#paranoia warning

userboxes for @10leondraws13's awesome cs oc !

CW for body horror, disturbing imagery and paranoia triggers below!

I know a lot of people are probably excited about this MAP

It's one that came out recently and got a lot of views fairly quickly. However, as you can see it features body horror and disturbing imagery in its thumbnail.

This is dangerous and not okay for multiple reasons. For one. Warrior Cats is a series for children, children are not good at handling disturbing imagery nor body horror. It could give them nightmares, stress, or even trauma in the worst cases. See stuff like Smile HD and other shock horror using children's media that is luckily now commonly frowned upon.

That's not to say all horror using children's media is unethical just that it 1. Should come with a prominent warning that it is not for kids and 2. Shouldn't feature shocking content in the thumbnail as anyone who could be triggered or disturbed by that content can't prevent YouTube from showing it to them. This video breaks both rules.

This is the only warning the MAP has. It mentions nothing specific that could actually trigger someone and doesn't even bother to label itself as not something kids should consume. This warning has all the usefulness of opening a game that tells you "This Game Contains Scenes". I'm sure many of you are thinking it could just be a simple and easy-to-fix mistake...

However, the host is not interested in fixing any of this despite people politely pointing out these exact problems. Which I will show soon.

Another important thing is that generally making horror content should always be done with caution. You shouldn't include anything too graphic or disturbing in your thumbnail and oftentimes it's preferred you keep it very tame. Doing otherwise could cause people with particular triggers to have a horrible reaction to them.

Sadly disabled people are already really ignored and stepped over in a lot of horror communities, analogue horror is sadly a very prominent one. People with physical disabilities are often tagged as "Body Horror" with no consideration to how hurtful that label could be to them and sometimes even used as disturbing images to jumpscare you in stuff like games inspired by Mandela Catalogue.

the mentally ill are only treated worse both by fans of horror and by horror content itself. This treatment actively contributes to their discrimination in real life, which is why it's so important to listen to them on topics like this. Sadly it doesn't seem like this host cares for them at all.

This extremely defensive and immature post was made in response to these incredibly polite and kind comments.

These people were:

Super polite

Offered solutions to this problem.

Were just trying to prevent harm coming from people who might find the content in this MAP disturbing.

The replies they received were none of the above. Funky and Erlkremling [A prominent horror WC artist] both dismissed these concerns with Erlkremling being particularly rude to them.

This is dangerous but most of all shows an extreme lack of care or regard to those who suffer from mental disorders.

I myself tried to point this out, only to get even crueler comments from the host and Erlkremling.

This is to put bluntly, fucking cruel to those who suffer from these problems. Why is it that when Cheetah Z has flashing lights that could harm people it's a problem but saying 'don't put disturbing imagery in your THUMBNAILS which nobody can prevent from being shoved into their dash' it's too far to compare them?? This is so blatantly treating mentally ill folks like their issues, their struggles, THEIR SAFETY FOR FUCKS SAKE, is less important than their 'actually disabled' counterparts.

They are literally admitting this is a problem, that other popular horror medias in this fandom suffer this problem. But instead of seeing that and saying "oh my god, I'm contributing to a running problem of ableism in this fandom I should stop." They're saying "Well if those other people ALSO think a png is more important than disabled people's safety surely I'm in the right!"

The absolutely apathy towards the suffering of disabled people has genuinely brought me to tears just thinking of the way they replied to me. THIS IS OVER A PNG, A THUMBNAIL THEY COULD TAKE JUST A FEW HOURS TO REDRAW, that fucking image to them is more important than the safety of disabled folks. Happy fucking disability pride month to you too btw.

To put it bluntly, if you see this situation for the upsetting awful mess it is I would highly suggest not supporting this MAP and letting the participants know what kind of behavior they are associating themselves with.

Here's a link with all the map parts, tell the participants what kind of behavior they are encouraging by taking part in this project.

Here's the og map call, tell the host how unacceptable and cruel this treatment of the mentally ill is.

Sadly unless there is a big backlash, it's very unlikely any of these creators will care about those they have affected. I honestly can't even describe how horrible all the things they have implied in these comments is.

To try and argue some people are just 'too mentally ill' to belong in internet spaces is HORRIBLE, they want people they deem 'too disabled' to simply NOT EXIST in online spaces. This is literally them fully admitting some disabled people simply don't belong in public spaces, don't deserve to be heard in online discussions and are simply not as important as other disabled folks when it comes to making things accessible for them.

I've been genuinely losing sleep over this at times, neurotypical people just have no idea how stressful, how upsetting and how hurtful it can be to know you're considered 'lesser' than other 'actually disabled' folks. To be trampled and spoken over, spoken to like you're NOTHING on these issues. So please from the pleas of a disabled artist in this space.

Please, Please reblog and spread this, on this month above all else we should be focused on stopping this kind of behavior.

Just because it's a consistent issue in this fandom doesn't make it okay to spread it even more. In fact I am inviting anyone reading this, if you see gore, body horror and general disturbing imagery in a thumbnail please inform the uploader of the real damage it can do to the mentally ill. Sadly, I put off posting this for a long time, because I didn't think anyone would listen or care unless I did it this month.

do you ever see it? right there in the corner of your eye? it's always there. watching. waiting. the dark shadow in the corner of the room, after all, is tired of not being noticed.

maybe it just wants a friend, honestly. it must get lonely being a shadow.