#sg fandom has always been racist my mehcad

[trashyeggroll]

Please explain appeal of Danolsen to me cuz I honestly don't get it! My blocks for shipping it currently - it feels like a make up for Kara/Jimmy being broken up so fast not an organic pairing. There's no filler to their relationship it's all just cute looks this season. Kelly in S5 feels like she could be replaced with extra of the week & nothing would change sadly. So why should I ship Danolsen 2.0 when I could just rewatch Sanvers stuff or another show?

Ok ok ok wait, parameters here. What are the terms of the discussion?

filler vs cute looks: usually I would use the word filler to describe vapid or irrelevant content (“empty calories”); in the context of your message, I think you mean substantive storylines vs the cutesy moments?

Danolsen vs Dansen: just so I don’t confuse myself, if I say Danolsen it’s Kara/James and Dansen is Alex/Kelly

Some overhead disclaimers from me:

1. While Dansen and ThunderGrace are often used as examples of white wlw rejecting wlwoc, we’re talking about an entire media landscape and the experience of being in wlw fandom spaces online, whether this hellsite or AO3 or whatever.

There are a lot more ships of varying degrees of development/duration involving women of color out there, across networks. All American has Coop/Patience. I hear Annalise Keating’s storyline is all unfolding around her wlw identity in How to Get Away with Murder. Proven Innocent made me cry with the romance between Madeline and Wren. Charmed has had like four or five romantic interests for Mel Vera. Freya and Keelin got fckn married in The Originals, and they’re still married in the sequel spinoff.

And if you spend enough time looking for wlw content around this site, you’ll see that white wlw are watching whole series and movies even the single gifset of wlw content… but it’s never these couples. “This fandom” and “that fandom”, whatever—but it’s almost never interracial couples or wlwoc. Why? Why do people spend the time writing whole apologisms for Gentleman Jack and the predatory behavior of Anne Lister, but they “just don’t see it” for healthy relationships? Why is it more appealing to watch fascist propaganda ruining the lore of witches, cheering on the love of someone who isn’t even aware that the person she loves is part of a massive campaign to force people to die by suicide en masse?

And we see when media rises and passes from blog to blog, too. Word of mouth is absolutely a thing, even here on the ol’ tumblr, so we see how a single kiss from a series circulates like wildfire and a whole gifset of ThunderGrace gets no notes—over and over and over and ov

2. Whenever this topic pops off in the Discourse, almost without fail, and a white wlw reacts to the above questions, it’s about “chemistry” or an adjacent concept. Again, this isn’t about one single ship—it’s about black women and nonblack poc being told their ships just have “no spark” over and over and over and ov

3. While there is logic to comparing ships in terms of quality, duration, and volume of content in order to assess who reasonably or “rightfully” gets more attention or dedication, that’s all just subjective and honestly sounds like bull to me. See #1.

4. Unless you’re a Trump voter, you’re most likely reading these posts and going, but I’m not racist, and I’m only one person. It’s easy to say. But we are all a product of a racist, xenophobic system, and at the end of the day, you can do what you want, watch what you want, but if you get defensive about these indirect callouts… It’s up to you to put words to why that is.

Ok, parameters set, now I’ll get to SG—

Making up for Danolsen: Honestly I highly doubt that that’s what the writers were trying to do—it’s an entirely different couple? Unless the implication is that they’re trying to treat an interracial couple better, which… is a good thing? I’m of the mind that SG added Azie because the cast would be almost entirely white once Mehcad left. Remember, Kelly Olsen was not introduced as a love interest for Alex, but the actresses thought their chemistry was too good, and they asked for it, which I thought… is exactly what we want from shows. I think the fact that she’s James’ sister is arbitrary, just a means to plug her into the story, and they’ve been winging it since then.

Dansen content in season five: I guess there are multiple elements to this, but for the “no filler” bit—the question is what kind of filler you want. They had lots of romantic moments early in the season, and then continued to be happy and in love. So is the content you want relationship drama or storylines that cut closer to the core of each episode? Because when I go back and look at Sanvers, there was a lot of pain and struggle in that relationship, which is sometimes how they go until people get their bearings, but ya’ll… It doesn’t have to be that way. There was Kelly’s PTSD moment and subsequent breakup with Alex, but they resolved that in one episode and… that’s a good thing, too. They talk about things, openly and truthfully, without shame or strife, and that’s what a good relationship should look like, whether it’s wlw or any other variation.

Like I get that the meat and potatoes of TV romance has always been friction. No story without conflict, right? But I worry that the insistence that Sanvers had so much more chemistry is largely based on the sharp rises and falls, which yeah produce lots of emotions and stirring words and speeches with clauses that you can print on a shirt, but that type of relationship will always burn out, or burn you out, if you don’t figure out how to prevent it from getting to that point.

So what I’m saying is, see #2. Nobody has to do anything or support anyone, but there’s no absolute truth to interpretation of a relationship. I’m sure I am preferential to Dansen over non-canon ships like SuperCorp because I’m old and married and I move through the world as a team with my badass wife, and that’s what I see for them. Kelly brought Alex her lunch and Alex practically squealed with delight even though they definitely woke up in the same bed a little while earlier.

And what’s confusing to me too is, you don’t have to stop shipping Sanvers? That relationship existed, the content is there, the storyline was ended with a padlock? (Folks: Please do not ever stay with someone hoping they will change their mind about having kids) But you can also look at how happy your fave is with her new girl and see it for them? Maybe kudos some fics, reblog a couple gifsets, not tweet about them lacking chemistry?

At the end of the day, a tension here is that the big picture makes fandom spaces feel hostile and dismissive towards fans of color, especially black women. How is someone supposed to feel when they finally have a complex, long lasting wlwoc relationship in front of them, and it’s constantly degraded for “chemistry” reasons while all the white ships, even ones with zero canon content, float to the top and get all the art and content that we are all here to enjoy? The whole issue is that fandom and culture are, and have always been, lenses into society and people’s worlds. It’s a question of empathy and openness and accountability, and it’s not just about one ship versus another.

[valeriemperez]

Hi Tatiana!!!! I haven't asked for a flash related gifset in forever but 4x02 resurected petty barry and petty barry is my son lmfao. would u mind giffing all the time barry was petty towards eddie/w*sthawne while eddie was alive and as a bonus add barry being petty in 4x02 😂😂😂 mind u i never hated eddie, but just like barry i never cared about him. he served his purpose🙄

An attempt was made!

Okay so how was Felicity acting in S4? cause I’ve seen some people say “I hope Iris doesn’t become the Felicity of the Flash” what does that even mean?

It means they hope Iris doesn’t get more screen time or speak her mind, because they can’t stand when a woman is important to a superhero narrative in a way they can’t ignore.

(Also, even though they want Barry and Iris to break up so that she won’t matter anymore, they don’t want it to happen in a “dramatic” way that makes Barry still think and care about her because that defeats the purpose of making women irrelevant.)

After reading all the comments it becomes very apparent why so many fanboys are losing their minds. I think a good chunk of it is them hating the idea the male lead recognizes he hurt someone then corrects his actions and behavior accordingly…but they want to think Barry can do no wrong and certainly wouldn’t change himself for a woman. Second the idea that Barry needs love and support from Iris to be the Flash…when they rather Barry not need Iris to be The Flash ½When you realize whats happening it becomes clear that a lot of them are extremely childish, unable to emotionally sympathize, and hate the idea of a woman speaking her feelings and asserting themselves. We can’t reason with these people and we certainly are not going to change their minds. I’ve learned to shut them out a long time ago and if any of your followers are feeling stressed about all this I suggest they do the same 2/2

That is correct. They idolize Barry, but in the way where they think he has internalized their POV instead of them internalizing his. They can’t actually see things from his perspective, because that would require being mature, considerate and not bigoted.

I totally agree, though. If it stresses you out to see Iris hate, you gotta just block. Let those who have fun doing battle, or who want to try and fail to educate, handle the schoolyard bullies.

The thing is racist fanboys will always find something on the show to shit about. This reminds me an awful lot of 3A when Cisco spent 5-6 episodes being mad at Barry over flashpoint and being the cause of his brother’s death. The amount of hate and negativity Cisco got was mind blowing. So many of these so-called “fans” turned on him the minute Cisco felt anger towards Barry. Sadly Iris is their main target. All we can do is love and support CP because I doubt they’re going to stop being racist.

I do think a good portion of this hate will quiet down next week. Without the same group that always hates her will continue to be loud a**holes but I think by 403-404 it won’t be as intense. For better or for worse Iris wasn’t just for the focus of 401/402 but the writers made her the main source of conflict in the episodes. I know they aren’t trying to do her dirty but its a lot for two episodes in a row. I think keeping Iris the focus but not the source of conflict will ease things up.

I hope so for everyone’s sake, and that’s why I’m looking forward to tweeting Iris Best (shameless plug!) on Tuesday, so that we can focus on the positive and ignore the dudebros and white feminists.

It seems like all the dctv fandoms are especially messy lately. SG fans have been sending enough hate to Chyler & Caity because of the Sara/Alex storyline in crossover that they actually made a video where they had to remind people that they had nothing to do with the writing on the show. And then there’s the people sending Mehcad hate (some of it racist) because of the potential James/Lena relationship.

I’ve been seeing it and, man, is it all ugly.

Yeah, I definitely think it’s worth noting that (most) casual viewers watch the show as it is and have no idea about the conspiracy theories, crack ships or OTT Iris hatred from a relatively small but loud group of fans. I was a casual fan in S1 and when I did become aware of the fandom sometime in the middle of S2 I was surprised and confused to find out there had been so much vitriol directed at Iris. I had no clue. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for most casual fans.

Casual fans certainly tend to have less OTT opinions that haven’t been cultivated over a long time with like-minded angry fans lol.

I have taken many breaks from the Flash fandom due to how disgusting it is. I only come back to support the queens, Iris and CP and Westallen. But I’m going to do what I’ve been doing: Watch the episodes with social media off. I find myself to be very happy when I do.

Taking breaks is good and watching in a way you enjoy is even better! Glad you defend Candice, though. :)

[edelgay]

The problem is not so much that the supercorp shippers are worse then karamel and etc but how SC shippers treats its toxic members. The person that did this to Melissa has over 5k followers. Many blogs who said horribly racist thing to Mehhcad and David and made death threats still have hundreds of followers . One of the most toxic bloggers on this side Redkrypto is one of the most famous SC blogs and so on. Toxic fans are not only tolerated but celebrated so the whole fandom gets a bad rep

Yeah cliques tends to do that. I remember the bellarkes and the clexas it was...intense. But the thing with close squads like that is that they always end up blowing up from the inside. Thats why i stay in my bubble with the content i enjoy. Follow some good shitposter there and there. Sometimes the wrong ones. But ships shouldnt suffer because the fandoms are asshole. Ships should suffer only if they are a shitty ass ship. (racism is prevalent in every part of the sg fandom, with people defending floriana voluntary brownfacing and preventing me from enjoying sanvers and karamels and supercorps being racist towards mehcad who is himself quite racist, appropriating natives culture and calling himself g*psy all the time) it's a mess. I do agree we live in a time where actors are afraid of talking because damn twitter work fast. But its also hard to know what actors really mean and what they are supposed to sell except for a select few who dont play the game like caity lotz or eliza taylor and i like to think chyler leigh. Im sure with Katie around she will unwound and say what she wants to say ( we know katie does) im starting to sound like tumblr hive mind so yeah i agree with you that a lign has been breach for some tume already between fans and actors and i cant help but wonder : who enabled it ?