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#the racism in this fandom is so fucking exhausting
unforth · 2 months
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Danmei fans stop doing ~I just changed the Chinese character's names because it's funny~ challenge.
(It's not funny. It's never funny. It's always racist. Knock it the fuck off.)
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eyllweambassador · 9 months
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This fandom has an issue being anti-Black and it’s so aggravating to see as a Black man myself.
“X character CAN’T be Black because [insert disingenuous commentary that actually erases the fact that you can be racially one thing and ethnically another]
“I’m tired of seeing X character depicted as Black, why can’t we see them as another race?”
Like, y’all ain’t even subtle in your anti-Blackness, and trying to frame people who view said characters as Black/Black &Persian as erasing your ethnicity’s rep? Nasty nasty work.
All these conversations could’ve been had without including Black people. Ain’t had to bring us up AT ALL. But some people just can’t help but say the quiet part out loud.
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pirates-and-posies · 9 months
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Fandom keeps blowing up and dying wtf is happening
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fleetwood · 1 year
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i’ve been active in various mcr online communities since literally 2008 and the racism towards ray has never stopped it’s only gotten more subtle and if you don’t see it you’re kidding yourself
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fandom-rants · 6 months
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On jennlikespie's last comment (I will not be @-ing her because she clearly does not want to engage further):
When you said "Even with all those examples given a extremely large glaringly obvious detail OP douche canoe has failed to consider or realize is that Matoaka was a real person" it certainly looked like you were downplaying Peter Pan in your efforts to talk once again about how Matoaka is a real person, which we all already fucking know. And it appears you're the one with shitty-ass reading comprehension because not once did I say people should fucking ignore the racism in Pocahontas, what I said (if you would read) is, and I quote, "if you still say that [other Disney films] are still good, entertaining movies despite the misogynistic, morally dubious, or racist moments and viewpoints in them, then you need to shut the fuck up about Pocahontas." Which means, if you're struggling to understand, that all of them are racist and all of them should be lumped together as such instead of pretending one is worse than others. Which is what you did.
Yes! Duh! Matoaka was a real fucking person! Pocahontas in the movie Pocahontas is a character and should have been given a different fucking name because the bullshit that was written is so whitewashed it's insane! Hence why I refer to the character in the movie as Pocahontas, because it's not fucking Matoaka and shouldn't be lumped in with her. But her being a real person doesn't make it more racist than any other fucking film. They are all fucking racist.
This is why humanity fucking sucks ass. You and I are arguing the same basic concept, but you were too busy getting pissy to actually read and you ended up accidentally doing the thing others have done to you by blowing off Peter Pan to talk about Pocahontas, which was my fucking point.
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serpentarius · 3 months
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been trying to wrap my head around the cancellation of "Our Flag Means Death" and why it hurts so fucking much. lots of folks who are much more eloquent than I have summed it up perfectly, but I still think it’s important I add my voice to the matter. 
It really, really sucks that the hurt is being compounded on us every time another queer/minority-led show gets prematurely cancelled. and for a long while, we also had to deal with the many shows that deliberately queerbaited us, which was a shitty and traumatic experience unto its own. And even though we’ve largely surpassed that early-‘00s-flavoured brand of queerbait now, mainstream queer media is still predominantly white-led. With the cancellation of OFMD, we've lost one of the very few intersectional queer shows in the mainstream. Shouldn’t we be beyond asking for crumbs at this point? Shouldn’t we get unabashedly intersectional shows helmed by and starring queer, BIPOC, and trans folks without them being axed for no rhyme or reason?
It’s exhausting at this point, honestly. OFMD has done so well in terms of viewership and engagement and fan response—almost entirely due to word of mouth and little thanks to the Max marketing team, mind you—and even still the show got cancelled? Can they make it make sense????
For me, the thing most akin to this OFMD situation was when Sense8 got cancelled. And yes, the fandom fought, and we eventually DID get a movie that wrapped things up years later! That gives me hope for OFMD, that maybe another network will pick it up, or maybe they’ll be able to make a movie someday. But what makes me sad about cases like Sense8 is knowing that the creators still had to force the narrative around the amount of time they were given. That the corporate overlords who only care about numbers and profit dictated how much time they had to wrap up their story.
And it fucking kills me that DJ only wanted one more season. One more season to complete the vision.
I'm just so mad that queer people are constantly being jerked around and used for profit and then left high and dry. And then we're given excuses like "oh there's no budget" or "oh there's not enough viewership, that's all it is". like, sure, maybe those are contributing factors, but then I look at all the useless garbage shows that have little viewership and high budgets that keep going forever and then I think "hmmmm, the math ain't mathing." It's fucking transparent; the corporations can spew all they want with their rainbow capitalism and talks about diversity, but the evidence is clear, and they can't convince me homophobia/racism/transphobia/etc. is not a factor in these decisions.
Anyways, back to OFMD. OFMD made me fall in love with fandom again. I drifted away from fandom for a while in my 20s, and while OFMD wasn't the first fandom that drew me back into the madness, it's certainly the largest. The sheer amount of creativity both within the show and outside of it has blown me away; I've read some of the best fics, seen some of the best art, and witnessed some of the most incredible creativity from people in this fandom.
And let's not forget the role of the show's creators and how they've interacted with us fans. They made us feel seen. And made us feel loved and valid, even when we were being weird and loud and horny. It's so fucking rare to see that. But they understood; understood that the show they made was for us, for any of us who've been marginalized or made to feel Othered or different or stuck in life or unsure of our identities. And they gave us so much love for it.
The story... man. The unique combination of quirky humour and bright visuals and dark, introspective moments, the gorgeous costumes and soft, lovely, unabashed queerness, and veteran actors and new actors all getting to shine, brilliant comedic actors getting to show off their dramatic chops and vice versa. For me, seeing Rhys Darby - an actor I've loved for a long time, but who I never thought I'd see in a leading role - getting to be the romantic lead in a queer role? And seeing acclaimed director/producer/screenwriter/actor Taika Waititi play opposite Rhys, as an indigenous Blackbeard? Fucking incredible. OFMD Edward Teach you will always be famous to me.
Anyways... despite my long ramblings here, I still don’t think I've been able to get to the root of WHY exactly this show has inched its way under my skin and stayed with me in the way it has. Maybe I'll spend years trying to understand it. But I DO know that it's in part to do with seeing both older queers AND a diverse range of queerness onscreen, in a way that I've never seen in media before. I DO know that OFMD has forced me to look inwardly, and allowed me to realize some important things about myself. About my own queerness, my own identity, things I'm still figuring out. I've cherished being able to see myself in Stede, in Ed, and each of the crew members. In Roach’s love for cooking, in Oluwande’s ability to mediate; in Jim’s quick temper, in the way Izzy builds walls to guard his heart. In Buttons’ quirkiness, in Wee John’s sass, in Frenchie’s ability to turn pain into humour; in The Swede’s silliness, in Lucius’ bluntness, in Pete’s soft heart beneath the skepticism. Lastly, OFMD has inspired me. To create, to write, to draw, to devour other peoples' works and worlds while I sit in sheer, overflowing joyousness at their talent.
so yeah. the news of this cancellation is upsetting and hurtful and disappointing. And it's making us cry, and it's making us grieve, and may make us hollow and numb at times because we've lost yet another thing we love so deeply before it was meant to go. It's so much more than "just a TV show". It means more to us than any passive mindless idiotic mind-numbing bullshit - because even though there's a time and a place and a purpose for that type of media, it's the thought-provoking work, the work that creators pour their entire hearts and souls into, that hit us deep in our own souls. The work that changes our lives. The work that has the ability to save lives, as I know OFMD has done for so many. 
please know I'm sending immense amounts of love and strength to those of you who are also hurting. we'll get through this, one way or another, and I'll keep up with the hope that we'll get more someday; but in the meantime, I'm holding you tight. ❤️️🫂
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tossawary · 10 months
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Part of the problem with discussing how racism manifests in fandom and in fan organizations is that to present a nuanced and thorough take on a complicated problem, which actually consists of a number of different complex issues with lots of different potential solutions each, you have write really, REALLY long posts about it.
And people don't read long posts.
Or they read the first part and get stuck on one point they don't agree with or can't 100% agree with. So they get caught up in proving one point wrong instead of at least expressing sympathy or sharing the parts they do actually agree with.
(Or people make fun of you for caring about "people being mean in fanfiction communities" as an issue. Because caring is cringe, apparently. Racism in hobbies like book clubs and local knitting groups and kid sports leagues is also important, even if it's "not that big of a deal" in the grand scheme of things in your opinion.)
Which can have (unintentional or intentional) vibes of telling fans of color to shut up about racism. Which is rude and understandably upsetting to people who have experienced this kind of harassment. Saying "go make your own archive" implies that the affected fans of color have not been a part of building the OTW or in running AO3 and don't belong there as writers or readers, which is untrue and unkind.
Now, I know that people have a kneejerk defensive reaction to any form of "We Need To Ban The Bad Fic That I Don't Like". I have that too. And I won't deny that this is a conversation partly about content moderation. And I won't deny that within this broad conversation between lots of different people who want to do something about fandom racism, there are probably some people who are calling to ban everything they find even a little problematic. They're always popping up. I don't agree with those people.
I didn't reblog End OTW Racism's Call to Action post the first time that I saw it because my brain wanted to chew on the thoughts it inspired. I thought a lot about how exactly to write detailed policy that could explicitly ban the worst examples of fanfiction used as intentional hate speech provably for the purpose of targeted harassment, while still ensuring the protection of the queer content, the problematic darkfic, and the explicit kinky fiction that the archive was created to host (which EOTWR also cares about). I do want fans to be able to explore some disturbing and distasteful topics, even if they don't always write it well, without being censored. And yet I also thought a lot about the "Paradox of Tolerance" as a social contract and what it meant to be "Fair to Unfair Voices".
I also thought a lot about how AO3 volunteers can never review every single thing posted to the website (which was not being suggested). And about how this issue intersects heavily with the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers overworked and underappreciated. And the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers feeling isolated, neglected, ignored, or mistreated. And also how AO3 is shockingly enormous now for being the result of volunteer work on a budget that's small compared to other non-profit organizations.
And honestly, I was fucking exhausted from my job that day and I cynically thought to myself, "I'll read through the links later, but I don't really see how changing the names on a bunch of fics is going to inspire great change within an organization."
(And the people behind this online protest are pretty open about the fact that they didn't expect their awareness campaign - and that's what it is: it's just an awareness campaign - to do anything on the front of "Solving Institutional Racism Immediately".)
But then I thought to myself, "Okay, but I do believe in antiracist action. And even if I don't think some of these suggestions are workable with the current state of things, or that the OTW will ever agree to some things here, there has got to be something here that could be done right now to make things a little better."
I kind of like the idea of expanding the required archive warnings so that more well-meaning people will opt-in to tagging triggering material, which is a form of content moderation. Like the way that the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" tag works already. Major Archive Warnings are left up to the author's best judgement unless reported. And even if people repeatedly refuse to use any relevant warning tags when writing blatantly racist stories, when they get reported for not even using "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", then we'll be pretty sure that they're doing it to be a jerk, and AO3 volunteers can suspend or ban them for it.
I like the idea of expanding the abuse policy and clearly defining its terms so that Policy and Abuse volunteers can still retain some freedom of best judgement, but also be more consistent about recognizing when someone is being a racist jerk in the comment section or being racist by gifting violently racist fic to fans of color or otherwise behaving badly. And I like the idea of improving the reporting system while keeping potential misuse in mind. And giving PAC volunteers better admin tools and other resources.
Even if you believe that AO3 is largely run by well-meaning queer women, I personally don't 100% trust that every single volunteer will be great at recognizing the many varied forms of racism, or antisemitism, or transphobia, or prejudice against bisexual or asexual or polyamorous people, or against mentally ill or physically disabled people. And part of this discussion is about when individual members of the PAC team have failed to address malicious behavior that is already explicitly covered by AO3's existing anti-bullying policy. Or that can't be solved by just blocking and muting someone.
Like, this discussion is about racism, and it's worth caring about solely for how it affects fans of color, but optimizing the abuse policy and protocols against harassment would better protect everyone. (And also, please do not assume that fans of color are not also older fans and/or queer fans who care about censorship.)
Some of End OTW Racism's offered solutions are suggestions originally made by AO3 itself back in 2020. A huge part of this discussion is just some fans (they're only, like, 5 people) trying to make some noise so that the OTW will give all users a thorough update on their progress. They are trying to raise awareness to keep the conversation about fandom bigotry going and recruit people to show up to OTW Board meetings to ask what obstacles need to be tackled. They want volunteers trying to change things internally to feel supported and for some more transparency on this subject to externally hold people accountable to their promises.
And I also thought, "Fuck it. This post is worth reblogging if only to remind people that AO3 needs work, to educate new fans on the history and present of fandom racism in general, and to maybe make one person out there feel less alone and connect them with some new friends. Fans of color don't have to be perfect to be heard."
I believe that AO3 has gotten bigger than ever anticipated and management of the OTW has only gotten harder. And I think hiring a diversity consultant, as per AO3's own suggestion back in 2020, sounds like a good idea to curb harassment of all kinds and improve the working conditions of volunteers. Outside contractors have been hired before and these professionals have no effect on OTW's non-profit status. A temporary consultant's job would be to identify where the organization is getting stuck and give suggestions on how to fight bigotry, and the OTW Board can just pick the solutions they think will work in practice with their mission statements.
Honestly, I kind of think it might be a good idea to also hire a security consultant of some kind after some of the harassment of AO3 volunteers in recent years. And if hiring some programming contractors would help the coding volunteers build better admin tools and make tag blacklisting happen sooner, then I support that as well. But that's all up to the OTW Board. And I want the OTW volunteers to know that I support their original suggestion to hire some outside professional help, so that fandom can begin to address some of these ongoing problems beyond just acknowledging that they exist, even if it simply starts with AO3 explicitly calling for more volunteers to get the planned work done.
Saying that there's nothing to be done is defeatist. Saying that the affected fans of color and their allies sound too angry or too serious or too ungrateful, or that everyone involved just doesn't understand how hard these things are, is pretty rude. I don't expect perfect solutions on the first try. I don't expect them immediately. I expect some of these things to take the OTW... years, honestly. I don't always feel very optimistic. I find this entire discussion discomforting and depressing. I'm not ungrateful to the OTW and AO3 when the community has been an undeniably good experience for me personally over the past 10 years. I want people to be able to escape into fandom at the end of a shitty day.
End OTW Racism's awareness campaign is one small part of a much broader discussion and you don't have to agree 100% with everything that they say. Or with what other people talking about fandom racism say (and some people, including academics and journalists and media critics and video essayists, have been talking about fandom racism for a long time). And you definitely don't have to 100% agree with what I've said here.
You don't have immediately volunteer all of your time to the OTW to fix these problems to be a good person. We all have other shit going on in our lives. Just... keep some of the points being made in mind moving forward, yeah? If you have a moment, maybe listen to some of the frustrations with an open mind, and maybe show a little extra love to your fellow fans who are going through it.
And if you have the energy to tear down what you think just one of EOTWR's suggestions is as bad - and they are NOT calling for every single fic on AO3 to be reviewed for problematic tropes or racial slurs before posting, that would be ridiculous, and it's disingenuous to misinterpret them that way - are you also separately talking about and supporting any of the antiracist actions and other harm reduction policies that you think are genuinely viable?
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coffeebeanbabysdreams · 5 months
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New Muse (Xavier Thorpe x Fem!Reader)
part two — what if
overall summary: Xavier's psychic abilities have always been linked with his art, yet he's still shocked when his dreams become plagued with visions of an all-too-familiar girl begging for his help.
warnings (for all parts): kidnapping, swearing, mentions of blood, Wednesday being her typical obsessive self, stressed Xavier, prisoner reader... would the normies hatred for outcasts be considered some form of racism?? like draco malfoy with muggles??? idk, that's why im asking
authors note: i am a master at differentiating the actor from the character. i honestly have absolutely no clue why everyone started hating percy (i didn't watch wednesday until a month ago so i've never been involved in the fandom), but i am going to go about this somewhat like i did when the aidan gallagher drama went on back in 2019. the character is not a reflection of the actor that portrays him.
part 1 part 3
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DEAD.
The police had presumed you dead, giving up their search for you within a month and a half.
He stood alongside your family, watching an empty casket slowly vanish into the ground before them. All of his tears had vanished days beforehand, the pit of despair in his chest wreaking havoc on his senses and preventing him from shedding another fear.
Y/M/N wept on her knees, her h/c hair curtaining her face from the sorrowful gazes of guests. Her husband refused to fall, refused to hold her on the ground, settling for a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Xavier Thorpe found himself absentmindedly crouched beside her, pulling the woman into a lung collapsing hug as she sobbed.
Weems had allowed him to leave school grounds for the funeral, knowing that the situation had been greatly affecting him for weeks.
The artist refused to believe this, his intuition screaming that you were out there somewhere — alive.
He had no way of knowing that you were being kept right under his nose.
You groaned on the ground of the crypt, your shackled hands shivering at the cold chill of the stone prison.
Tyler Galpin had been chivalrous enough to bring you some blankets, well aware of how freezing the crypt would become as the seasons changed — but those blankets couldn't prevent the exhaustion that coursed through your veins.
"Help!" You tried to scream, your voice hoarse as you made your feeble attempt at retrieving help.
You had no clue how long you’d been down there, buried in the darkness, bruised beyond belief by Thornhill's countless hours of torture.
Dried blood matted your hair, the tangled strands doing nothing to help your battered appearance.
The door to the crypt opened for the first time in days, the auburn haired teacher sauntering in with a cocky smile on her lips.
Tyler followed behind her, and you couldn't help but wonder what Thornhill had done to the boy. The warm smile that you’d see every time you’d go into town for coffee, the friendly aura that he'd always held, had entirely dissipated.
"Well," the woman began, "today's your lucky day."
"Really?" You released a dry laugh, shaking your shackled hands. "Could've fooled me."
Thornhill rolled her eyes, "The person I've been waiting for will be at Nevermore, in a couple of days... meaning, I have no use for you anymore. The police already presumed you as dead, so... why don't we make their assumption correct?"
"Fuck you," You snapped, spitting a mouthful of blood at the woman's feet.
She smirked, snapping her fingers and turning on her heel. "Take it from here, Tyler... Leave her body in the woods, make it look like a bear attack."
...
Heavy clouds clung to the atmosphere, threatening to assault the living below with every gust of wind. Students of Nevermore were chatting through the Quad, echoes of a new student transferring the next day; the artist scoffed when he'd first heard the news, knowing Weems would do absolutely anything to erase the attention drawn by your disappearance.
He sat in his room, alone, the only thoughts tormenting his mind being of you as he scrolled through your endless conversations.
Rereading old messages had become poisonous; the unanswered questions and broken promises had grown haunting. The "what ifs" still weighed on his mind — followed by countless thoughts of what he could have done.
What if he had walked you back?
The artist blamed himself for this, he felt as if he could have saved you. If he had, then your family wouldn't have had to have a funeral — they wouldn't have to be suffering.
He looked to his sketchbook, the countless drawings of you haunting his conscious. He'd been having many — many — dreams of you; they started off as memories the two of had shared, until they grew darker.
He'd seen you in his dreams. Cold, alone, battered — wishing for death to save you from whatever prison you’d been sentenced to.
The environmental clues that he'd gathered only left him with more questions than answers.
All he knew, was that you were somewhere in Jericho.
Alive.
A knock at his door ripped through the silence of his room, clawing the teen from his downward spiral of mortifying thoughts.
"Xavier?" A voice echoed through the door, "Weems asked me to come get you."
He stood to his feet, trudging over to the door. It opened to reveal Enid Sinclair, eyes brimming with tears.
"What?" The question had left his lips in a much harsher tone than intended, but just as he was about to apologize—
"They found Y/n." The blonde whispered, hurriedly grabbing his wrist and dragging him from his dorm.
Xavier had barely managed to close the door behind him, the information shocking his system like electricity.
He ripped his hand from Enid's, spinning on his heel and running back into his room. He swiftly grabbed two hoodies from his bed: a dark blue one, and your favorite olive green one.
Slamming the door behind him, he ran ahead of Enid in the direction of Weems' office.
...
"Mr. Thorpe, I must warn you... she-"
He launched himself from the car before the blonde even had a chance to stop, rushing through the hospital doors with as much urgency as a worried father.
"Hi, sir. How can I help-"
"I'm here to see someone," he cut her off. "Y/n L/n."
The receptionist sent him a sympathetic nod, "She's in room 212."
"Thanks." He sighed, running to the elevators. Weems had opted to stay in the car, having already visited you that morning.
His leg bounced impatiently, anxiously waiting for the elevator doors to open so he could run to room 212.
When the steel doors had finally opened, he found his feet moving before he could process which direction he was going.
Thundering into the hospital room, he was sent odd looks by the nurse. "Can I help you?"
Xavier didn't answer her, collapsing in the chair next to you and grabbing your scarred hand.
The nurses couldn't successfully get all of the blood from the crevices of your skin, the rustic substance making his stomach churn at the thought of what possible hell you had endured.
"She's stable," the nurse informed him. "In a coma, but... stable. She's lucky Sherrif Galpin found her when he did."
happy halloween, everyone!
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scarrletmoon · 5 months
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it's izzy hands it's kylo ren it's billy from stranger things it's snape it's draco it's loki circa 2012-2014 it's a REPEATED PATTERN throughout all of fandom of an antagonistic white guy getting a devoted fanbase that is both disproportionate to his importance in the story and also misunderstands the white guy's role as an antagonist. they think their mean little guy is a misunderstood victim and they base their entire fandom experience around him. and then in season 2 ofmd went and redeemed izzy before killing him off to further ed's arc, something that is a solid choice from a technical writing standpoint but from a fandom perspective it built the izzy fans up into thinking they were right about how izzy has never been homophobic, izzy is a poor downtrodden abuse victim, and from day one izzy has been a protector and the only competent guy around and a loyal and dutiful first mate. and possibly the most significant part is that so many izzy fans have accidentally and unknowingly tricked themselves into thinking that izzy is a main character bc their fandom engagement revolves so heavily around izzy that they forgot the actual show itself doesn't, so they were completely blindsided by a death that has been foreshadowed since season one ("im not dying, not for that twat and not for you" and "only retirement we get is death" and the whole "plumb the depths, man" sequence where izzy was talking to stede through a death shroud ffs). and i want so bad to just ignore it but we literally got a queer romcom centered around an interracial couple and an incredibly diverse cast and an indigenous main character and a diverse writer's room and the season ended on a happy note and it's all about queer joy AND YET. soooooooo much of the post-season discussion has to center around the white side character!!! even in death izzy hands takes up a disproportionate amount of the fandom conversation and im exhausted. it's every fandom! every fucking time!! this isnt anything new this is the same time-honored fandom tradition of white man favoritism YET A-FUCKING-GAIN and im SO FUCKING TIRED OF IT!!!!!!!!!
(i get so scared when i turn on anon bc i’ve consistently gotten such shitty, cowardly messages through it but i’m glad this isn’t one of them lmao)
i know i’ve said this 374748 times but the last time i made the kylo ren/snape/white villain connection on twitter (i mean that’s on me, it’s twitter) i had people legit furious with me for calling them nazis which………..i literally never said
and i get the frustration. trust me, I GET IT. the white villain problem smashes right into white fragility and makes it almost impossible to talk about any of it. it means, like you said, that we’re talking about a fucking white side character in cast of amazing, nonwhite talent, because some people can’t handle confronting the fact that whiteness insulates them from the realities of racism, and that their ignorance and hostility makes them active participants in white supremacy
(and it’s really hard to explain this to people who’ve been taught that racism is when slurs and white klan hoods, because then they’ll say and do the most vile shit and CRY or fight you when you gently try to explain the racist shit they just did)
and because fandom is very queer as well as very white, we also have to contend with the kinds of white people who think that queerness somehow negates their whiteness. that they can’t express their privilege in contexts involving POC. that we’re making shit up to be victims and to minimize their pain on purpose. and time and time again, i have had my queerness erased by white people, so they feel comfortable ignoring criticism i only ever shared bc i was hoping for something better
i’ve said it again and again and again and AGAIN that it’s ESPECIALLY depressing seeing white people close ranks in ofmd fandom especially BECAUSE it has such a diverse cast and doesn’t shy away from discussing racism in all the ways it manifests. like, most of the racism in the show isn’t even subtle and y’all STILL elected to ignore it? do y’all not feel ANY shame about that?
and some of them don’t! bc they think we’re infiltrators. bc they’re only a few steps removed from “they will not replace us” as they see more POC try to join fannish spaces. and they’ll pretend they’re not trying to push us out bc they’re marginalized in other ways — deliberately ignoring the fact that they’re also crushing their fellow queer, disabled and marginalized community
so you’re tired? yeah. me the fuck too. we deserve so much better
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raytorosaurus · 2 years
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pls tell me you don't think disliking lynz is misogynistic lol i must've misinterpreted that
nope! it's totally fine to dislike lynz, i also don't like her myself. she's said some very questionable things and MSI grosses me out, as does her association with jimmy urine. i already know people will want to take this the wrong way so i want to make it clear that i'm not defending any of that. i'm pointing out an irritating mindless pattern of behaviour in this fandom that is immature and reductive at best and misogynistic at worst, which includes:
1. the intensity of the vitriol that is directed at her being disproportionate to most of the men ppl blog about who have done/said similar, if not much worse, things. and honestly in a lot of cases disproportionate to what she's actually done
2. the fact that i see so many people (especially on twitter) blindly jumping on the bandwagon of hating on her often without knowing what exactly it is they're hating her for - and even then, most of the reasons i see parrotted on twitter are either contextless and overexaggerated or not even one of the aforementioned valid reasons for disliking her. i don't know how to tell you this but if you believe everything on lynzuglyliar you need to reevaluate how you engage with information on the internet lol
3. the level of glee with which people hate on her, which truly smacks of old-school fandom misogyny reserved for women who marry your faves or get in the way of your favourite ship. on twitter especially it honestly truly feels like people are delighted to have a wife of the band they're "allowed" to hate on lol. i know a lot of that is coming from teenagers who will grow up and learn more self-awareness but that doesn't make it any less annoying or disappointing to see
4. the ridiculous mental gymnastics required to hate her so much while continuing to be a fan of the person who is married to her and in love with her lmao. sorry but if you truly think she's that irredeemable why are you still here
like. i hate msi and i go out of my way to avoid listening to them. but it's worth keeping in mind that the kind of shock-jock edgy gross music they wrote was not exclusive to msi in the 2000s. i hate it too and think it's stupid and counterproductive to whatever point it's supposedly trying to make but it was like. a thing for a while unfortunately. it was bad at the time and it aged even worse, but gerard and frank at the very least, and probably the others too, vocally enjoyed it. frank voluntarily chose to tour with msi and mcr performed with them multiple times and were always excited about it. if you truly think lynz's involvement with that band is indefensible, you should extend at least part of that criticism to mcr too. the amount of times i've seen people saying "omg frank hates lynz so much" is fucking ridiculous, and it's based entirely on the same kind of conjecture that led people to believe mcr didn't remain close friends after the breakup lol. if you have to make up things like that - or worse, make up and spread infidelity rumours or actual domestic abuse allegations (it's not even rare to see this on twitter) - to excuse their association with lynz/msi, you need to take a look at yourself tbh
this is partly a twitter-specific problem because that platform is literally set up to disallow meaningful or nuanced conversation but it's really exhausting to see hundreds of snippy "she's the devil" tweets and if you say anything vaguely critical of the the way fandom treats her you get immediately shot down with "why are you defending A Racist" with zero context or clarification. i hate to break it to you but if lynz is A Racist of an irredeemable level, so is gerard. hell, so is frank for blindly listening to and promoting black metal bands with nazi associations when he as a metal fan should know better and do his research. lynz's racism in question is the kind that's overwhelmingly common among liberal white women who are into witchcraft-type stuff. again, i am not condoning it, it's still wrong, but you cannot hold her to different standards than you do the guys in mcr. i'm just saying if you're able to acknowledge gerard's questionable statements and attitudes in the past, condemn them, acknowledge that he's changing and learning, but still go on liking him as a person and supporting his art...what is the reason you can't do the same for lynz.
i've seen people on twitter accuse lynz of plagiarism in an impressively tone-deaf misinterpretation of her art genre, sometimes the same people who would call gerard doing something similar a clever reference. i have literally seen people quote male members of MSI making sexually objectifying and openly misogynistic comments about lynz as some kind of gotcha saying "look, even her bandmates don't respect her" and like...if you can't see something deeply wrong with that i don't know what to tell you. i've seen COUNTLESS people bring up vague information "revealed" by her actual estranged family members on twitter after people stalked them to try to get dirt on lynz and if you think parroting back contextless one-sided information from other people's private family drama isn't a) about the least reliable source of information ever and b) deeply disgusting and inappropriate, i really don't know what to tell you
if you despise lynz to the point where you're in mcr's comments telling gerard to divorce her (again. i shouldn't have to say that this is disgusting behaviour) or booing when they perform summertime or accusing her of infidelity or abuse (which i cannot stress enough are rumours originally made up by frerard tinhatters) or anything like that, why are you even here. like what mental gymnastics are you doing to be able to remain a fan of gerard at this point. none of this is activism, if anything it's counterproductive to your point because it's indicative of the lack of critical thinking or maturity that's necessary when you're engaging with topics like casual/unconscious racism and normalised sexual abuse in the music industry
i'm probably not going to say more about this because this isn't really the hill i want to die on considering i don't even particularly like her myself but please i am begging you approach your dislike of lynz with just a little bit of critical thought and self-awareness instead of just blindly despising her for things that most of the men we blog about are also guilty of.
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timothylawrence · 4 months
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it's very silly that people will go "umm actually the vampire was only a 39 year old magistrate when he died??? basically a minor?? he's a poor smol bean who approves of slavery and calls gur people criminals on sight. it's ok if he's really cruel to everyone, he's so young and doesn't know better after his trauma <3" and then are like "i think wyll needs to be nicer. idk i just don't like him. he's so pretentious :/"
fandoms are terrible. i realized a long time ago that, for me, participating in them as a brown person just drained my energy and was not enjoyable anymore 💀
I can’t even blame you it’s just textbook racism lmao. I’ve seen people defend astys racism and some ppl even justifying why he should hate two entire groups of ppl. While Wyll gets adultified and told he deserves what he got and worse for “being dumb”. I’ve seen ppl refuse to interact with Wyll over a joke yet excusing every fucked up thing asty says
It’s incredibly exhausting and you can’t even mention how uncomfortable the racism in game is without yt ppl crawling out of the woodwork to say it’s not real and just fantasy
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jennycalendar · 2 months
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your tags on that fandom post got me thinking of how... defensive fandom is of the status quo kinda? like I'm white so this might come off like I'm absolving myself which I'm not, but so often I see "fandom is a queer run space that fixes canon! buuuut we're going to focus on the white men because they're the only ones with depth :) and we're going to make actually good female characters cookie cutter. and we're going to ignore black men and especially black women. but queer run safe space!!"
the minute i got this ask i knew i had to wait until i was at home with my laptop because my fingers cannot fly as fast on my phone as they can on the computer keys. this is literally so much of what is happening in the buffy fandom. the whole thing is built on intrinsic systemic racism n misogyny that's reinforced within the show and that many in the fandom do not critically engage with in the slightest. it is absolutely objectively insane to me that i can make a post going, for example, "hey, isn't it fucked up as hell that the show treats the romani people as evil for wanting angel to suffer?" and then people will come into my inbox or land in my reblogs and go "well, actually, the show treats the romani people as shortsighted and bad at long-term planning, and i choose to read them that way too :)" and fully not see that there is a hell of a problem with THAT statement as well (real thing that happened). OR that kennedy hate is still hugely in vogue because she's mean and bratty and terrible and doesn't know her place!!! OR kendra's death & how easily she is forgotten by the fandom!!!!! OR the entire trend of handing buffy to a person's favorite character like a little trophy they've earned for being tortured and sad, reducing her to a facet of a romantic relationship & implying that this is what she needs to feel and be complete!
OR OH MY GOD THE ENTIRETY OF EVERYTHING SURROUNDING SPIKE. where do i even start with spike. completely serious, i am honestly endlessly impressed by the people who can still handle being fans of spike, because being a fan of spike means having to wade through 20 million fics where That Bitch Buffy must be narratively punished for abusing poor baby spike who only ever wanted to love her and was totally out of character every time he hurt her (and also drusilla is a vapid whore who didn't love spike, ever.) like i am not at this point in time always strong enough to engage with spike content simply because there is so much spike content that is SOAKED in violent misogyny repackaged as Deep, Torrid Romance. it's exhausting to try and find the good stuff when sometimes even the good stuff will throw you a curveball in chapter five or shy uncomfortably away from the racist realities of spike's character. the fact that robin wood has been hated for so long because he had the Nerve and the Audacity to want retribution for his mom, and that he is framed as in the wrong for wanting that, is in and of itself so fucking upsetting to me.
AN Y WAY. i agree with you. and i get what you're saying. i think an awareness of the pattern and a willingness to feel uncomfortable within your own mistakes is always a good place to start. i try so hard never to dig my heels in if i can avoid it.
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chirpsythismorning · 1 year
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What do you think about ST writers staying silent when it comes to homophobia in fandom? I've seen some people talking about this and I have to agree that it is getting toxic, and the creators can say something about it. This issue is not about shipping, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in this fandom.
I get this, I really do, but there is a reason they don't bring a bunch of attention to the negative and it's the same reason most of the cast tries to not bring attention to the negatives going on that they experience.
This reminds me of when Noah came out for example. A lot of fans were congratulating him with support and stuff. But that didn't last long bc suddenly everyone in the tag was fixating on the negatives they were seeing, reposting homophobic comments he was getting and just freaking out on a loop over harmful shit going on. Some fans even made like plot twist edits of hateful comments he had under his coming out video and Noah himself commented on one of them, like alluding to the fact that he tries to not let it get to him.
When you're in these peoples positions, you're hearing about god awful stuff happening constantly. And that makes sense, when you have an audience of hundreds of millions of people, shit goes down. ALL the time.
And so it gets to a point where, eventually you have to give up basically. I'm sure there was a time early on like in s1, when they might have felt the need to put the fans in check over certain harmful things. But it probably got so big they couldn't do that any more, simply for mental health reasons I wouldn't ask that of anyone.
Think about Finn who has been through some shitty fandom behavior over the years with fans obsessing over him and like essentially photoshopping a fake story about his gf SAing someone. Did he come forward and talk about that? No bc fans like that don't even deserve the attention. And while yes, it's clear that he feels like grateful about this experience, it's also clear he has an intense sense of bitterness over the fact that having millions of fans means that there are bound to be quite a few who don't understand boundaries. And yet it's gotten to a point where acknowledging them only makes them stronger.
And then there's Caleb, who experienced fucking racism as a child simply for his character getting in the way of milkvan... And he only recently over the last year or so has felt comfortable enough to start talking about it more. And it's probably because he was in large part not wanting to re-hash over stuff that is obviously traumatizing and just not fucking fair for him to have to discuss in the first place. He deserves for this to be an incredible experience. He shouldn't have to give any of his time and attention to people that don't fucking deserve it in the first place. He deserves better than that.
And then there's Millie who has also been through a lot, to the point where it's like near impossible to even pinpoint everything because it's just so much. And she has the biggest following on social media so that makes a lot of sense. Her fandom experience is a large part of why she doesn't really use social media anymore. She used to love interacting with fans, but now it's just not something she can handle. Not only does she have to deal with people that hate her for no apparent reason, she also has to deal with so called fans psychoanalyzing anything and everything she does, to the point where they're convinced they know everything about her and her boyfriend and her family, as if they know what's best for her? Like imagine not having a space anywhere despite having millions of people say they love you, when they just turn around and treat you like a product to be consumed and discarded? It's exhausting.
All of them have a story like that, that just makes you realize that this is so much bigger than ship wars and any nonsense fans obsess over. Sometimes we forget these are real people and they have to see this and it obviously effects them mentally over time to the point where they just can't acknowledge it anymore in order to simply live their lives peacefully.
Now, I'm not saying the Duffers will never address the homophobia, bc they no doubt will. However, I think that in large part the point is to let these homophobes especially feel like they are superior and have the upper-hand, only to rip it out from under them basically.
And that's because we're also talking about a show that is hiding the truth in plain sight. This show is in fact for the so called freaks and geeks (and the gays). And so when that truth is finally revealed, THAT'S when they're going to call the bigots out on their bullshit. Because this show was never for them in the first place! And making them tune in for all of it, convinced it was for them all this time, only to find out it wasn't, I'm sorry but it's fucking badass.
If they're hiding that core message in plain sight, and yet most of the audience STILL doesn't see it, and it's also a big reason why they refuse to even consider byler, then yes it makes sense to hold off this scolding for when the reveal happens, only to throw all of that backlash on the people STILL being homophobic when it's all said and done, despite them saying it was all indeed intentional.
Right now there are genuine homophobes out here, and then there's people that are merely misunderstanding the extent of what's truly happening bc of heteronormativity, which is arguably the way the show was intended to be watched, assuming you're only watching it once through and you don't consume any more content regarding it much outside of that initial viewing (most of the ga). And then there's the fans who are literally queer and love queer stories, but aren't allowing themselves to believe it this time bc of how prevalent queer-baiting is.
By no means am I saying homophobia is okay. Obviously it's not. But people are homophobic, people are bigots. You can decide for yourself which situations you want to call it out and when you want to let it just be because otherwise you're gonna be fighting forever with people that do not fucking care, and that's not helping anyone, least of all queer people who would rather probably just ignore all of the noice and be happy being their authentic self, despite all of the hate that's out there.
We'll have to see how fans react to s5. I have hope that it will go well.. I do think that there could be a time period where people are like in denial and grieving or whatever. But we know the evidence is there. We know that the Duffers are going to be happy to admit that it was intentional to disprove the claims that try to say byler came out of nowhere.
Absolute worst case scenario, I think the critical reception will be something along the lines of this:
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utilitycaster · 11 months
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It’s so interesting how spot-on you were with the thoughts about toxic Beaujes folxs fleeing to D20. The same person who’s been starting shit on twitter just found out that CR doesn’t allow mass-produced zines, and used that fact to make some batshit generalization about how “that’s why the fandom is corporatized and violent and racist towards any canon-contradicting fanon like all my beaujester friends told me and now I’m parroting it uncritically”.
So I think this might be my last post on this unless some more wild shit goes down (very possible) not because I disagree but just because I am also trying to be conscious of overshadowing my genuine excitement for The Ravening War. But yeah...like, I followed a few people who were CR fanartists until Beauyasha started happening and unfollowed them once that went down; it was extremely exhausting watching a bunch of (mostly white) people in their early 20s suddenly claim a show they'd watched over 200 episodes of was hopelessly problematic simply because their ship didn't happen. It was a truly vile combination of normal shipping drama plus appropriated social justice language about said shipping drama plus, as others have noted, middle-class white queer people [a demographic I fit into myself] shoving aside narratives about POC or working class people because they aren't explicitly queer narratives (or even narratives about queer people that aren't to their exact specifications of what queerness looks like; see people who refuse to respect Molly's pronouns or who erase Vax's bisexuality because he was primarily romantically involved with a woman).
The zine thing is fucking wild in particular for the following reasons:
The two CR-centric zines that person has mentioned as not ultimately moving forward were both zines that intended to pay the artists, ie, at least partially for profit rather than charity zines.
I am not personally in a creative industry but I've been reliably told by basically everyone who is that CR's policy is boilerplate.
CR has a pretty extensive history of showcasing and hiring fanartists; this is not opposition to fan content, which is how this wack job is attempting to portray it.
Similarly no one is devaluing fan content; they're just saying "you are throwing a big old hissy fit in public about the hypothetical scenario of The Ravening War not honoring a ship that has, and I am not joking here, six fics on Ao3 in total." (For reference: Lapin/Theo, a ship that person actively dislikes, has 56 works, which, idk I feel that's almost ten times as widely accepted fanlore.)
Their twitter currently is bragging about their cookbook zine (which as far as I know wasn't based in fanon but was just a cookbook with fanart in it) and not about their currently active charity zine (which is the one about Belizabeth and Citrina). Also that charity zine is available for free which really undercuts the "for charity" aspect. Anyway a cool thing to do is to not buy it, but just donate directly to the International Rescue Committee or your refugee-supporting charity of choice.
Anyway. This was an opportunity to rant a lot but I will leave you with this: I am not the right person, obviously, to enumerate every possible issue with CR's portrayal of characters of color nor the lack of diversity of the cast. I think discussions of racism and lack of representation in actual play are important to have. But it's telling that fanartists, specifically, who left CR over Beau and Jester not getting together but pretended this was about social justice, always seem to go to D20. Or NADDPod. Or Friends at the Table. Or have their art featured in the TAZ graphic novels. All majority white or entirely white main casts.
They rarely seem to go to, say, Rivals of Waterdeep, or Into the Motherlands, or Three Black Halflings (and those are still some of the better known examples, frankly). People complaining that Critical Role hates lesbians for having a lesbian relationship they didn't like never seem to check out The Broadswords, or use resources like this to find women-led actual play. It's about getting clicks; they want to find an existing fandom to adore them rather than use the power they claim to wield to popularize something underrated.
Anyway that's the last reason why I think I'm done for now: I think the best and most satisfying thing is to starve them of attention, and to enjoy the Ravening War and art and fic about it from fans who are happy to be here.
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opaljm · 24 days
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so I’m not sure if you’re Korean American, but your about does say Asian American so I’m just curious: how do you feel about white authors writing about bts, but not specifically mentioning any Korean culture? Do you think it’s offensive for them to write about Korean people while not being Korean?
If this makes you uncomfortable or you aren’t Korean American, feel free to not respond!
I think anyone can write about bts but I do think it’s weird when you can replace the name of a random bts member who the fic is about with any generic white name like Sam or John and it doesn’t seem off at all. I’m not saying you need to start using Konglish dialogue because that’s hard to pull off without it sounding cringy or that every fic needs to be set in South Korea but I don’t think people should be writing bts fanfics and stripping the members entirely of their personalities and everything that makes them who they are. At that point you’re just writing fiction, not fan fiction, and slapping the members’ names on your male MCs. There’s been fics I’ve read where Jungkook has an italian heritage which is … like just call him Jaime and upload it to Wattpad under original work. What annoys me too, in addition to completely stripping bts of their culture and heritage is when people start to write fics and Taehyung is 6’4 and blue eyed all of a sudden.
What is the point of writing fan fiction if you’re going change every single solitary thing about bts from their ethnicity to their appearance. Would anyone even know you were writing about a bts member if you didn’t use their name?
The difference between changing or erasing bts’ nationalities or ethnicities versus doing that to other characters in other fandoms is, that bts are real people. There are some unspoken rules you should adhere to when writing Real People fanfiction. Like for example, maybe not write about them partaking in incest with their real life family members? Yes, I know, people write incest fics about influencers and entertainers all the time. But you get why that’s wrong right? Now if you were writing fanfics about entirely fictional characters, the world is your oyster and you can make them do anything you want, you can change them to be like anything you want. Because it’s entirely fictional anyways.
Maybe making bts not Korean is not the worst thing that has ever happened to them in a fic but I guess it just makes me wonder a lot about the creator and why they felt the need to strip bts of who they are. Is it for a racist reason? Is it because they only see bts as literary characters who exist to serve the plot of their fic and the fact that they are real people means nothing to them (the creator)? But yeah I do wonder and sometimes it makes me suspicious and distrustful of the creators who write them like that. It’s fucking exhausting having to question if someone did something because they are a racist, you know? So yes this has led to me avoiding interacting with a few creators and their content just because I don’t want to have my guard up for micro aggressions and covert racism.
Yeah so that’s just my take on the whole thing.
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bamf-jaskier · 2 years
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I love The Witcher, and I love so many people in this fandom who make amazing content but it is just so sad to be a Witcher fan. I’ve been in many fandoms but I have yet to see anyone that has this much blatant racism everywhere I turn.
I just wanted to be excited about this cute tweet where Anya Chalotra is holding a water bottle
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But of course you go the replies and you see racist and just plain deeply insulting things
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And before you say “oh that person is just talking about book accuracy” they are actually using that as a dog whistle because they just want an excuse to be racist as fuck.
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Which btw, as a massive fan of the books, it’s such a shame to see “book accurate” turned into a racist dog whistle, particularly on Reddit and Twitter. Just look at some of the replies under the new casting announcement RI released today.
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You have ur blatant racists
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Then you have ur “Slavic Erasure” crew who use that as an excuse to be racist
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Which is closely related to the “book accuracy” crew of racists
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And of course we can’t forget the people who try to say the reason Sapko supports the show and says color of the characters doesn’t matter is because he was bought out
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And I love the few people in the replies trying to combat this, and I love how almost all the quote tweets are super positive but holy fuck is it exhausting to not be able to even celebrate the casting of a character.
I often feel like I can’t enjoy the show at all without getting dog piled in some way. And it’s not that I think the show doesn’t deserve criticism, but it’s more like sometimes I just want to enjoy friends without having to dissect every tiny intricacy. I just want to make a nice meme about Yennefer being dorky or Fringilla being flustered around Francesca without having to make some sort of disclaimer about how I hate X part of season 2 or I thing Y is inaccurate to the books.
I feel like many people are so pedantic that they’re finding more enjoyment in complaining about the media than the media itself. and I’ve done a fairly good job of trying to block it out but it’s just difficult when you have to really put the work in to try to avoid constant negativity.
I will say this, Tumblr is definitely the best place that I have found. Reddit and Twitter are practically unusable at times. 
I don’t know what makes the Witcher different than other fandoms that the racism is so consistent, blatant, and common. More so than most places. But it’s just sad.
Sometimes, I just want to enjoy a show I love, talk about my favorite characters (if u know me u know who that is), and feel like there’s an actual fan community.
But it’s just. Hard. And I’m tired. And I know others are tired too and I just don’t know what to do to combat widespread racism of this magnitude.
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