While this blog will still remain active here on tumblr mirroring posts from my beta reader blog and re-sharing Exalted art and inspiration, I wanted to remind you all where you can follow this project outside of tumblr:
Tomorrow we’ll find out what will actually happen. If they just mute all the porn images and videos and let the blogs continue existing, I’ll keep this blog for a while, just for informational purposes. I won’t post any smut, even just written stuff on here - it’s clearly not wanted here, so I’ll save it for the places where it’s welcome. I am not going to delete my blog myself, at least not yet.
If they just wholesale delete all the smut blogs, it’s been nice knowing ya. Find me on Twitter @girldenied, or sign up for my mailing list here: https://goo.gl/forms/KEhaQH8m1yntecGn2
Between tumblr, him ghosting and Brexit, my head hurts.
There’s a lot to say (not about Brexit – fuck Brexit). My words have been coming out in incoherent spiels over the last week. I wrote previously that I feel sad and angry and sad and angry, and tired. I’m still there. Waves of sangry tiredness.
Why do I feel so crushingly hurt and betrayed and SAD, I scolded myself just last night.
It’s only a social media platform.
It’s an ending and I know that everything has an ending. We need endings in order to have those new, exciting beginnings.
But this feels bigger than not using a social media platform, and the usual sort of ending that comes when I leave a country or a relationship finishes.
It’s the fracturing of whole communities. A cracking, shattering, scattering of all these communities I’ve come to be a part of and have grown within. I’m watching them split and seek alternative spaces and, fuck, it hurts.
“This is what happens when you’re such a deviant.” My friend joked.
I knew I was supposed to laugh at his words, own them, shrug and say “yeah, that’s me, can’t help it”, but I couldn’t. Instead I felt tears well up.
“I’m tired of being seen as deviant.” I cracked.
This is so much more than the censorship of “porn” – such a handy term to dirty anything remotely sexual and freeing.
And this is so much more than “business”.
Whether it’s tumblr, Apple or Verizon, this is a slamming fist with a stamp of BLOCKED onto anyone who doesn’t meet Western normative standards.
Normative? Read: cis, white, male, straight, abled, monogamous, vanilla, sexually closeted (to name a few).
It’s not personal or intentional? It hardly ever is. That’s what it means for normative standards to exist – they’re labelled “normal” and they dictate how we should be. They have the floor within business and media and society. They are the sun in which social practise revolves around, and all those normative sun rays beam “the Other” into the dark, the shadows, the closet.
It takes energy and effort and will to make space for those “non-normative deviants”. Tumblr did for a while, and now they’re no longer doing so.
It’s not personal? I am taking it personally.
The day I’m not enraged and betrayed and hurt about this, that’s an even worse day.
It’s 2018 and we’re still having to justify being open about sex, our bodies, our sexualities, desires and identities.
Label it all as “porn” and suddenly it’s dirty and deviant and how dare we.
Yes, how dare we be so open and free about something so natural.
My blog, and all the communities I became part of, are so much more than “porn”.
I’m furious that I even have to voice that distinction.
Yet.
I’m also grateful that the distinction is there.
Amongst the fury, there is a deep, far reaching well of appreciation and affection for all of you glorious, heart-warming tumblr creatures that I’ve had the delight to connect with.
Thank you thank you thank you.
This space became a home. You all made it so. A home that travelled with me wherever I ended up. It became a safe space for my newfound submissive sexuality, soon followed by everything else: my queerness, my frustrations with being born female, my polya-ness, my seeking and healing and flaws.
I have seen growth and I have grown here. This was a space for expression. Where we could explore our desires, rejoice in intimacy, and understand what pleasure meant to each of us individually – a crucial part of realising our own boundaries, which is not encouraged within educational institutions or any public spheres.
Here, we talked about consent, communication and respect in a way I’m yet to see elsewhere. And it was healing.
You pulled me in and embraced me with lessons of loving my body, loving my quirks, loving myself. Learning to love oneself is such a powerful revolution and it flourished naturally here.
When I first stumbled into this space, I had no support network in the D/s world, I didn’t understand the strength in submission, I felt a clash between being feminist and submissive, and I didn’t feel I had the right to say ‘no’, let alone safeword. I’m still learning, as we always should be, but I know now that I have the right to voice my needs, desires and boundaries.
How incredibly revolutionary and empowering.
That’s down to all of you and this space we created.
Thank you thank you thank you.
To every single one of you that supported my writing on here, encouraged me to share my words, offered your own words of solace and kindness, and accepted this healing, kinky creature who was, and still is, working out a heap of stuff.
It was never tumblr that offered such magic. It was all of you. It was the wondrous, skin-tingling kindness and acceptance and guidance and openness that you all gave me and I saw you give to others.
So, before we’re scattered and embraced into other spaces, I’m thanking you. I’m furious this has to be said and I’m also so so thankful.
To feel understood is a very underrated, fulfilling feeling and you gave me so much of that.
We created this space and we take our creativity and kindness with us, wherever we all set up camp. It won’t be the same, and for that it’s okay to be sad, but it will always be magic.
Thank you thank you thank you.
❤️
Post-tumblr: I have a bdsmlr account under the same name, although I’m unconvinced by it thus far. I will also hopefully be on Wordpress, if my blog successfully imports - I’m currently on day 5 of processing… either way, I will soon add links to future freelydone spaces in my bio and I won’t delete this blog.
❤️
Also, Wordpress takes forever to import, at least two days longer than the built in Tumblr export. And the free Wordpress.com has a limit on how much it’ll import - for me it grabbed about 1800 posts (starting with most recent) out of about 3000. And it didn’t grab any drafts or queue.
I just logged in to 23 messages and 40+ submissions in my inbox. This is a crazy week for me professionally, so I’m just going to respond to everyone here.
1. I am so mad at Tumblr’s decision to block adult content.
2. I am really upset by this decision. I have no words.
3. I’ve had this blog since May 2011. (Quite possibly it is the longest relationship I’ve had with anything.) It has been a safe and creative space for me to explore my sexuality and develop my understanding of myself. Through this blog, through the blogs I follow and the all the niche communities I’ve found here, I have learned so much about myself. The communities and people I found here made me more open-minded person who marvels at how varied our interests can be, but also how many people can share these seemingly niche interests.
4. I have found such wonderful people. You know who you are.
5. I have been inspired here. I have written my heart out here.
6. I’ve flourished as a writer because of the support and encouragement from people here. I started out writing for myself and that’s still true; I write what pleases me. But it’s no fun writing into the void, you know? The response people have taken the time to send me has been incredible. (My favorite has always been when people reblog my posts with their own messages attached to it—I didn’t know how to reply to those, but I saw many of them and each one made me feel really good. Thank you). I don’t know how many times I wrote something and was internally cringing at what people would think of my twisted mind, only for someone to reblog and be like “That was hot” and I’d be walking on air, shuddering with relief and wonderment that someone out there liked this wicked thing that also turned me on. That’s incredible.
7. I am so, so, so flippin’ mad. I want to say a big fuck you to Tumblr, basically. This is a shitty decision the company made.
8. I haven’t bothered to read the new guidelines or TOS carefully. What do I need to know besides the fact that all my adult content posts will be made private, and I can no longer find/reblog/post adult content photos/gifs/videos?
9. It seems like erotica is still OK. But I don’t really want to share any of it a platform that would pull this shit. If my blog doesn’t get deactivated, I will probably just keep this presence here. Maybe for my future book announcements? Maybe I will still feel inspired to post erotica here? Doubtful but you never know.
10. You can always find me on Twitter @eenslaved. I used to post erotica in tweets using the #FuckToyFriday hashtag, which seemed to die down so then I lost motivation to post there. Maybe i’ll bring that back if there’s interest.
11. A lot of messages have asked if I will restart my Wordpress: eunbound.wordpress.com. I have to find my login info. But that has always been there and will continue to be there. I will probably post there. Tumblr just made posting photos so much easier…and finding other similar blogs much easier.
12. What is everyone else doing? Where is everyone else going? If I follow you/reblog your posts, DM me on Twitter? Message me here?
13. I have 790 posts on this blog, 52 posts on eunbound.tumblr.com, 297 drafts saved of stories in progress, 5,441 posts I liked that I periodically go through to see if I want to reblog into a story, 11,652 followers, and 288 blogs I’m following. I don’t even know where to begin.
14. Please help me reblog this! You know I can be sporadic with updating this blog, but I have never abandoned it.
One of my favorite writers on Tumblr, one of the people whose writing inspired me to start my own Tumblr, a beautiful creative soul. I hope we all find a way to rebuild a community where we can continue to be inspired by each other, keep riffing off each other’s ideas, keep exploring and growing as writers and people.
I’m sorry if you’re getting tired of this, but I have no intention of going down with the ship, so there will continue to be little porn and many announcements of alternatives over the next week…
Especially given how Tumblr by silencing many blogs and breaking search for a lot of tags makes it harder for us to reach the ones we want.
I see more and more Mastodon instances targeting Tumblr exiles spring up…
Love it. I don’t care if you come to mine ( https://kink.social),https://humblr.social (much bigger) or https://sinblr.com/ or any of the others (or run your own!) - the main thing is Mastodon is federated, so we can all follow each other, and the more separate instances, the better protected we are against future shutdowns.
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
For my part I will be gone soon after the 17th either way. At this point I don’t care if they backtrack. If they do I might check in now and again, but by making this decision they have proven they can’t be trusted. And I won’t trust another centralised Social media site again.
The fact we have to protest to prevent them from tearing apart our communities is a demonstration we’ve let them have too much power.
For my part I set up https://kink.social as a Mastodon instance - Mastodon is federated so if you sign up on any other Mastodon instance (see https://instances.social - it lets you search and filter for one that allows the things you care about) you can still follow me, or you can join mine - it doesn’t matter; on a federated services it’s a *good thing* that not everyone picks the same service, because that way if one shuts down only a small portion of users are affected.
Mastodon is also based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub - building it on top of an open standard means it can interoperate with other services, and others can take Mastodon and e.g. put a more Tumblr like frontend on it (Mastodon itself by default is more Twitter like, but with more control).
That’s the future. That takes away the power of censors.
So by all means, make it hurt for Tumblr on the 17th, but don’t trust them if they backtrack.
Hey, everyone! Since Tumblr will be deleting my work soon I’ll be moving to Twitter. My username is the same there, so give me a follow if you want to keep up with my work, and thank you so much for all the support you’ve shown this account! May it rest in penis.
Okay, so yes, a thing done happen. Overseeing the mass exodus and panic on Monday….that was unpleasant. The cackles from certain parts of the Internet were also annoying. Moreover, given the allegations that the fix was in many moons ago, and that the end goal is to make this place a haven for insufferable idpol (like I don’t need to hear about the new sexuality you came up with (and how it’s somehow ace), or your fetish with killing liberals using a Stand from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, or how something I ate yesterday was cultural appropriation, or how you don’t get laid because of the mean (cis)womenfolk…seriously, fuck off)…Let’s just say things are tragic here, devolving into farce.
(And before anyone says “I told you so” like Supro did to me personally the other day…No you didn’t. I never doubted Tumblr would pull something like this. As I said, we were always on borrowed time, and I suspected we wouldn’t have enough time to get our act together)
Regardless, as many have sought to clarify in recent days, I thought to explain what my plans are regarding my place in the Kingdom of Tumbles. And it is this…
I’m not going anywhere…yet.
What A Plot Twist!
(sorry.)
Tumblr made a very odd and distinct exception in matters of adult content: Erotica writers were exempt from the adult content purging. I don’t know if I should consider that good grace or an insult. Regardless, it means that I can stick around after December 17. Given the scramble of the last few days, I’d rather stick to my guns and see how things pan out over the next couple months than just make a move that’s fruitless in overall result.
That doesn’t mean I’m staying here forever, however. I started out here as part of the 3DX community, and that community is being nuked here so that incels and transcels could have a nice new condo development. (sorry.) I never connected with the erotica community at large here, nor do I know if I can at this point. It’s very clear I need to bail at some point. I just have to figure out whenandwhere to go. That’s the tricky part.
Where to Next?
As is evident, I write long things. That rules out Twitter as anything other than a broadcaster of new developments (though that doesn’t mean I won’t use it…in fact, it’s probably something I will use). Other places I have ruled out:
Newgrounds - It’s a visual-oriented place, no room for writers like me.
Pornhub - I’m just in general wary of doing business with that site. And it seems a little unfriendly in UI toward erotica types.
Building a new site with Weebly or Squarespace - Both have taken an anti-porn stance for some reason (I mean…it’s a CMS, not a social network. So weird).
Baraag - Given its description included essentially included loli/shota, I’m essentially saying “fuck off” to that.
I’m also hesitant to just start a blog at Blogspot. I haven’t forgotten the time Google almost nuked the adult content community there themselves.
Still, there are other options. I’m considering them as you read this. I will mull them as the time allows me. Once I get an idea on where I’m going, I’ll announce this and keep you updated.
In the Meantime…
While this is all happening, this weekend will be busy. I’m going to create a backup of my posts. After that, I’ll be documenting everyone I know and care about into a spreadsheet, and assessing the situation as it develops. I’ll also be taking my time scrubbing my posts of lewd imagery. This will likely include the deletion of many promo posts. (I’ll be leaving this week’s promo posts up until the end of next week.)
Also, as always, I can be found modding the #3DX Discord, which can be found here. Just don’t get too crazy in joining, or we’ll send the Corgi Gang after you.
