I saw some #discourse go by about how adults shouldn’t be in fandom writing about younger characters because it’s uncomfortable and gross to younger people to have adults ‘thinking about them’ in romantic/sexual terms.
1, This is not a restriction that any writers in any other venue have to deal with, wtf, or the entire YA genre would be banished; 2, Excuse you, children of Tumblr, no one is thinking about you.
If other people in fandom are older than you, by definition, they have been your age. When fans write about younger characters, we’re not peering through a keyhole at young people now and creeping on them.
We are drawing on our own experiences, thoughts, feelings and memories of what it was like when we were that age.
No one has the right to ask older writers to cut themselves off from their own past just because young’uns don’t want to acknowledge that people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all of them, were also young once. I’m 41, but I remember vividly what it was like to be 14. If I write a high school AU, it’s about my high school experience, even if I were to set it in the present day and decorate it with some (probably comically out of touch) Stuff The Kids Are Into Now. If I write a high school AU with sex, it’s because I remember that too! I’m not thinking about kids today, why would I– I have my own experiences to draw on. And honestly, sometimes there are things about being young that you don’t really understand until you’re much older and have some perspective– and that’s worth writing about.
If someone is genuinely a creeper, you’ll know, because they’ll ask you questions about you. But people who aren’t even directly interacting with you, who are just expressing themselves in fiction, are not a threat to you, and it’s not creepy for them to draw on their own experiences and their own past to write about younger characters.
OMG THIS
I’m honestly so frustrated with the rallying cry of these brats being “I don’t want someone getting off on me/my trauma/my sexuality” bc who the fuck are you? what flavor of narcissistic do you have to be to become convinced that the writing of someone who has never met you and has zero interest in meeting you is obviously about you specifically, I don’t fucking get it!
antis, this is not about you. none of this has ever been about you. I know it’s hard to process, the possibility that something might be entirely unconnected and unrelated to your shit life, but try to understand. you are not, in fact, the center of everyone’s universe. you, as an individual, are largely irrelevant to most people whose work you consume. just because it resembles you does not mean it is you. if you have trouble comprehending this, maybe inform a parent or guardian so someone more capable can take responsibility for your media consumption.
listen i also hate those dumbass political cartoons about kids and their phones but at the same time you’re a fool if you flat out deny there are negative aspects to the way we communicate in the social media age
facebook and instagram strategically time your notifications after you post something to make you waste time scrolling. those two platforms also come to mind as being particularly performative (“look at this beautiful picture-ready thing i’m doing today”) although any social media encourages that. snapchat’s streak feature, as well as those stupid emojis next to people’s names, exist solely to suck you into using the app every day. twitter and instagram display your follower count, and facebook displays how many friends you have. tumblr cultivates a culture of oversharing, and although you can have one-on-one conversations on here, most “communication” takes the form of shouting from a soapbox. all of these things are related to the problem of privacy online, which many of us simply assume doesn’t exist and should therefore be tossed aside so that we can dissect and manufacture every detail of our selves and desires online. you can’t honestly tell me these things are of no concern for the way we understand ourselves and others, and our relationships to the world.
it would be great if more poltical cartoons criticized the predatory, exploitative ways that social media corporations attempted to dehumanize us and commodify our need for connection and intimacy. but of course the crusty, unfunny, obnoxiously out-of-touch dudes making political cartoons would rather draw a teenager dressed like it’s still 2001 giving a heil hitler salute to pikachu and call it a day than actually make an effort to understand why so many kids are a) so fucking miserable and b) so thoroughly wired into a combative digital hellscape that offers a not-particularly-healthy distraction from their combative realworld hellscape.
I haven’t seen anyone talking about the Statue of Liberty protester
The lady who climbed the Statue of Liberty on July 4th was Congolese immigrant and activist Therese Patricia Okoumou
She was protesting ICE, and she’s quite plainly an icon for doing this.
She’s being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in NYC, however Rise and Resist—her affiliate organization has her a lawyer and is working with her.
