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bikinikillarchives · 1 year

Photo

kathleen in the short-lived lgbt/riot grrrl magazine, Princess Magazine. cover photo found through riotgrrrlbible.

EDIT: full interview can be read here, or in transcript underneath!

“Like there's some people you shouldn't fuck, because the fantasy of fucking them is way better than actually fucking them will ever be. It takes a mature person to figure that out. (...) Sometimes people use stars, though, to mediate relationships. The star is on stage and the audience is on the floor because you need to be on stage so people can see you. But while people are looking up at you, they're not looking right next to them at the person they might really need to be talking to. In some instances, the stage/fan set-up prevents relationships with each other. People focus on the star and live vicariously.”

The following is a conversation between Kathleen Hanna and Kathy Strider discussing the concepts of stardom and fandom--attempting to define them and figure out what they mean socially.

KATHY STIDER: So let's start with a really basic working definition of what you think a star is.. what role does a star play in society, why do stars exist?

KATHLEEN HANNA: I think part of the idea of being a star involves how it separates people: stars are superhuman, or "real" people and everyone else is supposed to be obsessed with their lives. Everyone else is supposed to be following what the "real" people do, which means that everyone else is less than real.

KS: Yes, there is a weird hierarchy that seems to be created. It seems that, if you've achieved some kind of stardom. People think that you've gained some kind of legitimacy or success that they don't have. This can apply even if people don't like or don't care about your work. I'm thinking, for example, of some older guy who's sitting in his house on a Sunday, opens up a magazine and sees a picture of Kim Gordon. He doesn't necessarily know anything about her or her work, but there’s still going to think in some way that she has something that he doesn't, or has some kind of agency that he doesn't. You made a good point in an earlier conversation about stars being in a way, both superhuman and 'dead or cartoonish, not allowed to be real'.

KH: Right, I mean any form of duality is dehumanizing for those involved. In this case, there is this idea that there are "common" people in one place and "royalty" in another. Although I wouldn't say that the "royalty" is oppressed, I'd say that both sides are dehumanized, because they both work in opposition and reaction to each other. And it's not like either side is necessarily recognizing full human agency, although the "royalty" can do that to a greater degree, because they're afforded privilege and position. Both of them become inhuman, like the royalty becomes a cartoon character.

KS: But I think it's important to make this distinction though, that a person who becomes a star is not in reality becoming a cartoon character. They really are people who live in houses and eat food, etc. But to others they [are] becoming less human, even to the point where people throw shit at them on stage, when they wouldn't throw shit at people on the street. I guess what I'm asking you is, why do you think that people feel a need to have people like that in society? What kinds of responses and experiences have you had with people who you think were seeing you that way? What was going on with them?

KH: I guess I can talk about a common interaction that I have with people when they ask me for an autograph. I used to try to disrupt thing by being like, 'well I'm not more important than you.' I talked to them about the idea of autographs, stardom , and fame. I mean, obviously that's not always practical. But then I realized it was kind of condescending, because it was assuming that they were stupid, that they might not know that already. Then I started thinking, 'Wait why are they approaching me?' Approaching someone and asking them for their autograph assumes certain things, like that that person is valuable.

KS: Like you want their name written on something.

KH: Right. I think it was Salvador Dali who said something about how it was the last form of human cannibalism or something. But anyway, I started thinking, 'Well maybe they just want to talk to me' and sometimes they only wanted a friend's phone number or something. But some put me into this idea and if I venture out of it, they get really angry. I mean, I think a lot of people in every day life totally experience that in terms of crushes. You have a crush on somebody, you build them up in your head. Then you actually hang out with them and they're not what you thought they were or what you wanted them to be. People are really creative and imaginative. We reinvent stuff. The thing is we have to be careful not to turn others into objects. Because you need to get some clay or pens or something like that, instead of objectifying people, why don't you just use actual things, and objectify them, rather than using Courtney Love to play out your fantasies.

KS: But I think there's a certain dynamic, there's a reason why people need others to do this. There's something really intense about what happens between a star and a fan , where the fan really sees something about the star (as opposed to a lump of clay) as something they can really work themselves out through.

KH: Yeah, well I've done that , I did that with Evan Dando.

KS: I think everyone does that. I know I've done it. I think it's completely normal. the thing is I just wonder why, what is it about our society that has set up this particular structure. I just wonder how it works into the idea of capitalism, the idea of people selling their performance and others buying it . But then, you know, when it comes time to talk to them you're unable to speak. Like there's this time when I met PJ Harvey and I was unable to speak to her. I felt like such a nerd.

KH: I had that with Karen Finley, too.

KS: She seems really approachable though.

KH: Yeah but it's my idea, I was really afraid that she would disrupt my idea of her and I didn't want her to. Her work changed my life, and I realized I just wanted to keep her in that context. Like there's some people you shouldn't fuck because the fantasy of fucking them is way better than actually fucking them will ever be. It takes a mature person to figure that out. Ha ha ha . Sometimes people use stars, though, to mediate relationships. The star is on stage and the audience is on the floor (because you need to be on stage so people can see you). But while people are looking up at you, they're not looking right next to them at the person they might really need to be talking to. In some instances, the stage/fan set-up prevents relationships with each other. people focus on the star and live vicariously. I think that has to do with capitalism, which dehumanizes everyone into robots. The more people get abused by their families and by sexism, racism, classism and homophobia, and able-body-ism and stuff, the more numb people have to become. And the less we can actually deal with any real confrontation, because confrontation may remind us of all this other stuff, and that's real scary. So we avoid being healthy enough or safe enough to feel a lot of stuff.

KS: Yeah, I think you're very right. So it's like this safe method of exchange, and the fact that it involves someone who you make in to superhuman. You project all your social needs onto this album, or something that you'll never actually deal with. That's kind of scary.

KH: That's a part of it. Also I don't even think of myself as a star, I think of myself as a performer , or a musician, or an activist, or a cultural worker, different things everyday. The people I want to perform for are people who are dealing with themselves when possible. I do want to entertain people out of their misery sometimes because I think that's important and valid. If it allowed them to escape in their own head for the while that they needed to take a break, I think that's really valid. I mean, people don't have to be dealing 24-7.

KS: I think that could be really constructive. I wrote my senior thesis on how I thought a fan/star relationship could possibly work positively in someone's life. I used myself as an example; I had idolized someone for a long time. I didn't go nearly as in depth as I had liked to , but it was a really positive thing.

KH: When we perform in Olympia it's a really different situation from when we perform in New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco because people see me walking around. A lot of people have seen me in other capacities, possibly serving them food somewhere. I think it's really positive for people to see us in the community, and then in this other way on the stage. It's like, 'Oh I saw that girl in the park and then I saw her on the stage' and it's not like I am Iggy Pop and I flew down in a helicopter. They're like 'Oh I could do that.' That's how I started doing things. And that's why I try to, when I can, remain as accessible as possible.

KS: So you're saying that a star thing can work positively if the person is seen as a star as well as part of the rest of the world.

KH: I just hope there's some sort of suture between those two things, between being a star and being a person. I mean I've had to somewhat separate them just for me to be able to function. I had to do the same thing when I was a dancer, which is another type of performance. It was a similar separation, in order to maintain some sort of a livability in the situation. But I just hope that it doesn't always have to be a stripper/customer relationship even in punk rock. That's what I'm trying to navigate right now.

KS: You said earlier that You think or yourself more as a performer and an activist, but in the Evan Dando 'zine, although that was a very contextualized piece, you did talk about yourself as being a star, and obviously there was a reason for that. Although you described yourself as a " superhyper Evan Dando groupie", what made you refer to yourself as a star?

KH: I guess it was just because I wrote that during our first stay in England. The pop-star idea is really big there. We were dealing with media on a really immediate level. The press people, right in your face, trying to talk to you a lot. That's when I felt like I was a star because we were in the papers. And I was like 'Whoa, this is big shit for me'. But I don't really think that. I just wrote that in the moment of ,'Oh yeah, I'm a slutty punk feminist star,' or something like that.

KS: But there's something to it, I think.

KH: Yeah, I know, I'm not saying that I'm totally isolated and don't know what's going on, but it's really hard for me to understand (stardom). It's like when you're in a really bad relationship and everyone's telling you so, but you don't listen. You can't see the situation 'cause you're in it. And that's how I feel sometimes; I don't really understand. I mean I've got a pretty limited amount of notoriety. I'm not like fucking Demi Moore or something. I don't really focus on it that much. I did for a while, mainly because I'm interested in figuring out problems.

KS: It seems like we're still circling around what a star really is. And I'm not thinking of a star as you as a person, I'm thinking of it as a shell, a thing you put on, or that other people put on you. It's even separate from the performance to some degree.

KH: Well I see it as analogous to focusing (o)n a character in a novel. I think in certain ways, because of the media culture now, tabloids, etc., rock stars and movie stars and stuff have replaced characters in novels. And I think that people, including myself, follow stars as if they're characters in a novel and their lives are unfolding in front of you. Is there going to be death, is there going to be addiction, will there be affairs?

KS: What's scary is that it's not fictional characters, they're real people.

KH: Right.

KS: And a lot of people can't seem to tell the difference between what they read in tabloids and the real person. And even me, I try to be really sensitive. I can say that I understand my relation to a star as a fan, but I'll see someone in magazines, etc., and I'll see them on the street and I get really nervous or weird because there's something really intense about them to me. Something about their performance has touched something in me and it's almost like you imagine there's some sort of connection between you and something they they've put out there as work.

KH: There can be a lot of misplaced anger in the way people treat stars. It's really hard for me to deal with the fact that Kurt Cobain killed himself. There's a record store in my community right next to the coffee shop where a lot of people who were close to him go. The day after he died, the store hung up this big poster and t-shirt as a Kurt Cobain Memorial in the window. I'm not saying that I expect everybody to be thinking of [their] feelings a million times a day, but it was really, really insensitive. I went in to try to talk with the guy at the record store. It was interesting because he's met me all these times but he never knows who I am. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm female, so obviously I'm no one in music. I 'm not saying that there's a claim that I am someone or something, but I have been involved in the music scene in Olympia for 7 years.

KS: Well it's your career. I don't think there's any shame in saying that.

KH: So I go in there and it's just the thing of saying, 'You know I live in this town, and I think that's really insensitive and I don't want to have to walk by it.' It's not like I'm trying to censor anybody, or that I'm freaked out about death. It's just about how I feel that when people get into positions like Kurt did, it probably had to do with depression and all kinds of things we can speculate on. But I think part of it has to do with the fact that he was totally dehumanized by everyone. He was really exploited. Sure he was a rock star, but he was also a worker; he was fulfilling a function and getting paid a certain amount of money to do that. And I think that a lot of other people make a lot of money off of him. It was really frustrating to me that they day after he died he was still being exploited. Maybe I'm just really sentimental and goopy, but I just felt it was fucked up, and the guy was like, 'Oh I understand, you're just this little fan of his.' I realized how totally condescending people can treat those who are supposed to be fans. It was like 'oh you cute little groupie.'

KS: It's really funny that he would interpret it that way. Cause the way I see it he was totally projecting onto you. He saw you as the person who couldn't really understand what was going on because you were blinded by your fandom and your girldom combined, while he couldn't see that he was hurting real people. That's exactly what I'm talking about: some people just have no idea when they cross the line, especially when it comes to stars. And I think that relates to regular life, too. There are a lot of people who don't know how to treat others.

KH: I think there's anger involved, because I think people tend to treat stars as if they are an endless resource, that's supposed to just keep giving, and gibing. People are like, 'Well I'm paying you for it.' And it's a negrophilic, fuck-the-dead-body idea. I think it's fucked up, boring and not what I personally want to do. So how are do we fight against it? How do we challenge that idea?

KS: Well, it's like we're saying that there are two things going on. There are people; who idolize people and are shy around them, but they are learning about how they want to be or something, and then there are people who are really fucked up about it, people for whom it 's like a death culture, the star culture. It's a way for them to remain numb, to dehumanize others...

KH: Sounds really pornographic, doesn't it? I mean there are a lot of similar elements, like object identification, commodification and money exchange. It's also about power. I grew up totally ascribing to middle class values, one being that I'm supposed to have a certain amount of control in my life, but in reality don't have a lot of that. I 'm constantly told, if I go out walking, somebody can just totally grab my ass and get away with it, and if I'm at work I can totally get shit on by my boss and have to take it. I'm constantly taught that I don't really have control over what happens, like the government... and hating all the decisions, hating this new fucking Proposition 187 in California, which is basically murdering immigrants by denying them medical care. So I feel like I have no control or power. I find an area that I can get control or power in. I could beat people up. Or I could abuse my one body with alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, or whatever. It's this whole mad rush for getting power and control. But I think that there are healthy ways of getting power. And I don't think having control over everything is necessarily the way that I would want to lead my life anyway. It's boring.

KS: I thought it was really interesting when you said earlier that one of the reasons that people want stars to be cartoonish and never change is because they want control over that person. In a sense it's like being dead, if you never change and never contradict yourself.

KH: Well if you just sell your life for safety, then what kind of safety is that? (laughs) But I just don't want to entirely define power in then negative, and say that's the only possibility because I'm really not into the idea of all power being oppressive. I don't think it has to be that way; I think when we start believing that all power is oppressive that we've lost hope.

KS: You become Catherine MacKinnon.

KH: Right, I just think it signals a loss of hope and I'm just not into it. But we're still in this fight, expecting to have all this power and control, and trying to get it any way we can, even in these really unhealthy ways, like controlling our bodies through not eating or using a person in the public eye. I've had negative fame at certain times ,because I've had really abusive things happen to me in the press. A Flipside article said, "Fuck you, Bikini Kill" 11 times in one article. The Washington Post wrote that I claimed I was raped by my father, but I never talked to them. They completely coined that from songs I had written; I guess they assumed that because I wrote about incest, I had to be speaking from first-hand experience because obviously I'm a woman and I have no imagination. There was a Newsweek article that printed a photograph of our band in bikinis, and that was a private photograph of us together. A girl took that picture of us and then sold it without our permission. And then it was said that I was a feminist, a stripper and incest survivor. That was really difficult for me as an erotic dancer to deal with because my full name was printed and a lot of my customers read it. In the picture of me in a bikini you could see my tattoos which meant that I could be positively identified, and my stripper name was now connected with my real name. That meant I basically had to leave that job. They fucked up my livelihood; I mean they made me lose my fucking job.

KS: It's showing complete insensitivity and people especially don't think of sex workers as having any rights at all. They kind of think about stars in the same way...once you get "out there" in certain ways, people think that they can use you in unbelievable ways.

KH: Right, although I do think that fame and notoriety can actually open doors for me oar allow me to access stuff I never had access to, whereas being a sex worker hasn't afforded me the same privilege. There's a huge, huge difference. What I was getting to was – I've gotten a lot of unhealthy attention...Do you know what I mean?

KS: Yeah, well I've seen it happen at every single show; I mean something seems to click in people's heads when they see you up there. There are certain things about you that they know or interpret, and they decide that you're going to be the one they're going to bother. Why does that happen?

KH: I think part of it is that I won't fit a smooth notion of identity because I contradict myself very boldly...I'm not trying to say that I'm this rad martyr fucking person, but I also haven't been willing to say, 'Okay, I'm a feminist and therefore I'm going to wear these really drab clothes and I'm not going to be sexual on stage and I'm going to sing lyrics that are really dogmatic and obvious, that are right out of feminist theory.' although sometimes I do do that. If I am what these guys think as being somewhat sexual, I'm actually being a whole person, not just a cartoon character of what they think a feminist is, or what they think a feminist is, or what they think a feminist performer is, or whatever. I think that's really offensive to them. They see me as contradictory and therefore my whole project is invalid; therefore I suck and I deserve whatever kind of abusive behavior I get. People see that you are a performer whose not reading off of a script, you're not in a movie; you're challenging the idea of one constructed identity when you stray outside of that, basically what it means is that you're alive and you're experiencing things right here and now. I think some people want to kill that, because it 's threatening. It applies to many things. I can't really afford the purity of never doing anything for a major label, or never doing this or that . I negotiate my decisions based on a lot of factors, economic, emotional, etc. I think that can be really threatening. What is really frustrating is that a lot of people have gotten, like, 'Oh, you're really fucked up, you're this big rock star now' and it's confusing to see me as an individual when people are angry at me for being a rock star when I still have to deal with a lot of shit. If you're angry at me because the Washington Post said that I was raped by my father, and it did a lot to destruct my family, that's fucked up it's not glamourous to go out on stage and have guys call me a cunt. To have to deal with that kind of shit and simultaneously have to deal with people saying, 'Well you're a rock star" and blaming me is hard. I didn't create that. You know what I mean?

KS: It 's true that a lot of people are obsessed with this certain kind of purity in the punk rock world or in feminism. It's a very immature attitude because they can't accept you moving forward or changing your mind about things or not just always saying the same thing over and over again.

KH: Or that there's more than one kind of fucking feminism.

KS: Yeah, it's very threatening. It's almost as if you could draw a line between different kinds of stars and why people like them. There are those who stir things up and those who placate their audience, someone like- I mean I don't want to trash people, but she'll never read this anyway- like Whitney Houston, who I think is robotic in her performance. And a lot of people flock to it, they desperately need it..

KH: I love Whitney Houston.

KS: You love Whitney Houston?

KH: I think Whitney's incredible. For my birthday this year we got a hotel and I watched the Whitney Houston "Live in South Africa" performance, and she did two of my all-time favorite songs, "The Greatest Love of All" and the one that Dolly Parton wrote.

KS: Alright, well... that's how I feel about Whitney Houston, okay?

KH: Don't call Whitney robotic!

KS: She is, too; she's robotic!

KH: She is not.

KS: Well obviously, we have a lot of different ways of looking at things here. It's clear to me that what fans like doesn't have to do with the person as a performer in a way. There's something really different that you and I see in her performance. Not that her personality doesn't inform her performance, but I see a separation between the two. A person can be very different from who they are as a star, and people can see really different things in the same star.

KH: We don't really know what a fan is because threw are a million different readings that can come from a text, a performance, or whatever. Each person brings their ideas, background, privileges and system of identification to it. Whitney does maintain a really big gap between her and her fans. She's probably not reading her mail. She seems to have a pretty complete separation, it seems whereas I'm really navigating that relationship, because I don't really want to commodify myself or be commodified. Especially because I'm an abuse survivor, and it's a traditional position for me to be in, to objectify myself and kind of turn myself into a lamp. I think a lot of performers come from backgrounds like that, have taken a lot of shit as kids or as women or as boys or...

KS: Why do you think people do become stars then, do you think they thing that they have to take the abuse and that it's an abusive thing or do you think they get good things out of it, or what?

KH: Well, all I can talk about again is in terms of me. I don't know why Whitney became a star, and I can't speak for other people, I know that I learned as a child to leave my body for certain reasons which I'm not going to discuss.

S: No, you don't have to.

KH: It's known in the domestic violence/sexual assault community as 'disassociation', although it's not like you have these really severe abuse situations to do it; a lot of people do it. You're able to leave your body and do whatever you have to do, like pretend you're running through a jungle or whatever people do to stay OK. You do it during a painful experience or trauma, when maybe somebody you really love or trust is abusing you, taking advantage of you, objectifying you, or using you in a way that isn't cool with you. That's a survival mechanism and it's completely valid. I see it as a skill, to a certain extent. I don't want to glamorize abuse in any way but I do know that I have learned things from it that I'm not going to belittle, because that's my life.

KS: Well in your life that's the way you learned it , but maybe you would've learned it another way if you had a different experience.

KH: Right. But at the same time, I've learned how not to be in my body for various reasons. What I'm interested in right now is creating safe enough spaces that I can be in my body so that I can deal with painful things that I couldn't deal with maybe when I was a child, or maybe even last year, even at shows where guys assault me. But you know it's hard, because I got really good at dissociating. When I was working as a stripper, that skill really came in handy. People could touch me and I wouldn't feel it. And I think that translates nicely into the performance personality and the star personality of objectifying yourself and being consumed.

KS: But you make it sound like performance is a really bad thing.

KH: I think it is to a certain extent. I've just realized that there's a lot of unhealthiness there and right now, I'm resisting the idea that I'm consumable. I don't always make the best decision. I'm not always doing the most radical, subversive thing. I'm just navigating that and always trying to find a new way to subvert the status quo. If you're doing anything somewhat interesting, you're gonna come up against opposition. Because of that opposition, sometimes I have to numb out. I can't take seriously everybody who calls me rock star or bitch or cunt or slut or whore. Kathleen Hanna cannot deal with internalizing that and sometimes I have too... Kathleen has to go away.

KS: I'm just saying though that there must be things about being a star or an activist/performer that make you believe in it enough that it is worth it for yo to have to deal with that kind of stuff.

KH: Right. These are the things that are the benefits to me: a) I can earn a living with this now, because people will know who I am, b) I can get things done and I can help my friends hook up with other people because I travel a lot and I get told about a lot of things that are going on. I get handed a lot of resources. So I can play intermediary between an activist in one place and a performance artist in another who want to do a benefit. I can be this little point on a map and in between these other people.

KS: Don't you think that your performance itself makes you feel better or helps you work out things or that it does that for fans to some extent?

KH: They say it does, but it's hard for me to say. It does for me sometimes. It's totally powerful for me to be up on stage, to have this microphone and say whatever I want, taking up sonic space. That can be very powerful.

KS: That's very punk rock.

KH: Being female and doing that can be totally powerful. Even the fact that I can do things that are interesting to me and which push me further philosophically and politically makes me cream. I mean it's good, I like it.

KS: Good, that's what I thought.

KH: I say thumbs up.

KS: I say thumbs up, you and Whitney just keep it up.

#kathleen hanna #bikini kill #princess magazine #1996 #Kathy Strider #tw's for mentions of sa/incest/abuse #kurt cobain #writings

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chacusha · 1 month

Text

Hi everyone! Time for a new sticky post. Here are some important, high-level things to note about me:

I am mostly inactive on Tumblr. I have uninstalled the Tumblr mobile app and use a siteblocker to limit how much time I spend on here. I do try to respond to personal messages and asks, but I'm pretty unreliable about everything else -- I mainly only use this blog for self-promo, sorry. See the bottom of this post for other places to find me.

Fandoms: Very many and change unpredictably. Star Trek is the main one at the moment, but I like various JRPGs (Mana, FF, KH, Bravely Default). Soulcalibur and ReBoot are some fandoms I find interesting and dabble in on Tumblr.

I am a proshipper. Not in the sense that I wade into fandom discourse (as I don't like it and so try to avoid it entirely) but that my opinions on fiction and fictional ships 100% aligns with the proshipper position and I avoid antis and people with anti opinions like the plague. More on what I mean by these terms below as there has been a lot of obfuscation (often purposeful) regarding these terms.

More detail on these under the cut.

Inactivity on Tumblr:

I have tried to make changes to make Tumblr more usable for me, but I still don't really have a healthy relationship to the site and still find it socially isolating, especially as a venue for artists who post art. I do respond to messages and asks, and I try to reply to replies and tags as well (sometimes they fall by the wayside, sorry...), and I reblog once in a blue moon, but I mainly use Tumblr for self-promo nowadays. Also, I don't really like talking about my personal life out in the open, so if you want personal updates on my life, I'm much more active on Dreamwidth, which has better privacy controls than Tumblr.

I tend to complain about Tumblr (while continuing to use the site) so much that I have a tag for it (#complaining about tumblr on tumblr). If that kind of negativity bothers you, you may want to unfollow me or filter that tag.

Some helpful links and resources related to my inactivity and frustrations with Tumblr as a platform:

Tips to new users to make Tumblr more usable

My Dreamwidth pitch (and the more readable Dreamwidth version).

Not mine, but here's a guide to using Dreamwidth for Tumblr users.

Here's also my pitch for why dA is not actually a terrible site for posting art compared to Tumblr (but Tumblr still has its advantages).

Some posts I made on why I find Tumblr socially isolating and why I don't tag dive on Tumblr, which are both largely still true.

Proship? Anti?

Most of the time, you can go through fandom without ever running into the proship/anti debate, and this has pretty much been my experience in my JRPG fandoms (Final Fantasy, the Mana series, Bravely Default, etc.). I have unfortunately not really had this experience in Star Trek fandom, sometimes being blindsided by people who seem chill in public then reveal themselves to have kind of unhinged views of fiction and immoral ships in private, so I have decided to just start proactively identifying as proship to ward those people away and will now only join Discord servers of people whom I know are not antis, or which have an explicitly proship moderation line.

Since it is often unclear what people mean by "anti" and "proship," I'll provide my own definition to make it clear what I'm talking about here.

Antis are people who oppose certain ships and the existence of certain types of fictional content because those ships/stories are immoral. While there is quite a bit of variety in where antis draw their moral lines, some common types ships/content that antis view immoral include incest, underage, rape/noncon, power differential, age gaps, etc. as well as being fans of dark (e.g. abusive, genocidal, villainous, etc.) characters, especially if this fannishness has a romantic/sexual attraction sort of element. The general anti approach to fannishness and fiction is to treat people who draw/write/consume fiction featuring these elements and themes as perpetuating harm (sometimes serious harm) through their fictional tastes. Such harm includes normalizing/endorsing/excusing abuse/rape, and grooming or normalizing/promoting pedophilia.

These are pretty weighty accusations, and needless to say, believing that (a) you can tell whether someone is an abuser/pedophile/groomer/etc. based solely on their fictional output or consumption (including what characters/ships they like), and therefore (b) your fandom is filled with literal abusers/pedophiles/groomers/etc. operating completely out in the open, led to people sending death threats, organizing campaigns to chase these "predators" out of fandom, and otherwise raising the cost of people existing in fandom while being a fan of "problematic" ships, whether through a private or public harassment campaign, by doxxing people, sending messages to their employer, etc. etc.

The proship stance/proshippers arose as a reaction to this harassing behavior of antis to basically establish an alternate approach to fandom that allows people to ship whatever relationships they like and which recognizes that fiction and reality do not map one-to-one, and which believes that treating fiction as if it is entirely equivalent to reality, treating fictional characters exactly how you would treat a real-life person, policing the immorality of fiction, etc. tends to lead to unhinged behavior like this (doxxing, harassment, etc.).

There was a very strong backlash to the anti movement and the anti approach to fandom has largely been discredited at this point by being portrayed as "fans taking fandom way too seriously," which is in some sense, accurate. But I don't think that this means that antis and their approach to fiction is entirely gone, just that they are merely more quiet/underground/cryptic about their anti positions. Also, I am a bit unusual in that I don't think that it was only the behavior that was wrong (doxxing, harassment, death threats, etc.), although it certainly was very wrong! But I also think that behavior was the natural consequence of a set of beliefs that generally equates fiction and reality; that is uncomfortable with the eroticization of the dark, immoral, and taboo; and that views the "point" or "main activity" of fandom and fannishness as being to write/consume/love "good" ships/content only. So long as people possess that particular approach to fiction, they are (in my mind) an anti at heart and their approach to fandom is probably antithetical to my own.

I take an approach to fiction that includes:

A recognition that there are plenty of reasons to want to write about certain characters having sex (even titillating, pornographic sex) that aren't "I am literally attracted to the characters and would still be attracted to the same characters if they were real."

Not harassing creators or other fans over shipping or creative output.

The view that "thoughtcrime" is not a legitimate concept.

Being against the idea that enjoyment of art can lead to moral contamination through association.

Art is not (and cannot be) the same thing to everyone. From "I couldn't enjoy this art for moral reasons," it is incorrect to conclude that, "If people enjoyed this art, that must mean they are immoral."

Just being chill about fandom, fans, and creators -- having a sense of perspective that fandom is a minor part of life and a minor part of pop culture, that fandom is a hobby filled with amateur, self-published creators who are learning their craft as they go, and often using fiction and art to explore their own sexuality.

I find this write-up to be a good outlining of the anti vs. proship debate and how antis tend to behave in fandom. People often also classify the anti phenomenon and approach to fiction as a kind of "purity culture" derived from an evangelical Christian upbringing (which views bad media to have a corrupting influence and the goal of reading/fictional consumption is to read "good" things only), but with the Christian social mores rejected and swapped out for non-Christian secular social justice values (consent, diversity and humanizing/"good" representation, etc.), and this seems to me a plausible theory and is largely how I understand the anti phenomenon as well.

Also, very tenuously related to anti/proship stuff, but I am generally someone with low tolerance for character/ship bashing, and for "I ship this problematic ship in the RIGHT way while other people ship it WRONG" type posting, and generally for making snide comments about other people's fic/art in public. Don't get me wrong -- I love a good rant about fandom, even a good public rant if it's not my fandom and I can eat some popcorn as I read. I have ships I can't stand and am happy to rant about them at the drop of a feather. But sometimes you have to pick the right audience for a rant, y'know?

Anyway, I generally try not to wade into fandom discourse (this is a self-imposed ban as I know if I let myself post about it, it will consume my brain), but I don't want my overall silence on this topic to be taken as neutrality or indifference in the whole anti/proship debate.

Oh yes, and if it wasn't apparent already, I am a very tl;dr person.

Where to find me:

Art Tumblr: https://denahi.tumblr.com/

Dreamwidth: https://chacusha.dreamwidth.org/

DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/chacusha

Discord: chacusha

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chacusha/profile

Communities I run:

Quodo discussion/fan community on Dreamwidth: https://quodo.dreamwidth.org/

Quodo fanart archive on DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/quark-x-odo/

My Discord for Quodo (18+ with a proship moderation line): https://discord.gg/VaCnMYvKu6

My Discord for the Mana series (all ages, also technically with a proship moderation line but the issue just never comes up in this fandom ¯\_(ツ)_/¯): https://discord.gg/6wFWwnRvJr

#about me #sticky post #proship #where to find me

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venacoeurva · 1 month

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Question from somone thinking about starting selling commissions how often do people who say they want to buy actually willing to buy and not just being nice? (Sorry if bad english)

It's an inevitability, but I think it can vary by age range and community, I saw it more in the kh fandom (younger age ranges to like. 30 usually for active people, and people not yet out of awkward anxious teenager mindsets is commonplace) and additionally with people flaking out vs. the tes fandom (typically older age ranges with more professional experience and I think the social circles are less afraid to stand their ground on things), but there's always going to be somebody saying yes to be nice when it's in fact the opposite and hurts artists. Also, there's gonna be teenagers who can't actually spend money on things saying yes pretty much anywhere.

Based on experience, I would also say if you're taking comms in spaces with younger people, it's necessary to expect a higher rate of flaky behavior from people. So in that case if you take interest checks and preordering that do NOT require putting money forward ahead of time (some people do partial or full comm or merch preorders, important to do that with merch especially), expect ~25-50% or more of the people to not actually pull through and if there's a higher amount of interest than estimated, then it's a pleasant surprise and work accordingly from there in the future.

#asks #not art #I say a 50% rate of people actually buying comms after checks in the kh fandom vs like 75% in the tes fandom #too many people intrepret interest checks as just... if you're interested and not a ''HEY WOULD YOU BUY THIS 100%?'' checks #vena vents

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cyclaes · 2 years

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October comments week 3

Fics that make me laugh

The Fourth Prince and I by mariagonerlj for Palhinhaea: FL AU Alan/Katarina where Katarina furiously refuses to marry Geordo. Focused on adorable little murder-muffins bonding over mutual hatred and anti-Jeord training. Hamefura fic.

Byleth: Peculiar Professor by Waywatcher: Socially awkward mercenary professor with little experience in any sort of society much less noble society actually acting like that. Fire Emblem 3 Houses fic.

The Hakuba Deduction by MeridianGrimm: Rare-pair! Hakuba Saguru/Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan. I love the way they write Shinichi’s POV, and Hakuba through Shinichi’s POV. Detective Conan fic.

continued by AMereDream : The meta-layers! The forum chatter! The story told through chatspeak/transcriptions/modern epistolatory! I love the format AND the content. Original Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū. The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System fic.

Fics that make me cry

Reconciliation (Luigi/Milidiana) by @dulcito-on-ao3 : (yes this is the third week in a row I’ve posted from the same fic from @dulcito-on-ao3 but I can’t help that it ticks so many of my boxes. Plus it’s an extra chapter so technically it can stand on its own!) A gorgeously bittersweet Luigi/Miridiana fic from the VoD AU where they have wasted even more years than in the canon series, and they know it. From my original comment on it: “Luigi learning to be trusted and Milidiana learning to trust herself to the husband she hasn't believed in, I love it, I feel touched by it much more than kisses or promises said out loud. “ Hamefura fic.

Thoughts by the Twilight by SuperChuChu: Tidus from Kingdom Hearts and those who are left behind. A very interesting “the main character’s story from a side-character’s view”. I have always wished there was more Tidus in KH since his FF10 backstory makes him singularly suitable for that kind of dimension-hopping weirdness; plus Auron’s section in KH2 hints at FF10-parallel happenings within KH universe. Kingdom Hearts fic.

Fortune_Lover_(TGS Beta)(SARU_rip)[T+Eng0.75_Sincere].zip by Leaty: Again, loving the meta-layers of this fic; but Bakarina’s treatment in this is heartwrenching and quietly horrifying. Hamefura fic.

#october comments #fe3h #hamefura #dc #svsss #fic recs

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skelesimp69 · 1 year

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i didnt draw age swap alphys or undyne. but here are some facts about them!

alphys:

-she his atustic but has less needs then sans.

-she also has social anxiety, ptsd from the DT experiments, and self esteem issues.

-she is 32. but still acts a lot like a 25 year old, just with more back pain.

-baggy clothes because she hates her body.

-her lab is always around 90 degrees inless undyne is over. then its 70.

-her bedroom is messy but organized at the same time. like she knows were EVERY thing is but if you move something or clean her room (even if you show her were you are putting things) she will not be able to find anything..

-mettaton has to remind her to take breaks before she burns out.

-weekly dump crys and searches.

- is always covered in goopy dog fur(thanks endogany)

-flusters easily.

-doesn't khs on most neutral runs. only if you've killed undyne, been rude to her and killed mettaton.. no one but undyne ir mettaton. if you kill papyrus too she stays alive to make sure sans is ok..

-is there for everyone else but doesn't think she is worthy of someone supporting her.

-self deprecating jokes 24/7.

-demibisexual, panoramic

-infodumps so much about anime in general but mostly kissy cutie.

undyne:

-adhd but its MOSTLY under control.

-hates not having background noise, so if she has house work she will call papyrus or alphys. papyrus to come over and be a body double or alphys as background noise (aka has alphys infodump).

-can actually cook. (and somwtimws cooks for asgore as he has trouble at times).

- really active in the community, making sure kids know to stay in school, helping elderly monsters, ect!

-lesbian.

-her skin is mainly a dark blue but its has sloches of light blue...

-is still missing her eyes.

-twirls spears when bored.

-can mimic voices down to a T.

-25 years old.

-sees papyrus as her equal and friend.

-dating alphys a few months before frisk fell down.

-suspects asgore had raised a human child before but isnt sure.

- keeps a special eye on monster kid, especially when she visits the school.

-is smart, almost as smart as alphys but failed most of high school because of how boring the work was.

- she doesnt like puzzles but does them to make papyrus happy. (what she does is often test runs of his puzzles.)

-is like a big sister to the skeleton brothers despite being younger then papyrus.

-her hair is in a braid rather then a ponytail.

-she knows of flowey but not what he is. papyrus has brought him up a few times by accident. she thinks flowey is just some monster she hasn't met yet.

#undertale #age swap au #underverse

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kitkat-the-muffin · 5 months

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We haven’t even gotten to Re:Coded yet

#kh social experiment #kingdom hearts

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usafphantom2 · 2 years

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Video records participation of Russian Tu-22M3 bombers in Ukraine

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 05/14/22 - 11:48 AM in Military

This week, a video appeared on social networks allegedly showing the launch of two Kh-22 missiles ('AS-4 Kitchen') from a Tu-22M3 bomber in Ukraine. The Kh-22 was developed in the 1960s, it is an old weapon, something like 1.5 generation of Soviet guided missiles.

Russia's failure to achieve air superiority in Ukraine has been described as one of the most significant mistakes that Moscow has made. The Russian Air Force was expected to play a vital role in the invasion, which could have allowed ground forces to enter deep into Ukraine and take Kiev.

It wasn't due to lack of experience or capacity. Russia has almost 4,000 fighter planes and has experience with bombing targets in Syria, Georgia and Chechnya.

Perhaps seeing the missed opportunity in recent weeks, Moscow has deployed its force of modernized Tu-22M3 bombers armed with Kh-22 missiles to hit the Ukrainian rail system. Such operations were initially conducted with cruise missiles, including the Kh-101 and Kh-555 and launched by Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers, but in recent weeks a change has apparently been made to the Tupolev Tu-22M3 (NATO reporting name "Backfire").

According to a report by The Aviation Geek Club, Russian ammunition is being depleted faster than can be replaced - and as a result, the Russians have deployed older stocks of the Kh-459 ("AS-13 Kingbolt") and other Cold War missiles.

The video that circulated online shows the launch of two heavy Soviet-era anti-ship Kh-22 ("AS-4 Kitchen") missiles from a Backfire bomber. The Kh-22 is remarkable, as it is probably much older than any of the pilots of the Tu-22M3 bombers - as it dates back to the 1960s. Designed to attack heavily protected ships or targets on land, it was far from being a precision missile. He had a circular error probably about three miles and, as a result, was typically equipped with a nuclear warhead.

The Kh-22 is powered by a Tumanski liquid fuel rocket engine, fueled with TG-02 (Tonka-250) and IRFNA (inhibited red steaming nitric acid), giving it a maximum speed of Mach 4.6 and a range of up to 600 km (320 nautical miles). The first ready-to-service missiles were introduced in 1962, but it took 60 years to see actual use in combat.

The hang gliding missile is powered by a liquid fuel rocket and is usually launched from a Tu-22M3 flying at a speed of Mach 1.5. The missile then accelerates to Mach 3 before approaching the target. In its terminal phase, the missile dives at a sharp angle and reaches a maximum speed greater than Mach 4. Each Tu-22M3 can carry up to three of these missiles in overload configuration, although one is more usual.

It has been suggested that the war in Ukraine is now just one way for Moscow to get rid of its old Cold War ammunition.

In mid-April, it was widely reported that Tu-22M3s had been used to bomb the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol, a Ukrainian resistance site that still continues. It is not clear whether these "bombing" attacks involved cruise missiles, as well as the free-falling "dumb" bombs that the Tu-22M3 can also carry internally and externally.

The aircraft carrying the Kh-22 are also showing their age. The Tu-22M3 is a modernized version of the Cold War long-range bombers that entered service in the late 1950s and were designed to target land and sea targets with supersonic missiles and bombs. The bombers have an operational range of 7,000 km and are capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

The Tu-22M3 model, which was developed in the early 1980s, officially entered service in 1989. It was one of the few Soviet bombers to go into combat when it was used at the end of the Russo-Afghan War.

Russia currently maintains a force of more than 100 Tu-22M bombers in all configurations.

Earlier this month, a U.S. defense officer said that Russia had launched almost 2,125 missiles in Ukraine in 68 days of war, or just over 30 missile launches a day. However, it was not clear how many of them were thrown off the air.

With the most advanced cruise missile stocks apparently decreasing rapidly, it would not be a surprise if the use of the Tu-22M3 in the war in Ukraine really increased as the air campaign continued.

Tags: Military AviationTu-22M3War Zones - Russia/Ukraine

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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clarabowmp3 · 2 years

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11, 14 and 38 :)

11. tell me about your least favorite band or artist. go on scream about why you hate them.

Omggg I’m going to get so much hate for this but I just want to put a disclaimer that I DO NOT hate this artist, but she’s the closest thing I have to a least favourite artist, I just mean she’s the artist I like the least but I DO NOT dislike her. So its Olivia Rodrigo cuz idkk drivers license was good and all and I rlly do like the sad songs on sour but the petty songs just seem immature and it makes me cringe cuz I was once like that when I was 13/14 and it just feels odd to hear it from an 18 year old but then again who am I to judge if someone’s feongs are valid or not, maybe she just had a diff experience growing up, but that “immaturity” sort of prevents me from rlly liking her music, and some things about her just seem sus (her wearing such a similar dress to taylor at the grammys and also dropping an award, but thats just my own opinion) I also feel she def does have so much potential for growth as an artist, but I think that can only happen when ppl stop patting her on the back for breathing. is she talented? very much so!! but unfortunately I feel that shes also a little bit overrated

14. what is one artist that has irreparably damaged your social skills?

Gracie Abrams. why interact with others when I can cry to camden 🥺

38. did one of your favorite bands/artists do a cover???? tell me about it!!! hmm I rlly like KHS covers, esp the Perfect (one direction) and Stay with me ones

Thanks for the ask!! 💖

#Personal #ask #lovely mutuals

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mejomonster · 2 years

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yakuza 0 is a fascinating game. from my perspective, as a standalone, since it was the first entry in the series i played and so i treated it as its own single thing with no prior knowledge or context. also as a prequel game, i imagine it may have been somewhat aimed at new players to the series like some prequels are as ‘entering points’ into series

1. it highlights the serious drama/silly heartfelt sidestories structure, the way the mini games and then more fight-heavy combat go alongside each other to make this mash up game (which in some ways reminds me of Persona 3 combining life sim with turn base combat, or Devil Summoner Raidou combines action combat with these very slice of life social gaming aspects of making demon friends/case solving).

2. it serves to introduce the families at play, clans at play, the tojo clan and omi alliance, and show kiryu at his youngest as like his origin.

3. as standalone stories, kiryu and his entire involvement with tachibana is a full drama story of its own, majima and his entire involvement with makoto is a full drama story of its own. so what it ends up feeling like is 2 games in one. 2 games that could have maybe stood on their own as 2 independent stories/yakuza games, combined into one single game. likely because they revolve around the same large-scale event of the empty lot and dojima leader being taken down from power.

4. because the game at no point has the 2 leading characters (who are leading their own respective “own stories/games” in the game) never meet, it pretty much start to finish feels like playing 2 parallel stories/games. i found this an interesting but really odd choice? i am not sure i remember any other game where 2 leads of 2 stories which connect (since their larger stories do connect as flip sides of each other) never meet or cooperate in the game. I can think of Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories where Sora never meets Riku but Riku IS actively looking for sora and at the endgame interacting with his body/his safekeeping as the ending conclusion. Or KH Dream Drop Distance where Riku and Sora are often apart and unable to communicate or work together, but know each other before the gameplay starts and interact again in the endgame. Meanwhile, I expected the same of yakuza 0 - for majima and kiryu to either meet in endgame and Work Together or to at some point be aware of each other to a decent enough degree to be acknowledging it (even if its like “this kiryu working with tachibana, this majima who helped makoto and is now taking out Dojima while i go to protect makoto” referring to an off-screen known ally to their goals). But that never happened. The ENTIRE game, even inside each other’s spheres of influence as they are deeply tied during the endgame in their goals/who they know/what they’re doing, they never are aware of each other (beyond this k-san i’m investing in lol). it seemed very interesting to me that the writers chose to keep the stories only parallel without ever having the 2 leads run into each other or acknowledge each other’s participation much. It makes me wonder WHY they chose to write it that way. did they want to show what majima and kiryu have in common in their past, even though the 2 men themselves dont know its a shared experience? did they want to simply show a backstory for why BOTH characters are the way that they are now, and so felt they both deserved an origin story? (which would imply majima is Quite significantly viewed as a character, to get to deserve an origin story explanation with as much attention as main-character kiryu, since majima is a full on required playable character with his entire own story going on). I am playing Yakuza Kiwami now, and the game itself so far (I’m in chapter 4) has had majima around as a helpful “train me” guy, but he doesn’t particularly yet seem like he’d be any more significant as a character than say Bacchus in Yakuza 0 or Reina or Nishiki - maybe significant sure, but not enough to merit his own entire game-playthrough and story. So its just an interesting design choice for yakuza 0 to decide he IS that significant, to be on kiryu’s level as a main character. It may have been a fanservice choice, in that maybe majima became more popular through the series and by yakuza 0 he’d become More Important and worth making a 1/2 a game entirely on. It may have been he’s always been an important parallel to kiryu’s character, and this was a way to showcase that more.

5. again... what’s perhaps most interesting to me isn’t even that majima gets co-lead status in yakuza 0. but that kiryu and majima Never cross paths during the game’s plot in person, despite being both dragged deep into the main story events of the empty lot, makoto, and dojima. i wonder why they chose to keep them apart. (i can make guesses - perhaps its important to the characters histories, that they met as casual coworkers with no inkling of what each other USED to be like, but it was still important to show Audiences what they both used to be like. that perhaps their actual early relationship has some significance in some plot, so it could not be altered to serve this yakuza 0 plot - but this yakuza 0 plot could still individually highlight both their own character arc stories individually. or maybe the makers just wanted to make 2 parallel games with yakuza 0 like an A and B side of a story).

#yakuza 0 #lb #rant #feel free to ignore #i just find a lot of the design choices interesting #from a intro to series perspective? 10/10 this does a good job #showing ppl what yakuza games offer and if they'd like them or not #but then like. also the choice to make 2 not-touching main characters is a choice i rarely have seen #and i doubt it will show up in much of the other yakuza games #so i do wonder why they made the choice #im HAPPY i got all the majima side story lol. i loved majima and makoto together. i loved the cabaret running #nishitani. the guilded cage situation. all worthwhile to me #but it doesnt feel like they Had to add it in to make a 'decent complete yakuza game'#so im really curious Why they still added it and made it 50% of the game

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