#ps I hate it when people call me naive because I don't think the world is a constant vortex or despair and lonelyness

[fridgewitch]

“I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist.”

No, Larry, you’re a punk-ass bitch who thinks that dealing with the consequences of the stupid shit you did as a teen makes you a goddamn martyr. Sit the fuck down.

[anothershadeofpurple]

You're sort of an E-Celebrity. The meta that you and Alabama miles created was once mentioned in a tweet by T.V something. Do you sometimes worry about the influence you have on people's minds, given today's social climate, and the laziness of others? Do you get scared that people can bend, if they don't use their minds? Or do you not worry about that sort of thing because you feel like people should be responsible for their perception? How do you do this? How does shady do what she does?

Hey Anon,

I both think that people are responsible for their own perception and that I have a responsibility to present myself in a truthful way. Everything you ever read is colored by the perspective and the worldview of the author. Even something like Wikipedia with multiple authors will simply give you a truth based on the most prevalent worldview - or the publicly accepted worldview - at that point in time. Truth shifts with perspective. Critical thinking is something that develops. If you’re lucky you have people guiding you, if not, maybe you get burned before you get smart. That’s how we learn and it’s an evolving process for the rest of our lives. As a writer you cannot write for everyone. You can’t meet everyone at their level and you cannot choose your audience or what it uses your writing for. You can try to reach a specific audience, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. If you publish anything on some level you have to accept that your words will be misunderstood, taken out of context and used to prove the opposite of what you’re trying to say. The alternative is silence.

I have a few things that I do that are ethical decisions connected to this. As I mentioned before, everything anyone ever writes is colored. What I try to do is to show you my goggles. Our goggles are made out of our social class, culture, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity… and just generally all of our life experiences. Imagine it as if I am wearing green goggles and I am describing you the world in green, because that’s how I see everything. What I try to do in order for people to read me critically is to pull back and also describe the frame of these green goggles from time to time on top of the reality I see. 

In practice, that means I will often use “I”-messages. “I think this…”, “I feel…”, “…at least that’s how I see it.”. It’s an invitation for people to be aware of subjectivity. It’s encouragement to ‘do as I do’ and not ‘as I say’. Analyze, think, feel for yourself. Sometimes I’ll include anecdotes and personal experiences, which serves to inform, but it also shows emotional involvement that again, might color my perspective. It’s something I consciously include. 

Dumb positivity��is another way to be more objective. They are another description of the goggles. It means ‘in this post I am specifically looking at the queer subtext and the queer reading’. In every other case where the subtext in a tv show doesn’t specifically relate to homosexuality we could be sure that foreshadowing is really foreshadowing and that symbolism will become meaningful in text. The only reason we can’t be sure in the case of Once Upon a Time is because at some point in history queer subtext was divorced from main text to tell secret stories, cause it was the only thing we were allowed. Every story has subtext, it’s a general storytelling tool. We live in a strange time where it could be either. We’re starting to see more queer stories told openly and at the same time this historical storytelling device lives on and is still being used. Dumb positivity is about not having to repeat this awareness of history in every post. It’s about not reminding or focusing on the reason why we got here in the first place - discrimination and homophobia - but on the validity of our stories regardless of how they are told.

The other choice I make is to try and never shame people or be disrespectful toward people who have different opinions. Making people feel ashamed - for example by calling them stupid or naive - causes people to stop focusing on what is being said. Instead they will be digging in their personal history to defend who they are. Or they will stop talking to you or to anyone, but they won’t change their minds. I know when I am personally under attack the first reflex is emotional, it’s about self protection, so why would that be different for others? It seems counter-productive if what you’re after is a meaningful exchange of perspective.

Similarly, even if I get very negative messages I will still try and look at what they are saying and wonder if there is truth there, wonder if they have a point. I seek out other parts of the fandom and try to understand their point of view. I won’t always publicly address this, but it’s something I use to check myself. I try to face my shadow. Of course it is nice to be read, to get feedback, to have people ask you questions. To be po-pu-la-a-ar. Of course there is ego involved. I think the only thing you can do is to be aware of this and to try and correct yourself if you find out if it interferes with your being truthful.

Last but not least, I do take into account the context of where I am writing. Say I would have arrived in this fandom and I hadn’t seen anyone mentioning the possibility of queer baiting or criticize the problematic aspects of the show… I probably would have. Right now there is plenty of criticism and everyone is aware of the possibility of queer baiting. The information is there and I can’t imagine people who have been around for a while haven’t been exposed to all the different views and they are choosing what resonates with them. So it’s also a matter of this blog not happening in a vacuum.

The part that seems to confuse people most about my blog - or where some seem to think I’m lying for popularity or attention - is that I genuinely believe it is more likely than not that they’ll make the romantic subtext between Emma & Regina text eventually. I think anyone who has read, engaged with and understood OperationOUT completely, understands where I am coming from. However, many people are angry about the show - for good reason - so I am not actively going to invite people to invest their time and energy in reading about a show they hate just so they can understand me. What I can’t do is lie about my perceptions of the show just because it’s somehow perceived less shameful to be wrong when you were being cynical. I think I’d rather be fearless, truthful and wrong then.

Does that answer your questions?

PS: I have no knowledge of our meta ever being tweeted by… someone at TV something. Do you have a link?