Villains & dark stories have been there for me and helped me process feelings and find balance - I need art more in this moment not less and I know this is true of many people Demands for didactic art cannot make people moral it can only steal that - ThreadSky

mswyrr.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Villains & dark stories have been there for me and helped me process feelings and find balance - I need art more in this moment not less and I know this is true of many people

Demands for didactic art cannot make people moral it can only steal that

Reposted from

I'm a little disturbed by the way people here seem to think morally didactic art would be a good thing rather than that being the logic of fascist art and stripping people of ways to relate to their feelings in a healthy forum

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mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

"People are getting their morals from comic books"

Nah. I've seen all the fash man babies who think they love Luke and don't understand his journey at all. They're not listening to art at all. And making worse art won't save them

blush-of-the-dawn.bsky.social•5 days ago

The term "red pill" completely disproves this point considering the meaning of the actual movie vs what sprung from it.

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

Philip marlowe, Easy rawlins, Walter white, raylan givens, and Don draper all helped me as I was enduring and then escaping my abusive christofascist upbringing. Good art isn't simple. what it does for people isn't simple. & didactic art cannot be a substitute for healthy civic institutions

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

Agreed, and it's for this reason that I identify with Azula a lot - while I obviously don't condone her actions (obligatory disclaimer for the chronically illiterate should they see my comment), I see within her my upbringing and trauma as well as many of my inner demons.

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

Her and zuko are a good example of how the "golden child/black sheep" dynamic abuses both kids imo

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

Also, this is why I find online discourse that just flattens Azula into "evil bitch" or "innocent victim" annoying. These people missed the point completely, or to put it in Tumblr parlance, they pissed on the poor.

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

I've even come up with an informal term for this phenomenon in regards to discourse around morally grey (or even evil but tragic) characters: Azula syndrome, also known as the law of fandom brain death.

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

My hot take is that part of the issue is the way the ableism and misogyny of the writers shaped the narrative and a lot of people just take that for granted

But I have complex feelings about those guys after they publicly humiliated fanartists at a con

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

The way the same fandom that loves Iroh, a canonical war criminal who chose a better path (and who i love too as a character!), will talk about a mentally ill teen girl like she's an irredeemable "psycho" monster is just...

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yeesh, that definitely would not help. But yeah, I've seen Azula syndrome set in for characters in other works like Catra, Princess Bubblegum, and Astarion, where they are either uwu-ified or demonized for some reason with balanced takes often being drowned out, complexity be damned.

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

💯

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

Have you seen the She-ra reboot? They did some good stuff with "gold child/black sheep" abuse and its fallout- in the context of redemption and healing

freshryeroll.bsky.social•5 days ago

Haven't gotten the chance to with such a packed schedule, but I've been thinking about it.

mswyrr.bsky.social•5 days ago

Really good imo - redemption, love, and an affirmation of life after really digging into the fallout of abuse and the difficulties of healing

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