#you personally may feel these tropes are bigoted or problematic in some way

[coockie8]

"shapeshifting is transphobic because a trans person could never do that irl" is a take i feel ive heard before

Unironically, would not remotely shock me if you had.

"Shape shifting is transphobic because a real transgender person wouldn't be able to do that in real life" feels extremely adjacent to "Clone ships are incest because if you fucked your clone in real life you'd be basically fucking your twin".

Shape shifting and human(-like) clones are fictional tropes, you're bitching about an imaginary concept.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

Hi. I saw your video on the HP game. I found your points interesting. I never got into that franchise myself but a very dear friend of mine, who is trans, grew up with this franchise and it helped her cope in so many ways. She never cared for jkr. However when the bs that woman spits out became hard to ignore it broke my friend's heart she was so upset. She decided however to seperate the movies from jkr for the sake of her childhood memories. She feels awfully conflicted about it though since it meant so much to her and is devastated the author ruined this magical world. Do you have any tips? Sorry for asking you but you seem so wise and knowledgeable. I have no idea how to help my friend out of this dilemma 😔 and I don't think telling her to look for another franchise is helpful or an appropriate thing to say

Hey 👋🏻

It's not my video specifically. I am just sharing it.

I know what it's like to enjoy media made by a person who is pretty terrible. While there are valid arguments to be made about separating the art from the artist, it's important to consider whether engaging in the art itself 1) perpetuates a harmful ideology and/or 2) gives monetarily to a person or group of people who will go on to fund a harmful activity of some kind.

The point is to think about where your money is going and to be conscious of the content you are consuming.

For example, the fast food industry as a whole is exploitative. All of these companies engage in bad labor practices and use up important resources. But. There are times when people have to eat something quick and easy and inexpensive. I don't blame people for that. However, some companies like Chick fil a are using their money to donate to really harmful and homophobic organizations. When we ask people to avoid buying from there, we run into the same issues with JKR's work. It's part of our childhood! We like it! We're just trying to enjoy our lives in this capitalist hellscape!

Yet, there are alternative products to Chick fil a. The downside for me is that most fast food doesn't meet my dietary needs, but Chick fil a has items I can eat. Still, I don't want to be complicit in their harm so I choose not to buy from them. I have to ask myself if my craving for grilled chicken nuggets is more important than the queer people being harmed by their donations to homophobic organizations and you know what? To me it's not worth it. It takes more energy out of me, but I can make grilled chicken nuggets at home.

Does that make my life a little bit harder? Yeah, especially when I have no energy to cook and I can't easily pick up a cheap meal. It's worth it to me though to make that "sacrifice." I don't perfectly avoid all businesses with horrible practices because I just can't afford to sometimes, but the point of that video is not "do no harm," but rather do less harm.

...and look, harm isn't 100% avoidable even if you tried your best. I know this. Does rereading the HP books you already have make you complicit in the harm JKR does to trans folks? I don't know. I am not the judge. However, I do know that continuing to buy JKR's work contributes to TERF lobbies and Anti-Trans legislation. Whether or not you like her work isn't important so much as it's important how the money made from her work is being used. There are alternatives to JKR - much better alternatives to JKR. It's not insensitive to say, hey, maybe this hyperfixation you have on her work deserves some self reflection and maybe distancing yourself from it can't happen overnight but it may be worthwhile to seek out content that has a similar premise but does not involve harmful tropes nor line the pockets of bigots.

Fiction is fiction, yeah.

There's many fictional works out there made by problematic people with problematic elements and the enjoyment of that work doesn't mean you are a bad person. It's normal to enjoy things with a critical eye or say, okay, I know this thing they said or did was wrong but I can separate that from my enjoyment of their work and I personally am not going to use my enjoyment of their work to intentionally harm anyone.

But Fiction is also fiction in the sense that it's not so deep that you can't possibly divorce yourself from art and artists who are actively doing harm forever or at least until they are no longer actively doing harm. There's other stuff out there. I feel like it's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be to drop something that is causing people harm, especially if it is doing harm to your own community. There are much bigger ethical dilemmas than figuring out whether or not to buy more HP content.

[olderthannetfic]

So I have a question about "problematic fanfictions"… not underage sex for once.

I lurk around in a fandom for a ship where there has been some drama regarding the appearance of a trope that makes a canonically "good character "- basically known for NOT being a bigot and not much else - into a pseudo nazi. Things are complicated by the fact that the love interest would canonically be in the discriminated-against group. The fact that the trope they are going for is a romanticisation of Nazi/Holocaust victim is NOT subtle - to everyone but the people enjoying it, apparently.

Lots of people were very upset and pointed out why it's problematic, even calling for it to never be used, the authors got upset in turn. I think there were heavy discussions/fights about it in private too.

Point is, as much as I think the trope is shit (honestly not just because of the nazi romanticisation, but for its overall relationship to canon) I also think everyone can write whatever. Being into the creepy kinky stuff myself, I was not particularly shocked. But I also get why people would be. To be frank, the arguments against it were not that different from the criticism you would get around something like The Night Porter.

So this got me thinking, do you think it is possible for a type of criticism of fanfiction that is a conversation on why things can be problematic and that still allows for things to exist?

I get that you don't know where the person is coming from, or that self-awareness is not required to write something, but sometimes it's simply the matter of telling someone "hey, you just wrote something very racist/sexist/whatever ".

What I am asking I guess if we are ready for criticism of fanfiction in a more literary sense.The way we would canon. Or are they too different a thing that it is not possible? Lots of people are very against any kind of criticism in fanfictions, and I've literally seen people get upset at commenters pointing out typos or anachronisms. A lot of the time the culture is "if you don't have anything good to say, say nothing", and I follow this rule, but it can feel claustrophobic at times.

And while I get don't like - don't read and practice it myself, I also can understand people being upset at, say, knowing a negative stereotype about their group or a romanticisation of their trauma is around without being able to discuss it explicitly.

I am not even sure mainstream criticism is doing a good job at not being pearl-clutching and censorship as of late. But I also think it's very important to just talk about things, and I have yet to see a space in fandom where the bad is discussed without turning into a fan war, though I might just be unlucky.

--

Telling them where?

If you're in a discord for a fandom, and someone has a massively offensive headcanon they want everyone else to adopt, it's absolutely appropriate to explain that it makes you uncomfortable and why.

A review in a bookmark or a review blog on tumblr or wherever else could absolutely be literary criticism.

AO3 comments, however, are typically seen as a conversation with the author. The author may not be open to conversation. They may not even be open to a much less critical conversation than this.

It's claustrophobic because you're treating the AO3 comments section as the sole place for discussion. That's the equivalent of asking the author's official website to stand in for book review blogs, goodreads, and amazon product reviews.

If you want to build a space in fandom for those discussions, you should do so. It will be tough because most reviewers are much less intelligent and much less informed than they think they are and because a lot of people have ulterior motives for criticism.

It will also be tough because there's no reason someone should care about fic reviews of a fandom they aren't in aside from yelling at creators for offensive art. If you want a good faith critique space, it probably needs to be one where the people present are delving into their own fandoms with an eye to improving their own writing/art/recs.

In practice, the "how to write X" blogs I've seen around here have all been unintentionally offensive, treated their group as a monolith while trying to do the opposite, and have been virulently, virulently anti-kink.

I think it would help to have an aim for your space. "I want to tell this AO3 author that they hurt me" is not an aim that will ever go anywhere but mega-wank. "I want to improve my own writing" might go somewhere productive.

[olivieblake]

As a writer or even just a consumer of media do you find people are less willing to accept “flaws” in characters and stories? I’m not talking like this character is a murderer he’s evil no one should like him type stuff, though as someone who started off writing dramione I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of that but just like when characters are ever short of perfect. Like when a strong female character is kinda insecure or a couple isn’t communicating well or has a heated fight everyone gets mad that it’s a toxic relationship or bad writing. I once read a review of a book where someone stopped reading it after two chapters cause it had bad therapy practices, ie. the character still had shit to work through and therapy isn’t magic therefore they weren’t always doing the healing right and it’s like? that’s the whole point!! it’s an arc the character is gonna grow! It’s also made clear early on that the therapist didn’t agree with the coping methods (overly controlling their life) so it wasn’t like they were trying to portray it as a good thing. I know you’ve mentioned people have ✨opinions✨ about your DFS Hermione for having flaws and staying flawed and her flaw is just that she kinda thinks she’s right a lot and maybe isn’t the most self aware nothing even serious lol. I’m not saying don’t be critical of media but it’s kinda overwhelming reading think piece after think piece about why this thing you enjoy is actually the literal worst™️. Like am I toxic for having some of the same flaws ? Am I a problematic creep for enjoy stories where everything isn’t always sunshine, I don’t want to have a train wreck of a relationship but sometimes reading about one can be kinda fun? Is that terrible?

there’s a lot here that I’d like to discuss and I’m thinking about how I’d like to do it (I’ll inevitably chat about it in a video because it’s interesting and complex but I think I may have too many topics for this monday)

let’s see I think I will start by saying: in general, critical discourse about media (books, tv, film, fanfic) is a good thing, but it has definitely gone awry from what I consider to be its origins. I think the whole point of viewing media critically and making observations about what we are portraying via fiction is crucial for amplifying/protecting marginalized stories and reducing harm—specifically, the harm that minorities and women face by being inundated with bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, or ignorant tropes, caricatures, or relationship dynamics. I definitely believe that we should consider what we consume and how we consume it, particularly when it comes to the marginalized voices who do not see themselves represented well or fairly in white male dominated media

that being said, I do think it has led to the expectation that fiction cannot have ANY problems, which is absurd and counterproductive. it’s also extremely reductive, particularly when it comes the Strong Female Character™ thing you mention, where a woman STILL only has value if she’s strong in the “correct” way. I mentioned in one of my other posts and also last week’s video that there’s some kind of disconnect between the VERY GOOD intentions of things like #ownvoices or the movement to empower female characters and the actual outcomes, which make it so that any flaws in a marginalized fictional character are magnified to represent the entire group. the very reasonable request to see ourselves in fiction has somehow become an exponentially convoluted demand to see ourselves a certain way in fiction, where any character who does not reflect our personal experience is bad and wrong. previously, the expectation was that white male stories were universal whereas everything else was only for that specific group, and now, ironically, everything that is created still has to fit that universal quality and please everyone, despite that not being the point. the problem is when you only have ONE movie about this topic or ONE book about this ethnicity, then of course it hasn’t done enough to exemplify an entire subject or culture. there has to be an entire body of work the way there is with white-dominated media, where no single film or book accurately represents the experience of being white

plus we have twitter which is a horrifying hellscape where you get rewarded by the algorithm for making loud, obnoxious points so add that to the list (yesterday I saw that one of the top 3 reviews on Beloved by toni morrison is a 1-star review written by a white man and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness) 

but anyway that’s like, more of a macro look at what I think is going on but you’re right that people are not very forgiving of flawed characters. to some extent, I get it; the one thing we don’t want our characters to do is annoy us, and that’s fair. but I also think people have lost the sense that “oh, this thing isn’t for me” and thus can’t successfully identify the difference between critical failure and personal dislike

now. as for Divination for Skeptics. let me start by saying it’s not like I don’t understand why people find hermione in Divination for Skeptics annoying, because I get it. if you’re taking the story very seriously then sure, maybe you want her to change her behavior and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t. fair enough! to that I say it’s a comedy and if you don’t find it funny you’re perfectly welcome to dislike it, it’s not a big deal to me if I don’t make you laugh. however, I DO take issue with people who claim she’s too flawed or doesn’t grow, because they almost always do it in a very specific way: they say that she doesn’t show enough empathy, aka how dare she not read draco’s mind and simply alter her personality and behavior to suit his. it genuinely infuriates me that in my opinion, people who voice that particular “criticism” have seemingly internalized the belief that women should be emotionally perceptive; that for them, hermione’s “flaw” is that she does not take on the emotional labor that draco refuses to perform. (her actual flaw is that her survival technique/coping mechanism is a hyper-rationality that incorrectly assumes she has perfect information; i.e., that everything she knows is accurate, and therefore all of her decisions must be sound.) whereas draco knows this about her—knows and acknowledges it—and yet cannot bring himself to voice his feelings out of a fear-based desire to hedge his own emotional risk. who, then, is more flawed in the context of the story? 

I don’t really have a conclusion yet so I’m going to pause for now and we’ll revisit this; I think mainly it’s that the more media diversifies, the more people will struggle with the preconceptions they have and the presumption that everything they consume is for them, and therefore that they are the metric for whether something is “good.” I think good art, good media, will reflect the world as it exists, but it will still only be the world according to one tiny fraction, a sliver of the actual human experience. does bad representation mean bad art? when it harms people yes. but when it speaks to a deeper truth (the truth of “we are all given to vice and imperfection even if it is not this specific version”), no. but that requires quite a degree of sophistication and self-awareness to identify, hence the discomfort of continuous vitriol or bad takes

[nanlanmoarchived]

On Jessica and her canon romantic relationships:

This is going to get long, so I’m going to go ahead and put this under a readmore. The dynamics of Jessica’s relationships on True Blood are something I’ve often thought about but never really put into words how they affected/still affect Jessica and since I can’t go catch tarantulas on Animal Crossing so here it is! And just to clarify, this isn’t me condoning the shitty things she’s done in her canon storylines, just a way of explaining the issues within each of her relationships. 

So, for organizational skills, I’m going to break it down by person.

Hoyt: On paper, Hoyt was a fantastic first boyfriend for Jessica. Removing the age difference between them, he was sensitive, optimistic, and romantic. He gave her room to step out from the shelter of her parents and explore being her own person and all of that was great! The problem was, because of both of their immaturities, Hoyt put Jessica up on a pedestal and Jessica assumed the role of replacement mother. Jessica spent the majority of her childhood playing mother to her younger sister and so the position was a natural position for her; Jessica equates caregiving with love and so therefore, stepping in to take care of Hoyt was how she showed her love. Where this goes wrong is Hoyt doesn’t show that back, necessarily. His idea of showing love is through grand gestures (buying a house without her knowledge with the intent of moving her in) and fulfilling his traditional “head of household” duties and that’s about it. He treats her as an object to acquire and keep maintained, and while that may work for some girls, a seventeen year old who has just been kidnapped, killed, and subsequently released from this homelife structure (which is equated to abuse in her psyche) isn’t going to respond well. At first it was easy for her to settle into playing house, but her world became 100% bigger overnight. To expect her to settle into a wifely (or more appropriately, replacement mother) role and not grow resentful was foolish on her part and selfish on Hoyt’s part. He then continues to punish her for outgrowing his narrow idea of what a happy relationship is by acting out, kidnapping and almost killing her, and ultimately asking to have their relationship removed from his memories: something that still haunts her to this day. In canon this is rectified with a, “true love will always come back to you” trope, but regardless of if we’re talking show trope or my personal canon, the trauma of being asked to use a power to erase yourself from your significant other’s memories, to take away the sweet moments and the hard moments, just because they can’t cope would be devastating. In my personal canon, Jessica didn’t glamour for a long time after erasing Hoyt’s memories. 

Jason: Jessica’s relationship with Jason was problematic from the start. Jessica felt safe enough to explore more of herself with Jason than she was with Hoyt because of his reputation and from there some feelings did grow, but Jason’s constant wavering between having feelings for her and being, you know, a bigot towards what she was gave her serious trust issues when it came to her partner’s motives. Them constantly being on different pages was a part of the appeal if she’s honest, but at the end of the day there’s no security (hence why she inevitably gives up on Jason and goes back to Hoyt, who is far more secure than his friend). Both Jason and Jessica treated one another as novelties and didn’t pay attention to the other’s past traumas or needs and that inevitably stole their ability to have anything more meaningful tbh. That and his constant draw back to the Fellowship of the Sun and their bullshit. 

James: James and Jessica could’ve made it for a long run in all honesty. The dynamic between the two of them was initially balanced and founded on mutual interest. This relationship was an eye opener for Jess in that she could have a loving, trusting relationship with someone and it could just. . . Be. The problem was the timing for these two and the writer’s need to give Lafayette a love interest. It was also Jessica not sharing her trauma/grief responses and James’ lack of patience in understanding how grief and trauma are processed for people. The vamp camp alone would’ve been enough to put a strain on their relationship, but add in Bill’s kingship, his possession by Lilith, his using her to lure the faery girls to their deaths and her inevitable failure by them to keep them safe, and then everything that transpired at the Camp? The fact that Jessica wasn’t as emotionally available to James isn’t a surprise. After everything she’d endured in the first few years of her vampirehood (about, two and half by the time she’s put in the camp) it’s amazing she’d been able to keep any sort of relationships alive and James turning around and punishing her for her trauma by cheating on her with Lafayette honestly fucked her ability to fully share with her partners. She’ll tell you all about the shit she’s gone through, but she’ll immediately gloss over how it made her feel and how it’s made her struggle. She already spent a lot of her time minimizing in relationships but this broken relationship definitely made her feel like she has to continue to put away however she’s feeling or struggling to be more attentive and caring for her significant other. 

What the three of these relationships have in common is positioning Jessica in a “fixer” position when she has trauma enough of her own to go through. She’s never given the space to really discuss or process what’s happened to her and what’s going on around her. She tends to find relationships in which she fulfills a role, whether she intends to or not, and doesn’t realize that her caregiving is ultimately her downfall when the people she’s offering that care to don’t fully reciprocate her affections. They also ultimately lash out at her, whether intentional (Hoyt and Jason) or unintentional (James), and this reinforces her fear of being punished for being “incorrect”. The mistakes she made were hurtful, sure, but the responses that her respective partners gave her were largely traumatic. Hell, Hoyt almost group killed her and Jason shot her straight in the head for feeding on someone else. All of that being said, she is a hopeless romantic who will always love love and trying to fall in love. She desperately craves being wanted and will always seek out the opportunity to be with someone who makes her feel secure.

[terriblelizbians]

anyway here’s my opinion on good omens gay.

i remember seeing a post that somebody made here. it was praising the characterization of aziraphale and crowley, saying that they were happy that they could be read in so many different queer ways. they could be trans/nonbinary, asexual, aromantic, nebulously queer, undefined, whatever.

then there was a list of things, on the other hand, that they weren’t. it was a very short list, meant to show that really you could headcanon them as almost whatever! except this “definitely not” list included gay.

if i remember correctly, i saw this post because n*il reblogged it. i don’t remember the wording enough to search, but while i may be wrong, i’m very sure i saw it on his blog.

i don’t have a problem with people headcanoning them as ace or agender or whatever else (other than straight, because really. seriously. c’mon.) i personally see them as gay! i strongly believe that they are gay! but i know that’s just my perspective. my problem is when 1. people tell us we can’t think that and pretend we’re the ones saying that to them, 2. people tell us that somehow it’s less progressive to want to see gay men in a loving, on-screen, physically intimate (even just holding hands) relationship and 3. the author is so dismissive and rude to people who dare to speak up about how they relate to the work or heaven- hell- somebody forbid criticize him.

(now i could also go into my thoughts on how he claims that his supporting ace/nb interpretations of the characters is progressive while it actually relies on aphobic and transphobic tropes of those identities being inhuman, but i won’t. not in this post. maybe later.)

(i could also go into how extremely, rabidly homophobic it is for people - and this is a fan thing, i think, as far as i can tell n*il hasn’t said this - to look at gay people asking why a/c couldn’t hold hands or yes even kiss and immediately jump to saying “why can’t The Gays ever be happy unless two men are fucking each other explicitly on screen”. congrats! that’s blatant homophobia! never speak again!)

but what i want to say is two things. one, i think n*il is responding terribly to all this. i’m not a famous author; i don’t know how i would respond to accusations of bigotry. i don’t know what a satisfactory response would be. but i do know that i don’t like his. what people are saying about his past work is true, and he’s dismissing it by stubbornly insisting that actually, because it was progressive at the time, it’s actually great representation. no, it’s problematic and rooted in transmisogyny. you’re allowed to admit that. what people are saying about his current attitude towards good omens is from my perspective true, and at the very least valid. but he’s turning it into a war, and it’s not a balanced one, because one side is a celebrity with an enormous dedicated fan base that includes, as i’ve mentioned, some unarguable homophobes, and the other side is a handful of gay people on a shitty social media platform. he’s refusing to acknowledge the experiences and feelings of the gay people who briefly felt seen in these characters and wanted literally any affirmation. (again! holding hands! that’s barely intimate and in no way strictly romantic!) and sure, he doesn’t owe them that representation. but he chose to publicly attack them instead, and that’s... well... not fair, for lack of a better word.

two! i said i had two things, and i definitely didn’t forget the other. uhh. oh yeah! it’s that i’m asexual, and i’m nonbinary, and i’m also gay as hell. not “gay as a short way to say lgbtq+”. i’m literally gay as in a whole lesbian. YOU CAN BE ALL THOSE THINGS! so when i saw interpretations of a/c as those, at first i didn’t feel like i had to take it as a contradiction of my reading of them as gay. i saw it as another way that i could continue looking at my own headcanon of them as gay. until certain authors and certain fanbases came along and said “no, this headcanon is okay but this one isn’t, and it’s not homophobic because i said so, and actually you’re the bigoted one for thinking that we still don’t actually have sufficient gay rep”. please. it’s not anti-progressive to want gay representation. you can have whatever headcanons you want, but let us have ours. and neil, if you say that headcanons are free, that has to include them being just regular boring classic flavor gay, and we’re allowed to say that we would like to see positive images of gay men in love, out loud and visible and indisputable. you don’t have to do it! but you shouldn’t lash out like you have. and no! implied and euphemised and subtle and hidden and metaphorical love isn’t better than explicitly shown love, especially since we don’t have enough representation of gay men openly in love. of course we want to see them be intimate (AGAIN: nobody said they need to have sex, homophobes.) and SAY i love you. it’s not hard to listen and try to understand why people want that. even if you don’t make it happen. try to just understand.

anyway all this to say: aziraphale and crowley are gay and they fuck all the time

[aroworlds]

Hey super big question , I feel like we’re about to be slaughtered this December because Grindlewald is Aro Gay And I’m worried that jk is going to completely dehumanize him with Jonny Depp and that she chose Jonny because of his ability to play dehumanizing characters and the writing and his portrayal combined is going to be horrific for us and I can’t stop stressing about it , and asshole allos had to bring up Grindlewald is Nazi metaphor and then I just read the wiki on Hitler, he was ace fml

I said on the weekend that we should be allowed to connect to characters who are not good representation and express that connection, and that’s absolutely true. This said, it is also true that our connection does not mean other people cannot discuss the problems with that character and story. I can express a connection with Clariel; other people have the right to discuss how her position as series antagonist situates her as another loveless villain and her message is, consequently, damaging. Both approaches are important.

To deny people space to talk about the problems, parallels and metaphors in a work or character because of our connection is as silencing as their denying us space to speak of our connection. There are specific spaces where it isn’t appropriate to discuss some feelings in that space (a fanblog where folks gush about Clariel isn’t the best space to argue that she’s dreadful aro-ace rep) and this should be respected. On your own blog, you can certainly put up boundaries on the conversations you prefer not to see. But in broader, general community spaces, the risk is that people will have differing viewpoints and that many of these viewpoints can be hard for us to take, especially if our connection to a character or work is deep and intense.

As an autistic, it can be difficult to see people have a differing opinion about a special interest. It bothers me if they don’t like something I like; it bothers me even more if they like something I consider terrible! It feels like a personal judgement, and it’s hard not to get extremely defensive in response. When it’s tangled up in questions of representation, erasure, marginalisation and identity, it becomes even more complicated, and my connection to my special interest is such that seeing differing attitudes and evaluations of it that hurt me provoke depression, defiance or anger. Those feelings don’t make for easy conversation about it with other people.

One thing I’ve found as an answer, at least in the realm of a work I connect to being dismissed, is analyzing works myself. Yes, I like it, but what does it mean? What’s the context of this character? What are the themes and how do they relate to real life? How might these themes cause harm to others? What does the context of this character say about identity? What lead them to develop this viewpoint? Is it one I should keep? This allows me to continue to engage with a special interest topic while having desensitised myself to viewpoints that aren’t mine, because part of how I now connect to it is thinking about it from lots of different angles. But this took me years to develop and you may not be yet in a position to approach things this way. It also doesn’t work for attitudes and evaluations of a work based in out-and-out hatred or bigotry; you need to be prepared to dismiss them without being overwhelmed by them, and that’s also an ability that takes time and self-awareness to gain.

I do recommend exploring the idea that a special interest doesn’t need to be perfect to have value to meand that a special interest doesn’t need to be perceived the same way by others to have value to me. Your connection to a work is about you and you alone. That connection is not diminished or erased by someone else’s opinion, someone else’s actions or someone else’s response. This applies for disagreement about character arc or idealised representation, and it applies to erasure and antagonism.

I know nothing about Hitler being ace, but so what if he is? Seriously, so what? There’s plenty of lesbian TERFs. There’s heaps of binary trans truscum causing harm to non-binary people. What of Milo Yiannopoulos? Does that mean all lesbians, all binary trans people and all gay men are irredeemable? Of course not! Being of a marginalised identity does not preclude one from being harmful, dangerous, cruel, malicious or damaging. There are aromantic people out there who are dangerous to me. That doesn’t make them less aromantic or less dangerous. It just means all kinds of people can be aromantic, including those I think morally reprehensible.

Anyone who declares all gay men dangerous because of Milo Yiannopoulosis a heterosexist bigot, and the same applies here. You cannot spend your life worrying that an awful person is gay/ace/aro/trans/autistic (etc) and what that means or if people will use that against you. If you do, you’ll never be able to breathe. The only person you’re harming with this worry is you, and you deserve better than that.

If other people use someone’s existence to dismiss your community, as has happened so many times in antagonistic conversations over the last couple of years, handle it like you handle anyone else hateful. Block them. Report vile hate speech to Tumblr. Move on to more constructive creations and conversations.

The majority of fictional and creative media is at least unthinkingly amatonormative, ableist and cissexist. I rarely get to pick up a book that respects me as a trans, autistic aro, and I have to acknowledge this risk of being hurt every time I start something new. This isn’t right or fair, but it is our reality. This movie is going to be no different on that regard, no different to the rest of the media that hurts us. The difference here is that I think this is a property you care about, one that you deeply connect to--and that’s perfectly right and normal! But that connection makes it harder to see that this is the same thing the a-spec community has been enduring for years and years. We’ve weathered everything that’s come before and we’ll weather this, too. You’ll weather this, just as you weathered every other instance of erasure and antagonism in a fictional work.

You can’t change what track the film takes or how people respond to it. You can’t control other people’s coding. You can’t control other people’s hatred, dismissal and erasure. Worrying does nothing to change the situation; it only causes you unneeded distress. Rowling has supported Depp’s casting despite wide condemnation, so what else can you do? You either see the film anyway, knowing the risks, or you don’t--and not seeing it is a valid and reasonable option, one absolutely worth considering.

Under the cut, I talk about therapy and self-care for handling anxiety:

Given your distress, I do feel it a requirement to say that I think you should look into psychology and therapy services for your anxiety. This ask goes a little beyond the scope of what I can reasonably and ethically offer in validation and support. As someone with severe anxiety myself, I swear to you that worrying about something like this, a situation you cannot change yourself, is a problem that is causing you unneeded distress and harm. I don’t know where you live or what your options are, but there are blogs that detail support options. I genuinely believe that you need professional support here and encourage you to consider this in whatever options available to you.

(If you are already in therapy or treatment, I take this post as an indication that your current approaches are not best supporting you and it may be worthwhile to discuss this with your care providers.)

I’ll finish by saying that you can handle the situation, if you feel that you cannot bear the finished film and conversations about it at all. Blacklist tags relating to content you don’t wish to see. Unfollow people who post content you don’t wish to see, especially if it’s most of their content or they don’t tag. Don’t go searching tags. Follow blogs you trust. Quietly block anyone who annoys you. You don’t need to engage in arguments on something you disagree with; you can block users and, if you really need to get something off your chest, make new posts about it on your own blog, in your own space. Turn off anon asks if you think you might be harassed for your opinions; restrict private messages to only blogs you follow.

I’d strongly advise not engaging in discourse and arguments with people who disagree with you. Block, make new posts on your blog if you must talk, reblog folks who are making points that resonate with you. You don’t have to convince the world of what you know or how wrong they are. You don’t have to engage in activism here. Just block and move on. Getting yourself caught up in arguments with people who aren’t disposed to hearing you will only cause more stress and harm to you. Some people can constantly engage in discourse without losing themselves in anger and aggression, but I’m not one of them, and I suspect you’re like me in this regard. Our activism is healthiest for us when directed into community building and validation, not fighting those who won’t listen.

Likewise, you can prepare for any self-care you need should the above fail. Have go-to media like books, films and music you need to distract yourself. Have a list of activities you enjoy that you know that calm you and work through them. If you have a friend or two you can trust to talk with you or distract you, contact them. If this is in your ability, go outside, go for a walk, go to the shops--away from your computer or phone. Watch a YouTube craft video and attempt to follow it. Play games. Write unrelated fanfiction. Keep a list of Calming Things You Can Do by your desk and on your phone, and work to develop a habit of reaching for that list when even slightly overwhelmed or stressed. Again, this is an area where a mental health professional will help you in identifying and using the interests and tools you already have to cope, particularly in working with your own interests and needs, so if you can’t put this into action on your own, this is another sign that you need a psychologist or therapist on Team You.

It’d be irresponsible of me not to suggest that you, and any other aro-spec who feels this way, seek professional support. That you’re turning towards me says you’re not currently getting what it is you need elsewhere, offline and off. That’s not a criticism on you: you deserve to be supported. It’s in no way a crime to want someone to help shore you up in the face of dismissal, erasure, antagonism and hate; it’s in no way a crime to want support from a fellow community member in the face of the antagonism we are so often dealt.

But right now, I do believe–again, as a person with severe anxiety myself–that you’re in need of professional support to cope with the things you’re finding difficult, much more support than I am ethically able to provide. I know first-hand that finding good mental health care is far from easy for many of us, but if anything is available to you, I hope you’ll consider seeking it out.

[go-diane-winchester]

How Misha ruined slash fiction

I first got into slash fiction because of Lord of the Rings.  Those were the nicest slash fans and gave me the erroneous impression that slashers are really lovely girls.  How wrong I was.  But almost twenty years ago, I [and my generational demographic] had the semblance of mind to differentiate between fact and fantasy.  I came across the definition of slash fiction, way back then.  Its was generically defined as fanwork done by women for women.  Of course one would argue that men like slash fiction too.  Correction.  Gay or bisexual men like Bara.  That is something that they indulge in because it is attractive to them. 

Straight women are completely different.  How straight women show their attraction and what they are attracted to, is completely different to what gay or bi men like.  Even bisexual women are still women and still writing from a female perspective.  The majority of slasher are always straight women though.  For decades, and I am counting the pre-star trek era, that was how things were.  Women, for decades, had no other platform for sexual expression except slash fiction.  Why didn't they just write something with a man and a woman?  Well, they do, but not all women like to watch another woman's love story.  Its not satisfying for us.  Some women wanted to write themselves into a story and to be honest, its not the most popular genre because the only woman truly satisfied with the story is the writer herself.  Classic slash was hidden.  It was underground, which was good because the uncultured riff raff stayed away. 

It was the ultimate girl talk.  It surprised us, how similar our desires were and what we found attractive.  Remember the faulty character Becky Rosen?  Even though she is problematic, the moment Sam licked his thumb and wiped the ink stain off her nose, many of us turned into embarrassing swoony puddles.  Why?  He was cleaning her nose, for goodness sake.  What's so cute about that?  I don't know.  We all just gushed at him.  Remember Dean spinning the Impala in the episode ''Baby''.  I played that bit again and again.  It had nothing to with sex.  Dean was handling a car but we still became gushy about it.   

I read somewhere that foreplay starts in the kitchen.  This applies to women anyway.  So warming your girl up starts way before you even get her to the bedroom.  So you start with a candle lit dinner and soft music and slow dancing.  While he may be ready when he walks in through the door, she will need wining, dining, dancing and lovey dovey talk to get interested.  Usually.  [Sometimes, she will appear suddenly turned on, but no, she just saw her husband helping an old man cross the street, and she thought ''why is he so stinking cute?  Wait till I get my hands on him''.  But that is once in a while.  We don't switch on and off like men.  We are, by nature, cautious creatures.  Getting us in the mood is as important as the act of lovemaking itself.  That is why art that is geared to women, generally, is over-the-top and melodramatic, indulging the foreplay more than the sex. 

Ryan Gosling with a boom box [or whatever you call that thing] standing on top a car, confessing his undying love = foreplay.  Jack Dawson making Rose stand at the head of the ship [or whatever you call it], making her imagine she's flying = foreplay. Is it necessary to the story?  Nope.  Will the Titanic stay buoyant because Jack didn't make Rose fly?  Nah, its will still sink.  Do we like it, nonetheless?  Oooh, yeah.  

For the past 80 or so years, we have kept it solely to ourselves because:

men wont appreciate it because its not their ''thing''

men will misunderstand it [case in point: Misha Collins]

because it was sexual fantasy and some of us would prefer not to share that openly. 

Did male actors speak about it when they did find out?  Yes, in passing, especially if they were the subject of the story.  A reporter or director would always tell them.  In the case of J2, Kim Manners apparently told them what he had found on the internet.  The Lord of the Rings cast found out because of Peter Jackson.  What was their reaction?  The same as all the other actor's reactions: They would smirk/laugh about it, make a joke and move on.  Then Misha Collins came along.  The first time he had spoken about slash fiction, I had winced.  Apparently, judging from the audience reaction, so had they.  We really didn't want this spoken about openly for two reason. 

1]  He was speaking to a general audience during his panel.  Some of them don't care for slash fiction and no, homophobia has nothing to do with it.  If it doesn't float your boat, it just doesn't.  [Keep throwing the word homophobia around, unnecessarily, and its going to eventually lose its effectiveness because it is frequently being used to bully people into doing what you want rather than for equality.  So no, Jensen Ackles is not a homophobe because he doesn't want to be up close and personal with Misha Collins.  Grow up.]  I elaborate more on this in my Dear Misha Collins open letter post.  Please read that one. 

2]  The sane slashers of those days, [and it was a decade ago] didn't want their personal naughty little secrets spoken about so candidly in a public setting.  Why?  Let me illustrate.  If you tell your friends, in a personal setting, how you like when a man runs his hands all over your body, it will illicit some ''oohs'' and giggles followed by their own contributions to the discussion.  If you are sitting with that same gaggle of friends at a crowded restaurant and you say the same thing loudly for the whole room to hear, what will they think of you, especially if they have children with them. 

Slash used to be one of those things a lady never spoke about in public, no matter how empowered she thought she was.  [Personally, I don't think a lady has to relinquish her femininity and decency in order to feel empowered.  That's why I don't like women, like Kim and Briana, who call themselves bitches to show how tough they are.  Sure, I will break a man's face, if he puts his hands on me, but that doesn't mean that I have no feminine qualities, and I wont exhibit this aggressive side of myself with a loving and caring man.  I guess things have changed since the early days, and women are different now.  But this is just my opinion and not relevant to the subject at hand.]

If Misha knew how to gauge the audience, he would have understood there and then, that this is not a suitable topic to indulge in, where the audience was mixed and included some younger people, i.e., teens and children.  What he did, was to keep running his mouth off about something he didn't know.  He said he went on Wikipedia to learn more about slash fiction.  For a man who went to university, he is not very smart.  If you have ever done any academic research report at university level, you will know that any report that includes citations from Wikipedia are immediately rejected. 

Wikipedia is an unreliable source of convoluted, opinionated information that is sometimes not quantifiable and therefore cannot act an academic resource.  Plus anyone can edit those pages.  No matter what agenda they have or how stupid they are.  This fool didn't know that.  So he started to ''educate'' the still fixated younger batch [who have now grown into the hellers we loathe and fear] in the audience as to what slash fiction was and that is why they like him so much.  While other actors speak a line about it and move onto another topic, Professor Knowitall esq. will give his rather young audience a lecture on a subject he knows nothing about, thereby conditioning them to think that slash fiction is something that it isn't.  Is he that stupid or that arrogant?

If you look through Wikipedia, it will give you the impression that slash is homosexual in nature, and that it is an expression of gay love.  The fact that those stories and artwork originated with straight women and is powered by the artistic efforts of mostly straight women, is ignored.  There are topics about queer recognition and LGBT relevance on that page.  The page isn't telling you what slash fiction is.  It is telling you what other groups feel about it.  I can tell you, almost a century ago, slash fans were not indulging this art form for those reasons.  They were doing it for their own satisfaction.  If other people like it too, that's fine and dandy, but it is not about them.  And what Misha has done with this fandom, which is bleeding into other fandoms via intrusive destiel fans, is to make slash about the LGBT. 

That is why gay men are now getting angry because young impressionable girls are listening to him and turning a predominantly straight art form into an inaccurate gay platform.  They are using things like closetedness, gay bashings, bigotry and even AIDS as a gay ''trope'' or theme for their stories.  If you write about a subject you know nothing of, you will write it wrong.  These children [because they behave like that] are writing about some very sensitive and serious topics and they are romanticizing them.  What person wont get angry? 

In the old days, the two people who made up a pairing, were differentiated, by using two words:  Seme and Uke.  While slash was a straight female art form, gay men didn't give two hoots about these words.  They didn't read the stuff.  They didn't care.  They had bara.  When ''woke and non-bigoted, inclusive'' slash fans started speaking for gay men through their stories despite the fact that these men have a voice of their own, the guys got angry because they don't have a seme and uke role type in their relationships.  Well, of course they don't.  Slash is not about gay men.  Its about straight women and their sexual expression.  And in their fantasies, there are seme's and uke's. 

That is another problem with the Wikipedia page.  When you look at the history, it starts with kirk and spock.  The dunderhead who wrote that page, didn't know that slash started in the east, probably Japan, although Hong Kong might dispute that.  When it became animated in the 1970's, the anime version was called Yaoi.  The Japanese were actually making money from slash fiction way back when by making comic type books, essentially novels with pictures.  And it was those translated stories, which were almost always set in another world, that gave birth to Kirk/Spock slash fiction.  The westerners got hold of these books when the Asians immigrated.  I can't find the source to that information.  If someone has it, please forward it to me.  These words, seme and uke, originate from there. 

There is only one other person who over-indulged his slash fan base.  Harry Styles.  He regretted it, because it ruined his friendship.  So he stopped.  But he had a good excuse.  He was between the ages of 15 and 19 whilst in 1 Direction.  He was a baby and didn't know any better.  Harry learned his lesson within five years and stopped.  Misha has been on the show for ten years. He was in his mid thirties when he started on Supernatural.  He was already a grown man who has no excuse, because he is not stupid.  With the amount of damage they have done, you would think that he would stop.  He doesn't.  Because it gives him staying power.  James Franco, also over fixated on slash fiction, even writing a dissertation on the subject is also another cataract, but because he is so unpopular, due to not having a fandom, he doesn't cause the amount of damage that Misha has.

The one thing I have noticed is, overindulging a slash fan [not necessary a heller - any slash fan] is like feeding a Mogwai after midnight.  It turns into an uncontrollable gremlin.  That is exactly what Misha's fanbase is: a hideous collection of gremlins that he overfed and now they are attacking any mogwai that doesn't show gremlin traits.  What Misha's dumb section have now done [and no I am not talking about the nice sweet, sensible, non-intrusive destiel fans, just the destihellers] is they have taken slash fiction itself, and turned it into an increasingly hateful and problematic concept.  Because, the general public, which includes J2 [because they have nothing to do with slash fiction], now have the impression that slash is a means of bullying and putting your indulgences before other peoples' opinions and dignity. 

It also give the impression, to unknowing people, that homosexuals are boisterous and demanding people and you have to please them or else.  The general public don't know that predominantly female, heterosexual, entitled princesses are writing this crap.  They think that gays are pushing slash fiction because words like gay, queer and LGBT keep popping up.  Any gay man reading this, take heed, because these children are damaging your collective reputations.  And if you don't deal with it now, the PR headache you are going to have to deal with, in the future, as a group, is going to be immense. And it won't even be your fault but you will be blamed for it.  How do you go about doing that?  Speak directly to Misha.  Shut up the master Gremlin himself.  Tell him he is doing you a great disservice.  After all, the mostly straight heller girls are speaking for you and he is pushing the microphones into their hands. 

I always liked slash because not only was it a means of female sexual expression, but it was also a means of female creativity.  Sure, we all like Cinderella, but it was lukewarm for some of us because, she was difficult to emulate.  And growing up, we didn't know she was a character to enjoy, not to emulate.  Children always emulate what they see on screen.  She was thin, pretty, a good singer with nice hair and small feet.  I am club footed, bipolar and fat, with a lion's mane that brushes broke on.  I felt sorry for her because she was abused.  I felt sorry for her because she was crying at one point.  Then I remembered what I look like when I cry.  Soft tears don't roll gently down my pink cheeks.  Snot rolls down my nose, careening to the inside of my mouth.  Not pretty.  Not delicate.  The story was nice but it left me feeling inadequate.  Some women love it.  I am ''meh'' about it. 

When I read a bemusing slash version with actors in place of the fictional cast, I read the whole story smirking.  I didn't begrudge the beautiful lead [I think it might have been Jensen] because I was as besotted with him as Prince Charming was [presumably Jared].  I didn't want to be him.  I wanted him.  I wanted the prince too, just FYI.  I could be a fly on the wall in the story without actually picturing how my insignificant self would fit into the story.  That is what slash fiction meant to me.  It was an escapist art form into a fantasy 'verse, that is custom made to put a smile on my face. 

Now, Prince Charming is fighting for gay rights against his bigoted father, the king, and Cinderella is beaten by his ugly step siblings because he is a homo.  And I look at it and blink.  I am not the audience for this story.  Empathy is one thing, but replacing your sexuality with someone else's is something else all together.  Especially since every slash story now seems to be about gay characters and gay rights and homophobia.  Slash has turned into a one trick pony.  How much could you write about gay rights?  Slash's creativity is running on autopilot.  Take your ship, make them gay, make one closeted and unhappy, make the other out and happy, throw in a gay oriented trope, even AIDS [no decency threshold] and boom!  You've got a story.  

They've been writing in this way for the last ten years and they've ruined the whole genre.  So much so, that destiel and cockles stories aren't enjoyed by anyone except destiel fans, because Misha and Cas are in those stories.  And he is always written as a precious smol bean.  At this juncture I have to point out that, to be fair, other ships on Supernatural and other fandoms are doing the same thing, because destiel fans bend the will of others to their own.  I heard they are actually tagging destiel into posts about other shows.  Why?  Because Misha has turned a harmless indulgence into an addiction.  He is their only dealer and pursuing canon gives them their fix.  They are gremlins on crack with stunted creativity. 

Of course, the children argue that they cant read an unrealistic story which is why slash characters have to instead be gay.  Oh yeah, then how come in Cockles stories, Misha is something pregnant.  So you can take your ''realism'' and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.  When you write a totes realistic story, with gay characters rather than slash characters, you are disrespecting three groups of people:   

the actors, who are your, sometimes, unwilling muses 

the homosexual community, that you have absolutely no right to speak for

the other respectful slash fans who nurtured this art form, before you woke idiots flushed it down the toilet. 

Decent slashers say:  This is a work of fiction and has no bearings on reality.  Then they go out of their way to not include themes that are synonymous with the gay community.  The characters in a properly written story are never explicitly gay.  They just like some guy, even though last week they were with a girl.  And no, that doesn't make them bisexual either.  Remember, slash is a predominantly straight female platform and bisexuals don't want you speaking for them.  Otherwise, everyone will be wearing purple shirts because that is a bi color and bisexuals aren't allowed to wear any other color, apparently.  The fed up bisexuals reading insulting meta on how Dean is bisexual, because of his food and clothing choices, are a case in point.  So the character are fantasy slash characters.  If I were to coin a word, then they are slashsexual.  

They are just muses for the woman's sexual expression.  We don't need to tell them what we are doing, thereby putting them in an uncomfortable position to amend or dispute our opinion about them.  That is plain rude and borderline sexual harassment.  Even if we are women and they are men.  Treat them with the same dignity that you demand for yourself.  Its got nothing to do with them.  Don't ask them.  Misha, on the other hand, has no shame and will therefore never turn down a question.  Has Misha caused irreparable damage?  I am afraid so.  Older women get caught up in life so they don't indulge in slash as much.  And so the brats are running this art form to the ground, teaching nonsense to those that are younger than them, parroting whatever crap Misha spews about slash fiction, in the name of sexual equality. I am not even counting their online behaviour, just pointing out their horrible handling of slash fiction at the behest of Misha Collins.  They still listen to him and its going to get worse and worse, until slash fiction becomes THE most hateful thing about fan culture.   

[femwizard]

Yall r missin a couple important aspects of the propotter argument.

These tropes r super common & while that doesn’t make them ok, it does make sense that LITERAL children would have no clue where to even start looking at this with a critical eye, were they not already given the privilege (or more likely trauma) to know how divisive and controversial so much of the symbolism and characterization in these (and many other) popular children’s books.

These are easily accessible, relatively easy to read, and widely renowned books that are great for getting some people into reading. I personally find it near impossible to read something that doesn’t catch my attention with good pacing, fantastical settings, and funny lines, and while there are many, many better authors writing much better shit (big shout out to Rick riordan) as a child, and especially one who may not initially have any interest in reading at all, these books were personally very good at teaching me to love reading, and I see my cousins consuming them the same way.

Reading problematic things with an uncritical eye can lead to bigoted beliefs, but learning to enjoy reading and magic and having positive nostalgic feelings about a series can still be an ultimately positive thing, despite that it has grown into a very divisive political piece (that 100% did not come off that way to most children when it was coming out) too this day I stand by a lot of the HP fanfic I’ve read as being fantastic.

Ultimately I don’t want to argue over the validity or Harry potters problematic roots (we can do better & JKR has been canceled for like, ever)

I want to defend positivity and enjoying things from your past. I want to point out that there are many pieces of media that have become insanely popular and are viewed as super cringey, and that maybe instead of attacking people for daring to like something and picking apart every problematic detail until it’s all you can see, we could come together as a community and grow to enjoy better media with better messages.

It’s fine to want nothing to do with Harry Potter now that JKR is being regularly and publicly terrible (I’m listing that way myself even though I don’t want to because the association is just overpoweringly distasteful), but seeing the shift in how people discuss HP on this website to be like, “It seems obvious to me that this franchise was always poorly constructed, derivative drek littered with red flags anybody would notice with a cursory glance - there’s absolutely nothing genuinely appealing about it.” …That’s just very funny, sorry. Like yes that is unfortunately not how the relationship between a person’s moral character and their skills works, but mostly I was alive and had a developed consciousness between 2000 and 2008, so I cannot take this seriously. It wasn’t the biggest literature phenomenon of recent times because it had a uniquely strong marketing strategy, guys.

[bnrobertson1]

The Cleansing Comedy of “Cum Town”

To paraphrase a point Canadian All-American Hero Norm MacDonald laid on a then-alive Larry King, comedians used to aspire to be funny, now they aspire to appear smart. While political humor, ostensibly a stage to show off one’s intellect and humanity by the empathetic tackling of modern topics, has been a thing as long as humor itself, there was time in the not-so-distant past where the goal was the display of comedy chops, not compassion*. This significant shift in the mainstream started with Jon Stewart’s reign as host of The Daily Show. A far departure from the wackier Craig “Dance Dance Dance” Kilborn’s approach to the Comedy Central staple, Stewart treated TDS as a megaphone in which he could espouse his political views. Nightly challenging W’s hawkish take on foreign policy, liberals the country over championed their new clever-if-not-amusing hero- but at some point during Stewart’s ascension, reflecting a certain acceptable viewpoint became more important than reflecting a sense of humor.

*Back in the early SNL days Chevy Chase suggested that Gerald Ford sustained significant brain damage playing football to mock Ford’s bumbling persona, not excoriate him on the tenets of his agenda.   

Consider Last Week Tonight with John Oliver or the zeitgeist-shifting Nanette. The former features some of the best reporting on the planet, displaying a willingness to cover potential viewership-poison like prison reform or, on a recent episode, black hair and its connection to the systematic racism African Americans face daily. The show is relentless, passionate, and is about as funny as that sounds. John Oliver is clearly a witty person, but even he often acknowledges how “Erudite Brit Shames Americans over Racism” isn’t exactly the blueprint for a yuckle factory*. Much like his old boss Stewart, Oliver is more dedicated to espousing the correct viewpoint over a funny one. To this point, most “jokes” in the show feel jammed in like a satirical sausage, often coming across as after-thoughts that can mess with the tone**.  As a show it is unquestionably a success, opening myriad eyes to plights once unknown. As a comedy show, which is what it at least originally marketed itself as, it is a failure. 

*It is, however, pretty perfect Monday Morning hiding-in-cubicle watching 

**While he does try to infuse some zaniness into the program by talking about fucking animals or whatever, I don’t think Oliver realizes how genuinely funny it is watching a bookish Brit get upset about coconut oil hair products, although not in the way he probably hopes it would be.

An even purer example of Norm’s point is Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. The buzzed-about stand-up special is essentially a takedown of white male-ism, albeit one that seems allergic to laughing. Gadsby is trying to woo you with her intellectualism, not her ability to make you chuckle. Some called this approach brilliant- turning a male-dominated form on its head to put its practitioners on blast for things ranging from sexism to transphobia. Widely decorated around the world for its innovative and sharp honesty, Nanette asked the big question: is the next wave of comedy not meant to be funny? Is cutting edge humor not humorous at all? Are we entering a Metal Machine Music era of comedy? And if so, is merely criticizing the perceived powers-that-be now considered comedy?

More like No-nette

This desire to display empathetic enlightenment has gone well beyond the world of stand-up and political comedy. It can be seen by the yanking of episodes of comic cornerstones such as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and 30 Rock that feature blackface, or animated programs recasting characters so that voices are both more inclusive and representative. Even The Simpsons has all but abandoned its once trademark balance, its current form essentially the wet-blanket Lisa, a far, far cry from the Homer-centric past of the show’s glory years.   

All of these decisions have been made by the shows’ respective creators, a mea culpa for insensitive liberties taken in the recent past. Blame the internet for the long, indelible digital footprints, but people are now more worried about how the future will remember them, in some enlightened far-off utopia where comedy is really about nothing being funny, and everybody is judged by the language you used when no one really gave a rat’s ass about what you had to say.

Entertainers are far more concerned with looking good fifteen years from now than making people laugh now. Ironic detachment- the reason a lot of the questionable humor existed in the first place*, isn’t a big enough distance for comics to get away with racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, chuckles be damned.

*Racists have been the butt of the joke- and not the jokesters- for as long as I can remember. I find it hard to believe that anyone could watch an Always Sunny and think they’re mocking minorities. While the meme-ification of America has robbed many of these jokes of context, it’s a waste of time to criticize creators for devolving consumption habits, especially in the name of inclusion, compassion, etc.    

It’s not my place to say whether this is good or bad. As self-censorship isn’t really censorship, it’s hard to argue that an artist willfully pulling their work from the marketplace is some sort of injustice. It’s their reputation (read: livelihood) after all. There are things I would probably delete/hide if anybody gave enough of a shit to do a deep dive into my past babblings. But while I certainly applaud the idealistic efforts to make a more welcoming society for all, it does kind of suck that it comes at the expense of comic mana such as Lethal Weapon 5 (and 6).   

At the risk of kicking dusty horse bones, this does boil the whole “cancel culture” debate down to one consideration: what is acceptable to laugh at?

Insert the podcast “Cum Town.” Starring the trio of Nick Mullen (the bitter one), Stravos Hilias (the bigger one), and Adam Friedland (the butler?), “Cum Town” is the least political of the “Dirtbag Left”* wave of offerings*. If you can’t tell by the name, “Cum Town” isn’t for the crowd that regularly uses the word “problematic.” Employing a fairly new media in the podcast, the three NY-based comics shoot the shit on pretty much all matters, keeping the atmosphere loose and the unapologetic laughs flowing. 

*Which also includes the hugely popular “Chapo Trap House” and “Red Scare,” shows that are both fairly funny... and can often be accurately described as  “permanently congested neck-beards talking tough about revolution or whatever in between rhapsodizing about time-old yet currently posh talking points (distribution of wealth, liberalism vs. leftism, etc.)”.

As bad as the Olivers and the Gadsbys of the world want to change your mind, the trio at “Cum Town” are much more focused on tickling your funny bone (and/or prostate). Its setup gives the show an air of Howard-Stern-in-the-90s danger, where things that probably should never be thought are said with glee. They’re the type of guys who find the humor in places that make others uncomfortable, such as the connection of the Clintons to Jeffrey Epstein’s murder or, in one particularly great skit, how Trump would undoubtedly try to smear Robert De Niro as a non-Italian homosexual.

Devoid of the pretension other “enlightened” modern comedy wears so proudly, the show can focus on being being funny in ways that spur a gut laugh, not a guffaw.   

“Cum Town” works because its as self-aware as it is fearless. These aren’t Andrew Dice Clays winding up the Islanders stadium with bits about “the brothers.” They’re not just reliving old Stern bits, asking alcoholic little people and other societal pariahs to make fools of themselves. The show wouldn’t work if it was merely “saying racial slurs with the EdgeLord Crowd.” "Cum Town” operates like a savvy boxer- throwing shots, usually at modern idols, knowing that it leaves them open to counter punches.

The genius of this approach is that they know what the counter punches will be (being called “racist,” “sexist,” “fascist,” etc.)... and have a counter-punch for that!* It’s not like it takes Ali-esque anticipatory vision to know what the criticisms will be. While calling a (probably white, cis-gender, straight) male “racist!” or “sexist!” or “fascist!” surely feels empowering to the counter-puncher, the reality is a lot of those terms have absolutely lost their meaning or the damaging heft that used to accompany their utterance. With the mass acceptance of systematic sexism/ racism as prevalent in everyday life, all the (bad) -isms are supposedly so ingrained into the white male psyche that they’re bigots no matter what. Especially when you consider that laughing- actual laughing- is more of a neurological reaction than a considered response. Put another way: a skit depicting Tony Soprano as an Indian may not confuse anybody into thinking Stav is on a first-name basis with Noam Chomsky, but it is infinitely funnier than all the “Donald Drumpf”s shouted together combined. 

*Sorry, Mike Tyson��s Punch Out is about the extent of my boxing knowhow. 

The show operates in a world where performance compassion is a hell of a lot worse than genuine feeling. Where Donald Trump gets mocked- but less so than Hillary Clinton, who’s president campaign’s attempt to make her “cool” was, let’s say, ill-fitting. It gets mean and nasty because comedy does. So, did Adam Friedland get called out by Chelsea Clinton for calling her ugly*? Yep. And many came to Chelsea’s defense calling for Adam’s sexist, disgusting head, I’m sure in only pro-Semitic ways. Does Nick’s archaic (though quite good) impressions of various ethnicities  to a certain trope? Or does Stav talking about pornography and getting ass with a somewhat slimy tone? The three “Cum Town” hosts know that the list of the “powerless” has changed considerably in the last few decades, and that those who pay service to liberal ideals should be mocked just like the rest of us. 

The tweet in question.

Juvenile? Sure. Insensitive? Yes. But God Dammit, isn’t humor supposed to be that way? If there’s a killer joke where the punch-line is “bigotry is bad,” I’m not aware of it. “Cum Town” generates a type of laughter that feels liberating- like you’re shaking off the oppressive scowl of a world that blames you- person who has been around for about one one billionth of the world’s life- for all its ills. The more modern society weighs us with new considerations on language and decorum, conjured rules that dictate what you may have a reaction to and what you may not, the funnier the humor in its opposition flies. Breaking rules is inherently funny- thumbing your nose at society is at the core of comedy’s release. And the more it becomes taboo to say words like “tranny,” “fat,” “dumb,” “midget,” etc., the more comedic release will be given when we say the words that I’m not going to type right here. Because the further the joke is from the norm, the more space there is for laughter to form.

Some believe this humor can lead to hatred which can lead to violence. That the Capitol’s riots were a warped result of the Rogans of the world. That by hearing Dave Chappelle say the n-word, white people will start to adopt it, and chaos will surely follow. But there’s another school of thought that says being able to laugh at something is the genesis of being able to process something and eventual acceptance. 

I realize this is hardly a surprising point from a straight white guy, one who has said (regretfully and not recently) on more than one occasion that “I don’t get offended, I don’t understand why others do?” But I also think that a lot of the “hurt” these societal infractions cause are more of a smokescreen or diversion from bigger problems. It’d be easier to distract people with discussions over whether James Bond should be black or if Dr. Seuss books featuring offensive illustrations should be banned as opposed to, I don’t know, actually try to combat some of the systematic problems that propagate systems that truly stun growth?  Telling people they should feel guilty about something is a slippery slope as we have around 8 billion people on earth, there’s plenty of misery to go around. We should all probably feel bad about something.

In conclusion, “Cum Town” knows that just because something is bad doesn’t mean it can’t be funny. As mentioned before, humor is often how people cope with the hypocritical, values-starved planet we find ourselves on. Humor should delight our soul, not display our sophistication.   

[knightofbalance-13]

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/169097966661/sokumotanaka-as-mostly-a-spectator-in-the-class

You still don’t get it do you?

As mostly a spectator in the class of people who say they can rewrite rwby, I can see why some would be peeved by that; but I can also see that some people genuinely have the talent to take the jumbled bits of rwby’s plot, lack of world building and character and write it better than the current writers

And your two examples are Fatmanfalling and one of his meat puppets, both of whom are NOTORIOUS for being flat out liars when it comes to RWBY, proving time and time again they can’t write worth a damn. But they coinside with your idealogy ergo they are better than individuals you disagree with.

Because that’s what this is about. Not writing skill, just pandering to YOU and what YOU want. Because fuck quality, everything must be for you.

That may not be something you want to hear nor believe but it is true; there are many fanfics, videos, discussions etc that flesh out the world and characters in a shorter amount of time and doesn’t contradict itself, As a person who writes as a hobby and took creative writing miles and kerry fall into a lot of the traps teachers have told me to avoid, and make many mistakes along the way. (Need I remind everyone they said they avoid timelines to keep from running into plotholes which is a surefire way to run headfirst into many plotholes.) A writer would notice rwby has its major flaws but it’s still salvageable to some degree, yes it’s harder making your own universe as many writers have demonstrated, but it’s incredibly easy to make the world, flat, nonsensical and empty.

Its also easy to lie your ass off and pretend otherwise to make your point look valid.

You have NEVER pointed out ANY fanfic or discussions that did this better and the videos you brought up are from two liars you had so little faith in that you wouldn’t even link to them because it would make it easy to show you why you’re wrong.

The ONLY time you assholes have EVERY tried rewriting was RE;RWBY and let me tell you, that was 90% copy paste of the original fucking show with all the changes dipping the quality of the show. From Volume 1. You people can’t even fix Volume fucking ONE let alone the entire series.

I don’t give a shit what you say Soku: I have taken creative writing classes too. Not only that, I have been an avid reader since I was 7 and an avid writer since I was 13. I’m 19 now. That’s six years I’ve been working my hardest to hone my craft to the best of my abilities, analyzing other’s styles, seeing what I enjoy from them and adapting and applying it to myself while constantly reading the numerous ways to use tropes and how they function. I spend most of my time consuming critical media, learning the art of analysis to grow and evolve. And I haven’t seen a FRACTION of the problems you bring up in the writing. What I have noticed is that you lie constantly, spew shit from your mouth constantly and act like you know what you are talking about when you clearly don’t. And judging by the fact that the only reason you have a place here is to effectively use cult tactics to brainwash and control people: Not many people side with you.

The fact that so many fans can take said ideas and make them better not only shows an ability to do better (there are certain writers who plain just aren’t great.) but also show an interest in the world.  Miles, Monty and Kerry have made a very interesting world; But we’d all be lying if we said it wouldn’t be done better, and that’s not from a place of arrogance, but from the fact that it could be written better if the writers applied themselves, took the time for some classes, explained their world so it doesn’t seem like they’re playing it by ear etc.

You say it isn’t from arrogaunce but you say that the writers aren’t applying themselves when this entire Volume has been nothing but them trying to fix their problems is pretty fucking arrogaunt. And the fact that you have agreed with the idea that the show only got famous because “White Mediocrity” and that you think that RE;RWBY is better is more proof of your arrogance.

Your words say one thing but your actions tell the truth.

Trust me it would be a nightmare to rewrite rwby but not because ‘writing is hard’ but because of how entangled the overall series is, but it can be untangled and I read many fanfics that do this, I can see where this may seem like an attack to some but it’s from a place of frustration in the heat of the moment from some people, remember is is also a vent tag. But I can’t lie I’ve seen writers weave the story so well it can only improve on the current rwby.

Fucking prove it.

Point me to a fanfic that goes from the ground up and rebuilds the series without atking a single god damn thing from canon. I’ll wait and Ill wait forever because such a fanfic DOESN’T EXIST. There is only ONE true example of this and that is SAO Abrigded. And SAO was objectively not good and even then, was made BY fans of the show doing their own thing. And for every SAO Abridged, there are thousands RE:RWBYs and it’s ilk. The fact remains: You people say that you can do it better while proving time and time again that you can’t write.

You’re stepping on my “Fans do a better job at this with their fanfictions and fanart” area.Â

But overall………… Same. Writing IS hard, and it feels that the current writers thought it would be a breeze to make a story from the ground-up, when it’s actually quite difficult. I’m still working on how my own mass crossover works out, but I don’t do any retcons. Hell! I even have an easy out for that, and I STILL refuse to use it.

Aside from the Mewtwopoint...

And Yang’s reasoning for hating her dad despite it being out fo character...

And Yang and Tifa’s sexualities...

Not to mention, you occasionally write 1000 words at most. COme back when you write 3000 words on a weekly basis. Then come back and write about 6000 words without relying on ANYTHING while only having a week to do it. Then come back and do all that while needing voice acting, music and animation. Then come back with all that and I’ll lie my ass off about your work, make up shit, insert politics into it and call you a bigot, demand you step down for not being the right race/gender/sexuality/gender identity/body nd ask when you’ll die while also bring up your dead friend to use against you. Then you claim to do better than them.

But in the end, it’s kinda worth it. It’s WORTH putting in the effort of creating your own world because it your world. And if people like it enough that they are willing to write about it, then… good job. But if people have to go the extra mile to make any sense of it, then that’s a bad thing.

And when people shit all over your world, calling it shit and calling you shit and saying you’re worthless while not paying an ounce of attention, making shit up on the fly, spreading lies about you, trying to tear you down at every oppritunity while saying they can do your job better while ripping off and FAILING Disney clichés, then what? When you are forced into their shoes with all the shit that comes with it, the shit YOU created: What will you do besides break down?

Take Star Wars for example. It has spectacular stories, and fantastical world-building. Only when it tried to over explain things did it get complex (Need I bring up Midichlorians?) and infuriating. But when it did what it wanted to do right, it did it in such a spectacular fashion that it blows people away.

And yet when they try to not explain Aura and Dust, you demand a Midichlorians-esque explaination. Because fuck standards, we gotta abuse the writers so we can control them. 

And RWBY is doingt what it wants to do right and IS blowing people away. For fuck’s sake, it’s basically the American eqvilanet of Sailor Moon/Dragon Ball Z right now as the first American anime to get a dub. And it’s grown in popularity so much that it has a manga, a light novel, figurines and even an appearance in a famous fighting game alongside the likes of PERSONA and BLAZBLUE. And yet, you demand the show change on a  fundemnetal level because it’s not what YOU want.  You never gave a damn about the quality of RWBY: You just want control.

This scene tells SHOWS so much about Luke’s internal conflict, and how it’s affecting him. Which is more than I can say for the show we all know, love, and get irritated by.

What about this scene:

Where you can tell their personalities from just their body language.

Or this scene:

Where you can tell what Illa is gonna say without even hearing her.

What about this scene:

Which tells you how Yang is not right without a single word of dialogue.

You NEVER acknowledge when RWBY does ANYTHING right unless it is done exactly how you want it.

There’s never going to be such a thing as a perfect show, but there are moments in the show that are really good.

As much as I hate to say it, Jaune admitting that he’s not as good as anyone else is actually some smart writing. Sure, it’s a cliche, but if it’s used right, it works. The unfortunate thing is that it wasn’t used right.

Tropes are tools, and in their endeavor to avoid the problematic ones, they run head-first into ones that are just as, if not worse than the original trope.

Like ripping off a cliché, talking about how you’re ripping off a cliché, point out how stupid it is you are ripping off a cliché, create an asspull, acknowledge it was an asspull, rip it off from another source and completely fuck it up right? No wait, that’s you Dudeblade.

Jaune’s refusal to accept help doesn’t make him more interesting, it makes him a crybaby. It makes him someone who thought that being a Hunter would be easy when it’s not. Other characters had to train, get educated, or prove themselves to get into Beacon. What does Jaune do? - He fucking cheats his way in. And that aspect of his character isn’t used to it’s fullest.

While Jaune uses weaponry that would traditionally be used by a combatant with honor, it could have been turned on its head, and Jaune could have been one to use dirty tricks to win a fight. Throw sand at his opponent’s eyes, take cheap shots, kick them while they’re down- stuff that would make sense from someone who cheated his way in.

What about how his refusal to accept help rebounds on him, is treated as wrong and he has to overcome it? What about his constant efforts to become better, pushing himself to be a better fighter? What about him trying and failing, causing him to become embittered and cynical like anyone else would? What about him acknowledging that Ruby is hurt too by the events that happened, showing that he has moved away from his selfish past? What about Jaune beinga  Foil to Ruby that while he is more cynical than her, he is more able to process grief and emotions better than her? What about Jaune relationship with Pyrrha and how they interact with one another and grow from one another? What about his reactions to her death and the drive he has from it?

What about everything ELSE about his character that you ignore to shit on him and the writers because A. The writers didn’t dow hat you wanted B. The wrters can never do good or else I’m a monster and C. You’re a racist, sexist asshole.

There are so many other ideas that fans have come up with that not only would have expanded the lore, but would have also kept things simple (My favorite example would be my idea on half-breeds). I’ve seen fanfic writers use this to its fullest potential, and it hurts knowing that actual canon can’t ever use it because of that bullshit “100 percent faunus, or 100% human”genetics.

So instead of making an entirely new race of people to explain and make the world more complicated while dealing with things like recessive and dominant genes as well as mixing of genes, they just decide to keep the races they have and have a simplistic genes. But that's bad because you had a different idea and thus the writers had to bend to your whim.

There are good ideas in there. It’s just buried under mediocrity.

Though, occasionally, a light comes forth.

And as cynical as I am, I do appreciate it when that light shines through. I appreciate it a lot.

Which is why you never say anything nice unless it’s something you want or you can’t get away with being negative, even if it means lying your ass off and selling out your morals and integrity.

That’s why you judge their writing ability not by what is there but rather by how much it coinsides with what you want and their race.

That’s why you belittle them at every turn, attacking them for trying to improve because eit wasn’t exactly how you wanted it.

That’s why you demand they pander to your political agenda and not let them have a voice of their own.

That’s why you ask for their deaths/firings because they aren't the right race or whatever.

That’s why you do the exact opposite of what you said.

You’re all nothing but a bunch of egotists who think they can do better because you’re living a delusion and you cannot comprehend that maybe, just maybe you are wrong and that you are worse writers than Miles and Kerry. Because you are all nothing but a bunch of narcissitic sociopaths.

Before you can even begin to think f approaching their level of writing, learn to admit your damn flaws.