Oh, my major bad! That definitely is chilling, though, the idea that the frog boiling can happen regardless of where the belief starts. So it’s not just me then. And yeah, Tez kind of had some snark regarding the way Chel treats accents, but I never thought that there’d be a degree of classism in there. I’m kind of curious. (Said the cat before curiosity killed it)
One of the best examples I know of how many of these sorts of pipelines to Conspiracyland there are is: David Icke, the guy who popularized the idea that the world is run by evil shapeshifting lizard aliens (a suspicious number of whom are famous Jewish people) got radicalized because... his sports career was ended by early-onset rheumatoid arthritis. He got interested in alternative medicine because he was trying to find ways to treat his chronic pain, and that connected him with alternative spirituality and New Age types, aaand unfortunately you don't have to get very far into some of the stuff floating around in that space before you can start playing 6 Degrees of Nazis. Literally went from trying to unfuck his messed-up knee to declaring himself the son of God on national television to being barred from entering multiple countries for antisemitic hate speech. :::///
Imo, when you get right down to it, any discussion of accents automatically becomes one of either race, class, or both. There are a few accents that are associated with being rich (I live in an area with a very specific old money accent which my mom used to describe as "talking with a mouth full of pearls") but for the most part, a thick accent is something people associate with either non native English speakers or with a poor education, because there's an idea that there is one singular way to "properly" speak English and if you can't or don't speak that way, it's because you're unintelligent. I live in the US south so my experience is necessarily limited to there, but things like, say, a thick NYC or inner city Boston accent have similar associations. I don't know if there's been any particular studies done on this, but I do know that in general, poorer areas do tend to have thicker accents. There's probably a very complex set of factors that play into this, but one of them is that poorer areas generally have less access to quality education, and for better or worse, in the US at least if you get what's thought of as quality education, many teachers will correct accents and dialects to a more "standard" English dialect that's thought to be more "correct". (At least where I live there's a degree of code switching that's common with this, where you have your casual at home accent and dialect and then your Professional Voice which is closer to standard broadcaster American.) There's also the very wide spread idea that if a non native English speaker has a thick accent, it's because they're less intelligent. So that's like, the backdrop for this. Chel, I've noticed, when they transliterate accents, often does it for characters that are supposed to be viewed negatively. Not only are they complete departures from any English dialect or accent that actually exists, chel's characters with heavy accents are, iirc, almost all stupid, bigoted, or both. And they're often bigoted BECAUSE they're poor. (Like being a hick makes you dumb and racist. Please. Like I haven't heard that my whole life.) There's a lot of other classism present in wparg, but that's one aspect I remember having issues with.
(for the record when I type on things like forums, this is my code switched Professional Voice. My actual dialect in person sounds nothing like it, and even the slangy way I type in places like discord isn't all the way dialectical, although it's closer. It's probably not actually like, relevant to this discussion, but, to be clear, I did want to say, haha.)
Yeah, that about sums it up, lolsob. And it's not like the existence of David Icke means anyone should be assuming people who take herbal supplements that aren't FDA-approved, or have visited a psychic, or follow a New Age or alternative religion, or believe that crystals have healing powers, or anything like that must definitely have weird conspiratorial beliefs, but there is a path that can go from point A to point B. And there's some similarities to the way urban legends about human trafficking and outright conspiracies have fed into each other, I think: the urban legends can exist outside the conspiracy theories and there are plenty of people who might think they're true but hear about the specific ideas of Pizzagate and QAnon and go, "What? That makes no sense." There's an undeniable connection between the conspiracies and the urban legend, but the urban legend was bouncing around in the public consciousness long before 2016, and didn't come exclusively from conspiratorial places. So I do totally understand why the writers and readers of WPaRG didn't really think twice about it as a plot element- it's a pretty common trope in thriller-type stories, because it gives you bad guys who everyone can agree are bad guys without having to get into the weeds about it. It's that problem again of trying to both depict the real issues of the real world and write iddy whump kink fic. If someone's not making it easy to distinguish between the terrible thing that they made up because it was narratively useful and the terrible things that are actually real and included because they want people to know they exist, it's pointing people in directions that can easily lead to spreading the urban legends even further. And even if no one intended it, those can lead people to some dangerous places.
Oh. That’s interesting. And in Chel’s case, kind of infuriating. Like, seriously. And yeah, I think that they were kind of going for, intentionally or not, the idea that the person’s bigoted because they’re poor. Which is offensive. And stupid. And awful. And well…if it makes you feel any better, Sparkles, you’re one of the least bigoted people I’ve ever met. Seriously. But yeah, I think that a lot of Chel’s characters with heavy accents tend to be portrayed as that. Well, with the exception of Wilhelmina, but even she kind of gets crapped on in a different way. Like, Chel just really seemed obsessed at times with mentioning how she didn’t “pass” as a trans lady. I think one pretty memorable bit was one in the Google doc where she and Wallace are going out to dinner, Wallace proposes, and unfortunately, the God’s Will First leader is out dining with his wife. And granted, it was from the leader’s POV showing how they managed to locate “sinners” (what Hopkins considered to be sinners, anyway), but it was like, it kind of felt like Chel was waxing poetic from his POV about how much Wilhelmina didn’t pass. I mean, I could brush it off as “this guy does not share the author’s views”, but given recent events, and given Chel’s other bouts of transphobia, it just kind of feels like the lines are blurred between author and character. And it was just an uncomfortable as shit portion anyway to read. It was just terrible. (I did contribute to that Intermission, but I tried to basically not go where Chel did, though I think in retrospect, I shouldn’t have contributed to that Intermission regardless, and I am sorry) But yeah. I think that you’re spot on about the accent thing, Sparkles. Really.
Yeah, I can see that explaining quite a thing or two about WPARG. It might very well be the truth given how Chel did apparently say that they just made the Ark members that way just to be scary. Like they just needed antagonists for their rape fic that were overarching, and this seemed like the best option for them. Even though, honestly, what Sparkles suggested does sound like it has a ton of potential to be creepier.
yeah tbc there’s absolutely nothing wrong with dark fanfiction or dark fiction in general, it’s the repetition of harmful stereotypes, racist lies, and conspiracy theories in a story that claims to be educational and “spreading awareness” (except when it’s convenient to say they’re not) that causes problems. and then the cyberstalking (hi dolly) and harassment of critics. also i have to say and i mean this in the MOST lighthearted way possible because i am contributing, we have managed peak kintsugi word vomit about this in a way i find incredibly funny. good job team :P
I think you definitely summed it up beautifully regarding the problem with Chel's fic. I mean, Disney darkfic isn't really a bad thing on principle; hell, it's nothing new. I mean, I've come across the Twisted Princesses art, for example, I've seen people fill out ideas of what would have happened if Frollo had actually successfully gotten his hands on Esmeralda, the list goes on and on. So honestly, Disney darkfic isn't really anything new or bad. It's the way that Chel's gone about it that stands out in a bad way, not to mention their behavior outside of the fic. And yeah, on a lighter note, we definitely wrote a lot of words, didn't we?
From all of my dealings with Chel (hi Chel and Dolly having fun there?) I have learned that there is two constants in life. Idiots will never learn. And I am idiots. I frequently forget about Chel's existence but when reminded I often have by now forgotten why i have such bone-deep loathing for them. Thank you so much Tez for reminding me every time you descend into the mines of cheltdown backstory of the sheer baffling amount of good faith genuine advice and help I have offered them and how consistently they walked over me and kicked me for it. I would say it's nice Chel finally took my advice that maybe a long-running project to establish a consistent readership would help their writing. Shame it's some of the most hateful drivel I've ever seen. Go live in the woods and write your bad racist rape screeds on stripped bark so the rest of us don't have to see it. Oh and while you're at it, with love, touch grass. <3 Anyways with that said, Hi Idril, please take care of yourself you've been through some shit with this hell situation.
You're not an idiot. Trust me. (Um, hugs if you want them?) And I'm sorry that you got treated that way by them. It's just kind of mind-boggling seeing how many people Chel has hurt over the course of this utter fiasco. I mean, I thought I was the only one, to be perfectly honest (well, besides Essence, obviously, and some commenters that they were rude to that I thought was unjustified. I mean, there were some commenters I did think deserved a bit of a smackdown, like the Blue Lives Matter commenter, but other commenters were offering some good faith criticisms and Chel just went nuclear). And yeah, WPARG really is hateful racist rape fic, it really is. It's a shame, because honestly, it didn't have to be. It really could have been a genuinely bleak but with a ray of hope sort of work with the idea that yeah, something awful can happen to you but you're not what other people did to you and you can come out the other side and it just...wasn't, in the end. It was just a bunch of racism, just to start with. Also, I will admit that your "go live in the woods and write bad racist rape screeds on stripped bark" line was pretty brilliant, but I think that's a little cruel to the trees. I mean, maybe Chel can write it on cave walls instead like the cavemen used to. That way nobody will have to see it and the poor trees don't have to suffer such an awful fate. And yeah, unfortunately, I think Chel would think that saying "touch grass" is bullying (not making this up), so I think that the odds of them touching grass are pretty much zero. Their loss. And thank you, Ivy. (Can I call you Ivy, just for short?) You're very kind. I mean, I'm managing the best I can. Been trying to up my self-care, been doing vidding, stuff like that. (And I've been getting into some new shows, which is nice) I mean, honestly, all of you, thank you for your kindness; it's definitely been a rollercoaster ride, and not the fun one.
Yeah Ivy is fine! And thank you for the sympathy, I'm really genuinely not one of the people terribly hurt by Chel in the grandscheme of things, it was just. Years of petty annoyances and feeling exploited on my part thankfully some kind of quirk of faith meant I was never drawn into their orbit properly like other victims. I do agree some of the bones of the WPARG premise may be salvageable as you said! It's just a shame Chel and their current gaggle of cronies are being such a turd about it. I'm glad to hear you're doing well as can be considering the circumstances!
Great! And thank you. :) Honestly, yeah, you definitely summed up the whole WPARG thing pretty well, honestly.
By the way, last time I was thinking about going back into the Post Mines, Dad showed up with the dogs in tow for unrelated reasons and Scamp immediately ran over and sat on my lap directly between me and my computer. I took the hint and played Core Keeper all afternoon instead.
Yeah, other than the strawman chapters I don't think most of Chel's offensive narrative choices are intentionally malicious or anything. They're just chasing their muse, but they don't take enough time to step back and make sure it isn't leading them off a cliff. I can't speak to having witnessed anything about this firsthand the way Sparkles can, but it really got my goat the way Chel kept trying to bring up Jeffrey Epstein. Now, I fully admit that most of my knowledge comes from the Behind the Bastards episodes about him and that's a long way from expertise, but even though he's the closest case known to that idea of a secretive organization dedicated to procuring children for ultra-rich people to abuse, you don't have to look very hard into any of the details of how he operated to discover that it was much less "conspiracy" and much more "standard rich creep behavior, scaled up to something nightmarish." He wasn't having kids snatched off the street and locked in cages; he was having people offer them $500 to give him a massage, and when they were locked in a room in his mansion with him they found out the massage included sex stuff. He had people hang out in places high-schoolers hung out to drink underage and tell girls that there's this rich finance guy who throws wild parties and there are all these rich famous people and he owns his own private island, and since he's a weird pervert who likes having pretty young girls hanging off his arm they can totally get you an invite if you want. And if someone said yes and then decided the party was a little too wild for them after they were already there, there wasn't a lot they could do because they were on a private island and the only way to leave was on his plane. They especially targeted girls who were in bad life circumstances; a 16-year-old living on the streets with a drug problem is going to have an even harder time turning down a fat stack of cash and extremely unlikely to tattle to the cops. And one of the most depressing parts is that it wasn't particularly secret- the cops started investigating him in 2005 and he pled guilty in 2008, but he got let off most of his sentence because of a plea deal (so it's not like the conspiracy theorists are even unjustified in thinking rich and powerful people were probably personally protecting him!), and kept doing the same shit for another 11 years before being arrested again in 2019. This isn't hard information to find, and if Chel actually cared about teaching people about the ways abuse happens, this is exactly the kind of thing they should have been looking up. (Ultra-petty bonus reason it drives me nuts: even though I think the monologue structure Chel stole from Haunted has trapped them in a rut and has been dragging them down for a long time now, it would... actually be a really good format for telling a story that's based on what actually happened with Epstein. Because while the people at the top were all adults who knew exactly what they were doing, a lot of the recruiting was done by girls who had previously been recruited. You could do a story from someone who had been involved in this when they were in high school and at the time they thought everything was fine, and maybe they felt a little weird about some of it but convinced themself they were just being oversensitive, and they'd even recommended it sincerely to people they knew, and then years later they're looking back on it and going, "...Oh. Oh fuck." But Chel!!! Is too busy!!! Trying to think up forms of violence that are more taboo than what they've already done because that's the only way they know to shock people!!! To get into actually complex psychological horror!!! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ )
