Yeah I am a survivor and have had some incredibly bad experiences
with antis where it went from "listen to survivors! They all say non-con
fic is bad!" to "Oh, well...you may be a survivor but if you disagree with
me then...". Unlike winterbird I don't write anything very
controversial, and am also less visible as a writer, so haven't had to deal
with anyone coming after me personally. But the rhetoric still does my head
in.
On the other hand before that I had some bad experiences during the
warnings debate, including someone who didn't like warnings deliberately
attempting to trigger me out of spite (my reactions are inconsistent and
complicated, something antis have no space for in their rhetoric) But at
least those people didn't claim to be protecting me :/
I don't think we should not talk about representation in the media, but
I do think that assuming that the person writing is or is not #ownvoices is
getting us down a bad path
Yeah, agreed. Ownvoices and/or otherwise marginalised, which still
affects things like your vulnerability to the consequences of being
canceled.
I have had very similar thoughts about critiquing specific works! And it's
frustrating because sometimes a fic is a PERFECT example of a trope but if
I bring it up suddenly the conversation is about that fic, not the trope.
So yeah, I mostly make locked posts or rant to friends on discord etc.
What counts as punching up is messy. Afaict a lot of the nastiest online
fights happen between professional writers with various amounts of success,
online clout, and privilege and there's definitely power differentials but
it's hard to draw a neat line. Like...I'm a 'professional writer' in the
sense that I sell narrative games I made as a hobby at a rate of like 10 a
year. There is a continuum from those even less successful than me to the
creators of a huge AAA game like The Last of Us 2. How big does a game have
to be before I'm not talking about a peer? I think that line does exist but
it's not unambiguous.
But yeah either way there's a lot of unwarranted assumptions and people
feeling obliged to weigh in on The Current Controversy whether they really
understand it or not. Which is an impulse I am still working on
myself, though heavily pruning my twitter list helped.
I also think that talking to each other, talking to the person, and
talking to the studio all feel like different things, but I haven't really
worked out how to balance that.
Yeah. Though in creative communities these lines all blur. Just the other
day I ranted about something that had bothered me in the games community on
a game dev discord and the person I was ranting about turned out to be in
the room >.> (They were pretty nice about it and took my criticism on board
but I felt like a jerk)
no subject
Yeah I am a survivor and have had some incredibly bad experiences with antis where it went from "listen to survivors! They all say non-con fic is bad!" to "Oh, well...you may be a survivor but if you disagree with me then...". Unlike winterbird I don't write anything very controversial, and am also less visible as a writer, so haven't had to deal with anyone coming after me personally. But the rhetoric still does my head in.
On the other hand before that I had some bad experiences during the warnings debate, including someone who didn't like warnings deliberately attempting to trigger me out of spite (my reactions are inconsistent and complicated, something antis have no space for in their rhetoric) But at least those people didn't claim to be protecting me :/
I don't think we should not talk about representation in the media, but I do think that assuming that the person writing is or is not #ownvoices is getting us down a bad path
Yeah, agreed. Ownvoices and/or otherwise marginalised, which still affects things like your vulnerability to the consequences of being canceled.
I have had very similar thoughts about critiquing specific works! And it's frustrating because sometimes a fic is a PERFECT example of a trope but if I bring it up suddenly the conversation is about that fic, not the trope. So yeah, I mostly make locked posts or rant to friends on discord etc.
What counts as punching up is messy. Afaict a lot of the nastiest online fights happen between professional writers with various amounts of success, online clout, and privilege and there's definitely power differentials but it's hard to draw a neat line. Like...I'm a 'professional writer' in the sense that I sell narrative games I made as a hobby at a rate of like 10 a year. There is a continuum from those even less successful than me to the creators of a huge AAA game like The Last of Us 2. How big does a game have to be before I'm not talking about a peer? I think that line does exist but it's not unambiguous.
But yeah either way there's a lot of unwarranted assumptions and people feeling obliged to weigh in on The Current Controversy whether they really understand it or not. Which is an impulse I am still working on myself, though heavily pruning my twitter list helped.
I also think that talking to each other, talking to the person, and talking to the studio all feel like different things, but I haven't really worked out how to balance that.
Yeah. Though in creative communities these lines all blur. Just the other day I ranted about something that had bothered me in the games community on a game dev discord and the person I was ranting about turned out to be in the room >.> (They were pretty nice about it and took my criticism on board but I felt like a jerk)