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i do wish there was a way to discuss taboo writings/art in predominantly fandom spaces without both sides of the argument getting defensive and screaming at each other
like i think there could be a really interesting discussion on why it’s created, the impacts it has, and the history of that type of media because it is nuanced and there isn’t one simple answer to everything
but for some reason you can’t do that bc the entire issue is so black and white to everyone and you either have to be 100% one way or the other
I mean, we try to have normal rational discussions about it all the time, but when we do people who call themselves antis make violent threats at us and accuse us of crimes.
yea i do definitively notice pros are more relaxed and don’t resort to name calling and threats as often, but i do think they still fall into the black and white thinking from my experience. like for example i’ve seen a lot of them say that fiction doesn’t affect reality and while that can be true i think it misses the point that fiction is a reflection of society and it can enforce beliefs of that society
I’m curious, genuinely, if you can recall any times you have actually seen any proshippers claiming that “fiction doesn’t affect reality”, because in my personal experience this is something that antis claim that proshippers say, rather than something that we actually say.
The actual proship stance is– broadly speaking– that creating or consuming fiction does not lead directly to action, and that the creators of fictional works cannot logically be held responsible for the actions of people who consume their work.
i can’t give you any screenshots lol but it is mostly on twitter, and it’s probably just defensive arguing and not something they wholeheartedly believe in but it doesn’t really help their cause
and i agree consuming fiction doesn’t directly lead to action, the persons choice to act is decided on already held beliefs and societal or personal urging
Yeah, I can imagine it being said in haste on twitter; the limited format really flattens any kind of nuance in conversation.
It sounds like you and we broadly agree.
It’s my personal belief that writing and art is influenced by social norms and pressures, and by individual experience– both the creation of art, and what art ‘speaks’ to you when you consume it.
I can’t imagine a scenario in which I were to hold an individual artist responsible for impacting social beliefs and culture in a meaningful way.
Art can ‘build up’ and influence culture, but that’s a confluence of the art and other social and political factors.
I feel like we can both agree that no one novel or especially one fanfiction is going to do harm to society.
For a work to have that kind of impact it would already have to be playing on a current cultural zeitgeist.
With that in mind, it seems authoritarian or cruel to tell an artist that they are forbidden from making a work because it *might* contribute in some small way to a greater social shift at work.
“Normalizing” something or causing social harm isn’t something one work or one artist can do outside of a system, and forbidding an artist from sharing a work because it might do so robs the art and the artist of any other impact that their work might have.
The same work that might, in some small way, be considered part of cultural or moral shift of normalizing something could be a work which is impactful and meaningful, and maybe even positive in a myriad of ways.
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