canon-critical - Tumblr blog

[canon-critical]

⇲Date Posted: January 15th, 2021

⇲Source: wings of fire (book) by tui t sutherland, canon

⇲Posted/Sent by: canon-critical

⇲Includes: mentions of abuse, victim blaming, mentions of genocide, very very brief mention of slavery

⇲ Criticism: the treatment of abuse victims in canon and the harmful messages surrounding it

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

you wanna know what really pisses me off and what people need to talk about more? about how wings of fire repeatedly pushes the idea that not forgiving your abusers is a horrible thing.

it might not seem like it at first, but if you spend even a minute looking at how abusers and their victims are treated in canon youll see what i mean in no time.

characters who DIDNT forgive their abusers

darkstalker - (rightfully) refused to forgive his abuser and its treated as a villainous trait. yes, darkstalker is an assand deserves no sympathy, and he has million other villainous traits and ways to treat him as a villain, but the fact that he doesnt forgive arctic is treated like one when its not.

tsunami - didnt forgive the guardians. she didnt forgive kestrel for everything she put them through or dune and webs for just standing by, and as a result canon treats her like shes being unreasonable for it. like shes just "holding onto a childish grudge"

glory - kestrel full on physically and verbally abused her for 6 straight years. kestrel was planning to KILL HER. and webs and dune just sat back and willingly did nothing. so they escape and glory, ofc, doesnt forgive any of them and shows no remorse when kestre dies and webs is hurt, which she is 100% in the right for. but what does the story do? treats her like shes being "cruel" and "unfair" for it

characters who did forgive their abusers or tolerate them

peril, clay, starflight, sunny, anemone, turtle, cricket, probably a handful of others with tui's track record

yes, moving on from the past is important and i could maybe forgive it if it was only one or two or if both were treated as a fair option (which it IS*), but it isnt. 3 characters** dont forgive their abusers, and theyre viewed as harsh for it. I DONT CARE how much you like these books or want to defend them. this series has an target demographic of 8-12 year olds, kids who still have a lot of growing to do. it doesnt matter how "mature" a child may be. when that kind of message, that you MUST forgive those whove wronged and seriousky hurt you no matter what or youre being unreasonable, is shown over and over again in a story and neither the story or fandom acknowledges that its wrong and an actual problem? that kind of shit sticks throughout that kid's life.

it wouldve still been bad if the message was used for smaller stuff like an accidental insult or a joke that hit too close to home, but the fact that its being used for ABUSIVE relationships and situations makes it so much worse.

dont even get me started on the darkstalker -> peacemaker thing, which pushes the whole "no matter how bad you are you deserve a second chance" message. that message is bad enough on its own considering how it can be applied to so many bad people (abusers being the one at the forefrony of my mind), its ESPECIALLY bad for darkstalker.

why? for a whole list of reasons including his actions and how he manipulated and abused and routinely threatened his family, his girlfriend, and his friends in order to get what he wants, but for 2 main ones.

1) HE ALREADY HAD SEVERAL "SECOND CHANCES. in his book, darkstalker legends, its shown that hes know about the paths from the moment he hatched. he knew which path was the bad one, and he willingly ignored the good path. i could maybe excuse that one considering hes pretty much the human equivalent of a newborn, but he keeps this choice as he grows despite by then having the ability to seperate right vs wrong. second and third chance? both times clearsight told him what would happen and asked him to stop. what did darkstalker do in response to this? the first time he brushed it off and told her to stop thinking about it. then 2nd time he spells her without her consent in order to FORCE her to stop thinking about it. his fourth chance? when he was released from the mountain. what did he do with THAT chance? betrayred moon's trust, forced everyone to like him, and went right back to doing what got him buried in the first place.

2) he literally tried to commit genocide against an entire tribe. twice. three times, if you count the night/ice battle. he has said/shown that he has no remorse whatsoever for his actions, and would do it again if given the chance. saying he deserves a 5th chance sends a message that souldnt be sent, especially to kids as young as 8-12.

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

*it IS a valid choice. you are under NO obligation whatsoever to forgive your abuser, or try to make them "better people". they hurt you, and youre allowed to be angry. youre allowed to be upset about it. not forgiving them doesnt mean youre being unfair or that you cant "move on" or whatever other bullshit. theyre the ones who hurt you, theyre the ones who can deal with the consequences.

**3 characters, excluding any from arc 3. there are a few reasons for this. the first is that the arc isnt done. yes, sundew is a victim of abuse, but since the arc isnt done i have no idea if shell forgive her parents, or if itll be treated as being unfair id she doesnt. the second is that with the exception of cricket (who does forgive her abuse), the third arc doesnt really have any ties to abuse. it has to do with slavery. and how canon treats that issue is a whole different can of worms ill be opening for a different crit (spoiler alert: it isnt treated well)

[canon-critical]

⇲Date Posted: January 14th, 2021

⇲Source: None

⇲Posted/Sent by: Mod Queen, canon-critical

⇲Includes: Introduction, What this blog is about/does, What we'll accept, The mods, Rules, How to submit criticism

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

Introduction

Hello there, and welcome to canon-critical! Please make sure you read this entire post before sending in any criticism or reading amy of our posts! Thank you!

♤♤♤

The Mods

This blog currently has 2 mods, Queen and Spade! Following this will be both of their introductions!

Queen:

Heya! My name is Queen, but you can call me Q! I'm 19, go by She/Her pronouns, I'm AroAce, and I'm American! I'm currently in college, majoring in Psychology!

I'll be this blog's writer! Pretty much for mine and Spade's main fandoms we'll be writing rewrites and fix-its, so stay tuned for that! With all that said, I'm looking forward to interacting with all of you!

Spade:

hey, name's spade. acceptable nicknames are s or ace. im currently 20 and i go by he/they. lesbian. i am autistic so i have a hard time telling tones and shit.

ill be the artist, so any art you see here is mine. i ask that you dont trace or repost my art unless it has the tag #repostable. itll be mainly warrior cats and dragons tho bc hell yeah lmao. dont like how often i curse then dont interact/blacklist #mod spade.

♤♤♤

What this blog is about/does

So me and Spade made this blog on a sorta,,, whim? Like, I follow this confession page on my main and someone sent in a submission complaining about how people kept criticizing the books and kept complaining about the fandom.

I usually rant to Spade about everything, so I got my phone and I asked him, "You wanna know what would be a fun idea?", and like the buzzkill he is he responded, "I don't, but you're probably going to tell me regardless so go ahead."

And he was right but that's not important. So I brought up the post I saw and proposed the idea of making an entire blog based on that, a place where people could send in any criticism they had about a book or a show or a fandom and if someone didn't like it they could simply scroll.

Of course, we couldn't decide what fandom to do it for, so now we're just an all fandom blog.

As for what we do, we post criticism! Pretty much, we take a fandom or a source, we look at all the problems in said fandom/source, and we post well deserved criticism to a certain problem. We'll try to get AT LEAST one post per day, and we do accept submissions! We do both fandom and canon and any source so please make sure to specify! The next parts will over submission rules and how to submit criticism, so make sure to read over those carefully!

♤♤♤

Submission Rules

Your submission won't be posted if it contains: you condoning pedophilia, abuse, rape, racism, ableism, homophobia, etc or if you suggest you engage/partake in any of the former

While we accept crits from any source, some sources are particularly problematic and we acknowledge this. Anyone trying to defend the creators of said problematic sources or defend problematic imagery/themes used in the source will be given ONE warning that the source is problematic. If they continue after that it's a block

Any and all submissions having to do with r4pe will be deleted and the person who sent them blocked. No exceptions.

0 tolerance. If an argument starts and it gets far enough everyone involved will be punished. Depending on how far you went, you can either simply get a reminder that that kind of behavior isn't okay or you can get full banned.

Any nsfw/flirts directed towards either of us will result in a permanant ban. I'm AroAce, and Spade is in a relationship already.

With the exception of r4pe submissions, flirts, and trying to defend problematic creators/sources, we have a strict 3 strikes and you're out rule.

1st strike - A Warning. A simple, "Hey, We'd appreciate it if you didn't do that!"

2nd strike - You'l be blocked for 24 hours

3rd strike - Permanent Block on here, as well as our main accounts

♤♤♤

How to submit a criticism

I'd say it's pretty easy.

You have the option of going anon or just submitting.

ANON:

Pm us! Simply go;

"I wish to be anon please (or some variant)

Source: [book/show/game name] by author, [what it is (book, show, game)], Fandom/Canon

[Submission]"

And we'll do some good old copy and paste and post it!

EXAMPLE:

"I'd like to be on anon!

Source: Wings of fire by Tui T Sutherland, book, canon

[Enter criticism here]"