#fandom rhetoric

[bluecrocss]

Adult PJO fans: "I can't relate to her if she doesn't look like me" "this is disrespectful to book!Annabeth" "I can't see her as the same character if she's black" "blonde, white women are soooo underrepresented in media. No one else can understand 😫"

Meanwhile, the actual demographic the show and books are for:

(@/walkersriptide_ on TikTok)

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Caveats in the tags.

[fozmeadows]

tools not rules: the importance of critical thinking

More than once, I’ve talked about the negative implications of Evangelical/purity culture logic being uncritically replicated in fandom spaces and left-wing discourse, and have also referenced specific examples of logical overlap this produces re, in particular, the policing of sexuality. What I don’t think I’ve done before is explain how this happens: how even a well-intentioned person who’s trying to unlearn the toxic systems they grew up with can end up replicating those systems. Even if you didn’t grow up specifically in an Evangelical/purity context, if your home, school, work and/or other social environments have never encouraged or taught you to think critically, then it’s easy to fall into similar traps - so here, hopefully, is a quick explainer on how that works, and (hopefully) how to avoid it in the future.

Put simply: within Evangelism, purity culture and other strict, hierarchical social contexts, an enormous value is placed on rules, and specifically hard rules. There might be a little wiggle-room in some instances, but overwhelmingly, the rules are fixed: once you get taught that something is bad, you’re expected never to question it. Understanding the rules is secondary to obeying them, and oftentimes, asking for a more thorough explanation - no matter how innocently, even if all you’re trying to do is learn - is framed as challenging those rules, and therefore cast as disobedience. And where obedience is a virtue, disobedience is a sin. If someone breaks the rules, it doesn’t matter why they did it, only that they did. Their explanations or justifications don’t matter, and nor does the context: a rule is a rule, and rulebreakers are Bad.

In this kind of environment, therefore, you absorb three main lessons: one, to obey a rule from the moment you learn it; two, that it’s more important to follow the rules than to understand them; and three, that enforcing the rules means castigating anyone who breaks them. And these lessons go deep: they’re hard to unlearn, especially when you grow up with them through your formative years, because the consequences of breaking them - or even being seen to break them - can be socially catastrophic.

But outside these sorts of strict environments - and, honestly, even within them - that much rigidity isn’t healthy. Life is frequently far more complex and nuanced than hard rules really allow for, particularly when it comes to human psychology and behaviour - and this is where critical thinking comes in. Critical thinking allows us to evaluate the world around us on an ongoing basis: to weigh the merits of different positions; to challenge established rules if we feel they no longer serve us; to decide which new ones to institute in their place; to acknowledge that sometimes, there are no easy answers; to show the working behind our positions, and to assess the logic with which other arguments are presented to us. Critical thinking is how we graduate from a simplistic, black-and-white view of morality to a more nuanced perception of the world - but this is a very hard lesson to learn if, instead of critical thinking, we’re taught instead to put our faith in rules alone.

So: what does it actually look like, when rule-based logic is applied in left-wing spaces? I’ll give you an example: 

Sally is new to both social justice and fandom. She grew up in a household that punished her for asking questions, and where she was expected to unquestioningly follow specific hard rules. Now, though, Sally has started to learn a bit more about the world outside her immediate bubble, and is realising not only that the rules she grew up with were toxic, but that she’s absorbed a lot of biases she doesn’t want to have. Sally is keen to improve herself. She wants to be a good person! So Sally joins some internet communities and starts to read up on things. Sally is well-intentioned, but she’s also never learned how to evaluate information before, and she’s certainly never had to consider that two contrasting opinions could be equally valid - how could she have, when she wasn’t allowed to ask questions, and when she was always told there was a singular Right Answer to everything? Her whole framework for learning is to Look For The Rules And Follow Them, and now that she’s learned the old rules were Bad, that means she has to figure out what the Good Rules are. 

Sally isn’t aware she’s thinking of it in these terms, but subconsciously, this is how she’s learned to think. So when Sally reads a post explaining how sex work and pornography are inherently misogynistic and demeaning to women, Sally doesn’t consider this as one side of an ongoing argument, but uncritically absorbs this information as a new Rule. She reads about how it’s always bad and appropriative for someone from one culture to wear clothes from another culture, and even though she’s not quite sure of all the ways in which it applies, this becomes a Rule, too. Whatever argument she encounters first that seems reasonable becomes a Rule, and once she has the Rules, there’s no need to challenge them or research them or flesh out her understanding, because that’s never been how Rules work - and because she’s grown up in a context where the foremost way to show that you’re aware of and obeying the Rules is to shame people for breaking them, even though she’s not well-versed in these subjects, Sally begins to weigh in on debates by harshly disagreeing with anyone who offers up counter-opinions. Sometimes her disagreements are couched in borrowed terms, parroting back the logic of the Rules she’s learned, but other times, they’re simply ad hominem attacks, because at home, breaking a Rule makes you a bad person, and as such, Sally has never learned to differentiate between attacking the idea and attacking the person. 

And of course, because Sally doesn’t understand the Rules in-depth, it’s harder to explain them to or debate with rulebreakers who’ve come armed with arguments she hasn’t heard before, which makes it easier and less frustrating to just insult them and point out that they ARE rulebreakers - especially if she doesn’t want to admit her confusion or the limitations of her knowledge. Most crucially of all, Sally doesn’t have a viable framework for admitting to fault or ignorance beyond a total groveling apology that doubles as a concession to having been Morally Bad, because that’s what it’s always meant to her to admit you broke a Rule. She has no template for saying, “huh, I hadn’t considered that,” or “I don’t know enough to contribute here,” or even “I was wrong; thanks for explaining!” 

So instead, when challenged, Sally remains defensive: she feels guilty about the prospect of being Bad, because she absolutely doesn’t want to be a Bad Person, but she also doesn’t know how to conceptualise goodness outside of obedience. It makes her nervous and unsettled to think that strangers could think of her as a Bad Person when she’s following the Rules, and so she becomes even more aggressive when challenged to compensate, clinging all the more tightly to anyone who agrees with her, yet inevitably ending up hurt when it turns out this person or that who she thought agreed on What The Rules Were suddenly develops a different opinion, or asks a question, or does something else unsettling. 

Pushed to this sort of breaking point, some people in Sally’s position go back to the fundamentalism they were raised with, not because they still agree with it, but because the lack of uniform agreement about What The Rules Are makes them feel constantly anxious and attacked, and at least before, they knew how to behave to ensure that everyone around them knew they were Good. Others turn to increasingly niche communities and social groups, constantly on paranoid alert for Deviance From The Rules. But other people eventually have the freeing realisation that the fixation on Rules and Goodness is what’s hurting them, not strangers with different opinions, and they steadily start to do what they wanted to do all along: become happier, kinder and better-informed people who can admit to human failings - including their own - without melting down about it.   

THIS is what we mean when we talk about puritan logic being present in fandom and left-wing spaces: the refusal to engage with critical thinking while sticking doggedly to a single, fixed interpretation of How To Be Good. It’s not always about sexuality; it’s just that sexuality, and especially queerness, are topics we’re used to seeing conservatives talk about a certain way, and when those same rhetorical tricks show up in our fandom spaces, we know why they look familiar. 

So: how do you break out of rule-based thinking? By being aware of it as a behavioural pattern. By making a conscious effort to accept that differing perspectives can sometimes have equal value, or that, even if a given argument isn’t completely sound, it might still contain a nugget of truth. By trying to be less reactive and more reflective when encountering positions different to your own. By accepting that not every argument is automatically tied to or indicative of a higher moral position: sometimes, we’re just talking about stuff! By remembering that you’re allowed to change your position, or challenge someone else’s, or ask for clarification. By understanding that having a moral code and personal principles isn’t at odds with asking questions, and that it’s possible - even desirable - to update your beliefs when you come to learn more than you did before. 

This can be a scary and disquieting process to engage in, and it’s important to be aware of that, because one of the main appeals of rule-based thinking - if not the key appeal - is the comfort of moral certainty it engenders. If the rules are simple and clear, and following them is what makes you a good person, then it’s easy to know if you’re doing the right thing according to that system. It’s much, much harder and frequently more uncomfortable to be uncertain about things: to doubt, not only yourself, but the way you’ve been taught to think. And especially online, where we encounter so many more opinions and people than we might elsewhere, and where we can get dogpiled on by strangers or go viral without meaning to despite our best intentions? The prospect of being deemed Bad is genuinely terrifying. Of course we want to follow the Rules. But that’s the point of critical thinking: to try and understand that rules exist in the first place, not to be immutable and unchanging, but as tools to help us be better - and if a tool becomes defunct or broken, it only makes sense to repair it. 

Rigid thinking teaches us to view the world through the lens of rules: to obey first and understand later. Critical thinking teaches us to use ideas, questions, contexts and other bits of information as analytic tools: to put understanding ahead of obedience. So if you want to break out of puritan thinking, whenever you encounter a new piece of information, ask yourself: are you absorbing it as a rule, or as a tool? 

[dollypopup]

The way some of y'all talk about Luke Newton is just. . .I need this fandom to check itself with a swiftness, because the very thinly veiled ableism is ENOUGH. Like it is WILD to see, in the year of our lord 2024, people either actively infantalizing or talking down this grown man.

Calling Luke Newton stupid for behaviors that are just him displaying his Neurodivergence? Ableism. Saying it because it takes him longer to answer a question is ableism. Saying it because he said something 'incorrectly' or not as eloquently on the fly as his neurotypical costars? Ableism.

Saying he's boring because he's quiet or he doesn't talk as much (because he often needs more processing time and/or has anxiety to surmount) is ableism. Knitpicking his social media and how he doesn't interact as much with a fandom that has actively been cruel to him is ableism.

Assuming Luke is out here like some helpless little lamb clinging to Nicola because 'oh, she's his comfort person!' instead of recognizing that they both lean on and like each other? Is ableism. Saying he has a one sided infatuation with her BECAUSE he needs her as said comfort person is ableism. Essentially being all 'awwww, poor wee baby, he has anxiety so thankfully his neurotypical costar is there to pick up the slack!' is. ableism. You cannot in one breath say that Nicola's love language is touch but also that Luke is the only one ever reaching to hold her hand because he needs her to ground him. That's ableism.

They both like each other. They have a very close relationship and they both clearly admire the other and like to be around one another. To frame it as him being some inept toddler and her as his more capable caretaker and 'thank God he has her to give him the save' is ableism! That's ableism, babes!! And in many cases people don't recognize that's what they're taking part in, but that's what it is.

He is a grown man and a hell of an actor. Yes, he's quieter than some of his costars. Yes, he contemplates what he says in his mind before he says it, and it takes him some time to do so. Yes, he doesn't behave the way his neurotypical peers do. He doesn't have to. He won't- because he has a neurodivergent brain. And he shouldn't have to behave as a neurotypical person or an 'acceptable' neurodivergent person to have respect from people who claim to be his fans.

He's been outspoken and unapologetic about being a neurodivergent actor with ADHD and dyslexia and how that can contribute to difficulties in the current media machine. He has discussed his coping mechanisms. He has specifically done so because he knows how difficult it can be to be a neurodivergent person in the limelight, and he uses that spotlight to show other neurodivergent actors they can be successful, too. And people saw this openly neurodivergent man and said some mad out of pocket nonsense about him.

As the tour comes to a close, I just really need people to look back on their beliefs and viewpoints during it and do some reflection, because I am side-eying a LOT of takes that have gone largely uncontested.

[sukibenders]

Some fans: Eloise is such a fake feminist, doesn't she see how some girls and women enjoy marriage? Doesn't she see how her privileges give her luxuries others don't? She's so selfish. She doesn't even use her words to support other women!

Also same fans: I wish Eloise would stop talking, like her speaking about feminism at every turn is getting old. Can't she just be quiet and let everyone enjoy the fun? Like yeah talking about women's lack of personhood without a male figure in society, or how they can't go to university, or how sometimes they marry men who will only hurt them but need to for their status is sad to see, but THE ROMANCE-

[mxtxfanatic]

Fandom Gripe #23: I know that fandom is in some deep denial about its treatment of female characters that are canonically involved with fan favorite m/m ships, but do y’all realize that when you disappear female characters from the narrative wholesale to push the idea that your canonically straight fav was “secretly gay all along!” you’re making several bad implications? That 1) bi men don’t exist, 2) bi men do exist, but those who have genuinely loved a woman before cannot genuinely love a man after that (therefore bi men don’t exist in practice), 3) women cannot inspire genuine love and devotion in men, therefore any relationship with a woman is “lesser” than the one they later have a man (see previous parenthesis), or 4) to acknowledge the existence of a lovable woman who isn’t a terrible person, where if a relationship previously existed, it did not end because of “incompatibility,” is enough to destabilize the present relationship between two queer men?

Because why is the tgcf fandom allergic to acknowledging that He Xuan had a whole ass fiancée that he loved? Why does no one ever seem to remember that the kidnappings and murders of He Xuan’s sister and fiancée were the final straws that sent him on his rampage, and he still keeps a shrine to them in the present-day of the story? Why is her entire existence and significance to He Xuan as a man, character, and to his character arc disappeared in favor of pushing Shi Qingxuan—the brother of the man responsible for his fiancée’s death—into that same role, as if to say that her impact on He Xuan is significant... just not when it's from her? Why does He Xuan’s life in fandom essentially begin not just after her death but because of it?

[problematic-faves-appreciation]

This is why tend to shake my head at the "power imbalance" criticisms that get thrown at ships between two consenting adults.

What's next?

• POC shouldn't date white partners?

• Little people (individuals with dwarfism) shouldn't date taller partners?

• Neurodivergent people of any stripe shouldn't date neurotypicals?

• Wheelchair users shouldn't date non-disabled partners?

• Elderly people shouldn't date the non-elderly?

• Someone from Mississippi (one of the poorest states in America) shouldn't date a New Yorker?

• A janitor shouldn't date a doctor?

• Queer people shouldn't date cishets?

How far will the infantilization and segregation-in-a-"progressive"-hat nonsense go, I wonder?

[richkidcityfriends]

"this person should be on the throne" "that person should be on the throne" quite frankly there should not be a throne

[teapetal44]

The state of the league of villains during act 3 is so sad man. Compress literally gave his ass for the league, got arrested and nobody gaf. Twice’s demise amounted to nothing, nobody cared. The whole discrimination arc Spinner was involved in was a mess. Suddenly Hori decided he cared about realism in his story so Toga dropped like a fly from a simple blood transfusion. Dabi is forced to sit and listen to Endeavor whine and yap about how sad he is about being an abusive pos, all the while nobody actually cares and he never got any real repercussions besides his family being (justifyingly) mean to him. Shigaraki was sidelined for a boring villain and was stripped off all his autonomy and agency.

[nobodymitskigabriel]

A poor person being frustrated and resentful due to their lack of access to basic needs, wishing they weren't poor, and taking steps to change their circumstances is not what classism is.

[alicentflorent]

I really don’t like the ableist implications I’ve seen coming from some fans on the Alicent’s reaction to aegon’s death sentence. “Alicent accepted Aegon’s death because he’s already half dead and in severe pain with no quality of life” As someone living with severe chronic pain amongst other things, I resent that sentiment. Yes, becoming severely disabled and living in constant agony can be a kind of hell that you just wish would end. Aegon, the person who actually became disabled and from his perspective, has had his life life ruined, decided he wanted to live.

I didn’t read Alicent bringing up his disability as her accepting that he’s better off dead but more as her trying to tell Rhaenyra “look he has no quality of life, he’s already paying a great price and is no longer a challenge to you” and Rhaenyra says it doesn’t matter because she has to publicly execute him to take the throne and secure her claim. The very idea that Alicent accepts his death because he’s so “broken” and therefore his life is less valid is already is a dangerous message and harms actual disabled people. Disabled people who see your posts debating on whether a life of pain and disability is worth living and if it’s okay that a mother of a disabled person can rationalise their murder because it ends their suffering.

Media does not exist in a vacuum and has real world implications especially when we touch on subjects like ableism, racism, sexual assault etc. both fans and showrunners alike need to be careful about what they’re putting out there when addressing these subjects.

[sukibenders]

Racism and misogynoir are so apparent in fandom, especially when it comes to shipping because why is it when a white male, sometimes female but I see it more with the former, character is on screen with a love interest, particularly woc, especially if they're black, and even with all the emotional scenes or just moments where they look at one another in ways different from the rest, it's met with "No, they aren't dating/the show is not going to put them together" but let the other love interest be white as well and suddenly it all makes sense? Heck, the examples I mentioned above don't even have to exist between the latter for some to STILL go and believe this rhetoric (eg. some Jace and Helaena shippers because, even if these two only interacted with a dance but yet we see Baela console Jace, after he seeks her out, apparently it's to far fetched to believe that Jacela could be a thing?!)

Sometimes it could be a headcanon that, largely, would make sense (and oftentimes was birth due to lack of respect that the poc characters could have been given by the writers *cough* TVD *cough*), and yet you'd still have people dismissing it left and right and spewing hate. At a HEADCANON! And I'm not saying that just because the other person in the ship is poc that you have to ship them, I'm not, but it's very apparent to many poc fans in fandom that unless the characters are swapping spit and doing the nasty, the possibility of them being viewed in any romantic lens feels too much of stretch even though their white counterparts don't have to jump through the same loops.

[dizzy-izzy-in-a-tizzy]

"izzy is straight when funny" denying someone's sexuality because you dislike them is homophobic

keep living your uwu radfem puritan dreams tho

denying identity based on moral purity is authoritarian rhetoric. flat out.

but making homophobic jokes is apparently okay if it's a fictional character who hurt your feelings

[huginsmemory]

Since the arguments about Wolfwoods age is beginning to start up again. Info taken from this post by @tantei-armin . As well, here's another post with screen caps from the manga. Both Livio and Wolfwood are legally adults.

Also, if you don't like something? Block the tag, block the people, don't try to wage a puritanical war. Much love and peace ✌️

Edit (same day as posted): Some people are wondering in the tags where this is coming from, so I thought I'd clear it up for those who are confused.

This rumour comes from the manga panels which talk about how from the serum and surgeries Wolfwood's metabolism is faster, and so he doesn't look the age he should look. Since Wolfwood was never explicitly given a set number for his age, and if you're not paying attention to the context, some people have assumed this meant that he's actually still a minor at the time trigun is set, while in reality he's been confirmed to be in his early/mid twenties, and so would look like he's in his late twenties/early thirties (and it would make very little sense for Stampede to have changed the ages for the characters). It's alright to be a bit confused, since it's not ever explicitly stated; however, this rumour that he's a minor has then been used as slander for ship wars. I've only seen one recent post calling Vashwood an underage ship, but it looks like it was a bit of an issue in the old fandom, and I (and I think most people) would prefer the newer fandom to avoid that if possible. Again, just going to reiterate using the blocking function liberally for things you don't like!

Edit (Apr 15): as another person so kindly explained on a reblog it wasn't actually a problem in the old fandom; it's always been a small minority of people, often those who are against queer relationships in the first place, who've used it as a way to slander others.

[the-everqueen]

action items white people can consider to make fandom spaces more inclusive for bipoc:

rec/kudos/comment on fanworks made by poc

consider what roles characters of color take in your own work. do black and brown characters exist solely as emotional support for central white characters? are black and brown characters sidelined for white character arcs? do black and brown characters appear solely to Talk About Racism (aka be the Magical or moralizing force for a narrative)?

(consider: Not Doing That)

reflect on whose voices get centralized/prioritized in any given narrative

listen to poc who express discomfort/frustration/critique of the text or fanon without feeling the need to defend either (or recognize you don't need to insert yourself into some conversations)

conversations around racism in fan spaces almost always get derailed into debates about ships or The Literal Text, but in my experience some of the most alienating aspects of fandom are the subtle ways that white people signal us as "other," i.e. acting as though race and queerness are distinct categories (there are queer bipoc! we invented a lot of queer culture!), framing nonwhite characters as unrelatable or undesirable, and reproducing stereotypes in fanon narratives. these become exhausting to encounter, whether or not we're part of the larger fandom ecosystem, and because it's systemic, it becomes impossible to avoid. which means white people's escapism corner is another site that poc have to navigate very, very carefully.

[basuralindo]

I really can't say enough how much I appreciate twst revealing Idia's chronically online behavior to actually be the result of Serious Trauma as well as a very real significant obstacle holding him back from just going out into the world and socializing.

Like, yeah, he could technically try harder, and with a combination of enough support patience and brute force (it's nrc after all) he does manage to do more and benefits from it, but it still shows without saying that trauma is genuinely disabling in so many ways, as well as representing how any other disability, physical or mental, which makes going out or interacting with other people in person difficult will leave people dependent on whatever alternatives are available, which is usually internet and fiction.

And yeah, his bullshit can be toxic, but mostly it's just irritating to people who have already stigmatized all of his attempts at experiencing and engaging with the world, which leads to him growing more isolated and unsociable as he's probably spent years in a spiral of shrinking social circles even online. And he's actually shown to be more empathetic and even emotionally intelligent than most of his peers, but actually expressing it appropriately is a challenge that he usually fails, due to lack of social skills, because he's never given the chance to form them.

idk where exactly I'm going with this now. It's just, twst's whole thing is not fixing issues, it's showing that they exist, and people live with them, and it's caused by damage outside of their control, and it's compounded and perpetuated by social stigmas and lack of empathy. And I think Idia's whole storyline is an excellent showcase of the difference between incel culture and people who have just been ousted from society by life circumstances.

[hauntingsofhouses]

guys cmon. be ffr please. akemi did Not love taigen. the only reason why she was desperate to search for him to the point of putting herself in danger is because she didn't want to get married to an abusive man (which she believed at the time that takayoshi was). when seki tried to dissuade her from running off, her reason was not "but i love taigen and wanna be with him 🥺" it was because she refused to be controlled and have her autonomy taken from her; she literally says "i won't be locked away in edo married to a stranger." and when seki still tries to argue that getting married to the heir of the shogun would be better than getting caught by brigands, she then says "that kind of man"—referring to takayoshi—"treats women like animals. they say he's a tyrant." and when seki chuckles and says "what man isn't?" her response is "you." she doesn't even talk about taigen. she is using him as much as he was using her. they both see—or, well, saw—each other as means to an end. for taigen he saw that marrying into the tokunobu clan would elevate his status and wealth. for akemi she wanted the right to choose who she married, and she wanted that person to be someone kind. that's it! neither of them loved each other. but since they were courting of course they acted sweet to each other, and they do still care for one another, especially due to their romantic history. but let's be real! akemi is a boss bitch who dropped taigen and forgot all about his ass as soon as she saw takayoshi was a nice guy. because duh? not only is takayoshi a better lover (it's implied their lovemaking lasted a long time) but he's also kinder towards her and presents her with an opportunity to claim power and freedom, which she would not have if she had married taigen, as she would have still been stuck under her father's thumb. so literally why should she settle for taigen's stupid ass! she may be a little naive at times but she's still incredibly intelligent. she would not do something stupid for the sake of "love." you know who would though? taigen.