#anti thought crimes

[sternenschaukler]

Antis saying "PrObLeMaTiC fiction shouldn't exist, because it advocates for such things in real life!"

has the same vibes as hysteric parents/ the media saying:

"Stop violent shooter videogames! They make our kids want to kill people in real life!!"

[moonpool-system]

Stolen & edited a bit from an anti-endo who clearly doesn't think compassion deserves to be extended to those who don't fit the "perfect mold" of a system.

Empathy: The ability to feel somebody's emotions as though they are affecting you personally. As an example, somebody tells you "my hamster disappeared last night!" -> you now feel as though you've lost a pet personally or near-personally -> you feel grief and sadness just like the other person. Not everyone has empathy. It's a trait some people develop and others don't. Some have high empathy, some have low empathy (like the editor), some have none. For some, it fluctuates over time due to different circumstances! This is often not a learned skill, but more of a base aspect that some people experience, some don't, and some do in different ways than others.

Sympathy: the ability to understand and care about somebody else's struggles, even if you don't feel them yourself. So, if somebody tells you their hamster is gone -> you realize how this affects them emotionally -> you care about this person, and are upset that they are suffering. not everyone has sympathy either! it's a scale, just like empathy. Some people are more naturally inclined toward it than others. Sympathy can sometimes be a learned skill, as well; it depends on the individual.

Compassion: doing something to relieve another person's suffering or make them feel better. With the previous example, somebody tells you their hamster is gone -> you don't want them to remain upset -> you come up with ways to help them feel better, like offering comfort and distractions, or other forms of support. compassion is solely a learned trait, not something you can be born with like empathy or sympathy. anyone can learn to be compassionate, although some may struggle more with it than others; it's a skill, just like anything else. Learning to acknowledge others and treat them with compassion is part of building healthy communication, especially when it comes to neurodivergent intersectionality.

The difference between all this doesn't get through often, especially outside of low/no empathy circles. We thought the distinction was important enough to reconstruct in a safe environment.

[shotapiss]

"proship" being seen as like. A sexual thing is so frustrating. Like yeah im the freak problematic shotacon incest enjoyer in your DNI but I also just don't fucking care what people do with fiction. Like I am capable of having a normal conversation that isn't about whatever weird shit I'm into. I am also capable of respecting boundaries and not talking about things that I was explicitly told to not talk about. It's pretty easy! It's called not being a piece of shit. Why can't I play with you guys just because I think that fictional characters don't have rights and that thought crimes don't exist.

[feralsapientia]

I know there's a lot of people following this account whose kinks come from traumatic events, either when you were young or when you grew up.

I wanted to remind yall that none of us are evil for coping with our trauma in this way. We are not evil for getting turned on by certain situations. As long as everything we do doesn't hurt anyone and it's consensual we do NOT owe anyone anything. You don't have to feel guilty for it.

Doms who have a cnc kink and get off on the thought of raping someone? Not evil. Ageres who enjoy fantasizing about older people taking advantage of them? Not disgusting. Sadomasochists that enjoy causing or receiving harm? Not degenerates.

Hell, even if your kink doesn't come from trauma, unless you harm someone for real without their consent, no one has the right to judge you. Thought crime doesn't exist.

[gece-misin-nesin]

it's all "well what were you expecting, they're criminals. even if they hand't died they would have still had to spend the rest of their lives in prison and the ones still alive are rightfully in jail." until it comes to mr. bought my wife, made a quirk marriage and abused my family, and mr. extrajudicial murder.

[khattikeri]

maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

[sanctiphera]

How old is the Jewish religion? How old is Islam? How old is “Palestine”? Which religion inhabited that area of the planet first?

You might want to learn what genocide actually is before posting the usual shite.

[fight-nights-at-freddys]

i think its funny that antis can't comprehend the fact that my therapist is okay with me shipping problematic things and that she also dislikes antis.

[proshippers-against-censorship]

contact is based on actual interactions and relationships so...

pro c is being in favor of having sexual/romantic relationships with the thing/person one is attracted to

anti c is the opposite, being against having sexual/romantic relationships with the thing/person one is attracted to

it could only become real contact if one admitted/confessed their feelings or made a move towards having a relationship. you cannot harm others by thinking about them.

Right you are.

[gwemmieee]

Hey, have you ever examined the deep fear, paranoia, and shame you feel whenever you try to examine or voice something you feel deep down that you're worried someone else might take issue with? Don't you feel bad about all the subtle ways it renders you less able to know yourself, love yourself, express yourself, and advocate for yourself? If you're thinking about all that social anxiety horror that Super Eye Patch Wolf just talked about, and if you're so utterly afraid of standing out or going against the crowd--this is related to that.

It's probably because you think it's good to call someone out before it's proven that they are knowingly and willfully causing harm. It's probably because you think people should be punished if they harm someone period, even if it was by accident or without knowing. Even if it might have just been a misunderstanding and no real harm done was anyone's fault. And it's only fair that the same standard applies to you as well, isn't it?

It's probably because you've internalized that your value as a human being deserving of love and community can be reduced or eliminated if you say something wrong enough loudly enough. It's probably because, even if you do not ascribe to thought crime, and you agree that we should not demonize ourselves or each other for our own thoughts and feelings as long as we put in the work to be good with our actions, you tripped at the finish line when you forgot about the basic fact of human psychology that we can't translate negative thoughts into positive action without being able to speak about it openly in a space where others will truly understand how we feel, and not just skip straight to the part where feeling that way is already cringe before you've actually fully internalized your own growth past it.

It's probably because you have privilege as someone who has ever had access to real friends/family who stand by you no matter what heinous shit you say or do, and that privilege has enabled you to learn a lot very quickly about how to appear as a good person in society, because those friends/family allowed you to actually feel supported as a human being with feelings before you knew better, which is a hard prerequisite to ever knowing better, and you have not examined that privilege.

It's probably because you think you can sniff out who's good or bad just on vibes and act as judge, jury, and executioner, instead of focusing on harm reduction for anyone who you know was hurt and learning some hard realities about human interaction. For example, being ignorant is not the same as acting on that ignorance. Voicing ignorance without aggression and then being willing to learn something is actually a good thing for others to view in public, because it teaches valuable lessons to everyone paying attention, and anyone who feels validated and empowered to be shitty from such an exchange was just looking for an excuse.

I think this knowledge is something that we feminists should stand for. Anti-militancy. I know it's hard to tell here on this gremlin-ass modern internet for many of us due to circumstances beyond our control, but when you actually go outside and have friends IRL, you'll notice that feminine people out there already understand most of this.

Remember when we used to talk about being tolerant of everything except intolerance? Well, this is part of that. You're not supposed to dehumanize someone and ignore their feelings just for sounding racist one time. You're supposed to try to educate them or, failing that, practice harm reduction (which can escalate into a callout if they're truly a bad actor). Punching nazis is for when you literally fucking know that someone is willfully being harmful (perhaps because they're platforming hate). Most of them don't just cosplay as nazis in easy ways to pick out. That's why fascists are so insidious and good at infiltrating spaces. Each of us has a desperate hope that I am the one, it's me, I can be able to know at a glance who is good or bad, without taking the time and effort to get to know them first. And they prey on that. They use that to make us fight each other instead of them.

"Oh, but Gwemmie, does this mean you're defending X or Y person?" I dunno, how does their situation compare to what I just said? This post was inspired by the many times I have been dogpiled and ostracized for openly using language in autistic ways that have been confused for bigotries or insensitivities that just weren't in my speech or my thoughts (usually because those doing the dogpiling put words in my mouth, didn't parse a sentence correctly, or just decided to be ableist and go off vibes instead of what I very openly say). If you come in here thinking I'm making this post to subtweet about anyone else, you're part of the problem.

[msnihilist]

The Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially known as the Hays Code) circa 1956 vs Tumblr Fandom Police circa 2023

Spot the difference!

[roomwithavoid]

a handy guide on the appropriate way to discuss the issue of purity culture

✅ “purity culture sucks because i shouldn’t have to feel shame over harmless fantasies i have, and i’m sick of people getting involved in what i’m allowed to do with other consenting adults that they aren’t even invited to”

❌ “all these TENDERQUEERS throwing a fit in my comments! if you don’t like it why did you look at it?”

✅ “i understand why this topic might make a minor uncomfortable, but frankly minors shouldn’t be in this space to begin with. for your own safety i am going to block you and i encourage others in this space to do the same.”

❌ “lmao help me ratio this stupid PURITEEN.”

✅ “i wish people would use their block and mute features instead of ruining our fun and shaming us all of the time. i get this stuff might be triggering to some people but it’s your responsibility to cater your own online experience to your needs.”

❌ “cry about it. also the only way you would possibly see this is if you were looking for it so really it’s your fault you got triggered!”

✅ “puritanical thought policing is a dangerous tactic used by religious fundamentalists to enforce a feeling of shame so they can better control their victims, and is not something we should be welcoming/normalizing in any context. thought crime doesn’t exist.”

❌ “ANTIS ARE A CULT!”

and before you accuse me of straw manning these are all things i’ve personally seen said about this topic. if you aren’t saying the bad things, then congrats! this post is NOT ABOUT YOU!

also, when in doubt, just block! you don’t have to engage at all! you can always just SAY NOTHING!

[antiendovents]

as a schizophrenic osdd system i think it’s really really ableist, uninformed, and just plain rude when fellow antis call endos “delusional.”

like yeah, thanks so much for perpetuating the harmful stereotypes about my disorder that are literally outside of my conrtrol!

also telling anyone to kill themselves, endo or not, is not a good look and is pretty toxic imo :(

nod, we were going to make a comment on that but anger is anger. They aren't telling people directly to kill themselves (I should hope) and I did mention in the tags I dont agree with telling people to kill themselves. Thought crimes are not a thing though and this is infact a vent blog, we will allow people to vent their anger here since that's what this is intended for.

We do agree that calling them delusional is a little odd, but I do not believe they meant it in an offensive way,, do I agree with it? No. But I will let them be angry for now, people make mistakes when they are angry and I'm sure that person had no intentions of perpetuating sterotypes or being ableist. Not trying to excuse it, but trying to give an explanation for why I allowed it to post. I did try add trigger warnings too, but if I am missing any feel free to let me know

It's important to know the difference between uniformed and ableist, there is also a chance they simply do not realise that calling others delusional may be offensive

[purpurship]

Thought crimes aren't real.

I hate seeing antis virtue-signal.

"oh we just don't want people to get desensitized!"

Thought crimes aren't real. And I don't think you know what desensitized means

"oh what if you start enjoying immoral things!"

Thought crimes aren't real. And whatever morals you're referring to I can almost guarantee are not real either. It's fiction, Karen. Not Epstein Island.

"oh what if a minor reads this!"

Thought crimes aren't real. And I'm a minor, who has zero issues consuming what I choose to read. Nobody has to watch over me.

"oh-"

Thoughts crimes aren't real

Your asshole unclenches when you stop worrying about thought crimes and morals that aren't real

[coulsonlives]

[love-ardour-anarchism]

The idea that vengeance and fighting back against evil with violent means makes one "just as bad" is so easily retorted because its most often just instrumentalized to justify passivity and acceptance of an evil status quo.

Sometimes inaction is far more evil than to fight back with flawed means.

And the real link between the idea that violent means and vengeance make one "just as evil" and the idea that inaction can be just as horrible is this: What "evil" really is is dehumanization. It SHOULD appall and horrify us to enact violence and hurt or even kill our fellow humans. An organized effort to fight, hurt and kill other human beings like in a war is only possible by teaching people to dehumanize those they fight, hurt and kill in battle. This starts with the baseline of nationalist propaganda depicting the cultural and national "other" as lesser, as violent, as something not to be reasoned with and as the original transgressor. The "other" is the enemy, the enemy is not to be reasoned with. This culture of dehumanization reaches horrifying new levels in war and in the military.

Human beings are turned into tools of war by mass movements and they fight, hurt and kill their fellow human beings who were turned into just the same by a different mass movement.

Of course some mass movements are formed with ideologies in mind that are inherently evil but in order to fight against those other mass movements are formed and they ALSO need tools of war.

It isn't evil to fight evil with violent means. It doesn't make you "just as bad". But in order to do these things, in order to fight, hurt and kill our fellow human beings, even in self defense, and not psychologically break oneself one has to trick the human psyche into not realizing the extent of ones own transgression against human life.

And by doing that one lowers progressively ones own hestitance to fight, hurt and kill our fellow human beings.

The toll of war is dehumanization and it is not coincidental that so many people who believe in dehumanizing ideologies are those who most readily join military organizations while those who believe in humanity are hesitant to.

And it is also not coincidental that war veterans so often suffer horrible psychological trauma if they survive.