“We as a fandom have to talk about-” No. No we don’t. You can talk about it if you want to. That’s fine, if that’s how you fandom then go for it. I hope it works out for you because I want you to enjoy your fandom experience. But if I’m in fandom for reasons that’s counter to, then I have no obligation to talk about it. I don’t have to talk about anything except what I want to.
“Okay but you have to talk about your fave’s flaws-” No! No I don’t! I have to be able to acknowledge those flaws when they come up. I have to be able to admit that my character has flaws, and accept when others talk about those flaws. But I don’t have to talk about them if I don’t want to. If I want to only focus on the better aspects of my fave, even if that means just shallowly talking about how hot they are, I can. That’s my choice, that’s how I’ve decided to enjoy them.
Fandom is meant to be fun. Fandom is meant to be a hobby. I don’t have to talk about any aspect of my favorite story or ship or character or writer or anything if I don’t want to. You know what’s not fun? Having to talk about the ways my favorite thing is bad every time I want to talk about it. Having to point out my favorite thing’s flaws instead of the things that makes me enjoy it. Having to disclaim before I get to sing something’s praises because “yeah I know it’s shit BUT”. No. I can know something is bad without needing to talk about it.
Idk dude this sounds like a really great rationalization for wanting to ignore the parts of something that are problematic and not wanting to have to unpack that
Listen. If the way you fandom is to spend all of your time on critical analysis and unpack everything that makes the thing you like problematic, if that’s what you’re about, then go for it. I mean it. If that’s how you get on, then you do you, and I stand by what I said above, I hope it works out for you. I want everyone to be able to enjoy their fandom experience, even if I can’t wrap my head around why the way they fandom is enjoyable.
ButI don’t owe anyone anything. If I don’t want to have a big public discussion about how problematic my favorite thing is, then I don’t have to. That’s my choice. I don’t have to perform a requisite level of discourse to be able to enjoy something; I can just enjoy it, and no one else gets a say in that.
It’s not a rationalization, it’s reality. I can fandom sans discourse if that’s the way I choose to fandom. End of sentence.
Thank you. Couldn’t reblog fast enough. The parts of fandom that decide to engage in this manner of self-flagulation do NOT have a right to police or demand the same from other parts of fandom who behave differently. Because all too often – the former think they have some right to shame others as they labor under the misconception that there’s only a single “correct” way to engage in fandom, and preach that even the most far-fetched fantasy stories should be subject to the most inflexible and ultimately inappropriate ideas of morality. Not all of us are interested in tainting our favorite fantasy worlds with the same intolerance that taints our own.
Thank you!!!
We can and should be aware enough to internally recognize when fandom material is imperfect or has a problematic aspect (or when characters have flaws, etc.), such that we ourselves don’t endorse something morally bad or of poor representation. We should be aware so that we can be better people making better choices in our own lives.
And let’s remember: all things are imperfect.
But just because we should be aware enough to recognize an imperfection doesn’t mean we are required to drown our fandom experience screaming out angrily about the bad. We don’t have to fixate on the bad. Personally, I don’t find any fun ragging out on the imperfect writing of something I’m consuming. I’m here for the good. I’m here for the fun stuff. I’m here to have fun in a recreational past time. I’m here to enjoy THAT with other people. And I shouldn’t have to be shamed for going out and having fun for the media I love.
I don’t like negativity in fandom discourse. I love enthusiasm. And that’s not a problem for a past time!
We all do fandom in different ways. That’s awesome! Let’s all have fun! But fandom should never be unkindly tearing into someone else for not doing it your way.
i just saw someone completely seriously, without a hint of irony, refer to it as “Q-slur Eye” and my intestines started melting like so many Salvador Dalí clocks
I’ve seen “don’t call the show Qu**r Eye if you’re a cishet and can’t reclaim the q-slur” so nothing surprises me anymore.
“Don’t normalize this word that people fought really hard to normalize! Let it keep its oppressive power because I don’t understand queer history”
God I literally fucking hate this rhetoric. It’s exclusionary, gatekeepy, TERFy, and supports a totally revisionist queer history that erases so many marginalized people, especially people who are marginalized on multiple axes.
“LET IT KEEP ITS OPPRESSIVE POWER BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND QUEER HISTORY”
Wow that really sums it up.
I lived through the “take back the word queer” movement, so let me further sum it up
The entire point was to strip the word of the power to hurt us. We embraced it by refusing to be offended by it. We were saying “you can’t hurt us with that word, we now feel empowered when we hear it.”
During this time I saw an interview with a gay man who’d been arrested while wearing a “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used To It” t-shirt. He was put into a holding cell with other detainees who tried to verbally abuse him. They started out by calling him queer but after seeing his t-shirt, and him not reacting to that word, they started stumbling over their words trying to find a name to call him. They finally settled on repeatedly calling him a “sissy” which, by the late 90s, had become a very out-dated slur toward queer men and was a laughable effort by these hyper-masculine and sexist bullies
When they tried to call him a queer it had no power because embracing the word, no matter who said it, had taken away that power
tl;dr We took back the word Queer with the intent of it no longer having the power to hurt us, but people now calling it the Q-slur are giving power back to the people who hate us
Video games don’t have to have good graphics to be good:
Video games don’t have to be about combat to be good:
Video games don’t have to be linear to envelop players in their worlds:
Video game bosses don’t have to be difficult to be fun:
Video games don’t have to lack color simply because they are “post-apocalyptic”:
Video games can have lighthearted art design and still carry deeply dark themes:
Rethink video games.
But also don’t think that dark games can’t be beautiful in their own way:
Or that difficult bosses can’t be fun:
Don’t that games with combat in them can’t be light hearted:
Or that violent games can’t also be silly:
Don’t think that playing the game competitively ruins the fun:
Or that dreary, colourless, post apocalyptic games hold any less story value:
Just because a game or playstyle isn’t good, or beautiful to you, doesn’t mean its any less valuable to someone else who does appreciate it. At the end of the day, it makes someone happy, and thats the greatest value of any art form.
Oh, hey! This is the best addition to my post after 100k notes! ❤
Glass lizard = glass snake: legless lizards from the genera Dopasia (Asian glass lizards) and Ophisaurus (North American glass lizards) as well as the species
Ophisaurus koellikeri (Moroccan glass lizard) and
Pseudopus apodus (
sheltopusik or Pallas’ glass lizard).You can tell they’re lizards because they have external ear holes and movable eyelids. Some glass lizards have vestigial legs:
But they don’t do anything!
Slowworm = blindworm: genus of lizard closely related to glass lizards, but no one calls them glass lizards. Similar in most ways to glass lizards.
Worm lizards = Amphisbaenia: a clade of legless reptiles consisting of 6 families that are neither lizards nor snakes, though they are more closely related to lizards. They like to SCREAM. They can usually be identified by their ring shaped scales, a trait that has resulted in their common name of ‘worm lizards.’ Some worm lizards have vestigial legs, but all known species with this trait are contained in the genus Bipes:
Like this fine fellow.
Snake-lizards =
flap-footed lizards: legless lizards of the family Pygopodidae. These lizards are natives of Australia, and as such, are upside down. All Pygopodidae have vestigial hind legs. They’re a type of gecko!
NONE OF THESE BOYS ARE SNAKES
There are a lot of other kinds of legless lizards, but these are the most common/well known.
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