#anyways. more nuance is required regardless. and this discussion has been largely taken over

[princehendir]

Okay, shooting my shot into the dark here. AFAIK, from MY fandom experiences (I entered the Bioware domain LATE late, so it's not from that), "playersexual" was originally a term that bisexual/pansexual people used to critique how, if a character was written as bi, it was fanservice in the sense that the character was... not bi. Their dialogue was frequently monosexual, usually hetero, with MAYBE a pronoun change here or there for the protag. But all their exes, if they had them, all their crushes, all their means of expressing their sexual and romantic interest? Not bi in nature. Down to animations often just... assuming you weren't going to romance them in a same-sex way. At some point, the term got yoinked, misunderstood, and wrestled into an ill-fitting box, which is what you've pretty accurately described as "being mad at a made-up version of DA:2". But when I first heard the term, it was super not about that. It was about bi rep not going hard enough on being bi and wanting the characters to be more explicitly bi.

Yeah this tracks for me. I was about to make another post about how from what I've seen there's two working definitions of playersexual and they are 1) a character (in a group of characters whonare the same) that can be romanced by the PC regardless of gender and 2) a character romance that doesn't not acknowledge the gender of the PC in any way, and is just the same set of scenes and dialogue regardless. And how I think 2 is actually a good legitimate criticism, whereas 1 is just, like a neutral thing that a lot of people think is bad for reasons they can't actually seem to articulate.

[wei-meddling-wuxian]

I went to respond but turns out I'm blocked but since I already wrote it out, I thought I'd post it anyways.

Before I begin, for some reason ya'll think I can force you to do this? This post was just my pov on the "canon jiang cheng" tag and the change I'd like to see. I can't force you to change how you use the tag but I can express my opinion about it.

Definition of canon: "Canon [is] the events presented in the media source that provide the universe, setting, and characters."

By calling the tag "canon jiang cheng" you're implying that a particular perspective is the "correct one" which is very audacious and completely untrue for everyone (both pro and anti any character). I don't mind that there's a tag to criticize Jiang Cheng and his actions. I honestly believe that having nuanced discussions for any character requires looking both at the good and bad sides. However, my issue comes with calling the tag "canon" in the context of fandom when there are much better tags to better portray what it's used for: jiang cheng critical, dark jiang cheng or even sandu shengshou considering it relates to the three poisons which are some of the flaws hinted at this tag. The quotes and evidence are fine but metas (which are also usually tagged "jiang cheng meta" so there is already a tag for those discussions) are personal interpretations of the text based on how you view the characters.

2. I can't force people to stop using the tag but I can express my opinion as someone within the fandom and request a possible change to make the experience better. For example, the bung0u str@y d0gs fandom has started to reduce how much we use the actual names of characters as they are irl authors names and use "bsd chvuya" or "bsd d@zai" to help people find the content they want. Does everyone do it? no. But there has been changes and it is possible. I don't think asking to change the word canon to something else is so outrageous. And as a side note, this post came because I saw like three posts in a row criticizing how new tumblr users from twitter have taken over the tag and thought maybe we can come up with a solution. clearly I was wrong.

3. The purpose of tags is to help navigate content as fandoms are usually very large. So having fandom specific tags are really helpful in that process and having well-named ones help not to be misleading re: my own experience with "canon jiang cheng" and other experiences in the comments. I'm sure you'll keep posting in the "canon jiang cheng" tag as you like but I don't think I'm wrong for expressing my opinion about it and seeing if people are willing to change.

The small note: where in my initial post did I ever state that jiang cheng is a hero/underdog? also since when is it completely wrong to sympathize with an antagonists experiences? for example I can completely sympathize with jgy and the discrimination he faces as the son of a prostitute but also criticize his consequential actions. one of the best things about mdzs is the lack of clear lines: wwx has very strong principles regarding human lives and doing what's right but he is very willing to override other's right to make their own choices, he overestimated his control and denied it until the last minute and hundreds of lives were lost and he's also capable of extreme levels of torture which I wasn't a fan of regardless of what the victim of it did. The Lans are depicted as paragons of righteousness and live very humble and disciplined lives but the background story with madam lan is very shady and they also didn't do anything about the Wen Remnents. And jc isn't an exception to these nuances. And sure you can shove him into the role of antagonist, but I'd like to believe the story goes beyond the clear cut lines of good and bad.

tl;dr - I don't care that you guys want to have a more critical perspective of jiang cheng, I'd just prefer don't call it "canon jiang cheng" when you're discussing your own interpretations (I can't make you do shit but I can request a change if I want).

See, I would believe that people who were originally on the "canon jiang cheng" tag were using it as a space to discuss his more morally ambiguous decisions except every other post on there was also tagged "anti jiang cheng". Also using canon in the tag is very bold especially when it's all individual interpretations of the character, which means it falls under fanon instead.

I would also have a more positive perspective if the tag was "jiang cheng critical" if the goal was to have engaging discussions but the audacity of tagging it "canon jiang cheng"....

So yea. So going forward, I propose:

Jiang cheng critical - if you wanna engage in discussion and debate

Canon jiang cheng - for gifs, quotes, fanart etc.

Jiang cheng - for people who enjoy the character and/or canon jiang cheng content

Anti-jiang cheng - for those who don't like the character and don't enjoy him (essentially please by sympathetic to people who actually enjoy the character and related content)