proper post on the Thing™. tws for grooming mention and nsfw mentions im sure everyone gets the drill. im kinda obligated here to make a full reply since i was involved with the issue but Hopefully there wont be another post on this matter. if anyone has issues about what i say/think i didnt address something, talk to me in private yea im more than willing to listen and exchange views. i consulted with several people to make this post in the first place
i havent been keeping up with every response under the sun but i did see opal and blue-jester and some other people in positions of responsibility apologize, so im not gonna rag on them or go on and on about "they should know better!!" because they already know that now. instead ill talk about why i did what i did and why i thought what i did
yep i called opal a groomer at one point. oops thats on me and i shouldnt have thrown around a serious term and accusation like that without getting a better grasp on the situation. lets get that out of the way
to start, how the situation played out was i got an anon saying that i was mentioned in a callout post mtthrw made.
i dont know who sent this ask and it doesnt particularly matter. i just went to go check out the post, which was public and tagged with the main tags. this was not something given to me in private which i decided to spread publicly. first of all it was still in its 242 page glory and had minors discord ids and a lot of peoples discord developer ids (the string of numbers connected to your account that you cant change) on it. i wanted to boost the post eventually, but i was aware that i shouldnt boost something with that kind of information on it, so i dm'd the person who created the doc and gave them my suggestions first (i was the reason why the doc was shortened down to 54 pages later, for example).
they said theyd keep the former doc on the post as well, but i thought they wouldve taken out the developer ids and discord ids of minors in that one too. to be honest i dont know the extent they censored on either document, i was busy talking to other people (like quakey and another adult involved in the callout doc) at this time and then the docs got taken down before i could see them again. also note that i definitely shouldve asked them to censor the names of minors In General and not just the ids, so again, sorry, thats on me. anyways continuing with the actual events that happened, i made a vaguepost warning people to block the "negative" tag if they didnt want to see drama. (unrelated but yeah, also my bad for calling it tea/drama instead of taking it more seriously. i apologized for it after getting an anon about it later.) when i made the vaguepost i got a ton of people asking what was up, so i dm'd them.
i dm'd five people in total for this, all of which except for one or two i considered friends. that said, i have no clue how many people got access to this doc directly because of the people i shared it with. i made a lot of careless and irresponsible mistakes in my handling this, and im sorry for that. but for reasons ill cover in more detail as this post goes on, i dont think the person who made the doc had malicious intent or meant to cause harm to the minors involved.
yall see all the apologizing i just did right, now its time for me to state my case on why i seriously thought opal was a groomer at the time i called her one. btw im not gonna work to cover mtthrws ass on this, thats something they can and should make a comment on on their own.
for some reason some people think that i called opal a groomer because i personally dont like them or have personal beef with them which. Dude?? no?? i dont go around calling people groomers because of petty bullshit. as i said before, i dont know how many people saw this doc itself. i dont know how many people are commenting on this based on context other people are posting only. the doc was not up for that long, so i want to make it clear the ways opal was shown acting in the screenshots provided. this is not to send harassment or to rag on her, shes since stated she will change how she deals with these matters in the future and i am aware of that.
excuse me for not having the screenshots to back my words up (or if i do the screenshots are mad compressed), or not having complete recollection of the exact parties involved. as said ofc the doc was taken down, im reciting this to the best of my recollection, but i think people who saw the doc themselves will be able to back me up on a good portion of this at least. during the magowhore saga, there were a lot of people who came up to opal with their concerns regarding her interaction with minors and the suggestive content she was posting, as shown by her posting the anon asks she got in the planet-popstar discord. both these screenshots and her (as well as some other adults in the server) reactions to them were recorded in the doc.
types of reactions she had were; saying they're just jokes; (joking about it in itself); it was magolors fault for being horny, not her*; thats just how magolors character is; there's a difference between a character and the person writing it so she doesn't need to take responsibility (second screenshot below); (when initially getting vagueposted about her irresponsibility regarding the magowhore saga) lamenting about how people who she liked or looked up to had liked the vaguepost/agreed that she was being irresponsible (first screenshot below); directing blame onto kirbypurrs; assuming people sending her asks with concerns were part of kirbypurrs' clique** and thus disregarded them; called asks with concerns hatemail; deflecting responsibility onto minors if they saw or were interacting with her content; said that people who had concerns about her interactions with minors should just block if they dont like it; being extremely aggressive about people coming up to her with concerns in general; saying that people getting on her ass for the whole magowhore saga was breaking her stride/lamenting about how all this had to happen right as she thought she was finally getting somewhere
and, while not opal saying these next things specifically, i thought these were notable enough to mention about that servers culture: there were people around her advising her to not say anything publicly and to just lie low and wait until this whole thing blew over because people would accuse her of deflecting responsibility if she just said it was magolors fault again, and people called anyone who came up to her with concerns "purity culture nuts" and that they needed to stop infantizing minors
and of course, we cant forget about the stuff in the document not concerning the magowhore saga, like talking about kinks in front of minors or knowing minors were reading/seeing suggestive stuff and letting it happen, as well occasionally talking to minors about suggestive things directly. and her knowing that there were minors in the server, some people who she was speaking to were minors, and people in the community were uncomfortable with her behavior around minors
*yeah i know magolor is her headspace buddy or something of the sort. still not remotely okay to effectively put your legs up about the whole affair because its not Really you doing it
**i got shittalked in this server too btw (by blue-jester and one other person) because ppl assumed i was part of purrs' clique. which, rude i havent spoken to or interacted with them in like 6 months. no clue why people are so rabid about purrs all the time.
with all that said, my point here is that i do not believe it was out of line in the slightest to believe that opal would not have listened to or taken peoples concerns seriously if asked directly, considering her stubbornness and aggressiveness about the situation for so long. i considered this behavior and her unwillingness to change or do whats appropriate as guilt and maliciousness by aggressive inaction, and her aggressiveness on the topic in general led me to believe she was going to continue this behavior for as long as she could get away with it. i understand why mtthrw thought this warranted a callout and needed more eyes on it for things to change. thats not to say i dont think they shouldnt have at least tried to settle this with the involved people in private beforehand, but i think people have downplayed what opal did (or at the very least, i havent seen anyone comment on the sheer extent of her stubbornness regarding this like above) in favor of getting up in arms against mtthrw for calling opal a groomer when they arent. which again, yeah yeah i know its totally fair to get upset at them for that + the leaking minors names thing, but the thing thats baffling me here is that i keep hearing people say mtthrw wanted minors to be hurt by making that doc. i think this was a callout post made with good intentions--mtthrws openness with hearing out and taking suggestions and concerns with the doc when i initially came up to them about it said a lot--but handled rather badly and needing a lot more peer review before being posted publicly.
thats really my view on this.
also for the record, since some people think this conflict is a "we need to protect the pure teenages who cant handle hearing the word 'penis' uwu" issue, its not. im not an idiot, i know people get into all that stuff before theyre properly of age all the time. its practically a teenager rite of passage, frankly id be more surprised if they didnt get into that somehow. my issue has always, always been concerns with minors and adults engaging in suggestive talk in the same space. i literally could not give less of a shit if it were two 15 or 16 year olds talking about sex together in a server of only minors. opal is a college graduate, 21+. the minors interacting with her were 15-17. the adults in that server didnt groom them, but acceptance of that behavior leaves those minors wide-open to being okay with similar scenarios with people who don't have good intentions in the future.
i myself used to consume nsfw content as young as 15. coincidently, i was also a hardcore proshipper and impressionable kid at this time, who thought they knew what they were doing and always had all the answers. i wasnt groomed or anything, but those experiences affected me. i interacted with adults in suggestive and inappropriate ways looking back at it, just like this situation. my former experiences (and the fact that some stuff the adults in that server said, such deflecting responsibility onto minors even if theyre in the same convo as adults, and calling anyone who disagreed with them purity culture nuts, closely reflects some proshipper arguments) led me to jump the gun on believing there was malicious intent from the adults in that server. so again, im sorry and take full responsibility for being so rash in my actions. i sincerely hope all involved parties learn from this and be better in the future, including myself. i've never wanted minors to be hurt from this. to people in my own discord server, i hope that my own rules regarding suggestive talk/content, even despite my server already being 17+ on its own, show that this is a topic ive always cared about and taken seriously. i do not want people to make the same mistakes i did
as ive said before, theres a line in which minors take responsibility for consuming this content. if a kid purposely lies about their age to get access to 18+ material, that's on them. if a kid is openly engaging in suggestive and innappropiate talks with adults, even as a joke, thats on the adults.
by the way, on the point of accidently hurting minors, would anyone mind filling me in on why i keep hearing people say minors will get harassed from this? i talked to like 5 people about it and literally no one had a clue. as far as i know, the two sides on this issue are "the minors were victims and the adults were at fault" and "the minors did nothing wrong because they chose to interact with the material", neither of which warrant any grievances against the minors involved. like /gen /srs if anyone knows fill me in because i am lost on why in the world people would attack the affected party
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i registered to vote for the first time ( i feel old) now that im an adult but my state has closed primary elections which i was wondering if you have an opinion about. my initial thought was that its bad because i had to register democrat (rather than my states green party which represents my beliefs more) just so i could vote between democrat candidates, which feels like being pressured into supporting the weird pseudo two party system we have. but then i looked it up and apparently a reason for this is so that people from opposing parties wont purposefully mess up the votes just so that their preferred candidates have an easier time winning, and i think that makes sense too. but is that actually the reason theyve closed it or is it just to force us dem/republican?? cause it feels strange
Okay, look. I respect the fact that you're a young person, and I appreciate that you have not only registered to vote, but plan to vote in the primaries, so I don't want to lecture you too much. That said: I am taking you out for coffee, I am sitting you down, I am looking into your eyes, and I am urgently telling you the following:
The Green Party is a scam. It is a scam. It has existed for decades in American politics as an empty shell corporation weaponizing the good intentions of young people like yourself, because all it theoretically stands for "it's good to save the planet maybe." Which is not something that any non-insane person seriously disagrees with, but there is no world in which that cause is actually furthered by registering/voting Green (you mentioned that you did vote for Democrats, which -- good, but listen to me here, youngun, okay?) It ran Jill Stein in 2016 to siphon more votes from HRC, and this election it plans to run Cornel West, a pro-Russian tankie who positively equated Bernie and Trump, as another spoiler candidate. It does not stand for "protecting the planet" or America in any real way. It has never elected a single senator or congressman, let alone a president. It stands for empty performance/grievance political theater by those people who feel too morally superior to vote for/affiliate with Democrats, often because the internet has told them that it's not Cool or Hip or Progressive enough.
If your main priority is climate/the environment, you're doing the right thing by registering as a Democrat and voting for Democrats. (Also: the adjectival form is Democratic. It is the Democratic party and Democratic candidates, otherwise you sound like the Fox News host who wrote a book literally entitled "The Democrat Party Hates America.") They are the only major party who has in fact passed major climate legislation and have made environmental justice a central tenet of their platform. As opposed to the Republicans, whose Project 2025, along with the rest of its nightmare fascist prescriptions, openly pledges to completely wreck existing climate protections and forbid any new ones, just because we weren't all dying fast enough under their death-cult rule already. That's the main logical fallacy I don't get among both the Online Leftists and the American electorate in general: "the Democrats aren't doing quite enough as I'd like, so I'll enable the active wrecking ball insane lunatics to get in power and ruin even the progress we HAVE managed to make!" Like. How does that even make sense?
On a federal level, the Greens have contributed nothing whatsoever of tangible value to American or international climate policy/legislation, environmental justice, or anything else, because as noted, they don't have any elected candidates and mostly focus on drawing voters away from Democrats. There might be plenty of good candidates on the local or city level, which -- great! Vote away for Greens if they're available, or the only other option is a Republican! But on the federal/primary level, please understand: once again, they are a scam. There is no point in affiliating yourself with them. You're welcome to register Green and vote Democratic, if that makes you feel better or if you prefer having another label next to your name, but once again, I'm telling you in my position as a salty Tumblr elder that they have done nothing but harm to the causes they claim to care about, because "environment" is such a nebulous priority and has demonstrably been hijacked to stop the American government entity, i.e. the Democrats, that is actually working to improve on it.
As for your question: nobody is "forcing" or "pressuring" you to vote in primaries. By your own admission, you made a conscious choice to register as a Democrat in order to vote for Democratic candidates. If you were just a regular registered voter of whatever party affiliation, you would vote in the general election for whatever candidate the primary process produced. But if you are sufficiently vested and committed to that process that you would like to have a say in who is running under that party label, it is not unreasonable that you would register as a member of that party. Nobody has twisted your arm behind your back and made you do so; you are taking a considerable level of initiative on your own. Likewise, open primaries can be both a good and bad thing. This falls under the "the political system we have is flawed, but we can't magically pretend it doesn't exist and act according to our own fantasyland versions of reality" thing that I keep saying over and over. So yes, if you want a role in shaping the Democratic candidates who emerge from a Democratic primary process, you will usually register as a Democrat, and nobody has forced you to do that. It's that simple.
Likewise as a general programming note: I'm trying to cut back on politics a bit right now, because I don't have the spoons/bandwidth/mental health to deal with it. I apologize. So if you've sent me a politics-related ask recently and haven't received a response, I'm not deliberately or maliciously ignoring you; I just am not able to handle it as much as usual and will have to put it on pause. However, I feel as if this is important enough to be worth saying, so, yeah.
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