Tagging: The Call-Out

I've been resisting making a tag for the situation because... well, for a lot of reasons that in a lot of cases when I look at them seem to boil down to the same reasons I've always been hesitant about facing this, or why I keep defaulting to things like "the situation" and "this".

The simple way of putting it would be "I don't want to make this any more real than it is."

But I'm starting to see and hear about... as I knew I would... people who do things like declare that they don't know enough about the situation to be comfortable accusing someone or taking a side, and then labeling me a politically motivated(?) opportunist and Jack a sockpuppet of a writer with a well-known grudge against Caoimhe. I don't see how anyone can care enough about this to make that kind of declaration but not care enough about it to do any kind of rudimentary investigation and see that we are who we say we are and Jack's relationship to Caoimhe was what he said it was.

That doesn't prove we're not lying about something else, but it should put an end to the idea that we're sock puppets.

But on the other hand, as long as I don't have a tag I'm not making it easy for people to even get a full picture of what it is I've said.

Then... what do I make the tag? When I learned that someone was making a "roundup" of links, I requested that she use a more neutral name like "The Call-Out" as opposed to something that incorporated one of Caoimhe's usernames because whether anyone believes it or not, it's not our intention to make a person's name forever synonymous with an action... I also wanted to suggest a name because my personal fear was that in the absence of a convenient handle it would end up being called something horrifyingly trivializing like "RapeFail", but I didn't want the alternate name to be something that could be used like a club.

So, that's what the tag is going to be. "the call-out". I know that nothing I say or do is going to stop that kind of thing from happening, but I think making a tag will at least make me feel better about it... make it easier for me to ignore people who are just choosing not to see the full picture. I can paint people a picture but I can't make them look at it.

Just to give a little more context...

So, here's what not trying something on the internet looks like. (MASSIVE trigger warning for rape and emotional manipulation in action.)

Edit: She has apparently "rethought the wisdom" of her post and removed the body of it, so this is going to look weird and the subject line about "context" seems really ironic.

( Ditto. )

Wow.

People 'round the internet are starting to respond to Caoimhe's latest not-publicly-responding-to-this, and I'm already starting to feel like my previous post was completely unnecessary.

I don't need to point out the transparent manipulation and the blatant spin and the attempts to use our weeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiird personal life to make people ignore what she actually did because it is transparent and blatant. If I hadn't already posted that previous post, I would be backing out of it without actually submitting it... as it exists, it would be a mistake to delete it.

But go internet.

I am sorry I ever doubted you.

I've never been good at endings.

I've discussed the matter with Jack (he's AFK but he knows the contents of Caoimhe's latest post) and we have both decided that no one can make a better case against Caoimhe than Caoimhe can make for herself. There's no need to defend oneself from that which is either harmless or misses the mark completely.

I've tried to disengage myself from the conversation before, but at this point... as part of a mutual decision with Jack this time... we're both going to ignore her and get on with our lives.

She might very well interpret this as backing down lest she reveals even more. I'm sure that's the entire point of her latest post. But no, we never had any intention of making our whole lives about this. Anybody who thinks doing this wasn't "healthy" for Jack hasn't been in a position to see the change in him from before last Friday and after, but... there's a point of diminishing returns there.

It's time to move on to the next steps.

On a related subject: the therapy Caoimhe is seeking sounds like a really good idea. I hope that she gets it, and I hope it's productive for her. I hope it leads her to better places.

(Comments, as always on this tag, are screened, and will only be unscreened by request.)

Edit To Add: You can help me in this resolution by not sending me links related to the situation or leaving them in comments. Thank you!

So, Jack asked me about favorite foods

...and the plural is there because I'm not good at picking favorites. I like lots of different things for lots of different reasons, and I have a hard time weighing them against each other and coming up with a clear favorite, even on a temporary basis.

(Though, to be honest, my favorite food is peanut butter. The "lots of things" are all tied for second place, or first place in the category of things that would not give me itchy hives around all my joints. Sunflower butter is a strong contender for the category of second place, but it's just not the same. I like sunbutter mixed with something sweet so the differences are less apparent, but I would eat peanut butter plain.)

But we started talking about the things that I do like, and after saying "salmon" and "bacon" in a row, I started thinking about baking salmon fillets with strips of bacon layered on top of it. And then I started thinking about maple bacon, because while I wouldn't have thought of maple and salmon as a slamming flavor combination (or whatever you kids say when you're talking about flavor combinations) I did try a salmon fillet with a maple glaze at a restaurant once and found it pretty delicious.

I found a recipe and it's more involved than what I'd be going for (my kitchen, it does not have so many spoons in the drawer so I like to keep things simple), but the existence of a recipe suggests to me that I am not off base or alone in thinking that this combo would lead to deliciousness.

Next time I'm in Maryland, I think it's definitely something we're going to try.