#You don't need a rule to explicitly tell you you aren't allowed in! Just know everyone hates your ships because they're incestual and ugly!

[teaveetamer]

Cap: *writes a blatantly sexist, racist, homophobic fic that is immensely popular and influential in the fandom and that many people have explicitly said made them feel uncomfortable when reading it*

Raxis: he's completely innocent everyone who says he ever did anything wrong are just hysterical liars with victim complexes

Moonlitboar: *says that they wanted Lambert to be more morally ambiguous and said they thought Sitri was happy in untagged posts that literally maybe a dozen people max ever saw*

Raxis: THEY DESERVED TO GET CANCELED THEY FUCKED AROUND AMD FOUND OUT THEY’RE AN ASSHOLE but i never did anything to them but i know who did but i won't tell anyone who that is BUT I'M COMPLETELY UNINVOLVED i just know exactly who is involved in this TOTALLY JUSTIFIED C A N C E L A T I O N (and totally not harassment because harassment is bad but cancelation to the point of harassment is fine)

LITERALLY what was the game plan here. His own logic makes it sound like he's actually completely down with Cap getting "canceled" AND he sounds like a blatant liar. Why couldn't he just shut his mouth for once

From the very beginning, no one on Tumblr has done anything that would break his personal definition of "normal" fandom participation. We're "harassing" Cap for talking about his fic and meta posts, but if you bring up Raxy's aggressive disregard for the block button, and how he disregards people directly asking him to leave them alone, he will be the FIRST to say "you put it on the internet so you have no right to be upset about me criticizing your dumbass takes".

He will stomp his feet and throw a tantrum if you say anything even remotely critical of Cap's fic's actual racist, sexist, and homophobic undertones, but Moonlit had one milquetoast opinion about Sitri and Lambert and they "deserve" a brutal cancellation. By his logic Cap should have been cancelled about a thousand times over by now; I'm giving him one cancellation for every use of "girls" to refer to grown women.

He will consistently justify his mistreatment of people with "but someone bullied Cap first" even if the person he's literally harassing has had nothing to do with Cap ever, but if you bring up what he demonstrably did to Moonlitboar it's "how dare you, you shouldn't 'mistreat' me for this thing I demonstrably did and even if I did do it then it wasn't my fault because they deserved it :/"

The truth of the matter is that Raxy doesn't give a shit. His "rules" for engagement are literally just "I should be allowed to react however I want whenever my feelings are hurt, and you should only be allowed to react in a way that doesn't hurt my feelings." Except this man is quite possibly the most fragile human being I have ever encountered and everything hurts his feelings. He genuinely thinks saying "I think Sitri lived a good life" is equivalent in hurtfulness to "I think it's okay to make genocide 'jokes' on your posts". Because the Sitri thing hurt his poor feelings, but well if someone tells me it's funny to remind me that my family died in the holocaust it's not his feelings getting hurt, so who gives a shit, just don't make him look too bad and he doesn't care. I wish I were kidding but that was LITERALLY his primary concern in that situation.

Not "hey talking about how genocide is cool is fucked up" or "hey maybe stop telling the woman who just told you that her family was impacted by the Holocaust that genocide is really funny and something to joke about"

Nope, it's "shut up you're making us look bad, and look now you woke Nilsh up! Don't you know I worked so hard to harass him into leaving social media!"

Like be for fucking real dude, you aren't slick. I can sum up everything you need to know about this guy's attitude in two images:

His logic looks like a mess of spaghetti because it is. Because he works backward from a conclusion ("I should be allowed to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to do anything I don't like") and he inserts justifications as he goes, with no regard for whether or not it actually makes sense. He went from "Moonlit deserved it because they had bad takes" to "Moonlit was actually harassing me" to "I didn't actually do it anyway" to "I know exactly who did it but I won't say but it wasn't that bad" to now, apparently, "there's a conspiracy against me". He just relies on no one looking closely enough at him to notice the clear pattern. If someone does suss it out he tries to harass them into shutting up about him or he tries to delete evidence of his past logic and behavior (all the better if the person he's harassing deletes everything too, because then he can just make shit up).

The thing that really gets me is like, just how clearly unable to function he is without someone he absolutely hates to bounce off of. Does he even make original posts, or does he just constantly whine about other people's opinions? Every post I've ever seen from him about 3H, even the ones that aren't reblogs or don't have screenshots included, are like 99% "someone had an opinion I didn't agree with! Allow me to debunk it!" posts. The other 1% are recycled talking points from other people's metas, which he writes like he's got a 5,000 word paper due tomorrow that he hasn't even started and he's trying to see how much "slightly reword the wikipedia entry" he can get away with.

And not even speaking just about Raxy, but this is what pisses me off so bad about certain people in fandom. They feel empowered to harass and bully the genuinely awesome, creative people who actually make things. Those people leave, and then they have the audacity to sit there and whine about how the fandom is dead, no one is making anything, everyone left for greener pastures. They suck the life out of vibrant communities and leave nothing but a hollowed out husk. It happened with a ton of fan artists and authors in 3H, including some I'm friends with, who just had to get the fuck out because of the damage it was causing their mental health. And before he says it, no. Saying "Cap's (a white man) fic has some kinda racist and uncomfy undertones I wish he'd take some criticism to heart and correct that" is not the same thing as stalking someone and sending death threats because they have a different opinion about your favorite character. Holy fuck.

Like hey wanna know why no one wants to talk about 3H anymore? Because of this shit. Because saying "I think Lambert doing Morally Complex things is Morally Complex and therefore interesting" is the kind of opinion that can get you harassed into leaving the fandom entirely.

[theworldbrewery]

In your opinion, would a ranged battlemaster fighter work well mechanically? I'm aware that many of the Maneuvers are for melee fighting, but I've been toying around with an idea for a crossbow or gun wielding battlemaster. Tbh the only reason that I'm concerned about the "functionality" of it is because the rest of my group minmaxes like crazy and I don't want my character to die cuz it can't keep up with the rest of the group. Not to yuck their yum or say I'm not having fun in the group! I just wanna know if this is a build that will hold up.

I am pretty much constantly thinking about Battle Master maneuver strats, so you came to the right place!

A few key points:

The only Core Rulebook maneuvers that require you to be in melee when attacking are feinting attack, lunging attack, and sweeping attack (pushing attack is in a grey area; I would rule the "pushed up to 15 feet away from you" as being up to 15 feet in a direction away from your location, not that 15 is a limiting distance from your character--but another DM might not agree).

Parry and riposte involve an enemy getting into melee with you, which is possible even if you're a ranged attacker, but not necessarily ideal.

Disarming strike, distracting strike, goading attack, menacing attack, precision attack, and trip attack are all delicious options for a ranged attacker to take. (Ambush, from TCoE, is another good choice)

Basically, you should always have *some* means of melee attack if you're going to choose this subclass, because you can't guarantee that your enemies won't move around the battlefield and Get You. But in general, focusing your skillset around ranged attacks is perfectly possible.

Battlemaster mechanics are made for manipulating your enemies' and allies' options. A disarming strike gives an ally in melee a chance to steal the enemy's weapon, for example. Other options mentioned above might give your allies' attacks advantage, put the enemies at disadvantage, or impose other conditions (frightened, prone) in addition to more standard effects like dealing extra damage or boosting your own rolls.

With that in mind -- if you have a caster-heavy party and they also enjoy these types of strategic moves, you will want to choose your maneuvers with care. Nerfing an enemy will always feel cool, but with AOE effects, they can often hit multiple enemies with their effects at the same time. Assuming you're playing with people who aren't all about hogging the spotlight, though, you can just tell them this is a mechanical role you're planning to take, and they will likely not step all over your fun.

Now, as you've noted, the Battle Master isn't built with ranged combat in mind. There is another option: the Arcane Archer. It works in a similar way; you get a limited number of special effects you can apply to your ranged attacks. These effects are explicitly magical, but they are not spells. The main caveats to this proposal are as follows:

This subclass calls for a high (or at least decent) Intelligence score, since the save DCs are calculated using that ability.

You get fewer uses per short/long rest. When you take the subclass, you get two uses of the special "arcane shot" effects per short rest, instead of the 4 you start with in Battle Master.

This is likely negotiable with the right DM, but Arcane Archer is dedicated to archers specifically -- no firearms allowed, RAW.

With that information at hand, I really do recommend reviewing the list of Arcane Shot options -- they're long, so I can't recap them all here, but they tend to work more like particularly beefy cantrips with multiple damage effects and an additional, usually single-round debuff, e.g. reduced speed, banishing an enemy for a round, or limiting the enemy's field of vision.

To me, this subclass needs some reworking (a core subclass ability shouldn't be a two-and-done, IMO), but it has a charm of its own. In many ways, these two subclasses are mirrors of one another. I just think that structurally, Battle Master is more mechanically sound -- and therefore, unless you have a homebrew-minded DM, you should probably go for that one.

(Also! If you're concerned about the so-called "caster-martial divide" or other "power creep" issues, talk with your DM about it! They ostensibly want you to have a good time and not feel left behind, so if a liberal hand with martial-oriented items you can use to offset some of those power gaps.)

[shihalyfie]

So i'm rewatching ep 37 of 02, and apparently Qinglongmon kind of implies that the Four Holy Beasts actually intervened occasionally to allow Digimon to reach the Perfect level, which sort of explains Tailmon randomly evolving into Angewomon in ep 13, right? And I feel like this can be extrapolated to other instances of Digimon surpassing Adult between May 2000 and December 2002. Like Hurricane Touchdown maybe? Since Kaiser went on a Dark Tower spree later, the FBS were blocked. Makes sense?

As far as I can tell, while they didn't directly say they intervened with evolution, it does seem that they intervened in some way (since the D-Terminals being able to store Digimentals is explicitly pointed out to be an unexpected circumstance they adapted to on the fly), and were able to have indirect influence such as sending the second batch of Digimentals and create the Digimental of Miracles. And given that the ability to (easily) evolve to Perfect was given directly to the Four Holy Beasts to unseal them, and the fact that temporarily getting it back during the later parts of 02 was from one of Qinglongmon's DigiCores, and the fact that HolyAngemon's appearance in 02 episode 34 comes from touching one of their Holy Stones, and the fact that the Four Holy Beasts aren't necessarily portrayed as being stingy about providing power when they need it...yeah, this seems like a reasonable rationalization!

I also do feel like the "rules" regarding evolution and when and how they can happen are actually a lot more loose in practice than the fanbase tends to think. The 15th Anniversary drama CD, which takes place in summer 2001 (explicitly after they gave up said Crest power in summer 2000) has Palmon, borrowing some power from the Holy Beasts, evolve straight into Rosemon -- for no good reason. Even in the drama CD itself, the characters are completely puzzled as to how that's even possible, and there's no explanation given (of course, the real answer is just "because it's funnier that way"). And no, this isn't arbitrary ignoring canon or anything, this drama CD was made by Kakudou, Yoshimura, and Seki themselves (in fact, it was the last Adventure-related piece of canon Kakudou was ever involved on). And you know how usually stickler Kakudou is about his setting compliance, but despite all that, things related to evolutionary mechanics seem to really be a "don't worry too much about it" issue, so I honestly think any explanation you can come up with is fine.

[bawdybean]

I saw you mention in the comments that you were also banned from the 30+ Fanfic Discord Server without warning or explanation. Would you be willing to share your story?

Sure why not. So I joined the server because I had several friends on there who were enjoying it, and then once I was there, a bunch MORE friends joined. It was nice for a bit, but I noticed quite quickly that there was one mod (Adela) who was... a bit aggressive. A hair trigger for correcting others but often did not follow the rules themselves- and that bothered me a lot due to previous fandom experience.

As an example, I invited a friend, and then left quite quickly because within a single day, Adela had come at them over their opinion on the ability of someone to write from a perspective they don't have (such as writing across genders etc). The mod apologized eventually and said they were very touchy about it because of a friend. Oookay. The flags were there but I chose to keep giving it a try. It is supposed to be a server full of adults (30+ is the whole point) and we were encouraged to act like adults- in the rules. But in practice, any phrase that any member or mod could interpret wrong was worthy of the mods reminding us not to do X Y o r Z because it might be offensive to someone. When I spoke up and asked that also maybe everyone could assume good intent as well? I was shushed and talked down to. I always felt that the mods were trying to "parent" the server. Adela in particular. One mod would tell me one thing and then Adela would come in HOURS later to correct both me and that mod.

Finally fed up with this I messaged the Server Owner Maryberry. I explained that I felt Adela was targeting some members of the server, and that I felt treated like a child, that ill intent was assumed in members actions first, but that Adela herself often did the things she corrected of others, even though they were not within the rules. I further explained that I had had a previous bad experience with a mod in a large server where I was a mod and that Adela bore a striking resemblance in behaviors. So in fairness part of it was me being set off by that. I asked if I was allowed to block a mod, because this is not explicitly stated in the rules but is the advice we/I would have given in much larger servers in case of a mod/member conflict. I also edxplained that several others had complained to me about Adela's behavior, including getting a DM from a server member I did not know, saying Adela was just like this and that Adela had treated her that way too, and she just wanted me to know I wasn't alone. I blacked out the persons name and passed that message along to Maryberry as well, naively thinking that perhaps they were too close to the situation and just not aware that they had a mod making a LOT of people uncomfortable. Maryberry asked if theycould tell Adela I had a problem with her, and i requested she not as I did not see how that would help in any way. They then requested time to think over if I should be allowed to block a mod. They decided I could, but that I would be at risk of missing messages that were important. I pointed out that I had a partner in the server who would relay those if needed, and that there was rarely if ever only a single mod on and proceeded to block Adella. Who continued to ping me with replies, respond to my comments (at times aggressively still), and all that came with that. I decided to stop speaking in the server because so often what I said drew attention from Adela, and with it criticism or unhelpful argument for the sake of argument. They have (had, idk if its still around) a public channel for asking questions and making suggestions for rule changes etc to the server, and one day someone was upset and requested a new rule that we not be allowed to make any jokes about any language we aren't a native speaker of (such as not being able to say: English can't verb, unless we are native English speaker. I chimed in that it might also be helpful to just assume good intent on the part of other server members and talk to them if they say something you feel is offensive since there is no real way to police if a person is a native speaker of a given language or not. And again a rule like that seemed unnecessarily "mommy-ing" of the adults in this server that claims to promote a mature atmosphere. Another mod responded to me, we all chatted in the channel things seemed fine. Adela came in hours later and scoured my ass, with a pinged reply. At this point I did behave poorly. I admit it. I unblocked Adela and DMd them that I had unblocked them specifically to let them know that I did not appreciate their behivior and that I was requesting that they no ping/reply/address me at all. I sent a screen shot of that DM to MaryBerry. I was not cruel, but I was BLUNT, and I did tell Adela that I did not appreciate her response. For transparency here is a shot of what I sent her.

what I then sent to the server owner

and the warning I received in response:

At this point I decided that the only way for me to be able to be present in the server was to be a lurker, watching and enjoying what my friends and partner participated in but not able to share anything myself. But I stayed because it was one server, where a lot of people I knew had congregated and so much easier than DMing 15 people to keep up with them. Then **4 months later** came the bruhaha that was referenced in part one of this blog. Adela broke rules again, it caused a stir and people spoke up, including me about this continuing to be an issue [mods not applying the rules to themselves or their friends] and retaliating against those who spoke up. One mod asked me in honestly in public chat why I stayed in the server if i did not feel i could even speak in it, and I answered honestly, that I stay because i know and am liked by many people here, and its nice to see what they are up to. Another mod suggested that perhaps I should evaluate if the server was a good fit for me since I didn't feel I could participate, and in that context it came off very much as "get out" to the point of other people asking as well in chat. I asked for clarification if I was being asked to leave the server of my own accord, and was told that no, that was a decision for me to make. I chose to stay, and was unceremoniously banned a day or two later without any further interaction from any mod, any notification, or warning. To be clear in the idk 9+ mo I was in the server I received one warning and I accepted it. As shown above. That was MONTHS before I was banned. When several of my friends asked why I was banned in open chat, the mods released their patented "we never ban without communicating why/warning/etc" and said that unfortunately I was banned for reasons "unrelated" to me questioning why the rules did not apply to the mods.

[alarajrogers]

They don't know it. They have no reason to know it. It's how they were taught To Do Things. If they're not amateur sociologists they probably have no idea there's another way.

Look, here's an example I'll give:

When we encounter another person in a crowded space, most of us do a little dance. We see the person. They see us. We step out of their way, or they step out of ours, or we both step aside to let the other person swap into our previous place smoothly.

It drove me nuts for years that my partner doesn't do this. He just stands there, with no consciousness that you are trying to get past him. It turns out that this is normal and expected behavior for someone with no peripheral vision.

Meanwhile, he is always outraged that people don't say "excuse me" when they want to get past him. This is because "excuse me" is normally reserved for extreme cases, not a thing you say to someone every time you approach them, and it is really tiring to constantly say excuse me, and why can't he just participate in the little dance so we don't always have to talk? The answer is, he can't because he can't see us. But he doesn't understand that people who can see better than he can just yield to each other. (This might apply to autistic people as well, because it's a social rule, but it's one that I and my autistic kids know and don't have trouble with.)

The phrasing "the dishwasher has been run, it needs to be emptied" is supposed to be a statement that you should empty the dishwasher without the rudeness of constantly demanding things. A lot of people who were socialized as female use this technique because when they are always telling people explicitly what to do, they get described as pushy, bossy, bitchy, nagging... That's what happens when you put half the human race in charge of getting things done at home but you also say that they're not allowed to give orders to the other half. I use this technique and I'm not sure why; I'm autistic, I ought to know better. But it feels really really uncomfortable to say "Can you empty the dishwasher?" all the time. (Among other things I have a serious issue with feeling like no one ever does anything I ask for, so if I state that a thing needs to be done and then nobody does it, it's less harmful emotionally than if I ask someone to do a thing and they don't.)

Yes, it's bullshit. But it's bullshit that exists for a reason, and the reason is also bullshit but unfortunately nonetheless exists. As an autistic person, you may have to either explain to the person "When you phrase it that way, it doesn't sound to me like a request, it just sounds like a statement/general ask for information, not something you want me to do", or, if they aren't receptive to changing their behavior, asking people "Do you mean you want me to do it?" (Some people will respond with rudeness, like, "No, I want the armchair to do it, what the fuck do you think?" I think it should be acceptable to say "I think that what you asked me was if I wanted to do a thing, and I don't, but I'm guessing that maybe you didn't say what you actually meant, which was to ask me to do the thing. If you were more careful with your phrasing, I wouldn't need to ask for clarification." Obviously if you are a teenager and you're talking to an adult, though, this may not work out well for you.)

Or be pedantic. "No, I don't want to help make dinner, but because dinner needs making and I suspect you may actually be asking me to help you rather than asking what I want, I will help make dinner if that's what you're really asking." "You've just stated a fact about the dishwasher being full and needing to be emptied; should I infer that you're therefore asking me to empty it?"

Allistic people really need to stop phrasing requests as questions because it's fucking with me

"Do you want to help me cook dinner?"

No, I'm still overwhelmed from earlier and want to stay in my room.

"well fine, dinner will be ready when it's done." And now they're upset with me

And I'm just here like ???????

[sarcasmprodigy]

REMINDER THAT IF YOU SHIP INCEST I HATE U.

[olderthannetfic]

So I have a question about "problematic fanfictions"… not underage sex for once.

I lurk around in a fandom for a ship where there has been some drama regarding the appearance of a trope that makes a canonically "good character "- basically known for NOT being a bigot and not much else - into a pseudo nazi. Things are complicated by the fact that the love interest would canonically be in the discriminated-against group. The fact that the trope they are going for is a romanticisation of Nazi/Holocaust victim is NOT subtle - to everyone but the people enjoying it, apparently.

Lots of people were very upset and pointed out why it's problematic, even calling for it to never be used, the authors got upset in turn. I think there were heavy discussions/fights about it in private too.

Point is, as much as I think the trope is shit (honestly not just because of the nazi romanticisation, but for its overall relationship to canon) I also think everyone can write whatever. Being into the creepy kinky stuff myself, I was not particularly shocked. But I also get why people would be. To be frank, the arguments against it were not that different from the criticism you would get around something like The Night Porter.

So this got me thinking, do you think it is possible for a type of criticism of fanfiction that is a conversation on why things can be problematic and that still allows for things to exist?

I get that you don't know where the person is coming from, or that self-awareness is not required to write something, but sometimes it's simply the matter of telling someone "hey, you just wrote something very racist/sexist/whatever ".

What I am asking I guess if we are ready for criticism of fanfiction in a more literary sense.The way we would canon. Or are they too different a thing that it is not possible? Lots of people are very against any kind of criticism in fanfictions, and I've literally seen people get upset at commenters pointing out typos or anachronisms. A lot of the time the culture is "if you don't have anything good to say, say nothing", and I follow this rule, but it can feel claustrophobic at times.

And while I get don't like - don't read and practice it myself, I also can understand people being upset at, say, knowing a negative stereotype about their group or a romanticisation of their trauma is around without being able to discuss it explicitly.

I am not even sure mainstream criticism is doing a good job at not being pearl-clutching and censorship as of late. But I also think it's very important to just talk about things, and I have yet to see a space in fandom where the bad is discussed without turning into a fan war, though I might just be unlucky.

--

Telling them where?

If you're in a discord for a fandom, and someone has a massively offensive headcanon they want everyone else to adopt, it's absolutely appropriate to explain that it makes you uncomfortable and why.

A review in a bookmark or a review blog on tumblr or wherever else could absolutely be literary criticism.

AO3 comments, however, are typically seen as a conversation with the author. The author may not be open to conversation. They may not even be open to a much less critical conversation than this.

It's claustrophobic because you're treating the AO3 comments section as the sole place for discussion. That's the equivalent of asking the author's official website to stand in for book review blogs, goodreads, and amazon product reviews.

If you want to build a space in fandom for those discussions, you should do so. It will be tough because most reviewers are much less intelligent and much less informed than they think they are and because a lot of people have ulterior motives for criticism.

It will also be tough because there's no reason someone should care about fic reviews of a fandom they aren't in aside from yelling at creators for offensive art. If you want a good faith critique space, it probably needs to be one where the people present are delving into their own fandoms with an eye to improving their own writing/art/recs.

In practice, the "how to write X" blogs I've seen around here have all been unintentionally offensive, treated their group as a monolith while trying to do the opposite, and have been virulently, virulently anti-kink.

I think it would help to have an aim for your space. "I want to tell this AO3 author that they hurt me" is not an aim that will ever go anywhere but mega-wank. "I want to improve my own writing" might go somewhere productive.

[ooops-i-arted]

If people aren't going to bother understanding what attachments actually are in Jedi culture or try understanding the Asian religions they are inspired by and instead dismiss it? Then they need to just refrain from writing Jedi at all instead of spreading more misinformation. Like how are fans going to even properly analyze and critique the Jedi Order if they don't even know WHAT they're actually critiquing and base their opinions off this fandom playing a long game of telephone? I'm getting really tired of seeing the same discourse of how Jedi discourages emotions like love or sever cultural ties or prevent cultural expression when that's not supported in the original six movies. Also, imagine being that dense to think Grogu's or Reva's trauma was caused by the Jedi order instead of the Empire that genocided their culture or the traffickers that sold Force sensitive people. Clown behavior.

A+ rant, I definitely sympathize. People really do overemphasize the no emotion things when like, it's VERY explicit it's about regulating your emotions. Right in ANH, Luke is missing his Death Star shots until he calms himself down and focuses. My personal favorite is Obi-Wan vs. Maul. Obi-Wan is consumed by grief and anger when Qui-Gon is killed, and almost gets himself killed - until he controls his emotions and is able to kill* Maul. We see him attending a funeral later where he (and other Jedi) are shown mourning Qui-Gon, so it's not like he can't have those feelings. He just isn't allowed to be ruled by those feelings, which, when you have superpowers it's a good thing you're not blindly ruled by emotion. Anakin goes apeshit because he's so ruled by his fear of losing Padme and look how many people die.

*Side note I feel like Maul living is stupid (he was cut in half!) and invalidates this incredibly important moment in Obi-Wan's character development and I will never acknowledge that Maul lived past TPM.

Lol when watching Kenobi, where Anakin is shown murdering children on-screen so explicitly they had to put a content warning (and personally as a teacher I even found it a little triggering/anxiety-inducing) my first thought was still "and Those Certain Fans will still blame the Jedi for this/defend Anakin." Sigh.

I usually just scroll past those discourse posts because well, they're just... irrelevant to me. Sure, I can see why people wanna critique them, because realistically the Jedi could have a lot of issues. But this isn't our world, this is a galaxy far, far away, and George Lucas approached it as mythology/fantasy more than anything. The good guys are good because they're good and are nice and help people. Narratively, that's really all there is to the Jedi. Some people like to go deeper than that, or flip the narrative. Me, it's enough. To each their own.

Plus Star Wars has a very unique approach to children being portrayed as being just as capable as adults. Does it work in the real world? No of course not! It's there because it's what makes Star Wars truly for all ages and enjoyable to all. 11-year-old me wrote fanfiction about my Very Mature 14-year-old Jedi OC being a Super Amazing Awesome Smart Jedi Commander in the Clone Wars because I was 11, 30+-year-old me obviously knows I was an idiot at that age and a 14-year-old kid has no business being in a war but 11-year-old me just enjoyed living vicariously through a story/media that didn't treat me like a dumb kid just for being young. I think adult fans kinda forget that aspect and get hung up in "omg the Jedi treat kids awful" when it's a story that supposed to appeal to kids, that's why you get young heroes and heroines. I loved it as a kid. I saw you got a laser sword and never had to get married, sign me the fuck up, and I've been a diehard Jedi fan ever since.

If someone doesn't like the Jedi, cool, us Jedi fans don't mind that... but please stop ganging up on us and telling us we're terrible. Just let us enjoy the Jedi in peace and we'll let you write your discourse posts in peace. Simple.

[coffeeman777]

okay, last anon here, I read those questions in that post for linked for me, but I don't know how to answer any of those questions. I am just numb and scared.

Ok, lets start with the basics then.

The Bible is God's inspired Word. It is supernatural divine revelation, the contents of which tell us who God is, what He's done, and what He expects from us. The Bible is totally interrent in all that it teaches and means to affirm; it's completely trustworthy.

The Bible is explicitly clear concerning salvation, detailing exactly how a person is saved, and how we can know it.

To be saved: Confess that the God of Israel is the one true God.  Confess and believe that Jesus Christ is that God in human form.  Confess and believe that Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, and then willingly allowed Himself to be killed as a sacrifice for our sins.  Confess and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, and is now alive with God, and will someday return to judge and rule over the Earth.  Ask Him to forgive you.  Ask Him to save you.  Swear loyalty to Him alone as your God, and renounce all other gods forever.  Turn to God with your whole heart.  Abandon your sins.  Ask the Lord to help you keep His commands and live a life that's pleasing to Him.  If you do this sincerely from the heart, you are saved.

John 1:1-4, 14

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men...14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Romans 3:21-25

"21-22 But now God has shown us a different way to heaven --not by “being good enough” and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us “not guilty”—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like. 23 Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; 24 yet now God declares us “not guilty” of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins. 25 For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God’s anger against us. He used Christ’s blood and our faith as the means of saving us from his wrath."

Romans 5:8

"8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 6:23

"23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 10:9-13

"9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”"

Now, the proof that you have been saved is lasting repentance and the steady, day by day development of the fruit of the Spirit in you. That's what the first post I sent you was about.

If you aren't already, you need to get involved in a local, Bible-based church that teaches sound doctrine; solid, exegetical preaching. Surround yourself with other Christians. And of course, spend time with God daily in private prayer and worship, and study of the Bible.

I'll be praying for you. Be blessed!

[cowboyworf]

you know what i have been thinking about that still pisses me off?

when covid really hit, like everything was getting shut down, my old job was allowed to stay open because we sold food for pets. whatever. we took precautions- no more than one customer in the store at the time and they had to tell us what they needed and go grab it for them. of course, half these fuckers weren't coming for necessities and i would have to spend an hour picking out what dog clothes would look best on fido and show them 30 different kinds of treats before they find one that wouldn't make a mess on the floor. unsurprising.

it was terrifying, of course, because my coworker's father, who he lived with, had copd and lung cancer. my boss had an infant at home. i have asthma and my father just had open heart surgery. there was no vaccine yet. we didn't even know if we could find a vaccine at that point. but we all knew we had to come in, because if you quit, there's no unemployment benefits to fall back on. such is capitalism in a pandemic and being an essential employee.

but what really pisses me off, thinking back on it, is that my company sent out a huge e-mail to every employee stating that a lot of employees were calling out for covid without proof, so they were going to "crack down" on callouts. if an employee felt sick, it was encouraged that they finish their shift, and if they call out for three days, unless they have a doctor's note of a positive test, that employee gets fired. no exceptions.

and mind you, this is either when rapid tests weren't a thing or i at least didn't know about them because i live in a poor, rural area. covid test results take three to five days, and the latter was more common, because the local clinics were packed. it's not like the company didn't know that. it was all over the news. for fuck sake, it was the only thing on the news.

what that rule did was force employees to work, even if they suspected covid, even if they were severely ill. there was no backup plan for us. we didn't get paid time off, we didn't have a thriving job market to be a cushion, and we certainly weren't getting unemployment. i knew for a long time that corporations don't care if poor people live or die, because we are all replaceable, and money is worth more than poor people's lives. but that was the first time at my job that it was so explicitly stated and that i wasn't complacent about it, as we are all taught to be.

i don't know if laws changed after that, because the company went bankrupt awhile- and only told the employees and managers one month prior to the closing date, which was five days after christmas. i loved my job. i'm not shy about admitting that. i'm good at customer service and i made lifelong friendships with some of my customers. but when the news hit, after crying over not knowing what we were going to do and grieving the loss of a job i had for six years, my only positive was the hope that those big corporate fuckers would suffer. i'm sure they didn't. i'm sure they still aren't. but i have no sympathy for those that possibly did and do.

no matter how much you love a job, it does not love you back. and that was the first time, after being a workaholic for six years, that i realized doing bare minimum to get by is the healthiest option for most employees. it's the only option. i am not going above and beyond for any corporation ever again and i am a better person for it.

[employeesproductivityhub]

Employee Monitoring Ethics at Work: How to Maintain Them

If you asked most business owners, managers, and employees last year, they would undoubtedly tell you that employee monitoring software is excessive and intrusive. However, now that COVID-19 has caused us to reconsider work-from-home rules, this business is thriving.

Many managers have learned that their workers may work remotely and yet fulfill their jobs. However, the majority of these businesses have no experience with remote employment. What steps does a firm take to maintain high productivity while checking employee attendance on a daily basis?

While monitoring systems have demonstrated their ability to assist businesses on various levels, they continue to raise ethical issues.

This article includes the following sections:

1 What exactly is employee monitoring?

2 Employee Monitoring Has Two Major Ethical Consequences

3 Suggestions for Maintaining Employee Monitoring Ethics

So let's get started!

What exactly is employee monitoring?

Employee monitoring entails following your employees' actions using different workplace monitoring technologies such as video surveillance, electronic surveillance, computer monitoring, and so on.

Employee monitoring ethics explains how to monitor your workers and their work without compromising their privacy. You can create a secure and productive work environment by establishing a transparent staff monitoring system.

Employee Monitoring Has Two Major Ethical Consequences

Here are two ethical repercussions of employee monitoring that you should be aware of if you want to win employee confidence and preserve openness in your organization.

1. Breach of Personal Data and Privacy

Do you know why most employees are apprehensive about being monitored?

It's because they see it as an infringement of their personal privacy!

Employees may feel uneasy when their computer activities are constantly being watched at work. And this might be even higher for employees who observed for the first time – they may have a higher expectation of privacy since they have never tracked before.

2. Lessens Employee Satisfaction and Trust

Employee monitoring may breed mistrust and discontent in the workplace.

Especially if you do it in private.

Considering their personal accounts/messages to ensure they aren't doing anything unlawful might send all the wrong signals. Sure, there might be workers that misbehave or risk corporate data. However, thinking that everyone is the same might stifle their workplace behavior. And have a direct influence on their motivation, productivity, and performance.

3 Suggestions for Maintaining Labour Monitoring Ethics -

1. Establish a Standard Employee Monitoring Policy.

The first step toward ethical employee monitoring is to create a thorough employee monitoring policy with the assistance of your human resources staff. What you must explicitly specify in your corporate policy is as follows:

Reasons why you will be watching over your staff.

Emails/private messages, work screens, social media, and internet usage are all things you'll keep an eye on. It clarifies their expectation of working privacy.

Monitoring types include video/audio monitoring and digital monitoring.

Why is personal device monitoring necessary?

How many hours will you monitor? Will it only be during working hours?

2. Assist Employees in Understanding the Importance of Monitoring

Whether you utilize in-house or remote employee monitoring, sure your staff understands why you're watching them. Make it clear that you will only be monitoring them for professional purposes and only during business hours. Make them aware of the hazards associated with inappropriate digital asset usage, and instruct them not to use work computers or phones for personal purposes. While not all nations' labor laws need prior notice or employee permission, it is better to be upfront from the outset.

3. Make use of a safe employee monitoring and productivity tool.

Employee monitoring and productivity software, whether remote or in-office is the simple method to track employees today. All you have to do as an employer is install the monitoring application on the business computers or the PCs of your workers. However, make sure you choose a solution that meets your monitoring needs while still respecting your employees' privacy. EmpMonitor is one such employee monitoring software that allows you to monitor both your in-house and remote staff.

What's EmpMonitor?

EmpMonitor is one such program that provides outstanding capabilities for organizations to monitor and manage their personnel. It includes frequent screenshots, complete reports of the user's time, attendance, and online activity, tracks and records the user's browser history, and a keystroke feature, making this surveillance tool exceptional.

Also watch: Manage Remote Work Easily With Powerful Monitoring Software: EmpMonitor(EmpMonitor AV Ad)

Last Thoughts

Today, almost every firm, major corporations to tiny enterprises, monitors its personnel. Ineffective staff monitoring from techniques can lead to legal issues and a poor business reputation. But don't be concerned. Just follow the guidelines we've provided here to guarantee employee monitoring ethics in your business.

[postsforposting]

You know why people do this stuff? They want to be accepted for who they are. Having to omit stuff feels like you're lying, feels like you're having to hide things because they're dirty, because other people will hate you for them. Avoiding hate isn't the point, it's about being able to say, "past here, you read the sign, either you accept me or you hate me, but you can't reject me after the fact". It's not about being stupid or uninformed. Same deal with going into adult spaces, because children's spaces explicitly forbid talking about any of that stuff because it's considered too racy. Which obviously makes you feel like you don't belong there, aren't welcome there, in the same way spaces that forbid talk of gayness around children make the gay kids feel ostracized and hated, like they have to cut off parts of themselves to get any kind of even provisional tolerance, let alone a welcome.

The kids doing this aren't stupid or misinformed, generally. They do it because they want somewhere that accepts them instead of treating them like untouchables. Children are already treated as second class, to be made even less than that isn't sustainable.

It's the same choice that any member of a hated group has in going public with their identity. "Oh don't do it, you'll be harassed, don't ever come out" no. Internet safety is don't put your real name and location out there. Don't drop details that could show where you live and who you are, like "oh we went to the [Famous Band] concert yesterday". Censor stuff like that. Is a child savvy enough to do that? Probably not, most adults can't even keep their mouths shut about simple things like surprise birthday parties.

But if a kid wants a place to talk about their mental health stuff? As long as they censor identifying details, and draw the line at the obvious stuff you don't put on the internet ever, there's nothing wrong with that.

One of those obvious things being do not talk to strangers about sex if you're a minor because that is major legal trouble for everyone involved: never assume nobody will find out. You wanna lie about your age and read sexy fiction? Fine, there's nobody else involved. You wanna go watch free porn or look at websites talking about safe sex and reproduction? Nobody else involved. But you do not go looking for people to watch live or join chats. You do not participate in forums. You leave no trace. You have questions, you go to a site that explicitly allows children to ask and get answers, those are the only places that no one will get in trouble for. You don't like it when you get in trouble, so don't do it to other people, especially when they have no way to know you're putting them in danger.

You cannot tell a kid that they can't reach out for social comfort when the Internet is the only place a lot of people get that. Social validation doesn't have an age requirement. Children are already in shit situations, unable to leave or get help because of the people around them. Don't yell at kids for trying to fulfill a real need. Give them the rules they need and why those rules exist. It's not like you can reach out and stop them if they choose not to heed it anyway. You can choose not to be another bellowing yodel in their lives, and treat them like conscious people making a choice for a reason, just like we assume about other people.

Also something that really makes me worried is that kids on the internet nowadays literally dont know any internet safety info.

Stop listing your mental illnesses and triggers, dont put your real name, dont put your age. People can use that against you.

And for the love of god. Minors, stay out of adult spaces. We're not saying this because we're being mean, we're saying this so you dont get us in trouble. It's not safe for adults in adult spaces if theres minors trying to butt in. You're not only going to get yourself in trouble, but also the adults you interact with.

[postsforposting]

Ehhhh. People are explicitly taught that anyone who doesn't want What Is Right (wir) is evil and they are bad and wrong to want it so they shouldn't get it and need to learn to stop wanting it. People are explicitly taught that wanting anything different from WIR means they're evil and they need to stop. People are taught that differing is evil and can't be done. So obviously, people are explicitly taught that they can't have preferences, can't differ, that differing doesn't happen, and that your preferences must be WIR--and the opposite, that what is right are what your preferences are. Literally, the only good things are what you like and if you don't like it then it's awful and stupid. This isn't natural or inherent, you have to be taught this.

It's not that people have trouble thinking that other people aren't like themselves or that preferences differ. It's that everyone is taught this doesn't happen and isn't acceptable, and we're all taught this as children when we aren't aware of it and can't question. You are in fact not allowed to question this type of thing, that's its whole schtick, that you're evil for doing anything but following orders. Like, if you're taught that the sun goes round the earth and that there's gods and kings are rightful rulers, it's going to be hard for you to change that thinking. But that doesn't make those beliefs natural or something inherent to being human. They're not. They're just beliefs. Foundational worldview beliefs, but still only beliefs. Recognizing oneself could be wrong is another thing people struggle with, because society teaches that being wrong means you deserve ridicule and punishment and other suffering. Which is a human cultural practice, a belief about how things are, not something inherent to human nature.

If you notice, people have no trouble with believing that anyone sufficiently different from themselves would think differently and have different preferences. That kicks in easily with all kinds of prejudice. It's an us vs them thing, the idea that there is only one good way to be and all others who differ are evil. That's its genius too, because any deviance is automatically rejected, and this enforces conformity, reinforcing itself. Any tolerance of difference, of variation, would require evaluation and the chance of change, that it's possible to be wrong, that there are more ways to be acceptable. It would mean you can't attack on sight because you can't reliability tell in group from out group easily. The whole point of What Is Right is that you say you know already what is right, that you know who is good and who is bad and that's why the rules are the rules. If you say you can't tell that, your house of cards collapses. (Aside--i wonder if visible religious symbols like hats and veils were started with an eye for identifying yours from heathens)

So ya, people aren't explicitly taught what preferences are, because that would mean you can have them and that they can differ. You are to obey and not think that anything given to you doesn't have to be like that. WIR is taught as objective, not like the policy and belief system it really is. That screws people up.

I wonder how many problems (personal, communication, relationship, or in general) are caused by people trying to follow the Golden Rule without realizing that other people do not want the same things. We are brought up with "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," but you don't want to have done unto you many things that other people would want done unto them.

People differ. And I think people kinda sorta know that in the abstract, but they would need to stop and think about it to apply it. They don't really have a theory of mind for other minds.

The example motivating this is from Hawkeye S01E03, in which one character does not get why his girlfriend is upset with him. He bought her concert tickets. He bought her tickets to his favorite band, which she does not like. He receives an explanation: "you bought yourself concert tickets and pretended they were a gift for her." But he seems genuinely not to get it. He would like it if someone bought him tickets to see that band, so why wouldn't he buy them for her to show he loves her? He may not even get that there is a distinction between "this is a great band" and "I think this is a great band." He explicitly knows that she does not like the band, but he does not intuitively understand why she would not be thrilled to get tickets to such a great show.

Many people have trouble separating their subjective preferences from objective truth. From the inside, it feels like "this is a great band." Most of us are brought up with many shoulds and a certain normal, and it can take a very long time to find out just how much the rest of the world differs on those shoulds and normals. From the inside, it feels like "this is how people communicate in relationships" or "this is an appropriate degree of cleanliness for the apartment," not that those are norms you happen to have received from your upbringing.

It is even a hard thing to understand your own preferences. Many people want to know what they want. You are going to have a hard time separating your subjective preferences from objective truth if you do not have an explicit notion of what your subjective preferences are.

Many people are implicitly raised to avoid knowing their preferences. You are supposed to do what you are supposed to do, not what you want to do, and anything you want to do is intrinsically suspect on that basis. If you think, "this is how I like it," doing that is greedy; if you think, "this is the way it is supposed to be," doing that is virtuous. Taking time to separate those ideas is just asking for guilt.

Similarly, you can do anything to/for someone once you have convinced yourself it is what they would really want or what you are supposed to do for them. You are just doing unto others. You are not following your own preferences. You don't even want [whatever], it is just something you are doing for them.

And you might genuinely not even want that! Many people get stuck in an ugly equilibrium where they do things they do not want to do for the benefit of people who also do not want them to do those things. And then they act unappreciative! Or worse: they express the socially appropriate appreciate and reinforce the equilibrium.