#fandom woes

[dyleeart]

my favorite frequently mischaracterized sunshines...

[imperiuswrecked]

yeah.

[ingravinoveritas]

The fact that it's only been a day since a new teaser clip came out for GO season 3 and already people are hating on the casting of Jesus is absolutely sending me. The actor cast in the part (Bilal Hasna) is talented as hell as well as Palestinian and queer, and seems like an incredibly perfect fit for the GO universe for so many reasons.

Everything about GO 3 has been plagued by setbacks and controversy, and for once there is something good to talk about in relation to this show, yet some people are always going to find a way to twist it into a negative. Obviously, no casting choice will make every single person happy, but trashing him when the season hasn't even been released yet is nothing more than a self-righteous exercise in pre-gaming rage.

It's particularly appalling to see so many of the attacks centering around race and religion, especially because there is no one way to "look" Palestinian or Jewish, and the entire point of Good Omens is that separating things into a black-and-white/"good" vs. "evil" dichotomy ignores and overlooks that so much of life exists in shades of grey.

The other message of the book/show is that to these two supernatural entities, humanity is more compelling and powerful than either Heaven or Hell, and they decide to work together to save the world and all of the people in it. That's about as close to following the teachings of God as it gets, so turning around and trashing Twinksus Christ because you have a problem with a casting choice is missing so many points it's not even funny. Also...

...This man is fucking adorable. Hating on him feels like hating puppies or sunshine, so let's just dial it back a notch or five hundred. If you've got issues with GO 3 coming out, by all means, boycott it, pirate it, do what you will. But trashing a member of the cast/crew who has worked so hard to bring us something that we almost didn't got is very much not the answer here...

[yurrrsssss-ghoul]

I feel like people would write more compelling stories if they make the BatFam teach that killing isn't the last resort to Damian rather than killing being wrong.

Contrary to popular beliefs, Damian knows that killing is wrong. Not taking lives lightly is literally one of the core beliefs in the League, practiced almost religiously by the people he looks up to. For starters, his grandfather Ra's genuinely treasures and wanted to preserve all lives living on Earth, often targeting only leaders of major organisations that benefitted from the misery of others, while his mother was studying medicine and hated it when she had to take a life (and even then, she mostly used anaesthetic)— Damian, young and sweet and so full of love and emotional Damian, who bleeds the needs to be accepted, of course knew that killing is wrong, but he does it anyway because it's the last thing left. The only thing that he can do.

The premise opens a chance to explore interesting concepts like rehabilitation (something that Bruce believes in) and how no humans deserve to play God by determining who gets to live and who gets to die, and no one should hold the axe of the executioner. It’d certainly be more interesting than the usual "Because we're good and your old family is bad so we do good stuff and they do bad stuff,” trope people throw around, one that often perpetuates undertones of a white saviour.

It also opens a discussion of how flawed even Bruce’s methodology really is, because by not killing a criminal it might lead to potential future harm; however killing them wouldn’t resolve the patriarchal system that caused the crime to happen in the first place, with Jason being the prime example of this glaring issue.

The reason why I decided to finally finish this post (this has been marinated in my draft for weeks now, I believe) is because I'm getting exhausted with the rhetoric that the al-Ghuls represent all the bad things in Damian's life while the Wayne's are the best thing that has ever happened to him, a popular concept often used when a POC characters joins a predominantly white household/establishment, thus perpetuating white savior trope.

It brings a distasteful narrative that white people are always morally superior, that the only chance of a POC character being civilized is by having all cultural identities stripped from them and for the white people to give them structure in accordance to their standards.

It's especially troubling when people would pull the "It's okay to hate everything from your previous life," fast card, thus neglecting on giving an equal chance to the characters from the aforementioned POC character to be anything other than abusers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about cutting ties with your abusers and setting boundaries, especially when it comes to your own growth and development, however simply claiming that this is the case with Damian would be a narrow-minded way of seeing the broader issue.

A lot of the abuses done by either Talia or Ra's were writings stemmed from political beliefs or the writers' own weird decisions rooted from certain ideas. You would see an astronomical change in their character from their appearance in the 1970's to the early 2000's, a change that is particular set in motion post 2001 (if you know what I mean).

I'm not saying that all writings where the al-Ghuls committing crimes are automatically assumed to be written in bad faith, but I'm saying that they (the writers) have a certain goal in mind when writing them particularly OOC; Ra's, who devoted his life to preserve the nature, who aimed to save the environment from further destruction suddenly condones killing animals and participates in wars, or Talia, who was abused her whole life, who specifically seeks to liberate herself from violence and murder and her father's teachings, who loved Bruce and Batman but is aware how being together would destroy him, suddenly becomes an evil mother and an assaulter.

It's clear that today's writers just wanted us to hate the al-Ghuls through Damian's narrative. Setting the BatFam as the 'good end' of the spectrum and sending the al-Ghuls way on the opposing side.

Sometimes, it's a genuine abuse perpetuated under the pretense of discipline. Sometimes, it's little tidbits that insinuate control, perhaps, "My mother never allowed me to form an emotional connection," or maybe, "My grandfather killed all my pets."

It's the same trend I observed, one that extended to even Cassandra and Duke. Lady Shiva's own trauma was often discredited in favour of making her an abuser through and through while simultaneously ignoring the existence of David, while Duke's parents are almost never in the picture. It's a see-saw kind of logic where a character either exists as the trauma or doesn't exist at all, with the latter often portrayed as a momentary caregiver before the white rich guy eventually gets to them.

It's stupid to even ask if the end goal of these portrayals meant to make these three 'grateful' for their place in the BatFamily, thus cementing the 'White Martyrdom' mentality the majority of the fandom tend to possess; that all their life's problems suddenly go away because Bruce is in the picture, and therefore providing little to no agency of their own.

It's peculiarly harrowing when people depict them accepting or even tolerating abuse or humiliation, things that might be detrimental to their growth done by the BatFam because, in the end, Bruce is supposed to be the better end of the deal.

I'm not against BatFamily content. In fact, I like to see and read fluffy, found-family tropes where they do stupid shit together. I can't exactly ask everyone and anyone, especially new fans, to be faithful to the source material, when mischaracterisation is inevitable since they're never really consistent anyway. However, some people just do weird shit, and I guess I am that friend that's too woke.

[showmey0urfangs]

The Dark Turn in Fandom: How Online Spaces Became a Breeding Ground for Harassment and Doxxing | Written by Sophia Viera for Collider,

[spiral-shape]

>open the fullmetal alchemist tag on ao3

>fic is tagged as both brotherhood and 2003

>ask author if the fic actually fits both fmab and fma03 or if its just a brotherhood fic tagged as 2003 so they get more clicks

>they dont understand

>explain the difference between brotherhood and 2003

>they laugh and say "it can be read as either mangahood or '03, sir"

>read the fic

>its just brotherhood

[voidstilesplease]

rip to all the god-tier gay fics i missed and won't ever get to enjoy simply because i'm not versatile and forever bound to my one true top/bottom dynamic

[cheezewhis]

I'm starting to get the frustration I've seen from Brilliant Minds fans cause here's this great show with tons of representation of various identities including gay men and lesbian women of color.....yet everyone is still crying about the mediocre Netflix show that baited them.

"We're so hurt by queerbait!" "We're so sick of queerbait!"

Then watch something that's not baiting you????????????