“this ship/work of fiction could hypothetically hurt someone” is not an argument.
We don’t prohibit alcohol just because some people can hurt themselves/other people with it. People who can drink responsibly aren’t at fault for people who can’t.
You either believe in people to be personally responsible for themselves or you believe in a dystopia where all fiction is subject to censorship due to any possible cultural impact.
Tag: psa
Uchiha, Incest, Naruto
On the topic of incest, I just wanted to poke at the bit where people are screaming about incest between cousins (i.e specifically the ship Itachi/Shisui) and how they would like to… ‘protect’ Itachi? As a character? I have a few bones to pick here haha.
1. Fandom decided that Itachi and Shisui are cousins, instead of simply clansmen. There’s also the insinuation that they’re very closely related cousins (i.e first or second cousins). But we know from canon that:
a) they have only ever referred to each other as ‘friend’, ‘best friend’, ‘closest friend’, ‘like a brother’, ‘dearest friend’ and,
b) they never met until Itachi was five. If they had been closer in relation, there’s a high possibility they would have met up with each other more frequently. Itachi didn’t even know who Shisui was that first day they met.
Clans are very large, particularly the Uchiha clan, which likely ran into the hundreds. They were more likely to just be clansmen, though related, but not first or second cousins at all. So, a bit of misrepresentation there by fandom that automatically think ‘family’ = small nuclear-ish families.
2. I’m not sure what people are trying to protect Itachi from if his own parents are, by their definition, ‘incestuous’? Fugaku and Mikoto are both from the same clan.
3. Nearly every clan with secret techniques in the Naruto world are ‘incestuous’ by your definition. The Uchiha, Hyuuga, Akimichi, Nara, Aburame, Inuzuka for instance. And these are only Konoha clans. Pre-founders era, you also had the Senju and Uzumaki. Uzumaki in particular, because red hair is such a recessive trait. So Mito, Kushina, Karin and Nagato most likely came from parents who were both Uzumaki or one parent had very strong relations to the Uzumaki clan (i.e Senju, since we know from canon that the Senju and Uzumaki clans kept marrying each other, which ultimately relates both the clans themselves).
4. The aversion to intermarrying between cousins is an extremely modern Western point of view. Look back into history and notice how the Western nobility intermarried, how actual clansmen intermarried, how certain ethnic groups intermarried etc. Literature before the mid-1900′s freely include such interaction and not in any negative light. Plus, the majority of countries and cultures around the world today have no issue with first cousins marrying. The only issue here is increasing the risk of passing on faulty genes that run in a higher rate within the ‘family’. It is also not a religious concept, because you will note the many instances of incest within the Judeo-Christian religious texts as well.
This kind of ignorance is actually pretty culturally insensitive. And yes, I am going there with saying that the shinobi culture is an Eastern culture. Western concepts do not particularly apply or work with the setting and how the characters interact int eh Naruto Universe… even down to addressing their elders within the family and within rank and file.
So… I really don’t know what people are trying to protect Itachi from. His own culture? Himself?
Just blacklist the ship(s) and move on?
[[ Actually hold on, I’m not done with the incest thing.
Look– it’s ok to not like incest. Both fictional and irl. We all have squicks, triggers, limits, and so on.
But if you’re trying to create a roleplay space completely free of incest? Naruto is not the media for you. Especially if youre playing characters from clans.
The very fact clans exist means that incest exists.
It doesn’t have to be directly verbally or textually mentioned. Clans, who have techniques or bloodline abilities, who are known for having those specific abilities, who do not share those abilities and are possessive and protective of them absolutely have a degree of incest within the clan.That’s the only way to ensure the technique/bloodline stays within the clan and suddenly doesn’t become something everyone else can do.
This is worse if you’re talking about bloodline limits, like the Sharingan, the Byakugan, etc. No one earns a right to these techniques, you literally have to be born with the gene to display it.
Plus– on the whole “cousins are bad, too” thing? That’s only a western standard. Naruto isn’t America. Plenty of Eastern countries (including Japan, wow!) have nothing against first cousins getting together and marrying. Something considered weird/taboo here is not going to be the standard for literally any other country.
Itachi is the worst character to pick if you want to avoid any and all incest. ]]
Referring to Sasuke as “emo” is enough to show that you didn’t get this character or its story.
I think he’s referred as emo in a humorous way, not as a definition for his character
I know for a fact that many people, his haters especially, refer to him as an emo in all seriousness. They think he’s making a big deal out of his clan massacre and that he should have just got over it…
Those people don’t even understand what he went through, they think having your clan massacred by your own brother and watching your own parents being killed right before your eyes are things you can easily get over. They call Sasuke’s need for revenge “acting up” all while referring to him as the ungrateful emo who rejected his kind teammates and abandoned the village that took care of him…
… but then again, those kids didn’t get the pain of loss or the loneliness one feels after losing their loved ones; you think they’d get the need for revenge? If they couldn’t even get those then I highly doubt they got his character.
The “purity culture” and call out culture on this website is not about helping people or social justice and equality. Do not even for a second think that it is good or for benefitting people or out of love for individuals or groups .The people that do it are self serving and they arent doing it to help you, they are doing it for their own benefit and for themselves. By “calling someone out” or running them off the site, they hope to be worshipped like some kind of hero and thanked and get attention. They are self righteous assholes that want to be like gods and control people. They just want power and influence over others, they want to be given authority over people and they want influence over others, including you. Dont fall for it, do not participate in it. Never ever harass anyone. Do not help others bully someone. Fact check everything, always ask for sources, but know that info can be easily faked. To be honest just ignore and block people doing this. Its not worth it, you’re not helping anyone and you’re hurting people. End call out and “purity” culture. The internet is never going to be how you want it to be.
“I’m so sick of these bullshit trends in the roleplay community. I’m looking at you, tiny boxed themes with illegible text and unfindable rules/about pages. What happened to roleplaying being about, you know, writing?“
I realize that everyone has different preferences, but if you are a writer that posts your work on tumblr, you should carefully consider the color contrast/text size of your theme.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been excited to read something, only to click a read more and be met with text for ants and/or a highlighter or pastel color scheme. I have good eyesight, but imagine if you readers are colorblind or low vision. There are accessibility tools they could use, but wouldn’t you rather make it as easy as possible for readers to consume your content?
Think Ao3. Vox. Medium. Almost any popular, text-heavy site.
What do you see? High color contrast (usually black text on white background), LARGE body text, at least 16px MINIMUM. I realize that black and white can also cause eye strain with certain people, but at least it’s a start.
Have a quirky, design-y blog, but if you write, please think of the ones who may struggle reading the writing you’ve worked so hard to create. At the very least, always crosspost to ao3 where users can apply skins to make it easier to read.
But En, I don’t know much about design or user accessibility! Help!
Tumblr themes that are good for text
tumblr theme that is built for accessibility
Start here, do a little googling! You’ll learn something, and your readers will thank you for it.
Your RP Partners Are People
Your RP partner is not an object. Your RP Partner is a person. They have thoughts, feelings, down days, real life troubles and time constraints, finicky muses, and other priorities. They do not exist to cater to your needs.
RPing is about having fun for everyone involved, not just one person. Your RP relationships are actual relationships with actual human beings. Because of this, however, there are also abusive RP partnership behaviors to be aware of:
Objectifying/Manipulative RP Behaviors
1. Being possessive about who a partner can and cannot rp with.
2. Demanding replies (if a partner gives you nothing, just move along, don’t harass people. NO ONE owes you ANYTHING EVER).
3. Posting passive-aggressive ooc posts or sending passive-aggressive or trolling anons in an attempt to manipulate a partner into RPing with you or reacting in certain ways.
4. Ignoring or blatantly disregarding a partner’s stated rules, triggers, or boundaries.
5. Minimizing your partner’s real life circumstances (real life ALWAYS take precedence over RP).Do not be a manipulative, abusive, or objectifying RP partner. Your RP partners are people as well, and that must ALWAYS be respected. If you are unhappy with your relationship arrangements, discuss it one on one, not anonymously, and communicate. If there is no way to come to a solution, then decide to go your separate ways.
Treat one another with respect and dignity please.
[[ Things People Need To Learn:
1) There are people who you RP with, and are buddies with, who RP with people you don’t like. This is how it works. Learn to block and/or blacklist if you really don’t want to see the person that much.
2) The moment you harass/bully someone (on anon, no less!!) because of them RPing with the person you don’t like, and in an attempt to stop them, you’re an asshole. ]]
some old but still radical fandom terms to bring the heck back
the following are concepts that i quickly learned my way around when growing up in fandom, but that seem to have fallen out of use recently. i’d like to propose a revival of…
- NOTP: a pairing that, for whatever reason, you simply cannot stand. it can be because the ship repulses you morally, or because you hate one of the characters, or love them both but despise their dynamic – or just because looking at it makes you uncomfortable, for whatever reason.
- different from labeling something a “bad ship” in that it implies an entirely personal preference.
- calling a ship your NOTP informs others that you really, really, REALLY dislike it, while also acknowledging that you don’t know what other people’s reasons are for shipping it, or what interpretations they may have that makes it work for them.
- a cool way of avoiding stuff you hate while also not morally condemning thousands of complete strangers for liking it.
- squick: similar to notp, but goes for anything, not just romantic pairings. something you just don’t like, either for specific reasons or just because it irrationally repulses you.
- not as severe as a trigger in the sense that it doesn’t cause any extreme and potentially harmful reactions – it’s just something you’d rather not see, because it grosses you the fuck out. and that’s okay.
- decent people respect other people’s squicks, while also remembering it’s cool for other people to like things they personally are squicked by.
- this works as long as everyone agrees not to be dicks and shove stuff in people’s faces in unwarranted ways.
- crackship: a ship that just doesn’t make any sense. there’s absolutely no chance that these characters would ever end up together.
- perhaps they’ve never interacted. perhaps they are on opposite sides of a war. perhaps one of them died a thousand years ago. for whatever reason, there’s zero possibility of this becoming canon.
- still, you’d like to see how they’d romantically mesh, to explore their dynamic or a what-if scenario – or maybe they’re just two characters you really like to imagine smooching one another.
- the fact that it isn’t and never will be canon doesn’t matter, and can even be part of the appeal. it certainly does not invalidate the ship’s existence. the ultimate form of doing something just for fun.
these words all help describe the cool concept of doing stuff you enjoy, while also realizing others may be doing things you hate, but not in order to victimize you personally. live and let live! give people the benefit of the doubt! it’s a good time. we should all try it.
UchihaSavior 