Finally Let Go Of A Plot Beat Tonight That I'd Been Convinced Was Necessary At This Point In The Story,

Finally let go of a plot beat tonight that I'd been convinced was necessary at this point in the story, even as every way I tried to write it still felt clunky and wrong for the characters at their current point of growth.

Suddenly, the flow of the whole chapter feels smoother, and I wound up writing more words tonight than I've written in... weeks??

Lesson learned, I guess! If a plot beat refuses to work even after multiple iterations, perhaps it's a sign that I was letting the narrative drive the characters' choices to an unhelpful degree, instead of letting the characters drive the story in a way that actually suits who I'd written them so far to be.

Fighting back against oppression is not the same thing as committing oppression, and it is not hypocrisy not to tolerate intolerance from others.

That is not what a lot of supposed activism on this website actually does.

Guilt-tripping total strangers based on unfounded assumptions about their lives and experiences? Demanding attention and validation from strangers, as a way for said strangers to prove that they aren't Bad People, by demanding that what amount to personal vent posts be treated as meaningful educational resources on incredibly complex and serious issues? Trying to claim moral high ground over the fictional interests of strangers based entirely on some people's feelings of disgust as the only evidence of harm?

Wanting people around you to feel angry, or small, or ashamed, with no goal besides making someone else feel bad when it makes you feel better about the unfair hurt you've endured?

These aren't examples of activism or progressive ideology. They are examples of hurt people lashing out at easy targets with misidirected anger. They are examples of people engaging in the cycle of harm, when someone has made them feel small, and they chose to look for someone else they've decided should feel smaller as a way to make themselves feel big again.

I'm sure most tumblr users can think of at least a few posts they've seen like this, if not dozens or more.

Not just isolated posts, either, but posts with hundreds to thousands of notes worth of validation from other strangers.

That shit is harmful. Absolutely no one is ever obligated to engage with guilt-tripping, directionless anger that focuses mainly on punching down at one's peers, regardless of the source which originally inspired that anger. No matter how sympathetic someone's pain might be, it is not kindness to validate random cruelty as an outlet for genuine pain.

Engaging in meaningful activism is hard work. Hurting easy targets in the name of righteous causes is easy.

Being a decent person means being willing to ask yourself which one you're doing, and then being willing to step back and disengage not only when the answer is, "causing more harm," but also when the honest answer is, "I don't know."

Activism is not the same as causing harm. The corollary to that is that causing harm is not the same as activism, either.

Aang & Appa’s first flight above the clouds ⛅️

Instagram I Twitter

That really is how being in your 30s is like 😭

Stumbled upon this random ship (in a fandom im not active in myself) that has like 150 works on ao3 which are all from just two people gifting each other fics about this pairing back and forth and theyve been doing it for 3 years... i think thats true love probably

I know this is the site of Edginess and Drama, but sometimes I really appreciate stories where characters are allowed to be in mutually supportive and fulfilling relationships. Where maybe both characters are kind of a mess, but at least they know they can rely on each other for love and support, and the story isn't afraid to let them own up to their own bullshit when one of them falls down on their side of the bargain.