#fandom misbehavior

[mswyrr]

The expectation that a woman can be in the most horrific, mentally and emotionally destroying situation possible and the audience still expects her to be endlessly reasonable and empathetic or else she's Evil

[redbayly]

Man, I leave my computer for a few hours to eat dinner and watch old Scooby-Doo episodes and come back see my feed blowing up with stuff about a Zutara anti comparing Zuko to the KKK.

I mean, I'm not entirely surprised an anti took it this far, especially considering this particular anti's history and how antis, in general, have been spamming the tag with stuff about how Zutara is colonizer apologism. Still, not how I expected my Friday to end.

But as someone whose family actively took a stance against the hate-group mentioned, as the daughter of a former civil rights lawyer, the granddaughter of a man who got death threats for hiring black people at his business, the great-granddaughter of a man who threw his younger brother out of his house and completely cut off contact with him for joining that hate group, and the several-greats-granddaughter of an outspokenly abolitionist Union soldier, I feel it is my duty to say that this anti can go fuck themself.

The KKK (or, as my dad calls them, "the Kluckers") is not some little prop for your virtue-signaling jokes about how much you hate a fictional ship. They were and are a very real danger. A terrorist group that was propped up by institutional and systemic racism, founded by men who were so bitter over the loss of their legal ability to own other human beings that they channeled their hatred into intimidating and killing black Americans and any progressive white Americans who tried to support black Americans' rights or push for reforms.

The Fire Nation is fictional. Their crimes and atrocities are part of a show for children. Zuko isn't real. He's simply a character who is meant to show that good can be found in unexpected places and that it is possible to break free of prejudices, extreme nationalism, and the cycle of abuse.

There is no excuse in my mind, not a single one, that could ever justify bringing real-world evil like the KKK, the Holocaust, or the disgusting crimes being committed against Iran and Palestine into a disagreement about fictional ships from a kids' show.

Those topics might be appropriate for a discussion on how the show handles things like genocide, racism, or colonialism, and then only if they are treated with the seriousness that they deserve, but it is beyond being in poor taste to use them as fodder in a shipping war.

I'm not normally one to jump into situations like this. I try not to meddle or let my anger get the best of me, but there are some things I simply cannot stay silent about. And this...this really got under my skin. I don't know if it's the recent surge of hate in the Zutara tag that's been building up my frustration and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back, or just that this particular "bad joke" hit an especially sore spot for me.

With how I was raised, the KKK were always the real-life boogeyman. Even being white, I grew up terrified of them. I was afraid that they might come out of the woodwork and kill my classmates or neighbors just because of their skin color. At school, when learning about the Civil Rights Movement, I saw old photos of them marching around in those stupid white hoods and felt sick when I saw one picture of a baby whose shithead parents had dressed him in that hateful outfit.

I have tried to avoid being an angry person. I believe anger is a dangerous thing, especially because of how addictive it is. So, I do my best to stay calm and civil and respectful, even when things make me upset. But there is something about the KKK and other white supremacists that triggers a gut reaction of rage and revulsion in me.

So, again, I say to the anti who so casually injected this genuinely horrific example of real-world hate, violence, and bigotry into a "joke" about a fictional character: FUCK YOU!

On a more positive note, I want everyone to be aware that January 18th is a special day of commemoration for the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. It honors the Battle of Hayes Pond, an event in which several hundred members of the Lumbee Tribe whooped ass on a gathering of KKK and got the entire hate group expelled from Robeson County and their leader, James "Catfish" Cole, arrested for inciting a riot.

[princesspufflesposts]

fandom reminders, inspired by some lovely anon hate I have gotten recently lol (and things I’ve noticed happening on other blogs the past few months)

Readers can have a sound interpretation of a character and still end up disagreeing on whether the character is a generally good or bad or morally gray person, because different people have different personal values and standards. Just because a character aligns with your morals and fails to align with another person’s morals (or vice versa) does not mean the other person misunderstands the character.

Authorial intent does not need to dictate your personal opinions. This is why critical literature studies exists as a discipline. You are allowed to understand why an author made a plot or framing choice and disagree with it from an out-of-universe perspective.

You can think a character is a bad person and still like them.

You can think a character is a good person and still dislike them.

People can recognize that a morally gray character is not evil while still not believing they are a good person.

Someone disliking a character you like is not a personal attack on you.

You don’t need to resort to ad hominem attacks on authors or media creators when you critique their work. And slurs are never appropriate.

You can choose to scroll past fandom opinions that upset you, or post about your own take on said general opinion on your blog, without getting into a heated argument with the other fan or personally attacking them or sending anon hate. Especially if you use slurs in these personal attacks.

Ship wars are stupid. You can dislike a ship without negatively engaging with its shippers.

Characters are fictional. The people you interact with online are real.

[mswyrr]

Do you know how many weeks people were adamant that Carol was an "evil colonizer" for being the only adult human left who cared enough to tell a teen girl she didn't have to give up her life and selfhood because her hived "family" was pressuring her to?? And the same people said that people from "the third world" are already "collectivist" so would naturally be at home with an alien hivemind stripping them of all selfhood uwuuu??

[mswyrr]

When you've seen canon lesbian romance bullied with the same 4 talking points numerous times it gets to the point where you realize that many straight women don't consider love stories about women's desire, they consider love stories to properly be about desire for men specifically and women who desire women are another species who doesn't belong here and should go away. Because we're eeeew grossss yucky.

[mswyrr]

It is really gross how--despite the diversity of povs and beliefs of the *billions of people* they're grabbing up and shoving into the category of a monolithic exoticized Other--pro-hive people insist that "the entire Third World agrees with my eco-fascism in email" like

okay. sure. sounds legit.

[mswyrr]

[mswyrr]

Regarding jerks saying that Jess is simply "self-inserting" as a lesbian re: Franchaela: Shonda is straight and she is involved throughout the writing process and fully on board with the adaptational changes there. She has always (for over 20 years now) been excellent about LGBTQ rep in her shows and given real lovely spotlights to queer women and their love stories. A woman doesn't have to be lesbian to care about LGBTQ stories and love lesbian and sapphic women characters actually! We aren't a gross alien species and it's not "normal straight woman behavior" to feel that way.