*Trigger warning: Please DO NOT READ
THIS if you are sensitive to mentions of sexual assault.

Yes [x].

Sexual
assault and groping are prevalent up until around 2010. I’ve warned of this before
and plan to make a master post with a guide that includes trigger warnings for
certain topics. It’s painful to go through certain strips, but I have to brace
myself to jot down canon information. What’s always disturbed me is that in the
holiday events where most of these take place, fans are actually requesting
these scenes and are encouraging them.

Younger people
who are acclimatized to the more hyperaware and conscious environment of today
wouldn’t know how common r**pe and m*****ing jokes were. People threw them
around as if they were hilarious, which is revolting and disheartening looking
back on it. In hindsight, the joke culture then permitted a lot of things that
wouldn’t fly now. I think it’s important to contextualize this and understand
that this type of shock humour may have raised eyebrows, but it wouldn’t have
raised the pitchforks and torches that it would today.

Ex: In my
middle school and elementary years, “r**pe face XD” and “ah that test totally r**ped*
me were normalized forms of humour (still exists, but not as common). You see
this trope in dated memes made by fans with characters like France, Austria,
Germany, and Prussia.

I have a
post talking about France’s old characterization that states my full stance on
the issue. The basic premise is that it’s just as harmful not to acknowledge
these old characterizations as it is to hold onto them and use them as evidence
and a reason to hate a certain character [x]. 

You can
acknowledge and condemn the old characterizations without having this affect
how you interpret and analyze their present characterizations.

I agree with you in that the
earlier characterizations were terrible. It was exaggerated and perverted shock
humour that can’t be justified or excused.

I understand completely why
characters can be tainted in the eyes of others, but it’s also common sense to
those who read the material to recognize that these characterizations are no
longer valid; the old tropes that defined them no longer do. They were much
cruder.

Holding onto them, to me, is
counterproductive. I’m not saying to not acknowledge them but rather I wish
that people could grasp at the idea that these characterizations are husks of
what they’ve evolved into now. If you’re going to find a reason to dislike a
character, it would be more useful to draw on present characterizations that
are actually relevant to their personality. By all means, condemn the harmful
tropes of old characterizations, but to criticize newer characterizations on
the basis of the former is a pretty shoddy justification in my opinion.