Arguments I need to get out of my head

[moon_custafer]

...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.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I could (and often have) write my own list about Tumblr. So full of pretty pictures and so lacking in nuance. I send you strength to resist trying to tell these nimnuls a thing or three. They need to learn it but you don't have to exhaust and fray yourself trying to teach it. (so I keep reminding myself)

[moon_custafer]

I mean, there are delightful things on Tumblr! Like the posts that start “Oh to be a” and then spiral off into several paragraphs of really specific scenario, usually a same-sex romance in a historical setting, and the comments below are generally along the lines of “are y’all just reminiscing about your past lives?”