PSA to fangirls
There should be a fangirl equivalent of Godwinning an argument. As in, that moment where a fangirl gets so upset by a personal squick that she begins to politicise it and go off on a paranoid rant about it. How this bit of writing here or this bit of character there clearly indicates the author is into X and therefore approves of Y and perpetuates oppression Z.
Stop. Stop right there. Remember the Agatha Christie Rule. No corpses in her back garden even if she was good at writing about murder, remember? Remember that it's easy to find oppression in anything if you look hard enough. I know it's fucking difficult when you're wracked by pain and see connections in every form of oppression. It's practically impossible if you're grown up with feminism, for instance, because pretty much everything is linked to sexism in some way. But it still doesn't mean that your paranoia is correct. It doesn't. That's the shitty thing about life, ain't it? What's the crudest form of oppression to you is something healing to someone else. Well, boo fucking hoo.
I'm not saying we shouldn't ever nitpick the implications of various things, but there is a moment when this slips into clinical psychosis and causes more strife than anything progressive re: human rights or whatever. Particularly when it's just a bunch of hysterical women tearing each other apart on the internet. That accomplishes fucking nothing. It just perpetuates the paranoia and increases depression and makes everyone timid as fuck. Well done, fandom, well done.
You've suffered from it. I've suffered from it. We've made each other suffer from it. But JFC, try and recognise when it's happening and at least try to step the fuck off that train. It's not doing you or me or anyone else any good.
This brought to you by yours truly gripped by such fandom-induced paranoia and anxiety that it's affecting her writing and who seriously, seriously doesn't want to fucking feel like that. I don't want to feel your shadow hovering over me and telling me that what I just wrote perpetuated something horrible, when the story required it or the character was fucked up or if I was letting out some steam through them, or, god forbid, I found it hot. Stop fucking slagging off things that are therapeutic to me just because they're traumatic to you. Whether it's villains or the types of people I fancy or what I do with my pubes or whatever I'm wearing. Because you know what? I am trying not to do that to you. I'm trying so hard not to do that and call you a fuckwit and deem your tastes and stories and preferences as those perpetuating oppression. I'm trying very hard not to make the same generalisations, even if I felt I was 100% right. But it's getting really fucking hard not doing so, because apparently it's ok for you to be an arsehole and tell me I'm perpetuating misogyny and rape and racism and whatnot.
And I'm telling you this because apparently you're too blinded by your wangst to see it yourself.
You are being an arsehole.
Shut the fuck up.
Go and write porn or have an ice cream or do something else that actually makes you happy instead. You'll be glad you did.
Stop. Stop right there. Remember the Agatha Christie Rule. No corpses in her back garden even if she was good at writing about murder, remember? Remember that it's easy to find oppression in anything if you look hard enough. I know it's fucking difficult when you're wracked by pain and see connections in every form of oppression. It's practically impossible if you're grown up with feminism, for instance, because pretty much everything is linked to sexism in some way. But it still doesn't mean that your paranoia is correct. It doesn't. That's the shitty thing about life, ain't it? What's the crudest form of oppression to you is something healing to someone else. Well, boo fucking hoo.
I'm not saying we shouldn't ever nitpick the implications of various things, but there is a moment when this slips into clinical psychosis and causes more strife than anything progressive re: human rights or whatever. Particularly when it's just a bunch of hysterical women tearing each other apart on the internet. That accomplishes fucking nothing. It just perpetuates the paranoia and increases depression and makes everyone timid as fuck. Well done, fandom, well done.
You've suffered from it. I've suffered from it. We've made each other suffer from it. But JFC, try and recognise when it's happening and at least try to step the fuck off that train. It's not doing you or me or anyone else any good.
This brought to you by yours truly gripped by such fandom-induced paranoia and anxiety that it's affecting her writing and who seriously, seriously doesn't want to fucking feel like that. I don't want to feel your shadow hovering over me and telling me that what I just wrote perpetuated something horrible, when the story required it or the character was fucked up or if I was letting out some steam through them, or, god forbid, I found it hot. Stop fucking slagging off things that are therapeutic to me just because they're traumatic to you. Whether it's villains or the types of people I fancy or what I do with my pubes or whatever I'm wearing. Because you know what? I am trying not to do that to you. I'm trying so hard not to do that and call you a fuckwit and deem your tastes and stories and preferences as those perpetuating oppression. I'm trying very hard not to make the same generalisations, even if I felt I was 100% right. But it's getting really fucking hard not doing so, because apparently it's ok for you to be an arsehole and tell me I'm perpetuating misogyny and rape and racism and whatnot.
And I'm telling you this because apparently you're too blinded by your wangst to see it yourself.
You are being an arsehole.
Shut the fuck up.
Go and write porn or have an ice cream or do something else that actually makes you happy instead. You'll be glad you did.