Harp the Wigglytuff @wigglytuffitout@computerfairi.es

i pulled up mspaint and got out the graphics tablet to show somebody what i meant idea-wise (as they work on a lolita print with mermaids in cameos), because i kept awkwardly gesturing at the screen, and that absolutely does not help anyone to communicate a concept online in text-only communication! so please have this extremely well drawn mermaid.

anyway, now that the 💿 🐴 is over with, i really need to watch Rose of Versailles sometime

because the soundtrack is g r e a t

so, again, i don't think every work you consume and make has to be absolutely morally pure. i don't want a puritanical hell of toothless gruel.

but i do think some of the "charge against the antis" is being led by people who don't want to take responsibility for what they're consuming and producing and how it harms others.

and i ain't about that kinda shit. if it makes me an "evil anti", so be it. /shrug.

and hell, to even get to much smaller stakes than, quite frankly, discussing accidentally handling pedophiles ammo to groom victims with -

is ruminating over your own csa by rewriting it again and again a healthy coping strategy? is putting it up somewhere online so that other survivors can read it and trigger themselves intentionally as a form of self-harm healthy? is that a kind thing to do? is that a worthwhile thing to do?

sometimes, the answer's no!

to REALLY get ~*full anti*~, in this idea of clearly and explicitly marking your shit, i think that some stuff might just be to hot to handle, period.

i'm not saying someone writing about csa is invalid in how they choose to process it after they lived through it. however, writing about it, and publishing it for others to read are two different kettles of fish.

not everyone's going to use these things responsibly or with a pure heart.

in other words, don't be a fucking gross 4channer who makes a game of their "clopping fodder" appearing in search results within the first few pages *with safe search on*.

if it's nsfw, be loud and clear about how it's nsfw.

i think "don't shove porn in the face of children" to be a pretty low bar, but on tumblr i still got called an anti for this stance, lol. however, i still fucking stand by it, so if that's a problem for you, you might not want to follow me.

and when i say protection, i mean a lot of controls that i think most people consider reasonable, if are not already codified into the TOS of many/most websites, even the most "anti-anti" ones.

you have to label your shit. you have to put up those gates. you have to make sure, bluntly, your porn is not forced into the face of people who don't want to see it, especially when the people looking for those terms/characters might be kids.

for example, i'm not totally opposed to porn of things introduced in children's shows. it makes me uncomfortable sometimes but i also understand people will carry those stories with them, just as i have, and will want to start exploring more adult themes eventually.

however! i also understand that it's potentially dangerous! it can get too hot to handle without protection, and i think protection always needs to be in place.

so yeah, sometimes you have to take a hard look at things and how they impact others. even if it doesn't hurt you, you have to consider how it's hurting people unlike you.

sometimes that means doing hard work! but it is worthwhile work.

and... here's where i truly become an "anti", i suppose... sometimes you have to look at a work and go, "how do i deal with this responsibly? CAN i deal with this responsibly?"

is it a bitter pill sometimes? hell yeah.

however by recognizing the hurt that others have experienced, i can stop that hurt from compounding. i can pipe up even among other fans and say "hey, did you know this was inspired by this?" instead of just perpetuating that assumption of "it was all original character design".

and you know what? it makes star wars BETTER, because it helps include more people in star wars.

for example: i really love star wars. one of the things i really love about star wars is padme's character design.

but.

i also try to be aware how that has hurt people. how hopi and mongolian peoples have looked at it and gone, "why are you praising these people for their originality? it's stolen from US! it didn't come out of the ether! that's OUR things that are being used to make your space fantasy look otherworldly!"

you can still love something and admit its faults. i'd argue that's even a crucial part of loving something. loving something while admitting it has bad parts is much more honest and complete than saying you love something but you're going to whitewash over where it's hurt other people.

recognizing that harm done is how we figure out how to not perpetuate it, and that's important. it keeps the prejudice from snowballing.

i know why people shy away from doing that because, quite frankly, i do the same damn thing sometimes! it is hard work, it is exhausting, it feels bad, it's a burden that you have to shoulder.

however, it's a lot better to do that work instead of tossing it back in the faces of people who have been hurt by it and essentially declaring that you don't care how they were hurt by it.

either stories affect people, or they don't.

if they don't affect people, there's no need to fight for any sort of representation at all. because being served a non-stop buffet of cishet white dudes should not be a burden of any note.

if they *do* affect people, it means you have to acknowledge sometimes that affect can be not so great. sometimes it means confronting and acknowledging that.

and believe me when i say i am not interested in going the total opposite direction and saying you can only consume the most morally pure gruel. i'm a star wars fan for god's sake. if you go through the original trilogy and drink every time there's something problematic, you're gonna go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

however.

"it's just a story, stop saying it can affect people" is a bullshit line of reasoning.

mostly because what got my goat about the 'anti-anti' position as often espoused on tumblr was the inconsistency.

listen, if you're pushing for positive representation - that's great. but you're also acknowledging media affects people, that media reflects and affects society around it.

at that point you can't go "well it's just a story" when people raise objections about the type of affect a story is having and what agenda it is pushing.

so in the category of Things That Will Disappoint People, But I Feel Must Be Said

if you believe me to be a tumblr refugee because i am fleeing 'the wrath of the antis', and that i am proudly 'anti-anti', you're going to be disappointed.

my true horse in that race is "both sides are wrong in their own unique ways", but quite frankly i found myself arguing the 'anti' side more often when it actually came up lol.