#fictional themes

Tags are a tool and do not negate the way the topic is presented. They give only a choice — but do not remove the question of artistic approach and its content.

Many forms of violence are also based on power asymmetry and lack of consent, yet somehow they are allowed to be aestheticized. If everything is reduced to subjectivity, the very possibility of analyzing art disappears.

If romanticization is always subjective, why do you recognize an objective framework in the case of incest, but refuse to do so in the case of violence? You don’t notice, but violence is also exploitative, regardless of context.

Arguments are reduced to long-standing interpretations that have no relation to the personal issues of real people and the freedom of art. We are talking specifically about the context of an artist presenting violence now, not in the past. You do not notice one important thing — presentation is also exploitative. The presentation of violence also has an aesthetic side.

Calling this censorship is still a sophism, or labeling others as oppressed. Art is subject to audience interpretation and cannot be exclusively accepted.

This is a hint to reconsider the presentation, not a direct ban on drawing it. But if everything for you comes down to oppression or censorship, it seems everything needs to be spoon-fed, since you lump such questions into one category without considering that you might be mistaken in your own words.

The dialogue sounds one-sided, as if everyone must remain in their opinion, not in a conversation for mutual compromise. If there is no compromise, one side can always control the other.

Again — when there is a request to “romanticize less” — it is not a direct ban on everything a person does. You exaggerated this to colossal proportions, attributing moral panic and directives, as if it were a mass call to censor someone. Calling this moral panic is also incorrect on your part. It devalues others’ moral frameworks.

Calling the same things by different names does not make them automatically separated concepts — it is the same category related to morality and taboo and will always be considered by the audience and its presentation.

You do not put violence in one category, but you put people in the category of moral panic just because of a request to smooth the edges slightly, not to fall into an extreme.

We are not enemies just because of different views — that breeds conflict, which in our case is unacceptable. Do not see this as a ban on everything a person does. A person’s work, even after a request, does not attempt to devalue the author’s vision. It is still valuable regardless of the “moral panic.” Everyone is valuable in their own way.

Here is a metaphor:A person who drinks alcohol — someone asks them to drink less, but they feel their freedom is being restricted, not just a request. Nobody tried to take anything away from them; they were only asked to take a break. Yet they couldn’t grasp that they weren’t being controlled or ordered, only asked.

Yet, try to look at life not only from the perspective of some people. Not for yourself or for others. For Harmony.

There is one side for freedom of expression and another for moral restriction. Complete freedom guarantees chaos. Complete restriction brings boredom and uniformity. But there is a third — when there is freedom, but also constraints.

People’s freedom and morality shouldn’t cancel each other out, but should work together.

This is Harmony.

Merry Christmas 🎄

I’m going to stop this here, because we’re no longer discussing art, we’re discussing whether artists owe strangers “compromise” over their creative choices. and my answer to that is simply no.

you keep insisting this is not censorship because it’s “only a request.” but a request made through moral framing, invoking victims, and routed through third parties is pressure. social pressure does not stop being pressure because it’s polite or philosophical. calling it “harmony” doesn’t change the dynamic, it just softens the language.

you’re also conflating two different things: analysis and obligation. of course art can be analyzed. of course presentation matters. of course violence can be exploitative. none of that creates a duty for an artist to adjust their work because someone else is uncomfortable with how it looks or feels. interpretation does not entitle intervention.

the reason incest and violence are treated differently in discourse is not because one is “objectively allowed” and the other is not, it’s because incest requires the denial of structural harm to function as romance, while violence does not require denial to be depicted. that distinction exists whether you like it or not. acknowledging that is not reducing art to subjectivity; it’s recognizing that different taboos operate differently.

what I reject explicitly is the idea that artists must “smooth the edges” of their work to maintain moral harmony with an audience. that’s not balance. that’s respectability politics. and we are not interested in curating our spaces around the lowest level of shared comfort.

your alcohol metaphor fails for the same reason: you are not a friend expressing concern about harm. you are a stranger asking for behavioral change in someone else’s creative life, framed as benevolence. those are not equivalent situations.

I don’t see this as enemies versus allies. I see it as incompatible values. I do not believe in negotiated limits on fictional expression imposed by audience morality. you believe art should adapt to ethical discomfort. that’s fine, but it also means our blogs are not for you.

this is not about chaos versus order, or freedom versus morality. it’s about boundaries. mine is simple: I do not mediate, soften, or redirect artists’ work on behalf of others’ sensibilities. if that disrupts your idea of harmony, then we are talking about different things, and that’s where the conversation ends :)

If your personal morals say something is wrong, the block button exists. If a certain theme is triggering for you, again, the block button exists. I myself once shared a similar opinion — I believed that themes considered taboo should not be romanticized — until I realized that, in the end, this does not diminish our struggle, nor does it “encourage” violence. I still have my own views on how these themes should be handled in some forms of media, but trying to restrict other artists’ freedom while using US as justification is something very low.

I hope you had a good Christmas, Holy. You and Blastic are very good people.

thank you so much for sharing this, genuinely 💖 I think this is exactly the part that often gets talked over instead of listened to: victims are not a monolith, and they don’t need to be treated as fragile symbols in someone else’s moral argument.

I really appreciate you saying this so openly, and I’m sorry you had to go through what you did. your perspective matters, and it’s important to hear it from you, not filtered through people who claim to speak “on behalf” of others.

and yes, boundaries are personal. tools exist for a reason, and no one is helped by trying to control other people’s art instead of curating their own space.