#do you deride the strawman?

[amethysttribble]

We need to start using the term rage bait on tumblr there’s so much of it, and it’s never called out for what it is

[danggirlronpa]

I would like to throw in some "Tenko deserved better" to go with the "Angie deserved better". I see an excellent character within Tenko, because when she's allowed to interact with other characters besides Himiko, it makes for very good stuff. Tenko's developing dynamic with Maki in chapter 3 is the main example. But there just isn't enough if this in the main narrative of V3.

Tenko absolutely deserved better. Tenko's character is poorly written in a very different way from how Angie's character is poorly written, in that Tenko falls prey to what I would consider one of V3's biggest flaws on the whole.

A lot of people would recognize what I'm about to talk about as a sort of "Kankri Vantas-ing" of characters - a very particular type of strawman meant to represent people who critique the story, usually for lack of diversity or racist/sexist/homophobic content, and who are then derided in-fiction for doing so as a sort of "gotcha" to fans who dared to be critical of their media. Hermione's belief in House Elf rights from Harry Potter is another famous, somewhat subtler (and far more insidious) example of this.

This is something really, really hard to avoid in fiction that centers around commentary about audiences and bystanders. The Hunger Games is a famous example that avoids this really well - even the people who the Capitol is meant to be an allegory for will criticize it, because the thing they're being critiqued for (massacre of children for sport) is relatable enough for people to make connections to real world situations, but distant enough from reality that it isn't taking personally (amongst many other reasons the Hunger Games succeeds with this).

In fact, I would also argue that THH does an excellent job with this, too. THH does a great job of presenting itself as very straightforward torture porn, only to slowly reveal over the course of the plot that the excessive violence has been deliberately made so gruesome in order to be used as demoralizing propaganda, both to the participants being observed and to the people across the world who it's being broadcast to. The realization that the gratuitous violence was being used towards a cause brings on a whole new light to us, the audience, engaging with it, and forces us to think critically about how such violence could potentially be used to influence us in similar ways in real life. That's powerful! That's a statement about propaganda that shines a spotlight on us as an audience without accusing the player of some inherent moral wrong! That's good shit!

When V3 chose to separate itself from this messaging, that did not by itself create a worse story; however, the decision to replace this with watered down "liking violence is bad" messaging, complete with blatant double meaning statements where the joke is You Should Dislike Previous Danganronpa Titles, is a HUGE disrespect and general kick in the nuts to these previous conclusions.

V3 does a TERRIBLE job at separating its in-universe audience from its real-world audience. That is the whole plot twist of v3, that there is an audience proxy of you, and they suck. And between Kiibo crying "robophobia" to mock any diversity-related critiques, and Tenko crying "degenerate male" and purposely playing into The Predatory Lesbian stereotypes to criticize specifically gender and sexuality-related critiques...hoo boy. It Gets Grating. And having to peel past that to see the genuinely compelling character info underneath shouldn't be such a slog.

[calder]

Not tryng to start anything but some of your deep lore is getting a bit new world order or even blood libel conspiracy adjacent. I'm positive you don't mean it in this way but the deriding anyone or anything ingame that contradicts this very little known lore part is still making it hard to look past the genuine conspiracy vibes. You don't need to respond to this but I was hoping you'd keep it in mind.

thank you for speaking up. it's extremely important to me as someone who indulges in occult fiction to prioritize the safety and comfort of marginalized people.

i know there are people who follow this blog despite disliking the occultism stuff on the whole, but i hadn't considered how my maniac schtick might make them feel in this regard. i'll adjust my tone. i imagined a pedantic strawman, not an offended one. i apologize. i would never tell someone who finds this entire subplot politically distasteful that they're wrong to feel that way. it's lovecraftian conspiracy fiction, and you have every right to reject it on those grounds.

my occultist approach to fallout is intended to satirize occultism and conspiracy culture in itself. if it's making you feel unwelcome, i'm doing a bad job.

if and when my treatment of any concept makes you uncomfortable, please don't hesitate to tell me. your feedback is sincerely appreciated as i attempt to rehabilitate these troubled stories and synthesize them into something positive.

[raxistaicho]

Examples of toxic masculinity

Ordinarily I just ignore @Nilsh13′s spiteful mini-posts where he tries to post gotchas because they’re just that and often quite stupid, but today he posted a VERY interesting one that goes a long way to explain why he takes such umbrage with facing up to Faerghus’s issues of toxic gender roles (aside from the usual Edelgard hater’s refusal to address that Faerghus has social issues to begin with that can’t be swiftly and easily blamed on Edelgard or the Agarthans).

Specifically;

This is NOT toxic masculinity. Yes, Greil is handling Ike’s training with a “toughen up!” approach, but note that nothing here is rooted in Ike’s gender. He’s saying if Ike can’t hack his training he won’t make it as a mercenary, not that he won’t make it as a man.

These distinctions make for a huge difference, and seeing as how being a mercenary means fighting for your life as a form of career, it’s only reasonable to expect your child to be damn good and ready to do the job. Nobody derides Rhys as a weakling or less of a man for being physically frail. I suppose you could make a case in that he’s evidently forcing his child onto the battlefield, but feudalism be like that. And in any case, Mist had to learn her own swordplay from somewhere.

What Mist is doing here is toxic masculinity, but there isn't a consistent theme of how it affects the characters like there is in AM, it's just the background radiation of the worldbuilding. Also no one is going to drag a little girl over the coals for regurgitating a cultural assumption in a frightening situation.

It’s similar in that the Tellius games have the faults of nobility as consistent background radiation without really addressing them beyond putting the “right people” in charge of the system, just as Azure Moon’s only attempt at addressing all of Faerghus’s problems is to put the “right king” in charge of it.

Nilsh seems to think that toxic masculinity is when boys/men are told be strong, when in reality it’s more when boys/men are told to be strong because they’re boys/men.

Then again, it’s a step above the usual conservative strawman of assuming toxic masculinity is when men.

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Morality Focused Frameworks of Discussion as Acts of Control (Part 2)

Okay, so initially I decided not to make a part two instead to follow up with some conversations more directly, but there are some further thoughts I have that I want to get out that have a more general tone.

I want to talk about fandom discussions as a whole more, because I think we need to address something in terms I don’t think I’ve seen acknowledged much. Specifically, I want to talk about the How of “discourse,” and not the What.

Disrespect And Boundary Violation As The Socially Expected Norm:

I think that all too often, we focus on what a specific conversation is about at the expense of talking about how we are interacting with each other - and this is in turn often at the expense of personal boundaries, benefit of the doubt, and ethical, empathetic conduct.

I think this is a huge problem, because the combination of those elements is basically a recipe for harm, particularly for unaddressed and repeated patterns of harm that is often essentially consequence free, or even outright celebrated.

At the very least, these kinds of behaviors have been normalized to the point that questioning them is sometimes equated with tone policing or “crying victim.”

And yes, that is a problem, even if you think there is a “moral issue” with how someone engages with a piece of media.

Furthermore, it’s worth talking about the fact that social media today is structured to allow interactions with strangers that can and do often happen without your consent. The disregarding of social interaction consent has actually become extremely normalized.

Now, that’s a complex issue, I’m not arguing that trying to talk with strangers is an automatic heinous consent violation. But it is worth noting that the ability to maintain control over one’s own boundaries is much more limited in these spaces. Blocking is a site mechanic, it is not really a socially ingrained method of boundary establishment that everyone respects without being forced to do so. And even then, people will absolutely copy and paste your words for their own use, entirely without even consulting you or allowing you to have agency in the situation. This allows them to maintain their own framework around you and your words and interactions, with your consent being a non-factor. Again, disrespect is completely normalized.

With Disrespect As A Baseline For Engagement, Moralized Frameworks Establish A Struggle For Conversational Power:

When you come into a conversation without respect for your conversational partner, you are more likely to assume that their disagreement with your principles is an indicator of their inferiority, intellectually or ethically.

When you are seeking the means to dismiss the thoughts and feelings of someone who disagrees with you, you are more likely not to come into a conversation willing to be open and understanding to alternative perspectives. The assumption that another person’s perspectives automatically aren’t worthy of your time creates a mental feedback loop where it’s easy to reinforce binary rules around what thoughts and feelings are acceptable.

Furthermore, the intent to maintain one’s own perspective as an impermeable truth makes a person predisposed to rejecting complexity. But the reality is that people are inherently complex, and their reasons for what they enjoy or how they enjoy something will not always match the political strawman image you might have in your head.

All of this establishes a conversational environment where the baseline of the discussion relies upon a kind of moral power struggle. Instead of trying to understand and converse from a place of full understanding, we are trying to make the other person either adopt our viewpoint as the only acceptable framework, or make the other person feel ashamed for essentially disobeying the rules we value.

Using my first post as an example, people who discover that I like Hellraiser and ship a couple that includes Pinhead and a trauma victim might make some very unsavory assumptions about what exactly it is that I’m doing. Someone who assumes I have no moral character based upon my interests is unlikely to ask me about the complex nuances of how and why I engage with the material that I do. They would not understand that I’m an abuse victim engaging in art that deals with abuse in a way that I find introspective and healing and meaningful.

However, lets say that I actually told them so.

Marginalized and Traumatized People As “Exceptions To The Rule”:

A few people have spoken recently about the ways in which fandom discourse is essentially starting to pressure trauma victims to publicly disclose their trauma as a means of establishing the right to be respected in one’s own perspectives, and I think that point is extremely relevant to this conversation.

Furthermore, this inevitably forces people who are marginalized to openly disclose and discuss (sometimes to the point of it being grueling and stressful) the ways in which they are marginalized and how that interacts with the media they enjoy and the ways in which they engage.

It’s worth noting that these conversations are often about fictional interests, and how insidious it is that this kind of thing is happening in a space where people should be free to have safe, uncomplicated fun if they wish to.

Because we have established disrespect, boundary crossing, moralization, and power games as baselines for conversational engagement, we’ve essentially created a space where traumatized people feel this intense pressure to dredge up painful experiences as a means of establishing the right to their own power and boundaries in conversations.

Interestingly, when these conversations involve two traumatized people or two marginalized people on the opposite sides of an argument, this can sometimes result in a “more traumatized than thou” battle, where each party tries to establish which abuse experience or which axis of marginalization has more value in the establishment of conversational power, ultimately resulting in both parties getting hurt and/or silenced in some particular way.

Hypocrisy and Self-Respect:

The amount of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy I’ve seen in these spaces is kind of astronomical. It’s hard to engage in a single conversation on this site without somebody pretending they are somehow superior in their engagement to others. Consider this the “Twilight Sucks” phenomenon. We will pick out groups we consider the lowest denominator and use them as leverage in conversations. “I’m a Tru Blood fangirl and I think X and Y, but thank GOD I’m not like those Twilight fangirls who think X and Y! *eyeroll*”  People who engage in exactly the things they condemn don’t seem to see the parallels in their own interests and behaviors. They will even bring these pet bully topics into conversations that have nothing to do with them in order to establish personal respectability value.

By always making this moral framework about the What, aka the media itself, and not the How, aka the myriad unique and individual ways in which people engage with that material, we establish an environment where not only is nuance completely lost, but entire fan groups are dehumanized and derided conversational leverage.

Furthermore, people seem to use this dynamic as a way of establishing their own self-respect. If they see any parallels between themselves and the dreaded X fangirls, those considerations must be dismissed and rationalized away in order to maintain a respectable self-image.

And continuing with Twilight as our example: there are major things to criticize about Twilight. But very often, those things would be secondary in the conversation to the condemnation and bullying of the teen girls who enjoyed it, or those things worthy of criticism would be used as justifications of the cruelty, disrespect, and total dismissal of those fangirls.

This is a problem, because it should be obvious that when media criticism revolves around a social power game, then the social power game becomes the emotional focus of all discussion, and no real ground is actually broken - at least not without casualties. A winner implies that there is also a loser.

The Re-establishment Of The Social Power Status-Quo:

All of this works to establish a kind of status-quo of acceptability, where instead of doing the hard work of uplifting each other’s complex, potentially very different or even opposing experiences and perspectives as valid aspects of fandom engagement and a reality of the human condition, we are constantly fighting for power over each other, more specifically for the right to be respected.

In other words, the right to be heard and allowed to exist and enjoy ourselves without harm or alienation.

I don’t feel like this toxicity necessarily even comes from a place of wanting to oppress others, although for many that seems very much part of it. More often, I think this comes from the desperation to be respected and heard that comes from the experience of marginalization. And sometimes, in our urge to do so, we can throw each other under the bus to get there.

Sometimes we can be cruel and disrespectful out of frustration, or paint people with a too-wide brush because we’re just done with how certain people have been acting, or because we’re expecting the worst out of people and unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt anymore. Sometimes I think we fall back on childish mean-girl tactics of engagement just because it makes us feel powerful when we’ve often felt powerless.

And to be honest, I completely understand. I think that in my time online, I myself have engaged in ways that I regret. I fought petty battles with the wrong people, or failed to offer the benefit of the doubt, because it felt like a righteous battle. It felt like I was fighting for justice. There were times when I failed to try and understand an “argumentative opponent.”

At the end of the day however, I believe that this form of “critical engagement” is not only highly uncritical of the self, it is an extraordinarily weak and destructive way of trying to create progress in fandom spaces that ultimately harms more people than it uplifts. It encourages abuse, gaslighting, and disingenuous, dishonest ways of social engagement. It encourages hiding, and lying, and toxic tactics. It encourages misreadings, willful misunderstandings, and silencing. And I think that identifying and naming power games when we see them might go a long way towards empowering people to have conversations of genuine substance, where respect is established and valued.

[holyunholy]

lol i got dragged into a conversation in a youtube comment section (i know i know) but it was kinda illuminating.

we were talking about the new customization options coming in shadowlands - which is essentially a new set of talent trees - and my big issue with them is that they dont allow you to re-specialise at will. you can choose between the three different trees whenever you want, but your choices in those trees are locked in, and can only be changed once a week.

so my problem with this is that there is likely going to be one tree that is best for a variety of situations - say, AoE and single target, or PvE and PvP, or Tanking and DPSing - but you are only going to be able to make choices in that tree that is optimal for one of those, forcing you to rely on a less optimal tree for those other activities (to say nothing of the fact that there are only three trees and if you want to tank and dps and raid and do dungeons and pvp anywhere near optimally you're kind of shit out of luck)

and my argument is that, like, I should just be able to make these choices whenever I want. I don't understand how more choices is a bad thing. I like having a good understanding of what options best suit any given situation and being able to implement that understanding. I dont like knowing there is something else I could be doing better but I'm just literally not allowed to switch to it.

but this guy basically resents that. he doesn't think he should have to swap regularly, that it's an inconvenience. I... don't really buy this. It'd take less than a minute, and you could just get an addon that switches you to predefined loadouts with a single button press. The item that allows you to swap loadouts outside of rested areas literally applies for one minute, because it is know that those changes take less time than that. It is known.

I just dont really think this is an honest argument on his part. I suspect a more honest answer would just be "I dont want to. I like playing a particular way even if it's not optimal and I'm tired of the expectation (either external or internal) to play in other ways to better serve the situation." But I think he expects that saying such a thing would get him called a *shudder* casual.

We talk back and forth on these things for a few posts until out of nowhere he basically confirms my suspicions. "Stop strawmanning who I am and how I play the game - just because I don't enjoy editing everything about my character every 5 minutes doesn't mean I don't play serious content."

At literally no point did I make any assumptions about what difficulty of content he was playing 😹 but he jumped straight to this anyway, locked into the imagined argument he had already held in his head and unable to respond to the actual conversation being had in front of him... the argument was already one about "elitists" and "casuals" for him.

It's like, ultimately this guy wants to play "casually," a term I do not use to deride him here. He wants to make some choices and not be expected to change them to meet a certain standard of play, and he sees the lack of flexibility in these systems as protecting him from that expectation. He wants to play casually without giving anyone the excuse to call him a casual. This describes so many people. Fuckin' insecurity man!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

“If there was a property designed for the big screen it’s Spider-Man”

Not exactly. Spider-Man is something of a soap opera and was heavily reliant upon continuity, consequences, exploring the juxtaposition of normal life with the fantastical and had a rich supporting cast too. It thrived and was designed for serializion which is at least challenging to capture on film. Really Spider-Man operates best in TV.

 “Expanding and altering the material as they see fit...What’s established Spider-Man lore can be thrown out the window”

This guy is making the classic mistake of conflating an adaption’s ability to do something with the justification for doing said thing.

It’s like saying the established lore of Deadpool being a motormouth can be thrown out the window because they sowed his mouth shut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Yes Aunt May CAN be young. But a film’s ability to have that be the case has little to do with the more important fact that she shouldn’t be!

 And Harry being Venom? Really? Gonna cite the criticall derided and panned USM cartoon to support that argument?

 “Spider-Man can be a woman, a black Hispanic teenager, a Japanese American”

Yeah, those are all seperate individual characters there buddy. Also good job showing the comic book Peni Parker who is NOT Japanese.

 “The fandom has gained it’s own giant imposing identity”

 But it always had that. Spider-Man fandom didn’t begin in 2015, it’s existed in some form since 1962. It hit a peak in 2002!

 “There has been a recent democratic push to embrace all versions of the property good or bad”

By this logic Leto’s Joker and Tri-Star Godzilla should be embraced too.

“It’s hard to be bothered by any that don’t suit your fancy”

Sorry but the MCU version is the biggest in the zeitgeist that that iteration trickles down to the other ones. They don’t exist independently and nod politely to one another. The bigger the version within pop culture the bigger their impact has on the other versions, hence merch and other adaptations in some form attempt to have synergy with the most dominant version.

This gets worse when you consider muggles who aren’t into the comics or other versions simply presume the version they know (which inevitably is the film version) is accurate to truer to all other versions. I’ve seen people straight up claim the MCU version is the most accurate to the comics when it is provably not, and based upon that misconception consequently throw shade at other iterations and even actual comic book stories. Like I’ve seen people comment that Spider-Man is ABOUT youth because he is young in the movies and regard Stark as integral to his story in general, not just specifically within the context of the MCU.

So it’s not a matter of picking the version you like, because the bigger, louder versions impact the smaller ones.

“Complaining about one version of Spider-Man these days is an embaressment of riches”

Not when it spreads misinformation and negatively impact other versions it doesn’t.

“It’s a creative decision working out for them people really like this version of Spider-Man”

A lot of people liked Thor: Ragnarok and Captain Marvel too, doesn’t excuse the problems with them. Shit Iron Man 3 and Thor: the Dark World got generally positive reviews upon it’s release. The fact we need to accept is that if a movie isn’t bad in an incredibly obvious way to Joe Average on the street and has the MCU label on it they’ll at minimum like it well enough.

“They don’t have a leg to stand on if they accepted the same idea in Into the Spider-Verse”

False equivalency.

Putting aside how these are different mediums, ITSV built in the idea of different versions of Spider-Man by establishing a norm/default iteration that contextualized all the versions that deviated from that.

The MCU Spider-Man both within the context of the MCU as well as within the context of the general pop culture is actively trying to sell it’s take on Spider-Man AS the default.

That’s why they named both of his films in such a way as to imply he belongs in the MCU, as though that legitimizes him.

Disney/Marvel 100% want you thinking their Spider-Man is not only the only or at least main version but the ‘true’ version. Hence all the merch and other products their likely audience of younger kids might be interested in at minimum bears similarities to the MCU incarnation.

“Aunt May knew of Peter’s alter ego and it worked perfectly fine there”

This is a strawman argument because no one had a problem with Aunt may merely knowing Peter is Spider-Man. She knew in the Raimi films for God’s sake!

What people had an issue with is the lack of consequences or realistic ramifications of her finding out, which turned out to be 100% true.

“A Spider-Man without much to learn anymore, and by extension a Spider-Man who hasn’t got any problems,  is a Spider-Man you can’t tell many stories with”

Royal horseshit.

First of all NO ONE figures everything out, and the wisest among us recognize that and thereby know we always have something to learn. That’s true whether you are 18 or 80.

Second of all, even if you hypothetically have learned all you can learn, that doesn’t mean you are problem free by any means.

Third of all having stuff to learn and having problems are not inherently interlinked. Spider-Man can have constant money problems regardless of how much he has or hasn’t learned.

“Spider-Man is a coming of age story”

No it isn’t. If it was it would’ve ended when Peter came of age. But at best he came of age in like the 1970s.

“If they have nothing to learn they are perfect”

Isn’t Batman the most popular superhero ever and he doesn’t regularly go on stories where he ‘learns’ stuff, but more just ‘does’ stuff?

[comatose--overdose]

People here seem to forget that everyone is a product of their environment

No one pops out of the womb woke af, aight? It's a learning process. It takes time. And ripping people's throats out over every mistake makes people scared to learn. It forces them back into their bubble, the belief that they were always right because everyone who has those other beliefs are probably just as cruel as the one they encountered, right?

I'm not saying rape or murder should be forgiven or accepted, not at all, that's bullshit. I'm putting that out there before anyone tries to strawman me. All I'm saying is that a little empathy and understanding go a long way.

Not every hurtful word is said with malice, not every damaging act is made with hatred, but rather ignorance. And ignorance should be corrected patiently rather than punished or derided. Going off on someone is more likely to reaffirm prejudices than change their mind on anything.

People ARE capable of change, but you have to give them the time it takes to try.

This doesn't apply to full-blown Nazis (though there is always the possibility of a surprising change for the better, it HAS happened (though I still wouldn't hold my breath)), this is more along the lines of centrists and conservatives.

People do grow up in places with very little diversity, through no fault of their own. People aren't always given the chance to learn how to interact with people who are different. Teach them. And if you aren't in the right place to teach them, then at least be kind. Be better. A little kindness can do wonders too.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://blakebelladork.tumblr.com/post/165328150095/if-its-not-nice-dont-criticize-it-you-have-to

Yeah, Nice Strawman. Wanna try debating  real person?

”If it’s not nice don’t criticize it! You have to say it gently!”

That’s the stupidest thing anyone can ever say about anything.

You’re right... too bad NO ONE has said that.

What you are doin is building a strawman of what I have said in the past which is “You need to say something good about a show to truly criticize it.”

Notice how I don’t say “only something good.”

Because you can say bad things about a show. But only saying bad things all the god damn time about whatever you “criticism” (Which is the RWDE tag’s modius operande) You are not a critic: You’re a hater. Even people like Doug Walker have said good things about movies or had positive reviews. I have NEVER seen anything positive in the RWDE tag. Ever. And no, the whole “it’s a tag for negativity” has no excuse here. Criticism (as in, PROFESSIONAL criticism) is inherently neutral and not meant to be negative 100% of the time. If it were, people wouldn’t take any reviews seriously.

So nice try with the Strawman but all it does is make you look pathetic.

Think of RVVBY as a person. If you go up to it and baby it the whole time saying there’s nothing wrong with what’s happening in the story and it is perfectly fine how it is, it’s most likely not gonna change and it’ll think that every form of criticism is an attack against it.

Too bad that’s not what’s going on. What you are doing is freaking at the show for making the tiniest of mistakes, mistakes which I have SEEN people look over in other shows, and never giving it praise for what it does right. Hell, most of the time people in the RWDE tag construe everything positive as negative and blame the show for faults that aren’t even there. Speaking as someone who has had this happen to them, let me tell you: it causes severe mental issues and fucks people up.

With you people, it isn’t about criticism: It’s about CONTROL. You want to control the show so you deride for anything you don’t like, ignoring how criticism and personal opinion are NOT mutual inclusive, because things aren’t going the way you want them.     

When Miles had asked for Nice Things my head was spinning. If I had a popular show like he did I would be desperate for fans’ opinions and criticisms so I know what needs to be fixed. I’m not going to bend at their will if they ask for like, I dunno, a ship to become canon because relationships take time and development, and in order for that to happen, the chracters in the ship need development and sensible interaction. Which is something RVVBY hasn’t done yet but you know what let’s move on.

See, right there. The characters have had sensible interactions with each other. Hell, Ruby and Blake remind me of myself and how I interact with people. What you are doing is exactly the problem: You REFUSE to say one good thing about the show. If all you do is bitch: Then how are they suppose to know what to do? Massive amount of negativity only leads to anger and frustration. Once again, talking from personal experience.

Also, when did Miles ask for Nice Things? The RTX panel? Gee, not like a certain group of shippers just got pissy and attacked Jeff and Arryn so Miles probably doesn’t want a repeat. Also, that disproves your statement about ships so good jb: facts contradict you.

You’re right, RVVBY does not belong to us. I’m sure that many people in this tag love RVVBY as much as I do, but we aren’t so willing to ignore its many.. many.. oh so many problems. If the RWDE tag is so bothersome to you because people like me are in it, blacklist it. Don’t even enter it to begin with. Live in the bliss of ignorance.

Fuck you.

You people don’t love RWBY at all, you love control. You’re all a bunch of fragile egotistical control freaks who can’t comprehend that maybe, just because YOU don’t like something, the problem si with you. Because you can say nothing but bad things about something and when the possibility of getting a geninuine compliment out of you is lower than getting Satan to stop being a dick: YOU DON’T LOVE IT.

You’re plea for “ignorance” is less you giving advice and you asking people to not look when you try to abuse the showrunners and the fans.

I am sick and tired of this abusive relationship people like you have with creators and fandoms. I have here a list of examples so why don’t I go ahead and read off some of this huh? 

A Japanese voice actor had to stop making image songs because so many “fans” kept bitching about his singing voice.

A founder of Studio Gainax was forced to leave because one episode of an anime was off-model and his ”fans” bombarded him.

Hideaki Anno was driven to depression by his “fans” sent him DEATH THREATS over an ending.

Voltron had a “fan” BLACKMAIL the studio with storyboard photos (which could get the whole team FIRED).

Tokyo Ghoul’s creator got suicide baited by his “fans” for making aship canon.

Samurai Jack got derided for “Compulsory Heterosexuality” for having an in-canon relationship.

Dream Daddy had an artist being attacked over a fanart and the creators ahd to stop their “fans”.

And Steven Universe? Where do I begin? Driving an artist to suicide? Implying that a show creator was racist? Attacking Rebecca Sugar and OUTRIGHT FORCING HER TO APOLOGIZE FOR IT?

And all of these fandoms all displayed the same symptoms of the RWDE tag. Fucking hell, Voltron and SU have “critical” tags that pull this shit regularly. And bad enough: Some of you assholes acknowledge that they do this without seeing what you are doing.

So excuse me if I don’t want the RWBY fandom to become shit like the rest. And excuse me if I don’t trust people who have shown signs of Psychopathy and Domestic Abusers.

[aarondinglestears]

If a guy had been brought on, some of them would've shipped him with Robert or make it into a ot3 or whatever. There would've been hate but not like if the character were a woman. Tbh it seems like a strawman argument because that didn't happen or will happen. The fact that this is an mlm ship is why there's so much misogyny. If Robert were to be with a woman or if Aaron weren't gay, there wouldn't be this gigantic, near obsessive following (which is a different can of worms).

it’s true that the guy wouldn’t have been universally derided. Days of our Lives had a very similar situation where they had a married couple (Will/Sonny) and brought on Paul for Will to cheat with. Some people started shipping them as ot3, some became Paul/Will shippers, some Paul/Sonny, and while a lot of people were bitter about it they obviously did not have the opportunity to take it out on his gender as a whole. But Paul still got p.l.e.n.t.y. of criticism.

I accept that it’s less productive to throw a straw man argument out there, but I wanted to flesh out the dynamic so we could analyze exactly what be drawn out of this specific scenario, and what we simply weren’t given the tools to take conclusions from. And, yeah, you’re right about that being a different can of worms. The ship wouldn’t have taken off in the first place if it was straight. So that’s equally a straw man argument, you know? It is what it is here/now, and the best thing we can do moving forward is condemn the misogyny we see.

[givemeyourtired]

millenianthemums replied to your post “ryaryan: commanderabutt: commanderabutt: just a quick note- no...”

Honestly all these fucking comments about "oooh noo it's ok because I only use it to mock gender identities that /I/ don't respect or see as valid so it's ok". Like, you aren't fooling anybody, inventing this literally nonexistant strawman to justify your shitty transphobic jokes and scapegoat nonbinary people

But it’s not a strawman at all. For some sure maybe. But maybe you just weren’t here a couple of years ago on tumblr or weren’t paying attention but this whole making-up genders thing was HUGE then. It’s still something people are doing, but thankfully I think most of them have stepped away from the completely asinine genders like stargender or spacegender or faeriegender, etc. Note I said most, some people still do prescribe to this idea of gender being this open-ended and malleable and attributable to non-human things.

As for non-binary, personally I don’t believe in its existence. Simply because there’s been no proof of it being real. That said however, I don’t seek out any posts or blogs to deride anyone for that. If you want to say you’re agender or that your gender doesn’t belong to the binary, cool, but I don’t buy it. Now, when proof does come out from the scientific community which unequivocally says that there are more than two genders, okay I’ll concede. But currently, this idea of non-binary genders stems from the idea that there are more than just two genders, and whenever I look into info about this, these non-binary genders are often founded upon the idea of not fitting into a traditional gender ROLE. Which a gender role is not the consummation of what a gender IS. 

A gender is your mental relation to your biological sex as far as I know. There are absolutely positively only two sexes. Intersex can’t count because 1 it’s an aberration, it happens like 1 in every 1666 according to wikipedia. That’s not a common enough rate to be considered normal by a sexual biological scale. You can’t count Klinefelter’s Syndrome either or Turner’s or Androgen Insensitivity because they’re all syndromes which mean they are abnormal disorders or sex development. And 2 most all intersex people choose to identify or naturally come to identify as female or male, and if not they tend to go to they/them pronouns which I personally have no problem with, but considering that a separate gender, I’m not so sure, to me all it means is they aren’t concerned with labelling their gender. And not labelling your gender is not the same as creating a new gender identity, in fact it’s the complete opposite.

And lastly, where is the transphobia? The goal of trans people, or all I have ever met, is to realign their dysphoria to the sex they feel they are. So an afab who is trans will try their hardest to eventually transition to male, and an amab will try their hardest to transition to female. These two instances are still ending up in the same place: identifying as either male or female. But perhaps a trans person does prefer to not label their gender and go with they/them, though I don’t see how they’d necessarily be trans at that point because dysphoria means you are unhappy with your biology and are seeking to change it to match your mental gender, you can’t be dysphoric for a non-existent sex. It isn’t coded in human genetics that we have a 3rd sex to have dysphoria to seek to become.

So where is the transphobia in people who are taking tumblr’s approach to gender in the most logical sense that they can? Now there are people who do refuse to call a trans woman a she, and vice versa, and yes they are transphobic, but that’s largely not who we are dealing with here.