#Fandom xenophobia

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that so many people think the Starks are honorable anticolonial fighters and the pinnacle of morality is absolutely insane, they literally built a massive wall to isolated a bunch of people they considered as “savages”, they hunted and slaughtered the Free Folk, the Children of the Forest, giants, exterminated whole houses and clans and took their daughters as “prizes” while conquering the North, etc. The Blackwoods were originally from the North and ruled most of the wolfswood, before being driven out by the Starks and forced to flee south. The Starks are the OG COLONIZERS in ASOIAF.

Even this did not give Winterfell dominion over all the North. Many other petty kings remained, ruling over realms great and small, and it would require thousands of years and many more wars before the last of them was conquered. Yet one by one, the Starks subdued them all, and during these struggles, many proud houses and ancient lines were extinguished forever. — The World of Ice and Fire – The North: The Kings of Winter.

I recently finished a Tiktok series that will probably just be as lost to the internet if we lose TikTok but I had to get out in response to a particular creator who bashes Rhaenyra while also proclaiming themselves as black stans. I think they are really more black stans because they hate Alicent personally and feels the thrill of the side-taking, but that's neither here nor there. 😏

To quote one of my mutuals here [rhaenin]:

It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture. To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention. This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper. ........... It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.

[survivalove]

one thing that annoys me is people reading yangchen’s books and acting like she should be this bloodthirsty assassin.

the point of yangchen’s character isn’t that she revels in violence. it’s that she would forsake her cultural beliefs for the sake of the world if she saw it necessary. and she did.

and the air nomads punished her for it.

because they were still a living and thriving culture that could hold their own accountable.

while the rest of the world held her in high regard for her efforts, even in death, there were those from her culture that wouldn’t let her deeds go unpunished on the permanent record.

aang doesn’t have that.

he can do whatever he wants and the rest of the world wouldn’t care. no one will ever hold him accountable for his cultural missteps so he has to. that’s why it’s important to aang to hold himself to his beliefs. to keep his people and culture alive.

do you ever watch celebrities talk about being famous? how they know they have legions of fans that will praise them no matter what? and how terrifying that is to them? how important family is to them? because those are the people that keep them grounded. do you line what that feels like? to be inherently famous and have no one left in your family to keep you grounded? to be a human that’s only ever seen as a god?

no, you don’t. i don’t. but that is the life aang lives.

it’s why people who complain about the finale are annoying. it’s why people using yangchen to downplay his choice is also annoying. and it’s why people acting like yangchen had nothing to lose are extremely annoying. because her choices cost her a lot. and it hurt her. because she loved her people too.

[icantturnthisthingoff]

okay i don’t want to give that one person more attention than necessary because they aren’t very reasonable so im just gonna put in my final opinions on this topic on my own post.

no singular civilian person is at fault for the actions of their government or their military. that is the fault of the people at the top of that decision tree alongside those who knowingly and willingly choose to spread propaganda.

its also a bad faith argument to suggest that it is the fault of the russian people due to their silence and inaction when we know that those who have spoken out against the kremlin have been assassinated and imprisoned. we also know that there is little to no democracy in russia.

russians who oppose the invasion of ukraine are not silent, they have been silenced.

and those who have left russia because they did not wish to be drafted or involved in said invasion in any capacity have been pretty fucking vocal about it offline at least from my experience living in hotspot area for slavic immigration.

but even without all that : just being from a country does not make you inherently bad or good or anything really because thats not how it works?? yes environmental factors can greatly impact the way somebody thinks politically and morally etc but its not inherent. like if you look within peoples families a set of siblings may all be raised the same in the same area by the same people with the same rules, regulations and beliefs but you will find that very often sibling 1 has a wildly different worldview to sibling 2 or 3 and so on. thats the beauty of human complexity we make up our own minds ultimately.

anyways i’ve ranted enough

tl;dr - the person at a JO concert singing UM in russian has no real say in the actions of their country and is not a bad person just because they are from russia, they might be a lovely person they might be awful, but whatever they are its not just because they are born in russia and to say so would be xenophobic

[dukeofdelirium]

was looking on ao3 for some kataang fics and saw yet another zvtara fic in our tag and clicked on it because I’m a hater first and foremost but my god…

LMAO

nah… the way they project this idea that Aang views Katara as a machine to repopulate the airbenders when not once did he or will he ever act that way canonically. holy shit I just??? where the actual fuck does this concept even come from? they want Katara to be his abuse victim sooooooo bad 😂

and what the cinnamon toast fuck is this passage in particular?

“Should he not sacrifice as well?”

ummmmm…. I hate to break it to you fic author, but Aang literally did sacrifice. he legitimately lost everything there is to fucking lose. he even lost the clothes off his back and the only artifact that his people made specifically for him. he fucking burned it at the bottom of a volcano. or did you forget? actually nvm, you probably never watched in the first place so of course you wouldn’t know.

like ppl can write whatever they want idc, but acting like Aang, a character who is a sole survivor of fucking genocide never LOST or suffered or sacrificed anything? be so fucking serious rn. get out of my damn face. like you can fuckin ship your ship without committing the most egregious and genuinely offensive character assassination possible

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#603

"The gorn in SNW destroyed the original conception of western culture demonizing other cultures and recognizing it was wrong doing so. It basically turned an anti-xenophobia narrative tool in... A xenophobic tool. The gorn are being viewd as immigrants "invading" first world countries. It sucks."

[rakkuntoast]

im just so sad cuz most of this situation that happened with cellbit started AND was fueled by pure xenophobia towards the brazilian community over on twitter

people kept looking for an excuse to hate on them and decided to resurface shit to justify their hate. so much of a community that is supposed to "unite everyone"

[hey-i-am-trying]

I love qsmp, but man, everyday this fandom finds a way to break my will.

Because it is actually pretty dismotivating to open twitter and discover my fellow brazilians moots have been receiving messages calling them monkeys because they don't agree with everything about the Carnaval event or are just sad about the possibility that there will not be a brazilian streamer on the event day.

Even sadder to see it is not only gringos but some latin people doing that.

[rhaenin-time]

It's deeply uncomfortable how so many people use the word "colonizer" as an acceptable stand-in for "foreigner I don't like" when talking about how evil the Targaryens are. You might not see yourself, but I see you.

[publictrashbin]

I typically don't usually talk about my own feelings about qsmp discourse and mostly leave it to me liking posts that I agree with , but as a person of color something that pisses me off is that a white person whose seems quite popular on here is singling out a sub community and sublely clamming that all fans of that person with no proof of that said bigotry are racist/xenophobic white people despite fact the people who are questioning the arguments of this person are people of color themselves.

Like don't get me wrong here, The qsmp community does certainly have racist and xenophobic people in it but those sort of people are in every single streamers own of community and by stating that the racism on both twitter and tumblr is only from one sub community is not only a incorrect statement but its also a very dangerous one due to allowing the racist and xenophobes of those communities having a defense when someone calls out their behavior due to them under the belief that they are free of bigoted beliefs .

Overall, I'm just angry that white people in this fandom are turning the necessary conversations that people of color are having about the overall bigotry that they experience in this community into some stupid contest to see which community is "better" with poc suffering as the ammunition for their own egoistical white savior complexes.

[pretty-weird-ideas]

How I look like every week in this goddamn fandom when we see sizable blogs continuing to dog-whistle about their not-so-hidden hatred of Blackness and Black-centered media analysis, especially from Black Americans. On a show centering on Black Americans and their history. During America's Black History Month.

I could also talk about how this disrespect comes from the idea that everyone feels like they OWN African American culture and they are OWED that part of us (Rap, Hip Hop, AAVE, Stories, History), but that sharing is not always consensual nor is it equal sharing between all cultural parties. But that's a discussion that I don't have the strength to unpack without a nice night's rest.

[horizon-verizon]

I find it hilarious that ASOIAF is upheld as an anti-feudalist text when only two POV’s (outside of prologue/epilogue POV’s) are lowborn, and only one character, a former slave, has enacted large scale violence against the ruling class (and this is as seen as a portent for her madness), the serfs are mostly victims with no political agency.

When I say the serfs, I mean the Westerosi serfs and smallfolk. The slaves and freedmen of Essos actually have both revolutionary consciousness and are starting to organize along political and military lines against the slaveowning gentry. Daenerys’ actions in Slaver’s Bay are already inspiring slaves to rise up. We see nothing similar in Westeros.

The Brotherhood without Banners is small, scattered, disliked by the smallfolk, has not engaged in large scale revolutionary violence or organizing, and has temporarily forgotten its original purpose. The Faith Militant uprising is theocratic and reactionary. But this is the text holier-than-thou fans and Targ antis claim is about “abolishing feudalism” (but still wants the Starks to retake their feudal power in the North), lmao.

There really are levels and depths to the stupidity of Dany "critiques", huh? With this infor in mind, it does seem very much how colonizers co opt several things the very "side" they criticize, shame, and distort until they feel that side cannot make claim to those same things and people forget such origins. Love that.

[survivalove]

​the way the atla fandom mocks buddhism constantly I see why this is their fave character. I can’t believe people let this slide even worse defend it and say it’s funny. just a weird bunch

[queerbauten]

seeing Joosttwt hand-wring vaguely about Joost’s “stances” on things and wondering what they could be talking about… only to remember he had the audacity to meet up with CMH (a Russian artist) today and realizing that oh, it’s just xenophobia

ETA: see the reblogs for my thoughts now that I know the full context

[fictionkinfessions]

This is less of a confession and more of a rant. I just despise modern villains and poor takes from Tumblr users about villianism.

You do realize that it's fine if we're "problematic" right? As far as you know, I've blown up two planets for no other reason than I wanted to (no I am not "racist" towards the Saiyans. That's undignified. I just didn't need them anymore. You humans and your racism is so strange. Bending backwards to justify hatred because it makes you feel better. But you're not ready for that discussion)

And this is what the one human I actually like calls a "hot take" but I sincerely hate the "I support their wrongs uwu" mindset. WE ARE VILLIANS! IT'S FINE THAT NOT EVERYONE LIKES US! Also we don't need your condescending support.

Also I can't talk to most modern villains because they try to hard to be "good". They cry for fans approval and for their "justifications" to be validated. Just accept you're the villain and do whatever you want. Don't cry to me about your tragic back story because I won't pity you. Either just admit your methods are morally grey at best or join the good guys.

Not to mention that most people can't handle the "doing the wrong thing for the right reason" scenario. You do realize that Goku murders the people he fights to the death right? In most societies that's considered murder. Yes, that applies to myself too. Do I blame him? No, it's a normal response of most intelligent life to either try to get away or to fight back. I was trying to murder him, and I don't actually mind people fighting back. Is it stupid to try to fight me? Yes. Unless you are Son Goku from Earth if you try to fight me you're an idiot. But sometimes it's fun squashing weak people's hopes that they had a fighting chance.

Yes, I enjoy it. So what? I am a villain made by a gag comedy writer from Japan. What did you expect? I honestly hate that the fact that I'm proud of my villainy makes me unique. No, stop producing whiny villians with no spines. That's not why I'm unique. My power makes me unique, my charisma makes me unique, my mutated genes make me unique, not the fact that I kill people for little reason. There are hundreds of people on your Earth that do the same thing. That's not special. Netizens nowadays just have no standards when it comes to villainy.

Sincerely, an extremely irritated Frieza.

(I was informed I should use emojis, so here I will allow my son to pick them 👑🥇🌌)

x

[videogamesincolor]

video game devs: this character is a white supremacist, loves capital punishment, and hates immigrants.

yt gamers: omg i would die for this morally questionable man.

[the-path-to-redemption]

Hi! I was on the Heartstopper tag and saw one of your older posts. And I'm just curious: I never even heard of the 'Boyfriends' webcomic; where can one read it? Also, what did Alice O. say about japanese BL? That seems extremely messed up, when she very obviously was inspired by them, and caters to the same audience, who would read cutesy shounen-ais... Thanks, if you answer.

Hi! So the "Boyfriends" comic is written and illustrated by Refrainbow, an Asian transman which you can read on Webtoon. It updates weekly and is generally very cute as the plot is just following a polyamorous group of boyfriends living college life together, so it won't include something like a grand overarching plot like other stories might. It's a Slice of Life comic with most chapters having a condensed plot that can be wrapped up pretty quickly.

And as for Al*ce O. and their stance on BL, here's a link to their opinion on it as well as someone responding to it on Twitter. But to briefly summarize, Al*ce claims that Hearts*ppers shouldn't be considered "yaoi" or even "BL" because the works falling under these categories are "fetishizing" gay men in a bad way. But the thing is, BL or "Boys Love" is literally just that, Boys Love. It's a genre that encompasses light-hearted works of Shounen Ai (basically just BL in Japanese) to the more hardcore, NSFW variants. It's the same thing to classify any work including an MLW relationship under the "Romance" genre, regardless of whether it has sexual content or not.

The problem with Al*ce's point is that they consider these works, mostly made by Japanese or other Asian creators, as "fetishizing" and "negative" while their work as a Western creator is somehow more pure and "not fetishizing". Which is xenophobia. Because they are elevating their work as a Westerner over Eastern creators without even attempting to do basic research into the BL genre and history, or how by creating these works, those Eastern creators are much more susceptible to legal troubles regardless of their works having NSFW contents or not. That's just shitty, and the hypocrisy of Western baby queers doing the same thing Al*ce is doing makes them xenophobes and Puritans as fuck.

Again, you can like one variant of this big genre and not like the other. That's your right as a reader, but elevating one over the other, especially when you're putting down works of marginalized people makes you scummy.