#so i'm not centering white women in fandom

[on-wine-dark-seas]

Gonna vent for a bit here because...

...looking at my AO3 stats over time [from 2013 to now] and lol

lmao

One of the things I find most annoying is how I get hyped up comments long after I've chosen to abandon a fic or fandom because where was this energy when I was publishing them in real time?

Do y'all see how your refusal to respond to fics in a tangible and visible way kills a writer's momentum and motivation? I am never finishing that Black Panther fic btw. Mostly because I don't care about the MCU anymore.

Nor will I ever write Dragon Age or Mass Effect fic ever again. That fandom is ass and treated me like dogshit for no reason other than being Black and loud about it. And instead of leaving nice comments on my fics, I had to turn on comment moderation because mfs were leaving hateful screeds on my fics instead.

So any fics that are unfinished for those fandoms will remain so. I don't see the point in continuing to publish fic if no one is fucking with it like that, and it's why I've no qualms about cancelling and deleting fics when I get no response. And every time I see posts calling for folks to respond to fic in some tangible way aside from a like/kudos it's always:

"But I never know what to say~!"

You do, you're just scared to fucking say it. The thought of attaching your username and thoughts to a fic that might have some questionable tags and elements scares the piss out of you so you use secret bookmarks and sit in silence instead, leaving authors like me to wonder if folks ever even actually liked our shit. Or the other side: you're afraid to like the fic because the author has a "reputation" or whatever nonsense.

The gag is: I allow guests AND registered users to comment and I even have comment moderation on to slow you down so you can really think about what you're saying when you leave a review. You don't even have to use your registered user name to comment!

I leave comments when I can, and I try to make them long and thoughtful because I genuinely want to engage with what I'm reading and show the writer that I am paying attention, I am following along, and I do fuck with their vision. Seriously, go through my #fic rec tag and find the gems I've found. Because that's how I found a LOT of the fics I enjoy and recommend: by people SHARING THEM AND RECOMMENDING THEM.

I seriously don't want any messages asking me why this fic or that fic got deleted or isn't getting finished when my stats look like trash in fandoms that are supposedly active and seeking good writing and stories to read.

Because it is good writing. Fuck. I'm putting my heart and soul into these imaginative stories but y'all are fiending for the same copypasta fast-fashion smut posts instead. And quiet as it's kept, I wouldn't be surprised if most of that tripe was partially if not entirely written by AI. Seriously, it's frustrating.

[wlwmedarda]

I'm honestly just looking to rant and this might be long depending on how fast I get irritated the more I type so if this isn't coherent or well written I apologize in advance. Since it looks like Ambessa will take on a more antagonistic role in arcane season two, I would like to unpack the fandom's antiblackness that you guys are either blind to or aware and too pussy to call it out as my gut is telling me it's gonna increase and if no one is gonna start the difficult conversation then I sure as hell will.

Sevika:

Mel:

Starting off strong with the definition of "you guys want complex female characters but can't even handle her". Mel Medarda is in quite the predicament seeing how she's morally grey, a black woman, AND "gets in the way" of a mlm ship so she was kinda screwed from the start. A cunning politician disowned for her pacifism who acts as a sort of bridge to Noxus' slow introduction, and is THE ONLY CHARACTER IN THE SEASON 1 MAIN CAST SPECIFICALLY CREATED FOR THE SHOW. She's treated like satan incarnate or a Jezebel (highly suggest looking into that if you don't know what that is), GOOD character analysis is rare, and when she is talked about positively, it's so often chalked up to appearances that I'd rather yall not talk about her at all. Oh you love Mel? Then can we talk about her relationship with her mother? Unpack her dynamic with Jayce? Maybe more fanworks centered around her? I've seen yall's fake asses dropping the shittiest fucking takes about her only to turn around and gush over how pretty she is, and yall think you're slick about it and you're not. I would say I prefer the ones who are loud and proud about their hatred but that'd be a lie, they're two cheeks on the same ass; annoying and couldn't give a decent break down of her character if a gun was pointed at they head even she's perfect to dissect. I could talk about her more but we'd be here all day and so many black women even from outside the fanbase have already talked about yall so there's no need for me to add on 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️.

Quick question, have you guys ever tried to talk about her in a non sexual way? Yes, Sevika is undeniably sexy and you could argue that true stans of hers talk about her outside of horny time, but a good half of the fandom is a different story. In a similar case to Mel's, deep dives into her character are rare to find which is crazy when she acts as Zaun's own "kingmaker". She's loyal to her city and the cause, never to a specific person and will not hesitate to betray you. She could be your right hand man one day, and the next she might find a better kingpin to follow and stab you in the back like it all meant nothing. "Were you tempted?" "Not for a worm like him". Simple and subtle and probably my favorite Sevika scene; she comes to realize Silco is no longer the best leader for Zaun, but he's as good as it gets for now and so she sticks by him. I remember a YouTube comment breaking down how she's essentially the quintessential Zaun: a brute warrior molded by her environment, who defied Vander's peaceful ways and embraced Silco's cruelty. Her mindset and goal is interesting and you'd think it'd result in some fascinating meta or exploration of her upbringing when we got a hint that she potentially has some daddy issues right? Obviously, but what do we get instead? White sapphics treating her like nothing more than a sexual object. How delightful!

Ekko:

This might partially be Riot's fault because — and I hate to sound like a league lore nerd — Ekko is quite underdeveloped compared to the richer origins of his former pre arcane self, but I'm gonna hold off on that till the season finale to see how they handle him. Anyways, at this point the fandom clearly sees him as Jinx's trophy husband. When you talk about him, she is brought into the convo 90% of the time. That's exactly why I prefer black timebomb shippers over the nonblack ones because I trust they actually love Ekko as a character on his own. Even though I have my complaints regarding how's been written so far, I still know he's too good to be reduced to Jinx's loverboy. He fights and cares for his city, the only character that you can confidently say is pure of heart, and is the revolutionary leader Zaun really needs. He's just as smart as Jinx too, he is literally going to create TIME TRAVEL. Why does no one wanna talk about that? Can we be excited for his character development and arc not just for the timebomb scenes you'll get out of it?

Ambessa:

Can't even deny this woman is awful but her presence on screen enthralled me after a couple of rewatches and I also love bad mothers in media so I've settled on a love/hate relationship. Yes, she's definitely gonna have some influence on Caitlyn, which makes sense since she has now lost her mother; she's vulnerable and as we have seen, naive. She's practically free real estate for Ambessa. My recent worry though has been how the fandom seems to be willing to put all of Caitlyn's actions on her as if Cait isn't a grown ass woman who can make her own decisions. Of course being grown doesn't mean you're immune to manipulation, but I've seen some Silco and Jinx comparisons and it is NOT the same. Mind you we haven't even seen the first three episodes; we don't know how far Ambessa's manipulation is going to go and we can't really tell what the dynamic is gonna be like based off of clips and trailers that are likely shown out of context on purpose to throw people off. I'll never defend her actions, hell I'll join in on the lashings, but my black ass is also not gonna sit here and let yall talk about her weirdly or pin all of this on her.

Some might say I'm overthinking this, but I've been here since November 2021 and have sat back and observed for 2 years. You don't have to write deep, philosophical conversations 24/7, I'm sure it's not all in bad faith and I won't act like I don't thirst over Sevika or marvel at Mel's beauty. I'm not saying you have to like these characters and that you're racist if you don't. My frustration comes from the lack of nuanced conversations and hypocritical opinions surrounding black characters in this show. When you try to say something about this, you're hit with excuses; it reminds me of how man obsessed fujoshis act when they're questioned for not giving two fucks about female characters. They're either reduced to one character trait, only admired for their looks, or only discussed when it's about the white character they're connected to. Do NOT under ANY circumstance be black and morally ambiguous, you WILL be held to higher moral standards than everyone's wittle blorbos who can do wrong and are defended from all sides when you dare to take the rose colored stan glasses off and criticize them. What's really ridiculous is you hear the "complex characters" bullshit every two to three business days and some of you have the nerve to boast about this series being diverse while simultaneously ignoring the complexities in the characters of color. This is the main reason I took a step back and with season two around the corner I thought "Hey, maybe it'll be better this time!" and it was a mistake. Good to know yall still have an underlying racism problem you don't wanna address but with some extra classism thrown in. "What will we do once Arcane ends?" hopefully get a job, touch some grass, and reflect. Lord knows yall need it. The faster yall sizzle out the better. I'm done that's all I have to say lol goodnight 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽.

[nekrotiize]

It's a controversial take because everyone's stupid but I'm never going to stop calling fandom + shipping culture homophobic. Fandoms are consistently extremely homophobic, and shipping culture is consistently even more homophobic.

Yes, the way fandoms center men so religiously is obviously misogynistic. The only people who deny that are themselves misogynists. But the aggressive centering of men and the resultant fixation on male/male dynamics lends to this slimy coating of homophobia that nobody talks about. The misogyny is an issue, clearly. But gay men are, to most people in fandom, toys. We are sex objects to coo over. It's intensely voyeuristic. Every god damn interaction is scrutinized to hell and back, and the second a man shows any kind of emotional connection with another man, it gets pounced on, and he gets thrown into a mill that flattens him down to one of three deeply heterosexual yaoi tropes that are fandom's only way of processing the existence of gay men.

It doesn't even matter what that man is. A disconcerting amount of time, people will start fawning over the idea of literal rapists being gay with zero critical thought applied. As if gay men being painted as and assumed to be sexual predators isn't a method that's been historically used to literally legally murder us. (What the fuck do people think "Gay Panic" means, even?)

Gay men aren't given the ability to be human beings in fandom. We're not afforded nuance. We're accessories, we are constantly objectified, and no one ever takes the time to consider that we have cultures, and that we are real human beings. We keep getting shoved into the most heterosexual boxes physically possible for the easy digestibility of people who do not want to see us as human beings. Semes- sorry, I mean Tops are the taller, older, more masculine, capable men of the relationship. Ukes- oops, sorry again, I mean Bottoms are the smaller, younger, more feminine, and totally useless women of the relationship. It's painfully yaoi. Gay men in fandom are never given the opportunity to be regular men, because people are too busy turning everything into homophobic, misogynistic fetish porn of our existence to be normal for five seconds.

There's something comedic about how many people in fandom want to say they're progressive, accepting. Safe. How fandom is welcoming of everyone. Look, we've made all this representation! And every time, gay men are sex objects, the women are scapegoated to hell and back, the headcanoned trans men are always skinny white softboys not a single day over 21 maximum, lesbianism is maybe acknowledged 0.5% of the time and largely for brownie points, bisexuals are across the board made out to be overtly horny and often sexually aggressive, fans of color are harassed out of the community left and right, anyone on the aro/ace spectrums is called a freak and a killjoy for not participating in shipping, characters on the aro/ace spectrums are heavily included in shipping content with the excuse of "aros/aces can date/have sex like normal people, too!" with zero regard for what our love looks like, and there isn't a single accepted trans woman headcanon to be seen.

Fandoms are circuses full of dirty little liars with cotton stuffed in their ears and Shipping Culture is a disease.

And if you criticize either of them, the most annoying white liberals you've ever seen will start clutching their pearls because how dare you criticize something that's free?! Don't you know a lack of price point immediately negates any criticism?! Just laughable.

[utilitycaster]

Whenever people are like "well LIAM'S characters never faced any backlash when HE played characters in the spotlight" and "no one will let WOMEN have negative qualities" when Caleb and Vax and Orym have received pretty constant hate for main character/sadboy/scene stealing and when meta writers outright stopped talking about Imogen because a particularly mindless set of hit dogs are still hollering about how she is so good and kind and how dare you call her selfish, it's really like...in the service of trying to make your failure of a point you've just said something that literally anyone with a memory lasting longer than the apocryphal goldfish length can immediately debunk, which in turn absolutely shreds your credibility going forward, if you had it.

More generally there's something very vile here, because on the surface this statement does look like an attempt, if one ignorant of pretty much any fandom conversation, to defend women. The thing is it's come from a place of defending Dorian and Ashton's plan - a man, and a nb person who would not identify as a woman - that requires a particularly great deal of sacrifice from the women of the party. So of course they just switch tactics. Instead of "how dare the fandom not think women are always best" it's "how dare the fandom disrespect a disabled nb person and a person played by an indigenous actor." And I'm sure they'll switch again. Because pretty much every character in this campaign is on some axis of oppression, and there's a few people in this fandom who, instead of considering these things as important details that inform these characters, seem to largely treat their minority statuses as ammunition. Feminism and antiracism and queer advocacy are all just part of a shell game to them - accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being a bigot, say that their opinions are inviolate because they match that of literally any character who isn't a cis het white man, of which Bells Hells has none. Unsurprisingly, it's that social media purity culture that's just the evangelical church with a gay hat: they are always the victim, and everyone who disagrees is the devil, and being a good person always happens to line up with what you already wanted.

There are several posts from the past day or so accusing people of liking Campaign 3 less than the two previous ones which refused to accept that this might be due to the hurry-up-and-receive-an-infodump pacing, the singular focus without much time spent on backstory, the gaps in party composition, and the fact that the plot manages to combine the weakest elements of each campaign - the fetch quest/NPC guidance heavy nature of C1, and the meandering/slow start of C2. No, it must be the awful, sinful fandom unable to handle the lack of a major M/M ship (false; Dorian and Orym aren't canon, but neither were Vax and Gilmore, and the latter was sunk far sooner) and the fact that a female character is at the center of the story (see above re: how hostile the same people making these accusations have been to anyone who actually wants to discuss Imogen in a way that doesn't fit their specifications). Just to repeat this: many fans have outlined a number of purely narrative and structural reasons why C3 isn't working for them. These people have assumed this is all a lie, because assuming otherwise that would require either addressing these critiques, which in turn would require admitting other people can have valid opinions that oppose their own without being horrible bigots - in favor of throwing out whatever random accusations they think might stick. It doesn't matter what's actually being said; they're not actually listening, and for all they might talk about fans of color they sure all seem to be white; for all they talk about misogyny and queerphobia they sure won't hesitate to immediately assume the worst of queer people and women who say things they don't like. And rarely do they address any of the actual ongoing bigotry that does exist in the fandom; it's all random accusations because you agreed with the white woman instead of the brown man or vice versa; or it's the constant dredging of years past discourse that, as the first paragraph indicates, they will then ignore whenever convenient.

These are all pretty transparent signs of a bad faith actor spreading misinformation. To be clear I don't think this is any kind of conspiracy or has any organization to it. I think it's a just handful of deeply self-absorbed people who either refuse or literally cannot comprehend that someone could disagree with them without being a bad person and who will gleefully cry wolf with these accusations of bigotry. But it's been going on for quite some time and it's been a problem this campaign in a way I at least do not recall it in past ones, and it's had an absolutely devastating effect on the fandom conversation. Ironically, by trying to boost Imogen and Campaign 3 by shutting down any criticism of them, they've shut down far more of the conversation, hopefully not irreversibly, and I think it's time to point that out.

[dipplinduo]

Hey!

So here's the thing: I love and am so grateful for this platform - for all of you who follow me, read my stories, and share a collective love for all things dipplinshipping, mintteashipping, and pokemon fandom alike. A primary focus of my account, in fact, is alllllll about fortifying a happy little escape zone where we can all be happy and have fun together.

This post is a rare "not about that" post. I'm gonna keep my personal feelings on this pretty brief, but here's the thing: I've been fucking livid. For awhile. I'm angry and disappointed with world leaders and people in power. And as an American, I'm feeling a lot around our government: its egregiously wealthy stakeholders - who wildly abuse their influence for self-gain - and the corruption that is a hate-motivated, white supremacist, capitalistic agenda. If you live in the US, or even anywhere else, I can promise you this: Your existence and presence is always valid, and is not defined by an executive order. If you follow me or watch my posts from time-to-time, I hope that you can continue to find a positive escape with what I promote here. And I hope you know how much you are loved and valued. Genuinely. Please know these are some free, 24/7 resources avaliable, too: General: National Crisis Line - Call 988 OR: chat at 988lifeline.org* - *Inclusive services for individuals who are deaf/hard of hearing Crisis Text Line - Text "HELLO" to 741741 Free 24/7 crisis support via text for anyone in need. Resources For The LGBTQIA+ Community: Trans Lifeline - translifeline.org Hotline: 877-565-8860 (run by trans people for trans people)

National Center for Transgender Equality - transequality.org Resources on legal rights, ID document changes, and advocacy for transgender individuals.

PFLAG - pflag.org Support groups, crisis intervention, advocacy, and educational resources for LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies.

Sylvia Rivera Law Project - srlp.org Legal aid and advocacy for low-income trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals.

The Trevor Project - thetrevorproject.org

24/7 crisis counselling for LGBTQIA+ Youth (ages 13-24)

Resources For People of Color:

EmbraceRace - embracerace.org Provides resources for people of color, particularly families, to cope with racial trauma and political stress in culturally affirming ways. The Steve Fund - stevefund.org Mental health resources for young people of color LatinoJustice PRLDEF - latinojustice.org Provides legal advocacy and community education for Latinx individuals on voting rights, immigration, and civil rights. Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) - nativefinance.org Financial services, resources, and advocacy for Indigenous communities. The Loveland Foundation - thelovelandfoundation.org Offers free or discounted therapy for Black women and girls. Asian Mental Health Collective - asianmhc.org Mental health resources for Asian and Pacific Islander communities Inclusive Therapists - inclusivetherapists.com A therapist directory that centers the needs of marginalized populations

Resources For Immigrants and Undocumented Individuals: Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) - ilrc.org Provides legal resources and training for immigrants and their advocates.

National Immigration Law Center (NILC) - nilc.org Advocacy for the rights of low-income immigrants.

RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) - raicestexas.org Offers free or low-cost legal services for immigrants and refugees.

Border Angels - borderangels.org Supports undocumented individuals with immigration services and humanitarian aid. Resources Around Abortion: ReproCare Healthline - reprocare.com Hotline: Text "CARE" to 707-827-2273 Emotional support, information, and logistical assistance for people managing abortion care. Access Reproductive Care (ARC) Southeast - arc-southeast.org Provides funding and support for abortion access in the Southeastern U.S., including transportation and lodging assistance. Aid Access - aidaccess.org Telemedicine consultations and abortion pills access by mail for people who face barriers to in-person care. Center for Reproductive Rights - reproductiverights.org Litigates cases to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights worldwide. Advocacy and Involvement Resources: Alliance for Justice - afj.org Join campaigns focused on protecting civil rights, access to justice, and equity for marginalized communities. Center for Popular Democracy - populardemocracy.org Supports marginalized communities through campaigns on racial and economic justice, immigration reform, and healthcare. Human Rights Campaign (HRC) - hrc.org Opportunities to volunteer, participate in advocacy campaigns, and fight for LGBTQIA+ rights through events and local organizing. National Immigration Law Center (NILC) - nilc.org Advocate for policies supporting immigrants, including DACA, workplace protections, and healthcare access. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) - edf.org

Advocate for climate change response initiatives via donations and campaign support

Please feel free to reblog/comment and add to this list.

with love,

dipplinduo

[uzumaki-rebellion]

Some new fandom/fanfiction writing thoughts from me...

Author's Note:

This is just some thoughts I needed to get out because they kept me from finishing my Vampire!Terry Richmond Fic and forced me to start writing my "Sinners" fic I hadn't planned on dropping until April, but my spirit was moved to write by some aspects of the media hype of the "Sinners" new movie trailer release. It's stream of consciousness straight from the hip for Black History Month, so let ya girl cook!

Who remembers this movie?

Do you remember this dynamic duo? (Yes Dr. Karen Jenson!)

Do you remember what happened to most of the "Blade" fanfictions in that fandom as the series progressed (even into television)... and who got centered instead of Blade/Karen Jenson?

Blade essentially became a secondary character in his own franchise. He stopped knowing other Black folks, too. Even the writer of the original franchise David S. Goyer confessed that the studio wanted Blade to be white from jump.

Bitch...whut?

Others have written of this before with the Blade franchise. I personally have lamented the missed opportunity to expand the role of the sexy, beautiful, dark-skinned genius hematologist, Dr. Karen Jenson, played by the gorgeous and talented N'Bushe Wright. Who is still fine just so you know:

The de-centering of Black characters from their own leading roles in fandom is nothing new. Y'all remember this oldey but goodey?:

Remember how they did our girl Abbie Mills (played by the lovely and fabulous actress, Nicole Beharie)? She was the heart of the show with great chemistry between her and Ichabod (Tom Milson). But the Sleepy Hollow Showrunners started centering this heaux:

They even brought in Ichie and Katrina's old ass son Henry Parrish/Jeremy Crane:

Baybee, me and a ton of other Black women were OVER the sidelining of Abbie Mills. Don't even get me started on how they did baby girl by writing her off her own show. Soon it was looking like this:

Chile when I tell y'all Black women rode in like the Sin Eaters on that show and burned that bitch to the ground! No Abbie Mills? No more Nicole Beharie? Alright, bet. Nan one of you hoes is working then. The industry treated Nicole so bad after that show. She was blacklisted and experienced a hostile work environment with that American flavored soup du jour: racism. A recent book, "Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood", broke down all the horrors Nicole Beharie went through bts.

Here was a show that gained popularity because of BLACK WOMEN. We started the weekly Tweet storms, chatted to each other, wrote fics, did panels about it at fandom conferences (I spoke on some and attended a few myself about the TV series). It was a sexy multicultural cast, a literal crack fic come to life that first season.

But then...the centering of whiteness rears its ugly head and ruins nice things.

Which brings me to the new "Sinners" movie trailer release, and my fears at seeing a lot of the media hype online (thumbnail photos, clips etc) pushing Hailee Stenfield a lot more than Michael B. Jordan (in a double role as twins!) or even the other Black women characters in the trailer.

They got Wunmi Mosaku in this bitch with Jayme Lawson.

You know Wunmi, right?

Marvel Wunmi in the Loki TV Series:

Lovecraft Country Wunmi:

Wunmi with Idris in "Luther" Season 5:

Then there's the exquisite Jayme Lawson from "MLK/X: Genius" with our new fic king at the moment, Aaron Pierre. He plays Malcolm X and she is Dr. Betty Shabazz:

Jayme playing the Queen in "The Woman King":

Jayme as the mayor in "The Batman" (she could be our next Angela Bassett with her acting range and beauty!):

Now, about that elephant in the room for me personally.

Hailee Steinfeld and Jack O'Connell.

Their images are everywhere, often more so than images of the star Michael B. Jordan. Twitter (I will never call it X), Threads, Bluesky, YouTube, TikTok et al, have them hyped up to the point where I'm worried that it will turn into a Blade situation. The white characters overshadowing the central Black one.

Of course, they're playing the vampires. The bad guys. The ones we want to see the Black people vanquish. Some bad guys are sexy if we're being honest (cough--Killmonger--cough). Life in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the Blues, is tough enough with racism, lynchings, prohibition...just white people nonsense in general, let alone white vampires. A horror movie has to have compelling antagonists to keep our interests. But again, the overshadowing of Michael in some places...

On IMDB, Hailee is listed first as the star, then comes Jack O'Connell, and then Michael B. Jordan. Y'all, the two white actors are listed first BEFORE Michael is. I don't care if Hailee was nominated for an Oscar at fourteen. (Black people should know by now the Oscars are highschool popularity contests for white people, and every now and then they throw a bone at negroes who act circles around them on any given day.)

How is Wallace Vince Killmonger Adonis Creed John Clark (aka Muffin to me), listed third in his own goddamn movie? Maybe this will change when the movie comes out, but...excuse me?

Give me a minute. I need to sip some tea to calm down.

I barely see Wunmi in online hype, and she has been in some pretty high profile roles the last few years, especially in superhero action projects. And it looks like she plays a Hoodoo practioner (like myself). I want to see more of her promoted too. Like why can't I see a photo of this on more fandom websites?

That question was rhetorical. We all know why.

The centering of whiteness even in Black spaces.

I already know the fanfiction that will be churned out soon by non-Black people. Shippings of Mary/Remmick (Steinfeld and O'Connell's characters in the movie). There will be the I/R shipping of Mary and Stack (Steinfeld and Jordan) because the ads are playing up their sexy juke joint dance everywhere. I'm beginning to get a sense of deja vu...a la Blade/Sleepy Hollow decentering vibes.

The trailer all but gave away most of the plot in terms of what the Black characters will be up against during Prohibition Mississippi. Moonshine and Monsters, with sprinklings of Black American Blues music, both real history and the myths of it with Robert Johnson/Crossroads energy. And clearly Mary, who starts off as human, will get turned into a vampire like Remmick...and then run off to dance with hot, sweaty negroes tryna have their own goddamn fun away from white racism and the dangers of white women turning into the o.g. Karen's of their day. Smh. Can't have nothing without white characters slithering in and causing chaos as usual, lol! (I'm looking at you Agent Ross in the Black Panther fandom, you dirty C.I.A. infiltrator!) Plus there's always some dumb Black man willing to risk it all for unseasoned coochie putting every other Black person in his community in danger.

I mean, even in real life, Black people can't even access DEI opportunities without white women taking all the spots. Now I gotta watch DEI Mary-the-vampire mess up Black people's good times? The horror!

Now I'm just fussing. America recently voted the orange racist/fascist menace back into the white house, and he brought his incompetent white people and their Pee-oh-See lackeys. (One day we have to have a conversation about why so many Indians from India in this country-- and their children-- side with white racism and use anti-Blackness to move ahead in America.) I'm a little salty with white folks right now, not gonna lie. We saw those voting exit polls where only Black women and Black men overwhelmingly voted for the correct side of history to try and stop the Magats by any means necessary with the little we had to work with. Forgive me if I'm grumbling and projecting this onto a fictional movie. Two beautiful dark-skinned women are also love interests in the film (based on the trailer), but I can't find them promoted as much as the white vampires? I don't like it.

Listen, I used to do screenwriting. I helped friends make short films for festivals. I also screened films to help choose projects for the L.A. Film Festival when that was still a thing when I was a member of Film Independent. I've done screenwriting fellowships, too. I understand film marketing, and the work it takes trying to get the largest audience possible to see a movie by pushing the big names or face draws to a project.

But...

I want Black things centered in "Sinners". In the long run it will be, because...Ryan Coogler is that dude.

I want this rambling lament to be a call to other Black fic writers who plan on seeing the film to write your asses off after you see it, and even before you see it based off the trailer. I want hundreds, if not thousands of "Sinners" fics stretching out the worldbuilding we'll soon see on the screen. Heck, I already have a prequel fic started that I want to post in the next few days once I finish it. @nahimjustfeelingit-writes has one out already, and I saw a couple more by other writers floating down my TL.

I want Smoke and Stack and their world steeped in Blackness so that they won't be isolated or damn near relegated to a corner like Blade or Abbie Mills was among their world of supernatural shenanigans by the end of their onscreen run.

I hope we write so much that no one would dare try to push these other Black characters aside. There's so much richness to work with: the Blues guitar singer (who has a fucking banjo inside the core of his magical guitar!), the Hoodoo woman, the Black sexy female love interest that Jayme plays, Delroy Lindo's piano player and his Native wife (I'm guessing), and even the Asian woman (probably descended from the Chinese railroad workers in Mississippi) . We need all the fics telling so many stories in this "Sinners" world.

Granted, fic writers are free to write what they want. Black writers will take a side Black character and create a whole universe for them outside of the main characters in a predominately white film/fandom. But that's only because Black characters are always set aside, shunned, or written in racist/stereotypical ways. They are often fetishized, turned into brutes, or given so much less time in the front. Me writing all this is not saying that non-Black writers can't write stories about Mary or Remmick or anyone they choose. They write/appropriate what they want anyway, so it doesn't matter. I'm only interested in what Black fic writers are going to create

I want to be selfish and see Wunmi and Jayme heralded and pined over even if their characters aren't used as much as Hailee's in the film. I want us to have our shine finally. I want "Sinners" fics that reflect that.

I want to see more Black fics with Black characters paired with Black characters.

I want Black fic readers discovering this new fandom and finding new writers and new stories celebrating us.

I want this movie to succeed and everyone who goes to see it having a good, scary, time.

I want to see Muffin show out in his first period piece. Dressed casket sharp with gold teeth, lol!

I want Black fic writers to be able to write Black horror period piece stories that aren't rooted in Black trauma. There will be so many magical/supernatural things to write about in "Sinners" that we don't even have to touch on the horrors of historic white racism in America if we don't want to.

I promise you, Black people back then experienced joy, wonder, falling in love, and going up against antagonists that weren't always white people or white racism, or even the remnants of our enslaved past. The Klan ain't got to show up! Lol! Hell, white people don't even have to show up in your story. Coogler even hinted that there were more things other than vampires going on in the movie. We'll see. But my point is, we can create "Sinners" fics that Black readers won't have to fear dwelling on Black trauma porn as a plot point.

So...my fellow MBJ/Coogler fans...can we write the hell out of this new fandom? Revel in Blackness? Enjoy our latest entry into the vampire genre?

I would love to hear people's thoughts after they see the movie in April!

Last thought: If you know of some "Sinners" fics, share them!

[dreamwreaver]

I really hate the Hellaverse fandom for having this absurd idea that only gay/explicitly queer men can act feminine. I thought we left this mentality ages ago? So what if Alastor acts fruity? Doesn't immediately mean he only exclusively wants men. Funny how they love making this man the bottom b*tch when it comes to a lot of depictions of him in a gay ship (which is wildly out of character for a control freak misandrist by the way) not saying you can't depict him like that, I'm just pointing out you're showing alastor OOC and proceeding to dictate other people's ways of handling his character. "No! You can't ship him with Charlie!! He's manipulating her!!" Uh, duh. That's the point, it's his entire character, it's not like we didn't know he was using her for his own means, we didn't forget. Besides, the fact you said Alastor is manipulating Charlie and you ship Radio*pple makes it extremely wierd that you're letting Lucifer get with the man who's manipulating his daughter and made the famous manipulating scumbag her father figure, and also cursed Charlastor for shipping a manipulative man with his "victim" in the same breath. Again, not saying you can't ship it, Im pointing out the hypocrisy.

Let people ship two consenting fictional adult demons in peace, is it really hard to do?

Apparently dear nonnie, it really is that hard. Because despite their cries to "tear down the gender binary" and "you don't have to be this type of person to enjoy this type of activity it's for everyone!" They're real fucking quick to not only ascribe Alastor's personality as "fruity" (which... I mean I disagree he just isn't a fucking asshole to women) and assume that because of that he MUST like men. Yeah, real progressive thinking there. Like, leave off the fact that Lucifer looks down on sinners the same as most angels do; leave off the fact that it's really misogynistic to fob off the main FEMALE protagonist because you want your "toxic old man yaoi" to be front and center, leave off the fact that Alastor has a particular disdain for bad fathers and is well aware of Charlie's daddy issues, and also the fact that they're making the mixed race (and spoilers for next season but) VISIBLY black as a human man the bottom for a white guy. Let's just forget all of that for a second and focus on the manipulation thing for a second.

Alastor has never made any bones about why he's there, at least in relation to Charlie's goals. He flat out doesn't believe in redemption, and to be fair his assumptions are grounded in a very logical stance that the chance given was the life lived before and where you end up is deserved. So why is he actually there? Well that's a little harder to say. Some speculated he was under Lilith's thumb and was sent there to watch over her. I mean I never really believed that personally because it seems very obvious he ~~fell in love at first sight~~ first really saw her as an opportunity when watching her interview. Now it seems he might see Charlie as a way to break the shackles of his deal to regain control over his own soul again. Whatever his motives, it isn't altruism. Except here's one important thing;

CHARLIE ALREADY KNOWS THIS

As much as people like to rag on the pilot it establishes one super important thing. As naive and optimistic as Charlie can be she is well aware of what kind of person she is surrounded by and knows how to navigate the more political side of hell. She sidesteps Al's original attempt to make a deal for his help, and while she is very awkward about it he accepts. Let's look at what she says,

"As Princess of Hell and heir to the throne I hearby order that you help with this hotel, for as long as you desire. Sound fair?"

She can give an order that he likely cannot refuse, but gives him an out. Most importantly of all she does not make a deal with him for his help. Charlie is not some helpless little girl who can't see Alastor for what he actually is. She just chooses to see the best in people. Remember, she only actively makes a deal with Alastor when everyone she cares about is at risk. And even then she puts caveats on it that she will not hurt anyone for him. She holds boundaries with him and Alastor for all he condescends to her goals at times, respects.

Now let's take for a moment the view that many (not all but much like the toxic ones a very VOCAL amount) of RA shippers have of Charlie. That she is an uwu lesbean babie who doesn't know anything and would have sold her soul to the first overlord that wanted it without vaggie there to look after her. The view that she is so weak willed and naive Alastor can actively and easily manipulate her at any and all times and the only ones putting a stop to it are Vaggie and Lucifer. Okay, awesome. Lucifer has identified this sinner as a threat to his daughter whom despite all his major flaws he does seem to truly care about and want to get to know as an equal adult. You're telling me that Lucifer would willingly put his kid in harm's way to get his dick wet?

No. Nope. Nu-uh. And look, I can appreciate a good enemies to lovers. I really can. But here's the thing, enemies to lovers implies some sort of equal power and ability. According to Viv Al wouldn't be able to take Stolas in a fight. Their power sets are different sure but if a sinner can't take down a member of the Ars Goetia what the FUCK do you think would happen if he tried to take on the king of hell himself? Adam was more evenly matched to fight Lucifer than Alastor was. More importantly, why do people think that Lucifer wouldn't immediately smite Alastor? Let's be real; the only thing keeping Alastor safe when he purposefully antagonizes Luci is the fact that Charlie cares about Alastor. If she weren't there? The man would have been paste on the floor from the first insult.

Additionally; let's just address the elephant in the room. RA is gay charlastor. I'm sorry, but it is. Lucifer is male Charlie, right down to his idealistic nature. It's been beaten out of him by thousands of years of disappointment but Charlie's optimism comes from him. Luci originally wanted to make things better; his position in Heaven was to spread joy. Like, I haven't consumed any of the content but multishipper friends of mine have and the dynamic in those stories is not at all representative of the characters. And honestly? That's fine! Ship what you want! I'm not here to tell you you can't ship stuff (trust me I got way more problematic ships than this) because glass house? Meet stone. But acknowledge the fact that 1. It's a crackship that would never be canon from the outset and 2. Is just the gay version of a ship that was popular for FIVE YEARS before it. Personally; I don't seek out content I know will piss me off, but that's just me. I'm old and know fandom etiquette even if I still for the life me cannot usually remember how to spell that word.

Oh, one other reason I know RA is just gay Charlastor. Certain "artists" keep STEALING Charlastor works and "fixing" read, tracing over and not crediting the original artists, the piece by making it THEIR preferred ship. Or even funnier; they steal Charlastor fankid arts and repost them as RA. This is a persistent problem for at least one Charlastor artist to the point where not only is his handle watermarked in the art but SO IS THE CHARLASTOR LABEL.

[themageofblood]

So let me get this straight...

Yall are mad that roxy was canonically a Trans man because people head canoned him as a Trans women for years but tavros who was widely regarded as Trans masc being Trans femme is okay? June Egbert who really only became popular in recent years who a large portion of the Fandom prior to 2020 headcanoned as transmasc is dubiously canonized as Trans femme is ok "because it makes more sense" yall know you can be Trans and transphobic right? You do know transandrophobia is rooted in misogyny right? Yall know you can't headcanon roxy as black if you're going to misgender him because that's a form of racism right? Why is it OK for yall to misgender a Canon Trans man but get pissed when others do it to a character that hasn't even been confirmed in its own media as Trans yet. And while we're on the subject, saying that someone's Trans identity doesn't make sense is inherently transphobic. It doesn't have to make sense to you. not everyone comes to terms with their gender the same way yall do. I'm not Trans masc but roxys speech with John about gender aligned more with me than any other character so far. It's OK to have an opinion on why you think Egbert is Trans femme but to shit on others who have thought he was Trans masc is shitty. I need intrasexual Trans women of this Fandom to understand that when it comes to Trans conversations you guys center yourselves the way white gay men do in the queer community in general. You need to be open to listening to other intersex and intrasexual Trans people including bipoc Trans people. Emphasis on The B. Because alot of you are going out of your way to shit on others headcanons as if it's an attack towards you that's not always the case some of us just genuinely have different opinions than you and yall need to be OK with that.

This is exactly what I mean when I say homestucks pick and choose Canon like Christians and the bible

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

I'm so pissed off that Disney cancelled the Acolyte 😭 like it was a great show and it was diverse in so many ways and it got cancelled because the star wars rabid fans couldn't handle a main cast of mostly women of color and Asian men in non-stereotypical roles. I'm so mad at Disney for not even bothering to defend the cast that got harassed over it. Like. They knew it would happen because it always happens, they can't even bother to defend the people that work for them. Sorry I just needed to vent..

Hey!!! I'm so sorry that this has been in here for nearly 20 days. We get so many asks a day and I don't always have the spoons to reply/post.

I'm also in the star trek fandom and I recently found out something that makes me think we should copy the star trek fandom. Back in the 90s when Deep Space 9 came out ALOT of the trekkies hated it. I didn't have lots of white men like previous versions of star trek and basically there was lots of antiblackness in the hatred for DS9. So DS9 fans started calling themselves Niners to differentiate themselves from the racist trekkies.

I think that Acolyte fans should start calling ourselves Acolytes. To celebrate and distinguish ourselves from racist star wars fans. Like I'm having a really hard time making myself watch skeleton crew because it looks so white you know? I might watch it but its honestly such a betrayal that so many people that claimed to love all things star wars only celebrate when white people are at the center of star wars.

I'm trying to keep up with the efforts for renewing the show but honestly I need more help on @starwarsfandomh8speopleofcolor if you want to help us out please come off anon and come talk to us about joining over there!!! I really really need a second season in my life!!!

mod ali

[marybeatriceofmodena]

hey! I was going through ur tag for the grishaverse and I was wondering if ur thoughts changed at all?

tl;dr No not really lol

Long answer: see I think the problems boil down to Le!gh Bardug0... starting this series during the Obama administration and her just essentially being a white liberal/center-left lady.

Like I see so many people dismissing any criticism of this series as "lololol shadow daddy apologists" but like. There is a basis for that "apology". I'll tell the truth and say that I don't think book!Darkling is super interesting (not talking about the TV show in this ask at all for several reasons), because he's essentially a) a cautionary tale on two legs; b) an aesthetic. One of his inspirations is Raistlin Majere, and Raistlin runs MILES around him, because he's allowed to SERIOUSLY mess up, the narrative acknowledges it, and the narrative still manages to make you kinda root for him because the narrative is allowed to be **complex**, and guess what, NOBODY DIED IN REAL LIFE

And when I say cautionary tale, it's that I REALLY hate that somehow women need to be told that rooting for Shadow Daddy makes them a dumb bitch, especially when the other option is Mal, who could honestly be based on the lady from Ballerina Farm's husband and quite frankly? Shadow Daddy ain't real. Guys like Mal sure are lmao.

(And again, I love stories where the lady gets to tell Shadow Daddy/the villain to stuff it, AND she doesn't lose her integrity. See: Christine Daaé, Liz Sharp in the Miss Sharp's Monsters series, Galadriel in the Rings of Power TV series. Heck, in some cases, they're even allowed to show compassion, they can be deceived, but it's never, EVER put on them as a mistake that puts their intelligence into question.)

But even then, if I had to be honest, I don't think Alina and the Darkling are well-suited to each other anyway, because what Alina really needs are a) hobbies; b) friends who are not Mal and who are removed from the political situation; c) self-esteem classes. And at the end of the day, Darkl!ina is more of an aesthetic. People who go all "BUT THE AGE GAP BECKY" are missing the point, and Alina is such a nothing of a character it's easy to self-insert as her, and it's easy to use the Darkling as a Ken doll, as he's also a) an aesthetic; b) a very flat cautionary tale on two legs, making it pretty easy to turn that aspect of him on its head. And mind you, I don't *actually* have a problem with that (that's what fanfic and transformative fandoms are for), and my general answer for age gaps in stories is usually the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKZX23fHL64

(And I know I'm going to have people replying to this video: "BUT IRINA! THE GRISHAVERSE BOOKS ARE YA!!!" Ding ding ding, correct! But YA is mostly read by adults nowadays and publishing houses are knowingly appealing to that demographic! That is also the reason why New Adult became a thing! I hate capitalism :) )

*

But like, I spent so much time talking about Darkl!ina when I don't think it's really the problem with the series, and it's more that... Le!gh Bardug0 doesn't seem to understand that she wrote about an oppressed minority, that we are not meant to see as an oppressed minority, and that aspect of her books has aged like milk in light of... pretty much everything that has happened since the end of the Obama administration.

If I had to be honest I'm honestly concerned people don't realize she wrote about an entire people that are meant to be Jewish-coded, and their leader is the... shadowy advisor who manipulates the King, and personally that makes my antisemitic alarm bells go all Kill Bill but what do I know Brenda. (And if you want to sit down with me and calmly explain to me why I'm actually wrong about this, please do, because sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy with that realization and I don't understand how no one talks about it)

And I'm honestly not mad if you decide to have your book series end with a) the monarchy still firmly in place; b) the Grisha still being an oppressed minority, because such is life and people are shitty. The issue I have is that the basic message of it seems to be: "Well the Grisha should have kept asking nicely instead of rebelling and causing havoc xox. Look at Alina, she's the Token Good Minority, her boyfriend is a Real Strong Ravkan Man and she knows her place xox". And I'm writing this as of January 2025, and to anyone reading this, all I'm gonna say is: kings and health insurance company CEOs don't give a shit if you ask nicely.

You will not convince me, not in a thousand years, that the Grisha somehow had privileges in Ravka. Because no, being recruited into the army because of who you are, no matter how well you are treated, is a violent act. It is a violation of your human rights. It is a clear statement that your life belongs to your country, and that your country can see fit to use you as cannon fodder if it is so inclined. Yes, I am aware that Ravka is a crapsack place, but seeing people IRL use the good treatment of the Grisha as an army as an argument against their grievances is ignorant AT BEST. I will also kindly point out the U.S. Army tends to recruit and target marginalized communities.

If anything, you could say that the Grishaverse books are about violent authoritarian regimes forcing more and more of a violent response from the oppressed, leading to moral compasses being thrown away, only for the oppressors to come out of it victorious because they have the privilege of foregoing moral compasses, but of still being upheld as a moral center as they present attributes of "morality". You can get away with anything as long as you keep reminding people at every turn you're a husband and father, right? RIGHT?

Like, this book series is essentially about how the ENTIRE SYSTEM is inherently violent, we have a heroine who basically caves in and upholds said system, sees those who had the nerve of rebelling against it punished one way or another (no seriously WHAT DOES LE!GH BARDUG0 HAVE AGAINST GENYA), and then she basically buzzes off to her cottagecore dream life with her shitty boyfriend who got a personality transplant, so she can be a housewife and take care of orphans (something she did not show any interest in doing prior - remember what I said about Ballerina Farm?)

But yeah sure Shadow Daddy and the BookTok girlies are the problem, I guess

ETA: Look I don't think Le!gh Bardug0 is the devil or anything, at the end of the day, she's one fantasy author, but I think that a) attitudes like hers towards fandom have made the next few generations conservative in ways that they don't even realize, with extremely poor media literacy skills - she's not THE problem, but she's part of it whether she likes it or not; b) given how Rule of Wolves turned out, I'm not really inclined to give her much grace because lecturing your readers because of themes you fumbled yourself is not a good trait to have.

Full offense but it's not normal for someone like Chappell Roan to get the backlash she got for saying that politicians are failing their voters and need to step up their game. When you're in politics, you're serving your people. You are not supposed to be dangling a carrot you can snatch away at every moment. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are conservative, partisan and lack critical thinking skills and it's honestly concerning. Whatever the girlies on BookTok are into should be at the bottom of your list of concerns.

[aingeal98]

The funny thing about the canon Tim fans is that they will do all this . . . then blame Jason and his fans for like Didio's stuff because Jason was reintroduced around the time Didio took over. Like, Jason fans not focusing more on Helena, who hasn't really interacted with Jason, is misogyny but their centering Helena's relationship with Tim over her actual character and their treatment of stuff isn't. The misogynistic writing around Jason is on Jason but misogynistic writing around Tim is on the women around him. This fandom is a kingdom of misogynistic glass houses.

"This fandom is a kingdom of misogynistic glass houses." is so real like every fanon batman and batboy fan will end up accidentally taking from female comic book characters in an attempt to make their 1 dimensional fanon faves more interesting 😭 happens with Jason, with Tim, with Bruce, with every fandom focused on male characters to be quite honest. I don't think fanon stans deliberately steal these traits they just think "wouldn't it be cool if my fave did this" and don't realise that there's a story out there of a female character doing exactly that, which they're of course never going to read because it's a female character.

In terms of canon I'd say the two female characters most harmed by Jason are Starfire in rhato which thankfully didn't stick the way Roy's flanderisation did, and Mia because while her initial confrontation with Jason was very much centered around her, with Jason acting as her villain/narrative foil, batfandom took it and ran with it to the point that there were way too many accounts referencing Mia for the first and only time just to use her own suffering for Jason angst. Which was very nauseating to witness I can't lie! You only care about this female character and her arc about living with HIV because of the headcanons it let's you project onto your male fave? Yeah never mention her again thanks.

(note I'm specifically talking about the general batfam/dc fandom and not Jason fans who've read the comics and have interesting thoughts and analysis on the two of them. The former is more frequent than the latter the same way fanon content is more frequent overall than canon in this fandom.)

And then meanwhile with Tim there's Cass there's Steph there's Cassie there's his treatment of Prue and his girlfriends and just generally pre New 52 if you were writing a story involving Tim and women and it didn't have any sexist bullshit designed to prop him up at the expense of female characters then it was a small miracle. And he's not even the worst offender by a long shot when Bruce exists!

I think the only batboy who's genuinely exempt from this is Duke and in my opinion that's largely because he is not only black but also too visibly Not White to work as the white male power fantasy some writers project on Bruce, Tim, Jason, Dick and even Damian. With Dick they can ignore his Romani heritage with Damian they can vilify his Asian side of the family and throw a bunch of misogynistic writing at Talia but with Duke any bigoted writer who gets to write him isn't going to be able to ignore how visibly black he is in order to project their misogynistic and racist power fantasies on him. And so he gets ignored instead the same way the girls do, because far too many people can't imagine characters having rich internal lives and personalities worth exploring if they don't already fit the pale skinned male character mold.

[spookyc]

The arcane fandom is really and honestly pissing me off with its hyperfixation on jayce and viktor. And trust me, I understand, I like both their characters quite a bit, viktor considerably more so, and obviously I love me some good toxic yaoi, but it just shows to me that even with arcane having a predominantly female cast, and it's two MAIN characters being women, along with having a lesbian relationship between one of those main characters, yall will still center all your attention and love on the men in the show. And two of the white men in the show I'll add because I'm sure as hell not seeing yall come through with ekko like you do for viktor and jayce. I'd love to see shit about jinx, especially considering the finale, or how vi might be coping with it all, or thoughts on sevika being in the council, or mel love for her badass direction in the last act or fucking anything about the women at all in show. And yes, I know I'm being hyperbolic, but not considerably so, I've seen thrice as much shit about jayce and viktor than I've seen about caitvi and jinx and especially mel. Not that this should've surprised me but it's just disappointing.

[mermaidsirennikita]

As always, I'm hesitant to discuss Bton, but I find this Variety article on toxic fandoms influencing creative decision-making so concerning on a creative level... And the fact that Michaela/Bton is name-dropped and included in the image collage attached is so...

Because it's easy to blame racist, homophobic white fanboys for most of the backlash to the inclusion of people of color and the LGBTQ+ community in conventionally cishet white-centric fiction. I think that probably, the biggest and loudest voices often are cishet white guys, right? The Acolyte comes to mind.

And I do think there's something to be said about media that targets women being treated as something you MUST alter significantly during adaptation to "appeal to a wider audience" (men), whereas there's more of a demand to be faithful to media directed towards men, or to at least incorporate highly anticipated arcs, scenes, into the final product. I grew up with the constant litany of "your girly thing that's being adapted must be changed to appeal to a wider audience". However, again... that audience... was primarily male. And we are accommodating men when we say "Maybe Galadriel shouldn't pick up a sword after all".

BUT. We aren't only accommodating men, and the Michaela storyline is a prime example.

Bton is a show that has a male audience, sure. But we've seen so many thinkpieces, which aren't incorrect, about the power of the female audience for that show. And on a related note, the power of a romance audience that is primarily driven by women.

Except... it seems that the women most often listened in both spaces are white cis women who want to watch a man and a woman OR PERHAPS TWO MEN fall in love. Because I don't think this article just pulled Michaela as an example out of thin air and angry redditors (many of whom, I must say, have been truly disgusting). The article has anonymous insiders giving information. I would not be surprised at all if at least one of those insiders was from the Bton team.

I've said before that while I don't like the show at this point, I think there's a lot of positive things this show could do with Michaela and Fran, both on a social level and a creative level. And I TRULY don't get why people are up in arms about this either way—I don't think the intro was done in a way that forecasts like... great sensitivity, but I'm also at this point so done with the show's choices that I could just be counting my critiques before they hatch. (And truly, how critical can I get if I'm too checked out, etc., I'm aware of some hypocrisy there.)

But at the end of the day, the show has never been a very faithful adaptation, and I'm not talking about the diverse casting. If Michaela had been Michael, you would have had a lot of changes to the plot anyway.

The thing is... if the show listens to a bunch of fans who hate that "Michael" is a Black woman, they're going to downplay the Fran and Michaela story. The series has one CONFIRMED season left. I would be kind of surprised if they didn't get a renewal for more? But maybe not. That season will not be out until 2026. It won't be about Michaela and Fran, at least not at the forefront. And like... what would it say if the show made this big shift to provide LGBT+ rep, in the form of a sapphic interracial relationship at that, and then... gave them a subplot romance.

And again, maybe I'm counting my critiques before they hatch. I can say that some things I saw online circulating about Michaela's casting made me think that she would have a more significant role than "supporting B-plot love interest". And when I see articles like this, I would hope that the response to fan backlash would be "fuck them" and not "oh, let's give the people some rep, but not TOO much rep".

Look—for all my misgivings about how that plot was introduced, I hope Fran and Michaela get a center stage season, and I hope it blows all the rest of them out of the water, and I hope they get to be on posters as a romantic couple and merch, and I hope they get someone to rewrite WHWW so that people who see themselves in that story onscreen can read something that ACTUALLY reflects it.

(And if the show doesn't, I hope they refer people to some of the actual sapphic historical romance novels on the market right now. I know that's pie in the sky, but I'm just putting it out there.)

Most of all, I hope the show's team protects Masali in a way they didn't protect Ruby Barker, or even Rege-Jean Page.

(Ya haven't seen much of an effort to combat the issue yet, a la the way Amazon addressed the ROP issue, and it's been LOUD already.)

I guess it's just articles like these COMBINED with what I'm seeing not only in Bton but in shows across the board that concern me. It would be horrible to think that something was or is in the works, and gets downplayed because of backlash from people who just neeeeeeded to see a fictional character.

Especially when we're in the age of Another White Heathcliff in 2024 and "Dorian and Basil are brothers, actually". It feels like we're going backwards, and it feels like that storyline is going to be a statement from Netflix whether they like it or not. What are they going to do on their Big Romance Show?

[diaphin93]

Okay, so this post was brought to my attention and I considered at first, if I really want to react to it. On one hand I think it warrants a rebuttal and is a peak example of the general lesbophobia not only general fandom but also some queer men like to perpetuate, on the other hand I also originally didn't want to engage with his blogger anymore. For added context, Gascon is a blogger/youtuber who openly on this very websites has made some troublings statements and admissions leaning into the direction of Incest and Necrophilia. I will not go into further into detail about it, but it somewhat leaned into Lily Orchard levels of fucked up. And to rub salt in the wound, when I tried towarn people on the Edelcrit side of this guy and his takes, they immediately jumped into his defense and framed me as the bully here. Among other things, like very stupid and fucked takes which I personally don't stand behind anymore and which I did during a time when my mental health was on a really deep low, was why I took a break from Tumblr in the first place.

But yeah, at the risk of this firing back at me, I decided to make a blogpost engaging with his post. I'm a random nobody on this site, but I've noticed that at least some people seem to be interested in my takes and I consider a rebuttal to his takes important enough, as it goes into typical misogynistic and lesbophobic attitudes inside this particular fandom, but also fandom in general. So lets begin:

Initial ask and to be more of help than Gascon, the answer is yes. Naturally lesbians are wrong to be drawn towards a complicated and nuanced canonically queer female lead character with strong themes of abuse, vilification and loss of bodily autonomy, who tries to uproot an opressive social system that affects women in particular, duh. They should center their attention on a white man, of course. Didn't you know that good lesbians are supposed to produce male on male porn? Skits over, in all seriousness, whoever this anonymous is, if you ever read this: You're a fucking dipshit, what kind of asshole even asks a cis gay man whether or not lesbians and sapphic people should be allowed to like a female character. What a fucking imbecile.

He really had it with the first sentence, lol. I guess every dog has its day, but then he fucks it up. Though I somewhat doubt he is sincere here, considering my actual experiences with the f!Edeleth fandom, it really sounds more as a set up to weaponize and distract from the topic and push his male chauvinism and misogyny under the guess of feminism. First off, 3 Houses isn't mostly written by Intelligent Systems. Secondly, the issue lies in the fact that people like Gascon don't criticize misogynistic aspects in Edelgards character and writing which hurt her as a character, he is using performative feminism to instead bash aspects of the characters usually praised and appealing to queer women and feminist fans, as well as marginalize sapphic themes inside the game. Gascon is not only deeply fucked up according to some of his public tumblr posts which are visible to anyone, he is also just a plain hack. No civility politics from me here. This guy is practically the James Somerton of Fire Emblem Discourse, minus the plagiarism...maybe, don't know. But lets move on, just keep the reference to James Somerton in your mind for maximum entertainment.

Here is where things finally start to go down the gutter, rather early, by him already already attempting to dominish and marginalize the sapphic aspects of these games by chalking them down to male gaze titulation or flat comic relieve, while elavating the m/m subtext of his personal favs, Catherine and Shamir being the sole exception who he treats as the good token lesbians of the story, probably due to the attachment with the church of seiros, which he is super defensive and apologetic about, to my knowledge due to his own romanticization of patriachal concepts of chivalry which it supports and his catholic nationalism which I still clearly remember, trying to contextualize catholics as somewhat the most marginalized group in all of society.

I draw the connection to James Somerton, because ultimately his offhand misogynistic and lesbophobic attitudes combined with his androcentrism and male homosexual chauvinism feels just very reminiscent of him, Gascon falling into this trend of cis gay men who always push forward to center themselves and their identity in LGBTIQ+ advocacy and visibility, in what I call gay male main character syndrome. It plays into an undeniable history of cisgender queer men imposing male chauvinism and patriachal androcentrism into the LGBTIQ+ movement, pushing forward primarily their visibility while having historically contributed to the marginalization and invisibility of both cisfemale and trans queer people in broader society. I've seen another post of his where he gets somewhat pissed about anti-fujoshi discourse, one that is currently inside fandom explicitely pushed by sapphic women who are fed up with the andocentrism and male glorification inside fandom at the expense of sapphic characters and relationships which remain marginalized, with the self-serving comment revealing that his position is primarily founded in him being a beneficiary of the androcentrism and and female margilanization inside fandom. Though discussing all of this would probably go too far for this blog post, maybe I will come back to it later.

Whats clear is that Gascon here, to begin with the easy part, knows shit and makes just blanket uninformed statements about Fire Emblem 3 Houses development process and houses, as he credits IS for its writing, when the main scenario writers all were Koei Tecmo employees, 3 Houses being a collaborative Intelligent System and Koei Tecmo project and FEW3H being full on a Koei Tecmo game. They reference and build on older Fire Emblems, especially the Kaga era of Fire Emblem, alot but the game is mostly by a different company. And while it is not the team that developed the Fodlan Games, as a Studio Koei Tecmo actually as quite the history of including Yuri-Subtext into their games, especially Team Gust, which has titles like Atelier, Nights of Azure and Blue Reflection under their belt. So as a Company, Koei Tecmo is already an entire different beast and it really shows with 3 Hopes, that really ramps up the queer subtext or outright text alot compared to 3 Houses. Gascon is talking with alot of authority on the subject matter, yet displays not having done much research in who even developed and wrote these games. And going back into it, he again argues from a very dismissive and somewhat lesbophobic position of trying to play down sapphic subtext and text, especially as presented inside the Black Eagles. Is Monicas obsessive love for Edelgard often played for comedy? Yes, of course, many aspects of the game are played for comedy, even Dedues role as Dimitris caretaker is often played up from this angle. Is it it treated at her expense? Not really? Monicas Love and Loyalty for Edelgard have often a comedic undertone, mostly by being set up for jokes centering her photographic memory and Edelgard being overwhelmed, but they are also never mocked by the narrative and played as genuine, their support ends in appreciation for Monica. I think his own loathing towards sapphic characters and bias against Edelgard and possibly the black eagles (who are understood as somewhat of the gay house of the game) comes into play here. Monica does suffer alot from Hopes lack of supports and not having pre-existing Houses supports, which makes it rather unfair to compare her to Dedue, who benefits from Houses bigger library of Support.

As I mentioned in another post, its also a rather disrespectful downplay, as Monica is predominantly popular among queer women, with alot of dedicated Monica Fans I've seen being esplicitely sapphic trans women. It is obvious that she appeals alot to this demographic and it is easy to see why, Edelgard is a fairly big favorite and comfort character among queer female fans of the game and Monica, being basically the Nr. 1 Edelgard Fangirl, is a character they can immerse themselves strongly into. In this vein Monica also feels less like a mockery and more like a not to the yuri fanbase around Edelgard, after all, it is quite on your nose to make the new Black Eagles character the games only explicit lesbian. Btw, I also think one of the 3 scenario writers is a woman tbh, they at least have a female sounding name. I think Gascons argument becomes really weird and self-contradicting in this case, as he is really obsessed with dismissing the sapphic appeal and subtext of the game surrounding the Black Eagles, which leads to him dismissing the writers outright, which also plays into him basically claiming that the subtext he glorifies as superior and valid compared to the inferior ridiculous f/f subtext, is supposedly just accidental. He is also misrepresenting the scene to make his claim about the allegedly superior m/m subtext of the game. Because...like, its not the scenes which he quotes, it is a scene in which Dedue does lead Dimitris Hand onto his heroes relic and push him into fighting, which could be understood as more of an example of male machismo, lol.

I mean, I think there is legitimate queer subtext especially among Dimitri and Dedue, though their relationship has alot of problematic issues and context and there is the legitimate issue of Dedue being somewhat of a good token minority engaging in respectability politics, while there also being the context of him being a man of color genocide survivor who exists purely to be subservient and nuturing towards the leader of the people who commited said genocide, being made to crush liberation movements by his own people in favor of the genocidal Nation Dimitri leads. I think there is interesting potential inside their relationship, especially due to the themes of vengeance surrounding Dimitri, but the game does handle it by far more poorly than could be said even with the most criticial lense towards the obsessive fangirl jokes surrounding Edelgard and Monica. Something Gascon does not acknowledge, because he is operating under the double standart that the male queer ships he enjoys are supported, pure and true and that outside of one token example, the female queer ships he dislikes are just mocking or titulating. Because, and this is important to remember, Gascon is a gay male chauvinist mad at sapphic women. His language and arguments make this fairly clear.

And here we have it. All queer female rep and subtext in Fire Emblem, in Gascons mind, is his argumentation, at the same t ime in a blind spot but also exist purely as profitable male titulation. This is an extreme case of misogyny, in which queer sapphic fandom is just entirely dismissed and sapphic subtext depicted as something lesser, only serving men. Because you know that this chauvinist thinks that lesbians should instead spend their time focussing purely on male gay representation. It is also an argument which we see often inside broader fandom discurse and by Fujoshis to attack Yuri and reveals a deeply rooted lesbophobia inside fandoms. And this is a peak example in which falls into the James Summerton school of performative feminism underneath he hides a weakly disguised deeply misogyny that specifically targets sapphic women in an attempt to dismiss the notion of women existing decentered from men. It is a good example of how even a gay man can still participate in patriachy and misogyny, in perpetuating the notion that women can only exist in relation to men. What he also does is full on dismiss decades of sapphic subtext and reading inside the Fire Emblem Community, for example what is with Eirichel or the strong bisexual subtext surrounding Camilla, and the extremely strong queer female subtext inside 3 Houses itself, not only in the way Crimson Flowers overall themes and subtext works the best as a sapphic story between a female Byleth and Edelgard, but also the undeniable queerness of Edelgard and Dorothea, both to each other as well as in their relationship with other women. But no, for him, all queer female expression that isn't to his comfort and resigns to exist as a secondary behind male queerness is to be dismissed as pure cishet male titulation. This is a strong example of queer male chauvinism and lesbophobia.

Could be because Byleths support with Rhea is incredibly unpopular, probably due to Silver Snows general massive lack of popularity and its strong aspect of grooming, implications of being based on love bombing and the fact that for all intends and purposes, Rhea is Byleths grandmother and depending on Sitris genetic components maybe or maybe not somewhat like a biological half-sibling. Not that a guy who on this very website openly admitted to persueing incest irl while framing this as just a normal part of gay culture could grasp that one.

Ultimately, the issue is that this just moves the goalpost, as he does not engage with and instead talks around the fact that sapphic women inside the fandom gravitate towards Edelgard and are part of her fanbase, sapphic women inside this fandom gravitate towards Edelgard, which Gascon obviously does not want to acknowledge. Hell, we know that many of the more well known fanartis and writers outside of just Captain Flash are sapphic women and enbies. One of the most popular Edeleth Fanartists is a non-binary lesbian, we see on twitter how a large portion of sapphics engaging with Fire Emblem strongly gravitate to and center Edelgard. And the issue with Fujoshis and androcentrism is one that currently inside of fandom discourse is predominantly pushed by lesbians. It is often lesbians criticizing the way how female writers, often female writers who also identify as queer, center and prioritize male characters inside of Fandom over promoting female characters and sapphic relationships. And nobody even claims that Dimitri Fans are all horny fujoshis, only that the fujoshi community, and all of its problematic elements which certainly don't describe all fujoshis or even a minority but issues inside the yaoi genre itself, gravitates strongly towards Dimitri.

Hell, the m/m centric ships of the Blue Lions and Dimitri are predominantly criticized for being examples of androcentrism inside Fandom and the fact that Dimilix being wastly more represented than Dimidue reveals an anti-PoC bias inside the community. Something I even wrote about today, while he focuses on being the lesbophobe he always was.

thankfully, I have this guy blocked otherwise I would have to disappoint him, as I'm not a troll. I'm a clown. I might need some psychopathic Juggalo gang though, just in case somebody decides to call me a troll.

[jackwhiteprophetic]

My controversial 9-1-1 opinion is that Buck is one of the least interesting characters on the show. Don’t get me wrong, he is complex and interesting but the type of character he is and oftentimes reduced to (sunshine golden retriever boy, abandonment issues, humour to cope and uses false confidence and cockiness to hide the fact he’s deeply insecure) is common and you can find at least one character in almost any media who pretty much matches that description. Usually those characters are also a fandom favourite and you can never escape them.

The clear favouritism for Buck in the fandom also undermines a lot of the incredible things this show has done for representation. “Omg the white guy kissed another white guy! This is revolutionary and the greatest thing to happen on the show!” (Ik I’m simplifying it).

That’s cool, personally I think one of the greatest things to happen on the show is the representation of an abusive relationship and how that trauma impacts a person for years and isn’t fixed in a night after finding the perfect guy. I also think representing postpartum depression was also quite revolutionary and made my mum feel comfortable enough to open up to me about how she had postpartum depression after my sister was born. Like my mum is 50 years old and this silly firefighter show made her feel seen. THAT’S what representation is for.

Regarding LGBTQ+ representation, I think the HAPPILY MARRIED BLACK LESBIAN COUPLE WITH CHILDREN (Mara we’re getting you home) is something never seen in mainstream media, firstly because there are hardly any sapphic relationships and secondly because those sapphic relationships hardly include women of colour.

This is an ensemble and I feel like a lot of people forget that. I’m also still annoyed that when Buck was confirmed bisexual, major article companies acted like this was the first time 9-1-1 had established 1) a queer character and 2) a queer couple.

Henren ran so BT could stumble around and fall flat on its face.

Interesting... We definitely share some of the same views on things, but I do find Buck really interesting as a character now!!! I find Buck and Eddie soooo interesting mainly because I have read probably millions of words of character study on them. Also when I first watched I didn't find Buck suuuper interesting up until the saviour baby arc, which adds so many layers of complexity to his behaviour across all seasons!!!

I really hope there is a greater focus on Maddie next season!!!! Also I think one of the major flaws with S7, because it was written very quickly and they knew they would have to move scenes across episodes is that they didn't really mix storylines massively, so it wasn't very cohesive and we didn't really get to see the 118 as a whole family properly. The pairings we had were Buck and Eddie, Henren and Madney and Bobby and Athena, and that was kind of consistent throughout. Next season I'm really hoping that they can switch up dynamics at least for a few storylines, BC I miss when we would see scenes of like Buck and Chim, or Athena and Hen, which they stopped doing as much once Bathena happened, because they no longer needed Hen as a link between Athena and the 118. WHICH IS SO SAD! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

ALSO SORRY THIS ISNT VERY WELL STRUCTURED BUT CAN THEY LET HENREN BE HAPPY PLEASE!!!! Kind of sick of their storylines being "oh no someone is threatening our family" because it just paints their family as unstable and they don't deserve that!!! I want silly storylines PLEASE!

But yes the centering of Buck (and sometimes the other guy who I will not name BC I don't wanna piss ppl off) by SOME people in the fandom ANGERS ME GREATLY. ESPECIALLY with the whole Gerrard thing, where the comments on the IG post were FLOODED with people talking about Tommy (named him here oh well). And people talking about how everyone is gonna defend Buck because if Gerrard even looks at Buck they're gonna throw hands! I'M SORRY WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU MORE DEFENSIVE OVER BUCK THAN CHIMNEY OR HEN, WHO HAVE ALREADY BOTH BEEN TARGETED AND HARASSED AND BULLIED BY GERRARD? WHY ARE YOU MORE DEFENSIVE OVER TOMMY THAN CHIM OR HEN? It fucking disgusts me. The way that Tommy literally was introduced in S2 as a PLOT DEVICE to show how 'bystanders' (he was barely a bystander, more an active participant) in workplace racism and bullying are still so fucking dangerous and disgusting and wrong. And he was so fucking disgusting to both Hen and Chim, bear in mind they have a fucking dangerous job, if CHIM had been in that building Tommy would have absolutely left him to die. WORKPLACE RACISM IN LIFE OR DEATH JOBS LEADS TO PEOPLE BEING FUCKING LEFT TO DIE. And people are more defensive over Tommy being potentially harassed by Gerrard and than they ever were over Hen or Chim. As a white person I am so fucking sorry, this fandom has not lately been a safe space for pocs and the fucking lengths people go to to justify both the character and the actor are so fucking strange. White queer people should do fucking better than this. It is the bare fucking minimum to not be racist or not have been publicly racist in the past. Why not ask for a better fucking standard? ALSO with the actor, if you're trying to fucking argue that he's not like that any more, SHOW ME that he is a fucking anti racist and that he is fucking defending minority groups and that he understands the weight of his actions. SHOW ME how he understands his privilege and uses his platform and the money he is given to donate to and fund the protection of these groups. It is fucking sickening that people have decided they can defend or ignore or tolerate this man and it DISGUSTS ME that they have happily created an environment where people can't feel fucking safe or supported or heard.

The focus on that character is so fucking weird given the lack of screen time he has had, I'm really gonna stop talking about him at all soon because it gives him way too much weight. But it's disgusting. The way some people have to find a way to write Eddie and Chris out of Buck's life and rewrite over canon to bring more focus onto this man astounds me.

As a (lesbian? Idk not currently sure but kinda) queer person, Henren are such beautiful representation and I love them so much and ALSO the foundation of the whole show is basically found family. If you want to only focus on Buck then that's fine I guess, but it is literally written into canon that the family around him mean FUCKING EVERYTHING TO HIM so it's weird that people barely fucking look at it at all.

Anyway sorry I greatly appreciated your message and idk if all of this is related or relevant and it is not well structured but I was just feeling ranty and was inspired by you! I love you and I hope you have a brilliant day!

[blushydrangea]

im here to ask u ur thoughts in the... pj controversy ehhekekfke i wanna say smthn abt but like i feel as if i dont grasp the whole thing yet so i chose to shut up rn

hi love! under the cut so the people who are tired of discussing this topic can avoid it.

it's a long one!

i know everyone here has likely come across the tweets pj made, but as an archiver at heart i feel the need to break everything down. screenshots aren't mine.

on the 18th, pj made a tweet about fellow drag queen and artist chappell roan, questioning the authenticity of her love for drag. most people (me included!) thought she was trolling, which unfortunately didn't happen to be the case. plane appeared to be under the impression that chappell was mean or cold towards drag queens she invited to her shows, something she allegedly heard about in boston and, according to some people on reddit so take this with a grain of salt, was debunked. she followed her tweet with another, ironically saying "i love chappell roan". the first tweet was then deleted.

after several people accused plane jane of trying to gatekeep drag from women & having an unfair opinion deeply rooted in misogyny, pj released a notes app screenshot on the 19th. however, going against the purpose of most notes screenshots, hers wasn't an apology. instead, she chose to call out the hypocrisy of people attacking her because they were calling her a man (it's important to note that pj hasn't directly told us what her ood pronouns are afaik).

she made some more shady tweets after that and argued with stans on social media but i don't feel like including these, so the last update we have was this apology pj made for her fandom.

before i speak my mind on this, i just wanna say that i am willing to discuss this as long as people are polite, any aggressive messages i might receive will be promptly deleted.

to be honest, i didn't like what she said. being a person with a platform and, let's be real, several crazy stan accounts who follow her word like gospel, it was wrong in my opinion to call a growing lesbian artist (one of the very few we have, at that) performative for her love of drag. someone who also engages in the *checks notes* performative art of drag. there isn't much of a "bag" to be secured by pretending you love drag, as it's not that mainstream, and i can't help but wonder if pj would have the same criticism were chappell a gay man instead of a lesbian woman.

misogyny is real and it's present in all of us, we were all raised to see women as less than. pj is white and male-presenting with her makeup off, she isn't incapable of misogyny because she is gay or a drag queen. therefore, it rubbed me in the wrong way to see her voice out the same beliefs i've heard from other gay men before – that women deserve to be questioned whenever they exist in drag spaces. i don't agree with the sentiment that pj meant women shouldn't do drag, as she never said that. though she honestly reminded me of those men who ask me very specific and tricky questions about the tree of gondor or whatever when i tell them i love the lord of the rings. are you a true fan?

her notes app statement was what pissed me off. she was really immature imo, ofc she's only 26 so there's room for growth, but twisting a situation you inserted yourself in to seem like the victim based on... people calling you a cis man? come on. it was a self-centered statement made by someone who seemed to refuse to take any criticism on this subject matter. i was very disappointed she chose the "but you are wrong too!" route instead of apologizing to the people she hurt.

her apology to her fandom was... fine, i guess. it served to show me that she seems to be comfortable living in her bubble.

do i think she's a bad person? no, i don't. but i do think she had a misogynistic take and doubled down on it because she refuses to admit she was wrong. i'm staying away from her for the time being, i'll probably get over it eventually but rn i don't wanna see her face all that much. no judgement whatsoever to people who forgave her and are still posting about her, it's your blog, do what you want <3