#bottom line is that the conversations about racism in fandom are valuable

[soopersara]

Heya! I've been off the discord and haven't been into fandom too much the last year because covid and work have been kicking my ass, but what's all this I've been seeing about overt racism in the zutara fandom? Hope you're doing well, and loving a tale of ice and smoke :)

Oh boy. I honestly haven’t been able to keep up with everything either (ZKBB has eaten my brain, and it likely won’t return for 6–8 more weeks), but extremely long story short, Zutara fans who are BIPOC have recently been discussing issues of racism in the fandom. Off the top of my head, I remember seeing discussions about Katara’s portrayal in some fanworks being too mammy-like, about some fic tropes (capture fic, slave fic, etc.), about fans prioritizing Zuko over Katara, and some more general issues of racism, like using food-related color descriptors for skin tones. There’s probably more that I missed (and if I’ve missed or misinterpreted anything, please let me know and I’d be more than happy to adjust this post), but valuable points were being made, and I (and others too, I hope) were trying to follow along and self-evaluate as more issues were brought up. But of course, this being Tumblr, some of the people who were bringing up these issues started receiving racist anon asks.

Then… a day or two ago? -ish? Shit kind of hit the fan more than usual and the whole conversation got sidetracked after one post that mostly made good points and included a small tangent about NSFW content. It was fairly obvious who that tangent was in reference to, so that person defended themself on that one specific issue, sides were taken, assumptions were made, names were called, communication broke down completely, and many block buttons were pushed. And naturally, the anons got worse and more vocal. (For the record, the main people involved on the NSFW issue both agreed that it wasn’t what they should have been focused on, and neither “side” was defending the horrific anon asks, but… no direct communication actually happened between the people involved, so the one person making a post that they later admitted was poorly worded and the other person who understandably wanted to defend against that one poorly worded accusation turned into a bunch of other people screaming about smut and equating smut to racism.) As far as I’m aware 🤞 enough people have realized that the NSFW thing was irrelevant that it’s no longer the focus of the conversation (please, please, people, if you need to have that discussion, which is understandable, keep it separate from the conversation about racism. Tying the two together helped no one), and we’re back to trying to address the fact that there are these horribly racist anons targeting BIPOC in the fandom as well as the issues with fan portrayals of characters and relationships.

So. That’s been a thing that’s been happening. I sincerely hope that enough people block the racist anons to completely deprive them of their platform and drive them from the fandom (or to force them off anon so that they can be held accountable), and in the meantime, we have people talking about the issue of fandom racism and how fans can do better. And I’m glad that we seem to be at least approaching a more productive point in the conversation again. God knows that as much as I've tried to educate myself, I still have a lot to learn, and I’d much rather see people able to talk about the issues that actually affect them so that I can reevaluate and improve my own behavior rather than watch people scream back and forth about nothing.

I hope you're doing well too! Aside from the fact that my brain has turned to 90% tapioca pudding after the Big Bang, I'm good, and I'm really glad you're enjoying I&S!

[tog-resources-archive]

Hello fellow fan who has been here since the beginning! I come from the “other side” I suppose, in that I do think the top/bottom discourse is worth talking about. It has to do with the elephant in the room which I haven’t seen anyone touch on – self-identified top!joe fans (in contrast to simply fans who enjoy or prefer content where joe tops). I remember the original top/bottom discourse coming out of a more general conversation about trends in fic (1)

Thank you fan!anon for sending me such a long, detailed message! Never apologize for writing me an essay since I always seem to be writing essays for other people in return lol. Also sorry it took a while to get to! This required a bit of preparation. You’ve given me a lot to respond to. I’m going to be putting the entirety of the ask under the cut and the tl;dr because this one is very, verrrryyyy long. 

Tl;dr- fan!anon talks about the history of top/bottom discourse in TOG and the issues of racism in our fandom. My response: my own feelings on the history of the top/bottom discourse in TOG and the current state of it. General issues I’ve observed in this fandom and the current discourse. Also, we shouldn’t ignore fandom racism, but I don’t think we should be looking at it through the lens of top/bottom, AND I think we should be focusing on misogyny, homophobia, etc. in addition to racism. Not ignore one for the other. 

Bottom line though, don’t harrass people, block people if you need to, focus on what you love, support fan creation and let’s try to be a better fandom. 

Okay, time to dig in!

Hello fellow fan who has been here since the beginning! I come from the “other side” I suppose, in that I do think the top/bottom discourse is worth talking about. It has to do with the elephant in the room which I haven’t seen anyone touch on – self-identified top!joe fans (in contrast to simply fans who enjoy or prefer content where joe tops). I remember the original top/bottom discourse coming out of a more general conversation about trends in fic (1) wherein Joe was more violent, less empathetic, often not religious, more aggressive in sexual scenarios, and also most often topping. People asked the fandom in general to simply consider, if that is how they perceive Joe, to reflect for themselves about implicit biases that could be colouring that interpretation. The self-identified top!joes used that conversation as a starting point to argue that the above interpretation of Joe, (2) and writing/drawing Nicky as smaller, almost twink-like, demure, more feminine (or writing fic where he was de-aged) was justified by canon (if you recall the multi-day argument about the approximately 1 inch height difference between Marwan and Luca) and connecting those ideas to top!joe just “making more sense” to them. In the hands of a good writer (of which we are blessed to have many in this fandom!), which character tops in an explicit fic is of no consequence to me. (3) But the concept of top!joe has, in my mind, become so closely tied with those fans who, a) interpret these characters and actions in a way that seems influenced by racial stereotypes and tropes and b) use that characterization as “justification” for top!joe. All this when I thought we all agreed that position preference has nothing to do with personality? (4) If someone sees Joe as a very masculine, aggressive, dom-type character (which is a bit of a one-note characterization to start, but I digress), that shouldn’t be related to him being a “top”, correct? Yet that is the interpretation and connection that the top!joes themselves make. So that’s why to me, the top/bottom framework continues to have some value, eve though in an ideal world it wouldn’t: (5) because some fans connect what should be a neutral sexual position preference to an interpretation of Joe’s character, an interpretation which I think doesn’t do him justice. I understand if you don’t want to publish this but I’m hesitant to talk off anon due to how heated this whole conversation is. I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make them feel bad about how they are participating in the fandom, but I do think self-reflection in terms of how we engage is valuable. (6) And just to fully reiterate in case it wasn’t clear, my above points are specifically referring to who I think of as “top!joe only” fans as opposed to fans who enjoy or prefer content in which joe tops – only the former of which I am wary of. Anyways, sorry for this long message, and I hope I've been able to explain my reasoning. If we continue to disagree, thanks for reading this anyways and continuing the dialogue. Thank you also for promoting femslash events and content! (7)

So....I did say in a previous post that I’m not a big fan of hearsay, and I’m sorry but… that’s kind of what you’ve given me. A lot of “this is what Top!Joe Only people have said” and “this is what the rest of the fandom has said back.” I have to ask, who are these “Top!Joe Only” people that are on the other side of this fandom war? Who are the people representing the “rest of the fandom”?  The only names I could really come up with myself are the Top!Joe Server mods as top!Joe only fans, and they haven’t exactly been active recently. Not to mention the Top!Joe server mod @karanoidandroid was the focus of the Art Theft and Bullying debacle a while back (here) which even if you disagree with her… that’s not the way you treat people. Full stop. 

But anyway, to break this down, you’ve said that top!joe only fans wanted to interpret Joe in a way that was “more violent, less empathetic, less religious, more sexually aggressive, and topping (most of the time)” and that Nicky is “smaller, more twink-like, more demure and feminine” and that the hardcore top!joe stans are using this interpretation as a reasoning for liking top!joe explicit fics (and for underage fic?)

Er, honestly, I’ll have to disregard the “less religious” comment in this one. Lucyclairedelune has talked about it very eloquently here. As for the rest, let’s say these opinions were expressed on tumblr in July, just when the fandom was getting started. However, after personally going through all the Explicit July fics, I gotta say, the overwhelming majority of writers are focused on romantic Malta sex vacations lol. 

From my personal observations (I started reading fic on ao3 in August), I’ve seen some stories that cater to very… specific tastes (mostly kinkmeme fics so I’m not going to touch that) and some that have…. been written in poor taste perhaps. But, honestly, the majority of fics (aka G, T, M rated) that I’ve seen? I would say that they were written with care and concern for the character’s portrayal. 

Now, some fans (usually older fans) are very focused on “your kink is not my kink” and other fans feel this is an inappropriate way to view “racist, homophobic, islamophobic, etc” fics. And I agree with that. If people are using kink to excuse racism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, misogyny, etc, in fics: Fuck that. But I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding flying around when people react to ‘ykinmk”. This fandom likes to assume the worst of their fellow fans imo, and I honestly don’t think that when a person defends kink that they’re trying to defend racism. They’re trying to defend their kink community which, historically, has been attacked and misunderstood by the purity police. Look into the Livejournal, ffnet, and even the Tumblr purges if you don’t believe me. 

For the record, I don’t know anyone on tumblr personally. We’re all effectively strangers talking to each other on the internet, so I’m not going to make assumptions about people from stories they’ve posted on AO3 or the kinkmeme. If you want to talk about the issues those fics represent, that’s cool, but don’t harass people whose life stories you don’t know (and don’t vagueblog about them). (This is just a general statement, not saying this about you anon! I feel really strongly about this.)

Now you say, “some fans connect what should be a neutral sexual position preference to an interpretation of Joe’s character” and I hate to say it, but there are ALWAYS going to be some people who have awful opinions. Ones that are either truly terrible, or kind of in poor taste, or maybe you just don’t vibe with them. Personally, I don’t have enough time in the day to address every weird thing that a person spews on the internet. I won’t judge if you want to take them on, but, personally, I haven’t seen any recent militant top!joe only posts that are calling for racist portrayals. I see people referring to past conversations, for sure, but again, I can’t do anything with hearsay. 

And honestly, we keep bringing up the top/bottom discourse of early TOG fandom, and we’re just not the same fandom we were then. SO MANY people have left the fandom in that time-- a lot of big name (or simply well known) fans and a lot of MENA fans. Regardless of what “side” you’re on in this, we all lose by focusing on the positions, by dividing everyone by “top” or “bottom” or “switch” fans, and by bringing up what people said in July, or August, or September.  It’s exhausting, especially because I think a lot of people have done exactly what you said. Many authors HAVE self-reflected, they’ve thought about trends, the implications, and are contributing/interacting with the fandom as best as they can. Do I think we should stop focusing on self-reflection? That we should stop being careful about writing potentially damaging portrayals of our favorite characters? NO. Let’s keep at it! Let’s encourage others to do the same… but not with top/bottom discourse.

Let it be known that I don’t think racism is a topic we should disregard to focus on other things. Honestly, I would be happy if people gave some of the energy they have for “top/bottom” discourse to talk about the portrayal of Nile Freeman or Lykon or Copley or Quynh… the other POC representation in TOG that usually gets ignored. You may interpret this as me going “but what about??” and that’s fair. I just think that we talk about Joe ALL THE TIME in this fandom. There is an avalanche of conversation and content for this man (who I love, don’t get me wrong) and it just feels really disingenuous (to me) to talk ad nauseum about racist portrayals of Joe, but then to ignore Nile Freeman and wlw fics when Nile is the rare Black Female Action Protagonist and Andy/Quynh is an extremely rare interracial canon lesbian couple. And I’ve been trying to use my blog here to bring attention to this, think of me what you will because of that. (Again just a general statement anon! Not directed to you XD)

And from what I’ve seen in this fandom (and many others to be fair) is that we care about racism SO MUCH…but only when talking about how a man has sex.  It speaks of a lack of intersectional understanding of these topics, disregarding the misogyny that IS ALSO inherent in fandom, and disregarding the homophobia of overfocusing on the top/bottom dynamics. BUT I’m not asking you to ignore racism; all I’m asking is for you to focus on the other issues too. 

Bottom line though… the discourse is not what it once was.  A lot of people, on whatever side, have left the fandom, or have taken a break, or are vocally tired of “top/bottom” discourse. Personally, I think we should talk about racism… but not through the lens of explicit mlm fic sex positions. Let’s talk more about race, gender, sex and sexual orientation, but not in a way that divides the fandom, in a way that makes people sick of being here, in a way that kills our content creator’s passion. Honestly, I think it can be done! But only if we work toward that goal together. 

I would like to focus on encouraging events in our community, such as the ongoing Old Guard Big Bang 2021 event and the upcoming Femslash Fortnight Spring Solstice Edition event. If anyone is organizing other events, let me know and I’ll hype you up! But as for the rest, I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired. Let’s try and work harder to be a kinder, more inclusive fandom in the future, for everyone’s sake. 

[fragilehuge]

Erik & T’Challa thoughts below the cut that I word vomited last night in a Pillowfort comment (I meant to write the first paragraph only, but then all subsequent paragraphs just fell out). I just have so many feelings dear god when will I be able to talk about this movie with people.

Obviously, Black Panther spoilers! So many spoilers! Don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie!!

I feel like, if you could discount fandom racism, we’d get about a million fix-it fics where Erik (/N'Jadaka?) is saved/rehabilitated/whatever (and probably this happens through kissing T'Challa…. Obviously.) I don’t know if this will HAPPEN, because we obviously can’t discount fandom racism? So I’m definitely wondering how many people will write BP-centric fic. (I think T'Challa will probably get thrown into AUs, but will people write him as a main character, or as a side character? I think that will be telling.)

But ANYWAY - I was SO heartbroken through the whole ending fight scene and Erik’s death because I KNEW, OF COURSE, that he couldn’t succeed, and that T'Challa was going to win, because the narrative had been set up in such a way that I couldn’t see a way out of it. (And GOD, I loved that that was actually REFERENCED in the text of the movie?? Like T'Challa doesn’t want it to be the way it is, and he starts to say maybe they can heal Erik and work something out, and Erik just comes back with… So you can lock me up? Because he’s killed Zuri, he nearly started a civil war between W'kabi’s tribe and the Dora Milaje, HE TRIED TO OVERTHROW T'CHALLA HIMSELF. Like, a king can do a lot, but he can’t pardon the guy who overthrew him?)

BUT I REALLY WISHED HE COULD. And Chadwick Boseman was so good in that moment, and I could just feel how much T'Challa wished things could be different. But they weren’t. And then you get Erik’s last line and my HEART BROKE because… of course that’s how he felt, how else could he have felt?? He’d stopped thinking of his own life as valuable years ago; he’d made himself a tool to accomplish what he knew was right, and once he’d failed… well. He failed. He’d built his whole life around this dichotomy that he could either free himself in one specific way (a glorious revolution – where he could finally hurt all of the people who had hurt him, free himself from the pain he grew up with, and stop it from happening to anyone else ever again), or… he’d fail, nothing would change, the world would stay exactly the same, and he’d be trapped with his pain and failure forever. Of course he couldn’t live with that scenario.

It was just. So good. Because the whole movie I’m like, of course Erik believed what he did, and did what he did. And T'Challa’s journey through the movie is really coming around to see the validity of Erik’s arguments. (Not his tactics, obviously.) But T'Challa begins the movie so sure that his father was right and Wakanda needs to stay isolated from the rest of the world, that that’s the best solution – he argues with Nakia about it!!  And then by the end of the movie he’s having the press conference. It’s because of his interactions with Erik that he changes his mind (not his conversations with Nakia!! Though of course I’m sure her arguments have an impact on him. Also–side note–Nakia’s arc is so interesting too sdlkjsd but that’s a whole ‘nother conversation and I think I need to watch the movie a second time to really evaluate it coherently).

But anyway. T'Challa’s arc. That third spirit world sequence. Where he tells his father he was wrong to abandon Erik as a child, that he was wrong to keep the truth about his brother a secret just because he didn’t want to risk losing everything if it all came to light. Just like he was wrong to keep Wakanda a secret… because he didn’t want to risk losing everything if it all came to light. AHH. THESE PARALLELS. I just. *yells* And I felt so VINDICATED for Erik when T'Challa had that moment! But of course… Erik never gets to really experience that moment? Like, he doesn’t know how profoundly he’s impacted T'Challa’s perspective, and he doesn’t know that maybe things CAN change (in a different way than he imagined). Like, Erik thinks this really bloody revolution where he’ll “finally be on top” will fix things, but of course he’s just trying to institute a new hierarchy where he isn’t powerless anymore (and like. Yeah. Of course he has that fantasy. It’s completely relatable.) But there’s no room within the movie for Erik to see that change can happen in other ways. And like of course one outreach center in Oakland isn’t going to fix the entire world, it’s not like Erik’s dreams have been realized by the end of the movie, but that outreach center is something, and I think the movie definitely posits that it’s a really meaningful/hopeful outcome… a kind of first step toward accomplishing some of the goals Erik died for (regardless of any real-world arguments about what someone would actually have to do to accomplish meaningful global change.)

But anyway. This is a really long ramble but my MAIN POINT IS, I understand why Erik’s arc played out exactly the way it did in the movie, and I loved it, and it broke my heart, and I would not change a thing. HOWEVER. IF I WERE TO WRITE A FANFICTION. I would fix it and let Erik live a long and happy life. Obviously. (Like, I just keep thinking… what if he could somehow come around to believing in different methods to achieve his goals…? What if T'Challa could time travel and FORCE HIS DAD NOT TO LEAVE ERIK THERE…?? What if instead of T'Challa getting thrown off the waterfall, Erik and T'Challa both fell off TOGETHER and then had to talk it out while they hiked back to civilization and maybe they fall in love along the way, who knows? What if what if what if.)

edit: two additional thoughts for those two aus:

Time Travel au: T’Challa comes back after making his dad go back for Erik, and it’s the first scene of the movie with Shuri and his mom before the coronation, except he and Erik have apparently been LIFE-LONG BEST FRIENDS, because Erik is THERE, sMILING, SAYING HOW PROUD OF HE IS, and T’Challa is like, “Erik????”  to which Erik replies, “…Who’s Erik?” (Because of course in this situation he’d go by N'Jadaka AHHHh). Also, it’s apparent that N’Jadaka doesn’t know the truth about this father–he thinks his father was killed by police in Oakland, and he’s grown up believing that T’Chaka RESCUED HIM. His politics are similar (but not as extreme) in the face of these changes to his background… and T’Challa has to wrestle with telling him the truth without ruining everything and having it all turn out exactly like before. I think N’Jadaka would still challenge T’Challa during the coronation (motivated by his grief and pain and his belief that T’Challa knew the truth for YEARS without saying anything–because T’Chaka is dead, and Zuri swears to N’Jadaka that he never told T’Challa the truth, so the only reasonable answer is T’Chaka confided in T’Challa while he was still alive. Augh!)

And my idea for the water fall au is just that they’re both pretty injured when they hit the bottom, but T’Challa breaks his leg. And Erik is going to kill him, but it feels too gross and weird to kill someone who’s incapacitated like T’Challa is, so then Erik is like, “WELL I’LL JUST LEAVE HIM TO FREEZE TO DEATH.” And he almost does. And he gets like 30 minutes away and then he yells into the icy tundra and turns around and stomps back and puts T’Challa on a sling and starts dragging him back to safety. Once they’re back and T’Challa’s leg is healed, he’s GOING to kill him and take the thrown, okay? He is. But if he just leaves T’Challa there, maybe people will question if he’s really dead? And if T’Challa dies along the way, fine, Erik will show everyone the body and then he’ll be made king. Win-win. (Maybe this is more believable if Erik is the one who is incapacitated and T’Challa saves him? But I also feel like if you want to rehabilitate murderer-of-many-people-Erik-Killmonger he needs to decide not to murder T’Challa at some point, lol.)

eta: just forget they’re cousins lmao -___- anyway that’s a movie!verse change and not comics canon so i’m ignoring it GOODBYE