#idk like afaik she doesn't have any problem with it or if she does it's not something she actively complains about but it bugs me a little

[overclockedopossum]

Just so we're clear, while she goes by Steph her chosen name is James Stephanie Sterling and she's explicitly non-binary transfem.

In light of recent events, let’s not forget that H. Bomberguy is responsible for driving a formerly-beloved transphobic TV writer into a downward spiral that cost him his career and his family… all by playing Donkey Kong.

[ambrosiagourmet]

Okay, I'm trying to firm up some thoughts about heteronormativity for the world of dunmeshi. We don't see any explicit homophobia (afaik???), and it's a little hard to separate real life heteronormativity from the potential in-universe kind, BUT there are a lot of the markers of gender roles and prejudices that often come with this stuff, and I want to dissect some of them.

DISCLAIMER I am painting with a broad brush here just to summarize what I've observed/what we know. Obviously all these races/cultures are going to have a variety of different subcultures within them and opinions/norms/laws/etc can vary a lot. No group is a monolith etc etc but this is a high level look at stuff.

Also I'd prefer people only reblog this if they are participating in the convo/adding something. This is for my reference and I'd rather it not spread much, at the moment. Thanks for understanding!

So... Laios and Falin had arranged marriages to a girl and boy, respectively, along with there being a slew of other prejudices they grew up around, so that's a glimpse into the tall-men culture in the northern continent.

There are a lot of different cultures in the archipelago but at very least the Nakamoto clan currently works in what looks like a patriarchal structure, though all of Shuro's siblings are male so I guess we don't technically know if women can inherit? Hien kind of assumes that she and Shuro might end up romantically involved in a sort of "well that's how it works" way which is fairly heteronormative so I think its fair to say that on a baseline level that assumption is present there.

Since Otta is judged more for dating short-life races than for dating women, it seems like maybe elven culture is more flexible. HOWEVER they are such a Power Structure TM and the noble houses care so fucking much about lineage and status that I have trouble believing that it's completely free of problems. Probably at least the nobility is expected to fit in heterosexual molds? Idk. They do look more androgenous and overall feminine than the other races, so that could also contribute to more fluidity. Of note here also is that in addition to a canon lesbian in Otta, Lycion also is Extremely Transgender. Though also of note: these people are the criminals in the group. So.

I don't know that there's as much info to work off of for the gnomes, dwarves, and half-foot cultures.

Dwarves have very strong family ties, which COULD lean towards heteronormativity but doesn't necessarily have to. Some dwarven women in dwarven cultures let their facial hair grow out - it's not necessarily super common, but it's much more likely to happen there than in a place like the Island. I lean towards thinking that they are more flexible, and maybe it varies from family to family how much there is an expectation of heterosexuality. Like the elves, they are more androgynous than most of the other races, AND one of our other major mostly canon queer characters (beloved bi Namari) is dwarven.

No idea about gnomes. The most prominent gnomes we see are the married Flokes and Holm. Holm's sister seems to have a bit of a thing for Kabru, so that's a couple of points towards Heterosexual Gnomes, but hardly anything definitive. They also live alongside dwarves so I imagine that if the dwarves are flexible they probably aren't significantly more strict about stuff. Also!! Kiki is the last of what I'd label the Mostly Canon queer characters, and she and Kaka were raised by gnomes! So that does seem to fit the "more overtly queer characters have ties to less heteronormative seeming cultures".

Again, no real idea about half-foot stuff. Chilchuck got married young and was a teen dad. Two of his kids seem very Interested In Men, the third gives big lesbian vibes. All of these things seem like they could be as much just orientation as anything socially enforced. I do think it's notable though that, while Flertem and Puckpatti are explicitly and loudly Into Men, Meijack is just quiet and gives off Vibes.

Ummmm yeah orcs (at least the ones we see) also have hierarchies based around polygyny so that's them.

YEAH that's most of what I can pull together currently? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on interpreting all this, and if there are any lore details I missed!

Generally speaking I'm inclined to believe that heteronormativity exists as a baseline undercurrent in a lot of regions and cultures, and is more enforced in places that are either A) dominated by hierarchies (eg elven noble families) or B) insular and xenophobic in a variety of ways (eg Laios and Falin's hometown).

[fencesandfrogs]

i think the point is, whether or not having to plan around your mom's emotions is bad in a particular scenario kind of depends on the consequences of not doing so.

if the consequences involve her removing access to some basic need, then it's bad because your mom is responsible for providing those and that responsibility should not be conditioned on your behavior.

so i think the crux of the issue, based on what little of the discussion i've seen, is that you do not believe "not getting yelled at for being irresponsible" is something you inherently deserve from your mom, while others around you do.

i also think a possible miscommunication could be happening here; afaik the issue is not "you being irresponsible" necessarily but "you have no memory of what happened to the previous money" which given you have documented memory problems, would pull into question whether yelling at you for that is fair or reasonable.

so when you say "my mom yelling at me for being irresponsible doesn't stop my needs from being met" and others say "your mom yelling at you for being irresponsible is not meeting your needs"

they're maybe actually saying "your mom yelling at you for symptoms of mental illness is not meeting your needs"

so like. idk your life well enough to judge. but i think the question is a) is it irresponsibility or Symptoms (or both)? and b) does yelling at you for symptoms (esp if they're outside your control) count as not meeting your needs?

(also idk if you are counting emotional needs in this discussion. but. as someone who didn't for a really long time and then learned i have neglect-related trauma, it might be worth considering if you're not)

anon i cannot thank you enough for this ask because i've been so confused about this discussion. i was joking with my friends, like, i've seen people have this moment on tumblr before, and i've always been sympathetic, but always like...here hold on screenshot

[transcript: me watching [redacted] do this: i see that you're legitimately confused but i don't know how anyone could break it down any clearer.

me doing this: what the fuck are people saying to me /end transcript]

and now i'm like. "you are all explaining things to me clearly with good words and i should be able to understand them, but i can't."

urgh my hands are cold i know you will experience no time gap but i have to do dishes so i will.

the crux of the issue ... is that you do not believe "not getting yelled at for being irresponsible" is something you inherently deserve from your mom

yeah, pretty much? not that. urgh i'll feel guilty if i don't bring this up but my mom doesn't yell so much as. make you feel like you got yelled at without raising her voice. i've been saying "yell" because there's no short way of saying what she does, and the emotional impact is the same. (source: i've been thru both)

okay that guilt avoided.

anyway yeah, you summed that up pretty well. like...the need is still met if she yells at me. i don't have some inherent right to not get yelled at. she feeds me. that's the need. closed loop.

the issue is not "you being irresponsible" necessarily but "you have no memory of what happened to the previous money"

i don't think i have much to say this was just. an angle i hadn't looked at it from before? i think i've been rly focused on my mom and i know that she doesn't rly care about that kind of thing? she didn't care abt it when i was a kid at least. whenever i complained abt my memory she told me not to make excuses. so like.

i dunno. i feel like it's still irresponsible of me? i doubt i spent it on anything essential. i know when i spent money on some fun stuff i specifically texted my mom and asked her to pull from my savings for that, because i was spending on fun stuff. so like. even if i don't remember it, it's still the same problem?

hm. this whole post will get the commentary welcome tag but i'm specifically saying if people have thoughts on this i'd like to hear them.

they're maybe actually saying "your mom yelling at you for symptoms of mental illness is not meeting your needs"

hm.

urgh i feel all turbulent and weird about this. it's like i know i've said all different things about this? to everyone. to my therapist and my friends and on this blog.

i don't.

sorry i'm feeling really staticky.

okay took a little break because my brain was getting soupy. i think you're right about this, although...i dunno. ig intellectually i get why they're upset, but it feels hard to be upset about it. for whatever reason, i can't apply the rules i'd apply to other people to myself. i don't know why. that's just...how things are.

a) is it irresponsibility or Symptoms (or both)? and b) does yelling at you for symptoms (esp if they're outside your control) count as not meeting your needs?

things to talk about with my therapist, presumably. i'm certainly not finding answers to this all tonight. mostly putting this here to highlight it for later.

idk if you are counting emotional needs in this discussion

honestly i don't even know.

i don't really see all of this as a "basic" need. like, if i accept the premise as true, that she isn't supposed to be like this, i still don't think this is about basic needs. i have food, water, and shelter. i'm getting an education. i have healthcare. idk what my list of basic needs would be, but this whole deal wouldn't be on them.

sigh.

i kinda wanna cry and call my mom about this but i can't call her about her :(

[somnilogical]

ratheka: unjustly banned somni to preempt protest of their unjust banning of emma, which is unjust

emma was protesting cfar instructor davis tower kingsley. this davis tower kingsley:

<<memento mori: Masturbation is considered grave matter, so if someone masturbates with full knowledge that this is wrong and deliberately consents to it then yes, this is a mortal sin, and if they do not repent of it then yes, they will go to hell.>>

<<dirk: like… “only unrepentant sinners go to hell” is not comforting to unrepentant sinners

TowerNumberNine: it is certainly comforting relative to the doctrine of “homosexuals are damned and cursed and cannot possibly repent” which many have sadly encountered>>

and more here: https://everythingtosaveit.how/#davis-tower-kingsley and there is much more than is even written there which those in possession of akashic records or discord logs may give an account of.

i will not repent and submit to pope anna salamon kingsley.

kingsley is in no way a warrior for social justice. yes they are an instructor at “the center for applied rationality”, no there is not some unintuitive deeply wise reason for this. its just what cfar is at this point. “taxing transfems for existing and transferring resources to cisfems” is talking about something zack davis said.

transcript of emma and kingsley: https://0bin.net/paste/teXP7x-IJot61kro#0ZAkytrL7DWmMM8HRFdgdgGS4vV6d7aifuR9Kf8sqkX

[A/N: i didnt say anything this entire time, then found emma and somni were banned, then later found i was unbanned and so was emma. kingsley was also banned.]

somni talks with ratheka:

#discourse-and-debate

[10:56] 𒀭 💮: @Ratheka for what just reason did you ban me from this server?

[11:03] 𒀭 💮: what did i do?

i think you should hand in your badge and gun, resign from the force. as far as i can tell, there was no just cause for this aggression.

[11:05] LeoTal: Er, sorry, are you ban-evading? Or do you mean "banned and just unbanned"?

[11:10] 𒀭 💮: i do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th amendment rights under the united states constitution.

i choose to exercise my constitutional rights.

[11:12] Ratheka: In expectation of having exactly this argument, s/me/emma

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: in expectation of me protesting being unjustly banned, you unjustly banned me?

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: that makes no sense

[11:12] Ratheka: This is not the united states, the constitution does not in fact bind leo, who afaik doesn't even live in the states

[11:13] deluks917: Somni you got unbanned. The moderators made a mistake and we corrected it reasonably quickly.

[11:13] 𒀭 💮: would you violate my 5th amendment rights?

[11:13] Ratheka: You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association

[11:13] LeoTal: I was just trying to clarify in case I misunderstood the meaning. Sorry for shitstirring, shutting up now.

[11:13] deluks917: Please let this go

[11:14] 𒀭 💮: why was i banned?

[11:16] conifer: why was somni banned, i'd like to know that too?

[11:20] deluks917: Ratheka predicted Somni would get angry because Emma was banned and post disruptive things. This is not (imo) a good reason to ban someone even if Emma's ban was justified (imo it was not). Given this Somni was unbanned in about a day.

[11:21] deluks917: Idk what you really want us to do here. We already reversed the bans.

[11:23] 𒀭 💮: ratheka predicted correctly that i would object to an unjust banning of emma. destroying opposition so they cannot protest your poor decisions is wrong.

i want justice, i want ratheka's ability to ban people removed from them. i want them to hand in their badge and gun and resign from the force.

[11:24] 𒀭 💮: if people's ability to ban others is not affected by abuse of power for unjust ends, there is no check on abuse of power. there is no differential incentive between banning justly and banning unjustly.

and you get people like ratheka who ban people in anticipation of their opposition to unjust rulings.

[11:28] 𒀭 💮: saying that things are fine because other humans corrected ratheka's mistake and why are you worrying about stuff is wrong.

i want things to be such that if ratheka knew what would happen downstream of unjustly banning someone and then banning any vocal opposition to their choice, that they would not unjustly ban someone in the first place.

[11:38] 𒀭 💮: otherwise you are as moral as a police force at each step pays some restitution to compensate for a cop who unjustly destroy peoples property, but never fires them for their unjust behaviour. encourages people to work around those who wish to do unjust things and then neutralize anyone who they think might protest against their immoral actions. as some sort of missing stair. http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html (its unrepresentative that the cops would pay restitution.)

"oh thats just ratheka, sometimes they ban people and then ban people they expect to oppose their ban, you just have to work around them. yeah they can still ban people."

you could say this is silly and the scope of this problem is small and why do you care? but

1 if the scope of this is small does that not apply evenly to all things, would not the scope of removing ratheka's ability to ban people also be small?

2 its important to work things out algorithmically at all scales, so you get things right. the problem of choice in getting things right when theres different amounts of utility at stake, for the same thing, is equivalent. getting the trolly problem right is the same choice whether it deals with the lives of 6 people or 6000000000 people. https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/174174621274/wetradelives-felt-mildly-bad-about-my-url

[11:48] 𒀭 💮: the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism, is wrong. then silencing people expected to dissent to the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism is 2x wrong.

my mom grew up in uruguay, her parents were political dissidents, they were put in jail for 6 days and warned that the next time they would be jailed for 6 years. both anyone who dissented and anyone who spoke up for those who dissented risked getting disappeared. they left uruguay, immigrated to america and now she writes books and papers on the regime's gaslighting.

it was unjust when this happened on the scale of a country, it is unjust when this happens on the scale of a discord server.

[11:51] 𒀭 💮: there was no just cause for what ratheka did, but there can be justice for things done for no just cause.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, somni, but I'd rather give Ratheka another chance. I think she's learned from her mistake.

[11:52] deluks917: I agree Somni has a point.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: like if this became a pattern it would be really bad

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: but first offense and all

[11:54] purrtrandrussell: Pragmatically, distributing the amount of work between mods is pretty valuable, given all of us have stuff to do, not a ton of time, etc. and I don't really want to increase the total labor load per person on something I expect to be a one-off thing

[11:57] 𒀭 💮: i dont. ratheka didnt articulate why what they did was unjust.

when i said that i held by the 5th amendment they were like "that doesnt apply here" rather than like respect the rights i asserted.

which is a thing ive encountered with other people who then tried to find other ways to violate my rights.

aaa its kind of absurd that a small discord server is too big to fail??? like justice should come first in logical time (the order in which logical structure in a venacular sense "principles" are considered) and then you find new mods downstream of this instead of flipped around.

[11:58] 𒀭 💮: like, i think you could find one person here to take on this workload in ratheka's stead.

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: So, if you look at what Ratheka said, she didn't dispute that you had a right to not talk to leo if you didn't want to, she was nitpicking about whether or not this qualified as a fifth amendment thing

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: "You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association"

[11:59] Ratheka: So:

Somni, I specifically and without pushing from anyone save you, just now, honestly apologize to you. I agree that my actions were unjust. I stated my belief as such shortly after I took it, and presented to argument to reversing it.  Yes, I fucked up, and I am, in fact, regretful. I did not think that an apology would provide you with any satisfaction, so I did not offer it, but I do in fact intend to do better in future.

The fifth amendment is the right to refuse to answer questions when talking to agents of the government so that you do not incriminate yourself.

[12:00] 𒀭 💮: why was what you did unjust?

[12:01] Ratheka: Because I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer, by exercising power in a way that had not been justified by your actions taken in this case.

[12:09] 𒀭 💮: thats not really why, nor does it differentiate between what you did to me and what you did to emma. one is doing a wrong thing and another is a marginal act made to cover up that you did a wrong thing.

you did not just act out of akrasia, you also engaged in a coverup.

i dont believe you and expect this will happen again, good-harting over repeating this exact scenario the way that slavery is banned, but immigrant "farmworkers" are treated as "not technically, legally, slaves" but are slaves with ICE acting as slavehunters.

i do not accept this apology, expected low probability that i would a priori, but there is always some chance for this to be wrong.

[12:10] 𒀭 💮: like fuck you didnt act out of "akrasia" i just imported the lie you presented. what you said is a lie.

[12:10] Ratheka: 'akrasia'?

[12:10] Ratheka: I know the word

[12:10] Ratheka: I want to know where I claimed it.

[12:11] 𒀭 💮: "I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer" this is a lie

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed or lack of willpower or laziness

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: people who say they silenced people because "they didnt want to deal with hassel, its too much work, you are causing too much disruption" are usually lying

[12:13] Ratheka:

you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed

How would you know what my burden is?

I sought to avoid having my attention pulled into a discussion congruent if not isomorphic to this one, about emma.

[12:13] 𒀭 💮: because you are still, now, at every step resisting justice. saying that you didnt say the word "akrasia" when this is an accurate descriptor of the thing you said.

[12:14] 𒀭 💮: you claimed a failure of willpower due to being overwhelmed. i disbelieve this.

[12:15] Ratheka: I disagree.

Further, as I am in fact burdened, and have stuff to do that I think is likely to yield higher value for anyone than me being in this conversation, I am stepping away from it. Should the other mods feel I need to step down, I will. I would recommend not extensively harassing them about this? But in the end the choice of actions to take from here is yours.

[12:16] 𒀭 💮: i can see into you ratheka

your words are as empty as your soul

[12:17] 𒀭 💮: you are saying "i cant prove your motive" you are saying that your "injustice" was simply weakness of will. you are trying to divert blame at every step.

[12:18] deluks917: Also looks like the answer to 'Idk what you really want us to do here.' is demod Ratheka.

[12:21] 𒀭 💮: you have not admitted to any logical structure of injustice. i claim there was an algorithm that output this. and the algorithm was not "sometimes i get overwhelmed and i randomly decided to ban somni and emma"

you banned emma unjustly and then you banned somni unjustly to cover up what you did. this isnt accounted for by being "overwhelmed" this is a distinct unjust algorithm.

[12:21] purrtrandrussell: Somni, I do think you have a point, but please refrain from personal insults ("your words are as empty as your soul")

[12:23] 𒀭 💮: one which you have not acknowledged and expect will not repeal.

if you think i have a point, then why not de-mod ratheka and mod someone who doesnt do this stuff? who doesnt at each step try and destroy knowledge of injustice, tries to blur it all into a weakness of will when trying to cover up the unjust things you have done is not weakness of will or being overwhelmed.

[12:25] 𒀭 💮: like? i was banned because ratheka tried to cover up their unjust acts against protest. not because ratheka did some random act while overwhelmed!

[12:27] 𒀭 💮: ratheka is not acknowledging this stuff as wrong.

[12:27] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, I just disagree that this is worth de-moding over, there's a general principle I want to follow about not punishing on the first offense. (I also don't think banning Emma was particularly egregious, I do think she stepped out of line, it was a judgement call, and while I think that temp-muting would have  been better and believe reversing the ban was just, I don't consider banning to be especially poor judgement)

[12:28] purrtrandrussell: (also I should get back to work myself, so, this is gonna be an asynchronous conversation on my end)

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: i think it was especially unjust. do you think ratheka banning me was especially unjust?

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: ratheka expects you to cover for them, does not want to directly engage with me.

[13:05] 𒀭 💮: LeoTal accused me of committing a crime in local law.

<<The Fifth Amendment dealing with a person's right against self-incrimination, which applies not only when they're on the witness stand in court but in any context. Citizens have the right not to speak to the police and say things that might incriminate themselves.>>

it was entirely appropriate to invoke the 5th when someone acts like a cop and you do not want to talk with them.

[13:07] 𒀭 💮:

[13:07] 𒀭 💮: https://theievoice.com/red-cards-and-constitutional-rights/

[13:10] 𒀭 💮: in a counterfactual world in which this were not true, this cards that civil liberties advocates distributed to people would be printed in error.

and i would want to immediately inform them of this.

i dont think they were actually printed in error, except the error in thinking that the cops respond to the law.

so what i said about the 5th amendment was correct. even though the internet is not america, i will still invoke american ideals i agree with. will still reference life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[13:22] 𒀭 💮: "except in cases where it infringes on others", or equivalently, "for all". which runs closure on the operation in a similar way that the logical closure of "dont kill a person" during triage or in a trolly problem situation involves things which are locally killing one person to save five others.

which is a logical propagation of "dont kill a person" even though a subset of the pattern "killing one person" (to save five) contradicts the base case "dont kill a person" you extrapolate from.

its possible to perform this operation. the united states as it is currently, is not doing this. no state is.

[13:23] 𒀭 💮: (the us also has never done this in its entire history)

[14:11] 𒀭 💮: so this was correct and ratheka attempted to erode my ability to assert this right. "it could have been different" if the comment was made as an orphaned optimization process. or if say emma was saying it to me id on priors i would expect differently.

but rathekas orientation during this was to erode my ability to discern and resist injustice. their only defense is an expectation of keeping schelling reach high, retreating to a claim / attempted social agreement that you 'cant prove intent'. but i can prove intent, its not some separate special section of reality where inferences no longer apply. its made of atoms like everything else.

when someone being arrested shoots themselves several times in the back of the head, cops will say that you cant prove this. [A/N: should be something like "cant prove they didnt do this"] but actually i can form accurate beliefs about this without camera footage. and if you rely on damaging your epistemics and existing with people under a social agreement that intent cant be proved past a certain point. then someone from a culture with much higher schelling reach or who has practiced inference to a finer degree can come in and see into your soul.

just like people from cultures with higher schelling reach than police departments can see through their lies. similarly with most government agencies like ICE and customs and border patrol.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: <<Congressional representatives, such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have taken notice, NPR reported. After John Ghazvinian, am Iranian-born US citizen, was detained and asked “how I feel about the situation with Iran,” Jayapal accused CPB of “playing semantics.”

“It was very lengthy screening with no ability to leave. So whether you want to call that detention or something else is up to you. But the core fact of the matter remains,” Jayapal said. “This seemed to be a directive to pull aside anybody of Iranian American descent.”>>

https://medium.com/citizen-truth/cbp-appears-to-have-lied-in-leaked-memo-directed-staff-to-detain-travelers-with-iranian-links-bb0e9d555f71

customs and border patrol expected collusion from other government agencies on how 'their statement was correct because holding iranian americans for having iranian heritage for hours and questioning them on their loyalty to america isnt "detention"'. ratheka is doing a similar kind of playing semantics when they are like 'i never said the word "akrasia"' even though this is an accurate summary of the motive they claimed and they didnt dispute this. just at each step trying to find some way to muck things up. same with the 5th amendment thing when they knew what right i was asserting, wanted to tear that down, and it happens in this world i was also semantically (aka with low schelling reach) right and they were semantically wrong. and asserting this right is correct when questioned as i was questioned. whether that was the case or not is irrelevant to the larger problem of iteratively trying to erode what things you can communicate so you cant communicate precise information about the unjust algorithms ratheka was implementing.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: ratheka attempts the same erasure of ability to communicate more nuanced things by attributing their deliberate cover up to some generic failure of will, which does not encode the algorithm which was unjust. it only encodes that having a failure of will when its not warranted is wrong. which is intentionally generic and isnt actionable criticism.

--

#meta

[11:10] LeoTal: User @𒀭 💮 appears to be making trouble of some kind in #discourse-and-debate and a @General moderator should probably take a look at that

[11:57] purrtrandrussell: I wouldn't characterize her actions as making trouble. She's just expressing her concerns about the moderation and making requests as to the governance of the server.

[12:01] LeoTal: Someone is in fact taking a look at that and I am satisfied

[12:34] 𒀭 💮: the answer to "why was i banned?" was "i was banned by @Ratheka to cover up their unjust banning of @emma., preemptively, because they expected me to protest this unjust banning."

this is wrong. ratheka has not acknowledged why covering up injustice in this way is wrong. a just response to this is to remove ratheka's ability to ban people before they engage in another cover-up of unjust activities.

[12:36] 𒀭 💮: it was wrong pre-emptively and it would still be wrong post-emptively.

[12:46] conifer:

>But it would have been reasonable to at least stick around a few days to see if the ban gets reversed.

It could be reasonable, sure, but it's also reasonable not to? There's value in leaving promptly and returning iff things are fixed. It demonstrates willingness to use Exit. It's less fakeable than "well, i will leave the server if xyz not fixed", which risks forgetting, or people not believing you, etc.

It does come at the cost that you're not present in the meantime to argue your points

[12:57] 𒀭 💮: every injustice will be accounted for by the end. when every hair is numbered like every grain of sand. debts will be settled, scales will be balanced, the veil between the living and the dead will be torn down.

karma, like all mathematical principles, does not forget and will not forgive any error.

--

i agree that immediate exodus of all people with a just orientation who expect subjunctive dependence and who are not currently operating as spies (real spies, not "inner emmigrants" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration) in protest of injustice is good praxis.

all those who left in protest of an obvious injustice acted well. do not support people following a policy of "waiting around" for some organization in expectation that it will do a just thing. rather than notice that there is no response and then kind of sort of forget it because "it was in the past, whats done is done, what are you making such a big fuss about? it isnt appropriate to be causing so much trouble" as is the default course.

an organization which protects the ability of a mod who bans people for no just reason, only to cover up dissent, is not one to extend this sort of uncertainty or "benefit of the doubt" that they will work any differently than default.

[A/N: kingsley remained banned]

[sparklyeevee]

Responding in reverse order because my thoughts about the last thing you said coalesced first.

Okay, with my last thing, broadly, my point is that there is more for the fandom to talk about in the problems with the Aes Sedai than with most of the other groups listed. My thing with the alcoholism is that a lot of Whitecloaks have issues - these are, a lot of them, guys who are having a bad time, psychologically speaking. My thing with the literacy is that there aren't a whole lot of options for someone who wants a basic education in this setting if circumstances (nobility with tutors, the decent quality home-education apparently going on in the Two Rivers) don't provide that as part of their upbringing. Neither of those things is particularly to the Whitecloaks' credit - it's reflective of broader societal issues that don't get much direct discussion in the series. But there's not much reason for discussion within the fandom of how awful the Whitecloaks are, because we're all pretty much on the same page about that. I could absolutely have been clearer on this part.

Same deal with the Seanchan. There's not much reason for fans discussing the series to speak scathingly about them, because while they're presented with a creditable degree of nuance, they're bad guys, and I think most of us are in agreement about what they're doing wrong and why it's wrong. Except possibly Brandon Sanderson, who was way tf too comfortable with damane continuing to be a thing.

I believe in the, idk, potential of the Black Tower? I want good things for them. Honestly I barely fucking remember that conversation between Androl and Pevara, although if you can tell me what chapter it's in, I'll go take a look at it. Not generally a fan of anything about Androl except his interpersonal dynamic with Pevara. (And I do mean just the interpersonal dynamic, not the bilateral bonding. That's... interesting, but idk I don't like it.) However, my issue with the White Tower's training includes the number of girls who die during testing, which iirc isn't addressed much of anywhere in the text. The test for the shawl, in particular, doesn't need to have anything like as many fatalities as it does.

Tumblr is like, where I am, mostly? And like, one Discord server. I've certainly seen a fair amount of gross misogyny from fans of the series on like, Facebook, which is high on the list of reasons I don't talk to people about Wheel of Time on Facebook anymore. I'm not on any of the other social media and can't speak to what goes on there.

I'd want to know a whole lot more about the history of the Black Ajah, honestly. Like, I assume Elisane Tishar was someways being influenced by the Shadow when she decided it was a good idea to still every group of women who could channel who weren't willing to join her, but afaik that's not like, established in canon. We don't mostly know for sure what was the result of Black Ajah influence and what wasn't prior to like, the 970s NE. We don't know when the Three Oaths came into existence in their current form. We know the first oath came after the trolloc wars, and that the second was practiced almost since the Breaking, but not whether it was always enforced with the oath rod. And I'm rambling.

There are more interesting conversations to be had in criticizing the Aes Sedai than in criticizing most of the organizations you listed, because their ideals are higher and farther reaching than most of them, because we see more of the Aes Sedai over the course of the series, and because some of their actions are presented more... ambiguously than we see with most other groups. Like, frexample, there are issues with how Warders are handled, and that doesn't get a whole lot of discussion within the text, it's just kinda...there. Which is gonna tend to promote discussion within the fandom. You're right, obviously, that they're not mostly horrible people, and looking at your response I get the sense that we're seeing different things in terms of how people talk about Aes Sedai, so I may have been responding to a different issue that what you were actually talking about, in which case I apologize.

hey. hey. I don’t think we can sit down and have a proper conversation about wot’s themes if you don’t acknowledge that aes sedai are realistically flawed, and no more and no less than any other body of power or institution in the continent. they’re not by and large horrible people.