About enemyofperfect

[enemyofperfect]

Hello there! I'm enemyofperfect, variously called enemy and E by my friends. (I'm a very friendly enemy, I promise.)

I've been at least vaguely active on Dreamwidth for nearly eight years, although I think I lurked in fannish spaces for another four or so years before that, and the internet has been a huge part of my life since... 1996? -Ish? It's been a long time.

The other main places you can find me are enemyofperfect for fanworks and enemyofperfect for general assorted nonsense, but at the moment, I'm most active here.

Some basic demographic info for those interested in such things:

• in my 30s
• very definitely Not Cis
• much clearer on what my gender isn't than what it is
• they/them pronouns please
• white and making an effort to educate myself about my privilege
• US American and trying to be less of an oblivious jerk about it
• unemployed and living with my parents
• able-bodied as yet
• depressed, anxious, and OCD-ridden to varying degrees
• happily taking escitalopram (aka generic lexapro) to medicate the above
• possibly autistic? in this way where I thought that was just the rest of my family until it dawned on me that it would kind of explain a lot?
• raised Christian and personally atheist but thrilled to realize that not all religion is Like That
• mostly monolingual pero hablo un poquito de español

I'm also vegan (but don't proselytize), kind of a social sciences geek (with an emphasis on psychology and linguistics), fond of the MBTI (in much the same way some people are fond of Hogwarts Houses); and pretty much always interested in ethics. I write intermittently, draw occasionally, read constantly, watch television slowly, and play mostly the kind of indie computer games I find online for free, plus D&D once a week.

Speaking of writing and ethics: I guess I'm what you could call an anti-anti inasmuch as I think it's perfectly all right -- and sometimes very valuable -- to write about terrible things. (In fannish communities, we often label the content of such writing for readers' benefit, whether with particular warnings or simply with choose not to warn. I think this practice is very valuable, too, and I've been happy to see it spread.) At the same time, I don't believe that anything goes in fiction, or that there are no conversations to be had about the moral messages of stories. And I don't really believe in being mean to antis, either; from what I can tell, a lot of them are just scared kids.

So what do I believe? Sometimes stories carry messed up, harmful messages -- either ones their authors don't even know they're putting in there, or ones they think are okay but really aren't. I think it's important to have conversations about this, both with respect to stories written outside of fandom and about the stories we write as fans ourselves. But to be absolutely clear, when I say conversations, I don't mean spamming people with hostile messages or telling anyone to kill themself or any kind of harassment like that. I just mean that it's good to talk honestly, and perhaps with curiosity, about the things that matter to us and other people.

Whew, that's not the most fun disclaimer I've ever written. Never a dull minute on the internet, I guess. But anyway!

Anyone is welcome to subscribe or unsubscribe to this journal at any point, with or without greeting or explanation, as you prefer! I don't make a practice of locking posts, but I do grant access to people who've given it to me, because I find symmetry aesthetically pleasing.

I love hearing from people in the comments, whether briefly or at length, on new posts or old, and if you ever feel the need to tell me that I've done something hurtful, I'll do my best to listen. In general, if you ever need me to do something differently, please feel free to ask -- no request too large, small, or idiosyncratic.

Comments

[shipperslist]

Whoa. Your intro gave me Thoughts. Thank you.

[enemyofperfect]

OMG, thank you! If you ever write those thoughts down at all, I'd love to read them. :)

[silveradept]

I think that the advice on how to reckon with a problematic creator (or a toxic fandom) is always useful to have on hand for following, because it seems like there's an inevitability toward your fandom becoming toxic or problematic. Being able to have discourse, rather than The Discourse, seems like one of the best things that can be done when the problematic label comes around to say hi.

[enemyofperfect]

Yes -- the longer a fandom stays active and/or the more people join in, the likelier it gets that at least a few will get up to something troublesome. But sometimes really good conversations can come out of that, and it always makes me happy when they do!

[amovingtarget]

Hello :)

[enemyofperfect]

Hello, you kind monster. ♥

[madeline_gwydion]

Hey there. :-)

You seem like a really nice and thoughful person. Plus we like some of the same fandoms, apparently (Rivers of London, Almost Human, Yuri on Ice).

Your fandom history says that RoL fandoms OTP is your NOTP, so, if I add you, would you like me to put stuff I write about them under a labeled cut?

[enemyofperfect]

Thank you so much, both for the kind words and for the very kind offer! I think I'm okay just scrolling on past, especially when I know the post is by someone as considerate towards people who feel differently as you are, but I really appreciate your asking!

You seem like a awesome person yourself, so I'm subscribing to you as well. I'm glad you said hello!

[madeline_gwydion]

Okay. :-) If you ever change your mind just let me know.

I'm really glad I said hello, too.

[enemyofperfect]

♥

[pink_ink]

hi there! i really enjoyed reading your intro post, it's so well-thought out.

i agree wholeheartedly with the point you made about having honest conversations about narratives/stories and the implications they carry. at the same time, harrassing people is never okay.
from my short forray into tumblr, i also got the sense that a lot of antis are scared kids. i'm also a bit wary of how "anti" is sometimes used to dismiss valid critiques of fandom... anyway, i think having thoughtful discussions and learning from one another is one of the best ways we can use ~the internets~ tbh

i'm also an old and currently in what i call the gender limbo haha. i haven't found a gender designation i'm 100% comfortable with. currently i'm going with non-binary.

and i saw you listed brooklyn 99 & how to get away with murder as your interests. which. YES. b99 has such great comedy, i love their humor. it's so silly at times, but also very well thought-out (the jokes tend to punch up!). and i am very much in love with viola davis.

TL;DR i have subscribed ^^

ps. i'm planning to edit my intro post after reading yours to include a note about tagging and fandom discussions! i'll credit you, if that's okay?

[enemyofperfect]

Okay, this is such a great comment I had to take a little time to flail before I could respond reasonably. First of all, I'm thrilled (honored?) that this post inspired you to edit your intro, and it's absolutely okay with me for you to do that, with or without crediting me!

Second of all, it's so nice to meet someone else in gender limbo. It's a strange and confusing place, and sometimes I wonder if things would all be a little simpler if we could just cancel the patriarchy, but since that's probably not a project I can expect to see completed anytime soon, here I am. But it's good not to be alone!

Thirdly, so much yes to everything you said about B99 and especially about Viola Davis. I'm constantly in awe of the complexity and range she brings to Annalise. She does it all and she makes it look easy. I really need to catch up on season six of HTGAWM!

And fourthly, you are so right about valid critiques being dismissed sometimes as just more anti shenanigans, and I hate to see it. Not every negative opinion is wrong, let alone unworthy of discussion. And even when I disagree, I'd often like to talk it through and share perspectives, you know?

So in conclusion, thank you so much for commenting, and I am definitely subscribing to you as well!

[pink_ink]

aww, yay! i was kinda worried the comment was too long tbh ;;;

i agree. honestly, if we could do away with all the -isms everything would be so much easier!
also, yeah. the gender limbo is a weird spot to be in but at least most folks i've met here are good company ^^

i haven't really caught up with HTGAWM! the last season i watched was the one with jimmy smits (s4, i think. it's the last one available on my streaming service ;__;)? he was so good in it, too! he's criminally under-cast imho. (he's hilarious as amy's dad on b99 as well!!)

also, thanks for subscribing back!

[enemyofperfect]

My secret is out: I love long comments. Especially when they're thinky and full of enthusiasm about shows I love!

honestly, if we could do away with all the -isms everything would be so much easier!

Oh wouldn't it just!

And yes, Jimmy Smits is so great in HTGAWM. I feel like watched The West Wing ages ago and only liked him kind of okay, but in HTGAWM I remember thinking, he can go toe to toe with Viola Davis and really hold his own. Their scenes were so magnetic, it was breathtaking. But you're right, he is awesome in B99 as well! And thank you for letting me know how far you are in HTGAWM, too -- now I will know not to spoiler you!

[pink_ink]

haha i'm glad you do, sometimes i end up deleting stuff cos i get into talking and forget that not everyone likes a reply essay tbh ;;

i didn't even know he was in the west wing!! i never saw that show. i just knew him as padme's dad heh
but yes, their scenes together were so good!! i really enjoyed watching them play off each other.
no worries, i don't mind spoilers too much. tbh when watching HTGAWM i always end up reading the wiki page for the season to get out of the drama vortex. if i don't do that i end up watching the entire season in one sitting xD

[enemyofperfect]

Ahhh, I really recognize that feeling of not wanting to hit someone with a wall of words, but yeah, I'm pretty much 100% in favor of them myself. There are so many interesting thoughts to think in this world! I love hearing other people's! ♥

Meanwhile I'd totally forgotten that he was Padme's dad, omg! But yeah, those scenes were fantastic. And I may have have to laugh about your wiki reading strategy, but it makes so much sense! HTGAWM is always so dramatic and twisty, not to mention habit forming. You've got to keep that under control any way you can!

[spikedluv]

possibly autistic? in this way where I thought that was just the rest of my family until it dawned on me that it would kind of explain a lot?

I have been feeling this, but afraid to speak it out loud in case it sounded insensitive? I keep reading posts by/about autism and I keep going, haha, I do that too! And after a half dozen of those I'm going o_O and wonder if it's something I should look into or just let ride.

white and making an effort to educate myself about my privilege & US American and trying to be less of an oblivious jerk about it

Also, yes, same to both of these.

[enemyofperfect]

Possibly autistic solidarity! It's funny how I simultaneously feel like, wait, can I actually say this about myself, do I have that authority? While also feeling like -- wait, how did I go so long without noticing this? Ahaha.

[pink_ink]

hi, um, not sure if it's rude to jump into the conversation. but i just want to say that most autistic self-advocates are very much pro self-diagnosis. one reason for this is that afab people and people of color are vastly underdiagnosed and the medical criteria for diagnosis skew very white and cismale.

the autistic self-advocacy network even lists self-diagnosed autistic folk in their definition of autism (https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/about-autism/).

lots of people start with a self-diagnosis then seek out an official medical diagnosis (which might come with its own risks and hang-ups).

it's also fine to start walking down that road and then go a different direction, i know some folks who figured out they have ADHD that way, for instance.

i don't mean to pressure anyone, but learning all that was very helpful for me so that's why i'm sharing it.

[enemyofperfect]

I really appreciate you joining in, in fact! It's always refreshing when a community decides to work towards inclusion and against gatekeeping, and I love that link you provide.

(Speaking only for myself, I think the some of the doubt about self-identifying as autistic feels... kind of like all the times I asked myself if I was really trans, or just making that up for some unknown reason? Like, it seems to fit, and rationally I know that as you say, there's nothing wrong with exploring that path and seeing where it leads me. It just at the same time feels somehow too bold, like laying claim to something that might not be rightfully mine. But that's just all the more reason I appreciate your contribution here.)

[pink_ink]

glad you enjoyed the link! if you ever would like more resources on the matter, let me know. <3

(i feel you. i'm going through the same thing about using the label trans. even nonbinary was hard for me to use for the longest time bc it felt like i didn't really deserve to use the label somehow...? sigh.)

[enemyofperfect]

Thank you, I really appreciate it. ♥

(That's it, that's the feel. And I guess it makes sense, because what could be more desirable or precious than a piece of yourself that's just out of reach? (I say you when of course I mean me.) But it sure makes things hard sometimes.)

[scytale]

Hey! I've really enjoyed reading your Snowflake posts and poking through some of your older posts. I subscribed. :)

I think you make a good point about antis being scared kids -- I think as a society, we are all still trying to figure out the rules for this new social media world we live in and seeing all the fallout, and it's definitely going to be harder for teens. And the media we have isn't really conducive to conversation and listening and empathy these days, unfortunately.

[enemyofperfect]

I think as a society, we are all still trying to figure out the rules for this new social media world we live in and seeing all the fallout, and it's definitely going to be harder for teens. And the media we have isn't really conducive to conversation and listening and empathy these days, unfortunately.

Oof, so much this. The basics of online etiquette and safety are still being actively hammered out, and it's pretty much just chaos out there. Which doesn't make it okay to lash out at people, but if everyone's feeling spooked to begin with, it's a little bit easier to see how it happens.

And hey, I'm glad to have you around and will be subscribing back as soon as I hit post comment! In addition to the shared fandoms you've already noticed, I realized yesterday that I actually played a route of SLBP a while back. I love that it's got you reading haiku and really thinking about it in depth -- it might not be a game that drew me in fannishly, but it's always great to see other people's enthusiasm for stories that speak to them!

[scytale]

Oof, so much this. The basics of online etiquette and safety are still being actively hammered out, and it's pretty much just chaos out there. Which doesn't make it okay to lash out at people, but if everyone's feeling spooked to begin with, it's a little bit easier to see how it happens.

Yeah. And it seems like this kind of behavior has been normalized.

I've been thinking about your post a bit more. I've volunteered a bit as a mentor for kids before, and the volunteer org gave us some tips: consistency, modeling positive behavior, and asking kids to work at understanding their own perspectives and other people's. We wouldn't tell them "your teacher is upset about X", we'd ask them to do the work themselves.

And all of those strategies seem much harder to apply on the Internet, and I think they rely on more of a personal connection that we lack over text.

Same with the "we don't do that here" strategy that I might use at a workplace or a club; there isn't really a "here" on something like Tumblr.

I'm glad to be around as well! :D It's nice to read them and have stories to apply them to -- those interests were originally separate but then I found a couple of poems that resonated with me a lot better once I had stories to apply them to.

[enemyofperfect]

Oh, thank you for sharing your perspective as someone who's done mentoring, that's really interesting! It also makes me wonder what less antagonistic strategies Generation Z might develop to regulate their online experience as they have a chance to grow into themselves. Maybe with any luck, they'll have better ideas on how to help the kids growing up after them?

Same with the "we don't do that here" strategy that I might use at a workplace or a club; there isn't really a "here" on something like Tumblr.

Or if there is a "here", it's the entire site, and no one person or even community can moderate the entirety of that! I guess it's not a surprise if it's a constant brawl of people trying to enforce conflicting community norms on each other.

And yeah, on a more cheerful note, it's always great to find a way two interests connect with each other, isn't it?