#arguing with the author

[bakudekublogblog]

shigaraki being like “I’m killing you bc you’re izuku midoriya’s baby girl and it’ll send him into the rage” is SO LOVE INTEREST it’s so YOURE HIS PRECIOUS SOMEONE if something happens to YOU he’s gonna LOSE IT if you wanna go for izuku’s HEART you TAKE HIS KACCHAN

#bakudeku #bkdk #manga spoilers #I’m getting caught up in the manga and katsuki being izuku’s damsel is so #he’s so the love interest coded he’s explicitly izuku’s precious someone #how is bkdk up for debate when the MAIN ANTAGONISTS ARE LIKE it’s you you’re his baby girl get him #it’s so CHARGED ITS SO ROMANTIC ITS SO!!!! #no one means as much to izuku as katsuki does no one else has his love so intensely!! #like guys the author would NOT be doing this unless it was true #no sane author is gonna have just pick anyone to send the mc into a rage #at the CLIMAX his DARKEST HOUR #YOU DONT JUST PICK ANYONE TO KILL OFF DRAMATICALLY IN FRONT OF THE PROTAGONIST #YOU KILL OFF THE ONE THATS GONNA HIT HARDEST #anyway bkdk canon argue with the wall

[francy-sketches]

Whenever people talk about lack of media literacy they always bring up people who think a character doing bad things=the author endorsing said bad things which are very annoying but I feel like we're ignoring the opposite, equally annoying side of the discourse who think if you criticize the inclusion/depiction of dark/sensitive topics in any way it’s bc you’re a dumb baby who can’t separate fiction from reality. and it's like no I know I’m not supposed to clap and cheer at violence against women I’m criticizing how much of it there is. Idiot

#.txt #also sometimes a work DOES reflect the author's bigoted views lol #why are we acting like that's unherad of #anyway I thought about when I argued with d&d apologists over the way they adapted loras now I’m mad again #‘it’s not like the religious zealots were portrayed as good people what’s the issue’ #the issue is that storyline wasn’t in the book they went out of their way to make the one gay character be tortured for his sexuality #'why are you upset that bad things are happening to the characters' book loras got deepfried that's not what i have a problem with

[ilynpilled]

i think a lot of fandom should learn to stop trying to grapple criticism from a doylist perspective with watsonian arguments. u can analyze the text for what it is, and decipher what the author’s actual intentions and the themes they are dealing with are (& see the merit in them), and criticize execution and the issues from outside. art is not something that comes from the ether, it is written by someone lmao. engage with fiction like it is fiction. it is criticism of author, not watsonian criticism of a character, so there is no point to defending it like it is the latter. but it is also pretty obvious when someone pretends to care and makes use of legitimate grievances to support a generally unsubstantiated watsonian read, which leads to criticism of author getting lost in criticism of a character (as if they were a real person), because of perpetual discourse brain.

#u can disagree with the criticism but then argue it properly lol #and with the awareness that the author is making choices not the characters

[intimate-mirror]

it's sad that phillip pullman didn't get to live a couple decades earlier because he seems to want to engage with discussions of story and literature and myth that there is not much attention for nowadays

#1. he's a YA fantasy author with the standard litty disdain for genre fiction #2. i want to see him argue with c s lewis #they breathe the same air

[not-poignant]

Every now and then I just get the kind of comment that makes me stop working on a fic and just has me going 'how about you write it since you're so concerned with correcting me on this one tiny thing that doesn't matter because it's fanfiction actually'

And like, I do want to work on this fic, but damn, not today.

#personal #i don't know how many times i can tell people #to fuck off when it comes to canon details and palmarosa #but if you ever have the instinct to correct something in palmarosa #just know you're the reason i don't want to work on this fic atm #because it's not at all motivational to have people arguing with me #about the NOT CANON COMPLIANT details in my own fic #like it's tags and author's notes at this point #reading comprehension i miss you #you all get gold medals for knowing the canon better than me #now leave me and my fic and it's very clear “not canon compliant” tag alone #because palmarosa isn't for the people #who want it to be canon compliant #and cannot let it go otherwise #i've just deleted a bunch of comments i will no longer be justifying #this fic to people who just exist to win #know it all contests

[ardentpoop]

dean being dead set on killing the child protective specialist purely for her offhand comment abt "sometimes what's best for a family is to split them up" and sam being furious with the mother of the "weird creepy off-the-grid" family for letting her daughter die a preventable death because it was "god's plan." ("she didn't have to die - she was sick. god doesn't care what kind of life you live, trust me. and god didn't kill your daughter, you did.")

eating this shit up and licking the plate

#reminds me of them arguing abt john's authority over them in s1 #im a simple guy at heart #spn #liveblog tag #12.04

[l-e-g-i-o-n-losh]

KHSFYITESFJKHKSD ok i DO understand the point being made and how the immutability of comics canon events seems to depend largely on how much a reader liked a given plot more than anything else, but Jason is like the WORST example you could use. Yes! The fans did literally kill him it was put to PUBLIC VOTE! Writing always involves the creation of conflict but Jim Starlin did NOT make that call unilaterally the crowbar IS in the reader's hand (or at least the voter's). Especially as modern comics increasingly lean on the 4th wall and include metatext as a plot point, YES there is ABSOLUTELY a reading where the writer and audience are as much "characters" as the city of Gotham itself even if we never show on-panel.

#literally superboy prime and gwenpool personify the principle you can't pretend no one reads that way unless you yoink the pen out of THEIR #author's hands!! the conversation passed you 20 years ago dude it's industry standard now better or worse #songs that the hyades shall sing #didn't reply on twt I'm not actually trying to Argue with slott especially as an unpublished nobody but. yeah dude! #man vs author comes free w man vs god & man vs self its english lit 101 #ok actually i *might* just reply with some english lit printout defining man vs author

[robotwhoscreams]

This is hyperspecific but one of my favorite accidental tropes is a thing I've taken to calling 'occam's trans twin'.

It's very specifically about media that has a set of clearly identical twins except for the fact one is a woman and one is a man. In theory, yeah, there might be some weird worldbuilding or magic shenanigans or whatever that would allow for a set of identical twins of different genders, but it's just simpler to assume one is trans instead of bending over backwards assuming nonexistent authorial intent otherwise.

Extra funny points when it pulls the sister trope, the 'schrodinger's trans twin' in which both twins have the same amount of trans vibes that, until proven in canon, they could both potentially be the trans one. They both are the trans one and not the trans one at the same time.

#also very easy to make headcanons because no one can argue with you #the author clearly didn't clock the vibes they'd accidentally be giving them when they made their identical twins different genders #i haven't listened to TAZ in years but this was inspired by taako and lup and how they perfectly fit both these tropes #99% sure lup is canonically trans unless i'm forgetting something #transgender #trans #fandom

[ofbreathandflame]

im sorry im breaking my anti fast for this bc its literally the most idiotic thing i have ever seen.

"some people hate sjm for the racism in her books"

yeah NO SHIT.

that has always been the point.

thats literally the entire point of being anti sjm posts. thats literally all we talk about in the anti tags. but shortsightedness and an unhealthy relationship with these characters has always blinded y'all to that fact.

you see this is why i could not stomach conversations because you guys constantly make a mockery of the problems in sjm's work and only acknowledge the problems for a 'gotcha' moment. EVERY SINGLE TIME we have talked about how the racism in sjm's work affects the writing of her characters you guys have made it into an anti feysand problem, and by doing that you have willingly separated yourself from the problems in the story. the reality is that the racism affects the way these characters are written -- including your favs. do not dare twist the main message of antis to fit some twisted little point you want to make toward specific blogs. i have been on my last account for over two years and EVERY TIME i -- or any anti -- has talked about the way sjm's racism bleeds onto the text we have been undermine, ran off our blogs, sent hate mail. so yeah it pisses me off to no end to be sent the dumbest post in the anti tags to ever exist. yall do not care about her racism, her misogynoir. if you did, you wouldn't be calling people brain dead for daring to dislike your favorite ship for valid reason -- i.e. the racism. we talked about the complexities of how racist the portrayal of the illyrians were -- and we were dismissed as anti feysand and therefore 'braindead.' we talked about the way women of color and the allusions of FGM (female genital mutilation)-- and we were called anti feysands and then dismissed. stay out of the anti tags -- especially if you are the ones perpetuating these dynamics. i was ran off my blog for discussing these issues for two years. y'all sent hate mail, called me tamlin stan -- called others tamlin stans -- for even daring to discuss the racism in sjm works. that's not even touching the nehemia situation, or crescent city. fuck off the tags. you literally have a blog dedicated to this woman and her racist ass characters, you shoot down any criticism of them because of it, and then yall have the nerve to come into the tags for the some hehe hahah tamlin stan bs??? double fuck off. the anti sjm tag has always been a place for that criticism. always.

addition: and these problems are not just valid when discussing characters you don't like. the illyrians are written to brutes, with the bat boys operating as the 'model minority'. the story justifies the lack of infrastructure, and the misogyny (misogynoir depending on how you classify illyrian women), the lack of progress.

'its a culture problem'

'rhysand has tried, but they wont listen'

like do you know how crazy it is to write a group of people as permanently mentally stunted? to classify their women as nameless entities that our main character can shift in and out of to satisfy her supposed 'man of color' sexually? feyre cosplays as a woman of color for SEX, meanwhile in FIVE BOOKS we've met one named illyrian woman and shes described 'interesting,' but not as pretty as opposed to nesta and gwyn, mor, and feyre who are the prettiest people to walk the earth. that don't sound CRAZY to yall??? these people of color are left without leadership, without infrastructure, no access to a golden city, no access to their high lord, are forced to breed out warriors who live and die without ever getting to enjoy the city of velaris, the house of wind for survivors. all of that so that the maincharacters can live out that power fantasy. its racist. thats what it is. please think consider reading comprehension b4 yall make these gotcha posts because it really stinks of weirdness.

the illyrians are treated like rabid animals by their leaders, by everyone and then the responsibility is on them to somehow progress when everyone is unwilling to give them nothing more than scraps. like there's a real life counterpart to this, and yall arguments are very real and very damaging.

they are written by the author to be a permanent second class deserving of their position because they're minds somehow cannot comprehend any 'progression.' all of these characters including rhysand, feyre, mor, az, cassian, tamlin, nesta say racist things toward them because THE NARRATIVE thinks they're justified in saying them. like the moralizing is wild in this case bc all of them are allowed to get away with it. its not just tamlin or nesta, not just the valkyries (which is an ENTIRELY different scenario btw). like the idea that all of the bad can be ascribed to the 'bad' characters and the 'good' characters somehow don't feed into those racist tropes is WILD. rhysand literally told us -- the reader -- the in the war against slaves and their oppressors somehow it was an equal battle. like?????? somehow 'both sides were at fault' ignoring that one side WAS LITERALLY SLAVES. like can u imagine if someone looked at the Haitian revolution and was like....yeah the side of the oppressors was somehow on equal footing when the other side WAS ENSLAVED? how can u acknowledge this author is racist and then pretend that the racism only bleeds over to the characters you *shockingly* don't like?? yes -- there is a problem with feyre wearing illyrian wings BECAUSE SHES THE HIGH LADY. she made herself that title. of course that carries a different weight. the racism is ingrained in the text, not just some little trinket to flash when you want to moralize bullying a small group of people with strawman arguments.

#anti sjm #anon girl im BLEW FOR YOU #like imagine trying to chastise the community that was literally BUILT to critique the problems #and for what???? #a gotcha to the tamlin stans that don't even exist??? #yall are arguing with air #like i literally just had to delete my blog for this stuff and here yall are #in the tags kekeing like people havent been bullied for it #like yall are the champions for adversity \ #when yall are the ones propagating the nonsense to begin #ew ew #bc then its 'how could you not like feysand' #idk BC OF THOSE PROBLEMS #like did you think the author's bias was NOT going to factor into the way the characters are written? #it became 'pro tamlin this' pro nesta that #like the illyrians are r*cist to the T #and that was ignored for the sake of feysand #yall are real irra #but at least i know that yall understand the problems in these stories #yall just dont care #anti feysand #when we talked about the feyre wing situation yall went out of your way to mock it

[midnightdemonhunter]

Read @whats-those's Scream timeloop fic recently and had a wonderful time! Very good character voices, and some entertaining alternate deaths! Definitely check it out if you like Scream, Stu and a no good very bad day for him! (x4)

#scream 1996 #stu macher #scream #with smaller cameos in this drawing from: #randy meeks #billy loomis #if you know where to look :)) #midnight draws #was thrilled that the author had a tumblr so i could link it to them yahoo #ive been reading some fun fics lately!! would love to do more art for some of them... #anyway yeah this fic is super fun?? great cast and really strong billy and stu dynamic with the perfect mix of arguing and pining #that death 4 scene..... #anyway i think my fav death is 2 but i am also just a huge randy fan. i remember being so delighted by all their banter!! #and im so curious how this will get resolved since stu only seems to be getting more murder happy...also very excited to imagine how he #could get killed by DEWEY in the future. endlessly funny to me #anyway to conclude: sayonara dipshit!!!

[jewishbarbies]

someone questioned Leigh Bardugo at a BOOK Q&A what the “justification” is for “white authors writing rep for bipoc people and taking space from bipoc authors without advocating for them” unprovoked, and when Leigh looked confused and gently asked for clarification, this person said “well i mean with what’s happening in palestine” because Leigh hasn’t publicly commented on it. why the fuck are we now harassing jewish authors about palestine and making it out like we’re being heroes for bipoc as a whole? if you’re gonna be antisemitic do it with your fucking chest.

Leigh’s answer was “i realized after posting misinformation on instagram a while ago that I wasn’t focusing on actually being a good person and activist irl and was just performing for an audience so i stopped being political on main” and the audience was silent.

#g talks #saw the clip on tiktok and ppl were arguing in the comments #over whether or not it was right to ask her #like #what the fuck #why are you bringing up Palestine #in an author q&a #just because the author is jewish and writes a lot of bipoc lgbt+ and disabled rep #surely her writing would be enough for you in this case #not everyone is terminally online #and only doing what they post about #grow the fuck up you dumbasses #antisemitism #racism #mine #/mobile #/okay to reblog

[batwynn]

So uh, look. I’m not a huge fan of Neil Gaiman as a person, mostly due to some things he’s said, done, or not done in the past (still enjoyed plenty of his books and a big fan of Good Omens with Terry.) but some of the shit people online are saying to him are mildly-to-extremely inappropriate and you need to reset some boundaries on yourselves. Take this from someone who was mildly popular in a fandom for a while there. It can be genuinely scary to receive threatening messages out of the blue from a complete fucking stranger. Especially when you have no point of reference about what they’re threatening you about, if it’s even a joke, etc.

Just because he’s made himself accessible to fans does not mean you can treat him like your Tumblr bestie with violent, threatening inside jokes. He’s not your buddy. You can’t lol your way out of sending threatening messages to a stranger. This is literally the reason your past faves stopped interacting with fans online. (Trust me, I was in the Marvel fandom when Loki/Tom arrived.) This will end as it usually does, with him being forced to leave online spaces and become inaccessible again. And then y’all will bitch and whine that he thinks he’s ‘too good’ for you or whatever and the cycle starts all over again with someone else famous.

Please. Please just learn to fucking behave. Be a weird (affectionate) and violent gremlin in your personal blog spaces or discord or wtfever. Don’t send it to a public figure just trying to have a good time in the fandom. Ok? Can we try to be better this time?

#fandom #social cues #niel gaiman #behavioral stuff #also like if you genuinely struggle with this #and can’t seem to stop #it’s ok to get some help with it #therapy or even just discuss it with someone close to you #sometimes going over it and having an outside perspective can help you see that your behavior is harmful #anyway #be better #do better #trust me it will make your experiences better #fandom will still be fun and weird and silly #and you’ll still be able to message your favorite author #you know? #don’t ruin that for yourself and others #and no I will not be taking questions about why I dislike him #any time I get into it people argue that he’s a perfect cinnamon bun or whatever #even in the face of facts and screen shots and shit so #no #not a fan but treat him like a fucking real living person #k thanks

[andtheyreonfire]

goro akechi has been dead for 7 slutty, slutty years

#well. 4 if you say royal takes place in 2019 #persona 5 #2/2 #akechi goro #goro akechi #persona 5 royal #p5r spoilers #it's not 2/2 yet in my timezone. but it is spiritually i think #my brain hurts and i just wanna buy the zine but i gotta finish the assignment uuuuuuuuuu #i think i'm out of it but i can't tell if this source is just. not even addressing why these practices are argued to be abusive #or he's just doing it purposely #''oh it's not 40 hours a week!!! it's an Average of 40 hours a week!!! and it's more like 30-35'“ #''ohh people have called out the past use of electro-shock therapy...don't they know we only used it for dangerous behaviors????'' #''ohhh well if any one was actually abused in these practices they should contact the authorities'' we are talking about CHILDREN #book-licker. i am so tired. why do you mention studies and then not source them in your references. #anyways i should be having my autism times now that's what i mean yeah

[spoopy-moose]

reading scholarly articles about pathologic when its so obvious that the writer didn't even properly play the game and actually only played like the first half of 2 and then confidently putting their opinions out there like SHUT UP

#getting to the conclusion and reading 'i only played half of the game and then watched playthroughs of it' was so carthatic to me #autism brain reading it and being like wait a minute #also patho 2 cant even be read in a vacuum you have to consider patho 1 and 2 together #nah dude argued that pathologic 2's system of zero sum games are just like what russia does irl #and like im pretty sure the whole argument was basically just its russian propaganda #from the moment he said “the plague occurs every couple of years” I should've left #pathologic #i think that people in academia should not have many opinions about video games actually #bc the entire article read to me like the author was laughing at the fans being like haha look at this FOOLS

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

I think part of what got me back into Roman history - after hanging out in fandoms for a while - is that it's messed up. Most people understand that these Romans did Awful Things. The empire was built out of Awful Things, and those things really happened. You can't ignore canon and fanfic your way out of this plotline!

So we feel revulsion. Judgment. (Or at least I feel that way sometimes.) Okay, now what do we do with those feelings? Do we stop being curious? Do we move on in search of characters that are more in line with our values? (No judgment, sometimes I want actual heroes, too.)

Or do we try to understand? To not romanticize or demonize, to not make excuses for historical figures or co-opt them for our own purposes, but just to ask how? And why? And what do we know, and what do we only think we know? Because that's when you start learning new facts instead of just filtering them to affirm your worldview. And if you keep digging, you won't just find awfulness - the good parts of human nature have always been there, too.

It's not appealing to everyone. This is not my "comfort series" (though I do have some of those). But I like the challenge of it.

#i also REALLY appreciate authors who trust the readers to know their own values and don't need a book to be didactic #and the book lets you make up your own mind about the characters instead of reminding you Bad Things Are Bad #one of the things i found refreshing about masters of rome and roma sub rosa #opinionated nonfiction can also be fun tho if the author is upfront about it. because then you get to argue with them! #jlrrt speaks #history nerd problems #jlrrt essays

[not-poignant]

Okay! Didn't want to have to say this but I'm going to say it!

Don't send me transphobic nonsense in your anon asks to me. Don't send your TERF thoughts to me and end your anon message with 'no hate' when you've just been hateful and invalidating. You might not be aware of this, but I'm a trans person, and this space on Tumblr and on my AO3 isn't a democracy and TERFs will not get their voices heard here. Good luck, keep trying, I love blocking bigots.

If you're transphobic and you read Underline the Black and I realise you're transphobic, I'm just going to start blocking you outright, deleting your comments. In this day and age, transphobic, hateful nonsense is everywhere, but it doesn't get to be here.

You don't have a right to have a voice here, you don't have a right to have your anonymous transphobic asks answered here, and you don't have a right to expect your comments to stay on my AO3 stories when they happen. And if, if by some chance, you have no idea you're a complete transphobe and you find your comment on Underline has been deleted? The only person you need to be angry at is yourself.

I'm trans, and I have too many trans followers to give any kind of airtime to transphobes.

Antis I will happily take on when I have something productive to add to the conversation.

There is nothing productive for me personally about giving space to transphobic views on my blog.

(And for everyone else, no this isn't currently a huge problem, but I've had about two borderline transphobic comments on Underline the Black and I've now gotten a transparently transphobic anonymous ask about it. I'm dealing with it now, and also making my stance clear. TERFs are banned in the Discord, you can expect that I maintain this view everywhere, including here and on my AO3.)

#PSA #transphobes do not get to argue about trans stuff with me #underline the black #underline the rainbow #i'm going to put an author's note on UtB as well #so folks are aware too #and if you're transphobic and reading Underline #just think about your priorities and why you want to be hateful #to one of the most maligned minorities *in the world* #and what it means to read a story written by a trans person #while holding the views you do #just like...think about your life and your choices for a moment #and how much you've drunk the JKR koolaid for a second #you can leave the cult of hatred any time #i really hope you do #transphobia