#internet discourse

I'm skeptical by default, and I went into sweetdream.ai expecting to be underwhelmed. The feature that turned that around was memory paired with emotional read. Plenty of apps can string together a coherent reply. Far fewer can do it while remembering that you mentioned a deadline two days ago and asking how it went. That small act of recall is what makes an AI companion feel present rather than performative.

Once that clicked, the rest of the platform made more sense as a package. The deep character creation gives the conversation a stable personality to draw from. The human-sounding voice messages and real-time calls extend the same realism into audio. And because everything stays private and discreet, there's no friction in actually being open.

Not enough people seem to understand that a major part of debate is learning and understanding your opponent's side. You don't have to agree with it, but you need to know their points and have actual counterpoints. It's not just a back-and-forth; it's a learning experience on all sides.

To the fans of The Property Of Hate, I would like to sincerely apologize for how some members of the SMG4 community have been treating ModMad, their webcomic, and character (RGB). As a SMG4 Fan myself I am severely disappointed with how some members of this fandon have handled the current situation and I truly hope that things get sorted out very soon. Hopefully, with enough awareness brought to the situation, Luke (The Creator of SMG4), Glitch Studios, &/or Zaminations will come to address the current accusations and unjustified harrasment. I'm incredibly sorry for what you all are going through.

As to my fellow SMG4 Fans, please take some time to look at the full picture before commenting on the situation. For I have come to realize that Mr. Puzzles and RGB are not just similar in design but in writing as well. This is not me saying that Mr. Puzzles is a plagiarized character because I obviously can't confirm that. What I am saying is that we need to acknowledge to the similarities between the two characters and keep pushing for the creators and team behind Mr. Puzzles come out with the truth and say something about the current situation. For their silence has only lead to this harrasment getting worse. Now, whatever the truth ends up being, we will have to accept. Whether we like ot or not. So, prepare yourselves.

That being said, I do not think Calling All Villains is going to get canceled or that Mr. Puzzles will get a complete redesign if the plagiarism turns out to be true. As it seems that the Zaminations team already has everything set in motion. As for what could happen if the plagiarism ends up true, I don't know. For I am not a lawyer and I don't know how the law works. So, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I do.

If you have read this far down the post, I want this to be your takeaway from it all :

When in all reality, yes an obese animal could be that way from health neglect or abusive carelessness, but 9/10 times that isn't the problem and I'm pretty sure they know that

These commentors do not know these people, their pets, or any of the reasons why their pet is chubby. The captions or description could literally be "this is Molly, she's a rescue and we're helping her lose some weight" and 1/3 of the comments will be "This is NOT cute. This animal abused. Your baby girl is suffering and she will die early and miserable."

This is the same mentality that drives people to attack appropriately tagged fics on AO3 for having x y or z content because “How dare you post this when I have trauma about this???” Obviously if someone is going to write a super heavy and highly sensitive fic and NOT tag it properly, they ought to be called out on it. But this isn’t about that, it’s about the people who don’t curate their own content, it’s about the people who enter public spaces and demand that the general public cater to THEM specifically.

Additionally: Listing out your triggers for everyone to see is just ASKING for trolls to come into your inbox and flood you with triggering content. (Unfortunately, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, the internet is full of selfish jerks who don’t give a crap about anybody’s trauma.) Not only this, but the algorithm does not read your bio. The algorithm does not care about your triggers unless YOU make sure to block specific tags and content.

YOU are responsible for curating your own content, and nobody else.

Obviously this is not to say people shouldn’t try to tag their posts for common triggers, because that’s the common courtesy thing to do. But if Becky has a phobia of bees, it is on her to block that tag and curate her feed around it, and she does not get the exclusive right to suddenly demand that nobody talk about bees within a ten mile radius of her. If Alec has a phobia of dogs, then it is well within his right to avoid contact with them, but he doesn’t get to go to a public park and yell at anybody who brings their dog there. It is his responsibility to know his own limits and seek out parks that are dog-free. (If someone brings a dog to a dog-free area, that’s a whole different issue that I won’t be getting into rn but yes, the person who does that is in the wrong there.)

The internet is widely a public space. If you want to create a safe space completely and utterly free of your specific triggers, you have to put the work in to make that space for yourself. You don’t get to ask other internet strangers to do it for you.

I’m saying this out of genuine concern (and admittedly, frustration) because there are so many young teens in fandom nowadays who don’t understand this, and they end up putting themselves in extremely vulnerable and even downright dangerous situations because they don’t understand that putting your well-being in the hands of a stranger is a terrible idea.

I think fandom discourse around shipping has completely lost it's point.

I had seen enough of the Giomis discourse. Watching people scream “pedophilia” over a 15 and 18 ship, and acting like enjoying a fictional dynamic is the same as endorsing real-life harm is just straight up embarrassing.

"b-but the children are affected thinking it's acceptabl-"

No, Fandom is NOT a daycare.

We are NOT responsible for minors stumbling across shipping content, a shipper is not obligated to stop shipping what they like just because people go "nuh uh think about the minors".

Like, isn't that the parent's duty? To see what online activity their child has been up to?

Whatever was been written OR drawn, its up to the viewer to interpret that knowledge as they want it.

I mean what can someone do if a person is inspired to kill people by reading or watching a murder documentary. You can't just say "don't upload that!!! It's not child appropriate!!!" like hello???

Seeing antis explode made me think I was a pro shipper for a while because my stance was always “let people ship what they want.”

But then I saw posts unironically preaching “proship self love” while insisting everything is okay, including genuinely pedophilic content, and that’s where I was like "fuck no."

like...

I can enjoy problematic, unhealthy, or fucked up dynamics in fiction.

That’s often the entire appeal.

Tension, power imbalance....this is story telling. Not a relationship guide.

That does not mean I think those dynamics are normal, healthy, or acceptable in real life. I can explicitly say “this would be bad IRL” and still engage with it as fiction.

Enjoyment is not endorsement.

But at the same time,

I am not going to pretend that everything becomes fine just because it’s fictional.

I’ve come across genuinely pedophilic fandom content. Not because I was seeking it out, but because my reaction was “what the fuck is this” and I read it out of curiosity like how bad can this shit get.

Reading something does not equal approval. My conclusion was and still is very clear:- this is not okay, especially when it’s indulgent, romanticized, or graphic.

before anyone starts yapping about the dark themes,

there is a massive difference in portraying horror as horror and indulging in it

people tend to blur the lines

This is why I make an exception for something like Kikuo’s work. His art portrays absolute horror without sexualization.

It is meant to disturb, repel, and confront. There’s no invitation to enjoy it. No romantic framing. No indulgence.

It strips away fantasy and forces you to sit with pain. That is fundamentally different from fandom content that lingers on abuse in a way meant to be consumed.

One condemns harm. The other indulges in it. Pretending those are the same because “it’s all fiction” is straight up lazy as fuck.

Pointing this out does not make me an anti nor a proshipper, it means I have basic thinking comprehension.

I don’t support harassment. I don’t support dogpiles. I don’t think going after random shippers fixes anything.

Discomfort does not give me moral authority over strangers. If you don’t like something, block it, mute it, curate your space.

But I also refuse to clap and say crap like “everything is valid actually” when something clearly crosses into sexualized harm, especially involving children.

“I won’t stop you” is not the same as “I endorse you”.

This same lack of understanding is why I’m exhausted by how people reacted to the Character AI incident.

A depressed, mentally ill teenager committed sucide, and it was found that he had personal attraction and attachment to one of the character ai bots.

It was a tragedy, it's very upsetting news to consume.

His parents blamed C.ai for it.

Blaming an app, fandom, or fictional character as the cause is grief looking for a scapegoat. Obsession with fiction is a symptom, not a root cause.

Fandom and platforms are not parents, not therapists, and not responsible for monitoring minors’ mental health.

Slapping safety features on everything after the fact doesn’t address depression, isolation, or missed warning signs. It just avoids talking about the real problem.

So no,

fandom is not a caretaker. Shippers are not raising your kids. Creators are not responsible for every possible interpretation of their work.

I'm tired of seeing "justify everything I like as totally fine actually” or "condemn everyone who supports this ship as immoral"

I refuse both.

Nothing in this world is purely black and white. Stop labeling everything and start thinking, people.

Proshippers and Antis are both fucking clowns wearing a different disguise with 3 brain cells functioning at max and have the same lack of media literacy. Both are just people thinking they are morally superior than the other. It's like watching dogs of different breeds bark at eachother.

For reference, I'm Jewish and a victim of grooming, but I am neither black nor a tadc fan. I understand if my opinion is not valid because of that.

I understand I'm doing exactly what they complained about in the beginning of the video, I understand why it was there, but it really feels like a "well it's called a hot take for a reason" type of claim to hide and try not to be able to take criticism.

I don't like Gooseworx. Their posts about racists not being allowed in the fandom feel like what happened when people kept asking about Jax's sexuality and they responded with every label under the sun. It's almost forced, and trying to stray away from the topic of the VAs being racist and another being a creep. Saying that you have sympathy for someone who won't talk about how their VAs are racist kind of feels racist.