[CW: fandom discourse] This may come off as mean but I have a lot of opinions about the way people, especially Americans, react to content they perceive as problematic. I think there are different elements to this issue, and I'll try to analyze them in this thread.

First of all, my perception is that the education system really failed a lot of people, and I say this with the utmost compassion and empathy, because I have seen people enamored with reading and writing become apathetic towards it due to how literature is taught in school.

It's a shame, because literary analysis is taught as something you must do to dissect a piece of writing instead of, like, information that you can internalize and carry with you for the rest of your life as a tool to understand the world better. A lot of people on the

internet don't understand nuance, contextual information, and rhetorical figures because they take what they're reading at face value without sparing a second to deconstruct why characters act a certain way, what the use of a word could represent in that context, etc.

And I'm not saying it's outright wrong to realize you don't want to or can't do that kind of work on a piece of writing - after all, no one gets to tell you what to do with your time. But it CANNOT become an excuse to misrepresent or take out of context any element you're

not immediately comfortable with. It's valid to dislike the work of an author; it's not valid to demand someone writes exactly what you want them to, it's not valid to disregard their reasoning and obtusely misunderstand their point.

The line between criticism and harassment is willful ignorance. I empathize with never having been taught how to analyze a work, but I can't excuse the shield of anti-intellectualism some people hide behind to demand everything to be easy and digestible TO THEM. If you

can't engage with a piece of writing honestly and with the humility to recognize where you might be at fault, then you're better off not engaging with it at all.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is the (predominantly American) phenomenon of puritanism applied to media analysis. Even I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of the mental gymnastic that goes into it, and the Pope is practically my nextdoor neighbor.

So much of this tendency hinges on the need to see flawless and impeccable characters, with no room for complexity, no room for mistakes... and no room for redemption. Either a character is good from the get-go and never fucks up, or they're a monster who will never

change. God forbid they're also a member of a minority, suddenly they're "bad representation." I acknowledge that there's an issue of misrepresentation of minorities both in mainstream media and in fandom(s), I'd have to be living in a bubble to assert the opposite; but

if you think "bad representation" is "writing a character with flaws," then I really don't know what your criteria of good writing is and frankly, I want no part in whatever it is you're doing. Usually, main characters work best if they're well-rounded, which includes

having flaws to work on and making mistakes that they have to work hard to fix. Or maybe they won't fix them and that's part of the story! I think it's okay to dislike fanfic where a character, and especially one you feel connected to, is behaving negatively. Your first

instinct is rejection because you see them doing something that you yourself find despicable and that is not aligned with how you see the character. But please, don't assume that your interpretation of the character is universal, and don't demand that every piece of

fanwork matches your values. It's absurd. You are entitled to your own opinion and if you don't like seeing a character that acts like an asshole, FINE. But, and this is a crucial point for me, don't you DARE make assumptions about the author because of the way they write

a character, or because of what they make them do. If authors were only allowed to write people who do no wrong, it would be very hard to: 1. have any sort of conflict, which is the crutch to most stories, 2. explore different themes, which may be dark and even upsetting.

Yes, it's entirely possible that dark and upsetting things are written about insensitively or poorly, thus giving the idea of endorsement; but writing about a complex topic is not the same as endorsing it, and I invite you to re-read my first point about literary analysis

if you don't understand the difference. That's all for now, thank you.