#and I don’t mean in a puritanical moral problematic way

[garr9988]

[saintsenara]

How are you able to enjoy toxic/unhealthy/“problematic” ships/characters without feeling weird (for lack of a better word) about it?

I ask this because I want to be able to do this myself as it seems like a much more enjoyable way of engaging with fiction to me. I can get over some ships just being toxic and the characters not being good together and still enjoy their dynamic but I have trouble with the other ships that feel morally wrong. I know it’s just fiction but I can’t seem to get over the ick feeling I have when I think about those ships/characters. I feel like I’m being too puritanical about these things but I don’t know how to stop feeling like something is gross when I feel it’s gross…

Do you have any tips to stop jumping to moralizing ships/characters?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm going to be upfront that this reflexive gross feeling isn't something i've ever really struggled with - both in fic and more broadly. this is due to various personal idiosyncrasies, above all the fact that i've got disengaged boomer parents who didn't police our media consumption [my favourite book when i was eleven? lolita...] and that i'm a doctor, which is a profession which requires you to develop a very high threshold for what you find disgusting. the human body - at all stages of its life-cycle and its cycle of decomposition - produces a lot of different fluids... and it's also the case that [just as if you can think of it, there's porn for it] if an inanimate object exists, somebody somewhere has got it stuck inside them...

and so the situation that i find myself in is that i consider it infinitely less weird that i enjoy the odd bit of hot tomarrymort action than that i actively enjoy cutting through bone with a saw...

but, obviously, "get a medical degree" isn't particularly helpful advice...

i am a ride-or-die fan of the concept of stepping outside of your comfort zone. this is why i'm such an avowed multishipper - i think it's good for us as fandom citizens to examine the potential of our faves in relationships [romantic or otherwise] which are either not their canon endgames or which aren't our preferred pairings, and in situations which don't align with their canon experiences [whether that means making them suffer or giving them full-on fluff]. it draws out the multiple aspects of a character to consider them from these different angles - and it prevents us from getting so stuck in one interpretation of a character or configuration of a ship which means that it puts our backs up to stumble across stories which approach things differently.

but stepping outside of your comfort zone doesn't mean that you have to go enormously far. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics where characters' sex lives don't extend beyond hand-holding and forehead kisses - to take the plunge into an explicit piece filled to the brim with watersports and age play. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics for one canon pairing - to read a teen-rated fic for a non-canon alternative. both of these are entirely valid approaches.

by which i mean, our comfort levels and our thresholds for discomfort are subjective, they're personal. if there are ships or themes or characters you don't want to read about because they don't feel good... you're not doing something wrong if you avoid them. exposing yourself to fics you expect to make you uncomfortable can be useful - and fiction is certainly a way to explore discomfort which gives you much more control over the experience than encountering it in real life - but it's not something you're obliged to do to be active in fandom.

the thing you are obliged to do to be active in fandom is to be nice to other people, no matter what their tastes in fiction. this means, at its fundamental level, that when you see people who ship pairings or like themes which make you think "ew"... you keep it to yourself/the group chat rather than putting it on the timeline.

but, once this is something you've got the hang of [which takes a bit of time! but practice makes perfect!], something i feel can be a really useful way of overcoming a tendency towards knee-jerk moralising reactions is to just vibe in the vicinity of people you know like the content you instinctively feel is gross.

this doesn't mean you have to read any of this content - but you'll learn just by hanging out near them that the people who do are just... normal. one minute they might reblog a rec for a pairing you think "absolutely not" about, the next they might reblog a cat picture which makes you squeal with delight. you'll like some of their content, but not all. you'll agree with some of it, but not all. you might like progressively more of it as you spend time in their orbit - maybe they'll explain why they like the pairing or character in question and you'll think "huh, i've never looked at it like that" - or you might not. this is absolutely fine.

all of us - at one time or other - have made a black-and-white moralising pronouncement: people who think x are gross; people who like y are fucked-up, you'd never catch me doing z. and these pronouncements are different from our wider, societally-influenced moral codes - which are good things, otherwise we'd live in the purge - in that they're fundamentally ways for us to feel good about ourselves and our families and our friends by defining ourselves as better than a faceless other. we say "you'd never catch me reading that, it's foul" when we know [or think we know] that the friend we're talking to would agree with the statement. we are far less likely to say it if we know that the friend - whom we see as a human being who is beautiful in their imperfection and inherently worthy of love simply by virtue of being alive - was reading and enjoying that just the other day.

and so the best way to train yourself out of reflexively moralising ships or characters or tropes is to put a face to the faceless other who likes them. be intentional in sharing a space with fans of the stuff you feel uncomfortable with and, eventually, it just becomes background noise. you'll scroll on tumblr, say "well there we are, jane's written some more of her sirius/harry piss kink fic - although i'm not interested in clicking on it" and go on with your day.

because the other thing i think it's really useful to do is to train yourself into reframing your disgust as disinterest. there are plenty of things which i don't seek out to read - and some of these topics are completely benign and some are darker [i don't enjoy reading explicit non-con, for example] - but this is because i try to frame it as that i don't think these things would interest me.

this is still the maintenance of a personal comfort zone, but thinking of the content outside this zone as something you are disinterested in turns it into something neutral. when you think of it as something to be disgusted or grossed out by, it naturally provokes a visceral response which makes you look through a moral lens. thinking in terms of disinterest, instead, gives you sufficient detachment from this visceral response to recognise, interrogate, contextualise, and control it.

and - in time - this neutral reframing may result in you feeling more interested in taking the plunge into the ships and characters and stories you currently don't vibe with, once you don't have an instinctive disgust response as a barrier.

or it may not. and this is absolutely fine.

[hopecomesbacktolife]

hey, just. friendly reminder that fanfiction is morally neutral.

yes, that includes smutty fics. yes, that includes self-insert fics. yes, that includes the fics you consider Problematic TM and the fics you don’t think are Smart or New. in fact that’s kind of why I’m writing this post.

I know we all love to talk about Themes And Narratives, but—and please listen to me very carefully here—you are not earning Good Place Points for only reading the kinds of fan fiction you feel are Smart or Only Focuses On The Important Things Like Themes.

fan fiction is morally neutral.

what I mean is this: no one is harming you, themselves, or anyone, by writing a fic about two characters having sex. (are you uncomfortable with the fact that I typed the word “sex”? hi, this post is about you. people have sex. and they write and talk about it. it’s seriously fine.)

no one is being harmed by self insert fics, by smutty fics, by anything not exclusively Smart TM about the fandom or analytically adding to it.

(and that’s not to say these two types of fics, that any type of fic, can’t have those elements— some of my favorite fic authors, my mutuals, my tumblr friends, write fic in these genres, and they also explore Themes and Emotions and analyze character traits and histories and write brilliant plots and incredible character arcs and yknow what, it’s amazing! it’s fantastic to examine what makes two characters react a certain way to x situation while also having them fuck nasty about it!) (and yes, I did just type ‘fuck nasty about it’ and I promise, that’s fine, too.)

what I’m saying, though, is that it doesn’t NEED that to, I dunno, somehow validate it into existing. it just Is. it just Exists. it doesn’t need an aspect you Approve Of TM in order to earn the right to be shared, to be written, to be published and commended and interacted with and read. it just. Is.

and I think a lot of especially younger, or newer, tumblr users especially get uncomfortable with that, and they unintentionally veer right (..ha) into self-censoring, puritanical behavior which is exactly what every person trying to ban books and generally kill art, wants. (and we’re not even going to examine in depth here, beyond mentioning it, the fact that policing, censuring, and banning art has historically and still today is being used to silence marginalized voices, so, I ask you to keep that in mind as you think on this, too, please.)

what I’m trying to say is this—if you personally don’t enjoy smut, don’t enjoy self insert fics, don’t enjoy a certain genre, that’s great, you do you! but, you must, must understand that this is not a moral stance. You are not objecting to a problematic practice, exploited workers, consent issues, labor crises… none of that applies, because no one in these stories is a real person. a story written about two Star Trek characters kissing on the bridge of the Enterprise is just that, a story. there is no actor for whose rights to fight, no wages to dispute fairness of, no ethical ramifications of scenes to discuss. these are Fictional People in Fictional Situations.

fan fiction is morally neutral.

and the moment you try to make yourself feel Better TM, More Correct TM, or—one of the ones I encounter the most—Smarter TM, by saying oh, I don’t read that kind of fic, I read the good kind, with thought in it—

you’re not only causing harm, you’re actively employing art censoring behavior. is that something that you want to do? I hope not. I certainly don’t.

next time you see a fic or a genre you don’t Approve Of TM, please remember the easiest way of exhibiting that— simply scrolling by or blocking a tag! If you’re on ao3, their system is incredible for niche content searches, and blocking a tag even here on tumblr will (most of the time) work.

I just., there’s so many better options out there for you than to… act like this. I believe you, we, all of us, can be better than this.

fanfiction. is. morally. neutral.

[fandomele]

This is your frendly reminder that sex repulsed doesn’t mean sex negative, and as long as you aren’t judging and mistreating other people over their sexual interests/activities there is NOTHING WRONG, puritanical, oppressive nor evil in not wanting to hear about sex, have sex, see sexual stuff, read about sex, and all similar things. You are free to not consent to be involved in anything sex-related and it doesn’t mean you are against other people living their life, or that you are a prude or boring or whatever, stop equating these things. You are also free to protest if someone decides to get you involved without giving you the chance to get away, even if they are ‘just talking’ about it.

The idea that ‘I’m a cool asexual who would pass drinks at an orgy’ needs to die, there is nothing inherently superior (nor inferior) in consenting to be present when other people are having sex, nor in what it’s meant to represent aka ‘being comfortable when involved in other people’s sex lives in any way’. It’s just a preference/boundary.

I see way too many posts who seem to be trying to desperately prove that asexuals aren’t ‘all’ sex repulsed as if one should be ashamed of it, and this comes a lot from other asexuals too. What are we doing to each other? Speak for yourself but don’t make it sound like there is a moral ranking involved, no one is above the others because of how they feel about sex.

And this post is also about those who decided that whoever complains about displays of sexuality must be asexual and are using it as an excuse to attack the entire community: there are going to be all kinds of people who feel that way including asexuals, yep, however it’s not part of our orientation’s motto thank you very much, there are plenty asexuals minding their business, and allosexuals who are instead trying to impose their view on others. Don’t be like ‘hey! it’s not us asexuals who don’t want kink at pride and think sex is disgusting, because most of us are cool with being at an orgy’ but ‘it’s not the asexuals who don’t want those things because being sex negative and judgmental has nothing to do with our sexual preferences, those people are like that regardless of their identity and who come from all communities, you are just trying to blame it on asexual people as a group because you are an aphobe’ Don’t make ‘having boundaries’ a problematic thing, don’t make people feel bad or weird, even inside their own community, for not being comfortable around sexual stuff like movies, fanfictions, or worse real people’s tales of sexual experiences.

[grandhotelabyss]

I am not a professional classicist, which means I do not gain authority in the enlightened state by delegitimizing the tradition of which I am an official custodian, itself an idea of classical vintage, pioneered in Plato’s Republic; so I naturally see it a different way, even if I don’t read Greek. From my essay on the Iliad: 

The theorists worried, as theorists must. Following the insights of some of the first novelists and Romantic poets who dismissed Homer—Defoe, Richardson, and Blake thought the epic barbarous, superstitious, and inhumane—Adorno and Horkheimer locate the origins of bourgeois, western, male dominance in Homer’s objectification of myth; Auerbach indicts Homer because he presents a society more static and hierarchal than that imagined in the Hebrew Bible; Bakhtin contrasts the epic as monologic myth with the novel as ludic dialogue; Said levels his aforementioned postcolonial censure; and Benjamin links the aestheticism of the Homeric gods to the fascist exaltation in war for its own sake. Their points can’t be dismissed, nor can we ignore the context of a largely German-Jewish revolt against a Greek pantheon annexed by self-described Aryan fascists; but Benjamin’s communist “politicization of art”—in continuity with the English puritans’ anti-Homeric iconoclasm—leads to hecatombs of its own. It’s not as if communist politicizers never burned any books or committed any massacres. Like Simone Weil, the artists—Joyce, Pound, Auden, Ellison, Morrison, Godard, Carson, Walcott—saw more in Homer than war and domination. In the shield of Achilles’s “artificial wilderness,” they saw the universalizing force, the force of poetry, too.

Today’s politicization of art is less persuasive. Homer’s recent attackers, in whom the left-Hegelian critical theory of Adorno and Benjamin is garbled into the babytalk bromides of American meliorism, would replace his ethically “problematic” work with more suitable contemporary reading and viewing for young people—as if anyone past childhood ought to read for “role models,” as if it’s a surprise to anyone over 12 that a society some 30 centuries old doesn’t share our opinions, as if we consumers have any right at all to praise ourselves for living in such moral purity when we exist on the inside of a technological apparatus built by serfs at the direction of technocrats, and as if our world were not consequently much more akin to Homer’s than we want to admit. Here is how the hero of the Iliad replies when an enemy soldier pitiably and legitimately begs for his life:

“Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so? Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you. And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am? The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life a deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you, death and the strong force of fate are waiting. There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon when a man will take my life in battle too— flinging a spear perhaps or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.”

After which his victim resignedly spreads his arms to receive the killing blow. Homer puts this horror in his poem of everything for the only reason the poet of everything ever needs: not because we are to supposed to side with or against the hero or to identify with him or model ourselves on him, but because life also contains this.

[dragynkeep]

Do you think anti shippers know that in the case of age gap relationships in fanfiction, the author is usually projecting onto the "victim" in the problematic relationship? Like, people who fantasize about being r*ped and far more common than people who fantasize about r*ping someone else (and are just common in general) so why do they get so up in arms about a story on the internet? I get that it could be potentially triggering, but guess what? They could just as easily stop reading anytime they want. Or even better, mind the fucking tags. It's weird as hell that they insist that because something upsets them it means it shouldn't exist.

It also pisses me off when they just straight up assume that the people who write this stuff are not survivors themselves. I saw a comic where it essentially says that anyone who is interested in dark media that is potentially triggering for other people is a bad artist and are bad people. Completely ignoring that the disturbing artwork could be that person's possible coping mechanism because they themselves are a survivor.

Fandom purity culture makes me sick.

not to get too much into it but it’s pretty well known here that i have a cnc kink & have written rapefics before, my most recent & public one with qrow / weiss. i wrote weiss from my own experience but i also had to put myself into qrow’s shoes for the fic & this isn’t an uncommon experience with survivors. the ways we relate to characters or situations through our kinks have not & will never reflect our irl views, no more than brutally murdering a person in gta translates to an irl urge to muder.

tags & warnings are there to keep people safe; the age we are in for fanfiction & such has been the safest age because tagging & content / trigger warnings have become so normalized & used. we have all these avenues at our fingertips to avoid material that could upset or trigger us but unfortunately for fandom puritans, they don’t want self responsibility, but complete erasure.

erasure of other survivors experiences, coping mechanisms, of normal expressions of human sexuality & morality & dark materials. they don’t want any of that so they don’t care if it’s tagged or not because in the end it doesn’t matter, it still exists so it’s still “bad.”

that isn’t on us, it’s on them & normal, well adjusted people will continue to enjoy & explore these types of content knowing that at the end of the day, it can be left purely in the realm of fantasy, which we know is different to reality.

[persepholline]

I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

[ailuronymy]

i wasn't sure which blog to send this ask to, but i have a question ab my fanfiction. im trying to write my main character's father, who is in a different colony. it's sort of a leafcrow-type situation, where he had a forbidden relationship with the main character's mother and then took another mate in his own colony to appear loyal. however, the father character is much more manipulative and could be read as abusive. (1/?)

(2/2) my main problem is that i'm trying to write this father figure much more realistically and morally-gray instead of being a one-dimensional villain. at the same time i don't want it to seem as if i'm writing this abusive person (cat? idk) as a misunderstood bad boy archetype. i'm trying to go off of personal experience to write him but that's made it very hard to stay objective. any advice?

Hello there! I’d like to start out by asking you a couple of questions first. 

1. Why do you think fiction writing has to be “objective”?  2. What is the worst that happens if you do--on purpose or by mistake--write this character as a “misunderstood bad boy archetype”? 3. Who are you afraid of?

I’m asking you these questions because this ask you’ve sent me radiates a lot of fear, and I think you will benefit from identifying and understanding where your anxiety around this is actually coming from. I can have a good guess, though.

It seems to me that you are living in a kind of dread that if you have a villain too human, there will be consequences and I imagine that’s because there’s a vocal subsect of people who don’t have better things to do with their time than wailing that the downfall of society is nigh, because [mumble mumble] people reading and/or writing fiction, [something something] fiction impacts reality. It was a tired and severely flawed argument when the Victorians and Puritans did it, and it still is now, but it’s said with so much conviction by these people that I’m not surprised it sticks around. 

The thing is, there will always be bad faith actors and stupid people who will misrepresent or misinterpret your writing. The world is full of different people, and some of those people just... aren’t clever and aren’t kind and don’t think things through before they start talking at top volume. There is no amount of perfect you can be, as a writer, that will inoculate you from potential criticism (including really dumb, blatantly wrong criticism). The only way to avoid ever risking that is simply never to make art--and that’s no way to live, and I don’t recommend it.

I think this is what’s weighing on your mind. Between the lines, I can see you saying that you want to write this character based on your own experiences, which are emotionally charged and biased (because you are human), as someone complex and even likeable in moments, who has reasons for why he acts they way he does (and some of them might even be good reasons). You want to write him as a puzzle that isn’t easily solved by cutting him out of your character’s life or by the power of love suddenly curing him of all the terrible things he’s capable of. 

When we talk about “problematic” (properly, not in silly internet gotcha lingo), this is what it means: it presents a problem that isn’t easily resolved; it presents a nuanced and tangled problem, one that often has good elements as well as bad, and which is inextricable to the greater situation and causes run-on impacts if moved, or changed, or removed. Problematic as a word lets us talk about these kinds of ideas, typically in neutral ways--because a problem isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just difficult to navigate. The world is made of problems. 

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is there’s no trick I can offer you when it comes to writing this character. You will have to learn by doing, as is unfortunately the case with almost all writing in my experience. However, if it brings you any peace of mind, I’ve written many characters who I would describe as nuanced people, and some of them are also villains in other characters’ lives. 

For example, I’ve written a whole story from Brokenstar’s perspective, in which he sees himself and his actions as entirely justified, and would do it all again. I’ve written about Blackfoot, who is a murderer and has no real inner turmoil about that. I’ve written about Palebird (Palefeather, in my story) who is a neglectful mother working through her own troubles, and for whom there’s no explicit closure with her son. I’ve also written about Mudclaw, who is infamous for the part he plays in the Windclan civil war, and who is convinced he is justified in what he does. 

Are these characters bad people? Or good characters? I don’t get to decide that and I don’t feel the need to label them any particular way anyway, but I always strive to write them first and foremost as people. I want them to feel real and grounded in their own logic and reasoning. The rest of the interpretation I see as kind of not my business. Readers will read what I write in a myriad of different ways, because they are all different people. So far this approach has served me well, so I can recommend focusing on writing the story you want to tell and make your characters feel real. Good luck with your writing!

[tazwren]

My two cents on the devolution of fandom spaces...

As a former mod of a fandom space and a woman of colour, I do not feel safe.

Seeing what has been done to so many in this fandom, by a particular group of white American women, in the name of moral policing is both abhorrent and demoralising. As it also is to repeatedly see the same narrative being shoved at everyone as the gospel truth.

A narrative that very conveniently either becomes about fic or has nothing to do with fic, depending on how people want to swing things. A narrative that will accuse a person of Jewish heritage of anti-Semitism, a person of colour of racism, a practising Muslim of being an Islamaphobe. A narrative that will define for you and me and all of us comprising this myriad of multitudes in the world what generational or personal trauma includes and what induces the same.

Those of you who know me, know what I’ve been dealing with the past few days & why I haven’t spoken up before now. Before I logged out a couple days ago, I saw what looked like more of the usual nonsense by the same group of people I’ve kept my distance from once their true colours were revealed. What I didn’t expect is that they would think themselves so above the norms of human decency and accountability that they would go after not one but two women of colour this time around in their rabidity. And many others who spoke up, as it turns out.

It hurts to see what these women, that I know of, have had to endure and to see the passivity of the community, save for a few voices, in sitting back and letting the circus rampage through town. It hurt when I was at the receiving end of it and it hurts now.

Why? Because it shows me a microcosm of the world that I don’t really relate to, that makes no sense to me with the values I was brought up with, and which reduces basic human decency to a commodity to be trampled upon and for you to be seen as weak for having. Because people who willingly laud you for your art / writing / wit, meet you with effusive claims of love and affection and friendship, who have no qualms in taking your help when it suits them, will throw you under the bus and let the wolves ravage you when it doesn't.

Before I get into that, let me talk a little bit about what has transpired over the past few days to a week, and what has been systemically taking place over perhaps the past year in this fandom.

One thing is that everyone who makes a statement about anything suddenly has people in their mentions demanding they show what gives them the right to hold that particular opinion. A critical thing people forget about fandom is that it is a place where people hide their identity for a variety of reasons, all valid, and this approach to fiction and conversations where everyone has to reveal every part of their past and identity as a means of establishing their "credentials" in order to present their views comes in direct contradiction with how fandoms operate. It violates people's rights to privacy.

The other is that there has been an increase in the voices that purportedly stand up to “speak for” the marginalised, the abused, those discriminated against and those who belong to minorities who “need to be protected / kept safe”. An admirable sentiment, to be sure. If it weren’t for the fact that none of these groups of people needed saving, speaking for or the protection of this particular group of voices.

Voices who only want to define and use these people as "model victims" to hurt other white women and establish their supremacy over both them and other POC. Voices that will present their "truth" as they see fit and sans context or present you with screenshots of snippets of conversations held in supposedly secure spaces that they have no qualms in violating in the interest of the "greater good" and claim offense / silencing if the misdemeanour is pointed out or action is taken against them, Voices that will conveniently categorize you as a "token POC" or "white adjacent" when you do not support or align with their narrative. Voices that belong to a predominantly white American group of women, whose real agenda, as is evidenced by their modus operandi, has nothing to do with real altruism or a drive for justice or indeed to right wrongs.

No, their agenda is purely power.

To hold sway over groups of followers, to shepherd them as though they are sheep who cannot think for themselves, and to set themselves up as white saviours who call out those who step out of line, or are deemed to be problematic and toxic and unsafe. To be the owners of the only "safe spaces" in fandom and to drive other groups and spaces to be boycotted or worse.

Now, I've long wondered, who indeed are these women to decide that for anyone? In a world comprising multiple cultures, religions, groups, subgroups, genders and which contains multitudes, who are these women and what gives them the right to foist their puritanical standards on everyone, very conveniently disguised as concern for the moral well being of everyone and the consumption, of all things, of fiction?

Certainly, there are many things in this world that people regard with justifiably equal dislike / horror / sadness. At the same time, there is much that is not shared, that is particular to a culture and to a person’s background. There is a multitude of perspectives that make the whole. And the white women of the United States of America have not cornered the market on what those are, or indeed even own any curatorship or censorship of the same. They cannot, because each person’s culture and background and joy and trauma is their own, as are their ways of dealing with it all.

That being said, let’s talk about their pack behaviour and the devolution I’ve witnessed on social media as basic human decency is bartered for clout.

I’m all for standing up for someone who doesn’t have a voice or a platform, or maybe afraid of repercussions to voice dissent. I’m all for being there for our fellow human beings as they face struggles of often unconscionable and unfathomable proportions. I’m all for holding people accountable for their negative behaviours as they impact the larger community.

What I am unequivocally NOT for is treating such situations as an opportunity to preach, to virtue-signal, to shame and to put on blast the alleged wrong-doers. I say alleged because that’s what most accusations are on these platforms—allegations to do with things that disturb our sense of balance or make us wrinkle our noses or that we deem bad, and therefore make the accused deserving of the full force of the community’s misbehaviour and censure.

I ask you if you were found guilty of a crime in real life—you know, the one away from your phones and keyboards—would you not have an opportunity to retain a lawyer, to plead your case in a court of law, to acquit yourself? Or, if found guilty, would you not have the opportunity for correction and rehabilitation? Yes, you say? (If you say no, then that explains the spate of state-perpetuated injustices across the USA, but that is a different matter).

Why then are people treated so abhorrently in this court of public opinion? What gives you, me, any one of us the right to judge people so vilely and with a metaphorical gun to their heads? What gives anyone the right to say you better agree with everything I say, retract everything you said and grovel for it or we will eviscerate you in public, shame you, force you to change or delete the content that offends us and still ostracise you and in some cases even threaten you with bodily harm or death, or doxx you?

Why is there no grace in how people are approached or dealt with? Whatever happened to allowing people to learn from their mistakes, where applicable, or hearing them out and giving them a chance to explain their side of something we may not fully understand?

Why is there no accountability for such behaviour on the part of the accusers?

What makes the rest of you sit back and allow this to happen? What makes you think this is in any shape or form okay to watch? Today, it is a virtual stranger at the receiving end, one you can distance yourself from quite conveniently saying Oh, she just mods a group I am in, or I only read their fics a couple times or I only followed them for their art or jokes or whatever flavour of excuse you choose. Tomorrow, it will be one of your own - or it may very well be you. And you'd better hope there's someone left to speak up for you.

The irony is you will have allowed it to happen by letting the wolf in the fold. By letting these white women manipulate you, and the community you claim to be a part of, so unapologetically, so maliciously and so unashamedly that before you can do anything about it the cancer has taken hold.

If this was happening in the world outside of social media, they would have to follow due process, to present real evidence based on facts (not based on emotions, rumours or perceptions) and would have to allow the person they are accusing to present a counter-argument, to defend themselves or be defended. Failure to do so is a miscarriage of justice and, depending on whether this is a professional or legal proceeding, they would either seriously risk their jobs or have the case thrown out of court. If not face action themselves for attempting to derail the process of justice.

Why then are they permitted to range so freely through the landscape of fandom, snarling and biting at who they please, or who displeases them?

I have no shame in saying I was at the receiving end of their behaviour for defending a friend they put on blast and I will tell you right here and now, I am a woman of colour who feels unsafe and attacked by these so-called self-appointed white saviours of your social media experience, these so-called upholders of the common morality—whatever that means—who will fight for you the evils of problematic and toxic writers who dare to have an opinion not aligned with theirs and who do not bow to their clout. Not that they care, so long as they can ignore this fact since it doesn’t fit their narrative. So long as they can ignore what has just been done to so many people in the name of cleansing the fandom.

If any one of these women were truly interested in alleviating the troubles and pains of the discriminated, the marginalized, the trauma-affected, I invite them to please come roll their sleeves up and help in the multitudes of troubles that wrack this world, not just in the backyards of their minds. My country is amidst a struggle for the basics of human life in this horrific pandemic and, prior to that, for basic constitutional rights for religious minorities. Do not patronize me and lecture me on trauma and racism and discrimination. Do not marginalise me in your attempt to pontificate and set your pearl-clutching puritanical selves above the rest, or assuage your white guilt.

A largely American audience or fanbase in this fandom is purely a function of access and interest—other cultures have vast followings for things you couldn't begin to fathom—and it doesn't mean you are entitled in any shape or form to be spokespeople for the rest of the world. We have no interest in being colonized again by white oppressors.

If you disagree with what I have said, I congratulate you on being a part of their coterie and wish you much joy in being the sheep in their fold. Kindly unfollow or block me on the way off of this post.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 06 (first part)

(Masterpost)(Episode 05)

Warning: This contains spoilers for All 50 Episodes

Bad Boys Bad Boys What You Gonna Do

Nie Huasang’s brought his nuts, and someone’s brought wine, so the boys are drinking in Wei Wuxian’s guest house. Finally he gets to drink some of the Emperor’s Smile wine that he’s been doing all those product placements for.

Boys, get a bowl or something for your shells, were you raised in a barn?

Wei Wuxian hits on waxes poetic about the wine, and Jiang Cheng tells him to shut up. 

Wang Zhuocheng’s raw-fish-eating face may have failed him, but his drunk faces do not disappoint.

Wei Wuxian teases Jiang Cheng about his list of standards for a chick: She should have natural beauty, be virtuous and caring, from a good family, not too talkative, with a gentle voice, and not too capable. Also she should not spend too much money. Drunken running ensues.

Cue Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

(more behind the cut)

Much of the fandom has decided this list is a good fit for Nie Huaisang himself, and it sorta is. But he is both talkative and unvirtuous, what with all the current sneakiness, and all the eventual murders. 

This also definitely doesn't fit Wen Qing because she's capable as hell.  

This list is, however, a 100% a match for Jiang Yanli. Not in a weird, Jin Guangyao way--a lot of men want to marry a woman like their sister.  In a gender-divided and generation-divided society, a man’s sister might be the only woman he’s ever known well. Jiang Cheng adores Yanli and she’s his ideal model of a woman, as opposed to his mother, who...isnt.  

All these robes and talismans over the door do nothing to stop Lan Wangji from strolling in.  

Okay so - Lan Wangji is the senior disciple of the Lan Clan, yea? There is no way that patrolling the guest area is in any way his job. He is just walking around here at night specifically to see what Wei Wuxian is doing.

I already did a gifpost of the boys and their totally nonsexual horseplay, over here. I’ll just add, for sad factor, that Jiang Cheng is play-choking Wei Wuxian when they’re all on the bed, and later in the running-and-crying episode he is gonna for-real choke him. Foreshadowing! or maybe just coincidence!

One fun thread running through the young-cultivators episodes is that Nie Huaisang is legit terrified of Lan Wangji while also having a major aesthetic crush on him. Look at how flustered he is here, trying to act sober while also checking him out. 

Lan Wangji is shocked and visibly upset - what are you guys doing? This is not his busting face, this is, for a moment, his vulnerable and disillusioned face. He is super not used to what normal people are like. 

Wei Wuxian doesn't lie or otherwise try to get off the hook, which has got to have Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang grinding their teeth in frustration. He invites Lan Wangji to join them for a drink. LWJ cites a the “no drinking on campus” rule and WWX tries to convince him to chill. 

Then we have this lovely coordinated faint by the boys, to get out of going to get punished. Nie Huaisang has been practicing fainting in front of a mirror just in case he ever needs a skill like that in the future. 

Wei Wuxian keeps trying to turn this into a date. Eventually Lan Wangji is so upset he admits he can’t take all three of them by himself. 

Then the boys run away fake-barfing and Wei Wuxian hits Lan Wangji with a talisman. 

Steal His Agency That’s What You’re Gonna Do

What Wei Wuxian does to Lan Wanji here is definitely wrong. But it's not entirely a disaster.  It allows some crucial information to be shared between them, and it results in Wei Wuxian getting the utter shit beat out of him and never doing this again. I mean, he continues to mind-control his enemies and their eventual corpses, but he doesn't intentionally violate a friend or ally's autonomy in the future. Uhh not counting that whole golden core surgery-without-consent situation. And probably some other situations I’ve forgotten. He improves slightly, okay? 

It’s important to note, incidentally, that the Lan rules about drinking and other “vices” should not be viewed through a Christian lens. The Lans are neither puritans nor ascetics (look at their clothes, furniture, and jewelry, for starters). Being drunk is forbidden probably because it’s a loss of self-control. 

Speaking of self-control, mad props to Wang Yibo for being able to have zero physical reaction to fingers snapping in his face.

Drunk Lan Wangji

Under duress, Lan Wangji knocks back a cup of wine and promptly passes most of the way out. 

Wei Wuxian puts Lan Wangji into bed not unkindly, but pretty much like a sack of potatoes. Compare this to how tenderly he handles Lan Wangji the next time he’s drunk. 

WWX tells LWJ to call him Wei Gege, and giggles. Is this a term of endearment in this context? So far the various boys are calling each other -xiong, not -ge or gege.  In Western media, men calling each other “bro” is basically saying “no homo,” but brotherhood and sisterhood in C-Drama is often a way of indicating stronger love than friendship, without saying whether it's sexual or not. 

They finally start to have a conversation, and when Lan Wangji explains that no-one can touch his headband except, etc etc, Wei Wuxian stops trying to touch it. So at least he's not a handsy bastard in addition to all his other faults. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that his clan is boring and women won't want to marry him. Lan Wangji says that's fine. On one level this is the show acknowledging that he's gay, but I think he's responding in a gender-neutral way; he doesn't want to marry anyone. Marriage, from his perspective, is the literal worst. 

We don't know how he felt about his father, but he definitely loved his mother deeply, and she had a profoundly unhappy marriage, in which her husband did not provide companionship and her children were taken from her.

A note about all that: The dynamics of heterosexual marriages in The Untamed are not based on contemporary companionate marriage. Sex and reproduction is a wife's job in this world, and giving a gentry woman the option to choose her husband is radical. Wei Wuxian is the only one who dares say that Jiang Yanli should have a choice when Jin Guangshan casually tries to give her to his son in front of everyone.  

OP made this today but will totally reuse it when episode 23 rolls around

So Lan Wangji’s parents' marriage was extremely problematic but not necessarily for the reasons it would be in contemporary terms. Having signed on to marry Lan Dad, Mom would have expected to live together and get laid regularly (important for health, in some traditional views, regardless of love/no love) and to have the company of her children. Instead, she was isolated. Lan Dad wanted to have it both ways and so even though he loved her and apparently hooked up with her sometimes, he didn't do his duty by her. She didn't love him but she did her duty. 

Wei Wuxian continues to not get it, calling Lan Wangji dull and babbling about Lan Wangji’s parents until he realizes that LWJ is an orphan like him. 

A nice shift happens here. Once the penny drops, Wei Wuxian doesn't ask a single additional question - he just sees - by reading Lan Wangji’s face - what the deal is, and shares his own story to show he understands. 

This is the first time Wei Wuxian mentions being chased by dogs, which is kind of a big deal, because why was he left all alone when his parents died? 

Why didn't anyone take him in before Jiang Fengmian found him? How isolated are independent cultivators in this world? 

Tea Time

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen are having tea, and the Lan Clan is so uptight they don't touch each other's teacups. I don't know what this thing is called so I'm going to call it a tea speculum. 

Lan Qiren is back from the cultivation conference and says the red crack plague is happening over in Qinghe where the Nie clan lives.  Lan Xichen fills him in on the water demon, specifically saying Wei Wuxian figured out the connection to the red crack dudes, and explaining who WWX is, as if Lan QIren hadn't already thrown stuff at him and threatened to eventually kill him. 

Fun fact that I just noticed this week so didn't make it into earlier posts: In Episode 46, when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are in the Jiang ancestral hall, WWX says he was often punished to kneel there, and LWJ said that they heard about this in Gusu.  

So when WWX came to Gusu he already had a reputation as a troublemaker, and the Lan brothers were aware of it.   

Busted and Beaten

A Lan snitch comes in to say that Wei Wuxian has successfully corrupted Lan Wangji, which really shouldn’t cause as much surprise as it does.

“Wei Wuxian got drunk”

“Lan Wangji got drunk”

Lan Xichen takes a moment to consider carefully whether Wei Wuxian is a good friend for his little brother and whether perhaps he was too hasty in throwing them together. Ha ha ha no he doesn’t. 

On the punishment porch, Lan Xichen tries to lecture Lan Wangji in a calm way, but Lan Qiren wants to beat him and Lan Wangji wants to get beat. Wei Wuxian can’t understand why Lan Wangji doesn’t let him take the blame for the drinking. 

Lan Qiren goes way the fuck overboard with this punishment because he's angry--losing control and losing his sense of proportion--and Lan Xichen is shocked. The drone camera watching from above is also shocked.  

Lan Qiren has a few (very few) redeeming qualities, but his extreme rigidity and chronic resentment of anyone he perceives as bad are serious problems. His nephews are both struggling with complex moral quandaries as they get older, and he is absolutely no help to them in resolving their conflicts.

This is definitely...a style of parenting & teaching, but you can see how poorly it works, with Lan Wangji straight up saying “fuck it” after many years of conformity.  Lan Xichen is devoted to the middle path and tries to be obedient. But he is actually not walking anywhere near the middle path, as he gets pulled into colluding with a murderer at the same time as getting dragged onto his brother’s carnival ride. These men need parenting that isn’t so, uh, fucking stupid. (Yes, grown adults still need good parenting; watch Go Ahead if you doubt me) 

Wei Wuxian initially yells and falls down when he gets hit, but then he sees Lan Wangji is taking the beating without any reaction and he tries to do the same. 

Aftermath

Jiang Yanli gently lectures the boys, blaming Jiang Cheng for Wei Wuxian's drinking.  Jesus Christ, he's the younger sibling, could you just NOT, Yanli?  

Both boys ask Yanli not to tell their parents. The boys bicker about who's at fault and then Wei Wuxian shifts to baby voice and starts whining to Yanli about the pain. 

Yanli tells him to suck it up, and says after school she'll -- ok and I know this will be a surprise for everyone -- make soup for them. The boys immediately get back on the same team, which is team Please Put Meat In the Soup.

There's a nice character building moment for Wei Wuxian here. When he sees Lan Xichen he initially turns away to avoid running into him, but then he adults-up and goes to face him and greet him, giving him a half of a bow because of the pain, the pain. Rather than complaining about his punishment he meekly asks if he's broken another rule. 

Lan Xichen tells him that he did wrong but that Lan Qiren’s punishment was too harsh, and then in what is one of my favorite Lan Xichen moments, invites Wei Wuxian to use the cold spring to heal, but doesn't invite Jiang Cheng to go with him even though Jiang Cheng also was beaten. Lan Xichen, Matchmaker Auntie Extraordinaire. 

Then he answers Wei Wuxian’s question about his mom by saying she was just like Wei Wuxian and drove Lan Qiran up the wall. Jiang Cheng's reaction to that is really sweet. He does enjoy Wei Wuxian at the same time as being constantly irritated by him. 

Lan Xichen does his patented “breaking off in the middle of saying something and leaving out a chunk of the story” maneuver, although this time he doesn't include a flute solo. 

OP is mildly obsessed with Xuan Lu’s shoulders in this outfit. Also Yanli has an interesting sword, that's got some wood carving similar to Subian, but without the organic look, which OP only noticed because of screen capping Xuan Lu’s shoulders.  

Club Ruohan

Wen Qing continues to be pretty and slightly evil at this stage, sending magic fire notes to her boss using this talisman that is definitely floating in the air and not just hanging from a string. 

Wen Ruohan is in the mosh pit with his zombie groupies while he reads Wen Qing’s extremely vague status update and says "it all makes sense." 

Reach out and touch faith

Soundtrack

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode

Writing Prompt

How did Wei Wuxian’s parents die?

Admin Notes

I’m going to start spacing out my “first part” and “second part” posts by a few days.  I’ll update this post to link up the second part once I post it, and my masterpost is always up to date. 

Also: if you want more of my original content but don’t want to follow my whole blog (not following is fine!), I keep a pinboard of fun stuff at the top of my blog. I try to post original content at least once a week.

Continued in the second part later this week!

[janiedean]

I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

[raayllum]

can i ask why you're not an anti? since anti means anti p*dophilia and anti inc*st :/

it’s because i read greek mythology as a child and have critical thinking skills, and the people who use those terms the way you currently are don’t actually know what either of them mean and aren’t responsible enough to use them, lmao

for example: the very popular wlw canon ship c*tradora from “she-ra the princesses of power,” a children’s show reads as incestuous - raised by the same abusive mother figure since they were babies - and as abusive to me, both emotionally and physically. that doesn’t mean i get to harass people who do like it, or think it doesn’t have a right to exist, or that other interpretations of their relationship cannot exist just cause i don’t think the same way.

it’s also because i was a questioning ace (sex repulsed) teenager being called a homophobic pedophile by grown ass adults - consistently, for 2+ years - because of anti rhetoric, and because i didn’t want to share my age online bc i was still a minor. because you know, anonymous privacy of sensitive information matters

so even if studying literature’s affect on reality wasn’t my legitimate degree that i’ve excelled academically at every year of my university career, i’d still think the “anti movement” was stupid at best and harmful at worst. sometimes the “children” you’re trying to protect can ship the “problematic” things and be fully aware they’re problematic and still enjoy them, y’know? teenagers aren’t actually stupid and the anti movement has too much in common with aphobic, conservative puritanism for me to not see through its bullshit (hi 1800s victorian moral panics, and the very first thing plato and aristotle argued over, lmao - you’d think people would learn their history, right, and not repeat the dumbassery of samuel johnson)

you can get that harassment shit out of here. sounds like trying to cancelling the entire greek pantheon (and the bible, honestly, for that matter) is your bigger fish to fry

[phynali]

Canonization and Fandom Purity Culture

I wrote a 1k-word twitter thread (as proof that I am Not made for Twitter and it’s goddamn 240-character limit) and am pasting it here with edits and updates (it’s now 2k words). 

I have thoughts to share (which I know have been stated more eloquently before by others) about this trend of demanding/obsessing that certain ships become "canon" and how it overlaps with the rise of fandom purity culture.

Under the cut.

Here in 2021 there is a seemingly large and certainly loud and active contingent of online fandoms who desire (or even demand) "canon validation" for a given interpretation of a source material. This is more true with shipping than anywhere else.

First, it is important to note that the trend is not limited to queer ships or to any single fandom. In the past few years I've seen it for Riverdale, Voltron, Supernatural (perhaps most extreme?), The 100, etc., and less recent with the MCU, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0, etc. It is a broad trend across ships, fandoms, and mediums.

So if it is more common for queer ships, it is hardly unique to them. Similarly, pretending that it is about queer representation is a clever misdirect to disguise the fact that it is most often about ships and shipping wars. If you ever need proof of that, consider that a character can be queer without being in a given relationship or reciprocating another character's affections. Thus a call for more/better queer rep itself is very different than a call for specific ships to be made canon.

Also note that when audiences frame it as wanting to recognize a specific *character* as queer, it is almost always in the context of a ship. Litmus test: would making that character queer but having them *explicitly reject* the other half of the ship be seen as a betrayal?

(Note: none or this is to say we shouldn't push for more queer rep and more *quality and well-written* queer rep! Just that that isn't what I'm talking about here, and not what seeking canon validation for a specific interpretation or a specific ship is almost ever about.)

Why does this matter?

the language of representation and social justice should not be co-opted to prop up ship wars

it is reciprocal with a trend toward increasing toxicity in transformative fandom spaces

Number 1 here is self-explanatory (I hope). Let's chat about 2.

Demands for canon validation correlate with a rise in fanpol / fandom purity culture. What is fandom purity culture (and fandom policing)? This toxic mentality is about justifying one's shipping preferences and aiming to be pure (non-problematic) in your fictional appetites regarding romance and sex.

Note that this purity culture is so named as it arises linearly from American Protestantism, conservative puritanical anxiety around thought crimes, and overlaps in many ways with terf ideologies and regressively anti-kink paradigms.

It goes like this: problematic content is "gross" and therefore morally reprehensible. Much like how queer sex/relationships get labelled as "gross" (Other) and thus morally sinful, or how kink gets labelled as "harmful" and thus morally wrong. The Problematic label is applied by fanpol to ships with offset age or power dynamics, complicated histories, and anything they choose to label as "harmful". As such, they would decry my comparison here to queerphobia itself as also being harmful, because their (completely fictional) targets are ~actually~ evil.

(The irony of this is completely lost on them).

This mode of interacting with creative works leaves no room to explore dark or erotic themes or dynamics which may exist in fiction but not healthily in reality. Gothic romance is verboten. Even breathe the word incest and you will be labelled a monster (nevermind Greek tragedy or GoT).

As with most puritanical bullshit, fanpol ideology only applies these beliefs to sex and never to violence/murder/etc, proving what lies at its core. It also demands its American-based values be applied to all fictional periods and places as the One True Moral Standard. It evangelizes – look no further than how these people try to recruit others to their cause, aim to elevate themselves as righteous, and try to persuade (‘save’) others from their degenerate ways of thinking. 

“See the light” they promise “here are our callouts and blog posts to convince you. Decry your past sins of problematic shipping, be baptized by our in-group adulation and welcome, and then go forth and send hate to others until they too see the light.” In many ways “get therapy” by the antis is akin to “I’ll pray for you” by the Christian-right (and ultimately ironic).

(Although it has been pointed out to me that these fans are likely not themselves specifically ex-evangelicals, but rather those who have brushed up with evangelical norms and modes of thinking without specifically being victims of it. In many ways they are more simply conservative Christian in temperament and attitude without necessarily being raised into religion by belief).

What this has to do with canon validation is that these fans look to canon for approval, for Truth. On the one hand, if it is in the canon then it must be good / pure or at least acceptable. The authority (canon) has deemed it thus. It is safe and acceptable to discuss and to enjoy watching or consuming. In this way, validation from canon means a measure of safety from being Bad and Problematic. 

For example, where a GoT fan could discuss Cersei/Jaime's (toxic, interesting) dynamic in depth as it related to the canon, fans who shipped Jon/Sansa (healthy, interesting) were Gross and Bad. The canon as Truth provided a safety net, a launch point. "It's GRRM, not me, who is problematic." It wasn’t okay to ship the problematic bad gross incest ship, but it being in the canon material meant it was open for discussion, for nuance, for “this adds an interesting layer to the story” which is denied to all non-canon ships labelled as problematic.

(Note: there are of course people who have zero interest in watching GoT for a whole slew of very valid reasons, including but not limited to the incest. That’s a different to this trend. A less charged example might be The Umbrella Academy, where a brother canonically is in love with his sister and antis still praise the show, but if you dare to ship any of the potential incest ships then you are the one who is disgusting).

On the other hand, a very interesting alternate (or additional) explanation for this phenomenon was raised to me on twitter. (These ideas aren’t mine originally, but I wholly endorse them as a big part of what is likely going on): Namely, as with authoritarian individuals in general, they see themselves as right and correct, but the canon (which has not yet validated their ship) is not correct, and is in fact problematic, and so they can save the canon from itself.

As mentioned, these fanpol types see their interpretation as Good and Pure. So if they can push (demand, bully) the canon into conforming to their worldview and validating their interpretation, then they have shown the (sinful) creators the light and led them to the righteous path. This only works if the canon allows itself to saved though, otherwise the creators remain Evil for spurning them.

How is this different from fans simply hoping for their ship to be canon?

For a second here, let’s rewind to the 90s (since Whedon has been in the news recently). This “I want it to be canon” thing isn’t 100% new, of course. We saw this trend then for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it was different then. At the time, fans who hoped for a ship to be canon might have been cheering for a problematic one to begin with (Buffy/Spike). So shipping was still present, minus vocal fanpol.

(And Buffy fans learned that canon validation...can leave a lot to be desired. A heavy lesson was learned about the ways that fan desires can play out horrifically in canon, and how some things are best left out of the hands of canon-writers).

These days, this is still largely true. Many fans hope for their ships to go canon, as they always have. There are tropes like “will they/won’t they” that TV shows may even be designed around, which a certain narrative anticipation and a very deliberate build up to that.

But while shipping *hopes* occur for many fans, almost all ships fans that *demand* to go canon and obsess over are now the ones deemed as Unproblematic, or as Less Problematic. I’m talking here about the ships that aren’t necessarily an explicit will/won’t they dynamic but do have some canon dynamic that leads them to being shipped, but which the creators aren’t necessarily deliberately teasing and building up a romantic end-game for.

These ships often have fans who are happy to stick to fandom, but there has also been a huge uptick in the portion of fans who are approaching shipping with an explicit lens of “will they go canon?” and “don’t you want them to be canon?” and now even “they have to go canon” and “the canon is wrong if they don’t make this ship canon”, to a final end-point of “if the ship doesn’t go canon, the source material is Wrong and Bad.”

These latter opinions are the one we see more by extreme fans (‘stans’), hardcore shippers, but especially by fanpol-types, the ones who embrace fandom purity culture at least to some extent.

Why them?

In pushing for canon validation, fanpol types seek to elevate their (pure) interpretation of canon. As mentioned above, it’s validation of their authority, a safety-net, and a way to save the canon from itself if only they can bully the canon into validating their right and good interpretation. 

There’s also another reason, which is that canon validation is a tool to bludgeon those seen as problematic. They can use it to denounce other (problematic) ships as Not Being Canon and therefore highlight their own as Right and Good, because it is represented in the True Meaning of the Work.

Canon validation then is a cudgel sought by virtuous crusaders to wield against their unclean enemies. It is an ideological pursuit. It is organised around identity and in groups sometimes as insular as cults.

How does this happen?

Fanpol tend to be younger or more vulnerable fans, susceptible to authoritarian manipulators. As many have highlighted before, authoritarian groups and exclusionary ideologies like terfs are very good at using websites like tumblr to mobilize others around their organizing beliefs. Fanpol tend to feel legitimate discomfort, but instead of taking responsibility for their media engagement, ringleaders stoke and help them direct their discomfort as anger onto others; “I feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and therefore you should be held accountable for my emotions.” Authoritarian communities endorse social dominance orientations, deference to ringleaders, and obedient faith to the principles those ringleaders endorse.

As these fans attach more and more of their identity to a given media (or ship), and derive more and more validation and more of their belongingness needs from this fanpol community, they also become more and more anxious about being excluding from this group. This is because such communities have rigid rules and very conditional bases for social acceptance. Question or "betray" the organizing ideology and be punished or excommunicated. If that is all you have, you are left with nothing. Being labelled problematic then is a social death.

What this means is that these fans cannot accept all interpretations of a media as equally valid: to do so Betrays the ideology. It promises exclusion. And, in line with a perspective around ‘saving’ canon and leading others into the light – forcing and bending the canon to their will is what will make it Good (and therefore acceptable to enjoy, and therefore proof of them as righteous by having saved others). As was also pointed out to me on twitter, endorsement from canon or its creators also satiates that deep need they have for authority figures to approve of them.

Due to all of this, these fans come to obsess over canon validation of their own interpretation. In a way, they have no other option but to do so. They need this validation -- as their weapon, as their authority, as their safety net, as their approval, as their evangelical mission of saviorship.

Canon validation is proof: I am Good. I am Right(eous). I am Safe.

(In many ways, I do ache for some of these people, so wrapped up in toxic communities and mindsets and so afraid to step out of line for fear of swift retribution, policing their own thoughts and art against the encroaching possibility that anything be less than pure. It’s not healthy, it’s never going to be healthy.)

In the end, people are going to write their own stories. You are well within your rights to critique those stories, to hate them, to interpret them how you will, but you can never control their story (it's theirs).

Some final notes:

This trend may be partially to do with queer ships now being *able* to go canon where before so no such expectation would exist. Similarly, social media has made this easier to vocalize. Still, who makes these demands and the underlying reasons are telling. There are also many legitimate critiques of censorship, queerbaiting (nebulous discussions to be had here), and homophobia in media to be had, and which may front specific ships in their critique. But critique is distinct from asking that canon validate one's own interpretation.

[joebrickwoll]

Not that I care all that much he has one but of course Auston will have some sort of type he is a famous athlete he’s gonna set the bar high for women. I feel like girls get way too butt hurt over it. Face (not directed at you) reality majority of girls do not have a shot with him. Like you said it’s okay for him to have a type.

ok yes, to be honest this started as an ask about 1 hockey player’s “type” and my answer about how it’s none of our damn business but now it’s turning into a rant but bear with me. 

to be honest I just have a tough time with any assumptions that fans make about any celebrity or professional athlete in general. we don’t know these people, their preferences, their personalties, their lives. we know as much or as little as they choose to publicly share and in many cases that is a very limited amount of information. 

so i grew up and still live about an hour outside of toronto, i’ve been a leafs fan all my life so i’m used to how problematic and super gross hockey fandom can be but i am fairly new to the tumblr/twitter brand of hockey player fandom realm and let me tell you while it’s very different, it is not exactly a vast improvement for a few different reasons:

1) the creepy possessiveness: just because you are attracted to them or you stan or whatever doesn’t mean that they owe you some debt in return. just because you bought a jersey doesn’t mean they’re your man or whatever, by that logic my seventy year old father has had a beautiful and lasting thirty year relationship with doug gilmore. and it doesn’t mean that they’re monsters if they are typically attracted to a certain “type” that doesn’t match yours, they’re just normal people with attraction preferences, you can stop clutching your pearls. 

2) the entitlement: these guys are just people doing a job and they don’t actually owe you anything. i’ve heard so many stories over the years of this guy’s an asshole to fans or this guy’s rude to girls in clubs or whatever. again, growing up near toronto and going to university in the city I’ve actually seen from the periphery what it looks like when there’s a leafs player at the restaurant or at the bar, and it looks fucking unbearable. if you are a player in a big hockey market you I promise you do not get a moment of peace and idk about you but if I was trying to have dinner with my family or a fun night out with my friends and I spent the whole night being relentlessly stared at and hit on by people I wasn’t remotely interested in, I probably wouldn’t be too accommodating by the end of the night either. 

3) the infantilism vs the moral puritanicals: there are two types of hockey players that get talked about on tumblr, either you’re baby and you can do nothing wrong and any time anyone brings up any type of critique or even just honestly talking about stretches of poor performance they’re a disgusting bully and how dare you attack this innocent man child who’s done nothing wrong ever. OR you have made a mistake in your life and you are an unforgivable monster and none of your accomplishments or good deeds are worth anything, you should give up your dream job because I never want to see your nasty face ever again. how nice to know that no one on tumblr has ever made a mistake and has never needed the grace of forgiveness extended to them. (before anyone gets up in arms, i’m not talking about people with a history of well documented, repeated, horrific behaviour like racism or assault) also maybe do your own research about things instead of trusting a tweet or tumblr post from some rando with no receipts whatsoever (critical thinking is a cool skill, give it a try)

the moral of all of these are that these hockey players are human beings with a mix of good and shitty things about them and the crux of every issue i have with hockey player fandom is that there is no allowance for them to be human beings with both good qualities and flaws. just because they’re public figures does not mean that they’re exempt or less deserving of call outs for their fuck ups but also forgiveness for their mistakes and opportunities for growth.

[off-in-the-moors]

It is not the responsibility of art to be morally instructive. It is 100% YOUR responsibility to research something if you know you are a sensitive person, take responsibility for your self. Art does not need to be some clinical sanitized morality play, get over your weird Puritanical obsession that all art must conform to your specific world view. Either engage in challenging works or stick to children’s cartoons where you can feel ‘safe’.

-

Dear Anon,

I’m truly confused by this. I have no idea what are you referencing and what “inspired“ you to send me this “ask“. But I will do my best to give you something.

(It only took me this long to answer, bc I don’t log in very often.)

Let’s start with your assumption of me.

I’m not a sensitive person, in any meaning. I actually love reading and engaging in media that’s morally questionable or straight up morbid and disturbing. Some of my favorite thing are: paintings by Goya and Beksiński, folklore/mythology (in it’s most unchanged form), “Perfume“ both film and book, Hannibal tv series, true crime, to name a few. Your assumption that I’m just “a girl obsessed and only enjoying modern cartoons“ is insulting.

I actually do agree with you that art, in any form, isn’t responsible to be morally instructive, but every work of art is made to send some form of message, be an obvious one or hidden between pages. In my opinion, authors and writers should be aware of what message they want to send with their works and what messages they are sending with what and how they’re presenting.

On your “It is 100% YOUR responsibility to research something if you know you are a sensitive person, take responsibility for your self“ this is also true. But on the other hand, given media should provide you with some kind of warning and not a third party entity. For example, if I pick-up a YA book from a bookstore, bc of its synopsis or someone (be a person I know or a creator) recommended it to me, I don't expect "spicy" scenes or blatant a*use of a character by its love interest or just "torture p*rn" scenes in it but here they are. With no warning. Is it my fault? Partly yes. Is it the media's fault for not giving me any warnings? Also yes.

Even with researching "warnings" isn't that simple. When it comes to books, the only way is reading reviews or recommendations. With reviews, they're either positive and say nothing book related or are negative and full of spoilers. Recommendations nowadays most of the time don't even give you what the story is about, just "it has x, y and z in it", let alone "warnings". From my own experience, they either don't tell you about "unappropriated" stuff (be r*pe, d*ug a*use, a*use, etc.) or they down play them and in worst cases, excuse it or say "it gets better/it's addressed in the next book/later in the series".

But if you feel the need to micromanage everything you engage in, go for it. But most people don't and a warning would be nice.

(This of course doesn't apply to thing and character's actions deemed "problematic". If said stuff is well handled and addressed, it's perfectly ok to portray it. But again, if it addressed and/or showed as wrong, and not ignored, excused, or played as a joke.)

I don't know from where you took the "your weird Puritanical obsession", bc 1) I never petitioned for that in my posts, and 2) I'm actually against censuring and sanitation of media.

Now, on to what "inspired" you to write this.

Again, I have no f-clue. So here are my best guesses:

If it's about Pathologic: I only have problem with people forcing their politics, modern sentiments and opinions/interpretations on to something they don't fully understand, because they're from a different cultural climate. An American can't fully (or in some cases, refuses to) understand something made by Europeans (in this case Russians) for Europeans in mind. I don't want to mix myself into the fandom discourse/drama, because I don't care what people think or how they interpret stuff, even if it's taken from something minor or from nowhere with no support (or even is debunked) in canon. I don't care if people like or hate this one character. Just don't police people for liking things, you don't like. Nor do public shaming or send people on those you don't agree with. You don't like a pixel man on platform shoes? Fine. Just don't bully and attack people who do.

If it's about my post about B*rdugo's adult book: I will admit, the wording and presentation wasn't the best. I was writing it from a place of strong emotions, but I'm still standing by my opinion that some things should not be presented with graphic details in a book without any type of warning. Here we could have a discussion about trigger warnings in books, hers response to the idea of putting them on her book and what is consider "too far", but this isn't about that. I actually have a lot of problems with B*rdugo and her fan-base, besides that. Her use of Russia, it's history, religion iconography and culture only for aesthetic and not doing proper research (she called her series "Greg's trilogy") or showing any respect for it (with characters, how are not main and secondary characters, a Slavic stereotype); her portray of dyslexia and how the fandom likes to use it as a joke in relation to this character; or people shielding her from any form of criticism with "She's is xyz, so she can write this". But I don't care about her and her works.

I stopped reading YA books, because I can't stand them any longer and their "handling" of topics, with people holding up every-single-one as "the best book ever written", not because of the quality or story but because the author is xyz, and spitting at every book written before 2000s. I'll get flag for it but YA novels are the Pulp fiction of our times (of course not all, but most of the popular ones are). I stopped trusting people recommending them to me, because 90% of the time, I'm just disappointed by them.

If it's about K and TRC: I already said so much about this. Margaret isn't aware of her audience, she writes for herself (which she admitted on a podcast) and refuses to change it to please anyone. She created and killed K for two reasons: to further Ronan's character arc (to be used for teaching him to dream better and a (not working) foil of him (or Adam... or Gansey)) and as her weird catharsis of killing everything she hates (who she apparently was; "fratty boys and chortling men") personified as one boy (and yes, boy, because this fandom likes to forget he’s only seventeen, the same age as the Gangsey. If you excuses their actions, like Ronan and Adam’s racist jokes or Gansey’s toxic behaviors towards Adam with “they’re just teenagers”, why K is excluded from being a stupid teen?). With Jordan, it's now obvious that she has a bias of suffering/dealing with your trauma (and addiction) "in the right way", of which in her eyes, K wasn't. She could not create K or she could not make him a harmful stereotype of a Slav, but she did. In a book targeted at 13-18 year olds, we have a drug-addicted boy committing a public s*icide and being demonized and forgotten by everyone.

But I'm done with this fandom, I never had a place in it. TRC fandom is 80% P*nch with a 1% being about K, but even this little corner is "too much" for the stans. I left for a reason, the only thing I regret is not apologizing for my out-burst. If someone who knows what I’m referencing is reading this, I’m truly sorry.

So, yea. I hope, I addressed your issue, Anon.

[perkwunos]

I want to start off by saying I am not uncritical of Nietzsche, am Most surely not a Nietzschian (I also agree many academics get very defensive when you criticize him and his work. I would however argue there are far more critical readers of his work that aren't people mouthing uncritically someone like Deleuze without having even read a single one of Nietzsche's own words.) , and I abhor Pound. My problem is the amount of charity you are able to extend to men like Kant and Whitehead. A.N. Whitehead may very well been a liberal Englishman of his time but credit where credit's due because despite your thoughts on the man (and to reiterate there are many very real problems in Nietszche who I think is a nerd) surely what's impressive about someone like Nietzsche growing up in his specific context was his ability to distance himself from his own previous anti-semitism (which again I agree with you that people tend to blame this on Wagner rather than N. himself) to both very explicitly openly mocking and proclaiming that all anti-semites should be quite literally shot. Have you seen the letters he sent out from when he went "mad" ?

I agree there are things in his work and subsequently in his general thought that get far too charitable readings by many leftists. Mostly men. Mostly white. I also believe that on much of the same note Holub's own scholarship and specific readings can (and have been) criticized for the same overreaching and inconsistent arguments that let us say someone like Deleuze is often criticized for making in support of Nietzsche.

I would also like to clarify Whitehead's problematic views on Jews and Jewishness are in fact not just in the Price book but also in places like Process and Reality and I believe Science and the Modern World (it might actually be Adventures of Ideas). These passages have been quite literally criticized by Jewish philosophers and theologians who themselves are critical but inspired by Whitehead's thought. Surely these implicit Christian biases of a Victorian Anglican man (no matter how heterodox) make his ideas and system just as easy for prodding as someone like Nietzsche (who let us not forget was brought up Lutheran and never fully escaped the way he had hoped). I frankly do not want to prop up a bunch of dead men and their ideas uncritically nor do I want to be just as uncritically puritanical about the work of a bunch of dead men and shut down open discussion (and which again as an aside I've noticed has increasingly become very white, male and circular. which is a bit ironic given the topics and men discussed. for instance I find it odd that you say you just don't see a lot of critical scholarship on Nietzsche which is quite literally untrue as there are many women and poc who have written work that is very critical of Nietzsche and his ideas. but I digress.) And again I think what bothers people (past the usual reflexive Nietzsche defenders on and off this site) is less that they feel you're playing games about Nietzsche than that you're willing to be more charitable to thinkers who have their own problems (Not just personally but also systematically. Such as Whitehead) who you yourself are more sympathetic and biased towards.

When I identify people like Whitehead and Kant as liberal that’s not supposed to be a good thing, it’s at least a mild insult and more me indicating that there are aspects of their social/political thought I find seriously, systematically wrong and incoherent. Of course, at the same time it’s important to distinguish types of anti-liberal stances: Nietzsche opposes Kant because he’s specifically an anti-liberal reactionary, and he supports aristocratic hierarchies. But I understand that all that probably doesn’t come across in a lot of what I say and it can seem like I’m just accepting them unproblematically as “normal liberals.” I’ve said before on here that Whitehead was eurocentric and naive in his sociological/historical accounts and am pretty open to that kind of criticism. I don’t begrudge you for wanting to bring this up in reference to Whitehead because I do think it’s a very worthwhile scrutiny; obviously, I myself think Whitehead’s main concepts in his philosophy survive this scrutiny, but it’s always worth looking at critically. Also, full identity cards on the table, I am jewish and my concern with antisemitism in philosophy is not a mere academic exercise, the reason I focus on this in relation to Nietzsche is pretty personal, and I have no desire to excuse or ignore its appearance in any thinkers.

I think you and I fundamentally disagree on what it meant for Nietzsche to disagree with the antisemites of his day. He disagreed with antisemites because he thought they were too much like Jews; that’s just what he himself says. My whole point is that he never really critically distanced himself from wagnerian antisemitism, he just adopted it and arguably took it even further, but in his own distinctive form. When I say antisemitism is a constitutive element of Nietzsche’s philosophy I mean when you want to understand his own thoughts on master/slave morality and how he uses that to critique Christianity, this requires understanding his antisemitism. Slave morality, so Nietzsche says, became an important force in history because it was unleashed by the Jews. Christianity is a manifestation of slave morality for Nietzsche because it is Jewish in origin and in character. It is central to his thought here.

So this isn’t comparable to Whitehead. If, in order to explain something like Whitehead’s concept of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” the main works that I would have to cite and reference included extensive passages of him going, “And this fallacy of misplaced concreteness is specifically Jewish in origin and character and is part of how they’ve gained control over modern society...” then it would be comparable.

As to me not having an exhaustive knowledge of different critiques of Nietzsche, I’m not an academic scholar and I’ll admit as much, so yes I’m still likely ignorant of many of the lesser known critiques that have been put out there. I wish you’d mentioned some of who these people and their writings are so I could check them out! Finding all the different scholarly work being done isn’t always an easy process. And you have to admit it’s a bit ironic that you still refrained from actually naming any of these women or people of color who end up getting ignored in these discussions.