Field Notes from an Observation Made A Couple Degrees Away · 8:59pm Jul 9th, 2021
So, this was supposed to be a long, rambling essay in response to a bunch of stuff that I've seen happening on the site lately. It was supposed to start off with some philosophical circumlocutions from German philosopher and racist shitbag Immanuel Kant, veer into me explaining the concept of aesthetic distance with regards to art, before diving into a long sprawl of just me talking about the recent throwing of the stones and how I'm glad I'm not in a position where that is required of me.
I even had a neat title for it too! "Horse Famous: Where the Darkness of Proximity Pervades the Digital Trenches We Inhabit". Really cool. Think I should charge someone if they ever decide to use this.
But in the end, I guess I couldn't muster enough energy for it like I did my previous blog post. I don't really have an incentive for it either, considering that most of the stuff that's happening lately just feels cumbersomely familiar, looking from the outside in for almost 10 years now. Plus, I still owe a couple of lovely horse-writing individuals some comments on their stuff, so this is not really something I actually have an investment in.
That does not mean I don't care though. Not in the slightest. I think if I really didn't care, I wouldn't have compiled all these things in the first place.
So yeah, these are just some stuff that I wanna get off my chest. And before we go into them, please try not to start anything here. With me or with anyone else. I have no interest in having to deal with that at the moment, for reasons that you may find glean from below.
Let's start with:
• Attack on Titan is not the morally bankrupt, philosophically reprehensible crockpot that it's being made out to be.
I know, I know. Goes to show my priorities here.
I guess some of you might know where this is coming from. I don't wanna bring them here, I have no beef with them personally—I think they're swell and a great writer—but I do believe they went into it with an extremely misguided view of what the work is really about, and really a flagrant misunderstanding of the entire medium of manga as a whole.
Now, I do agree with some of the criticisms and observations. I also really love the research that was done. I just don't think they were made from a place of good faith. It certainly feels that the conclusion was preconceived prior to the arguments made. I'll admit, I'm a fan of the series myself. I don't think it's a masterpiece—7.7/10 overall personally, might drop the longer I stew on it—but it's certainly not a 'gateway book to the alt-right' that it's being portrayed as, frankly speaking.
As for authorial intent with regards to manga, general rule of advice: don't go into reading manga with the expectation that there is one in the first place. Most of the time, the intent is 'look at this! I draw cool, I write cool, I like doing it, I like making this!' and nothing beyond that. Manga (and subsequently anime) is a very l'art pour l'art kind of field in the first place anyway. It may be irresponsible in some cases, but it is certainly not malicious.
Now, I'm not here to convince anyone else otherwise. I just wanna say that you shouldn't just take someone's word at face value just because you like the stuff that they do 95% of the time. Same goes for me too, by the way! For all you guys know, I could be an alt-right, Nazi-sympathising, genocide + ethnocide-loving maniac living in an Equatorial country halfway across the world, trying to convert you to wake you sheeples up and see what the World Order is cooking! That's how folks like me get you, you know! Better watch out before it's too late!
Okay, okay, enough about this tangent, onto the actual stuff:
Let's really start now with the basics:
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Basically, treat others how you wish to be treated. Very general piece of advice. I feel like if I need to explain this, then we have a major problem on our hands.
Consequently:
• Just because they started it doesn't mean it's now your prerogative to finish it.
Yes, people are mean on the Internet. Big surprise. That does not mean you have to show them the same treatment. If you think they went too far with it, call them out on what they're doing. Don't apply their terrible approach to your own response because otherwise, you're justifying exactly what it is they mean about you.
And while we're on that:
• If you come into a room looking for a fight, don't cry foul when you actually get one.
I think this is simple enough too. Actually, most of these are.
Look, I'm all for a good adult-to-adult cyberbullying now and then. I don't do it all the time, however, only when I think they're really asking for it. Nevertheless, if you're gonna start being a keyboard warrior, don't be surprise that some people would fight back. Likewise, if you've written something that you know is going to garner a lot of controversy, don't be surprised if it, well, generates some controversy.
Don't dish what you can't take. Simple as that.
One last thing in this field:
• Don't assume the worst out of people.
Just don't.
Now onto some personal principles of mine. You may or may not follow them, but I think they served me well thus far.
We shall begin with:
• Keep your soiled underwear in the washing machine.
In other words, don't air out the dirty laundry, especially if it's a private matter. Figure it out between yourselves, or don't, doesn't matter. As long as it happens in private. And look, I know these are personal blogs and you can have the freedom to do whatever you want with them, but some things are best kept in the DMs. You can do otherwise, I can't force you to adhere to them. Just don't act so surprised when you start a war in the comments.
On a more personal note, I just wanna promise here to anyone that if I actually have a problem with you, you will be the very first person to hear about it from me. Sure, I generally keep to myself most of the time but I don't like carrying any emotional baggage with me either. And if you do have a problem with me, it's highly likely that I'm not aware of it. Just bring it up and I'm cool with talking things out.
In private, of course.
Unless you're one of the, like, three people I've blocked? In which case you have to do something really ignorant and really stupid to warrant that from me personally.
Related:
• There's no need to have an opinion on everything.
There really isn't. You don't have to feel obligated to address or respond to something. You don't owe anyone that. This is especially the case if you have a large presence around here. I get it, we all want what's best for the site in some way, shape or form, but sometimes, what's best for the site is just to not start anything that would lead to us throwing ourselves at each other.
Look, I disagree with a lot of people on some hot-button topics across the site. Some big names too, many of which I will never list out. Nevertheless, I don't think the actual solutions rests in a heated debate on a site dedicated to fan works of pastel-coloured horses. I know this might not be true for a lot of people here, but I just wanna put it out that the option of silence is available. Not mandatory, just available.
This one might be a controversial one. Might probably start something down below, so I'm bracing myself:
• Both sides are not equal.
Look, I have nothing to do with American politics. I don't have anything to do with global politics in general. The most I'm comfortable contending others with are the stuff happening in my country. Stuff that practically none of you know or care about.
But I, a dirty outsider, am forced to care. Not because I want to, but because what happens in a global superpower with massive cross-continental influence can ripple all the way here. And with the Internet at play, the effects are only getting stronger.
Even so, I'd only pop my head in from time to time. I don't like bringing reality into my horsewords, which is somewhat ironic considering the stuff I've been doing lately. Nevertheless, I'm of the firm view that the world of Equestria is far removed enough from ours that to assume it would share our conflict and culture from corporeal pen to fantastical paper would be inaccurate. Keep in mind, this is just something I personally abide by when writing my own pony story. It's not something I would ever bring into other people's stuff in advance.
So let me clear that I have no dog in this fight when I say that yes, both sides are not equal.
I don't wanna elaborate any further on this, mostly because doing so would be telling you too much about me already and I'm my least favourite subject to talk about. I guess all I can say is that if you think you shouldn't be forced to wear a mask because it infringes on your personal freedoms, and that your personal freedoms outweighs that of everyone else's, then we'd probably have a lot of differing opinions on other matters as well.
Nevertheless—
—even as I say this:
• Don't follow people for their opinions. Follow people for their stories.
Same goes for me too! If you like what I'm doing with my work, I'm fine if you stick around, even if we may fundamentally disagree on certain things. I try not to bring my personal feelings on stuff into my work—it's something I had carried over from studying theatre. I guess I could afford to have the attitude, for reasons I'll get into below past this list, but I think it'll be healthier if everyone shared a similar approach.
We don't have to agree on everything.
We just have to agree that the stuff I'm writing is awesome. Or not, I don't know, lmfao.
All in all, if you're reading this and you're following me, I'm just glad you think I deserve even one iota of your attention. I thank you for that.
Also, one more trend that I've noticed recently that I think is just terrible advice:
• The idea that someone was never your friend in the first place if they called your friendship off is stupid, immature and wrong.
I don't know which sanctimonious scumbag decided this was good advice in the first place.
I want to point out that if anyone unironically comments this, know that these words can only come from a person who only knows how to run away from their problems instead of fixing them.
Truth is, sometimes, friends argue about the stupidest things. Sometimes, those friendships fall apart. And sometimes, they can never be mended again.
But know that the key word here is 'sometimes'.
They don't happen all the time.
And if you had a friendship broken off, whether it's by the other party or by your own volition, sometimes, maybe the best way forward for the both of you is to repair it together.
Or maybe it isn't, who am I to know. Maybe I'm just being idealistic.
But if you could repair it in some way, I think it's worth giving it a shot.
And last but not least:
• Know your aesthetic distance.
I tend to keep a narrow wall of separation between myself and everything else. I think having some form of detachment from everything else, though cold and apathetic, is very freeing. This probably relates to my earlier principle of not needing to have an opinion on everything, but I think where that one is more interpersonal, this one is more an intrapersonal matter.
I think there are times where we need to sit back and think to ourselves just how much caring we can do in one day. I personally believe way too many people overestimate that, just because they believe they should and it would be wrong in some manner to not participate otherwise. Nevertheless, I do believe we do need some space to ourselves, just for ourselves.
I should clarify, I don't think the solution here is to stop caring about things entirely, far from it. Rather, I think we should be very clear with ourselves on what our own limits of caring are.
So yeah, I do care about things. That's why I've decided now that I care enough to speak up about some thoughts I have about it.
Now, onto a personal thing before we go:
Once upon a time, I did wonder what it meant to be horse-famous.
I'm sure everyone on the site had this idea at some point. As for me, I think it came when I was just starting out writing for the site. I already liked reading and writing stuff before getting around to the show, so it's only inevitable that this train of thought did come by.
But at some point, I started realising that having your name out there comes with a few unconditional obligations. And the more I look around at the big names around FimFiction.net, the more it became startlingly obvious to me just how much it takes from you. Sure, it gives a lot back too, but for someone who gets tired of social interaction easily like myself, I don't know if it's actually worth it.
I don't think I gave up on it though. Not entirely. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here and typing this out, if it were truly the case. Regardless, it's not something I'm actively gunning for anymore. If anything, I think I just accepted that if it ever happens, then it'll just happen. Until then, I'm pretty content with where I am right now. Writing horse stuff, reading horse stuff, having big horse-famous names occasionally checking in to read my horse stuff, maybe follow me even.
It's a nice balance, I think. And I like that quite a bit.
So while I'm here, just wanna thank you guys for following me up to this point. It doesn't matter where you come from, how you got here or what you believe in. I'm just glad that you decided to stick around. And reminder, you don't have to take my advice for anything ultimately. These are just observations and conclusions I've made—what you do with them is up to you.
Once again, thanks for reading.
WritingSpirit, signing out.
These are fighting words indeed. >:V
5552549
How dare you, kind but opinionated sir.
In my opinion, if you take offense at my declaring of my opinion that we don't always need an opinion, then I am of the opinion that maybe our opinions aren't opinions that are shared between us and that my opinion seems to be different than your opinion, in my opinion.
I shall be expecting a blog post from you saying that I'm now cancelled this time tomorrow.
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/599/778/765.jpg
/s, in case somebody doesn't get this is also a joke.