strikeoutslugger - Tumblr blog

strikeoutslugger · 7 years ago

Text

Recent Drama~

Yo, figured this’d probably have to be made eventually. Been seein’ QUITE a bit of... Hmm, I guess you could call it misinformed vaguing? Perhaps outright lying? Who knows the actuality of the situation in regards to those posts. Either way, gonna go ahead and dump it all here under a readmore to discuss it more. Post will be tagged accordingly!

Recently, there was an issue between myself and a couple individuals that you may have noticed have been added to my rules for tagging in posts! These individuals are @fxhrt/@novakaisr and @solemnitystrung. Actually, I’ll make things very clear. *I* had a personal issue with fxhrt specifically. Let’s start there first.

For a while now, there was something in the way that which he spoke to me that had felt off. You know when you have a friend and they say something or have a certain REALLY conflicting viewpoint that makes you feel really uncomfortable but you also don’t feel comfortable in voicing it out loud to them immediately? That would be one of those cases.

You see, the way they spoke was often quite uncomfortable. We would have conversations about anything fandom-related, sometimes not even that. And there would inevitably be a tone that seemed rather... Too blunt, especially in regards to other people. You see, a couple of our conversations ventured into the bragging territory, or the awkward way in which it seemed as though they treated people and relationships as things. Rather than just tell you, here’s what I mean.

Regardless of intention, the way it was read not just by myself but a couple other people that have eventually seen this conversation since then have agreed that it does come off a certain way. There��s something to be said for the interpretation of these words. It’s easy to see how uncomfortable this type of language might make someone feel; I know I sure didn’t feel comfortable during this conversation. It’s not only thinking highly of yourself, but also seemingly turning ships into collectibles just waiting to be handpicked. With the added self-flattery mixed in there, this conversation really takes a turn towards egotism or devaluing others.

However, despite this conversation, I personally didn’t have a major problem with it. Something like that in itself isn’t worth a callout; We’re all reasonable people and this isn’t super toxic behavior per se. What it DOES do is deter someone from wanting to further converse with the individual that spoke like this. We then continue on with this conversation though, and it’s the adding on of awkwardness that just makes this even worse of a situation for myself personally.

Herein lies yet another issue. I genuinely don’t think they realize how their words might come off. Having just created Junpei, I’m not entirely sure I felt comfortable with this conversation’s content. They seemingly contradict themself by both asking for the URL then saying ‘I know what Junpei it is’, which comes off as strange. However as the conversation goes on, it gets gradually more uncomfortable. It’s very clear to me, even now, that they didn’t necessarily mean this conversation in a threatening way. But that’s how it comes off too. I don’t believe I’ve ever gone to someone that’s created a character blog for someone that I play and said “I don’t want to scare you off, but my X has been festering for 7 years”. That sounds Domming in nature to me. In bringing up this entire situation and seemingly comparing their experiences as Junpei to mine, it brings on this most likely unintentional threat that bothered me quite some time even after this conversation finished.

I’d like to reiterate two things right now. The first is that I genuinely believe them in much of what they’re saying. Saying that they “don’t make a solid effort to do things like that”, as in chasing off duplicates? I’d believe that. I also believe that they weren’t intentionally meaning to come off that way. Intentions and tone are very hard to read on the internet, we all know that. More importantly though, and this brings us to the second thing: These two pieces of conversation alone are deterrents enough to not feel super comfortable in talking to them about everything. It’s like this: You consider someone a friend still, but you really don’t want to bring up something that made you uncomfortable like that. How easy is it to mention something like that to a friend? Well, in this case, it wasn’t easy until recently.

We finally arrive at this drama that’s occurred throughout the last few days though. The majority of it has, in my opinion, been a scare as to this “callout” situation. Truthfully, there was a brief moment in which things were going to be made public immediately following a certain message to someone that I was in contact with at the time. The message is as follows:

I’m sure if you’ve been in the community a little while, you’ll know exactly who and what this is referring to. However, it’s this sort of behavior that is in fact troublesome. Even if we ignore the fact that Pluto’s name simply got brought up out of the blue because the person this was sent to simply began interacting with them slightly often enough, there’s something in the spreading of misinformation. We all saw the video of Pluto saying the word, and I think nobody in their right mind would defend that specifically. What is defendable in regards to this message is the way they say that Pluto is currently and still is disrespectful towards minority parties and that Pluto talked to them about essentially not caring about calling people that. And not only that, but there’s an implication that Pluto also posted the video, presumably out of pride? For saying the word? Perhaps pride isn’t the best word here, however it seems as though they’re implying the video was knowingly posted and Pluto not only posted it fully knowing they said the word and found it acceptable, but apparently still do and have told them straight up that they ‘didn’t care’. However, when asked about it...

There seems to be a disconnect between what was said about them and what truly happened. But one thing’s clear by this account from Pluto themself: King and them had talked before, and it seemed as though they should have been better informed about the situation than what was presented by them.

In my own position, I’m not one to defend where people have gone wrong. Pluto did say an offensive word and we all saw it. What is defendable here, as I’ve said earlier, revolves around the question: Is it fine to spread information like that about someone, regardless of their previous actions, which seem to be greatly misinformed or outright lies? My answer is no, I don’t know about you though. It would be one thing if bringing up one person’s name and giving misinformation was a one-time thing. However, we also know that King has brought up multiple people’s names on other occasions as well! I’ll just go over a couple examples of my own name being brought up, for the hell of it.

This one first. The post in question was one in which @solemnitystrung posted that they felt old as a mun. I replied with “wow ancient”, fully knowing that at the time, they WERE my good friend and that it was an ironic joke that they would understand clearly because I’m OLDER than they are. There was nothing harmful about it, yet King felt the need to bring up my name.

Also a second time, since one might not be proof enough. When I was shown this, I felt panicked immediately. Because this conversation happened after the screenshots above regarding their own Junpei, I absolutely felt panicked reading this wondering why the hell my name was being brought up again. This may have been a joke in bad taste, but from me, someone that was shown this conversation rather than be a part of it.... I don’t and didn’t think of this as a joke. It definitely sounds like a loaded question, especially to just suddenly bring my name up out of the blue like that. Of course I would take this as a jab at me, considering EVERYTHING as a whole. And just in case, we’re gonna take a third piece of evidence:

This conversation seemingly pops out of the blue when they head into a friend of mine’s IMs to talk to them about me unprovoked. Interesting, I think, considering I don’t believe this person’s the first person that would be considered the ‘vent friend’. I’ll gladly admit that venting to a friend of yours that you’re close to about someone is arguably fine. I would rather someone vent to a friend than out loud or keep it to themselves. However the context of this conversation WASN’T that at all, and you have to wonder why exactly they would even bring my name up anyway to someone that wasn’t their ‘vent friend’.

Furthermore, we see quite a bit of misinformation again. I’m fairly certain myself that the ‘friend’ that ran to tell what ‘I was doing’ is again solemnitystrung, who admitted as such very recently. We see three sentences that go together:

“He’s making a callout post on me because we don’t get along”

“and he’s mad at me for not wanting to talk to him.”

“I haven’t even done anything to warrant a callout post”

All three of these sentences are false. The first is false in that not only was there no public callout post being made at the time, but the purpose of reviewing all the evidence wasn’t because ‘we don’t get along’. In fact, I don’t even think there’s room for argument in saying we did get along decently well, albeit had a difference of personality, to which I’ll gladly admit that I am 1000% more touchy-feely and extroverted than they are. Aside from that, our chats were quite amicable and jokey. So... Yeah, I don’t think I would say we didn’t get along.

I also wasn’t mad that they didn’t want to talk to me. Actually, I wasn’t even aware that that was even an option. It was actually solemnitystrung’s own suggestion that I talk to King themself, but as I’ve explained earlier on in the post, I didn’t yet feel comfortable to even talk to them in IMs. There’s no possible way that statement could be true at the time it was said.

And finally, I’m not sure if I can disprove that the last one is ‘false’. By all standards of a typical callout post on tumblr? Yeah, I would say that’s true. They aren’t ridiculously toxic. They also aren’t a BAD person. Most of what was said in this post seemed to be either misinformation (I’d prefer to believe this over ‘lies’), and perhaps a way of reading tone that makes things difficult to pinpoint the meaning of certain words. However, this doesn’t excuse how they’ve made some people feel in the way they talk and bring up certain people or ideas, as I’ve shown here.

To that effect, you’re probably wondering why this post was even made in the first place then if it didn’t ‘warrant a public callout’. Well, actually. A private document was sent explaining, albeit rather hastily and bluntly, pretty much exactly what was said here about them. They of course were informed that ‘a callout was coming’ because of solemnitystrung’s information given to them. This wasn’t a ‘random attack’ or an attack at all. And having had a few people feel the same about the way they spoke, it felt justified to simply mention it in a private document. The only time it was mentioned that things ‘might go public’ was actually in a short discussion with solemnitystrung about whether it was effective enough and that it would be listened to and acted upon if it were private. In fact:

They themselves had originally vouched for a public callout over a private discussion. We’re going to skip over most of the detailing for this part out of respect for the other’s feelings though, and we’ll skip over the screenshot section to continue on.

The only reason why this is being brought up in public now is simple: There’s definitely a lot of misinformed vaguing going on and it was time to make things clear. This wasn’t a ‘random attack’ just because ‘Dustin didn’t like someone’. This was genuinely something that made a couple people worried and felt uncomfortable with talking one on one with King about it. The public possibility should never have been a point of discussion at any point during that time, and y’know what? For that, I’ll apologize for even thinking about it at the time. Even if I didn’t feel comfortable personally talking to King about it, it probably would have been infinitely better to just make the document and leave it there. Using the word ‘callout’ in this situation was actually a cause of two things: tendency, and genuine belief there may have been reason to call behavior out, which I’ll not explain the overall reasoning behind it as those claims after being investigated weren’t entirely factual. This quickly became something of a personal matter only.

Other misconceptions I’ve seen being posted are as follows:

A friend’s privacy will be breached to make the public callout.

No, I wouldn’t say so. Considering the friend in question was already mentioned here a few times. They themselves had initially been VERY gungho about this and didn’t ever say to stop at first. When they did eventually say they wanted no part in even discussing the matter and to simply ‘talk to King’ they were told they wouldn’t have to do anything and they weren’t expected to. They WERE told that, by simple logic, if the issue was brought up with King at all (in regards to people’s names being brought up), they would very easily be able to piece together that it was them that had told us about it, since... It’s really not hard to remember what IMs you’ve sent to someone... You can pretty much tell yourself even with any nicknames blurred out. It was there that we had a deadlock. On the one hand, they had been very much in agreement that bringing up other people’s names like that was worth being upset about, but on the other hand, also didn’t want to lose their friendship with King because of the fact that they had shown us the messages with the namedropping in them. I absolutely wouldn’t say privacy was ‘breached’ at any point in time prior. And even moreso, they were never forced to do anything. They themselves showed the images, they themselves had been all for a ‘callout’ or discussion with King up until recently where they explicitly said they ‘didn’t want to be involved anymore’ which was respected. The final words spoken were ‘do what you need to do and I will too” between us. Never were they going to be explicitly involved any further. They of course thought otherwise and ‘picked sides’ completely, despite having a further conversation afterwards better explaining the situation. But that’s neither here nor there. And even after all this, they had mentioned both publicly and privately about a certain sentence in their rules, which had been read multiple times, well, at least I can speak for myself when I say that. ‘Drama’ was not ‘brought’ to them, is what I’m trying to say here. The only real issue here was the deadlock that because they were the one to tell me about King’s initial namedropping (regardless of intention, I’ll concede is still arguable), and because I am NOT the type of person to do NOTHING when multiple people are affected or feel a certain way, they themselves felt as though they had been trapped in a position that wasn’t ideal for them, and that’s understandably so.

I’m positive there’s a ton more that should and could be discussed about this issue. I’m also fairly open to discussion about all of this brought up here. I mean specifically with those involved. Like I said, I’m not sure if most of this had any ill will behind it at all. Much of it absolutely came off a certain way and naturally there’s concern though. But considering there’s been a lot of stuff on the dash that simply isn’t true, I would say this post was necessary at this point in time. This isn’t ‘the truth’, nor is it ‘the one correct side’ to this issue. It was absolutely a personal matter and every person involved has their own side of the story, own explanations and own emotions. Even in spite of all this, I don’t currently have immense ill will for any people involved.

#drama tw #extremely long post

4 notes · View notes