#tl;dr: let me do fandom things on my own terms and gtfo my lawn please

[sleepykalena]

“It’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”

I’m a POC and I love Jyn Erso.

And lately it seems like there are some folks (literally just a few folks, afaik) who seem keen on painting parts of the fandom with such a broad brush that their shouting has made their way into my corner. It’s such an angry brush, and I understand where the frustration comes from. But I’d like to remind anyone who’s bothered to actually look at this post:

Fandom is what you make of it.

I mean this in the intended sense as well as with regards to the things you create and put out there in the fandom itself. I don’t want to contribute to the anger or the fighting. I go out of my way to try and not pick fights with people. Yet somehow the fighting finds me. The real life has me tired. So tired. Between the Orange Skull, the racist white folk who decide to actively trash my POC friends and neighbors in one of the most liberal areas of the US, and politics within the industry I chose to have a career in, I just want to sit in my corner and do my thing on my own terms, with the people who’ve supported me, in my own little section of the Rebelcaptain fandom.

So here’s the thing about Jyn Erso, and why I love her so much: “it’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”

I have been raised as a second-generation Asian-American to keep my head down, stay quiet and don’t cause a stir, and just try and climb your way out of your social class and aim for a higher rung on the ladder. I was blessed to be raised with a level of privilege that the military comfortably provided me, with an income that brought food to the table and helped pay my tuition.

But that doesn’t change the atrocities committed against me as a female and a POC- the emotional manipulation, the sexual assault, the slurs thrown at me from people of all walks of life.

Regardless, I kept my head down and didn’t bother to “look up”. I literally do not like to look people in the eyes, because it implies I’m itching for a fight or a confrontation. I kept quiet where I could. I tried to make change where I was able to, knowing full well that it would make a difference. I would try my hardest to help others (and sometimes a little too hard if I think back on the last few months), only to find myself still beaten down by some other entity- be it the people I once trusted, by the powers that be in government, or even down to the people who try to fight for causes I also believe in. But if you piss me off enough, if you push my patience to the very edge and test me, then I will lose all sense of remorse for whatever I do unto you when I snap.

Jyn’s emotional development and attitudes aren’t too different from my own, and I love that this was written in to her character. Her character arc lines up so well with my own life and experiences that I will continue to write about her and draw her until my wrists break.

I also love Cassian Andor, but it has less to do with Diego Luna and more to do with my significant other (who, for the record, is also Latinx).

It seems expected that I would like him, given that I’m a rebelcaptain shipper, Lunatic, and likewise a fellow POC. But if it weren’t for my partner and all the qualities I see in him as I see them in Cassian, I don’t actually think I could be as fervent a rebelcaptain shipper as I am right now. Cassian’s brightest character points, as well as his darkest ones, are very easily found in my partner. In the same way that Cassian gave Jyn hope, my partner gives me hope in a world that deserves to be burning in the depths of whatever hell you happen to believe in. In the same way that Cassian internalizes all his character flaws, so too does my partner try his hardest not to dwell too much on the negative aspects about him. He’s quiet, a man of few words, and even fewer true ones. Cassian speaks just enough for people to be appeased, but the words carry little meaning, a ploy to comfort people to make sure he can live to fight another day. His words of honesty, of thoughts in his mind, are rare, and shared only to those he finds himself trusting. My partner is hardly any different.

But, if there’s anything he let himself admit to me, it’s that he loves that I’m there for him when he needs it, and that I’ve taught him to be less apathetic. Me, the cynic, the one bitter with the real world, had taught him to be less apathetic. Who’da thunk?

In every piece of fanfic I write, I almost inevitably fall back on this: Jyn teaches Cassian something that changes him for the better. It brings me immense joy to be told that I, a Jyn, had helped him, a Cassian, to be less apathetic, to care just a little bit more about his actions, how they affect others, and why he should take more effort to visibly care just a little bit more.

Is it a problematic trope? Sure, according to some of those folks in the fandom. But I write these stories because, for once, I made a difference to my partner’s life, to someone’s life. To me, Jyn teaching Cassian a thing is a result of her finally making a difference in a galaxy where she was inundated with the idea that her existence doesn’t matter, that what she does makes very little difference. My reasons for writing fic are intensely personal, and there are bits of me and my partner scattered in all of them, in various proportions.

What I don’t appreciate is being told that, as a POC and based on my personal experiences, my “silence” and refusal to be loud and join this tirade of sorts makes me complicit in what is allegedly rampant sexism and racism in the fandom.

Being a POC, particularly a WOC, puts a target on my back on the internet. I keep quiet, especially with regards to my racial identity, precisely because I know how dangerous it can be to open my mouth and scream too loudly into the void. Out of all the fights I want to pick, fandom “discourse” is far and away from my list of priorities. I’m busy trying to get my representatives in to make actual difference in my city, state, and country, informing myself for the broader problems that exist outside of this fandom, making money to put food on the table, etc. All I want to do is enjoy my corner of the fandom in peace, and not have an extra “duty” to fight this racial fight at the risk of looking like “a bad POC”. If anything, that puts an onus on POC to be “perfect” with all that preaching, and not only am I far from perfect, I also think that expectation is damaging to the movement as a whole.

Much like Jyn, you could ask me if I care not for the cause. Much like Jyn, I do. But, cynically, I have to say again: “It’s not a problem if you don’t look up”. Making that much noise to fight a cause is a huge waste of my time and effort because I’m surrounded by people who either 1) are so fully-formed in their development that they’re set in their ways and are otherwise unchangeable; 2) are already are aware of these issues and tropes, and thus I’d be preaching to the choir; or 3) don’t care for my existence because I’m not really a big name in the fandom.

But the biggest reason why I don’t make a huge noise about it is because fandom is what you make of it. These people literally have every right to write whatever trope they want, including exceedingly problematic ones, because- you guessed it- it’s their space too. I acknowledge that their presence exists and I refuse to share my space with them, but so long as you’ve written your line in the sand over your space, I won’t interfere with your space. Don’t interfere with mine. Any overlapping peers who happen to like us both are free to cross to and from the borders. My kink is not your kink, my headcanon is not your headcanon, but so what? I’ll still tell people to write that stuff anyway. Because that’s what they want to make of fandom, whether or not it’s canon/fanon, whether or not I like it.

I fight problematic tropes by setting an example. If kudos, views, notes, and comments are currency, then I, as one could phrase it, “talk with my money”. And believe me, some people have got me feeling pretty stingy. I think it’s far more effective to incite change in this small fandom by creating content that (hopefully) sets an example that inspires others to do things a little more like the way I do them, rather than trying to scream at people. I try my hardest not to adhere to these tropes or dynamics I find disagreeable. I boycott content from certain users if I find their presence and/or actions a threat to my enjoyment of the fandom. And I block people who regularly engage in fandom wank and abuse the tagging system. In a fandom that seems to be increasingly sensitive to note counts and feedback, my withholding of attention is a more than effective tool at showing people that I don’t like their stuff.

Does it create an echo chamber? You betcha! But this is my echo chamber; the real world is already looming over me with its own set of drama. Creating an echo chamber for my corner of the fandom and making a safe space out of it is something I deserve as a human being.

I’m relatively confident that others have taken the same policy and thus do not give me their attention to any of the things I’ve created. And that’s perfectly okay. It sucks, but it’s perfectly okay, because I don’t owe them my time just as much as they don’t owe me theirs.

I will fight by encouraging change to those in my purview in my own terms, in my own way. I refuse to be painted with this brush of being uncaring and complicit, especially when all I’ve seen from those people is hate against the enemies and very little uplifting, encouragement, and love to the ones they claim to fight for. I don’t even think they’ve read or liked a single thing I’ve ever made in the fandom; I am, in short, a POC not worth supporting. What’s more, their shouting had become so loud and so angry that I nearly cancelled a fic because it was a modern AU in which Cassian is Mexican-American and speaks Spanish off and on depending on the situation. I planned for him to speak Chicano English by default, but use Californian English whenever he’s outside his own home. I chose them because I think his identity and accent matter to the plot. These people, who were so fed up with the use of the Spanish language and Mexican identity for Cassian, had me scared to ever write this fic even though people I’ve discussed the story with insist that this upcoming fic is perfectly fine. It was hard to hear their support when the loudest voice in my head repeated all those gripes that other people had about the depiction of POC in the Rebelcaptain fandom, and it took several tries and a relentless barrage of support to give me back the courage to draft this fanfic, which has a huge socio-political slant specifically targeting the POC of the Rogue One squad.

The people who encouraged me to do it? Still predominantly white folk (and I deliberately choose not to use the word “women” here). I get support from people of different racial identities as well, no doubt (and one POC in particular comes to mind because she’s been my loudest supporter since I officially entered the fandom), but most of them have been white. 

My corner of the fandom has been peaceful and the least problematic, and the people are, at their very core, truly lovely people. I’m sorry that people mistake my alleged silence for compliance. I’m sorry that people find my work so uninteresting that it’s not worth their time to give me their support. I’m sorry that some people are finding their corner of the fandom violated and full of toxicity that no amount of blocking can help matters.

But please, for the love of every deity in human existence, keep your anger away from my corner of the fandom. I only get a few hours each week to myself, and I’ve chosen to spend it here. I want to make each minute count. And the next minute, and the next, on and on until I’m satisfied with my contributions here, or until the minutes are spent. Let me love Jyn and Cassian in my own way. Let me celebrate their relationship in my own way. Let me fight my fight in my own way. If you don’t like it, that’s fine! Use that currency I mentioned earlier and take your money elsewhere. But do not dictate how I should act within my space and place expectations on me because I’m a POC, and do not make assumptions about my character.

#1 #2 #rebelcaptain #jyn erso #fandom wank #sleepy rambles #a hell of a lot #tl;dr: let me do fandom things on my own terms and gtfo my lawn please #to co-opt Chirrut's line: #let me pass in peace