📚 Megathread The Pooner Zoo - A thread for collecting wild Pooners and posting OC Pooners, and anything Pooner related

[Peaches Demure]

Girls writing fanfic and RPing is also the last gasp of make believe play before full adulthood. Some don't grow out of it or change the way they participate. But that is another lost aspect of what fandom is like for a lot of girls and why it captures so many of them. It can be a whimsical little escapism for the fun, not just for a need to cope with something. It basically operates off the same rules of making up a fantasy world to play around in but is more subtle to outside view than playing dress up and running through the house pretending it's a castle.

Disturbing to think of it that way since a lot of "egg crackers" then seem to be taking advantage of a slightly more mature version of child's play to infect others.

Do you think you could pinpoint any particular moment in time when the tone of mainstream fandom spaces shifted from "harmless escapism" to full on maladaptive daydreaming cult stuff? Granted I've not been all that invested in any fandom stuff since like the mid 00's, so my POV might be slightly off, but do you agree that sometime in the 2010's the nature shifted from "inclusive" to openly hostile? This is when I first saw online accounts attacking other accounts for having "problematic" ships rather than just a "live and let live" attitude. Like I was a big fan of The X-Files and I was briefly engaged in its fanfiction communities in the late 90's/early 00's when stories were still distributed by mailing lists, and I remember nobody back then judged other people's tastes; you could ship, for example, Mulder/Scully or Mulder/Krycek (or both) and everybody would agree that not all stories or ships were everybody's cup of tea.

Most people would blame Tumblr as ground zero, but I actually remember seeing the seeds of this behavior on Deviant Art before Tumblr ever became a thing. Funnily enough, it started in the visual arts communities. Deviant Art is where I first saw people posting political (often extreme) opinions rights next to some very suggestive fanart and self-identifying by listing their mental illnesses. These were no longer "regular people with a hobby", you could tell some of these people were clearly disordered and the internet was making them worse.

 

[Paper Machete]

Most people would blame Tumblr as ground zero, but I actually remember seeing the seeds of this behavior on Deviant Art before Tumblr ever became a thing. Funnily enough, it started in the visual arts communities. Deviant Art is where I first saw people posting political (often extreme) opinions rights next to some very suggestive fanart and self-identifying by listing their mental illnesses. These were no longer "regular people with a hobby", you could tell some of these people were clearly disordered and the internet was making them worse.

Hard to say when the seeds were planted exactly. There has always been weird infighting and odd circles in fandom. However, I think it became an overall attitude shift about the 2013-14 mark specifically and became solidified around 2016 on.

I honestly think it coincides more with the indoctrination in schools and the age of a lot of kids at the age where they would get into reading and writing fanfic than anything inherent to fandom itself. The people that got into it had different attitudes towards what exactly it was they were doing. It's also around that time it became normal for people to use the internet for social media and get a lot of ideas from there as opposed to only using it for whatever highly specific hobby and forums you might have. So there is a lot of cross contamination these days.

It makes sense it hit the visual art stuff first since that has always been a more "front facing" thing so to speak. With more casual fans of stuff likely to want to see it. But fanfic and RP has always been niche stuff that was able to keep to itself for a while. The fact fanfic circles were kind of closed off and didn't have to worry about what "outsiders" might think of their hobby is another reason for the easy going atmosphere a lot of it had, I think. Everyone understood what it was they were there for and why. Fanfic is pretty well known now, regardless of involvement, and everyone has a social media presence (anon or not) where there are incentives to be seen as part of the "done thing".

 

[batteredpancakes]

Hendrix talking about the hate she's getting

Now I see why detransitioners do not want to come out publicly. The level of hatred and vitriol that I’ve experienced as a result is vile. I’ve been asked multiple times to shut my account down or to stop posting because people want to silence me. That’s never going to happen. I will talk openly about my experiences as I’ve always done. Further, fair warning, waging a war of attrition on me is always a bad idea. I have an endless threshold for trauma & can go for YEARS. You will not break me.

 

[goat sneed]

New specimen just dropped

 

[Aunt Carol]

Do you think you could pinpoint any particular moment in time when the tone of mainstream fandom spaces shifted from "harmless escapism" to full on maladaptive daydreaming cult stuff?

I think it wasn't a question of all fandom spaces being seductive like that (shared maladaptive daydreaming is a great description). This kind of behavior is in the deep end of fan spaces, but there are always tons more people on the surface.

Hard to say when the seeds were planted exactly. There has always been weird infighting and odd circles in fandom. However, I think it became an overall attitude shift about the 2013-14 mark specifically and became solidified around 2016 on.

This sounds about right for a timeline, but for the SJW-purity-spiral of fandom, not the seductive escapism. I don't think the social justice blogs were the same thing as people who were straight roleplaying.

However, having everything in the same place, having Tumblr-based RP and "in character" blogs pop up, meant a crossover.

t makes sense it hit the visual art stuff first since that has always been a more "front facing" thing so to speak. With more casual fans of stuff likely to want to see it. But fanfic and RP has always been niche stuff that was able to keep to itself for a while.

This goes with your guess at a timeline, too. Fanfic and RP communities on forums and on Dreamwidth etc. were dense with text, lots and lots of text, which is only going to attract the bookish kind of nerd girl deeper into a community. Something like Tumblr had pictures, both fanart and screenshots/official art, as an easier draw.

I think that the "plurals" and the "in-character blogs" do a lot more telling that they're a character than acting like one. You're still going to find more long-term RP on the dedicated blog sites.

Smartphones are a factor somewhere, too. Being able to have a community of friends who live in your portable magic rectangle.

 

[Peaches Demure]

One more thought about the Parker-Hulme case that I sort of forgot to mention in my previous posts:

If one or both of them had been boys, the people around them (parents, school, etc.) would have tried to separate them and put an end to their relationship much sooner, recognizing it not only as unhealthy but dangerous. The fact is that 50's people could not picture a teen girl bludgeoning her mother to death with a brick as a possible response to being separated from her best friend, and fair enough... it is a one-in-a-billion case.

Now, a boy and a girl murdering the girl's parents because they want to put an end to the teens' intense relationship? Many such cases.

 

[toilet_rainbow]

I believe that Tumblr played a huge role in how fandom is like today (and the mass manufacturing of fandom pooners in turn). Maybe AO3 becoming more popular too. It’s pretty obvious Tumblr heavily contributed as much to that as it did with fucking up social justice discourse.

The culture of how to interact with the original creators, fanwork commissions, how serious headcanons were, the ethics of real person fic and headcanons in general, etc really began changing in the early 2010s with Superwholock, Rise of the Tangled Dragons, Steven Universe, etc. Most of that was on Tumblr, where it was not only more visual based but also much easier to create a hugbox. Pooner popular tropes like Omega really came to being there. It was popular for people there to headcanon actors as queer (and get angry when they were doing straight things with their wives), or to message creators on their Tumblrs to demand why they were queerbaited with Tumblr Sexyman of the Week. (The latter in turn would be a good explanation why Rowling Derangement Syndrome is so prevalent amongst the T and SJWs.) Constructive criticism (and calling out bullshit in general) became all but taboo.

Fandom always had its crazies, but something about Tumblr culture bred it in a way that made it not just normal but accepted. Mpreg was commonly mocked on Livejournal and other communities in the 2000s, as was watersports. Now that’s about all you see on AO3 (or at least that’s what I see the very rare times I go on there to see what’s going on).

Whoever said that fandom was a young woman’s last avenue of pretend play was on the money. Historically women maybe flirted with fandom here and there after a point or grow out of it entirely. It was also a fun and overall safe way to practice creativity. It’s a shame to see what should’ve been harmless fun become so toxic. It’s all fun and games until someone gets their tits chopped off because they identified a little too hard with Dipper Pines.

 

[Sonya-chan]

View attachment 7505071
New specimen just dropped

If you take your allegedly "trans rights" as a joke, then I can conclude you have no real reason to worry in Trump's america.

 

[Rainbow Child]

 

[derpi]

How many groups of adolescent girls, in modern history but pre-Internet, have created shared fantasy worlds like that, and we just don't know because it was never written down (and also they didn't kill anyone)?

Spoiler: TMI

That was me from about 4th to 7th grade. Had a full world developed with my fellow weird girl and did roleplay almost 24/7 together since we had Skype and cell phones. I eventually grew out of it, she eventually transitioned. We stopped talking around the end of 7th grade when I finally grew out of it and she began “cosplaying” as a boy on the daily. Looking back on it it’s surprising that it was her because I was the tomboy and she was really girly??? Weird times for sure. Wonder if she got molested.

 

[Mellorine]

There's a malign toaster-fucker effect to how young women and girls have been able to build empathy and explore their place in society via collaborative storytelling and play-acting for hundreds of years with no ill effect other than reinforcing already existent dorky introversion, and while some especially imaginative types became novelists and some particularly autistic types would remain autisticaly fixated, most would simply outgrow it once their real-life milestones started stealing the glow from meandering improv soap operas rooted in nearly forgotten adolescent social anxieties. Now they end up in "fandom spaces" and are pipelined into believing that nerdy girls who are intensely curious about what's going on in the heads of boys will go mad and suffer forever unless they use hormones and surgery to turn themselves into nightmare flesh simulacrums of maleness.

 

[Plum Smuggler]

Hendrix talking about the hate she's getting
View attachment 7504891

She's been very active today and catching shit from all over. Fred Sargeant is an old school fag who was actually at Stonewall. He has no patience for troons and pooners.

 

[Magic Pickle]

The fact that OP doesn't see the hilarity in saying "needs constant reassurance" and then "doesn't want to be your uwu little soft boy" in the same post is beyond comedy. From what I've gathered, you only fuck pooners if you're A) so hard up for pussy that even morbidly obese trailer park chicks pass you up from your desperation or B) are a particular kind of Kiwi Farms poster.
Link | Archive

“I Want A Trans Boyfriend!” Until…​

“I want a trans boyfriend!” Until…
He doesn’t want you to touch him.
He’s afraid to be intimate because he’s Pre-T and doesn’t want you to see him as a woman. Bonus points if he’s strictly asexual.
He needs constant reassurance that you see him as a real man, and even after you reassure him 100 times, he still won’t believe you because he’s been lied to about it in the past.
His gender dysphoria is so bad it makes him not want to go out / be seen.
He has mental health issues that aren’t “quirky” and “cute.”
He gets mad when you say “I hate men! But not you obviously, you’re different,” to him.
He doesn’t want to be your “uwu little soft boy” for you to coddle and protect - he just wants to be treated like any other man.

---

I’m sorry I know I say this every other week but I’m convinced I’m going to die alone. Even other trans people don’t seem to know how to treat me, no matter how many times someone can say “I see you as a man” I will never ever be able to believe it because of the fetishizing scumbags from my past who lied to me about it. I’m also strictly asexual so yeah. Not looking good for me.

At this point, if you post anything revealing about yourself on Reddit, you're honestly inviting the most malignant sewer-dwellers of all time to reach out from through the grate to touch you. Not sure why this li'l dood is so shocked. What if he just wanted to grill with you and the boys?
Link | Archive

I'd love to have the confidence of a mediocre cis man​

Here we are.I got sexual DMs from random cis men based on a post I put in another transmasc sub which is ABSOLUTELY NOT made for sexual encounters.
And this really annoys me.
It's not the first time outside of Reddit and unfortunately it won't be the last time. They really think I would have answered something like "oh cool a man out of nowhere want to fetishize me, what a great day". No, never.

A pooner gets diagnosed with tardive dyskinesia, which - for the uninitiated - is a syndrome in which patients suffer from involuntary movements such as twitching, grimacing, rapid blinking, etc. It is generally incurable and once you've got it, you've got it. She insists that taking testosterone had no impact on developing TD, but there have been theories (and numerous articles when you look up "tardive dyskinesia hormones") that estrogen potentially plays a role in prevention, especially as seen in menopausal women. (But in OP's defense, she is taking aripiprazole AKA Abilify, which TD mainly results as a reaction to antipsychotics - so it's a much more likely culprit.)
Link | Archive

Got nerfed by a neurologic condition and learned everyone at work is saying it's cause of T​

I had some serious health issues about this time last year. Surgery, therapy, recovery, found a job I LOVE. it's a trade, with mostly Republican leaning guys (Im.nonbinary just girlmode it and am the only one in my department). Even with the political shit, I can usually bro it up while shutting shit down enough to get along well enough, and there are enough chill people it's not the worst. I seriously love this job so much.
Fast forward 6 months, sudden involuntary movements most likely tardive dyskinesia...can't use a chainsaw or climb trees if you lose control of your upper body randomly under stress.
Have been out for a week, and one of my work friends (who is also the only other out gay person) checked in on me and also let me know that the assholes at work are insinuating I did this to myself by taking testosterone.
They're completely unrelated and I don't owe them an explanation but I have just felt that they fucking hate me for being trans and queer for so long and this feels like confirmation.
I guess just already at a super low point with an insane diagnosis with life-changing implications and hearing that people are blaming it on HRT is just an extra blow and yeah fuck libertarians I guess.

A TiF in her fucking 50s is hand-wringing over the possibility she couldn't get a rotdog installed on her elderly body before she has to crawl into the grave thanks to the ever-onward progress of time. I genuinely think all cosmetic urogenital procedures (AKA every single kind of SRS) should be banned for anyone over the age of 40, but common sense ain't so common no more.
Link | Archive

Vent: Times Keep Ticking while we Wait and Wait​

Advanced warning, this is a rant from someone privileged enough to have health insurance that covers most of his gender affirming care.
I'm fortunate to live in a blue state where the laws protect my right to have medical expenses related to gender affirming care covered. And I'm fortunate to work within the healthcare system. So I have many privileges on this front. What I don't have is time to throw away on process and red tape.
My egg cracked just shy of a year ago and I knew that I wanted RFF phalloplasty after extensive research while waiting on the dance we call "health insurance." Having turned 52 last year, I was aware that this was a multi-year journey and so have stated to everyone along the way that we should go "swiftly but safely" so I have time to enjoy being fully myself before I die. (Not to be morbid, but it's closer in the front view than my 20's are in the rear view.)
Thanks to my health insurance which has zero covered and qualified surgeons (urology/plastic) in-network, I knew that I'd need to go out of network. Alas, they only have one set of surgery partners (one!) approved. So, it's either win the lottery OR go through the hoops to get this done. Now, thanks to limited options, having to wait for openings in their schedules, waiting on the referral and insurance approval process, having to first see the Urologist before I can see the Plastic Surgeon before I can know and then start hair removal...I'm about a year into this waiting game. And based upon the research, I have 1-2 years to go for the hair removal before my first of 2 or 3 surgeries are done for the bottom surgeries. So that window of "I'm fully me" bliss is shrinking. While I wait. And fume. As a process improvement specialist, you can see the smoke rising.

 

[Inspector Rex]

View attachment 7505071
New specimen just dropped

I'm pretty sure my bathroom is troon-free

 

[Mad_Dog]

View attachment 7505071
New specimen just dropped

Type: Non-binary, FTM
Gender: 50% male, 50% female
Species: Androgynous blob
Height: 1.25 m (4′01″)
Weight: 86 kg (190.0 lbs)
Intelligence: low

Abilities:

1. Anger Point
2. Self-harm
3. Emotional manipulation
4. Porn addiction (hidden ability)

Very lazy. Just eats and complains. Emits a concentrated scent from its entire body.

 

[Rainbow Child]

Type: Non-binary, FTM
Gender: 50% male, 50% female
Species: Androgynous blob
Height: 1.25 m (4′01″)
Weight: 86 kg (190.0 lbs)
Intelligence: low

Abilities:

1. Anger Point
2. Self-harm
3. Emotional manipulation
4. Porn addiction (hidden ability)

Very lazy. Just eats and complains. Emits a concentrated scent from its entire body.

 

[Chandelier]

all-female online RP communities, especially fandom, one little-discussed reason it's all yaoi is because how come you get to be the girl character. Even OC communities look askance at joining with only female characters, because they tend to be Mary Sues, and because how dare you have a female character to play house with the one female user who writes great male characters playing your husband.

The Mary Sue thing is really important as you've pointed out. Men are allowed to have all these powers and be complex characters, whereas if women have them they're "unbelievable" and "overpowered". Daenerys Targaryen outside of her element would absolutely be a Mary Sue by these rules; I can see why these women pick male characters. Males can be sexualized and made emotional while remaining "full people" while with women they feel an innate sense of competition.

Most people would blame Tumblr as ground zero, but I actually remember seeing the seeds of this behavior on Deviant Art before Tumblr ever became a thing. Funnily enough, it started in the visual arts communities. Deviant Art is where I first saw people posting political (often extreme) opinions rights next to some very suggestive fanart and self-identifying by listing their mental illnesses. These were no longer "regular people with a hobby", you could tell some of these people were clearly disordered and the internet was making them worse.

DeviantArt started seeing the door around 2012, when tumblr made viewing fanart easier than ever. Things starting changing in 2013 and took off in 2015.

 

[Peaches Demure]

DeviantArt started seeing the door around 2012, when tumblr made viewing fanart easier than ever. Things starting changing in 2013 and took off in 2015.

Hmm. As a matter of fact, I noted that this troon stuff really started taking off, in mainstream spaces, around 2014. Of course the MOGAI gender shit had been around by many years on platforms like Tumblr, but you didn't see anyone outsides of those spaces taking them serious (or taking something like "misgendering" seriously) until 2014. Incidentally, isn't 2014 the year when Bruce Jenner officially "came out"?

 

[Chandelier]

Hmm. As a matter of fact, I noted that this troon stuff really started taking off, in mainstream spaces, around 2014. Of course the MOGAI gender shit had been around by many years on platforms like Tumblr, but you didn't see anyone outsides of those spaces taking them serious (or taking something like "misgendering" seriously) until 2014. Incidentally, isn't 2014 the year when Bruce Jenner officially "came out"?

2015. It's also when Laverne Cox was on the cover of NatGeo for their issue around trans rights being the next frontier.

 

[Peaches Demure]

2015. It's also when Laverne Cox was on the cover of NatGeo for their issue around trans rights being the next frontier.

Oh yeah. I was not yet quite "peaked" by then, but I remember how disturbed I was by the contrast between how "passable" they were on those magazine covers vs. how grotesque and obviously male they were in live action. Huge bulky men in what essentially boiled down to clown make-up.