Loki in Thor Ragnarok: Pride Colors Edition

Indecent.

14.16 - Don’t Go in the Woods

I can’t help but think that Dean’s first instinct was to wipe his hands on Sam’s shirt, but then he decided to be an adult about it. *g*

It’s time for the weekly Gif-a-Thon! This time, it’s for 6.19 - Mommy Dearest! As always, here’s an HD download of the episode if you need it.

Don’t know what to gif? Check out my gif wishlist for inspiration!

To enter a gif/set into the Gif-a-Thon, just tag it “canonspngifs” and/or message me with a link to it, and you’re automatically entered. The prize for winning? Custom art! The only limits are one character max, and it must be SFW.

Shout out to previous participants:

@aborddelimpala, @acklest,  @admiringjensen,  @angel-e-v-a, @berezneva12, @dean-squad, @frozen-delight, @ijensenackles, @jensenackles-daily, @joshdundun, @laminiak, @lipglosskaz, @magnificent-winged-beast, @misswhizzy, @newtonscase, @octomoosey, @oneshoeshort, @onlyjensen, @punch-the-devil-in-the-face, @samgirl2552, @sammysnaughtygirl, @sasquatchandleatherjacket, @saucynewf, @semirahrose, @sensitivehandsomeactionman, and @whiskeycherrypie!

The winner will be announced next Friday at noon, so have fun giffing - and please signal boost!

That lost little boy look right there...

supernatural seasons 1-5 are good for the same reason hamlet and beowulf are good. no i will not elaborate

it’s the worldbuilding which leaves so much in the shadows and makes the mythologies of these stories wildly evocative and rich and limitlessly deep and subject to endless spinning

Very true. *nostalgic sigh*

Though I wonder—and I apologize for going a bit off-topic—if it is even possible to keep a story at this level of mystery, tension, things left unsaid and the feeling of a vast, unknown world beyond what we know when it goes on for as long as SPN has? Not saying SPN couldn’t have handled the worldbuilding much better in the later seasons, but any fictional world is bound to get smaller, less mysterious and scary as time goes by.

(At least in my experience; the same has happened in the Stargate universe, the Buffyverse, on Game of Thrones… If anyone out there knows of a story that managed to keep the level of tension and mystery of its fictional world at the same level throughout its entire long run, I’d love to know!)

I’d say that the quality Hamlet and SPN (apologies to all Beowulf fans, I just don’t find it appealing in the slightest) share is the blend of the personal and the mythical - that we can relate to the characters and their relationships on an intimate level while at the same time experiencing them as something alien, out of this world. As well as the combination of minimalism and endlessness. Hamlet doesn’t exactly have a small cast, but it can be reduced to a few key players - and yet the impact the actions of these players have suggests a vast, complex reality beyond them.

The SPN cast has grown a lot over the years - and the focus has moved away from the main characters more and more. This was a direct result of first Jared and then also Jensen wanting to film less. During the first seasons of SPN we had no idea what was going on in the demon sphere, for example. These days we get to see everything that happens in heaven and hell. Imagine a version of Hamlet where we get to see everything that happens in Norway and in Poland instead of Hamlet’s soliloquies. It might give us a deeper understanding of the political dynamics between the involved countries, but it would lack so much of what makes Hamlet Hamlet.

I think this shift of perspective is the primary reason for SPN’s loss of mystery. Another is the dynamic aspect of the narrative. Most narratives these days are dynamic, but it hasn’t always been that way. Your question, @hunenka, made me think of children’s book verses by Enid Blython and Astrid Lindgren - those series manage to retain their inherent charm throughout five, ten or twenty books, but what makes that possible is the static character of those narratives. They exist outside of space and time. We never witness those children grow up. We never really experience character growth over the course of several books. And the magical worlds those children live in are never questioned, never de-mystified.

Aren’t allowed to show your wrists :/

Slut

@dlasta:  #female presenting wrists

Best tag ever! <3

Can’t please everyone all the time, and I really don’t want to.  So, um....Hey there, extreme shippers!

I thought to myself, “Everybody is gonna hate me for sure now, because let’s face it - on Tumblr, you’re either on one side or another” apparently.  And I’m on neither.  So, if I lose a lot of followers, I’m cool with that.  You shouldn’t be following me anyway - I’m angry, I curse like a sailor and I don’t make gifs.  I’m just a rant machine at the end of the day, who very occasionally reblogs decent stuff.

Speaking of rants…I saw an big rant tonight about people being upset over the person confronting Jensen at JIBCON about his treatment of Misha that was in defense of the shipper, I think?   I was gonna reblog with my reply, but not worth it.  They don’t deserve to get dogpiled on.  Probably a kid.  And TBH, my response is way harsher than they deserve.

So, here’s my independent thoughts on this nonsense, and I think it applies to Cockles/Destiehellers as well as extreme J2 tinhatters.  I’m so sick of all this shit.  And frankly, some of you are giving me the fucking creeps.  And yessss, I’m tagging you.  How else will you see this?  It’s literally meant FOR YOU.

To a non-shipper like me, scrolling through Tumblr for the past 2 years has been very informative in a bad way when it comes to the whole concept of shipping in this fandom.  I initially thought it was harmless, even beautiful at times, until I started noticing that there was one common denominator (Jensen) and started to realize he was nothing more than the Superbowl ring between the Patriots and the Seahawks with some of you people.  Bottom line (and correct me if I’m wrong) As long as Jensen/Dean is fucking or being fucked by Castiel/Misha or Sam/Jared -  GAME ON.  Battle to the death, using a real, live human being as the prize.  

It really is a prizefight and it feels like if you’re not on one side, you must be on the other.   If I comment negatively on one perspective/bad behavior, I’m a BiBro.  If I swing too far the other way, I’m a “Destiheller”.  For christ’s sake I’M NON-DENOMINATIONAL when it comes to this dumpster fire.  No pun intended.

And some of you are fighting over it.  Really fighting over the rights to who gets to disrespect this guy/character and his family/co-workers/etc based on your fantastical interpretation of his sexual preferences/partners.

No respect for his privacy, his character or his personal capacity to make his own choices free from your Sauron Eye.  Because all that matters is that he’s dicking down with YOUR fave.  I get it - he’s stunning, he’s immensely talented, and let’s face it - he’d have “chemistry” with a cactus.  What’s the deal?  Is reality too much of an emotional stretch?  

This whole BiBros/Wincest/J2 tinhatters vs. Destiel/Cockles nonsense is such a mess. A swampy, shitpile of absurd motivation…I can’t wrap my head around it.  For the record:  I’m pro actor and pro people who can enjoy the show without inserting themselves into the private lives of these actors.  That’s it.  That’s apparently this blog now.  Because I’m so goddamned sick of this farce. 

Let’s say that you’re really into a t.v. show. Like REALLY into it. You fall in love, become invested and start following the actors via social media and conventions. Eventually you find you have immersed and invested yourself so completely in the professional and personal lives of a few of the actors, that the lines become blurry in your mind between actual fact, your version of the truth, and fanfiction. You feel familiar with them in a way that maybe you would with some of your own friends and family and start to fill in gaps (gaps that exist because you don’t actually know these people) by using your vivid imagination. You might even be more invested in the interpersonal relationships of these actors than you are in your own. You want for things to be a certain way so badly, that when they’re not (or don’t seem to be), you feel personally aggrieved by it.  And fuck anyone who threatens that, be they fellow fans of the show, wives, co-workers, etc. The illusion of familiarity and ownership grows and grows until one day, you convince yourself that these people actually rely on your counsel and opinions with regards to their professional decisions/friendships/relationships, and you feel encouraged by your own (to quote Death) “ Inflated sense of self-importance” to confront them or those close to them about perceived slights via social media, or in person at a convention, for example. There will be some support for your endeavor thanks to the shared psychosis you have with your fellow hardcore true believers. The French call it “folie a deux” (but x 1,000). And you will continue to galvanize each other to greater heights when it comes to inserting yourself into the personal lives of these actors. 

If you do this, you’ll be a folk hero. People will write songs about you on Tumblr and Twitter! Conversely, there will also be plenty of people saying “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” You will not like these people and you will feel they’re only saying that because:

A: They’re “haters” or “stans” for one actor more than another B: They “just can’t take a joke” C: They’re so blinded by hate for one of the actors that it’s clouding their judgement. D:  They’re not evolved enough or smart enough to “look below the surface and see what’s REALLY going on”. 

You will continue to double down on your commitment to this “cause” because you haven’t yet found a real cause that’s worth fighting for. You will not listen to reason, be respectful of boundaries, or logic until you grow up and out of this obsession. It just takes time. I hope. And you will continue to take the SPN “Family” credo so literally, that you think you’re in control of mitigating the personal and professional relationships of people who don’t actually know you, and who you don’t actually know.  Like - at all. That being said, word on the street is - They DO care, they DO listen, and if some of you who fit the above description have accomplished anything - it’s that you’re now Crazy Aunt Dolores that no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving, but there she is, and somebody has to draw the short straw and listen to her conspiracy theories while trying to digest their turkey.  We’re all trying to be patient with Crazy Aunt Dolores, but that patience is wearing REAL thin.  At least it is for me. I’m already planning on what to wear to her funeral. Bottom line: These guys will continue to live their lives as they see fit, not how you do. You need to find a way to come to terms with that.

Certain fans will continue to twist scenes, words, photos, actions… fuck… even every minor, incidental shot of body language to suit their purposes, and I will continue to be absolutely amazed by the mental gymnastics happening on here that would/could do a world of good elsewhere.  

You can certainly invest more time. Precious energy. Keep devoting yourself to self-soothing by creating a cocoon of delusion when the truth runs contrary to your belief. Keep supporting yourself with as much content as you can find that lines up with your pre-existing notion about these people that are strangers to you. People who are unaware of your existence.  

And I don’t mean that in a crappy way, it’s a big world out there and you mean something to the people in your life - invest in THAT.  Invest in yourself as much as you do in these artificial romances/theories/whatevers and I promise you, I PROMISE you - you’ll be too busy and fulfilled to give a shit anymore. Now, off to take some of my own advice.

Now, I’m just going to ignore the whole “you should be out there in the real world doing real things instead of investing any time or feeling into fiction” part of your rant, which essentially boils down to the anti-art argument that is as old as art itself.

What I will object to, though, is your inability to distinguish between an actor and the character they play while accusing shippers of doing the same. Shipping Dean with Sam or Cas isn’t disrespectful to Jensen, it’s not using “a real, live human being as the prize”, it’s not “inserting yourself into the private lives of these actors”, it’s an interpretation of a fictional character. If Jensen can’t make this distinction, as you seem to believe, then he should think about a change of profession, stat. 

Likewise, interpreting a character differently than the actor who plays them isn’t claiming ownership over the narrative at the actor’s expense. Narratives don’t belong to people - just the means of their distribution do. Again, if an actor can’t accept that, they shouldn’t be acting at all. 

Not to mention that I don’t think that’s happening in fandom: If anything, the extreme longing for validation from the actors and writers that some shippers exhibit (which then leads to the extreme behaviour you’ve described) is an indication of the opposite - giving absolute ownership over the narrative back to its creators even though it never belonged to them to begin with.

@surflove808 replied:  @frozen-delight ... I was trying to think of where I've seen your debate style before, and I figured it out. It's not so much a "where" as it is a "what". It's classic gaslighting. "I'm not crazy - YOU'RE crazy. And here's why" etcetc ad infinitum. I know you're smart enough to understand what I've written, so I'm not going to bother arguing my point with you. AGAIN. Like I said before, agree to disagree.

If you consider pointing out that your rant is a tad one-sided as ‘gaslighting’, then yeah, I’m guilty of that. If ‘gaslighting’ is thinking you’re crazy, though, then no. That would be rather hypocritical of me, since part of your argument echoes pretty much everything I said in my own analysis of escalation of commitment in fandom. Just with less of an anti-fandom, anti-fanfiction, anti-shipping touch to it.

Can’t please everyone all the time, and I really don’t want to.  So, um....Hey there, extreme shippers!

I thought to myself, “Everybody is gonna hate me for sure now, because let’s face it - on Tumblr, you’re either on one side or another” apparently.  And I’m on neither.  So, if I lose a lot of followers, I’m cool with that.  You shouldn’t be following me anyway - I’m angry, I curse like a sailor and I don’t make gifs.  I’m just a rant machine at the end of the day, who very occasionally reblogs decent stuff.

Speaking of rants…I saw an big rant tonight about people being upset over the person confronting Jensen at JIBCON about his treatment of Misha that was in defense of the shipper, I think?   I was gonna reblog with my reply, but not worth it.  They don’t deserve to get dogpiled on.  Probably a kid.  And TBH, my response is way harsher than they deserve.

So, here’s my independent thoughts on this nonsense, and I think it applies to Cockles/Destiehellers as well as extreme J2 tinhatters.  I’m so sick of all this shit.  And frankly, some of you are giving me the fucking creeps.  And yessss, I’m tagging you.  How else will you see this?  It’s literally meant FOR YOU.

To a non-shipper like me, scrolling through Tumblr for the past 2 years has been very informative in a bad way when it comes to the whole concept of shipping in this fandom.  I initially thought it was harmless, even beautiful at times, until I started noticing that there was one common denominator (Jensen) and started to realize he was nothing more than the Superbowl ring between the Patriots and the Seahawks with some of you people.  Bottom line (and correct me if I’m wrong) As long as Jensen/Dean is fucking or being fucked by Castiel/Misha or Sam/Jared -  GAME ON.  Battle to the death, using a real, live human being as the prize.  

It really is a prizefight and it feels like if you’re not on one side, you must be on the other.   If I comment negatively on one perspective/bad behavior, I’m a BiBro.  If I swing too far the other way, I’m a “Destiheller”.  For christ’s sake I’M NON-DENOMINATIONAL when it comes to this dumpster fire.  No pun intended.

And some of you are fighting over it.  Really fighting over the rights to who gets to disrespect this guy/character and his family/co-workers/etc based on your fantastical interpretation of his sexual preferences/partners.

No respect for his privacy, his character or his personal capacity to make his own choices free from your Sauron Eye.  Because all that matters is that he’s dicking down with YOUR fave.  I get it - he’s stunning, he’s immensely talented, and let’s face it - he’d have “chemistry” with a cactus.  What’s the deal?  Is reality too much of an emotional stretch?  

This whole BiBros/Wincest/J2 tinhatters vs. Destiel/Cockles nonsense is such a mess. A swampy, shitpile of absurd motivation…I can’t wrap my head around it.  For the record:  I’m pro actor and pro people who can enjoy the show without inserting themselves into the private lives of these actors.  That’s it.  That’s apparently this blog now.  Because I’m so goddamned sick of this farce. 

Let’s say that you’re really into a t.v. show. Like REALLY into it. You fall in love, become invested and start following the actors via social media and conventions. Eventually you find you have immersed and invested yourself so completely in the professional and personal lives of a few of the actors, that the lines become blurry in your mind between actual fact, your version of the truth, and fanfiction. You feel familiar with them in a way that maybe you would with some of your own friends and family and start to fill in gaps (gaps that exist because you don’t actually know these people) by using your vivid imagination. You might even be more invested in the interpersonal relationships of these actors than you are in your own. You want for things to be a certain way so badly, that when they’re not (or don’t seem to be), you feel personally aggrieved by it.  And fuck anyone who threatens that, be they fellow fans of the show, wives, co-workers, etc. The illusion of familiarity and ownership grows and grows until one day, you convince yourself that these people actually rely on your counsel and opinions with regards to their professional decisions/friendships/relationships, and you feel encouraged by your own (to quote Death) “ Inflated sense of self-importance” to confront them or those close to them about perceived slights via social media, or in person at a convention, for example. There will be some support for your endeavor thanks to the shared psychosis you have with your fellow hardcore true believers. The French call it “folie a deux” (but x 1,000). And you will continue to galvanize each other to greater heights when it comes to inserting yourself into the personal lives of these actors. 

If you do this, you’ll be a folk hero. People will write songs about you on Tumblr and Twitter! Conversely, there will also be plenty of people saying “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” You will not like these people and you will feel they’re only saying that because:

A: They’re “haters” or “stans” for one actor more than another B: They "just can’t take a joke” C: They’re so blinded by hate for one of the actors that it’s clouding their judgement. D:  They’re not evolved enough or smart enough to “look below the surface and see what’s REALLY going on”. 

You will continue to double down on your commitment to this “cause” because you haven’t yet found a real cause that’s worth fighting for. You will not listen to reason, be respectful of boundaries, or logic until you grow up and out of this obsession. It just takes time. I hope. And you will continue to take the SPN “Family” credo so literally, that you think you’re in control of mitigating the personal and professional relationships of people who don’t actually know you, and who you don’t actually know.  Like - at all. That being said, word on the street is - They DO care, they DO listen, and if some of you who fit the above description have accomplished anything - it’s that you’re now Crazy Aunt Dolores that no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving, but there she is, and somebody has to draw the short straw and listen to her conspiracy theories while trying to digest their turkey.  We’re all trying to be patient with Crazy Aunt Dolores, but that patience is wearing REAL thin.  At least it is for me. I’m already planning on what to wear to her funeral. Bottom line: These guys will continue to live their lives as they see fit, not how you do. You need to find a way to come to terms with that.

Certain fans will continue to twist scenes, words, photos, actions… fuck… even every minor, incidental shot of body language to suit their purposes, and I will continue to be absolutely amazed by the mental gymnastics happening on here that would/could do a world of good elsewhere.  

You can certainly invest more time. Precious energy. Keep devoting yourself to self-soothing by creating a cocoon of delusion when the truth runs contrary to your belief. Keep supporting yourself with as much content as you can find that lines up with your pre-existing notion about these people that are strangers to you. People who are unaware of your existence.  

And I don’t mean that in a crappy way, it’s a big world out there and you mean something to the people in your life - invest in THAT.  Invest in yourself as much as you do in these artificial romances/theories/whatevers and I promise you, I PROMISE you - you’ll be too busy and fulfilled to give a shit anymore. Now, off to take some of my own advice.

Now, I’m just going to ignore the whole “you should be out there in the real world doing real things instead of investing any time or feeling into fiction” part of your rant, which essentially boils down to the anti-art argument that is as old as art itself.

What I will object to, though, is your inability to distinguish between an actor and the character they play while accusing shippers of doing the same. Shipping Dean with Sam or Cas isn’t disrespectful to Jensen, it’s not using “a real, live human being as the prize”, it’s not “inserting yourself into the private lives of these actors”, it’s an interpretation of a fictional character. If Jensen can’t make this distinction, as you seem to believe, then he should think about a change of profession, stat. 

Likewise, interpreting a character differently than the actor who plays them isn’t claiming ownership over the narrative at the actor’s expense. Narratives don’t belong to people - just the means of their distribution do. Again, if an actor can’t accept that, they shouldn’t be acting at all. 

Not to mention that I don’t think that’s happening in fandom: If anything, the extreme longing for validation from the actors and writers that some shippers exhibit (which then leads to the extreme behaviour you’ve described) is an indication of the opposite - giving absolute ownership over the narrative back to its creators even though it never belonged to them to begin with.

a hard pill to swallow: if an audience can pick up on where the story is going, it’s a good story.

A kinda related note i hope you don’t mind me adding on: one of the most life-changing bits of story advice i ever received was actually in a class on “Revenge and Vengeance in the Ancient World,” if you can believe it. The professor was talking about how everyone in ancient Greece knew all the Greek myths back to front and told them over and over again - and someone asked why they would keep retelling the same stories if they already knew they ended.

She explained that basically it wasn’t the ending that was the most suspenseful or exciting part, but how you got there. This is why The Iliad spoils its own ending in the opening lines. This is why we have so many different retellings of Shakespeare, of Arthurian legends, of fairy tales. 

There are no truly original stories or truly unpredictable endings. So, IMO, it’s better to focus on how you as a writer/filmmaker/artist/whatever can bring something new to the body of the story rather than trying to shock and mislead your audience. 

my boy George Eckel Duckworth, Classics scholar and poor sod whose name i almost always butchered in my thesis, wrote:

this is from The Nature of Roman Comedy (1952) but it’s arguably the same for every piece of fiction Greeks and Romans ever wrote: knowing the end didn’t spoil the fun; actually, most of the time, you HAD to know everything beforehand to understand what the fuck was happening.

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (the, you know, best tragedy ever written according to Aristotle) opens on Thebes already in ruin and King Oedipus desperate to find out who caused the plague that ravished his city. most of the plot is Oedipus raging against whoever’s responsible for the disaster, not knowing it’s his own fault for killing his father and marrying his mother, but the public HAS TO KNOW THIS or else half the play flies right over their head. you don’t get the actual tragedy (nor the irony) of Oedipus saying i will bring to justice those responsible for this with my own hands if you don’t already know THE WHOLE STORY from start to finish.

the point is not the plot twist, the point is the story.

bonus: “nice blanket.”

It’s time for the weekly Gif-a-Thon! This time, it’s for 13.11 - Breakdown! As always, here’s an HD download of the episode if you need it.

Don’t know what to gif? Check out my gif wishlist for inspiration!

To enter a gif/set into the Gif-a-Thon, just tag it “canonspngifs” and/or message me with a link to it, and you’re automatically entered. The prize for winning? Custom art! The only limits are one character max, and it must be SFW.

Shout out to previous participants @aborddelimpala, @admiringjensen, @angel-e-v-a, @berezneva12, @dean-squad,  @demondetoxmanual, @frozen-delight, @ijensenackles, @jensenackles-daily, @joshdundun, @laminiak, @lipglosskaz, @magnificent-winged-beast, @misswhizzy, @newtonscase, @octomoosey, @oneshoeshort, @onlyjensen, @out-in-the-open, @punch-the-devil-in-the-face, @samgirl2552, @sammysnaughtygirl, @sasquatchandleatherjacket, @saucynewf, @secretsandgreeneyes, @semirahrose, @sensitivehandsomeactionman, @shirtlesssammy, @spnwhenever, @sunshineclaire, @thingstielsthings, @weeklyspn, and @whiskeycherrypie!

The winner will be announced next Friday at noon, so have fun giffing - and please signal boost!

This is one of the saddest articles I’ve ever read about fiction…

“Even fantasy fiction is now offensive”? 

What Karen Yossman failed to understand is that fiction has always been offensive.

Books haven been banned and burned throughout the ages, and anyone who’s ever studied literature knows that literature studies have always been all about pointing out the various aspects in which a work of fiction failed. (Which usually is a good deal easier than trying to figure out why and how it works.) In the past the primary focus of philologists were things like style and form. If you browse a monography on Dostoevskij published before 1960, for instance, you’ll have to wade through the scholar’s embarrassed commentary on Dostoevskij’s supposedly terrible prose until you can’t help but wonder how on earth you ever managed to enjoy Dostoevskij’s novels. For the past sixty or so years critical focus has shifted onto other aspects of fiction that had previously been ignored - such as questions of gender and race. A necessary correction, if you ask me.

And a correction which especially invites critical commentary on fantasy fiction, because fantasy as a genre because of its claim to totality and its focus on ethics. So debates surrounding the presentation of race in fantasy narratives aren’t completely ludicrous, as Yossman’s “even” suggests, they are a natural and important reaction to key aspects of the genre.

But what Yossman’s article is portraying isn’t a reaction at all, it’s an act of cyber-bullying. Harrassing authors about books that haven’t been published yet with the goal of making them cancel the publication isn’t about having concerns regarding the portrayal of race etc. in their novels, it isn’t about social justice, it’s about power. The bullies in question merely appropriate the arguments of post-colonial scholars, of civil rights activists, of feminists, and use them to target the weakest prey they can find - predominantly young, female authors.

It’s important to make this distinction because this sort of thing invites the response ‘some people take political correctness too far’, which far too quickly becomes ‘there’s something wrong with political correctness in itself’.

Of course there are “goblins in fairyland”, and of course we need to talk about them. But those phantom debates/hate campaigns Yossman describes don’t qualify as “talking about it”, they want to shut down any and all talk.

These are all good points, but I think we also lose nothing in acknowledging there are some pretty rotten people ‘on our side’. 

Unfortunately, not everyone who believes in ‘the right things’ is automatically a good person with good or even sensible ideas. I spent my whole adult life actively supporting ‘the right causes’, including taking part in political parties, alternative newspapers, random activism groups and self-organized entities of all sorts, and I met plenty of truly truly horrible persons. And I get it’s always hard to denounce people from our own side, and also as a rational person you want to be balanced, you doubt yourself, you don’t want to ‘cancel’ anyone just because of something they said or anything - and that’s good - but at the same time, we cannot pretend such people don’t exist at all. 

Some people fight against racism, and they’re still dicks. 

Some people are feminist, and they’re still dicks. 

Some people are part of vulnerable minorities, and they’re still dicks. 

Identity politics in itself a problematic concept, and currently there’s no shortage of very loud actvists who’re enthusiastically taking that concept to extremes. Harassing writers over unpublished work, insisting nobody is allowed to step an inch outside their birth identity or pretending a phenomenon like slavery is always and only about US history is fundamentally flawed and - to be perfectly honest - morally disgusting. I don’t think we should excuse that kind of behaviour, or legitimize it by giving in to the demands those people make. If we allow extremists to take over, then we’re not much better than ‘the wrong side’. 

I confess that my reaction was strongly influenced by this article, which reminded me that the problem with a lot of violent altercations on the internet is that you have no way of telling who’s genuine and who isn’t.

On the one hand, that doesn’t make a difference at all, because if people are being dicks, they’re dicks, end of the story.

But on the other hand, it does make a difference in that the goals of someone criticising a story for being racist because they’re aware how damaging past representations of race in fiction have been differ quite radically from those of someone pretending to criticise a story for being racist in an attempt to show how ridiculous any such criticism is and cause division among us.

I’m opposed to any kind of extremism, and I’m not trying to excuse any of it, I’m just trying to point out that different kinds of extremism need to be fought in different ways, with different arguments, and that it might be difficult to fight on several fronts at the same time, especially if you’re not sure where the battle lines are drawn.