#not drama- discourse

[avantgardetheseventh]

need everyone to be normal about aspec people for a sec thx

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

tag y’all’s problematic ships 🫶🏻

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[crimeronan]

it's sometimes so silly to look in the notes of a polyamory art/post and see people like "is this cheating art....?" when the characters in canon are all extremely close friends. i know it's not malicious because most people think of monogamy as the default and anything outside that Must be cheating, but truly i'm always like. guys. guys Please.

please think about this for like 2 seconds.

under what circumstances do we think this non-canon couple might hold hands directly in front of their canon partners. and under what circumstances do we think the canon partners might be okay with this. do we Truly think this is a secret relationship. do we Truly think these guys would sneak around behind their canon partners' backs when all of them are extremely close friends with a high level of trust and commitment to each other.

would assuming that these extremely close friends have actually communicated with one another Exactly The Same Way They Do In The Canon Source Material perhaps cause less despair.....

[tyetknot]

*carefully tosses a golden apple labelled 'TO THE LEAST PROBLEMATIC' into the middle of witchblr discourse*

[andythecorsair]

My favourite artist has been cancelled! What do I do??

I think this is the wrong way to address the issue. Rather than cancellation, we need individually to decide how the scandal, statement, or other controversy colours the work we love, and in what shades. For some people, the metatextual knowledge of the artist will be overwhelming, and they won't be able to continue to consume the work. For others, it will just be another thread, however distasteful, on top of the themes and interpretations that were already present in the artist's art. For others still, it will have no effect at all, as they don't inject that commentary into the text at all. All three are equally valid.

There's a fourth group, of course, which is particularly social media prone, who enjoy feeling morally righteous by ceasing to consume the work of people who've been cancelled. I know because I spent a lot of time thinking that way. If you're one of those, I'm sure you'll be tempted to reply, but I'm not talking to you. So we'll leave door number 4 for now.

What I would suggest is that you go back and consume the art that you love and see how much you read the current scandal into it. That will tell you how much you're still able to enjoy the work for what it was to you a month ago. It might be that falling into those old, comforting flows of language or colour of music allows you to put the real world aside as you fall into it. It might well be that it's time to find some other artist who speaks to you in a similar way. Even if you return to that artist's work some day in the future.

Whatever you choose to do, I'd say take a break from the discourse here and on other social media and make your mind up for yourself. Ultimately art is a conversation between the artist and the consumer. Everything else is just noise.

I've put in the tags the artist I was thinking of when I wrote this, but I really do think it applies to any artist; including ones that I personally find loathsome, such as J. K. Rowling or Morrissey. Your relationship with art is your own, and don't let anyone else shout you down.

[simaraknows]

i see your "'does he want to lick my boots or chop off my hands' is a Nicki reference" and raise you "what if Armand's relationship with sex is so fucked that his two modi are total submission and 'don't touch me or I'll chop off your hands' and Louis is still clowning on his trauma" in this essay I will

[tevanbuckley]

okay I know ppl are getting tired of crossposting from twitter but this felt too good not to share.

these kids are really about to get hit in the face with the fact that the online bubble they’ve spent the summer in is not representative of the real world.

[yangscowlick]

Because the “shrodinger’s queerbait” nonsense will never go away, indulge me an analogy (and a long post).

wlw ships are the “made from scratch” cake in a world where we only ever expect cake mix from the box.

Say you have a show where, in the first interaction between a male and female character, there is a red box. It could be a Betty Crocker box of cake mix. Because all it takes is just one smile — one wink — one raised eyebrow— and the fans don’t question it. We’re clearly making a cake here. The box is red.

Meanwhile, you have two female characters building their own relationship that have elements that could build to romance. There are eggs in the fridge. A few more episodes, there’s flour in the pantry. Sugar. Baking powder. Queer fans start whispering…we could be making a cake here. Other fans scoff “you will read into anything. They’re just eggs! Everyone has eggs in their fridge!” Maybe so, maybe not. They are written off as discrete ingredients, nothing to see here.

That red box is still sitting in the pantry. Obviously we’re going with that one, and it’s definitely cake mix. That guy and girl stood next to each other again.

The wlw relationship is now full-on batter. It was a cake recipe all along, but it’s not baked yet. The crowd that wrote off every ingredient is now saying the writers are just going to “squander” that box that could be ready-made cake mix or that they’re being “forced” to bake a cake with the very ingredients the writers deliberately bought and put in their pantry.

Now it’s in the oven, the cake is baking. That crowd will still insist it’s forced, or maybe its actually something else, or it’s rushed, or it’s pandering. Whether the writers painstakingly built a pantry to make the cake they truly wanted or they were cultivating good ingredients and realized they had the fixings for a more decadent cake and went there, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a recipe. One that fans who always have to piece together ingredients had hoped for or saw from the get-go, despite being scoffed at and disparaged. Just because that crowd didn’t see (or refused to see) those ingredients as part of a whole, doesn’t make it any less of a recipe.

And wlw fans shouldn’t have to keep writing essays to demonstrate that the wlw “cake” has all the ingredients every cake mix does, or keep pointing out that fans were ready to believe a cake was being baked when they saw a nondescript box, but that they’ll do anything to discredit or doubt the cake from scratch that’s now cooling off on the counter.

It is partly a function of heteronormativity from the audience in immediately seeing romance in any whisper of interaction between m/f characters and passing off all charged interactions between female characters are sisterly or platonic. And it also comes from writers, who are either being cautious so as not to spook corporate overlords or audiences, or who are preserving plausible deniability.

To take the analogy further, box cake mix is fine! It works! It is, practically speaking, what a lot of folks know by default. I thought I was a Duncan Hines girl once myself. Vanilla cake mix has the ingredients measured out, it’s a safe bet, it tastes like cake.

But it doesn’t mean every red box is cake mix. And it doesn’t make the cake that had to be pieced together from scratch due to censorship, caution, time, narrative build-up, what-have-you, any less of a cake.

[edenfenixblogs]

Well Drawfee is officially no longer safe media for me :(

Karina liked multiple tweets conflating a PSA for antisemitism with Israeli propaganda and claiming that Israel planned its assault to coincide with the superbowl…

Julia liked posts claiming that the war isn’t a war. Nobody has liked anything about antisemitism or even acknowledging Jews are in danger right now.

TBH I’m devastated.

I have Drawfee art all over my home. I was actually gonna become a patron this year. I’d literally been saving to make it feasible. This is crushing. I feel sick.

[orb-the-watchman]

It's so cathartic seeing posts on Twitter like 'ugh I hate when fandom does this thing!!" And I think "heh. Bugsnax fandom doesn't do that"

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

what people think pro ship means: dangerous people who want to harm children in real life and/or think taboo subjects in real life are justified

what pro ship actually is about: the belief that people are allowed to enjoy fictional thing however they want, as long as it's fictional and no one in real life gets harmed or harassed in any way, and as long as they tag their trigger warnings properly.

most pro ship folks I've come across are just "hey, you like this fucked up thing that is fictional? okay, cool. you do you, man. I myself don't even like this thing that you like, but hey, it's not real. and I trust that you know the difference between fiction and reality, so you do you. if it ever gets too much for me, I will just block or mute you and move on with my life, but that doesn't mean I think you're a horrible person in real life because of the fictional thing you like, it just means I'd rather not see or engage with this thing that can make me uncomfortable. I still want you to have fun doing what you love, and I still think you're cool as fuck. love and respect, dude"

meanwhile most anti ship I've seen are like "omg you like this fictional thing where fictional children are harmed??! Red Flag Red Flag. put this gross piece of shit behind bars immediately!!!"

and I'm just ????? I don't normally engage in fandom wars, but I think, as long as you don't harass anyone in real life and as long as no one in real life is in danger or is harmed, how you enjoy fictional things is none of my business. and I'm not gonna make any "call out post" where I encourage my followers to harass you because you like fucked up fictional things that I personally don't like or believe is wrong either.

I mean, from personal experience, I was exposed against my will to thing I didn't want to see from anti's screenshot of fanart or fanfic where they encourage their followers to harass this person whose fanart or fanfic, that was screenshot and spread by them, was originally tagged properly with all the trigger warnings so that people who didn't want to see it wouldn't get exposed to it. until anti screenshot it and flaunted it around in the name of being morally superior while also, at the same time, advocated for the witch hunt against someone who just wanted to mind their own business. so... the irony. lol

fandoms used to be more peaceful before Fandom Police starts their witch hunting, but it's a good thing we can just block these people and keep on enjoying our blorbos however we want to enjoy them.

and I'll always encourage every artist to write whatever they want, draw whatever they want. don't let people who think they're "morally superior" tell you you can't make art this way or that way. my best advice would be to block and ignore and keep on creating what you want. they may be loud, but at the end of the day they're just noises and they're not worth your attention x

[theoddest1]

Hey guys, check out this thread on twitter! Has all the vital info and everything. Also has some people share even more info of Viv being a fucking ass

Like this, for example. Here, we have Viv's sister having to speak for her to talk with Starvader, someone Viv quite literally fucked over....Vuv refused to speak to her herself in dms and refused to properly apologize.

[avephelis]

okay. jrwi fandom. sitting you all down. i need everyone to hear this. all sides. okay? ready? the discourse is stupid. (TLDR: block each other)

making a dichotomy out of what is a nuanced topic, and enforcing it on EVERYONE with an "us versus them" mentality, is stupid. boundaries and fandom activity are not a black and white moral issue, and you are all harassing each other over having different personal opinions. and forcing that discourse onto everyone else.

you CANNOT and WILL NOT "win" an online argument by harassing people. if you group people up, and ostracise/villainise that group, those people are going to LASH OUT. and DOUBLE DOWN. they are not going to magically agree with you. it's frustrating, but that is how the internet works.

boundaries and fandom are complicated topics. jrwi boundaries, especially, hinge on a message from 2021, which has since been contradicted by the source material. it is a grey area. but REGARDLESS of your stance on that, the point of boundaries (about fictional media and fictional characters of age) are to protect an INDIVIDUAL, and what THEY see and interact with. not to create a code of rules for everyone. and as far as i'm aware, nobody has been making the council interact with nsfw content.

FURTHERMORE. people are ALLOWED to have their own boundaries. people are ALLOWED to be uncomfortable with sensitive content, and to choose whether to engage or disengage with it based on the information they are given. making fun of people (ESPECIALLY minors) for being uncomfortable with a complex situation, and for disengaging to look after themselves, as well as acting intentionally obtuse, is not counterculture. or a "ha, gotcha". it is not cool. it is immature and needlessly cruel.

and, while it is important for people to have safe spaces, jrwi is a piece of adult media. it is fine if teens are interacting with it and the fandom space, but you cannot expect everyone to cater to your personal comforts in that space. and i don't mean this condescendingly, but everyone NEEDS to be responsible for catering their experience to best look after themself and others. because social media by design is a hostile environment.

block tags that are uncomfortable. block people you are uncomfortable around. and the people creating said sensitive work? TAG IT so we can avoid it. rate it appropriately. it is not funny to intentionally expose people to content you know is triggering for them.

and as for callouts. if there is nobody being actively hurt (which there were not in recent events), you can handle it privately. otherwise you are actively exposing uninvolved people to content they are probably trying to avoid. which isn't productive.

please just be respectful and take care of both yourself and others.

[werewolf-cuddles]

Gotta love how "If a character was introduced to us as a minor, then they are FOREVER a minor, even if they canonically grow up" is just accepted as a normal thing to think by some weirdos.

Like, i stg, there are still people who insist Korra is a minor because she was 17 in Book 1, despite the fact that she's 18 in Books 2 & 3, and 21 by the end of the series.

And I'll never forget that one screenshot where some dipshits on Tik Tok said it was creepy that the characters from Naruto canonically grew up and had children.

Anti-ship discourse has fucking warped people's perception of what's normal to a ridiculous degree.

[feything-n-frothing]

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