Hi! I'm sending this as an ask because I don't wanna bother people following me with that post again and the replies were turned off. You don't have to share this.
My point was not that they should never be talking about their fandom opinions because they are American. I actually follow them (and you lol). My point was specifically that a post about a modern AU being derailed into an American version of it was weird. I think rusreal AUs are just as racist when done to media like this. It is racist to impose one's culture on something uninvitedly.
Oof, okay, sorry I'm a but old, I think there used to be a feature of replying to ask with a dm, and it isn't now and I just woke up, so I will just reply (you didn't say you don't want it posted if I read correctly)
So, the first and main point here, again, is that they didn't really make it an American au, they said "from my understanding, this is how it probably works, though of course I know best about USA" -- meaning didn't say it is set in America now, just that college probably works kinda sorta the same (and it mostly does to my understanding). I really do think there is misunderstanding here, because us!au was not proposed, just take on college and character, based on understanding how colledge/law school probably works, based on what a person knows about their own country. I personally am not even really agreeing with any version of anything in the post, but I'm not in the mood of bringing the long yapping that has to be very carefully considered to not be sexist to the argument, so I won't really participate in that discussion,so I'm not defending lawyer/theologist Hurrem who wants to study religion with social understanding and is an activist point here, just the initial notion of probable misunderstanding of what was said, u'know?
But next i do disagree with you about racism of rusreal, and such works. I think fandom as a thing is inherently transformative, and if we can allow ourself priest!au, alien!au, flower shop!au, then why wouldn't we allow other "country writer actually knows about so won't fumble over every line with needing to confirm the realities of other country's small moments of life they are writing about"!au? I don't think using what you know best to have a fanfic written or even just a concept theorized is inherently racist, to be honest. Sure, like many things, it can be, if done with whitewashing, for example (not only with this, but the most obvious one), but not just racist by default.
"Uninvitedly" is, by default, what fandom does, like all the work and fanfiction and fanwork is not really invited by most creators, and in fact is often discouraged or looked upon with annoyance and found cringe. Like spn creators, or Anne Rice, or what have you. Creators of rusreal are not really trying to say "country where characters are from is bad or lame", they are wanting to see and study the characters and their interactions through the prism of what is closest and most understandable to them, so they leave most of the focus on characters themselves. And yes, also, of course, easiest to write, but noone said fanwork is supposed to be necessarily high literature of huge artistic value. I to be honest don't really like rusreal in most instances, I find it written meh most of the times and not interesting to me, so it's not me loving it to pieces, but well, iirc I saw Turkish versions of it, too, for example, and probably other countries have the same thing equivalents, and my honest conclusion is not "all people are racist to all countries if they write historical modern aus withe their countries", but rather "eh, people wanna write about their favorite characters being closer to them".
Of course, you are absolutely free to disagree with me, but I do wanna state my views on the whole thing as it is. Sorry if my initial answer sounded rude btw, I just woke up and was very confused about the context of the issue.
