Main blog to obxfics and jobros-pleaseinteract

Multiple bombings across the country, 3 churches have been hit as well as 3 top hotels in the country, disrupting Easter mass and Easter celebrations at the hotels.

Over 160 have been confirmed dead, and around 300 injured.

Please pray for Sri Lanka and its people, this is a country which suffered for 30 years with a Civil War and the people cannot go through this again.

Update: Death toll rises to 190, with 2 more attacks in the past hour.

2nd update: Another attack, at the same place as the 8th one. Death count unknown.

Hello esteemed tungles and fellow nerds, the wait is finally over!

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Which was apparently created specifically because the current Tony Stark bingo allows properly tagged Starker. 

And you know–that’s ok. It doesn’t bother me that some antis created an event specifically to avoid a certain kind of content. That is curating the internet experience they want, so good job, kiddos. 

What annoys me? Is that they also want their followers to scold the original bingo for allowing things they disagree with. 

Kiddos. That? Is not curating the internet experience you want. It’s annoying and harassment and just childish. Which–I know, you’re all about protecting the children, but like. 

As a person who entered fandom (an age ago) as one of those mystical ‘children to be protected’ and now, as a mother of one of those ‘to be protected’ fandom children, and as a problematic shipper, I want to just go ahead and say–

Starkers aren’t the problem. Problematic ships aren’t the problem. People who make other people’s internet their moral responsibility is the problem, kiddos. 

I want to say something very rude but I feel like if I start with it you’re not going to listen to anything I have to say so instead let me try and calmly explain why you’re wrong

first, constantly calling us “kiddos” is incredibly rude and condescending. saying “you were doing so good and you had to go and ruin it” is incredibly rude and condescending. I don’t think I should have to explain why, but suffice it to say that talking like this to a bunch of teenagers is absolutely ridiculous. I’m a college student, not a 10-year-old.

okay, to the actual criticism.

second, you call us “childish” for wanting people to “scold” the original bingo. putting aside the fact that I don’t recall any my friends who put together the bingo actually telling anyone to attack the original blog, it’s not childish to confront people who are supporting things you find morally reprehensible! would you also consider it childish to call someone out for being homophobic, or racist, or sexist? I sure hope not.

third, you’re probably thinking “that’s a faulty argument because shipping starker isn’t anywhere near comparable to homophobia or racism or sexism.” and you’re right in that it’s not comparable to literally explicitly advocating or participating in discrimination or violence against LGBT+ people or poc or women. but - and I say this as a gay teen who (confession) used to actually be into giant age gap ships - it’s still really terrible. it’s “just fiction,” yeah, but fiction has a real effect on how people, especially teens whose brains are literally not fully developed, understand and interpret the real world. we’ll come back to three later, I’m not done talking about it, but first-

fourth, and probably the actual really important thing to argue, is that yeah, starker is actually bad.

here’s some (hella watered down) biology. the frontal lobe is the part of the brain controlling judgment and self-control. that part of the brain isn’t fully developed until a person’s mid-20s. the pre-frontal cortex helps read and understand emotions. it is fully developed in teens, but the connections within it are not fully utilized. to pull even further back, the brain is made up of grey matter and white matter. grey matter, which stores information, fully matures by early adolescence. white matter, which forms connections between different parts of the brain, fully matures in a person’s 20s.

our brains are physically different than the brains of adults. they work fundamentally differently. we are literally incapable of understanding and interpreting and even perceiving the world in the same way as you do.

(and no, that doesn’t mean that you’re right and we’re wrong, just that ours is a fundamentally different perspective)

how can you - as a mother of a child who either is going through the unstable hormonal mess of adolescence or who will soon - look at a ship between two people whose brains and bodies work in fundamentally different ways and say that it’s ok? how can you look at a ship between two people living in a society where it is a foundational assumption that one of them should be deferential in all ways to the other and say that it’s ok? how can you look at a ship between two people where one of them is still going through raging hormonal changes and doesn’t, physically cannot have the mental capacity to practice judgment and self-control at the same level as the other and say that it’s ok?

you can come up with whatever rationalizations you want for why starker is in-universe ok (“peter’s brain is more developed bc of the spider bite!” or whatever) but I hope I’ve at least made a compelling argument that societal power structures and simple biology make real-world relationships between minors and adults bad. now we need to go back to my third point.

like I said, fiction affects how we perceive and understand and interpret the real world. I’m sure everyone who ships starker is ~intelligent enough to understand the difference between truth and fiction~ but that doesn’t matter. fiction affects how we perceive and understand and interpret the real world. and teens - especially impressionable gay kids like me - who consume starker content are being influenced by the media they consume to believe that it’s possible for teenagers - for them - to be in healthy relationships with adults. that belief will probably not significantly affect a lot of their lives. I know that.

but now I need to drop this facade of being cool and rational and tell my side of the story.

your idea that “starkers aren’t the problem. problematic ships aren’t the problem. people who make other people’s internet their moral responsibility is the problem” is so ridiculous here. so absolutely ridiculous. I am not some hand-wringing moralist childishly screeching about some bingo allowing things I disagree with because I want to control the “mystical children to be protected.” when I reblog anti-starker content, when I support my friends as they call out and spread awareness about groups that support starker, when I get myself neck-deep into a fucking monstrosity of a rant that’s already at almost 900 words in response to your sub-200-word post, I’m doing it because I want to do everything! I! fucking! can! to stop other impressionable gay teenagers from suffering through the same bullshit that I have.

big fat trigger warning: child sexual abuse

when I was 14, I met a 23-year-old man through the internet. we began a “relationship.” I am not going to go into many details of what transpired, but suffice it to say that when it finally dissolved I was left emotionally broken for a long time and with an incredibly warped view of what was acceptable.

so much so that a year later, I lied about my age so I could join an 18+ discord server despite the potential jeopardization of everyone else on it. and so much so that I still to this day kind of think that, because I was a compulsive liar, I deserved it. being a compulsive liar was a crime for sure, but to receive dick pics and pornography from a 23-year-old? to engage in sexual conversations and text roleplay with a 23-year-old???

that’s fucking disgusting and terrible and horrific and I didn’t fucking deserve any of that no matter how much of a compulsive liar I was! and the worst! fucking! part! is that it’s taken me so goddamn long to even accept that it was abuse! because I had been so effectively groomed into thinking that me, a goddamn fucking 14-year-old, could be in a healthy relationship with an adult!!!!

and you know what fucking lead me down that shitty path in the first place?!?! SHIT LIKE STARKER. SHIT LIKE FUCKING STARKER.

not starker specifically. but content featuring minor/adult couples. that is what made me think it was ok. that is what influenced me to let this man into my life. and once I went down that path, it was constantly reinforced by this sense that oh, I’m so mature and emotionally intelligent for my age. that shit is fucking catnip for a insecure gay kid. I’m incredibly lucky that I got out with just a few months of overpowering misery and a few devastated responsible adults whose trust I’d taken advantage of in my wake.

so when you say I shouldn’t “make other people’s internet my moral responsibility,” it makes me angry beyond words. or actually no, it makes me angry to the tune of a giant fucking truckload of words.

your status as a mom who’s been in fandom for ages does not make your opinion on this more qualified. if anything, it makes it less qualified because you do not and will never know what it is like to be a teenager on this terrifying fucking internet. I’m not an outsider trying to control other people’s internet experience. I’m crawling out of a fucking pit that people like you don’t seem to even fucking realize that you dug, and I’m screaming at you as I’m doing it and you should fucking listen to me instead of continuing to insist you know better and blindly shove other people toward this pit.

you can say that I was uniquely unlucky, or uniquely stupid and naive if you really want to be an asshole. but even if you were right, one person falling prey to this is one too fucking many.

so, to the starkers that I hope are still reading this:

if you’re an adult, please stop. please. no matter how airtight you think your logic, your rationalizations are. I am living proof of the harm that your ship can do, of what it can be complicit in. I hope you reconsider.

and if you’re a teenager…please, get as far away from this pit as you can. I thought I could walk on air too. we’re both wrong.

-mod dani

I am 22, I am a grown ass women. I do not have kids. I am on the Internet to have fun and pass time. I recognize that starker would be a grossly problematic ship in a real world setting. I know its weird and terrible and I never would want it to be anyone’s reality. HOWEVER, it’s fun to ship. I love reading shitty problematic people doing problematic things, its dramatic, its suspenseful, it’s uncharted forbidden territory and I love it. I have no idea how you are— persumably around my age and still seemingly refuse to come to grip with the reality that ALL people have that weird fucked up thing they’re into. Shipping a fictional 17yr old with a older man IS TAME.

Yeah, sure there’s all that stuff about YOUNG DEVELOPING MINDS ARE STUPID and IMPRESSIONABLE, like yeah no shit? I’m not in charge of them. I’m in charge of me and I never proclaim my ship is squeaky clean, It’s not my #relationshipgoals by any means, and certainly I would never, want it to be canon— god forbid that’d be horrifying to see. I simply want to stay in my fucking bubble and keep my dark fantasies in a fictional environment where I am safe and in complete control.

I am not in charge of others. No one else is in charge of your experience online but YOU. It’s not my job to censor my little corner of the internet for anyone. If you’re worried there is someone out there who accidentally happens into my little bubble and thinks its somehow perfectly healthy, like??? I’m sorry?? I can’t do anything about the young, developing dumbasses. They’re not my responsibility. YOU’RE NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY. You were naive— you still are if you think changing the wording changes what you’re doing, YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PROTECT YOU. Like who are you??

And comparing problematic shippers to homophobics, or racists is honestly the saddest reaching shit. Because the difference is I know Starker is wrong. And I’m not trying to convince you or anyone ever that it’s right and fine and don’t worry— because hell no, it’s FUCKED. I knooow that. I do. I swear. But I’m not actually doing anything wrong.

Lol, what else do you want? I’m not stopping, no one’s fucking stopping. No one ever listens to antis?? You’re an adult, you know this. Your goal isn’t to actually make the world a better place, it’s to get the sick false thrill of feeling like you are superior and apart of something— anything even if it’s just dedicating your free time to focusing on something you hate while building friendships with other equally hateful people.