JSML's random, fandom, and classified chaos. Dedicated to multi-fandoms and other cool stuff.Ā All posts will generally be intriguing, inspiring and/or positive.
Something that I was talking about with a friend another day was how Nezha defies social rules, but AoBing defies social roles.
NeZha obviously breaks social rules, with his constant casual manners and he doesnāt seem to be courteous at all. However, from my perspective as a western audience, I felt like NeZhaās fear of showing weakness is indicative of his relationship with his own identity of being a boy, or being masculine. The way that he was afraid to show affection for his mother at the beginning of NeZha 2 because heās embarrassed by what onlookers might think might also stem from his want to appear strong. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood in while flying to Lady ShiJiās mountain because he was so hurt by the destruction he saw in Chengtang Pass that he masks it with anger.
AoBing on the other hand adheres to social rules, and heās known for being a gentle, well-mannered figure whoās much more respectful compared to NeZha. However, something Iād like to mention is that he doesnāt care as much to present himself as strong or masculine as NeZha does, and he expresses his moments of weakness much more honestly than NeZha. Heās not afraid to cry, and he willingly expresses his love to his father, in comparison to how NeZha tries to act tough all the time, even around his own parents at the beginning of the film.
Whenever I read fanfiction of them, I usually like when theyāre written with this contrast: where NeZha might be egotistical, heās actually quite insecure in himself, and where AoBing seems more gentle and humble, heās actually more confident in his own identity. Just because AoBing seems less masculine compared to NeZha, does not actually make him more meek or unconfident.
It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. Itās like, what did they expect?
#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictableĀ (via sarahtonin42)
I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to āexplainā the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course weāre gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.
A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While itās true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.
(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)
Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other āselfcestā-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:
Possible F/F ships: 3
Possible F/M ships: 27
Possible M/M ships: 36
TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66
Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, weād reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.
The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and letās be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?
Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.
This doesnāt even account Ā for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they arenāt onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking.Ā Female characters are more likely to be written by men who donāt understand women vary well.Ā
But itās easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.
This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I donāt think itās the sole reason, but I think itās a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.
In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het). Ā (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) Iāve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandomās M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but Iām periodically tempted to try to do so.
All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes firstā¦ exceptĀ āThe Jobā actually meansĀ āMy Partnerā.
When itās a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.
Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. Itās not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.
If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Donāt like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutoutsā¦
Iām going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.
As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.
In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.
And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, orĀ āgood,ā or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesnāt know how to write women the way they write men.
And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.
When you have a group thatās allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldnāt be enough in their own right.
And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallengingĀ āsafeā appearances.
It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.
They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interestāin appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot developmentāgoes to the men.
And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, thatās where the shipping goes.
Yeah I donāt really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.
You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.
The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.
That you donāt have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.
Carelessness. Or; Lakan's crime in Maomao's eyes is worse than malice.
There is a temptation to take Lakan's character lightly. After his initial, sinister introduction had played out and we are given the story of how Lakan met Maomao's mother, much of Lakan's devotion to his wife and daughter is played for comic relief, allowing him to be the butt of the joke, along with Maomao's exaggerated reactions of disgust and insistence that she has no relation to this man.
It is worth remembering, though, that Lakan is referred to as the fox for good reason - the fox is a trickster figure and Lakan's whole character lies in how he can turn on a dime between being funny in a very pathetic way to those same qualities becoming extremely dangerous when his fun is threatened.
Lakan's heroic qualities do exist, but they are overshadowed by his carelessness and selfishness; it is these qualities that have, so far, doomed the relationship he craves so badly with his daughter.
Spoilers under the cut all the way up to Vol 11's English translation.
Fengxian
We see it in his relationship with Fengxian. While Lakan does not deserve all of the blame for Fengxian's fate, it is his carelessness that puts her in the position of becoming a common prostitute to support Verdigris House after her actions nearly ruined it. Let's pay attention to the sequence of events.
"ā¦Lakan now found himself persona non grata for having been too close to him [Luomen]; he was told to go on a long trip and not come back for awhile. He could have ignored this, but it would have only been a headache later. His father was in the military too, making him not just a parent but a superior officer. At last, he wrote to the brothel saying he would return in half a year's time. This was after he had received a letter saying the contract buy-out had fallen through."
So, first and foremost, we know the following:
1.) Lakan did not strictly have to leave. It was the politic thing to do, but if he had pushed the issue, he could have stayed. If the goal had been to simply have Lakan out of the public eye, while his father may not have been pleased with it, his marriage to Fengxian could have also served a similar purpose as he began to focus on domestic affairs and kept a low profile. But his convenience weighed more heavily than his feelings for Fengxian.
2.) Fengxian tells him that the buy-out has fallen through BEFORE HE LEAVES. Assuming she's just barely pregnant at that point (call it eight weeks, ish) and his letter indicates that he's going to return for her before the baby is born, this is still a terrible sign for her. As he himself puts it later;
"Did he not grasp what happened to such women?
A little thought might have revealed the answer, but his head was full of Go and Shogi and nothing else, and he had been unable to arrive at the truthā¦It was all his fault for being so impulsive."
But Lakan didn't think and sure enough, three years later, Fengxian isn't waiting for him in her polite little box at the Verdigris House. Because love is not convenient and Lakan values convenience above almost everything else. It's not until he loses Fengxian and their baby (and has the loss driven home to him in a very visceral manner when he finds the fingers in his un-forwarded mail) that it occurs to him that he wants more than endless game playing.
Luomen
We know somebody did check Lakan's mail, though, as the letter with Maomao and Fengxian's fingers is the only piece that's opened. It's easy to guess that it attracted Luomen's attention because it was bloodstained, but Luomen does what Lakan should have - he immediately makes for the pleasure district to find this woman and her child.
It takes him years of patient work on behalf of the Verdigris House to be trusted to adopt Maomao. We know it takes years because Maomao is initially raised by the Three Princesses and the madam, while Luomen is slowly building trust with the courtesans by providing them medical services. At no point does Luomen stride in, demanding to be given custody of his great niece because he's her family. Instead he recognizes that she has a family already in the brothel and works on becoming a part of their lives - because that's what's best for Maomao.
Luomen understands that filial duty goes both ways - a child has responsibilities to the parent, certainly, but those duties imply a reciprocity of care. First, the parent cares for their child, which means that the child's needs must be the priority. What Maomao desperately needs is care, education, safety and stability. All of which, Luomen prioritizes making sure Maomao has to the best of his ability.
Contrast this with Lakan's immediate reaction to finding Maomao in the pleasure district.
"One day, out of the blue, a strange man had appeared and tried to lead her away. The madam had shown up shortly after and beaten him with a broom and the sight of the bruised and bloodied man had inspired fear in her young heart. Anyone would be scared by a man who reached out to them grinning, even as blood poured from his face."
Lakan literally tries to take her off the street, believing he has the right, because he's her father. He doesn't care that he's scaring Maomao, he's described as grinning and reaching for her despite the reactions of everyone around him. Which is why Luomen's reaction to Lakan reception in the pleasure district is very telling - this is a man who is described as far too kind for his own good and having been very close with Lakan.
"Nonetheless, while her old man was compassionate, he did grasp the broader situation, and he never tried to stop the old madam from chasing the other man out of the brothel with her broom. He knew that wrong was wrong."
The manga adds the context that Luomen also "knew the woman with the missing nose." Luomen feels for Lakan, but his duty is to Maomao as her adopted father and to Fengxian as her doctor. His feelings do not outweigh those responsibilities.
Maomao
Lakan adores Maomao from the moment he lays eyes on her. But his love is inherently selfish - the loss of Fengxian and his estrangement from Maomao do not inspire him to do better with his talents consistently.
The ironic part is that Lakan could have made a very compelling argument to be given custody of Maomao. We know that the whole reason he decided to use his strategic brilliance to take back the headship of the La Clan is inspired by Maomao and the life he feels she deserves to have. He also goes back to Verdigris House and although it takes him ten years, he pays off two and a half times the damages he caused - in the world of the red light district, he has paid for his initial crime. So we see that he is capable of putting forth effort when he feels inspired to do so.
If he had applied that same strategy and patience toward working on finding a place in Maomao's life that honored the relationships that supported her when Lakan had abandoned both her and Fengxian, he might have been able to convince those that cared about her that it was in Maomao's best interests to be raised by him as a princess of a named clan.
If we need further evidence that Lakan's carelessness is still a dominant character trait, we can look at a more recent example in the story; the Shi Clan's assassination plot against Jinshi.
Gossip is one of Lakan's hobbies and that, combined with his intuition, means that he's the first person to realize that something is going on. He sees all of these supposedly coincidental acts happening around them and intuits that there is a grander purpose at work. And, to his credit, he doesn't ignore it - he puts his talent of using the people around him to good use. We see him rope Gaoshun into looking into the poisoned seaweed under the guise of a colleague asking for a favor, we see him prod Jinshi into letting Maomao investigate the metalworker. Lihaku is one of his direct subordinates and he's tasked with investigating the explosion at the warehouse and following the trail as they realize that the arson was a diversion.
But at no point is he doing any of this because of anything so prosaic as duty or responsibility. This is a fun game to him that's serving a dual purpose of getting him closer to Maomao. Everything is entirely about what will amuse him or further that one, singular goal. And he's greatly amused - until Maomao puts the pieces together and realizes that this is an assassination attempt.
It never occurs to Lakan that simply maneuvering people around him to get things done and amuse him carries any danger - because he doesn't care that deeply about anyone else aside from a few select individuals. Everything in his mind was entirely about getting him and Maomao into the same place where she couldn't run away from him. Where she would be forced to accept his help.
Which is exactly what happens; Maomao can't get into the temple on her own and she needs Lakan to vouch for her. It is an extremely clumsy, transactional way of trying to build a connection.
So then what happens?
First Maomao is bludgeoned by the guard - a Go stone of a man, unimportant, except for the damage he inflicted on his little girl that Lakan did not anticipate. But worse is when Jinshi carries her out of that temple, bleeding and unconscious, after having saved his life. Everything Lakan has done to try to force his daughter to acknowledge him has instead lead to her being seriously injured.
Maomao points out, later, that if Lakan had simply stepped forward and used his official position as a Grand Commandant to spearhead an investigation, this plot might have been discovered much sooner. Maomao, having a few self-absorbed tendencies of her own, is focused on Suirei's promise of resurrection medicine. But Lakan should be more focused on the fact that, had he actually done something himself, perhaps Maomao wouldn't have been hurt.
Lakan
I said before that Lakan's heroic qualities do exist and it's important to acknowledge them, while also realizing how they are caught up in his self-serving behavior. For all that buying Fengxian out is about Lakan finally getting something he's wanted, there is also virtue in the fact that he does not see the damage the disease has done to Fengxian and think of her as damaged goods. To him Fengxian has just as much value as the day he lost her, simply because she exists. Forget an attitude that's rare in the red-light district, that attitude is rare in the entire setting, which is acknowledged as extremely patriarchal.
Lakan also gets a chance to redeem himself somewhat during the Shi Rebellion. By the time Maomao is kidnapped, it's not because Lakan has been lazy - we see that he's been actively involved in the investigation about the feifa, with a chilling understanding about what improved firearms technology could do for military tactics. He is actually using his position and subordinates appropriately, setting Lahan to investigate the financial trail, which provides Jinshi the concrete proof needed to officially put the rebellion down. This time, the danger to Maomao is not Lakan's fault, and when he realizes she's been kidnapped, he does whatever he must to get Maomao back.
"Silently, Lakan turned toward Jinshi. Then he got up, knelt before Jinshi and pressed his fist into his palm in a gesture of respect. 'I come in supplication. I humbly request that you mobilize the army to strike against the rebel, Shishou.'
Lakan was a grand commandant, in other words, a secretary of military affairs. Jinshi understood what it meant for such a person to ask for the army to be mobilized."
Jinshi observes that his motives have nothing to do with the good of the nation and he is entirely concerned with his own, selfish needs, but while Lakan's motives may be selfish on behalf of the nation, he IS actually acting the way a father should. Maomao is in danger and his priority is doing whatever he must get her to safety, whether that be using the full authority of his rank or putting aside his pride to get Jinshi to mobilize the army.
Neither Malice Nor Virtue
Book 11 gives us an interesting look at Lakan, first in the war conference where Gyoku-ou is gauging Jinshi and Lakan's support for invading another country and we see that Lakan does not care.
"'What do you think, Sir Lakan?'
Lakan once again stopped working his Go problems and studied the map intently. He wore the same look with which he would appraise a board gameā¦
'I don't know about your reasons or excuses. All I know is how to win at Shogi,' Lakan said and then he started arranging the pieces on the map. The aide gave Jinshi an apologetic look.
There was no malice in Lakan - but neither was their virtue. So long as something didn't harm him or his family, he paid it no mind. If there was a chance to participate in an interesting game however - that he wouldn't missā¦to the strategist war was just a combination of his favorite games; it was a Shogi match using human pieces and a game of Go in which you captured real territory."
Jinshi's evaluation of Lakan is rather damming. The man has neither malice nor virtue. He cares only about himself, his family and his simple pleasures. This is the core of the issue that has doomed his relationship with Maomao, who despite having inherited a great deal of Lakan's characteristics, values two things above all else in her relationships; work ethic and compassion toward others.
Lakan desperately wants that paternal role with Maomao, but his behavior means that the roles are often reversed - when they are forced to interact, Maomao is often stuck taking care of him, thinking about what will be best for Lakan so that she can maintain her own peace as much as possible. He cannot possibly be her parent if he insists on being a perpetual child to those around him.
And indeed, Jinshi treats him like a child, cutting Lakan's support out from under Gyoku-ou by laying out for him that his daughter and his uncle would both be hurt by this war, giving Lakan a reason to care.
Rikuson
While Book 11 is rather damning in it's evaluation of Lakan as a truly neutral figure, there are hints that Lakan is capable of at least expanding his circle. Rikuson provides first a different perspective of Lakan than we're used to, giving us his first impressions as a child;
"Among the nomadic tribes, it was said that some herdsmen could distinguish each and every one of their sheep - but Rikuson could never do that. Maybe Lakan saw people's faces the same way Rikuson saw sheep.
'Well, what do you do when you really need to remember who someone is?'
Lakan was silent for a momentā¦"I remember them by the shape of their ears, or their height. I look at the quality of their hair. Memorize the stink of their sweat. Or I listen for the pitch of their voiceā¦'
'Wouldn't it be easier to just remember their face?'
'I don't get faces. I can see people have eyes and a nose and a mouth, but when I try to put them together they get all tangled up and all I can see is a Go stone. Now the size of a person's nostrils, the length of their eyelashes - those, I can understand.'
So he didn't remember an entire face, just specific details about it. That sounded exhausting. No wonder he only did it for the most important people."
Rikuson is right - that DOES sound exhausting. With this perspective in mind, it makes more sense to the reader why Lakan constantly appears lazy and apathetic; because he's always riding the edge of exhaustion just to function. And because Rikuson hasn't had to live with the consequences of Lakan's carelessness, he is better able to empathize with how Lakan interacts with the world around him.
Later, after Rikuson has killed Gyoku-ou, Lakan walks into the situation and instead of exposing his former aide, he protects Rikuson.
"'He was already murdered when you entered the room. So you killed the rebel - is that not right?
It was, of all people, Lakan standing thereā¦What was he doing here?
ā¦Ah, Rikuson thought, it was all over now. There was no hiding anything from Lakan. He had neither good intentions nor bad, but would simply lay out the factsā¦
'You heard the man,' Lakan said to those around them.
'Wh-What do you mean, Grand Commandant Kan?'
'Hrm? He's telling the truth. He killed the rebel who killed the man. Where's the crime in that? If anything, this is all your fault for leaving such scant security.'
ā¦There was much murmuring, but the general consensus was that if Grand Commandant Kan said it, then that was thatā¦Their suspicion of Rikuson had been dispelled in an instant."
You'll note he doesn't lie for Rikuson. In fact, he offers a perfectly truthful understanding of what happened. The man is Takubatsu, whom Rikuson did in fact find murdered when he entered the room. And Gyoku-ou had essentially taken Jinshi hostage and was actively undermining the Imperial Brother's authority and legitimacy, which does make him a rebel.
But in protecting Rikuson, he offers a counterpoint to both Jinshi and Rikuson's observations that he has neither malice nor virtue, good intentions nor bad. Perhaps it is just that Rikuson has earned Lakan's liking and loyalty over the years, but it is growth.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Where Lakan has earned moments of redemption and growth, it is when he has shown that his fun is less important than those he cares about. There is an opportunity within the story for Lakan to act as Maomao's father in a way Luomen cannot - in the matter of her marriage.
If Lakan is willing to put all of his intuition and political cunning behind Maomao's choices regarding marriage and family, then he has the chance to finally perform an act of duty by his daughter that would establish a reason for Maomao to begin to display filial piety toward him.
But Maomao's marriage would absolutely challenge Lakan's fantasy of playing 'daddy'. It would literally require him to give away his child but more critically, it would mean giving up his fantasy of Maomao as a perpetual little girl and fully acknowledging the grown woman that she has become.
Whether Lakan is wiling to put Maomao's needs first above his own will be the crux of his character development. At no point has Lakan been malicious, but his carelessness has done more to shape Maomao's early life than any other influence. Could he do better? Perhaps. Will he? The answer to that question and how it affects Maomao's adult choices will shape his role within the story going forward - whether he will continue to doom the one relationship he wants more than any other in service of his own needs and fantasies, or if he will sacrifice them to do his duty by his daughter when it matters most.
I can't stress enough how much the John Green debacle was an early example of how cancel culture and purity culture combine to make people feel righteously justified to engage in harassment.
John Green, during his time on tumblr, committed the heinous sins of...being neurodivergent and talking openly about it, earnestly interacting with fans in a very direct and unfiltered way, and writing about teenagers navigating first love and sexuality while he himself was an adult. The worst things he ever did were be a little cringe or misspeak, for which he was always prompt to apologize (often whether he really needed to or not).
Yet despite the former two being things tumblr claimed to love and the last one being true of 99.99% of YA authors, in this case a large segment of tumblr users steeped in the early 2010s resurgence of purity culture decided that these things were suspicious and predatory, and used that as an excuse to justify some truly awful behavior.
Which is really all that cancel culture is: the normalization and even celebration of the process of misapplying morality or ethics to dehumanize someone for the express purpose of justifying whatever pain and suffering you want to inflict upon them. Basically, deciding "this person is bad, so I am exempt from affording them basic respect and human dignity, and am allowed to cross any and all otherwise uncrossable lines in order to punish them without damaging my own moral or ethical standing."
Contrary to popular tumblr lore, the infamous "cock monologue" was not the sum total of the harassment, or even the worst of it. Callout blogs issued long lists of "receipts" about how terrible John Green was, most if not all of which were either taken out of context or completely refutable. His works were torn to shreds by people who'd never read them, as evidenced by much of the criticism being obviously and blatantly counter to the actual contents of the books.
Not that it mattered. Once the John Green hate party reached a certain level of critical mass, it became less about who he actually was or what he'd done, and more about proving you were a good person by hating him. That's the natural conclusion of cancel culture, after all: virtue signalling by identifying yourself in opposition to the cancelled parties. They're bad, and I'm good, so I hate them! Or, more often: They're bad, and I hate them, so I'm good!
Before it was over with, John Green had been accused, with no evidence, of being everything from a Nazi to a pedophile and subjected to hate mail and death threats. He eventually left the site for the sake of his own mental health, and because he no longer felt comfortable engaging directly with fans in the same way he once had.
Yet even now, with the benefit of hindsight, and even among those who ostensibly reject purity culture and condem bullying and harassment, very few on tumblr take what was done to John Green as seriously as it should be taken or condemn it as thoroughly as it should be condemned. Which I think is something we need to at least consider doing, given the increasing rise of purity and cancel culture online, and given the recent influx of professional creators eager to interact with fans on a more direct level than they have on other social media.
And my concern is not purely, or even primarily, for the Mike Flanagans and Lynda Carters of the world. I'm far more concerned, actually, for the small, independent or self-published creators in this space, and how much even a very small level of visibility gives too many people a feeling of carte blanche to engage in harassment.
I myself have less than 3k followers on here, a handful of popular posts, and zero notoriety or consequence outside of tumblr whatsoever, and I've been repeatedly told to kill myself for saying such innocuous things as "I don't think censorship is the cure for the world's evils" and "maybe learning the history of communities you want to participate in would be a good idea."
Thankfully, all it took for me to stop the harassment that came my way was to block those few individuals. But there have been many instances over the years of small creators or just random tumblr users that got a bit popular being stalked, doxxed, swatted, and harassed to the point of leaving the site and dealing with serious mental health issues as a result. It has never been just John Green. John Green isn't even the worst example. And tumblr has never learned its lesson.
[#I will never ever stop pointing out that the cock taste meme is homophobic. #what is the joke. what is the funny haha lul there. that a grown man is attracted to penises? projecting homosexuality onto him ENTIRELY #to degrade and mock him in a sexual manner. it's homophobic sexual harassment. #and NO ONE CARES because they're bullies desperate for an easy target #john green was the victim of a queerphobic and ableist harassment campaign and no one wants to admit it #because that would require admitting that knowing the buzzwords doesn't stop you from enabling systemic violence. #and they don't want to admit that a cishet white man was a victim of homophobic bullying. but he was. because there is just NO WAY to #justify the cock taste meme that doesn't involve ignoring that the entire purpose of the joke is #''this man that we keep calling a pedophile is attracted to cocks and says gross things about them'' #darlings. beloved tumblrinas. that's middle school noughties homophobia at its peak. you're all unfunny trash for this.]
Literally THIS WEEK had one of these people write an essay in my inbox about how
He harassed his teenage fans by being 'creepy' at them
Nothing bad happened to him at all except 'some teens edited his posts to include a penis joke'
The anonymous essay writer was going to 'hurt (themself)' if John Green comes back to Tumblr because of 'suckup' bloggers like me 'rehabbing his image'
So you know, these people are still about, still haven't learned anything, and are still entirely fucking unhinged
i think one of the more fucked up bits is also how people insist to this day that because the guy is a white cishet man he both categorically can't experience pain (only the Oppressed can experience pain) and is also required to suffer punishment (all Oppressors have done everything bad) and it's like holy shit you guys can't just do some kind of opposite day racism/sexism thing and call it good, right? like how do you not see that this is fucking bonkers.
Bigotry is always wrong. The cure for misogyny isnāt to replace it with misandry. The cure for racism against one group isnāt to replace it with racism against another group. Every bigot and hate group always justifies themselves by saying they are targeting the āright groupā and that they are actually victimized by that groupās existence so their behavior is ok. If youāre using that argument it doesnāt make you right. It just makes you a bigot.
writing dialogue for Astarion in like a normal text editor is very difficult actually because it feels like all his dialogue should be created with WordArt
I love this so much. Someone slowed it down so it's not the old-fashioned herky-jerky of old films, now someone colorized itā¦the past feels like the present because, well, people. Lookit them having fun! *beams at everyone*
also please note that the women are running around and having fun! in long skirts! probably in corsets! their clothing did not necessarily prevent this!
Rewatching this scene I realise that "Still got your insides" sounds alot more like a Vi line then a Jinx line which leads me to believe this is Jinx using Vi's line to her when she first took a punch as a kid.
Makes this whole scene just a little bit deeper and explains Vis contemplative reaction
