Your’re dreaming, darling. Anything is possible.
THE SANDMAN | Season 1
WINONA RYDER photographed by DAN MARTENSEN for Harper’s BAZAAR magazine (2022)
Academically speaking, I still find the whole “anti-shipper” movement to be fascinating from a sociological perspective.
You have what amounts to a extremist purity cult whose beliefs align nearly precisely with those of Conservative American Christianity in terms of sexual purity politics (admittedly with some additional flourishes that I’ve watched develop in real time), but is mostly composed of minority members whose sexual-and-gender identities are opposed and oppressed by Conservative American Christianity. Additionally, their tactics also mirror religious pro-censorship groups (such as Warriors For Innocence), but their rhetoric is entirely secularized and derived from leftist theory.
Did they arrive at this structure via convergent evolution? Via socially dominant concepts in the greater socio-cultural space that they occupy? I doubt it was by direct emulation but the possibility does exist on some levels.
I’m literally doing my sociology research paper on them right now.
Ooh? Go on.
It’s a qualitative study looking at the ways that Tumblr antis define the word “pedophilia”. It’s pretty interesting stuff because the definitions are so unique to Tumblr anti culture. I’ll have to go through my coding more thoroughly, but I think I’ve broken them down into four categories:
1. Legality based arguments where they’re very stuck on the idea of Age of Majority. Usually these people believe that it’s pedophilia if an 18 year old dates a 17 year old because they view age 18 as a hard and fast line from childhood to adulthood.
2. Psychological-readiness based arguments are a lot more subjective. These people often use arguments about differing life stages as a reason to call something pedophilia. Some even bust out that “peoples brains don’t fully age until 25” factoid. For this group, age gaps are a real no-go, even if both partners are legally consenting adults. The acceptablity of age gaps varied.
3. Physical appearance based arguments are focused against people who like young looking or young acting characters, even if those characters are adults. These people define pedophilia as an attraction to the perception of youth. This belief is strongly correlated with anti-DD/LG posting.
4. I’m having trouble naming the fourth category. It’s based around an argument of sneaky pedophilia or maybe an uncovering of the fan creators hidden desires? These antis argue that aging up characters past canon ages and shipping them is pedophilia because they believe that the shipper REALLY wanted to ship the child but didn’t because they were worried it wasn’t socially acceptable. In this instance, the character is portrayed as an adult by fandom and there is nothing childish in their appearance or mannerism. Because the character was depicted as a child in canon, however, the anti believes that the character must always be depicted that way in fandom and that only tricky pedophiles would be interested in exploring that character’s future.
Similarly, I noticed a newer trend of calling adult ships between people who canonically knew each other as children/teens to be called pedophilia or at the very least jailbaity, predatory behaviour. This is particularly true when the characters are a couple years apart. The idea there is that, if they knew each other as children, they’d never be able to see each other as adults. So if they have sex as adults, they’re mentally thinking of the child version of their partner and are therefore a pedophile. I wonder if this is a projection of the beliefs from #4. Perhaps it is the antis who, once introduced to a child/teen, are never able to see them as anything but a child and therefore they believe that everyone else must feel the same? That’s only a guess. I only saw this one a handful of times and it was all pretty recently, so I didn’t include it in the data for my paper. It does seem to indicate a level of escalation in these definitions though. I’ll have to check in again at a later date and see if it sticks around.
I’ve seen all of those as well, and I’d be fascinated to see your results when you’re published.
As for names for the fourth category, can I suggest Canonical Stasis arguments? As in, “the characters are forever frozen at the ages that they are presented”.
This is fascinating.
Infuriating as always, but fascinating.
Maybe I’m just new to the particular depths of this discourse but I’ve recently found out about criticisms of some ships that has cross-pollination between types 2 and 4 in defining ships as incestuous because characters are “sibling coded”??
Reminds me strongly of the Reylo antis who insist that Reylo is shipping pedophilia because of the age difference between the actors.
(also repeating the purity spiral - can’t let the teens be alone unsupervised, if Sally and Bobby are left unattended they might develop pantsfeels and since they’ve been friends since childhood that would be inappropriate and therefore must be prevented)
There was a point in time when TV Tropes banned entries about an NSFW Tangled fic. The fic was about adults who are canonically married, but because the target audience for Tangled was children, the fic was considered “pedo porn.”
I don’t know if canonical statis necessarily explains #4. #4 (and really all of them, but especially #4) seems to be reflective of this idea that “monsters” have very specific characteristics, tastes, and values - that you can always spot a monster using various tells. And if they dare do something like what #4 suggests, they are hiding those tells, so they are extra monstrous.
There is likely a very real anxiety around not being able to tell offhand who is safe and who isn’t, about predators that hide in the midst. “You never know who you’re talking to on the internet!!! They may be GROOMING YOU!!” This may seem to be an attempt at unmasking these predators, these monsters - but, as someone who’s had the misfortune of knowing such monsters first-hand, it’s not particularly effective.
I was originally thinking something similar. That’s why I had written it down as “sneaky pedophile” at first. lol Upon further reflection, however, I think that canonical stasis is more accurate. That pedophiles have specific tells and that aging up is an attempt to subvert those tells is the argument. The underlying belief for that to work, however, is that canonical ages must remain static. Otherwise the argument falls apart.
That is similar to the reason I went with a psychological readiness label for #2. Originally I had just put down “age gaps”, but age gap only encompasses the argument. The underlying belief for the problematic elements of age gaps is that one partner is psychologically/emotionally unready for the relationship. This strikes at the core of the concern, which is the perceived power imbalance between the partners. This power imbalance is then sometimes conflated with pedophilia. Age gaps are just one of the ways this is expressed. Other arguments in a similar vein are that the characters are in differing life stages or that the characters brain is not yet fully developed (some psychological studies suggest that the human brain is still developing up until age 25, so some people argue that people under 25 are still too young for relationships with older adults).
The paper is done! Check out my Tumblr post for the link!
…This is all most edifying. And also, I want to thank @ms-demeanor for “pantsfeels.” :)
Es beschleicht einen der Verdacht, dass sich die AfD als Opfer politischer Gewalt darstellen will.
Weidel sagt nen Wahlkampfauftritt am Dienstag angeblich aus Sicherheitsgründen ab (von denen zumindest das BKA nichts weiß). Vermutlich seit Sonntag ist sie mit ihrer Lebensgefährtin auf Malle, also liegt es nahe, dass sie einfach nicht ihren Urlaub unterbrechen wollte. Einfach Urlaub machen und in Strandrestaurants rumsitzen ist jedenfalls nicht das Verhalten einer Person, die gerade um ihre Sicherheit fürchtet.
Chrupalla ist zwar unbestreitbar im Krankenhaus. Für den von der AfD kolportierten Angriff gibt es aber bisher keine Beweise (die Staatsanwaltschaft untersucht die Sache aus Prinzip, nicht weil es irgendwelche Verdächtigen oder sowas geben würde). Es kann also genauso gut sowas sein, wie ne Allergie auf nen Insektenstich.
Bei Chrupalla ist die Lage noch unklar, bei Weidel dagegen nicht. Aber natürlich werden die AfD-Anhänger die Darstellung der AfD als Beweis nehmen, dass sie ja eigentlich die am schlimmsten verfolgte schweigende Mehrheit in Deutschland sind. Egal was am Ende wirklich dahinter steckt.
“According to reporting from Rolling Stone, multiple members of Congress were involved in Trump’s effort to end American democracy and turn our nation into an authoritarian strongman state like Russia. They include: Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).”
… he claimed to be genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in The Lord of the Rings but had not read the book. Tolkien replied on March 18:
“Dear Mr. Gamgee,
It was very kind of you to write. You can imagine my astonishment when I saw your signature! I can only say, for your comfort, I hope, that the ‘Sam Gamgee’ of my story is a most heroic character, now widely beloved by many readers, even though his origins are rustic. So that perhaps you will not be displeased at the coincidence of the name of this imaginary character of supposedly many centuries ago being the same as yours.”
― The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Letter 184
He proceeded to send Mr Gamgee a signed copy of all three volumes of the book. However, the incident sparked a nagging worry in Tolkien’s mind, as he recorded in his journal:
“For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed ’S. Gollum’. That would have been more difficult to deal with.“― J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
“Dear Professor Tolkien, I am Reverend S. A. Ruman, Deacon of St Anthony & All Angels in Barely-Under-Hill, Norfolk, and I have a bone to pick with you…”
via reddit.com
because this and also because Jurassic Park–related advances in paleontology, et cetera, anyone who devalues the arts in favor of the sciences demonstrably has the wrong end of the stick
Science and Arts are not opposites, they are not rivals, they are the neglected siblings of the egotistical and over-indulged Sports and his best friend Money.
We, as scientist and artists, must unite. Science is an art, and art is a science. We hold hands and we make the world a much better place!
Inspired by my other Dad Murray post… This is what I got so far. But I’m sure some of y’all can do better… and I take forever to write shit anyway so here is a taste…
What if… Post S3 Fix-It wherein Billy survived and everyone visits him in the hospital a lot and it is a lot. A few because they want to, some of them out of guilt or obligation at first but then they look forward to it. And while others go because they wish they could have helped Billy more while he was flayed, some not having known he was even possessed and others told about it too late.
Anyway, Murray is a common visitor, mostly crossing paths with Steve and Max and Robin, and that pot dealer and cheerleader that are Billy’s friends but not ‘in the know’. Billy has no fucking idea who he is at first until Murray starts talking and then never stops, his first words are:
“Hey kid, I’m Murray Bauman, investigative journalist and in the know about this whole shitshow. Really admire how you fought that gross as shit monster with your bare fucking hands. Anyway, I hear you have the highest GPA in Hawkins High history, tell me what you think about Ronald Reagan.”
Billy blinks and then his face purses meanly, “Wish that fucker had aimed higher and got him in the face in ‘81. But then the bitch would have been revered a martyr and the fucking Republicans would be even worse. And since I survived, I still got a chance to piss on his grave one day.”
Murray beams at him and pulls out contraband chocolate bars from his coat.
“Kid, you and I are gonna get along just fine.” He breaks the Hershey bar into pieces and sits close so he can pop one in Billy’s mouth after he nods. “Just let these melt, gotta get that hospital mush taste out of your mouth. Now, you wanna hear about what stupid shit Reagan has said recently? Or do you like crosswords?”
Billy sucks on the chocolate, the taste a marvelous change from everything previously. “I’m a sudoku guy, but I make crosswords my bitch.”
“Excellent.”
*Murray finds out about the abuse, beats the shit out of Neil and 'runs him out of town’. Then he takes all of Billy’s stuff to his new place that is closer to Hawkins and tells Billy he’s his kid now, so sign this and he’ll take over Billy’s insurance and help him with his school work until he can get back to classes. Billy cries and Murray hugs him and Billy cries some more.
Aug 9 '22
