#also aware i am on the piss on the poor website and anyone can see this... this is just mary's pov i dont think addiction | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

echodrops · 5 years

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Kicking the Hornet’s Nest...

I’m procrastinating hard on other tasks, but in chit-chatting (both on tumblr and on Discord) about my stance on criticism of fanfiction, I realized that there’s a very low-hanging analogy I can make to explain my thoughts on this, so…

Uh first, please remember this is my personal blog and just my personal opinion. If you think that giving unsolicited concrit is the worst, I promise I’m not here to grab you individually, shake you by the shoulders, and try to change your minds. We can agree to disagree; I’m fully aware my opinion is unpopular on tumblr but also fully aware of the irony of people giving unsolicited criticism on a post about why unsolicited criticism is a good thing.

And second, please note that the analogy used below is only an analogy and not meant to be a one-to-one comparison–obviously the issue of vaccination is a far more critical, serious, and solemn issue and the topic of criticism on fanfiction (of all things) is not equal to a global health crisis that has cost real people’s lives. I’m drawing radical comparisons to thought processes because it’s shocking, not genuinely comparing fanfiction comments to moral and ethical world health decisions because I think those two things are equitable in importance.

Uh and third, please don’t respond unless you’re going to read it all. I'm happy to take your constructive criticism after you're finished with the whole thing. I get so tired of people rushing to my inbox after only getting half way through my arguments–90% of the time, I already addressed the thing you wanted to come yell at me about and you just didn’t make it there, promise.

So, at the risk of pissing off just about everyone who thought they respected me before this:

The current anti-concrit mindset stems from a similar logic to the one used by anti-vaxxers.

(This analogy lasts a grand total of five paragraphs or something, don’t get your jimmies too rustled.)

Most people on tumblr are happy–downright gleeful–to mock anti-vaxxers. The average anti-vaxxer is considered close-minded, self-centered, and under-educated. Although the issue of anti-vaxxing is probably more complicated than we paint it here on this website (to be fair, I wouldn’t know if it’s more complicated, since I agree that anti-vaxxers are generally stupid and don’t look into their arguments very often), almost no one on tumblr has any issue with anti-vaxxers being dragged up and down the block for their bad choices.

Usually, the logic of anti-vaxxers is understood to work something like this:

Anti-vaxxer: I don’t want to expose my child to something potentially harmful, so I am not going to vaccinate them.

Literally everyone else: You’re exposing your child to far greater risk in the long-term by not vaccinating.

Or:

Anti-vaxxer: My child doesn’t need to be vaccinated; they’re fine as they are. Those diseases aren’t a big deal anymore.

Literally everyone else: This mindset will make those diseases a big deal again.

On paper, sometimes anti-vaxxer logic works out–it is true that some children suffer very painful and awful reactions to vaccinations. It IS true that poorly made or contaminated vaccinations have killed children and will continue to do in the future. It IS true that vaccinations are painful and stressful for children in general and can even–depending on how the children respond to pain and how their doctors/nurses treat them–result in long-term phobias and health care aversion. There can be serious lasting consequences from vaccinating.

But most of us laugh in the face of anti-vaxxers. Why? Because we know that in comparison to the number of benefits, the risks are minimal. In the long-term, the number of people helped by vaccines far, far exceeds the number of people hurt.

I hope you can see where I’m going. At its core, the issue of giving unsolicited constructive criticism follows a similar pattern of short-term risk aversion. Authors who don’t want constructive criticism and choose to actively refuse it are following a similar thought process to anti-vaxxer parents:

Author: I don’t want any constructive criticism. Criticism can be painful, and my writing doesn’t need to be exposed to that.

Or:

Author: I don’t need any constructive criticism because my writing is fine as it is and I’m just doing it for fun anyway.

The general attitude seems to be that exposing fanfiction authors to unsolicited constructive criticism carries more risk than it does reward. And please be aware that I’m talking about genuinely constructive criticism here, well-intentioned and polite comments (the vaccine in this analogy), not troll comments deliberately designed to hurt people’s feelings (which would be equivalent to say, an injected contaminated drug in this analogy–no one should be okay with those).

But like anti-vaxxers who insist that the short-term risks of vaccines are more dangerous than the long-term risks of major diseases… is there really any evidence that genuinely constructive criticism, even when unsolicited, really does discourage and upset a large number of fanfiction authors? Or, more to the point of the analogy–is the number of people who would be entirely discouraged from writing ever again by some constructive criticism really greater than the number of people who would benefit from getting some (again, polite) tips for improving their writing? Which is the greater risk–being hurt in the short-term or losing out on the opportunity for growth in the long-term?

Clearly there are different opinions on this and I suspect that my opinion is heavily colored by the fact that I am older than the average tumblr user and therefore have many more years to look back on to weigh on the scales of this debate.

But I will always, always argue that the long-term benefits of helping other writers where you can far, far, far outweigh the short-term risks, for a couple reasons.

1) The world is a shitty, disappointing, stressful, and painful place. We encounter harsh criticisms every single day. Your teachers will give you poor grades. Your bosses will tell you your work isn’t up-to-par. Your friends will tell you the new top you bought and absolutely love… actually makes you look like you’re wearing a potato sack. If you’re into relationships, you’ll probably experience at least one break-up in which you hear that it’s YOU, not them, who is the problem. Your feelings will be hurt by callous comments from others an uncountable number of times. Your confidence will be shaken, if not actively crushed. I’m sorry to say it, but for almost all of us, having some miserable, anxiety-inducing and extremely discouraging moments in life is part of the unavoidable human experience. (And this is doubly, maybe triply true when we are starting out new hobbies or first entering a new field. Anyone who has ever tried to learn how to skateboard and gotten laughed at by experienced skateboarders knows exactly what I’m talking about.)

The world is full of truly awful things. And I’m not the kind of person who thinks we should just be exposed to all of them right from the get-go and fuck you and your snowflake feelings or things like that. I highly urge people to tag for triggering content and am on the record again and again telling people to block characters or ships that make them uncomfortable.

But many fanfiction authors are young authors, some of whom are posting work for public consumption for the very first time. Still more have no positive experiences with constructive criticism in the first place, and the extent of their literary criticism knowledge comes from really awful and boring high school English classes. When budding writers encounter a sudden explosion of access to readers–from having maybe one or two friends read their work to suddenly having their words in front of the eyes of thousands of strangers on the internet:

It’s disingenuous to give starting writers nothing but positive feedback. Only hearing positives about your work actively discourages change and self-reflection. It gives writers an unrealistic picture of their work that can result in far more serious disappointment and embarrassment later. When someone is awful at singing and they’re only told how nice their voice is, eventually when they sing for a more serious group of strangers, they’re going to be in for a very, very miserable time.

It’s a terrible missed opportunity for young writers to get a glimpse of what “professional” writing is like. Everyone benefits from genuinely constructive criticism–both the person getting it and the person giving it. We create young writers who are passionate about improving their writing by inducting them into the culture of planning, drafting, bouncing ideas off each other, finding beta readers, and taking others’ advice to grow their abilities, and oftentimes, one of the first experiences a person has with that process is someone spontaneously going “Hey, what if you tried this instead?” People often become inspired to become doctors and nurses after witnessing a family member experience a medical crisis–people often become inspired to become writers after receiving thorough feedback on things they have written. It’s impossible to really know whether or not you want a piece of constructive criticism until after you have heard what the criticism is, and adopting a “no unsolicited constructive criticism” policy as a whole creates an entire generation of fan writers who would miss out on opportunities for growth and inspiration.

This is waxing REALLY philosophical, but bear with me here, because this is also a well-documented concern of mine: we are entering an age in which people are no longer responsible for the media choices they make, where the internet is no longer viewed as a the equivalent of yelling into a crowd of (potentially dangerous) strangers, and the onus for protection is shifting away from self-preservation “I need to not put myself near upsetting things” to “other people have the responsibility not to expose me to upsetting things.” I’ve seen a lot of people say “If authors want constructive criticism on their fics, they can just say that in a note!” My ladies. My guys. My non-binary buddies. This is the utter opposite of how the internet functions. When you put anything on the internet, you are literally putting it before a crowd of an absolutely uncountable number of strangers and there are no rules (barring the laws of their home countries) dictating how they can respond to the things you put out there. Posting your writing on the internet is explicit consent to receive constructive criticism from anyone at any time unless you take actions to prevent that in advance. Sites like AO3 actively grant you the power to dictate who can SEE your work, comment on your work, give you the power to remove messages, screen comments before they appear, block comments entirely, or simply write in any of your notes sections that you do not want constructive criticism. (If it’s that easy to write “I want constructive criticism!” why is not seen as equally easy to write “I do not want constructive criticism!”?)

Public spaces on the internet are opt out, not opt in.

Why do many (though lord knows, not all) tumblr users easily agree to the idea of “If you don’t like a ship, you should just block it” or “If you see properly tagged content you don’t like on AO3 and you click it, that’s your own fault for not reading the tags,” but have the complete opposite mindset when it comes to constructive criticism? “I’m submitting my work in a public place where anyone can express their opinion on it… But even though there are multiple tools at my disposal for discouraging and blocking opinions I don’t agree with, it’s actually other people’s responsibility not to say anything that might upset me.”

As I said, waxing philosophical here, but this is kind of a scary mindset. The ability to enter a public space–and the internet is the MOST public space in the world–and then declare that you simply don’t want to listen to dissenting opinions is scary. I mean, this is how we get a common anti-vaxxer mindset–I don’t want to listen to your opinion because I have my source telling me I’m right and that’s all I need. “I put my work out in a public place and left it accessible to everyone, but I don’t want to listen to what everyone says about it.” I don’t mean to jump off the slippery slope, but this issue is a slippery slope in and of itself. Down this way lies a dark future. “It’s other people’s responsibility to curate my social experience for me.”

But really, after all this… I just flat out think it’s important to give genuinely constructive criticism to each other without people needing to ask for it because it just kind of sucks to see a fellow writer struggling with something and not say something about it. It’s not about feeling superior or thinking you know better than someone else; we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and spotting something that could use a bit of work in someone else’s writing doesn’t make you a better writer, it just means that’s not your particular weakness. When someone is struggling to learn to swim, you don’t just leave them to their own devices and assume they’ll figure it out–even if they swear they’ve got it. When someone is learning to sew and you, who has sewed that exact thing before, don’t offer any advice, that’s not encouragement, it’s apathy. There will be many, many, many times in your life where you did not know you needed advice. Where you did not know HOW to ask for advice. Where you might have known you needed advice but not really wanted to admit that. Where you might have known you needed advice and been too shy to ask for help. Where a piece of advice completely from the blue changes the course of your life. Fandom as a whole–fan creators as a whole–cannot become a culture that closes the door to that vital form of communication, rejects willingness to not only uplift but also help each other grow even when we least expect it.

Anyway, I’m literally just writing this to avoid real responsibilities, but the point I’m trying to make is:

Most writers, even very young writers, will not be discouraged by polite, well-intentioned criticism. They may not like it. They may not take any of the criticism to heart, but most people, even young people, are far more resilient than tumblr (which on the best of days is a negative feedback loop that can romanticize a victim mindset because having the saddest backstory makes you immune to cancellation) wants to give them credit for, and a vast majority of writers will not be traumatized or scared away from writing by people trying to offer them genuine advice. Remember, no one here is advocating for asshole trolls who post comments like “Your writing sucks and you should delete your account.” A majority of writers, even very young writers, will be able to weather the storms and tosses of even really rudely-worded advice and recover. Sometimes it might take a while, but human beings have survived as a species because we’re really, really persevering.

(But some people aren’t! you might say. Some people really will give up writing if they’re criticized! And you’d be correct. There are people who will give up, even if all they are faced with is a single gentle, well-intentioned piece of criticism. But the truth is… People give up on hobbies for all kinds of reasons! Not every hobby is for every person! Every hobby carries with it its own challenges, its own share of risks, and its own pains. Learning a new hobby consistently requires putting yourself out of your comfort zone. Wanna learn how to ride a snowboard? You will get bruised. Wanna learn how to play chess? You will lose. Wanna learn to draw? Someone will make fun of your early drawings. You will make fun of your own early drawings. Wanna post your writing on a public platform? Someday, someone is going to say they’re not a fan.

And that leads me to address the point that just keeps coming up and coming up in this issue: People aren’t always posting their fics to improve as writers! A lot of times people are posting for just fun or for personal reasons.

Yeahhhhh bullshit. No, no, hang on–I don’t mean that people don’t have fun writing and posting fics, or that fics can’t help you through traumatic experiences because everything I’ve ever posted is basically me dealing with my own personal shit–what I mean is that there’s always an additional dimension to posting your fics on large-scale public websites. People write stories and share them with their friend groups for fun. People write characters overcoming trauma and share them with their therapists (or the friends who help to fill that role) for healing. People post their stories publicly, where anyone can respond, for validation on top of their fun and healing. There are ways to hide your fics entirely on many sites. You can leave things in drafts. If a fic is appearing as unmoderated and open to the public on a major fic site such as AO3, Wattpad, ff.net, etc., it’s because that fic’s author wants responses from others! They want views. They want subscribes. They want kudos. They want comments. There’s literally no reason to post publicly except for your work to be viewed by the public.

The fun one has writing a fic is often tied directly to the thrill of seeing a comment or kudos notification pop-up in your inbox. We love seeing people enjoy our fics–it absolutely makes my day when someone sends me a message telling me they re-read my fic for the third time.

It’s NOT fun to write something and get no response.

Writing something and getting no response is actively discouraging, actually.

So whenever someone says “They’re not writing fics to improve as writers; they’re just doing it for fun!” I have to laugh a bit–because when the concept of “fun with fanfiction” is tied so closely to the experience of having your work viewed and enjoyed by others, the fastest and surest way to increase the fun you have with your fanfics… is to improve as a writer. The more you write, the more you improve. The more you improve, the more loyal readers you gain. The more loyal readers you gain, the more excited people you have to gush about your fics with. Want a Discord server full of people willing to help you brainstorm ideas for your favorite AU? Write well, attract followers. Want fanart of your writing, probably the most fun and exciting thing I can think of as an author? Write well. Just plain old want more friends in the fandom to talk about your favorite characters and fic ideas with? Make writer friends.

People have fun writing about their favorite characters and post publicly to receive responses and validation for their creations… Responses increase the fun writers have because they make the hard work of writing worth it and give you people to keep writing for and with… Improving your writing increases the number of people attracted to your works and the number of people willing to spend time responding to them… The bigger the response you get, the more invested you become in your fics, the more fandom friends you make, and the more you want to write–it’s a process that is self-fulfilling, but also one that exposes you to criticism by its very nature. The very act of seeking responses from readers means that you’re open to responses that you don’t necessarily want to hear.

And I actually don’t mean this in the way of “If you can’t handle the heat, don’t jump into the fire.” What I mean is that it is impossible to create a world in which everyone who starts writing sticks with the hobby and keeps churning out works for us to enjoy forever. It is impossible to create a world in which no young writer will ever feel discouraged and give up. The writer you decided not to give constructive criticism to might just as easily become discouraged and quit writing because they didn’t receive enough response.

The first time you give your child a new vaccine, you cannot predict the results. Your child might suffer an allergic reaction. They might die. Every year, numerous severe reactions to vaccines do occur. But the majority of people don’t question the effectiveness of vaccines because we understand that the number of people who have severe reactions is very low in comparison to the number of people who benefit from the vaccine. The number of people who will be discouraged from writing by genuine, polite, constructive criticism is minuscule in comparison to the number of people who will either 1) benefit from it directly and be thankful you gave it, 2) not benefit but not be upset by it, 3) be mildly upset by it but then benefit, or 4) just be mildly upset by itself and then move on with life unharmed because sometimes people say things we don’t like but that doesn’t ruin our lives every single time it happens.

I’m not saying that providing polite constructive criticism doesn’t have risks, just that its risks are smaller than its benefits.

And I’ve successfully whittled enough time away with this now that I can go to sleep without guilt over the things I didn’t finish, but I started this by saying the long-term benefits outweighed the short-term risks and I feel obligated to defend that…

The long-term benefits of well-placed constructive criticism are enormous. Sometimes people need ego checks. Sometimes we need wake-up calls. Sometimes we need a gentle helping hand and didn’t even realize other people could be the help we needed. Sometimes we need a reason to get fired up–even if that reason is spite, trying to prove a critic wrong! Sometimes the answer is glaring us in the face and we don’t notice until someone else points it out. Sometimes we just plain out make mistakes. Sometimes we need a teacher because the ones in school let us down. Sometimes (oftentimes) other people bring incredibly unique perspectives to our stories that we would never have been open to on our own. Sometimes we write something unintentionally hurtful and need some gentle correction. Sometimes we could be having a lot more fun if we knew the tips and tricks others had to offer. Sometimes improving ourselves is hard but worth it. Sometimes bitter medicine is the only thing that will cure an ailment.

Shots hurt. People avoid them because they aren’t fun–what parent wants to expose their child to the painful, stressful situation of getting stabbed with needles? (What parent looks forward to the yearly flu shot themselves?)

We naturally flinch back from criticism. There are many times when we swear we don’t want it, don’t need it, can’t bear it! In the moment, it is incredibly difficult to be confronted with someone basically implying that you should change something integral to yourself–your art. No one likes to feel like they’re being picked apart for weaknesses, definitely not.

But sometimes a single comment can make a massive difference in your life–even when you didn’t want it at first.

All my life, I have been helped along by teachers, family, and friends who refused to settle for patting me on the back. The people who mean the most to me, who I most credit with getting me where I am today, are not the people who just told me I was good at things. They’re the people who told me I was good at things BUT. They people who challenged me to not just sail through life or even coast in my hobbies, content with the level I entered on–they’re the people who had faith in me and trust that I could refine my skills, could have even more fun IF I took that next step, challenged myself to go a bit harder… They’re the people who took the time not just to skim over my writing and slap a thumbs up on it, but the people who thought hard enough about it go: “This story was good, but have you thought about…”

Today, I’m a professor of English because I started writing fanfiction when I was 11 years old. Because I started posting fanfiction when I was 13. Because at 14 years old, someone–without being asked–taught me the correct way to format dialogue and how to strengthen my dialogue tags. Because at 15, someone flat out laughed to tears at a cliche metaphor I’d extended too far and I was ashamed, but they taught me something else to try instead. Because by 18, I’d received–and taken–enough unsolicited writing advice to land myself the highest paying on-campus tutoring job my university offered. Because by 19, someone challenged me to write something I told them was impossible for me. Because by 20, that impossible writing became the sample that got me accepted to grad school. Because by 21, I was furious enough at the criticism I received from my creative writing masters classmates to write a thesis so feverishly overwhelming that it inspired one of the foremost postmodern poets in the country. Because by 27, it was brutally honest criticism that gave me the gall to finally leave an abusive job and apply for a teaching position. Because by 30, I got to sit at a public literary journal volume launch and watch an entire class of my creative writing students become published authors.

And even though I joked about why I was writing this, and even though I’m really not, at the heart of it, trying to persuade any one person over to my side, I hope it’s clear how much of a labor of love this post is. How passionate I am about this topic.

This whole thing is a drawn-out plea: Please, do not let fandom creation sites become a place where no one offers advice unless it is begged for. Do not miss your chance to help someone else improve. Do not close the door to criticism that could change your life. Do not let fear of short-term discouragement prevent you from seeking long-term growth. Do not let the immediate side effects cloud your view of the global benefits.

Inoculate yourselves with good advice as a shield against the very hard future.

A dearth of criticism will not make fandom a better place. It will just make it a quieter one.

#anyone want to take bets on how long it takes someone to get outraged #skip reading the actual argument itself #and put something in the replies or my ask box that was blatantly answered on this post itself #it's 4am so like I give it about ten minutes #writing #fanfiction #constructive criticism #I tire more each day of tumblr's bizarre ways of thinking #like could you imagine if this was the attitude in any other hobby #nah bro #I know I almost broke my arm back there but I don't want any skateboarding advice #I got this #yeah I know the horse has broken loose and is kicking people but have you tried NOT commenting on that #you didn't brace your sculpture correctly and it no longer resembles what the art gallery expected #Jesus ask before you give concrit for once

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thattimdrakeguy · 5 years

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If anyone’s curious if that bitter anon from yesterday came back, they did.

I’m not gonna directly respond to it, because at this stage maybe they’ll leave it be if I don’t, but just to summarize what they said and how I feel about it to anyone that’s curious, here it is.

The anon starts it off by saying “You must have mental health issues”, which I didn’t really have a response to, because I only really raised my eyebrows and wondered what they were doing on Tumblr if they seemed to be so hateful. This isn’t a website that predominately supports that kind of behavior. They actually do the exact opposite. They frown at that sort of behavior.

It’s also pretty irrelevant too, because that doesn’t change anything I said. That still remains.

So the trend of irrelevant statements is still here.

Then the anon go on to act like and say they weren’t doing what I said they done, even though some of it shows in the asks I did let people see.

They go back to just say “Just thought you should tag your posts”, and they say it like that’s all they said, even though I still have those asks up, and you can still see the part were they tried to call me a coward. So it’s not exactly like that’s all they was saying.

but they learned a bit.

He’s not calling me a coward anymore, they’re calling me a liar, because they doesn’t believe that I don’t tag Damian in critical posts out of respect, but then

why exactly do you think I don’t tag it? I tag the other Batboys when I critique their writing, I think the only other Batboy I don’t occasionally is Jason, because every now and again I see some of his fans in the tag get aggressive, and it’s pretty obvious to see they don’t wanna see it. So why would I tag it for them to see?

Do you just want people to yell at me for having an opinion? That’s sort of a ridiculous point. That’s not very gentlemanly.

If it’s going to upset people why do you want me to tag it?

Maybe you just want it to be more open to response, but it still is open to response if anyone wanted to.

I’ve already talked about the time I became friends with someone talking about our views on Detective Comics Rebirth, even though I sounded more genuinely mad about Detective Comics Rebirth in the post we started talking over and we didn’t even agree on it.

I don’t deny people the opportunity to not respond when I don’t tag it. I could turn off responses. I’m just not gonna make people see a post they don’t want to see in the tags.

I’m aware these may not be your points, but this is how you’re coming off. You don’t seem to actually have a point, and if you did, it’s not a very good one. So that’s the point I’m trying to make more clear.

You even had a chance to response to it in a polite orderly way, but you blew it on saying irrelevant stuff that wasn’t really an argument past the level of superficial.

In the end your argument rattled down to “I personally liked that stuff” and “other people liked it”, it’s not much of an argument to waste the time over, and I’m not gonna yell at you because you liked it.

So don’t think that’s what I’m trying to do to you, I mostly just been trying to point out how you don’t seem to have a logic to your responses.

If someone told me they just liked the stuff that I didn’t? As long as they took the time to read and actually consider what I had to say, who am I to care? I’m not gonna be thinking about it all night because of one singular guy.

Before I went to bed I already forgot about you.

I think they’re just upset that I had enough problems with the writing Damian has that I could fit it in an essay long post, but that doesn’t change the fact I still talked nice about Damian in some spots, and have probably made even longer posts about some of the bad writing Tim suffered.

So it doesn’t feel like his frustration is completely just.

It just boiled down to, they really like Damian, and they wanted me to tag it so more people to see it, but then why does that upset them so much? I explained why I don’t tag it, but they still don’t believe it. Why do they want me to tag it so badly? To open it up to more responses? Sure, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it appeared that more people would be upset than happy to respond. Which I already tried to explain to them. Why would they rather people be more upset? It doesn’t come off like they have a just reason from every viewpoint I’m able to look at. To tag it causes more problems than to not. It’s simple. So let me respect people’s wishes by not tagging it.

I don’t feel like not wanting to upset people with my opinion is something that makes me a coward, and it’s not something I’m lying about. If they aren’t going to understand that, and just continue to call me a liar, than I’m afraid he’s stuck.

If it’s something about believing that the people who enter the Damian tag have the right to see it. Then you’re just ignoring how people told me they don’t want to see it in the Damian tag or maybe you just don’t want to believe that. You continue to call me a liar, so you show you don’t believe it one way or another.

Maybe you’re just trying to flip the coin of my logic around to look more selfish. Thinking that I’m somehow selfish for not allowing people to see them, or maybe you think I’m selfish because I don’t want to be yelled at for my opinions,

but I already told you why I don’t. You just don’t believe it. So again it just comes back to you not believing me, you’re still stuck, and fighting a lost cause, because I know what my reasoning was even if you don’t believe it for what ever reason you have.

You might just have poor connotation for me since I spoke ill about the writing Damian has had, and can’t believe that maybe I’m not as devious as you hoped I was when you started to enter my inbox.

Sorry to let you down if that is the case.

Which I admit I’m not sure of, but I’m seeing enough to show that it could easily be the case.

In the end I’m not sure what your actual logic is. I’m giving out what I can only understand to be the logic, because it doesn’t make sense to me any other way unless maybe you just don’t have any logic because you don’t know what you’re doing.

If your logic turns out to be something I said though, and you’re still angry at me;

Recognize your own behavior first, because you don’t have a good reason to say what you say.

You had a hunch for what ever reason you do, and you rolled with it, and it’s false.

People assume false things all the time. I’m not gonna claim to know everything about you. I’m only trying to understand you, and explain to you why your logic isn’t good as a learning experience, because hasty behavior is something you can still learn from.

I’m still not 100% sure if they read the posts 100% either by the way, because they say they’re not trying to gaslight me, but I already said in one of them that I’m pretty sure they didn’t actually know what gaslighting was, but they were showing that behavior, meaning it was probably a coincidence but they were still inadvertently doing it.

Because it’s either that or they genuinely didn’t know what a lot of words meant or maybe they just don’t know what they’re doing and just saying stuff as they went along.

They could possibly be trying to gaslight me into thinking I’m a liar, at this point though I’m not sure why they’re continuing to say things at all, but if they actually looked at what gaslight means I’m not sure if they’d continue that if they knew what it meant. Id be nonsensical if they did.

So I don’t really think that’s what they’re doing, at least not on purpose (like what I assumed last time), but at the same time when I think about it, I’m not really sure what they’re trying to do, because I know I’m not lying and grating at that point is pointless.

I’m gonna note as well that they don’t bring up straw man arguments to deny that, and they changed their stance from coward to liar.

So it seems like they’re recognizing some stuff at least a touch, it’s just they don’t all the way.

Maybe they genuinely just think I am a liar, and are having a hard time figuring out their words as they’re pissed about it, but they went from coward to liar. So it’s hard to tell what they actually think when I think about it. They make it complicated to follow since they don’t use any logic besides assumptions and nonsequiters.

At the very least they might’ve been trying to make me bandwagon by saying what other people think, but if they think I actually care what random people think, I do not believe they know how I work. I pretty much got this blog popular by being honest and not bandwagoning with other people.

If they weren’t saying it to do that, then they were just speaking random, or maybe just trying to make me feel bad about my opinion.

If not, why bring it up like it adds anything?

Just to see if that’d upset me?

It adds more fire to the idea that they believe I’m more devious than I actually am, or just that they don’t read my posts all the way through to garner a better idea of what my thought processes are like.

Or even maybe they’re just sore that I don’t agree with them and can’t help but say what comes to mind, only to create the mess they made my inbox be.

They also say “Don’t care if you like Damian or any of the other Batboys [not sure why you’re bringing that up]”, and it’s so silly, because it’s just ignoring the obvious at this point.

You gave me now 6 asks that are completely salty about me not liking Damian. Ya kept bringing up stuff like how you felt he was popular, and cute, and all that, when nothing about it was relevant, because I never asked you what you thought, or said he was or wasn’t popular. I’m open for a discussion on it, but nonsequiters in a pissy tone isn’t a discussion. You’re just randomly telling me what you thought while sounding upset. There’s a difference.

It’s the kind of stuff people say when they’re upset.

It wasn’t done to show an actual argument, there wasn’t logic or anything, you didn’t really try to explain it too well beyond what you simply felt. You only felt it, and it’s okay that you have your own opinion that you feel, but when I made a critical post, I gave my own logic, my reasoning, so forth, and you respond with what’s practically nonsequiters. You don’t come off like you’re trying to debate me, or give your own argument.

You just come off like you’re upset at me.

Saying that he’s popular, and that you think he’s cute doesn’t challenge anything I said for it to be a debate/discussion or even argument.

In one of the asks I didn’t share, because I was worried it might’ve been one of the more embarrassing ones for you, there was only one effort at logic.

You said that Damian could have cute mannerisms, but it still feels like a nonsequiter because when I explained the multitude of different things about his mannerisms and behavior that are disgusting and horrific. It comes off again like you didn’t read my posts all the way through before you tried to respond.

It seems like you saw that I didn’t agree with you and got ahead of yourself, and people do that on occasion. Everyone does at one point in their life, but please just learn from it.

Damian’s made several sexual comments towards Steph, has a prison he makes people suffer in, constantly assaults the other Robins, has a nasty attitude towards other people, stalks people, constantly kidnaps people, and insults people even when they’re having a nervous break down,

They said he could have cute mannerisms in the context of me being upset that other characters called Damian cute in some terribly written comics, but when I give the obvious logic of why him being cute doesn’t work, and you ignore that; saying that he could be doesn’t function as an argument, because I already explained why that doesn’t work. It’s not like a real argument when you don’t take the time to listen to the other person.

Which may come off as irony to you, because there’s a possibility that you think I’m replicating the behavior of not listening to you, but you aren’t giving me anything to listen to, and if you’ve been reading my posts (which you might not be), I acknowledge what you have to say, it’s just what you’re saying doesn’t make enough sense to respond to it more head-on anymore.

Your headcanons, or any writing that ignores his behavior without character development isn’t going to make your argument a strong one or give good reasoning.

Your other responses only end up just being random and defensive, like how an upset person would reveal themselves. I.E. the comments on how he’s getting popular. That’s not much to respond too, and doesn’t really make an argument, if that’s even what you’re viewing it as.

So I think they’re just oblivious to their own behavior when it comes to the more random stuff (or they could just be trying to upset me somehow), while there’s a chance they might be trying to play dumb so they can at least seem oblivious.

It’s very ridiculous, because if it’s not something that’s a conscious decision, it’s still a bizarre thing to read when the other person is trying to make a point of some kind.

You can’t say that you don’t care, and then continue to act upset, because that shows you care at least a little bit in some way.

I don’t care a lot about what you have to say, because of reasons I’ve already stated, but I care about giving you to chance to improve yourself and how you present yourself.

They also end it by saying “when Tim gets a new suit I’ll be back to look on you”, like they’re trying to scare me maybe. I can’t tell why they brought that up. I guess because they’re well aware I don’t like Tim’s new suit, but again,

that’s incredibly irrelevant, and only makes you look more frustrated.

I know you’re trying to upset me by reminding me of that, but you’re continuing the same pattern as always.

If I didn’t care about anything you said before I’m not gonna care about that, and don’t try to send me another ask projecting onto me or saying that I secretly am upset at Damian becoming popular (saying that since maybe that was what they was trying to do by bringing that up), because think about it.

At this stage I’m just pointing out what makes no sense about what you say. I’m not really complaining about anything past “stop saying irrelevant and illogical stuff” am I? Something that’s gonna bite you in the butt if you try to say either one of those things basically.

They also said “I’ll be back to look on you” after saying “block me”, so I don’t know how they think they’re going to be able to see any of my posts if I block them.

They didn’t really learn much in the end.

The next time they send me an ask I probably won’t even summarize it, because it’s just gonna be more of the same I imagine, I’m not gonna respond even if it’s funny, because I think that’d be bad taste at that point.

If they learn about how they’re acting, then maybe that’ll warrant a response, but they haven’t so far.

They never even denied they were a kid, and so if it comes to making fun of a kid, I’m not going to do that. I’m just trying to let them know that what they’re saying isn’t logical, and to get them to learn about their behavior. Being aggressive like this over the internet is something a lot of people will regret after a while.

They’re very lucky that they’ve been doing this as an anon, and not showing their full time account, because id only bite them in the future even more that way. They at least have the cool down of knowing that no one knows who they are (unless they told somebody).

The main reason that I haven’t blocked them yet is because I genuinely think that they might have the capacity to learn from what they’ve done, and maybe not even right away, but perhaps sometime they will.

So I just want them to learn, but if they won’t, then I’m not gonna play tutor.

(I’m adding this bit at the end to make it more clear, because maybe I’m beating around the bush too much.

You say one thing to deny something, but then you continue to act in a way that shows the opposite, making it look like you’re either lying, playing dumb, or oblivious to what you’re doing.

You can even deny it again in another ask, but if you read anything I say, it’s incredibly obvious what you’re doing. You might just not be aware of your own behavior yet.

Everyone has to learn about their own behavior at one point or another. It’s a part of growing up and becoming a person. It’s harder for some other people, but a realization can help people grow a long ways.

I know you’re upset that you don’t know what I’m talking about, and believe that I’m misunderstanding you, but look at the proof. People often don’t know what they’re doing at the time until later.

I’m not trying to yell at you.

Just learn about yourself, and improve.)

#I know I'm repeating a lot of what I say in just this post and from other posts #but I'm hoping maybe repetition or explaining it in different ways may help make what I'm trying to say more clear #Discourse

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