#if I missed anyting feel free to reply or reblog because I need to shower and hustle to the Renn Faire

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

hey there! hope i'm not catching you at a bad time. i was wondering about your latest post on your concerns with the dinluke fandom. i'm really sorry about that. i'm not as active on socmed as i used to be so i might have missed on how the fandom is slowly, urm, going up into flames(?) but if you don't mind, what are your major concerns that's making you question your association? i love your dinluke stuff sm and i'd hate to lose someone like you :(

Hi there!

For a long while now, a certain "genre" of dinluke content has been dominating the Tumblr and AO3 tags and - more importantly - the general impression of the ship itself, which is dark!dinluke. Unfortunately, dark!dinluke is usually not about "dark" themes but about a racist, fetishizing, gendered relationship/dynamic between Din and Luke where Din is hypersexualized, aggressive, and possessive and Luke is a virginal effeminate twink with tradwife traits. You'll note that Din is the darker-skinned character and Luke is lily white in this particular dynamic (Bobadin has a similar problem where the darker-skinned Boba is the aggressive/possessive one while the lighter-skinned Din is the delicate flower). That's an extreme generalization of the general trend of assigning incredibly uncomfortable characteristics to characters who don't have them.

Fandom tends to vibe by the "live and let live" philosophy, and that's okay IF everyone follows general "guidelines" for fandoming, like proper tagging so that people who don't want to see that content for ANY REASON don't have to see it. A lot of these content creators have been terrible at tagging (or don't tag at all) using inappropriate or targetted tags that only make sense to people who are already in the know. If you had never seen Arrested Development before and don't know the context of the tag "dead dove do not eat" how do you know it's supposed to warn you for dark content? How do you know "cinnamon role Luke Skywalker" isn't always about a sweet soft Luke or that "protective Din Djarin" is actually about an aggressively possessive Din? Gotcha phrases like "don't like, don't read" can't work if people don't know what they're supposed to be blacklisting before they click the ship tag. So, you have posts that no one can block until it's too late dominating the ship tags, which makes for an incredibly uncomfortable experience.

But it's not just the tagging fiasco, it's also the idea that dark!dinluke creators were allowed to exist and dominate fandom conversations in the first place. It's why I said we should've been louder and meaner sooner. There is no point in living by the "live and let live" fandom philosophy if your idea of inclusivity includes allowing people to create harmful toxic tropes and trends unbothered and unscathed. This is really part of the larger conversation around POCs in fandom spaces; we have to contend with a lot of shit that makes us uncomfortable and a lot of times we are in spaces dominated by white/white-adjacent fans who don't want anyone harshing their good time or making them look bad.

I have not forgotten the utter shitshow around finnpoe (and Finn/John Boyega in general) where the concerns of Black and Latine fans were ignored in favor of protecting white feelings. I follow people on Tumblr and Twitter who discuss racism in fandom and are also harassed constantly by fans who don't want to hear the truth. It's not comfortable and you must always be aware of when it's time to speak up and when to amplify other voices, but if you want your fandom spaces to be inclusive and more safe, you have to be willing to listen and put yourself out there. I didn't because I get anxious about interacting in larger communal spaces but I always wondered if I could've helped if I did speak up about the troubling tropes and trends that dinluke fandom was heading towards. I'm just one person but it still has to mean something even if the larger fandom still chooses to ignore you.

Someone added their own thoughts to my post about fandom ignoring Latine fans expressing their concerns about Din and Pedro's other characters and I remember seeing those conversations in the old dinluke server. I tell myself I was at work at the time and that's why I didn't comment when people started nitpicking or just generally ignored the criticisms, but I wish I could've done more. So instead, here I am posting to the tumblr tag.

I'm not leaving the dinluke fandom anytime soon. I have a story to tell that I want to see to its conclusion. The day after making that post, I was doodling some thoughts about Luke (mainly his clothes, but also I should be writing instead of doodling????? get your act together, shiro). I'm in a good space where I'm still comfortable enough and I won't be chased off by the people I share space with, but it hurts knowing that they're there and they contributed a lot to the current state of dinluke. I've been in enough fandoms that crashed and burned over this sort of shit so I know when it's time to pack up my bags and leave but hopefully I'll get all my stories out before that day comes.