Sometimes I think about how many little things we probably do every day that would totally mess up the reasoning of a Sherlock-Holmes-style detective.
Like the other day we went to the cinema and I was wearing a shirt with no pockets so I put the ticket in my trouser pocket. The next day I was wearing the same trousers and I put my hand in my pocket and found the ticket there.
Now, I have a certain selection of things I always have in my trouser pockets and I don’t really like having anything else in there because it confuses my hands when I want to get something, so I took the ticket out. And I wasn’t near a rubbish bin, but I was wearing a shirt with a breast pocket. So I put the ticket in the shirt pocket.
And I thought: if I get interestingly murdered, the Sherlock-Holmes-style detective is going to deduce that I’m wearing the same shirt that I wore yesterday. Because it’s got a cinema ticket in the pocket with yesterday’s date on, and why on earth would anyone put a cinema ticket in the pocket of a shirt unless they were wearing the shirt when they went to the cinema?
Which is a bit of reasoning we would all find totally convincing if it came from a Sherlock-Holmes-style detective. But it would be wrong. Because actually there are so many other explanations for things once you take account of the fact that people are often slightly eccentric in completely trivial and unguessable ways.
“Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!”
—Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
‘there are scratches on this phone near the plug bc the previous owner is an alcoholic’ or has parkinson’s or nerve damage or bad eyesight or keeps getting distracted and doesn’t look while plugging it in or the plug is behind their bedside lamp and the angle is awkward or they let their 4-year-old do it
‘harry isn’t you therefore it’s your brother’s phone’ MAYBE I BOUGHT IT ON EBAY SHERLOCK
what the hell is happening with my internet connection.
i can load tumblr fine but with no images. audio posts play perfectly, but only once. i can load other websites sometimes, and sometimes not. its the same on my phone
mlm (mothman loving men)
headcanon that the only reason lee jordan remains quidditch commentator despite getting told off for unnecessary comments during every match is that he’s the only candidate who can tell the gryffindor beaters apart
homeworld gem empire vs alternian empire is such an interesting thing to think about
SHOUTOUT TO ZELDA FOR KILLING ME
“Fake news” – fandom edition
In 2k17, a lot of us have pledged to be more cautious about ‘fake news’ posts on Facebook
I propose we extend that concern to fandom
There’s a very low bar on this site (or any site) for people to post whatever tf they want, and a very high incentive to post fake receipts to win arguments
(Or at the least, misleading “receipts” such as “Artist XYZ is a bad person” because they drew a picture of bad things happening to completely fictional characters)
So this year, if you see a callout post:
- Look for signs of bias. I have the sneaking suspicion that “XYZ-is-bad.tumblr.com” is not an objective source.
- Be wary of unsourced accusations. “Person A is a homophobe!” is a statement, not evidence. Look for original sources. Did Person A post “I hate gay people” on their blog? Or did they draw fanart of an unpopular het pairing?
- Look for context. Check out Person A’s blog to see if you have the whole picture. Did Person A pick a fight out of nowhere, or was that viral post made in response to an anon harassing them?
- Ask “what real person was hurt”. Writing a fanfic is not the same as committing a crime in real life. If Person B claims that Person A is a real-life “abuser” because they shipped two (100% fictional!) characters, Person B is out of line.
- Consider ulterior motives. Did Person A recently open a Patreon and receive a slew of hateful messages about ‘selling out’? Did Person B have an argument about characterization with their co-author and then suddenly “reveal” a list of unsourced accusations? Who stands to gain if someone else is driven out of fandom by angry anons?
Long story short, I don’t believe everyone in fandom is evil – nor that every accusation is unfounded. I do believe that unfortunately, in this modern ‘post-truth’ world, we are all going to have to get much better at fact checking and source validity…both in fandom and in real life.
I love this.
One little thing I find helps with this is to remember:
A thing that makes you feel bad, is not necessarily a thing that is bad.
So, you know, people shipping your NOTP, or having headcanons that contradict yours or writing fic on topics that make you frightened or uncomfortable is actually upsetting. And you can totally be upset about it.
But it doesn’t actually follow, necessarily, that the person upsetting you, is actually doing something wrong. They might be. Its possible. But its more likely you need to add some tags to your blacklist and put it from your mind.
over the last half a year of watching anonymous people leave completely unsourced accusations against me in people’s inboxes once or twice a week, i’ve seen the percent of people who ask for evidence drop from maybe a third to absolutely 0.
the number of people who profusely thank a total stranger for telling them who to shun (again with absolutely no source included, evidence presented, or even examples of bad behavior mentioned, just straight up ‘hey did you know roach is a pedophile’) rise to like 90%.
it’s extremely fucking unnerving, not so much because it sucks for me, but because it points to the successful creation of a fandom culture of fear, where if you’re not immediately and enthusiastically compliant with the latest hate campaign, you’re next. which sucks for everyone.
