#which is why the fandom needs to understand that because Dick is reactionary and will be an absolute ass not Jason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shatar-aethelwynn · 2 years

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I don't know what's wrong with me. When I look at others posts from people i like about how they hate things i kinda like. It mostly sends me in a quick depression. I'm into comics and man it kinda not fun interacting with some people. There was this meme about how mcu fans like it to be a safe space while comics fandom just want authors to kill themselves. And how one wanted to draw a author I think with gore. It's not really a fun place sometimes.

Doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with you. Sounds like there's something wrong with them. People online are good at being dicks because there's little real-world consequences for it. The ones that aren't intentionally being dicks are often using hyperbole (saying "hate" because it has more oomph to it than "dislike" even if they don't mean they have hostile feelings towards it), which is easy to miss if you don't know a person very well but we all use it all the time. And some people later realize they were being a dick and try to become better people. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference is through time and patience. I generally try to be gracious and assume people don't actually mean the worst until they clarify that yes, actually, they do.

So here's an example: I hate SpongeBob. I'm sorry, but it's true. Can't stand the show. That doesn't mean I think no one should ever watch it, or that someone can't enjoy it. It just means that no matter how often people insist that "this episode is funny though" I will not enjoy it (although I will freely admit to occassionally finding posts which make use of the characters funny). There's no moral judgement there, it's purely a matter of personal preference. Do I really mean "hate" in the way a pastor says "hate sin?" (And oh how much there is to unpack there.) Am I making a moral judgement about SpongeBob? No. I mean "strong dislike." Thing is, the internet loves to be reactionary. So lets say I make a post that says "Dear lord, I hate SpongeBob. It's just so stupid and I don't understand why anyone enjoys it and wish people would stop telling me I should watch it." No real moral judgement there, just "it's stupid and I don't like it, stop telling me I should" which is a valid opinion on any piece of media. Well, someone could show up in my inbox saying "How dare you say SpongeBob is evil! How dare you say no one should watch it!" Which, at no point has that actually been said, and it isn't true anyway. Can you see where I'm trying to go with this? Some fandoms (and comic book bros are famous for this) simply have a tendency to take that a step further and get into Gatekeeping territory and to react violently against anyone who violates their personal headcanon. Every fandom is capable of this. Those people are toxic and should be avoided.

Now here's the thing though, if the people you're talk about are saying "I hate this thing so everyone who likes it deserves to suffer and die" that's at best purity culture and it is corrosive and dangerous, and you should probably pull back from interacting with that person. It is a deeply unhealthy mindset to have, and it is even more unhealthy to continually subject yourself to people who say things like that. (Of course, on this site there are also people who will affectionately respond to trolls and comments deliberately intended to annoy with threats like "I will come to your house and make you eat toilet paper," and no one who follows them believes they mean it.) I promise there are others who like the things you like without being so toxic. I know there are things you like that I don't, and I've said before that my opinions do not need to change your enjoyment of those things. Differences in what we enjoy is normal. That's living in a society while being an individual. That doesn't mean you need to stop enjoying something just because someone else doesn't like it. If they give you a reason why they dislike it (or are neutral with no intention of continuing to interact with a source/show/etc) that convinces you that they are right and you decide to stop watching/reading something because it's toxic or misleading or it changes how you interact with it that's one thing. Feeling like you have to only like things that your friends like and dislike everything they dislike is something else and it's getting into cultish territory. A friend who tries to force you to do so is not your friend, they want to control you or are themselves being controlled by another who is telling them they have to have those opinions or else, and that's not a healthy relationship to be in.

#I'm answering this publically because I think this is something a lot of people struggle with #and not everyone is brave enough to say so

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ardenttheories · 4 years

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squarequeen replied to your post: “Thank you for voicing your thoughts on the HS^2! I feel all the things...”:

Criticism is fair, but 1) I think characterizing the team as a cult is more reactionary than productive and 2) I’m reluctant to pass judgement until we see how this plays out further. Homestuck has a long history of subverting expectations, and I’d like to give the writers a chance to do so

It is highly reactive, but it is also a fair comment to make. They are an exclusive membership seeking to explicitly hurt and belittle the fandom as much as humanely possible while gaslighting them into believing it is their fault.

I no longer have ANY hopes for Homestuck^2 knowing that it is run by people who think so lowly of the fandom that genuine fandom criticism and upset over the shoddy way triggers have been handled was struck back with a complete fucking removal of content warnings entirely for an absolutely useless “overall warning” on the FAQ page.

Let me repeat that.

The Homestuck^2 writers saw that they were handling triggering content so piss poorly that people were complaining more and more, and their response was to remove all content warnings entirely for a general blanket warning in a completely separate page on the website.

People who genuinely want to read the comic but might be triggered by its content no longer have explicit warning of what’s coming up. They have to crapshoot it and hope for the fucking best. Or, as the website itself says - they have to get friends to read the fucking thing for them to tell them if its safe.

This, of course, completely ignores the natural human phenomenon of congregrating around people who share similar traits with you. As in, in a singular friend group, there are likely to be shared triggers. Which makes this attempt to put the onus on the fans to protect themselves fucking impossible. (It also disregards people who don’t have friends that’re into Homestuck, but like, lets ignore that shall we?)

It, mind you, is not up to the fandom to read and relate the triggers in your content. You, as the author, have a responsibility to admit what could be triggering to your audience. If you force your readers to “read and find out”, you are putting them through an explicit form of torture that could quite literally lead to panic attacks, dissociative episodes, and breakdowns that could have easily been avoided.

At what point, as an author, do you genuinely look at your fandom with such disgust that you decide

And then, of course, the icing on the goddamn cake, is this:

No, actually, it really fucking doesn’t. You can tell a challenging and organic story while keeping triggering content in mind. You can write an interesting and developed world without having to rely on the shock-horror of unfettered triggering material. At no point as a writer should you ever have to decide that triggering your fanbase is better than changing how a scene is composed and written. Because, frankly? If you find it so fucking hard to write triggering content in a careful and delicate way, you are not a good writer. It isn’t hard. You can still get the reality of it through while also treating it well (you know - the same way Homestuck did?).

Audience responsibility is crucial, yes, but that’s why you provide fucking triggers per chapter so that your audience can more directly decide if what they’re about to read will be harmful for them. However, it is also crucial that as a writer, you aren’t writing triggering content so fucking badly that you are triggering your fanbase month by month over material they could have otherwise handled.

This is how they have attempted to explain it. This reads like every other big company’s “we have a diverse team of people working on this project, so any racist/homophobic/abelist content involved has complete validity and cannot be argued against in the slightest” memo. If you prioritise artistic intent over the actual health of your readers, knowing that you struck a chord with your fanbase because of your realistic but delicate handling of triggering topics in the main comic, then... you’re honestly just a dick.

And this post? This is merely one comment of many that I have made on this blog over the past few months. The ask originally commented on? That’s only one ask of several that I’ve received on the Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2 detailing why it hurts to much, why it feels like a betrayal, and what exactly has changed from the original comic. This has been worsening for months. While I understand that Homestuck is about subversion, this is not subversion. After a point you have isolated so many of your readers that when you finally flip it turnways, nobody’s going to want to fucking read it.

These people are explicitly making Homestuck^2 as painful and hard to read as they possibly can. They have seen people complain that they are handling sensitive topics badly and have now reacted in such a way that it is “our” fault for having spoken out. That we, having the audacity to say it was bad and needed to change, are to blame for their reaction.

Maybe calling them a cult was reactionary. But it wasn’t a far fucking cry from the truth when you combine everything together.

#squarequeen #long post//#homestuck^2 #homestuck^2 critical #ardenttheories

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jaythelay · 3 years

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Probably already made a post like this, but I finally decided to check my comments on various sites and see what people thought of them, and like, wow, I’m surprised how much easier it is to speak your mind if you straight up disable notifications.

I’ve had like, 3-4 people directly add me on steam or message me on the site I commented on specifically to thank me for being a voice of reason. Now, not to toot my own horn, get a cape, and bite a golden coin out of date currency, but man does it speak volumes of who does give an opinion without much hesitation or thought, and who puts the effort into it.

Again, I’m not unique, but I feel most people on the internet are kids just starting out with basic communication which is obscured via their only interaction being the internet, but I’ve been there, I’ve been a literal child on the internet, before tumblr, you know, fucked everything up really fucking badly. Like really, irreparably, badly.

And because of that, I know vastly more strongly and more factually why I choose to be a decent human being. Because I saw the dumbest shit, the most cruel people and situations, online, for a first timer to real life and interaction, I got the brunt end of it without much other than my imagination to fill in gaps and to try and grow.

These days tho? Fuck man, it’s like people don’t understand what “echochamber” is. They just call it that when it’s a fandom or something centered around mainly one thing that’s mainly also about one thing.

These days. These fookin days. I don’t find my opinions at all extremist. I’m the most liberal fuckboi you’ll find, you got a dick, and do nothing to not follow the abysmal social trends of being a female, look like a dude, but want your “pro-nouns” to be entirely female? Perfectly fine! Just don’t act like in any way that’s important or special to people that will only ever meet you once.

And that last part is extremist. I’m not saying you can’t tell people how you view yourself, but realize everyone views everything in such a stupidly complicated fashion that expecting people to just “change their brain patterns” on a dime is ridiculous, and entirely predicated on an egotistical self-importance. You are not above another, they are not above you. Don’t expect them to change for you, expect them to change for the better.

But again, that gets you banned from r/196 because of course it does, it’s a circlejerk of really egotistical people.

But one person, one MFer messaged me to say they appreciated the rationality. Which is what people in the situation of trans people need the most in such a chaotically unfair and unjust world. If you want to be respected, you have to respect another’s idiocy sometimes in the effort for them to change for the better, not for you.

I’ve defended chinese people on steam and been told personally that they appreciate the rationality.

I didn’t talk much before because genuinely, I hate hate hate, the idea of being apart of the group of reactionary and super knee jerk reaction people that exist these days.

Like, you fuckheads know you can just take a few days to think about something right? Life isn’t so easy for everyone to just change, they need to change because of an internal revelation. But these people just don’t get the fuckin clue that their life is nothing like anothers. So instead, kneejerk reactions, just immedietly say the dumbest shit that come to mind. Take no effort to imagine an alternative, to imagine an argument, to see yourself embarrassed. Instead, just say shit like it’s a shower thought and fucking ruin shit.

Nobody takes the time they need to truly get to a point of true understanding. It only comes naturally to say the immediate thoughts they have, and never challenge themselves via themselves.

tl;dr take some time, genuinely rational people, say your piece, because we’re in a chaotic world where being able to spread your opinion, no matter how little effort or thought goes into it, needs someone to take time and dissolve the minimal effort thousands of others took to reach their numbers.

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tossertozier · 6 years

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What are your thoughts on fics that make Richie gay and Eddie a homophobe? I find these bother me on a visceral level and I can't place why. Probably because I see Eddie as the one who's closeted and Richie as decisively straight, particularly for their book counterparts? But yeah, I'd like to know your thoughts on homophobic! Eddie in general. I see it more times than I'd like to

okay well i’m gonna rephrase ur question here nonny because i do appreciate the sentiment but i just want to reiterate that i fully believe all writers have their right to tackle these characters from the angle they see fit (with certain exceptions of course) & just because i might not necessarily see a view point via my own deduction of canon doesn’t make it any less valid to me than the way i write the characters. this got long so it’s going under a cut.

so, what would i think about writing richie as explicitly gay and eddie as homophobic in one of my fics?

i could understand the viewpoint for eddie. eddie, by and large, has the most inherent shame of all of the losers. internalizing those things can lead to homophobic tendencies. however, book!eddie (and this was actually one of my favorite shake ups about the 2017 movie but we’re sticking to the book right now lol) is truly just not an outwardly offensive person. not in the offends way, but like…when it comes to taking action. all of the times eddie acts truly violent in the book are strongly reactionary. (battery acid you slime happens when he thinks IT is going to kill bill, he kills bowers out of self defense, he loses his arm because he thinks richie is going to die.) it is honestly more difficult for me to picture eddie as outwardly violent towards…anything that has not directly threatened him. ((maybe, i could see a questioning eddie getting upsetting if he was getting taunted and acting out??)) also, often depictions of homophobia get wrapped up with some sort of religious imagery which again, i wouldn’t write eddie as. eddie isn’t really given a religion in the books, so far as i can remember. (he asks richie a question about Catholicism, obviously not jewish.) i don’t believe with the faith in medicine that she has, that sonia would be at all outwardly religious. i don’t think she’s stable enough to regularly attend service. she’s very rarely described as leaving the house in the books, which is tough in it’s own way.

everyone is entitled to their own view point of loser sexuality. for the sake of sharing here, i am going to say that my personal view point is: i think richie is bisexual canonically, with a preference for more effeminate figures. in the book, richie refers to bev as “one of the guys - but one hell of a good looking guy” which some might take as evidence for him having an overt preference for men. i actually take this the opposite way. i think a lot of the reason richie does not have complete feelings for beverly is because of her androgynous energy. & i don’t think his failed marriages are a signal of complete homosexuality. i think they’re a signal of perpetual immaturity. i can’t quote the entire thing here, but his story of one of his wives is honestly one of my absolute favorite pieces of the book - and one of the most important, defining characteristics of richie, to me. AGAIN i go back to that fucking bo burnham song that i literally call the Richie Tozier song in my head because i think its so true of … so many men in the entertainment industry “have you ever seen a birthday party for children, and one of the children won’t stop screaming? ‘cause he’s just a little attention attract-er, when he grows up to be a comic or actor, he’ll be rewarded for never maturing. for never understanding or learning that every day can’t be about him, there’s other people, you selfish asshole.” i don’t think richie ever really Fully emotionally matured and was continually rewarded for this throughout his career (as hollywood loves to do with white men) & he loses a woman for it because she can’t be his emotional punching bag and pay constant attention to his needs . and she calls him tf out for it & he’s not even angry because he knows she’s right - he laughed about it.

(i’d say if there’s a defining sentence for richie, it’s “Richie laughed.” he can’t take things seriously & that’s not a compliment or a good thing, it leads to him sobbing on bill’s shoulder outside of the house because he can’t handle the world anymore because he hasn’t been processing little by little.)

one of the biggest tools of contrast for eddie and richie and how their sexualities are presented, to me, is their relationship with bill denbrough. (granted i believe any member of the loser’s club would suck bill’s dick if he asked because he’s a self insert but i digress.) richie refers to bill as his best friend. while i can’t think of a quote off the top of my head that defines this, i think a lot of bill and richie’s arch in the book (which is QUITE lengthy. it amazes me how little fandom attention is paid to their relationship, because it takes up seriously massive portions of the book) is richie going from quite wanting to be bill to understanding he’s not bill and that not having two bills is a benefit to them all. a lot of it is learning to respect himself the way he respects bill - and he has his own contributions to the fight that are entirely without bill. (the smoke scene for example and their entire last fight with IT) i do not think richie ever has a crush on bill, or wants to be with him, he just considers bill better than himself- something to look up to. to me, more than anyone else in the book, bill and richie are written to be the MenT.M. i think if richie would have a crush on any ManT.M. it would be bill, and to me, he doesn’t. eddie has a crush on bill. like. it’s not written out like “oh hey, here’s eddie being gay and having a crush on bill.” but liek. dudes, my guys. it’s…yeah. like. i really don’t think this could go undetected by the modernly educated reader. when my best friend read it she just texted me “so…eddie’s big gay crush on bill?” & i could only respond with “yeah. i know.” this is alreadhy super long an i could write several essays on bill/eddie/richie and the differences in their relationship buUUUUT yeap.

#askj #meta #ooooof #go awf #me

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