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Yes, I am alive.
Just stuff and life and the WoW guild I belong to ending and various vaguely depressing stuff and yeah, life. It's all made me moody.
Meanwhile, fandom has truckered on and SPN fandom has had a bit of a car wreck.
It all starts when an author writes a SPN RPS fic set in post-earthquake Haiti - and apparently started on it pretty much instantly after the earthquake.
Can you count the ways in which this is a bad idea? I sure can count several.
1) TOO SOON TOO SOON TOO SOON
2) It's a Jared/Jensen story, and thus the setting of Haiti becomes more of a backdrop and the earthquake a prop for a romance.
3) The main characters are white, while Haiti's population is not. The potential to go wrong with this is already high, especially given point 2.
4) Using Haiti as the setting, but changing the facts of it as the author pleases, making it even more of a convenient prop that can be changed at will.
5) Using actual images of earthquake victims in the artwork for the fic.
6) Romance in the face of tragedy can be comforting if it is in spite of it, just as compassion and hope and life going on in spite of tragedies can be. It shows human will to survive and live on. Implying a tragedy as a good thing because it helped bring about a romance? People affected by the tragedy (and plenty of others) might not take too kindly to that.
7) Calling it the best idea ever beforehand and claiming to have done a 'decent job of it' when first confronted with the story maybe having a few issues.
8) Writing it racist starts a whole other list of bad.
On point 8, I point you to some of the quotes from the fic. Now, I am whitey mcpale-viking of the cold north and I am no expert on racism. But that to me reeks of a certain racism - the kind that many will say isn't intended as malicious or even intended at all, but is deeply seated in society. The sort that makes a lot of us non-PoC quite defensive, because it is uncomfortable to consider yourself racist and hey, it wasn't intentional, right?
That can be right. But that doesn't make it okay. That isn't a get out of jail free card. That isn't a defence. That isn't absolution. And if it's treated as an excuse, it will never change, either.
So don't use it as one. And FFS, don't name a big black cat after a big black character that walks and talks magical negro trope. That's just... Aiai.
This post has a summary of some of the troubling aspects, it's being discussed at Unfunny Business and the author has made an apology of sorts. Don't know if this will be the end of it.
And in the real world, Haiti is still suffering from the effects of the earthquake. It is still possible to donate. Google lists some options, and you can check your aid organisation of choice as well.
ETA: Oh excellent, she isn't the only one to have done this. *facepalm*
Just stuff and life and the WoW guild I belong to ending and various vaguely depressing stuff and yeah, life. It's all made me moody.
Meanwhile, fandom has truckered on and SPN fandom has had a bit of a car wreck.
It all starts when an author writes a SPN RPS fic set in post-earthquake Haiti - and apparently started on it pretty much instantly after the earthquake.
Can you count the ways in which this is a bad idea? I sure can count several.
1) TOO SOON TOO SOON TOO SOON
2) It's a Jared/Jensen story, and thus the setting of Haiti becomes more of a backdrop and the earthquake a prop for a romance.
3) The main characters are white, while Haiti's population is not. The potential to go wrong with this is already high, especially given point 2.
4) Using Haiti as the setting, but changing the facts of it as the author pleases, making it even more of a convenient prop that can be changed at will.
5) Using actual images of earthquake victims in the artwork for the fic.
6) Romance in the face of tragedy can be comforting if it is in spite of it, just as compassion and hope and life going on in spite of tragedies can be. It shows human will to survive and live on. Implying a tragedy as a good thing because it helped bring about a romance? People affected by the tragedy (and plenty of others) might not take too kindly to that.
7) Calling it the best idea ever beforehand and claiming to have done a 'decent job of it' when first confronted with the story maybe having a few issues.
8) Writing it racist starts a whole other list of bad.
On point 8, I point you to some of the quotes from the fic. Now, I am whitey mcpale-viking of the cold north and I am no expert on racism. But that to me reeks of a certain racism - the kind that many will say isn't intended as malicious or even intended at all, but is deeply seated in society. The sort that makes a lot of us non-PoC quite defensive, because it is uncomfortable to consider yourself racist and hey, it wasn't intentional, right?
That can be right. But that doesn't make it okay. That isn't a get out of jail free card. That isn't a defence. That isn't absolution. And if it's treated as an excuse, it will never change, either.
So don't use it as one. And FFS, don't name a big black cat after a big black character that walks and talks magical negro trope. That's just... Aiai.
This post has a summary of some of the troubling aspects, it's being discussed at Unfunny Business and the author has made an apology of sorts. Don't know if this will be the end of it.
And in the real world, Haiti is still suffering from the effects of the earthquake. It is still possible to donate. Google lists some options, and you can check your aid organisation of choice as well.
ETA: Oh excellent, she isn't the only one to have done this. *facepalm*
