Long Text - Blog Posts

amiyetagain

11 months ago

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.

So we got another update from Roblox Support!

A while ago, I've emailed them with this:

(I'm aware I've put the same sentence twice. I was.. tired and doing it all on my phone lol)

The Roblox games and groups in the transcript will NOT BE REVEALED. This is because I don't want to expose their usernames on Tumblr and have people going after them or stalking their Roblox profiles. The Roblox links will be shown as [LINKS REDACTED] instead.

Here's what I sent to them:

Roblox Support Ticket 74321950 Hello again! Thank you for your reply, I've attached links to information of the 18+ game and the experiences, and fan groups on Roblox. I hope that you may be able to do something about this. Here are the posts where the creator has repeatedly warned that her game is NOT suitable for younger audiences. -https://gatobob.tumblr.com/post/628262741099134976/patreon-faq-btdbtd2-tpof-etsy-merch -https://gatobob.tumblr.com/post/729810480719396864/im-not-comfortable-with-the-way-people-keep Information about the 18+ game and its' characters can be found here. -https://boyfriendtodeathgame.fandom.com/wiki/Boyfriend_to_Death -https://boyfriendtodeathgame.fandom.com/wiki/Boyfriend_To_Death_Wiki:Boyfriend_To_Death_Wiki -https://boyfriendtodeathgame.fandom.com/wiki/Strade -https://boyfriendtodeathgame.fandom.com/wiki/Ren_Hana -https://boyfriendtodeathgame.fandom.com/wiki/Lawrence_Oleander Here are the experiences on Roblox that features the game made by fans who are possibly minors. Although these experiences do not feature sexual content, the source itself is from an 18+ game and the creator of the gameis very uncomfortable featuring her characters on Roblox experiences.

- [LINKS REDACTED]

Here are the fan groups on Roblox featuring the BTD game or characters.

- [LINKS REDACTED]

I am also aware that there are also fan shirts being made on Roblox as well but it may be too many for me to link on this one message and I feel that I've listed a lot of links already. I would like to urge you and your team to take actions against these experiences and groups, and to respect the creator's wishes not to feature her characters onto Roblox. This can also be very concerning for parents as well. What if a young child were to stumble across one of these experiences on Roblox and decided to look up the source of the game? Please take serious actions for this. I wish to hear a reply soon or an update on this matter.

Thank you. - Casey

They got back to me, and this time it's Aria! Here's the screenshot of her reply.

Aria (Roblox) Sep 30, 2023, 6:22 AM PDT Hi Casey, Thank you for reaching out to us again and notifying us with your concern. We appreciate your diligence in bringing this report to our attention and will act upon it expediently. Community safety is a top priority for Roblox. Although, we won't be able to disclose any actions being taken on another accounts, groups and experiences as per privacy however, we want to let you know that all of the reports submitted by you have been received and forwarded to the appropriate team for further investigation and actions. We also want to make sure you're aware of the current safety features we have available on Roblox, including: Restricting or disabling chat Blocking specific user accounts from direct chat and in-experience Curated/Pre-moderated content Report abuse You can read more about our features and everything we do to help keep our community safe at Roblox Safety Features Please know that our team also files reports and will work with local, national, and international agencies to help ensure community safety. If you have an additional question, concern, or suggestion for a feature you'd like to see in the future, please don't hesitate to reply and let us know. Best regards, Aria Roblox

I've checked the games and groups as of the time I'm writing this and it's still up. I'm guessing that a process like this could take quite a bit of time, and I'm hoping that they'll be able to take it down ASAP or censor "Boyfriend to Death".

Roblox shouldn't let BTD (and even TPOF content) be passed through. It's a game full of young children, and who knows what the hell would happen if a parent were to discover their kid roleplaying from a character that's from a horrorporn game?

I'd urge any adult BTD fans here to email to Roblox support staff as well. Gato can't do this all by herself.

You don't NEED to create a Roblox account to send a message and open a ticket with them. Just enter your birthdate and you'll be able to send a message to them and do what I did in this example picture.

When you finally receive an email in your inbox, please describe the situation about minors using Gato's 18+ content to make fan games. You may also NEED to do some digging of BTD Roblox games (Games are called experiences on Roblox), groups, and BTD outfits on the avatar shop BY YOURSELF.

You can also ask around in Adult verified BTD Discord servers who may be familiar with Roblox and exchange links of the games and groups etc so that you can send these links to Roblox support. I cannot put the links in a public post here because I'd be exposing the creators of the groups and fan games.

I don't want their profiles to be stalked or harassed even though they are minors doing the wrong thing.

But yeah, if you have any doubts, please message me, and I'll try to reply if possible.

Please help to keep minors safe and away from 18+ content, especially on Roblox. Thank you!

I'm not comfortable with the way people keep posting my content in places absolutely filled with minors- or even places built specifically for minors.

I see people posting my content on Tiktok, ageless forums, AI chatbots, Discord games, even children's games like Pony Town and Roblox.

And then people come to me- asking why I'm not keeping minors out.

I'm a single human person, and I'm usually dog tired from working on game development. I didn't even know what half of these places were until I saw someone's fan content of my characters in them.

What I'm saying is:

Adults, could you help me out? Could you exercise a little common sense here? I have people asking me if they should buy my body pillows on etsy for their 14 year old sister because she saw your tiktoks.

I can't do this by myself.

I'm going to try and take this Roblox matter into my own hands and email Roblox support in regards to this issue and will update here.

The fact that I'm already seeing a LOT of fan games and groups based on BTD is very, very concerning to me. While the games I played to investigate and all of them have no sexual content, HOWEVER it's still based on a source of an 18+ game. Please DO NOT HARASS , INTERACT, BULLY, or WITCHUNT the creators of these Roblox fan games and groups. Just inform Roblox support and move on. I've censored the usernames for that purpose.

(Usernames are blurred out)

God, there's 180 members on the BTD fan group on Roblox, a game where most of the player base are YOUNG CHILDREN OR MINORS. I have noticed that many of the users in the group don't have ages in their bio nor have signs that they are adult aged. It can be safe to assume a lot of the players in the group are young teens. What if a young kid plays Roblox only to accidentally stumble upon a BTD RP game and find out about the source? Gato clearly doesn't want young MINORS to be involved in her works.

The popularity on BTD game RP is also concerning too. 150 likes and 21 dislikes. Now people would think this isn't huge or that popular, but when you compare it to a fanbase that is niche and smaller, you'd realize how ALARMING this is. And those screenshots? Those are the very few ones I chose to screenshot on. There's a *lot* more, and I had to do some digging, looking for more BTD games and groups on Roblox just to link and report it to Roblox staff. There's probably like, maybe more than 5 games.

SO! I decided to write to Roblox Support! Here's what I wrote for the first message.

Hello to whom it may concern, I wanted to point out an issue that I've been noticing on Roblox. I have noticed there were groups and experiences based on an 18+ horror visual novel game called "Boyfriend to Death" (Sometimes abbreviated as "BTD", not to be mistaken for a different SFW game that uses the same abbreviation "Bloons Tower Defense") "Boyfriend to Death" is an indie game made by adults for adult players only and features heavy gore and sexual themes. The creator of the game (Gatobob) has already emphasised that the game is NOT for children but it unfortunately gained popularity outside of adult spaces such as Tiktok and most importantly, on Roblox as well. Roblox is a game for all ages and many players are children or minors, this is why I am heavily concerned as an adult player myself seeing minors being exposed to BTD fan games and content on this platform.

Because the first message I sent had a message limit, that was all I could send.

A couple minutes later, Garry from Roblox replied to me!

I'll copy-paste his full message into text.

Roblox Support Ticket 74321950 Garry (Roblox) Sep 30, 2023, 3:30 AM PDT Hi Casey, Thank you for reaching out to us, we truly appreciate your diligence in this matter and we share your concern for community safety. Community safety and ensuring an appropriate and fun environment for our users are top priorities at Roblox. Inappropriate content or behavior that violates our Terms of Use is not acceptable. This expedited report will be investigated by our team who will take swift and appropriate action. Please make sure you have provided us with as much of the following information as possible, as it will be helpful to our review: The username of the reported account If this occurred in a Roblox experience please provide us with a link to or the title of it and as many details about it as possible Any screenshots/videos of the incident Any additional information you can provide If you see a user breaking the rules or any inappropriate content or chat on the site, please make sure to file an abuse report by clicking "Report Abuse" located throughout the site and in-experience. Although for privacy reasons, we are not able to discuss information or actions taken against another account, please rest assured we will take necessary and appropriate actions against accounts or content that is a violation of our Terms of Use. We even work with local, national, and international agencies to escalate further reporting when needed. You can read more about our safety features and everything we do to help keep our community safe at the following links: Report Abuse Roblox Safety Features Blocking Users Thank you again for alerting us to this concern. If you have an additional question or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to let us know. Best regards, Garry Roblox

Hopefully, Garry will be able to put action into this. I'll be adding a transcript of my reply on another reblog with another update.