#criticalfanweek

[criticalfanweek]

ok three options here because insomnia

which one do you like

slanted banner

arched banner

gradiant

Voting ended onAug 9, 2025

[criticalfanweek]

Critical Fan Week is over.

Thank you to everyone who has participated. 

Anyone who wanted to share their fanworks but didn’t have time this weekend, I will still reblog and promote stuff in the tag through the end of this week. (Until May 3rd).

I’m working on a participants banner, and I’ll send a tiny url link to everyone when I’ve finished it.

Hopefully CFW can be back again at some point.

[sensoryinputpatterns]

I’m a few days late for the villainazation of particular characters in fandom for criticalfanweek and in truth it’s because every time I thought of the MCU fandom and the AoS fandom in particular and things they had said I kept getting angry because it just keeps happening, over and over whenever a new poc is introduced something always pops up on some theory that their evil or bad. (under cut for length)

Mike Peterson being forced to work with Hydra became a theory that he was willing servant in all of this, regardless that his autonomy had been stolen and child kidnapped to make him compliant. For whatever reason it was ignored that he was doing this completely against his will and turned into something darker, that Mike had been evil all along and the proof was that he had started all this by working willingly with Centipede, never mind that he didn’t know the repercussions of what working with them had done and had just been trying to make a better life for himself and his son and even used those powers to save people before the chemical forced him into anger and rage.

When Trip was introduced and the Hydra reveal occurred there were theories about how since he worked closely for Garrett that he would be working for Hydra too. Completely ignoring that his grandfather was a Howling Commando and Trip hated everything regarding that, that he was loyal shield soldier who stuck by the team even when he was unsure and there was nothing in the actual show that hinted anything in that direction about him. When season two opened there were even some fan theories that he would be the one to help Ward get out and the two of them would work together and he knew something was up with Ward regardless of the episode where he was clearly angry with everything Ward had done and willing to take him down. Only the character’s death seems to have quelled any of these theories, making him “redeemed” by death even though he’d done nothing wrong.

The same thing happened with Sam with theories of him being a Hydra spy somehow, though he had no ties to them or even Shield previously and was completely loyal to Captain America/Steve Rogers as opposed to anyone or anything else in those two groups. There was no backing or reasoning of these theories, it was more branches of the fandom wanting Sam to be evil for various reasons that had nothing to do with character portrayed on the screen at all.

A bizarre text post ran around tumblr for a while that even perhaps Rhodey, who had mostly been ignored by fandom anyway, was working for Hydra as well, even that he tried to steal the Iron Man suit for Hydra. There was no foundation for these, Rhodey having been a loyal friend to Tony and not at all involved in the Hydra vs Shield war and was dragged into this on what felt like people solely needing another poc to villanize while praising Tony on ‘keeping the suit away from Hydra’ though he had no idea that’s what he was doing.

When Jasper was revealed to be working for Hydra, though it came out of nowhere, posts went around that were ‘I knew it!’ ‘I knew he couldn’t be trusted’ despite that up until that twist there had been nothing to indicate that Jasper had been anything but a loyal agent or shown any animosity to anyone on the teams. Most of it came across that because he was poc he couldn’t have been trusted all along and people were justified in this distrust by having him be a villain.

Nick Fury is complicated character with a lot of layers and nuances that fandom mostly chooses to ignore, he built up the Avengers and tries to do as much good in the world as he can, running Shield with the knowledge that some things have to be sacrificed to make that good happen but clearly showing in CA:tWS that he can see when he has gone too far and needs to pull back but his role in the MCU is tossed aside in favour of the thinking that Coulson forms the Avengers together and the creation of the hashtag #FuryLies and the theories that he is actually ruining everything and needs to be stopped. There were quite a few theories going around that he did know that Hydra was working underneath Shield and did nothing to stop them because he was in fact involved, completely ignoring his role in CA:tWS and his want to give the world as much peace and safety as possible.

Another complicated character is Melinda May who has suffered a lot of backlash from the fandom in regards to her working alongside Nick Fury and keeping that secret from the team. There was cries from fandom that they knew she had been evil all along and would never trust her again and on top of racial slurs being thrown around their were sexist ones as well. In the second season when a premiere of the fourth episode ran it was talked about that she was Hydra all along, ignoring the loyalty that May showed to Coulson and Fury and Shield and how much she cared about the people she was working alongside. Whenever she was placed in the prison by the other Shield comparisons were drawn up against her and Ward and discussions that she didn’t handle it as well as he did and deserved everything that she got. A lot of May’s caring nature is ignored by fandom, becoming instead that she’s an elite agent whom you cannot tell who she is working for and at some point will double cross the team.

Alphonso Mackenzie has suffered greatly in this idea, as soon as it became known that he and Bobbi were hiding a secret theories ran around that they were Hydra and while Bobbi suffered from this mischaracterization too hers was never as bad as Mack’s where he was reduced to the angry black man stereotype and made to be evil. Many gifsets portray him as ‘the liar’ instead of Ward or even Bobbi and when he knocked Hunter out there was an outcry from parts of fandom who were readily declaring him evil and horrible despite that he only knocked Hunter out, not killing him, and wanted to bridge the gap between the two Shield foundations in hopes they could all work together again because he did not want to see anyone else die.

A lot of the these characters only received these strange theories about them and are thought of as distrustful from fans because they are poc, these theories don’t run around nearly as rampant for white characters. Even characters shown to be evil, like Ward, are given more leniency in fandom than they are. If the character like Rhodey is shown not to even be involved in the plotline than he is brought in through the theory that at some point he will be shown to have been evil or wrong all along. If the character is hiding secrets, never mind that Coulson has been harbouring quite a few secrets and never received as much animosity as May and Nick, than they are clearly working on another agenda where the white character can get away with the secrets as it being shrugged off that they know what they are doing. 

Stereotypes are exaggerated and when these characters aren’t ignored by fans it’s usually in disparaging ways that ignore all other characteristics to focus on untrustworthiness because ‘they just come off that way’.

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

CriticalFanWeek Day 3: The Erasure of Scott McCall

This actually only seems to be getting worse in the Teen Wolf fandom. Part of it is obviously because show continues to elevate Stiles and Derek over Scott but most of it is simply because the racists in the TW fandom are refusing to change their ways.  I’ll illustrate. 

Meet Scott McCall, 

(a screenshot of the gifset by joeswest) he’s handsome, brave, and is a rare type of werewolf, a true alpha. Otherwise known as leadership through strength of character and not won by a technicality. 

Last year on my other blog fandomshatewomen​ I wrote a post about the huge disparity in fics for the lead character Scott who had 10k fics less than his white best friend Stiles (also Derek had 8k more fics than Scott). Here’s the numbers from January 2014:

In the year since that post I started this blog and have written extensively about fandom racism in many fandoms. Better yet my friend mod R has written a great post detailing succinctly how fandom hates people of color and the post now has over 10,000+ notes.  (the post is great btw, pls notice she’s mentions this exact phenomena).  We’ve gotten, in the space of a year, over fifteen hundred followers, presumably some of them are white.  So I could be forgiven for thinking that the word had gotten out about how racism has affected the Teen Wolf fandom.

But that is not the case.  Now in April of 2015 here’s the updated numbers.

I mean I could go into detail about how the numbers breakdown but I’m honestly too angry.  Instead of closing the gap the gap seems to have widened. Someone please explain to me how Scott only gets mentioned in 11,000 fics but in the same period Stiles gets nearly 20,000 more fics??

Actually no, don’t bother, I know why you hate him, because he’s not white, you all think his white co-stars are the leads and you ignore him. I just want y’all to know I see your racism and this is why I can’t trust white teen wolf fans.

[dazzledfirestar]

Getting Called Out: How to Apologize  by chescaleigh

Always a good reminder for everyone and apparently very relevant again.

Also good for criticalfanweek

[dazzledfirestar]

For criticalfanweek​ Day 2: Villainization. 

Here’s something that gets disputed, very regularly in the MCU fandom specifically.

How does one classify Nick Fury? Is he a hero? anti hero? 

Those are not the answers the majority of fandom gives.

No, in a fandom that redeemed a genocidal god, has woobified several members of HYDRA (usually while excusing all connections HYDRA has ever had to Nazism), Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, the man that brought the Avengers into being... where should he stand?

Nick Fury is--according to many corners of fandom--a villain. 

So much so in fact, that “Fury Lies” became part of the mantra to bring his best friend back to life (but most of the people who espouse the “Fury Lies” line, usually forget about his connections to Phil before or after his death and likely skip over Phil’s death scene. Not because it hurts to watch, but because Nick can’t possibly be the one to have those final touching moments with their dear agent Coulson. No no. But that’s a topic for later this week). Is it true? Yes, he’s a spy, of course it’s true. The problem is that the lie that people are villainizing him for was never actually a lie. Phil Coulson died. Nick Fury did everything in his power to bring him back and then some but he was indeed dead. Nick telling the Avengers that was not a lie. It was using an opportunity to make sure the project Phil Coulson believed in didn’t fail.

Is that it? No. You can very easily find torture porn on AO3 about him being “punished” for lying to Clint and Natasha and Tony and Steve (and Bruce though they never met) about Phil’s death. Examples of this usually include characters who he is canonically very close to violently murdering him or in one case, Natasha ripping out his good eye.

For these fans, Nick is the reason HYDRA was in SHIELD (despite that happening before he was even born). Nick is the reason Bucky was tortured and experimented on (despite again, not being born when that started or aware of the situation prior to Cap 2). Nick is trying to shut the Avengers down despite having put the project together in the first place and making sure they could be autonomous from SHIELD.

So while Loki gets invited to family dinners and HYDRA agents didn’t REALLY mean it, Nick continually plays the roll of villain to the Avengers and what’s left of SHIELD.

Why?

One could say that fandom in general has a distrust of authority. This may be true, of course but that level of vitriol never seems to touch people like Tony Stark or his father Howard (who it would seem bares far more responsibility for HYDRA being within SHIELD but that doesn’t get talked about too much) or Phil Coulson.

It could be because he’s is decidedly morally grey. The ends justify the means and all that. But we have (albeit from another company) massive amounts of fic and works of all kinds where people like Wolverine and Magneto and yes, even Natasha do not get turned into mustache twirling villains because of their views on the world and how to deal with it’s problems.

OR, is it because he’s in the way. That the concept of this man--black, disabled, older--being in a position of power strikes so many people as wrong, they feel the need to cut him down. Put him back where he belongs, in a convenient “Angry Black Man/Dangerous” trope box. If he’s the villain, he’s also safely out of the way of any of the popular white male ships (though again, villainy only serves this purpose if the character in question has not been woobified. Just ask Skye, Jemma, Fitz and Bucky about that in regards to their fandom relationships with Ward or Brock Rumlow).

On a smaller scale the same things happen to other black characters within the Marvel Cinematic fandom. Shortly after Cap 2 came out there was a movement claiming Sam Wilson was a Hydra plant. Prior to that, there were rants about how Rhodey was an awful friend for stealing Tony’s suit in IM2 (conveniently ignoring the scene with Natasha and Nick in which is becomes clear that Tony meant for Rhodey to take the suit). On Agents of SHIELD, Akela Amador--one of the few black women who had played a role in this universe at that point--was afforded little to no sympathy after being a victim of the Centipede program. Currently the AoS fandom is screaming about how Mack should “die” for choking Hunter out during a confrontation about the Real SHIELD. And bringing up the Real SHIELD, the show itself seems to be catering to these fans but demonizing Nick’s actions as Director as unreasonable and/or evil.

There is a simple answer to why this continues to happen. It’s not one that people want to acknowledge often in fandom but it’s an ongoing problem. We as a community have elevated white men above all else (as society in general has, of course) and subconsciously (or consciously, though I’d like to think better of us all as a group) seek to make sure these black men and women in positions of trust and power are taken from those positions in favor of--you guessed it--more white men. Sam gets replaced by Bucky. Rhodey by Steve. Nick by Phil or Clint depending on the situation and all is back into the perceived balance.

But people are aware of erasure. They don’t want to be one of THOSE fans, of course. So what to do to get rid of the problem? Well, nobody is going to want them around if they’re EVIL, right? If all the ills that have come on the white fave are the fault of that black guy over there, it’s reasonable that the black guy goes away! 

I hope I don’t have to explain why that is not a better option.

This is not a conscious racist effort. It’s part of a racist and specifically anti-black system we’re all surrounded by. But it needs to stop and examining your own work and the work of those around you to see what’s going on is a good way to do that. We need to, as a community, look at why this happens and make clear that anti-black racism in these forms is not acceptable. That is why it’s important to speak up (as many others have said on Day One of @criticalfanweek) and make the problem known.

[physicsandfandoms]

Critical Fan Week: Knowing When This Isn’t About You

For CFW Day 1: Giving and Taking Criticism

This is a problem I’ve encountered a lot on my asexual/aromantic headcanon blog, and I think it fits best under this prompt. Every time an asexual or aromantic headcanon post gets popular in any fandom, someone comes on to the post to “correct” the headcanon. Usually this “correction” contains a botched understanding of what asexuality and/or aromanticism is, an assumption that the OP doesn’t know canon (they do), and a smattering of aro/acephobia.

If you don’t like a headcanon, just keep scrolling. You don’t like black!Hermione? Too bad. Ignore it. You don’t like bisexual!Captain America or asexual!Luke Skywalker? Too bad. Keep scrolling.

If you must, make your own post with your own headcanon, but don’t come on to a post where people are happily finding representation for themselves. Remember that the OP sees everything, and you don’t need to rain on their parade.

The thing is though, when a marginalized group is posting about their headcanons, and you are not part of that marginalized group, your conflicting opinion is not necessary and is not wanted. Be respectful, and understand that this isn’t about you.

If you’re confused about a headcanon, you can politely ask for an explanation. You might even learn something about the marginalized group. What you shouldn’t do is make a list of why you think the headcanon is wrong, and assume that the OP doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

[malainastarling]

Criticalfanweek Day 1:

(I wrote this with a bad headache so sorry) So this is going to be an embarrassing story but I believe in keeping myself humble so here goes:

When I first started this blog I was v much into science fiction, science, and lots of white male dominated shows (dive into my archive and there’s science with lots of superwholock, smh).  Now the sci fi and the science aren’t that bad until you consider that I followed Hank Green by watching Vlogbrothers and therefore also reblogged John Green.  

You probably know where this is going if you know how problematic John Green is.  Basically on a post I can’t seem to find and spent hours looking for yesterday I was engaging in a reply with someone about some topic I can’t remember and she responded by saying, “I’m not going to value the opinion of someone who reblogs John Green.”  Now at the time I didn’t find anything wrong with John Green (besides the wholehearted support he gave the Twilight series). 

And it stuck with me because the person who said that was also not white (like me) and she didn’t value my opinion.  I wasn’t confused about this at all, because I have a minor in Anthropology I knew that the reply came from someone who’s worldview was different from mine.  So what exactly made us different? What was I doing by following John Green that made them distrustful of me?

It’s a statement that has led me to (eventually) question every white man I reblog.  Because to be so centered on whiteness while not being white is an indication of having internalized racism. Thankfully that comment helped me to branch out and focus only on PoC science bloggers that I could trust. And people of color I could trust. And white intersectional feminists I could trust.  

Surely enough when the Fault in Our Stars premiered and that horrible scene became public and I saw how it affected Jewish people I was grateful to the person who’d said they couldn’t trust me because I reblogged John Green.   I had stopped reblogging him at least a year before and it had since made me aware of all his problematic behavior.

I’ve learned to use this technique often when following a person now. If they reblog Ward from AOS uncritically or don’t use the label, “evil G Ward” I know that person is a Ward sympathizer, probably a HYDRA fan, most likely to ship Skye/Ward, and probably has no problem with the abuse apologia that pervades the Ward fandom. Doesn’t matter if they claim to love Skye, the fact that they ship Skye a WoC with a potential rapist/murderer means they don’t care about the racialized misogyny implicated in the ship.

If a person has Thorki on their blog and no sign of Jane Foster it’s a safe bet that they’ve internalized some misogyny and tend not to look too closely at the baseless hate she gets/possibly participate in that hate. (Also this has the potential for incest so there’s a squick factor for me).

If a person ships Stony (Steve/Tony) and has negligible amounts of Rhodey, Sam, Nick or any of the many ladies in the Ironman/Captain America fandom I know they’ve got issues of internalized racism and definitely some misogyny.  And because Stony isn’t widely considered a problematic ship I know this is the one will get me the most backlash.

Stony isn’t inherently wrong. But the erasure within the Stony ship of Rhodey, Sam, Fury, Natasha, Pepper, Peggy, Sharon etc is indicative of a mentality I don’t want to see. I don’t care for white dude slash at all anymore though I’ve previously read it.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from the random person who I once replied to a few years ago.  That even  snap judgements based on something superficial like who you reblog uncritically are valid judgements that a PoC or other marginalized person is entitled to make. Intersectional feminism teaches us that we must be wary of the axis of oppression. That we cannot presume to know everything in the life experiences of another but especially when we have privilege and someone else doesn’t we must tread lightly.

Not trusting white people is a valid defense mechanism when white people have not proven they are anti racist.   If the main critique that someone has leveled at you is that you are white and they aren’t and they don’t care to further engage it isn’t because they don’t have a point, its often because having to explain the most basic facts of racism everyday that ends with y is an incredibly exhausting process.   Because I am a non black WoC I have light skinned privilege and its beneficial for me to remember that constantly and to center myself on removing anti blackness from myself and my community.   But I can’t do that if white people are constantly demanding I explain the basics of racism to them and wasting my time.

When taking or giving criticism remember your privileges and ask yourself if there’s some homework you need to do before asking a marginalized person for information or arguing with them. Its offensive to have our concerns be constantly reduced to being an “sjw”.  We’re people first, hit up google and educate yourself before being reductive and dismissive.