#anti political correctness in fiction

[commander-erwin-smith]

I literally don’t care no more.

“Bakugo was killed off for being gay,”

“Bakugou was killed off for being homosexual,”

“They sent his gay ass straight to hell!”

BAKUGOU’S SEXUALITY IS IRRELEVANT!

Bakugou is not gay nor is he interested in relationships.

He’s more asexual in my opinion

People really look for anything to complain about, huh?

Bakugou has no sexuality in my opinion because nothing has been confirmed.

#ask #anonymous #bnha spoilers #bnha discourse #fiction discourse #anti political correctness in fiction

[bisexualseraphim]

I can’t believe this needs explaining but a same-gender relationship by definition cannot be “heteronormative” lmao. The way two WOMEN date or have sex with each other or get married will never be heteronormative because they are not in a heterosexual relationship. And yes, this includes butch/femme relationships.

Like do you really think homophobes are looking at a twink and a bear holding hands and thinking “well the idea of them being inside each other turns my stomach but one is slightly more masculine than the other so I suppose it’s okay. Oh and they’re wearing T-shirts that say ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ which basically means ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ even better.” What world are you living in

#It’s like some of you saw that stupid Korrasami handmaiden/feudal lord post when you were 13 #And decided to base all your queer politics on that for the next decade #‘Sex with a strap is problematic because it’s heteron—‘ shut up shut the fuck up #It especially bothers me when aimed at WLW relationships because #It often comes across as TERFy #And it always comes across as anti-butch #Like anything other than femme/femme is oppressive or has a power dynamic or some shit #It’s bad enough when applied to characters but it’s disgusting when applied to real life people #No gays in masc/fem relationships are not bootlicking the straights or whatever the fuck what is wrong with you #Like when you post about that fictional masc/fem relationship being heteronormative #You do know that real people see that shit right. People in those types of relationships can see what you think of them #It’s actually so fucking gross just stop #Stop attacking other queer people for not being queer the ‘correct’ way #heteronormativity #queerphobia #butchphobia #lesbophobia #transphobia #homophobia #lgbtq #queer #gay #bisexual #lesbian #enby #butch #femme #androgyny #korrasami #queer discourse

[right-leaning-nahua]

The woke bums being so offended over Purple Heart just goes to show how pro censorship and anti dark fiction they are no matter how much they pretend to be anti censorship and pro dark fiction until it’s time to be a snowflake over something they don’t like.

But the moment we don’t want to watch something they made because of their lazy woke agenda—man hating, hating white people, lazy race bending, lazy sexuality bending, and lazy gender bending we’re called Nazis, misogynists, white supremacists, transphobes, homophobes, etc.

The movie is probably going to suck anyway and be full of woke nonsense since the main female character is supposedly a leftist lmao.

Fiction is allowed to exist whether you like it or not.

#sofia carson #purple heart #anti censorship #anti fandom politics #anti political correctness #disney descendants #pro dark fiction #anti anti

[wilwheaton]

“I remember reading in, what, 2014 or 2015, about these people who were trying to game the Hugos, and didn’t seem to like what science fiction had become. I thought they were people with a chip on their shoulder who probably weren’t good enough writers to win awards without doing something like this. If you want to be a good writer you have to put in the work, and these seemed like people who had chosen to be aggrieved rather than do the work. They wanted to win, and for foreign books and women to become much less prominent. The people who seemed to be shepherding the majority of the ’Puppies’ around wanted Hugo awards, and it was easier to get a bunch of people to pay for supporting memberships and vote for them than it was to write stories good enough to win them.”

Neil Gaiman on the Sad Puppies from a few years ago

Intro to the “Sad Puppies”:

The Hugo Awards, which have celebrated pioneering works of science fiction since 1953, have traditionally — and undoubtedly still are — the highlight of the science fiction calendar, but for a small group of agenda-driven agitators, they represent nothing more than an avenue through which all-too progressive views are disseminated and applauded. There is a particular fringe that laments the apparent "wokeness" of the Hugos, and claims that accolades are not handed out on the basis of quality, but on how politically correct the writing.

This mindset came to prominence most notably in 2013 with the emergence of Sad Puppies, an anti-Hugo faction of writers and fans bent on venting their award-related frustrations.

Sad Puppies felt — emotionally rather than evidentially — that certain demographics — namely straight, right-leaning white males — were being overlooked so that the Hugos could elevate diverse, historically underrepresented voices. This, Sad Puppies seemed to imply, was the only possible reason why certain authors weren’t being given the praise they deserved on the award circuit.

Between 2013 and 2017, Sad Puppies attempted to influence, through the use of a tactical voting bloc, the outcome of various Hugo Awards categories.

“The people who seemed to be shepherding the majority of the ’Puppies’ around wanted Hugo awards, and it was easier to get a bunch of people to pay for supporting memberships and vote for them than it was to write stories good enough to win them.”

MortalKombatFATALITY.gif

#Neil destroyed those shitty racists so completely they didn't even leave dental records

[aleksanderscult]

IMO, LB tried to insert Zoya and Nikolai in the plot that was supposed to be for Alina and Aleksander. No one is gonna take that idea of my mind!!! Like she really tried to have this perfect monarchs of Ravka with a HEA for the grishas but fail at developing the idea. Unfortunately, LB had already taken away the real protagonists and had to continue the plot without them, so we were left with two characters that seem to have put there out of nowere.

This is the first time I'm hearing this theory.

I don't know if I agree or disagree but Leigh really can't seem to let Darklina go as it seems from the "Alex Stern" series. So it wouldn't surprise me if your theory is correct. It's like she loves this ship but doesn't want the real one to get together so she makes bad imitations of it to end up together (I hope this makes sense😭).

But I want to say that bringing back Aleksander was truly a huge mistake:

1) She really had to let his character rest. After all, I usually hate the whole resurrection trope in fiction. It's so dumb most of the times.

2) She had to find another antagonist for Nikolai and the others. Or better, let them handle Shu Han and Fjerda. Make a book that contains political intrigues (but Leigh doesn't know how to write that so 💀)

3) Bringing back Aleksander without having Alina on the picture was not good at all. "Darklina" was the heart and soul of the trilogy, no matter what the antis say. Their love, conflicts and bond made the books. Without it RoW "suffered".

Now if Leigh used Zoyalai as a second Darklina.... She failed like you said.

Send me your unpopular opinion

#the darkling #aleksander morozova #pro darkling #pro aleksander morozova #darklina #pro darklina #alarkling #pro alarkling #anti zoyalai #anti nikolai duology #grishaverse #alina starkov #leigh bardugo

[jewishvitya]

Anon:

I've actually met J.K. Rowling irl and asked her about the antisemitism controversy point blank. Very politley, she said it was ridiculous. She said she based the goblins on English folklore and nothing more.

It doesn't matter what she says. She can tell us her intent, not her impact. Not once did I accuse her of making the goblins in the books antisemitic on purpose. My issue was that she didn't care enough to acknowledge it and talk about it respectfully. The result stays the same. I laid out how they are antisemitic. It's in the text regardless of what she says.

She made Grindelwald an antagonist who claims he wants to stop the holocaust. By trying to stop him, the protagonists are trying to preserve the course of events where, in real life, the holocaust happened. She used holocaust imagery in her magic movies. I'm not just going to trust her word and her judgment on what's antisemitic. Be serious.

As for the game, most gentiles I know don't even know what a shofar is.

Even if you completely disregard the horn, it's still a storyline of blood libel using an antisemitic depiction. The only reason the horn is a problem, is that they put it in the hands of antisemitic caricatures. I'm not claiming ownership on the concept of ram's horn instruments. I was clear on that too.

As for the 1612 parallel, I genuinely don't know where that came from. [...] In fact, the one people keep referring to happened in 1614!

The Fettmilch uprising was a series of events that started at 1612. A bigger expulsion of Jews from the place was at 1614, but the attacks started before that, at 1612.

If you play it, you'll find trans and gay characters that are amazing and so fun to interact with, as well as an overall theme of antiprejudism.

Sure, I'll go ahead and interact with those fictional trans and gay characters. It sounds so nice. I'm sure I'll enjoy them enough to make up for giving money to a person who's at the forefront of the current attack on trans rights. Trans people dying in reality while she emboldens transphobes and makes it her entire online persona? That just isn't upsetting enough for me to feel repulsed by the idea of supporting this.

As far as I'm concerned, she has blood in her hands.

A theme of anti-prejudice is nice. Not compatible with the plot where you have to put down a rebellion, and not compatible with her behavior in reality.

But Rowling's world doesn't really lend itself to themes of anti-prejudice. She has:

A slave race where wanting to be free makes them weird, and if one is freed against her will, she becomes an aimless drunk. Our protagonists decorate their decapitated heads with Christmas hats. The idea of freeing them is a running joke, and the protagonist ends up a slave owner.

A werewolf community of HIV+ allegories where all but one person join the wizard Nazis. That one person ("the good one") poses a danger to innocent people more than once.

A race of greedy ruthless untrustworthy fantasy bankers, who are legally barred from having an equal place in society and shown as vicious for their attempts to fight for it, who have their cultural rules of inheritance constantly disrespected, and only have a place for their usefulness in crafting and managing the banks.

Giants who are shown as victims of wizards but also as dangerous creatures barely able to think.

Rowling doesn't understand prejudice. In her world, all the prejudiced opinions wizards have against the marginalized are correct. The slaves want to be slaves, the werewolves are dangerous, the goblins are greedy and bloodthirsty, the giants are violent and uncontrollable.

She doesn't have an issue with prejudice - as long as you're polite about it. She has an issue with outright physical violence, with rudeness and slurs, and with job discrimination. Beyond that, she doesn't care. She gets to have a surface-level message of anti-hatred because she can't come up with a villain that isn't literally Hitler.

#riki babbles #hogwarts legacy #HP #JKR

[whitehotharlots]

On Israel-Palestine, the left's own discourse prevents them from winning

Identity politics are infinitely elastic. The purveyors of identity politics seek not to adjudicate claims regarding truth or morality, nor to weigh the costs vs. benefits of any potential beliefs or actions. The solitary goal of these politics is the establishment of a hierarchy wherein some are broadly deemed "good" according to their identity markers and others are deemed "bad." The Good Ones are always correct, always wise, and always moral. Even their most heinous actions must be understood within an identity context and forgiven as a consequence of uncontrollable social forces. The Bad Ones, meanwhile, are always suspect, typically tainted, and even if they happen to agree with the proper cause their opinions are never fully correct by virtue of emanating from someone who is bad.

This is by definition and design. There is no way around it. And it applies 100% equally to the identity politics we associate with the right wing as it does to those we associate with the left wing.

The trouble is, identity politics do not exist in a vacuum. They are embedded in much larger social and institutional systems in which some people already have power and others do not. These empowered people will not countenance any real threats to their power, and this fact will inevitably be reflected in the design of the identity hierarchies.

Again, this is a very basic observation, and it's why the broad American left spent several decades promoting the ideal of racial blindness: if people succeed or fail not by virtue of their actions or the content of their characters but according the presence or absence of arbitrary markers, people who belong to privileged groups will inevitably succeed, and those on the outside will inevitably fail. The only fair way to run a society is to strive to provide a baseline of comfort and dignity to everyone. Accepting the fact that material wealth will never be distributed fully equitably, we should at least make an earnest attempt to ensure every human has their needs fulfilled, and establish a system for allocating comforts according to objective baselines that reward decency and competence regardless of uncontrollable identity factors.

This paradigm did not result immediate equality, however, and therefore it was evil. Reactionary elements among the identitiarian left began to insist that the idealization of de-racialization was the primary or even sole cause of the existence of racial disparities. We made a horrible mistake in abandoning a system in which comfort is unfairly allocated according to identity. Instead, we should embrace an even more extreme version of such a system, only with the identity poles inverted. Th--that'll fix everything.

While this approach to racist anti-racism has only entered the mainstream in the last several years, it's been percolating among the dumbest factions of the left for decades. One of its stupidest manifestations is found in an analytical frame called "Settler Colonialism," popularized by a book by J. Sakai (a mysterious figure who is almost certainly a fictional creation of some malignant government agency). It's called Settlers, and is summarized by Wikipedia thusly:

Settlers argues that the class system in the United States is built upon the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans and that the white working class in the United States constitutes a privileged labor aristocracy that lacks proletarian consciousness. Arguing that the white working class possesses a petit-bourgeois and reformist consciousness, Sakai posits that the colonized peoples of the United States constitutes its proletariat.

Awesome, great. Real big brain shit.

Now, of course, First Nations Americans were horrifically displaced, and many Black Americans were horrifically enslaved, and these undeniable facts should have a prominent place in any honest reading of American history. But that's not what Settlers seeks to achieve. The point of the book, and the project it spawned, is to bifurcate the American people into those who are always good by virtue of the (largely imagined and/or inapplicable) historical implications of their identity markers, and those who are always bad according those same implications. It's almost as idiotically dualistic as Ibram Kendi's work, only with some superficial Marxian lingo sprinkled throughout.

The Settlers frame leaves us with two choices, 1) you can recognize that human history is rife with violent conflict, that the present-day locations of all people are a consequence of immeasurably complex struggles dating back millennia, and then work toward a relatively equitable society with the goal of ensuring that no person suffers unduly because of events that occurred years or even centuries before they were born. Or, 2) you can arbitrarily declare some people as the rightful inhabitants of certain areas and others inherently immoral and violent occupiers of those areas. If you choose option 2, the moral calculus remains the same regardless of whether your sympathies lie with the winners or the losers of past conflicts. The framing is reactionary, which is why it's gotten so popular so quickly.

Option 2 might appear to have some material grounding, but in practice it always, without exception, redounds to paper-thin claims of ancestral righteousness. Take, for example, the following cartoon, which I have seen posted sincerely in dozens of venues:

Now, of course, it's fair to say that the wealth of the United States and EU has been built largely via the exploitation of the global south. I'm not denying that. But what is being suggested by this cartoon? East Asia apparently does not exist. Spain and Portugal--two of the most brutal imperial powers of the last millennium--are exempted from the stains of colonial spoils, presumably due to the left's very recent decision that Spanish and Portuguese-speaking people no longer count as white. South America, a continent containing 400 million speakers of Spanish and Portuguese that is 90% Christian, is inscrutably neutral... and so is California for some reason. And, of course, the entire African people have always existed as one cohesive entity, not quite human beings but resources to be mined, their existence bereft of the conflicts, massacres, enslavements, and displacements that have been perpetrated and suffered by every other group throughout the whole of human history.

My point is that didactic manichaeism inevitably results in a very stupid understanding of world events. And the stupidity of this framing is very, very easy to exploit.

The left is fine with this framing when it's exploited by their own--hence the widespread tolerance of white ladies who have gained influential positions within academe by pretending to be Native American or Hispanic. Since the late 1960's, the primary goal of the American left has been to lower the bar of access to the Professional and Managerial class for members of their preferred identity groups. Childish morality plays serve this function excellently. But when it comes to matters of international affairs, the reactionary nature of this frame is impossible to overcome.

Here is the American Jewish Community's online whitepaper about how Jewish people are the rightful inhabitants of Palestine, due to vague claims of being colonized. Here is a midwit actor from Stranger Things proclaiming his support for Israel's genocide of Palestinians by telling American viewers they are the real settlers. Here is a pre-10/7 piece in the Jerusalem Post about how it's terrorism for people to not want to lose their homes to annexation, because Israelis have an ancestral claim to them. Here is a story from the Times of Israel about the purported discovery of a 2000-year-old coin that proves Palestine was always the land of Zion.

All of these pieces come to the same general conclusion, and all are taken from the playbook of the identitarian left.

Feel free to scoff at any of these. Your response does not matter. These claims can be made freely and loudly and effectively because they are being made by empowered people who are playing within the bounds of discourse that you have for designed them. So far as the official narrative is concerned, they are the good guys. Everything they say is correct, by virtue of them being the good guys. And there's nothing you can do to contradict or complicate their claims without casting yourselves among the bad guys.

You have abandoned principles. You have forbidden all considerations of context. You demanded everyone understand the world as good vs. evil. You think you won, and in some narrow areas you have, but it turns out you're not always gonna be the one who gets to makes the designations.

[wc-confessions]

mods dont have to post this, i am just very angry right now. id understand if this is controversial. i just want someone to hear this.

i just got off of wcue. i was a spectating. there was someone in the clan named w//ndigowisp. i am not good at confrontation, but being a native who sees ca like this every day of my life (literally.) i had an urge to actually say something. this has been something that has bothered me for a very, very long time. it is extremely personal to me.

my friend and i approached them as kindly as possible to inform them about the issue with their name. i was gentle with my wording- i know not everyone knows about the weight behind it. i know some people do not do well with being confronted.

and instantly we were told that they "knew what they were doing," and that we were making them uncomfortable. my friend pointed out that i, a native, have to be uncomfortable with this almost all the time. we were told that it did not matter because it was fictional, even though cultural appropriation extends beyond warrior cats.

after they were told that i am a native, they started going on about how rude and mean i was being. it was at this point they were prioritizing their own comfort over respect for native culture.

the person with the name asked their friends if they could serverhop because they were getting anxious. one of their friends told me to die (through the euphemism "go to starclan") right before they left.

my friend left, but i did not. someone had politely asked for a little more elaboration after overhearing our conversation.

after that, someone brought their gaggle of friends over. 3-4 of them. they were telling me that they were cherokee, and that it was chronically online to be uncomfortable with this. all i had asked for was for them to respect native culture. i was told that i am stupid and sad for caring about this. i was told to 'let people enjoy things.' it is not just the name i am upset with. as i said before, cultural appropriation extends beyond warrior cats. ca is the last step of colonization.

you could argue that there are bigger issues. i agree. but there is nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with cultural appropriation (i cannot believe i have to say that), and you should not go after other natives for it. i did everything i could to be kind, but i am still painted as awful and mean.

i wish i could say wcue is not always like this. in my own personal experience, anti-indigenous racism runs rampant there. i have blocked most racists i see. my blocklist is almost full- roblox has a limit of 100 users. only about 10-20 are from before i started blocking them.

again, mods don't have to post this, but i am still very hurt and very angry. sorry for the long post. if, by any chance, any of those people see this- i am sorry, but i'm not going to swallow my discomfort and hurt for the sake of white comfort.

as someone who was raised to believe in the spirit in question, it IS disrespectful to be using the name - i was told from a young age to never speak the name of it due to its nature and how it will bring misfortune to both myself and my people (and because of this, i go out of my way to avoid using its name, even if censored)

i dont think these people realize that not all native americans share the same beliefs, either. there are very specific groups who believe in this spirit, primarily those of us who are from canada, the great lakes, and the appalachians (i don't believe the cherokee nation is a part of this particularly grouping, but correct me if im wrong!). that name should not have been used or even encouraged to be used. it reeks of a lack of respect for many native american cultures and cultural appropriation

having a complaint about that spirit's name being used is not "chronically online" - there is a very real and genuine belief that usage of the name will bring evil to you, and this belief has been around since before chr*st*pher c*lumbus even came to the americas. it feels like most people think "chronically online" means "bipoc bringing up racism" nowadays because they feel entitled to speak over us (as always)

i'm very sorry you had to deal with those people, anon. i myself would've been extremely paranoid about the encounter, and you have every right to be upset over what happened. i hope you are well

-mod ashensky

#confession #anonymous #warrior cats #anti indigenous racism #tw racism

[opinated-user]

i'm going to ignore for a second how LO has shown that she's just as gender essentialist as any other terf, in both her own works of fiction as in reality, or that she has even defended a radical feminist that SWERF use as their foundation for their nonsense. those things do contribute to the why i call out LO as terf adjacent, but let's put them aside for a moment. why do people call you a terf when you're a queerphobe or when you generally treat queer people as the enemy to take down? because terfs are the one weaponizing queerphobia in a real world sense.

this picture was used as an illustrative example of "lesbian being pressured by trans woman to have sex", in this infamous articles from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385 terfs are currently using queerphobia as another way to create division in the whole community. once they have managed to convince enough people that queer should be erased, who do you think is going to be next? but not everyone is from the UK in the first place, which would be a moot point to make because do you think terfs care about that? they only see you legitimatizing their position that nobody ever should be called queer, that queer is a bad word to use, that the people who call themselves and their community queer are bad selfish people who want to force you into accepting their identity. it doesn't matter if you're from the US, Canada or any other place, they'll use that as further proof that they're right and that other people who also "force them" to accept their identity are equally as bad and should also be erased. take a guess as to who that could be refering to. as a sidenote... do you really think the UK is the only place in earth with terfs? it's where they're the most prominent and have the most political power, that much is true, but terfs exist everywhere and sometimes they do get to have an impact if given the chance. why do you all think there has been an increasing number of anti trans law in usa? why do some states have outright banned drag performances? let me be clear about this. not being queer is fine. don't wanting to be called queer is fine. correcting people who call you, you individually, the person, queer is totally valid. as long you respect the right of queer people to exist and understand our need to have our own queer community, because we'll always have that as human beings that we're, we can all coexist no problem. but queerphobes like LO don't do that and it's disgusting to even pretend so. she has made post after post about how we, queer people, are self hating morons who are beneath her. she has told anons writing to her about how they should change the name of their identity. she has actually said that "people who reclaim queer should choke". she has made an entire video full of misinformation with the express purpose of convince people in general that they should never use queer, ever, and comparing the people who do with the most hateful horrible kind of people you can meet. i have a whole tag called "lily orchard is a queerphobe" because she has done this so frequently, so blatantly and so obviously that i'm actually baffled that she thinks she's foolling everyone by reducing her hatred for us as simply "don't liking to be called that word." anyone can visit that tag and see that it goes a lot harder than that. i don't know OP, but if all they ever said was that they don't want to be associated with that word because of personal negative experience with it and never said anything about queer people as a group or as a community, then yes, it would be wrong to immediately call them a terf on that basis alone. that's not the case of LO, as i argued above. she might not be exactly the same as a terf... but does she ever make their work a little easier by normalizing their ideas.

#lily orchard #lily orchard is a queerphobe

[weaselandfriends]

The Puritanical Eye

An absolutely amazing article that discusses many observations I've had on the direction of mainstream media, and the reaction of audiences to mainstream media, over the past few decades. A choice quote:

The current state of cultural and material decline plays an important role in the shift toward Puritanism in media and art, in consumer appetite, and in the political posture of the State. That is to say, with the compounding crises we are bombarded with (everything from climate disaster to rampant racialized police violence to genocide) as a part of our daily lives under late capitalism, the need for escape, and indeed, the need for that escape to be completely unchallenging and non-confrontational, has become imperative. Moreover, as control over our own material realities becomes less and less feasible, the last lone place we believe we can exercise agency is within the landscape of that which we consume. This has resulted in the consuming public approaching all media and art with a moral imperative — that which we consume must be perfectly virtuous, sanitized of all problematic or complicated ideas and depictions, because it has become the stand-in for our very realities, our very political action as citizens; consuming has become our praxis.

I also love this takedown:

In 2022, The New Yorker organized a roundtable of critics tasked with examining the absence of sex scenes in mainstream Hollywood cinema. Paradoxically, despite The New Yorker’s critics expressing a longing for sex scenes in films, their stance is not too dissimilar from that of those audiences who reject such scenes today. For example, on the sex in Verhoeven’s Benedetta, Alexandra Schwartz says, “It felt superimposed, like a point was being made rather than it being anything integral to the movie”. Words that seem to confirm what Verhoeven has asserted about the drift towards Puritanism in American cinema today, and its indifference or impatience toward the kind of stories and images that have always interested him throughout his career. [...] The issue is that the presence of sex that is not easily digestible and sanitized for these viewers, sex that can not be swallowed whole or viewed as morally correct in some way, is therefore automatically seen as “anti-art”, as without having meaning, as alienating.

The article ultimately states that this Puritanical backlash against "morally impure" art is the final solidification of capitalist commodification, rendering the body consumable once any challenging or uncomfortable elements are sanded off. What concerns me most is how so many of the voices crying out against "degenerate art" today are from young people.

I expect old, conservative fuddy-duddies to espouse such reactionary stances. What are the youth up to today? The chief virtue of young people is their collective anti-establishment bent, capable of challenging the entrenched status quo. Yet I now see many young people, self-professed left-wing radicals, who joyfully and with earnest energy attempt to enforce the mainstream capitalist conception of art via policing morality. It's like Squid Game or Hunger Games (a lot of Game titles): Works that ostensibly challenge the injustices of the capitalist/entertainment system, but which are themselves mass-produced, mass-appeal, mass-marketed works of media.

The independent nature of the internet wrested a significant chunk of creative control from big studios, and much of the most original and avant garde artistic endeavors being made today are made by a single person or small group of people in some niche online corner: the videos of Jon Bois, Andrew Hussie's Homestuck, and web fiction similar to those I highlighted in my previous post, to name only a few.

Yet if the people, not even those in power but random online people gathering with enough numbers, are going to start inflicting moral artistic imperatives on each other even outside of government or big studio influence, what is the point?

This issue extends even past the moral. Simply look at the financial state of many artists and authors online who require Patreon donations for financial security, or the YouTube video creators subjected to the whims of the almighty algorithm. These creatives are forced to generate content of certain popularly-appealing specifications at a certain (usually accelerated) rate in order to remain afloat. Though YouTubers at least have the excuse of being under Google's big business yoke, those relying on Patreon are being forced to dance like grinder monkeys simply at the behest of their readership.

Researching RoyalRoad prior to posting Cleveland Quixotic, I often saw reviews of popular works that described the work being a "Patreon Trap"; i.e., the author constantly outputs content but the story only ever moves at the most glacial of paces, allowing for a constant stream of monthly donations as readers are strung along expecting something to finally happen. The term "Patreon Trap" denotes it's as much misery for the reader as it is for the writer. Yet, the practice continues. And so many of these webfics turn into million-word monstrosities. For all the hand-wringing about capitalism, the systems it inflicts upon people, and its propensity to push cheap and valueless consumption, when free from big business control, why do we only inflict systems potentially even more insidious practices that are even more conducive to valueless content on ourselves?

Another great quote from the article:

Indeed, the market asserts that what we’ve loved before we’ll love again, and that not only will this recursive posture lead to certain profit, but the halo of nostalgia that comes along with it will generate an extra boost in capital to boot. ​​The drive to capitalize on the childhood favorites of those who now have spendable income and drive a large portion of the market means that most of our media is based on children’s artifacts from 30 years ago, and franchises originally made for children.

The phenomenon of nostalgia described here is possibly also a byproduct of the eradication of the avant garde. If there are no artists who are capable of pushing contemporary tastes in new directions, even if imperfectly at first only to be refined later, then contemporary tastes will simply continue in a state of inertia, recycling "what made me happy in the past" (nostalgia) and emphasizing the conservative and reactionary nature of most media.

Anyway, read the full article, there are many more insights I didn't touch on in this post.

#media

[commander-erwin-smith]

*MHA spoilers*

With the way the MHA manga is going down and Mirko losing 2 arms and possibly an eye, I wonder the woke mob will complain about it and go “Have y’all noticed how badly Horikoshi treats his characters of color along with other male manga writers.”

I’m a biracial woman and if I hear that, I’m gonna roll my eyes. Mirko is kicking ass and taking names. Don’t bring your PC shit into this.

I hope the woke bnha fans are triggered into infinity.

Anyway Mirko is racially ambiguous and we don’t really know if she’s black, half black half Japanese, or just a Japanese person with darker skin. Also them potentially complaining about how Horikoshi and other mangakas treat “POC”—god I hate that cringe woke word—is such a joke when Japanese characters aren’t white.

I wish that people would leave political correctness out of fandom as well because it’s cringe. Luckily I don’t follow or interact with people like that so I’m safe lol.

#bnha discourse #bnha spoilers #ask #anonymous #anti political correctness in fiction #fiction discourse

[seriouslycromulent]

Ok. So I know I'm late to the conversation, but let's just say that I'm disappointed, although not surprised to read casually racist comments on YouTube posts about Billy Spencer and the revelation that Eliot Spencer's dad is black.

I say not surprised because I wasn't born yesterday, and I've learned from years of being a Star Trek fan that even if a show centers around uniting across cultures, features a multicultural cast, and spreads a message of fighting bad guys in every form, bigots will still gravitate toward that fandom and lose their shit if a person of color is centered in a space that the bigot assumes a white person "should have" been centered.

Why?

Because the fandom world is just a microcosm of all the bitchassness that exists in the world overall. The global society we live in is brimming with racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny and a myriad of other forms of bigotry. And that reality will always be reflected in fandom because bigots are often oblivious and carry their prejudice with them wherever they go ... including into the fandom world.

Now I don't know the age of the person who claimed that hiring Keith David to play Eliot's dad was a sign of "everything having to be politically correct these days," but if I didn't know any better, I would've thought I had been transported back to the 1990s and was engaging with Al Bundy on Married with Children.

Seriously? People are still using the phrase "politically correct" without a hint of irony? I thought bigots had moved on to calling everything that doesn't center straight, white, cis, able-bodied people as "woke." I guess this person just likes the classics.

Nevermind that we rarely, if ever, see transracial adoption depicted on American television when the child is white. Nevermind that the series has always had a theme around found family from different backgrounds working together to bring a little more justice into an unjust and unfair world. Nevermind that we waited 6.5 seasons to learn more about Eliot's background, and all we learned was that he was adopted, his parents are black, and why he and his dad fell out and hadn't spoken in over 2 decades.

No. Bigots are mad because a white person has black parents on a fictional series because it didn't fit their preferred narrative.

Leverage is not a show without flaws, but it has always been a show that challenged the status quo, behind the scenes and in the stories they tell. Your discomfort after learning that Eliot was raised by black parents is a reflection of your bias and skanky race issues regarding BIPOC folks, and you should examine that further. Not search for facile excuses to hide your bigotry behind other "reasons" to dislike the episode. You're fooling no one.

And the adoption story of Eliot Spencer was not "forced." It was simply not telegraphed with clues at every opportunity because Eliot plays everything close to the vest, especially his past. It's completely on brand for him, and if you cared about this character, you wouldn't have a problem with it and would acknowledge the consistency of him never referencing it.

As for the people who think that the writers just dumped his entire backstory on us in one episode, what show are you watching? There's plenty more to Eliot's background than who his dad is and why they fell out. And I bet if his dad was white, these so-called fans would've raced to their keyboards to write countless fanfic backstories to Eliot's life growing up in a small town, how he navigated high school especially with being adopted, and his life, in general, prior to joining the military. All the while taking the information from the episode to craft a layered history of his life.

There's a ton of stories out there to tell about Eliot Spencer, but a lot of the bigots fans are now deflated because that means they have to write a story with black parents and they don't want to do that. But I bet every single one of them will swear they're not racist or bigots or anti-black in any way.

Racism in fandom is not new, but I honestly expected more from the Leverage fandom. Granted, I know it's not everyone in the fandom. And you can argue it's not even the majority, but I've seen very little pushback from the fans who don't have a problem with Billy Spencer being black against the fans who do have a problem with Billy Spencer being black. And that too is very telling.

#fandom #racism in fandom #leverage: redemption #leverage #eliot spencer #billy spencer #christian kane #keith david

[olderthannetfic]

i'm a literature student at a fairly prestigious university for my country and i've recently returned to tumblr - i'm honestly shocked at how fandom has changed. Obviously in traditional literature there are 'problematic' things that happen, that you can dislike and even be disturbed by, but that doesn't mean the literature isn't valid? And its the same for modern media. Like in the 'real world' at school (at least where im from) we have content warnings (we call them health warnings) for nasty topics and then we just. . . discuss and analyse, which ig is stating the obvious in a university setting but still, like what do people who are fandom purists believe actual literature analysis is like?? idk I'm just rlly surprised honestly.

I also personally believe in free publishing, because if everything is published or posted above board then everything can be open to critique and criticism, otherwise people will talk about the same things in underground spaces and it could get way more toxic than having general mild fandom discourse on tumblr. Although it seems like fandom discourse is anything but mild these days.

I don't really have a super concise point but just some thoughts ive been having since returning to fandom spaces, wanted to know what you make of how i'm feeling :)

--

The authoritarian puritywankers existed before, but they were slightly different demographics or in slightly different spaces from now.

I think some of the more "thoughtcrimes are real" types who freak out over the most minor of fictional transgressions live in a bubble. That doesn't mean their lives are perfect. Hell, they may be dealing with actual abuse in their daily lives. But they aren't forced to confront how messy life is even among people one respects and mostly agrees with and are able to cling to the idea of Good People vs. Bad People.

That said, for every booktuber going on about how some YA book's misstep will indoctrinate the youth and spell the end of civilization, I still see 10 old, bigoted guys bleating about "political correctness run amok" just because a school assigned a book by a black author. Annoying wokesters are very present and more of an active problem around fandom on Tumblr, but I think it's easy to imagine that they're far more powerful and numerous than they actually are.

The few young anti types I know offline tend to have random bouts of rage over problematic things but also are often too shy to speak up in person. Many of them get laughed at for their Very Online views and have trouble connecting with people offline. If someone they admire or just someone with a strong personality asserts the opposite of the anti party line, they instantly fold.

I would not say that the average Youth™ falls for purity discourse. Some do, but not only do we tend to not hear from or notice the ones who can behave themselves, but also, a lot of the most virulent wankers are older people who should know better and who are engaging in this bullshit for clout.

Bullies and idiots probably aren't any more numerous than in the past. They're just expressing it a little differently these days.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/24/2023

Fifth Place: Elon Musk

I'm sure most people saw that Elon Musk has changed Twitter's name from Twitter--one of the most recognizable names on the internet--to "X" the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet. What exactly caused Musk to think this was a good idea is currently up for debate, but many are calling it another misstep--because it so obviously is.

To give everyone an idea of just how nonsensical this is from a business standpoint: Imagine if McDonald's woke up one day and decided to change its name from the highly well known one they've had since their founding, to "P." Just the letter P, nothing else.

Fourth Place: Ben Shapiro

I would like to thank Matthew Gertz on the platform now known as "X" for compiling these four images which I think perfectly sum up the disconnect between how conservatives think America works and how it actually works.

Third Place: Matt Walsh

Xing--which I assume is what we will now call tweeting--today, Matt had the following to say about feminism:

Anyway, here's Matt back in March:

So the owning of other human beings as property has been a net benefit to civilization, but not giving women the right to vote, open bank accounts on their own, work outside the home, and be able to report both sexual harassment and rape. Mockery--and possibly revealing information about how Matt views the world--aside: What does it even mean for a movement or ideology to kill a person? What possible metric could you be using to justify such a statement?

Second Place: Paul Gosar

Media Matters reported today that Gosar previously used his official newsletter to promote USSA News, a website which has engaged in Holocaust Denial. Postings from the website include:

USSA News on July 22 posted: “David Cole, a Jew, explores Auschwitz and debunks the claims that it was an industrial death camp – still on youtube for now but as more countries outlaw questioning the ‘holocaust’, it is uploaded here in case it is removed to censor inconvenient evidence.” 

USSA News on July 21 posted: “Making Adolf Hitler into a Jewish-controlled agent is quite a brilliant plot by International Jewry to divert newcomers away from learning the true history & background of National Socialism (Slavery).  Don’t be fooled! … Stand up for Hitler and National Socialism (Slavery)!!” The piece then promoted content on Renegade Tribune, a neo-Nazi site. 

USSA News on July 20 posted an article from the antisemitic site Unz Review attacking Jewish people, which begins by stating: “Untrue stories exist at each end of Jewish history’s three thousand years – fictional, fabricated and of immense magnitude.” It then claimed: “Towards the end of the 20th century as belief in the origin stories was fading away, the Holohoax morphed into a fearsome modern religion, in which belief is compulsory.” 

USSA News on July 17 lionized Hitler by writing that “the Kalergi Plan consists of the genocide of white people through miscegenation and mass immigration of non-whites to Europe. … Hitler was aware of Kalergi’s plan and did everything in his power to prevent it. Like Gobineau, Hitler considered the Aryan race to be the noblest, the best armed for the struggle for existence, the most beautiful, the most energetic, and the one with the greatest amount of creative genius. What this race lost by mixing it was not compensated by what the others gained by ennoblement.” 

I decided to check the website myself, and just today I found an article with the headline "God Is An Anti-Semite" which begins by showing this cartoon.

For those curious, that comic was made by a man named Farstar, here's some information about him according to a Wordpress blog sharing his name:

Farstar88 is a Fascist artist from South Africa who specialises in political cartoons as well as comics in order to provide a much needed narrative that is ruthlessly suppressed and excluded from mainstream consciousness. In a world of political correctness gone completely insane, telling a contrary story even if it is more than sufficiently backed up by facts, is considered an act of aggression and the victims apparently are those whose feelings get hurt when they can’t have their way.

You know, Paul Gosar hasn't really been subtle with his authoritarian leanings over the past few years, this is the man who buddies around with known fascist Nick Fuentes remember, but at some point you have to wonder--why doesn't he just come out and admit it? These aren't people with shaky pasts that you have to dig real deep to find information on, that bit about Farstar--I learned that in about three minutes through Google. At this point, one has to wonder what he has to loose by just loudly declaring that he is, in fact, a fascist--especially given everybody already knows that by this point.

Winner: Ron DeSantis

Speaking of fascists, DeSantis's campaign gave another shout out to its fascist supporters over the weekend through a staffer retweeting a campaign ad with this image of DeSantis superimposed over a fascist symbol.

Again, one has to even wonder why they try to hide it anymore.

Ron DeSantis, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

#elon musk #ben shapiro #matt walsh #paul gosar #ron desantis

[threadsun]

It’s always the ones who claim to be antis interacting with people who post the stuff they claim to very against. Especially when they say ‘Dni proshippers’ but then interact and make dark content. It’s become very clear that they don’t have a set definition of what proship is they just slap it wherever to define people who make content they don’t like. They make fiction spaces online messy and frankly, dangerous when they decide to make callout posts and block lists and such. They’re so hypocritical:(((

Oh god I reblogged a post about the bullshit of proship/antiship discourse the other day. It's SOOO STUPID!!! Especially in a time where books about queer people and informative books for children about how to spot and report csa are being pulled from public libraries and banned in various places under the guise of them being "morally reprehensible" and "bad for the children."

There is no way to dictate what people can and can't write without opening the door to fascism and oppressive censorship. There's no way to make a line without risking people pushing that line until it hurts real marginalised people.

Like as a Jewish person I generally hate holocaust comparisons, but like... idk I always go back to the nazi book burnings at Die Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, and the targeted harassment of Magnus Hirschfeld. So much important information about sex, gender, and sexuality were lost and suppressed. So much important research. Important work into the normalisation of sex and desire.

It has lasting impacts even now into the field of sexology, which is still treated as either a joke or some sort of perverted fake field for creeps to use as an excuse to take advantage of people. When I studied sexology in university, so much of it always came back to the idea that censorship is inherently detrimental to sexual liberation. Which in turn my gender studies professors all agreed is necessary for queer and female liberation as well.

Like this goes so much further and deeper than fandoms and ships, and it's so reductive and pointless to turn it into a fandom debate. Especially in the current political climate around the world. And to turn it into fandom drama or even to morally posture about being proship or an anti does a huge disservice to the people fighting on the front lines of queer and sexual liberation. It harms trans people and people of colour who are being targeted through censorship.

Idk in a world where consensual kink is still illegal in most places, where queer theory and critical race theory are being censored, where sex workers and kinky folks are actively fighting tooth and nail for your right to watch porn without the government telling you what you can and can't jack off too... In a world where FOSTA/SESTA is being used to actively harm sex workers and the victims of trafficking they claim to be helping. It's just... idk it's almost actively, wilfully, maliciously ignorant to think ship discourse is important enough to harass people over. To think that censoring fandom content is useful and morally correct.

I'm not so fussed about call out posts and block lists personally cause I don't care if "queer is a slur" "no kink at pride" "if you're not vocally antiship then you're proship which means I can make up beliefs to assign to you and then send people to harass you for it" assholes try to bother me. The block button is fun to press, and I've got thick skin and an actual understanding of the real world.

But yeah, they can make internet spaces pointlessly and actively hostile to people, especially people whose mental health is already fragile. And I've heard so many definitions of proship that it's soooooo clear no one actually has a real definition of it, and just use it as shorthand for "this person is a freak who makes things I don't like, and I think that means they should be punished in the court of public opinion for it."

idk I've seen too many sex workers and transfem people and Jewish people accused of being paedophiles and perverts and "proship" for daring to not follow Christian ideas of sexual purity and morality. I've been the Jewish, transfem sex worker getting called those things. I watched a trans woman get harassed off tumblr entirely for having an armpit fetish and daring to talk about it on her own blog.

I've seen countless people who called out racist/queerphobic/transmisogynistic trends in fandom get the "proship" label slapped on them just to drive them out of fandom spaces so they could keep their bigoted headcanons. I've seen it put on people who ship two unrelated characters who happened to know each other as children because "that's basically incest." I've seen it slapped on someone who wrote about adults in a consensual relationship who happened to have a 10 year age gap (34 vs 44).

And yeah, I've seen it put on people who write paedophilic incest fanfics, which is something I personally would prefer no one ever wanted to write about. But I also acknowledge that if I try to make that an actual rule, it will eventually become corrupted into something used for the oppression of marginalised people.

I know that I shouldn't be trusted with the power to dictate the actions (and especially the thoughts) of others. I know that thoughtcrimes aren't real, and that the world is so much bigger and messier and more complicated than fandom. I know that the moment I allow myself to become pro-censorship in any capacity, I've already lost and fascism has already gained a new foothold in the world.

And most of all, I know that all art including fandom art is something the artist and the people interacting with it are both choosing to consent to. That this consent can be revoked at any time, and that no one has the right to decide what anyone else can and cannot consent to. That all fiction is a scene, not a new reality, and that the consent of the real people involved is more important than what's actually going on within the scene.

#sunshine #asks #idk man like 'are you proship or an anti' being a Required Question every fandom blog must answer #kinda reminds me of how 'are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestine' is a Required Question every Jew must answer #like I have strong opinions on both that I'll share if I feel like it (before anyone asks I don't support the colonisation of Palestine) #but I fundamentally object to the idea that I owe anyone any information about anything I believe #especially since all of my beliefs are more nuanced than a single label can express #part of me feels like I'm making no sense cause my head is full of more thoughts about this than I can physically type out #but also I feel very strongly about this #and I know that other people who feel strongly about this don't necessarily feel like they can speak about it #so I'm gonna do it because I do not give a shit about backlash

[scarefox]

Sometimes when I leave my save and sane QL fandom bubble, to venture out to find interesting new things and information, I see posts of people... and brother.... for a moment there I understand why antis hate us. Like if you only see those weirdoes (derogatory) in youtube comments, MDL or on xitter... even sometimes here in tumblr.... the image of the community looks really bad and ignorant.

Like stuff like this

A bit of self reflection and respecting a persons boundaries and privacy before posting stuff would be neat. I mean at least on the actors social media and their posts ..... (and their xitter # and MDL pages since they check that occasionally)

No but besides that, some peoples comments are just straight up dumb or hurtful? Like gossiping about actors looks and bodies (yes even skin color in either direction). Or top / bottom discourses on yt & xitter with the most stupid cliche arguments you can imagine. 🤦‍♂️

And don't get me started on the fanservice discourse. THAT looks very different on yt / x than it looks here on tumblr. Like 90% of them don't even get why people are skeptical about actors who just drop the "yea we are boyfriends" line. They all think you are homophobic and hate the actors if they would be dating in real life if you don't immediately believe it. No fam... it's because the BL industry PR made them lie and play pretend for years (and some even just mean "we are boyfriends on screen" like work-husbands) and now we cannot tell anymore if it's a genuine coming-out or if it's not... not surprising that those fans are all cis-hetes and therefore can't even grasp the annoyance of this, and just parroting stances they have heard are political correct ala "it is not our business / why should you even care" because representation from them and support from us that's why! And the ever ongoing prejudice that BL actors are all hetero. And if actors go that far to say such stuff on cam they should be clear about it if it's just playing or if it's real 🤷‍♂️

Like as example Copter who came out as nonbinary makes me damn happy as fellow genderqueer nb person, to see there is some celebrity feeling similar as me. But if they would now come around and say "actually that was just promo" it would feel shallow and like a betrayal even. (but I know Copter is genuine). Or Cooheart and every other open fem gay guy in the BL actor crowd is damn important for me and others as idol to look up to. But also to stick it to every idiot in the BL comment section / or anti side, that tries to gaslight people into believing that feminine gay men do not exist outside of fictional BL stories and manga (I see this stupid comment from different people way too often and it pisses me off so much).

Anyways, what I want to say is that unfortunately the image is still way worse than what I want to believe / hoped it is. And we can fight against antis & hater for acceptance and understanding as much as we want, if there are still so many loud idiots in our community it's hard. What's the point of this post? idk.. educate ya fellow idiot? We already got better over the years in the fandom but it's still some path ahead of us. And use your own brain please. Also before you post comments on some actors stuff, think about if you would say the same to their face in real life.

#discourse #i am tired of this bs #bl drama #bl industry #bl fandom #ql drama