#is rhysgate a thing??

[theshadowsingersraven]

I had this drafted around elaingate, and now that my fever has finally broken, I can piece together my thoughts on the absurdity that is this fandom and the rhys week tamlin and rhys' sister piece debacle. Because, of course, no one has learned anything from elaingate to now, and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

If there's one thing about this fanbase that I've noticed so far, it's that people will accidentally tell you exactly who they are in the most embarrassing way possible. What's the main takeaway in the overlap of the rhys week drama and elaingate?

Art, purity culture, and "victimhood." And people deciding who does and doesn't get to fall under the latter.

The thing that I appreciate about elaingate (and I guess Rhysgate??) happening is that it outs the people in this fanbase who don't see art that doesn't cater to them as having same rights as the art they do like/are comfortable with to be celebrated and appreciated in a community event about a character.

It outs people who only care about "protecting survivors" if their trauma conveniently matches what SJM believes to be abuse or trauma. It outs people as having the same performative inclinations of "protecting victims" as pro forced-birth/anti-choice pundits do. Rhysand’s sister, a nameless character, is the perfect "victim" to create an upheaval about because, like Elain, no one actually has to sacrifice anything or do any difficult self-reflection because fictional characters will never ask anything of you.

Remember this quote from Pastor David Barnhart? It's pretty relevant.

"The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

Rhys' sister and Elain are the perfect vehicle for people to feel like they're "morally just" for "protecting" from...Tamlin. And people creating specific dynamics between these fictional characters, too, I guess. Because they're evil or whatever, I suppose.

"But, Raven!" I'm sure some of you are already scrambling to say. "There are real people in this fandom triggered by Tamlin, and they were hurt! They were so upset/disgusted that they left the fandom because people cared more about fictional ships than their triggers/feelings!"

And I'm going to hold your hand while I say this as a fellow survivor of DV.

No one is responsible for my triggers and caring for my own mental health other than me. And that applies to everyone else in this fanbase, too.

It's my responsibility to curate my online experience as much as possible to my own needs. This space is voluntary to be a part of, and if I no longer feel as though it's conducive to my mental health overall, then yeah, it's probably best for me to leave. Same with everyone else who felt like they shouldn't be in this fandom space because of the elaingate upheaval.

If people rightfully pointing out that this fanbase is extremely conservative and aligned with purity culture and morality policing to the point where art is policed in relation to celebrating a character during their own week is too much for someone because of the narrative around one of the characters involved...then yeah, it sounds like this isn't a good environment for them anyhow.

There's no judgment to be passed on the side rightfully saying this fandom is fucked up, whether or not people are ready to hear that. People saying art that features Tamlin in relation to another character event still has a right to be celebrated so long as that character in the event is depicted has no bearing on whatever real person Tamlin represents to the people that were triggered.

There's only so many ways people can actually be realistically protected from content that triggers them, and tagging is the most consistent way to do so. If the protection of tagging triggering content somehow still isn't enough for people when they might happen upon art depicting a character for one day out of a one-week period maybe is also still too potentially triggering for them, then maybe being in a fandom space isn't the best for their overall mental health and stepping away from it isn't a bad thing.

(And that's all without getting into why its totally fair for peoppe to question how true that ""stance"" of "protecting survivors" actually is when the Elain Week event's tagging system is consistently ignored and not used to actually protect survivors from triggering content. It's interesting how people spent more time angry at people who were adamant about the right to celebrate art instead of the event itself for not having a remotely thorough tagging system. How are you "protecting survivors" from triggering content, including yourself as the event runner, without tagging anything from character names to triggering content/events someone might view? Let's not forget how wide-spread triggers are, too. People have trigger warnings for content involving eyes or spiders due to phobias, not just events that they might have personally experienced, like violence.)

Back to the main point, however.

Issues like these out people as not understanding that creativity means bending the rules of canon however you want, because these are characters, not real people. But real people are making this art, and its value and worthiness of being celebrated is not up to anyone's personal discretion (including event runners) even in situations of discomfort.

It's a shame that the first upheaval happened regarding Elain since she's rarely appreciated outside of her ships anyway, but this Hell-hole of a fandom has had this coming for a while now. This is an absurdly conservative, rigid-to-canon, puritannical fandom, and unfortunately, Elain Week was the match that started this fire.

As a writer, I'm always going to have a hard stance on this because appreciating and celebrating art does not end where my personal likes and comforts do. Appreciation does not look the same for everyone, and just because it's not how you would personally celebrate a character does not mean it stops being appreciation or celebration. Your preferences are not and never will be the end-all-be-all of artistic appreciation in a fandom space. If you don’t see that, the block button is right there, and I've been using it very liberally.

You either stand for all of fandom integrity and creative works, or you don't deserve to be in this space. And I will very happily remove you from my space here since, as far as I'm concerned, you don't deserve to be in mine, either.