Been A While Since I Did Some Namine/COM Angst

I think I am annoyed enough to write about it, actually. Here's why "curate your space" and "don't like, don't read" and "fandom safe spaces" fail to work for everyone:

People don't usually don't tag for racism and misogyny. It's just fandom as usual for way too many fans. And asking them to tag for it? Is taken as a personal attack. Because the suggestion that they might have have done something racist or misogynistic is far more hurtful and offensive in their mind than what they actually wrote.

The argument that someone's properly tagged niche fetish fic will damage society is bs but fandom at large exists on a sliding scale of casually to actively racist and misogynistic. The queer utopian fandom experience is really only true for people who get on board with whatever the most popular ship is in the fandom--usually mlm, sometimes m/f, only vanishingly rarely wlw. Almost always white. Most fans don't see the racism and misogyny as an issue because their wants and needs are being met in fandom. If other fans are unhappy? "Curate your space!" But you can't curate out a systemic problem.

If you think your fandom doesn't have a racism or misogyny problem, you're probably happily living in that popular ship bubble.

Scott as Little Red Riding Hood narrative getting stolen by St*les stans will never NOT piss me the fuck off

Rebloggable for anyone interested.

Meryl Stryfe.

1/5

Xeha mom and baby xeha! requested from my last post!

★:･ﾟ･ﾟ｡✷ Request more Kh characters ! ⋆.ヽ. ✳︎･ ﾟ｡✷･

racism is not ‘drama,’ ‘discourse,’ or ‘fandom wank.’ i am honestly disappointed when fandom bnfs refuse to use their privilege and platform to denounce racism in fandom, or at the very least stop giving racist content a space on their platform

i hear the cry ‘but fandom is for fun!’ a lot, and believe me, i am completely 1000% a proponent of ‘fandom is for fun.’ i would love to have only fun in fandom. but the words which are not spoken is ‘for whites.’ fandom is for fun for whites. i do not mean to dismiss any good anti-racist work people may be doing in their offline lives, but to be able to take that off and not think about it in fandom is a privilege. as it stands now, poc do not have any space they can use just ‘for fun.’ we experience racism every day in our offline lives and it follows us no matter where we go, even into fandom

if you want ‘fandom is for fun,’ you must make fandom for fun for everyone. this means actively welcoming fans of color by speaking out against racism (or other forms of marginalization), listening to and uplifting their voices, and not supporting racist content. will you put in the work to truly make fandom for fun for everyone, or will you continue to uphold racism and drive fans of color out of your fandom?

fujimaki (and by extension knb fandom) and the relationship with colorism

fujimaki has some extremely questionable views on dark skinned people

its like…the only other character in the series that exhibits sexual “interest” bc he reads gravure mags as a past time, has dark skin (haizaki is notorious for his sexual exploits but its supposed to be frowned upon…hes clearly marked as Bad…so the unfortunate implications are rather telling re: aomine…not to mention how fandom ran with this trivia as some Definitive Character Attribute of aomines l o l)

the only character in the series that exhibits infantile toilet humor (farts, burps) as well as being the Dumb Musclehead character, has dark skin

we wont even mention how momoi, in a fit of rage/frustration, calls aomine ganguro, so essentially using his dark skin as a pejorative and kise made a weird mention of aomines dark skin when he first met him (why? its not connected to his status as a basketball prodigy) or his Biggest Weakness is that he cant clean when his miragen cohorts cant draw, cook, carry a tune, or make a joke? or how nebuya is referred to as a gorilla by sports spectators

and of course, the fandom engages with these characters - particulary aomine - in some insidious ways that match with fujimakis prejudices, but pointing that out incriminates fandom or makes you an oversensitive killjoy

though im not ascertained if the colorism+negative views on dark skin are as prevalent or normalized as it was back in the day, its still rather difficult to navigate in this fandoms content when im constantly bombarded with claims that dark skin means youre a hypersexual/sexually predatory fetish, intellectually deficient, unclean, vulgar, a subject of perpetual derision

its especially disheartening when you yourself are judged constantly by the darkness of your skin, both in the setting of east asian culture (japan has a long, ugly history with colorism and xenophobia) and the setting of US-ian politics (do i even have to spell it out?) and then be told that i should be grateful to fujimaki for even considering dark skin representation?? (these types of people have been brainwashed by tumblrs obstinate and incredibly shortsighted identity politics tied with media repesentation)

honestly being reminded of scott mccall hate stemmed from racism perpetuated by teenwolf fandom when i engage with aomine fandom and its alienating/infuriating

some of y'all really need to re-examine what the word racist means because it's not always just "loud and proud white supremacist intentionally causing harm". sometimes it's "otherwise 'nice' person acting on internalized racial biases that they refuse to examine".

like my god the second "racist" gets dropped in a conversation some of you completely shut down under the weight of all your white fragility and refuse to listen to or act upon any criticism of your harmful actions, however intentional or unconscious they may be, and it's honestly pathetic. grow the hell up. learn to be uncomfortable in discussions about racism or you're never going to become better.

in another universe