Study for Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus by John William Waterhouse (1900)

“…what is that?”

“Oh ew. Ew!”

“EW! …I’m gonna touch it.”

“EWWWW!”

“No no, just, let me get a stick—“

Absolutely true

you are so right

If you like the word “queer” reblog.

Watching yall say "trans rights" in ya bio but still talk about buying Hogwarts Legacy

Not letting this get buried as well as this

More

chucks got a lot of transphobes riled up today so i should probably add: there are infinite genders including no gender at all and no matter how much devils seethe and cry and gnash their teeth this will not change. thats just scientific fact SORRY DEVILS im a doctor

devils: 'i believe in the free market'

buckaroos: 'okay i personally dont want to spend my own money on a harry potter game'

devils: 'NOOOOOO YOU CANT SAY THAT YOU HAVE TO BUY IT AND TELL ME ITS OKKKKKKKKK TO BUYYYYY TOOOO'

$70 plus the respect of your buds

heres thing about buying video game from loud anti-trans mouthpiece. you CAN do that if you want, technically speaking, but other buds CAN ALSO THEN point out you are not being their ally. the real price of your game is: $70 plus the respect of your buds. thats your call to carry

i wouldnt do it. if you WANT my advice, id say you shouldnt either. we all share this timeline and it is not job of trans people and allies to shield you from the the pain you cause them. nobody else is here to protect you from the consequences of your choices. thats the price.

I’ve seen a few of the other folks who’ve reblogged this with messages for @staff saying ‘weeks’.  Months.  This has been going on for fucking MONTHS.  You know how to track the anon messages that get reported.  You know how to link those messages back to accounts that post from the same computers.  It’s actually fucking trivial to do these days.  There is NO true anonymity on the internet.  And before anyone comes flying at me with ‘using vpn or privacy tabs/mode’ . . . Your pc generates, on average, 4800 to 6000 pieces of metadata each and every time you open a browser to communicate to a web site.  Everything from straight up telling on you with username/ip information to things you don’t think about like leaking how much free space you have on your hard disk, or your screen resolution dimension . . . preferred color depth or WHAT QUADRANT OF THE SCREEN your cursor spends most of it’s time on.    In the past, people have been de-anonymized by as FEW as 5-7 pieces of that metadata.  How certain are you NOW that you’re truly hiding? ESP from the company that you’re sending these fucking threats THROUGH?

To the Anon

I am curious as to what you feel is Anti-Semetic. I will grant that there is Anti-Semitism that takes place because there are Anti-Semetic characters in the story, just as the TERF is very Anti-Semetic in her writing. Also, if you're not going to describe what you consider Dog Whistles, you're not going to get a useful response. Severus Snape is coded as Jewish in the original work based on the tropes used to create him. The Goblins are coded as Jewish using Anti-Semetic stereotypes and the new game coming out is explicitly Anti-Semetic. With that much bigotry in the original, it would be helpful if you would advise what you think Deadcatwithaflamethrower's explicit choices are that are more Anti-Semetic than the original text. My perception, for whatever its worth, is that Deadcatwithaflamethrower is writing about Anti-Semitism without advocating for it, arguing for it, or relishing in it.

This! The last part especially, actually.

It feels like recently there’s been a crowd of people in fandom who haven’t been distinguishing between an author portraying something and an author supporting something.

This is especially where I see a lot of “you shouldn’t ship that”/“that ship is gross” arguments come from—some fans seem to mistakenly believe that ‘shipping’ something = thinking the dynamic is healthy or even admirable. For the record, that’s not what shipping is, at least not how I practice it.

(I’m not saying that these fans are malicious or bad, by the way. I have nothing against y’all. I think there’s just a slight disconnect re: understanding of the term ‘shipping’. Maybe it’s an age demographic thing?)

I digress.

Flamethrower’s portrayal of Severus’ internalised Anti-Semitism in the scene where his Jewishness is introduced is not a reflection of what is Right or Just or even what Flamethrower believes.

The existence of Anti-Semitism in OALC is not Anti-Semitic. Nobody gets on Flamthrower’s case about encouraging murder just by showing it; this shouldn’t be any different. Her treatment of Jewishness and Judaism feel very authentic and respectful to me. They don’t feel forced, nor do they feel fetishistic, or surface-level.

(Actually, it was really comforting to see a Jewish character allowed to just be without that being a huge point of contention. That’s hard to find. A lot of ‘Jewish!Character’ fics make it a central point of the plot, or of the conflict (usually re: December celebrations), and it’s kind of tiring. Jews do other stuff! Like saving the world then failing at interpersonal communication. (Severus, I love you, you’re trying your best, honey.))

Also. It looks like the recent drama has been attempting to hide behind accusations of Anti-Semitism when they really just don’t like Flamethrower as a person. Whatever. You’re allowed to dislike people, especially on the internet—but you can just say that. Or think it. I don’t really care, tbh. I start caring when this gets turned into a debate about Anti-Semitism that isn’t there. If you have that much of an issue then block the relevant parties, don’t read OALC, and go on with your day. There’s no reason to accuse Flamethrower of Anti-Semitism.

Just to clarify: I don’t think Anon means this question in bad faith and I don’t mean to imply that. Actually, I’m very glad they reached out before coming to a conclusion. Primary sources, etc! :P It just really irks me that people are hiding plain ol’ interpersonal dislike behind these kinds of accusations.

Oh, and for the record—I’m very glad that Anti-Semitism is concerning! I’m very glad that this presumably non-Jewish Anon is concerned! It is always heartening to see people caring about us, but I really don’t think OALC is hurting anyone.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that’s just my two cents.

Very VERY well said.

My offering for 2023, almost upon us.

Happy New Year, loves. May hope, peace, love, justice, and freedom rise up from where it’s been trodden upon to stand with all of us again.

Let people grow.

When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.

There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.

But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.

You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.

It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”

Purity culture tells you that once someone says or does something, they can never go back on it. That’s a goddamn lie. While it’s true that some remain unrepentant and never change their ways and continue to harm others, it’s important to allow everyone the chance to learn from their mistakes. Saying something ignorant isn’t murder. Please stop treating it that way. Let people grow.

Still call it out and question it ….

Bruh. No. Listen. Call out what people do now, absolutely. If they haven’t changed, call them out on their record. This post is explicitly not about people who HAVEN’T changed. What this post IS saying is, if someone is making an effort to be a good person, don’t go digging around in their past for evidence that they were once for what they’re now against, or once against what they’re now for, as “proof” of what they “really think,” because people’s opinions and beliefs can change. 

The obsession with finding shit in someone’s past and then claiming that a questionable or even sordid past negates all possibility of a good present needs to become extinct. Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

If someone has changed for the better, don’t harass them about what they were like before they fuckin’ changed. That’s shitty and it needs to stop.

We can’t change the world if we decide people can’t change.

Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

We really need to start asking where this purity bullshit came from. I’m not  Christian and was not raised Christian but there has been a lot evidence that much of gold star activism and purity culture originated in of evangelical youth movements and then infiltrated progressive left-wing and center-left politics when those youth left their churches but failed to leave behind the black-n-white puritanical “you’re going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous path” style of thinking they were taught.

I distinctly remember some conversations I had in the late 00s and very early 2010s with long time social justice activists who were baffled and disturbed by the new crop of youth activists who were practicing something that was decidedly NOT social justice despite stealing that phrase from us.

In the decade and a half that has passed since then, all of this gold-star activism and purity culture has done exactly what I predicted back then: empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.

Folks. This shit needs to stop.

I am VIRULENTLY ANTI HATEFUL BULLSHIT.  If you are unable to look at a situation that you were the bad actor in and learn a lesson and grow from it and still spread the same hateful bullshit, you are trash.  Esp if you are one of those ‘wonderful’ people who were gifted with several actual historical happenings from women’s liberation to the striking down of slavery to the Stonwall Riots and absolutely did not learn a FUCKING thing . . . THOSE people  are just trash and deserve nothing but pain. But people who DO learn? People who grow and change and HELP those they once tried to destroy? Always worth a second/third/19th chance.  Because they are GROWING and LEARNING and trying to LEAVE THE WORLD BETTER for their having been IN it, not better because they LEFT it.

I can’t stress enough how much the John Green debacle was an early example of how cancel culture and purity culture combine to make people feel righteously justified to engage in harassment.

John Green, during his time on tumblr, committed the heinous sins of…being neurodivergent and talking openly about it, earnestly interacting with fans in a very direct and unfiltered way, and writing about teenagers navigating first love and sexuality while he himself was an adult. The worst things he ever did were be a little cringe or misspeak, for which he was always prompt to apologize (often whether he really needed to or not).

Yet despite the former two being things tumblr claimed to love and the last one being true of 99.99% of YA authors, in this case a large segment of tumblr users steeped in the early 2010s resurgence of purity culture decided that these things were suspicious and predatory, and used that as an excuse to justify some truly awful behavior.

Which is really all that cancel culture is: the normalization and even celebration of the process of misapplying morality or ethics to dehumanize someone for the express purpose of justifying whatever pain and suffering you want to inflict upon them. Basically, deciding “this person is bad, so I am exempt from affording them basic respect and human dignity, and am allowed to cross any and all otherwise uncrossable lines in order to punish them without damaging my own moral or ethical standing.”

Contrary to popular tumblr lore, the infamous “cock monologue” was not the sum total of the harassment, or even the worst of it. Callout blogs issued long lists of “receipts” about how terrible John Green was, most if not all of which were either taken out of context or completely refutable. His works were torn to shreds by people who’d never read them, as evidenced by much of the criticism being obviously and blatantly counter to the actual contents of the books.

Not that it mattered. Once the John Green hate party reached a certain level of critical mass, it became less about who he actually was or what he’d done, and more about proving you were a good person by hating him. That’s the natural conclusion of cancel culture, after all: virtue signalling by identifying yourself in opposition to the cancelled parties. They’re bad, and I’m good, so I hate them! Or, more often: They’re bad, and I hate them, so I’m good!

Before it was over with, John Green had been accused, with no evidence, of being everything from a Nazi to a pedophile and subjected to hate mail and death threats. He eventually left the site for the sake of his own mental health, and because he no longer felt comfortable engaging directly with fans in the same way he once had.

Yet even now, with the benefit of hindsight, and even among those who ostensibly reject purity culture and condem bullying and harassment, very few on tumblr take what was done to John Green as seriously as it should be taken or condemn it as thoroughly as it should be condemned. Which I think is something we need to at least consider doing, given the increasing rise of purity and cancel culture online, and given the recent influx of professional creators eager to interact with fans on a more direct level than they have on other social media.

And my concern is not purely, or even primarily, for the Mike Flanagans and Lynda Carters of the world. I’m far more concerned, actually, for the small, independent or self-published creators in this space, and how much even a very small level of visibility gives too many people a feeling of carte blanche to engage in harassment.

I myself have less than 3k followers on here, a handful of popular posts, and zero notoriety or consequence outside of tumblr whatsoever, and I’ve been repeatedly told to kill myself for saying such innocuous things as “I don’t think censorship is the cure for the world’s evils” and “maybe learning the history of communities you want to participate in would be a good idea.”

Thankfully, all it took for me to stop the harassment that came my way was to block those few individuals. But there have been many instances over the years of small creators or just random tumblr users that got a bit popular being stalked, doxxed, swatted, and harassed to the point of leaving the site and dealing with serious mental health issues as a result. It has never been just John Green. John Green isn’t even the worst example. And tumblr has never learned its lesson.

reblabbed without comment

I can't stress enough how much the John Green debacle was an early example of how cancel culture and purity culture combine to make people feel righteously justified to engage in harassment.

John Green, during his time on tumblr, committed the heinous sins of...being neurodivergent and talking openly about it, earnestly interacting with fans in a very direct and unfiltered way, and writing about teenagers navigating first love and sexuality while he himself was an adult. The worst things he ever did were be a little cringe or misspeak, for which he was always prompt to apologize (often whether he really needed to or not).

Yet despite the former two being things tumblr claimed to love and the last one being true of 99.99% of YA authors, in this case a large segment of tumblr users steeped in the early 2010s resurgence of purity culture decided that these things were suspicious and predatory, and used that as an excuse to justify some truly awful behavior.

Which is really all that cancel culture is: the normalization and even celebration of the process of misapplying morality or ethics to dehumanize someone for the express purpose of justifying whatever pain and suffering you want to inflict upon them. Basically, deciding "this person is bad, so I am exempt from affording them basic respect and human dignity, and am allowed to cross any and all otherwise uncrossable lines in order to punish them without damaging my own moral or ethical standing."

Contrary to popular tumblr lore, the infamous "cock monologue" was not the sum total of the harassment, or even the worst of it. Callout blogs issued long lists of "receipts" about how terrible John Green was, most if not all of which were either taken out of context or completely refutable. His works were torn to shreds by people who'd never read them, as evidenced by much of the criticism being obviously and blatantly counter to the actual contents of the books.

Not that it mattered. Once the John Green hate party reached a certain level of critical mass, it became less about who he actually was or what he'd done, and more about proving you were a good person by hating him. That's the natural conclusion of cancel culture, after all: virtue signalling by identifying yourself in opposition to the cancelled parties. They're bad, and I'm good, so I hate them! Or, more often: They're bad, and I hate them, so I'm good!

Before it was over with, John Green had been accused, with no evidence, of being everything from a Nazi to a pedophile and subjected to hate mail and death threats. He eventually left the site for the sake of his own mental health, and because he no longer felt comfortable engaging directly with fans in the same way he once had.

Yet even now, with the benefit of hindsight, and even among those who ostensibly reject purity culture and condem bullying and harassment, very few on tumblr take what was done to John Green as seriously as it should be taken or condemn it as thoroughly as it should be condemned. Which I think is something we need to at least consider doing, given the increasing rise of purity and cancel culture online, and given the recent influx of professional creators eager to interact with fans on a more direct level than they have on other social media.

And my concern is not purely, or even primarily, for the Mike Flanagans and Lynda Carters of the world. I'm far more concerned, actually, for the small, independent or self-published creators in this space, and how much even a very small level of visibility gives too many people a feeling of carte blanche to engage in harassment.

I myself have less than 3k followers on here, a handful of popular posts, and zero notoriety or consequence outside of tumblr whatsoever, and I've been repeatedly told to kill myself for saying such innocuous things as "I don't think censorship is the cure for the world's evils" and "maybe learning the history of communities you want to participate in would be a good idea."

Thankfully, all it took for me to stop the harassment that came my way was to block those few individuals. But there have been many instances over the years of small creators or just random tumblr users that got a bit popular being stalked, doxxed, swatted, and harassed to the point of leaving the site and dealing with serious mental health issues as a result. It has never been just John Green. John Green isn't even the worst example. And tumblr has never learned its lesson.

reblabbed without comment