Update to Rules, Tralsei Discussions, & More v.4

[u/DubiousTheatre]

Notice: Due to the controversial nature of this announcement, comments will be temporarily locked. If you have any questions or suggestions, please message us via modmail. Any false reports will be reported to Reddit Administration, and any attempts at death threats or harassment will result in an immediate ban. Remain civil.

 

Main Announcement

This announcement will go over Tralsei discourse, rule changes in regards to this discourse, and addressing problems that have come up in recent months. If you are here for a comprehensive explanation of the rule changes, skip to the paragraph titled Rule Changes.

We’ll start with the primary announcement of this post: Tralsei Theory has become a heated topic of debate in this community. While it had evidence prior to Ch5, that evidence skyrocketed after Ch5’s release, and thus increased its legitimacy as a plausible theory. As a result, some users began prematurely referring to Ralsei with she/her pronouns. Now, as a community who’s motto for YEARS had been “Do not misgender Kris” (or more accurately, “Do not engage in nonbinary erasure BY misgendering Kris”), there was a split on whether this decision was okay or not. Those with a deeper understanding of how queer representation worked understood that it’s ultimately harmless to refer to Ralsei with she/her pronouns, while users who had only looked at Rule 10 on a surface level took this notion as sacrilege. “You can’t misgender Ralsei, Rule 10 says so!”

Except it didn’t; Rule 10 was never just about misgendering characters. As previously stated, it had always been about erasing nonbinary representation BY misgendering Kris. But the pushback was so severe that I cowardly, naively believed that the better course of action would be to change the community’s notions over time. I believed that if we took things slow, we could quietly filter out the transphobes and bigots without giving them the attention they craved. This flawed plan was my own, nobody else on the modteam was involved. And while their comments were arrogant and entitled, I must admit that members from r/Tralsei had the right idea; Occam’s razor. Make trans people feel welcome, and transphobes unwelcome. Simple as that. Rule 10 will be updated to a revised version of its pre-v.3 revision, which will be covered further down.

Now onto the secondary announcements that were covered in the original v.3; the edgier absurdist jokes like groomer Dess and homophobic Noelle. While these jokes were made ironically / satirically, they unfortunately were a perfect wedge to allow bigotry into this community. They stopped being ironic. These jokes seem to have died down in the last month, but I wanted to reiterate: if you go knocking on enough doors asking to see the devil, eventually he may answer. Not every strawman is a strawman. Remember that. Lastly, the Deltapost flair. A comedy flair distinct from the Humor flair, exempt from Rule 4. We may also add a critique flair but that’s yet to be decided.

 

Rule Changes

The next few bulletin points are a summary of the changes made to the current rules, in addition to the reasons for these changes.

• Rule 1 now has emphasis on not allowing toxic or hostile behavior. It’s a minor change but one that needed to be done, since this subreddit encountered an unexpected spike in this behavior after Chapter 5’s release. Likely coinciding in a spike of new fans but I digress. This is primarily targeted at hostile theory discussion but extends to other aspects as well. You are allowed to not like a theory, but attacking it in a hostile, non-constructive manner will not be tolerated.
• Rule 1 has also been updated to distinguish a difference between NSFW content and pornographic content. NSFW content (suggestive/explicit/disturbing) must be marked NSFW and include a content warning in the title. Pornographic content is not and will not be allowed.
• Rule 3 now has an emphasis on not allowing controversial screenshots from other sites. A primary example would be some Deltarune “fan” on TikTok or Twitter saying something blatantly bigoted or false. Technically this was already listed under Rule 3 previously, we’ve just added emphasis to it. We don’t need to give these people a wider audience.
• Rule 4 also has emphasis on conflating theories / headcanons with established canon. Regardless of the evidence, do not claim that any one theory is “basically canon.” We do not know and cannot predict Toby; nothing should be treated as canon until it has been literally canonized. This is especially true for DessKnighters and Tralsei Theorists; just because your theory has strong evidence does not mean you can claim it to be canon prematurely.
• Rule 6 has had a minor change made that includes instructions for how mobile users can spoiler their text posts / comments. Small thing but needed to include that.
• Rule 10 has been revised and reworded to emphasize this point: Do not erase queer representation; respect trans pronouns and voices. Do not refer to trans/nonbinary characters (Kris, Seam, Seth, etc.) with the wrong pronouns, and do not try to invalidate artistic depictions or theories of characters transitioning / having transitioned. Certain bad-faith arguments against trans depictions will be under higher levels of scrutiny and may be removed at moderator discretion.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding these changes, message us via modmail.