have you heard about the aaron ehasz situation? I am broken hearted.
āUm, Iām kind of freaking out about the tweets by former Wonderstorm employees about Aaronā¦ I honestly donāt know how to feel except worried and really sad. :(ā
āso Iāve been a huge ehaz fan since I found out how much he influenced the direction of atla and the characters. there has been some really unsettling news about him and Iām struggling to understand that the man who gave me such inspiration, can cause a lot of pain. I read the twitter threads of the women who painted a very sexist man and my heart breaks because I thought he was different. Itās difficult separating the art from the artist.ā
Iāve wanted to be a writer since I was seven years old, and several times have had to face the fact that those who shared my calling did not believe what I did: that writing about principles and values means nothing if you are not willing to try to put them into practice in your own life (even if you donāt always succeed). My parents used to put Touched by an Angel on every Sunday, and one episode when Monica was being tempted by the Devil, she accused human beings in a way that has proven true in my experience many times:
āOh, they say the words and they write the books and the songs about love and they make the vows of love, but they donāt love!ā
This is why it is difficult to be human, to live and interact with human beings as we all must. And itās unfortunately tempting for many people, especially those with imaginations, to treat fictional characters far better than they do their real-life counterparts.
Are these allegations against Aaron Ehasz true? Probably. The two artists in question have nothing to gain and everything to lose from publicly accusing a respected creator of, essentially, workplace tyranny. There isnāt anything that I can find in any of Ehaszās writings, interviews, or tweets to raise alarmābut then, he isnāt in a position of power over his fans, Bryke, or the media.
I am sorry that a lot of you will take this hard. I wouldnāt say Iām disillusioned, because although Iāve praised Ehaszās writing and cultivation of a healthy fan culture, there is a reason I try my best to stick to analysis of the stories and the text, rather than comment on the personalities of the creators. There is one bright side, though: the community of people Iāve shared these stories with. As one of the accusers said:
the best part of working on tdp was always the communityā¦ I canāt describe how much love i have for everyone. You all always made me feel so warm.
So letās keep cultivating this community ourselves. We have a good group of people, and fantastic fan writers and artists, so letās make these stories mean something in reality, like they should.
I just found out about this bit of fandom news tonight and couldnāt write out what I wanted to say because Iām still in shock, so thank you @araeph for writing this post.
This is so upsetting, but people are human first, and I think sometimes in fan culture we forget that. We get so caught up in praising people for their art that we forget that they are separate from their art. Unfortunately peopleās writing doesnāt always reflect who they are in real life. Itās a real blow to hear that heās like that though and a crying shame.Ā
