moon_custafer: Kate Beaton's Gatsby comics (jazz age)
moon_custafer ([personal profile] moon_custafer) wrote2020-12-18 12:21 pm

Arguments I need to get out of my head

...but am too tired/cowardly to admit to on Tumblr right now:

(Cut for social-justice discourse that I think could do with a bit more nuance, mention of pedophilia)

1. Pedophiles get off on depictions of adults having sex with children or adolescents. That fic in which there’s a relationship between a 28-year-old and a 40-year-old; or two 25-year-olds but they were teenagers in the original series and this is set eight years later after they’ve been to college; or two adults who’ve known each other since childhood because they grew up in a small town, is not a clever ploy by a perverted author to sneak kiddie porn past you by (checks notes) not actually writing scenes involving kids.

And even if some reader somewhere is drooling at the idea that “aha, but these characters were kids at one time,” they could be thinking the same thing about any characters. There's really nothing you can do about other people's headcanons.

2. “The Thermian Defence” is worth countering, but I’m unsure if this scales to every aspect of a story, such as character death. To me it still feels different for a character to actively die in battle, or sacrifice their life for a good cause** than it would if the same character was taken unawares and murdered by the villains, even though in all cases, yes, it’s the author who’s killed the character off.

3. People who’ve figured out they’re oppressed workers and not temporarily-embarrassed millionaires, but are posting takes like “if you can afford to live in a two-story house, you don’t deserve the COVID vaccine” are doing the lefty version of “cut all welfare programs because some people on assistance have phones and are therefore faking their poverty.”

Like, yeah, if someone owns their own home they should realize that they’re privileged on that axis, but this is still people fighting their neighbours over a single cookie while the billionaires look on in amusement and munch on the rest of the box. Also housing costs can vary depending on geographical area. Also I want everybody who can physically tolerate the vaccine to get it, because THAT’S HOW YOU GET FREAKIN’ HERD IMMUNITY.

In other news, I may need to stay off Tumblr for a few days, even if I’m probably overestimating how many mutuals I have and how many would consider the above fightin’ words.

*The Thermian Defence (named for the alien race in Galaxy Quest whose ship contains some unnecessary dramatic-devices-turned-physical-devices because they were in the fictional show that inspired their technology) goes “It’s not sexist that the heroine wears skimpy clothes all the time, she has solar-energy superpowers and needs to expose as much skin as possible.” It has an obvious counterpoint of “Yeah, but the author could have given her equally-cool superpowers that didn’t require nudity.”

**Obviously there are issues within this too: the difference between self-sacrifice by an able-bodied character vs. the same by a disabled one; or whether a repentant villain who dies trying to undo their actions was allowed to take the easy way out by doing so, etc.
kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2020-12-18 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
“if you can afford to live in a two-story house, you don’t deserve the COVID vaccine”

WTFF! Everyone NEEDS the covid vaccine!
nineveh_uk: Illustration that looks like Harriet Vane (Default)

[personal profile] nineveh_uk 2020-12-18 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
It's such a shoetsightedm mean spirited and ultimately self destructive view. As someone who lives in a wealthy country and will get the vaccine in due course, I am desperate for widespread global covid vaccination as well. Even if I had no basic empathy such that I didn't want other people to get Covid-19, brutal self-interest dictates I want as many people as possible to be vaccinated so that I get the benefits of it not being reimported etc.

kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2020-12-18 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I just, what? Do these people not know how a PANDEMIC works? It's so bizarre, it reminds me of the mindset that goes "well yes I went out to a bar but I wore my mask the whole time except for twenty minutes when I took it off and then not when I walked home because it was hot and two days later I woke up sick." It's like they think if they're convinced they won't get sick, a magical barrier will protect them, IDEFK. It goes after everyone, rich and poor! That's what it does! (Maybe using a Terminator analogy as an education unit would get through to these idiots.)