#he’s not some ‘uwu misunderstood pookie-wookie bear’. he is human but he is still a bad person.

[eenochian]

i loved ur post about how cod fans have been treating the characters!! i found it insane how they were having a moral panic over makarov (is the cod fandom like one of the few fandoms that does this? lol) but it needed to be said… people are drawn to cod characters for many reasons and i’m sure it’s not because of “morals”

Thank you!! I was very nervous posting that, since I know parts of this fandom can get pretty aggressive about other opinions. I wasn’t trying to target or insult anyone with my statement, but there’s very clear double standards with characters!

I actually just made another post about this topic (sounds like self-promo I’m so sorry) because, yeah, this fandom can’t seem to understand that art isn’t always about good morals. Being sensitive and mindful about what you produce and engage with is very important, and doing your part to not be influenced by the problematic content that you consume is very important. However, all media is problematic in some way, especially COD (y’know, the military propaganda series). People need to be able to engage with media like this because, if everything is morally “pure,” then we lose out on important discussions about real-world issues, safe spaces for troubled folks, and lessons on media literacy.

I’ve talked about this and thought about this a lot in the past couple days. Like, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past 48 hours stepping back and looking at myself and my behavior in this fandom. I always try to be mindful, sensitive, and very careful with what I produce. That being said, I’m far from perfect. I have an ongoing fanfic for Makarov on my writing blog. Valeria is one of my favorite characters. I’m indifferent on Graves, but will gladly admit that he’s a very compelling villain and an interesting character.

Acknowledging that these problematic things are problematic isn’t saying that you can’t engage with them. You absolutely should engage with stuff like this if you so wish. The important thing to remember if you do choose to produce content of these characters, however, is that there’s nothing romantic in what they do, and they are based off very real issues in our world. Explore the different sides of them, enjoy them, but do not romanticize them.

A very good mindset that I’ve taken to heart is this: these people may be horrible, but they are still people. Humans are not one-dimensional beings. Explore the other sides of them. Humanize, but do not romanticize.

Sorry for the rambling, but thank you again for the response! People need to be kinder to each other and more mindful of the content they engage with, but that doesn’t equate to complete media purity.