#anyway anon i hope this was somewhat helpful in explaining a rather... complex issue?

[daggerfall]

At the risk of starting yet more disk horse, what's the problem with Dyvayth Fyr? To clarify I've only interacted with him in clockwork city, haven't played Morrowind or seen him anywhere else in eso. And he seemed like kinda a privilaged ass but no more so than Tharn, or honestly any of the Wizard tm characters in tes, so I've always been a little confused by the hate.

i did kinda worry this was like, bait when i first saw it, not noticing what had popped out of my queue around the time I got this - but at full risk of discourse, i think it is still best to like, give you an answer as unbiased as I can. full disclosure ive not played morrowind and im gonna get a little soapboxy about tesblr discourse

in TES III morrowind, there are some dialogue lines that imply/state the four women in fyr’s house to be his daughters, clones of himself, but also his wives. which should pretty obviously be uhhhhhhhhhhh really REALLY yikes. ESO fyr exists 800 years before this and has zero references to this, nor does it give any indication of fyr as being anywhere NEAR that level of reprehensible. It’s a big difference, one that some fans agree with as “the writers of ESO wanted to distance themselves from the original writing of morrowind, which was a massive dumpster fire and highly HIGHLY problematic in places, but wanted to bring in such an important lore character as divayth fyr for their story”. other fans see the decision as woobifying an irredeemable character for the purposes of wanting to fuck him or whatever, without the baggage of morrowind, which to them is something one cannot and should not shrug off. 

and in all honesty, i support whatever people feel in regards to the character, on an individual level. the morrowind characterization can and should elicit strong emotional responses - some want him killed and to suffer, some want him entirely gone from the game, some just want that one aspect about him removed from the game for personal comfort, some want it gone so they dont have to feel guilty about liking him. and some people only know him from eso, where he is as you described: no worse than any other lovable asshole wizard character. he induces a certain level of rage in me only seen before in tharn that I find to be... enjoyable to play through. I do admittedly enjoy his characterization in ESO (but I’m just a corporate simp so what do I know). 

and those people who only know him from eso often have NO CLUE what his morrowind characterization was like (or that he was in morrowind at all) because morrowind is highly unplayable if you have any form of dyslexia, adhd that doesnt let you read walls of text, hate the combat system, hate older graphics, your system can’t play it, you���re wildly uncomfortable with the amount of sexual harassment and depictions of slavery in it... there’s so many good reasons to never play or care about morrowind. 

The hate I usually see directed at Fyr is either “he’s like tharn so it’s lovable bullying of an asshole wizard character” or “he’s disgusting and i hate that he even exists in ESO”. It entirely depends on people’s stance of what to do with his Morrowind characterization: throw it out, acknowledge and condemn it, or be unaware of it. So i cannot tell you if the hate you are seeing is coming from one side or another without knowing OP’s intent. 

If people want to talk about Fyr without ever acknowledging Morrowind, hell yeah. If people want him to suffer and die because his Morrowind characterization is especially emotionally triggering given trauma or whatever other reason, then all the power to you, I support you. If people never want to acknowledge him, go for it. If people want to talk about Fyr but knowingly remove that singular disgusting thing about him from Morrowind because the idea of it even existing in the world makes you WILDLY uncomfortable (that’s my stance personally), rock on. 

I think people deserve the right to feel uncomfortable with him, feel rage and hate toward him even. And I also think they deserve the right to just, delete that one bit because it would be SO EASY to get rid of it and make him into a character more like Tharn who we love to hate - to just take Morrowind and throw it out the window. And I think both these groups deserve the right to exist in the same spaces and be civil toward each other. Essentially, let people feel their rage, but also don’t bully and harass people off this site for only knowing ESO characterization of Fyr when they talk about him :)

[tonyglowheart]

Idk who to talk to about this but last year I came across a white couple that got married as Wangxian and am kind of dreading people getting married as bride!XL (I mean I don’t think I’m comfortable with it even when they’re cosplaying the character’s Period but I’m trying(maybe failing) to be generous) bc it’s specifically CHN marriage tradition. Knowing how people can love EAsian media yet be racist towards us anyway, the growing global sinophobia just makes this feel worse. Am I overreacting?

Hi anon!

I don’t necessarily think you’re overreacting because your personal sore points are informed by your specific life experiences and the kinds of racism and microaggressions you’ve encountered and grown weary and leery of. I know I have points where I react to/against, that doesn’t affect everyone, and may not even affect a majority. At the very least, there’s reasons why I shy away from engaging with fic and specific fandoms in certain spaces, that I know are valid for me, and may be discussed as far as how it parallels or plays into wider trends, but that that doesn’t necessarily mean it translates to blanket prohibitions or guidelines or such.

From what you’ve described to me, I think I’d be wary of it, but not altogether against it? I think if someone is doing a cosplay wedding.... that’s kind of whatever to me. When something becomes a media franchise like that, I kind of feel like that kind of thing is going to happen. It may not be perfectly equitable as far as like playing into issues of Orientalism and colonialism/postcolonialism/neocolonialism go, but also from a more personally pragmatic point, there’s only so many fucks I have to give, and there’s things that, if for no other reason than personal sanity, I have learned and am letting to let go. We can’t redo the history of the world so as to completely erase or eradicate Western colonization or the structures and patterns laid out in history for neocolonialism.

Another thing I have to grapple with, is that we/I shouldn’t turn our ire to the individual. On an individual level, the specific person isn’t enacting systemic inequality, even if their actions play into it. The best we can hope for, if we have the energy and means, is to reach out and try to connect with people and explain our perspective and our history, to see if we can connect with them in such a way that they understand what we’re saying and where we’re coming from. That’s not something that can be forced or brute-forced.

The bride!XL matter... yeah is more of a sticking point - although to me, bride!XL’s costume is still a costume, its patterns and motifs are slightly atypical for your traditional bridal attire. I do also want to kind of point out that the “traditional” Chinese wedding attire tends to be based off a Qing dynasty style and design, which has a further internal complexity of it being “Chinese,” but not being traditional Han ethnic clothing and rather based more on Manchu traditions. Similar to the topics ppl grapple with regarding the qipao/cheongsam, and part of the reason for the hanfu revival movement.

For me personally, I find it... unideal for people to be dressing up in a “costume” for marriage, especially when it DOES tie into the culture, but at the same time I feel like if people are going out of their way to dress as bride!XL (and not just “oh I found this “bridal costume” and thought it would be cute”), then that means Xie Lian and TianGuan means something to them. Watching wedding dress shows, the whole Western tradition of white or close-to-white gowns IS very strong, if not with the bridal party then with the families, so poteeentially for them to break from that, hopefully to me means that it DOES mean something to them, even if it may not be what I or we want it to. I think for me, if people were co-opting marriage traditions or customs in an uniformed matter, I’d be more tilted about it lmao, but that’s me and my comfort level.

I feel you tho on racism and sinophobia and people who will consume EAsian media but still be racist towards people. I think that’s a valid point of contention. I think you see it played out in the greater fandom :/ Not, tho, always in every case that’s popped up as a “racism” issue. But I do think it’s there, and I think some of the recent discourse on racism in fandom - which was prevalent what feels like a year ago but was actually a couple months - also has roots in real issues and trends.

Hrmm tl;dr tho? I think you’re valid and not necessarily overreacting, because there IS a lot of history and honestly, contemporary actions and trends, which make that uncomfortable and possibly even damaging. But at the same time.... I think generally on a fandom level, these individual situations are somewhat inevitable especially for larger-reaching fandoms (as far as like the fandom bell curve goes), and aren’t necessarily single-handedly enacting and enforcing all of those bevvy of -isms. And even then, as an individual, we can’t stop other people from making the decisions they make and doing the things they do with their own lives. The topic is complicated bc we have the the confluence of fandom competing needs and racial/social justice competing needs which is, you know, complicated by additional swathes of intersectional identities and issues. 

I’m sorry I don’t really have an easy answer for you or any kind of reassurance or anything. But I don’t necessarily think you’re discomfort is invalid, but at the same time I think it’s a good opportunity to try to reflect on it, interrogate what might be some more extreme impulses you might have as far as reacting or responding, and practice self-care where you can as far as curating your experience to be as harm-free for yourself as you can and focus as much as you can on the aspects you can control instead of remaining in the agonizing of the factors that are outside of your control. Because as much as it might gall me, there ARE factors I cannot personally control or influence, and that can even include people who are, on paper, in my immediate sphere of influence. If they don’t want to listen to me or find other competing needs more compelling, I can try to reach out and explain where I’m coming from all I want, but I can’t force anyone to reciprocate or honestly, even listen. So instead of focusing my energy onto the minds I can’t change, I think in the long run it’s more productive and more enjoyable to focus on the things I CAN affect. And on some things, I find I’ve had a better/more enjoyable time blacklisting instead of focusing overly on the factors outside of my control and trying to force things outside of my control to somehow happen anyway.

Now of course, it’s easy for me to SAY that now lmao. I mean, I know I’m not without flaws or salt. My saltmines run deep and my wounds remain rather sensitive and not yet numbed by time and my salt does indeed runneth over, maybe more often than ppl who aren’t me and who are following my blog for specific things would rather. And I don’t have it in me to always be magnanimous or extend people good faith without a second thought, especially if it’s something that hits a trigger. But idk, psychologically speaking, and even just from a personal level, it’s not helpful to me or even potentially to others to be so focused on things I can’t control or influence and to like be stuck in suffering so much. We only have so many hours and so many brain cells to devote to things.

...I literally have no clue how to wrap this up oh god. uhhh real tl;dr ig: anon I think you’re valid, but also like... from my personal experience... I’m suffering either way so for me I’m like. might as well learn to let it go so I’m not actively suffering over this particular thing and either free up braincells to try to building towards thriving or so I can suffer about things that are due to “me” reasons, or short of that, I do not see.meme it so at least I’m not being actively triggered by it (I think this is more where I’m at right now,,,, lmao,,, F). Ur valid tho, I know the struggle of “am I the one being issues” but that ALSO becomes stifling (or it did for me), when I felt like I had to shut up and behave so as to not ruffle Westerner feelings. But also suffering is rough and I encourage you, for your own peace of mind, to explore ways to lessen your suffering, bc that shit is rough.