The THING is. When people (I am including myself in this) try to talk about how "Why is there overall less of an emphasis on women's stories and female characters and f/f shipping, especially when according to the stats we see being shared, fandom is significantly populated by queer women, hmm this seems a bit strange," there's ALMOST ALWAYS this assumption that it comes from a place of gender essentialism or purity culture or hating every single man for existing or something. ARE there some people who mean that? Yeah, there are going to be people like that in EVERY group of people who try to talk about anything. But when people complain about this, it's most generally because WE EXPERIENCE STRUCTURAL MISOGYNY IRL, AND NOW WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE SAME SOCIAL EFFECTS WITHIN SOMETHING THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE "FUN." THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

And this goes for when people try to talk about racism in fandom spaces as well. And ableism. And transphobia. And any other form of prejudice you can think of. Is talking about this in one (1) context that is not directly political going to forever eliminate bigotry? No. Obviously not. But the thing about systemic bias and prejudice is that IT IS PRESENT AT EVERY LEVEL, EVEN THE "FUN" ONES.

Genuine question as to why you feel so passionate about being pro-jedi? I definitely wouldn't say I'm anti-jedi, but I think there are some decent criticisms that can be made about them. But overall I'm just interested to understand the dedication to being pro-jedi, cause it is a fictional organisation at the end of the day. Isn't it more fulfilling to look at them from different perspectives so we can get the most out of the story as possible?

Before I answer, I'm going to ask you a question in turn, would you ever ask this question to someone who was anti-Jedi? Would you ever imply that they need to change their view on the Jedi because they're "not getting the most out of the story?"

Now, I'm going to preface this answer by saying that I'm not angry with you, I'm just very passionate about this topic---so don't take any of this personally. You seem like you're genuinely asking, and I appreciate that.

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Personally, for me, there aren't really any criticisms that can be made about the Jedi- (keep in mind, I primarily adhere to Lucas Canon, everything else is just an add on depending whether I like it or not). Everything that people criticize the Jedi for or accuse them of falls into one of three categories:

Not true- (the Jedi are a cult, the Jedi repress their emotions, the Jedi were mean to Anakin, etc.)

Done for a reason because the other option would be worse/it was their only real option in a bad situation- (the Jedi shouldn't have fought in the war, the Jedi should've defended Ahsoka, the Jedi are slavers because of the clones, etc.)

Or it's something that's an Eastern concept/practice but people refuse to look at it as such and instead project their Western viewpoint/religious trauma onto them- (literally the entire thing about attachment)

I've never seen any criticism of the Jedi that doesn't fall into one of these categories, so why should I be inclined to "hear people out" or "look at the Jedi from other perspectives" when there's...really nothing else to look at?

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Another thing to consider is that, while the Jedi are fictional characters, George Lucas based them heavily on very real religions and groups---particularly Jews and Buddhists.

So when people say things like- "the Jedi weren't allowed to care/love/have emotions because of Attachment™️" -they're spreading harmful misinformation and basically saying that Buddhists can't love/care/have emotions because of their rule against attachment, since the philosophy of non-attachment is literally taken verbatim from Buddhism.

And when people usually pair the above rhetoric with- "-and that's why the Jedi deserved what they got/caused their own downfall" -it's...a very concerning mindset for people to perpetuate---especially when George Lucas based the genocide of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire off of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

When you strip away the fictional aspects of it, a lot of what people say about the Jedi is literally Nazi/antisemitic/Holocaust denial rhetoric. To take an example of something that has actually been said on one of my posts:

"The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. The Jedi Order is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users,' and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of 'Force Users' still exists albeit heavily restricted and controlled by the Sith during the Empire Era." - @/ironwoodarl01

And, as @zarohk pointed out:

It’s depressing how so many “Jedi critical” talking points are pretty much antisemitism and Holocaust denial/justification: The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. "The Jedi Order religion of Judaism is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users Abrahamic faiths, and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of Force Users Abrahamic faiths still exists…" Similar thinly-veiled antisemitism in the Star Wars fandom also frequently includes supersessionism, the Christian idea that during the (Roman) Republic era, the Jedi Jews had become corrupt and lost their way, and and so finally a divinely created person was sent to show them new path. This is why attempts to read Star Wars where Anakin is a Christ figure or correct where the Jedi have failed (ignoring the fact that he wrecked the lives of most people he was involved with, including himself, and the Darth Vader was never happy) are not just incorrect, but generally have a thick underlayer of antisemitism.

So, while Star Wars is fictional, it's important for people to analyze why they feel the way they do about the Jedi and be critical of the ways in which they talk about/criticize the Jedi---because, like it or not, the Jedi and their genocide are based on real people/things and so your reaction to them/what happened to them can be very telling.

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Finally, being critical of the good guys or trying to view everything through a morally grey lens doesn't make the story inherently more interesting, nor does it inherently add anything to the story---so I'm not "missing" anything.

If believing that no one can actually just be good, and everyone has to have some agenda, and "the good guys were the REAL bad guys all along" adds something to Star Wars for you...by all means, go ahead and believe what you want.

But my view of Star Wars isn't "lesser" or "missing something" just because I don't share that view and actually like the good guys and believe in what they taught/did.

----------

I'm passionate about being pro-Jedi because of everything I outlined above and because they were truly good people who tried their best to help the galaxy---they were brought down, not because of anything they did, but because of one man's selfish stupid actions.

There might've been a time when I was willing to hear people out when they criticized the Jedi---because hey! maybe I was wrong---but that time has long passed because nothing anyone has ever criticized the Jedi for has held up to scrutiny, and anti-Jedi people won't just keep the fuck off my page and leave me alone.

So, frankly, this is my blog and I'm allowed to be as passionate as I want to be---and I'm not gonna stop, or start viewing the Jedi as "wrong" or "bad" or whatever, just because you- (and other people, I'm sure) -think I'm missing something by being strictly pro-Jedi

The problem with pro-shippers: NSFW child content

Silence is golden but that only pertains to certain cases. The subject of pro-ship vs anti-ship has been a huge manner of debate in fandoms, primarily A03 and A03's subreddit and tumblr community. If you admit to being anti-ship, you're suddenly exiled and considered a pariah to the community and a promoter of cancel culture.

"Let people enjoy things!" "It's not real, it's fictional!" "These characters and actors are our toys to play with" "Disregard all haters, they're the monsters"

Only goes so far in some subjects. There is a fine line drawn when the content involves CSEA that's not told with a negative connotation.

However, pro-shippers do not like being told the difference.

The difference between a negative narrative and a romanticizing narrative. (ie: we as readers and the author know that pedophilia and child pornography is bad. Versus: we as readers and the author enjoy fictional pornography when it involves children and we enjoy writing 10 year olds having sex with other 10 year olds or a 10 year old calling a 40 year old man "daddy" during NSFW acts).

That the characters being fictionalized completely disregards all notions that the author and readers enjoy reading about children in NSFW content. Because it's "fictional".

That if you like watching a cannibal on TV and the fact that you may enjoy a show about a cannibal, it doesn't make you a cannibal because it's fiction. This argument is used on the daily for pro-shippers.

4. Because no children are actually harmed. That may be, but the reader and author are still enjoying content that involves the images of children in NSFW scenarios.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if the children are fictionalized or not, but no pro-shipper is going to agree because the characters in themselves are considered "toys" they can play with. (Don't get me started on how wrong the term of "toy" sounds in regards to children, fictional or not.)

The true facts here are that the reader and author are still putting a child's face onto a character involved in NSFW content. That's all it is. Picturing a child's prepubescent body parts as a character and finding that attractive enough to write about in an NSFW fashion. Again, pro-ship will disagree and become hostile.

But why is NSFW fictional child pornography morally wrong when writing fictionalized incest pornography is not?

Because the fictionalized incest pornography does not involve actual siblings or family members. One may just like the characters together regardless of blood. It doesn't mean that the author or reader is attracted to their real life sibling or wishes to put two real life siblings together in NSFW scenarios like Liam and Chris Hemsworth and because child pornography is CSEA. A child cannot consent. Even fantasizing about a fictional child in rape scenarios is beyond levels of fucked up.

"But fictionalized incest isn't real so fictionalized child pornography isn't real"

The biggest difference is that the reader and writer aren't finding the real life prospect of incest attractive, but they are finding CSEA content an attractive scenario.

But god forbid you raise your voice against this, and you'll be crucified.

It. Doesn't. Matter. That. They're. Not. Real.

You are still attracted to the images of child characters.

But wait, no actual children were harmed?! "It's just an instrusive thought" "I can safely look at CSEA in a safe environment where I don't hurt anyone" No. Get help. Get therapy. Harm reduction is not thr same when it comes to non consenting minors and when it comes to a user getting off on the idea of children. Get help. There is no lesser evil here. These thoughts are not okay.

Come @ me. I'm not scared. Not as scared as some pro-shippers should be once their search history is discovered. (For the record, I pray you do not have this kind of content on your person. However if you truly believe CSEA is okay if no one is physically harmed by you then by all means, tell your therapist about it)

#end rant

I am begging people to stop misconstruing “this plot point totally works because random, senseless, confusing, purely bad-luck things happen all the time in real life” with valid critiques of what does and does not constitute a well crafted narrative in media.

Media is not real life. Writer’s sat down, created these characters, and decided all the things they do and what happens to them. These characters inside a fictional narrative are not real life people subjected to uncontrollable real life events. Yes, art reflects life, and that’s totally valid up to a point in that creative choices made can and often are harmful outside the scope of the show/book/etc. But “It’s supposed to be confusing because some people act like this in real life. It’s supposed to not make sense because stuff like that happens in real life. How would you treat *real person*’s death if this happened to them in real life?” Well I sure as fuck wouldn’t be here on tumblr dot com writing meta about whether or not an actual real person’s death served a narrative structure in a way that was well crafted. Who the fuck would?? The death of fictional characters happens because the writers chose for it to and those ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS REAL PEOPLE REACTING TO A REAL PERSONS DEATH FROM A REAL LIFE EVENT.

Narrative critique of media cannot be applied to real people experiencing real life, and a faulty narrative is absolutely not immune from critique because “that’s how life is so it’s realistic whether or not it makes sense”.

Stop fucking saying CP. 'Child porn' is not a thing. That's a harmful, outdated term that implies a child can consent. A child cannot consent. Sexually explicit material that exploits REAL children is CSEM (child sexual exploitation material) or CSAM (child sexual abuse material).

Sexually explicit FICTION is not CSEM or CSAM -- it does not exploit real people of any age to create. That's because it's fiction. Reading it also does not exploit a real person, of any age. It might affect the person that chose to read it, in an emotional/distressing way, and that may feel like harm. But it is not the same as the creator causing you harm maliciously. Dealing with coming across things that distress us is something we all have to learn when we grow up.

Reading or writing underage sexually explicit fiction doesn't make a person a pedophile or a predator. (A lot of you don't seem to actually KNOW what a pedophile is, at that. Frustrating. Words MEAN THINGS.) It's not evidence of being one, or having these desires, either. Yes, I mean even when the fiction portrays things that are horrific IRL. Yes, I mean even when something that would be horrible IRL is treated as romantic and consensual in fiction. And yes, I mean even the stuff that squicks you personally.

When you (general) throw terms like this around incorrectly, loosely, or vengefully, you actually do harm by watering down the meaning of words that describe actual, exploitative, illegal, and terrible real life actions. You do harm by making undue accusations and wasting time and resources that should've been spent elsewhere. You affect real people.

Sometimes people write from their own childhood experiences. Some people just have a fucking imagination for how a situation might play out under certain circumstances. Some people look at two characters and their history and fill in the blanks with all the twists and turns they see lurking in the shadows. Some people have a really fucked up idea they want to explore IN FICTION.

People can have their own squicks and boundaries about it, and that's fine. There's certainly fictional underage material that squicks me, even though I write and read tons of underage fiction. This is what tags, summaries, the back button, and the delete from history button are for.

Thought crime is not a thing. Quit equating it with real life.

Me out here wanting to know why so many die hard antis want Eddie to come back as Kas, when narratively Billy already fulfilled that storyline and they condemn him for it.

Them: Billy was a villain!!! The difference between Kas!Eddie and Kas!Billy is Eddie died trying to do the right thing and he would never want to become a puppet for Vecna. It would be his GoodnessTM that would help him break through vecna's control.

😆 I can’t. Billy was a teenage antagonist in a teen bully storyline who got drugged by his little sister, laid out and “taught a lesson”. He was never the sum of all evil or the big bad villain of his season. Be serious. The next season Billy, a teenager, was then dragged into a warehouse and physically violated by a supernatural monster. He never wanted to be or chose to be Venca's puppet. It doesn’t matter whether or not he was a “good” person in your eyes when it happened to him, it happened and he didn’t deserve it. I do not give a fuck how mean or how racist you think this character was. It is insane to suggest Billy deserved what happened to him and if that is how you honestly feel, please do not be surprised when people outside of your bubble point out how insane you are.

I can say with full confidence that you are not objective about this. You have lost the plot. I wouldn’t wish what happened to Billy on grown ass people I actually cannot stand. Real ass people who are plenty racist and actually causing me real harm, unlike this fictional character. So I just can’t wrap my head around this mentality that allows a person to think Eddie being Kas would be amazing because it’s “so tragic but poignant and redemptive”, while at the same time rigidly viewing Billy as a monster who deserved to die. It isn’t rational.

It was the good inside of Billy that allowed him to break Vecna's control. And then Billy died trying to save people. And not to be a bitch but he actually succeeded, whereas Eddie’s death was some pointless circle jerk toxic manhood brouhaha the writers shat out. I hate that for him but you know it’s true. Which is why you want to literally GIVE HIM BILLY’S STORYLINE , along with all of the sympathy and recognition for heroism that you refuse to give to Billy.

the thing is, the accounts on cr twitter who have these wild takes aren't even shippers

they're all about nuance about the gods, aeor, ludinus, ruby vanguard.....but then have these extreme views about orym, say he's got bloodlust and pretty much equate him to a cop/military soldier

Hey anon! So I will admit as I have in the past that I largely avoid CR Twitter because I hate Twitter as a platform and the community of CR Twitter specifically (more below) but I will say the tweets I have seen have largely been from people who are, if not the most rabid of shippers, shippers. I did in fact just go there and click on "Orym" as it was trending, and the tweets to this effect are largely from people with black and purple hearts in their names. I don't think they're necessarily conscious that this is the reason why they try so hard to discredit Liam's characters (and I think the desire for Laudna to be a Traumatized Innocent rather than a person who has done her own share of harm is an even larger factor) but I do think it is part of it.

I should note: a significant point of reference for me is that the person who famously said "do not uwuify this" re Orym post episode 63 is Wally Wests on Twitter. Look, I know I use the word "stupid" a lot, and I'm trying to reduce it not because I think it's a problem to use but because it reduces the impact and also heavily implying people are stupid without outright saying it tends to be more effective on every level but god this person is the dumbest motherfucker in the fandom and I'm not even kidding. Like, they're the "Australian white person who writes like Rupi Kaur but worse" I've referenced. Because of The Algorithm they are weirdly popular in that space and it baffles me because I honestly don't understand why every single thing they say isn't just filled with replies saying "are you fucking stupid." Like I physically cannot understand how you can have a brain and read a single word they say and go "this is a person I should listen to." They are also not a big shipper, but they do like the ship from what I understand. Specifically on Tumblr, the people echoing this nonsense are pretty much shippers.

With that said yeah, I do think it's worth addressing the soldier aspect. First off, if we're talking cops, why is Bryce, pleasant but forgettable minor NPC, inexplicably popular in this fandom despite them being an actual crownsguard of an actual authoritarian government. Like are all fictional cops bastards or no (fwiw my opinion is no, because the context of the world in which they exist is extremely important; I'm just pointing out the inconsistencies)? But also...I've run into this with Worlds Beyond Number too, and it actually came up on the Fireside chat, but there are words people hear (empire, religion, soldier) and automatically go "BAD BAD BAD" and don't spend any time thinking about how we've come to these conclusions. And for what it's worth I think Empire is always ultimately going to be bad because of its source in conquest; religion is neutral with the potential to harm or hurt; and soldier is deeply contextual and inherently gray; but all are very valid things to explore in fiction, where the war crimes and abuses aren't real. I remember seeing a take about Candela Obscura shitting on how half the party is former soldiers, and like...the messaging of this season of Candela is undeniably about the immense psychological damage of war, and the soldiers were defending their home against a colonizing force rather than doing any sort of invading, but some people are so high on a paper-thin unexamined concept of what I presume they tell themselves is leftism that they cannot see that. Orym's husband did not die trying to invade a nation for their oil. He died because people trying to unleash a horror ran an attack on their town as a practice run. Orym's experience as a soldier has always been one of defense, never conquest or destruction, and that is important to understand. It doesn't mean that in the future Zephrah couldn't become an oppressive power (and various worldbuilding in Exandria does explore the idea of small community watches or protective guards growing deeply corrupt or expansionist over time, but god knows the people saying this shit have the lore knowledge of a dead pigeon), but the aspects of being a soldier he is engaging with are those of personal sacrifice and protecting one's own, not killing for resources or ideology (which, let's be real, is usually an excuse to take the resources of those you disagree with).

TW: Discussion of CSA

I'm Sick of This Shit

Sorry Mod, this is off-topic and heavy stuff, but I'm fucking sick of this cutesy little internet trend of insinuating the worst about people over fucking nothing. This is going to get heavy but I'm not sitting down and shutting the fuck up this time.

Please put a read more here? I don't want to trigger anyone, I just want to try and give a wake-up call to people who do this shit.

I cannot believe I just read a callout post for someone as a "dangerous individual" and it's about them drawing some fictional character. Or rather, I can, because it keeps happening, and it's the dumbest new trend I've ever seen. As a victim of that specific kind of abuse? As in, someone who's fucking tapes have a hash in the ICAC database? (Do you even know what that means? Do you even care to find out? Do you actually care about victims or do you just want some moral gotcha over the person you don't like? Because I have a feeling it's the second one!) Someone who's been really fucking impacted and harmed by this shit in my actual flesh-and-blood real life?

Shut the fuck up. No, actively, antagonistically fuck you. How fucking dare you equate the seriousness of my and others' real-life physical harm to someone finding some stupid WORTHLESS, UNIMPORTANT, NOT REAL ANIME CHARACTER HOT. Who in the absolute fuck actually sincerely CARES?? Do you think authors who write about murder want to secretly kill people?? Do you think people who make horror movies can contact the dead? You are so obsessed about thought crimes and unimportant bullshit to the degree that you are accusing people of being the absolute worst type of person over anime. OVER ANIME! Who the fuck cares if someone draws a fake person doing something sexual. I, as a victim, do not give a shit. I don't care if they draw a fake person getting dismembered. I don't care if they write about a fake person being subjected to death by 1000 paper-cuts! Do you know why?

They're not fucking real!

Somewhere along the way people seem to have forgotten that the reason abuse is bad isn't because it's "icky" and "gross" and makes you uncomfortable to think about.

It's bad because it's fucking hurtful to people who are actually really alive. It's bad because if you cut a real person we fucking bleed. It's bad because if you do things to our body, it leaves fucking SCARS. It's bad because WE LIVE WITH THE FUCKING TRAUMA AND CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT IS DONE TO US YOU STUPID EMOTIONALLY BEREFT ASSHOLE, YOU FUCKING MORALLY STUNTED BRAT. DO YOU FUCKING COMPREHEND THAT? DO YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL LIFE AND FICTION? LIKE DO YOU? ARE YOU AN ACTUAL CHILD? BECAUSE IF SO, YOU SHOULD NOT BE ENGAGING IN THESE DISCUSSIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? AND IF YOU ARE AN ADULT, FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE. This isn't a slag against someone who does have empathy issues or anything like that- ironically they tend to have no problem differentiating real life from fiction crimes, at least in my experience. No no, this is against the specific type of person who willfully chooses to libel against someone because of what usually boils down to """fandom crimes."""

I am in a support group for people like me. Do you know what we bitch about lately? You motherfuckers. Clogging the actual fucking hotlines by reporting drawings of cartoon characters, do you even realize that there are real consequences to your moral crusade? The time these people are forced to spend deleting anime art from their email literally costs real-life children -- AGAIN, REAL PEOPLE BEING HURT, YOU FUCKS -- precious time from getting the help they so desperately fucking deserve. Do you even think before you act? Do you? Do you fucking consider for a moment the real-world consequences of your behavior, or do you just raise your head and preen over your moralistic victory against the nastybadwrong person that wrote a story you don't like? I hate you.

Sure. Maybe this person who was submitted about really is the scum of the earth, an absolutely toxic bastard of an individual who does deserve a callout post. Wouldn't surprise me, because lots of shitty people are out there. So then, if that's the case, how come you didn't present that proof? Because all I read (images didn't work) is that they drew some anime character horny. People have been doing that for decades. The fucking Disney animators have drawn Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse going at it. Who gives a shit. It's fiction. You are having a moral panic over nothing and blinding yourself to the real consequences of your actions and I am here on my hands and knees BEGGING you to have more concern for people who actually exist than you do for your stupid goddamn anime boy.

I actually HATE people like you, I actively fucking do not feel SAFE around people like you. People who create fictional works, even dark and fucked up ones? They generally know the differences you seem to miss: that thoughts and actions are different things. There was a post going around where some guy got thrashed on social media for getting a leg amputation for fetishistic reasons where he was called every name in the book and probably some new ones yet to be added to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Turns out he actually had cancer and the amputation was for medically necessary reasons, but one (1) minor looked at THE TYPE OF ART HE DREW and made assumptions about his whole entire character from that. And thus someone going through some incredibly emotionally challenging shit was forced to further stomach the trauma of an internet hate mob because of baseless accusations just like these. Don't fucking do that. That shouldn't even need to be said! And yet. So I'll say it again. Don't! Fucking! Do that! Fuck!

This is wildly out of the scope of this blog and I'm really sorry to Mod for having to see it, but I'm sick of seeing this everywhere online, I do not need it in my fucking safe space hobby. Actively go fuck yourself if you do this or participate in this. If you care about victims- if you have actual compassion for people who are real, and don't just want to control how others portray fictional characters for reasons of moral outrage, then don't do this. And if you've done this in the past, just... fucking try to do better from here on out, at least. The world is fucked up enough without needing to rip each other apart over, and I cannot stress this enough, goddamn cartoons.

And if I get sassed in the comments as "not a real victim" or some shit, go ahead. I've heard it before, I don't care. I've been told by people in my life that what happened to me was 1) a misunderstanding 2) deserved because I in some way asked for it 3) that I'm lying for attention, etc etc. Does not matter that mine was one of the cases that actually made it to court and resulted in a sentencing... victim-blaming is incredibly ingrained in my country's culture. I honestly don't care if I'm believed or not, I just... want to say my piece. I want to confess, to air my grievances, with a current trend everyone on the internet and this hell-site in specific. So, thank you for reading if you have, and fuck you if you dismissed it all because your precious fictional little meow meow matters more to you than the victims of the real-life atrocities you're so motivated baselessly to accuse people of perpetrating.

And mod, stay safe and practice self-care. To all the victims, I hope your abusers die horribly. You deserve the world.

~Anonymous

Mod: thank you so much anon for your response, nothing is out of scope here (kinda, I like tangents, just need to follow the rules too) so anons, don't be afraid of expressing yourself as you so rightly did here.

people fundamentally misunderstanding what abuse even is all for the sake of arguing about fictional characters and being an abuse apologiser kind of actually drives me crazy like. real people get abused. and these idiots who do this are going to end up repeating violent rhetoric that will be harmful and actively put people in danger by normalising something like "you can't be abused if you fight back against your abuser because that's also abuse" or "abuse is when someone physically larger physically hurts someone who is smaller" or something. ("abuse is when the scary brown man hurts the defenseless small white man")

like 😭? ed holds a certain degree of authority over izzy as his captain and someone izzy projects his own fantasies onto, but izzy holds an IMMENSE amount of power over ed, and has for a while and maybe even ALWAYS has been building it up, and that fantasy plays into it. abuse occurs when someone holds power over another person and misuses that power and causes them harm, even if that person is "unaware" they're doing it... it's not complex and it's nothing to do with what's "typical", a parent can abuse their offspring, an adult child can abuse their parent. it's about the power dynamic. their relationship is incredibly imbalanced and it's always been in IZZY'S favour, his role is LITERALLY meant to liken to like an evil advisor whispering in ed's ear – an imbalanced, toxic dynamic where ed is the victim with false control over the situation, because the entire point is izzy wants him to be The Best He Can Be (a ruthless pirate).

izzy eventually getting hurt physically in retaliation isn't ABUSE because ed isn't enacting what little authority he does have over izzy (who allows him to have it as izzy finds perverse joy in SEEING ed use that authority against him and Be the fantasy he wants ed to be), he's just fucking retaliating to being taunted by someone who hates him. izzy got physically hurt, sure, but he was not ever scared of or threatened by ed, ed did not hold any further power over him other than the fear in any man's mind who knew they fucked around and found out and got fucking shot for it.

when ed severed their connection with that bullet he severed izzy's hold over him to a vast degree, but that still doesn't mean he then held an equal amount of power over izzy in his place. and ed even had the insane heart to actually feel bad about hurting him and forgive him for everything else 😭. izzy literally acknowledges this IN THE SHOW. it's actually concerning the lengths people will go to defend an aspect of a character that is written in the damn script (izzy is a toxic manipulative cunt who wants to control everything ed does who eventually stops doing that because he knows he went too far).

anyway. sorry for that. good morning ^_^

good morning anon you are correct and you should say it

it absolutely baffles me like how the fuck are you going to be so committed to banging a drum for your shitty fave that you end up posting stuff with real world implications about who can and cannot be a victim of abuse

like even without the nonsense the take was full of headcanon and weird analogies anyway (like it's useless to compare being a pirate captain to owning a house. those are fundamentally different things. turns out piracy doesn't neatly map onto 'normal' life today. who knew!)

but the lengths that people will go to to declare that izzy did nothing wrong after the show has looked them in the eyes and said 'the narrative is telling you that izzy was wrong'??

i'm so glad they killed him off bc i cannot cope with another season of shit like this. i patiently await their exit from the fandom tbh

Hey, about your 'fictional characters can't be disrespectful, they aren't real and can't be objected etc' post. By saying this you're saying that there is no such problem as female objectivization in games and other products which is not right. It's like you justify tons of tons of bad fanservice designes and, for example, hentai artworks or writing including rapes. You are a feminist, right? You should have been giving a thought about it, because such things done to the fictional characters WILL hurt real women around the world because they form men's opinions about women and I mean sexist opinions. You may also add here a homophobic/transphobic and racist problems, when some people change fandom characters gender or orientation or paint them with a different skin tone (note that I'm also about white characters who suddenly turn to others colours). All of this caused by objectivization because people think they can change character they like and this is just unacceptable. Next, you wrote that you can't disrespectful fictional characters, but doing such bad things to characters that don't belong to you is a disrespectful towards their creators, like you said you can write a tentacle porn with some characters, this doesn't make you a bad man but if those characters don't belong to you, then sorry, but you'll show your luck of respect to their creator especially if that person is against such things. Like, you objectivizate and make fanservice things with their characters. Also saying that fictional characters aren't real (which is true of course) and they are just things is also very unethical towards those who create them. Try to say such things to any who made some characters and world where they live. Many people add some of their own traits, habits or behaviour patterns and spend a lot of their time dedicating to their characters so you may think a little better. And I think, you can't just say to people they don't have a right to treat their characters as living persons or kids, in any case let people to chose their own treatment

So, I was approaching this seriously until I got to the bottom where you being hand-wringing about how treating characters badly disrespects the creators of those characters, and then I realised you are a person with some extremely internalized Christian guilt and puritanism and a huge heaping of sexual oppression.

Please stop applying your morals and your hangups about sex and sexuality onto other people.

Below is everything I wrote addressing your points up until I hit the fandom nonsense.

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You are doing what everyone else on that post is doing: you are conflating how a character is treated/depicted and whether or not that harms the character with how that can theoretically affect real people in the real world.

Real people and characters are not the same thing. The inability to separate these two concepts is causing endless problems.

The female character being sexualized is not hurt by sexualization for the same reason she is not "empowered" by it: she does not have agency because she is not a person. I bring up empowerment because a lot of the guys who try to claim this kind of sexualization is fine do so by claiming the sexualization is "empowering" the female character. She is not actually making the choice to dress in a flimsy skin-tight outfit, the artist is making that choice. Therefore, she cannot be harmed or empowered by it.

As many feminists involved in this debate have noted, it is not the existence of a sexualized female character that is the problem, it is the ubiquitous nature of this type of representation. It is in fact fine to draw a sexualized female character. It becomes a reflection on society as a whole when every depiction of a female character is sexualized - when every female superhero wears skin-tight latex, for example. This is especially true when she is sexualized in ways that reveal the patriarchy's ideal picture of what a woman should look like, namely thin and white.

The existence of material that sexualizes women is not the problem. I am an explicitly sex-positive and kink-positive feminist. I enjoy all the things you listed as problematic. I like noncon, I like rape fantasies, I've even enjoyed some hentai and porn in my day. I am the wrong feminist to fearmonger about "bad kink" to.

As for your hand wringing about how fanfic is "disrespecting the creators" - No, it's not. I'm not even going to go into a big long discussion on this one. You're being silly. Nothing a fan does to a character can affect the canon character in any way, shape or form.

So I wanted to talk about a post I saw earlier today. Usually I try to resist the urge to engage with these sorts of things, but I felt that it was demonstrative of an all too common argument in the shadow and bone fandom. More specifically, it is a great illustration of the rampant misinformation and hypocrisy that many fans display on a daily basis.

So let’s break things down.

First of all, I’d like to call attention to the framing of this user’s claim. What exactly is she gesturing at here, and what message is communicated from this tweet? Their argument seems to read almost as a defence of Leigh Bardugo’s status as an abuse survivor. This user’s point is derived from a rumour in the fandom that the Darkling was a direct parallel to Bardugo’s abusive partner and that Darklina was a fictionalized version of her real-life relationship. So, by shipping darklina or engaging with the Darkling in a positive or sympathetic manner is disrespectful to Bardugo because it perverts and distorts her personal abuse narrative.

Oh wow. That seems very serious doesn’t it? How could these misguided readers be so ignorant and terrible that they disregard the experiences of a victim? That would be terrible! Except for the fact that this rumour is not true in the slightest and is at best, pure speculation. The pathos of this false story appeals to the fans feelings of sympathy for Bardugo and causes them to feel enraged that Darkling stans would disregard her negative experience and romanticize the abuse she suffered. This gives fans the ammunition they so desperately crave, for ship wars and inane fandom discourse in which they can accuse darklinas of being abuse apologists under a pseudo-progressive guise.

This is exactly why they never actually acknowledge that this story is at best, a misinterpreted rumour and at worst, an opportunistic wielding of an abuse survivor’s story to bolster fandom wars.

This entire narrative of “The Darkling is an allegory for Bardugo’s abusive relationship” relies on fans being willfully obtuse. They insist that you cannot sympathize with the Darkling because of this story while ignoring the fact that a sympathetic reading of his character is baked into the trilogy (ex. Demon in the Woods).They ignore that Bardugo herself has expressed her love for the Darkling as a character and has engaged with darklina content MULTIPLE TIMES. They deny the symbolic resonance of darklina and are eager to flatten what little nuanced characterization they possess in the books.

The irony is that they claim to respect Bardugo by protecting her trilogy from people who “romanticize abuse” and misinterpret the text, but at the very same time use her abusive relationship as a weapon in INANE YA LITERARY DISCOURSE!!! How can you act like you’re doing something good for abuse survivors when you are using a person’s real life history of abuse to justify dunking on other fans? Not to mention the anti-intellectualism of discouraging people from engaging with the text in ways they arbitrarily label as “bad” and “harmful” no matter how much textual evidence there is.

What can I say? Where would antis be without their distorting of reality to suit their narrative and bolster their justifications for harassment and bullying.

Sorry may I ask you a question? Your meta is so interesting! In mdzs "debts" is a recurring theme and can you please explain it? I've read meta about how in Chinese culture jc's owed the wen siblings a debt and he should have saved them, but I've also read meta about how he owed a hugger debt to his own sect. I've read how jgy killed whr and nmj, people who he owned his educations (debts). I thought that mdzs was more about "Who is wrong? Who is right?" so that everyone is a bit wrong and a bit right but this kind of meta make me doubt myself and think that maybe in mdzs someone is really morally right (wwx and lwj) and everyone else is wrong. I am going a little crazy, that's why I asked you. Anyway, thanks in advance and have a good day!

Hi Nonny!

There's no need to apologize for sending an ask! I love asks!

Regarding your question about debts and what is "owed" in relationships, I think it's important to clarify that like, presumably if someone saved your life you'd also owe them a debt of gratitude, a life debt, or however and whichever other 'debt' terminology you'd care to use there. So this concept of "debt" because you owe someone for doing something for you is not in and of itself a 'unique to Chinese culture' problem, and I think looking at "oh this person "owes" this other person a thing" is not entirely a great? way to analyze how character relationships "should" or should not go. There are lots of ways we as people in a society owe other people in our society and the characters in this book, much like us, are trapped in a confluence of factors that pull them in different directions regarding what they should or should not do.

The book itself (at least from my own opinion) is meant to read as "everyone is both right and wrong at various points in this text because this is a book with complex characters and not a morality lesson" because lest we forget, WWX made a woman eat a chair leg at one point, which. We cannot say this was correct in really anything except the most reductive main character centric interpretation.

Regarding debts themselves that say, WangXian might owe their families in accordance to their society that sound just about the same as the examples mentioned above, we can say things like "since Wei Wuxian was raised by the Jiang, he should've been helping Jiang Cheng rebuilding Lotus Pier instead of sitting around drinking or running off with the Wen!" or "how dare Lan Wangji injure thirty-three of his family elders, doesn't he know he should've been filial to them and owed his education and position in society to the Lan Sect?" and "why is it that WangXian got to go fuck in a bush at the end of the story when other people who arguably did fewer crimes end up dead? Does this mean they owed less to society or made all the right choices compared to say, the other people who are still in fact super dead and don't get to fuck their beloved in a bush?"

Does this start to look like this concept of "debts" doesn't,,, actually explain anything about the moral complexities of the character's situations? That's because it isn't a good indicator of if character x made a moral choice or not.

But again, this whole concept of "debts" to explain why a character does a thing and why they're morally good or evil and reprehensible for not doing this other thing is entirely a thing fandom does in meta to make their fave look good or character they're an anti about look extremely bad under a case of "well ACKSHUALLY morality says they SHOULD HAVE done this!" None of these characters exist either as Perfectly Moral Beings or Perfectly Evil Immoral Beings inside a decision making vacuum.

It...also doesn't really matter if your fave is right or wrong either :D just for context. They're all fictional blorbos upon a page and or screen. No real person was harmed in over the course of the story. No woman deep throated a chair leg, no child was tossed down the stairs, no groups of people were massacred, no brothers were abandoned, no one was poisoned with rage disease until they died, nobody committed incest... etc etc and honestly debating about if fictional characters were right or wrong fascinates me a lot less than "what does the story tell us about what drove them and made them tick?" and "what adaptational and translational choices did other people before me make about this story and do I agree with them on their adaptational choices."

:( sorry this came out so messy anon! I just don't think the "did this character repay their debts -> is this character a good person -> a morally good character therefore doesn't owe anyone anything anymore and if they do owe someone something that doesn't count/no they don't." pipeline is particularly useful from an analyzing the story standpoint.

apparently some people seem to take pride in not watching the voice dramas (which gives context clues to the characters' mindset and background) before voting in milgram? i must confess i don't get it

i mean, vote however you want, and these aren't real people so it's not like we're actually harming anyone, but it's so fascinating to see the different levels of investment in the... duty? responsibility? of passing judgement on a bunch of fictional anime-esque characters: you get people who judge purely by the MVs (with some of them seeming to consider anything outside of the MVs as unnecessary/impure influences); people who watch the MVs and voice dramas (maybe even keep up with the interrogation Q&As) for context before voting; people who watch all the previous info AND the cover songs; people who aren't involved in the franchise at all and only vote because they've been bribed; people who set up the voter fraud in the first place and bribed unrelated parties into voting certain ways; people who choose not to vote...

oh, and we don't actually know how the overall results are tallied up—is the character's over all verdict based on which verdict they got more? are they fucked as soon as they get a single unforgiven verdict (Kotoko's concept of "once a beast tastes flesh, there's no going back for them" in her T2 interrogation) and the 3 trial system is just to see how fucked they are? does only the final T3 verdict count, and it doesn't matter what verdicts they've received previously? NOR do we know what actually happens to the characters who get an overall unforgiven/guilty verdict (where death penalty and/or torture are plausible options). We're explicitly told not to worry our pretty little heads about it by our only source of authority, who enjoys controlling the information we have access to.

(also as a general comment on the voting: i am uneasy about voting bc i have hangups about how little we actually know about what we're ultimately subjecting these characters to, BUT not voting is wasting your vote—you cannot stop others from voting in a court of opinion. even if YOU don't participate, others will happily do so, even those without any love or attachment to the franchise. so, will you abstain from voting bc of your ethics and values? or will you vote to try to lessen the damage?

how fortunate that this particular scenario is fictional, involving fictional characters.)

Personal rant about an issues I’m having with my best friend under the cut, TW mentions of past sexual trauma both fictional and IRL

Thinking about how Alicent and Rhaenyra coded my best friend and I are, (minus the gay undertones) she’s headstrong, beautiful, confident, feels like she deserves what she wants no matter what and has no fear that her father won’t be there to catch her when she falls. But it makes her ignorant to the deeper plights of others and she lacks the knowledge to look further into things, and weigh her opinions and options before she speaks. She’s so strong and confident that she refuses to accept that her thoughts and opinions can be wrong, and she never does any research.

She was like “I’ve heard Andrew Tate talk some and I think he might be right” and I was like friend???? The man is a sex trafficker who has been quoted saying that women who aren’t virgins are damaged goods, and his OWN SISTER doesn’t talk to him. And she was like “oh I didn’t really look him up or anything” like motherfucker are you serious????

Then you’ve got me, quieter, more traditional, (still beautiful, but my goodness my best friend is a different level) always trying to do what’s right, do what I was supposed to do, trying to make sure everyone is okay, that my words and actions won’t harm and if they do can I take them back or make up for them?

I’m more agreeable, people see me as soft and kind, easy to talk to, but it comes with this guilt, religious, personal, social, whatever I’m always, always watching, always considering the other side because I know what it feels like to be powerless. And I do my fucking research because you have to know the rules!!!!

We’ve argued over TG or TB and she just refuses to accept that Alicent’s actions are motivated by valid reasons, that she was a child victim and was a victim until her husband finally died. She also blows past the fact that Daemon groomed and assaulted Rhaenyra because “they’re so hot” and I just???? I could not and cannot understand how she can overlook the pain and trauma these characters went through and act like it’s absolutely nothing.

Then we got in a bit of a thing because she got into booktok smut and I tried to warn her about the trigger stuff in some of the books and she’s like “oh it’s fine, yeah he like rapes her in this one part, but he basically makes it up with his words in the end” and I’m ????

Like yeah I like my dark stuff too but not a love interest who’s a rapist💀 there is no coming back from that for me????

And the fact that she just doesn’t care, doesn’t even stop to think about how her lack of care for the atrocities committed towards female characters in literally any media affects her is just so concerning to me. It’s like because nothing like that has happened to her then it’s not real??? Or it’s just like “not that big of a deal”????

Like y’all who read Pink Pastels know I went through shit, not a full assault but something similar that I left out of the fic because it was too much and I hadn’t really accepted what had happened. And the fact that what is it one in five women have been assaulted??? Statistically speaking she knows women who have been!!!!

So it makes me sick to my stomach that she’s so blasé about this stuff. To be fair to her, I never told her about it but I have now and I haven’t gotten a response yet so I’ll hold judgment until I do. (She hasn’t seen the Snapchat yet)

I just it really frustrates me because she is such a good friend outside of this stuff but she just lives such a different life from everyone else (her family is super rich) and I feel bad because I really want reality to knock some sense into her with a baseball bat. She just doesn’t understand that people actually suffer this stuff it’s not all just fun in games and ha ha giggles oh he’s so hot!!!

Like bestie I’m here, standing in front of you, asking if you fucked Daemon in a pleasure house (if you really are going to keep reading and flaunting your love of these dark, violent, terribly written books) while I’m trapped with your old ass father who’s been assaulting me and ignoring the children he forced me to have (carrying and trying to sort out the multitude of trauma from my ex) begging you to tell me that you didn’t and you still see me as your friend (that you aren’t a horrible pick me girl who doesn’t actually care about the pain and suffering women go through just because you haven’t experienced it)

The Way that some artists and writers full on silence and dismiss actual jewish fans when they point out the issues in kyle’s fanon portrayal, complete with extensive research and articles about jewish men in media, only to be told that they are being homophobic/sexist/whatever or “i can do whatever i want” is…actually insane. im not even jewish but it is literally so fucking strange to see. im a big proponent of writing and shipping whatever your heart desires because fiction ≠ reality, but in this case fiction DOES affect reality, because continues to perpetuate the stereotypes of jewish men in real life. you cannot twinkify and feminize the jewish character that has never shown any of those traits in canon and then be like “it’s just my opinion!!! you’re being sexist!!!” okay, why is that your opinion? is there possibly any underlying reason as to why you would view him that way? could it perhaps be the way we are conditioned to view jewish men through film? and don’t tell me “ohh it’s because he’s more nurturing and he’s the most neurotic therefore hes a mommy malewife femboy” because THAT is fucking sexist. why don’t you people actually listen to jewish voices about this and educate yourselves instead of getting so defensive about your weird kink that is actually just thinly veiled antisemitism.

i feel like the equivalent of this would be >artist or writer depicts tolkien as an aggressive thug >black fan explains why that portrayal is harmful to real life people because of racist stereotyping >black fan is told they should stop policing Muh Headcanons wahhh

see how fucked up that is? not that hard to understand guys. basic media literacy.

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You seem like a great person and you don't deserve to be attacked in such way or have your trauma/life psychoanalyzed by anyone, let alone strangers online. That being said, as someone who absolutely despises Vargs in any context, i simply cannot get behind people shipping him with Pelle (or Oystein) or even seeing artworks of him. It has nothing to do with shipping real life people, it's more about minimizing what a horrible person Vargs is and the real life harm he's caused. If you've somehow managed to actually help yourself heal mentally by using him as a fictional character, that's great, but the very valid criticism regarding the ship is not an attack on your person or beliefs (or at least it shouldn't be)

Thank you so much for understanding my position. I've been mentally tormented by such speculative discussions about me like "Why Varg and not Euro? What is your hidden agenda?' And I've been called disgusting, a freak, a bitch, and a horrible person for just minding my own bussiness.

Varg's personality disorder, trauma response and phatological 'issues' exist in parallel with mine. These are NOT his political views or social values.

I started writing a story in which I explored in-depth his psycho-dynamics and created a romantic habitat in which he could get better (heal). Because I work on my own problems through his persona like a 'shadow'.

This doesn't mean that I give him a context in which he is excused for being the way that he is, my work is very observational.

Also, it's not just Varg whose struggles I identity with. It's also Pelle's. Depression, self-destruction, and everything except for his ego death.

My take on them is not 'aesthetically motivated' how one person called it. It's deeply rooted in neuroticism.

Thank you again for understanding what I try to say.

I am open to valid criticism regarding my work and art as long as it's not a personal attack on me.

I hope people can see this for what it is.