#meta-ing to avoid the discourse

[detectivenyx]

I think part of the distaste for fandom meta lately comes from an aversion to discourse. When you're a queer teen in the midst of Steven Universe fandom mayhem, it gets scary and makes you want to avoid overanalyzing anything ever again. Not to say we shouldn't be talking about the impact of fiction, cause of course we should. There's just a fear of backlash if you get it wrong.

Also, it's very easy for discussion of literature to be clouded by trauma and personal experience. Personally there are subjects I just straight up cannot think about for more than a minute before I'm stressing myself out. It keeps me from having a truly objective viewpoint on the material.

And there's also the case of people who don't actually know how to do literary analysis. It's not always taught in school, and for my high school (Arizona) there was only one available literature class (and it was for college credit). I took it and got through it fine, but my sister tried to take it and she tells me it ruined her reading hobby, and is the reason she now despises literary analysis.

the thing is that fandom meta/media analysis =/= fandom discourse. i very much was a teenager in the midst of steven universe fandom mayhem and flipflopped between adoring and hating the show. i never got super into the discourse surrounding the show.

additionally; the way i experience a lot of media now is very much clouded by trauma and personal experience. in some ways, my channel taking off was one of the best and worst things that happened to me. routinely i still get harassed and judged and sent harassment for simultaneously negative and positive analysis, people @'ing me on youtube to tell me i should remove my content because they're offended by my analysis.

that is all kind of background to say that despite all these elements, i don't really think the reasons provided are implicitly valid excuses. i don't think of myself as a particularly smart individual, but media analysis and being able to look at things objectively is kind of, well, necessary for interaction with most pieces of media outside of passive consumption, and passive consumption isn't a great way to consume anything more complex than the teletubbies.

a friend of mine knew about the incest and borderline-pedophilia in Vampire Knight, for example; but they didn't realise that a 'pure blooded vampire' that's inherently better than the non-pure blooded vampires was a problematic and racist trope that validated 'good breeding' at all. they're not very good at media analysis.

additionally there are multiple sources online (academic and educational sources, mind) that help with media analysis and there's almost guaranteed to be one that appeals to someone at least somewhat.

and to be honest, it is pretty alienating in its own right to be routinely told i'm 'reading too much into things' and i should just accept the blue curtains and make endless yaoi/yuri 100k coffee shop friends/enemies to lovers fanfics because that's your place in fandom as a Wretched Femoid (regardless of my actual gender) by, being honest, all genders in fandom, just depends on if it's 'ew i don't want my literary analysis being done by a WUMMIN and a NONBINRY WUMMIN at that' or 'uhhhh :333 leave the analysis to the boys and join us in Girl Fandom'. we're better than that, i think.

[luckthebard]

Trauma, Faith, and Caleb Widogast

*As often with my Caleb meta, this is going to draw heavily from my personal feelings and experiences, not all people experience trauma the same way, etc.

I find it interesting that Caleb “I don’t believe in anything” Widogast is consistently interested in, encouraging of, and respectful of the other character’s religious beliefs (the only real exception here is an objection to the Betrayer Gods, which seems understandable). He asks Jester about the Traveler and tries to talk to him. Tells her “you have faith so you should have faith” when they discuss casting high level spells. When Molly first mentioned worshiping the Moonweaver, an outlawed goddess, Caleb’s only response was to say “I am satisfied” with Molly’s whole personal reveal. He’s interested in how Jester and Caduceus cast spells. He picked up a symbol to the Archeart, another illegal god, while in the merrow den, but Liam described it to Matt only by the shapes and as “from my memory” so it’s possible, being raised in the repressive Empire, he doesn’t even know what god that symbol is for. And while he perhaps took it only for the comfort of the memory, he hasn’t touched it or done anything with it since.

My theory therefore, is that due to trauma, Caleb admires the idea that faith can bring comfort, but cannot find it for himself.

I imagine Caleb might have been raised to casually worship one of the Empire approved deities; perhaps the Dawnfather because his parents were farmers. Or perhaps we might consider his first “religion” to have been blind belief in the Empire itself. But - and here’s where my own experience with trauma comes in - something earth-shatteringly horrible happening in childhood is a pretty good way to lose all ability to have faith in the religion you were raised in. This can also happen if people start to disagree with something serious within the institution or ideology of that religion. A few things tend to happen. Some people reject religion altogether, and condemn the idea broadly. Some people will seek out other faiths, if they like the idea of maintaining some kind of religious comfort, but just not in the same way as the faith they lost. But there’s something else that can happen where, as much as someone might learn about and admire the tenants and ideologies and histories of many religions, they just cannot find the ability to believe that way anymore. The shattering of that first faith was too complete.

So what happens is not the kind of rejection of religion that leads to a condemnation of all forms of faith as naive. Rather, it’s a personal rejection of religion that leads to wistful musings about perhaps finding another belief system, but never being able to take the leap. My understanding is that Caleb might be interested in the idea of religious faith, but due to his life experiences can’t let go, or let down his guard or personal understanding of the world enough to find it. 

I do think the loss of that first belief in the Empire is what allowed him to open up his empathy to the outlawed religions. It’s not even just a “he doesn’t care enough to turn them in” thing, he’s seemed to respect the belief system of every outlawed worshiper they’ve encountered. That’s an empathy that’s surprising to a certain degree, but ties into the idea that his trauma might have made him more empathetic to the histories and comforts of faith, without having his own.

While trauma along these lines can lead to anger, it can also lead to a distant feeling of respect that’s coupled with a firm understanding that this can never be something the traumatized person can have. The first one, the anger, is just as valid and perhaps more so depending on the situation, but the second one happens too. And it’s something I’ve been thinking about since Caleb declared he didn’t believe in anything - because I believe him that he doesn’t, but that’s rarely stopped him from supporting his friends (especially Jester) in their own faith.

#this got long and probably didn't cover everything I wanted to apologies #meta #caleb widogast #long post #critical role #meta-ing to avoid the discourse #like a boss #religion #fantasy religion #discussions of #religious trauma #ptsd #characters with ptsd

[lesbianrobin]

tbh I care way less about how the ship would or wouldn't work in canon than I do about racist fans making fandom unsafe for others

SAME god yes like. honestly i think i get too caught up in discoursing and meta-ing sometimes trying to "prove" how bad h*rringrove is as if that's gonna change the shippers' minds when i know it won't. so ur right thank u for reminding me of the point.

they make the fandom a hostile and unsafe environment for a lot of people, and that's why i try to be so vocal about not wanting them anywhere near my blog. i understand that a lot of people are afraid of conflict, but i think everyone in the fandom should honestly try their best to make it as clear as possible that they won't put up with h*rringroves interacting with them or their content. i don't want to sound overdramatic, but i think that simply stating clearly that you don't want h*rringroves following you and blocking them if they do can go a long way toward making the fandom in general a safer and more welcoming environment. it's honestly really upsetting to follow somebody and then see them openly interacting in a friendly way with racists!! so this is my psa to everyone in the fandom: don't be the person openly interacting in a friendly way with racists. i mean don't do it privately either skjncdkm the point is that being neutral isn't enough and you should be anti-racist if you care about fostering a safe and uplifting environment.

(p.s. if ur a minor i understand not wanting to invite conflict by posting about h*rringrove the way i do, just try to avoid them)

#asks

[elizabethrobertajones]

I have not peeked into my dash AT ALL since the new episode, mostly just scrolled a few blogs to catch myself up on gifsets etc, but I wanna put down a few more thoughts from rewatching 13x01 and 2 today - which was hours ago so I'm not sure how much I have to say -

- in 13x01 *Sam* says that they "need" Jack - thinking of course about his portal opening abilities, and next episode is the one to start poking him about what else he can do, seeming really interested for the teleporting. He also has the conversation with Donsmodeus where he has already been researching what Jack can do and completely misses "Donatello"'s flip on Jack about moulding him because now Donssmodeus is talking his language about that, all of which vaguely worries me. I know there's a discourse about Dean the Bad Parent out there but only from 2nd hand chat that it exists so I just wanna weigh in. 13x02 hammers home that "needing" people is BAD (which I covered a little more in my notes about the episode about how "i need you" is now a bad phrase and hopefully that loops back around to where it became such a hot subject in the first place and Dean says something more about wanting or loving Cas than needing him when he's back, but Lucifer said it about Mary and Michael said it about Lucifer, and Sam said it about Jack. So. It's not all sunshine over there even when it's adorable and Sam is so supportive and I am loving every moment of him and Jack).

- Sam talks about how Kelly and Cas thought Jack was worth all the fuss, and "so do i", aligning himself with Jack's parents etc etc he's now morally responsible for Jack as a guiding figure. Dean had no such conversation and was not included in this conversation which was started BECAUSE Dean had said horrible things about Jack. I don't think at the moment Dean's on the level of "parenting" Jack, at least in the same way I don't think Mary in season 12 can possibly compare to John for their entire upbringing when having a bad parent conversation. You can condemn her treatment of them and complain about how she should have reached out more or not left or whatever (I mean I'm pretty supportive right up to "lying about working with the BMoL" and then switch to sympathetically understanding while agreeing it's a mistake but blah blah those power stories and that's how we learn and grow around here)... But yeah none of it can possibly scar them like their entire youth spent with John's version of parenting.

Granted literally all of Jack's issues pretty much stem from Dean, whether it's activating his memories of Lucifer reaching out to him and getting our first "I'm good" which means "I'm not good" which is SUCH a loaded statement about not just wellness but ethical morality levels (e.g. was that the first chink in Jack's goodness where he has warring influences on him now - though I still of course think his core is completely good/neutral) and of course saying all the stuff about Jack to make him think he's not worth it and then be so horrified and confused about his own life and abilities we get that last scene. Asmodeus barely managed to make a dent in Jack's self-worth except for teaching him trust and wariness, but even then a better pep talk about God and all would have avoided the problem entirely if the Winchesters were forthcoming with their issues with faith and religion and explained the shittiness of this world's Creation properly instead of being uncomfortable about explaining Lucifer and Chuck and the myriad issues they cause.

But yeah, I think Dean's fucked Jack up immensely but he's just not in a place to care or understand and he has not stated Jack is his responsibility in any other way than protecting other people from him, because he can't see him properly yet. Another thing I caught while thinking about the framing of this all and Jack from Dean's POV is that Jack looked enraged to see Dean at the police station when he was running from the angel radio, and to Dean it seems like *only* Sam taser-ing Jack avoided Jack attacking Dean again and he has no way to say whether Jack would have or not. We had already seen so much more of Jack's nice side by that point we can assume he was just scared and running and overloading, but Dean does not know that. He's also in no place for Sam's attempts at sensitivity training to work, but Sam has already attempted to call out the problem Dean has a few times, to no avail but at least he's putting the words out there, bridging the problem between them by making it clear they need to be on the same page, and trying to get Dean to cooperate.

(I haven't seen the discourse about this but I wonder if the haste we have to assign them all as family members to Jack while the show is taking a slow approach to having Dean own any responsibility for Jack while Sam has dived straight into being the Best Uncle Ever has made this more of a problem because it's hard to have Sam in one place with Jack and Dean in another and NOT see the connection to Sam and Cas automatically making him uncle or step father to Jack by proxy, while the earned family philosophy means Dean has not chosen any connection whatsoever to Jack except the one he already made clear, that he still sees Jack as a monster and a problem and even with deeper sympathy and understanding after spending time with him, he can't credit Jack his human side or trust him to control the angel side... the 10x09 mirror conversation between them (or 2x11 if he's seeing Jack as Sam and putting himself back in the season 2 mindset aka ranked one of his worst ever and proportionately THE worst) just goes to show his problems even more. He didn't trust himself back in season 10 and wanted Cas as a failsafe to throw him into the sun. He's probably looking up how to do that right now :P)

- but to get back to Asmodeus and Jack, the big fuck up the Winchesters made in preparing Jack for the world was not warning him that having any sort of destiny was a Bad Thing. Asmodeus made it up completely but it goes in line with Kelly believing there was a higher purpose for Jack and Cas's utter defeat about the idea saying it was all just random happenstance; though it was a circumstantial lie I find it interesting in the wider metaphorical picture in the same way Kelly praying to Sven for help in the open of 12x23 is circumstantial but fascinating in a wider picture :P Obviously there's a massive Destiel barrier to communication in the room specifically in the general area of Donatello talking about having a direct line to God or not, because on a better day Dean could have been regular old bitter about that and snarked enough of a warning for Jack to get the idea that no such thing exists and God doesn't care... And I hate that's the HAPPY day for them, but there you go, Dean was still so fucked up about that prayer not being answered a couple of days before that he does the thing I saw a gifset pointing out from Sam's same page speech about just shutting down completely when it comes to the subject of Cas and his death and Sam's hope and God not helping and all that in general.

...

I'm pretty sure I've mis-explained all of these thoughts horrifically so my inbox is always there for me to get back to this maybe on Monday or something... it's my birthday then and I love random meta asks from people confused about what I meant about something giving me a chance to write an even longer post. I'm genuinely excited to research up the table post I need to make about the final Bunker kitchen scene on me bday >.>

#13x01 #13x02 #season 13 spoilers #my stuff