#but if you’re engaged in discourse to such a degree that you have an entire blog dedicated to it and it is impacting your ability to live

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Okay. I’m going away again; bye!

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/729708592592306176/how-about-a-different-discourse-death-of-the

What this ask is missing, a bit, is that Death of the Author *does* mean that the author’s take on things is no more or less valid than anyone else’s. It’s about decentering authorial intent in analyses of media. Barthes is pretty clear and quite pointed about it in the original essay.

What bothers me about misuses of it and what I think this anon means to say is when people start decentering the actual *text*. The idea behind Death of the Author is also that the text stands alone. You don’t need to look at any extra shit to understand it. As you said, it was a response to a mode of analysis that obsessed over plumbing through author biographies.

The issue with what people do in fandom is they ignore the text. “I don’t like this element of canon, so it doesn’t exist.” (Which is different from arguing that it’s there but it sucks because of XYZ reasons, so I’m going to consciously ignore it in my fan works. This is when people just act like it isn’t there in the text in the first place.) “You have to take my bizarro world out-of-nowhere headcanon that is based on nothing except that I want it to be true, that I love this character and I wish they were XYZ therefore they are” and take it just as seriously as headcanons that actually engage with what’s in the show/video game/book/movie/whatever and use that as their basis (like building off something that is subtextual in the original work).

Granted we all do this to some degree, we all come to a text with our own biases and you can’t *always* easily separate those out, and that can affect, for instance, your interpretation of what the subtext is, but I think the irritating fandom behavior is when this kind of ignoring-the-text-to-substitute-your-own-reality is this very deliberate sort of laziness. The annoying thing in my current fandom is people who are fans of this one ship that they insist is the most progressive and other people just don’t see the scintillating “subtext” of because we are bigots or whatever, between two characters who don’t interact that much for two MCs and when they do it’s not at all shippy (but these characters both have very shippy subtext with different characters), but where these people think the ship *should* exist because of their identities. And their “evidence” for the ship is always gifsets taken way out of context and not including the dialogue that makes the non-shippy context for that scene very clear (including that it might actually be shippy for conflicting pairings). It’s like this bizarre version of “close reading” that strips out the largely context *deliberately* in order to make a particular conclusion seem more compelling than it actually is.

Anyway, all that ignoring-the-text stuff is STILL bad analysis per DOTA. Since the point of DOTA is to go based on the text, if you’re obscuring the text you’re kind of just installing yourself as a new author.

This is why DOTA doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It just means “authorial intent is just one interpretation that doesn’t have to matter.” It doesn’t mean other stuff we use in analysis doesn’t matter, and if anything the point is to make it even more text-centric than the older author-centric analyses were. People can still disagree about what the text says, of course, but they should both be going back to it in how they construct those arguments, and not, like those shippers, deliberately ignoring chunks of the text that weaken their arguments.

--

I don't think all of them are consciously throwing out actual canon, but they are often throwing out all context that would help evaluate subtext.

Like... if you're analyzing a Marvel movie, you might ignore what the director said in an interview, but you probably shouldn't entirely ignore the fact that it is a Marvel movie and apply assumptions that make sense for some arthouse film.

And, yes, if you're arguing for shippy subtext, even unintentional on the part of creators, "I like this ship because..." needs very little, but "This ship has more support than this other ship" requires going back to the actual text and looking at it in its totality.

There's a lot of faux-intellectualism around garbage like TJLC where people try to make themselves feel smart by using the language of close reading while having the media literacy of a bucket of rotting fish.

[the-one-eyed-seer]

My big hang up with cripple discourse is that saying “people call me mentally crippled so it’s ok”, fundamentally, relies on people like me as an insult, which is not an aspect of the slur you can reclaim if you aren’t physically disabled. This differs from other discourses, like the word tranny, where it literally doesn’t matter what kind of trans you are because it’s intended to call trans people bad. Like that’s the whole slur. But with mental cripple or any other variation, the premise is that it’s bad to be physically disabled, and you’re “like those other people but with your mind instead”. It’s true that the brain is a physical entity but it doesn’t change that the nature of the slur inherently demonizes the existence of a group of people you’re not. If you actually feel like you have a condition that isn’t typically considered physically disabling but is for you (autistic and cane user) that’s fair! That can happen! But if you actually know you are able bodied, don’t say it. It’s just something that people will have to engage in good faith with because we can’t even stop you anyway, but I need you to acknowledge that you can’t reclaim something that relies on insulting an entire group of people that you’re not.

To clarify, I am both. This is coming from someone who knows what it’s like to have both, who had experienced ableism on both fronts. I also understand that the line isn’t always clear cut. But I also know that, bottom line, there just… are mentally disabled people who consider themselves able bodied. There are also people who don’t, in which case, they’re not able bodied! If your condition affects you to that degree I don’t care what it is, you’re not able bodied! But you know who you are.

[themainspoon]

Just found out that I didn’t get into my Universities paid summer internship program, and I’m heartbroken. This would have let me work in the field I’m studying to be a part of, it would have let me get my name on an actual academic paper, it would have given me a ton of useful experience, and it would have allowed me to produce knowledge instead of simply receiving it (something I’ve wanted to do since the beginning of my first year). I have just missed a huge opportunity, and it feels terrible.

(Big long emotional self reflective post below. I don’t expect anybody to undergo the emotional labour of engaging with this post, this is mainly just me thinking out loud into/onto something. It isn’t really a rant or a vent, I’m not trying to blast my emotions at others so I can feel better, and I’m not just pointlessly rambling. However, this is all personal IRL stuff, you have no obligation to engage with it.)

Now I’m just kind of left with several months of nothing until the start of March next year. This also once again highlights one of my biggest personal issues, which is that the entirety of my self esteem is built upon my academic success. I do well, and in university I actually receive affirmation. My success actually gets noticed (unlike my experience in school), I have good relationships with my tutors and professors, and I seem to be well liked by most of them. I was directly told by my academic advisor that it will be tragic if I don’t continue onto a masters degree after completing my bachelors, and I’ve made it onto the deans merit list twice!

For the first time in my life I’ve felt like I have actual meaningful talent, like I have value. I’ve come to believe that I am actually intelligent! Back when I was younger if you asked me what my best qualities were I wouldn’t have been able to answer you. I was a neurodivergent kid who grew up in the world of the primary and secondary education system, who bounced between professionals and “professionals”, who lived under the control of the biomedical gaze, and who was only able to understand themself through the language of the medical discourses that defined me by my hardship and suffering. I grew up trapped within systems that only focused on what I couldn’t do.

And so when I found myself in a system in which what I COULD do was the focus. When I found myself not being defined by my inability, but instead affirmed for my ability, I began to develop an ego and some actual self esteem. However, the issue is that when your entire positive sense of self is built upon one thing, when that singular thing is challenged (as it just has been) it is not simply a piece of your positive self image that has been challenged, it is the entirety of your self worth that gets challenged.

I know I’m not stupid, I know the fact that I didn’t get selected doesn’t mean that I wasn’t good enough (just that somebody else was better suited for the position). But this still feels like failure, and the entirety of my self esteem rests on my lack of failure.

It reminds me with a discussion I had with my therapist in which we were talking about my self esteem, and she asked me what things I liked about myself. I told her that I like to think that I’m pretty smart, and that I do well in subjects that I care about. She accepted this, but then she threw me a curveball: “What else do you like about yourself? What else do you think you’re good at? What are the other pieces that form your positive self esteem?” I couldn’t answer her, I had nothing to say, because the answer was that there wasn’t anything else.

Right now I am experiencing the effects of building your entire self esteem upon a single factor. My advice? Don’t do that, because even the smallest challenge to that idea will deal significant emotional damage to you, and it feels like shit.

I don’t know what to do now, I feel like this should be a wakeup call for me to find other sources of self esteem, to find other ways to feel like I matter, to find other things I’m good at, to discover that I have value in other ways.

But I’ve spent the vast majority of my life feeling like I don’t, like I was an issue to be solved, being told to try harder, do better, work harder, I experienced life of never feeling like I was good enough. I know that everybody is supposed to have inherent value, and that I am supposedly good enough simply by being me, but on an emotional level I feel like I can’t accept that. It feels like toxic positivity bullshit, “love yourself!!1!” feels like unhelpful bullshit, because my self-love is conditional, and it always has been. How can I “love myself” when I have not earned my own love, when I do not deserve my own love? I am told to love myself, but I don’t, and I don’t want too.

Why would I?

I’ll be ok, I always end up being ok. It just fucking sucks to be reminded that you aren’t exactly a well adjusted person, and that you don’t know what to do about that.

[0zzysaurus]

you're literally the only person on the 'weeeeehhh goncharov is propaganda, blocking the tag is not enooouuuuugghhh' post who is making any sense and i thank you for that. i sincerely cannot believe the bad faith takes i've read from other people thinking that everyone should agree w their blatantly faulty reasoning because they have personal trauma

I’m putting this under a cut because the topic is rather sensitive and I have a lot of thoughts - but I don’t entirely agree with your feelings on this. I don’t want to be dismissive of the people who are upset about Goncharov.

I mean - to be very fair - the personal trauma of Ukrainians right now is quite literally having missiles being shot at their houses and their family members being killed. Like, in no way do I want to take away from the gravity of the situation and the degree of trauma that Ukrainians who have been impacted by the war have. The response some people are having to Goncharov is honestly reasonable considering what Russia is doing right now. Wouldn’t you also be immeasurably frustrated if your country was going through what is essentially a genocide, and people on the internet are playing around with some made up characters from Russia and empathising with their made up story more than your real experiences? Like, it’s not difficult to sympathise with where the sentiment comes from. Their feelings cannot and should not be dismissed as trivial.

However - My thing is that people who like Goncharov shouldn’t be called “pro-Russian terrorists” or be told that they deserve to have their families killed and houses bombed - which is a legitimate argument I have seen in that reply thread.

There’s an element of perspective here that’s been lost. This isn’t like russiaboo Reddit + 4chan political memes that actually do cause harm because of the implicit messages they convey. Memes like that are often carefully crafted to spread a political message, be it a conspiracy or a propagandist argument. Refer to all the pro-Nazi memes out there that people post on Twitter and Tumblr without even realising that they’re Nazi memes. It’s a very complex craft of disinformation that specifically targets online circles and fosters the facilitation of online hate groups.

Goncharov has no comparable political message. It has themes about anti-violence, the passage of time, interpersonal betrayal, and Mafia culture (this is while remembering that this is not a real piece of media, and these themes were not orchestrated by a specific group or individual). If Goncharov is supposed to be pro-Russian propaganda, it does a bad job at being that. I don’t think people who like Goncharov are a part of the problem.

I think people who engage in consuming Russian news media in a biased way, who actively spread Russian disinformation, who are encouraging empathetic responses to the Russian military or government, who are travelling to Russia to fight for Russia, who are committing hate crimes against Ukrainian refugees, who are taking advantage of the war for financial or political gain, or who are perpetuating eugenicist conspiracies about Eastern Europe are actually contributing to the problem.

People who post about Goncharov - the fake mafia movie - are not even a cog in the wheel. Saying some shit like “if you like Goncharov you’re a pro-Russian terrorist” is the most unhelpful thing you could possibly be doing to support Ukrainians. You could be doing so much more, so much better in your activism for Ukraine. You could be doing protests, you could be organising food and clothing drives for refugees, you could be conducting research and debunking disinformation that you see online. You could be talking about actual real pieces of media/television/movies that are funded by Russia and have pro-Russian military messages.

But I guess since fandom discourse now counts as political activism, what the fuck did we expect was gonna happen?

[gimme-mor]

ACOTAR THINK PIECE: ELAIN AND THE CONCEPT OF CHOICE

*DISCLAIMER*

Please take the time to read this post in its entirety and truly reflect on the message I am trying to send before commenting. My goal is to use my background in Gender and Women’s Studies to deconstruct the behaviors and comments I have seen on Tumblr and Twitter, and, more importantly, bring awareness to the ACOTAR fandom. I WILL NOT tolerate anyone who tries to twist my words and say I am attacking people and their personal shipping preferences. In fact, I AM CRITIQUING THE ARGUMENTS THEMSELVES NOT THE PEOPLE USING THE ARGUMENTS.

As someone who has been a long time lurker on all sides of the ACOTAR fandom, the growing toxicity and hostility has become more apparent to the point that civil discourse is, for the most part, entirely lost. More times than not, the cause of the communication breakdown centers around Elain and the relationships she has with those around her. Before and after the release of ACOSF, I’ve noticed that when the fandom expresses its opinions about Elain and her development as a character, whether in a romantic light or generally, the conversation wholly hinges on the concept of choice. Common examples I’ve seen include:

Elain has been stripped of her choice for a majority of her life

Elain should be able to make her own choices

The King of Hybern took away Elain’s choice to be human when he had her tossed into the Cauldron

Elain did not choose the mating bond for herself, instead it was forced upon her

Elain feels pressured to choose Lucien

Elain should have the choice to stray away from what is expected of her

Elain and Azriel being together represents a different and stronger type of love because she’s choosing to be with him

If you ship Elucien, you’re not Pro-Elain because you’re taking away Elain’s right to choose who she wants to be with and forcing her to accept the mating bond

Elain chose to accept Azriel’s advances in the bonus chapter 

When Rhysand called Azriel away after catching him and Elain together, Elain was stripped of her choice to be sexually intimate with Azriel

When Azriel and Rhysand are talking in the bonus chapter, Elain’s choices aren’t at the center of their conversation

If you suggest that Elain should leave the Night Court, you’re stripping Elain of her choice to remain with her family

If you suggest that Elain should be friends with someone else, you’re ignoring Elain’s choice to be friends with Nuala and Cerridwen

Why is the concept of choice exclusively tied to Elain and everything surrounding her character while simultaneously ignoring that other characters in the ACOTAR series have, to varying degrees, been stripped of their choices at some point in their lives? And why isn’t the concept of choice connected to these characters in the same way that it is connected to Elain? For example:

Did the High Lords strip Feyre of her choice to consent when they turned her into a High Fae?

Did Tamlin and Ianthe strip Feyre of her choice to consent when they started to control every aspect of her life in the Spring Court?

Was Vassa stripped of her choice when the other Mortal Queens sold her to Koschei, which resulted in her being cursed to turn into a firebird?

Was Feyre stripped of her choice to know the risks involved in the pregnancy?

Did the King of Hybern strip Nesta of her choice to be human when he had her tossed into the Cauldron?

Was everyone stripped of their choices under Amarantha’s rule?

Was Feyre stripped of her choice to just be a daughter and a sister when the Archeron family failed to contribute to their survival, which resulted in Feyre being the family’s sole provider?

Did Lucien’s family strip him and Jesminda of their choice to be together when they killed her because of her status as a Lesser Faerie?

Are Illyrian females stripped of their choice to consent when their wings are clipped?

Did the Hybern general strip Gwyn of her choice to consent?

Did Ianthe strip Lucien of his choice to consent? 

Did Keir strip Mor of her choice to consent to her engagement to Eris?

Universally, femininity is synonymous with weakness and women often face discrimination because the patriarchy is part of an interactive system that perpetuates women’s oppression. Since the ACOTAR universe is set up to mirror a patriarchal society, it’s clear that the imbalance of power between males and females stems from sexism. The thing that sets Elain apart from other female characters in the ACOTAR series is the fact that SJM has portrayed Elain as a traditionally feminine character based on her actions and the ways in which Elain carries herself. Compared to them, Elain is inherently held to a different standard because her femalehood takes precedence over other aspects of her character in fandom discussions. These conversations indirectly place Elain on a pedestal and hail her as the epitome of traditional femininity; and when her character is criticized in any way, it’s seen as a direct attack against women, specifically women who are traditionally feminine. Also, these conversations fall back on Elain’s femaleness when analyzing her character since it can be assumed from a reader’s perspective that Elain, despite being the middle sibling, is coddled by those around her because her ultra-feminine nature is perceived as a sort of weakness in need of protection. However, the fact that the concept of choice is used as an argument to primarily focus on Elain’s femalehood highlights the narrow lens through which Elain, as a character, is viewed. It implies that Elain’s femaleness is all her character has to offer to the series overall and insinuates that Elain’s character development is dependent on her femaleness. To suggest, through the choice argument, that ACOTAR’s patriarchal society constrains Elain’s agency and prevents her from enacting her feminist right to choose while failing to examine the patriarchal structure of the ACOTAR universe and its impact on the female characters in the series, the choice argument ultimately falls apart because it shows that it’s only used to focus on Elain’s femalehood. Furthermore, the implication that Elain’s right to choose is, in itself, a feminist act in the series indicates that the concept of choice as an argument is used to promote choice feminism.

Feminism is a social movement that seeks to promote equality and equity to all genders, and feminists work toward eradicating gender disparities on a macro-level, in addition to challenging gender biases on a micro-level. Historically, feminism prioritized the voices of white women, specifically white women who were cisgender, able-bodied, affluent, educated, and heterosexual. But over the decades, the inclusion of women of color and other marginalized women’s voices has broadened the scope of feminism and caused it to take an intersectional approach when discussing social identities and the ways in which these identities result in overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination. On the other hand, choice feminism, a form of feminism, greatly differs from what feminism is aiming to accomplish. In the article “It’s Time to Move Past Choice Feminism”, Bhat states:

“Choice feminism can be understood as the idea that any action or decision that a woman takes inherently becomes a feminist act. Essentially, the decision becomes a feminist one because a woman chose it for herself. What could this look like? It could really be anything. Wearing makeup is a feminist act. Not wearing it is also a feminist act. Shaving or not shaving. Watching one TV show over another. Choosing a certain job over another. Listening to one artist over another. Picking a STEM career. Choosing to dress modestly or not. The list goes on. At first glance, there does not seem to be an apparent negative consequence of choice feminism. A woman’s power is within her choices, and those choices can line up with a feminist ideology. For example, a woman’s decision not to shave may be her response to Western beauty standards that are forced onto women. Not shaving may make her feel beautiful, comfortable, and powerful, and there is nothing wrong with that. Women making choices that make them feel good is not the issue. The issue lies in calling these decisions feminist ones. Choice feminism accompanies an amalgamation of problems‒the first being that this iteration of feminism operates on faulty assumptions about said choices. Liberal feminism neglects the different realities that exist for different women‒especially the difference between white women and women of color, transgender women and cis women, etc. Not all women have the same circumstance and access to choices, not all choices made by women are treated equally, and not all choices are inherently feminist” (https://www.34st.com/article/2021/01/feminism-choice-liberal-patriarchy-misogyny-bimbo-capitalism). 

Just as white feminism ignores intersectionality and refuses to acknowledge the discriminations experienced by women of color, choice feminism and arguments supporting choice feminism have, by default, made the concept of choice exclusionary. The individualization of choice feminism glorifies the act of a woman making an individual choice and, by extension, gives the illusion that women’s liberation from gendered oppression can be achieved by enacting their rights to make personal, professional, and political choices. Herein lies the problem with choice feminism: it (the argument of “But it’s my choice!”) stifles feminist conversations from exploring the depths and intricacies of the decision making process because it’s used as a way to shut communication down entirely, shield arguments from criticism, and condemn those who criticize choice feminism for its disconnection from a larger feminist framework. Contrary to what choice feminism advocates for, it lulls the feminist movement into complacency because women’s individual choices do nothing to alleviate gendered oppression. Choice feminism’s leniency towards choice fails to address the limitations of choice in regards to women’s intersectional identities and enables society to shift the blame of women’s oppression away from the societal and institutional structures in place to women themselves for making the wrong choices that ultimately resulted in their circumstances. Choice is not always accessible to every woman. For instance, choices made by white women are, in some way, inaccessible to women of color, in the same way that choices made by cisgender women are inaccessible to transgender women. Choice is one of the founding concepts of the feminist movement and it “became a key part of feminist language and action as an integral aspect and rallying call within the fight for reproductive rights‒the right to choose whether or not we wanted to get pregnant and to choose what we wanted for our bodies and lives” (https://www.feministcurrent.com/2011/03/11/the-trouble-with-choosing-your-choice/). When choice, in a feminist context, is framed as something that is solely about the individual as opposed to the collective, the feminist foundation on which it stands “leads to an inflated sense of accomplishment while distracting from the collective action needed to produce real change that would have a lasting effect for the majority of women” (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/i-am-not-feminist-jessa-crispin-review/). 

By linking the choice argument with choice feminist rhetoric and extreme acts of progressiveness, it plays into today’s negative understanding of a social justice warrior and normalizes fake wokeness. In its original conception, a social justice warrior was another way to refer to an activist and had a positive connotation; nowadays, the term carries a negative connotation and is:

“. . . a pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation. A social justice warrior, or SJW, does not necessarily strongly believe all that they say, or even care about the groups they are fighting on behalf of. They typically repeat points from whoever is the most popular blogger or commenter of the moment, hoping that they will ‘get SJ points’ and become popular in return. They are very sure to adopt stances that are ‘correct’ in their social circle” (https://fee.org/articles/how-the-term-social-justice-warrior-became-an-insult/). 

Today’s perception of the term social justice warrior is directly tied to fake wokeness because both are performative in nature, fueled by the drive to be seen as progressive, and derail necessary conversations from taking place by prioritizing toxicity. According to the article titled, “Three signs of fake ‘wokeness’ and why they hurt activism”, it states:

“. . . social media did not create activism: it did, however, create a legion of hashtags and accounts dedicated to issues . . . Sadly, fake woke people will use these hashtags or create these accounts, see that as contributing to a cause, and just call it a day; these same people tend to shame those without the same level of interest or devotion to a given cause . . . Ironically, as open-minded as the fake woke claim to be, they struggle to deal with opposition. More often than not, those who fit the fake woke bill will ignore, misconstrue, or shutdown anything remotely opposing their stances . . . Now yes, human nature often leads us to possess a bias against that which contradicts our views, but human nature should not serve as an excuse for irrational behavior. Opposition to our stances on issues helps activists more than it harms: it allows them to look at the causes they champion from a perspective they possibly ignored before, further enlightening them. More importantly, by discovering information that may refute what they believe, they can find and eliminate any flaws in their reasoning and strengthen their arguments. Activism involves opening up to change, something one stuck in an echo chamber can never achieve” (https://nchschant.com/16684/opinions/three-signs-of-fake-wokeness-and-why-they-hurt-activism/). 

Rather than critiquing ideas, thoughts, and theories about Elain and her character development with textual evidence, the concept of choice as an argument is used to silence opposing viewpoints. This is similar to choice feminism because the conversations start and end with the concept of choice, leaving no room for a critical analysis of Elain’s character. Although the concept of choice as an argument is intended to shed light on how ACOTAR’s patriarchal structure limits females’ agency to some degree, the fact that it’s only applied to Elain invalidates the point of the argument because it doesn’t include the experiences of other female characters when examining the impact of sexism in the ACOTAR universe. The failure to do so calls the intent of the choice argument into question. As it stands, the concept of choice as an argument frames Elucien shippers and those who are critical of Elain as woman haters, misogynists, and anti-feminists, especially if they identify as women. The belief that a woman is anti-feminist or a woman hater any time she dislikes another woman suggests that women have to be held to a different emotional standard than men. If men are able to dislike other individual men without their characters being compromised, why can’t women? Feminism and what it means to be a feminist do not require women to like every woman they encounter. One of the many things feminism hopes to accomplish is granting women the same emotional privileges afforded to men. 

Terms like “oppression”, “the right to choose”, “feminist”, “feminism”, “anti-feminist”, “anti-feminism”, “internalized misogyny”, “misogyny”, “misogynist”, “sexist”, “sexism”, “racist”, “racism”, “classist”, “classism”, “discrimination”, and “patriarchy” are all used in specific ways to draw attention to the plight of marginalized people and challenge those who deny the existence of systems of oppression. Yet these words and their meanings can be twisted to attack, exclude, and invalidate people with differing opinions on any given topic. When social justice and feminist terms are thrown around antagonistically and carelessly to push a personal agenda, it becomes clear that these terms are being used to engage in disingenuous discourse and pursue personal validation rather than being used out of any deep-seated conviction to dismantle systemic oppression. The personal weaponization of social justice and feminist concepts is a gateway for people who oppose these movements to strip these terms of their credibility in order to delegitimize the societal and institutional impacts on marginalized people.

It’s important to question how an argument is framed and why it’s framed the way that it is to critically examine the intent behind that argument: is it used as a tool to push a personal agenda that reinforces dismissive, condescending, and problematic behaviors, or is it used as an opportunity to share, learn, enlighten, and educate? The concept of choice as an argument is extremely problematic because: it limits fruitful discussions about Elain within the fandom; enables arguments that oppose opinions about Elain and her narrative development to masquerade as progressive by pushing social justice and feminist language to their extremes; normalizes the vilification and condemnation of individuals who are either critical of a ship, Elain as a character, or prefer her with Lucien; encourages an in-group and out-group mentality with differing opinions about Elain’s development resulting in politically charged insults; exploits social justice and feminist terms; ignores that harm done on a micro-level is just as damaging as harm done on a macro-level; and cheapens Elain’s character and her development.

There is more to Elain than her being a female who is traditionally feminine. Elain has the potential to be as complex of a character as Feyre, Nesta, Rhysand, Lucien, Cassian, Azriel, Amren, and Mor, and to reduce her character to her femalehood in fandom discussions is a disservice to Elain as a character, the ACOTAR fandom, and SJM’s writing. So I ask this: is there a reason why the fandom heavily emphasizes the concept of choice when discussing Elain that goes beyond a simplistic analysis of her as a character (i.e. using the concept of choice as an argument to reinforce Elain’s femaleness), or is the concept of choice used as a shield to prop up one ship over another?

gimme-mor library

[senlinyu]

I like a lot on DHr Twitter because I get kind of scared off by fandom discourse but ’m noticing a lot of minors who interact/follow you even though your bio states 18+. Do you try not to interact with those you know are minors? Or is it more of a “please know I will be reposting NSFW content” thing because I know some creators are uncomfortable with minors intruding into adult spaces

I'm not really sure what to do with twitter. I've drafted and then stashed about a dozen twitter threads trying to lay out why I find the twitter environment very uncomfortable specifically because DHr twitter has so many minors who openly admit to reading adult content and try to engage in conversations with the creators of that content.

Having conversations with minors on the internet about sex and adult content is already a complicated thing, but it gets much murkier when you're the creator of that content. I admittedly was a minor who read mature fanfic, and while I don't think reading endless porn is heathy for anyone, fanfic specifically was a safe haven for me and a lot of other young people who had nowhere else to turn while trying to explore sexuality in a way that we could control. HOWEVER, I never attempted to involve the authors in that by interacting with them.

90% of the reason I'm on twitter at all is because there are a couple artists who post their nsfw content there exclusively. And I have historically liked but never retweeted that content specifically because I knew that some of my followers were minors. But twitter sticks 'liked' content from people I follow into my feed, so I assume it does the same with my likes, basically defeating the entire purpose of me not retweeting it, which is what prompted me to add 18+ to my bio.

The issue I encounter most often with twitter minors is that they're really big on their own sense of consent, but don't care much about anyone else's. They want everyone to respect their boundaries and triggers, but cannot and will not be bothered to take responsibility for their internet consumption, or to respect creators who mark their bio's 18+ and rate their fics M or E. (Which is normal teenage behavior, but I'm not their parent and therefore I'm not obligated to engage with their developmental impulse to push boundaries.)

I don't have any inherent issue with minors being in fandom, or with interacting with minors. Fandom has really grown during the last year and there's a degree of necessity for older members to educate newcomers about fannish etiquette and history etc. However, the difficulty for me is that my writing is mostly adult, and so when minors on dhr twitter interact with me, it's not because we're friends, it's because I'm the author of M and E rated fics that they read, and they're trying to interact with me about those stories. In order for me to respect the boundary of their stated age, that means not engaging with them.

I try to check the age of anyone that I follow, and generally do my best to avoid interacting with minors about anything adult. But I've yet to find a solution that provides me with much peace of mind.

[fandom-oracle]

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.

[djmarinizelablog]

A Conversation with the Author of City Comma State, kippielovesyou/ForcedSimile

Had a short interview with the author of City Comma State, @kippielovesyou/ForcedSimile and asked her if I could share our conversation online---she said yes!

Did you know that Hange and Levi in her work was based on Spongebob and Squidward's interactions?

Read the entire transcript below:

-------------------------------------

djmarinizela (D): if i may ask, where and how did you learn to write so good? what inspired you to write city comma state?

kippielovesyou (K): i don't mind at all! it's genuinely just years of practice. i've been scribbling stories since kindergarten (i had a long standing multi part series in first grade about all my classmates). i think one thing is certain: having a strong understanding of characters whether you borrow them or they are your own is pretty key.

a lot of points [in Isayama's story] could have been better thought out or tighter. however, we all love his characters. a weak plot (or in the case of city comma state: no plot) can be ignored or forgiven if everyone loves the characters

i'll be honest, i spend a lot of time trying to understand why a character does things or reacts a certain way. and yes, sometimes, that means i act out scenes in my car while driving. it's embarrassing...

there's a lot more to it, but to me that's the most important thing

as far as how city comma state came about: i wanted to do a slow burn romance centered around levihan, but I also wanted to show how all these characters care about and support each other. i knew in the confines of the AoT world, anyone could die at any moment and that didn't work with the softer feelings i wanted people to enjoy. how can you enjoy the friendship between mike and hange if he dies? it's possible, but it upends all the warmth we were enjoying. so i wrote an AU. i wanted to keep levi with a rough background with many walls, and i wanted hange to have her own issues that they can work through together. and i love the idea of them adopting/supporting the 104th kids without the fear of sending them out to war

D: your answer is so profound and helpful, thank you so much! I can honestly say you pretty nailed it when it comes to character development---everyone has a character arc in your fic! [my next question] is about the gender discourse in your story. I know you started City Comma State pretty early in 2014, but even back then, the nonbinary identity wasn't widely known before. How were you able to flesh out the discourse on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and play it out on the dialogues and backstories?

K: it's pretty funny, a lot of the LGBTQIA+ has always been discussed i my family. we've had gay, lesbian, trans, gnc, bi and asexual people in my family for generations, as far back as the 20s (that we're aware of). hange's gender being debated made it a prime opportunity to write such an experience, some of which is borrowed from my own life. when i read older chapters i see certain slips in dialogue where i could have made an effort to be more neutral. we're in such a binary society that sometimes even if you feel in between, it slips in. in fact, i'm sure some people might take issue with the fact that i stuck with she/her for hange. i'm not sure i'd make a different decision today. i like this version of hange the way she is, and i hope hange's nb/gnc status comes across in more than just pronouns. hange's full identity is so much more than that and that is what i wanted to explore. and i think no matter where you fall on the whole LGBTQIA+ spectrum, you are more than just the label you've chosen. yes, in this story levi is bi/pan. but i don't think he ever says that explicitly, and he avoids labels. it seems fussy to him, which feels levi. discourse would not be his thing. i think even having a debate about whether or not he was bi or pan wouldn't be something he would want to engage in, he just wants to do what he wants. instead it's heavily implied. i think we forget since so many of us experience this discourse online and want to label things that there are people who don't want to involve themselves in it. it goes back to how would this character act. for instance, based on how levi is in canon, i can see many ways to interpret his sexuality. there's cues for a lot of different takes. but levi doesn't seem like the type that would need a definitive label in order to be happy. there's many ways to interpret hange's gender (and i've written several takes, some where they're more insistent on their pronouns), but i think hange's more excited to explore life than worry too much about much about how they're addressed or how someone talks about them. maybe another character might be more caught up in labels but hange and levi not so much

D: No, don't be sorry, I am more than thankful for your answer. I really appreciate it! I don't get to have these kinds of conversations with other writers, so I am grateful for your insights.

K: a really funny anecdote for you: i loosely based the idea of my levihan off of spongebob and squidward. you know, since they start out as neighbors and hange is more invasive than levi is used to

D: that's.... a stretch. but thanks for the tidbit! was the annual star wars contest also something that you do in your family? that part as well as all the geeky references won me over tbh!

K: it was an extremely loose inspiration! but hange mowing her lawn in the middle of the night so levi wouldn't be mad at her is on par with a spongebob move. and um...my family, while they can be a little nerdy, is not nerdy enough to do the star wars tournament! i made that up entirely

i just imagined hange having eccentric family, so they have very unusual traditions that none of the children question

i'll be the first to say a lot of city comma state is unrealistic and a little bit of a domestic fantasy. there's a lot of problems with money, employment and such that hange and levi SHOULD have but that's a little too real and not what i want to be the focus of this story. like hange landing a job that gives her a day off and she doesn't suffer a severe pay cut as a result? unrealistic. but i have other things i want to tackle. plus, in canon we have humans that turn into giants and 3D maneuver gear which would probably kill its user in real life. i think making certain parts of this fanfic a little idealistic is okay

D: are there other works that influence your writing? or authors that inspire you to write?

K: There's too many influences to count. reading is so important and even things that are bad are helpful. i actually was trying to read a YA series that seemed really cool and i had to stop reading because so many things were so annoying (I won't reveal which, since i think it has a small but dedicated fandom and i don't want to rain on their parade, it is purely a taste thing to some degree). instead of being upset and thinking that I wasted my time, i took note of what made me stop reading (that is a long list of things i didn't like so i won't bother to outline each one). even if it's something as small as a fanfiction that you had to click out of, ask yourself why you stopped. Especially with fanfiction: you already like these characters, what you're looking for is usually pretty specific (a pairing, an au, a specific scenario, etc). why, when this author has ticked all your superficial boxes, did you stop reading? and when you love something as yourself why. Ask yourself why you love the source material even! do you really love the plotlines and the world or do you love the characters? Is the dialogue strong? something to also pay attention to: people in general. how do they speak, gestures, facial expressions. really listen to how people talk (Youtube podcasts are really good for this!).

i think people would be surprised, a lot of what i really like to read is very all over. from surrealist novels, to classic literature, to science fiction aimed at children (i'm finally reading animorphs after almost 20 years!). and what i write for original fiction doesn't reflect what i'm probably best known for.

D: thanks for this, Kippie! looking forward to reading more of your works!

K: i'm still amazed at the response! writing is so solitary to me and i don't really look at my numbers. it never occurred to me that people would be discussing my fic!

-------------------------------------

If you haven't read Kippie's Levihan fic yet, here's the link to get started: City Comma State

[egoat]

marvel study

I’ve been rewatching the Marvel movies, not just out of a fit of profound insanity, but out of an interest in wrestling with exactly what they are, and what’s wrong with them. Their “reputation” has been sinking through online circles like a lead balloon, with a general consensus gathering around the essay Martin Scorsese published in the New York Times back in 2019. In that essay, he highlights the major problem being that these movies, and particularly their ever presence, is regularly dominating the market to the extent that cinema owners don’t want to show alternative and independent fare. This problem has only dramatically worsened since then, with Disney having the resources to weather an endless pandemic and continue to produce movies that may or may not be safe to see in theaters, where their competition has been so scarce that they now stay in theaters for sometimes over 6 months, long enough to bridge the gap until the next one, shattering nearly entirely the illusion of free choice. In that time, “discourse” has continued to chew on the issue of these movies, which always have huge budgets and always deliver financially, but are always the same, and are indeed such whales as to be bullying nearly all other cinema out of existence. This has produced the argument that they are simply “junk food”, which I would agree with - they aren’t really meant to be judged as though they’re groundbreaking art, and it’s fine that they’re “samey” and commercial. Of course, it’s easy to enjoy McDonald’s if you don’t have to work at McDonald’s. I’m not going to pretend as though I have an answer to the issues of consumption under capitalism, though I think most people have come around to the cynical acceptance stage of their lives and realized that their personal choices don’t make a difference, but I digress - what about the movies themselves? Whether they’re trash or art or not, what exactly is going on in them — because, to be frank, Hollywood has generally produced “trash”, regularly, since the inception of the medium, sometimes great, sometimes offensive, sometimes weird or fascinating or simply engaging. I’ve seen the weird diehard nerd accounts that float up to the surface when a lot of people make fun of them and may or may not be real people posit that this “wave” of Marvel movies is going to be remembered as great genre classics 50 years from now. Clearly there’s a degree of cultural disconnect here worth investigating.

To start with, I’m not against comic book movies really at all — I like comic books, their material, their characters, and I’m probably one of the few people actually interested to see what is done in an adaptation with certain ideas. I’ve watched all of these shitty movies and been variably entertained or bored by them or genuinely impressed by some of their more weird and sci-fi influences (I think the Peter Dinklage section in Infinity War is probably the best, whereas everything that happens in Endgame is probably the worst). If you’re against the very principle at this point, I don’t blame you, though I’m probably not going to say anything that interests you. “Iron Man” began with a novel concept — take more or less the performance Robert Downey Jr. did in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, sub in some worse but passable Bendis-esque dialogue, glue it together with some pretty rote Saturday morning cartoon villain and CGI action sequence, and ship it with a recognizable brand name that people might be interested in seeing. It’s pretty easy to look back at the early movies especially and cringe, with them being influenced heavily by the now ubiquitous Favreau and/or Whedon school of filmmaking — quippy, simple, straight-to-the-point dialogue with jokes that will please families and incels, peppered with a lot of sci-fi references and in-jokes that don’t really matter. This embryonic stage of Marvel movie development does interest me though, because it contains a lot of interesting ideas that later get filtered out by raw efficiency - dipping into multiple genres for influence and pacing for example.

While on the topic of “Iron Man”, I could address Marvel’s “politics”. Since it is true that these movies take money directly from the U.S. Defense budget, I don’t think there’s that much argument to be made. The depiction of Captain America driving out Hydra, a supposed secret white nationalist parasite that has infiltrated every section of the American deep security state would sort of be interesting, and probably a lot more liberals would have co-opted it as meaning something had the movie come out two years later, except that that movie rarely even remotely addresses the fact that Hydra are Nazis. It’s only interested in the “spy movie” to crib a few style points and surface-level references — in true Favreau’s can of references fashion, it wants to put in Robert Redford to remind you of his much better spy movies like Spy Games, but it doesn’t want to critically engage with any of the ideas that spy movies concern themselves with, like the problems and paranoia endemic to a surveillance state, the disconnect between deep state administration and democratic governance, and the issues of politically conflicting agendas. You can’t really blame any of these movies for this mistake, though, and I’m sure even reading that I sounded like a cunt, because these movies really wouldn’t have time to do any of that stuff if they tried.

By The Winter Soldier, Marvel movies had fully cut out their own “inefficiencies”, and their pacing had become much like a rollercoaster - less like an “emotional rollercoaster” as people generally use the phrase, but much more like being on a literal rollercoaster. Moments of levity (always humor, and always more or less the same kind of humor - either a too-cute quip back and forth, or the naturalistic conversational kind that would actually be funny given more time to breathe) only exist to provide a brief amount of regulated runway between plot development (exposition) or CGI’d action sequences that are overlong and are nauseating and confusing to watch. By this point, these movies have no true “drag time”, merely the illusion of downtime provided in utilitarian bursts. It’s a nightmare of Whedon-esque wall-to-wall dialogue, a parade of noise. Simply watching the movie and trying to keep the rhythm of it is fine, until the second you are unglued from it, and you realize what it is doing and how it is doing. This is where the critique that Brian Jordan Alvarez mentioned in one stand-up bit is most prescient - “I feel like I missed whatever context there was to justify everything that happens on screen”. I didn’t initially relate to this, being happy to nod along to what was going on on the screen, and doubly contented that whatever little I knew about comics was filling in the gaps of what mattered in the story, but I did more and more the more I watched these movies, and the more they gained in speed over time.

I want to go back to Iron Man for a second, specifically Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 is still firmly in what I’d say is the “standard definition era” of these movies, before the pacing’s speed increased and the budget given to the CGI increased to the point of being limitless. It still follows the same basic formula, a CGI villain to fit a CGI action sequence, but it does seem to want to genuinely differentiate itself in some ways. It adds at least a degree of novelty to the action by removing the Iron Man suits as consistently as it can from every action sequence, and tries its best to complete a character arc with Tony Stark in what limited time its given to, giving what I would say is a genuinely decent depiction of anxiety in the process. It utilizes its actors for more than a quick shot of their faces in a layer of CGI or an under-a-minute “heartwarming” sequence, and despite being loathed at the time (at least as I remember it) for inducing Marvel fatigue and also having a character named “The Mandarin”, it was, I believe, a very good example of how a movie can succeed within this “structure”. At this point, these movies still have a lot in common with the X-Men movies of the earlier 2000s that they hearken from (with the CGI in Iron Man 3 being especially similarly). While those movies weren’t always seen as great, they never attracted as much of either the attention or ire that Marvel movies now get, despite being fundamentally similar in most ways. Why is that? It could be just the cultural and financial weight of the Marvel-Disney mega-corporation, but I choose to believe the answer is more structural.

X-Men generally takes a more traditional approach to its characters, not unlike (the successful earlier) DC Movies try to tend to do, depicting them as having outsized, larger-than-life personalities that have naturalistic qualities but still are supposedly imposing forces. There was some 4chan post I pretty distinctly remember about this distinction — it had a Rob Liefeld-drawn Civil War-era Captain America as its image, and bemoaned the fact that in comics, comic book characters are near forces of nature, that their impact is felt, whereas in Marvel movies, characters are reduced to having pretty much the same, light-hearted, quippy personality, which makes it feel as though nothing they’re doing really has any stakes. Even though this guy was pretty clearly some kind of freak right-wing chud, I couldn’t help but see his point - when Chris Hemsworth walks out of the room in the MCU’s Civil War after nearly killing Iron Man, I suspect there is supposed to be some kind of emotional weight in that moment that just isn’t there as assigned by the dramatic score. When the moment is more or less taken back 10 minutes later in another jokey sequence, I don’t think anyone is surprised. Captain America is just some guy, Iron Man is just some guy, and Marvel’s gambit on making Civil War interesting in the space of one movie length largely did not work, because these movies give characters, conflicts, and personalities no time to breathe under the unrelenting weight of their pacing and their formulaic structure. The central conflict of there being consequences to superhero behavior provides a particularly jarring disconnect as you’re suddenly supposed to feel torn seeing the hidden casualties in the different angles of sequences that were absolutely just full of nonsense explosions and comedic back-and-forths at the time. In X-Men, the conflict between Magneto and Professor X is perhaps a little rote, but is always significantly felt and at least partially explored from the perspectives of multiple characters throughout the films. In Civil War, I think I could count the lines of dialogue given to the “discussion” about the central point of difference that divides the characters prior to their overlong action sequence fight, and even the characters themselves sound tired of “discussing it” during that brief time, quickly snapping to slightly-more-pointed jokes in the process. Pacing is again the core of the problem, the black hole at the center of these movies, draining away even the chance of their attempts at greater complexity succeeding.

That all said, I still watch these movies, and enjoy them, and even defend them. Why, if they’re supposed cultural heat-death and meaningless and lack substance? Well, I do genuinely find them entertaining, and I am interested in their source material and how they adapt them. I think the newest Doctor Strange movie was really good, and I think Sam Raimi did a lot to try to counterbalance the still-existing pacing issue in that film, and make both a genuinely interesting conflict (well, debatable) and genuinely good and dynamic action in the process. Getting to the fun, sci-fi concepts can be the “point” — I think a lot of comic book fans are actually more interested in Marvel movies now that they approach the territory of the more modern runs, dealing directly with alternate universes, and bizarre clashes between aliens and gods and whatever else. All of this is probably much to the chagrin of the rest of human civilization who is completely exhausted of these films bullying the rest of cinema out of theaters. Would it be best if Disney could simply be written out of existence, preferably by some application of anti-trust law? Yes. Is it an ethical issue to keep watching these films? Probably, but only in so much as like, eating meat is, which is to say, I don’t know, don’t think about it so hard, nothing matters anyway, who cares. In the meantime, I hope whoever’s really in charge of this shit, the cryogenic Eisner-brain puppeting Kevin Feige, will at least allow their directors more basic creative control over these properties, because I still think there is a lot of creative potential for these things to be interesting. By the way, all the TV shows on Disney+ that they made are really bad. Okay, thanks for reading my essay.

[rabbityshen]

a post got me thinking abt this (and i didnt wanna add to the notes plus it is a bit on the mean side) on the one hand, i think some ppl can be kind of mean abt "tropes" as a lens of talking abt fiction. ppl having fun is fine. i have fun. it can feel like "ugh you're not taking fiction seriously" vibes, which i think is good to keep in check as that sentiment can poison the well and put ppl on defense which i dont think is conducive. i also think it can be condescending to presume "you only talk abt x in y way which means you're incapable of discussing x (or anything else) in z way."

on the other hand, i do find tropes, and in this case i mean the more modern rendition of "ao3 tags" as i saw someone phrase it as, just personally v confusing and limiting. i understand what tropes are but they're vague in the same way genre is, but unlike genre, are looser and more emotionally tilted in a way that can limit discussion. i mean, i do find it useful sometimes, like i do have trope preferences certainly and i think that's fun to talk abt in a "what do i get out of this" way in a general sense. but besides the obvious problem of not all fiction necessarily having or fitting these tropes (esp since they're predominantly romance oriented), or suiting even the common tone of such discussion, i just dont find tropes particularly illuminating when discussion often boils down to "i love this/i hate this" in emotionally hyperbolic ways. it also just doesnt fit discussion of stories that arent invested in pleasant or fun emotional catharsis, let alone stories that aren't linear or are more experimental in structure. (and also like, if u get why applying tvtropes, which at least isnt romance-centric, onto all fiction can be kinda cringey and just v limiting, then it also applies here.)

even when it comes to my preferences, it can rly vary depending on the execution of the story itself, whether im reading amateur fanfic or pro published original fiction, or anything else. for example, i would say i like enemies to lovers, but this doesnt mean im inclined to like every rendition of it (i disliked rey and kylo's arc, i liked catra and adora's arc). even when im casually reading fanfic, im not gonna read every enemies to lovers ship. i am moderately picky and very lazy!

and at least enemies to lovers describes a relationship arc that can encompass an entire narrative. "sharing a bed" is a scene prompt? it's fine but means nothing to me. if a story sucks to me then no i wont like it, if a story is good to me then yeah i'll like it. i cant rly say if i "like" that trope in isolation bc i've seen shitty versions, fun versions, boring versions, etc.

and then top of this, sometimes ppl have v specific ideas of what tropes mean. back to enemies to lovers, i've seen ppl use it to refer to intense mutual antagonism that ties into the entire plot or just moderate stakes act 1 romcom personality clash/bickering that eases into real friendship by act 2. i can sure propose my own definition but it does seem like it's more charged to whatever someone's own personal preferences are than any kind of meaningful analysis or categorization.

i guess what im getting at is "tropes" seem to invoke the idea of specificity w/o really engaging w/ it or w/ clarity. i think obv if you are talking abt trends or patterns across fiction, you will generalize. but there are usually reference point bc the analysis comes out of the engagement w/ fiction first. often tropes are invoked in a way where there is no reference point, or it's imagined (or assumed) to an unhelpful degree, and then is applied as it's concrete and objective bc the trope itself exists within a vacuum.

ultimately tho this mode of discourse is mostly harmless if somewhat annoying. i have no idea if this is true to "real life" or whatever that means lol

[dreamsmp-megaritz]

chill out with debating character morals?

I like Dream SMP character analysis. That’s a big part of why I'm here. But I have some problems with how a lot of it seems to go. Many people are being way too hard on each other, raising the stakes artificially high, moralizing the discussion needlessly. It’d be good to chill out a bit.

I’ll explain what I mean, and why. In writing this, I risk coming across like I’m doing the very thing I dislike-- morally scolding other people. I hope it is clear enough that my message is not meant to scold anyone, but is meant as more of a more lighthearted exhortation to examine the discourse and see whether you can help improve it so as to make things better for everyone. My term “chill out” is meant more as a suggestion (if applicable), not as a finger-wagging.

As always, everything I say here is open to criticism and revision. Think for yourself, think about your own observations, and see how fair or unfair my analysis seems to be in light of your own experience. Let me know if you have comments, objections, rebuttals, and so on!

Character morality debates aren’t everything For one thing, a disproportionately large amount of the character analysis takes the form of disputing questions like (1) who is bad and who is good, (2) which characters are worse than which other characters, (3) who had good excuses for their bad actions (and who didn’t), and so on.

This is all fine. It’s not my favorite kind of discourse, but it’s totally fair game to argue about the morality of the characters and their actions. However, it seems like it often drowns out other kinds of character analysis. It’s worth remembering that morality debate is only one kind of character analysis, among many others. Still, this is the least of my concerns.

Reasons to avoid overconfidence Some people are VERY confident in their views, and are kind of harsh to each other on that basis.

It’s worth remembering the sheer size of the lore (hours upon hours of material), and it’s worth remembering how loose the canon is in this block-game role-play story. This there’s often a lot of plausible evidence on both sides of a debate. And this means that many conflicting interpretations of a character are often equally defensible, or at least are approximately equally reasonable. So this is often worth considering.

First, consider DSMP’s size: Unless you’re a super-expert (or even if you are!), there’s a good chance you’re unfamiliar with-- or you’ve simply forgotten-- at least some of the evidence relevant to your own analysis. Just because there’s so much of it! Moreover, even if you’re a super-expert, remember that lots of other people are not, and so they’ll make more errors than you, and sometimes that’s just kind of okay.

Second, consider DSMP’s looseness of canon: There will often be contradictory or deeply ambiguous evidence that can be interpreted in multiple ways, and there might not always be a deep fact about which interpretation is more objectively correct.

Moral scolding? But why tho?? Most distressingly, the debates often take the form of these weird moral allegations, like insinuations of hypocrisy and slander.

Here’s what I mean by insinuations of hypocrisy: In response to someone saying “Character-A is bad,” a lot of other people will reply “You shouldn’t say Character-A is bad-- because Character-B did something just as bad, and you sure aren’t complaining about Character-B!”

And by insinuations of slander, I mean the way people take the argument seriously to the point of acting like it’s immoral to wrongly criticize a character, as if this were similar to wrongly criticizing a real person.

Each side tends to engage in moral scolding against the other side. As if having the wrong view about a DSMP character is some kind of serious character flaw, indicating a like of moral fiber.

If I might help myself to some psychoanalyzing (against my better judgment, and against my own advice-- the hypocrite I am): I suspect this could be a manifestation of an unhealthy sort of attachment to the characters, such that an insult of the character feels like an insult of one’s own friends or something. (To be clear, I think there are also healthy forms of attachment to the characters, although this isn’t one of them.)

Even if someone gets their interpretation of a DSMP character objectively and blatantly wrong (though I suspect this is relatively rare), or even if they really are being hypocritical & guilty of double standards between different characters, or even if they forget or misunderstand some crucial evidence and perpetuate factual misconceptions... it’s not as if they’re slandering a real person! These are generally quite innocent mistakes.

So please, chill out a bit.

I’m not sure how many people intend to “moralize” the character-analysis disagreements in these ways, but I think it’s worth trying harder to avoid.

(Side-note: I actually think people are too hard on each other in debating the content-creators’ actions as well. However, I will not insist on this here, because the CCs are real people, so the exact same arguments will not apply.)

Caveat: Criticizing analysis vs. criticizing false presuppositions about other issues A big caveat to my argument: I concede there are sometimes real justifications for treating the matter seriously-- such as when someone’s character analysis rests on a misconception about mental illness. Some people have criticized each other’s analyses of c!Wilbur on such grounds, for instance.

But even here, it’s important to avoid confidently attributing problematic assumptions to people when there isn’t strong evidence that they’re making such assumptions. Often a misconception can be addressed and refuted in many ways without accusing someone of actually believing it. Finally, even when such criticism is legitimate, it’s important to clearly separate the actual target of criticism (the misconception) from the character analysis, and avoid conflating them together. This is a little shaky, so I can try to pry apart the distinction in more detail if people are interested.

Conclusion As I said at the start, I hope this comes across as a call to examine and improve things, and not as yet another moral scolding (and a hypocritical one at that). I’m not entirely certain how accurate my assessment of the discourse is. I encourage you to see whether it fits patterns that you have seen, at least to some interesting degree.

If it does, then see if you can improve it.

If not, then let me know what aspects of my analysis you disagree with.

[angels-heap]

Okay hello I feel like you are Wise and Know things... it’s kind of hard to explain but is it wrong to just... Enjoy Things? With all the HL pisscourse going around it’s making me nervous about liking things like TF2 and missing something critical and huge in the media I consume and being labelled as a bad person for doing that. ESPECIALLY for liking characters like GLaDOS or Wheatley from Portal. I want to just Enjoy Things but there’s guilt tied to not being critical about every single detail

Thanks for reaching out, friend, and I’m so sorry to hear the current nonsense has you feeling this way. I have a hunch you’re not alone, and although I don’t claim to have all the answers here, I hope hearing my thoughts on this helps alleviate some of that guilt. This got long and I’m not putting it under a cut because it’s important. 

The short answer to your question is no; it is not wrong to just enjoy things. You don’t have to constantly examine all your favorite media under a microscope and incessantly highlight or dwell on its faults to be a good person or a good consumer of media, and here are a few reasons why:

(CW for brief mentions of all the squicky/potentially triggering things that tend to come up in ship discourse conversations.)

1. It is virtually impossible to find a truly unproblematic piece of media.

And that’s okay! Media is both created and consumed by people, and people are notoriously imperfect and complex. Sometimes creators choose to explore dark or taboo themes that are always going to squick some people out, no matter how well (or poorly) they’re handled. Sometimes content creators are actually terrible people who deliberately try to perpetuate their messed-up ideas through media. Sometimes creators’ deeply internalized prejudices seep into a work in a way they may not even consciously realize. Sometimes consumers’ experiences or prejudices color the way they perceive a piece of media and may lead them to a very different interpretation than what the creators intended.

Point is, there are a lot of shades of gray here. We should always strive to do better as creators and consumers, but the goalposts for “perfection” are always moving.

There’s almost always going to be something about your favorite media—no matter how benign it is—that rubs some people the wrong way, or (perhaps unintentionally) perpetuates harmful stereotypes, or starts out okay but doesn’t age well down the line. Period. That’s an uncomfortable truth that we all have to sit with. But don’t despair, because…

2. It is still okay to engage with and enjoy media that you know is problematic. Even if it’s really problematic. For real. I promise. The media you consume does not determine your worth as a person. 

Since you specifically mentioned Valve games, I’ll start out by clarifying that (as of July 2020), Valve games and their fandoms are pretty benign overall. Perhaps in the future, more of the humor will start to age poorly, or Valve will make some extremely questionable design choices with their next game, or Gabe Newell will be outed as a prolific serial killer, or whatever, but for now, there’s really nothing about Valve games that should make the average person go, “holy shit, you’re into that?!” when you bring them up in polite company. (And anyone who insinuates otherwise re: Half Life shipping discourse is either very confused about the definition of certain words or is maliciously trying to stir up controversy.)

That said, everyone has a different threshold for what they do and don’t want to see in media, and those boundaries are totally valid! But it is absolutely possible to enjoy even notably problematic media (e.g., Game of Thrones, the new Star Wars sequels, old movies where the directors were huge assholes to the female cast members, etc.) without being a bad person or a bad social justice activist. Instead of rambling about that at length, I’m going to link you to this excellent blog post on the subject.

The big takeaway here is that you can love a piece of media while also acknowledging its faults. In fact, I’d argue that a key part of loving something is being able to think critically about it and trying to hold its creators to a higher standard whenever possible. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be constantly analyzing it or prefacing every single public acknowledgment of your love for it with an “I know this is problematic and I swear, I just like it for XYZ” disclaimer, because…

3. Tumblr’s black-and-white thinking about media consumption is not healthy, “normal,” or (usually) present to the same degree in other virtual or real-world spaces.

I think most of the people on Tumblr who seem to be on a constant (and ultimately futile; see point 1) quest to find the One True Unproblematic Media have good intentions. I really do. And I applaud them for actively trying to understand and un-learn their own biases while becoming critical consumers of media.

Unfortunately, for a bunch of complicated reasons I still don’t totally understand and won’t get into here, some online communities tend to take these things to such an extreme that, in their quest to create a safe and/or inclusive environment, they actually end up creating an even more hostile one. To reference the recent drama again, nowhere is that more apparent than with “pro-ship” vs. “anti-ship” discourse.

Basically, “pro-shippers” believe that fiction is entirely separate from reality and therefore, “problematic” content (up to and including p*dophilia, inc*st, noncon, etc.) has just as much of a right to exist as any other content; this makes some sense on a purely intellectual level, but in the real world, obviously things are much more complicated than that. “Anti-shippers,” on the other hand, claim to be specifically against the aforementioned Big Three Bad Things in theory, but in practice, they’re basically the fandom purity police; they strive to criticize and shut down any media or fandom activity that could be even remotely construed as problematic, because they seem to have a (perhaps well-intentioned but ultimately misguided) perception that discussing anything “bad” in fiction will glorify/condone/promote it in real life and that all creators of “bad” fiction are inherently malicious. Often, they’re willing to twist definitions and jump through some very strange hoops to justify why something is “bad.”

The truth lies somewhere between those two extremes; fiction absolutely can (and does) impact reality, but not in such a clear-cut cause-and-effect way. People can see or read about dark/complicated/problematic things without condoning or enjoying them in real life, and conversely, people can dislike even relatively benign things without having to have an extreme, profound reason for feeling that way. People can also enjoy “bad” media while being fully conscious of what’s wrong with it and taking steps to ensure that it doesn’t negatively influence them, or they may lack the knowledge/context to understand why something is “bad” at first and change how they engage (or don’t engage) as they learn. There’s a lot more nuance to this issue than Tumblr is willing to acknowledge, and as a result, a lot of innocent people who just want to enjoy things in peace get sucked into some truly absurd drama that can be really hard to deal with. And that sucks. A lot.

So, TL;DR: Almost all media is at least a little problematic, but that’s okay, because the media you like does not determine whether or not you’re a good person. (And especially if your primary interests are Valve games... you’re good, mate. Seriously.)

The fact that you’re even asking me this question shows me that you’re being a thoughtful, responsible consumer of media, and that’s all anyone can reasonably ask of you without being a gigantic hypocrite—because whether they’ll admit it or not, everybody who’s perpetuating this discourse both on and offline likes something “problematic.” It’s impossible not to, unless you live under a rock and consume exactly zero media. Take care, and try not to let the discourse get to you! Go forth and enjoy things! (As always, my inbox is open for follow-up questions.)

ETA: Here’s another excellent tumblr post on this topic! And another one! 

[thatwasthenightthingschanged]

"In retrospect, you could say I was beginning to question things.

But then it was 2018, and a couple of things happened. First, Love, Simon came out in March, which was one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, truly extraordinary experiences of my life. But having your book adapted to a film brings a lot of notoriety and attention, especially online, and it’s not always the fun kind. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a bit of discourse about my identity — how could there not be? Love, Simon was the first gay teen rom com to be released widely by a major film studio, and it was based on a book written by an allocishet woman. Yes, the film’s director was openly gay. No, not everyone cared (frankly, a lot of people still don’t know Love, Simon was based on a book). But in many online spaces, my straightness was a springboard for some — legitimately important — conversations about representation, authenticity, and ownership of stories. And for some people, my straightness was enough to boycott the film entirely.

Then Leah on the Offbeat came out about a month later, and the discourse exploded all over again. There were thinkpieces based on the premise that I, a straight woman, clearly knew nothing about being a bi girl. There were tweets and threads and blog posts, and just about every single one I came across mentioned my straightness. And when Leah debuted on the NYT list, authors I admired and respected tweeted their disappointment that this “first” had been taken by a straight woman. Of course, Leah wasn’t the first f/f YA book to hit the New York Times list. And maybe people were wrong about the other stuff too. But the attention and scrutiny were so overwhelming, and it all hurt so badly, I slammed the lid down on that box and forgot I’d ever cracked it open.

At least I didn’t remember I remembered.

I deleted the sexuality labels from my website. I declined to answer certain questions in interviews. I’d get quietly, passionately indignant when people made assumptions about other authors’ gender identities and sexualities. And I’d feel uncomfortable, anxious, almost sick with nerves every time they discussed mine.

And holy shit, did people discuss. To me, it felt like there was never a break in the discourse, and it was often searingly personal. I was frequently mentioned by name, held up again and again as the quintessential example of allocishet inauthenticity. I was a straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights, profiting off of communities I had no connection to.

Because the thing is, I called myself straight in a bunch of early interviews.

But labels change sometimes. That’s what everyone always says, right? It’s okay if you’re not out. It’s okay if you’re not ready. It’s okay if you don’t fully understand your identity yet. There’s no time limit, no age limit, no one right way to be queer.

And yet a whole lot of these very same people seemed to know with absolute certainty that I was allocishet. And the less certain I was, the more emphatically strangers felt the need to declare it. Apparently it was obvious from my writing. Simon’s fine, but it was clearly written by a het. You can just tell. Her books aren’t really for queer people.

You know what’s a mindfuck? Questioning your sexual identity in your thirties when every self-appointed literary expert on Twitter has to share their hot take on the matter. Imagine hundreds of people claiming to know every nuance of your sexuality just from reading your novels. Imagine trying to make space for your own uncertainty. Imagine if you had a Greek chorus of internet strangers propping up your imposter syndrome at every stage of the process.

The thing is, I really do believe in the value of critically discussing books, particularly when it comes to issues of representation. And I believe in the vital importance of Ownvoices stories. Most of the identities represented in my books are Ownvoices. But I don’t think we, as a community, have ever given these discussions the care and nuance they deserve.

Consider the origin of the Ownvoices hashtag. It was created in 2015 by author Corinne Duyvis, with the purpose of highlighting stories written by authors who share the same marginalized identities as their characters. But Corinne has always emphasized caution when it comes to using Ownvoices to determine which authors can tell which stories. And she’s been incredibly clear and emphatic about not weaponizing the term to pressure authors to disclose private aspects of their identities.

So why do we keep doing this? Why do we, again and again, cross the line between critiquing books and making assumptions about author identities? How are we so aware of invisible marginalization as a hypothetical concept, but so utterly incapable of making space for it in our community?

Let me be perfectly clear: this isn’t how I wanted to come out. This doesn’t feel good or empowering, or even particularly safe. Honestly, I’m doing this because I’ve been scrutinized, subtweeted, mocked, lectured, and invalidated just about every single day for years, and I’m exhausted. And if you think I’m the only closeted or semi-closeted queer author feeling this pressure, you haven’t been paying attention.

And I’m one of the lucky ones! I’m a financially independent adult. I can’t be disowned. I come from a liberal family, I have an enormous network of queer friends and acquaintances, and my livelihood isn’t even remotely at risk. I’m hugely privileged in more ways than I can count. And this was still brutally hard for me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for other closeted writers, and how unwelcome they must feel in this community.

Even as I write this, I’m bracing for the inevitable discourse — I could draft the twitter threads myself if I wanted to. But I’d rather just make a few things really clear. First, this isn’t an attempt to neutralize criticism of my books, and you’re certainly entitled to any reactions you might have had to their content. Second, I’m not asking you to validate my decision to write Simon (or What If It’s Us, or mlm books in general).

But if I can ask for something, it’s this: will you sit for a minute with the discomfort of knowing you may have been wrong about me? And if your immediate impulse is to scrutinize my personal life, my marriage, or my romantic history, can you try to check yourself?

Or how about this: can we all be a bit more careful when we engage in queer Ownvoices discourse? Can we remember that our carelessness in these discussions has caused real harm? And that the people we’re hurting rarely have my degree of privilege or industry power? Can we make space for those of us who are still discovering ourselves? Can we be a little more compassionate? Can we make this a little less awful for the next person?

Can you tell I’m angry? Because I’m angry.

But I’m grateful, too, for those of you who understood the hidden (and not-so-hidden) threads of my books before I did. I’m grateful for the writer whose vulnerability made all of this finally click into place for me. And the ones who put their hearts on the line to hold space for people like me. And the ones who made me feel like I was allowed to care about this. And, of course, I’m grateful for the books. Some of you have no idea how much your words have helped me find mine.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I’m bi. Sorry it took me so long to get here. But then again, at least the little red coming out book I needed was already on my shelf (in about thirty different languages).

I think I finally know why I wrote it."

author Becky Albertalli ("Love, Simon", "Leah On The Offbeat") on her coming out process and the harsh criticism she had to face for he books (whole article here)

I think this perfectly illustrates why we, as a community, should stop assuming other people's identity

[irhinoceri]

I’ve seen a lot of fanfiction vs original fiction discourse in the past couple months on tumblr and I feel like there’s a lot of talk about fanfiction as a starting point, or the be-all-end-all, but no one talks about it as something to get into after having  already written original fiction. I know I’m not the only one who has done this... but it’s strange that it’s almost never talked about in these discussions.

I read voraciously and wrote avidly as a child/teenager and while my writing was undoubtedly derivative of whatever I was reading at the time, none of it was actually fanfiction. It was squarely in the realm of original work. I’ve had a fraught relationship with writing since, but have managed to complete at least first drafts of several novel length works, and in my early twenties (mid 2000s) I was highkey into “web fiction” which is just making a blog (usually a wordpress site) to post original work online, a la fanfiction. I went so far as to self-publish a novel via Lulu so that anyone who wanted to read it in a traditional way (paperback book) rather than via chapters posted via wordpress could do so.

I didn’t have any self-delusion that this made me a legitimate published author, but I still never wrote fanfiction and I looked down on it. I looked down on it far more harshly than a lot of harshest fanfic-critical posts I’ve seen on tumblr lately. The only thing close to fanfiction I would write was parody, because I’d never write anything serious that wasn’t original and that I couldn’t claim total ownership over. The idea of anyone in the hypothetical future writing fanfic of MY characters was awful to me and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with George R.R. Martin’s anti-fanfic stance, if I knew who GRRM was at the time.

In short, I was proud of my originality even though I knew nothing I had written was good enough to pursue traditional publication. I took inspiration from others, as I was aware no man is an island and there’s nothing truly new under the sun, etc. etc. etc. but I firmly believed that you should at least file off the serial numbers so you’re not insulting original creators by going against their intentions for their creative work to change or “fix” it. The popular fandom attitude that fanon can improve upon original work was just ridiculous to me. You either liked a work or you didn’t, there was no in between where you liked bits and pieces of canon and threw out the rest.

It wasn’t until 4 years ago that I set aside my pride enough to try writing a serious work of fanfiction, to engage with the idea that you could love a thing and still want to imagine it a different way, and to actually look into reading what other people were publishing on fanfiction.net and Ao3, rather than treating fanfic as an untouchable thing that would forever tarnish me.

The catalyst for this was that I wanted to read and write Padme Lives! fiction that imagined Star Wars without having to knock Padme off at the end of RotS. I’d seen RotS four times in theatres and many more times since, but always hated that Padme had to die at the end, and after TFA came out and there was a Star Wars revival, it rekindled my SW love that began with Attack of the Clones in 2002.

That’s it. I finally decided that I wanted Padme to live enough to write fic where she was alive or seek out other fic people had written about her being alive, despite everything. I was delighted to find entire novels set in a world where Anakin didn’t fall to the Dark Side at all, or repented in the nick of time, or other different ways for the story to unfold. I discovered that Vaderdala was an actual thing people thought was at all theoretically possible. I finally understood why people wrote fanfic. I was 31 years old.

I’ve written maybe about 500k words of fanfiction since 2016 but I’m still pretty sure the collective word count of all my original fiction since childhood still vastly eclipses that. I wrote a lot, guys. I was a homeschooled child who was largely left to my own devices (i.e. self-taught) and I had nothing in the world to do except milk goats, play in the woods, and read/write. You can get a lot of writing done when you’ve got nothing else.

So anyway.

I see people talking about this in reverse, how so many authors use fanfic and as a stepping stone towards originality, but I rarely see anyone talk about discovering the merit of fanfiction and the joy of writing it later on.

I had my reasons for starting to write fanfic after roughly 25 years of only writing original fiction, besides just wanting Padme to live. I won’t get into all of it here, but I graduated from college at the end of 2015 with a creative writing degree and haven’t written any original fiction since.

Suffice it is to say that I really admire people who brave the traditional publishing world and go out there and try to get published, get paid, to be a legitimate Author of Original Published Works. It takes a certain kind of courage to do that. The world would be a worse place if all writers just wrote fanfic. More people should be discovering new authors and stories, and consuming media that isn’t made by committee under the watchful eye of a corporation. People who have new ideas, who have something to say to the world that is totally original and isn’t just a revamp of licensed work should absolutely be doing that. And we should be celebrating and supporting them.

But if that’s not in the cards for you, fanfic can be very important. Fanfiction can be a life-saver.

I’m glad that fanfiction gives me a way to still write. I already know what it’s like to write original fiction. I don’t need to use fanfic as a stepping stone to anything, but that doesn’t mean I’m not serious about it in my own way. Letting go of the need to be profound and original (or publishable) is behind me, personally, but I still do care about the quality of the work I put out.

I just wonder how many other writers who have chosen fanfic as their main outlet feel that way? I.E. it’s not a vehicle to one day write your own original work because you’ve Been There and Done That.

[awed-frog]

I like reading from your blog cause I see all the blqck/white discourse from an European pov and it sounds so crazy but then I read what you can add to those post and I'm like, yes thank you for being the voice of reason here... Like jesus I can't believe people are so hellbent on some things they forget the world is not like the usa and its specificities

Thank you for this message! I’m not sure which posts you’re referring to, but I do try very hard to learn about stuff so I can have an informed opinion - it means a lot that you think I sometimes succeed. 

I think that maybe we were too optimistic about this ‘global village’ thing, and specifically in thinking that widespread knowledge of English would help people understand one another. Because you’re right: in my experience, Americans tend to dominate conversations because a) they speak their native language all the time, b) they’re often a majority in online spaces, c) they’re not used to living with other cultures and also d) they grow up with the idea that being loud and confident is a good thing.

(As a kind of apology: I know the US is a big country, and I’m sure there are endless differences in social rules and stuff like that. I can only comment on what I’ve seen in fiction and IRL, which, to be fair, seems to be pretty consistent.)

As for the race part, yeah, that’s complicated. Every time I think I understand it a bit more, I find out about yet another horrifying detail and I have to start from scratch again. What is universal is that ‘we forgot those nobodies we needed as workers were actual people’ thing - you find it over and over again and it always causes problems. And obviously in the US it took the form of actual slavery, but the schematics are pretty much the same everywhere? You see it in Germany with the Gastarbeiter, in France with people from Maghreb - both groups were invited in because of a lack of workers, with the explicit or implicit expectation that they would keep to themselves, do nothing outside of work and fuck off asap when they were no longer needed. But, of course, people are people. We want to make friends, get married, have kids, be reunited with relatives, and eventually we get used to or come to like the place we’re living in, despite the fact it’s so very different from our childhood home. In the US, of course, the matter is complicated by the fact these workers were slaves and were bought and kept as slaves long after we knew slavery wasn’t acceptable. 

(Because that’s the horror on top of the horror: in the ancient world, you only get the odd philosopher speculating about human rights; but by the late 17th century, those ideas were - if not 100% established - something many countries were using as foundation for their laws and codes of conduct. 

We knew. We all knew.

And yet.)

And as outsiders, I know what puzzles many people here is the degree to which this segregation still exists. Many of us know our ancestors who emigrated to the US faced poverty, abuse and severe discrimination, but those things eased - as they generally do - generation after generation. Unfortunately, it’s easy to hate and distrust a recent immigrant; but once they have children, once those children have children, there is no longer any objective difference between those children and native children. They go to the same schools, support the same teams, watch the same programs. Of course, one house may have a black-dressed grandma lurking in a corner, or different cooking smells, but that is about it. In the US, despite the constant talk of patriotism and the flags and the relentless cultural indoctrination, this process happens very unevely across different communities. 

For instance, one thing I don’t really understand is how African-Americans managed to keep their own specific form of English (truth be told, I don’t actually know whether AAE is the same in every state/family, and how that works exactly?). Because every black person I met in the UK had either a national accent (first generation immigrants and exchange students) or a 100% British accent. The fact an entire community is so linguistically distinct - that must be evidence of a deep segregation that’s still pervasive - in the school system, in the job market, in social circles. I know this must be obvious to any American, but I don’t know how obvious it is to them that in Europe, accent is generally lost in the span of 20 years - even if a community is deliberately marginalized (just watch any interview with an Italian Romani).

(One thing that struck me was an op-ed written by an African-American man who’d grown up on a US military base in Germany. He said that when his family came back to the US, he was actively bullied by the other black kids because he didn’t speak the ‘right’ kind of English and was completely unaware of the rules framing US race relations. Twenty years later, he still didn’t feel part of either community.)

Anyway - I don’t know where I was going with this. I talked about racism before, when someone asked why Europeans don’t use the word ‘race’, and while our system is very far from perfect, I think what’s going on in the US is far more fucked up. People need to live together so it becomes clear that the only real distinction is between those who worry about the next meal and those who do not. Until we sit here and retreat into our own actual or perceived identity, to the point where we refuse to engage with someone who’s not ‘like us’, nothing’s ever going to get fixed; and that’s the same everywhere, isn’t it?