#being reasonable

So, many of us VIPs that follow the group on their individual Instagrams already know that they will be at Coachella this year. I, personally, can’t wait for their comeback (unless they’re going to do something beforehand). Sadly, I’m poor so getting a weekend pass is out of the question.

Back to the point at hand, I’ve come to notice that there are still some people that are...unaccepting on the idea that Seungri will not be there and the group is now four instead of five. Pretty much to the point of boycotting the band as a whole. That’s not cool.

Let’s look at this matter objectively (and I’ll try to be as unbiased as I can):

Firstly, Seungri is still under investigation for his gambling case. (Don’t ask me the details because, being an international fan, those are up in the air.) All I know is that he’s not like JJY, and the charges he faces are glaringly different than what people have decided to use to falsify him.

Secondly, he has his military service mandate to proceed with. I’m not an expert of Korean law, but I doubt that-with the addition of his trial-they are going to even consider letting him leave the country. Simply because he’s well over the deadline of signing up for his service.

Then there’s last, and possibly the most important tidbit people have seem to forgotten...SEUNGRI IS NO LONGER A MEMBER OF BIGBANG! This reason should have cemented that the chance of the group going on as five was slim. He retired, and it has been nearly a year since then. Even if he wasn’t on trial or had to worry about going into the military, to retire just to come back so soon? That doesn’t sound right.

This relates to the fandom and the dominant narratives; and as usual, this does not apply to every single fan or the fandom as a whole, just a group within it; but this one was so over the top I had to respond, in the spirit of intellectual integrity, as always. 

@overlycaffeinatedwarmage wrote: ‘I got a troll/hater last night [...] Don’t bother to leave a negative comment, it’ll be deleted. If you want to talk about the series with me, by all means comment or send a message! I would love to read what you have to say and have a conversation. Even spirited, but respectful, debates are fine and quite enjoyable! We don’t all have to agree. People with differing points of view make me look at characters and situations differently and lead to new insights.’

So, I don’t know what the troll/hater said or what it was even about, but the following endorsement of discourse seems somewhat disingenuous. I can’t recall ever seeing any discourse on this site between two people (other than me) who have a conversation when they disagree on something, or look at characters differently after others highlighted different viewpoints (if there are any examples of this, please anybody, as always, point me at them). Discourse about Pritkin in particular is exceptionally rigid, and views on Mircea similarly rarely change even when presented with evidence from the books, or KC’s own response to the questions.* Quite the contrary, discussing any character flaw in relation to Cassie and Pritkin is a taboo topic**, and any reply/comment made about the merits of Mircea is considered an attack.

That it’s @overlycaffeinatedwarmage who celebrates discourse in her post is quite ironic. I distinctly recall (but here’s the link) that you most certainly do not keep an open mind about discourse, nor welcome comments or posts or conversations that go against your own beliefs. So ‘I’m fine with discussions, even if spirited’ seems just wrong - I recall you making similar promises of ‘I like discussions and I’m a good arguer’ but then claiming to be under attack the first moment people do post an argument (based on facts, supported by quotes as usual) that does not conform to your own views. 

So, back to your post, I literally started my reply with “What I really like about KC is that she has several great characters that we see different sides of.“ Then I write about the concept of an unreliable narrator, of how Pritkin has his own biases and that I can very much understand those, but the importance being that every character will have a unique view on things (as KC shows us) and that reading them like absolute truth misses out on a lot as it’s going to be character-subjective instead of book-objective. Wow. Such radical. Much negative. Very rudeness. Wow. Jokes aside, I will post the quote (here), as always, to show what I base my statements on. The result? You block me because I was allegedly pushing a ‘Pritkin is as bad as Mircea’ narrative:

“Last night I finally had to block someone on here who keeps rehashing the “Pritkin pushed her off the cliff so he’s just as bad as Mircea” argument.”

As I address the issue in my reply, obviously starting off with a strawman argument, claiming that others say something they never actually said, and the victim-narrative that you spun around that event just screamed hypocrisy, especially when it was based on you not understanding what was actually said. So this is why your current post about being dedicated to discussions prompted this post of mine. Because if a perfectly reasonable text post about the novel triggers you so much that you start blocking people who respond with fact-based views on the books, you certainly aren’t open to discussion or comments or other viewpoints or anything that you claim you are. It’s far more likely to be a case of liking ‘discourse’ when that means sharing the same appreciation for the same characters:

“I am very thankful to have found a group of people who love it as much as me who also want to chat about it often. People who get it.”

As I wrote in my other post, in which you directly say ‘This is why I love you guys, you see this,’ this only shows an interest of ‘discussing’ things with people who ‘get it’ meaning that they have the same conclusions that you do, people who ‘see this’ the same way that you do. And you know, it’s your right to be biased and to hate anybody who disagrees with you, but let’s not pretend that you do the opposite because your ‘discourse is so great’ post is so hypocritical it’s just insulting to the fandom.

((*Referring to my post-back-and-forth with @windsurfingthroughhell and @pritkinsprettydick about the TtD sex scene not being coerced or non-con/dub-con, which resulted in me getting blocked, while KC later confirmed that yep, it wasn’t coerced or non-con/dub-con, which was a similarly entertaining ironic scenario.