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Cosimo Galluzzi

shark vs the universe

Andulka
trying on a metaphor
KIROKAZE
Peter Solarz
d e v o n

Product Placement
sheepfilms
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Not today Justin

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
wallacepolsom

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JBB: An Artblog!

JVL

pixel skylines
Keni

ellievsbear

Love Begins

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@indi-glo-archive
want to see more like this or start a similar discussion?
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it feels kind of dramatic to write a big essay with a title and stuff, but I'm officially leaving this account :)
@cookies675 has volunteered to take ownership of the archive and my spot on the confessions blog, so everything will stay up, but i won't be posting anymore.
i'm too busy for fandom stuff these days and there's other discourse on other sides of tumblr that's getting to be too much for me. I'd rather just focus on my real life instead of letting all this bother me, sooo... i'm out :)
i think the thing people miss about Ben is that "bad" people have feelings too
you know, I'm willing to accept that not everyone has the same Ben headcanon that I do. A lot of people definitely do have a much more malicious reading for ableist/homophobic reasons, but like. If I think of my reading as an intentionally generous one to counteract the homophobic/ableist default Alice created, I can accept other ones
”you’ve never been bullied and it shows” you’ve never been emotionally abused by your parents and it shows
ppl will see the most emotionally deficient anxious/abused-to-the-point-of-psychosis individuals and say "this is an emotionally manipulative evil genius"
me still being on tumblr is like. i think i got so used to suffering that i just do it for no reason now
The kinds of things the Heartstopper and Young Royals fandoms put me through as a child were genuinely so fucked, and the only reason I didn't bat an eye was because I'd already developed dissociative disorders from my other child abuse (shoutout to the person who told me it was obvious I'd never been bullied bc I sympathized with a fictional fellow victim!).
People called me woke trash, racist, and repeatedly accused me of being an abuse/rape apologist for pointing out flaws and being able to put myself in characters' shoes (AKA write good analysis?). I got hate asks on a regular basis, people coming into my inbox just to tell me how much they hated characters I related to, trying to convince me that these characters, that people like me, are the scum of the earth because our trauma responses aren't palatable enough for them.
These are people who straight up do not give a fuck about child abuse if the child doesn't respond to it in a way they're comfortable with. These are people who will demonize abuse victims and make joking death threats about teenagers whose lives are implied to be in active danger. These are people who dismissed every one of my attempts to bring up racism and ableism in these shows because they were so fucking fragile and terrified of acknowledging their own imperfections. They attacked me for noticing and added to the racism and ableism I had to deal with instead of sucking it up and learning something.
And I know that this had a real impact on people who weren't me and didn't have my kind of armor because I also had people in my inbox who related to them like I did. I had adults agreeing that if they'd encountered these fandoms when they were younger, it would've made them suicidal. I had teenagers who related to the characters saying that they had been similarly abused. I'm really glad I was able to be a safe person for them, and I'm disappointed that I was one of the only ones there to do it when there are so many so-called "allies" here.
There is something seriously fucking wrong with these fandoms, and you all should be ashamed of yourself for cyberbullying teenagers off the internet. You need to reflect on that shit and fix it if you want to consider yourself any kind of ally or empath or cool gay teacher or any kind of positive influence in the spaces you’re in
(P.S. I swear to fucking god if people respond to this post with "but he sexually assaulted someone" and ignore literally every other personality trait/experience he had that could've been relatable to a child abuse survivor and the way people mistreated me, a real human being, which Charlie is not by the way, I will start doing the things you wanted to do to Ben)
hear me out on this: people responding to loveless people with "but you, like, love your family/friends, right?" reminds me of when I say Heartstopper's super racist and ableist and people ask "but you like the show, right?"
I like s2 Ben a lot bc even though Charlie treated him like shit in their relationship/breakup he’s still so protective of him. Most of his beef with Nick is just because he doesn’t think Nick is good enough for him. He’s even willing to oh-so-selflessly steal him back. for Charlie’s sake, of course.
”Ben could have chosen to be better” that boy is getting abused
and the worst part is that they fucking love each other right. but they also don't actually love each other. they love the idea of each other, what they did for each other, but they don't even know each other as people, so how could they possibly love each other?
Primink's latest video about internet sweetheart going "because it's all fake, he's creating these narratives, which makes the way he portrays certain groups seem malicious" >>>
i think the issue with ship discourse is that a lot of people only want to talk about sex negative or positive they are. so when someone brings up the actual implications of media and how it's consumed in terms of bigotry or how it impacts how society views certain groups people immediately start having two different conversations
"why am i like this" but it's continually trying to have serious discussions about racism and ableism in fandom spaces
do not. respond to my doylist criticism with a watsonian explanation.
just because i don't see an explanation in the notes yet
'Doylist' and 'Watsonian' are basically two different lenses to use when analyzing a story. A Watsonian approach comes from within the story, exploring and explaining it in the way a character would in-universe, hence the name referencing John Watson. Doylist (as in Arthur Conan Doyle) is analysis from an outside perspective, treating the story as a story written by someone and focusing on more meta aspects.
If someone asks, "Why did [Character X] say [Y]," a Watsonian explanation would focus on the in-universe factors: the character's backstory, motive, personality, beliefs, and so on, all things that someone within the story could perceive. A Doylist explanation might focus on thematic relevance and highlight authorial intent; why did the author choose to write that?
Both forms of analysis are valuable, and ideally, a story should hold up to both internal and external scrutiny, and those analyzing a story should recognize and use both perspectives. The reason a Watsonian explanation can't be used to counter a Doylist critique (per the original post) is that it fails to recognize the core of the critique. A post about how strange it is that an author chose to write something a certain way cannot be countered by providing the in-universe explanation, because those are the exact choices the Doylist lens is criticizing. In the same sense, you can't counter a Watsonian critique by explaining authorial intent or some such. (Authorial intent is not authorial success.)
🫁
ID: grainy image of a white woman glaring at someone in a beanie and hoodie who has their back to the viewer
hey but isn’t it wild how Charlie’s anger is only ever 1) righteous (parents/homophobes) or 2) a symptom
People will claim to be a fan of some thing and then hate all of the themes and motifs and story lines and plot lines and protagonists and antagonists like man I don’t think that you actually like it here
i knew this screenshot would come in handy