#especially when I'm examining aspects of characters that ppl don't think about

[blow-me-a-kis]

One minor fandom thing that grinds my gears is when I'm like here's a silly little headcanon, and someone else comments "actually no what if it was this instead". Like?? Nah bud I said my thing. Thats the space I want to play in. You want to play with a different scenario or with other characters, go make your own post. Maybe lets try and play with the scenario and the dollies I provided actually?? Like, maybe watch the Octopus episode of Bluey and learn to 'Yes, And', buddy

[ultrvmonogamy]

I may be dum or sumthing but what does ur last post even mean can you clarify plz? (about slander)

no i'm dumb bc i forgot to turn my anons back off 🙃

it's likely that i did not express myself v well at least for the casual reading audience, so plz don't think ur dumb on acct of my likely convoluted wording.

i just spent the better part of a couple hrs (more if u include the preparation of factual evidence) elaborating a particular situation to someone and am now fried n shaky n recovering from feeling utterly disgusted by it all. when and if i ever address that situation w a wider audience, i wish to do so in a manner that does not cause undue injury to anyone involved, all of whom as far as i know already feel personally harmed.

i made the post ur referring to, however, in a more general sense bc there has been a rash of similar situations (in no way related to me personally), especially of late it seems (although it could be that it's just always like this here but i simply was not as keenly aware until experiencing it for myself).

i'm not sure who will or won't be able to access the link i've pasted below, but i would urge literally everyone to at least give its contents a quick read (it's p concise and includes references) if u've not recently examined any statistics abt lying. in fact, it'd be wonderful if u were to do that (or search for statistics abt when, how often, n why ppl lie if the link doesn't work for u) before continuing to read this response:

https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/lying-statistics

ppl talk a lot of shit around here it turns out, n there seems to be no shortage of recent examples whereby they enter dms n make claims abt others that r undoubtedly sometimes valid n other times spurious, but if i were to guess then most often they fall somewhere in between. the thing abt that in between territory--which btw is where i would say most of life happens--is that it's incredibly easy to spin. half truths, curated portions of conversations, feigned contexts, emotionally charged appeals to principle n such can sway opinions 180º in an instant.

from there some portion of the ppl that received dms go on to further propagate and act upon what they were told, and much like the telephone game (is that even still a thing ppl know abt?) the message that's spread grows increasingly distorted. perhaps these next generations feel they r righteously fulfilling a duty to others by continuing to spread the message they heard (which is to say it might not even be the message they actually received), perhaps they connected to it on a personal level bc of their own past experiences, perhaps they simply enjoy spreading hurtful rumors, or perhaps they r driven by any number of other motivations. in the end i'm not sure to what extent that even matters.

but unlike in the telephone game where the original message's basis in reality is of no import whatsoever n the distortions that have occurred by the end of the chain only serve as often humorous examples to demonstrate just how lossy an unregulated flow of information can be, in this context of social media (and even more emphatically in the kink community where every last one of us is contending w some kind of emotional damage, baggage, disease, active abuse situation, or similar, every part of this misguided process has the capacity for absolutely grave consequence even extending far beyond personal character assassination.

each and every one of us here is vulnerable to both sides of this. i'd wager that each n every one of us has some trigger or another such that when confronted w some specific claim, our stomachs drop n our guts turn in a manner where logic n critical thinking go out the window n r nowhere to be found by the time we've acted on an emotional response, whether or not its premise is sound. and i'd wager just the same that all of us have aspects of our pasts and/or presents that if cast in a certain light can appear smth ranging from sketch to gross to absolutely vile. some of us were not involved of our own volition, some r haunted incessantly by regret or wishes that we'd known better or handled things differently, and some of us would not have entered into given situations if we'd known what we were getting into. some of us were understandably naive, while others of us should reasonably have known better. some of us were drunk or high or otherwise compromised in faculty. some of us simply brush it off n march on while others work w every breath to grow and do better and others still r simply awful human beings.

u cannot know a person's character by looking at a snapshot of their life. u cannot presume to know their motivations, which in fact they may not even know or have known themselves. and u most certainly cannot know the truth of what actually did or did not transpire based on someone's word alone. furthermore, it is quite possible that a person who has originally made a claim against another might at once be making such a claim in earnest yet also in error. on a personal level, i have wondered for what will soon have been 4 months whether or not a person who claimed smth abt me actually believes the thing they said to me and others--tho actually i do not know specifically what they said to others, but i do know what they said to me is incontrovertibly factually untrue (but to be clear i am disinclined to believe that they did so w malicious intent).

anyway, i digressed a bit there at the end, but my point is that the importance of due diligence in seeking the available facts, even if ultimately one can only make a subjective judgment call based on those facts, cannot be overstated. there's too fucking much at stake.

my quip abt ppl requiring more info in blog bios than they do before slandering is that ppl r relentless beating pots n pans and demanding genders and age ranges and political views and pronouns in a bloggers bio or else don't even fucking look at the blog bc it's not for u (although for some unclear reason it doesn't seem to matter if ppl's anons might be children or nazis or child molesters), yet some of the same ppl r apparently content to conspire in the shadows, load their own guns as they provide ammunition to others, n start pointing n shooting at they don't even rly know who or rly know why and (at least some of the time, which i know through personal experience) haven't even begun to invest any semblance of diligent investigation into the matter first.

so, yeah, i don't know who needs to hear it, but wrt the ppl who do need to hear it, i rly don't know wtf they imagine themselves to be doing and i feel v strongly that they need to put some critical thought into it all.

i hope that helps, and also i hope it's coherent n not riddled w confusing grammatical error n whatnot.

thank u for caring enough to ask (assuming u didn't ask w the intent of harvesting smth to use against me, bc yes y'all rly do have me that paranoid now).