#don't ask stupid questions about the poll options

[coreytasticc]

reblog for a bigger cock, again.

[anneangel]

Aziraphale is not bad or foolish nor stupid in the last 15 minutes of S2. And he is clearly suffering when Crowley didn't agree to go with him to Heaven, that is noticeable to anyone (or so I suppose).

But, in the same way that Crowley is sad about the whole situation (and about Aziraphale's choice), the audience felt the same way (ok, I know Crowley would never hate Aziraphale, while some fans condemned him and hated him a lot after that). But, getting to my point: I believe that, for most of us, Aziraphale is not "the bad", it's just that the entire 15 minutes were played to make us feel more empathy for Crowley.

He is the one we can identify with the most in the 'lover who declares his affection and is rejected'. Meanwhile, the 15 minutes still have Aziraphale saying that heaven 'is the side of the good guys' (something that would consequently be rejected by Crowley and the audience, who would agree with him in 'Heaven and Hell are toxic').

Its much harder to understand Aziraphale's side when the whole scene is played out in Crowley's favor. Aziraphale ends up coming off as the "poor naive" who leaves his love behind in exchange for trying to make Heaven a more decent place.

But listening: I also don't think Aziraphale thinks Heaven is perfect, he has shown that he doesn't always agree with God's plans or ways (he knows not to ask questions, he warns Angel Crowley, he gave his sword to Adam out of pity after the couple was expelled from Eden, he also didn't agree to kill Job's children). Aziraphale doesn't think Heaven is perfect, just that it's better than the alternative (Hell).

You see, both "Crowley book" and "Crowley show" fear the reprisals of Hell. It's not like Hell in GO isn't bad, because it is.

A while back I saw a poll that asked if you would like to be an angel or a demon, most people chose demon, but only because they use Crowley as a parameter, they want to be like Crowley, so they chose demon, but the question wasn't if you want to be Crowley, but a demon. Crowley is an exception, not the rule. Being a demon is not about being like Crowley, Crowley is the gray aspect between the black and white that Heaven and Hell are (he and Aziraphale are the gray aspect).

So Heaven is relatively more pleasant than Hell, that is beyond doubt. I think that when Aziraphale says "it's heaven, the side of the good guys", he didn't mean that it's the side of the "perfect and good", he was just replying that, compared to the alternative (Hell), Heaven was better.

This doesn't mean that Aziraphale support the publicity of heaven: He doesn't understand all the ordinances of Heaven, but he fears that disobedience and associating with demons (Crowley) will lead to his downfall, he feared that he had fallen after the whole "arc of Job". And he has reason to believe that he could fall if he is disobedient, or if he allies himself with "the wicked".

Angels did not fall only with Lucifer, mind you, biblically speaking 1/3 of the angels allied themselves with Lucifer's rebellion and fell with him (including Crowley). But after that there were other falls, before the flood for example, about 200 angels also fell: for having fallen in love with human women, having sex with them, creating Nephlins, and teaching forbidden knowledge to humans, all of this caused evil to be perpetrated on earth and it hence the flood.

So it is possible that an angel can fall at any time, if he does not fulfill the tasks of heaven and associates with the "wrong people".

Aziraphale does not think that heaven is perfect, but falling is still not a better option: Hell is not a better option.

Furthermore, he does not understand or obey all of Heaven's ordinances: he associated himself with Crowley, as well as committing sins (gluttony?), and others things. But he also knows that "running away" from Heaven (as Gabriel did) is not a good option in the long run.

So Aziraphale made the decision he thought was wisest in relation to Metatron, to find out what was happening in the management of Heaven, and trying to change what he believe is wrong.

See, Crowley's plan to run away isn't ideal, it's also naive foolishness.

Crowley would certainly agree with Aziraphale on "hell is toxic", they are in consensus on that. But, see, in the end of S2 Aziraphale and Crowley were both purposely put in a difficult situation, Metatron knew he would separate them by confronting them with a topic they would disagree on: Heaven.

Aziraphale, by saying "Heaven is the good guys' side," claimed to believe in the status quo. As if he believes that Heaven is broken, but can be fixed. But Crowley, by saying that "Heaven and Hell are toxic," doesn't believe they can be fixed, that it are both toxic precisely because it are functioning as it should.

I don't think either Crowley or Aziraphale is wrong, they just have different opinions based on what they believe. They shouldn't have to apologize for that. Aziraphale hurt Crowley, but Crowley also hurt Aziraphale. They're both hurt.

The reaction to Aziraphale was only so antagonistic because, as I said, the audience tends to identify more with Crowley and his idea that "Heaven and Hell are toxic", so they tend to give him more credibility during these last 15 minutes. But he was also wrong in the way he conducted the conversation.

Aziraphale saying that they can both go to Heaven as angels, is like having to accept that there is only Heaven and Hell and they need to join one of them, in the classic "if you can't beat them, join them". On the other hand, Crowley does not believe that it is possible to "join them", he believes that it is only possible to play against the system and outside of it, as an "us".

Only the plot of the sequel will show which one is being wiser (and I really hope the plot doesn't do it in a way that blames and ridicules one of them).

They both ended up saying things, and acting, in ways that hurt each other in S2. (Aziraphale was wrong in assuming that they were both supposed to be angels and that refusing this was unacceptable on Crowley's part, in believing that Crowley should be an angel like him without first asking him how he felt about the matter. But Crowley was also wrong in the way he refuted the idea and in kissing Aziraphale without his consent, without asking him how he felt about the matter, only imposing something that was not wanted at that moment.)

They saying things, and acting, in ways that hurt each other. Yes. But that happens at least once in a couple's life, doesn't it?

So you see, the second season only separated them to bring them back together in the "sequel" in a more epic way (or so I hope❤️).

[i-am-grell]

Wow, it's been a minute since the last Anime Poll

I've been back in Stardew brain so it's taken me a hot second to make progress with this stretch of One Piece, but the goal today is to finish up Skypeia 💪 Meaning, time for another poll.

For anyone new here, I watch anime, but don't wanna make decisions, hence: poll.

As always, propaganda* (*I like to yap) below the cut. You're allowed to reblog if you also like to yap about anime in the tags, wanna influence your followers, etc. You do not have to know me, follow me, like me, or like/know/have watched any of these shows to vote.

Propaganda:

Beastars - Season 3 has dropped and I am super excited to watch it! Y'all know when it won the poll last month I devoured (ha ha) the first two seasons, so I am ready. I am sat.

Free! - You know the drill by know: I have a wealth of 50% Off! quotes that will be used every time Free! is put into these polls. Doesn't mean you can't/shouldn't vote for me to finally catch up with/finish this series. But I'm also not running out of iconic quotes from the abridged any time soon.

Sailor Moon - Guys, I'm running out of Sailor Moon theme song lyrics. There aren't a lot of them. Y'all want me to have to start being original in these poll buttons? This option covers season 2 (Sailor Moon R).

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! - Adorable, gay, dub is unhinged, I'm sold.

Fire Force - I know. Stupid question to ask about the prequel to Soul Eater, a show where children must fight witches and demons as child soldiers for literal death. What was I thinking? Being concerned about children fighting fires?

Moriarty the Patriot - Deny, defend, depose <3

[kick-a-long]

Hi sorry to bother you but I had a question: what do you do when antisemitism gets you down? Especially since your blog deals with antisemitism.

Antisemitism has been affecting my life a lot to the point where I'm pretty reactionary. I don't have the option of just disconnecting because antisemitism affects my personal life a lot. It has gotten to a point where I see criticisms of us and I run away in fear. I'm scared to look at our flaws now because I know it's evidence that we're evil to gentiles. You won't believe how many non-Jews know about Mizrahi Jews now just to beat us over the head with it. This is coming from a convert who has been invalidated btw. Sooo you know it's bad when *I* am very afraid to criticize us.

these are great questions. i'm a weird one in terms of how i deal with antisemitism. i see it as a kind of grief that I am committed to keeping from becoming depression. but my most important defense is two fold.

first: people who openly and knowingly hate jews are rare. you can tell because of how many neo nazi dick heads won't admit it in public. they know it makes them undateable and unemployable in most of society. that's why they have to come up with different names for hating jews aka antizionism, say they are "just asking questions", and package their hate with other concerns like "cultural marxists" "replacement theory" and "globalists." they wouldn't have to do that if they were in a place to effect laws and organize. arab/muslim antisemites get the ol' noble savage treatment so they can say "jew hunts" and get away with it but muslims generally don't want to be known as jew haters and the majority aren't.

so antisemites are a reviled by most people. that's something you can prove with polling.

second: part of living a good life is to recognize that when people insult you, especially when they don't know you, they are reflecting their own defects and issues. they feel small so they lash out. they are lonely and it's far easier to make connections with people who hate jews by hating them too, and hate comments are the only way these toads can get a human to speak to them, notice them, and respond to them because they are ignored. i know who i am. i'm not the best person ever, but I'm better than someone who lives in a hate fueled delusion and threatens people. I'm better than someone that is too stupid and lazy to advocate for anything that helps others.

third and most effective: i laugh. antisemites are ridiculous. they make up ridiculous bullshit, they believe ridiculous bullshit, and do ridiculous things that ruin their lives. that last part makes me a little sad but not so sad that I don't think it's worth laughing at them. i play. when i encounter them i pretend i actually do have space lazers and mind control and really am just born smarter. all of which is stupid. i rate the hate i see so they know how they stack up against the communities of hate they are so desperate to impress and how unscary and infantile they sound.

jews are just people unfortunately. i wish we were as magical and tactical and super human as jew haters promote us as. people have real flaws, communities have real flaws. we can't be afraid of that. if we ignore our flaws because we're afraid antisemites will take it 'the wrong way' or it will make antisemites look justified well that's just crazy. antisemites take polio vaccination campaigns the wrong way. they take anything any jew ever does and says the wrong way. it's their entire sniveling pathetic little life's obsession to take anything we say or do the wrong way. let em sit on it and spin.

if jews said, "many jews have pets." antisemites will say it's because we train them to attack grandmas and puppies.

you can't take them seriously because they are playing a game and not a word they say will help you live a longer, happier, healthier life. they want you dead. fuck em. find different people and places. even when someone believes something antisemetic, chances are you can laugh it out of them. antisemitism is a way of thinking that helps keep people angry and miserable. don't be afraid of a casual antisemite. laugh at the bullshit logic they are using to keep themselves stupid. with love of course.

just my opinion.

tldr: i laugh at stupid bigots. if there's too many stupid hateful bigots i move away and laugh at them from a safe distance. joy and jokes kill antisemites dead better then well cited arguments, yelling or kind nurturing words any day.

[bellamyblake]

Hi! I love your posts and meta and the way you answer questions in general. I was wondering bc i saw on twitter that someone made a poll about which thing that bellamy never talked to with clarke, we would've loved to seen on the show and i believe the mount weather hanging won over octavia h/tting him after lincoln died. i was wondering what you thought about it-which would you have preferred?

Hey. Thank you so much for the nice words, I'm glad you enjoy my gifs and answers, though I haven't had that many questions send in recently.

I actually saw that twitter poll, I believe it was made by my friend ohsupernaturall and I did ask myself the same question you're asking now-which I would've rather seen discussed? The thing is to answer it, perhaps we have to look at it from two sides-maybe in a way through the shipper lenses and then again through the character and more specifically Bellamy-lenses.

I think that if Clarke knew the torture he went through in Mount Weather, it would've benefited bellarke's relationship more and that makes sense because him being sent there was something they were both involved into together and one decision (hers and his because he did volunteer to go inside) results into his torture and everything that happened to him inside. I believe it was necessary for them to have discussed it and I am really angry that never happened. They had a lot of things to talk about that they never did but this and Bellamy limping through the forest trying to get her in 3x02 (which was also an option in the poll if i remember correctly) were the two things I am so, so angry about. I think that had they talked about it, they would've been brought even closer. Moreover it would've mended the anger in Bellamy's heart over her leaving.

Now if it comes to Bellamy actually like actually telling her about this I'm not sure that he would've, simply because I think he knew that her finding out about this would make her feel even worse about the decisions they've made when it came to Mount Weather. He's selfless and we know that's one of his greatest qualities but he's also quiet in his suffering and punshes himself over and over again internally, so he wouldn't just go and say-Hey you know what happened to me in mount weather? They chained me, cleaned me up like an animal and hung me upside down. I only freed myself by killing a man and then meeting his child.

It just not Bellamy. If she had ever found out, I imagine it happening through someone else-Monty, Raven, Jasper, I don't know who but not through him and that would've made her even sadder imo.

Now when it comes to the b.eating, I actually did vote for that. Perhaps it's because I've written a few fanfics in an alternate universe where Clarke takes care of his bruises after O,ctavia beats him and I'm a bit biased but I feel like I really wanted this to happen. I wanted Clarke to be angry at O,ctavia about it, I wanted her to take care of him and make sure he knew he didn't deserve that. I think that I prefer this happening more because it would've opened the door to discuss Bellamy more as a character and actually would've extended the discussion on the Blake siblings relationship as a whole instead of the stupid linear-he was bad in s3, he killed L,incoln, he's to blame and he deserved it and it's not abuse (coming from the CLs).

Yes, he did it because he thought he deserved it, he did it for her and he'd do anything for her. In fact, I'm pretty sure that since it got so bad, he would've let her kill him and we knew she wanted to do it but tried very hard not to, we saw this in season 4 and she had said it herself. Anyway, I was doing that gif today from 3x13 and I noticed how he stared at the stick O,ctavia was holding when they were by the fire in the beginning of the episode and how he looked just for a second there afraid and then closed off as if he knew that she may try to hurt him again and I wondered-would he let her do it? The answer to which would probably be yes, he would-he'd do anything if it meant helping her and I feel like I wanted Clarke to talk to him about this more, I wanted her to tell him he didn't have to do this, he doesn't need to take it on his shoulders, all of it.

I do like that she talked to him a little about Lncoln's death not being his fault later on in that episode but I feel like she should've been outraged by what O,ctavia had done the same way he was outraged when it came to so many things concerning Clarke starting from season 1 going onto season 6 things like her possibly drinking the poison moonshine when they tried to have peace talks with Lxa or his desperation about her leaving by the end of s2 and trying to talk her out of it or how he f*cking saved her life in 6x10 and then was mad when she was ready to go back in Sanctum and pretend she was still josephine and that was talking about with the other characters too (when Gabriel said Bellamy wouldn't like this).

I know people here will say but Clarke has been angry when it came to him being stupid too like in 4x03 when she said He will be inside once they closed the door or when she wrote down his name because she believed he deserved it or when she saw him chained by Roan in s4 and yes I do agree with all those things, which is why I wished for that moment to have happened too, for them to have had the time to talk about this abuse and for Clarke to be angry at O,ctavia, to even be protective of him, to not want to leave him alone. And that would've helped the blakes relationship as well imo. Because the whole time Clarke's relationship to Bellamy's relationship with his sister has been *I offer quiet support and try to give him some reassurance but stay out of it* when I feel like sometimes he needed to be grabbed and shaken hard and told that no, he's not doing something bad by turning his back on his sister, by leaving her on the dropship in season 6, by telling her she isn't his responsibility anymore. And he shouldn't have had to get there alone let alone the fact that it should've happened 3 seasons earlier. Their relationship was left in a stagnant point after season 1, I thoroughly agree with that.

I can also talk a lot about O,ctavia coming to terms that what he did to her happened through Hope and there are good and bad things about this but that's a whole other subject.

[shonpota]

Twitter Re acquisition Startegy Things that can be done to get Elon out from Twitter for good

(It is can, and it doesn't meant to be taken seriously anyway)

Please be kind when commenting and reblogging

Everything here are just options, not step by step:

Twitter blue or not, whenever Elon tweet something just make spam of pollings with questions or rephrased of "Do you want Elon Musk to be in Twitter in any job title? Yes or no." If you are afraid of getting accounts, then make dummy accounts. Remember to always vote "no" 😆 we can do it! Flood Elon's reply tweet sections woth that polling and nothing more, only interact with polling and like other polling with alike question to fight against bootlickers algorithm.

^This question is basically improved version of Elon's polling about whether he should step down from CEO position. Which he used the "no" As to move to other job position. This improved question will leave him no space to slip to other job position or even to just exist in Twitter.

Gather information about former twitter employees, make a group chat with them. Ask them about new and old twitter, the good and the bad. Make articles about it, go publish it everywhere.

Make all public posts settings on other social media about how bad twitter is for business and advertisements, tag local and international news and other influencers and request them to do the same.

Make one day or few days without twitter campaign to make social interest in it goes down, notify any local and international news media about this so they put it on news to make twitter popularity goes down and harms also humiliated Elon's megalomaniac and egomaniac side.

😇 Alternative "Good guy" Route😇 : Work together with HQ building owner (because Elon is renting it) to kick Elon out but keep everything intact.

Warning: ?? Unknown??

👽 🍹 Raid 51 But In HQ 🍹👽: Let's hold a gathering party to goes into Twitter San Fransisco HQ on Market Street! Go get barbecue, ice cream, juices, cold snacks and hold a picnic there and try to hold it in the HQ too (you can ask the building owner to open up the door cuz Elon doesn't pay the office) . The polices and armies will less likely arrest such a peaceful fun raid. Go feed the workers and passerby but not Elon.

If this is done then hold an open public job open requests to everyone in around the world and US to be engineers, website and logo designers, codings, etc. Twitter has branches around the countries

DELETE ELON MUSK ACCOUNT/S. Ban his phone number and e-mail.

If possible: Collect money to set a lawyer against him. Remember that Elon is stupid enough to challenge Wachtell (a big name in lawyer world). Go open public fundraising. Demand a high cost compensation from Elon.

News that hold information about lay offs:

More idea to try! 💡 if possible, you can ask the journalist in the news about name details of who got lay off

CEO: Parag Agrawal

Chief Financial Officer: Ned Segal

Head of Legal Policy: Vijaya Gadde

There are also people who get unemployed in Ghana as told in CNBC, the journalist who interviewed is Elliot Smith.

For news about the lay off, The Verge, Euronews, etc can be used.

HQ Location:

Xspace office

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XxtfQNmz3sNp4H1W6

Tesla Factories

Potential Allies for Twitter Take over:

Microsoft:

Meta

Wachtell

Warning: Don't publish this in Twitter, on DMs is fine. It is better if Elon Musk doesn't know about this so he can't prepare anything. Make sure that each accounts unfollowed and block elon musk Twitter too.

Oh anyway a good read:

[arkiwii]

it's a stupid poll but I've been thinking about it a lot

all votes are anonymous so don't worry i'm not going to find your home if you replied no or if you prefer another ship

It's mostly something out of curiosity; I've noticed that this ship is extremely popular for obvious reasons on CN communities, but on Tumblr I feel like other ships involving them are more popular? and im just pondering mmmmhh. also i have no bad judgements; i have my own opinion on each and why i dont ship them (that i won't explain unless asked to) but i dont care if you do, you like what you want! im not going to make a 10 pages long post about why sariasil is the only valid one

if you ship poly couples (like Saria x Silence x Ptilopsis) it goes in "other", third option, I'm asking specifically these two

if you dont care u dont vote ez

feel free to explain your opinion if it's one of the two last options, you don't have to, im just curious, i might not reply to them cause im not here to argue which ship is valid

[hot-take-tournament]

regarding the potential sideblog for serious takes: I completely get what you mean. Thinking of things to submit, I came across many many takes of mine, things I feel very passionately about, that I just.... Couldn't really bear to submit to a silly tournament blog. A lot of things that I don't have the guts to say on my main, since the main reason it's "hot" in the first place is my friends' and mutuals' disagreement. The criteria I've been using for submitting is, "if I got 90% disagree votes, would that be heartbreaking? would that be depressing to know, that that many people disagree on this topic that I care so much about?" and if the answer is yes, then... that's too important to me. and i just keep it to myself.

honestly, if you did make a sideblog, I would be more than glad to submit these takes that i held back from. and I suspect that many others would feel encouraged to send things that they otherwise wouldn't, as well.

whatever your decision, I deeply respect this blog, which is rather funny, since i actually have the words "hot take" in my blacklist because I'm honestly so tired of seeing violent discourse about human rights.

basically, it's really refreshing to argue about stupid shit like "what's the best way to write a date" or "am I committing a food crime if I eat my food this way" or "what kind of music sucks". i like feeling mentally engaged and introducing nuance into false dichotomies, and this blog gives me an easy place to do that without having to read questions like "ok but does this minority ACTUALLY deserve rights or are they not [arbitrary measure of Virtue] enough"

that being said I did vote in favor of the serious takes blog. there's a high chance that I wouldn't be able to follow it for long before the Bad Takes drove me mad, and the notes sound like they would be godawful, but I think if you threaten to only keep the blog up for as long as people behave and keep the notes civil, it could work.

and, to anyone with serious opinions that needs a place to put them besides your blog, I often send mine to the blogs transenbyconfessions and aroaceconfessions. they post asks and submissions, anonymously or credited. the goal of those blogs is just to provide a platform for genderqueer, questioning, or relationship-queer folk to have a place to tell their stories without having to worry about horrible notes. just gets sent in and forgotten about. if you want a ping when it posts, you can also sign off as/mention a sideblog of yours. I've done that a few times too.

yeah, i think it's the best option, but it depends how the poll goes

i think in the meantime you can still submit those takes, and if choose the first option then they'll be posted, and if they don't, it doesn't matter either way - maybe it will help just to get it off your chest anyway

i do the read all the submissions, so even if it would make you feel better knowing that at least one person has read your take, then feel free to submit!

[signalhill-if]

You probably shouldn't have to answer this question, but I've found that I am incredibly stupid and unable to do basic stuff or notice obvious things.

So how do you actually get money? I've got the leads from Levi, KC and Yvette during my playthrough, the first 2 haven't been implemented yet, so I was like okay, and I did Yvette's job (paid in exposure I guess.) met Yasmin and took her drugs, and then Yvette tells me to wait for a new job so I decide to look for a way to make some money.

When I tell you I've probably walked around that entire city 13 times and I'm still broke as hell.

Can you actually get money? I would've just assumed you can't get any pennies yet but the poll about the cassino seems to suggest that you actually can.

Again, really sorry for asking, I'm betting it was probably really obvious and I missed it simply because I am a moron.

Such is the problem with the casino- you shouldn't be able to make much money, haha. Clearly, though, everybody discovered a loophole.

So Wealth is an abstraction, meaning when you get more wealth, you're, like, moving into a new tax bracket.

Because of that, Wealth is super rare right now. Everybody's giving you the run around on purpose. In the demo, you're meant to be in absolute poverty.

There are currently 3 ways of getting wealth, though. There's the aforementioned casino. It's supposed to give you more losses than wins, and also you're only supposed to be able to gamble once between every lead. So either my code isn't working or 40% of people are savescumming to max out their wealth. Normally I'm a big supporter of savescumming, but if this is the case I might need to remove the casino entirely, because it will literally ruin the experience of the game on a fundamental level for those players going forward, way more than just scumming a single roll. Sorry y'all

The other two are less obvious. You can sell off the painkillers that Doc gives you to the guys hanging out at the abandoned warehouse. That's only a small payment, but it will get you up to 1 wealth. And if you're broke in Waveform, you'll have the option to ask Yvette for cash to buy Yasmin a drink. You can then lie and claim that you spent it all to keep the rest, and there are several clever ways to get even more out of him, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out.

Overall I think if you play optimally you can get 3 Wealth without the casino, and if you start there, get lucky, and keep playing you can probably get 5 without savescumming. Or you can savescum and get 5 instantly. Or there's something broken in my code. I've still yet to identify it, but I checked over the code and it all looks fine, so I'm thinking it's probably the former.

Either way, please don't sweat not being able to afford things right now. It'll take quite a bit of time. If you've explored everywhere, talked to everyone, and done every lead, you'll just have to wait till the next update (or reload a save) to get more.

[maskeraith]

Why the fuck are you posting all these meme ways to do math when everyone does "48 + 7 = 55, because when you carry the 1 to make 50 you have 5 left"

Literally no one does math in the way that poll is set up

I guess I will take a sec to talk about the folks who do seem genuinely annoyed or upset about the whole thing, like you are if you're not joking about coming all the way into my inbox about this without checking my last few posts? Either way there's lots of people like this in the notes so

The tldr is I did it because I thought it was funny and it was fun to try and come up with convoluted ways to do an easy question in stupid ways. A while ago there was another maths poll like this (in hindsight wouldn't it be funny if they were doing what I was doing just more subtly lol) with a 2digit + 1digit maths question, it seems like an earnest poll (compared to mine at least) and their first option was the same as my first option and I never really stopped thinking about it. Last night those thoughts culminated in "what if every option was just stupid as hell" and it devolved from there hehe

(Rest of this is just observations and stuff on my mind about the general reaction to the poll using this ask as a starting point)

The "everyone does it my way" part of this ask is super fun because no the fuck they don't, and the 40k tags in my notes right now attest to that lol - I have notes saying they change it to 49 + 6 because adding something to 9 is easier, some saying they know inherently from cribbage that 7+8 is 15 so they can go from there, some saying they start with 7*7=49 (which tbh would fit right in as a poll option as far as I'm concerned), some people meticulously laying out each little step they make over about 8 lines of working (someone left two full seemingly earnest paragraphs?), lots just say use a calculator (valid), and many say just count up 7 on your fingers for goodness sake

I'm team count up 7 on your fingers - it was really important for this question to be 2digit + 1digit imo, because that was the other part of that other poll that kept me thinking. Usually with these it's like at least 2digit + 2digit something like 27 + 38, where okay yeah maybe you do need to break this one down a little and it would be interesting to see the different routes people take to do that. But as far as I'm concerned if you're adding / subtracting a single digit number to anything like. Why are we doing anything besides just counting that on your fingers. Zero thought minimal effort required right? So yeah I won't lie it's also been really interesting to see people rushing forward to present all these Sensible Smart Methods like you should always have to be doing something like that in maths?

Idk how to explain it and I'm really not like trying to dunk on people who are bad at maths or anything but there are people coming in with these 3 line methods and ending it with "op these options are crazy you're making it so much harder for yourself" and I can only think "well so are you"

[ming-sik]

@xenodogz ok replying is getting unwieldy im gonna go by your arguments point by point:

we do fundamentally disagree, i think that if someone sees something about "discourse" it is in fact their responsibility to find out what the discourse actually is before posting a long wildly incorrect theory about it being unprompted prejudice. personally if i hear that someone's mad at me i do usually try to find out why before i form my opinion on the situation and i don't think that's too much to ask! if someone can't be bothered to form an informed opinion why bother forming an opinion at all?

you've continued to not respond to the original point of the original discussion: it was literally framed as a test. the reason the screenshot was provided on its own was to test whether or not the reader can recognize this specific red flag by picking up on context clues, which are available in the original post. people don't always have signs on their head that say "i'm going to emotionally exploit you" so it's important to at least be able to recognize that something is suspicious and question a potential partner to make sure you're not putting yourself in a vulnerable position and they're being honest with you. you and a lot of other people failed the test, which doesn't mean you're stupid, but doubling down and blaming the tester for not giving you the answer kinda is. also can you decide if people were just saying The Guy was maybe aromantic OR if nobody was defending him OR if he wasn't relevant at all OR if the situation seemed fine without the context. it kind of seems like whether The Guy was defensible/relevant or not hinges entirely on which option bolsters your individual points. also what do you MEAN the origin of the discourse wasn't relevant. what? of course it's relevant that people originally misinterpreted the situation to use cishet aro dudes as a shield for a misogynist!

"nobody was saying it was arophobic to be upset at the guy" yes they were that was, again, the origin of the discourse. like defending him by saying "well maybe he's just aro and wants to be exclusive fwb for STD safety" w/o mentioning the presenting romantic relationships are more serious and feeling entitled to exclusivity when hes not taking it seriously, and doubling down when the people who recognized the red flags were proven right, is using cishet aro guys as a shield for misogyny which is my sticking point.

how is it not hurting cishet aro guys to, again, be used as a gotcha for people complaining about misogynists? that was the original problem. cishet aro men were not originally being attacked, so by responding to criticism of misogyny with "leave cishet aro guys alone" anyone who came into the discussion without a strong familiarity with the differences between cishet aro guys and misogynists who use 'relationship' as code for 'respect' would get the impression that if That Guy "might be aromantic" that this is standard behavior for cishet aro guys, which i would say is much more damaging than people complaining about that first thing.

yeah i saw the other poll i mentioned it in my first post. as someone who was following the original discussion i maintain that it's extremely bad faith to characterize things as them attacking cishet aro men without the context "after people defended a misogynist because he might be cishet aro".

in general i'm concerned about the current state of discussion in the aro & ace communities due to the same things you're presenting as counterarguments. i dislike seeing the only things in the aro tag being banal positivity or people weighing in on conversations through a game of endless telephone. this climate makes us extremely vulnerable to bad actors who can frame harmful things as an attack on aro people under the knowledge that most people won't challenge that, and forms a loop where people are incentivized not to get better at theory, ultimately making the community a worse place to be in. if the aro community had a healthy discussion scene the original people misinterpreting the situation either would've passed the test because they'd be educated about this type of abuse from the aro position of people who have to deal with potential partners who think no relationship =/= no respect, or would've been in a mindset to re-evaluate when they turned out to have failed to pick up on the signs being discussed. instead a bunch of people willfully misinterpreted an unrelated thing and then the entire aro tag for a week was people furthering the game of telephone. there's a third option beyond "nuclear wasteland of unproductive arguments" and "uncritical refusal to engage with anything except positivity".

in conclusion,

honestly it's just frustrating. you have people finding misogynistic cishet dudes and defending their emotional neglect of their sexual partners because it superficially resembles aromanticism even when the men themselves do not identify as aromantic and are often neglecting their sexual partners specifically because they view a girlfriend as the only type of woman who deserves any type of effort and so if the chick they're fucking isn't their girlfriend they can treat her like dirt. and then when people are rightly like "hey fuck you for defending a misogynist" the same people who claimed the cishet guy who never at any point claimed to be aromantic was aromantic and therefore criticizing his misogyny is arophobia go into the aro tags to despair at how many people HATE aromantics so they can whip a bunch of bystanders into a frenzy because they've heard that people are discrediting aromanticism, and therefore are encouraged to read the original unrelated posts or people getting pissed at someone defending emotional abuse by calling it aromanticism in bad faith or not at all, and so you get a mountain of people theorizing that the attack on cishet aro men was manufactured by TERFs instead of people who think that girls who date guys deserve dudes who don't see them as a freelance contractor they can expect sex from without having to treat them with the bare minimum respect they feel a girlfriend is owed.