#so many people have bad faith arguments

[templegate]

While I've seen plenty of criticisms of Outlast for ableism/stigmatizing mental illness (because your enemies are murder-happy asylum inmates), I honestly beg to differ—at least for the most part. For one thing, only a handful of inmates actually attack you. Most of the other patients there are either in shock or just trying to lay low and stay alive through all the chaos going on around them. Even the more proactive of the non-combatant characters, such as the pyro you encounter in the kitchen, are just trying to get out—and their desperation is made to be pretty relatable. Even the boss characters like Chris Walker and Eddie Gluskin were victims of the asylum. For crying out loud, the Whistleblower DLC opens with Eddie getting dragged into the morphogenic engine kicking and screaming and begging for help—it's what solidifies Waylon Park's determination to take down Murkoff. Even when you find Eddie's files later on and see that, yes, he was already a murderer before he wound up in Mount Massive, that also comes with notes about the sexual abuse he experienced as a child and his denial of it. It doesn't excuse his actions—of course it doesn't—but it shows that he didn't become the way he is from nothing. Furthermore, the entire Mount Massive arc focuses so heavily on the theme of abuse of power. The patients are enduring horrific experimentation at the hands of people like Blair and Trager, and that is what sets up the rest of the story. The people running the show are the catalysts for all hell breaking loose—not the patients, who are instead victims of a system that is exploiting them by pushing them past their mental and physical limits, and has no qualms about treating them as replaceable test subjects. They are already sick people thrust into terrifying circumstances. Some of them were already dangerous to begin with, but most of them were not. They were all in a place that was supposed to help them cope with their conditions and rehabilitate, but instead were exploited and had their issues exacerbated by being traumatized further, and that's part of what makes Outlast terrifying.  So yeah, the portrayal of mentally ill people in Outlast isn't phenomenal, sure, but it goes beyond making all the patients out to be horrible monsters. Most of them are just trying to stay out of all the awful shit going on and stay alive without completely breaking down. The games still makes you feel for those people after you see how desperate and terrified a lot of them are, due mainly because of the abuses they have suffered from the people who were supposed to help them.

Anon this is so fascinating cause I agree with you sm. I think all of this stuff is true. From the way I see it Outlast is an attempt to subvert all the other mental asylum horror stories. Which I think adds all this complexity you're talking about. But while I do think it's more nuanced and better written than contemporaries, I don't think they did a good enough job. The "evil asylum" trope is inherently ableist, and stigmatizing. And I do agree the main source of long term horror in the series is from the incredible abuse the patients suffer- it cannot be ignored that the majority of scary moments aren't from the abuse, but from the patients acting violent and "crazy". And yeah it makes sense why they're violent and "crazy" that doesn't change the fact that the average joe schmoe is gonna go through the game and take away the message that mentally ill people are violent, and scary, and mental health facilities are bad and scary. Which- as someone who's been to a psych ward- I find to be a very bad message. They have their issues but stigmatizing them makes it worse. I think Red Barrels realized this, and for the Whistleblower made more of an effort to emphasize the abuse as a front line horror. Jeremy Blaire, the Walrider, The Morphogenic Engine, etc etc. Although the complaints I have still stand. Overall I agree with you that Outlast is a nuanced portrayal of this trope. That point about how not all of the patients are violent, is one of my favorite parts of Outlast. How they're still humans. And that creates some really great moments, like Someones Playing Piano. But as I've said before I still think it's inadequate I really want people to realize that Outlast being a story about systemic abuse where innocent people are victimized, and Outlast relies on ableism to get it's scares- are two statements that can coexist. I think at this point I should just write a paper about outlast

[sagehaubitze]

I write a lot to deal with my emotions and to process (right now I am processing a lot of anger, still). I don't share a lot of it, but I did write something to post on fetlife yesterday having to do with my friend, Remy's, death. The circles of people I have over there have no real context or frame of reference for any of it though. Since I'm still vaguely furry-adjacent, I figured maybe people (all like.. five of you) would get more mileage out of it here, so I'm crossposting it.

This is a small tidbit of furry history. Before you fly off the handle and send me anon hate, please take a minute to read all of this through. Plus think about what type of person would absolutely fucking loathe both queer people involved in WWII reenacting, and queer people dressing in uniform to do weird kink shit. (it's supposed to be fascists that idealize the era, they would have an aneurysm, but this is a trick question because apparently everybody loathes it)

Anyway. Pushing the Feldpost Envelope (furries and nazis and death in here.)

"History lesson.

I'm at the third year of my home furcon in 2005, attending opening ceremonies, wearing my officer's cap. All day, I've been nervously eyeing someone also in an officer's cap, albeit a different branch, worried that they're either going to be confrontational, or that they're a bad actor and a bigot. We'd unknowingly run in the same circles for a couple years now, but had yet to cross paths in any significant way until today.

"I like your hat" he smiled and piped up after the ceremonies were over. I, a very anxious sixteen year old girl at the time, had a flood of relief wash over me now that the ice had been broken and he didn't seem like a total asshole (joke's on me, Remy was still an asshole, just usually the good kind). "I like yours too..!" I chimed back. And the rest was history. "Living history", actually.

A couple months prior, Remy had created the Nazi Furs community, which I wound up co-running and co-moderating. The goal was to create a space for people with a genuine interest in history and reenacting (which despite the name wasn't limited to the German side of things) and/or for those who get their rocks off in uniform, a little more tucked away from early 2000s internet shock value, and most importantly protected from actual racists, bigots, and all around pieces of shit (which took a hell of a lot of work). Furries tend to cover the whole gamut of kink, and while Remy and I both leaned further towards the leather subculture, we tried to make space for all of the spectrum as long as it was related to that specific time period in some way.

We were not a popular or well liked group. But we were a necessary group. This is the south, if you weren't a cishet good ol boy, it was frankly just not safe to venture into any reenacting groups around here at the time. So, we made our own space for it, to be gay and weird and ourselves while we ran around in the woods. Even in kink, we tried to push the envelope for what was "acceptable" in the eyes of larger communities and carve out a little trench for ourselves, because often in the most accepting places, people would still take issue (and still do). We did our best to push back against people feeling closeted or ashamed for what they were interested in, kink or not. Don't be a shitty person is all we asked. We were young and we stumbled a lot, but we tried our best.

Ultimately, with the shifting perspectives in the fandom, in kink, and in general with online spaces being cleansed to be more palatable and marketable, we lost the fight. Part of it came from the evolving political environment in the US, it did become impossibly hard to weed out bad actors, and not be seen/assumed as a bad actor yourself. But part of it is from lingering social norms on what is "okay" and "acceptable" (even in alternative subcultures), instead of remembering that some interests can be solely academic and not a reflection of your own personal world views. Bleeding over to kink, it's exactly the same, and some people have forgotten that kink should be weird and ugly and not acceptable, it should challenge your emotions and perspective sometimes. It is the opposite of social norms, it's not meant to be sanitized and diluted down for the masses to consume. It's meant for you, and your self expression, self exploration, and your kameraden who share that with you.

Remy died on January 26th. He was one of my very best friends, and there are not many people left on this planet who know me like he did. I rushed to clean his house of things his mother did not want, or need, to see, because I was the only one left to do so. He is survived by communities that did not want him and refuse to see the work he put in for people to have a place they felt accepted.

I have no place in community anymore. But if anyone reading this feels ostracized for their interests or kinks, I feel the same so deeply inside me that it hurts my soul. You shouldn't have to feel that way. I do not have it in me anymore to try and create a space like Remy and I worked on in the past, but do know that you're not alone. I'll be here. I'm still here somehow."

-----

I would also like to add this summarized post that Remy made to the original group, the last post in the group, in 2017.

"In the wake of recent social unrest, we would like to take a moment to make a statement regarding this community.

Nazi_Furs was created by a bunch of nerds. Yes, you read correctly. A bunch of big old nerdy nerds started nazi_furs to post stories, art, historical articles, images from WWII museums, reenacting and living history events, and sometimes little animated gifs of dancing hitlers that we thought were funny.

Most of our members were card carrying homosexuals. Almost all of our moderators were gay, trans, or some other color of "unacceptable" to ACTUAL NEO-NAZIS.

Many of us have well researched and thought out fursonas that inhabit a world set during WWII era Germany. The setting used in many movies like Bed-knobs and Broomsticks, Indiana Jones, Iron Sky, and Dead Snow lends itself well to fantasy. Setting talking animal people into this backdrop did not seem like such a huge clusterfuck at the time.

Nazis are a cliche', relegated to "the bad guys" in popular culture. The sharp uniforms, advanced military weapons and tactics, crackpot schemes, and paranormal ties are used all the time in modern media. They are a caricature of what they were 70+ years ago, much like ninjas (paid assassins) and pirates (murderers and thieves) are today. Once you have been relegated to a children's Halloween costume you no longer have the influence to command respect or fear.

Let us allow nazis to be just that, a cliche condemned to be the "bumbling bad guys". Let us laugh at them and rob them of any authority they feel they may have. There haven't been any "REAL" nazis since the downfall of the NSDAP in 1945, and any members of that movement would be pushing 90 by now.

The "alt-right" are not nazi_furs. They are hateful individuals putting on costumes pretending to be like people they do not understand who have been dead for years. These people WANT you to associate them with nazis, and calling them that only feeds their egos. Lets try not to do that.

If you take anything away from our group, let it be a reminder of our origins as nerdy nerds pouring over history books, saturating ourselves in history to better understand what happened in the 1930s and 40s. Take a look at our current situation we find ourselves in and ask yourselves if we are all doomed to repeat our past mistakes. Then focus your rage and disapproval in a productive manner. Get out there and vote the real racist out of office. Mobilize in peaceful protest, advocate for the oppressed and downtrodden. Make the world a better place than you found it."

I stepped away from the fandom when my home convention, RCFM, ended after a decade. I had been run into the ground, my wallet taken advantage of entirely too much, and I was burnt out beyond belief. Remy stayed more up to date on fandom things, I know there were issues with other "nazi" groups popping up that were inundated with the alt-right. There was no avoiding getting lumped in with them, so we eventually just enjoyed our interests in silence, away from everyone else.

To be completely honest, the majority of our time was spent in museums and hunting down weirdly specific esoteric research topics, which we'd then attempt to discuss while drunk around a fire (this is the academic way). It wasn't to idolize these people or politics, it was to understand an extremely complicated time period and what was born out of it. There are SO MANY absolutely fascinating aspects to study, not just "woo big scary gun death ubermench". What people saw most though, convention-wise at least, were the room parties where we could let our hair down and be WEIRD. Furcon room parties are fucking weird just as a baseline, throw some uniforms and sadomasochism in, sometimes some LSD, and... I mean yeah. And of course that's all that stuck in anybody's mind. Though, tbh, a lot of the time for the majority of the night, it was just a small circle of friends watching war movies and drinking. We came up with this (not) great idea to take a shot every time there was a depth charge in Das Boot, yeah I can't recommend that lmao.

Even from the reenacting standpoint, Remy was putting together a US medic impression (not even German! *clutches pearls*) over the past few years, because he was an EMT by trade. I've always reenacted a very inept Wehrmacht artillery officer who is a touch cowardly, not great at their job, and is usually relegated to office/paperwork. It's far from the edgy internet shock value people associated us with.

Nowadays I am usually running around in the woods alone, or getting the shit kicked out of me in uniform (consensually). I'm just less visible about it. I wish I didn't have to be. It feels very lonely, extremely so now that I've lost Remy. I think there was a good opportunity somewhere in there to push back against the alt-right by being very VERY gay and trans and queer and weird in uniform, destroy the image they were trying to create for themselves, but the current culture of the internet wouldn't have allowed that. I'm still going to keep doing that, just.. y'know, in my own space, on my own time.

I hope other people are out there being weird too. I'll be weird with you in spirit.

[musical-chick-13]

My God, I’m so tired of the pervasive idea that “Female characters overall just aReN’T aS weLL wRiTTeN” because there are a TON of properties that have EXCELLENTLY-complex, multidimensional female characters; people either just refuse to engage with them when people tell them those properties exist or they instantly write off all the women as “bitchy” and “annoying” without giving a single second of deeper thought.

[holyshit]

.

[sparrowofsong]

oh my god popularizing the phrase "hope this helps" was a massive mistake

[star-anise]

Warnings: Doomerism, climate grief, child death

The thing about having studied history and the psychology of trauma so much is that I can't pretend to myself that the world used to be better at sometime in the past.

Don't get me wrong; things are absolutely terrible right now and need to change, quickly.

But also, they're better than they've ever been for us as a species. It is literally mindblowing how much worse life was for us historically.

Have you seen one of those charts of the human population over time? Have you thought about what it actually means?

Because here's what I see: Humans have always loved things like living to old age, like having sex, like raising babies. Those are things we have always wanted to do. It's not like pre-industrial humans were giant pandas like, "Nah, rather not reproduce as a species. No thanks," and suddenly the Victorians discovered horniness.

Instead, for most of human history, we have died. At terrifically young ages. The few who made it to adulthood could make babies as much as they liked, and then overwhelmingly watched pregnancies miscarry, births end in tragedy, or babies die. Their own lives were constantly at the mercy of a world that could kill them without a second thought. To be human meant to live in a world full of a million little tragedies, all the goddamn time.

And then what happened was: The babies stopped dying. The effects of a lot of things from higher agricultural yields to public health efforts to mass communications made us the master over the diseases and maladies that once had us by the throat.

When we look ahead at catastrophe and terrors, yes, they're bad. But they'd have to be extremely bad indeed to measure up to the number of people who wouldn't even be alive in any other century.

And even the obvious bogeyman then, overpopulation—did you notice what's already happened? On that chart, there's the green measure of total population, but the thin purple line is the rate of population growth. Please notice that it peaked in 1968. It is, in fact, projected as entirely possible that within a century it could go lower than it was twelve thousand years ago, at the end of the last big ice age.

The moment babies started to live longer, people went, "That is too many babies. An absolutely unsustainable number of babies. People are crying out for help because taking care of that many children is completely overwhelming. We need to be able to fix this problem," and they invented birth control and fought to get it legalized. It hit the market in the late 1950s and in less than a decade, it had caught on like wildfire.

To me, this is the absolute opposite of an argument for passivity and political inaction. It's not that everything's going to be okay so why even try. It's that as it turns out, the human capacity to grow and thrive and make the world better is absolutely reality-defying. I don't have faith that all of our problems will be solved, but I do have faith that those problems are all the subject of passionate obsession of millions of people.

And apparently we have a really strong track record at that kind of thing already.

[grison-in-space]

Has Biden actually done anything at all? There's evidence going around and I think it's compelling, the alternate to voting is instead doing actual social work and participating in protests and organizing political action, which is a good idea i think

1) Yes. Inarguably this has been the most effective progressive domestic administration since I have been alive, and I'm in my thirties. What in the fuck are you talking about? It's not perfect, but it's better than we've seen in fifty years: Obama tried, but Democratic Congressional organization was just not yet used to working with a completely obstructionist GOP Congress in the wake of the tea party.

Even in terms of foreign policy, this is also pretty much as good as US involvement gets. Sorry. Our foreign policy has been shaped by monsters for decades, and that's even without dealing with our huge and active branch of Christian doom cultists. There ain't a candidate in the world that could stop the entire accumulated momentum of geopolitics with a snap of the finger, and I'm not really willing to pretend that Biden is particularly notable for not managing to fix Israel/Palestine relations.

2) In your own words, anon, what precisely does organizing political action entail without participating in the political process? Do you think that abstaining from the part of the gig where you, the citizen, get to say which official gets the job somehow makes your opinions matter more to your elected public officials? Have you ever organized to get so much as a municipal one-time library project budget expanded? Are you perhaps only skilled at political argument with people who already agree with you on the Internet?

What is your leverage, and could it reasonably be described as "extortion" or "blackmail" or "political corruption?" Because those are pretty much the only things on the table that can work more effectively to drive an elected official than a disciplined coalition of political allies (who can be purchased with, you guessed it, votes) or a reliable bloc of voter support. Your vote matters less than the ones you bring with you, sure. Do you think that not voting yourself somehow helps people organize to drive more votes? Have you perhaps replaced your complex reasoning skills with a rapidly dying jellyfish?

3) Holy passive vagueness, Batman! "Evidence is going around." What a masterpiece of a sentence! How it suggests everything while providing nothing! What evidence? Who collected it? Who is talking about the evidence "going around?" Who is listening? How many of them are there? What did they think before? The more I think, the more questions I have, and damn if they ain't predisposing me to be even less charitable.

Like, this is so catastrophically poorly supported that I have to confess that I not only believe this is probably an ask in bad faith (i.e. by someone who is expecting to piss me off or otherwise engage with me adversarially, probably spammed to a whole host of blogs at once with no expectation of response) but I actively hope that it is. The alternative is to have to grapple with the reality that some people are so uncomfortable with the responsibility of moral agency that they're willing to release useful levers of legal and social power just so that they never do anything problematic with that power. Much better, of course, to wash one's hands of anything that might have the stink of responsibility clinging to it. Might fall from the membership of the Elect if you actually get yourself all muddy by doing things, I reckon.

I don't even believe that voting is the only lever we have when it comes to our elected officials or that votes are necessary to secure change, and I am certainly not talking about the presidential ticket alone when I talk voting. What I do believe is two things: one, that voting is a potential lever of power on the emergent chaos of the society in which we live. And two, that anyone telling me to leave a lever of power on the ground without a damn good reason is either incompetent, malicious, or both.

[sarahreesbrennan]

Are all the themes in “in other lands” supposed to be a commentary on something? Or do you just like writing sex scenes between minors, age gaps, and reverse misogyny?

Genuine question.

Ohhh, my dear anon, I don't believe this is a genuine question.

But it does bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. So I'll take the bait.

Firstly. Yes, my work contains a commentary on the world around us. I wonder what I could be doing with the child soldiers being sexually active in their teens (people hook up right after battles), and the age gap relationship ending in the younger one being too mature for the elder. What could I possibly have been attempting when I said 'how absurd gender roles are, when projected onto people we haven't been accustomed by our own society to see that way'? I wasn't being subtle, that's for sure.

Secondly. Yes I do enjoy writing! I think I should, it's my life's work. Am I titillated by my own writing, no - though I think it's fine to be. The sex scenes of In Other Lands aren't especially titillating, to be honest. It is interesting to me how often people sneer at women for writing romance and sex scenes, having 'book boyfriends,' insinuating women writers fancy their own characters. Women having too much immoral fun! Whereas men clearly write about sex for high literary purposes.

… I have to say from my experience of women and men's writing, I haven't found that to be true.

I’m not in this to have an internet argument. Mostly people use bad faith takes to poke at others from the other side of a screen for kicks. But I do know some truly internalise the attitude that writing certain things is wrong, that anyone who makes mistakes must be shunned as impure, and that is a deeply Victorian and restrictive attitude that guarantees unhappiness.

I've become increasingly troubled by the very binary and extreme ways of thinking I see arising on the internet. They come naturally from people being in echo chambers, becoming hostile to differing opinions, and the age-old conundrum of wanting to be good, fearing you aren't, and making the futile effort to be free of sin. It makes me think of Tennyson, who when travelling through Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, said nobody should talk about the 'Irish distress' to him and insisted the window shades of his carriage be shut as he went from castle to castle. So he wouldn't see the bodies. But that didn't make the bodies cease to be.

In Les Mis, Victor Hugo explores why someone might steal, what that means about them and their circumstances, and who they might be - and explores why someone else is made terribly unhappy, and endangers others, through their own too rigid adherence to judgement and condemnation without pity. The story understands both Jean Valjean the thief and Javert the policeman. Javert’s way of thinking is the one that inevitably leads to tragedy.

Depiction isn't endorsement. Depiction is discussion.

Many of my loved ones have had widely varying relationships to and experience of sex (including 'none'). They've felt all different types of ways about it. If writing about them is not permissible, I close them out. I'd much rather a dialogue be open than closed.

I do understand the urge to write what seems right to others. I've been brain-poisoned that way myself. I used to worry so much about my female characters doing the wrong things, because then they'd be justly hated! Then I noted which of my writer friends had people love their female characters the most - and it was the one who wrote their female characters as screwing up massively, making rash and sometimes wrong decisions. Who wrote them as people. Because that's what people do. That's what feels true to readers.

I want my characters to feel true to readers. I want my characters to react in messy ways to imperfect situations. I love fantasy, I love wild action and I love deep thought, and I want to engage. That's what In Other Lands is about. That's even more what Long Live Evil is about. That sexy lady who sashays in to have sexy sex with the hero - what is her deal? Someone who tricks and lies to others - why are they doing that, how did they get so skilled at it? What makes one person cruelly judgemental, and another ignore all boundaries? What makes Carmen Maria Machado describe ‘fictional queer villains’ as ‘by far the most interesting characters’? What irritates people about women having a great time? What attracts us to power, to fiction, and to transgression?

I don’t know the answers to all those questions, but I know I want to explore them. And I know one more thing.

If the moral thing to do is shut people out and shut people up? Count me among the villains.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Often when people talk about appearance of characters in media, especially that of women, some use an argument along the lines of "Why would I want to look at someone ugly in the games I play/shows I watch/etc.?"

From what I saw, and if I'm not wrong, you prefer to not engage with that kind of argument, but if you absolutely had to, what answer would you give that could have a chance to make those people see and maybe agree with your point?

I mean, the reason why I wouldn't engage with that argument is that it is always, universally, without exception, an argument made in bad faith, by people who are lying when they utter it. And it takes only the briefest examination of reality to determine this.

The argument they pretend to make is that "there is no reason to desire things that are not pleasurable in entertainment," in response to which I present The Concept Of Horror Media, or the success of Jackass, or South Park, or literally any subversive prank show, or sports as a concept, or the genre of tragedy, or the phenomenon of people rubbernecking. I present true crime podcasts and biographies of John Wayne Gacy and Mortal Kombat fatalities, I present unflinchingly earnest documentaries about war and disease, I present cringe comedy, I present the entire online media genre of pimple popper videos.

Human beings desire so much more than beauty, so much more than aesthetic pleasure (and indeed we can take aesthetic pleasure in so much more than beauty). We find entertainment in disgust, horror, fear, revulsion, sorrow, embarrassment, pain and, yes, "ugliness" all the time, and we have done for as long as we have had sentient minds to entertain.

So this argument "why would I want to look at someone ugly in a video game" is simply a lie. It is an argument made in bad faith by people whom I will guarantee you against a bet of real money constantly look at things which are "ugly" for entertainment.

It is a lie, it is a stupid lie, and while I'm sure that many or most of the people who peddle that lie don't realize they are lying when they do it, it remains a lie which isn't worth dignifying with a response.

And anyway, 99% of the time they don't mean "ugly" they mean "woman who I don't find fuckable" or they mean "fat" or they mean "trans" or they mean "queer" or "non-white," they mean someone or some thing which falls into a category which they feel entitled to hate, and they are trying to enforce the normality of that hate.

You cannot logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves in to, and there is very rarely anything you can say to these people to make them reconsider. They are reacting emotionally, they are reacting on the impulse towards disgust and hatred, and they will rationalize a lie to excuse it.

[ladybracknellssherry]

I see so many posts since the dam broke about NG in which people are lamenting how horrible celebrities and people in power are and asking where we went wrong as a society to let this happen.

The fucked up thing though is that humans have always behaved like this. We just have the internet now.

And please don’t mistake this for resignation or apathy or anything other than disgust.

But I just keep coming back to the point that human beings are capable of truly terrifying, horrible things.

So I feel like we’ve got to remember that most people don’t do terrible things. But we’re all capable of them.

And I don’t fault anyone for being devastated to learn that someone they respected did indeed to terrible things. It would feel wild to call someone foolish or stupid or naïve because their first instinct was to believe that someone is decent. They’re not anything like that other than someone who was lied to.

I actually do think as a society we are in fact getting better about calls for justice in situations like this.

But people who behave like NG…people who do these things…their personalities are a cancer. And we can do what we can to try to prevent things like this from happening. But I don’t think we can stop it all from happening. It’s never going to disappear completely.

But we can continue to listen to victims. And we can continue to be vocal about demanding justice and accountability.

The court of public opinion and the legal system both fail terribly at times, especially in situations like this. Another flaw of human nature, I think.

The “I’ll wait for the legal system to decide” argument isn’t really helpful here. Because SA allegations / abuse are some of the hardest things to prove in a court of law. And there have been legitimate actual cases in which victims have come forward with allegations, there was no evidence to be found/the evidence wasn’t “good enough” and these victims were instead actually CHARGED with filing false reports. So putting all of the onus or faith in the law here just… again… isn’t helpful.

Sometimes the justice can be best served by demanding consequences that aren’t legal punishments. There are petitions to remove NG from his positions as a writer/showrunner in these shows we love.

Sometimes just making sure the word is spread is the push to topple the dominos.

As others have said and continue to say, you can do both terrible and great things. And they don’t cancel each other out. Doing great things doesn’t make the terrible ones any less terrible. Doing terrible things doesn’t make the great things any less great. Two truths can exist at once.

Sure, we can argue that continuing to consume NG’s work is continuing to put money in his pocket. Yeah. But once again, as far as my random internet user opinion.

I experienced some very similar things to what his victims said they experienced in these interviews. And they wrecked my life in no uncertain terms. I’ll never “come back from that” because we don’t. We just keep going forward having to carry that. It doesn’t go away.

But my abusers took so much from me. And the good things I got out of those relationships are made so much more important because of how much suffering they cost.

Sidebar, but that’s something that I see people using in their arguments for why the “abuse” allegations weren’t real or “that bad.” Because the victims went back. Or they continued to stay. Or continued to pursue. Listen. When you go through all of THAT, it is so common to scramble to keep what you perceive are the “good things” you get out of that dynamic/relationship. Or you convince yourself that it’s not as bad as all that. Because, god. “I went through all of that and they STILL LEFT.” “I gave them (they took) all of THAT and I still wasn’t good enough for them.” It’s this survival element where we have to convince ourselves all of that suffering we went through was WORTH IT. Or, the gaslighting gets imbedded and we believe it must have been our fault. “Yes, they treated me badly, but I must have done something to deserve it. They told me it was my fault. Everyone else loves them. I did something wrong.” Yeah. NO.

So if you can separate yourself from that abuser - get far enough away to have the clarity and perspective to finally say “no, that was fucking real what happened. That was abuse. They’re an abuser.” I say, anything “good” you got out of that - take it and fucking run.

NG is a predator at best. And we are all suffering for it. But we got our books and our shows and we found each other in these fandoms. I say take these good things and run. You didn’t cause this. Don’t let him take any more joy from you or anyone else.

[weemietime]

i am asking this in good faith

If the Bosnian Genocide is has been ruled a genocide and the death count was 33,071 people, how is what is happening in Gaza not a genocide when the number has been surpassed

Because genocide is not about the number of people being killed. Genocide is a specific legal term, and it has to have two components: 1) obviously people have to be murdered -- but this must be done systemically, as a policy (either written or unwritten) of the belligerent party. AND 2) there has to be genocidal intention to murder said people. Genocidal intention means that Party A (Israel) murders Party B (Palestinians) specifically because those people belong to Party B (Palestinians). There is no evidence that Israel has a genocidal intention. In fact, the October 7th massacre was actually a genocidal act on behalf of Hamas - Hamas committed the genocidal action and has been committing genocidal actions for over 20 years, because they specifically want to murder Jews for being Jewish. They also meet the first criteria because this is a systemic policy that is present in the Hamas Charter.

This is very important to distinguish because whilst genocide is a war crime, not all war crimes are genocide. Israel has committed war crimes, including murdering civilians, and even intentionally allowing civilians to be killed (such as bombing a house with a Hamas member in it and killing his family members). But this is not sufficient to rise to the criteria of genocide. We could make the argument that there is ethnic cleansing, because the vast majority of the people being evacuated are of a single ethnicity, Palestinian. However, again, ethnic cleansing alone is not sufficient to rise to the definition of genocide.

Crucially, the ICJ has not ruled that there is a genocide ongoing. They have ruled prima facie that 1) South Africa has the right to accuse Israel of genocide, and 2) that the ICJ itself is fit to hear and rule on the accusation. They have also ordered Hamas to release the civilian hostages, so if Hamas is saying they want to abide by the ICJ, they have already disregarded the ICJ ruling.

Genocide is not based on vibes. It's not based on bad feelings. It's not based on videos and images of dead kids, or destroyed rubble. Genocide is a specific legal term that can only be applied to the above scenario, and it cheapens our language when we levy it in circumstances where it does not apply. It especially cheapens our language when we engage in Holocaust inversion by claiming Israel is doing to Palestine what Germany did to the Jews, which is categorically false.

Beyond this, it belittles the groups that are involved in this conflict, particularly Hamas, to treat them like they are innocent civilians when they are in fact a very well-outfitted military brigade and the official armed forces of the Gazan government with over 40,000 fighters strong, who repeatedly and loudly say "death to Israel, we want to annihilate Israel, we will commit October 7th again and again until Israel is destroyed." They are being funded by the IRGC, they are being used as a proxy for Iran, and innocent Palestinian civilians are suffering as a result. Hamas has openly said that the "blood of martyrs fuels our resistance," they have openly said they hope Palestinian civilians die in droves while they steal aid and resell it at absurd mark-ups, while they flee to Egypt and Qatar so that they don't have to get their hands dirty. They recruit and brainwash young children to fight their "holy war" to murder as many Jews as possible.

And in terms of the death toll, you have to understand that this war is being fought in an urban environment where the belligerents are embedded purposely in the civilian population, in tunnels all throughout the civilian infrastructure. Violating the Geneva Conventions by using hospitals and schools as military bases, refusing to wear uniforms, and intentionally shooting their own people and blaming Israel.

These people even play tapes pretending to be hostages shouting in Hebrew "don't shoot," which is one of the reasons why a hostage was accidentally killed by the IDF, which is then turned around to show how evil the IDF is without understanding the context that these events happen in. In normal urban warfare the ratio of civilian to combatant death is around 9:1. In Gaza, the ratio is, according to Hamas's own numbers, 4:1. Literally twice as low as the average. So, yeah. War crimes are happening. Yes. Absolutely. Genocide is not happening, at least, it's not happening to the Palestinians.

[tamamita]

Can I ask why people are pretending Jewish people aren’t native to the Levant? “Genocide is unforgivable, apartheid ethnostates shouldn’t exist, and you don’t get to kick people out of their homes, even if their distant ancestors kicked your distant ancestors out of their homes” is a fine statement on its own, and ignoring the truth or lying about it weakens the pro-Palestine argument. Like it or not, it’s not a case where a native population is being oppressed by foreigners- Jewish people are the First Nations of the area. This doesn’t mean even slightly that anything Israel is doing is acceptable, which is why I don’t understand why more people trying to liberate Palestine try and frame it as “foreigners oppressing natives”.

Despite the fact that it's been 2000 years since then, Jewish people have managed to form their own identity, culture and heritage in many other parts of their world which many people take great pride in, and subsequently renounced Zionism, focusing on the idea of Doikiyat (to strenghten Jewish community wherever they live). The Arabs and Jewish people have lived in the Holy Land for 1400 years and intermingled, so a bunch of people from Europe and America can't just suddenly have the right to return and evict people from their home and commit one of the greatest displacement of people in modern history by the right of some Whites, who didn't want the Jewish people in their lands. Second, the idea of a Jewish state is built on the notion of Zionism, which is a white supremarcist and imperialist ideology that calls for the degredation and forceful eviction of the Arabs for the settlement of the Jewish people. Palestinians aren't even calling for the expulsion of Israelis. What they want is that the Settler colonial state is dismantled and that their people are allowed to return as well with equal rights that the Israelis get to enjoy, but there will be no ethnostate. Zionism is a fascist ideology and no matter how much you wanna argue in bad or good faith, it is inhuman and the occupation is a form of genocide. Decolonization will be violent, and much of the Israelis will voluntarily leave, since they don't see Palestinians as humans, as was the case with the Pied-noirs after the Algerians took back their lands.

Second, Jewish people are not the first nation there, historically and biblically speaking.

[etz-ashashiyot]

You know how sometimes arguing a point is losing?

Like if you engage the argument at all you are inherently putting up for debate things that should never be up for debate and the argument itself is degrading?

You see this with interpersonal gaslighting:

A gaslighter doesn’t simply need to be right. They also need for you to believe that they are right. In stage one, you know that they’re being ridiculous, but you argue anyways. You argue for hours, without resolution. You argue over things that shouldn’t be up for debate  – your feelings, your opinions, your experience of the world. You argue because you need to be right, you need to be understood, or you need to get their approval. In stage one, you still believe yourself, but you also unwittingly put that belief up for debate. In stage two, you consider your gaslighter’s point of view first and try desperately to get them to see your point of view as well. You continue to engage because you’re afraid of what their perspective of you says about you. Winning the argument now has one objective :  proving that you’re still good, kind, and worthwhile. In stage three, when you’re hurt, you first ask, “What’s wrong with me?” You consider their point of view as normal. You start to lose your ability to make your own judgements. You become consumed with understanding them and seeing their perspective. You live with and obsess over every criticism, trying to solve it.

[Source]

But you also see this on a broader societal level, with people asking unfathomably awful questions about minority groups, such as:

[Source]

It should go without saying, but no group of people should be forced to explain that yes, they really are real people, dickheads. The question doesn't deserve an answer; it deserves at best a disgusted eyeroll + "Are you a Nazi?" and at worst a punch to the face.

There is also the related phenomenon of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" type questions. The question is framed as a yes or no question, but the real answer for the innocent is: "I've never beaten my wife and never would." But even that answer still dignifies the question with a real response and puts the idea in the mind of the listener that hey maybe that's a real possibility and this guy is lying because of course he wouldn't just admit that. Now I don't know what to believe, but I'm skeptical.

Even if he answers, doubt has been cast on his character and many people (maybe even most people) neither have the attention span to listen to his full counter argument and supporting evidence nor are invested enough in strangers' lives to take the time to dig for facts on their own. Critically, it comes from a good impulse that shouldn't be repressed or taken too far in the opposite direction; namely, that we want to believe survivors and make it socially acceptable to speak out about abuse.

This leaves us with the uncomfortable reality that balancing believing survivors and whistle-blowers against not automatically believing allegations that very well may be false and/or in bad faith is a very tricky balancing act indeed. Because of this, people tend to struggle with taking survivors seriously and with presuming innocence until guilt has actually been proven, both. And as for the latter, this is at least partially due to the same psychological factors underlying the Don't Think of an Elephant problem.

Why am I discussing this?

See the thing is that these types of discourse have all been used, heavily, against the Jewish community, especially since Oct 7th, but really going back hundreds of years.

If you want to be our ally, you need to be on guard for how people use this rhetoric to accuse Jews of absolutely batshit cookoo bananas allegations (like being lizard people or having horns, or secretly running the world, or killing Christian babies to use their blood in our matzah, etc. etc.) and get away with it. Now obviously if so many people weren't already racist towards Jews as a people and had a vested interest in maintaining their supercessionist cultural worldview from Christianity and Islam, it would be a lot harder for this to work. Alas, the past 2000 years has created a bit of a snowballing effect.

This culminates in the effect described so well by Sartre:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Right now, Jews are facing extreme levels of these types of rhetorical abuse, and are receiving very little help in the way of pushback.

We have to stop trying to explain ourselves and start just naming these tactics instead.

[artbyblastweave]

🔥 government-sanctioned superheroes

So for a long time, in many spaces in which I was in, the reflexive intellectual contrarian position on superheroes as a broad concept- often framed in liberal terms, liberal in an American context, because this was frequently regarding the Superhuman Registration Act from Marvel specifically- was that superheroes are unaccountable, and if they were real the correct, or at least inevitable thing would be some form of nationalization or licensing system. After all, these people are untrained irregulars, appointed by no one and answerable to no one except whoever's powerful enough to bring them down in a fight- would we really want them running around with no oversight from our good friend The Government? Who watches the Watchmen?

And, you know, a lot of these premises are basically correct. But about four years ago, as a very ancillary point to, uh, everything else going on at the time, it was quietly cemented for me that there had always been a version of this argument being made from a position of ridiculously unwarranted faith in proceduralism, in the goodwill of the government and law enforcement in particular. Versions of this argument being made by people who've never had a bad encounter with the cops. Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world that Spider-Man usually isn't on speaking terms with the NYPD, actually! Maybe you very much don't want him to be!

That said, I think there are certainly risks of swinging too far in the other direction here, beetlejuicing into the conversation a particularly annoying kind of cape fan who treats superheroes as leftist, anarchist or at least antiauthoritarian by default- they aren't, you have to work to characterize them that way, and it's often extremely visible that you're doing that work. As you may have been able to tell from some of my recent bitter doomposting, my own stance has ultimately settled at a glum median "I hope they bite each other's dicks off" kind of position. I think it's possible to do a cape thing that's meaningfully anti-state or anti-police in the way people badly want them to be, but as always you're now left holding the bag of trying to explain how your grassroots outside-the-system vigilante culture isn't going to degenerate into cops 2, the sequel to cops. It requires actual thought! It's likely on some level what that story would be about.

[amphitriteswife]

Can you please write for Gun with a female reader who used to be his fiancé back in his yakuza days?.He somewhat used to care for her but he was always busy with fighting and gaining his father's approval. Reader is a soft and caring person, she always disliked violence and wanted to live a peaceful life so she requested him to break up with her. He agreed with her cause he didn't had any feelings for her back then. Then she left for Korea and now goes to J High. One day she met gun when he was crystal's bodyguard and gradually he falls in love with her after seeing how soft and kind she is towards him despite his personality. He tries to convince her to become his fiancé again. But she doesn't want to cause of all the bad things he did to so many people. (Bonus points if DG/Goo or any other character also falls in love her 💥)

Omggg yessss i totally see this. I hope i did this right since you’re my first request for Lookism😭🙏

Black and pink

Pairing: Jonggun x reader

Source: Lookism

Warnings: love triangle, break ups, gun’s past tbh.

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~

One could argue that your life without jonggun was way better and happier. He was handsome, strong, rich and most importantly: skilled. He was quite the catch. Despite his Korean name, he was half Japanese and born into the Yamazaki clan. A powerful family in Japan who had skilled members, and jonggun was considered one of them. You were his fiancée, the spotlight, the princess, the next equal who would marry him. The opinions were divided, one could say you were pitiful for marrying such a man. The other could say you should be grateful for even grazing his presence. And the other could say that they should’ve chosen someone else. Even though there was so much criticism and comments, there was one thing everyone could agree on: you had a lot of potential. His own family, well his mother and his uncle Shintaro, thought it was a good idea. Everyone had their opinions, yet no one regarded your feelings. Not your own family, not his, not Jonggun and most certainly the head of the Yamazaki clan. You expected Jonggun to be in the same boat and in a way he was. Yet he was too much for you. Too viscous. Too violent. Too cruel. Too chaotic. But what certainly was a deal breaker was the fact that he desired his father’s approval above anything else. It was quite stupid if you’ll be honest. He was chasing something so far and unreachable. It was unrealistic and because of that he also influenced your life as his fiancée. The many troubles and conflicts, the many challenges and arguments, the chaos and expectations. It was all too much. It interrupted the life you wanted for yourself. Even though you might have cared about him, it was time to put yourself and your own happiness first. That’s why you didn’t hesitate to break when you told him you didn’t want to be with him anymore. He himself agreed to it without many hesitation too, he didn’t see any need in continuing the relationship anyway. He found you too soft, too kind and too caring for his taste.

Now that you have moved past jonggun and being his fiancé, you found a new fresh start in Korea. Going to J-high and gradually having an overall positive life. You had made new friends at the high school, and the study you were doing was way easier than living up to all the rough expectations in the past. You were free. Free to make your own choices and who you interacted with. Coincidentally, you met a nice boy in your class named Daniel who had a very big friend group, the group always made you feel welcomed and didn’t judge you for anything.

One faithful day when you were meeting with the friend group, you met a girl named Crystal. She was very nice and pretty too. She disclosed to the friend group that she had a bodyguard who was going to tale her home. None of the people in the group, including you thought anything of it. He usually kept his distance and let Crystal do her own thing. Only when things turned bad did he intervene to beat someone’s ass who wanted to harm Crystal. He was very professional and often just kept quiet. You weren’t stupid and knew who it was, but kept it to yourself to avoid him as much as possible. Often you could find him staring at something, or to be specific: someone. But who are you to say anything? He was wearing sunglasses and it wasn’t like you were the only thing in his vision. Maybe he had his eyes on Crystal to make sure she was in no harm? It is his job after all.

A few days after meeting Crystal, Daniel offered to spent some time at the beach since the school year was ending in a few weeks. Daniel invited Crystal too since she is also a part of the friend group, what made you quite exited as Zoe and Mira really already had a whole plan with all the girls, and girls only. The boys however protested, excluding only some of them. Zack who immediately agreed and nodded his head along with Mira. Jay didn’t seem to care much and trusted his sister and not do anything irrational. Daniel only found it a pity, but didn’t seem to bothered and brushed it off as something normal.

During the day, the girls and boys eventually came together. Jay and Daniel were having a good time in the water, but accidentally splashed Crystal who scolded them. Zoe was standing with Jay’s sister and admiring Daniel’s shirtless body. Next to then was also Zack, who was gushing about Mira who gave him ice cream. They all seemed to be busy which gave you some time to yourself. It’s not like you hated hanging out, sometimes you just needed a break or to catch a breath. During one of the times you stepped away from the group to go to one of the bathrooms in the restaurants. On your way walking there you got a text message from a number you didn’t save just in case. ‘Hey. Let’s meet up in a little while. I managed to get some time off.’ Is what the text read. You thought for a moment to see if you would be free. Spending a little time wouldn’t hurt as you hadn’t seen him in a long time. It wasn’t too serious right now, but from his reaction and the fact he often kept in touch even with his busy schedule, he clearly was interested.

You were on the brink of texting him back before you felt a hand softly placed on your shoulder, despite the soft touch, the hand itself felt very rough. You turned your head a little to glance at the person behind you, only to find out it was none other than Jonggun park. Once again, life decided to play games with you by meeting a person you tried to move on from. You spun around and to face him and couldn’t help but breathe out an irritated sigh. Jonggun on the other hand had a neutral face, there wasn’t much to see aside from his lips anyway as he always wore a pair of sunglasses anyway. ‘Do you remember me?’ Is the first thing he asked you. It’s a stupid question since the you were pretty sure that you had recognized him from the start. You just nodded your head at his question, not wasting any of your breath on something so unnecessary, this made Jonggun chuckle a bit before his hand moved to your waist. He didn’t seem to care much about what you felt, but only what he felt. Typical for him. ‘Take me back.’ It was more a statement or a demand than a question. Before you could even give an answer ge explained to you about how he had observed you in the last few times you met up with Crystal. He told you how he loved you. He loves the way you seem so forgiving, so peaceful, you’re adoring happy smile, your kind nature and caring side. It’s all so appealing to him and it made him so intrigued. Funny isn’t it? He loves you for the same reasons he once pushed you away. It’s almost laughable.

‘Sorry. I’m already seeing someone.’ Is what you told him straight to the point. Jonggun could feel his face harden and his jaw clenching. You were seeing someone? Without even regarding how he felt about it? Why the hell were you even seeing someone in the first place? You should’ve only had eyes for him. He didn’t like it and it was easy to see on his face too. ‘You’re stupid. Telling me you love me? Go to hell. You once disliked me for the exact same reason you now tell me you love me for? Bullshit.’ This seemed to stun him a bit as he didn’t even say anything to you, probably to frozen because od your reasoning or the fact he was rejected in his life once again. Despite his stunned body language, you could still feel the hands on your hips which caused you to back off…that was until you bumped into someone. The chest of the person felt firm yet a little hard. Which was weird since this was a woman’s bathroom and the only man here was jonggun. Jonggun ok the other hand gritted his teeth at the person behind you and scoffed. ‘Looks like you had your chance hmm? Let’s not fight and make it a cliffhanger for the 3rd time.’

[nanierose]

The idea that the gods should have to justify why they should be allowed to be on Exandria, a place they see as their home, is kind of fucked up, and is also completely unworkable. Like, who gets to decide the standard the gods would have to meet in their argument? Is there going to be some universal decision where everyone is happy and the world doesn't tear itself apart in the process? Because clearly the fact they have already left Exandria to protect mortals, and only work through those who choose to interact with them, is not good enough for a lot of people. Except it is for many, many others on Exandria.

There are millions of people who worship the deities and get a lot from them. Their temples provide healing, resurrection, defences and armies amongst other things. Paladins and clerics have done many thing in service of their gods and the world, not all good of course but there are examples of them doing good in living memory. Imogen and Orym said it best, one person should not get to decide for the entirety of the world. In the same vein, Bell's Hells or anyone else for that matter can't decide that either.

There is no perfect answer or argument in something where opinions vary so much. I understand this was brought up in hypotheticals, but it's still a point that could never feasibly work. Hate the gods all you want, but if your idea is to make them essentially beg to be allowed to stay on their home, when they have already done a lot to ensure they don't hurt mortals anymore, I don't think your argument is in good faith. You just want to feel superior to people you blame for the bad things in your life.