#proudly claiming that fans of a ship you don't like are groomers when that's the exact talking point being leveled at queer people outside

[monstersinthecosmos]

not to be discoursey but I just cannot stress enough that it wouldn't kill anybody to be mindful and kind and not dehumanize others in online spaces, and especially in fandom conversations, and especially especially in conversations about characters who do not exist.

Like there's a world of difference between "Character X is gross" and "Fans of Character X are gross" and there's no need to continually use language like this that only fuels drama.

It costs you nothing to be kind to people and it keeps fandoms so much safer. I've heard Brené Brown talk about this a few times and I super recommend this so we can all check ourselves and make sure we're still being kind.

Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools, they’re emotional off-loading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media, and strangers on Twitter with whom we most violently disagree. When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own, and we betray our humanity.

And like. IS FANDOM AS SERIOUS AS THE REAL WORLD OUTSIDE AND ACTUAL FORMS OF VIOLENCE AND OPPRESSION? Of course not.

But I don't think you can have it both ways. This is either your hobby that you spend hours of your day navigating, or it's not that serious. And your online friends are either the people that you have conversations with every day, or they're not. Just because it's a silly hobby doesn't make the time you spend here less real and doesn't mean you need to be shitting all over the carpet in your own house, yeah? There's already enough stigma from the outside world about your nerdy hobby being a stupid waste of time; you don't have to buy into that when you feel so passionate about the things you make, and read, and the friends you talk to every day.

Like, if you want to be that person, if you like starting drama, if you like hurting people's feelings, idk. That's a You Problem. And you need to work on that and it's not my business. That's such an extreme divorce from my values I'm not sure we have anything to gain from each other. But I'm not interested in harming you. I just want to feel like my hobby is a safe place.

Anyway, be nice to people please. 🫶

#i didnt want to go off on a side tangent but so much real world fascism trickles down into fandoms #so like sure it's not that serious #but sometimes it kinda is #like people screeching for censorship of the ao3 while florida is scrubbing queer lit from schools #proudly claiming that fans of a ship you don't like are groomers when that's the exact talking point being leveled at queer people outside #and drag story times being surrounded by armed protesters #and pride being sanitized #so like sure fandom is our nerdy silly hobby #but we're real people #and we live in this world #and you don't need to bring all that hatred into this space