#I actually quite like the little corner of the fandom I’m in

[heyclickadee]

More Massive Fandom Salt under the cut

If I see one more condescending post about how people who don’t like Tech getting killed off just don’t get it, I’m going to mcfreaking lose it.

Like, okay. I think Tech is alive. I think I’ve been clear about that. If I haven’t, then I don’t know what else to do. I actually even get why taking him off the board for season three could be a good move (give Crosshair time to decompress and Omega time to come into her own and be the hero of her own show, while also maybe setting Tech up for another plot line to come later), and think it’s possible that bringing Tech back later could actually work much better than what I originally wanted to happen. In fact, if it really is a fake-out I think it’s kind of immaculate. And I still get angry reading those posts.

Because, first, a lot of people upset by the handling of Tech from “Plan 99” onwards are upset because Tech meant something to them. It goes a lot deeper than just losing your favorite character. Tech was a fantastic piece of autistic representation and losing that hurt. Losing that and then never getting the catharsis that comes with on-screen emotional processing from the characters, no closure, no real in-show impact besides inconveniencing the others hurt even more. It left a lot of autistic people in the fandom feeling like we were told that we weren’t welcome in Star Wars at all.

And most of us still love the show! The Bad Batch is still my favorite show and I adore basically the entire thing up through season three, right up to the point where everything just kind of stops without resolving anything but Hunter and Omega, and not getting Tech back before the end hit me so badly that I almost dropped Star Wars completely. People are upset for a reason.

Second, I get that it can be annoying seeing criticism of your favorite show. I do. I actually disagree with a lot of criticism of TBB and do tend to get a little annoyed at certain takes. The other thing about the “Tech’s dead and that’s good”/“You thought Tech could come back because you were delusional” posts that makes me want to fight everyone, though, is that they tend to be incredibly dismissive. They’ll bring up arguments people made during the airing of the show for why Tech could come back, or arguments they made afterwards for why they thought he should have, and then either misunderstand or talk right past them.

It gives anyone who made those arguments, or who was upset by the ending, a general sense that we’re not being listened to. That people have already decided we’re irrational and that nothing we say or experience matters, that we saw patterns that weren’t there, or that we care too much about this specific thing, or that we’re being immature. Maybe. Just. I don’t know—consider for a second that a lot of the people who are most upset about Tech belong to the noticing patterns/caring a lot about specific things/dismissed for noticing things that are really there in real life/frequently infantilized neurotype. Again, there’s a reason some of us are upset and having a hard time with fandom right now.

I actually don’t have a problem with people thinking or making posts saying someone needed to die or that Tech “dying” was well handled as a death. I will always disagree, and I think we’re too close to the “bury your disabled” trope with most of the batchers for me to be okay with any of them dying like that, but one person will interpret fiction differently than another and I can’t and shouldn’t police that. I do, however, have a massive problem with the condescending way a lot of those posts go about it. Think Tech ought to be dead? Fine. Call anyone who thinks otherwise a child? Instablock, I don’t need that in my life.