#2) i don't like discourse on this blog it makes me upset it's bad for my health i Don't Like It.

[crimeronan]

a lot of the discourse around likes versus reblogs seems profoundly sideways to me in that 1) telling people that liking things is Bad and that they're Bad to do it will not make them reblog stuff. it will make them stop liking posts. and then you will get absolutely no user engagement, and 2) i feel like there is a fundamental misunderstanding of why people don't reblog posts.

this isn't some kind of well-constructed thesis that i can apply to the entire userbase but most people that i've met who don't reblog stuff..... just.... don't want to perform.

curating your public blog for other people's eyes is a performance, whether you tag ramble or not. choosing what content to boost and what content to keep and what content to ignore requires active thought and refinement of that performance. and the performative nature of social media is especially terrifying these days, when posting or reblogging the Wrong Thing can often invite ire or misinterpretation or mockery based on things you never said or meant. that's why there was a time period like five years back when i didn't post on this blog at all for like a full year. too much anxiety surrounding the Concept of Conflict. the mere Potential that i might upset/harm/anger some hypothetical strawman

unfortunately writing "the website will die if you don't reblog, and likes make artists feel bad" doesn't encourage people to reblog. it makes them associate both liking AND reblogging posts with being subject to a stressful set of pre-determined rules that they don't fully understand and will unknowingly violate. so they stop engaging altogether. this is especially common with neurodivergent people who do not do well with sets of seemingly-arbitrary rules!

the truth is that if you want people to reblog stuff, there needs to be a site culture in which they feel comfortable doing so. which means that they need to be confident that their posts and thoughts are not only worth sharing, but also will be taken in good faith. there have been some very good posts to this end! shifting the expectation of Maintaining A Blog & explaining how tumblr blogs are more like corkboards in a dorm room than like megaphones.

but the frustrated and dire-toned posts about Killing The Website are. not helping. content creators are of course entitled to frustration! and entitled to express it however they want! but i'm afraid that mass-sharing these angry posts like they're somehow helpful guides is.... doing the opposite of what people want. like it just instills a new level of anxiety and negativity toward Any engagement

imo with this, as with pretty much any other situation where you want to change people's minds about something, the most effective work is going to involve a lot of patience and kindness and swallowed annoyance and expended energy. not everyone has the bandwidth for this (i certainly don't, at least not consistently) and being openly frustrated and angry and unhappy is much, Much easier. it just. also..... doesn't work for the results you want.

#this is coming from someone who notices almost no user activity except people's reblog tags #and the likes on personal posts from the same core like 8 people who are always around. thanks guys #anyway. this post is not meant as an attack and comes from a place of kindness. u are welcome to disagree with me but pls do in good faith #i also want more people to feel comfortable reblogging ur stuff! we are on the same side here! #tumblr #long post

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Hey mod, I just wanted to say I'm really sorry for everything happening on the Glenn side of things. As someone who's been campaigning really heavily for Glenn (but admittedly hadn't seen all the reblogs and discourse) I truly do hope the majority of us haven't crossed a line.

A lot of people are really taking this too far and it's pretty crazy to watch even from the sidelines. A lot of the propaganda is starting to get really hard hitting toward the opposite side and it's causing so much defensiveness and genuine anger on both sides of the issue and I can say that a lot of us don't support it.

So even though I can't speak for the whole community I would like to say that I've had a few conversations with some other Glenn campaigners and they all are pretty upset with what's been going down too. And I think I can therefore speak for a large amount of us to say sorry that this is happening.

The majority of the DnDads fandom has been fine. The DnDads fandom has been pretty vocal since Round 2 or so (it feels like the only fandom that has been more vocal was the F@tT fandom) which makes the polls fun to run. And other fandoms haven't been perfect either. Plus, who knows how some of those fandoms that were eliminated in Rounds 1 and 2 would be behaving if they made it to Round 8.

The DnDads fandom isn't uniquely bad is what I'm saying, and I've been in fandom (and haterdom) for half my life at this point. So far nothing has surprised me, even if some of it has passed the line of what I consider acceptable.

I came to tumblr due to the anti-Twilight blog reasoningwithvampires, and was so into superwholock I joined a superwholock high school AU tumblr RP group two and a half years later. While I haven't personally been around the most extreme parts of fandom (calling the actual police on someone, faking your own death, racefaking, multi-year sockpuppetting, etc.), I generally know what to expect.

#Ask #Anonymous #Not A Poll

[andypantsx3]

Hi Andie!

I've been on tumblr for a while now (though still a newbie compared to others) and I think you're the most logical, unyielding creator who isn't afraid to speak your mind and be yourself.

In this month alone, 3 of my favourite creators have talked about the discourse on their blogs (hate from other writers, drama, death threats even) and the prospect of archiving/deactivating, 2 of which have already done so. Many creators have also talked about how tumblr is different from before and from what I see, some people on this app can get really petty, hostile, insensitive and straight up delusional. I initially joined this app because of all the fics and thirsts, but knowing the nature of some people here makes me disappointed.

With all this negativity swirling around, I was just wondering, how do you handle any hate you receive?

p.s. can't wait for updates on sitw!

Hello my love! I'm sorry to hear you also feel like the vibes are off!! I think we've all sort of been feeling this way lately, and I know it's all made especially unmanageable by the dark cultural moment we're in. This is supposed to be a fun, safe, collaborative space, and instead many of the writers I know are being plagiarized left and right, receiving totally batshit anons, or going on hiatus because of burn out.

And I appreciate you saying that I speak my mind, because I do on occasion. But honestly barely a fraction of the things I feel make their way onto the dash because I try to keep the vibes fun here. I'm still sort of formulating my own ideas on how I think we as a community can collectively deal with the bad vibes on here, but I think it's a spicier take and I want to take the time to get it right before I say anything, if I say it at all. Because it might not be worth it in the end, and it might just be better to keep trying my best to add fun to the space instead!! But we will see!!

As for how to deal with individual hate, I really do think it's up to the individual what their comfort level is in addressing the things that come their way. For me, there are two types of mean messages I think you can get: people out to take their own issues out on you, and people who express themselves badly but have a genuine question or concern. And to me, I think possibly those messages are worth addressing in separate ways.

For the first type, my main m.o. is basically just to delete and block anything I get. For every anon you have seen me address, there's probably ten times that amount with far meaner messages that I've just blocked, deleted, and then bitched about in the group chat lol. In cases where they've made it obvious they are another writer or at least associated with another writer, I will also go block that writer. I think it's important to protect your individual space from people who don't mean you well, and it's honestly usually not worth giving them your energy. Because their end goal is just to upset you, not to express any sort of genuine concern, and any energy you direct into that is just feeding into what they want. So in my opinion the best way to stop this particular type of anon in their tracks is to just ignore them.

The anons I usually end up addressing publicly are those that I think have phrased things badly but might actually mean to ask a genuine question or express an authentic concern. Those to me are possibly worth the time spent digging into their concerns, although to be honest this can be exhausting as well because people can be extremely caught up in their own feelings and get incredibly nasty. I wish this wasn't such a common method of interaction these days, but it is what it is.

If you can stomach it, I think addressing these sorts of questions can help you learn about things you yourself have done badly (see: that time I utilized common smut phrases to try to clarify an ask and ended up sounding like I was making fun of smut writers :/) or help the anon understand where you are coming from if they feel you're on the opposite side of a particular issue. It doesn't always end positively but it has for me more than once, and I think it's worth it in the interest of fostering a patient and good-faith culture of interaction on your blog. I think it can also help prevent such interactions in the future if people come to understand you are trying to be open and trying your best.

Anyway that's what I think is best done on an individual level. Unfortunately, I think real, wide-spread change is going to have to come from a collective mindset shift but again I'm not ready to address that in full. I don't even know if it's possible because I think a lot of the issues we see in the community are direct results of hyper-competitive, materialistic, individualistic capitalist culture seeping down into the fandom. But I'll think on it more and maybe share my thoughts if I think they're worth it after some careful consideration.

In the meantime I am forcefully beaming you good vibes in hopes that they mitigate some of the crap we've seen on here recently!! I am manifesting a nice, calm, healing weekend for you and everyone who reads this!!!!! ❤️✨🌴

#ask andie

[mallowstep]

1/3 hi! um this is like a whole story but basically I was a huge fan of ur work for abt half a yr before I checked out ur tumblr and after like 2 months of that I came across ur proship posts. My first reaction was like not great. But then I sat with it for a while and I really thought about it for like a few months and I was like huh wow yk I actually really like this point of view. Anyways, after that, I tried to explore what proship actually was more starting with the reblogs and your posts

2/3 on here and then going from there. And it just made me feel so good. Like, there was no more tireless searching for every single possibly problematic thing in the media I consumed or making sure it wasn’t cringe, I kind of just did what I wanted. And I kind of ended up adopting that mentality in my everyday life and my depression has gotten so much better. Like in the end, is it really worth it if some random person on the internet thinks I’m problematic for reading warrior cats. Anyways

3/3 I just wanted to thank you because I never would have changed my mindset and fixed my mental health if it wasn’t for your blog and your clear explanations.

normally i would wait until the morning for this, but...i really wanted to get to it tonight. sigh. this as nothing to do with my inability to sleep at normal hours, no.

i appreciate you sticking around to find out what i'm about! (fwiw, i don't consider myself proship. i tend not to agree with self-described antis, but i've also met plenty an anti who doesn't...conflict with any of my viewpoints? they're...just someone who agrees with me? so.) seriously, i appreciate that a lot.

i think my blog is more a snapshot of what fandom was like back when i started on the internet, which was...well, fandom-wise, was around 2012? oh, the math i struggle thru for y'all. anyway. back then, my opinions were normal, if not leaning conservative. so it's...just really goddamn weird for me to find out my opinion is actually super controversial and heavily debated. i know i tell this story every time, but there was that post about asking if ships were okay and what you ship is between you and god.

but...yeah, that's what i'm all about. i'm about having fun. like...i legitimately worry about most self-described antis. it legitimately reminds me of the way i behaved when i was a bundle of anxiety and trauma responses. it's...not good. there are times when i have had to close a tumblr tab not because someone said something aggressive or anything, but just because...seeing someone question themselves like that was incredibly upsetting.

so i'm really happy you got out of that mindset, because i just...i don't know, it's not healthy behavior. i worked so hard to overcome it, i still work hard to overcome it, and it is fucking...terrifying to me that a community exists that validates people and encourages them to stay in that mindset and get worse. i've said i'm not here to change minds, and i'm not. i think that would destroy me. i've worked so hard to understand that i am not responsible for what other people do with my words. that i am not responsible for any harm that could happen. i don't think letting myself get into discourse beyond the level i'm currently at would be good for me.

but still, that doesn't mean i can't get happy when i did help someone.

so yeah, yeah i'm really happy for you. i hope...god. i don't do this to change minds and i don't think telling people directly that they should change or bad mental health is good. but. i hope people find peace. and i don't think that's...

urgh, okay. i have...learned that there are unanswerable questions. i used to think that all questions had answers. but. your anxiety is insatiable. there will always be something problematic to worry about. the only way to escape is to decide you aren't going to try. (that's some loosely repeated OCD therapy things. there's way more to this but it's late.)

so i'm really, truly glad i helped you. as someone with serious mental health problems that are reflected in how i engage with media...i get it. i get it fully. and i'm really happy things got better for you.

y'know i'm not here to change anyone's mind. i'm just a guy. i'm just a dude, who posts about warrior cats and sometimes rages at the world. but.

idk, i don't go out and expect to change anyone, but if anyone is changed by me, that feels good? and i do...i want people to find peace. i want people to not be wound up tight with insatiable anxiety. i want people to get to have fun and enjoy things.

(ending note:

"cringe" and "problematic" really stop mattering when you have a Cringe and Problematic Disorder. like. idk i have experienced a lot of harm. that's not a secret. i have experienced a lot of different kinds of pain. if you want to tell me that warrior cats is problematic, that i shouldn't engage with something that lets me understand my own goddamn life, or that sharing the way i do that and having people support me, when saying it directly is either something i can't do or something that leaves people speechless, fuck, go for it.

but i'm not going to listen. i have bigger problems. if i was gonna cringe about something, it'd probably be about a younger part talking to people, only i'm not even going to cringe about that. if i was concerned about something problematic about me, it'd probably be the fact that i got in a fist fight with myself, only that's...well okay, it's something i'm working on. but it's not something the internet gets to judge me for.

so like. yeah. idk. the past...six months? have really reframed a lot of things for me. i have really, really, really just stopped fucking caring.)

<3

#ask #anon #mine #shipcourse #ask hall of fame

[glitt3r-litt3r]

hi! i'm doing a presentation on the impact and community of tumblr for my media studies final and i wanted to reach out to my mutuals and fav blogs with some questions that relate to my topic. i would so totally love and appreciate if you could answer some of these for me.

it would be so totally rock and roll and awesome and amazing and i'll literally love you forever and ever and ever! :)

thank you thank you thank you!!!!

the questions(i know it's a lot, i'm so sorry):

1. how is tumblr different from other social media platforms?

2. how has the tumblr community affected you as a person/online presence?

3. do you feel more inclined to post more personal or private aspects of your life and or opinions on tumblr rather than other apps? as in do you feel you are less likely to be judged on tumblr than other platforms?

4. what are your favorite aspects of tumblr?

5. what would you do if tumblr got shut down?

6. what are some things that only tumblr bloggers would know/understand?

or

7. are there certain traditions on tumblr that you think other media sites wouldn't understand?(an example being our site wide celebration of the ides of march)

8. what are some of the largest fandoms/inner communities on tumblr? are you apart of these fandoms/communities? if yes, what is that like for you?

9. do you find tumblr to be educational in terms of academics? among other things such as politics and general life experiences?

10. all in all, how has this app changed your perspective on social media, the world, your life, and so on.

11. why do you think people should download tumblr?

12. what's your favorite and least favorite part of being on tumblr

please add anything else you find to be important!!

HiHi!! of course i can help <3

1. One key difference i've found from Tumblr vs other apps is the kind of niche community finding. When I first joined Tumblr it was because I knew there were ways to find exactly what I was looking for which was at the time for fandoms that i participated in. I wanted character analysis, fanfiction, discourse on the themes. On Tumblr I don't feel inclined or forced to share like I do sometimes on other social medias and I really enjoy the way reblogging works here! Being able to add onto a persons thought with your own has been super fun and cool.

2. So there's two kind of answers for this. The online community as a whole is very intense for people and I find that Tumblr has lessened that pressure by allowing this sort of allowing me to share my thoughts under categories that make sense. I think it's also helped my writing skills because as everyone who follows me knows I write fanfiction duhh!! But the kind of writing I see here, the critique/praise I get, even just asking followers what they want to read makes me a better writer.

3. Definitely feel more inclined to share some stuff like my opinions on certain aspects of media. Also it's great for being anonymous because unlike instagram that's used to connect "people you know" I use Tumblr to exist with people I don't know as we engage in whatever we like which is part of the allure. If i wanted to be known on here I could but the fact that it's not forced is nice.

4. Art, fandom, memes. People are hilarious and I get to see it and giggle. I also love the ways we get to interact around movies/books/shows almost like everyone's already friends.

5. die. or something less dramatic like be really upset and long for the days which I could use Tumblr freely.

6. The importance of support through reposting/reblogging people's works. This site isn't instagram or tiktok, liking something isn't enough for artists/writers to get recognition on here. Reblogging opens up their art to an entirely different community than if it just remained on the original persons blog.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that there's definitely bad stuff on Tumblr it's not a perfect site at all. I've seen some really terrible discourse from some chronically online people that made me feel like my brain was gonna leak out of my ears lol. Good thing is, I scrolled away and it didn't cause real harm because I have media literacy and can understand when someone's wrong vs just hurts my feelings.

I love Tumblr a lot, she's like an old friend to me and I hope I don't ever lose that feeling.

#tumblr

[densitywell]

i love that i found your blog because it's been so hard finding imogen and laudna fans that don't feel the need to insist that they're awful selfish bitches every time they say they like them. there's this weird trend running around in fandoms where you have to violently insult the women you like or you're an evil man hating t-rf that thinks women can't have flaws. like yeah these gals aren't perfect but that makes them interesting! and sometimes it's really funny to say they're flawless imho

Thank you for saying nice things to me bestie!! and yes I have noticed this regarding Imogen especially. It's a classic internet thing of taking a progressive line of thinking (yeah, gender essentialism and unilaterally supporting one gender and hating the other is bad!) and warping and weaponizing it to win your fandom drama. Loser behavior, at best, especially given the CR fandom's specific history with "being appropriately critical of female characters," and I have simply decided to ignore that strain of discourse and not let it influence how I present my thoughts.

Which I say partially bc of ask part 2, and the fact that I am incredibly cognizant with how I present many of my Orym thoughts lol. It's gotten better over the last few months but you really could not say anything remotely critical abt Orym (including if you were a stan of his!) before without a good portion of the tag being people upset about "Orym hate". Both sides etc etc some people are too harsh on him, but tumblr is still absolutely dominated by the former over the latter, and so half of any post I make about him is caveats so that people will maybe actually read what I said instead of just blocking me for saying Orym may have done something wrong ever maybe.

#asks #anonymous #thank u again. #discussing these two topics back to back really puts it into perspective lol. we need to acknowledge womens flaws! not mens though. #crposting #long post /

[lovearne]

I dont want 2 make U upset or anything, but fr0ntier keeps make post about ppl who talk abt re-blogs, n im p Shure they meen u n others :/ may be block them n their frends just in case becuz they act like bullies

That's really funny, because they actually blocked me over some shit that happened in a server because this theory isn't confirmed but I think it was because we were talking about interacting and how true gender and body neutral writing is better.

But anyway, them and their friends blocked me, so I'm pretty sure if they are talking about me they need to grow the fuck up and stop stalking people they blocked. It's not cool and hip.

It's giving obsession vibes. I am very much not into that. But yes I talk lots about interaction and shit, because legit I get 700 to 800 notes on a fic and 695 to 795 of them are likes. We've talked about how bad interaction is as opposed to how it was back in wattpad and fanfic Era fics.

But as far as them making vague ass posts about how we are causing discourse. It's because it makes them uncomfortable. And good! They should be uncomfortable. If you consume but never interact that makes you a piss poor person. Even if you just leave a fucking heart emotion as a comment, or just rb with no comment I'd be happy.

Anyways. Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate it, and I think it's probably a good idea for any Fandom that fr0ntier is in to have a good look at them and how they act. I'm not trying to say they are a bad person. I'm just saying that causing drama over someone asking for interaction is not a good look. Especially because they have the interaction we vye for. They are ontop of the proverbial soap box telling us to calm down because not all creators have bad interaction.

They need to do some serious introspection tbh. I don't have any beef with them. But I have very good reason to believe them and their friends are the source of the hate anons and messages I get. So they need to grow up and stop being so middle and high school.

Asking for reblogs isn't weird.

You want discourse. Unblock me and fucking message me like an adult. Don't be a pussy and hide behind anon hate.

Also thank you very much anon.

#anon #this is a biggie #ask #answered

[gerrydelano]

hey, so, quick question.

why is it when there’s a dynamic in any media that is actually harmful and actively portrayed as abusive, people will jump through hoops to defend it and pull out every excuse in the book to justify it like it’s their minimum wage day job...

but when we get a complex, nuanced, respectful depiction of an LGBT couple (with massive trauma and mental illness on both sides, literally no access to care that would mitigate the effects of that, and no one to even talk to but each other) who consciously make the continuous, mutual, deliberate decision to communicate through misunderstandings and clashes in perspective throughout an indescribably tense situation in a beyond hostile environment that by all accounts would drive most people to far more heinous behavior than an argument or two that are literally tended to onscreen at a realistic, reasonable pace and with, again, deliberate respect...!

...people bend over BACKWARDS to find ANY way they can to call that dynamic abusive and toxic and demonize one or both parties using words that straight up do not apply to the situation literally at all?

i mean, lol. we know why. so here’s a better question! when’s it gonna stop.

#reblogs encouraged actually #i'm stopping myself from going any further with this because #1) ren's handling it #2) i don't like discourse on this blog it makes me upset it's bad for my health i Don't Like It. #but this? this???? this is a bad fucking take and it upsets my survivor ass to see people just #completely bastardize what that word even *means* and apply it to a situation that is SO *enviably* healthy all things considered #discourse / #negative / #abuse tw #r.txt #ronologues #tma spoilers #the magnus archives #jonmartin #top #magnuspod

[ranvwoop]

I have recognized Self Destructive Internet Behaviours again and that is a little cringe.

#vwoop.noises #i dont want 2 take a break from tumblr because i dont even follow any ''bad blogs'' #in terms of like. bad for Me. #but u see. looking for stuff that upsets you costs 0 dollars #i have tried to block everyone who is annoying from the tags so i cannot see stuff but internet arguing is an endless pi #*pit #and will always replace itself. #reminder 2 realize if youre engaging with stuff solely to make you feel bad... Don't Do That #i was a tumblr user during like. the peak of ''critical accounts'' and lgbtq discourse #insert the skeleton man. if it sucks ...... hit the bricks

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Thank you for asking people to back off on the op of that vivisection post, but I think it needs to be more visible than in the tags. I get that the phandom is a friendly bunch, but it seems no one has actually read deeper than the notes on the post (as most people on tumblr are wont to do) and seen that the op on their blog has stated they don't like the constant "this is what DP is about!" and "sorry for ruining your innocence/you had to find out about the phandom/angst/gore this way" responses when they are (1) a fan of ACTUAL non-DP-related gore and therefore not "innocent" (and that they're a bit freaked out by the constant implication that they are/the phandom acts as if they invented gorey fics) and (2) did not ask for anyone to tell them why they should watch it (and has in fact said they are NOT interested in DP). Like, I get that the phandom is super enthusiastic and wants to share their love of the show/fandom with others, but at this point it's like unsolicited advice from a stranger--unwanted, unasked for, probably irrelevant to their own interests, and annoying. All the unsolicited badgering only seems to make them more adverse to getting into DP, it's not like a best friend saying they're ok with listening to you ramble about your hyperfixation. I feel bad for OP. The phandom IS one of the friendliest and well-behaved people though, and you're really well-articulated (unlike me, look at me I'm rambling), so can you maybe help come up with a way to curb this kind of thing in the future? Maybe encourage people to pick up the behavior of not only checking the notes but checking the blog to see if the OP already got answers or even wants them? Making sure others know to do that too?

you know what, I'm glad you sent me this because that post really bothered me too

I actually added those tags as a direct response to the op telling people to stop

yeah like this stuff really doesn't happen to us very often so it is really funny and exciting to see 'outsiders' react to our weird shit, but it got very excessive very quickly, and a big part of that is something that bothers me about MOST of the internet tbh and that is

people don't check the comments before commenting

what that means, is that you get fifty people commenting the exact same thing, and that is not fun, in fact that can be very frustrating, especially for someone who isn't actually interested in the topic to begin with, op's activity would be drowning in this content they don't actually want to see

the first couple of responses to that post were VERY funny, and even op was playing along! but seeing them be dogpiled like that was really upsetting and I hate to admit, kind of embarrassing to watch

our fun shouldn't come at the expense of other people, I love this phandom to death (ha) but we do tend to get overexcited about things and that can lead to people being unintentionally inconsiderate, this is one of those times

also? some of those comments were just kind of... hm, 'not like other fandoms'-ish? which personally does not sit very well with me, it's a somewhat toxic mindset, yes our phandom is remarkably discourse light, it's a very friendly and cohesive place to be and I LOVE it here like no other fandom, but we shouldn't be acting like we're... special, we're no more special and important than any other fandom

just, no shame to anyone to be clear, this so rarely happens to us and was clearly a matter of people getting VERY overexcited and just lapsing in judgement, but I would ask people to be considerate of this in future, this would have left a really bad impression of us and that's something none of us want

#asks #this is not to SHAME anyone or to throw HATE on anyone #my intentions here are purely to educate and remind people #danny phantom

[wasflypaw]

no, i definitely don't follow you. someone sent me a screenshot of the post right before i sent the ask. we've never interacted outside of this since your blog was one of the first i blocked. i don't remember the post specifically, but it was in the main fandom tag for technoblade and caused a bad attack. i'm glad that you're no longer main tagging those things. people in this fandom need to be more respectful.

Hi, gonna address this in a few points. I might go off on a tangent bc I got a lot to say and your ask has given me the opportunity to speak about them

1. I'm genuinely sorry you had a panic attack over something I posted and I dont mind you blocking me if something I posted caused you harm - in fact, I encourage it. I've blocked a lot of people who've posted things that have made me uncomfortable so I'd be a hypocrite to get upset over that

2. I've had a look and I dont see any negative posts of mine in the main Technoblade tag? Just posts about his content and fanart so if I were to find/edit/take down the post I'd have no clue what to look for

3. I was pretty c!Techno critical back when I started this blog and it was mainly to do w his fans attacking cc!Tommy and his fans that caused me to have a negative reaction to c!Techno himself. I'm a Lot more sympathetic towards his character now, while I dont post about him often anymore. It's the same with my feelings towards c!Dream - I see a post that invokes negative feelings and it just ends up triggering my RSD. A Lot of my critical posts are posted during Bad Times or breakdowns but I'm working on this - I've blocked any post and blog that have made me feel this way and I've been feeling Much better the last few days. This random is a first for me - where people group themselves into which characters they enjoy and argue w other groups and I get,,, carried away sometimes. I've made an entirely new blog for just Discourse Free Happy Things and have been focusing more on stuff that makes me happy now so I think I'm getting a bit better. Nothing against the people posting said things that I've reacted negatively to, its absolutely not their fault for my reactions and they're not ppl I personally dislike (I cant know or dislike you personally from what DSMP opinions you have, your opinions do not imply or effect your IRL morality, said opinions just make me uncomfortable and that's about it)

4. I'm not sure how I feel about people sending you my boundary post two minutes after I posted it? The only reason I can assume is they're sharing to mock me or talk about me behind my back and I mean this genuinely, if you do that hardblock me. My blog is a space for me and people who enjoy my posts - I dont feel comfortable with hate follows. I may be jumping to conclusions but being told "someone sent me your boundary list after you posted it" while in said post I mention my Severe Anxiety is not a good combination. Alongside the person who is purposefully private quote tweeting my Twitter posts after I've repeatedly said not to and it's a boundary and I have "NO PQRTs" in my username,,,,,, genuinely stuff like this is making me consider shutting down my blog and my twitter account and starting anew somewhere else. Please if you dislike me or my posts just dont look/block me, I'm begging at this point

[sarenhale]

Honestly, relating to your WoW/FFXIV post, I wonder if the 'great community, by the way' thing only has become what it has because the influx of WoW players? I hope it stops because acting like everyone in XIV is a perfect saint is only going to upset people even more if someone is even slightly less positive in game. I don't know I hope the whole WoW vs FFXIV stuff dies down, even Yoshi-P had to basically say 'shut up, WoW is what we want XIV to be, and we'll never even touch the heights WotLK had.' I just think if Blizzard hadn't been ousted as a bunch of sexual abusers it wouldn't be this extreme, like trashing WoW is kind of 'slacktivism' in a way. Sorry this is so long you're just the only person I've followed that did the WoW -> XIV jump and you haven't really done the extreme 180 everyone else has, and I think you have good opinions on things. Also I hope you have a good day :)

Thanks for the kind words! I'm flattered to hear that you like my opinions and attitude. I do try my best to not be grating over things like games.

I will put a 'read more' because I do get into a bit in detail for this ask.

I personally do get a bit tired of the costant ffxiv and wow comparison and debate too. That's why I sometimes make fun of it in a light way, and make jokes or memes about it, but also keep to myself when debates come out and people start complaining or piling up discourse over discourse. I'm just glad to enjoy my game and see people enjoying it too, that's enough for me. I honestly don't have the patience or age to withstand game discourse anymore lmao.

I completely understand why people would want to switch games because of the recent Blizz horrifying actions, the fact that the game apparently hasn't been fun or well curated in a long time, or just for funsies and switching things up. I'm absolutely not complaining about the switch in games, if anything, I'm glad people are giving other games a chance. But I am a bit tired about the costant comparison, discourse, and millions of videos essays where people try to defend wow (as if you needed to defend a game you like... you can enjoy that game, period, and not create wars over it), or people making huge ffxiv against wow essays. Like I said some months ago, I studied the whole 'wow effect' for my thesis years ago for my Uni degree and I don't plan to go back at studying the phenomenon cause I just don't care about it anymore, to be honest.

I think sometimes people are just way too over protective of things they care about, like games, and when change occurs they react with panic and overprotection over something they can't control - people migrating over games, new influx of players, etc - instead of seeing the whole thing as something of a natural process all games and popular media are subject to. Like, imagine how bad things would be for every game or media if stuff NEVER changed. Especially for MMOS, that's a death sentence. And you don't want that for your favourite game. Even WOW suffering player loss might be a good thing in the end, it might force the companies to rethink their approach to games and community, since a lot of problems laid in there.

I played my fair share of WOW during my Uni years. I played for around 3 years or something, on and off with friends irl and online, and enjoyed my experience. Overall, I still have very good memories of fun and friendship in WOW, and it's a game I still like aesthetically a lot, along with its story and fantasy races. Hell, sometimes I think about how much I miss my WOW ocs, and drawing WOW related stuff.

But I don't think my relationship to WOW was as intense as some people's - I did transition from WOW to FFXIV, but I spent something like 2 years when I stopped playing WOW (I started in mists of pandaria, stopped around the beginning of battle for azeroth times) playing almost no videogames. So it wasn't like I switched from a game to the other immediately, I think mine was more of a timed and organic switch, I didn't start playing FFXIV until quarantine hit and I had nothing to do (and was feeling really bad and needed a distraction from the imminent doom), and I also got my new desktop computer knowing I could start playing a new game comfortably, and not on a toaster-like computer like I was doing during the WOW days. (computer shutting down due to overheating mid-raid, it was fun)

So maybe the fact that I didn't do the 180 turnaround switch like some other WOW players is what makes the difference in attitude and thinking. When I started playing FFXIV, I didn't have WOW fresh in my mind so I could do costant comparisons between the two games, or my affection towards WOW kinda like... influencing my taste, or opinion of the new game in any way.

WOW was a good memory but nothing more. I never forged a huge relationship with the game anyway, so it's probably what's different between me and other players that maybe (understandably) have more history with it. I engaged with it, liked it for a game I could spend some free time on, and then moved on when I got bored with it. That's kinda it. I understand that some people who have been playing for way more years than me might have a more affectionate memory or relationship with WOW, and that might be something that influences their reasoning sometimes. But it's also a bit of a common thing withing some communities like WOW- something that people could definitely abandon and move on, change attitude. Time and game change. There's no point in getting stuck in the past with the old WOW glory days, and that kind of sentiment- we're not getting back in time, and change should always be something to be embraced, especially in games and MMOS. Changing views, games and opinions is the base of not getting stuck in the same state of mind and I highly encourage people to do it.

As for the ‘critiquing WOW has become super extreme and almost like it’s a rule’... I mean... yeah? That’s the effect that often times ‘problematic’ things have on large crowds of people online. It’s to be expected, but it doesn’t come from nothing- a lot of bad things piled up in the game, the company, the community and their attitude- and it just so happened some things tipped the waters over and everything came out in a costant flow during the past year or so. But it doesn’t come from nothing- it’s just a result of people being genuinely critic of the game they engaged with, which is something good to do. 

So yeah, I appreciate the ask! I like hearing from people that follow other games too and may have experiences similar to mine, and I'm also grateful that you've been following me from so many years since I was playing WOW, to now.

That said... I would like to keep asks like these to a minimum. I enjoyed this ask because it gave me a point of inspiration to think about my journey from games, and the chance of talking about something I care about (and I would like to think I know something about too, degree and experience and all...), but I don't plan to respond to more comments or asks that might move towards a more 'discoursy' tone of this same "ffxiv and wow" topic. I do enjoy asks like these but you can't count on everyone making a good and civil argument when asking questions, so I do have to keep a firm hand on asks and topics sometimes, or people get rowdy and think my tumblr blog is the new reddit. It has already happened with some people coming to my askbox to complain about shit I genuinely couldn't care less about. That will just get your question deleted, go to reddit if you want to complain or fuel the flames. I'm just here to vibe.

#thanks for posing the question in a genuine and mature way- i enjoyed talking about this #answered

[adamsvanrhijn]

1) my ask was not bait, though I understand if it came off that way and 2) it was a genuinely concerned ace person who likes your writing but is concerned because of a post you recently blogged and it's hard to infer tone over the internet and I just wanted assurance that you are not [which, whilst I don't think you are, I'm a little wary].

okay i would like you to understand that sending me an ask that broadly and vaguely requests information about my Thoughts on a loosely defined and neutral thing that applies to a large group of very diverse people, with no immediate context either in the ask itself or from my blog content, nor an accompanying reason for asking it, is suspicious and stressful for many reasons. it would also be weird to ask a question phrased that way about any other concept that applies to human beings (e.g. "what are your thoughts on masculinity/blackness/etc")

i don't even know how to answer that question? like, it is impossible to tell what are you looking for here? an essay on the term itself or The Development Of The Concept? i'm not asexual and aside from reblogging a post that brings it up once in a blue moon i do not see why my opinion there is relevant to anything i blog about

but that isn't what you were actually asking, what you were asking, i think, is something that in the future would be better phrased like "hey, i saw you reblogged X post, and the way that post talks about asexuality makes me uncomfortable. [optional: i'm ace and i didn't think it was funny/appropriate/insert adjective here.] [i like your writing but if you think XYZ i am not comfortable following you, so] i'm wondering what your actual feelings are about asexual people because it's not clear to me based on the post." ideally you would say this in a DM off anon but i get that i come off as intimidating and/or you wouldn't be comfortable doing that for obvious reasons.

at which point i would respond and say, "hey, i'm sorry i made you uncomfortable, i definitely didn't intend to. i don't have any ill will or negative feelings or what have you about ace people (i don't actually have specific opinions about ace people at all, it's a pretty broad group). i'm going to go out on limb and guess that the post was probably about homophobia because there are some ideas that have come from vocal ace people on tumblr Specifically Referring Back To Asexuality And/Or Celibacy+Low Sex Drive+Low Sexual Attraction that make me myself uncomfortable as a sexual gay person. if you follow me you know i get Big Upset about things i perceive as homophobia like all the time. anyway the post was probably making flippant generalizations but by no means do i think all ace people are homophobic or that like, being ace is bad/fake/whatever. if you have more specific concerns and want to talk about this off anon via dm i'm happy to do that but again i totally didn't mean to make you feel that way, i'm sorry!!! womp womp. anyway thanks for bringing it up because i don't want ppl to feel unsafe etc. :-( <3"

hopefully that answers your question to a degree you are satisfied with and you can now make a decision as to whether you're going to stick around or not.

it takes courage to ask these questions, thank you for coming back and explaining. i am not trying to be harsh. but i have been on this website for ten years and am no stranger to seeing people get asks like this, misunderstand or misinterpret the original intention because it is absolutely impossible to tell from the ask alone, and then get their words taken out of context and spread w/ the intention of smearing ~on either side of the discourse~ (which i have no stake in btw) lol.

[freckliedan]

I'm sorry, I really disagree with you. I don't think anyone HAS to accept critisicm unless that person is like, their teacher. Anons and others of tumblr are not that. She wrote something that was very deep and very personal, tagged it as such, and posted in on the internet. All things that are allowed. Logging off when you don't want to see hate is totally reasonable- if someone was screaming in your face, walking away is a good response. I don't understand the way people reacted to this.

I guess, she just doesn't have to aplogise because people are telling her to. It was all her choice-posting it, taking it down, etc. It might be sad or make people angry if she doesn't react the way they'd like, but thats part of being on the internet. It goes both ways here. I'm really not trying to come at people all up in arms- I understand there is upset. But that is part of being a bloody human, let alone on the internet. For something like a fic? We don't get to tell her what to do.

I'm like specifically not anon here cos I really don't want to argue or seem hostile. Discussion is good, I'm not here to hate on you or anyone. I hope it didn't come across that way.

hi b! thank you so much for your messages, especially the last one clarifying tone! you weren’t coming across as hostile, especially because of being off anon, but i always tend to doubt myself when reading tone so it meant a lot to have a clear confirmation that i was reading things right 💛 and also thank you because i’m really glad for the chance to have a discussion with someone who has a different point of view from me; i always worry a lot about what will happen if i only talk with/listen to people who think similarly to me and it means the world to me when people who disagree with my thoughts are comfy having conversations with me.

i’m worried that i haven’t been entirely clear expressing my point of view, and that that’s a part of what you don’t agree with? because i agree with a lot of what you’ve said, and that makes me think the disagreement might be because i’m not communicating clearly? (my apologies if this gets quite long, my instinct is always to over-explain things & it comes not from a place of condescension but from a desire to make as much sense as possible)

tl;dr for the contents below the cut:

overall the message that i’m trying to send is not that sarah should apologize/change her behavior or that her leaving tumblr due to the hateful messages she was receiving at the same time as legitimate criticism was wrong. the message i’m trying to send is that due to her pattern of behavior, i don't think she’s willing to hold herself accountable for her actions, and that because of that/because the only person anyone can control is themself it’s up to us as a community to decide whether we’re okay with sarah’s actions and are going to support her by not acting on anything, or if we’re not okay with her actions and if we’re not, what actions we’re going to take about this situation. (this was going to be my final paragraph but i put it here instead).

i’m going to number these just to try to add a little organization in my responses to everything?

1) you’re right that nobody has to accept criticism from anyone; the only person anyone can control is themself, and i would never push the idea that the best resolution to a conflict situation is changing someone else's behavior/the only way to resolve something is for someone else’s behavior to change. what i am saying is that in society, it is generally accepted that an appropriate response to being told that something you did/said was in the wrong is evaluating whether what you did or said was hurtful, and if it was going on to apologize and change your behavior as best you're able in the future.(the reason i included evaluating whether what you did or said was hurtful is because sometimes abusers tell their victims that they are bad or in the wrong for setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, which isn’t a bad or wrong thing at all, and even though that’s not the topic of this post i don’t want to put the message into the world that literally 100% of the time people must apologize and change their behavior when told they’ve hurt someone. evaluation of the situation is important).and there is no literal law or rule that says you have to apologize and modify your behavior when someone tells you you've done something hurtful and their criticism/call in is an accurate assessment of the situatoin, but in general? refusing to apologize and change when it’s true that you’ve hurt someone is the asshole thing to do.and even though there’s no rule saying someone has to apologize, it's very socially accepted that if you say "hey, this thing you did hurt me/someone i care about and i don't know if you realized, so i'm telling you with the assumption that you don't want to hurt other people again in the future" and the other person says "there's no rule saying i have to accept criticism or apologize to anyone"? that person is kind of an asshole and you can choose not to spend time around them or interact with them in the future.

so like, nobody has to accept criticism from others but refusing to accept any criticism whatsoever often means people probably won’t want to spend time around you because you clearly don’t care about others’ feelings?

i'm not saying sarah has to accept criticism or apologise, i'm saying that if sarah continually shows a disregard for other people's wellbeing by refusing to accept criticism, it's reasonable for people to choose not to interact with her anymore. 

i’ve been blocked by her and her friends since (i believe) january, when i was sending supportive asks to a minor who was recieving violent anon hate for making room on his blog for other minors who were uncomfortable with the teenagers fanfic; i have the people who blocked me blocked in return, because before now i was choosing to deal with this by following my own advice and refusing to interact with individuals who have behaved hurtfully and refused to change but at this point in time feel it necessary to speak out for the reasons i listed in my long reply on a post about the current discourse (link for context, though i think that post may be why i got these asks?)

2) also, i agree with you that disengaging when you’re receiving hateful messages is incredibly valid and honestly the smartest thing for anyone’s mental health when conflict gets out of control on tumblr. i don’t consider the hateful messages sarah was getting to have been constructive criticism of the kind i’ve previously been describing in this post; i’m fully against anyone sending anon hate for any reason. amber answered an ask about this (link) and i agree with everything amber said. for me, it is both true that the anon hate sarah received was horrible and inexcusable and that i cannot continue standing by while she refuses to be held accountable for the impact of her actions, regardless of her intent.

3) i think in response to you not understanding the way people reacted to this, that’s probably connected to the one place where we do have a major difference in the way we’re thinking? specifically the part where you said “She wrote something that was very deep and very personal, tagged it as such, and posted in on the internet. All things that are allowed.”

you’re right that there’s no laws or literal rules preventing what she did, and i think i’ve repeatedly said that i understand and support people writing fic to cope with their own experiences, but that sarah crossed a line when posting this fic specifically. amber covers that really well in her response to an ask, as well (link). please read what amber said; i am in total agreement with them. 

what you said about sarah’s fic-that it was very deep and very personal- is also true about what dan shared with us in basically i’m gay. publishing a fic that uses dan’s trauma in the way that sarah did is incredibly dehumanizing and it genuinely makes me sick to my stomach with horror. dan and phil are human people, and it’s never okay to take ownership over another person’s trauma like that.

does that make sense? i don’t mean to have an aggressive or hostile tone whatsoever either, and i can’t tell whether i’ve succeeded in avoiding that in this reply.

#suicide m/ #below the readmore as a part of the discussion of the fic #sarah & mandy discourse #i really really hope this wasn't an aggressive response i am just so full of thoughts #coffeebox62 #den replies

[actualbird]

yo you totally made me think about low empathy michael and it like totally makes sense and i think about it a lot when i listen to two player game bc ye like he OBVIOUSLY cares a lot about jeremy and he loves him and like jeremy's stating his problem and michael keeps saying the same solution cause like "that's the answer bro, don't be down" bc he cant wrap his head around the emotions and connect w them that well so in his mind he's just saying this completely fool proof solution i love this hc

yo i got this ask while balls deep in three books of discourse analysis i could only understand by like 10% but because of that was in the mood to just. keep thinking my brain in circles.

so heres a stupidly long answer cataloging canon instances of michael being low empathy af/exhibiting other traits related to this. along with like, characterization to extrapolate from that (at least by my own personal interpretation. obligatory disclaimer that how i see characters is not law, this is just My Take). 

but before that, im gonna define some terms outright so we’re all on the same page. empathy is a person’s capability to understand and feel what others are feeling. basically how well you can put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. this shouldnt be confused with sympathy, which is feeling compassion, pity, sorrow etc. for another. empathy is recognition/replication while sympathy is more on the caring about it. here i focus on empathy and the lack of it. 

im not an expert on Anything but speaking from experience as somebody who has very low empathy, this causes some complications. when you dont feel what others are feeling, sometimes you dont notice other people’s feelings at all. this results in stuff like bluntness, trouble reading social cues, insensitivity, etc. all things that 1) may happen unintentionally, 2) can be worked through via healthy communication, 3) are not inherently bad, just a result of how one reacts to external emotions and 4) things i totally think michael exhibits because hes a low empathy goblin i love with my whole heart. 

let’s get right into it. in more than survive, right after jeremy and michael discover their boyf riend backpacks, this exchange occurs

this seems pretty normal at first glance but it is the first instance of what seems to be michael’s go-to pattern for when he notices his best friend is feeling down, which, at least, kudos to michael, he very obviously noticed jeremy’s feelings. hurrah! so his process for how to fix this goes a little like “step 1: notice jeremy is upset. step 2: cheer jeremy up! step 3: unknowingly kinda mess up step 2“

jeremy is upset about the backpacks but then jeremy provides an out with something supposedly positive. michael latches on to it. it turns out to be negative. michael tries to salvage the situation by cheering jeremy up! by giving him a cool science fact! hell yeah! except it’s a shaky save at best because he does call the both of them losers but in an “it’s okay :D” way. 

all in all this is nothing really, just some friendly fast paced banter between best friends. whats important here is the 3 step pattern aforementioned because it 1) shows that michael Cares about his best friend and tries to make things better and 2) is BASICALLY the entirety of two player game

TWO PLAYER GAME is such a BOP and, at its core, is a song about how michael has got jeremy’s back and vice versa. but tpg is also textbook the 3 step pattern with added sprinkle of unintended invalidation. ive briefly spoken about tpg before so this might look a lil familiar but at its gist:

like you said anon, in tpg jeremy tells michael a problem he has, and throughout the course of the song, he continually makes it known that hes upset and has a lot of issues. step 1 has been achieved: michael knows jeremy is not doing too hot. time to do step 2: cheer him up!! and what better way to do that than to think positive with his trademark line “guys like us are cool in college” like, over and over again. because….it makes sense for michael. things might suck now, but just keep swimming yeah? it’ll be better later.

but it’s not better now and thats what jeremy actually needed validation on. michael thinks the solution is to look to the future but jeremy has his problems bothering him in the present. for all that michael says this is a two player game, he’s unintentionally dismissive because he doesnt understand that this isnt something that can be fixed with a simple “look forward to two years from now” mentality. neither of them are in the wrong, really. theyre just not on the same page.

onwards we go to something else entirely. the chili fries

this is a RIDICULOUSLY SMALL MOMENT but it stuck out to me because imo it is pretty obvious that jeremy says “leave me alone” because hes bummed and is being dramatic, but michael takes it literally and uses the opportunity to skedaddle and get his sweet sweet discontinued soda. im aware michael had to be gone for plot reasons and also the discontinued soda is foreshadowing for the mtn dew red, but taken at face value, this is something that happens a lot w/ low empathy: things are taken literally. 

jeremy is upset. jeremy said to give him some space. thats cool, i’ll go for a bit and come back with something neat that might cheer him up—hey, where’d he go?

and now let’s jump to something everybody and their dog knows about. michael in the bathroom. except not really. because mitb isnt what interests me so much as what happens before.

pre mitb is very, very interesting. before i say anything i’ll be clear in saying that literally nobody had even remotely a nice halloween night, it’s a disaster for everybody involved, but keep in mind that jeremy goes into the pre mitb scene immediately after the clusterfuck that is do you wanna hang and also getting chased down by a sloshed but aggressive jake. many people have said this before me but i’ll say it again: jeremy was not doing well. at all. 

and this is where michael fails step 1 of his pattern. he doesnt pick up on this at all. michael is kinda stuck in his own head right now. hes pissed. hes confused. hes betrayed. he cant understand other people’s feelings and now he has to deal with his own too. his head is a melting pot of AGH and he takes it out on jeremy. yeah, he tries to help jeremy, but he doesnt do it very well. it’s all very accusatory, and jeremy just had a terrible night, so jeremy lashes out.

teenagers are bad at emotions but theyre not bad people for it.  //cue mitb notes, we know the drill

to the play!!! 

recap for maximum contextualization: jeremy realizes the squip is bad fucking news and wants it gone. michael makes an entrance with the one thing that can kill it. and then this happens

AIGHT okay so the whole “i need an apology” scene is obviously played for comedy, and it does a good job at suddenly diffusing the end of the world stakes with some more down to earth teen friend drama but that aside, this scene is a good candidate to be listed under the definition of the phrase “bad timing” because michael, holy shit. BAD TIMING. like great timing for humor but bad timing as a human being. 

here we have jeremy clearly in possessed distress and michael has the antidote but he only wants to give it on a condition. it is absolutely a dick move. yeah, michael is is valid for wanting an apology, but not at this moment with the current stakes. this is michael thinking pretty selfishly. hes stuck in his own head and his own thoughts. he cares about jeremy and wants to help but…this apology important to him. it’s easy to get stuck on things like this when you cant empathize with others. the low empathy means that the only feelings you really get to really interact with are your own, so theres a tendency to focus on them. sometimes even at inopportune moments.

unintentional asshole-ery behold. in fact, this can be pushed even harder by this snippet in the score of be more chill that had some lines from an earlier draft. 

the fetus version of michael makes an entrance is hilariously low empathy, oh my god. this happens while jeremy is rolling around on the floor fighting an invisible-to-everybody-else squip and this is the first thing michael says. it’s positively dickish. 

SO with that done, a little bit can be extrapolated in terms of characterization. i think michael is low empathy so the dominos fall. michael is terrible at feelings. hes got a tendency to get stuck in his own head and not see what others are going through. his emotional periphery is abysmal, hes like a horse with those things that stop horses from looking to the side. in spite of all this, he still has a lot of love and good in his heart and he tries his best to show that in the ways that make sense to him. post-canon, the rift between his brain and jeremy’s brain can only be bridged by a big healthy heap of communication where michael learns that what makes sense to him isnt always what makes sense to other people. hes a good kid. he can do it. 

of course this is, again, all my take. the fun thing about transformative work and fandom is that all interpretations are valid and there will always be somebody out there who agrees. or disagrees. but on this blog, this is my michael. or at least one aspect of my michael. //shrug

ANYWAY im glad you like the hc anon!! ive obviously got a lot of feelings about it since i used your ask as an excuse to aimlessly ramble for, holy shit, 1.6 k words lmao. i hope you have a good day!!!

#be more chill #bmc #i spent too much time typing this so it's getting tagged #if i had to type all this you have to scroll past all of it. ive never used a readmore in my life #i havent written most of this into fic yet but i want to. desperately #hc

[wedontcareaboutyourbinary]

1) I don't really have any opinion on MeToo other than nice if it works but as far as I know it's a binary issue with the whole oppression aspect. It's my friend who's into that stuff and wants to punish evil-doers and all that jazz while she can. So when these random guys targeted me and started following me around and do the occasional butt grab and weird panting in my ear while looming over me she sees this as a prime opportunity to implement her newfound power. But based on the

2) “compliments” they were panting into my ear and that nonbinary isn’t really a thing and I go around tits present and I presume they were straight so even if they didn’t tell me they thought I was a woman I assume they were aiming all this to a woman in their minds. So it’d be misdirected misogyny or something like that. Kind of when people think I’m a foreigner because I was given an exotic name but it’s not actual xenophobia because I’m not a foreigner. But anyway it’d be co-opting

3) women’s experiences because misogyny is meant for them. If they would’ve somehow guessed I’m nonbinary then I could’ve said it’s transphobia or whatever the word is for nonbinary people or maybe exorsexism if I had corrected them and as nonbinary isn’t a thing they probably wouldn’t have believed that. But as they probably thought I was a woman it had a misogynist intent and a non-woman can’t experience misogyny even when I was harassed it wasn’t about me and I can’t make women’s

4) issues my issues. So if it gets reported everybody will view it as misogyny and I end up leeching on women’s work to end harassment towards them unless I correct it by outing myself. I mean if a man is mistaken as a woman and harassed based on that they can’t say it was meant for them so why should I be allowed some special treatment just because I happen to look like a woman to everybody? It’s my problem I should solve by myself and not use it to make issues that aren’t about me literally

5) about me. There are lots of actual women who get harassed without me barging in to mess it up for them just because I pass as a woman and could go on forever wondering is all harassment I ever face really about people aiming it to me as a “woman” or me as a person they don’t like or respect. Statistics say it’s the former but I’m not going to stick around to ask when people start groping me so I aim to respect women and stay in my lane and stay out of their business both good and bad.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I’m going to start with the part that I at least can find vaguely humorous: you have here sent an ask saying that an issue is binary, to a blog whose URL is literally ‘we don’t care about your binary’.

Oppressive binaries are generally false ones constructed to condense the oppressive structure into a nice straightforward us vs them situation. This is useful for the oppressors, not least because it makes everyone who doesn’t actually fit the Designated Oppressed Group question their own experiences no end, and it splinters various marginalised groups because they don’t see the common roots to their marginalisation.

The binary is false. Gender is not a binary. Neither, shockingly, is gendered oppression. And I pointed out yesterday that there are several systems interlocking within the realm of gender-related oppression.

The idea that gendered oppression is a binary issue relies either on subsuming everything bad that happens to non-cis people under misogyny (and a lot of it does overlap, not least because of ‘misdirected misogyny’ and the fact that, thanks to the oppressive group doing their best to model ‘them’ as a single cohesive group, anyone who isn’t a cis man is likely to get boxed into ‘woman’ at some point, but misogyny does not explain everything that trans, NB and genderqueer people face!), or denying that anyone who isn’t a woman could ever be oppressed for something related to gender.

That, as Lune pointed out yesterday, is gender reductionism. It focuses on a specific identitarian distinction (between ‘man’ and ‘woman’) without any actual regard for the lived experiences of non-cis people. As such, it is not a functional model for explaining the marginalisation of non-cis people.

Of course, how much of that I can really explain to you I do have to question, given your statement that ‘nonbinary isn’t really a thing’.

Please think about who you sent this to and why you worded it that way, anon. What is prompting you to ask a group of people who consider themselves nonbinary for advice, when you apparently don’t even believe that ‘nonbinary’ is a thing someone can be? Hell, what’s prompting you to identify with the label if you don’t believe it exists?

I’d wager that someone else’s words are coming out of your mouth there. Do think about why you’re letting those words do that. Why are you holding onto that version of the world? What’s it offering you apart from invalidation, dismissal and erasure?

but it’s not actual xenophobia because I’m not a foreigner

You know, I’d be inclined to say it is? It’s a negative reaction to something perceived as being From Elsewhere, so the people having the reaction are definitely, you know, xenophobic? Even if they happen to be wrong about the thing being From Elsewhere?

And if this is meant to be a parallel to your experiences of misdirected misogyny: you’re pulling a complicated mental runaround here that would imply that bigotry is not real when directed at you because you’re not the Target Group, and that said bigotry is directed at you because you are mistakenly assumed to be the Target Group.

Taken together? Those two things would suggest that the people who harassed you, even though they presumably harassed you because they assumed you were a woman, aren’t actually misogynistic, because it can’t be misogyny if it happens to you.

Does that make sense to you? Does that sound like a sensible way to model oppressive systems? Because to me it does not.

If they would’ve somehow guessed I’m nonbinary then I could’ve said it’s transphobia or whatever the word is for nonbinary people or maybe exorsexism if I had corrected them and as nonbinary isn’t a thing they probably wouldn’t have believed that.

I mean… it was transantagonistic anyway because they assumed your gender based on cissexist criteria? Oppressive systems overlap! I’m going to have to repeat that a great many times, I suspect!

And again with the ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’. What is it, to you, anon? And whose definition are you actually working off?

I can’t make women’s issues my issues

… more than one group of people can have the same issue? Oppression is not as binary as a lot of analysis would make it. 

(And I know we love the binary analysis because it makes things so simple and easy to understand, and if we try to analyse things in a less binary way things get incredibly complicated. But if our theory is not complicated, it will be wrong. And that is worse.)

You’re talking about a kind of harassment that serves to reinforce power. Misogynistic social structures are a major power dynamic where that kind of harassment is used to reinforce that power, but it is not by any means the only one.

Again: yes, absolutely, be aware of who’s being disproportionately affected, be aware of why you’re being targeted, none of that is bad practice exactly, but this is about an incident in which you, you specifically, were harassed, correct?

Whose experience is that if not yours, anon? Who is actually the target of this harassment that was directed at you if not you?

I’m also going to point you to the last point described in this post, the Mistaken Identity Argument. Please have a read through of that post, and take a good long hard think about what it might imply about NB people as a group and their experiences that you’re so willing to deny your own experiences this way.

(Exclusionary rhetoric is often recycled. Yes, that post is from a ways back in the anti-ace discourse, comparing it to the exclusion of bi people. The underlying principles will likely hold true across a great many other cases. And you really are repeating the Mistaken Identity Argument damn near word for word here.)

So if it gets reported everybody will view it as misogyny and I end up leeching on women’s work to end harassment towards them unless I correct it by outing myself.

This is honestly a fascinating (if disturbing) thing to read, because… well, surely, if your experience is misdirected misogyny, and gets reported and understood to be a misogynistic attack, then it being reported will in fact help women work towards ending harassment motivated by misogyny? How is it ‘leeching’ when it’s helping women get where they want to get?

The only explanation that’s actually occurring to me is that you think it would somehow be inappropriate for the success of one group to have beneficial effects for another group (in this example, it’d be somehow inappropriate for efforts to reduce harassment towards women to also reduce harassment directed at you). Which… what even. Curb cutter effect, for one, and for two, oppression overlaps. That is the way of things in this bastard society.

I mean if a man is mistaken as a woman and harassed based on that they can’t say it was meant for them so why should I be allowed some special treatment just because I happen to look like a woman to everybody?

It would be an attack motivated by misogyny directed at someone who is not a woman. It would be harassment, and the man in question would be well within their right to be upset and distressed over being harassed.

I’m not sure what this was meant to clarify. Yes, the man is not necessarily an intended target of misogyny. But if they got taken for a woman and harassed over it, then it’s still that man who has been harassed. It might not have been ‘meant for them’ in the sense that they’re not actually a woman, but someone decided that they were an appropriate target and harassed them because of it. It’s still wrong even if it’s ‘misdirected’ misogyny. That goes under the same principles that any other case of non-women being on the receiving end of misogyny-motivated harassment would.

(Also: you realise that there are men in the world who go through harassment for exactly the same reason you did? There are trans men who haven’t, can’t or won’t transition in a way that gets them read consistently as men?)

There are lots of actual women who get harassed without me barging in to mess it up for them

And how, precisely, are you messing things up for them? Are you forwarding any kind of argument or politics that contradicts the aim of ‘reduce misogynistic harassment’? Sure, having to contend with an understanding of oppression that isn’t binary means more headwork, but if we don’t do that headwork, we’re going to be working from a bunch of faulty premises. Unless you’re also going to start arguing that non-cis people don’t experience any kind of independent oppression, that shouldn’t be all that controversial a statement.

Statistics say it’s the former

I’m not going to argue with you about why you think you’re being targeted, but my inner scientist will never shut up if I don’t address this: of course the bloody statistics say you’re being targeted for being read as a women when most of them don’t even account for the existence of nonbinary people.

How many official documents have you come across that have options beyond ‘man’ and ‘woman’? Society is exorsexist, folks! And outside the realm of assorted alphabet soup communities, most statistics won’t go any further than the official documents.

So like. Yeah, women are disproportionately chosen as targets of harassment. But let’s not get too wrapped up in what statistics that don’t even acknowledge the existence of NB people say about our experiences, mmkay?

Now, for the record: please understand that what you’ve plated up here displays a great deal of exorsexism. There’s the blatant ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’, for starters. Quite frankly, there’s fuck all we can do to explain exorsexism or anything else to you if that’s the stage you’re operating at. I can go on all I like about how NB people specifically face forced invisibility and denial of identity, how this serves to splinter marginalised communities and play them off against each other, how modelling gendered oppression as being about man vs woman disservices NB people specifically, but if you can still find it in you to respond to that with ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’, then… what the fuck are you expecting from us?

Then there’s your incredibly binary-centred understanding of oppression. This blog spends a lot of time on the subject of how binary-centric privilege politics fail NB people, and here you are, just… plating up more of the same. Why? What are you expecting us to say in response to this anyway?

Further: other NB people in the world have experienced harassment. A fair few of us have experienced it while closeted and pretending to be women, or just straight up being misgendered as women. When you say that misogynistic harassment couldn’t possibly matter when it happens to you because you’re not a woman? You’re telling one hell of a lot of other NB people that you don’t think we’re allowed to be angry or upset about the harassment that happened to us, because that also happened while we were being misgendered as women.

And I’m going to get very serious for a moment here: what you’re doing - distancing what happened from yourself, giving every excuse you can think of as to why it wasn’t actually bad, why it didn’t actually matter - is classic trauma survivor mentality.

It’s a survival tactic, it’s the kind of thing that keeps us alive when we have nowhere else to go. When you’re making it about your experience of having a certain marginalised identity the way you’ve done, it has splash damage. It’s a mental framework designed to endure, not to improve.

I don’t know if that’s what going on with you. I don’t know a great deal at all about your situation. I can’t do more than offer ideas.

And based on the fact that basically everything I’ve said here is the same stuff I said yesterday, at greater length, I can only assume that you’re not hugely open to taking in those ideas at present. That’s for you to deal with in your own time, you’re the only person who can live your life. I don’t know what you’re expecting us to offer you when you can’t even do us the courtesy of believing that maybe we do in fact exist as NB people.

So I’m going to return to yesterday’s questions that you never answered: do you honestly believe that it’s okay that you were harassed because it was by mistake? Do you honestly think that your harasser should get away with doing what they did because they did it making incorrect assumptions about you?

I’m not asking for some defeatist blather as to why you aren’t allowed to have an opinion on your own life and experiences because someone else was transantagonistic and exorsexist on top of being misogynistic and misgendered you. I’m asking do you honestly believe that what happened was okay and should be dismissed?

- Cade

#harassment cw #exorsexism cw #transantagonism cw #anonymous #answers #long post