[1] Hi! I’m from Buffy fandom and I’ve been thinking a lot about self flagellation on problematic interests, and my fandom drowns on it. The biggest subject I see is about one of the biggest ships (Buffy/Spike), which involves a monster, a soulless amoral killer that falls in love with the slayer. They start having sex during her depression, and she feels really low because of it. -Anonymous
[2] When she tries to stop it, he tries to rape her: and this is the most unconfortable and controversial scene in all series. It makes him
see that he still is an unworthy monster, and goes to find his soul to
deserve her. It’s a really complex relationship, but those who are at
least invested in this journey are often called rape apologists, so I
see in a sad frequency people drowing in guilty because of it.
I think there’s got to be a line somewhere between ‘this thing is problematic, everyone should accept its flaws before embarking in discussion about it’ and ‘if you’re gonna like this thing you gotta be hyper-aware of its flaws in ways I do not have to be hyper-aware of my thing’s flaws.’ My main problem’s with the double standards, really.
Like, I can’t really speak for Buffy, but there are things out there where I simply CANNOT SEE how anyone with a good handle on Problematic Things would like them – but I see these things being reblogged side-by-side with social justice posts on blogs, and I used to stare at them in complete bafflement before deciding…it’s sort of not my business why someone likes a thing, even a really problematic thing. As long as they’re not forcing anyone else to like it or even look at it than that’s cool. (And what the tags are for, I guess.)
It’s such a complex, difficult issue. Man.