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kyliafanfiction · 12 days

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I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

#Anakin Skywalker #Azula #Grant Ward #Amy Dallon #Panacea #Empathy #Sympathy #I kind of used both terms probably a little wrongly I don't know but I think my point is clear #the tagged characters were Just a few of the characters I had in mind while writing this #So many times I see people talking about the context and the way this and that character who did horrible shit and then I see other people #give them so much shit for that and say its not okay to talk about these things because it's victim blaming or erasing the crimes #or disrespecting the victim and like - it's all fictional but also like... even if it were real #a real person who suffered #whatever else they do later #is a real fucking person who fucking suffered #Ultimately if you can't bring yourself to empathize with a given fictional character - whether it's because their crimes hit close to home #or not - it's fine #you're not a bad person for that and I'm not saying that #but if you consistently never empathize with the fictional characters who deserve it and consistently try to downplay their trauma in the #context of the fiction or even try to erase it #Then maybe reflect #and either way - let other people empathize and talk about the context and all the rest for these characters in peace #even if you feel like they're whitewashing or victim blaming they probably aren't in 99% of cases and even if they are when it comes to #fictional characters they're fucking fictional just block or ignore or back button and move on maybe vent in your own space #But just - leave it alone #And maybe - if you haven't before - try to practice the 'Advanced Empathy' required to feel for these fictional monsters. It really is a #good exercise #Also like please reblog this I'm not really on tumblr for the notes most of the time but I really poured out a lot into this one and I'm #tired of doing that only to feel like I'm shouting into an empty void #I am on here because on some level I want engagement I want the connection

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 2 years

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Twitter Tagging System =/= Tumblr Tagging System

I know a lot of people are moving to Tumblr from Twitter after all the chaos, so I’m writing this in hopes people will be able to interact with others better if they understand the tagging system for Tumblr as it is when I’m writing this.

Your biggest reminder for tags: This is a blogging website.

General tagging system and how people use it:

On Twitter people have always written #theirtaghere to tag their posts within the post itself. Tags on Twitter exist for people to find your post - in other words, directly for engagement of the content posted.

On Tumblr, tags (not written directly in the post itself) are used for two things primarily: Getting your post out to a wider audience outside of just your followers, and for blog organization as well as to be able to find posts on your blog later.

Twitter has never had an archive system where you can search a tag to find all your tagged posts later. Tumblr has this. In other words, for example, if you’re in a fandom, you may find posts where two or more characters are interacting. The post may be tagged with all of the characters involved in the post, but you may not like whatever opinions or comments are on the post. However, it’s not necessarily tagged specifically so people who are fans of what was tagged will see your hot takes. Chances are, it’s so they can access it at any time via their blog, as tags are searchable on our own accounts here.

What you can do to avoid your not necessarily positive fandom commentary (or hot takes you don’t want people seeing) from going into searchable tags is to avoid tagging the fandom or characters involved in the post that you don’t feel highly about, only tagging the one(s) you aren’t being negative about (ex. I love this character but I hate this character, so I’ll avoid tagging the character I hate so it won’t show up in people’s search results where they’ll be looking for nice, positive content or they probably wouldn’t be in that search).

This is NOT the same as tagging on Twitter (or writing out full search keywords on Twitter which also picks things up and puts them in searches where people will be looking for positive content of what they like). Tags on Tumblr only go into searchable tags if the post is a new post and not a reblog. If you do hate that one fandom or character, you can write the name out in full in your tags if it’s a reblog! Reblog tags are literally just there for archiving purposes. They won’t show up in searches.

Another way of being able to tell if someone is just tagging a new, non-reblog post for archiving: are they using the fandom/character’s full title/name? For example, are they using only a fandom abbreviation (ex. some people might tag Attack on Titan as AoT, The Umbrella Academy as TUA, or A Song of Ice and Fire as ASoIaF)? They may be trying to avoid putting something into the main tag but want it available to be found on their blog (this is not always the case, but you should always keep in mind that it might be before engaging with their post).

Same with characters name: for example, since this blog is fandom specific, I don’t need to use full names because I know who everyone is within this blog’s fandom, so I only use first names. That’s an example of tagging for archiving purposes - only tagging it so it can be found later and not necessarily for it to be found in searches. Unfortunately some characters do have very unique names that you won’t find in other/a lot of other fandoms, so they’ll show up in tags using only first names, but generally if you’re actively looking for post engagement, you’re going to be typing out the character’s full name if they have one.

Also, people tend to use tags to continue their thoughts if they’re offhand thoughts less related to the topic in the post (such as going off on a semi-unrelated tangent but it’s on their mind). You may see lengthy conversational tags! It’s just something people here do to add to their thoughts and express them without mixing those thoughts with the main post when they may not totally fit in with it.

On that note, you may also see people reply in the tags instead of directly on the post. Often this is a way of adding one’s thoughts to the post but not necessarily wanting it to circulate on the post. Your tags will stay only on your blog, so the next reblogger that finds the post through you won’t reblog it having your thoughts all over it (unless they really loved your tags, in which case they may reblog it with your tags, which is generally a compliment here). If you want your thoughts to be potentially reblogged you can of course reply on the post itself - just remember that those thoughts may be seen by a lot of people depending on the post going around. Some people also use tags as a way to compliment artists and writers. When people reblog art and writing, they probably don’t want some random person’s comments on the art or writing they’re enjoying (and will have to go to the OP’s version of the post from their blog to get the original without the comments on it). They probably want to just reblog the OP’s work. Your tags can be seen by the OP in their notes activity, so leave all your kind, warm, fuzzy compliments in the tags so they can read them! Sometimes they may even send you an ask or a message in response if they have something to say!

One last thing to note for general tagging: USE SPACES IN YOUR TAGS HOLY HELL YEEHAW MOTHERTRUCKER TRUCKING ON THE HIGHWAY. Do NOT write “AttackonTitan” or “ASongofIceandFire” as a tag, because Tumblr users don’t use the search function that way! You’re not going to get engagement if that’s what you're looking for! When you’re writing in that little #tags bar under your post, just write out the full series name/character name with spaces.

Avoiding negative interaction:

So say you want to avoid people finding your content altogether because people can be jerks and will send you hate. You can make your own tags for things. Tags you can consider trying out are things like “[user’s name here]’s rambles” or “[fandom name/character name negativity]”.

Now, if people look up “x fandom/character negativity” despite loving the thing in question and engage with posts in there, that’s their own fault and they deserve to be upset for looking into the tag in the first place. Maybe don’t look into a tag you know you won’t like the content of.

On that same train of thought, if you see a post with commentary about something you like but it’s negative and you hate it, make sure you check how it’s tagged before flying into a rage on the person. If you looked at the Attack on Titan tag and you found hate for Armin or something, but how dare they, you love Armin!... don’t reply to it with your bullshit. Don’t send them hate. Don’t even interact with the post. Scroll past it and move on. Why? Because you found that post in the general fandom tag, not the Armin Arlert tag.

Now, if you do find hate for Armin in the Armin Arlert tag, let me tell you, that’s super shitty of the person to tag his full name with their hate. If you’re tagging something that you’re hating on, you know people are going to find that post when they look through the tag. People look through tags to find content they enjoy, not to see someone bitching about what they love. Don’t be the annoying asshole who tags your hate with a character’s full name. Yes, even if it’s for archiving purposes for your own blog. Just use another tag, such as just his first name (as people will usually be searching for full names when looking for content they enjoy due to some names being very common throughout fandoms/series). If you prefer to use a totally custom tag, that works too!

HOWEVER! Dearies, if you see hate in a tag and you love the subject of the tag, please just block the person and move on. Don’t waste your time and energy sending them anything about it just to let them know you’re angry/upset. If you think it might have been an accident/unintentional because the person is not aware of how the Tumblr tagging systems works, feel free to drop them an ask or message (if messages for non-mutuals is allowed by them on their blog which can be found in your blog’s settings), but BE POLITE about it. Just kindly inform them in case they’re unaware. If they reply to you being a fuckwad jerk about it, block them and move along. Again though, just do your best not to engage with tagged negativity (or negativity at all if you can help it).

Tumblr is a blogging site for long form content (the complete opposite of Twitter) and nowadays also artwork, so people are going to want to tag their posts to find them later! Just be mindful of how you tag things, and be mindful of how you interact with posts that you may not agree with.

#Tumblr Etiquette #And yes this post might unfortunately show up in the three fandoms I used as examples here simply because I wrote them out even though they #so I'm sorry to the three fandoms if you see this post show up in your fandom stuff. Tumblr tagging is a wild place too sometimes #Also if you're confused about anything bc it takes me a lot of words to explain myself... send an ask if you want clarification lol #Why am I writing all this? Because there are a LOT of Twitter users coming in who have never used Tumblr #and the sites are as different as day and night for their overall and general usage #You're not just moving from one social media site to another #You're moving to an entirely different platform with a whole different structure #with a whole lot of very different-minded people who aren't used to engaging with content the same way you've been

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