trashcANON

i have less then popular opinions and a spine made of goo, so here's a side blog to all less shiny parts of fandom

[ash-rigby]

“There’s no reason for this character to be gay/trans/black etc.”

Maybe ask yourself why you feel so threatened by the casual presence of minority groups in a piece of fiction, especially where their character arc/the plot doesn’t revolve around suffering in being that particular minority for your privileged eye, which would give them “reason” to be there for you.

[ash-rigby]

Actually, yeah, I’m not going to keep this to my tags. Also ask yourself why you view white, thin, neurotypical, able-bodied cishets as the “default” and that any deviation from that requires narrative reason to justify a character’s inclusion in the story.

[prokopetz]

You know, when I've remarked that a lot of the responses to my posts feel like people are just plucking out keywords they think they recognise based on the shape of them and replying to what they imagine the post says based on that, the possibility never occurred to me that this is actually how many American schools are currently teaching kids to read.

[prokopetz]

Like, my assumption this whole time has been that when folks go "I misunderstood this post that says [thing] as saying [unrelated thing] because I mistook [word] for [completely different word that happens to start with the same letter]", that was a bit. What do you mean they're teaching kids a reading method that's tailored to produce this exact error?

[buggyhuman]

Three cueing. Once you learn about it, a whole lot of very frustrating online discourse with US Americans makes so much sense 😭

How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have

[lorillee]

my biggest pretentious pet peeve is the phrase "consuming media" Ok Youre engaging with art. GET IT RIGHT

[punkrocktipsblog]

It goes hand in hand with “binge watching” as common, neutral, or even positive terminology.

Okay so you are comparing your media habits to a substance use or eating disorder. I’m sure that is as good for your brain as the other things you can binge are for your body…

[ceruleana]

project hail mary is a touching and poignant film that leaves you asking questions about humanity like, "wow what if all mainstream media was genuinely good" and "what if book adaptions actually gave a shit about the book in question" and "what if studios hired actors that could actually act, and then let them get a lil wacky with it"

[astriiformes]

#Don’t forget ‘what if puppetry was treated as a serious artform’ (via @specialagentartemis)

[doriangraysrockcollection]

i must say, i am a huge fan of when a book is in the middle of a very exciting plot containing many interesting problems when out of nowhere for a few pages it's like, "hey by the way, real quick, here's a detailed explanation of the city's water filtration system! i'm telling you this for a reason and you should worry about it. anyway! haha okay back to the plot" and you just get to be Scared for a while

[doriangraysrockcollection]

i am kissing you on the mouth right now

you are the only person who understands me. you and the person who tagged a series of unfortunate events

[prokopetz]

Queer-Friendly Indie Tabletop RPG #137: This world has no patriarchy or gender inequality, yet somehow evolved exactly the same cultural institutions as every other generically medieval fantasy milieu.

Me: And we're not gonna delve into that even a little bit, huh?

Queer-Friendly Indie Tabletop RPG #137: Here's 5000 words exploring the implications of undead skeletons being fully integrated members of society.

Me: Okay, now you're just fucking with me.

[prokopetz]

#“now go off into the world and kill 'tribes' of bandits and goblins without moral compunctions” (via @bombussyaffinis)

To be fair, sometimes it's more along the lines of "our goblins have exactly the same stereotypical traits and propensities as their Dungeons & Dragons counterparts, but the text awkwardly tries to spin those as virtues".

(My personal favourite is "yes, our goblins do break into people's houses and take everything that isn't nailed down, but they're not thieves, they're just immutably genetically programmed to be absolute socialists and are literally incapable of grasping the concepts of privacy or personal possessions no matter how it's explained to them".)

[clytemnestraaa]

why have we not yet decided to refer to the self-scrutinizing witch-hunt nature of current fandom culture as fanopticon

[brehaaorgana]

Something I always find really fascinating about like...any fantasy story or fanfiction which is at least somewhat historical (like basically anything pre-19th century) — is how OFTEN people talk about clothes not fitting by a little bit and therefore needing to buy completely new clothes that fit.

Stories will tell us: "oh they lost/gained a little weight and need to buy new clothes." Or in the same vein, "she just found out she was pregnant and didn't want people to know just yet so she bought new clothes." Or "suddenly none of his clothes fit so he had to buy all new ones." Or "they grew taller so they needed new clothes."

And it's like. Oh! Okay! So you don't know how clothing works before the invention of sewing machines. Like. At all! You don't know what large seam allowances or like, fasten/wrap to fit clothing looks like. You are not aware of like, loom width measurements being a factor here.

No one is going around buying brand new clothes simply because they grew an inch somewhere when everything they own can be taken out at the seams first, extended or modified with extra fabric second, and possibly even just tied less tightly as a third because the clothing style is actually just "giant rectangles with ties or belts."

[tiwaztyrsfist]

Ah yes, she went and bought clothes. At the shop. The shop where you buy clothes. The shop where you by premade clothes, based on standard sizing, which is totally a thing that existed before like the 1920s. Yes, of course it did, mm-hm! And certainly would also be cheap and affordable, just like modern clothes in the US...

[sparrowlark]

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

[dragonheart2497]

“Never Forget” until the new target is those that they disagree with.

Edit: please watch this video essay by Jacob Geller. It speaks on really important points as to how “bad art” is a weapon of fascism and how it reflects the Degenerate Art Exhibition(s)

[natequarter]

not only are most people completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in the americas, most people are completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in europe. never mind occitan, they don't know about basque! it's wild! bleak! existentially horrifying!!!

[natequarter]

the last few centuries of french history involved, amongst other things, a concerted effort to establish "french" as a legitimate country and cultural identity, and crucially as a language, which sounds like an absurd statement if you know nothing about the languages of france. french is a language, yes; it exists and existed in the late eighteenth century. but it was limited primarily to the north of france and was certainly not spoken or even understood across the country. other languages within france were banned and french was enforced following the french revolution and even to this day other languages indigenous to france have very little legal protection and are not recognised as official languages.

that's just one country in europe. one. and many people straight up have no idea about any of this!

[natequarter]

did you know france has celtic languages? breton is the only celtic language spoken outside of the british isles. did you know france has germanic languages? alsatian, for example, is spoken in the east of france, unsurprisingly in alsace. it's not even the only french germanic language. did you know france has a number of languages and dialects known as langues d'oïl closely related to french? norman and picard, for example, are spoken in the north of france. did you know that france has gallo-romance languages? franco-provençal (which has a number of dialects) is spoken in the east of france, as well as parts of switzerland and italy. did you know that france has a language most closely related to catalan, the langues d'oc? occitan is spoken in the south of france and has a rich literary history. did you know france is home to basque, or rather euskara, a language isolate which predates indo-european languages? romani dialects! corsican! so much more than just french! there are even extinct jewish dialects of occitan! extinct langues d'oïl like angevin! so much linguistic diversity and all anyone talks about is french.

[monsterblogging]

Something people don't realize is that what they often think of as an "old" fairy tale is a story that was first written down in the 19th-20th century. That's a very long time away from the Middle Ages; even longer from pre-Christian times.

This doesn't mean these stories have nothing in common with stories told centuries or millennia ago, but it's also important to remember that a lot of things have changed over the ages. Beliefs, knowledge, technology, etc. are always changing, and it changes how and why we tell stories. To take a story first written down in modern times and treat it as if it's an ancient text that should define how we think this story "should" be told is irresponsible.

[caprart1]

i DO believe that a good writer can make mischaracterization work. oh there's a character who doesn't normally cry? figure it out!! dissect the character. make the situation cryable for them. make that character cry ugly tears even if it goes against their very nature. YOU CAN MAKE IT WORK!!!

[limbel]

we have to thank our brave soldiers in fandom who write gen fics. we have to thank our brave soldiers in fandom who write character studies and stories with no focus on romance or sex. we have to get on our knees and thank the brave soldiers in fandom who write about minor characters and friendship and family with no focus on romance or sex. i know it’s hard to care about characters in a world that seems to only revolve around ships but i see you. and i love you

[cheaphalloweencostume]

every day of my life i read someone being like “why doesn’t this story just solve the problem immediately and casually? they just drag it out and make it an issue” well. because that’s the Story

[starcut-sand]

loveeee characters who think they're likable but not lovable. characters who know they have surface-level admirable or alluring traits and so make sure to highlight those traits so that nobody looks closer to see what's underneath. characters who know they're hot or clever or cool and use that as a suit of armor so that no one ever gets close to them, because when they strip bare and show their vulnerability they're not any of those things, which means they have nothing left to make up for who they inherently are

[creekfiend]

I love how when highly social apes gained the ability to think narratively the immediate result was like "ok everythings a guy now" like that's so funny that's SO charming of us. hello I have developed the cognitive capacity to frame my experiences in a narrative and now that mountain is a guy. the river? a guy. storm? also a guy. they're all guys now. when they do something which results in damage inconvenience or death is probs bc they're mad at us. because they're guys.

its just I think. soooo adorable its such a funny little unexpected outcome of becoming as social and as narrative-in-language brained as we are. Everything's A Guy Now. and we are in a social relationship. us and the guys. the sun is in my social group now. bet you didn't foresee that when you programmed this level of social with this level of narrative brain, DID you, god???? <- look look I'm doing it right now I'm making there be a guy

[penny-anna]

like many people have said this better than me but no it IS odd that we've come to think of potatoes as so quintessentially european that their presence in historical fantasy where they're anachronistic doesn't jar. and yes people are trying to have the trappings of post-colonial europe without engaging w the icky colonialism part and yes people are neglecting to imagine what a european cuisine without potatoes would be like.

[penny-anna]

im fully in favour of 'let people have fun w their fantasy world' but is considering how the potatoes got there in the absence of colonialism not a fun exercise? maybe every year the dragon riders go on a great transatlantic potato pilgrimage

[penny-anna]

perhaps a good way to sum up the issue here is:

if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope

if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion

this is in spite of the fact that black people were a lot more common in medieval europe than potatoes.