One of the fucked up side effects of purity culture that I’ve seen in fandom is people bending over backwards to morally justify a character’s actions instead of just admitting that a character they like did some fucked up things and accepting it’s okay to like them anyway.
Well-written characters, like people, are flawed. Sometimes they fuck up. Sometimes they’re problematic. This doesn’t make them unforgivable or unlovable. You can fully disagree with and disapprove of stuff a character has done and still be a fan of that character because you find them compelling and interesting and in many ways relatable.
But because of this warped purity culture bullshit telling kids that they’re TERRIBLE PEOPLE for liking X character because X character is problematic, they will do bugfuck insane mental gymnastics to argue that no, X character is a perfect pure cinnamon roll and everyone else is terrible and so mean to them and “protect X character at all costs!!!”
Because of this, you have fans who have now completely lost the capacity to acknowledge any of a character’s flaws, instead arguing in favor of some really atrocious stuff by trying to justify it. I’ve watched people argue in favor of torture, in favor of internment, in favor of genocide, in favor of terrorism, and in favor of murder, all because they were stanning for their fav and felt backed into a corner where they couldn’t admit that a character they liked was flawed, lest that somehow cast them as morally tainted in the eyes of this hellsite’s black and white ethical absolutism.
For fuck’s sake. Let people like problematic things. Let people like problematic characters. Let people enjoy things without telling them they’re horrible people and forcing them to defend everything they like to the death.
Because they will defend it, and we’ll wind up in a worse place than we started in.
OP here, and I want to make very fucking clear: This is not a “YOU HAVE TO ADMIT YOUR FAV IS BAD”post.
This is a STOP FUCKING TELLING PEOPLE THEY CAN’T HAVE ASSHOLE FAVS AND THEY’RE BAD PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY LIKE IN FICTION post. Stop fucking putting people in a position where they feel like they have to be this defensive just to enjoy a made-up character. Stop making people morally justify what they like in goddamn imaginary stories.
I love how tumblr is reverse chronological order so when your mutual starts having a blorbo breakdown overnight you get to start with the insane conclusion and work your way back to where they first went off the rails.
Oh yeah I want my blorbos to be happy!! First thing’s first, though, *Puts them in horribly mentally damaging scenarios that they may never truly recover from*
a few nights ago i dreamed that there was another new way to express “omg my scrunkly my babby boo<3” or whatever thru text, but it was worded like “i could find and kill him in under 24 hours. i could hunt him down like a squirrel.” and everyone just treated it like a very normal thing to say about a cute guy. why did my unconscious brain cross these particular wires
