kyluxer here. Saw your last post with this op in the tags being like do I want to engage in fandom drama? Yes and I thought I wasn't going to defend kylux because the target audience of the post isn't out there to learn but to ragebait. (That being said, lack of interracial shipping is a symptom of a larger issue and they are right to point it out but I think they have something against kylux specifically? Because reylo is a white ship too with more works on it but somehow that's okay?) You did though, and very eloquently, and then someone with zero reading comprehension swoops in and completely changes what you said. I just wanted to write this to let you know that anyone who possesses an ounce of reading comprehension will understand what you were saying. It's not your fault some people can't engage in constructive discourse.
That op was ragebait, I took the bait because I saw a similar post before and replied more or less the same a couple of years ago (or more? can't remember). And the second person is absolutely 100% trying to have a fight.
As for kylux vs reylo, they tend to hate both for different reasons: kylux is "gay but white" in one word "racist", reylo is "straight enemies to lovers" and therefore "wrong and toxic".
These people pick fight with kylux shippers because they like m/m ships more, so they want to "shame us" into liking their gay-but-not-white ship. It has not work since 2015.
The fact that people like ships for any kind of reasons (identifying with a character, finding an actor hot, liking the dynamics, wanting to experiment with a genre or a character, and just because) are never taken into consideration when it comes to ship war, in particular when you can layer it with different kind of -ism and look "more woke". Because that is a ship war with grown-up words, and nothing more.
Now, the racism in fandom is something that we should actually and actively talk about. It's in (almost?) every fandom, especially when it's a big fandom like Star Wars or Marvel. (or the wizard one since is coming back...)
First of all there's not enough non-white people working in these places: they barely get hired to do the job, they get paid less, the roles are often not written with a non-white character in mind and when it happens is full of stereotypes or just a sidekick, and then the work comes out and there's this loud part of fandom who's not very happy about not having people that look like them on screen, the actors get harassed and pushed out of social media, the big companies stop hiring them to avoid drama and money loss.
It's a loop: if you have a diverse cast is "too woke" and "too on the nose" and "it's just for looking woke and being praised", if your cast isn't diverse is "a shitty job, we should boycott".
Then of course it reflects in the shipping part: there's less non-white characters to play with, there's the people shouting how you should and shouldn't write/draw them, there's the fear of doing something wrong and "being cancelled" over that... By the way all of this is often if not always seen and talked through only the US-american lens, and that's a problem in itself.
There is a problem in fandoms because there is a problem in our society, and we should discuss it and help the people to learn how to be overall better.
It's not just racism, it's also misogyny, queerphobia, ableism, the overall purity and I'm sure I'm missing some other things. All of these things are ingrained in our society, nobody is perfect and we should be allowed to make mistakes and grow from it instead of pretending everybody to know from the start how to be perfect.
The best advice I have is to write characters as human beings, and if they happen to have some stereotypes so be it. The problem is not the stereotype, the problem is when the stereotype is the only trait they have. Make them human with some flaws.
At the same time we should ask for a better society and cast out those who don't want it, by voting them out of places of power, boycotting, protesting and doing activism on the ground. Not by crying because a notp has more fanworks, that's just a ship war with fancy words.
Like I said in the original reblog, I am in favour of people who write more jedistormpilot and stormpilot and finnrey fics, I hope they will stop trying to appease to the purity crowd and start making them with character flaws and fucked up things and nasty smut. There's never enough weirdos and freaks in fandom.
