#fandom oriented

[batshaped]

wane, little crescent, and i'll be the moon

#luna #nightmare moon #my little pony #mlp #friendship is magic #my little pony friendship is magic #mlpfim #mlp fim #mlp:fim #mlp g4 #01222024 #january 2024 art #2024 art #yet another pony drawing that i thought was genius but totally flopped on twitter #philistines!!!!!!!! #jk i kinda prefer that my original art does better over there. it's nice #i mostly only bother posting fanart to tumblr and don't keep up with putting all my original character stuff here cause tumblr is more #fandom oriented #it's not worth the energy putting my OG stuff here as a result #most of the time #but i can count on you fools to appreciate my pony art at least #LOL

[teethflavoured]

cat annie dog spyke haha lol

#teethdraws #ive been thinking of doing more horror oriented wrk but i had 2 draw smthing cute. tough week lads #spyke #annie #splatoon #splatoon art #splatoon 3 #splatoon fandom #splatoon fanart #spyke x annie #spyke splatoon #annie splatoon

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Actually I think we should all collectively work harder at misunderstanding TLoZ canon and simping for Ganondorf and I'm not even kidding.

#thoughts #ganondorf #tloz #zelda fandom critical #it's actually fine to reject and/or reappropriate an extremely flawed intended reading lens #I'd say it's even advisable #tbh I'm still mad at how most people were completely oblivious to totk's undigested orientalism/islamophobia #or that it wasn't a discussion point in the mainstream AT ALL #even among colleagues who honestly should have known better #and that people in here breaching the topic with as much delicacy and patience as they could muster #led to *entire sideblogs* being created to deflect this perspective #to “correct the misinformation” :)

[oplishin]

I really love the way RF Kuang wrote Rin's relationship to her culture because it's fucking terrible and cruel.

Rin is the last Speerly, and that puts a soul-crushing, unbelievably unfair amount of responsibility on her. She has to be the one to preserve her culture because there is literally no one else. After her, her people will be dead, and they'll be unable to represent or speak for themselves. All that will exist of Speer is other people's interpretations of it, of what they want Speer to be, how they want it to serve their own cultural narrative.

But, god, how could she possibly represent her people? She has no relationship to her culture, any representation she gives it is inherently from an outside, colonized view. Her culture was robbed from her, but she's still burdened with the responsibility of preserving it. She's woefully inadequate for the job, and she knows it. She's literally, physically unable to continue her people because of a choice she made before she knew she was the last of anything. But, even if she had known, it should've NEVER been her responsibility to continue anything, to boil herself down to a reproductive device for a people she owes nothing and everything to.

Rin doesn't dwell on this very often because, oh my god, there's a war happening, and all her friends are dying, and she'll die too if she doesn't keep going, and these lofty ideas of culture and colonialism are for people who don't have to live in a messy, war-torn reality, people have time to think about anything. R F Kuang does a great job of using Rin as an unreliable narrator here. It's clear that she's fucked up about this, but that she will not allow herself to think about it. She's One person, situated and trapped in her One life. She can't be expected to speak for a whole people. So, she pushes her culture aside. She has to live with the fact that this is it, she's the end.

Then, she dies, and Speer dies, and nothing is fair.

#fang runin #the poppy war #having a normal one #i started reading orientalism lololol #been a while since i've done anything for this fandom

[relicofkorax]

#lyle norg #invisible kid #querl dox #brainiac 5 #legionnaires #legion of super heroes #my art: 2d #querl x lyle #querllyle #idk what the ship is called im fandom uncultured srry #i need to like. learn how to draw vertically oriented pics ;w; #anyway- the prompt in my head: fuck lab safetyhefhjskdhds #im gonna scream if i realize I forgot something this is why I h8 tumblr

[scoliosisgoblin]

Beth and Jerry doodles

#the last time I drew Beth was last year I think... #and I haven't drawn Jerry in AGES #remember when this account was jerry oriented ??? #might draw more Rick and Morty stuff again but idk #Beth Smith #rick and morty #my art #rick and morty fandom #rick and morty fanart #jerry smith

[koko2unite]

Best size difference trope is when the smaller guy is the big spoon

#yes this is about vikdecai #but tbh when i talk about lougosi and fluffyvenom its also very this oriented LOL #size difference #gay #fandom #shipping

[ihavedonenothingright]

I haven't really been a fan in a while, but hearing Zeltik say that for the film, Ganondorf should be "a deranged, monstrous warlord who wants power, and nothing else" genuinely enraged me. I need to know what the fuck would make someone think that is the best thing to do with him. I know it's what they will do—I have zero hope of nuance, or even a motivation for him—but just. God, even the Zelda manga understood what to do with him! Why do you hate depth? What is wrong with you?

I am going to be very straightforward here: making him do what he does just because he's "mad" not only makes for an uninteresting villain, it also falls neatly in to a myriad of disgusting orientalist tropes that you can't avoid responsibility for just by giving him green skin. He is the only male representative of the Gerudo we ever see, and while the games will sometimes allow them to be the "good guys" (so long as they're assimilating into Hylian culture, or working in its interest), what Nintendo created in Ganondorf and his backstory was the equivalent of one of those slave market or sexy harem paintings of the late 19th century. He's the evil-for-evil's-sake depraved and decadent man in possession of unlimited numbers of scantily clad women, and that is, beyond a doubt, an orientalist notion. But he doesn't fucking have to be.

Frankly, up until Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo was getting better about him. I still think Akira Himekawa did him best, but Wind Waker Ganondorf is beloved because of his contradictions. He's undertaking actions we would consider evil for an ultimately fruitless cause, but he's not "deranged," he's consumed by the (literal) sunk cost fallacy, unwilling to give up on a dream he's already lost. Even in Ocarina of Time, he's the product of Hyrule's own making. The King of Hyrule is the one who launched a civil war, Hyrule is the nation with hidden torture chambers and guillotines. The Gerudo weren't even thieves before the war; Nabooru is anti-Hyrule, she disagrees with him on method.

Anyway, yeah. I keep forgetting what a cesspool the fandom is out in the wild. But for the love of God, I need people to start handling this man with some care.

#zelda #loz #ganondorf #rant #i am. not very happy #i know it's literally one line but it encapsulates so much of what i hate about the orientalist tendencies of this fandom #and why i dislike totk #anyway. i'm out for the night #peace and love and all that #orientalism

[thearoaceshark]

#With all the aphobia that have come out with this whole Alastor thing #I just want someone to hug me and tell me that everything is going to be okay #He is just a fictional character. but I feel very invalidated every time they do whatever they want with his orientation #and they are so insensitive about it #maybe Rosie will hug me and tell me everythin is going to be alrigth #I'm sorry for sounding so depressed all of a sudden. but I had that inside me for a few days #Fortunately in a few months the love for Hazbin Hotel will calm down. and I could now scroll through tiktok without fear of finding them #hopefully in a few years aphobia will be less and HH fandom(or THOSE shippers at least) will be remembered as one of those very toxic fandom #aroace alastor #hazbin alastor #alastor the radio demon #alastor hazbin hotel #aromantic alastor #asexual alastor

[thepoisonroom]

frankly we need more acknowledgement that sometimes you have an first/early/formative gay kiss or sexual experience and you're like wow that sucked ass maybe i got it wrong but actually sometimes gay dating and kissing and sex just aren't very good. as is true for all dating and kissing and sex. many such cases

#the fandom response to the 911 storylines has included some really interesting narratives about these things #like a lot of gay dating is like a lot of straight dating (just alright) #i had my first kiss and everything with someone i was in love with and it was a good expeirence #*experience #and then when i had my first kiss after that breakup and didn't enjoy it i was like man maybe i'm only into my ex not women generally :/ #like no dummy you and that other lady just didn't have chemistry or compatible kissing styles it's fine it's regular #but so much of the narrative we get is that it just Feels Right if the orientation match is workable #and equally some people you date are fine and there's nothing wrong with them and you just don't work well together #it's fine it's regular it's just part of the numbers game #personal nonsense

[pain-is-too-tired]

One thing I like to hc with the Apollo Head Counselors is that they all represent a time of which the sun is out.

Lee - Dawn/Dusk

Mainly dusk, but pretty much imagine him in browns, oranges , dusky yellows and reds and the like.

Michael - Twilight

Starts after the fall of Dusk,short lived. Haralds the start of darkness and but also first light when it falls. The darkess time in which the sun is out. I see him muted/ dark blues,dull browns and blacks. Maybe a touch of greyish pale yellows.

Will - Daylight

Longest lived, bright, it's what most people think about when they think of the sun. With his golden sun kissed hair and sky blue eyes its pretty on the nose. I see him in bright/light yellows and blues.

Idk why I thought of posting this, I just love them and wanted to share my thoughts.

Think it is pretty obvious how I tend to draw them, but it's fun to write it out ^^

#mine #pain rambles #pjo fandom #pjo hcs #pjo hc #apollo cabin #cabin 7 #cabin 7 hcs #apollo cabin hcs #lee fletcher #pjo lee #micheal yew #pjo michael #will solace #pjo will #will solace headcanon #will hc #pjo headcanon #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #i just love them your honor #rick I'm so mad we got nothing about them in toa #you're telling me that one of the most family oriented gods didn't even think about the multitude children he lost in the Titan War ONCE #THE FIRST TIME HE WAS HUMAN WAS BECAUSE ZEUS KILLED ONE OF HIS KIDS #LIKE IT BE VERY REASONABLE FOR PART OF THE REASON HE WAS GETTING ON ZEUS' BAD SIDE WAS CAUSE HE WAS IN GRIEF AND NOT WATCHING HIS TONGUE #but no #we got his exes angst only #goodness sake would've loved to see him be the most nervous wreck of a dad because now he is living with HUMAN FATHER GRIEF #i'll stop now

[jotun-design-party]

on fandom orientalism, ft. a quick visual example:

the example on the right is something i drew solely using references of the top results i saw on pinterest upon searching "jotun loki." please don’t roast my inconsistent handwriting

south asian cultures are often jumbled together for white artists of all kinds (authors, artists, movie directors) to create a sense of mystery and make things look "more foreign."

note: this doesn't touch on the antiblack racism in canon jötun designs; this post is primarily about fandom-sourced fetishization. i heavily encourage people to reblog and add onto this post anything i may have missed or added nuance

cut: links on orientalism, in-media examples, how this manifests in fandom-made content

i'd like to start off by saying that this post is a white person telling other white people how to spot orientalism in relation to fiction. i am by no means an expert on any of this, but my goal here is to start creating a less ignorant space that doesn't push people out of fandom.

i'm just trying to stir up more conversations about this and get other white people to think more critically about how they engage with the content they consume. nerd shit should never come with a sacrifice and it's extremely upsetting to see people of color consistently forced out of fandom communities, especially when modern superhero comics began as a way for jewish people to have a voice.

if this post upsets you, i don't want to hear it. don't tell me, "it's not that deep," or, "keep politics out of comics." it is that deep, and superhero comics have always been political. if you have the urge to leave a comment or send an anon about how you don't think it's a big deal, feel free to block me instead, because i don't care and you'll just get blocked anyway 👍

with that out of the way,

Q:

A:

there are countless ways to design a character in a way that makes it clear that they are an alien, or to make them sexy, and there is no excuse to perpetuate stereotype that put real-life people in danger to do so.

"Orientalist paintings and other forms of material culture... depict an 'exotic' and therefore racialized, feminized, and often sexualized culture from a distant land." [¹]

there are so many examples of this in loki fic and art. it's extremely common to see loki depicted as a feminine object of desire. they may have longer hair. clothing that serves more as an accessory than an outfit, that isn't suited to protect them from either the harsh cold of jötunheim or the sunburns one might get when surrounded by reflections of the sun off the snow. draped in jewelry, and in a compromising position.

i'm sure you can imagine how this can get especially out of hand in relation to thorki. i would speak more on thor's presence as both the white aesir prince or the strong barbaric jötun, but as i'm not comfortable consuming thorki content, i don't have enough context to speak on the stereotypes used outside of the art pieces i've seen while searching for jötun loki fanart.

i am, however, confident in saying that orientalism often serves as a device for fan creators to show a contrast between Asgard's white-viking-british-accent-magic-science-elegance. jötunheim, in the comics, is often portrayed as a less intelligent, cutthroat, barbaric, and bloodthirsty culture.

"There was always something unknown and uniquely different about Orients which reinforced the distinction between the European 'us' and Asian 'them.'" [²]

the green link in particular comes with a helpful tool for anyone who might be inexperienced in spotting racist themes in media. if you have trouble being confident that the media in question is orientalism, this link comes with a checklist scale to score how likely it is to be an offensive depiction.

an example that most of you will be familiar with is Disney's Aladdin (1992). the green link goes much more in-depth about the intricacies of Aladdin's orientalism, and i heavily HEAVILY encourage you to read it, as it will help fully grasp the way fetishization and demonization go hand in hand in orientalism.

here, i'd also like to use it as a comparison to show why this loki stuff is honestly... egregious.

by now, even the visuals here should seem very familiar.

the source goes on to use arranged marriage as an example of a common "trope" in orientalist fiction. as previously stated, i don't consume thorki fiction. however, i am EXTREMELY confident in making the guess that it tends to be a common theme when jötun loki is paired with an aesir thor.

i'd also heavily recommended this article and this wikipedia page, both on the negative and stereotypical portrayals of romani people; loki is a magic user, and i suspect that one of the reasons there is such heavy use of these appropriated, exaggerated, and fetishized themes and visuals is because of the demonization of romani people as tricksters, thieves, and witches.

#orientalism #racism #fandom culture #jotun loki #jötun loki #marvel #jötun loki contest #jotun design party

[jheselbraum]

Much like how the majority of people who wanted totk Zelda to stay a dragon at the end actually wanted Zelda to be a big tiddy dragon girl, I feel like what a lot of people who say they wanted a more complex Ganondorf for totk actually just want a Ganondorf that's a tumblr sexyman, and are too racist to realize that he already is one

#THIS IS ABOUT THE FANDOM IN GENERAL THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE TOTK GANONDORF POSTS IVE BEEN REBLOGGING LATELY #those guys are cool don't get it twisted #that post from earlier just had me thinking about that pre totk release fancomic #about link and zelda reviving dehydrated Ganondorf and walking around under the castle together #and Ganondorf is just like ''oh hello my good friends link and zelda'' and is super nice #and also fucking white #and also how fanartists and fic writers are #fucking quick to write Ganondorf as a rapist and add orientalism to his design and in general #characterize him as a mindless brute even when theyre trying to write the Ganondorf they say they want #when Ganondorf is a dracula style manipulator #i joke about how while zelda is playing chess gan and link are playing dnd #but the reality is that zelda and Ganondorf START OUT playing chrss and then link winds up #distracting Ganondorf with dnd which gives zelda time to eat all the chess pieces #which is what I assume is the goal of chess

[hollytanaka]

More recently, the teams behind Call of Duty have attempted to give more shade and nuance to their depictions of the Middle East. The Modern Warfare reboot centers on an Arab woman named Farah Karim, one of several playable protagonists. “It’s rare to find a memorable brown protagonist,” Hussain said when discussing the history of video games. But Farah is certainly memorable—she survives a chemical attack in the opening act and leads her home country’s freedom fighters [...]. But there’s one problem: Farah is from an entirely made-up Middle Eastern country called Urzisktan. All the other main characters have their roots in real places (Price is from the United Kingdom, Alex is an American), yet she is from a fictitious Middle Eastern place ravaged by war, divided into people who engage in terrorist acts and those who don’t. The entire region is flattened into homogeneity as a result, and it’s all too common in these types of games. “We jokingly call it ‘Arabistan,’” game developer and consultant Rami Ismail said via video call. “A game designer once came up with that term…I think a lot of us use [it]. Some people say it’s a nice thing, but I don’t really see it that way. It just means that we’re literally interchangeable, our cultures are interchangeable.” Ismail continued, “From where I’m sitting it’s like, ‘yes, there’s a country in the Middle East, it needs to be bombed.’ That’s not an improvement to me, at least have the decency of picking a place and then doing it. But by homogenizing it, they can effectively go, ‘no, no, we don’t mean any of the real people. We mean the fictional Arabs that by default are terrorists.’” [...] “It’s perpetuating the idea that there is a singular, Middle Eastern country,” Shammas said during our chat. ”It actually ties in very strongly [to current events] because we’re seeing people say, ‘Oh, well, just take the Palestinians into Egypt, take the Palestinians into Jordan.’ These are different people with different Arabic languages…Call of Duty reflects the fact that we treat these cultures as totally swappable and why people don’t care about the displacement of Palestinian indigenous people specifically.” Shammas returned to that concept later, when I brought up the image circulating social media of an alleged Israeli soldier wearing a face covering similar to Ghost from Call of Duty. “Stateless people, unnamed country—Palestine might as well be anywhere else,” she explained. “It helps with the subtle colonialist narrative that the space is empty, barren, and owned by babbling savages that you can now enter and make something of.” [...] But for many, reckoning with the legacy of military games seems nigh impossible. “There is no value in any military game, and honestly, people should find better games to play,” journalist Saniya Ahmed said in an email. “No cultural representation can come from Call of Duty, nor should it.” Shammas brought up God of War 2018 as an example of a franchise taking its core concept and turning it on its head, questioning protagonist Kratos’ legacy and relationship to violence. Can Call of Duty do something like that? “No. I don’t think it can,” she said. Ismail agreed. “The problem isn’t necessarily that we shouldn’t have Call of Duty games or that Call of Duty should be different from what it is,” he said. “Changing that would require a level of courage and a level of insight at the corporate level that just isn’t possible within our system of making games…Call of Duty is a roller-coaster built on the American consciousness of war.”

– Alyssa Mercante, "We Have To Talk (Again) About How War Games Depict The Middle East," KOTAKU (December 7, 2023).

#call of duty #orientalism #islamophobia #fandomshatepeopleofcolor #farah karim #mw2019 #modern warfare 2019 #cod fandom critical

[ravenkinnie]

yall can say im a hater for this but when people post like wow fanfic writers do it all for free like no they don't. nobody makes money off this shit legally but I promise you they do it for clout, for interaction, attention is its own currency. why do you think fanfic writers always have insane intercommunity drama - because this shit can make you insane. you will have people fighting to detah over a window seat in a clown car, like yes it's a labour of love but also DO NOT underestimate the appeal of having a minor to major online following. the pay off for writing OG work is so miniscule because the chance of hitting it big is tiny amd it can take so many years just to debut with one 100k novel that will likely generate minimal attention that fanfiction is actually way better if you're more oriented towards community/following

that being said, there is a lot of people who write fic for a ton of reasons and genuine passion is one of them and I do love the creativity that is born from that and I love the little community that can build around canon with all different interpretations, styles, genres etc etc but if you ever see big name fan drama just remember that they do that for the same reason people have random influencer beef on tiktok, attention is perhaps even more powerful than money

#mine #i say this as someone who dips toes into different writing communities!! #you will be surprised by how often people dont really think about publishing as a money making scheme #it tends to be more born put of hope to amass a following a fanbase #depending on genre ofc fantasy writers tend to be more fandom aware/oriented than like litfic or sth

[peonycats]

did i just see someone hc South Korea to be the child of North Korea and America post-WWII

#why this fandom has a particular obsession with making alfred the (good) dad of his colonial and imperial possessions (like liberia) #is smth i'll never understand #hws america #hws north korea #// disk horse #hetalia #hws south korea #LIKE THERE'S SO MUCH I COULD WRITE ABOUT THIS HOW IT PLAYS INTO NARRATIVES OF WHITE SAVIORISM AND THE IMAGERY OF AMERICA NEEDING TO “GUIDE” #THE “YOUNGER” “LESSER” NATIONS OF THE WORLD WHO ARE SO OFTEN CONVENIENTLY POC HMMMM AND BASICALLY DOES A MISS SAIGON RETELLING AS WELL #THE BELIEF THAT TODAYS SK HAS NO HISTORY OR CULTURE W/O THAT AMERICAN INTERVENTION AND OTHER COUNTRIES ARE ALLOWED TO MODERNIZE AND REMAIN #LIKE IT'S NOT CUTE?? ITS NOT ADORABLE OR FLUFFY THAT IS LITERALLY PRO-AMERICAN IMPERIALIST PROPGANDA #also nk being a shitty mom who's paranoid of sk replacing her is 1) the demonization of asian moms as irrational and inhumane and in need #of white intervention and 2) justification of the usa's shitty alienation of nk as a pariah state #he's a different oriental but edward said is rolling in his grave rn