like you for it. You could look pitiful and hope that someone will rescue you or take you under their wing. You could do what is asked but with such a bad attitude that they regret it and don’t ask for more. You could get buffeted around and feel hopeless. You could even criticize yourself for not being okay with all of it. Any of those sound familiar?

(On the other side, imagine you are in the room and in come the people who aren’t allowed to say no. Now you have to figure out what they are okay with before you ask them. You could ask for nothing at all for fear of making a mistake. You could be hypervigilant for signs of discomfort. You could make a mistake and feel awful about it. Or you could take advantage of the situation and do whatever you want.)

This is why the ability to say no is required for intimacy. Without the ability to say no, you can’t afford to be in the same room with anyone. When you can say no, your yes can be trusted.”]

The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.

The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.

The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.

The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.

The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.

And now, when I find myself making the mistake of going on Instagram, I get to see trans men themselves talking about how historically, trans men didn't do anything for the community, and so we need to step up now. Which, first of all, that isn't true, but second of all, if trans men's contributions are lesser, that makes a lot of sense if we listen to that trans woman talking about the trans men she was in community with back in the day. It's very hard to advance the trans cause if you're not alive.

What is clear is that before her death, there was a fantastic harvest of persimmons on the property and she canned an abundance of persimmon jam. After her death, my great great great grandfather Robert ate the persimmon jam on toast every morning and cried. I remember this because my great grandmother used to tell my grandmother about being a girl and seeing her father sitting at the kitchen table bawling for his wife. Alone in this world, missing the woman he had been married to for 16 years, thinking of her as he ate the last of the things she had made for the family. Most widowers with young children got remarried quickly in those days. He didn’t. He raised his girls alone and died at 60, never having remarried.

My grandmother is named Mary, after her mother’s mother who lies in a cow pasture with a rock to mark her grave. A woman who died entirely too young, who died wanted and loved and needed.

Since the OP has helpfully turned off replies to ensure his presented victimhood remains pristine and cannot be argued against: do you think driving a basically unknown blog to deactivate due to death threats and threats of doxxing as a good thing?

Do you think the blog you're following with thousands of followers could not have reached out individually for clarification if it was an important concern he had, or if it was so unimportant as to not be worth DMing someone over, that it was not a conscious choice to expose the blog that criticised him to his followers to enable that kind of harassment.

The deactivated blog actually reblogged and apologised for the slightly snarky post and expanded on the specific issue (that shadiversity's early videos did not reference any literature and passed off a lot of speculation and downright factually incorrect information as factual @idrawtooslow fyi this was the issue referenced which was only outlined separately).

However rather than reblog THAT post which would demonstrate a constructive engagement with the issue, he simply allowed his followers such as yourself to drive a queer person off Tumblr for the sin of criticising a pobular blogger.

This is the first I’m hearing of this harassment because I don’t monitor my Tumblr NEARLY enough to see everything as it comes through. (I’m currently travelling, and it’s pretty much luck of the draw which notifications come through at the top when I open them). I still haven’t seen the response from the commenter because I wanted to address this before I went looking for it.

But I just want to say that I’m really sorry that this has happened. I did not expect that my followers will go after criticism in this way, and I’m incredibly disappointed to hear that people have been sending DEATH THREATS just because someone was a bit snarky to me.

To be clear, I NEVER either need or want any of my followers to send threats on my behalf. It’s not helpful, and it’s not acceptable.

I received a comment that left me feeling confused, and sought clarification. I did so publicly because the original comment was public and I wanted to see if others had the same or similar concern. (I honestly thought it would be more likely to end up with me getting barraged with criticism) There was no malice in my intent, and if I’d realised people would react the way they did then I absolutely would not have posted this. I will learn from this, but DAMN it shouldn’t have to come at this kind of cost.