sheofthevaleperilous-blog

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This extends beyond Magic: The Gathering, but is especially relevant given what’s going on in the online community right now.

Exclusions: Attributes vs. Actions

Due to recent events in the MTG Community (on Twitter and other places online) I wanted to share my views on the matter as simply and straightforward as possible.

If you think it’s OK to exclude people from the community because of their gender: You’re acting like a jerkwad

If you think it’s OK to exclude people from the community because of their race: You’re acting like a jerkwad

If you think it’s OK to exclude people from the community because of their sexuality: You’re acting like a jerkwad

If you think it’s OK to exclude people from the community because of their age, weight, country of origin, religion, economic status, disability, or appearance: You’re acting like a jerkwad

If you think it’s OK to exclude people from the community because they’re acting like a jerkwad: You’re right!!

Wait a minute, that last one seems hypocritical. Isn’t ALL exclusion bad?! Don’t ANY exclusions make someone a jerkwad?!

Nope!

See, the key difference comes down to whether the exclusion is based off of someone’s attributes or actions.

Things like gender, race, age, disability, etc. are examples of personal attributes. Excluding others based off personal attributes is wrong.

On the other hand, excluding people based off their actions is entirely reasonable, and even necessary.

Take cheating for example. Cheating is an action. It’s something people choose to do. When people cheat, it hurts other people, and the game as a whole. Because of this, there’s a long history of excluding known cheaters from the game.

But what if I enjoy acting like a jerkwad? Isn’t it wrong for people to exclude me for doing what I enjoy?

Nope!

I’m sure there are people who enjoy cheating too, but that doesn’t make it a valid way to participate. If the actions you enjoy harm other people, then the community has a moral obligation to hold you responsible for those actions. There need to be consequences, and those consequences may include being excluded from the community.

I feel like this whole post is a pretty big downer. Is there any good news?

Yep!

One of the wonderful things about actions, is that they can easily be changed!! Acting like a jerkwad is a curable condition!

The cure for cheating is incredibly simple: Just follow the rules of the game, and be honest!

Likewise, the cure for being a jerkwad is equally simple: Just have compassion for other people, and use that compassion to drive your words and behavior!

(And if you find you’ve acted like a jerkwad without meaning to, use your compassion to recognize your error, apologize, and try to learn from your mistake to drive future actions. Just keep moving forward and doing your best!!)

Thank You

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

random railings reproaching right-wingers

i’m just saying, that we need to colonize another planet, pronto-- or maybe get to building a habitat on the moon-- or fuck it, let’s even go full Rapture. not because we need more space, but because we need somewhere to send all the people with that outdated 1950s sort of mentality, where they can be with others who think as they do, and live out their lives in their bubbles-- we can even call it Real America and they’ll get a super boner over it. they’ll pay to go.

it’d be kinda like Amish country, but nobody would find it charming or interesting or want to visit -- unless they wanted to live there

i’m not saying ship them off or force anyone to go. i’m just saying that it would probably make a lot of things easier if it were an option

(ps - of course it wouldn’t work)

(pps - I don’t know why I thought this was funny)

(ppps - damn you, autocorrect, don’t you capitalize my i’s for me)

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

Random Transwoman Things, Part the First

I do remember being so excited when ordering my breastforms. Though I got them on amazon, and the size that they were supposed to be and the size that they are-- well, very different. Thankfully I’m a big girl or they would look ridiculous.

There are some things however, that you just don’t know, when you’re making your first awkward forays into the arcane nonsense that is the world of women’s clothing. Things you would not think to ask. And I don’t even mean the lack of standardized sizing (which is absolutely a problem, and I knew about that well in advance)-- but rather the fact that most articles are so goddamned THIN that I constantly have to layer or run the risk of something becoming see-through if the light hits it in the right way or if the material stretches just so. In summer, this is a nightmare.

As if this wasn’t enough-- I made the mistake of ordering breastforms that had nipples on them. I’m not even sure why I did this at the time. But those little fake nipples poke prominently through MULTIPLE LAYERS OF CLOTHING.

I never thought, in my life, that I would be frantically applying scotch tape to my prosthetic nipples in an effort to keep them flat...

...the bastards took three strips each too.

I tried using heavier tape at first, by the way.

That’s no good either-- because on some of my tops, the outline of the tape shows through then.

FML.

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

just a quick note- no trans person has ever said “did you just assume my gender.” trans people are very aware of how their gender and physical appearance differ and that visually one might assume that they are a man/woman when they are actually not. that’s kind of the whole idea of gender dysphoria. 

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

oh and by the way

we are not 'transgenders’.

we are transgender.

or you can just say trans

or trans/trans* (pick one) people

there is no s or ed.

it is an adjective, not an all-defining label.

we are everywhere and we come from all walks of life.

being trans is also not a mental illness.

this is according to mental health professionals and is not up for debate.

we are not fucking broken.

we are more than just trans.

just like you are more than just straight.

or gay.

or a woman.

or a man.

or blue.

or a personification of a chee-toh.

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

Also possibly me:

fuck this emo stuff I am going to just reblog cats and fashion shit

[sheofthevaleperilous-blog]

A wild post appears...

Poor, baseless, and ill-informed arguments are best addressed with cogent rebuttals in a manner that is professional and respectful.

This is not going be anywhere near that. It does not work. Trying to have an intellectual argument increasingly (especially over the internet which is foolish for all sorts of additional reasons) gets responses like:

"My coworkers/friends/family members/people I talk randomly with say..."

Who cares? 99% of the time, they have no more authority than the person commenting to say the awful things that they say. You hear things from enough people in your social groups, and that repetition leads your idiot brain (not that you are an idiot specifically, but your brain is easily influenced without critical thinking) to believe what you heard is credible.

Many people have been taught that if they see/hear multiple sources saying the same thing that these repetitions are more likely to be true. This is called corroboration. This is not at all a bad practice. But it should be from multiple credible sources--and that credibility has a lot to do with context.

This is great if you are trying to figure out something that just happened, and you are comparing notes between what your sister, your friend Bill, and your boss all saw.

This is not so great if you are arguing a point about a serious issue and you heard your sister, your friend Bill and your boss all say the same or similar things. It does not matter if you think they are “smart”. Smart people say and believe dumb things all the time. I know I have. I know I will in the future.

"I spent 30 seconds on google and here's this website that says..."

Did... they read the site? At all? Did they critically evaluate the content? Are they willing or able to concede any bias?

The answer to those questions is usually no.

These are also the same people who will often immediately attack any similar evidence presented as biased trash regardless of the lean of their own.

Google is a great resource for finding answers to a lot of questions. Being able to use Google to find the right answers to questions, however, is a skill. But anyone can publish pretty much any garbage they want on the internet, and do, with increasing frequency...

(pause to break the fourth wall here to look slyly at you through computer screen)

...and thus, the task of using Google effectively, arguably becomes more and more difficult every day.

"Well I feel that..."

Who cares? Feelings are irrelevant. I do not mean as in, “all feelings are all irrelevant and I am a robot beep beep boop,” but rather they are no basis for an argument. I can feel like the moon is made of cheese all I want. Those feelings do not magically make moon rocks an edible topping for my crackers. Using “I feel” is a device to try to keep an argument from getting personal, it is a good one, and I think it is underutilized.

Compare:

I feel your argument is idiotic.

and

You are an idiot. (More accurately: UR A IDIOT LOL)

Truth be told, neither (none) of these statements are ideal, but the first is not a direct attack on the person saying them.

Regardless, I feel does not lend any form of veracity to a statement following it.

Which brings me to:

"You are a...” (Translated from: See above)

And you can insert whatever insult or slur your imagination can think of in lieu of that ellipsis. I am not even going to address this except to say that this is way more common, and people love to bandy about the statement that “well, the anonymity of the internet allows jerks to be jerks without fear of reprisal blah blah.” People do this on Facebook now without a second thought. Children and adults alike. A good number of them no longer even care if they are anonymous.

Lastly, I do not expect to convince anybody of anything regardless of how solid and well-crafted my rhetoric is. As such, I do not feel the need to make the effort.

Even using tools like “I feel” to try to keep an argument from escalating into nasty bouts of back and forth ad hominem attacks (potential idiot point: I am not sure if ad hominem implies attack, and I may have just made a statement here like ATM machine) a lot of people have gotten to the point where they will take any statement against their ideas or beliefs as a directed attack on them personally regardless of the intent. They will dig in their heels and kick and scream and plug their ears, metaphorically speaking. (Note: This is how small children behave.)

I am tired of writing, and revising for now, to be honest, SO--

Here is the TL;DR

This is not going to be well-formed, linked and cited pieces of argumentation. This will be raw, and angry, and probably more than a little emo. I have titled this screaming into the void, not polite discussions with the void.

Of course, I may just never use this, too.

And this may be the first, and last thing I post.

I’m not doing this for anyone else but me.

But I am posting this on a place on the Internet, so I am not so naïve as to believe nobody will ever read it.

(PS: Apparently writing this in Word first and pasting it into here was a very poor idea as many of the characters did not paste properly do to character map incongruences. I think I caught them all, but I may have missed one or two)