#stop being neo-puritans

[arcticlutra]

More people need to develop some critical thinking and media literacy skills.

I can like a piece of media, as a piece of media / story, and still find the themes or actions of characters within it reprehensible. Enjoyment of a story =/= condoning the actions of characters or the events / plot of a story.

Likewise I can appreciate and recognise the nuance and importance of a piece of media while still disliking said piece of media.

This isn't a zero-sum game. Oh, and just because a piece of media makes YOU uncomfortable doesn't instantly make it universally bad. It just makes you uncomfortable, and you should probably examine why before instantly calling for it to be banned.

[ranger-kellyn]

i say this as someone who has been working on taking this to heart as well, but like......babes....y'all have GOT to let go of the need to have your art is interpreted exactly as you intended it to be. you're fighting a losing battle. nobody, literally NOBODY. will interpret it exactly as you intended it to. that's the beauty of art!

stop needing to control every little thing!! let people interpret it how they want!! even if it's the exact opposite of your own intention!

and i know this is easier said than done, but stop stressing about the bad faith takes as well!!! that says way more about them than it ever will about you!!! block and move the fuck on. or turn off comments! most places let you do that now.

if you're literally so pressed about someone interpreting your art "wrong", you should probably just use geocities or something else and make your own website to host your work, or just stop posting on such public websites in the first place. you will never be able to control how people interpret things, so stop stressing about things you literally have no control over.

[hypothesis-hobbyist]

I would rather risk seeing people having truly depraved public sex than ever risk giving the state authority to stop them or a cop pretext to interact with them.

[musical-chick-13]

Oh, I did NOT just see someone call a character mentally ill (when there is no evidence of that in canon) just because they’re a bad person.

[chthonic-sorcery]

🚩🚩"Witch/Pagan" community PSA 🚩🚩

Goêteia is not evil, you dipshits.

I'm so sick of these neo-pagans getting all their information from Tumblr, Pinterest and TikTok.

Goêteia is literally just the Greek term for magic, for sorcery, which were one and the same.

Ancient Greece didn't have the word "witchcraft" it had Goêteia, and then later mageia, where we get our modern term magic from, although mageia was a misappropriated term from Zoroastrian priests or Magi.

It's so funny seeing baby witches claim Goêteia to be evil on one hand, then on the other worshipping Hekate, literally the goddess of Goêteia. The goddess of sorcerers and necromancy.

It screams puritanical morality policing. It's such a christian-centered way of looking at ancient religion.

Y'all need to open a damn book.

Goêteia was described as a "lesser" form of magic (mainly in the later Medieval period, roughly starting around the 8th century,) not meaning any less powerful, just simply the easiest or "closest" thus "lower" magic to achieve. This ability to more easily achieve success in magic was later taken and used by christian theologians to paint goêteia and Goêtes as "lesser practitioners."

There does seem to be little difference between Theurgy and goêteia as well,

Surprise!

Both Goêteia and Theurgy sharing the same goddamn workings through evocations of gods, the animation of statues, mediumship or what could be considered "divine possession" having a god or spirit speak through you, the use of iynx wheels / iynges, and mystery rites.

The only 'real' difference Theurgists claim, is that they "don't practice secularly/for selfish reasons" but supposedly rather to become closer to the divine. It's a nice sentiment, but total bullshit, because even in the Theurgic doctrine the Chaldean Oracles they bind the goddess Hekate to do their will.

Additionally, Theurgists had a more Neoplatonic belief, they essentially viewed a singular Oneness as supreme, the emanation from which all things return, a concept which was picked up by early christian theologians and is likely why while Goêtes were demonized in the later centuries mainly by early christians and christian philosophers, Theurgists on the other hand were seen as "pure" and "holier" despite Theurgical and Goêteic practices being pretty much exactly the same down to the tools and incantations.

(Agustine of Hippo for an example of these theologians, who wrote in "De civitate Dei contra Paganos", or "On the City of God Against the Pagans" how all "pagan" (non christian) gods and beliefs were secretly agents of Satan and evil, here to trick humanity into sin and that paganism, essentially any non christian faith, must be stopped–

He also wrote about how sorcerers/magicians (Goêtes) were charlatans, tricksters, that magic and sorcery were merely tricks of an invisible opposition to the divine and how only god could hold such supreme power. These ideas still seem to be deeply embedded into christian faith, particularly Orthodox and Evangelical, today.)

Practitioners of goêteia, the Goēs, was also understood to have the ability to initiate souls into mystery religions, or, in other words, to ensure through his superior knowledge of the Underworld and its workings that the souls under his care would receive preferential treatment after death, an easier way to paradise, such as the Orphic Hymns.

This likely also helped "other" the Goēs, as most practitioners of magic, of goêteia, of these mystery cults were made up of societies "unwanted" or marginalized people, such as women, foreigners, immigrants, the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. Early goêtes were described as being Thessalian (primarily women, particularly described as "old or decrepid") or. ethnically, not considered "fully Greek" to many of the era. Many critiques and fears of goêteia come from this "otherness," the fear the ruling classes of Greece had of groups they continued to harm, they feared the power they held within these mystery rites and practices.

With reliable accuracy from these critics, goêtes were (perceived to be) moral transgressors, who operated from the fringe of society in a private mago-mystical setting, offering their service for coin.

Or, in simpler terms, the Greeks were just really fucking racist

which is nothing new.

In fact, because goêteia itself is a synchronization of mainly Egyptian and Jewish magic, the Greeks and later christians went extra-hard into villifying it because they saw these people as lesser, as barbaric.

We have to understand where the fears and judgements of these critics were coming from, and continue to remain impartial. The ruling elite feared these practices because they feared losing their power, especially rich Greek men, and those early christian philosophers who saw everything outside their own faith as lies, manipulations, or tricks from "the Opposition" as well as the extremely racist and ethnocentric beliefs they held.

[damnfandomproblems]

4769

Comment: "someone please help me out. can I use "anti" for haters in general? or it's now some thing related to pr0ship only? I'm not touching that. should I just use "hater"??"

First, why are you censoring "proship"? It is a term for being against censorship and harassment regardless of personal preferences. Stop acting like it's a dirty word. The only people who act like it's a dirty word ARE antis, who are for harassment and censorship of things in fiction they don't like, with no agreed-upon boundaries and limits for what the censored content should be.

"Hater" isn't remotely the same thing. You can be a hater of things and not be an anti and call for censorship. Use "anti" like any well adjusted fandomgoer, that's what the word is for. If you don't like that? Use "book burner", "neo puritan", or "censorship advocate". And use "person against censorship" for proship.

Posting since this is a response to a previous problem.

[legobatman08]

listen the fuck up, i think (HOPE) all of yall are antifa on here, but for WHATEVER REASON, the only time y'all care about fascism is when it happens in countries you know a lot about. I'm tired of the only political shit discussed being America or some fucking western European country.

there's a very prominent neo-nazi party in georgia (WHICH MY CLASSMATE IS A PART OF????), with extreme conservative and puritan views. see the armbands and the flag in the back? that's the georgian neo-nazi symbol. don't ask me why the faces are blurred, my source for this is the nazi classmate himself, and he blurred it.

brief summary of how this sorry excuse of an organization formed: they broke into a nightclub because "DANCING IS SINFUL", destroyed the club obviously, beat up everyone who was there (girls, guys, university students, bartenders, EVERYONE). where was the police, you may ask? one of them was drunk and JOINED these shitheads, the rest showed up hours later for "unrelated reasons" and pretended none of it happened. you'll see that cops doing jack shit will become a reoccurring theme in this post. this all branches from the extreme upholding of "orthodox christian values" - they're doing all this in "God's name", AND THE CHURCH SUPPORTS IT. obviously, fascism in Georgia existed even before these fucking cunts, but they're growing stronger and recruiting more people these days.

SO, WHAT PROMPTED ME TO MAKE THIS POST? these days, they've gotten more physically aggressive. here are some examples:

they asked a random guy in the streets about his opinion on fascism, when he said he doesn't like it (FUCKING OBVIOUSLY), they beat him up (the police did JACK SHIT and pretended that the part security cameras glitched out WHEN THE NAZIS LITERALLY FILMED A VIDEO OF THEM DOING IT)

they killed a dog and kept beating it after death, and they beat up cats in the street (they filmed these as a video too)

they beat up the leader of a governmental organization Girchi, which is the most progressive party we have right now (with anti-governmental, anti-russian, and antifa anarchistic ideologies)

the Girchi leader was supposed to hold a lecture about politics for kids and uni students at a summer camp thing, and the nazis ATTACKED THE CAMPSITE AND THREW STONES AT PEOPLE.

update on the first one: an armed man in civilian clothes entered his HOSPITAL ROOM, some women tried to stop him, TURNS OUT HE WAS A COP, AND NOW THE POLICE IS PRESSING CHARGES FOR "ATTACKING A POLICE OFFICER"??????

1 - They didn't know he was a cop, 2 - they didn't even attack him just tried to stop him from going to the kid's bed because he was a threat, 3 - HOW THE FUCK ELSE WOULD YOU REACT IF A STRANGER WITH A GUN ENTERED YOUR KID'S HOSPITAL ROOM AND TRIED TO GO NEAR HIM?????

anyways, this shit is scary. the nazi party is recruiting minors, like my classmate, so that if they ever get arrested, the minors will have to be released because OBVIOUSLY nobody's gonna HAVE A 14 YEAR OLD ROT IN PRISON. even if they were all adults, as i mentioned, the police don't care, because they're doing this in the name of Christianity. they're posting xenophobic, homophobic, conservative and very christian nazi bullshit so that they can make people believe that they want what's best for people, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE MAJORITY OF GEORGIA SHARES THOSE IDEOLOGIES. their name is literally "Geo National Unity" TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THEY'RE DOING THIS TO "HELP" US. EVEN IF THEIR IDEAS WERE MORALLY CORRECT, WHY THE FUCK AREN'T THEY BEHIND BARS FOR WHAT THEY'RE DOING??

i know I'm not the most coherent source of information, i know this just looks like a stupid rant, but this information isn't accessible in English, which means NOBODY OTHER THAN US GEORGIANS KNOWS WHATS GOING ON. the later this shit stops, the more fascists there'll be in Georgia, because no one wants to put a stop to this. cops are fucking pigs, as always.

I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS. I'M TIRED OF SEEING SWASTIKA GRAFFITI ON WALLS AND SCHOOL DESKS. I'M SICK OF FEELING THREATENED JUST BECAUSE I'M OPENLY ANTI-NAZI AND SOMEWHAT OPENLY QUEER. I'M SICK OF RELIGION BEING AN EXCUSE FOR THESE FUCKING DEGENERATES. NOBODYS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I'm sorry for getting fucking emotional on a post that's supposed to be informational, but SOMEONE had to fucking say it. progressive people in non-western countries are in fucking hell, because nobody acknowledges any problems in places that doesn't concern them. anyways please fucking reblog this, for awareness and for help and what-fucking-ever. thank you for reading.

[forcebookish]

I saw someone say that “Boston has done nothing wrong!”

And I’m like. He sexually harassed/assaulted Top MULTIPLE times??? It could not be more black and white. Top said. I do not want to have sex with you. I am not interested. LIKE YOU CANT GET CLEARER THAN THAT.

But Boston continued. Even though he KNEW Top was dating someone else and not interested in him. Which ended in him coercing Top, under false pretenses, to have sex with him. Boston knew he was lying about Ray and Mew sleeping together. There’s no way he didn’t know Mew has never been into Ray.

Oh does it not count because you don’t find Top likable? Sorry. I wasn’t aware that assault doesn’t count if the person isn’t nice enough.

And that’s not even getting into how he knowingly played with Nick’s feelings and led him on even though he had no intention of seriously dating him. Like that is text in the show. Boston says. Maybe in the future we’ll date. Even though, at that point he doesn’t intend to date Nick. He just likes hooking up with him.

Like. None of this makes the terrible things that have happened to Boston okay. But like. Those terrible things also don’t excuse what he has done. Like. It’s unacceptable that he was recorded without his consent while having sex. And then it was shown to so many people. That’s horrific. And that is a crime. But it doesn’t mean that anything he’s done before or after is absolved.

Like it absolutely enrages me that even if you think the car sex was completely consensual. Boston still groped and harassed Top multiple times. Like. That is sexual assault. That is sexual harassment.

Boston is certainly and interesting character. And Neo is really showing his range as an actor in making me sometimes feel sorry for a character who has done horrible things. Like he’s shown that Boston has many layers.

But he still hasn’t even had to apologize for what he did to Top. And the fact that I see people act like Boston is somehow completely innocent in all this makes my blood boil. I’m sorry for ranting but my god.

don't apologize, you're completely right, anon! the other day i got in an argument with someone who kept bringing up stuff that they just... disliked about top? and when i told them that was all irrelevant, that all that matters is that boston was told to stop and didn't, they called me a jerk!!! it's fucking unreal the lengths this fandom will go to justify sexual assault.

this is kind of the thing with this fandom, they don't really understand what it means to be "morally gray" or even morality in general. they think that what is "immoral" about boston is his promiscuity (something that, if you don't subscribe to an abrahamic religion/puritanical society, is in fact morally neutral - if we go by the "sex is immoral" doctrine taught in those contexts then gay sex is never moral - which, you know, based on how homophobic BL fandom can be, AND PARTICULARLY THIS FANDOM I SEE YOU TIKTOKERS ACCUSING TOPCHEUM OF FUCKING I SEE YOU, it wouldn't surprise me if that's a part of it), when it's the ASSAULT, it's the NOT TAKING NO FOR AN ANSWER.

boston is a bad person, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have, like you said, layers. not everything about someone has to be bad for them to be a bad person - and you can still feel sorry for them when undeserved shit happens to them. but this fandom can't seem to wrap their heads around that. for some reason, despite this show being "messy," when someone actually messes up they're evil and when someone does something deliberately hurtful to another human being it's either ERASED FROM THEIR MEMORIES or justified in a way that makes them completely blameless or even something good (and not story-good like how i feel about sand LOSING HIS SHIT and destroying his phone to steal the audio and fuck with ray's head/ruin top's life; i mean, people thinking that ray exposed top AT MEW'S BIRTHDAY PARTY out of the goodness of his heart lmao).

it's sooooooo frustrating, anon >:(

[lakehare]

I’m sorry but I think the idea of racism, transphobia, and bigotry and such not ‘belonging’ in pagan communities is such horse shit. I know that sounds off, but hear me out - because you may feel that way and hold those values, you may denounce fascists, but like… I know first hand my experience with progressive and leftist pagan and spiritual spaces have been anything but devoid of bigotry and microaggression, if not outright aggression, and I am not the only one. Spiritual and religious spaces in 2023 will claim to be progressive and leftist in one breath and with the same one say you are too sensitive.

They sleep in the middle - they follow political trend. I have rarely met a pagan or spiritual person who truly knows themself or their politics enough to not enact some sort of bigoted violence against me or my kin, whether out of ignorance or malice, and then be unwilling to learn better and insist upon your guilt because you dared point it out - no matter the manner you did it in. Firm or gentle - you are being aggressive. And I know I am not the only one with this experience. So saying “fascism / bigotry has no place” is great and all, but a bit of an empty statement, and I only wish to see MORE come from it. Perhaps a denounciation of the falsity of all of this, of the liberalism, an encouragement of self reflection and how you treat others. It’s why I gave up on a large scale, and fight the big fights quietly - I can change no one who doesn’t want to, and I don’t need to, nor is it my job nor my business. I don’t actually want or need people looking at me for guidance, as some authority figure. I don’t need people looking at me as the new herder for their political slogan to parrot without actually making meaningful change within themselves, the slogan this time being “fascism/bigotry has no space in pagan spaces”.

I don’t need centrist/liberal, puritanical, democrat neo-spiritualists parading and masquerading as the most progressive leftists on the market to help me boot fascism out when they are unwilling to stop sleeping in the same bed as them or attempt to change their own ways, or do anything helpful towards the communities they’re in or even towards their IRL communities.

(Disclaimer inb4 bad faith - sure, some pagans and neospiritualists get this and do try. But they are not who I’m talking about here).

Calling out fascists changes nothing about how people act. Changes nothing about transmisogynistic, racist, sexist microaggressions (which is what actually reminded me of my position on this topic - given that it’s NOT the first time I’ve said this before, that just saying uwu there’s no place for bigotry in MY paganism) if you want a good example of what I’m speaking of, the best connection I can give you, this post by my mutual can inform you of performativity in regards to community acts against transmisogyny while snubbing trans women (and doing nothing of value for them) & maybe give a little insight into what I mean.

It does not stop people from lugging their own religious and spiritual baggage into the space and spewing it around to all who will hear, and those are really the things that I think should be focused on, not public smack downs in order to laugh and giggle with your buddies about such a serious thing. Clowning privately is one thing, I think clowning to thousands in order to get praise for your wit and cunning is quite another.

You can only change your actions and show others how to act by how you act in these spaces - and of course, I do not know others nearly as well as I know myself. But I, as a younger person, did the whole righteous crusade against bigoted people, in order to feel like I was doing something significant. And YES. Fascism needs to be pushed out of pagan spaces! I agree, allowing them to get a foothold in any country in any manner but especially a wide scale is NOT acceptable.

But the way it seems virtue signaling to me, the way it seems to push yourself into a space of authority, and rankles me, as someone who realized the exact issues with what I was doing. It is quite an ego boost when people listen to what you have to say and get to defend your moral and ethical stances, yes? And I was on an even smaller scale than some of these (now) BNPs.

I’m not saying people have to do their good deeds quietly, that’s Christian bullshit. But the manner of which I see a lot of (now) Big Name Pagans do this ruffles my feathers in an unnerving way. I can’t quite articulate exactly the way this is unnerving and unnecessary and how there are other ways and middle grounds (at the moment - I took an anxiety pill last night and I’m surprised at my coherency here) that don’t involve the grand standing, but if the lines are read between in good faith I have hope that my point comes across clear.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Mod: batchpost 4 for this topic

TW: Sexualization of (fictional) minors discussion

1. Yeah actually I agree with the person saying stuff about sexualized dolls should be tagged/warned for. It's really weird that this is discussed so much on websites frequented by minors ngl, admin, do better

~Anonymous

Mod: I agree with your agreement anon, I hope this format works better for most of you

2. I just want to hit all of you fuckers talking about fiction and reality being the same thing with a crowbar. I am mentally envisioning hitting you with a crowbar. Emotionally, I am hitting you with a crowbar. Physically, you are unharmed! Funny how that works. If thought crimes were real I'd Thanos snap you annoying little shits but unfortunately the world doesn't work the way you think it does. Stop shitting up every single corner of the internet with your moral crusade you bitchy neo-puritans.

~Anonymous

3. Honestly I want the hobby to be a more unsafe space for everyone too sensitive to learn to block and scroll harder because maybe if they don't feel safe they'll leave and no one will have to hear them complaining that they were emotionally traumatized for life and groomed by some random person posting a doll with a bit of sideboob. Stop trivializing real issues and find another hobby, you are literally more annoying than the people minding their own business making doll porn in peace and quiet.

~Anonymous

4. I literally do not care if someone shoves a YoSD up their hoo-hah to fulfill an unbirthing fetish, it's still not even remotely the same as scarring a real person for life and if you can't see why that is, you need serious, serious help. I am so sick of hearing this shit, like actively fed up and exhausted by it. I just... like my god. Shut up. Your sanctimonious moral aggrandizing doesn't make you right it just makes you insufferable and miserable people to exist around. Please go outside.

~Anonymous

5. if i see anyone ~naming and shaming~ someone as an ~abusive toxic pedophile~ for the crime of (looks at smudged writing on hand) owning a doll, i'm going to go out of my way to find your irl info so i can ask your parents how they fucked up this hard at raising you. you are not the protagonist of 'to catch a predator', the "last stand" against the ravages of horny crimes. you are basically the reincarnation of my pearl-clutching great aunt eva with the ability to use the internet and you suck.

~Anonymous

[egg-emperor]

I miss the days when the Sonic fandom was FAMOUS for creating Extremely dark content. Everything was fair game in the fandom: angst, gore, abuse, torture, slavery, experimentation, roboticization and death (or worse). I'd take those days over today's neo-puritanism any day

Lol me too, some of my biggest inspirations for my most passionate work comes from the unapologetic confidently grimdark edgy stuff things I'd see in that glorious era. I love when people weren't ashamed to take it so seriously without calling it cringe but also having fun with it. My creations now would've fit right in back then and I'm sad that I started actually contributing myself far too late because now people who just got into the fandom are trying to erase it and bar it from happening.

People having problems with me writing Eggman as the villain he is and doing stuff along the lines of what he already does in the games clearly have no idea that it's far from one of the most fucked up things in the series or fandom. They clearly forget about all the dark themes already existing in canon and didn't see all the edgy bloody gory art and fanfic of death and dismemberment and horror and violence and how fucking metal it was. That was a time to be alive. XD I'm just trying to keep it going!

My mind and imagination are still in the early 2000s-early 2010s era of grim dark edgy dark fun. Playing Shadow 2005, listening to Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails, Three Days Grace etc, looking at dark evil bloody gory art on DA and fics, watching YouTube fan music videos with all the famous edgy songs. RIP to everyone who cringe at their past selves and changed who they were and hate me for not following but I never grew out of it because it never stopped being a fascination and inspiration of creativity for me!

People can call me a cringe edgelord and make all the horrible assumptions and accusations all they want, I'm having fun and that's what matters, I'll wear it proudly if that's what enjoying and being myself makes me! It all comes from actual passion and fascination for what I create and it's not something I'd waste time doing just to upset people like some try to say. I'm not going to let purity culture ruin the fun and creativity, I'm gonna be one of those who helps keep it alive 🖤

[naradreamscape]

Continuously fascinated by peoples' willingness to compare being ostracized for posting weird incest/underage fandom shite to like. actual hate crimes. No it's not "homophobic" for people in the Astro Boy fandom to ask you to stop filling the series tag with posts shipping yourself/Dr. Tenma/whoever with the 9 year old boy. If it's for organizational purposes on your blog, you can remove yourself from search results in your blog's settings. Until then, people asking you not to flashbang them with exploitative content of a little boy is not the same as neo-puritan ad-friendly internet sanitation

[lenbryant]

LONG POST - Cancel Shakespeare? No way!

(NYTimes) Make Shakespeare Dirty Again

Aug. 13, 2023, By Drew Lichtenberg

It seemed, for a moment, that Shakespeare was being canceled. Last week, school district officials in Hillsborough County, Fla., said that they were preparing high school lessons for the new academic year with some of William Shakespeare’s works taught only with excerpts, partly in keeping with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s legislation about what students can or can’t be exposed to.

I’m here to say: Good. Cancel Shakespeare. It’s about time.

Anyone who spends a lot of time reading Shakespeare (or working on his plays, as I have for most of my professional career) understands that he couldn’t have been less interested in puritanical notions of respectability. Given how he’s become an exalted landmark on the high road of culture, it’s easy to forget that there’s always been a secret smugglers’ path to a more salacious and subversive Shakespeare, one well known and beloved by artists and theater people. The Bard has long been a patron saint to rebel poets and social outcasts, queer nonconformists and punk provocateurs.

Yes, Shakespeare is ribald, salacious, even shocking. But to understand his genius — and his indelible legacy on literature — students need to be exposed to the whole of his work, even, perhaps especially, the naughty bits.

The closing lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20, addressed to the poem’s male subject, are among the dirtiest — and hottest — of the 16th century. “But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure, / Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.” A favorite trick of Shakespeare’s was to play with word order, especially when he wanted to disclose something too daring to be said in a more straightforward way, such as the love that dared not speak its name. The untangled meaning here: Your love ultimately belongs to me, sir, even if women (sometimes) enjoy your prick. Or, from the neck up you are as beautiful as a woman, and from the waist down you are all man.

Sex is one thing. The plays are also astoundingly gory. The bloody climax of “King Lear” so horrified the playwright Nahum Tate that he felt compelled to rewrite its ending. Tate’s sanitized version of “King Lear,” premiering in 1681, held the stage until 1838. In the 18th century, Voltaire called “Hamlet” the apparent product of a “drunken savage” who wrote without “the slightest spark of good taste”— which didn’t stop Voltaire, who also recognized Shakespeare’s “genius,” from openly borrowing from the Bard for one of his own plays.

In 1872 in “The Birth of Tragedy,” Friedrich Nietzsche praised this savagery. To him, Shakespeare contained the ne plus ultra of grisly truths. Hamlet, he wrote, “sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence.” Nietzsche being Nietzsche, he considered this a good thing. Art, wrote Nietzsche, transforms “these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.”

In light of Nietzsche’s counterintuitive epiphany, the notion of Shakespeare-the-hipster caught fire. Hamlet, uniquely among male roles in the classical canon, became an aspirational part for female theatrical stars looking to prove their bona fides and upend gender preconceptions: Sarah Bernhardt most famously, but also the great Danish actor Asta Nielsen. Shakespeare’s sonnets were a source of succor to decadent aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde, just as they had been to Charles Baudelaire. The writings and teachings of queer poets such as W.H. Auden and Allen Ginsberg suggests they saw themselves in Shakespeare’s works, as did anti-racist writers from James Baldwin to Lorraine Hansberry and Ann Petry.

Where the avant-garde led, pop culture followed. Shakespeare’s plays have always lent themselves to all manner of interpretations and they found new life in the postwar era, with landmark works like Basil Dearden’s “All Night Long,” a neo-noir film from 1962, which set “Othello” in a British jazz soiree. Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” in 1968 plugged into a different cultural zeitgeist, capturing onscreen the summer of love, while Roman Polanski’s film version of “Macbeth” in 1971 feels like an encomium for the dying utopian dreams of the ’60s.

In the transgressive ’90s, Shakespeare was everywhere: taboo, art house, alternative and cool. Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho” reimagined Prince Hal and Hotspur as gay grunge gods and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” featured Leonardo DiCaprio at the peak of his androgyne allure. Even “Shakespeare in Love,” a relatively middlebrow Oscar winner, presented a vision of the brooding, bearded, sexy Shakespeare, as embodied by Joseph Fiennes.

In many other cultures, the bawdy lowbrow and the poetic highbrow are often personified by separate champions: In France, it’s Rabelais and Racine; in Spain, Cervantes and Calderón. In English literature Shakespeare has always combined both brows into something rich, special and strange. In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of Shakespeare’s most magical and sensual plays, Bottom — a man with the head of a donkey — spends the night in bed next to the fairy queen. He wakes up having had something close to a religious experience. Every play in the canon features something similarly subversive and transcendent — and all of them are essential.

One can no more take out the dirty parts of Shakespeare than one can take out the poetry. It’s all intertwined, so that Shakespeare seems almost purposefully designed to confound those who want to segregate the smutty from the sublime. His work is proof that profundity can live next to, and even be found in, the pornographic, the viscerally violent and the existentially horrifying. So if you’re looking for sex, gore and the unspeakable absurdity of existence in Shakespeare, you will definitely find it. That’s the genius of Shakespeare. And it’s precisely what makes his work worth studying.

Drew Lichtenberg is a lecturer at Yale University and the resident dramaturg at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, D.C.

[ksfoxwald]

oh, y'all love the asexuals now - as your little prop for "umm, stop talking about sex, think of the asexuals!!" Buddy even sex-repulsed aces can handle other people talking about sex, being asexual does not automatically make someone a child. You love asexuals when they're your little uwu soft baby sweet romance hero who just wants cuddles and kisses and thinks sex is icky the same way you neo-Puritans think sex is icky. You don't want aces who hate kissing but enjoy sex. You want aro-aces to be your funny little supporting guys but not have their own narratives and priorities. You don't want aros who enjoy sex, and you sure as fuck don't want kinky aces and aros.

Some days I miss when asexuality was "the invisible orientation," because I stopped identifying as asexual when other people started having opinions on what that meant.

(keeping the flag, though. It's the best flag.)

"we need weirder queers" you guys couldnt even handle asexual people in 2016 (and probably still cant handle them)

[renthony]

One reason I get so annoyed when people dismiss "fandom bullshit" as nothing more than silly drama not worth discussing, is that adults in fandom have been talking for years about the rise of reactionary teenagers trying to enforce purity culture on everyone around them.

The mainstream finally clued into the problem and are so confused as to why it's happening, and meanwhile, fandom archivists saw the warning signs a decade ago.

It's not a problem unique to fandom, but it's intensely visible in fandom spaces, but people discussing the issue always get shouted down as "cringey fandom weirdos and their cringey fandom drama."

It reminds me very, very much of being a Norse pagan ten years ago, desperately trying to warn my non-pagan friends that, hey, Asatru groups are actively using neopaganism as a fascist recruitment and brainwashing tactic. Nobody outside of pagan spaces wanted to listen, and then "all of a sudden" there's a viking larper in the January 6th coup attempt, and people are confused why so many neo-nazis like Odin so much.

Similarly, furry community spaces kept trying to raise awareness of nazi furs, only to get shut down as "weirdo furry drama mongers." It also happened in the My Little Pony fandom--I was there. I REMEMBER trying to tell people, hey, there's some nasty shit happening beneath the surface, it's not just "weird basement dwellers," it's more than that. But it was the hot fun thing to shit all over My Little Pony fans as "cringe" across the board instead of listening to the actual issues at hand from fans who were trying to tackle the problem.

You gotta listen to subcultures telling you that there's a problem, before the problem gets too big to deal with. You gotta listen when people are saying, hey, this is a really big issue in this space, and if it becomes bigger, it's going to be a problem for everyone.

People outside fandom paint all fandom issues as "wank" and "drama," even when the issue is significantly larger than that and is worth talking about. Harassment, bullying, bigotry, neo-puritanism? That's way fuckin' bigger than "fandom wank," and it's incredibly ignorant to dismiss these issues as "online drama." You don't have to personally get involved in the topic, but stop dismissing it as "not worth talking about."

[mywitchcultblr]

I'm done with your purity

I'm fucking done with all of you westerners fucks who take your freedom for granted. AO3 was banned in china because pissy fans reporting RPF TO THE GOVERNMENT UNDER FALSE REPORT OF PEDO OR WHATEVER thus making life a living hell for Chinese writers and fans. ALSO LET ME TELL YOU that fanfic and AO3 is a safe space for many oppressed LGBT people outside of the west

I can't fucking say that I'm trans and bi without having people beating the shit out of me, but I can fuckin' write that I'm gay as fuck in fanfic or writing gay shit about my fave with fanfic

Imagine some people defending state wide censorship over fanfic, because they don't like icky fanfic, that's a sign that either you are brainwashed or fucking privileged and taking your freedom for granted. You know why Asian and other non western USA-European are more chill with fanfic and fandom?

Why we are less prone to make some stupid callout over fanworks?

Because most of us doesn't have the same information and expression privilege like the west, we take any freedom that we can have

That's in 2017... There's probably more than one million websites being censored rn. I cannot even buy pride pin here because NO ONE outside of internet selling it! The censorship always begin from "banning information to protect children and moral from nsfw" down to censoring Spongebob Squarepants

You don't like something? Just don't fucking read it, it wouldn't stop the author to write and when they do stop writing usually after they are harassed so bad to the point of mental break down or suicide. What the actual fuck...

Defending and supporting state wide censorship because you want to feel superior on the internet is beyond stupid and it showing your privilege... Also yah fuck you who defend china aggressive state wide censorship because adult x adult RPF icky or whatever, I like reading Tom Hiddleston x Reader, because I'm lonely and it's fun. Don't lie that you never thinking of marrying your favorite celebrities or dreaming about dating Gerard Way.

What the fuck you gonna do about it? Crucify my ass? So long you are not shoving it to the person's face, who give a fuck? It's not a justifiable ground to cheer for government mandated national wide censorship. A lot of westerners are so privileged and terminally online to the point their mind revolve around online discourse 24/7 I'm not saying discourse has no damn merits but you get what I said...

Some people particularly white westerners are so privileged they have the chance to goes back 180° and agreeing with conservative mindset they claim to hate so much... Also your kink critical bullshit and your bullshit crusading over dark stories? Yeah. Heavily influenced by TERF and conservatism. Newsflash...

I'm not a person who agree with all ship or stories, i don't claim any moral high ground. I was so scared of getting cancelled due to the hostile neo puritan fandom culture, but seeing people defending China great firewall and aggressive censorship finally broke something inside of me and I cannot stay quiet

I don't give a fuck about your fanfic discourse, If i don't like something i just wouldn't fucking engage with it and wouldn't read...

I'm done, I'm tired. Fucking tagging this shit as anti vs pro because i need to get the message out there and LET THE CHAOS begin

( When you want to escape your country censorship to the internet but then you see the supposed liberated westerners people wanting censorship because they want to feel moral. Yes there are even westerners who don't want to see anything even remotely 'problematic' example: they will attack Zutara or fuckin' Reylo shipper whatever. See? You are terminally online and so privileged... Congratulations... Here's your fucking medal and gold star)