#also if you try to argue with the op of every other post I reblog maybe you should just unfollow me

[athetos]

If you’re going to be a jerk and harass someone because you thought their joke post wasn’t very funny enough can you at least have the decency to not do it on my reblog of the post because I don’t know why losers think they can start fights with random people over literally the most banal shit ever in my notifications you’re just getting blocked.

[lovemyromance]

Stop trying to bait us. All you do is make endless posts about how much Elucien and Gwynriel suck, trying to get one of us to respond so you can argue with them. Too bad nearly every single mutual I know has blocked your account, and for good reason. You're toxic as hell

???

LOL, you think I make Elriel posts to bait antis into fighting with me??

Pls, heavenly father, give me patience to deal with this troll

Every single one of my posts is tagged #antielucien (except one post where I was trying to ask a genuine question, not trying to start anything). Not even #anti elucien - so they algorithm doesn't even have a chance of putting it in the Elucien tag. How am I trying to bait people when I literally tag everything properly?

And before anyone even comes at me for the #elain #azriel tags - I see plently, PLENTY of elucien/gwynriel posts with Elain and Azriel tagged. But if I see it's #anti-elriel , I don't respond. I know it's not meant for me. And yet, I see so, so many antis commenting on Elriel, #anti E/L or G/A posts just because they see #lucien or #gwyn tagged. They know it's not for them, and yet, here we are.

Also - I can literally count on one hand the amount of times I have gone onto an anti-elriel post. The first time was when I was brand new and didn't realize this ship war was that serious (have learned my lesson since). Another time when I was defending another Elriel who got bombarded with Elucien trolls. The other 2-3 times I have commented on an anti post have been because the OP indirectly or directly referenced me, specifically.

It's funny you say that, because I haven't gone onto Elucien & Gwynriel blogs to rile them up in their comments/reblogs. They're the ones who start fights in my replies/reblogs. I simply respond to them, matching their energy. If they come onto my blog with a genuine question, I answer it sincerely. If they come looking for a fight, then they'll get a fight :) Because I don't tolerate personal disrespect when we're debating fucking fictional characters.

So it really does not change my life in any shape or form if the Elucien/Gwynriel blogs block me. I don't look at their posts, comment on them, or even go on their pages. It literally makes zero difference if they block me, and in fact, if they really can't stand to see a post with a different opinion than theirs, then I highly encourage that they block me. I'd enjoy being able to post my thoughts without any drama.

I usually just scroll past a post if I don't agree/don't like it. And I don't follow any tags, including elriel, so I see a LOT of anti-posts every single day. It's a little thing called self-control, feel free to exercise the right to have some. And if you really, really, don't have any, then feel free to block the Elriel tag too.

Hope this helps :)

[maleficore]

I don’t even go here but your replies to deepdragons were so needlessly hostile.

“If you found it so disrespectful then why didn’t you block me?” This is childish and hypocritical. If you found their take so bad, why did you go out of your way to go to their blog, find the post, and then argue with them? Why didn’t YOU block them first so you wouldn’t have to see their takes? Why do people need to block you, to actively prevent you from interacting with them entirely, for you to not be rude to them?

People will have shitty takes and you will not agree with every post you see — that’s the nature of fandom. You can’t control how other people post or think and that’s annoying, I get it, but YOU can control how you interact with others. The way you were speaking to that person was so needlessly rude and hostile. Is that how you speak to people in real life? I’m so curious as to what your goal was in talking to them like that. Surely it wasn’t to convince any one of anything. Who would want to agree with someone being so dickish and annoying about something as inconsequential as the politics of elven aging? So, what was all of that for? Did that make you happy or have you just riled yourself up? Do you feel like you accomplished something by speaking to someone like that?

I really hate when people tear others apart for being wrong about fandom things. If you were wrong about something, do you think you would appreciate someone talking to you in the way you spoke to deepdragons? Or would you rather they approach you with respect and understanding? Golden rule and all that, yeah?

You did not have to seek them out and you did not have to engage with them. Next time, either speak to others with respect or just make your own goddamn post. Not everything needs to be a debate.

I also find it funny how you were coming at them for not being faithful for the lore or whatever and then, when someone with more textual evidence than you rebutted your statements and called for you to back up your claims, you were like “I can’t be expected to cite all of my claims like an academic paper!!” Fucking lol. The onus of proof lies only with the people you disagree with, huh?

Have you seen the original post? I'm guessing not because then you'd know that my reply pretty much mirrored the exact condescending tone used by the OP. I also didn't "go out of my way" to do anything. I've said so before and I'll repeat it again: I got an error while reblogging the OG post, went to check the person's blog for what's up with that and the first thing I saw was them calling people stupid for pointing out that They're Not Correct. I already had the post written at that point and I simply copied it from one tab to another. This is the internet, you post something publicly people can and will interact with it unless you stop them. I didn't block the OP because at the time I did not give a shit if they interacted with me or not, I was just setting straight misinfo I see regurgitated over and over again to the point I'm sick of it. Because of the attitude they displayed I was actually fully expecting to get blocked straight away myself.

I'm not actually a dick unless someone annoys me into it. Because sometimes people get annoyed and they're rude, that's just how people work. But I guess you know that? Since you're annoyed at me and wrote a whole essay trying to make me feel bad?

And just to finish this off.. none of my statements were rebutted. I got lore dumped on and half of it wasn't even interpreted correctly from the linked books. Yes, I don't need to cite like it's an academic paper because all the goddamn info needed was already in my first post. Astarion was not a child because he was a grown ass man with a government job. There's no basis for "Ascended Vampires can't love" because Larian homebrews their vampires so the written lore doesn't apply. That's literally it. People on this site just can't fucking read.

[delgado-master]

Spacelazarwolf trying to discredit me some more.

Here’s Spacelazarwolf’s linked post, trying to discredit me. I’ll post comments on it below.

“you know what? i'm pretty done with your bullshit and also with this guy lying abt me and obsessing over me ten months later so i'll go ahead and reblog this on my main.

here's some screenshots to reference, because the screenshots in the linked post don’t actually prove anything he’s claiming.

this is what actually happened: narvin reblogged a post of mine that was a poc sending me an anon abt their frustration with white fragility and made a big fuss about the post that ended with "i'm fucking tired of people pretending that just because racism is a thing, all white people never faced bigotry [which the anon never said]. and may i remind you a lot of people consider jewish people white." which was a direct dig at me. i called him out, he doubled down, ended with "i'm just really fucking tired of people blaming white people in general for genocides that only certain white people participated in", at which point i unfollowed him. he dm’ed me to try to argue further and i responded that i was not going to talk about it, after which he went off the rails pretty quickly. he started posting a bunch of shit about me on his blog, ranging from saying shit like “see jewish people can be racist!!” to “i can’t be antisemitic i’ve been fighting antisemitism since childhood!!!” to comparing me to an abuser. he tagged me in posts and reblogged posts of mine, trying to instigate further conflict while also claiming i was somehow the one harassing him. i blocked him, and now ten months later he’s still obsessing about the incident. he usually posts about it every couple of months or tries to start shit on other people’s posts, trying to get drama started again.

his accusations fluctuate between claiming someone in my comments called him white (which i also didn't see happening and he hasn't provided any actual evidence for) and claiming i called him white (which is a straight up lie). the screenshots he does provide in his various posts are mostly people saying "white irish people are white." which is correct. lots of accusations of "denying that [he's] hispanic" which also just straight up did not happen. no one was talking about him specifically. we were all trying to have a bigger conversation about race and ethnicity but he made it about himself.

he claims people were "denying irish oppression" but again has yet to provide a single piece of evidence outside some screenshots of someone saying (to paraphase) "scots/irish/italian/etc people became active beneficiaries of white supremacy and white privilege in america" which is true. there have been numerous books written about this. the commenter said "if they immigrated today they'd potentially experience xenophobia but they wouldn't be considered 100% not white anymore because the idea of whiteness has expanded and changed from what it was back then." which is, again, correct in the context of the united states. he claims this is "denying anti-irish sentiment is serious" but considering this was all a reaction to a conversation about racism against darker skinned poc, i feel like we should all understand why "ok but white irish people don't experience racism" isn't "denying anti-irish sentiment is serious."

he’s also admitted several times that he’s fallen into antisemitism during this bizarre crusade, including claiming that i can “get away with being racist because i’m jewish, and yet he still doesn’t seem to want to examine how that engrained antisemitism might be affecting the way he’s continuing to obsess about me and straight up lie about what happened.

also as for you op, the interaction that made me block you was you losing your shit about a post where people were trying to have difficult conversations about white fragility in the trans community and the way that people try to flatten trans experiences so it becomes impossible to talk abt our lived realities without trans people that are materially safer throwing a tantrum because they feel invalidated. i think your exact words when confronted with the racial and ethnic dynamics of the conversation were “look at me, meekly trying to ask that they reconsider, instead of calling them transphobic dipshits like they deserve for endorsing this” followed by more complaining abt me “making the conversation about race.”

for y’all to now jump on the soviet-style zionist accusations because your last few attempts at a harassment campaign haven’t worked is fucking rich. so yeah. both of you can shut the fuck up now because i’m pretty done with dealing with bullshit from goyim who are uncomfortable when they aren’t the center of attention.”

Look I didn’t say I handled the situation well. What I do have issue with is Spacelazarwolf *literally called me white*. I have a fucking screen shot. And also, it’s rich he’s claiming it’s a harassment campaign when he previously lied about me sending DMs comparing him to an abusive ex boyfriend. Anyway I’m tired of people being able to brush aside racism because they are the louder voice.

[redtail-lol]

heyey dw abt dykepridee

everything theyve sent was in assuming bad faith and theyre not worth arguing with. they're just trying to stir up discourse to feel superior about themselves

dont worry, dont waste your energy, Im sorry theyre bothering you. they came up to me and 2 other people as well, assumed I romanticised stalking with 0 proof past the gender itself, called faunic attraction 'no-dick attraction' which is super insensitive, and reblogged someone else assuming a term related to sleepiness must be romanticising... narcolepsy, out of every other possible sleep disorder?

I have no idea how someone is okay with being a pan lesbian while they constantly assume bad faith about identities theyre unfamiliar with, aka you know, the same thing people are doing to mspec lesbians.

@kirugorture

Thank you. I don't get why someone, especially someone who is nonbinary, sees a post that essentially boils down to "nonbinary people are not men or women and they shouldn't be misgendered by people calling themselves monosexual because apparently being attracted to nonbinary genders 'doesn't count' as mspec because they're not one of the 'REAL genders' and people who are attracted to women and enby genders only can call themselves mspec lesbians or just lesbians but by calling themselves mono they are saying those nb people are just women" and has an issue with it.

Also good to know about faunic, because I literally... Am faunic?? It's not "no-dick attraction" it's being attracted to people who are not men, and I'm actually favorable to dating non-op trans women and AMAB enbies. I'm a non-man and I'm attracted to non-men and I'm allowed to have a label to describe that. If it's a bad definition for lesbian then fine now it isn't for lesbian it's for faunic/daunic. Not being attracted to men, and wanting a label for that... Isn't wrong? At all?

(also genital preferences are valid so L + Ratio dykepridee people are allowed to not like dick or not like pussy and that's FINE.)

I don't think they even understand what I was saying. I wasn't excluding nb-attracted lesbians from being lesbians, or even exclusive lesbians. I am one! I call myself an exclusive lesbian all the time. It's just not mono. It will never be mono to be attracted to women AND to people who are not women!! Yet exclusionists constantly define themselves as mono even though they include nb folk, which is misgendering them, and my post was to call out the rampant misgendering of nonbinary people that these lesbians partake in, even some being nonbinary themselves, because otherwise they'd have to acknowledge that mspec lesbians make sense and are valid

In short: my whole purpose in writing the post was to call out the rampant misgendering of nonbinary people within the (exclus) lesbian community for the purpose of pretending lesbian is a strictly monosexual label. People never talk about it and it needs to be talked about.

Their "counterpoint" that no one cares in real life is so... Bad. It missed the point, it was pretty clear they had entirely missed the point, and also, "no one in real life cares" is a stupid counterargument in any "debate." For one, I exist outside of tumblr and I care. For two, I don't care what happens at pride parades. Misgendering nonbinary people (who do not identify as women at all) is not okay, no matter how much people at a parade care about strangers. If you can't actually prove why I'm wrong, your point is null and void.

Also "I'm almost 30, my back hurts, and I just woke up" bitch nobody gives a fuck about your back hurting, it's clearly too early for you to use your brain, and you're a whole grown adult arguing with a child online. That's real mature.

[r0sebutch]

ayo, for someone with he and they pronouns in their bio you just reblogged the terfiest “men are animals” shit I’ve read in a long time. i’m not gonna tell you to do anything about this bc i’m not you, but maybe terf talking points are not the most relevant things to be pushing in a time where persecution against trans people is really ramping up

hi! i’m hoping you mean well by this, so i’m going to try to respond in a way that isn’t bitchy. okay?

first of all, acknowledging misogyny as an issue isn’t a “terf thing”. in fact, feminism and trans liberation are inherently linked! either you believe in bodily autonomy and the right to choose or you don’t. standing for one and against the other is always shooting yourself in the foot- so the simple act of saying “women are societally oppressed” is not a terf talking point, but rather an actual societal fact, and ignoring it or arguing against it is harming both causes- one of which you actually seem to care about!

second of all, i’m sorry that people mentioning the tangible harm men do to women hurts your feelings and puts you instantly on the defensive, but that might be something to examine about yourself. also something worth examining is the fact that you saw a post say “misogyny is real and misandry is not, and if you’re going to discuss feminist theory you need to know this” and went “this post is attacking trans women”. if you’d taken a moment to check out op, you’d see the fact that she has made another post about misogyny- one specifically about how erasing discussions of misogyny harms trans women by erasing acknowledgement of one of the driving factors of transmisogyny!

thirdly, it sucks for you that we’re not centering men’s feelings in this discussion about how women are harmed by men. i get it. and i know that by not softening discussions about it by adding “of course not all men do this” in every post we make makes you uncomfortable. however, couching discussions about stuff like this in language that absolves you of all guilt inherently means you will never examine your own internal biases. maybe you need to do that. it might help to find out where this flinch-and-accuse reflex comes from, where you see the word misogyny and call me a terf right away because talking about it makes you feel bad.

fourthly, don’t try to use my gender against me! that was weird of you! you don’t know me! step back please!

and lastly, since you didn’t even read the post you sent this ask about, i can say with full confidence that you’re not actually going to read this response either. i mostly wrote it to just speak my own thoughts about this! so since reading comprehension clearly isn’t your strong suit, i’ll leave you with something you might actually get:

L + ratio + the post didn’t say that + you don’t understand even basic feminist theory + why are you following me if you hate women + learn how to read

[blubushie]

I saw that low empathy post you reblogged and when I was digging through the notes one of the tags kinda popped out at me, "my morality is a list of self-constructed rules" but like is... is that not how it normally works?? Isn't most people's way of determining these things "are the consequences of this action worth it" tempered by their own personal standard of what "ain't right"?

~ questioning a lotta things right now (self-directed)

Forgive me if this isn't put together well—I woke up at 4:30am, it's currently 5am, and I am not a morning person. Which is to say I am still half awake.

From my understanding most people don't constantly have to weigh if things are worth it in terms of morality. "Is it worth it" is something like "Is it worth driving to 7/11 just for a cold drink" and not "moral dilemmas" so to speak—someone's empathy or conscience ("what ain't right") usually handles that. And you can lack empathy while having a conscience, and you can have empathy with no conscience.

I think the person was arguing that their morality was SELF constructed, rather than the result of society's understanding of what's good and what's bad, but that also has... nothing to do with empathy (and I imagine is one of the tags the OP was referring to when he called out people kinda hijacking the post and taking attention away from the fact it's about low empathy).

Yes, from what I understand of how empathy/consciences in other people works, I'd argue that MOST people's morality comes down to a list of self-constructed rules rather than society's rules. Especially here on the "love addicts/sex workers/people society hates" website. What those morality rules are varies from person to person. Some people hold themselves to a very high standard with strict terms of morality. Other people are more relaxed and simply have guidelines more than actual rules. I'm in the latter category. Almost every rule can be bent within reason, I just try to be a good person where I can. Not because I care, but just because it's good to do good.

Basically, yes that's normal. The person leaving those tags is probably just doing a "waaah I'm so edgy-speshal" thing or just outright doesn't understand how morality/empathy works in a normal person lmao

[deathlygristly]

Sometimes I read posts and comment and tags on here and I wonder if I am maybe very stupid and always wrong and should never speak or write again.

Then I keep reading and I realize it's just that the commenters are coming from a very different position and experiences with the world and others and I guess maybe a very different neurotype than I am.

The current example, under a readmore because long and probably boring to other people but writing things out helps me organize my thoughts:

I am reading a blog by a person who has interesting thoughts and who I can learn things from but who frequently uses very authoritarian/absolutist language. It was good to see balanced anons calling that out, like yeah sometimes you write cool stuff but you can also be arrogant about it. So I was primed to question my feelings of being horribly ignorant and always wrong more than I usually am.

I came upon a post about how people who have power and use it to hurt others aren't "evil" and it's wrong to say that. I tend to think it's morally wrong to hurt others, so I was like, huh, am I looking at things horribly wrong and being terribly ignorant and stupid again? So I read the comments and reblogs and tags to see what other people thought.

The main issue seemed to be heading off people who think in absolutist terms, like these people are Good and those people are Evil, and so they might want to keep current systems that cause misery but just put people they consider Good at the top of the systemic hierarchy. But instead of just tackling that head on and directly saying hey, systemic issues won't be changed that much by just changing the figureheads, the OP and the people agreeing with them were saying no, we have to say it in this other more abstract indirect not related at all at first glance way that will confuse people and alienate them and maybe make them feel shame if they aren't already part of our ingroup and understand everything about our worldview. And we have to say it in this more complicated way because maybe if they think of people as Good or Evil then they might think systemic issues could be solved by changing the figureheads and we don't want them to think that, and confusing possibly shaming language is the way to keep them from thinking that?

Like I say often, when I was nine years old I read every book the local library had on the Holocaust. It's always been fairly clear to me that the Nazis were people. Back in the day I used to try to argue something that seemed close to the OP’s and commenters’ actual position - that the Nazis were humans doing human things, not monsters doing monster things that no human would ever do, and that you can in fact find yourself doing those same things if you don't watch out for it.

It's just that I also think that participating in genocide is actually an immoral thing to do. And even if you don't enjoy it and you don't like killing massive numbers of other humans, it still says something about your morality that you consider whatever "incentives" are drawing you towards participating in genocide as more important than not murdering millions of people.

And I don't know that saying "People who participate in genocide don't actually want to cause enormous suffering and trauma and death, they're just following incentives! And obviously you are very immature and very wrong and stupid if you think the camp guards and commandants were not good people!" is going to help you convince people that more work is needed to prevent genocide than just replacing the most powerful person in the group committing the genocide with a person the person you're talking to considers to be a good upright moral citizen.

I don't know. At dinner tonight I was talking to the spousal person about this and about how lately I'm trusting myself more and feeling less shame about takes I see online and realizing that lots of people on the internet are just some guy talking random shit, and he laughed and patted me on the head.

[scrambledpancakes03]

Hey OP and every single person who reblogged this... let me break this down for you.

You are wrong, even if you mean well.

I am pro palestine, I'm on your side, but this is an unbelievably stupid thing to post.

Take a look at the comments, arguing nonsense about varying claims to Indigenous land rights and sovereignty. That is the farthest thing from "simple." it is possibly the most complicated thing in the whole damn world (im not going to get into this right now, maybe another day). What isn't complicated is that genocide is wrong and the treatment of Palestinians is possibly the greatest crime against humanity in our lifetime. Indigenity is complex as a concept. Supporting oppressed people is not.

What you started and fueled is not helping oppressed peoples, it's starting a meaningless semantic argument about what a "country" is and what significance that holds.

Israel is a country. Israel is also the product of settler colonialism. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. America is also a country and also the product of settler colonialism. We have also committed genocide. Being a country does not justify our actions historically and today.

By stating that Israel is not a country, and therefore they do not have the right to the land, it implies that some actual "countries" could ever possibly be justified if they were to treat other people this way.

This is not true!

What Israel is doing could *never* be justified under any circumstances.

Moreover, considering Israel as a country allows the world to hold a real entity accountable for the actions it performs. If Israel were not a country, who would you suggest be held accountable? ... the whole of the Jewish Diaspora (which is culturally how things would happen, because antisemitism exists) ??? Just their prime minister? JOE PERHAPS? None of that would work! A vast apparatus at the heart of the Israeli government, media, and business is responsible, and hundreds of people carry out these crimes. All must be held responsible, and the way we do that is to put a country's government on trial alongside the individuals designing it. But first, all of our energy has to go towards helping Palestinians survive.

Ultimately, words mean something, especially in the context of law and sovereignty. Trying to convince the internet that a country is something different than what it is is just a waste of time that makes you look foolish, even when you are on the right side of history!

Go touch grass, pick up a protest sign, donate to relief funds, call your representatives and senators, yell at joe biden until his ancient brain only knows the words "free palestine," or go learn anything you can from real indigenous peoples near you! Any of those things would be better than this. You can do better than this.

[thestarseersystem]

Looking at that post that says they faked DID and I'm gonna say this as gently as possible that "not having an identity" and "fucked up memory" is having a dissociative disorder.

Let me break down this post. I am not reblogging, because I do not wish to antagonize op or argue with them. But I will talk about it here.

"Lack of identity". I'm going to be honest, when I was experiencing a very traumatizing time in my life, I felt very confused with myself and my identity, I felt like I had to repress myself just to survive. It's common to feel like you have no identity, or feel so dissociated from yourself that there's no concrete or "real" version of yourself. Many systems struggle with having no host or changing hosts, or a very dissociated sense of self. It's normal to feel this way when you have a dissociative disorder.

"Not being able to understand my own personality". I've felt this one forreal tbh. I have felt like my personality is too complicated or confusing and therefore it's just confusing to have a concise sense of self. I know myself sometimes and then I don't. Its common in systems to have a fragmented or confusing identity. Also I used to say I had like 5-10 different favourite colors, I would not be able to choose. And yeah the words to describe myself? Enigmatic, complex, extreme, intense, etc. Like I'd say I was both outspoken and reserved in the same sentence.

"Rapidly switching from aesthetic to aesthetic". I FELT THIS ONE. We *cannot* decide what to wear in the morning usually. We love all types of different aesthetics, ESPECIALLY the ones that involve a dual vibe like yamikawaii or pastel goth. We love dark fairycore, yamikawaii, pastel grunge, cybergoth, animecore, emocore, scenecore, lolita, everything. We love so many different aesthetics it's insane. I felt this so fucking hard you have no idea. Every alter has their own playlist/aesthetic, we just love them all.

"Need to seem special and traumatized". Bitch, I used to think I was insane. We have a goddamn insane asylum in our headspace and when we have a panic attack it makes us feel like we're crazy. We used to feel like we were going to pass out all the time because of dissociation. I was like "damn, why do I feel like I am going to pass out, I think I'm just doing it to be edgy and cool". NO. You just want to stop fucking fronting for now. Imagine thinking you were cursed because you struggled to maintain friendships and thought a memory eating monster was eating your memories away. I THOUGHT THAT.

"Not being able to settle on a name, yes, this includes usernames". YEAH SO UH... This is real experiences I've seen other systems have. I have a close friend who went by like 10 different names before being able to settle on one. And for many of our alters, they don't have names because it's too dissociating to settle on one. I think this is normal, mate.

"Actually, occasionally, feeling like I am a separate person." I just have nothing to say on this one because it's goddamn obvious that you have alters, what the fuck.

"Not knowing what I want to do in life". Why the fuck do you think I'm focusing on the past in my life? To distract from current reality, because the dissociation makes me feel so unmotivated. You should accept that you have more than one of you. Istg man. It would be so helpful if you just let yourself have multiple interests and feelings. It's okay.

"Insecure about how I look". Yeah, dysphoria is common. I have this so much, we have attributes on the inside and look different on the inside that it's sometimes so disorienting to look in the mirror. It can cause DPDR for us. But we try to use snapchat filters to help or make art or picrews that look like us. That helps.

"Messed up memory". That's the dissociative amnesia, my guy. I used to think that a memory eating monster ate my memories because the amnesia was so bad. Years of my life are gone because of trauma. Having gaps in your memory is literally dissociative amnesia.

"No social circle." I can't tell you how fucking hard it is to make friends when you feel disconnected from them and from reality. I constantly feel like they don't understand and I struggle to maintain friendships because of my conflicting opinions and lack of energy and fear. Its hard. I feel abandoned by everyone who leaves. It fucking sucks, man.

You have a dissociative disorder. I'm not fucking kidding, man. So many of our symptoms align and I know I'm a system. This isn't normal, this is what being a system is like. This isn't effects of faking, this is real symptoms of being a system.

It makes me frustrated and sad that people think that this is made up or a lie, that they somehow fucked it up, made it up. I swear to fucking god, this is reality for systems. Please get it out of your head that you made this shit up. This is how it is. Hear it from systems with real experiences. You are a real system, whether or not you believe it.

[spockandawe]

Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting. 

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned. 

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao’s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.

[deathsmallcaps]

Replying to your tags, likes are basically there for a mix of any of these reasons

Liking takes less time and wifi than reblogging, so if you like something before your wifi fucks up, you can check your likes section to finish looking at that post when the internet comes back (very useful for when you’re on mobile)

To show you really like or agree with something. Not everyone uses it this way, but if you were empty-reblogging (not adding anything) or replying via reblog, and you wanted to show a little extra agreement or enjoyment, you’d like the post. If you were arguing, you probably wouldn’t like something

To stealth-look at it. You can turn your reblogs and likes private, but most people just turn likes private, so they can look back and enjoy something away from prying eyes*. That way, only the OP and the person who put it on your dash will know you saw it.

To remember that you’ve seen that post before. I don’t quite remember if it works this way on desktop, but on mobile, the reblog icon stays green to show that you reblogged that exact post, with those exact reblogs, that was put on your dashboard at that exact time, to show you that you’ve already reblogged it. If a different reblog chain appears on your dash, and/or the old one with even just one new comment appears, and/or you see the exact same post but it’s been put on your dashboard by a different person, it will not tell you that you’ve reblogged the post. However, as long as the ‘chain’ is the exact same as the one on the post you liked, the like will carry over, so you don’t have to wonder if you’ve seen it before. This can be helpful for memory.

To acknowledge a post. Some people do vent posts that they don’t want reblogged but want to be seen in small circles, for support. So if someone is having a tough day, and you can’t think of any comforting words to be shared, or they have already been said, liking can show that you’ve seen their troubles, and that can be enough for the original poster.

Some people don’t go on tumblr to interact with others at all, and just want to collect a private dashboard via likes (which is totally fine!) that they can look at for themselves. With the ability to ‘private’ your blog though, I think this has largely fallen out of fashion/it’s a Instagrammer thing

*there are immature assholes who dig through your likes to ‘prove’ you’re a bad person who likes ‘bad’ things. I keep mine private as a preventative measure

Things to note:

Some people (for example, Derin) rarely like. I can’t speak for all of them, but I think it’s because they believe likes are generally useless and if you think a post is good enough to interact with, it might as well be reblogged (comment or no). This is not an indication of disagreement.

Im in the camp of liking most things I reblog unless I’m replying to argue (rare), feel that it may be innapropriate (case-by-case thing) or I forget.

Many artists feel sad that you only like their stuff, and not reblog it (nsfw artists are generally more understanding but again, can’t speak for everyone). Unless someone is combing through your likes, no one else will hear about their art from you. This is my personal preference based on my experience posting art on here, but I don’t interact with art I don’t want to reblog. Otherwise, it feels like a pity interaction, and I’d rather pretend no one saw it than have it judged as not interesting enough to reblog. Again, this is my preference**.

Despite this, many people simply like a post (art or no) instead of reblogging, so you’ll see people talk about disappointing ratios between reblogs and likes. If a post has two likes for every reblog, or even less of a difference, then it is generally considered a very successful post.

**I also try to add a comment in the tags if there isn’t a lot of interaction with the piece - ones that have a ton of comments and/or reblogs I generally don’t comment on, just so that their notifications don’t go crazy (once there are enough empty reblogs, they nest together as one notification per day so it doesn’t get overfilled in the notification bar).

Anyways, have fun! This is just what I’ve observed and do.

obligatory welcome guide for redditors

A lot of the guides I've seen don't actually seem to understand how reddit works in comparison to tumblr so

your blog is basically your own small subreddit. some people curate this heavily to fit a theme, like a sub, most people don't

reblogs are culturally equivilant to upvotes but functionally equvilant to crossposting

there is an algorithm. it sucks and nobody uses it. turn it off in settings. everything is generally chronological

likes are functionally equivilant to saving a post

you've probably already seen this but change your icon and put something in your bio or people WILL assume you're a bot. personal info not required

generally, anything you would put as a comment on a thread should go in the tags or the replies of a post. only add comments in reblogs if you want it to become part of the base post

tags are mostly equivilant to flairs, used for organization and commentary

your dashboard is an aggregation of everyone you follow

there is an r/all equivilant(trending page) but it sucks and nobody uses it

our search also sucks. your best bet is using tumblr.com/tagged/[TAG] and not /search

there are no mods

by extension, reporting something doesn't put it in front of the mods, it sends it to staff, who may or may not do anything(usually they don't)

there is no karma, there are no karma limits. anyone can reblog anything, comment/reply to anything, or post in any tag

"reposting"(reblogging) old content doesn't matter. people can and will reblog the same post multiple times, including in a row

CAVEAT. reposting someones art(NOT reblogging, making a new post) is a dick move. i know this is commonplace on fandom subs but its not necessary here. everything you post should be [OC] unless you are reblogging. or posting shitty memes

we have our own sitelore, you'll pick it up

(though im not opposed to bringing some over from reddit)

our app also sucks. we do not have third party apps and any that claim to be are scams. sorry

for desktop, most people use the XKit Rewritten extension for QoL improvements and to revert shitty aesthetic updates, much like old.reddit

we have no idea where the porn rules are at either. add a mature content flag to anything you'd get fired for looking at at work, that's about it

finally, from the bottom of my heart, fuck u/spez

[edoro]

I'm a bit confused with your opinion on DNIs, I mean ofc you can have any opinions on anything, but most people I know use DNIs to try and avoid people who hate them or want them dead and it's the same reason I use them?

(sorry if I sounded rude btw)

well, i mean, for starters the conversation about it is pretty explicitly in the context of fandom, and the original post i was talking about was about people defensively tagging art as "do not tag/interpret as a ship," and how in my experience a lot of times that's just sort of wildly unnecessary to the point where it comes across as at best bizarrely defensive and at worst a frankly ridiculous attempt to control the way other people interpret your artwork once you've put it out for public viewing

(for instance, i just saw a little comic of Eda and Lilith having a conversation that has nothing that could be remotely described as subtext or sexual tension tagged 'do not ship', as if there's an epidemic of incest shippers going around pointing at literally every single sibling interaction and yelling IT'S INCEST - at this point, who's bringing up incest other than op?)

and in that context what i have observed is, mostly, that DNIs function partially as a way for people to signal certain positions (for instance, using proship vs anti as a general shorthand for their opinion on fictional depictions of topics like incest, rape, sexual abuse, age gaps, etc) up front

but also that people who have certain stringent DNI criteria (mostly, again, about what types of kink they think is okay to explore in fiction) tend to end up outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining their own boundary onto everyone else - they supposedly sincerely believe that it's Genuinely Immoral to write certain topics, enjoy certain kinks, or ship certain ships, to the point where they experience moral contamination from the simple act of someone who writes/draws/enjoys/ships those things touching their posts, but instead of doing the work themselves to vet people they follow or whose posts they reblog or interact with, they just insist that everyone else discern exactly where their personal lines are and self-select out of interacting with them.

so it's supposedly important to them, but not enough that they'll actually vet the people they're interacting with? at that point, it comes across as simply performative.

and if you're referring to stuff like "terfs/nazis/racists/bigots of whatever type DNI" type of statements, well - i don't know if i'd call that performative in every case, but at best it's kind of useless, and for some of the same reasons.

do you really think that someone who, in your own words, 'hates you and wants you dead' is going to go to your blog with the aim of stalking or harassing you, but pause to read your carrd and then decide they're not going to because you said "don't interact"? do you think that someone who self-identifies as a Nazi is going to be deterred by you saying "Nazis go away"? like, for real?

do you think people who self-identify as bigots or who may not self-identify that way (because i would argue many, if not most bigots do not think they are bigoted or would certainly never admit it) but who are dedicated enough that they want to harass and hurt people online, like... care about your boundaries? that they are going to respect your boundaries?

do you think the terfs and radfems who admit, over and over again, that they infiltrate fandom spaces in order to subtly spread radfem rhetoric and terf values from secret sideblogs care if you say "terfs dni"?

and do you think that the majority of bigots - the un-self-aware ones, the ignorant ones, the ones who justify and deny and insist that they're in the right and there's a convenient excuse for all of their bigotry and it Isn't Really bigotry - are going to look at that message on your carrd or in your header and have some kind of epiphany about their personal conduct?

the answer is no. you're expecting people whose entire fundamental deal is that they don't respect or recognize your humanity to demonstrate considerate behavior and respect your boundaries.

the thing about making those people unwelcome in your space is that it has to be an active process. you can't just say "btw go away <3", the ones who really want to take over your space or harass or follow you or try to infiltrate and convert you are not going to listen or care.

so, i mean, if someone decides to harass you then there's not a lot you can do to prevent that bc it's fundamentally not something you caused to happen but is instead an action on their part, and you can't control other people. you have imperfect tools at your disposal in terms of being able to block/mute/practice various types of online safety and privacy and information security (not publicly listing your marginalized identities and triggers is one good way to not hand every passing bigot who wanders by a roadmap of exactly how to most precisely hurt you, for instance)

but when it comes to the broader trend of curating online space, and the like, online version of the Nazi Bar Problem: you have to, personally, actively, make the effort to understand what, say, terf/radfem rhetoric is when it isn't blatantly anti-trans, and how it's packaged up in ways that are often initially very palatable to young queer people online. or what racism looks like in fandom spaces. or what crypto-fascist symbols, slogans, and ideology look like. and you have to take it upon yourself to vet the people who you are interacting with regularly, to watch out for and notice and respond to instances of bigotry (whether that's by pushing back against it or blocking/disengaging from people who espouse it or removing them/having them removed from moderated spaces)

but like. just telling them to leave you alone? is not going to work. they're not going to respect that. and it displays imo a lack of understanding of the actual seriousness of the stakes here if you think that just saying "btw if you're a bad person don't interact w me" in your bio is going to seriously keep people who want to hurt you from trying to do so.

if that's what you think, then you don't actually know what steps you need to take to genuinely keep yourself as safe as possible, and it also comes across like you don't actually know how to recognize and respond to and not fall for subtler, disguised bigotry that gets paraded across social media and fandom spaces all day every day.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

if you're comfortable talking about it, can you elaborate (maybe in a very general sense) on how those posts are messing up their discussion of the nb experience? I'm curious and I also don't want to make the same kind of mistakes.

Sure, I don't mind explaining further. I don't think I can do so in a general sense, though - being on Pillowfort has made me much more inclined towards using specific examples. I think that's not really the done thing on tumblr, both because it's hard to link to things here when URLs can change, and because it's tacitly considered against etiquette (or, least, I know I instinctively flinch away from doing so). But I think a lot of discussions would be less inflammatory here if people were more specific about what they were complaining about, and I think this is a topic that benefits from close reading some examples, because a lot of it is subtle stuff in the wording that betrays a lot of broader and more pernicious assumptions.

So I'm not including these examples to chastise anyone, I'm just using them because they're useful illustrations of a bigger problem.

My post that prompted this, for context:

I have seen two posts in the last few days that conflate how nonbinary people get read by others with nonbinary people’s own personal relationship to gender and the nonbinary label. I’m so so sick of this.

Alright, post #1 (and I did find a thread where some people were pointing out some of the same issues I have with it, but I saw it reblogged with this addition on its own, so it's worth pointing out). OP's post:

if you call a nonbinary person cis bc they don't perform androgyny to a level you approve of i'm omw with a big hammer to shatter your kneecaps

Note the "perform androgyny to a level you approve of" phrasing - this is about others' perception of nonbinary people and of what constitutes androgyny. Now look at this addition:

This is incredibly important to remember. Nonbinary isnt just a middle ground or a third gender. Its not being in the binary. Thats it. That means something different to every nb person. So maybe someone does lean a bit more into their assigned gender at birth, they’re still nonbinary and calling them cis just because they arent preforming for you is transphobic- Yes even if you are trans too.

I agree that nonbinary people can have some kind of identification with their assigned gender, and that this doesn't negate their being nonbinary or trans - but, crucially, that's a different topic from what the OP was about. The OP was about how people look to others, and how they meet others' standards for what a nonbinary person should look like.

And what counts as "performing" androgyny is not only very subjective, individually and subculturally, but also full of double standards. There are people who would consider simply having visible breasts, or not trying to hide my body shape, as "presenting" as a woman, or not being androgynous, even if my clothes or hairstyle would be read as "masculine" on a cis man. (Side note: the way I often wear my hair is something I've mainly seen on men, and some nonbinary people as well, but because it's long on the top a lot of people would think "feminine". The gendering of hair is weird.) Similarly, I like wearing brightly coloured lipstick. This isn't because my identity is at all "feminine" or aligned with womanhood - I just like bright colours on my lips 😂. Additionally, there are nonbinary people who might get read as "androgynous", or whose gender might be harder to visually sort into a binary category, who do, in fact, feel some affiliation with their assigned gender. These are separable categories.

While the addition is alright on its own as an observation, I think adding it here actually undermines the point of the OP. The original post argues that others' perceptions are not the determiner of whether someone else "counts" as trans, and the addition, even while in agreement that nonbinary people who aren't "androgynous enough" count as trans... also falls into using others' perceptions as a determiner of another's identity.

The second post is here:

even spicier take: “non-binary” means a thousand different things to a thousand different people and therefore anyone of any sexuality could theoretically be attracted to a non-binary person in some capacity, so if you’re gay and someone you’re attracted to says, “i’m non-binary,” you don’t actually have to redefine your entire identity, you can just drink a cup of sleepytime tea and go right on being gay and into non-binary people.

So, this starts out with "nonbinary means a thousand different things to a thousand different people", which leads me to think that this is about relationship compatibility - i.e., that there are nonbinary people whose personal version of "nonbinary" doesn't preclude gay relationships or gay-identified partners. But the following statement implies a slightly different angle - "therefore anyone of any sexuality could theoretically be attracted to a nonbinary person in some capacity." The "therefore" doesn't follow for me, because "being attracted to someone" is very different from relationship compatibility, and doesn't have anything to do with how a nonbinary person self-identifies or wants to be socially positioned.

I think this sort of confusion is part of what makes a lot of conversations about "attraction to nonbinary people" so fraught - because there are several different scenarios implied in how this post is written. Are we talking about the possibility of a gay person actually forging a relationship with a nonbinary person? Are we talking about seeing someone in passing that you think is attractive who turns out to be nonbinary? The phrasing "if... someone you're attracted to says, 'i'm nonbinary'" implies this is a scenario in which the attraction started before learning that person's gender. But is this just a passing crush, or someone you happened to notice, or is it meant to be someone you're already in a relationship with? Because those are two different scenarios! If we're talking about the possibility of a gay person having a relationship with a nonbinary person, then what being nonbinary "means" to that person is relevant. But if we're talking about a gay person just being attracted in passing to a person who turns out to be nonbinary, then the attraction itself does not say anything about, or having anything to do with, that nonbinary person's self-conception.

Look, here's the thing. It's pretty inevitable that we all visually misclassify people from time to time, even cis people. Attraction is also internal and does not affect the other person at all. I don't think the possibility that someone you happen to find attractive might not actually be your preferred gender, or might potentially find your attraction distressing, need be a source of scrupulosity - just pay attention to their signals in your actual interactions with them and treat them how they've implied or explicitly stated they'd like to be classed. Similarly, I think sexual orientation is about patterns and general trends, and one person falling outside that pattern doesn't necessitate changing one's identity. But that says fuck-all about the identity or feelings of the nonbinary person in question. The idea that it does has the (probably unintentional) implication that a gay woman finding me attractive means that I must be "woman-aligned" or comfortable being classed that way in relationships, which is not at all the case.

Like, the separate implications the wording here in this post are all points I agree with: some nonbinary people find "gay" as an identity or social position to be compatible with their conception of themselves, and being mistaken about someone's gender or having an exception to your general pattern of attraction doesn't necessitate an identity crisis. But is it clear how treating one of those things as naturally flowing from the other has troubling implications? Nonbinary people vary widely in how we want to be classed, or feel comfortable being classed, in the context of relationships. But other people's involuntary feelings of attraction are absolutely not a comment on that. And treating them as if they are is incredibly harmful.

[tuesdayintheservantshall]

Jimmy has no right to *that* hostile (ie downright homophobic). He already almost threw Thomas out onto the street without a reference; if anyone has a right to be scared it’s Thomas; he’s now aware everyone knows he’s gay and he knows at least one or two of those people(one of them being jimmy) would happily throw him under the bus given the chance. He’s literally never been so vulnerable and there’s no need for jimmy to rub it in

Hey Nonny you’re my first official fandom argument! Or you were when I first drafted this over a week ago lol. Since then I've waded into some drama bc I have poor impulse control. Well you're my first argumentative anon still! Do I get a prize, or do you? Have an, um apple of discord: 🍏And I will have one too: 🍏 (Intended tone: genuinely friendly, although if you are not already aware you should know that in fandom spaces messages like these are generally considered hostile acts. Most people don’t want to argue with strangers about why their faves suck, and especially not in response to tags they made about their overwhelmed shippy feelings. (Although I guess if hypothetically you’re the OP of the post I put the tags on and weren’t comfortable with them being on your post that’s admittedly a tough place to be in. Coming to me with your face on and asking me to remove my reblog or the tags because you’re not comfortable with them runs the risk of me being an asshole or taking something in your phrasing badly and starting a big fight. Uh, the chances of that seem rather remote so I’m gonna leave the tags where they are unless OP comes to me and says “I hadn’t wanted to say anything but actually -”.) Anyway I’m not gonna derail this into a long(er than it is) ramble on preferred ways to discuss disagreements in fandom but I might post something like that at a later date.)

God I use way too many parentheses. Apologies to any with a blacklist for Jimmy (do I still have any of those? not sure), obviously I don’t want to put this in the tags. I shall tag this and any further discourse on the subject with “the storyline that shall not be named”. Let’s get (finally) to it!

So, the first thing I wanna say is: yes, Jimmy makes homophobic comments and that’s bad, both because Thomas being gay is not the reason he assaulted Jimmy and because there’s hypothetically a chance someone who doesn’t already know might figure out Thomas’s sexuality based on Jimmy’s comment(s? There's the one before the rope tug and then I could have sworn there was one other one but I'm blanking on what it actually was.)However a) the moment I was commenting on wasn’t one of the homophobic comments and b) I find it important to distinguish between the specific manner of hostility (sometimes homophobic) and the level of hostility (nasty remarks and making a constant point of distancing himself) and the level is in fact 100% warranted. If you think nasty remarks and pointed distancing are more hostile than a person has a right to be towards the guy who sexually assaulted them, then we have a pretty profound disagreement.

As for your other point, regarding fear: Thomas and Jimmy both have very compelling reasons to be afraid of each other but I have to ask exactly what you think Jimmy is “rubbing in?” He initially tried to retaliate excessively against Thomas, backed down from that, and then discovered that instead of facing a reasonable consequence for assaulting him, such as being fired but with a reference that reflected the fact that this was one very bad mistake rather than a pattern*, Thomas was promoted to a position of direct authority over Jimmy. Although Jimmy was bribed into not making a fuss about this rather than, say, threatened, I think he has nonetheless been given a fairly clear message from his employers that they will back the senior coworker who assaulted him against any potential consequence he might try to bring. From Jimmy’s point of view, which is admittedly blinkered by fear and self interest, Thomas is the one in the secure, powerful position and Jimmy is the one extremely vulnerable.

I don't even just mean from his point of view like, ~emotionally. Genuine question: what would happen if Thomas started being overly touchy-feely again, or did worse than that, and Jimmy went to Mr. Carson or Mrs. Hughes or Lord Grantham to report it? I really don't know, and neither does Jimmy. Personally, I'm guessing that whether they believed him would probably depend significantly on things like Jimmy’s demeanor, and exactly what words he used, and basically whether he came across as a victim or as a brat trying to get someone in trouble. And which of those things a person seems like has no particular correlation to the facts of what they’re reporting - as we can see from what happened the first time! Like, Jimmy came off as spiteful and nasty and instead of being fired Thomas was promoted. That is actually what happened! The fact that Jimmy's motives were mixed doesn't change the fact of what Thomas did: Jimmy, when evaluating his safety, has access to one really strong datapoint and that’s that last time the majority of his superiors came down on Thomas’s side, either from the beginning or by the end.

Now, it’s true that he’s had a year to observe Thomas’s behavior and make an educated guess that Thomas really is sorry and won’t do it again. We can only speculate as to what extent he may have reached that conclusion and why he has or hasn’t. Some possible reasons why he might not have: trauma blinkers, homophobic and sexist beliefs, sufficiently bad at reading people to not know what clues to even look for, too self-centered to bother thinking about it in those terms... we don’t know. And perhaps he does know perfectly well that Thomas won't do anything like that again and any lingering fear is of cooties or of people mistaking him for gay and him being in the line of fire along with Thomas next time! You can read him that way if you want. You can say “wtf I see no fear of any kind”. It’s a flexible canon and none of these interpretations are actually contradicted by the text. Indeed I happily read other interpretations and when I babbled in those tags it was more "this is the interpretation I am thinking about right now" than intended to assert it as my One True Headcanon that I will not deviate from. But Jimmy definitely has reasons to be afraid, and of more than cooties.

Of course Thomas also has logical and emotional reasons to be afraid of what Jimmy might do, I'm certainly not denying that. (In fact, one of the things I find so compelling about these two is that they both have such strong reasons not to trust each other and they both reach out anyway.) It seems that Thomas’s belief in who Jimmy is as a person supersedes those reasons (“He wouldn’t be so unkind. Not on his own.”) but if Jimmy has a similar belief about who Thomas he keeps it hidden at least until the fair.

P.S. please reconsider the phrase “has the right to be scared” in every context but especially when discussing someone’s reaction to a situation that involved them being sexually assaulted. I offer you the alternative “logical reason to be scared” or "compelling reason" as perhaps capturing what I hope you meant. I think that’s a language choice that really does matter a fair bit.

[on-stardust-wings]

This addition made me think about it, and it probably makes sense there are so few votes for practicing Christian with negative feelings about Good Omens?

A poll like this will naturally have a pretty considerable sample error. (Every poll is already biased towards people who are willing to take polls. That sounds stupid, but is unfortunately true, and a real issue when you try to gather data for science.) As a Tumblr poll, this one is also biased because of how it spreads. On Tumblr, there are three main ways to come across a post: you see it while browsing a tag/topic directly, someone you follow reblogs it to your dash, or you visit someone's blog and they reblogged it. Tumblr is additionally prone to create interest bubbles: if you are in a bigger fandom for example and you dislike a ship or a character, or in the positive sense if you have a fave ship and character, you'll usually have peers who share these preferences and who put posts on your dash that have a lot about the character you like and not much about the ship you don't care for. This happens to any post, people mostly reblog posts they like/agree with/want their peers to see (with the exception of people who so strongly disapprove of a post that they choose to argue on it, and that's a minority, if a very loud one). If you follow or visit people's blogs that aren't fandom but multiple random topic blogs, you'll be exposed to content from fandoms and interests you aren't personally into, but also those are unlikely to be completely opposed to your own interests (you wouldn't follow this person if they frequently posted stuff you dislike or disapprove of). So this poll? Was posted to Good Omens fandom spaces. People who stay in the fandom, especially long term, are unlikely to be people who oppose of it. It's been, like, a year since the second season aired. If there were people who actively and strongly disliked the way Good Omens handled religion, they wouldn't stick around here anymore. They might (and probably will) have posted directly after the individual seasons aired. To voice their complaints and all. But complainers move on to new complaining grounds fairly quickly most of the time. The people who stay around are primarily people who overall like the material. They like it enough to look up fandom posts on Tumblr. I feel like it's in the nature of the thing that people whose religiosity negativity affected their opinions of Good Omens are going to be a small minority in the fandom. (It's also difficult to be a minority like that: Good Omens fandom is happy to be critical of Christianity and likes to be pretty blasphemous, I imagine if you are already struggling with religious guilt, it'll feel difficult to talk about it to other fans who don't share this guilt. In comparison to the different bubbles for different ships, it's quite possible there is a bubble of GO fandom for people who have these feelings about religion and Good Omens, but this bubble probably doesn't interact that much with other bubbles, ie, the bubble this poll ended up circulating in.)

Which isn't to say it's not a good poll or that that polls on Tumblr are bad in general or that I don't love seeing their results. It just means that when interpreting the results (and that goes for any poll or survey) one has to keep in mind the biases that are naturally part of the data we acquired. The results are interesting, the tags are fascinating to read, but it's not a representative poll. It just can't be.

At the time of my making this post, positive feelings about Good Omens have a significant majority of votes. Which again, makes sense for a poll posted into a fandom space. The results also seem to align with the overall gut feeling I (and op too I gather) have about the population of Good Omens fandom: there are plenty of people who aren't religious/Christian, there are also lots of people who have Christianity related trauma (I definitely know fans like this) but who feel positively about Good Omens, but the people whose religious guilt or complicated feelings about Christianity make Good Omens a conflicted topic? Might just not enjoy being in the fandom much, or keep separate from the rest of us, so might just not see this poll. I think?

good omens and religiosity

ok so one thing about me is that i'm christian and i'm also VERY interested in the sociology of religion. last year i wrote a paper on religion in film and television (more specifically the differences between christianity in film and television vs other religions, both in how they are portrayed and how they are perceived) and i did mention good omens in it so. i wanna see something

*MRWR stands for "my relationship with religion". too long for the poll lmao

**"affected your liking of good omens" can either mean 1. influenced your opinions on the show while/after you watched it, 2. it got you to start watching it, or 3. made you grapple with your liking of the show (e.g. religious guilt)

please reblog for sample size because i feel like there are about 0.7 actual practicing christians/catholics in this fandom lmaoo 😭 also if you care to elaborate in the tags please do so!!! this is very intriguing to me!!!!!

edit: i forgot to add an "more than one/other" option. you know what just pick the most applicable one or tell me in the tags thanks bye