#doesn't have to be a sweeping moral statement

[watermelinoe]

like sorry but it's so funny when some vegans act like we've never questioned why humans have priority over other species, but then use human parameters to define the value of non-human animals. so are humans and non-human animals the same or not? are humans part of nature or not? or is predation and forming relationships with other species only murder/exploitation when we do it? i'm not insisting i have all the answers to these questions but it's so funny being told "i have to make offensive claims bc otherwise you'd never think about it" by someone whose argument falls apart if you follow the logic for more than two minutes. your argument is ultimately still human exceptionalism lmao

[cantsayidont]

The original "Mirror, Mirror" episode of TOS is revealing for what it says about the priorities of the Federation and Starfleet, but the return to the Mirror Universe in STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, ENTERPRISE, and DISCOVERY is mostly indicative of the intense hypocrisy (and acute moral failings) of modern STAR TREK writers in addressing the conceptual structures in which the franchise operates.

DEEP SPACE NINE's Mirror Universe episodes are predicated on the idea that mirror-Spock did eventually succeed in reforming the Terran Empire, but it produced a worse result: The Alpha Quadrant was conquered and the former worlds of the Empire enslaved by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. The writers of DS9 have been explicit about how they intended this to be interpreted: According to Michael Piller, who is the credited co-writer of the script, in Ira Steven Behr's words, mirror-Spock "actually screwed things up" by bringing about "a much more gentle empire that was conquered and taken over by the Klingons, the Cardassians and others." (This is per Captains' Logs Supplemental: The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, as quoted in the Memory Alpha page for "Crossover.")

The idea of showing that the TOS characters were not infallible or always correct is by no means unreasonable; it's certainly true that throughout TOS, Kirk often attempts to enact dramatic, sweeping changes in other societies based on snap judgments, and it's fair to suppose that some of those decisions didn't turn out well (which is something the DC STAR TREK comic examined at several points). However, it's revealing, and dismaying, that the one DS9 chose to pursue is "Mirror, Mirror" rather than, for example, "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Apple," or "Return of the Archons." After all, what could be more emblematic of the liberal values of STAR TREK than the Kissingerian argument that fascism is justifiable where the alternative is disorder and instability? I don't hyperbolize when I say that this is the most morally indefensible position presented in DS9, although it's also sadly consistent with the franchise's political position overall.

To make matters worse, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who contributed to the script, later asserted (in the Deep Space Nine Companion):

Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way. So I just thought that if the parallel Earth was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians (the Klingons and the Cardassians) were at the gate.

This statement is so abhorrent I don't even know where to begin, and it makes an argument much darker than anything in "Mirror, Mirror," whose depiction of the Terran Empire is singularly horrifying, leavened only by the campy cartoonishness of its presentation.

The storyline of the ENTERPRISE Mirror Universe episodes, the two-part "In a Mirror, Darkly," is clearly shaped by Doylist (real-world) priorities — specifically, to nostalgically revisit the aesthetic of TOS — and the admittedly amusing spectacle of the regular cast playing comically evil variations of their Pollyanna-ish characters. It mercifully doesn't take Wolfe's bait about the rationale for the Empire, instead indicating that the divergence between the Prime and Mirror Universes dates back to before the events of FIRST CONTACT. However, "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" ends up strongly implying that the main reason the Terran Empire of Kirk's time is so similar to the Prime Universe Starfleet is that the Empire has captured (and presumably eventually reverse-engineered) a time- and dimension-displaced 23rd century Starfleet vessel, the doomed Defiant from the TOS episode "The Tholian Web." DISCOVERY muddies the waters on this point, but the ENTERPRISE episodes tend to undermine the idea that the Terran Empire is simply a different version of the Federation, instead implying that its technology and knowledge is stolen from its future "good" counterpart.

Then we have DISCOVERY's Mirror Universe episodes. Hoo boy. DISCOVERY acknowledges the ENTERPRISE storyline without really answering the questions it raises beyond indicating that knowledge of the captured Prime Universe ship is a closely guarded secret ("Vaulting Ambition"). However, DISCOVERY makes a series of extremely troubling attempts to argue that the moral failings of the Mirror Universe reflect differences in the structure of that universe (for instance, the utterly absurd assertion that the Mirror Universe is literally darker than the Prime Universe, rendering Terrans unusually photosensitive) and even the biology of its inhabitants. "Die Trying" indicates that by the 32nd century, Starfleet believes that "a chimeric strain on the subatomic level in the Terran stem cell" gives Terrans a biological inclination toward duplicity. Yikes! This is a ghastly eugenicist argument, if anything even more repellent than Wolfe's apologia for tyranny: Some people are just biologically predisposed to be evil! Thanks, I hate it!

Again, this is much worse, and much more facile, than "Mirror, Mirror." In "Mirror, Mirror," the Mirror Universe and its brutal Terran Empire serve as essentially a moral bellwether for the Federation and the familiar STAR TREK characters. Its condemnation of fascism is not deep ("the illogic of waste"), but perhaps the most valuable point it makes is that the (relative) goodness of the Federation and Starfleet is not a state of being, but rather the product of an ongoing series of moral choices. This is the other part of Kirk's argument to mirror-Spock: When mirror-Spock remarks, "One man cannot summon the future," Kirk immediately retorts, "But one man can change the present."

DISCOVERY takes the opposite position: The evils of the Mirror Universe are intrinsic and immutable, and its resemblance to the Prime Universe is largely a coincidence that is rapidly diminishing ("Terra Firma" indicates that the universes have diverged so greatly after the DS9 era that crossover will eventually become impossible). Its principal ethical or moral relevance to the Prime Universe is simply to be an obstacle and an affirmation of the Prime Universe's utopian goodness rather than an examination, even a flawed one, of it might actually mean.

[fincalinde]

for your ask meme: wei wuxian?? 👀

Since I've got some new followers over the past couple of days (who knew what branching out from Xiyao would do for my reputation!), I'll once again add the disclaimer that I write MDZS meta and not CQL meta. I'm aware that in CQL, WWX is characterised somewhat differently. I have thoughts on that too, but I'm not immersed enough in CQL to commit to sharing them publicly.

Since WWX is the main character and appears in almost every scene, I won't attempt to write a thesis statement on him. (You cannot afford my hourly rate.) Instead I've decided to focus on an aspect of WWX that I feel is often overlooked or sanitised. That is to say:

WWX is extremely annoying.

He's not just irritating, or overly exuberant, or a touch too arrogant. He is infuriatingly obnoxious.

Obviously WWX is also brave and often well-meaning. He loves deeply, even if he consistently lets down the people who care about him. He's strong-willed enough to abide by his own sense of morality in the face of overwhelming disapproval and danger, and arrogant enough to make unilateral decisions when it would be better for all concerned if he took a step back. He's bad at big picture thinking and rarely considers the full ramifications of his actions, but he's also incredibly adept at getting out of scrapes, and he has an admirable if also somewhat depressing ability to shrug off pain and suffering that is the result of his difficult days on the streets and his mistreatment by YZY. 

And he's obnoxious.

I do think it often gets forgotten, because Wangxian is intended to be a love story and it's much more tempting to write sweeping romance and charming banter than hark back to all the canonical moments in which characters, including LWJ, genuinely want to throttle him to death.

He never shuts up! He's constantly laughing far too loudly and for too long. He's the sort of person who thinks it's funny to pull the rug out from under someone in a conversation so they end up discomfited and embarrassed. I fully understand that a large part of his hectoring LWJ is a precursor to his later romantic interest and is in line with his flirtation style, but the fact remains that he goads LWJ beyond the point of endurance on multiple occasions. LWJ just happens to be a weird dude who's really into it.

A good example of what I mean is when Wangxian encounter each other at Phoenix Mountain. WWX asks LWJ if he's ever kissed someone, then proceeds to speculate that LWJ has never been kissed and will never be kissed. LWJ doesn't seem to mind this at first, and only becomes angered when WWX lies about having been kissed before himself (oh LWJ), but it's important to remember that WWX has no idea that LWJ has any interest in him whatsoever. From WWX's perspective, he's just having fun belittling someone else over a topic that for most young people is a sensitive one. I don't want to oversell this moment and claim that it's bullying, actually, but I do want to use it to highlight that WWX is not always a considerate person and this type of behaviour is teeth-achingly thoughtless and cringeworthy.

I could go on, but if you pick any given scene including WWX you're likely to see dialogue in which he's being actively annoying to other characters, intentionally or otherwise. This isn't an attack on him, just an observation that in order to write him in a canon consistent manner he should be not just witty and chatty in a way where other characters simply roll their eyes and keep going. He should genuinely actually aggravate them and it should have consequences within the scene. Characters such as JC and WQ care about WWX but also find him infuriating, and that's with good reason—never mind the juniors, whom WWX takes pleasure in messing with. There are many characters who feel great respect and affection for WWX, and every single one of them also regularly feels deep frustration and irritation towards him too. There should be some meat on the bones of any back and forth between them.

[lockandkeyhyena]

Since you seem to be asking in good faith-

Proship originated a while back on the internet as a label for selfshippers and cross-over shippers to say, "i dont care what you ship because it doesn't equal your morality as a person." this was due to them getting harassed for "weird" ships.

The label ended up encompassing anyone who shipped or handled fiction in "weird" ways.

Proship does NOT mean someone who depicts things that are abusive or non consensual, positive or negative, litteraly just that you won't harass, callout, or harm others for writing those things (or anything you don't like). (People against the label proship either seem to have no idea what it means or its history, or just want an excuse to harass people they don't like because of one justification or another).

It essentially follows a policy of "fiction is not equal to reality" (not "fiction doesn't affect reality") where actions taken in fiction, like murder, are not equal to real acts and should never be treated as equivalents, and that people do not deserve harm or maltreatment over what they create in fiction.

This was heavily misunderstood as "gross people like gross disgusting amoral things," "these people are all pedophiles," "these people think it's fine when children are groomed," etc. etc.

Like, no, it doesn't mean any of that. It means censorship is stupid and shouldn't exist, everyone should be allowed to create, and no, some traumatized 16 year old writing about their toxic yaoi ship is not equivalent to a domestic abuser and doesn't deserve to kill themself over stupid Twitter drama about ship discourse.

(The above situation has happened several times in front of me, and it's driven me insane) (guys please stop valuing fictional characters over real people).

see, that’s the thing i’m saying. everyone uses proship to mean something different. all you’ve done is explain what proship means to you. so i can’t make any sweeping statements about it because its so inconsistently applied.

[comicaurora]

I don't wanna stick my head into an ongoing argument especially as a non-artist but it frustrated me how quickly you got dismissed out of hand despite. Idk. Also being a content creator and artist who relies on people seeing and engaging with your work, both with Aurora and OSP

I was not expecting a full adult blogger whose posts I like and respect to publicly dunk on me for things I did not say and opinions I do not hold because my two-sentence post about something unrelated pinged the little "this is about me so I am justified to scold" sensor, and I was not expecting them to double down into condescension, and then I was further disappointed to conclude that they probably blocked me, because my two attempts at reblogging with a de-escalation and apology vanished into the tumblr error dimension and I didn't have it in me to rewrite the whole thing a third time.

Tumblr's reading comprehension is poor for sure, but I think the larger problem is how the platform is optimized for sweeping statements to be read as intensely personal. If a generalized statement crosses my dash that could be read as in some way negative or dismissive of me or an identity I hold, it's easy to feel like there's nothing in the world but me and that poster purposefully sniping at me personally. If that were the reality, maybe it would be fine for me to retaliate. But the fact is, that poster doesn't know me, the post is presumably about what it says it's about, and reading farther into it would require context it's impossible for me to know.

In this case, for instance, this person doesn't seem to know anything about me, so they don't know that I am myself an artist, that I know a little something about building an audience, and that I enjoy having a platform that enables me to draw attention to lesser-known but extremely high quality work. Instead, they saw my flippant two-post "kinda rude and entitled when this very specific rude thing happens" and decided I was an ignorant child who needed schooling because I was being rude and dismissive to the struggles of them and theirs.

I know why this happens. Tumblr, for all its size, feels intensely personal. It feels significantly worse when it actually GETS personal, like their responses were to me. Their post makes good points and I'm glad it's raising awareness for lesser-known artists and workers in need of support, but I don't enjoy being turned into a strawman and paraded for ridicule, especially by someone whose experience on this platform runs deeper than mine. Frankly, I expected them to be experienced enough to be kind.

It feels very shitty, obviously. Like many neurodivergent people - not to play that card, but, ya know - I am very, very used to being misunderstood and then bullied or ridiculed for whatever misinterpretation is funniest or sounds the snappiest for a crowd. I am prone to overexplaining to avoid this - in case this post didn't make that obvious already. Of course, overexplaining is not a healthy solution and it doesn't even work. It took me a very long time to even begin to accept that ultimately I had no control.

The conclusion I eventually came to, after years of trying to find the perfect way to comport myself so I would never, ever be hurt in this way again, is that there is no way to do that. People can always choose to read you in the most uncharitable way possible, to disregard your personhood and turn you into a posterboy for whatever crack or hot take they want to use you for. However, the flawed premise I was operating under was that, if I failed to be 100% understood, I would deserve whatever shittiness followed because I had failed to prevent it.

And I don't. Nobody does, ever. Pain is not a thing made okay by deserving. I understand why they reacted the way they did to me, but what they did was wrong. It was unnecessarily cruel and harsh and it came unprovoked. I feel bad right now because someone hurt me because they thought it was morally righteous to do so, and even if I didn't comport myself flawlessly and beyond reproach, I didn't deserve to be hurt.

So I feel shitty right now, but I managed to have a nice evening regardless and hopefully I can digest this bad mood fast enough that I stop dreading checking my notes. Thanks to the people who unprompted sent me cute pet pics.

[necronatural]

All I ever do at 4am is manically Mogami post but anyway I really like Omelas as an expression of his beliefs. It's like my pet framing device. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is a short story about proposing a utopia, the reality of this utopia being questioned, and the narrator going "you know what you miserable cunts, fine, it isn't perfect, it's got a torment nexus and Omelas is only able to flourish because they put a child in the torment nexus, are you satisfied with the realism now". I really cannot accentuate enough that this story is not a trolley problem, the scorn with which the child's torment is revealed is part of the text.

So to Mogami Keiji, HE is the Omelas child. He assigns himself this position of extreme suffering, and through his torment, the world becomes a better place. He gets stronger, kills those who earn the grudges of the people, world becomes less miserable. He bases his entire viewpoint on this. Because like...his suffering and failure has to mean something, right?

(This actually makes him the perfect foil to Ritsu, who also does this EXACT thing in Cleanup; he intentionally self-harms by being unhinged and doing things that sicken him because in doing so he becomes all-powerful, creating his own personal utopia. "I have obtained loss" is a sort of mania mission statement.)

The crux of the Mogami arc is that Mob is The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. He learn the "truth", and instead of choosing to forget or bearing the knowledge, he just rejects it outright.

Because remember what the narration of the short story is about? It's about Omelas being fucking stupid. There is no reason a suffering kid adds some realistic character to the utopia. Why would a child's despair help? It's not that the child suffering is morally reprehensible, it's that the entire premise doesn't work to begin with.

Mob "walks away from Omelas" because he rejects that self-pitying pessimism. He doesn't engage with it at all! To him, the suffering has no impact on the character of the world, because like, duh dude. And maybe that means he's suffered for no reason, a concept horrifying to Mogami. But it also let Mob experience appreciation for the moments between the suffering, the mundane pleasures of life that are the building blocks of his day-to-day. Mogami prevented himself from allowing this kind of warmth permeate his viewpoint.

Mob does this to Ritsu as well. Ritsu amps up his torment as far as it will go by baiting Mob and Mob just goes "well...no :)" and cleans up after him. It's an idea fundamentally incompatible with his way of thinking even before he was truly put to the test. Isn't that awesome. He's the best. Mob sweep

[prolibytherium]

I do have to say the breathless gushy takes about how humans are built to love and care for each other (citing ancient humans taking care of the disabled and injured) is obviously well intended and a good counter for social darwinist rhetoric, but off the mark.

These ancient humans were caring for their own family and social groups, this was not likely universal benevolence for strangers (not to say that benevolence towards strangers never happened, though). Humans have a psychological predisposition to separate other humans into 'us' and 'them' that could very well trace back to pre-human ancestors. This doesn't mean the direct opposite (ideas that homo sapiens have been in a state of perpetual warfare forever, our ancestors committed genocide against neanderthals etc etc) but it is just a fact of life. Only by acknowledging and maintaining awareness of this tendency can we effectively counter it.

The point here is more that I think it's a fallacy to cite interpretations of ancient human behavior as a guideline for how things are or should be or to make sweeping moral statements. Or in general to decide human nature is 'good' or 'evil'. We're animals. Every single one of us is capable of great kindness and great brutality..............etc

[mewsmash]

positivity post for people of marginalized religions; those whose culture, traditions, and/or language have been marginalized, demonized, and demeaned.

your faith and traditions are not inherently conservative.

they're not inherently bigoted.

they're not inherently wrong.

they're not regressive.

they're not contradictory to other aspects of your identity.

you're not wrong for being spiritual, faithful, devout, modest, or any other term you use to describe yourself.

your choice to wear a hijab, kippah, veil, burka, niqāb, turban, scarf, or other religious garment is not a moral failing. it doesn't mean you're oppressed by your religion.

you are allowed to be jewish, muslim, hindu, sikh, buddhist, jain, shinto, or any other religion regardless of the pressures to conform to christianity you might face.

your folk religions, indigenous beliefs, and/or traditions do not need to be anglicized.

your art, music, literature, and poetry deserve to be praised, uplifted, and respected.

to others:

christianity is not the default.

when you discuss the issues of "religion" as a whole, and make broad sweeping statements about how it's regressive, naive, or stupid, you're not just snapping back at white evangelical christianity and homophobic megachurches.

you're hurting people who have faced ethnic cleansing, oppression, forced conversion, assimilation, and the organized destruction of their culture as a direct result of their religion.

say christianity when you mean it.

say christocentric society.

say colonial christianity.

and say religious when you mean that exactly.

being religious is morally neutral.

(from a tired jew)

[tobiasdrake]

Unnecessary lies aside, the other issue with Monaca is one the confrontation handles... Well, tries to handle, but results may vary from person to person.

The thing about Monaca is that after making her the most evilest villain ever, you can't then get any sort of catharsis out of killing her. This is the problem with making a child character into a 100% despicable archvillain. We talked a bit about catharsis with the 2-6 conclusion; The most fun you can have with a totally reprehensible villain is to see them get theirs.

That doesn't work so well with a tyke villain. Usami taking down Junko 2.0 in a big God of War magical girl fight was awesome. But it's hard to write a scene that feels triumpant where our protagonist beats the everloving shit out of a small child. That just doesn't work.

Further complicating the matter is that "Just fucking kill these kids" is explicitly laid out as the wrong choice in the big moral conflict itself. You can't do that and then turn around and kick Monaca's teeth in. The main hill that your story is choosing to die on rarely has room for that kind of nuance. If this is your big moral statement, you can't compromise it for catharsis or else you're shooting down your own message.

So you've created a villain who is utterly despicable beyond any hope of redemption, for whom only catharsis can be the story's end. And you've also created a villain for whom there can be no catharsis. Question. How exactly are you supposed to resolve this character?

Well. The answer that UDG lands on is to kick the can down the road. Monaca gets replaced at the 11th hour by a different, more punchable villain that we can fight, while she slips away to show up as the next game's big archvillain or something.

We get a bit of philosophical catharsis when everyone leaves Monaca under a pile of rubble and stops listening to her. But that's just part of the can-kicking. It purposely ends on a promise of more to come. Nothing is resolved, war between adults and children is still on the horizon, Komaru vows to remain in town until she can solve this, and Monaca goes full Junko Successor to gear up for her next appearance.

Which. Wound up fizzling out in DR3's rush to sweep everything under the rug and slam the book shut on this franchise forever. We're gonna talk about that in a moment, but that's the risk you take when you decide to push out the resolution to a future product. Sometimes it simply doesn't materialize at all.

But it ties into the other issue, the one of twisting things solely for the sake of having a twist. For the sake of making Monaca the most evilest character ever they wound up unwriting the interesting yet sinister villain they had and instead creating an archvillain of such magnitude that they left themselves no possible avenue to actually resolve the story satisfactorily. Sometimes, more is less.

[martian-garden]

Hate that morality is complicated and statements are not mutually exclusive and yes yes each instance DOES require precise analysis and no you CAN'T just make sweeping statements or extrapolate those statements and no just because someone does something wrong doesn't mean they deserve to be scorched from the earth and it's all very, very confusing and there's emotions everywhere from all angles.

But you have to do it. You have to understand it is not just one thing, that every piece and every declaration is never made in a vacuum and that the ripples impact so much more, and that discomfort is not harm and that sometimes harm IS subjective, and that we as humans have a responsibility to both mitigate the harm we do AND assume best intent and avoid things we do not like without declaring war, that we all live here together and we have to ACT LIKE IT.

The internet is scary because we can't all see each other and we don't all exist in a way that makes permanence inherent. But we have to go on being human and learning and breathing and thinking anyway.

[gh0st-patr0l]

I know there's def already a post like this but I think the reason people arbitrarily disliking modern art styles because "anyone can make it" bothers me so much is that it implicitly relies on the idea that the value of a piece of art is dependent on the effort you put in, which is. So fucking damaging to any discussion of art

When you equate the value of a work to the amount of labor involved in its creation, it is no longer Art, it is a Product. By putting the emphasis on labor, you are no longer looking at it through the lens of meaning and artistic value, but that of economic and utilitarian politics.

This is also one of the main methods facists historically used to devalue the things they called 'degenerate art'. They would take anything that wasn't a perfect exercise in realism or technical beauty, anything in a style that could be considered not traditionally appealing- mostly styles native to non-white cultures, but also things like surrealism and other cutting edge movements of the time- and go 'look at this! Look at how simple and unskilled it is! This is why we, with our Correct way of doing art, are Superior!'

And I know that bringing that up will put a lot of people on the defensive. Because I know a lot of people who dont engage in art history or discussion think that they're being Morally Correct in their take that modern art is bad, because for some reason a lot of people are very firm in the belief that all modern art is 'rich people nonsense'

But heres the thing. It Really Isnt

Yes, some modern art is commissioned or made by rich people, some is pretentious and made for the wrong reasons and traded around by shitty people who want to look cultured. But Ill tell you a secret- that happens with Any style of art. And just because some people do it for the wrong reasons, that doesn't mean that anything made in that style can NEVER have value.

And for those of you who just think it's too simple to be 'art'- listen, I get it! I actually really don't like a lot of modern art. It doesnt make me feel anything and I have trouble understanding it.

But just because it doesn't affect me, doesn't mean it can't make someone else feel something.

Art is more than the time, or effort, or material you put into it. If artwork's value could be defined by the hours spent and paint used, it'd be the same as anything made on an assembly line. A piece of art's value comes from what you get out of it- emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually. If you look at a piece and think it sucks, guess what? You just got something out of it. It made you feel something. "I hate this" is still a feeling! And if you actually go into it with good faith and try to Engage it, you can get even more- ask yourself Why you hate it, what about it upsets or bores you, what it might mean or what you would change or try to say instead. That's the point of making art- not some concrete immediate satisfaction or hard numerical value. Sometimes art being simple, visibly unpleasant, or seemingly pointless is the Point- they want to say something, they want you to see it and think it sucks and then use that to say something about the world.

The point of art is to make you Think, to say things. It's to engage the viewer, and if you engage with art with that mindset, if you're open to having that dialogue, I promise that no matter how 'bad' a piece is, it will always have SOME value. You don't have to like it, or agree with it, but by trying to place limits on what art is allowed to look like, or make sweeping statements about what has value or what doesn't, you are not being nearly as revolutionary as you think. Art is about complete and total freedom of expression. No matter what morals you think you're preaching, by trying to put anything in a box or place objectivity into the sphere of art, you are directly harming that discussion and parroting arguments that have always been used to stifle creativity and put down others. It doesn't help anyone.

[vampyr-bite]

people on the internet need to learn about nuance and apply it to their modes of critical thinking

[thebad---catholic]

I wish everything in this country were the fault of Republicans being in power because that would make it very simple to solve, but if you look it up social engineering (including education) mostly doesn't work to close outcome gaps between racial/ethnic groups - and actually it's tough to get positive results with it in general within racial/ethnic groups as well.

Making educational gains stick into adulthood is like pulling teeth.

Y'all Democrats just assume social engineering works - you almost all assume someone in your coalition knows how to "fix" all this within the bounds of acceptable ethics, and that Republicans are holding it back.

Ain't the case. You can wring some modest gains out but that's about it. You have no path to equalizing outcomes to narrow enough amounts for you to accept, given current technology, that's morally acceptable.

Y'all spent the last 10 years cooking up an elaborate racially-scientific framework called "white privilege," rather than accept this. "White privilege" theory uses the literal Nazi tactic of first assuming what the "correct" race ratio is (based on nothing but wishful thinking), rejecting all evidence that may exonerate the target group (such as math test results) as "inherently biased" for unfalsifiable reasons, then working backwards to declare the entire gap in outcomes to be the result of a bad racial essence (in your case, "whiteness").

And don't "but you don't understand-" at me:

This eventually resulted in attempts at uniform racial discrimination which explicitly treated being white as a flat penalty in distributing life-saving medical care, as a matter of formal policy - which was obviously where it was going to go from the start.

Supposedly such thinking was fringe, but then Biden overturned the order that defunded teaching that "any race is inherently evil or racist."

The Republicans may have caused the Iraq War, but they didn't cause this screw-up. Unfortunately I need a Republican clean sweep to wash this content out - institutionalizing unfalsifiable racial conspiracy theorizing is extremely unwise for a multiracial democracy.

Democrats haven't shown enough moral, social, or epistemic spine to throw the "Math is colonialist" (there is no *useful* meaning to such a statement!) people out on their ---es.

Anon, seek therapy.

Everyone else, please find in this incomprehensible screed the motivation to vote blue. This is what we’re up against.

[esther-dot]

I think the problems with the current state of the Sansa fandom are really just problems with the state of the ASOIAF fandom in general. The fandom has always had its problems, don't get me wrong, but it does seem to me that discussion and debate used to be valued a lot more. People who disagreed completely on a certain subject could still have a respectful conversation about it, even acknowledge that the other person had a few good points, ultimately agree to disagree, and really mean it. I've been here since 2009, and even for Sansa fans, who have indeed always gotten a lot of hate, there were nonetheless plenty of people with different opinions on her who were willing to listen respectfully to what we had to say, and some of them even softened their opinion of her because of it. In general, different viewpoints were more widely seen as a good thing because it gave everyone a rounder, more nuanced understanding of the story. Now, it's a case of everyone adopting more and more extreme opinions and simply doubling down on those opinions whenever challenged. For the most part, everyone interacts only with people who agree with them, meaning that everyone, and I do mean everyone, is basically just hanging out in an echo chamber, becoming more and more extreme, and more and more convinced that they alone are right. It also doesn't help that morality has become so attached to differing opinions. Everyone wants their own opinion to be the good and moral one, and for opposing opinions to be morally wrong. So when someone disagrees with someone else, it's not just, "Your opinion is wrong," but also "You are morally reprehensible for having that opinion." (Please note that I'm not referring to things like shipping 13 year old Sansa with a 30 year old. I'm referring to things like simply finding a character sympathetic that someone else hates, or interpreting a character's actions more generously than someone else does.) Everything now is very extreme, very zero sum, and all nuance has been abandoned. I'm sorry this was so long. I know you did not ask for my thoughts. I just wanted to say that I don't think it's just a problem with the Sansa fandom so much as a problem with the fandom overall. Maybe if TWOW is ever published, it will give us something new to talk about and bring back the more nuanced debate.

(In reference to this post)

I appreciate you chiming in, anon! To hear from someone who has seen the evolution of the fandom over the years gives us newer fans some needed perspective.

I’m sure the show contributed to this by eliminating nuance (and ultimately all logic), so when we show fans started engaging we found ourselves making those sweeping statements about characters which were more true than not for the show version but then that tendency filtered into reactions to the book characters and for them it is inaccurate.

It’s always interesting to listen to Martin respond to a “what if” kind of question because you can tell in his mind, if he moves one piece, if X character did or didn’t do that, things would be different. For book discussions, the nuance is essential as the point of it is how the dominoes fall, and in his mind, pulling one really changes things. The contributing factors aren’t excuses for our favs, they’re very real to the author, so eliminating them from discussion is a problem.

I just answered an ask the other day and talked about Cersei. I know she’s a villain, but her suffering still matters to me and I am moved by her love for her children. We can definitely understand characters without endorsing them, love/enjoy them without ignoring their behavior. And, while I do think Martin has firm opinions about some of the issues he’s addressing, I definitely think he has some concerning tendencies that show up in characters and we have to decide “is this the author’s problematic viewpoint, or did he consciously create this for the character?” So, at times, what feels like a defense for something we all find offensive is just trying to distinguish between those two things. And maybe that’s the big problem/what has contributed to the echo chambers. We can’t actually know know, until we have the ending. It’s been a long time, and fans want to know where it’s all going. There’s a reason people threw out their books and swore off ASOIAF if they accepted the show’s ending as Martin’s. Endings matter because they tie everything together/are a final verdict/establish what the author does or doesn’t believe. That can be affirming or disgusting to us.

The preoccupation with the ending means talking about stuff fans have problems with. Dark Dany is an essential part of the ending, and for some fans, that’s a morally abhorrent idea. They think Martin can’t do that without it being wrong, so they transfer that disgust over to anyone who champions it. Lines are going to be drawn around that and all the theories that accommodate it. To me, those have been the biggest factions in the fandom (those who accept it vs those who don’t), and as we get more distance from the show, I assume the book fandom will improve/be able to evaluate those ideas in a more balanced way. I think that’s already happening. As much as I don’t like the “fine, Dany WILL burn KL but it doesn’t mean she isn’t a good person/won’t die a hero!” takes, I do think that means people are now seeing the same foreshadowing, and therefore, given a little more time, will be able to have a more rational discussion of it instead of assuming if you believe it you hate her. I think that’s progress, and the ending of the show (I’m someone who doesn’t like but accepts it) has made me rethink a lot of my own conclusions about what Martin was saying. So, even though I have created and enjoy my own little echo chamber, I’m certainly aware that not everything I think is correct, or that I have an entirely accurate grasp of Martin. That’s always a good thing to remind ourselves of so we don’t become too unbearable. Here’s hoping we get that next book, anon! And thank you for the message.

[separatist-apologist]

I’m curious to hear any thoughts you might have on the Canto Bight sequence in TLJ. It can be hard for me personally to not react violently to criticism of TLJ since i love it, and the crit is usually made in bad faith from a place of misogyny and racism—all of that weird hate can make it hard to have an actual nuanced critical discussion of the movie. I think there’s something to be said about the pacing with that storyline not feeling quite in the pocket though. It also still tends to feel like Finn’s character is sort of underused in TLJ (though nothing like the trash fire that was his dead end storyline in TROS). That being said, I also love how Rose and Finn ultimately delivered the whole thesis of the movie. Anyway, you always seem to have great perspectives so I would love to hear your thoughts!

I feel like I've made it as a blog when people ask me my feelings on SW. This comes at a perfect time, I'm working on my Merrin/Cal fic.

First of all, I understand why you feel uncomfortable with the criticism. All of those movies were a LIGHTNING rod for racism/misogyny. I'm not saying you do this, but I do personally get frustrated when people swing hard in the opposite direction of like, these films are perfect and if you hate them you're a misogynist. I have a ten year old, she's gone as Rey twice for Halloween. I assure you I do not hate the women in these films. They did a really good job of drawing in a new generation of SW fans.

For me, TLJ makes me...mad. Luke Skywalker is my favorite character. Enough said. To your point about Canto Bite, I think it feels wrong because the morality aspect of it is slapped together as an afterthought. They don't free the children in any meaningful way- they actually cause a lot of problems for the native people/slave children with their break out (and the end scene of the boy using the force to sweep...I'm always like...ok?????).

Rose and Finn are there to help Poe's coup. They're looking for DJ and through their eyes, we get to see a sliver of the way the wealthy elite have benefitted from endless war/profiteering/the imperialism of the last three decades. In the books, a lot of commentary is made that Core worlds never really feel the Empire the way, say, Kashyyyk does. Canto Bite is where the wealthy go to play at the expense of the locals who cannot afford to utilize any of the services they offer.

And thats...real life. It's literally American life for a vast majority of people and JJ Abrams ALMOST takes us there. The movie ALMOST makes a statement before swerving left at the last minute and just abandoning it. Yeah its bad, yeah Rose doesn't like it...but Canto Bite is just ANOTHER macguffin and it makes it feel hollow.

I rewatched all 9 movies when RoS came out and honestly, you could cut all of that and it doesn't change anything so long as DJ ends up with them. It impacted nothing and I'd argue it didn't really stick with the viewer when you're also asking people to grapple with Luke (HATE) and Rey/Ren which is the vastly more interesting story. Poe's coup is ALSO a lot more interesting imo and is criminally just...left untouched.

Much like Finn's WHOLE CHARACTER. He is force sensitive. How many people are even aware? I genuinely, 100% believe JJ caved to the outrage of the worst, loudest voices of this fandom and cut Rose entirely and sidelined Finn but Rian isn't much better. The better part of me feels like maybe they didn't know what to do with him but like, they really didn't try, either. I know people love the romance between Rey/Kylo but I wish the story had been more about Rey/Finn finding their way in the force. The set up is so interesting, his backstory is EASILY the most interesting and it never gets utilized.

I think the sequels will get the prequel treatment over time. The sequels have good parts of them, so don't take this as me like, saying they're utter trash (you know I love Poe and I will hear 0 criticisms). Thats the problems. There are so many narratively interesting pieces to these characters and the movies went the laziest, most boring route to tell a story that is fundamentally at odds with what I thinks Star Wars has always been about.