Bpdnanaseharuka - I Deleted But Remade

Milly + Meryl

Many transformative works fandoms start with the assumption that they are part of an aggrieved minority that's the target of unjust persecution, given:

- homophobia at large in the wider world (many polls indicate that fandom has a larger-than-average percentage of queer people);

- misogyny at large in the wider world (most polls over the years indicate that fandom is majority female);

- regressive conservatism across the board regarding (but not limited to) media content.

And in the wider world: yes, transformative works fans are a minority, and often each individual has trauma, baggage, &/or a history of being marginalized and oppressed, if not outright harmed, in "real world" spaces.

However, within the communities of fanspace, I have rarely seen any subsect of fandom acknowledge that it is the dominant force within that fanspace in a responsible way beyond the occasional fundraiser (that benefits third party charities and not marginalized individuals within the fandom) or campaigns to get continuations of their preferred media or for their ships to get canonized (which is, ultimately, self-serving).

Instead, we get:

- defensive posturing every time even the mildest thoughtful critique of their favorite ships/characters/fandoms enters their awareness;

- widespread harassment campaigns framed as "victims" just "fighting back" against "oppression" (when the "oppressors" have fewer numbers, smaller reach/social capital/etc within that space);

- a very Americanized blend of "staunch individualism" (where one's own actions should be judged on their own and not as part of a wider pattern across fandom(s)) and "White Girlboss Choice Feminism" (where "if a (white) woman chooses to do something, it is inherently progressive for her to do it, without regard for her positionally or impact within an intersectional framework").

And so on.

What would "responsible ways" of acknowledging one's power within fanspace look like, you may ask?

- donating directly to and signal boosting mutual aid links, especially for fans of marginalized identities;

- taking hard public stances against bigotry of ALL kinds within the ranks of your fellow fans, by sharing information about bad actors, deplatforming and disengaging with bad actors even if they make fanwork you enjoy, and protecting/standing up for targets of harassment outside your fandom coterie(s);

- openness to thoughtful critique of your circle within fanspace (rather than being defensive and assuming victimhood by default) and sharing same, encouraging both yourself and others to learn and improve;

- actively taking steps to read/share/create fanwork (which includes meta, media analysis, etc) that embraces/uplifts a diversity of perspectives beyond your own.

If we can't be responsible with our social power *within the spaces where we do hold that power,* we're no better than those regressive white nerdbros complaining about "woke invasions" of "our spaces" - when the reality is, nerds won the culture war and have way more social capital than some John Hughes-style archetypes of the Bullied Nerd.

We can be better than them. Our fanspaces can be better than that. Let's work together to make that happen.

fujimaki (and by extension knb fandom) and the relationship with colorism

fujimaki has some extremely questionable views on dark skinned people

its like…the only other character in the series that exhibits sexual “interest” bc he reads gravure mags as a past time, has dark skin (haizaki is notorious for his sexual exploits but its supposed to be frowned upon…hes clearly marked as Bad…so the unfortunate implications are rather telling re: aomine…not to mention how fandom ran with this trivia as some Definitive Character Attribute of aomines l o l)

the only character in the series that exhibits infantile toilet humor (farts, burps) as well as being the Dumb Musclehead character, has dark skin

we wont even mention how momoi, in a fit of rage/frustration, calls aomine ganguro, so essentially using his dark skin as a pejorative and kise made a weird mention of aomines dark skin when he first met him (why? its not connected to his status as a basketball prodigy) or his Biggest Weakness is that he cant clean when his miragen cohorts cant draw, cook, carry a tune, or make a joke? or how nebuya is referred to as a gorilla by sports spectators

and of course, the fandom engages with these characters - particulary aomine - in some insidious ways that match with fujimakis prejudices, but pointing that out incriminates fandom or makes you an oversensitive killjoy

though im not ascertained if the colorism+negative views on dark skin are as prevalent or normalized as it was back in the day, its still rather difficult to navigate in this fandoms content when im constantly bombarded with claims that dark skin means youre a hypersexual/sexually predatory fetish, intellectually deficient, unclean, vulgar, a subject of perpetual derision

its especially disheartening when you yourself are judged constantly by the darkness of your skin, both in the setting of east asian culture (japan has a long, ugly history with colorism and xenophobia) and the setting of US-ian politics (do i even have to spell it out?) and then be told that i should be grateful to fujimaki for even considering dark skin representation?? (these types of people have been brainwashed by tumblrs obstinate and incredibly shortsighted identity politics tied with media repesentation)

honestly being reminded of scott mccall hate stemmed from racism perpetuated by teenwolf fandom when i engage with aomine fandom and its alienating/infuriating

Manga 30 Day challengeDay 02 - Your favorite manga

Please Save My Earth

No manga will ever match this in scope or in beauty of storytelling. The way it wove together two worlds, completely developed the moon world and its characters, made us care about not just past but present lives and drew distinctions between them – the way it made villainous characters sympathetic and sympathetic characters treacherous – the way it created science, religion and genetics around its ESP, instead of just having ESP for the sake of having it – and the way it lovingly wrapped its arms around plot points dropped 20 volumes ago and drew them forward into a perfectly parallel story arc, the way it made me catch my breath and realize all of this, all 21 volumes of it, must have been planned from the beginning – to this day it amazes me.

I was actually determined to translate/scanslate this manga before anyone “legit” got their hands on it, because there are certain lines spoken in Volumes 1 and 2 that could be translated multiple ways, and if you didn’t translate them correctly in Volume 1, when you got to Volume 21 and they were revisited, they wouldn’t make sense. Sadly, I only got through Volume 3… all the scanslations sit on my hard drive still, pages flipped and lovingly photoshopped (because this was before the days of the right-to-left English manga) to preserve as much of the original art as possible.

“With fandom the kind of racism that you most commonly see isn’t things like racial slurs and hate speech and white hoods. What you really see is a constant communal prioritization of white people and white characters, even when there are non-white characters in major roles. This is a trend across almost all fandoms.”

— Holly Quinn in Episode 22A of Fansplaining

yall do realize just because something has been a target of misogynistic criticism, that doesn't make stanning it completely uncritically in response some kind of revolutionary feminist praxis. right.

Tsumiki/Yorozu

DERRINGER MERYL 💋💋

Stitch's Media Mix

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preferences

Outside of the fandoms for Japanese media (anime and manga primarily) or the powerhouse Korean pop music Real Person Fiction (RPF) fandoms,

Stitch lays it out thoroughly, as usual, so there's no commentary I could add that would be better than just quoting what she says. I definitely recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a couple excerpts to give you an idea of the gist.

Excerpt 1:

Let’s return to the myth of preference. In fandom, as with online dating, folks think “preference” is a neutral word that shields them from the mere potential of having to interrogate why they seem to “prefer” white people as their faves. The thing is that this “preference” for white dudes isn’t all that neutral. A “preference” for white men is tied into centuries of racist propaganda that portrays whiteness as an ideal to the point where even people of color have trouble finding themselves or other people of color attractive.

[...]

Of course, that translates to fandom because fandom isn’t born in a vacuum. We don’t leave our ingrained prejudices in “the real world” when we log on to Tumblr or go for a scroll on the AO3. In fact, because many people in fandom curate their timelines to only show them their like-minded faves, they’re more likely to surround themselves with fans who think like they do and fanworks that reinforce the validity of their interests.

Excerpt 2:

Fantasies are just that – fantasies. On their own and in our heads, they can’t directly hurt people, and they provide the pleasure of partaking in the forbidden or the denied. For many people – especially marginalized people in unsafe or unhealthy positions in their daily lives – fantasies are all they have, and that’s important. However, in fandom spaces, fantasies don’t stay in people’s head, and they’re never on their own no matter what nonsense we fed about fandom and fiction not influencing/being influenced by reality. These fantasies come loaded with expectations, prior knowledge, stereotypes, trauma, politics, and a whole bunch of other stuff from the person fantasizing as well as other people who are aware of the fantasy. They get turned into fanworks that get thousands of views and hundreds of readers. After all, nothing we do or like or create is formed in a vacuum. In fandom spaces, fantasies that either exclude people of color entirely or reformat them as stereotypes for easy consumption (erotic and otherwise), are harmful because they are put forward without any awareness to a potential audience of thousands.

it is so fucking exhausting and annoying how white women, including and maybe even especially in progressive and leftist spaces, continue acting like they are not themselves still beneficiaries of tremendous privilege simply because they endure sexist or misogynistic discrimination. being a woman does not excuse the fact that you are still white and you still reap the benefits of being white! you do not get to "but sexism!" your way out of being held accountable for saying and doing racist shit!