#posting this and then immediately unfollowing just feels... defeating and weird

[knowlesian]

okay, i’m not gonna call out names because i think people deserve chances to grow and i’m not assuming any malicious intent, but i also feel a need to answer something addressed to me today, because empathy’s gotta go hand in hand with accountability.

this is why talking about race (in fandom, or otherwise) is often like slamming your face into a brick wall that keeps insisting it’s on your side.

okay. so i sort of debated how to handle this: i think i’m just gonna quote myself. you may have missed this piece, so hopefully it’ll give context for why i’m not sure exactly what to say, and remain unsure.

i am very sure that until the day i die, i will be doing the hard and frustrating and not super ego-boosting work of diving into the mental dumpster of weird bullshit i was implicitly taught and unpacking it all.

so i know i will breathe my last and i will still have all these racist ideas, rattling around my noggin fucking with how i see the world and how i treat people, even though i don’t know i’m doing the thing. when i talk about people being racist and having implicit bias, i am also talking about me!

because racist is a descriptor, not an insult. and as much as it sucks for me to unpack this shit (don’t let anybody tell you it’s not hard work or that it feels good to do; it’s really hard and it will make you feel very small and gross sometimes) the people i accidentally aim it at deserve me putting in that effort and have it much worse.

so when i’m like, it was racist stede did that? i’m not saying stede is a bad person, and i’m not saying fuck that guy.

i’m saying oh shit this show is SMART, i do that too! it’s me!

so. i don’t know why you posted this and then bounced: i don’t know why you didn’t @ me, if you wanted me to see it and respond.

like... is your issue that i’m talking about race too much? that i’m being mean or unfair when i do it? that i don’t talk enough about how hard it is for white people to think about race, or that i’m not being understanding enough that it sucks to look at people who hurt you and have to consider you might have something in common with them? because i’ve said exactly that, too. you’re right, it’s not fun to do this work, and it is work.

i guess i just don’t understand the purpose, here, or why you’d say all this and not explain what exactly you want from me as a writer to do differently. and if that’s not your goal and i’ve misunderstood, then...  i mean. i guess i remain confused as to what you want me to take away from this, other than “it’s hard to be white, and you have made me feel very uncomfortable about it so i wish you would stop”.

#i still don't know what to say #i do not understand why this post was made #do they want me to change? talk about race less or differently? #never mention whiteness? #because i feel like i have been scolded for not being nice enough or understanding enough about the Plight of The White Ally #so i guess my question is: what was i supposed to say here? #what am i supposed to do with this #but feel like i am somehow not in the crew unless white people feel comfortable #posting this and then immediately unfollowing just feels... defeating and weird #like i'm not gonna block you and i hope you take this and just. don't do this to the next poc in line #but this made me feel p shitty #this is fine to rb btw please do not try to sleuth shit or whatever this is not about that #it's just... you know. play stupid games handle your public stupid prizes #to allow frustration to make me blunt for a sec #also apologies for the caps and no id i just could not make myself sit and transcribe all that #if someone else has the fortitude thank you and i will rb #i just. not today you know? i can't do the second layer and process every word at that level rn

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

for the 100 warm up questions, pick or random: 8, 28, 32, 84?

I’m going to pick them....just because I had Really good answers for some of these for specific characters Edit from about 2/3 of the way through answering this: Okay it turned into the Raini and Cog show but what the fuck are you gonna do about it. Unfollow me? I HAVE to laugh

8. What location encountered in the campaign has your character felt the most “at home” in, or just generally liked the most? Okay I know this is a weird pull but I said it in game and I do mean it: Raini fucking vibed with that drow city. Please don’t make small talk with me! Our business is transactional and then we’re done! If someone tries to stab you in the back you kill them! That all checks out to me! You power word kill the first guy who tries to pickpocket you and then you’re golden. An Ideal World. But also I am thinking about......the ache of nostalgia you don’t know why you’re feeling when you go into a room you’ve been told is yours, in a state of disarray that makes it look like the owner only just stepped out a minute ago, and trying to the emptiness and simultaneous longing you feel as you run your hand along a comforter you think looks nice but can’t remember picking out....... also to scoop us up out of that angst trench I am thinking about Raini sleeping way better than usual on Ecstasy’s ship with the gentle rocking turbulence the comes with flying....very sweet to me....

Also want to talk briefly about how sad I got thinking about this question for Cog because....like, nowhere? Her hometown: sucks ass. Definitely not home. New Alexandria: pretty okay, but way too urban for Cog to really vibe with it. The Crossroads: holy shit, there’s so much going on. Maybe she would have felt more at home if they hadn’t been in the middle of a coup when the party showed up, but... 

28. What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party? Brilliance has the most concrete but boring answer: it’s because she’s a good person and feels Responsible since she convinced the party to go to Hell in the first place. But that’s lame so we’re gonna talk about somebody else too.

I want to talk about Cog. Can I talk about Cog? I want to talk about Cog!! She’s staying with her party a) because she’s a sweetheart and they’re her friends obviously but also she is Completely convinced that they need her. Conversations I as a player have heard between other characters show that they do not see it the same way, but Cog fully believes that they need her as a moral compass. No one should have to say, “Hey, don’t combine Geas and Sending to try and get this person to do what you want from several miles away! You know she won’t listen and you know that’ll kill her” but Apparently someone does have to! And apparently it has to be Cog. idk if the post has worked its way out of my impossibly long queue yet, but there’s a post where I said “Cog is the moral compass and impulse control of several powerful people” and THAT’S why she needs to stay with her party. 

32. What is your character the most insecure about? Raini very easy very sad: she feels Super insecure about her decision to take everyone’s memories, and I think it stems from a combination of things. First of all, she’s frustrated with herself for not being smart enough to think of a better solution. There had to have been another option! If she felt like she had to resort to using Wish, why didn’t she just Wish to kill Geryon? Or defeat the thing in the Abyss? There must have been context she doesn’t have now, but not knowing it and thus not being able to understand her own thought process is So frustrating. The other big thing is I think she genuinely cannot imagine being in a position where the rest of the party trusted her to make that unilateral decision, and so she assumes there’s a significant amount of unspoken resentment toward her from the people around her. I don’t know if they did or not! But Raini definitely knows she’s not in that position now, and knows enough at this point about the kind of person she is that she’s convinced herself the same was true before. The reveal came about when we were kinda busy with some shit, the party didn’t have a chance to sit down and talk about how they felt about what happened! They didn’t immediately flip out, which is great, but that doesn’t mean they’re not angry and just sitting on it until they have their memories back. I think Raini wouldn’t care as much if they were mad if she was 100% convinced that she did the right thing, but that ties again into the first point because she’s not sure she did the right thing. So, ehh, it’s rough a little bit maybe. 

84. What does your character want to be remembered by? Here’s some deep Raini lore idk if I’ve talked about with anyone other than you, Morgan: pre-wipe (and probably pre a Lot of adventuring) Raini’s ultimate goal was to become a god. A minor deity for sure, but. She wanted to ascend! She wanted to stop being mortal! She’s a high level wizard and an angel and she kicks ass; how hard would it be to take that next step from god-like to demigod? That was the goal she had in mind from level one when she set out adventuring, but....I think it honestly maybe sort of lost it’s luster over time? It’s easy to let those kind of long term goals kinda...fall by the wayside, when you’re busy fighting monsters and adventuring. It’s easy to forget that kind of stuff when you’re happy too busy to have the free time to scheme. Maybe it’s okay to focus on the now, on the people you’re with, on the dumbass jokes they keep telling, on ducking out of the way of the pillows they keep throwing at you. 

GONNA talk about Cog again too: She wants to be remembered by the mark she leaves on the world. She wants to be known for having been a force of good in a pretty bleak wasteland, and for having shared the idea that kindness is a discipline, not a character trait. She doesn’t want to be remembered as the vector for some long dead god to return to the world, because that’s not who she is. Not only is that not true, she wants to be known for what she did, not what she was “born” as.  Fuck also now I’m thinking about how half the party are elves/half-elves and how vasty they’re going to outlive her, and how Cog would say something about wanting them to carry forward her conviction about the importance of choosing to be kind even when it’s hard, and grieving party members trying to respect her memory and do that while hating how unfair it is that she’s not there to continue spreading it herself.....maybe I am emo at two in the morning......

#thank you morgan for sustaining us with questions #they really keep me going in these trying times #rainivere #cog #answered #celebreultimaverba

[rue-bennett]

and like.. he doesn't even watch art house because he appreciates it more its just to be the smartest person in the room. people who do things out of genuine joy for themselves don't lord it over others as a way to feel superior. they just like the shit they like.

I think the point is also completely defeated by the fact that by publishing media the creator is commodifying the art piece. its such a weird critique to call free fan works a commodification of art when the art is already a commodity by virtue of it being sold and most likely altered to have more mass appeal.

there's nothing inherently wrong with consuming media this way either because not only does the fan work part of the fandom represent like 10% of all the people that actually consume the media, its also a great way to relieve stress. even if fan fiction is mostly mindless consumption of media it makes up (depending on the fandom) such a small part of the fandom it really doesn't make a difference.

not everybody wants to write a thesis on the media they consume they just want to watch it. and sure sometimes this simplification of a piece of media does cause someone to miss out on what the story is actually about but it that really such a big problem? people got upset over people not understanding the deeper cultural Encanto and doing this tropey fandom thing but I never heard frozen 2 trend because people weren't talking about the imperialization critique either.

not everybody might understand or appreciate the depth of something but that doesn't mean they don't love the piece of media.

I remember this post from a while ago talking about how people primarily consume fan work because they don't have the emotional energy to start new books or shows and get reinvested. its easier to read variations of the same story you already love and speaking from experience its so hard to get into reading original stories once you start reading fan work. that probably just spiralled into these standard au's and tropes. they have a natural variation but their also familiar and comforting.

So many good points here, sorry I didn't get a chance to publish the other day when you sent this so I hope you see this. But yeah I don't see why people have such a problem with it. There are times when I don't like it and times when I do but like...the thing is...you can just scroll away? Or unfollow? Everything feels so immediate and in your face and all-consuming online when it's just a small fraction of the ACTUAL WORLD. The people posting about something online are obviously gonna be the most obsessed fans, but certainly not all fans. Writing meta isn't the only valid way to enjoy things, there are so many ways to. I also really liked and wanted to highlight this part of what you said because I agree that it's a silly argument and something @strange-aeons and basically anyone with a brain took issue with when Tumblr brought out Post+, because it's fanwork mostly on tumblr in one regard or another, buuuuuut:

I think the point is also completely defeated by the fact that by publishing media the creator is commodifying the art piece. its such a weird critique to call free fan works a commodification of art when the art is already a commodity by virtue of it being sold and most likely altered to have more mass appeal.

Policing is just so annoying when you can just...scroll away.

#asks #anonymous #fandom