#I'm inviting discourse to this post actually

[ofpd]

1st century roman siege of jerusalem dashboard simulator

🐮 barkamtza

why does this shit always happen to me

#oh my goddd the ONE time it seems like people actually wanna hang out with me. #turns out they meant to invite kamtza instead #everyone hates me and i was SO fucking nice i offered to pay for the party #god i'm so pathetic. kms kms kms #they're gonna pay for this i swear #delete later

0 notes

📜 zekharya-ben-avkolas

Ok so obv it's not ok to sacrifice a blemished calf but the blemish is just on the eyelid? So maybe it's ok? But also and i don't want people to start going around thinking that it's ok to sacrifice blemished animals. But the thing is that if i don't bar Kamtza will tell the Romans we insulted them and that will be bad probably. And like no one likes bar Kamtza anyway will people really miss him..... but ugh neither of these seem like good things to do i don't feel like it's my place to make a decision about this :/

32 notes

🏛 vespasian reblogged

🏺neronero

off to war wish me luck! 🇲🇪🏹

🏺neronero

nvm guys. ✡️✡️

🏛 vespasian

my turn lol

53 notes

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport reblogged

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport

Hey everyone! These are difficult times, and some friends and I have put together some mutual aid resources for our community to have access to wheat, barley, wine, salt, oil, and wood! More info below the cut. Take care of yourselves! 🫶

Read more

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport

fuck

7,235 notes

⚔️ biryonei-yerushalayim

anonymous asked:

Hey, I'm trying to ask this in good faith, and I hope you can take it that way. how can you possibly defend burning our grain stores. I understand that you want to radicalize more people but you're taking things too far. Jerusalem's blood is on your hands.

anon, what you need to understand is that the blame for the carnage in jerusalem lies primarily in the hands of the roman invaders and secondarily in the hands of the rabbis for refusing to resist. would you have told the hashmonaim not to resist their oppressors by any means necessary? just because this is getting inconvenient for you doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it. it's frankly offensive that you'd imply that we, the defenders of jerusalem, should incur any blame for her current state.

#biryonim.answer #grain storage discourse

231 notes

🛡 goel-yisrael

did anyone else see the "zealot blocklist" going around lmaooo

#how do these liberals expect anyone to take them seriously #do they not have anything better to do.

7 notes

📚 stammaim reblogged

stopbeingpoor-deactivated3830102

ughh why is my servant so incompetent! i deserve the best flour why doesn't he get it...

stopbeingpoor

ykw i'll go get some myself. i'm desperate at this point i gotta do something

stopbeingpoor

EWWWW update: i stepped in something NASTY. this is why i don't fucking go out oh my god im gonna die

stopbeingpoor

gonna throw my gold & silver away for the good of the peasants or whatever it's not like it's any use to me when im literally dying -_-

📚 stammaim

lmao look at this it's exactly what yehezkel was talking about! ur gold won't save you!

#yehezkel #marta b. baitos

162 notes

🕎 yalla-hapoel

🌿 amicus-iudaeorum asked:

Hey, love your posts! They're very informative about the Jewish perspective on this war. I'm just wondering whether you condemn the actions of the zealots? I don't really feel comfortable following someone who supports that.

are you fr.

#if youre seriously concerned about this idt this is the blog for you i fear

28 notes

🛡 goel-yisrael reblogged

📖 ben-zakkai

⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️ lol

🛡 goel-yisrael

? what does this mean

🗡 abbasikkara

dw about it bestie

🛡 goel-yisrael

ok 💗 yay 💗

6 notes

👩🏽‍🌾 discoursedumpblog

I've compiled a list of some of the most rabid zealots on this website. Remember, don't engage, just block and move on.

Read more

152 notes

🏛 vespasian reblogged

🏛 vespasian

some jew got an audience with me & called me king (im literally not lol thats so disrespectful to the actual king + if i was king then he shouldve met w me much earlier??), i think i should kill him

🏛 vespasian

AND my shoe is being so annoying. horrible day 👎

📖 ben-zakkai

omg just came across this old post

🏛 vespasian

OMG sorry i don't mean it anymore 🙏

14 notes

🫒 a-simple-yid

yirmiyahu tzadak...

#not to pretentiously quote tanakh but literally like. #hashiveinu hashem eilekha venashuva hadeish yameinu kekedem.

3 notes

[tinystepsforward]

automattic vs wp engine mastterpost

adrienne's GitHub recap is probably the best place to see a comprehensive timeline of what's going down. it's been kept up to date. my (very out of date) previous writeup is here.

what's happened/other links

Matt has not logged off, just switched platforms, so there's lots on X/Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. it's really not worth wading through.

WP Engine actually filed suit.

the complaint includes some truly remarkable screenshots of Matt trying to blackmail the CEO of WP Engine.

which... personally i would not happily work for someone who just blackmailed me while not even my boss, but that's just me. he hasn't denied this at all, in fact confirming on Hacker News:

I haven't doxxed any private texts from other parties like they have. [source]

and, notably,

I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share. [source]

this gives me the creeps. in the context of the rest of the way he's talking to her, and the ways in which he's interacted with women in general, it's. not great.

also he slid into an ex-employee (also a woman)'s DMs asking why she was being mean to him bc he'd never been nothing but nice to her, while also making legal threats. so y'know, pattern of behaviour.

a good writeup of the social side of things

if you don't care so much about the open-source stuff, Steph Lundberg's writeup is, like her previous one on Matt's Tumblr meltdown, pretty solid and people-focused.

Mullenweg has already demonstrated egregious lapses in judgment and abuses of power, it’s just that up until now he’s wielded his power against vulnerable populations without access to high-powered lawyers and their own massive platforms.

a more technical writeup

this one is melodramatic in the same ways Matt was (uses war terminology), which i don't agree with, and which led to some... internal arguments at Automattic. that part's not my story to tell, but a little more on that later. it's a solid writeup of the actual WordPress side of things. there's some seriously dodgy trademark behaviour going on here.

of note: this blogger locked comments on his post:

and then Matt, uh, found a way around that:

wild!

10% of Automattic leaves

that's a link to Matt's blog post. here's an Internet Archive link.

in short, staff were offered a severance deal of the higher of $30k or six months' salary. while that's very generous, it's still very risky in today's tech market, especially (for the same reasons i mentioned when Matt was melting down on here) for people outside the US, people who need the health insurance, or people with young kids. despite that, 10% decided with very little notice (they had two days to decide) to leave.

However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay. As the kids say, LFG!

i'm thrilled to see some of my ex-colleagues make it out. i'm keeping the rest who have stayed on in my thoughts. i don't know anyone who's wholesale shilling for Matt.

Matt's been pressuring staff to post in support of him, @-ing the entire company to vote on Twitter polls in his favor, and so on. many of the people who stayed have written blog posts about it, all starting with "I stayed". people on social media have pointed out the very clear pattern of Automatticians jumping into discourse to defend Matt, and it doesn't look good.

i don't have a lot to say about those posts, except to highlight Jeffrey Zeldman, whose "I stayed" post is perhaps one of the more honest ones. (his Rodney King reference was in poor taste, and he... i don't like his role at automattic, tbc) but like. he's nearly 70. he helped shape the modern internet and develop its accessibility standards. he has often put his neck on the line for disabled staff who don't have as much clout as he does. given the financial troubles he talks about and the state of this market and how old he is, i personally have read between the lines of what he's saying in a particular way.

fuck, man. i'm sad. i'm sad for all my friends who are creaking under the strain and watching others leave but who can't do that. i'm sad that many of them are left in teams which are half-empty or divisions where significant senior leadership are just gone, with no time to document what they had in progress.

i'm sad for Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the former executive director of the WordPress Foundation, who was dealing with a personal emergency and ended up having to miss WordCamp US (where Matt started publicly starting shit with WPE). she came back from that to a gigantic fire in the community she's invested a decade of careful, Matt-negotiating, stewardship to, and decided to take the severance offer. she deserved better.

other things Matt's been up to

mostly linking to comments or posts which compile things here, bc it's too scattered otherwise.

blocking people from the official WordPress X account if they disapprove of his actions.

publicly talking about a vulnerability in ACF, a plugin WPE maintains, which could put thousands of sites at risk. this is not normal, and he met with so much horror even from current staff that he deleted his post.

saying he comes across badly because he's "a little ASD", which is driving me personally up the fucking wall. he's never once said it before and he really is turning into Temu Elon.

generally bragging that he still has more planned. jesus fucking christ

continually saying that WPE's suit is against WordPress.org and the community, which is not true. on which note, his pinned tweet is certainly something:

his choice of lawyer is uh. the kind of guy to defend nestle against literal child slaves.

as always, while i think WordPress crumbling will disproportionately affect websites in poorer parts of the world, there are certainly tyrants who are causing much more immediate and potent suffering. if you've read this far, please do send anything you have spare to gazafunds.com.

[canonizzyhours]

I'm so glad this blog exists because this is perfectly serious meta I would never post on my own blog because of the discourse it would invite.

There's a common take on Izzy that basically goes like this: Izzy does not have any problem with homosexuality, in the sense that he doesn't specifically think there's anything wrong with men fucking other men AS LONG AS IT'S CASUAL SEX. But he DOES have a problem with men experiencing romantic love, because he thinks that's effeminate, or because he doesn't want someone else to take his place in Ed's affections, or something. (Obviously this is still homophobic, just in a slightly complicated way). This isn't a canyon vs gb thing, a lot of the fandom both in and out of the canyon believe this take on Izzy. As far as I can tell it's Con O'Neill's take on Izzy! And, up until a very recent rewatch of season 1, it was my own take.

However I've realized now that it's wrong. There are multiple valid takes on Izzy but that fully just isn't one of them. It simply cannot make sense of Izzy's actions in season 1.

1. If Izzy thinks it's fine for men to have casual sex, then at some point when he's flipping out over Stede he would give some sign of at least considering the possibility that Ed just wants to have casual sex with Stede and that's fine. At no point is there even a hint that he thinks that's what's going on or that it's ever occurred to him or that it would make any difference to him if it was. When he catches Ed & Stede doing the consensual stabbing thing nothing he observes gives him any reason to think they're tenderly making love as opposed to having a casual fuck. Sure, he's seen them flirting before this so maybe he might SUSPECT this is a case of cooties, but there is absolutely no sign that he's even CONSIDERING the possibility that this is just casual sex which he would be fine with. (This is almost a shame because I think it would be a super funny AU if Izzy decided he just needed to wingman for Blackbeard so he could get laid and get back to normal.) This makes much more sense if he would not, in fact, be okay with the sex as long as it were just casual.

2. When Izzy catches Lucius blowing Pete? That's causal sex! It's EXPLICITLY casual at this point - they don't start going steady until Pete gives Lucius the wooden finger. The dialogue afterward has a bunch of "well that was nice we should do this again sometime" stuff, which strongly implies this is their first time having sex ever and that they hadn't discussed whether they would ever do it again. But Izzy still has a big fucking problem with it. Now I know there's a popular canyon interpretation of this scene where Izzy is upset that they're neglecting their chores, not that they're fucking, but I assume everyone who reads canonizzyhours understands why that's clearly absurd so I won't go into that since it's a whole other meta essay. But this scene is clearly part of characterizing Izzy's whole deal regarding his opposition to queer joy and it is specifically telling us that he did not like catching two men having CASUAL sex.

3. What does Izzy threaten Lucius with AFTER catching him having casual sex with Pete? That he'll tell Pete about Lucius flirting with other men. THIS ONLY MAKES SENSE IF IZZY'S DEFAULT ASSUMPTION IS THAT SEX HAPPENS WITHIN SERIOUS MONOGAMOUS RELATIONSHIPS. He has no reason to assume Pete would be jealous of Lucius' other partners other than the fact that he knows Pete and Lucius had sex one time. This is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with Izzy being a guy who's used to being surrounded by casual gay sex and has no problem with it.

FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE:

So are you saying Izzy's a straight up homophobe?

Actually no. I think he COULD be a straight up homophobe, that's an interpretation that makes sense of his actions in season 1, unlike "he's fine with gay sex as long as it's casual." However there's at least one other possibility I can think of: we never see how Izzy would react to heterosexuality, so it's possible that he just disapproves of all sex full stop no matter who's having it and no matter if it's casual or not. Maybe he thinks a real manly man ought to be above being led around by his dick.

What about Calico Jack? If Izzy doesn't like men having sex with other men on the ship, why would Izzy invite Ed's fuckbuddy back to the ship?

There are several potential answers here but the simplest and funniest, since we've never actually seen Izzy interact with Jack, is that Izzy never figured out Jack and Ed were fucking and he thinks "Whip my balls, Jack" is just guys being bros.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this thesis but I want to emphasize that I am completely serious about it. I was wrong about this before. Con O'Neill is wrong. "Izzy is fine with men having sex as long as it's casual and non-romantic" is fully non-viable as an interpretation of Our Flag Means Death season one.

#503.

[anghraine]

It's true that minimal effort or qualifications in white men go a lot further than for most others, and is absolutely a significant issue worth engaging with. That said, I think the "mediocre white man" catchphrase is often a bit of a trap, because it's so easy for it to devolve into arguments or self-congratulations or anxiety about just how mediocre the man in question is.

IMO the question of mediocrity mostly matters when it comes to the much higher demands for qualifications or abilities or talents placed on everyone else and the smoothing of professional paths for less qualified white men. That absolutely does happen, but most of the time when I see the "mediocre white man" thing, it's about a white man who has done something morally abhorrent and not about some random guy undeservingly getting breaks in his profession.

And the thing is, if you're condemning a man for doing something horribly unethical, it doesn't matter whether or not he's actually good at writing or directing or music or speaking or inventing things or cooking or programming or lifting heavy objects or whatever. Some dreadful moral affront committed by this guy doesn't become somehow more acceptable if he's genuinely talented, nor worse if he's not. And bringing his supposed mediocrity in his profession or hobbies into the argument invites a separate and usually less important debate that dilutes the one about the guy's RL fuckery.

(This may sound like I'm just vagueblogging about Neil Gaiman, but it's not—I've seen it many times and this specific post was actually set off by seeing virtually identical discourse about a completely different, long-dead guy that had one valid criticism buried in a sea of irrelevant and IMO untrue tangents that did nothing to elevate the point worth talking about.)

[he-speaks]

I'm using #terfbreaking and other tags found around this discourse in order to reach the intended audience, as this discourse is happening as far as I'm aware just around those tags, but I'm not trying to play into the kink or arouse anyone with this post. That being said,

This is not how we should be engaging in politics and debates.

I got this message from rozenn more than 24 hours ago, replied within an hour or two of when it was sent to me. The two images and my reply are the only things that me and this user have said to each other.

I've scrolled through rozenn's blog and found that she's been going through the likes and reblogs on posts in the terfbreaking tag and sending those two images- well, three, I'll elaborate on that in a second- to people engaging with them sexually.

The two images I got say "pornsick" and then "pickme." That second one is the only thing she seems to vary when starting interactions with the people she's messaging. To men like me, she sends "pickme" as the second image, which is an insult that targets females who are seeking male approval. To women, she sends "male" as the second image, which isn't even an insult and is even more blatant misgendering than the pickme image. So it goes from an insult related to the subject matter, to just a misguided ad hominem.

Now a few people I follow have also gotten these messages from her, and they all seem to get the same copy and pasted message in reply. She says "I send the memes to any trans woman caught liking, sharing, or posting rape fantasies towards feminists or lesbians for criticizing trans women or having boundaries. This is for a reflection on their behavior with the proposed goal of being less misogynistic and homophobic."

So she seems to be under the impression that sending these memes will prompt an epiphany where someone decides their actions so far have been wrong. And maybe that works for someone, but overall this is an extremely immature and ineffective way of going about things.

Now I'd seen that rozenn was sending these messages before engaging with #terfbreaking posts, and that's where the first line in my response came from. I then tried to communicate that she was being immature, but if she would actually engage with me, I'd like to talk and hear more about what she thinks about all this.

From the information I have, I can only assume that she hasn't replied further because her copy and paste message would be nonsensical if sent after mine. Maybe she thinks that her position won't hold up in a civilized debate, or maybe she'd just not interested in doing anything but name-calling. I can't confirm any of this without speaking to her more, obviously, but until she clears that up it's the only reason I can think of.

Now I've never had a conversation with a trans-exclusionary radical feminist before, or at least not knowingly and about political topics. I'm extremely interested to, but the opportunity hasn't come around (this is an invitation, by the way! I want to understand TERFs, please message me so we can compare mindsets!). And I have to wonder how often, if at all, people with these beliefs actually have discussions with people who disagree with them. From the posts I've seen, most of their public interactions come down to complete agreement with other TERFs, or "he said, she said" arguments with trans people. What I'm worried about is that they may be experiencing groupthink. Their ideas seem solid when they're talking with people who agree and aren't actively seeking counterpoints, but once faced with educated criticism, they would falter.

This isn't exclusive to TERFs, either. Any group can and does fall into groupthink, and it absolutely happens with people who I agree with as well. This is why I think we should all be promoting and engaging in discussion and debate with people we disagree with, to combat groupthink and lead to still different, but more logically sound beliefs on both sides.

And to anyone who's wished harm upon rozenn, stop. Grow up and learn to debate.

[bdafic]

Have you played Veilguard? Do you plan to?

If yes, what is your opinion on how Solas and solavellan was handled? :)

I did! I actually posted about it, encouraging people not to read reviews and posts and just play the game for them. I chose not to go into any depth other than I liked it. I'm cool with going into it now, though I want to make really clear to anyone reading that I have zero interest in seeing, inviting, or participating in the "everything must be criticized hard and moralized" discourse. The level of hostility around this game is off the charts and I'm super not into it.

(I am very into being hostile as fuck about layoffs, crunch, and execs sabotaging projects, setting impossible "goals" and whipping up anger to justify dissolving studios though. We can do that all day.)

Anyway, back to your question.

Overall, my feelings on how Solas/Solavellan was done mirrors my feelings on the game as a whole: I loved 85% of it, and the other 15% I didn't so much 'not love' as much as I wished it could've been more. That last 15% felt like being a kid finding out there's a whole other floor of your house you've never explored, and once you finally get all prepped to go spelunking you find it in the midst of being demolished. All those little tantalizing peeks you got are gone or waved off like "you can make do with what you have". Technically that's true. You've got a nice house that's pretty and isn't falling apart and everything connects and has all the right things in it... but you can't help being really sad for the loss of experiences you could've had on the mystery floor.

I loved all the insight we got into the history of the Evanuris, ancient elves, and Solas himself. It confirmed a bunch of theories I'd discussed with others for years -- and that felt awesome! I love it when fans are rewarded for noticing the details and putting shit together. (If you're also into that, go watch Severance). There's so much of what we saw in his memories and experiences that deepen the sense of sadness and loss in his character. It made people who hate him, hate him more, and people who love him, sympathize with him more. I think he's honestly one of the most well-written characters I've ever encountered in any media, anywhere, and not just because I'm a sucker for beautiful tragedy.

I'm happy they didn't shy away from Solas' edges, either. I'd predicted Varric's death at his hands during The Missing's run, though I thought it'd play out differently. I think that and the war crimes were good additions to his story. It reinforced his position as an antivillain to the series. Solas is a living, breathing, 'sunk cost fallacy' of a man. He (almost) says it himself: to stop now would make all the horrible things he'd done be for nothing. He has to keep going.

He was Wisdom, twisted into Pride. He wants to still be Wisdom. It's how he sees himself, though he's smart enough to know it isn't true deep down. The planning, the arrogance, the failures, the devotion, they're all aspects of that change. Of course he keeps failing. Of course he keeps trying. And of course falling in love without any of that being known would absolutely caboodle his noodle. One of the things that first drew me was realizing how much of him was only revealed upon romancing. It makes a ton of sense for his character, and gave him a depth and longing that was incredibly compelling. A character who lays it out for everyone regardless is just an NPC, but that made him feel like a person. It speaks to his loneliness; how badly he wants someone to find a way to change his mind, and how resigned he is to the belief that nobody can. Wisdom and Pride.

I'm very pleased that a Solavellan ending even exists, because that's a pretty big nod to fandom and the impact of his character. Of course I'd have loved to see more -- Solavellan hell is eternal and I'll never escape -- but I can be happy with what we got. And I understand why it felt truncated.

(And honestly, my biggest complaint with Lavellan's inclusion is that we cannot modify her appearance later if we fucked it up. My kingdom for her eyeballs to've worked properly in my first run.)

I am a bit sad about how 'well' a lot of it got wrapped up, not just because of the loss of mystery, but because it's pretty clear that was a reflection of the (rather prescient) fears from devs/writers about the future of the franchise. The game's impact and mood suffered from that sense of impending doom. Edges were shaved off, things glossed over, middles discarded so threads could be tied up neater, and that probably really sucked for the people who have lived and breathed this world for the better part of 20 years. It needed more time. Chill time. And freedom to fuck about. People say that audiences don't like it when things end on an uncertain note, and honestly after seeing the discourse this produced as is I'm gonna say that the things I personally wished were included would've probably started much bigger fires and resulted in much more smoke. (People like to jump in here with, "it was going for ten years" but that's kind of disingenuous. It was ten years between releases. The game was scrapped twice and the final iteration was only going for three-ish, and writers and devs kept getting fucking laid off.)

Anyway, there's a lot of stuff it's clear they wanted to go into more and simply weren't able to. That isn't their fault, and I grieve with them. People forget the writers were the original spelunkers. They're also people who have to roll with punches in a way that fans never, ever, have to.

That was a lot of words to say, basically, that I think Solavellan and Solas' story were handled well, and I'm satisfied. I wish there was more -- I'll always mourn whatever was on the mystery floor -- but that's what fanfic is for. It's in our hands now.

[violet-catsarelife]

red hood Tim aus get me so bad bc in why on earth does this privileged dead guy care about crime alley? what weight does it hold to him???? it only makes sense to have steph be the second robin realistically.

It kinda feels like I'm inviting discourse by replying to this, so lemme just do an obligatory disclaimer: people are free to create what they want, and they're allowed to have different tastes and interpretations. That's what fandom is. Okay? Okay.

That said.

Personally? Red Hood Tim is... yeah. Does not spark joy. Aside from the Rich Boy in Crime Alley aspect, I guess I'm just not a fan of people making up trauma for Tim so he can be the Saddest Boy, especially when they're taking traits from Jason (which, actually this might be a gripe that spilled over from other fic tropes and not something I have against rr aus, specifically.)

In my opinion, reverse robins is a great setup for us to explore not only the differences but also parallels between the Robins. In that sense, Steph, with her background similarities to Jason, has so much more potential for a Red Hood story.

I wanna know how her morals would play out, how they'd differ from Batgirl!Steph's or RH!Jason's. What are her views on criminals and crime? Does RH!Steph hold the same contempt against her dad like Spoiler!Steph did? What ties her to the city and its community? I wanna see what her dynamic with Batman is like, when she isn't pushed into the shadow of another 'failed' robin, but is instead the First Robin Who Died. How would the effects of her death differ from Jason's, given that she's neither an orphan nor adopted by Bruce? I'm also curious about her relationship with Damian, if it mirrors the mentor-sibling style Batgirl!Steph had with baby Dami. Do they bond over being the few people who knew Batdad before the Tragedy, as opposed to canon where they only ever got to know the post-robindeath version?

So much story potential!

In short, Red Hood Steph is an awesome concept and I wish there are more fics with her. Thanks for coming to my ted talk I guess

[antimony-medusa]

man, just going through and queueing my thousandth emduo fan art and considering my emduo writing I'm doing this evening and with a VOD of an emduo stream open in a tab and with emduo art as my desktop background and I was just struck by a thought:

Undoubtedly this would be kinda weird to see people getting this into your friendships.

Like not even getting into whumping characters or aging them down or shipping or doing deep lore and meta of off-hand comments, just like, just the fact that I have been posting emduo art approximately 12 times a day for the past three years. Not even getting into the fact that one of those creators is dead. Like. That's gonna be a little weird to come across in the abstract, if you are a person with a friendship, seeing this friendship be like someone's blog theme. Multiple blog themes. The hashtag updates hourly.

Like I'm sure fandom is flattering, but also, there is undoubtedly a point where someone is like 'oh wait, so your entire hobby is about these characters that have my name? Like you spend hours a day on this? You have art up?" And then they go Oh Dear.

Which is why I think it's just so much greater for everyone if we keep our little derangement in fandom-specific corners of the internet and do not throw it into the creator's face. At all. Even the harmless stuff! Do not TTS about your fanfic! Sharing fan art and cosplay in the designated fan art channel— awesome. Inviting creators into your fandom group chat— boy. Can we not. As much as I am like man I could probably reach so many people, I probably should not promo fandom events in the philza discord! The actual guy is there, saying "here people can request gifts made for them about you" is gonna be weird.

There's just— there's a thing on twitter right now where this artist was making music and videos in a created world with characters, all very dreamlike and artistic, based in their childhood. And because it's the internet, someone wrote/drew NSFW of these characters. And because the internet is the way it is now, people were finding, searching out NSFW content to send it to the creator, presumably so they could take it down?

And I know these people had good intentions, however much I think that they're wrong, but I would argue that sending someone porn of characters based on you/on your kidfic is pretty close to harassment? Like do not show them that stuff. Come on. But the 'tattle to the creator' mentality was too strong.

And the creator, unsurprisingly, did not deal well with this! And then in what I think is a mistake, they have put together a team of people and a google form so that you can report if you find inappropriate or offensive content with their characters and the team will presumably try to copyright strike it. Which. Uh. Again. Is a whole horrible boundaries discourse, is going to lead to witch hunts, and I'm not sure about the legal success of copyright striking fan art and fanfic ANYWAYS.

But like this could have been avoided if instead of going "the creators need to know about this Bad Stuff" people just blocked and moved on. And I think so much more of modern fandom would take a step towards health if we could put more of a creator/fandom separation in place.

Like when I think back to the heyday of DSMP fandom and how these creators— many of them underage— were getting people sending them porn of themselves/their characters, to tattle. Oh look isn't this dark fic too dark. Look how horrible this gore is. This is borderline shipping. People were sending Phil's mods stuff tagged as QPR, because they couldn't get to Phil but he clearly so desperately needed to know this, so that he could condemn it as too close to shipping? Because that is respectful and a great idea?

And like this ranges from stuff where I'm like bro, he doesn't need to know that (small /neg, about stuff that isn't a big dealt), to bro, he doesn't need to know that (LARGE /neg, stop sending the creators porn), because like, okay, yes, you have correctly identified that this would be weird to have happen to you/to a character based on you. What you are missing here is that unless you want to usher in an era of insane copyright overreach that would make disney's lawyers ascend to a higher plane and also kill transformative fandom, there is effectively very little way to stop most of the bad stuff. Those characters are out there, people get to do what they want with them, no matter how much it's in poor taste. All you're doing when you show creators the bad stuff is making them look at stuff that is going to be unpleasant and they can't stop. So, y'know, harassment?

And even the good stuff— I know how to behave myself and act cool in public spaces the creators are in, but if they were to see the full depths of how much of my brain space is taken up by the blocks, I'm sure they'd kinda be left going hahaha you what????? Tomathy Innit was struck speechless by a single person doing a video essay analyzing L'manberg. I see that energy on the dash from dozens of mutuals every damn DAY.

Just like, man. Fandom is just a lot to shove at creators, and if they want to step in willingly that's fine, but I really think we should be so so so cautious about throwing them in bodily when they didn't ask for it. Do not rec family dynamic fics to tommy in his youtube comments. Do not tell tubbo to scroll his hashtag on tumblr. Stop telling Phil about your fanfiction in TTS. I"M SURE THE POSTING YOU ARE ALL THINKING OF IS FINE IN TERMS OF TECHNICAL WEIRD STUFF, but like— even the good stuff! Even the good stuff is a lot! "I was having a bad day but I watched some videos with the friendship in it and now I'm okay" is just a lot to drop on someone! Can we allow creators/writers/musicians/actors/authors to opt into this stuff, and not shove it at them?

And for the love of all things good stop sending people porn of themselves.

[bestworstcase]

Your post re: Salem's attitudes towards magic got me thinking about "Why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans, when we can replace them with what they could never be?" from Lost Fable again. I'm finding it a little difficult to blame people for believing she thinks the current crop of humans are just inferior when the only subject on offer in that sentence is "these humans." Of course when you stop to think for two seconds why Salem says or does anything she does it makes total sense that her hangup is with the gods, but that just makes me wonder even more why write the script like that? How unreliable is the direct dialogue in Jinn's vision supposed to be taken vs. her narration? (The simplest read of that episode seems to be of course the narration is biased per the question asked, but otherwise it's a frame narrative for the flashbacks which may or may not be more objective portrayals of events. The fact that the characters are also physically witnessing these scenes means they can't be 100% objective I think, but still leaves open the question of what's skewed and by how much.)

Unreliable or not, it's just a surprisingly absolute statement to put in her mouth considering how often we're invited to question her motivations everywhere else.

i do take the dialogue in the lost fable to be accurate to what the characters said, perhaps with some smudginess if what we’re seeing is ozpin’s memories exactly – in which case the dialogue in scenes he wasn’t present for is suspect because it’s what he imagines was said based on what salem told him, and the rest is probably closely accurate paraphrase because no one could be expected to remember the exact wording of conversations from several thousand years ago! but even then i would expect the parts he was there for to be reliable enough. 

so much rides on the lost fable and specifically this one line that it would be beyond cheap for the resolution to be “she didn’t say that at all, actually.”

the first time i watched the lost fable, i did intuitively interpret that line as salem alluding to the gods – so i think there’s probably some degree of her statement reading as ambiguous or not ambiguous depending upon how one habitually uses the word “redeem.” specifically: how precise one is about the verb requiring an indirect object. 

to ‘redeem’ something means to take some action to settle a debt, or redress a wrongdoing, which—inherently—implies the presence of a creditor or wronged party. in some contexts, the implied creditor is only an abstraction (think “the city’s robust public transportation is its only redeeming quality”—redemption is used here in a figurative sense to mean that the one making the statement dislikes everything but the city’s transit system); and in casual speech it’s fairly common to leave off the indirect object if it isn’t necessary to identify the wronged party (think the common phrasing of “so-and-so redeems themself”).

but while it isn’t incorrect to drop the indirect object, necessarily, there always is an indirect object; it isn’t possible to redeem a debt or a wrong that doesn’t exist, nor to have a debt without a creditor or a wrong without someone wronged. (as an aside, this is why redemption arc discourse tends to always be arguments about forgiveness—redemption does, inherently, definitionally, necessitate forgiveness—and this is also why i’m pedantic about differentiating ‘redemption arc’ vs ‘atonement arc’ vs ‘villain-to-hero arc’ and dislike the popular usage of redemption arc as an umbrella term.)

anyway, in simpler terms: when salem says “redeem these humans,” the apparent meaning of the next clause depends on whether or not one is predisposed to hear that phrase as a clipping and mentally append the implied indirect object, which makes her complete statement “why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans [from my sin in the eyes of the gods] when we could replace them with what they could never be?”

<- and then the question becomes, which “them” is she referring to? “these humans” or the gods who will judge whether redemption has been earned? her elision of the gods is entirely within the realm of common vernacular, and salem is a character who regularly circumlocutes (and earlier in the lost fable itself we have ozma’s quizzical “what are you saying?” signaling that salem’s speech is cryptic or confusing – because ozma doesn’t understand her; this is an intended trait versus the writers fumbling), and she says this in a moment of emotional distress (which she mostly bottles up, but while ozma is explaining all of this to her she’s leaning on the desk with her arms folded, listening intently – this is the same posture she has when she’s huddled in the shadows making herself miserable with conjurations of her children in 8.4).

so there’s quite a bit of weight here on the side of, “salem just discovered that her partner has been manipulating her into serving the gods she abhors throughout their entire relationship, she’s deeply shaken, she isn’t awesome at clearly articulating her thoughts in general; is it really surprising that she might misspeak to the tune of saying ‘them’ in reference to an (elided but necessarily implied) antecedent of ‘the gods’”

it (clearly) isn’t going to occur to most viewers as an obvious interpretation of the line, but i think it’s well within the bounds of what is reasonable for the narrative to later reveal that salem really meant this, particularly given how deliberate and how clear the storytelling themes are. definitely a risk, because some section of the audience is undoubtedly going to feel lied to and cry retcon, but rwby takes creative risks all the time.

and then there’s the ‘fairyales of remnant’ piece of it – the anthology is very much in dialogue with the lost fable across the board (on this see also ‘the two brothers’ presaging the thematic treatment of the brothers in v9, and ozpin’s paired commentaries on ‘the infinite man’ + ‘the girl in the tower’ being discussions of truth, propaganda, and forgiveness). so why does ‘the shallow sea’ begin like this:

Long ago, before the fish had scales, before the birds had feathers, and before the turtles had shells, when our god still walked and crawled and slithered the earth, there were only Humans and animals. (And Grimm. There have always been Grimm. There will always be Grimm. But those creatures don’t figure in this story, so just put them out of your mind, if you can.)

and end like this, after a story about the god of animals leading their chosen people to transform by submersion in magical waters, to the horror of those humans who refuse to change: 

From that moment on, there have been animals, Humans, and Faunus. And the descendants of the Humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. To this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.

humans and animals (and grimm) -> animals and humans and faunus, and the last line – the mythic explanation for human hatred of faunus – is a nearly direct repetition of the last thing salem says in the lost fable?

now obviously not everyone can be expected to read ancillary material like the fairytale anthology, and that’s why the shell game with the implied indirect object matters; but it is interesting that ‘the shallow sea’ is stated to be a very old oral tradition (one which “contains deep truths,” no less) and that it repeats that line in a context that is quite plainly not about genocide – but rather cultural pride in the face of intense, often violent, persecution. 

this story also 1. explicitly belongs to a closed tradition, and 2. is (obviously) one ozma knows despite there being no indication that he’s ever reincarnated as a faunus. which – together with the story’s age – adds up to at least the implication that it is possible he heard this story from salem, because the reasons she might be conversant in ancient faunus oral traditions are. well. obvious. 

…and if that’s so, then ‘the shallow sea’ as written in the fairytale anthology completely recontextualizes salem’s last statement in the lost fable as salem quoting from a faunus creation myth both she and ozma knew in order to express her rejection of the brothers’ mandate, which would 1. neatly explain why ozma seems to have understood exactly what she meant even though none of the lost fable witnesses picked up on it, and 2. provide an elegant and very simple opportunity to ease the general audience into this revelation by having a character in vacuo retell this myth, using that same closing line. you don’t even need to mention salem directly – the turn of phrase is memorable enough that a lot of viewers will go “…why does that sound eerily familiar” and that plants a seed for later. (or if you’re going for more of a sudden record scratch moment, salem is the one declaiming.)

from a character standpoint, it also makes a lot of sense for salem to respond to ozma in this way – his liking for stories is, one presumes, not a new thing that developed after the ozlem kingdom’s collapsed, and he also clearly isn’t just cynically using fairytales to deceive and manipulate – else he wouldn’t have apologized to the kids by referencing ‘the girl who fell through the world’ and comparing himself to alyx. stories are just important to him and part of how he communicates.

so if salem heard everything his god told him and then said “no, none of that matters, why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could [paraphrases the conclusion of a story where the hateful envious people who refuse to change are simply sent home and not allowed to live in the harsh but free new world with the people who chose to embrace change]” – she made an effort to say what she meant in his language, and what she meant was either 1. figuratively associating the brothers with the envious humans who were sent home and “these humans” with the faunus who were now free to determine their own fates, or 2. “okay yeah these humans aren’t great, have you considered more faunus as a solution” (<- this would be extremely funny if it turns out the shallow sea is a more literal story than i think it is, but i think it’s much less likely).

more broadly, to the question of why the line is written that way – i can only speculate based on what i would be thinking in the writer’s shoes, and the overall structure of the narrative around salem – but i imagine the absoluteness is sort of the point. it’s meant to be a really shocking and frightening thing to hear coming out of her mouth, while also being, if you pause to think very precisely about what she said, quite plausible as a verbal stumble – the alternative antecedent of “the gods” for “them” is implied and eliding the indirect object of “redeem” is common vernacular – and then there’s this other possibility hinted in an ancillary text that she might have actually been quoting a story as a verbal shorthand both she and ozma understood. 

there’s a narrative expectation that the viewer will be right there with the kids making the same snap judgment about what salem meant – because i think the kids all absolutely did take this at face value as a statement of genocidal intent. the story itself is structured like a nesting doll such that each new revelation appears at a glance to be the whole story, but isn’t and in fact has large gaps and details that don’t add up which become glaringly obvious as soon as you reach the next layer and look back, but if you’re paying careful attention as you go it’s also quite possible to piece together the missing pieces. 

delivering information this way trains the audience (…mostly) to expect that the information we’re given is incomplete and maybe not wholly accurate. the advantage here is that even if the vast majority of the audience is completely blindsided by a specific reveal, for most viewers that’s going to feel really exciting – this happened in v9 with the lore reveals about the brothers, massive overnight reversal in the mainstream fandom views of darkness with the general mood being that it was cool – as opposed to feeling tricked or lied to by a “retcon.”

and that builds up a certain kind of trust, that the story is a puzzle but it isn’t going to cheat. it’s also a bit of a challenge or an invitation for the audience to try to figure out what’s coming, like a mystery.

with salem, i’d bet that one line in the lost fable is supposed to seem weirder and weirder the more you think about it, because… why doesn’t it track with anything she says before that point in the lost fable? why does the story begin with salem waxing poetic about humanity’s virtues? why does the narrative make such a big deal out of nobody knowing what salem wants AFTER the main characters witnessed a seemingly open-and-shut declaration of her “true” intention?

at the same time, the amount of explanation required to argue for an alternate interpretation – even if it’s really not complex or a reach – compared to the ease of just taking the statement exactly at face value, in and of itself is both a misdirection (most of the audience will take the path of least resistance, and hopefully enjoy the journey the story takes them on while leading them to the eventual right answer) and sort of the thesis with respect to the storytelling themes. salem thinks coolsville sucks!

but i am also very willing to consider (because of my own intuitive reaction to the line) that the writers perhaps did not mean for it to seem quite as unambiguous as the general audience and most of the fandom ended up taking it, because if you’re spending a lot of time immersed in a specifically theological context regarding redemption (which the writers probably would’ve been, given the importance of the religious narrative in the lost fable and in relation to this line in particular) – and if you’re also in the habit of being very precise and careful about how you phrase things (which is true of how rwby is written in general) – and if you’re writing what might be the most critical episode in a complicated puzzle box story, whose fulcrum is a red herring that is also meant to provide a clue to anyone who thinks to look at it more closely and with an open mind — then yeah i can see a scenario where the writers may have felt that the specific wording of salem’s statement was more ambiguous than it actually is. in which case the echo in ‘the shallow sea’ might have been a bit of an effort to correct course by giving the subset of fans invested enough to read the fairytales (<- the cohort most likely to be keen to unravel the puzzle) an additional hint. who knows.

[darcytaylor]

Nah, I'm with that other anon, this is the final straw for me, too. I look at actions, not words. You don't think Deuxmoi is on the phone with Backgrid already? A knows what she's inviting into their lives. Didn't they get papped in Italy once already? Maybe that's what she's hoping for.

The thing is, he clearly cares that people don't think ill of him. He wouldn't have retreated from SM the way that he did otherwise. He wouldn't have posted that "we won't let her ruin our night" story. He wouldn't have made the post about the scammers. I struggle to believe he can't reinforce a boundary about a behavior that keeps causing him distress and making him have to put out fires. He's got bigger fish to fry, he's juggling two projects. He may not be an ambitious person but I don't think he's actively self-destructive when it comes to his career. Are these little posts of hers worth all the shit he's getting for them? Complicit by inaction is a perfect way to put it, except now this has me wondering if he's actually complicit, as in, an active participant. I'd be very disappointed in him if he was.

I understand why this might be the final straw for you and others. I’m not here to convince anyone to support or be a fan of someone - everybody is entitled to their own opinions, and I’m not trying to change that.

It’s also not my intention to sway people toward liking a celebrity I don’t know personally, hahaha! I’m just offering a perspective based on the limited information we all have. At the end of the day, we don’t know these people, and we don’t actually know their motivation. But I understand if people need to step away and reevaluate.

I think it’s natural to question what’s really going on, especially when things don’t seem to align with someone’s previous actions or how they’ve presented themselves publicly. We’re all seeing just bits and pieces of what’s happening behind the scenes, and it’s easy to misinterpret things without the full picture.

That being said, just because Luke hasn’t called out certain behaviours or taken action, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s complicit or okay with it. Sometimes, it’s more complicated than just setting boundaries or reacting the way we expect. People handle these things differently, especially when their personal lives are under constant scrutiny. Maybe he’s trying to balance his personal life and career, and things aren’t as clear-cut as they might seem? I don't know.

I understand why it’s disappointing if his actions feel inconsistent. I just think (for me anyway) it’s hard to judge someone’s entire situation based on the small bits of information we do have. Because at the end of the day I literally know nothing.

I also have gone into more depth about this in another ask - where the person brought up some interesting points - not sure if you have read it, but I will link it.

[broodwoof]

my message to new/returning fans

as da4 approaches and the fandom changes, gaining both new and returning users, i want to state very clearly:

share your thoughts! it doesn't have to be "original" to be valuable! no more than it needs to conform to current fanon! you don't need to read everyone else's theories in order to state your own

I'm familiar with that pressure and how much it can dampen the urge to share, to actually engage with the broader fandom. even though i was there at the start of dai's fandom, i fell out of it for years and came back recently, and there was a definite undercurrent of pressure to a) conform to the theories already stated, especially by big name fans, and b) to only ever post a truly original theory

the former inherently limits fandom and treats it more like an academic field that one needs to be familiar with before stating anything; the latter is fundamentally ridiculous, since we're all engaging with the same source material and have the ability to perceive foreshadowing and explore what it means. the first person to perceive and write about a bit of foreshadowing has no more fundamental "right" to that perspective than the hundredth

it can also be hard to wade through the tags of a fandom that's been out for a decade+, especially if you like a character or ship that gets a lot of hate. that's exhausting and no one is obligated to do that research

you're not too late to the fandom to have theories, to post meta, or to express your feelings. those of us currently in the fandom would do well to remember that new people will be joining us and they likely won't even know the bloggers who have already posted meta, so seeing someone ask if xyz has ever been considered should be treated as a valid question. seeing someone say they've never seen ppl talking about xyz should be viewed as an invitation to (gently!) point to some people who have talked about it. "oh, if you're into this idea, you might like [username's] meta"

i think it's valuable to draw attention to the fact that a long-established fandom has been getting new blood throughout the whole time it's been here, and will be getting considerably more new blood soon, and that it might be worth adapting to that early. because regardless of any established fan's preferences, we are going to be getting new fans unfamiliar with established theories/fanon. and no one should be beholden to fanon anyway

but all this is to also say - new fandom members? i see you. I'm here for you. if you want to know what's been said, you can ask me and i will direct you as best i can; if you want to come up with stuff on your own, i support that. i will never come onto your posts to "disprove" your theory or to claim it's unoriginal

also, know that when you see vent posts where people are feeling annoyed about fans or complaining about them, they are almost certainly talking about fans who are engaging in discourse, are argumentative, or are otherwise being kinda shitty. i know - from personal experience! - how easy it is to take a vague vent post personally, especially when the kind of behavior they're actually annoyed by isn't clarified, but it's unlikely to be directed at fans who are engaging with curiosity and excitement. being new to a fandom is intimidating and as someone who's trying to be respectful, it can be so easy to internalize messages from people's venting, but fr, it's rarely about new fans and their conclusions. that said, if those posts bother you… unfollow! or block! blocking is not a mean or cruel action

find your niche, curate your experience, and you will definitely find people who support you. I've really enjoyed my time here and met many people i care about and respect, but it was a bit of an uphill struggle early on and i know a message like this from an established voice in fandom would have helped ease my own concerns coming into this space

[tmblrplsdonutbanme]

I find your blog very interesting. Would you say that these blackpillers are organized trolls to sew in discourse? I have actual radfem mutuals who believe these women are actual radfems and aren't trolls and fall for the lie that straight women / bisexual women are being harassed off of radblr.

I've also noticed they tend to privatize their account / delete and remake when they start to realise people are catching on. Have you noticed this too?

well thank you

and no, i know some are women, because i knew them before they went completely off the rails, such as @radfemcroatia and @whitemoonselena9b4t who was the first person i argued with when i joined radblr.

i remember that bc i said to her: "i know you must be like 15 or so and you're very smart for your age, but you're wrong" and then she went: "I'm 50 and this is ageist" "WHAT!"

some of them WERE radfems who found a way to dignify their internalized misogyny.

its just spite and hatred, so when people undermine the arguments I say "how many people usually end up in the hospital over tumblr discourse?" Tumblr communication isn't real, but sexism is, which is why its easy to see why even women can fall for it.

ofc they do lie about the straight women. i have yet to see an actual example of an osa women say the thing s they claim (outside of them pretending to be one in anons)

But i have noticed what youre saying and i can completely understand where you're coming from. for instance, radfemcroatia with several other accounts came back, not to mention the bots.

For some of the blackpillers? They act just like fungaljungal /anti-terf-association.

Just yesterday i had a post with NO TAGS other than #blackpillfeminism but i saw an account with gore and pedophilia on it start commenting about the "hypocrisy of women" as well as commenting under specifically anti blackpiller accounts.

i mean one of the blackpillers literally is a child sex offender. Who was invited and checked into their community.

But sometimes, even though i know for a fact this attract real women, i look at the post calling for women to commit mass suicide if they're feminists and i lose hope altogether. I never stop trying to get them back, because it seems like the few of them who are actually women have been manipulated by a sexist and myopic telegonic pseudoscientific rhetoric that they turn to feel "not like other girls"

which i hate to use that term, i really do, and i never did because that term seems like a derogatory term, now, that women use to put other women down for not wanting to conform. Not to mention its also perpetrated by victims of misogyny who want to separate themselves from a binary, but in this case, it is so extreme and blatant and spiteful that i have no other word to call it.

they call other women "low iq subhumans" but they refer to themselves a the progenitors of liberation because they are self-aware of "how stupid women truly are."

they repeat the idea both in implication and in candid that they are "biologically superior to "foids" and that "foid" isn't just a derogatory term towards women, but to a 'breed' of human. one that is "lower class" and "genetically inferior" someone who is a "slave to their DNA" being that they are "inclined to only comprehend the lizard part of their brain". And that, despite what they may see with their 2 eyes, these women are NOT like them, and don't deserve kindness or sympathy.

Despite believing they are genetically advantaged than "normal" woman, they are still victims of misogyny in the end, but the hurt they cause for others, mentally and physically, makes me think that this "coping mechanism" which requires the mental gymnastics of the Olympics in order to justify a tin-foil hat conspiracy just to justify the bias they have towards women.

I think in many ways their ego cannot live without it, keeping in mind that these women have all dated men and are embarrassed by how they were with them.

every woman was the victim of internalized misogyny at one point, although this is certainly the most extreme case I saw. And though it's true that they're victims- the women they're distinguishing as "low IQ subhuman who asked for rape" - don't have the luxury to be the kind of victim that the women in these communities are.

They don't want to feel vulnerable, but i won't stop trying to pull them back in, although its disheartening, not just death threats i receive, but its disheartening because the more i try, the more they double down.

[canonizzyhours]

OK I'm glad this blog is back because I was just looking back at some old season two interviews David Jenkins did very early and I have a question that I don't want to post on my own blog because I don't want to invite the usual rancid canyon discourse about how they felt betrayed by season two etc.

Lots of people speculated about steddyhands becoming canon in season two and obviously most of that was either totally unfounded or came from Gizmodo interviews that claimed to be paraphrasing djenks but had a suspicious lack of direct quotes. But I did find one TV Guide interview where Jenkins said directly that "Stede, Blackbeard, and Izzy are on an arc together. Whether they're in stories together or not, their ultimate arc is together."

Does anyone know what that means? Like, a really surprising thing to me about season two was how much Izzy's arc was completely separate from Ed and Stede's. Like a couple meta writers have pointed out, you could basically remove Izzy's arc entirely from season two without changing anything about the central Ed/Stede plot. I can't even figure out how there could be anything cut from Izzy's arc that would really have him interacting much more with the Ed/Stede stuff, obviously lots was cut from season two but that would have to be a pretty significant plotline that was completely excised and I don't see any clear trace of it left. I guess "whether they're in stories together or not" could mean the storylines are thematically linked even if they don't actually directly come together but I don't really see that either tbh. Was he just pandering there or what?

#478.

[max1461]

Here's my other problem with tumblr discourse: even when I make the context/intended interpretation of a post really explicit, people ignore this context and respond to it in like... for lack of a more charitable term, a discoursebrained way.

So a while ago I made a post about some ethical intuition I had, and at the top I put a huge disclaimer which said something to the effect of "this is just an expression of my feelings, it's not meant to be a philosophically airtight position, please don't take it as such", followed by a readmore and then the actual post. Why did I do that? Because I figured that if I didn't, people would nitpick it in various technical ways that missed the basic point. Lo and behold several people still did that, and when I replied basically restating the disclaimer, one of them said "oh I didn't even see that. Well I think if you post a half-baked thought online I retain the right to nitpick it".

I guess that's true. My blog is public. But the point is that I want to use my blog for certain things and not others, right, that's what I'm attempting to do. And people seem actively resistant to my attempts to guide the discussion on my blog in certain directions, which makes blogging less enjoyable. Of course some people will always do that, that fact doesn't bother me, but it feels like the irrelevant/point-missing discourse so often overshadows the meaningful discourse that I start to feel less of a desire to put in the effort.

Like, the point of issuing that disclaimer was to say, as explicitly as I could manage, "I am trying to have a discussion about feelings and intuitions here, I am aware there might be ways these intuitions are not fully consistent, but that is not the discussion I'm trying to have". But even so explicit an attempt to specify a conversation topic does not work; the discourse machine demands a certain kind of engagement and that is the engagement every post will get no matter what.

I don't want to put the person who missed my disclaimer on blast: it's honestly an error that anyone could make and on its own it's no big deal. If said person is reading this: you didn't do anything wrong and I am not mad at you, to be 100% clear.

It's not a one-off mistake that bothers me, it's the fact that this is how discussions on here so often go that putting in the effort to discuss things productively often feels wasted.

Another example of this that... if you go through my #society tag, you will see a lot of uncertainly in my phrasing. You will see me say a lot of "it seems like we should..." and "we should find some mechanism to..." and so on and so forth. Why? Because, as I've mentioned before, I've gotten a lot out of political discourse on here. When it's good, I actually find it quite good. But it's good when it has a constructive or collaborative tone, when I am bouncing ideas or thoughts back and forth with someone. Generally I am trying to invite this kind of discourse.

Sometimes, again, I say it really explicitly. I don't have them off the top of my head, but I know there are quite a lot of #society posts where I've said something quite straightforwardly to the effect of "here are some niche social/political issues I've been contemplating, does anyone have any ideas for how to respond to them". Obviously there's a spectrum in how explicit I am about this, but even when I'm really clear, most of the responses I get are still "discoursebrained", in the sense that they seem antagonistic and generally more interested in saying "X guys are cool and Y guys are lame" than in productively engaging with a set of ideas.

Even if you disagree with my claims or my premises, there is a way to state that which adds to a conversation instead of shutting down a line of inquiry. I am always trying to invite this type of mutually-productive discussion, and I so rarely achieve it.

Over the years my methods have changed. I come from a background of like, forums for specific nerd interests. Those places are plenty contentious, full of plenty of drama and disagreement. But ultimately, I always still felt that productive discussion was valued above destructive discussion; that because we were all united in a common goal of [doing our nerdy hobby], a comment where you build on someone's idea to say something useful to others or to introduce a new insight was generally valued above one where you just said "you're wrong for such and such reasons, hah!" or even "you're right for such and such reasons".

Coming from this background, I assumed this would also be the case on tumblr, and that I would not have to put in any extra effort to invite this sort of discourse. Alas, this was not true; even long and thought-out replies from respected discoursers often just amount to "here are the guys I agree with and here are the guys I disagree with, for such and such reasons". This is lame and boring and not appealing to me.

So over the years I've tried to be more and more explicit about what types of discussion I am trying to have, I've tried to tee up the sort of interactions I want as much as possible, but it hasn't really worked.

The problem is not strictly the quality or measuredness of the responses or their tone or anything like that. These are the things most people focus on when they critique the discourse, but I think they miss the point. The problem is that most responses don't seem to be intended to advance a mutually-productive discussion, they don't build on the base of what they are responding to, they just make various assertions and statements of allegiance in the vicinity of the material they are responding to and call it a day.

Maybe this is too harsh. I'm sure I do this too. And it's not always bad. Sometimes I use someone else's post openly as a jumping off point to elaborate my own ideas (although I try to be careful about this, and also make it somewhat clear that I am doing it), and this can be productive. I do actually want to hear people's ideas. It's not any single instance of these things I'm complaining about, it's just that discoursey responses seem to drown out all other types of discussion, even when you are really clear about what type of discussion you are trying to have.

So that's my complaint.

[khaire-traveler]

This is not an invitation for discourse. I am just stating my personal opinions.

I've been seeing some posts going around lately about myth retellings and wanted to give my opinion on something: I think the helpol community (maybe other polytheistic and pagan communities, too) is honestly too critical and intense about modern retellings (and even some historical ones as well somehow).

I know what it's like coming from that critical point of view. I used to be highly critical of certain retellings and stories that used Greek mythology. They used to deeply bother me, actually, but overtime, I realized that staying mad and fuming about these things I can't change - that will always be created - is really exhausting and even causes me to miss out on some truly interesting stories.

Also, seeing how intense some people can be about retellings has actively discouraged people in the community from writing them. How do I know this? I am one of those people, and I happen to know several others in the same predicament. Some people in the community will rip and tear and claw at retellings as if the retelling murdered everyone they loved. People talk about these retellings as if they're literally destroying the earth itself sometimes - like, seriously, y'all, it's wild.

Once, I saw someone post a short story they wrote - a retelling of a myth that I won't name, as I don't want to give the identity of this person away. This person posted this story with good intentions and was a worshipper of the figures depicted within the story, but still, they got absolutely dragged by larger Tumblr blogs and were torn into and literally chased off of Tumblr. This kind of behavior is not ok for multiple reasons, but the main point I'm trying to make is that we are actively making it harder for people within the community to write retellings. You want retellings from people who actually worship the gods? Then maybe make the community a much less judgmental place because sharing creative works takes a lot of courage as it is. Imagine building up the courage to create and share a retelling just to be ripped into by the very community you are a part of. I'm not saying you can't mention to someone when they've gotten something wrong or have written something potentially problematic, but I am saying that you shouldn't ruthlessly dissect someone's work and rip them a part if they seem to be well-meaning but misinformed (assume the best; not everyone is out to get us; easier said than done, I know). You can give criticism while still being respectful to the original author.

For many of these other authors, however, they likely don't even know that worship of these gods exists in the modern day, and even if they do know, acknowledging it may not be relevant to their story, or even their point. Sure, in a perfect world, these authors would acknowledge our little community and pay homage to actual ancient traditions/culture/etc, but we don't live in a perfect world, and that's ok. It is ok, y'all. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be a literal classics major or historian. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be educated on the actual ancient -or modern - worship of these gods. Not every author writing a retelling is going to pay homage to original source material. Do those things suck sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to lose our heads over it? No, not really. We can choose to focus on other things - on material and media that we actually enjoy and that do depict things how we'd like them to be depicted.

Now, none of this is to say that there are no problematic retellings or that speaking out on problematic retellings is wrong because hoo, boy, there are quite a lot of those. Some retellings claim to be historically accurate and are, in fact, not; some retellings are written by authors with less than ideal values and ideologies; some retellings are even based entirely on misinformation which can be frustrating to hear about. All of these things are true, but it's also true that not every retelling is out to get us. Not every retelling is trying to attack our small community and the gods we worship. As alarming and offensive as it can feel sometimes, it's important that we take a minute and realize that honestly, authors write stories, and sometimes a story is truly just meant to be a story. It's nothing personal. It feels like we, or our gods, are being attacked, but at the end of the day, we still have our own practices, and we are still allowed to engage with those practices. We are still allowed to worship our gods respectfully, even if others do not. And it is important to acknowledge here that others do not worship our gods. These authors are most likely not worshippers of the Theoi. They most likely do not have relationships with these gods as we do, and unfortunately, they may not have respect for these gods either. It would be ideal if they did, but they just might not, and there's no controlling that.

Honestly, most authors are trying their best. They're trying their best to write an interesting, authentic story that will capture the attention of their intended audience. They want to tell a story based on a mythology that inspired them so deeply, so carnally, that they felt the need to write a whole ass book or create a whole ass game about it. They see stories of tragic heroes, powerful gods, and all those caught in-between, and they think, "This is fucking epic; I'm gonna do something with this." Greek mythology is fucking cool. There's absolutely no denying that, and the fact that so many creators of all kinds continue to create retellings based on the love and passion of a mythology from over 2,000 years ago is pretty damn awesome, actually.

[spyroz]

i dont reblog those posts about how hard it is to have moralizing ocd in online spaces, even though i deeply resonate with them. ironically, i can only talk to 2 people about my ocd, because one of my obsessions is that other people will assume im using my mental health as a shield against criticism if i talk about it. therefore, if i talk about my ocd in any circumstance, my brain believes that i'm already doing something immoral

basically, most of my obsessions resolve around people assuming bad faith of me or that i'm somehow secretly an irredeemably bad person, no matter how hard i try to be good. i am a bad person if i dont reblog posts about serious topics, spend every waking moment thinking about extremely serious topics, or make any social mistakes whatsoever (which is scary because i'm also autistic). i believe that i am irredeemable if i make a small mistake, and i often think all my friends are waiting for me to make a mistake so that they can attack me, and that my life will be ruined if i fuck up. im constantly scanning all my interests (and people i know) for the tiniest imperfections (far beyond healthy amounts of criticism in your interests) out of fear that liking anything or anyone makes me a horrible person. if you dont take a side on this lgbt label discourse, then youre a bigot! im ALWAYS mentally preparing responses and apologies to totally theoretical situations of people being upset with me. i have intrusive thoughts about doing the immoral things that scare me most.

the problem is, *talking about* any of these thoughts invites people who will actually bad faith me. "if youre so worried about this stuff, then you must have something to hide! you just want to avoid accountability!" they make your obsession a reality by accusing you of the exact thing you fear most. none of these thoughts are reasonable or realistic, and i know that. i know that i'm mentally ill. i know logically that i'm as good a person as anyone else. when i actually do make a mistake, i stay level-headed and apologize, acknowledge what i did wrong, and change my behavior

but there is a large part of me that does not want to heal from my ocd, because i believe constant self-monitoring and self-critique is the only thing preventing me from becoming a horrible person

there is nothing i want more in this world than to be a good altruistic human being who is capable of growth, but spending weeks trapped in thought loops analyzing all my behaviors for the smallest signs of a mistake will not help me be a better person. it makes me a worse friend. it drains my energy so that i dont have the mental capacity to actually spend time being kind to others. i reread this post many times while writing it to make sure i didnt accidentally write 6 different slurs. but i can't figure out how to heal. what the fuck do i do about this

this is incredibly hard for me to write about. i'm fighting the urge to delete this post as you read it. i cant stress how debilitating this is for me, it is the biggest hurdle in my life and it sucks away days worth of my time and energy. i will become trapped in thought-loops THE SECOND im not kept sufficiently busy and stimulated by tv/music/my bf/being out of the house somewhere/etc. so much of my life is wasted wanting to be good, that i dont get a chance to actually live the life of a good person

i really hope this post resonates with someone. ive only met a few other people who have this particular kind of ocd, and its extremely isolating. but i want to try to heal from it, and i know the first step to healing is talking about it