#I say as I also get involved in discourse and drama... I'm a hypocrite... But yall started it!

[showsandstuff]

About the Ace Viktor issue in the fandom rn... I need everyone to shut up about it.

Christian Linke only confirming it because he doesn't like the ship is a very likely theory and it sucks, BUT Viktor gave people ace vibes way before season two and the headcanon, even an Aroace headcanon works for his character. Season two doesn't change much about it. I ship the hell out of Jayvik and they have a very dedicated and loving relationship but it's not necessarily romantic love.

It IS romantic in my fanfics ofc, I can promise you that much, but in canon there are multiple ways to interpret it.

And idk what yall are trying to achieve by reducing Viktor to his disability and weird to hc him as ace because he is disabled and feels unlovable??? Viktor thinking he's unlovable was never established in the show. Hell yall get pissed ad when people characterize Viktor as even a little insecure and not the confident sassy dude he was in 2 episodes of act 1. But now all of a sudden he's insecure again? Gimme a break.

So no. Christian Linke (as much as I don't like him) wasn't ableist with that. It's a weird claim. Disabled people can be Ace too and Viktor was never shown to be someone who is interested in sex. And if yall bring up the "this isn't my bedroom" joke I will lose it. We ALL know it wasn't actually about sneaking a man into his room, it was just a "oh I got the wrong room". We just interpret it differently because that's more funny that way and it's fun for shipping.

You know u can just... Disagree with canon? That's what fanfics are all about. Come on Ao3, we got like 4000 jayvik fics now there are some real bangers.

[beckyslynchs]

My main issue with the whole debate is the oversimplification of everything like that one post technically isn't wrong but it takes away how much complicated stuff actually contributes to the situation at hand. (The way this thing is discussed is lowkey giving instagram infographic vibes.) I saw several ppl say that, if anything, we should use the controversy to educate ourselves about the issues at hand and I wholeheartedly agree. Reading up on Owens definitely made me reconsider some beliefs I previously held on issues like poaching.

like, i will agree that this whole argument will help educate people on how prevalent white saviour behaviour still is in african and asian developing countries and why animal reserves are important but also why a lot of poor people turn to poaching and illegal animal trade.

but it's being discussed like fandom drama. like it's just twitter discourse and not a systemic issue that's gonna have to be dealt with with policy and the goverment, this isn't something individuals can solve by themselves because then we get situations like the owenses. sure, they're racists, but what got them into this whole ordeal was thinking they could and had to deal with it by themselves.

and about the movie and taylor's part in it: yes, she made a mistake by associating herself with it. but that's what I'm gonna call it, a mistake, and mistakes can be righted.

she is a white, rich woman who has never had to educate herself on racism because she doesn't even have actual black friends she's genuinely close to, that's a fact. so it is incredibly possible she honestly didn't know the issue with the book and delia owens because most middle aged white women, the demographic for the book, don't either. she saw a film adaptation of a wildly popular book backed up by reese witherspoon that might be an oscar contender and decided to jump on it as a business strategy.

she's not a producer, a director or an studio executive; she was hired to do a job and has no power over the movie. you're upset about the movie? take it up with the studio, the distributor and the producers, not the people employed at it. she has as much fault in platforming a racist who is involved in the murder of at least two black men as any actor or crew member, which is none.

and don't act like she can be educated and just back down from the project. she signed a contract and the movie releases in like two months, she can't do shit all about it. she can learn from it so in the future she researches projects she involves herself in more carefully but there's nothing she can do about this movie now. and calling her a racist without giving her a chance to educate or explain herself it's just fucked up.

like, the language of some of the posts i saw was straight up slanderous. calling her a racist or saying this is literally the worst thing she could possibly do it's just not how you as a fan handle a subject like this. not if you're not even gonna draw a line and decide to stop supporting them, because making those posts and then two days later make some others about how you want her to drop new music is just stupid and makes you look like a hypocrite and an idiot.

[buffysummers]

I’m always open to discussion about character, because different thoughts and ideas and opinions are what make fandoms so interesting, and while I do think there are some valid, or at least reasonable, criticisms of Angel, so often it feels like people attack Angel either far too harshly or with a really weird critique. Like sure, discourse is cool, but when people go around hating on Angel for the most insane (or hypocritical reasons) you’ve ever heard, I get so annoyed. And also kinda sad because Im a big baby like that. Or even just outright admit “oh I don’t like Angel, I don’t know why, he just doesn’t appeal to me” rather than make up something crazy to attack him with. But also Angel is cool so the hate in the first place is wild

Of course! There's always going to be a few valid criticisms of a character. If they were perfect, they'd be boring. If a character didn't fuck up or say something rude or snap at someone every once in awhile, we'd be bored. Gotta have some drama in the mix. It's mostly the utter hypocrisy that comes from 95% of these criticisms. And having to watch people have these awful takes that they justify with delusion, the twisting of canon/etc, can be a bit frustrating. So, that's why I try to just stay in my little bubble and love what I love. I said this the other day, but Angel was very loved when the show was airing, according to a lot of my sources. (By sources I mean OG fans who watched it when it aired and were involved with buffyboards etc). This hate for him started when a much younger audience watched the show (I blame when it was released on Netflix in the US lol). And a lot of the hatred comes from them thinking they SHOULD hate him, because that's just The Thing to do on tumblr. So, their opinion of him is already tainted, which is why I'm thankful I watched it w/o being involved with the fandom, because my opinions haven't been formed by anyone else's, or by me thinking I should feel a certain way because I'm supposed to.