Plugs
Freethoughtblogs has re-opened applications for new bloggers! Join us! Applications have technically been open all along, but we had a huge backlog, which we are now clearing out. The following blogs were just added last week: Andreas Avester, From The Ashes of Faith, Impossible Me.
“An Asexual World”: Asexuality in Death Stranding – I wrote an article about some bad asexual representation in a video game. Cowritten with Queenie, an expert in Japanese culture.
Blogs & Articles
How Using Tumblr is Undermining Your Community – Oh good, Coyote finally made a list of structural problems with Tumblr. Tumblr has a reputation (in my view an accurate one) for being a home for many queer and SJ-oriented communities, but that does not mean that Tumblr itself is a force for good. Tumblr has held our communities back, and people don’t even realize how bad it is because they’re swimming in it.
The good guy/bad guy myth – The article discusses a popular pattern in fiction, where one side represents moral good, and the other evil, and argues that this is a historically recent trend. Based on the examples, it sounds like there are three parts to this trend: morality as a primary subject matter, characters and sides that embody moral values, and black and white morality. The article takes a negative view on these trends, but I’m not so sure. IMO, morality is an excellent subject matter for fiction, and using characters to embody values is a fine technique so long as we realize real people aren’t like that.