At least we havent reached the “guys see militant aesthetics in a piece of queer art and immediately try and adopt it for “the world building and aesthetics” being good” part of this kinda thing yet. Still cant believe that happened with signalis.
it is something I fret about, tbh! I try to be mindful of the ways in which even depicting something as overwhelmingly evil can inadvertently lend it a certain luster as powerful/cool/inevitable. but I think above all it should be pretty clear from WARHOUND that I think the bad things are... bad!
I love that the one appearance of anyone higher up than Handler immediately reveals how much of a tool they all are. Imperial military completely dogwalked by a strange woman With a hyperfixation
honestly i think you do a good job of that in the WH stories! while the empire is extremely powerful and overwhelmingly evil, because of the characters we've most been with trying to embrace it (kotys, w/ kione on the path) there's still i think a feel of it being... fundamentally kind of pathetic?
like yeah sure everyone is insane about handler and thinks the whole thing is hot because it's quality bad end erotica from a good bad end erotica writer, but she feels specifically and uniquely inhuman while the rest of the empire is just... pathetic losers and tools and fascists
theres nothing really glorified about them, or even portrayed as particularly cool or inevitable; hounds just stop caring
in bad faith, you could say the abdication of agency/selfhood to the fascist machine is presented as sympathetic, but that's *such* a stretch--it's the horror of the ero horror!
like i think Warhound and co strike the balance they need to excellently (in contrast to a lot of stuff that i think doesn't, in erotica), but even that aside,,,
it's explicitly *bad* end material? like that's the genre and the expectations? are all tragedies endorsing the bad things that happen?
can't believe kallie's stories are so pro-evil therapists manipulating people, and pro-vampire corrupting a hunter, and pro-student body head beating up another student, and pro-forcefemming a twin to look like 'his' sister for fetish reasons.
that's so fucked up. no other way to interpret these.
I'm glad the balance is coming across well, that really is important to me. and yes, with Kione in particular, I'm trying to show how slipping into an awful handler mentality is driven, by and large, by an accumulation of pathetic flaws - insecurities, jealousies, etc
there's only so much I can do to ward off bad faith interpretations. and as a trans person writing bad end nightmare erotica, I really do want to explore treating these forces of empire and domination as the horrors they are. that's very cathartic, to me. its a cautionary tale, if you like
this is part of why I'm so delighted when people identify Handler and Kione as being kind of cringey and ridiculous. they are! and... that can also be very scary! similarly, every character that empire touches in WARHOUND is diminished in every way by the experience
Handler is perhaps the exception to that, because she's a kind of walking cancer. the monster of the time of monsters. you know?
anyway, mostly I've been blessed by extremely lovely readers, approaching WARHOUND generously (or not at all, if that's safer for them). I'm grateful <3
Funny thing that kind of relates, I'm planning out a fic that has a bunch of different handlers in the same room. It will highlight all the bluster and pageantry of them all trying instinctively to out gravitas one another
You know you've truly made it as a touchstone of a subculture when your work becomes popular enough to be purposefully misread, mischaracterized, and vilified.
"i want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't"
-paul verhoeven, director of starship troopers, 1996
Comments
it would be such a funny contrast to all the little essays actually engaging with the story i think
in bad faith, you could say the abdication of agency/selfhood to the fascist machine is presented as sympathetic, but that's *such* a stretch--it's the horror of the ero horror!
it's explicitly *bad* end material? like that's the genre and the expectations? are all tragedies endorsing the bad things that happen?
that's so fucked up. no other way to interpret these.
anyway, mostly I've been blessed by extremely lovely readers, approaching WARHOUND generously (or not at all, if that's safer for them). I'm grateful <3
>accused of fascism because fascists exist in the story
It must be wild being actually fucking illiterate holy
Don't let it get you down!
-paul verhoeven, director of starship troopers, 1996
is it because they have power??