So... this isn't the first time I've seen people being incredibly mean to a whole section of the phandom. It's the first time in a while I've seen a post this bad in the main "danny phantom" tag, though. I have Thoughts™ that have been stewing for a while. Thoughts™ that shouldn't be put in the tags of someone else's post.
I'm not going to link anything. These are just my thoughts, raised to the forefront by recent posts in the main tag.
TLDR: I have two main Thoughts™:
No matter what you ship, I welcome you to this phandom. The folks who openly despise real people for shipping fictional things do not represent all of phandom. Y'all deserve better than being called shitty names. Your ships do not make you a bad person, and I personally welcome you.
To y'all who keep trying to draw a line in the sand to define who is "degenerate" or whose work is "degenerate": the moment you draw that line, you create a way for others to shove people behind that line. And the folks who usually get shoved behind that line and called "degenerate" are lgbtqia+ folks, and (c)sa survivors. It's happened before on LiveJournal and FFN, and it's happening now, irl, with book bannings across the USA (and especially in Florida). The only way to protect lgbtqia+ folks and (c)sa survivors from this abuse is to not draw a line in the sand at all. Don't call folks "degenerate" for any reason, unless you're ready to have that finger pointed back at you by a larger and more negative movement.
If you desire fuller context, it's below the cut.
First: no matter what you ship, I welcome you to this phandom.
The views of hatred and disgust that pop up in this phandom don't represent all of phandom. No fandom is perfect, and we'll always see some form of the "logic of disgust" from some folks in any fandom. But no matter what you ship, and whether or not I personally ship it, I welcome you. You will find no disgust from me as I am now.
If you dig backwards into my blog, you might find some anti sentiment. My introduction to fandom was first FFN, and then tumblr, back when I was more of a black-and-white thinker. I'm pretty sure I experienced some form of shock when I really started digging in to the Wild West that is fandom. I don't know if I ever expressed this shock online. But none of you deserve to be called "degenerates" over liking whatever fictional content you like. Y'all are a part of phandom, too, and any attempts to erase you or deride you are wrong.
We shouldn't be drawing lines in the sand and throwing people behind those lines. That's dangerous.
Second: to y'all who keep drawing lines in the sand, please consider the broader context around you.
The moment you draw a line in the sand to delineate between you and your group of people, and "them" and their group of "degenerates", people find ways to shove other folks, including you and your folks, behind that line. Historically, both in fandom and outside of fandom, the folks who get shoved ALWAYS include lgbtqia+ folks, and (c)sa survivors. We saw this with the purging of LiveJournal. We saw this with the multiple purges of FanFiction.Net. We haven't seen this with ao3, as far as I know; but their stance seems to be very anti-censorship for fandom-historical reasons.
Outside of fandom, we are seeing this now. I'm doing my senior capstone project on book bans. According to PEN America's data, over the past school year alone, 154 counties in 34 states have banned 1557 books 3362 times overall. Over 40% of those bans come from Florida counties. And much of the "reasoning" behind these bans is the same logic of disgust that fandom applies to "problematic ships": They call it pornographic and pedophilia. They call it harmful and age-inappropriate. They largely target books about lgbtqia+ people and people of color. And this year, they've also targeted "books on physical abuse, health and well-being, and themes of grief and death" - expanding their censorship to "protect the children".
Censorship doesn't protect anyone. Instead, it prevents people from holding genuine conversations with real people about the censored material.
And if you're not ready to have that conversation, that's fine! You do you! But don't create an environment where other people can't have that conversation. That only breeds the sort of black-and-white thinking that leads to 1406 book bannings in the state of Florida.
This is just speculation on my part: but I reckon every single person who supports those bans would love to ban the same content you want censored. And they'd call for you and the content you love to be lumped in with them.
We all deserve better than that. So please stop drawing lines in the sand.
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Hey guys,
As a Phandom, can we not depict w*ndigos as some cryptid or ghost thing?
The native cultures the folklore is from by and large don't want them to be used or depicted by the general populace. Additionally, the general populace doesn't know them or depict them as the original sources do - rather, they are stripped of their context. Because of this, using them is disrespectful.
Using them is cultural appropriation.
I know a number of people don't realize this - heck, I didn't know it was disrespectful and cultural appropriation until the backlash against Supernatural using them, because most the sites I visited that had them just didn't mention it. (The same goes with s**nw**kers, by the way - the folklore they're from says we shouldn't use the name, and the cultures the folklore is from don't want us using it.)
I know this has come up in the Phandom before - Phanniemay nearly used it as a prompt several years ago, but it was quickly removed once the situation was explained.
I'm not naming any names - but I'm starting to see terms and folklore we shouldn't appropriate crop up in Phandom again, so I wanted to spread the word.
Here are some sources on the actual folklore, and why we shouldn't use it:
Stolen Spirits: The Appropriation of the Windigo Spirit in Horror Literature (Kallie Hunchman, Ball State University)
More Than Monsters: The Deeper Significance of Wendigo Stories (Kaitlin Smith, Facing History and Ourselves)
A Creature Without a Cave: Abstraction and (Mis)Appropriation of the Wendigo Myth in Contemporary North American Horror (Francesca Amee Johnson, University of Warwick)
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