#understand your own arguments

[chimaerabutt]

If you’re afraid of reading anything written by anyone with conflicting views to you because you think consuming media of “the enemy” will lead to thoughtcrime, you should perhaps do some deep thinking on the religious trauma you still need to deconstruct, and examine why you have replaced religious dogmatism with an ideological dogmatism your belief in is somehow so fragile that simply reading the wrong thing could shatter it.

It is important to read things, even doctrine heavy manifestos, by those ideologically opposed to you. It is important to understand their viewpoint and the people that wrote them.

Understanding is NOT agreeing with. Reading is NOT agreeing with. If you do not understand, do you even know what you are opposing? If you do not understand what you oppose, do you even know what YOU believe?

The less you understand those you are against, the less you understand about their beliefs, the shakier your own arguments, the more susceptible you are to propaganda, and moreover, the more likely you are to Other them. Normal human beings are capable of absolutely terrible things. YOU are no less capable of absolutely terrible things because you think the Right Thoughts ™️

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Do not cling to political ideology as though it is a new religious doctrine with its own forms of “Sin”.

Important and Good are not synonyms. Many important things are terrible.

They are still important.

[dailyloopdeloop]

DAY 71: shy

[leniisreallycool]

"Belphie was stuck in the attic for years!" "No he was up there for decades!"

bitch he was stuck in the attic for a few months at most. Lucifer sealed him there immediately before choosing MC for the exchange program (a week or two at most). If it had been years or decades since Belphie was locked up, MC couldn't have been in the exchange program because they would have been old or even dead.

Also, Solomon and the angels arrived in the Devildom the same day as MC. They left on the same day which means exactly one year would have been the day MC arrived. Which means the demons sent to the human world and the Celestial Realm also left the same day. Belphie disappearing years before the program officially started would have been extremely suspicious and Lucifer's lie would have fallen apart immediately

[kahluah]

*puts hand up* sorry I’m very new here what’s the context with what’s happening with the tag war??

Alright, I will give my run down, but I will not be naming any blog names on either side even if I have the info and the action was net positive. I just like to use my blog to scroll and reblog for the most part and refuse to embroil myself in the drama more than just giving my view on it as a bystander. One that definitely has an opinion on the events, but also as someone who would rather curate my own experience than fight.

So all this fighting that is going on, it used to just happen in the normal "Jiang Cheng" tag because back then there was no "canon Jiang Cheng" tag; it had not been created yet. (By that I mean it was not a tag used as a tag, Tumblr's shitty search algorithm might still show posts if one typed it in to the search bar because those posts had the words 'canon', 'Jiang', and 'Cheng' in the tags separately, but there would not be posts with "#canon Jiang Cheng" because nobody normally creates a post with a tag like that when "#Jiang Cheng" was suffice. Sometimes I see irrelevant posts in the canon Jiang Cheng tag, but the actual tag isn't on the post, the tags just happen to have all three words in them. Those I ignore because that is Tumblr's fault, not the poster.)

The fighting was between people that like the character and prefer to see the good in him and the interpretation of his character, and those that may or may not like the character (just because you like a character does not mean you need to defend their every action after all) but do not share that opinion of his character and have a more neutral or negative portrayal by contrast. The former also tended to favor or have only read the novel as it is the source material for all other adaptations.

Now things really came to a head when hate and threats were being thrown about on posts that were just quotes from the book showing the negative actions of Jiang Cheng. The people posting the quotes were basically told "if you hate the character why don't you just tag the post as anti-JC?!" but is it really right to call those anti posts when they were posting how the character acts in the source material? That is the character. That is how he acted. Look it is in the book! The character really did that! It is not somebody's negative headcanon that the character may act like that, it is something the character actually did. Personally I can not consider that as an anti character post, and neither did the people who made posts like that.

But things did get heated enough that some people finally took a step back and said "Fine. You want us to make our own space to make these posts so that you do not have to see us talk about JC this way? We will. It will be #canon Jiang Cheng and you can block it if you don't want to see the posts." Was the name picked in the spirit of schadenfreude? Very probable, but it is also not an incorrect name as the people who wanted to use it base their opinion on the novel. But the point was that the tag was created so that people now had their own space to make the posts they wanted and those that did not want to see it could block the tag. Curate your own experience; we can block tags on this site for a reason and advertising tags to block is a courtesy. (Because as said previously, the search here sucks, because the posts contain the character's name they are still likely to show up in the main tag, but block the newly created tag and you will not see those posts either way). Could the other people come into the tag in good faith and make arguments with textual support? Yeah, that was welcomed, but in the spirit of debate they should expect rebuttal. Was that what happened? No.

No instead what happened was basically this meme

They did not like the name chosen for the tag. They read the novel too and still believe that JC is good, so they should be able to use the tag too! Never mind the fact that the tag was made so they could block the posts they didn't want to see. So that they can go on with their days no longer having to deal with the people they constantly fought with. No. Instead of curating the experience of this website, they would get so hung up on the fact that there was now a tag called #canon Jiang Cheng in use that they had to use it too to defend JC from the people that post 'negative' things about him; even if it is novel text!

So while the fighting didn't stop, it did get slightly better because not everyone felt the need to jump into the new tag to defend their fave. Some people actually did curate their experience. Plus there is a block button and people do use it, so things got to a point where I would say it was relatively stable even if there was still fights here and there. (But once again I lurk, I do not participate. Things may not have been the same for more outspoken people).

But then a certain muskrat bought Twitter and a chunk of the fandom there fled here. That's when the main push to "reclaim the tag" and the new influx of people hopping into the tag to argue and defend their fave appeared. These people did not know why the tag was made, they just saw blogs that they liked telling people about the "JC-antis" that made it and how with the new people pouring into the Tumblr fandom from twitter, they had a chance to flood it and reclaim it. And since then the fighting has not really stopped.

As for what has happened in the past few days, you have JC defenders flooding the tag with fan art (not canon), screen caps from CLQ (not canon), and screenshots of a sentence or two from the novel (canon, but usually out of context or lacking additional lines that go on to rebut what was previously said) in the tag and the people who made the tag for a specific purpose getting mad about the spam. (I block so I have no clue how big the influx was or whatever but there was definitely like at least 3 new people I had to block). So when they made posts venting the anger, you got JC defenders coming back to them and going "But I never sent any hate or harassment! I just used the tag to talk about the canon character!" And perhaps they didn't, but these people in their defense always ignore and never respond to the question of why they are in the tag instead of blocking it because that is what the tag was made for. Instead they come back with "Well if you want to talk about JC that way, why don't you post in the anti tag or make your own tag!"... Remember that meme picture I used above. Yup.

The tag war began because people did not like negative posts about JC in the main character tag for JC. When told to use the anti tag or make a new tag, a new tag was made, but instead of curating the experience the stans of JC got so tilted at the name of the tag that they decided that they would come into the tag and continue the fight instead of just blocking it. Twitter fallout made the fighting worse. And now we have come full circle to the JC stans once again telling people to just use the anti tag or make their own tag.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[captainjonnitkessler]

QAnon's barbarous "do your own research" vs our glorious "read the theory"

[wellfine]

Hey I found ur art uncredited on tik Tok

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMreQSnaw/

They said they "found it on Reddit" so they just decided to steal it and post it ig?? Ugh!!

Wow, that's a whole other repost to the one I thought it was going to be, lol. It's been reposted to TikTok once before, and I'm also not surprised this person got it from Reddit, where I doubt I was credited either.

At the end of the day I appreciate the heads up but there's nothing I can really do about it. The most helpful thing anyone can do is to leave comments on the reposts to provide credit,* because if artists ever try and comment then we pretty invariably get attacked. Don't be mean or aggressive, that just builds their animosity towards the artists, but I do think people respond positively to outside pressure to do the right thing 🤷

*Remember to make sure there's enough context - eg. something like "art by @ landegart on Twitter" is more searchable/useful than "artist is Landeg" to someone on TikTok who has no idea who I am haha

[sergle]

I turned off rbs on that earlier post abt the AU that thin people live in because I could feel it wanting to grow legs. and. contrary to popular belief, I do Actually value my sanity. a snippet before I go finish making my stew: what's unsaid here, but should be EXTREMELY OBVIOUS. Is that nobody takes issue with someone who is thin, making their own post or talking to a friend, bringing up a time someone made unsolicited comments about their body. and complaining, bc who isn't going to complain abt someone being shitty at you. (that's not "skinnyphobia" btw it's usually just misogyny) but that's not what happens, bc what happens is that someone uses the time Jimmy called them emaciated in high school as a REBUTTAL, AGAINST a fat person who was already talking about their own bad experience. and that one time the dress shop didn't carry XXXS is Proof that fatphobia isn't real and that thin people suffer just as much. check and mate. your thing can't be true, because someone was mean to me Once.

[tyranitarkisser]

I do not understand this new obsession with having the "right" reading of a fictional character. Oh so and so cant be a trans boy because how could he have figured himself out by 13 - Why do you care? What do you gain from professing your personal reading of this character as the correct one? How does someone hc'ing this character as a trans man affect your enjoyment of the same character as trans woman? It doesnt!!! Just dont look at their art!!! Stop trying to start arguments for no reason!!! We are talking about our enjoyment of fiction and what everyone takes away from their favorite fiction is 100% informed by their own upbringings and relationships. You dont have to understand it to respect other peoples headcanons. Who CARES if it defies canon in some way. Why does it matter so much to you. Jesus christ

[cedarspiced]

i will be honest. if you water down the whole concept of the terms TMA vs TME as 'penis havers vs vagina havers' all it shows is that you fundamentally misunderstand each of these terms.

[monsterfuckermilligan]

i am not anti sam but i sometimes find myself hating sam because some samgirls are super into bio/gender essentialism whether or not they realize it. sam is a woman and dean is a man and sam is the victim and dean is his abuser like what show are you watching?

[buffysgotfaith]

I really struggle with people who think Wednesday/Enid are incompatible as a romantic relationship but then find them compatible as friends. Not all friendships are romantic, but every good romantic relationship has a good friendship in it’s foundation. I get we’re all here shipping fictional characters so you might not necessarily care if the romantic relationship is healthy or not so this isn’t me telling you you have to like Wednesday/Enid because they would be the healthiest ship. This is me explaining why I think their friendship could evolve into a really healthy romantic relationship for Wednesday and for Enid. 

Wednesday and Enid are opposites. That’s literally why Enid was created, to be someone for Wednesday to bounce off and to grow from. But when I see that as a reason for why they’re incompatible romantically it drives me nuts because there’s no nuance in that. It ignores all the important ways they’re similar.

- Enid is an individual who refuses to try and blend in. Wednesday is an individual who refuses to try and blend in. 

-Wednesday wants her family to accept her for who she is and not to mould her into a version of themselves. Enid wants her family to accept her for who she is and not to mould her into a version of themselves. 

- Enid is very competitive and will stop at nothing to win. Wednesday is very competitive and will stop at nothing to win.

- Enid believes she is a disappointment to her family and those around her. Wednesday believes she is a disappointment to her family and those around her. 

-Enid doesn’t want to end up alone. Wednesday also doesn’t want to end up alone. 

Their friendship is based on compromise, vulnerability, trust and understanding. Those are literally the cornerstones of any good romantic relationship. 

Wednesday, a character who compromises for very few, is very quick to start compromising on the small things to make Enid happy. The very first truly vulnerable moment we see both girls have is their conversation on the balcony where they both open up to each other. The entire reason behind their fight is Wednesday breaking Enid’s trust because up until that moment they both have shown a great deal of trust in each other. Wednesday telling Enid not to put the tape back is her way of saying she wants to build that trust back up again with less walls between them. There’s a mutual understanding that develops over time as you see them open up to each other. This is shown through simple things like Wednesday not immediately lighting the snood on fire because she understands what it means to Enid. 

Then there’s the simple fact that their friendship is the reason both characters grow. So many people tell Wednesday she’s difficult and will end up alone and she reacts with little to zero care. Enid tells her? She just about bursts into a rendition of Avril Lavigne’s ‘When you’re gone’. Enid begins to care less what other people think of her and becomes increasingly authentic in her own actions because of Wednesday. The Enid of episode 1 is running into the forest holding a disembodied hand to face a Hyde. The Wednesday of episode 1 isn’t hugging anyone. The mark they leave on each other is indelible. No other character impacts them the way they impact each other. 

Like you don’t have to ship them or like them as a romantic pairing, but to argue that their friendship could only ever be platonic is just a bad argument. It’s the very reason they are so damn easy to ship. 

[twinkmarmelade]

i often say I hate grad school and in many ways I do. I get paid under 50k in a major city in a housing crisis, despite being in a union its impossible to cap my hours or get overtime even for 70+ hour weeks, and all my notes and anything I make or discover is owned by the “university” which is really just a real estate portfolio that keeps nonprofit status by sometimes having classes inside its assets. Never mind actually I started this post with genuine excitement about learning in my heart but then I remembered

[whateverafterhigh]

Thinking about Dexter and how his parents thought there might have been a chance of him being the Beast, and wondering what about him growing up must have made them think that it was him (opposed to Daring or any of his many cousins).

Like, I know his “I’ll help anybody who needs it” approach was presented in a “I’m not like other girls” kind of way to Raven, and his agreement that it is unfair that there are people like Raven who never get a happily-ever-after is also framed for Raven’s benefit, and that both these things are there to establish him as a potential love interest. But what if that was expanded on to give him more depth, instead of just being to flag him to the readers as the male love interest?

What if Dexter was already taking this kind of approach to how he goes about solving problems as a hero at home?

For example, what if Dexter’s first reaction to seeing a mob of goblins or orcs walking up the main entrance of Charming Castle was to go out an talk to them? (Which is potentially stupid if they’re armed, and he was almost certainly yelled at for doing it) And while he’s out there he starts thinking, “hey, maybe these people have a point their conditions aren’t fair” but he’s still got to do something about the mob to at least de-escalate the situation somewhat, and so he just... helps them unionise or form a guild? And now the group are protesting legally so you’ll have to negotiate with them instead of attacking them, dad.

This will almost certainly cause friction between him and his parents because a) he’s just walking up to a potentially dangerous group of people who are armed and angry without back-up or a weapon and that’s going to get him killed one day, they’re allowed to be worried for his safety and sanity they’re his parents, and b) that’s not how you’re supposed to heroically solve this kind of thing why can’t you be normal.

Headmaster Grimm will hate it even more because he’s probably not paying the goblin and fairy cleaning staff. He knows full well that one of the differences between Kingdom Management and Kingdom Mismanagement is whether or not you should support your employees unionising, or pay your employees a living wage. Something, something... Grimm doesn’t want people to be too good because it’ll start making him look bad.

But given Rosabella is said to be supporting a new Beast-related charity or cause every week, maybe Dexter’s destiny will be the Beast?

[ms-all-sunday]

im TELLING you. sanji doesnt view nami as like delicate or feminine he's legitmately insane about thinking shes cool as hell like nami is a blorbo to him. hes fascinated with her character arc and backstory. he would and HAS canonically debated people over whether she's unforgivable or not.

people tend to misunderstand that sanji views women as lesser and thats why he acts that way towards women but its not that. the problem is the fact he assumes women inherently have more of a depth to them than men, which leads to him being less critical of their actions because historically he's identified with women a lot more than men. his actions towards nami are on principal motivated by this but i also think theres a second factor which is that because he in a lot of ways relates to nami and sees himself in her way more than he does with women generally and so he can appreciate a lot of her experiences from a firsthand perspective. she also doms him and he's attracted to that. (that much is obvious it is deeply consensual and theyre both into it) there is an argument to be made that sanji probably wasn't actually attracted to nami until arlong park.

its a very similar story with robin though id argue sanji isnt actually attracted to her or is but knows that he doesnt have a chance with her and so their relationship is more built on hero-worship. (which does come from a similarly valid place in regards to how it relates to both of their experiences). i think sanji recognizes the power robin holds over him in a much more familial way

[corfisers]

it is a bit fucked that the main hurdle in this fandom is people not accepting that something that happened in the story was at the very least not consensual. despite explicit "i don't want this" just. being right there. in the text.