Offending and Confusing LJ Members
NOTE: I posted this at LJ last month, but now I’ve decided to post it here since I will mention it in future entries.
I would like to apologize if I have confused or offended anyone my icons and entries. I unintentionally offended Turkeyimposter and possibly everyone by making one bad decision after another.
The first wrong move I made was on Sunday, October 24, 2010. I should not have answered this LJ Writer’s Block question: If you wanted to have children and had trouble conceiving, would you be more likely to consider IVF, surrogacy, or adoption, and why? However, as usual I expressed my rude, arrogant, mean, irresponsible, and self-centered opinion in the entry, Family Planning. The entry has gone through some revisions since then to clarify things.
Then, it might have been another phase of Photoshop addiction, but my second wrong decision was wasting time making more anime icons instead of doing important things. From there, I made the third wrong move, which was showing off the icons by announcing them in an LJ community on Halloween, 2010. I have removed the post since then.
A few hours later, I received some comments from Turkeyimposter. The first one was in the entry with my icons:
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The link to the pairings name list led to me rereading comments, and I found one that I’d never seen before from you, in reply to me, mainly because I didn’t get the notification.
Referring to this thread.
First of all… when I said sananiou was "Tungsten-carbide pair", it was intended as a joke. I honestly did not think people would take me seriously (because come on, Tungsten-carbide pair, really?)
Secondly… I’m just confused.
You said in your comment, "I’ve always thought that pairing names came from factual information. By factual, I mean what Konomi had in the series, not things based only on people’s fantasies. I don’t like relying on fans’ imagination because everyone thinks differently, so what they imagine may not be the same thing others think, and that will cause confusion."
So why are you using the names made up by fans in this post and in your icon descriptions?
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The other comment was in my Family Planning entry:
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As an adopted child, I find this post actually really offensive. The way you talk about it is like you’re talking about buying a pair of shoes or picking a group for a project, not adopting someone you’re going to love for the rest of your life.
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Lately, I’ve had enough stress and put-downs, and these comments just made me feel much worse. I usually feel terrible when I offend someone, and counterattacks make it worse. Remember, NO RUB-INS.
From that, I thought she misunderstood what I said since I’m not good at explainig things, so I went to her account to apologzie and try clarifying my points:
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Sorry if I offended you. I’m not good at explaining things, so I’ll revise my entry when I get the chance.
Though I don’t want to have kids, I still like them. If I change my mind and decide to adopt, I would certainly love the children who join my family. If I didn’t love them, I wouldn’t adopt them in the first place.
To begin with, I like children in general, and there are millions of children out there whoneed homes. We can’t adopt every single one of them, so that requires us to choose. My firststep would meet with the children and see which ones would be a benefit to both parties. Iwouldn’t choose children just because they look pretty or handsome.
The variety and learning is pretty much a bonus. If I can, I would like variety in my family,because it would help the kids learn to accept differences, which is a benefit for us andmany others out there. I certainly would love the children I adopt, especially since I like most children. In movies and news, we also see parents choosing the gender of the child they wish to adopt, and they aren’t choosing for group projects.
I think a big reason I would like to choose the gender of my children is because girls arevery rare in my family and among my relatives. Even worse, most of my family are sexist. Forexample, my dad and brother look down upon females, and they take advantage of the guysgreatly outnumbering girls in the family to do it. That’s why I prefer to have more genderbalance among relatives.
I’ve had notifications not reach me, too. That is one reason I tend to put my replies to people in their latest entries.
Sorry for my stupidity and contradiction. I usually don’t get jokes, and many times, I can’ttell when people are joking. Besides, sometimes people use what was originally a joke for real.
As you know, Konomi originally didn’t have names for most of the pairings, and we fans makeup names to make it easier to discuss. When I mentioned not wanting to rely on fans’subjective imaginations, I was mostly talking about pairing names. When coming up with names,they need to objectively (what Konomi said) fit the characters and pairings and make sense, or it gets too confusing and hard to remember.
I know I used pairing names made by fans, but that doesn’t mean I am relying on fan’simaginations. Many of the names have become popular, and many people will refer to pairingsby those names though I don’t agree with all of them. I used the names to help fans find what they are looking for.
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The next day, November 1, at Turkeyimposter’s entry, I find the following replies regarding the issues:
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In regards to the adoption thing:
… You sort of missed the point. I admit this might be my fault, because I wasn’t exactly clear what was insulting in my comment. I don’t care about whether or not you pick the genderof your kids – my parents picked me and my sister’s genders when they adopted us separately,and I know that some people have preferences for certain genders.
I never said you would pick them because of their appearance, nor did I say that I haveanything against people choosing. Because yes, I’m aware that you can’t adopt every child outthere. It was the "might as well" attitude you seemed to have towards adoption in that post. There is no might as well towards adopti
on. It’s a long, expensive process, that you wouldn’tgo through unloess you really wanted the child and are prepared to love it for the rest of your life.
The other, main thing that was extremely insulting was the perception you have that living in a multi-racial family teaches racial tolerance. It doesn’t. If it did, it would imply that family members look at each other in regards to their race. I know I, and the other peoplewho I know who are adopted, don’t think themselves any different to the members of their family. They don’t look at their relatives and think "OH, they’re a different colour skin tome and they have different hair and eyes and all that, they must be a different race and interacting with them is teaching me racial tolerance". It doesn’t teach us racial tolerance just because we’re from a multi-racial family, because family members are completely different to random people you meet. We’re no different to other "normal" families just because we might come from different countries. And you thinking otherwise is just rude, ignorant and plain insulting.
In regards to pairing names:
Regardless of what you’re saying, you are relying on fan’s imaginations. Where in the series does Konomi-sensei refer to these pairings as like… Kinky Pair, Perfect pair, Waltz pair,or even Platinum pair? No where. These names are fan-made. They have no canon basis at all. Before that pairing names post, I certainly hadn’t heard of quite a number of the ones people came up with, and I’m not about to remember them. If anything, the names just make it moreconfusing for people who don’t know them to find what they are looking for in regards to that pairing.
Ok. So I know a few people who refer to Tezuka/Fuji as "Puke pair" instead of Perfect pair,because they disagree with the naming. Does that mean that you’ll add up that name to yourpost in order to help them find what they are looking for? Because if you go by the logic that you’re spelling out for me in your comment, that’s what you should be doing. You’ve put up "Tungsten-carbide pair", which is joking referred to as that by a total of about two people, after all. Why not "Puke pair"?
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From that, I found that I had been doing something wrong for months, which was organizing my icons by pairing names, and no one said anything about it. Out of organization options, I made another post in the LJ community, asking for suggestions, and a few people gave me a good one: organize the pair icons by character names. I realized how stupid and irresponsible I was to not think of it earlier, so I apologized, thanked the people, and rearranged my icons. However, I still listed pairing names after characters’ names, just in case some fans want to search by pairing names.
I should have known that using pairing names made by fans was wrong, and sometimes an insult to the characters. Something subjective could also confuse you and others. However, since I had been using the names with other fans to go with the flow, I had irresponsibly forgotten all that.
The following day, November 2, I returned to Turkeyimposter’s entry to apologize and explain:
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First of all, I apologize for offending and being mean to you in any way. As I said, I’m not good at explaining things, so I can’t blame you for interpretting things differently.
I am not viewing adoption as "might as well." Right now, I don’t plan to have kids, but I said, "If I change my mind." I know people who have gone from not wanting kids to really wanting kids, and I was saying that in case it happened to me, that I would prefer adoption. I have read about adoption procedures, including a real life couple’s story on it a few years ago, so I know about it having lots of paperwork, meetings, money, and other issues. Pregnancy is also painful and expensive, and you have to really want the child, too. Comparing both options, if I change my mind in the future, and really want children, I would rather go through the adoption process than pregnancy, especially since I have physical health issues.
For tolerance, I was going by "Education begins in the family." In some past classes, we were talking about racism and discrimination, and we learned, "Education breeds tolerance." I’m not saying that family members look at each other by race. I was trying to say that by seeing more differences more often, it helps kids get used to them. People are often afraid of what they don’t know, and exposure helps them know more and decrease their fear. Kids spend the most time with their family, and if they see different physical traits more often, they might be more familiar with them. This may decrease their fear along with bias towards them, so when they go out, they might be less likely to judge by physical traits. Exposure to differences helping people is another thing we talked about in classes.
I’ve had classmates who were adopted, and quite a few of them had parents who wanted children from different countries. This also goes for the couple in the adoption story I read a few years ago. They had decided from the beginning to build a family through adoption. They adopted children of different races, and said that it helped them not pay attention to certain races in public. I’ve mentioned the same content of my entry to some of those adopted classmates, and they said that it was a good idea.
You are the first person who has told me something different, and I’m not saying that you are wrong with your view. It is good to know different POVs. I just tell the truth of what I think and feel, and I’m sorry if it’s insulting to you. If you are still offended and upset about it, I’m really sorry. It is now obvious that what we have experienced in our lives are not the same, and that affects how we think.
I never said that Konomi made up those names, but I probably wasn’t clear again. For being objective and what Konomi said, I was talking about the characters’ characteristics, skills, and interactions in the plot, not pairing names. I was saying that when fans come up with names, they should base them on those characteristics, skills, and interactions instead of their own imagination, such as the sexual fantasies. I can’t remember all those pairing names either, and some of them didn’t make sense. That’s why I asked for explanations.
For icons, I went by pairing names I thought were the most popular among fans (majority rules) since most people who look for the icons would be fans. Sorry if I misunderstood what you said about Tungsten-carbide Pair. I got a few comments mixed up. In the comments, it said that the name began as a joke in a community, and that the pair was popular among Japanese fans. From that, I interpretted it as the pairing and name were popular with Japanese fans, so many fans like and call it "Tungst
en-carbide Pair." Again, I was going by what I thought was popular. Sorry it if bothered you. I have taken the name down. I had also overlooked the "Puke Pair" part.
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I began to get the idea that Turkeyimposter was bothered by my using a name she made up, and wanted me to take it down. If that was the case, she should have just clearly said so instead of going into all that detail.
I then received the following reply from her:
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I quote, from your original entry, "I don’t want to contribute to overpopulation, and there are many children lacking good homes, so I might as well adopt one or two of them.". If that wasn’t what you meant, you worded it extremely badly.
I’m not saying that family members look at each other by race.
Kids spend the most time with their family, and if they see different physical traits more often, they might be more familiar with them.
You’re contradicting yourself in the same paragraph.
Again, in my experience, and the experiences of other adopted people that I know, we don’t see the physical differences caused by race in our family members. Because those people are our family who we should love unconditionally, and they’re not randoms we meet in everyday life. This doesn’t increase our racial tolerance just because our family members might be different looking! My sister is asian, I’m asian… she doesn’t really like asians otherwise (in fact, she wants to try and be as not asian as possible both in what she does and her appearance), whereas I am embracing my asian side. I’m also a very racist person, regardless of the fact that I was raised in a multi-racial family and went to a school with many different cultures present there.
I think the problem is that people have an idealised concept of what would and wouldn’t happen in certain situations and what they’d do personally. Like, people think eating their pet dog would be absolutely disgusting. But if you’re hungry enough, and desperate enough, I bet you’d probably eat it. Because why would you keep alive something that would provide you food, and alive is only eating your already low resources? Of course, being raised in a multiracial family and being on the brink of starvation are quite different things, but it’s the concept that until you’re actually in the situation, you don’t know what actually happens, that matters.
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The pairing confusion was settled here, and I figured that further reasons and explanations regarding adoption wouldn’t get us anywhere, and only cause more stress. That’s why I just left the following reply:
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Sorry for the bad wording. I was trying to say that I don’t want to contribute to overpopulation, and it would also be nice to love one or two of those children and give them a home. As I said, I’m not good at explaining things. I also often change many things around while I write and before I post. At times, I overlook what I have written and plan to change, and that is probably one of them. Thanks for pointing that out!
About family members looking at each other by race, I also misunderstood something. I thought you were talking about discriminating family members by race. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I won’t say anything about the rest since it won’t get us anywhere. The ways we think is too different, and it might lead to more misunderstanding between us, but I’ll respect your POV.
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Fortunately, she hasn’t said anything more, but I have made some revisions in my entry to be more clear. I kept reminding myself that we don’t really know each other, so I can’t blame her for misunderstanding and reacting that way. We’ve only communicated once or twice at an LJ Friend’s entry. I then realized that I might have said to much. Maybe just apologizing would have been a better, but I was hoping we could better understand each other by sharing our POVs.
There were other things in my mind that I could have said to her, but I figured that it would only make things worse. For example, I wanted to say that what didn’t work for her and her friends might work for other people, but she might be offended further by thinking that I’m saying she and her friends are worse than others. Same with cultural differences since she and I live in different countries.
Actually, I tried to imagine myself as an adopted child in a multi-racial family, and being racist. However, I wouldn’t feel offended if someone had said that a multi-racial family might help the kids accept other races in public. I would think that it just didn’t work for me, but may work for someone else. Again, this is just my self-centered POV.
Turkeyimposter did admit that she is very racist, and racism is a form of being narrow-minded. Those who have a narrow mind are less likely to listen and accept other people’s opinions and interpretations. She also probably figured out that I’m not a vegetarian, but what if a vegetarian had seen that example about people eating their dog? Then there would have been trouble. I think a better example would be people saying that stealing is wrong until they have to steal to live.
From all this, I feared that I made the wrong decision to show off my new icons at the community. If I hadn’t tried to share, then people would have been less likely to visit my icon entry, and less trouble would have happened. Turkeyimposter most likely came to my entry from the community, and I was surprised she even went through the links and old posts, and remembered all those little details. What surprised me more was her reading my entry, which had been five entries back when she came to my LJ account. Well, she has the right to read peope’s Public entries, and I guess she was reading my other entries to get to know me better.
I’m afraid after this, everyone would see me as a terrible person and criminal and hate me. I’m sorry if I have offended or confused anyone with my rude, arrogant, and self-centered comments or entries, or did anything wrong. Remember, NO RUB-INS, such as "You are the one who is narrow-minded," "She is right to feel adn react that way," "You are always doing things wrong," "You’re contradicting yourself," "There’s so much you don’t know," etc.
I do not intend to attack Turkeyimposter or anyone else, but am trying to tell my side of the story and describe the problem. Remember, I DO NOT NEED OR WANT ANY RUB-INS or comments, such as "It’s your fault," "She is right to feel and behave that way," etc.