As Seen on Critical Role*

call me terminally academia-brained but i do think a lot of the fun of character analysis is figuring out how to build a compelling argument for a particular reading using lines of evidence from canon as well as meta/intertextual support

and you could say that what i’m saying here is basically “a lot of the fun of doing character analysis is doing character analysis” but let’s be real a lot of fandom character analysis is pretty heavily vibes-based. and i think that’s where i really chafe up against the traditional thought-terminating fandom attitude of like, everyone’s opinions hold equal weight and any interrogation of that is inherently hostile. because i think it’s fascinating to dig into where others are coming from in terms of their views on characters or dynamics or whatever, especially when they differ significantly from more commonly expressed views, and part of that digging is asking people okay what parts of canon are you drawing from to support your opinion? what parts of canon are you disregarding or downplaying? how does this argument hold up in the light of how race, gender, class, ability, etc. operate both in the piece’s in-fiction and real world contexts?

I know litcrit isn't for everyone And That's Fine but god it makes me so frustrated when someone responds to a piece of analysis with "I don't like that and it makes me uncomfortable so therefore it's laughably wrong and you're crazyyyyy for saying it." the classic example of this is how straight people often respond to basic queer readings ("lmao they're literally just friends you're clearly a virgin loser who's never had normal friends before"), but I'm also thinking about how fan people on tumblr sometimes respond to analyses that imply unpleasant things about characters they like or vice versa ("that scene doesn't mean anything it was improv it was a mistake they kept it in by accident it's obviously irrelevant it's distasteful to acknowledge you're actually the weird one for bringing up something so fucked up"). in my ap lit class in high school we had a substitute come in on the day we were supposed to discuss seamus heaney's "blackberry-picking" and he got absolutely scandalized at a bunch of seventeen-year-olds telling him that this poem about picking blackberries had a lot of uneasy sexual subtext, he told us we had twisted dirty minds, then when our regular teacher came back the next day she said "yeah that's exactly what the poem's about."

The good plot twists aren't the ones that are wild left turns out of nowhere, they're the ones that make all the other little things that didn't quite add up before suddenly click

Istg some of you just do nothing but COMPLAIN it sincerely has me wondering if you even like the fandoms you're participating in.... Having a few complaints is normal, but I feel like half of these people don't even enjoy the content. 😭

I think a fandom becomes more interesting when people are allowed to explore uncomfortable ideas instead of pretending they don't exist