#like you don't need a moral imperative to dislike something | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

txttletale · 6 months

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idk how to put this sorry if this comes off as rude/confrontational I'm not trying to be — when you say stories about forgiveness/reconciliation, do you mean more the type about forgiving & reconciling with family, or more generally (so like including - this isn't the best example but I can't think of any better rn - catra for example? where it's about being trapped in hurting people because of trauma and breaking out of that)? or is the thing you dislike more stories' framing of forgiveness as a moral imperative?

sorry if this doesn't make sense I'm just curious what you think bc you've raised some interesting points and would really like to see you elaborate on them

don't worry you don't come off as rude whatsoever! while i think my points apply broadly to how forgiveness is treated across media (rare actual example of cultural christianity) -- i obviously am not, like, against forgiveness or stories about forgiveness on principle. what i dislike about all the narratives about people forgiving their abusive parents is that:

like you said, it's always framed as a moral imperative. there is always an underlying assumption that forgiving the abuser is the 'right' and 'correct' thing to do, that not doing so would be wrong. this is tremendously insulting to survivors who have every right to not forgive their abusers!

in most of these narratives, the parent barely does shit to be forgiven. there's very often a narrative equivocation, in fact, between parent and child. like, sometimes the parent won't even be expected to apologize -- sometimes, even more grotesquely, both the parent and child apologize for their shared supposed 'wrongdoing'. this is also obviously insulting to survivors, who are not in any way responsible for their abuse or for having a poor relationship with their parents.

the reason why this in particular pisses me off so much is that it mirrors and in turn contributes to the cultural expectation on abuse victims in real life to maintain contact with their abusers, the constant casual pressure from everything from strangers to friends to acquaintances saying 'well, can't you just put it behind you?' or 'look, he's changed' or 'she's your mom' or 'you'll only have one chance to have a relationship with your siblings' or whatever the fuck. the sanctity of the family is a cardinal value across a lot of societies and this sanctity means a constant, neverending societal pressure to bow to sweeping abuse under the rug. i've seen many people i care about struggle deeply with feeling obligated to maintain relationships with family members who treat them like shit and make htem miserable every time they interact bc of exactly these sorts of sentiments being everpresent in their cultural environment. & these narratives always paint that sort of pressure as being well-founded and fair and ultimately for the better, which is absolutely repellent to me.

so, yeah. i am not against narratives where an abusive person actually confronts their actions and changes and repairs that relationship (that's another fucking thing, these narratives always put the onus and responsiblity on the character who was abused to forgive rather than on the abuser to earn forgiveness, just like in real life familial abuse victims are always fucking expected to be the ones to repair the relationship). i think such narratives can be powerful and compelling and explore questions of what the value of 'forgiveness' or 'redemption' even are, as well as dispel the mystique and exceptionalism often attributed to the 'abuser' as a holistic malevolent figure that can be cleanly separated from every other parent/grandparent/sibling/etc.

what i'm against is narratives where someone who is abused has their feelings delegitimized -- their rage is wrong, counterproductive, they need to let go and move on, they need to forgive their abusers and let them back int otheir lives because oh, they did something wrong too or oh, their abuser had a difficult life, or whatever the fuck. to which the answer should be a flat -- no. they don't. all the more power to people who choose to do that if that's what makes them happiest and safest but absolutely nobody has a moral obligation or need to forgive an abusive family member. obviously i am exaggerating slightly when i say every abusive parent subplot should end with the parent being killed with hammers, but i'm using the hammer murder as a synechdoche for a narrative treating an abuse victim's antipathy towards their abuser as something legitimate and justified and obviously reasonable rather than a flaw or something they need to move past.

#ask

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rollercoasterwords · 9 months

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i dont understand how people can come in here and ask u to re-write your whole fic that's crazy. ppl need to understand that if there's something they don't like about a fic then don't read it! the author does not cater to you. keep doing what u do rae ❤️

yeah i genuinely think people need 2 just. get better at saying "i don't like this" and moving on instead of trying to find some moral imperative for their dislike....like if u don't like remus being angry or "aggressive" or whatever that's fine! but there's no need to argue that it's "making wolfstar heteronormative" to write him that way we are just getting straight back into gender essentialism at that point....like. hello...

anyway thank u lol <3

#ask

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styrofauxm · 7 months

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can i just...rant about the online minecraft community for a moment here? I haven't really noticed this on Tumblr but I see it everywhere else and I really need to just fully vent. Specifically about the reaction to the updates/mob votes.

every single fucking year when there's an update a significant portion of the community becomes the most entitled shitheads ever born.

Mojang not adding a feature you want is not Mojang scamming you. When you bought the game, you bought the game as it was. You paid for that, and that only. The updates are free. You not liking the free stuff you get or wanting more free stuff is a you problem.

Furthermore, Mojang isn't being lazy by not adding every feature you want. They aren't making a mod that people can use or not use at will. They are fundamentally altering a game with a massive and diverse playerbase. Everything they add has to appeal to, or at least not annoy, the vast majority of the playerbase.

In addition, nobody owes you anything. You paid for the game. You got the game. The transaction is over. There is no binding contract or moral imperative to give you anything more than that. If you GENUINELY think you DESERVE something from any update, you are an entitled brat. Sorry, not sorry.

Along those lines, harassing employees in comment sections is trashy behavior. You have a problem? There's a feedback site. There's pages for updates too. Go write out a reasonable, well-meaning report. And don't fucking like comments that are clearly just mean.

Calling employees lazy in response any post/video they make is harassment. You want to do that privately? Go ahead. But there is no reason to put it in places they are likely to see it unless you want them to see it.

Yes, all of that applies to Caves and Cliffs pt.1. Yes, all of that applies to Caves and Cliffs pt.2. Yes all of that applies to the Wild Update. No, your comment is not the exception.

And don't forget the absolute dumpster fire that is any comment section about the mob vote.

Fun fact: someone simply expressing they they like/don't like an option is not a personal attack. Responding to "I want/don't want ___ mob" comments with "you suck" (or normally much much worse) is cyberbullying. If you do that, you are a bully.

If someone expresses an opinion you do not like there are a few options that don't involve hurting someone's mental health:

don't respond. don't do anything. move on with your day

dislike the comment. move on with your day

respectfully disagree with a phrase like "I don't agree" or "I actually see it this way" and have a civil discussion

Also, it's a game. It's literally a video game. It has no impact on your real life. You can walk away if you hate it that bad.

I know most of the people in those comment sections are children. But I watched MCYT as a child and never bullied or harassed anyone.

#minecraft #neon's void #rant #also sorry if this isn't particularly cohesive I'm just really frustrated because I want to see people being excited #but so many top comments are so negative and mean spirited #if i regret this i will simply delete the post

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onewomancitadel · 2 years

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I don't dislike RWBY at all-- I'm not the kind of person where if I dislike something, I keep watching it. I really like the designs, and the concepts, and the characters-- I like watching how they interact together and what that means for them, and I can turn off the social science parts of my brain that go "that's not how terrorism works, there should be like a dozen splinter cells by now" to appreciate how it exists and why. I do a lot of terror-related/radicalization/foreign policy stuff, so when I see some of the simplistic lenses that it's really often examined through it gets on my nerves even when the story by itself is good. I imagine it's something a bit like how engineers feel when they watch giant robot anime or something.

The 'born evil' thing is one of those tropes that annoys me and I really don't want to see play out, because I think it's way more interesting to examine more how Remnant was a society that maintained the peace but at a steep societal cost and how in some ways it's correct to look at that and say "actually, this needs to go like, now." And the idea of disillusionment with a 'fairytale society'-- I love the idea of Cinder and Ruby as these two opposite takes on how society and the myths it has should operate, with Ruby believing that those fairytales should be made into reality and embodied while Cinder believes all of it is a filthy lie and needs to be torn down-- both to make her feel safe personally and as a sort of moral imperative in response to her specific trauma. It really reflects some of my very stupid opinions when I was younger, and that I think a lot of people deal with that perspective in general. Remnant was always going to produce people like Cinder, and the powers that were under Oz viewed that as acceptable so long as the world stayed quiet.

In short I love it I just really wish one of the writers had a social science degree hahaha

Oh okay no worries XD and for the record no worries if you didn't XD just making sure we were on the same page.

I do a lot of terror-related/radicalization/foreign policy stuff, so when I see some of the simplistic lenses that it's really often examined through it gets on my nerves even when the story by itself is good.

Yeah no that makes a lot of sense, and I can also immediately tell that when we both discuss worldbuilding mine is on chaotic individual social variation and you are probably way more on the sociopolitical angle, I now understand your perspective on Atlas much better (you also sound much more professionally serious than me, so plz forgive if at any point it sounded like I spoke down to you, I really hope that wasn't the case, I didn't know your background, although even if you didn't have a background in it I also hope I didn't come off condescending, hopefully my posts were just conveying my different approach to RWBY).

Ftr on the Altas front, I do think objectivism is being toyed with - credit to my Best Mate for noticing this - because the Glass Unicorn is Art Nouveau themed, and, well, Atlas. I don't think 'Atlas' in Atlas refers to the Atlas who holds up the heavens! I think that's only relevant because Ironwood wants to ascend there, the 'true' allusion is a very very selfish ideology.

Atlas might be the most literarily influenced of RWBY worlds actually, because The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Omelas is Salem, O. backwards - that’s a link to a post I made on it before) bizarrely fits Cinder's situation.

So on that objectivism front: to a degree it helps me read the politics through a more 'fantastical' lens, because Rand is kind of inherently silly. On the Atlas front I also feel that there is genrebending, in the sense that Ironwood is the hero of a military anime, but like, this is a magical girls anime, either you talk about your feelings with us and hold hands or you're BUST.

while Cinder believes all of it is a filthy lie and needs to be torn down-- both to make her feel safe personally and as a sort of moral imperative in response to her specific trauma.

Yes and to some degree she is correct. That's how I read her actions anyway, both through twinning, and the fact Atlas is rotten to the core and she's victorious over Ironwood. Am I not supposed to think her triumphant??? I mean it's not like I celebrate drowning cities, but in the story if I read 'enslaved character frees herself, and then tears down the city that made her like this' I find it hard not to be sympathetic. There's also the symbolic element that fire is destructive as well as creative. Things have to be destroyed to be reborn. By the same stroke I think that as much as destruction she's capable of she's capable of equal or greater creation.

And yeah you're absolutely spot on about Cinder and Ruby twinning. I mean I think the answer is the middle road between the two of them, which is why I view them as tempering answers for each other and to Salem's nihilism. It's kind of why I like Knightfall lol (sorry to make this about my silly ship), but Jaune as a Prince Charming is a very unusual Prince Charming, I mean, Knightfall is kind of very fairytale but then on the gender front and their respective characters (Byronic heroine fallen to evil, whose trauma didn't make her better, it made her hurt more) it’s very unusual. You get fairytale magic, but then there is also some grounding reality to it that makes it interesting.

Also on the Ruby front, I mean, if her mummy is actually some sort of a Grimm banshee, that's kind of like 'my fairytale wish but absolutely fucking horrible', so I wonder if they're going to take that angle with it.

Remnant was always going to produce people like Cinder, and the powers that were under Oz viewed that as acceptable so long as the world stayed quiet.

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Remove the fantastical backdrop, and Cinder still suffers. Cinder is a Problem for Everybody.

#seraphina's asks #user: gulagorkestar #cinder fall sadsack tag

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him-e · 7 years

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I feel like that cavalier attitude of 'don't ask questions about my beliefs' is one of the reasons we got Trump. It's ignorant, and running away from something challenging your beliefs is a prime tactic of the KKK & other like minds. Being ignorant isn't cool.

If we’re talking about political beliefs, then sure. You should always do your research and look deeper into the ideology that’s at the root of the political party you chose, even if (especially if) it claims it doesn’t follow any traditional political ideology or is “neither” right nor left leaning (that’s where modern day populism usually lurks). You should always ask yourself the most uncomfortable, hardest questions, even before other people ask you.

But I have the feeling you’re responding to this post, which was evidently not about socio-political beliefs but about completely mundane stuff like “why do I prefer ship (x) over ship (y)” or “why do I like this actor or dislike that musician” or “why do I spend my money buying tickets for (x) movie rather than (y)”. If that’s the case, I’m afraid you’re derailing the conversation and turning it into something it absolutely wasn’t.

The message of that post was not that you should entrench yourself in your blind hatred for (x) thing and accept no dissenting opinion, but that it’s OKAY to dislike things just because you do, and you don’t have to ruin it for other people or aggressively guilt trip people to dislike it as much as you do by coming up with a laundry list of “why X is bad”. Similarly, it’s okay to like things for superficial reasons, without coming up with all sorts of surreal and often deceptive or plain false arguments to explain why Y is Good and Progressive.

If this isn’t clear, this is about FANDOM STUFF.

I’m not comfortable with attaching arbitrary moral absolutes to things that belong to the realm of subjectivity (like fandom things, to which we’re supposed to respond empathetically rather than rationally). I don’t appreciate the idea that in order to prove your “goodness” (or perfect performance of feminism, social activism etc.) you need to like the “right” things and hate the “wrong” things. It leads to laughable but also really toxic extremes, like people glorifying some new tv show for being sooooo feminist and good with representation when it doesn’t deserve to only to justify the fact that they love it, or doing the opposite and berating (x) narrative or ship for perpetuating “bad” tropes or whatever to justify their visceral hatred of it.

Not everything is or should be turned into a topic of discourse. Some things have moral implications that are worth being examined, but other things don’t. And fandom things often don’t (I’m constantly baffled by this site’s inability to discern what is important from what isn’t, tbh). Most fandom things aren’t that deep; even when they are, fiction and art are supposed to be free spaces in which you’re allowed to experiment and get in touch with concepts and ideas for no reason other than because it’s FUN. It should be okay to engage with fictional stuff that isn’t perfectly aligned with your rl beliefs, or be passionate about things without feeling the urge to defend their alleged moral integrity, or dislike things without the moral imperative to label them as pernicious for humanity as a whole. I think that’s what that post is about, and it’s the entire opposite of “running away from something challenging your beliefs”. Allowing yourself to like diverse things for diverse reasons keeps your mind active, open and functional, less pliable to the sort of dealing-in-absolutes, group-thinking, black and white logic that is the biggest weapon in the hands of the various populisms and trumpisms of the world.

#anon #asks #the discourse #fandom discourse #discourse #politics for ts

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