noabody

Polyamory is not inherently lgbt, everyone I talk to that’s polyamorous actually hates that flag for being visually unappealing, the person who made the flag was polyamorous and in the closet and created the flag for themselves and friends from what I read. They didn’t want to use the infinity heart

The infinity heart is a very used symbol in our community, you might recognize it placed over the flag as well, and as stated earlier it’s also been around longer then the flag (people often try to recreate the flag because they hate it so much)

Nonmonogamy is a choice to consensually date multiple people, many people who are monogamous have felt attraction while being loyal to their significant other (I have several family members like this)

Sources: https://twitter.com/myangryuniverse/status/1297616494176735234 https://twitter.com/_dankou/status/1298187651728715778

Additionally from that, “ Even down to what form of English you use” - yes!! This!! I was basically expected from a young age in fandom to learn American English and change the way I spoke and if there was something I didn’t understand, I was ridiculed for it. And if I spoke in British English at any point, I was, again, met with ridicule - especially if I used slang that’s common among the working class (which the UK has a huge classism problem).

I could go on forever about the other things I’ve experienced in this way but honestly I’d rather not come across as “woe is me” or anything. Especially as when this topic is talked about, Americans want to believe it’s just a “Europeans wanting to be special” thing and not an international problem where non-Western people have spoken up about this exact problem, too.

But yeah, even though these are things that happen in general being on social media in general while being non-American, it pours over into fandom and what’s expected of you in that regard. And while American and European issues tend to share some overlap, there is no one-size-fits-all experience which people just don’t want to acknowledge.

I think understanding that complex issues don’t always have a black and white answer to it is scary for people to accept (especially as oftentimes situations that should have a black and white answer tend to get treated as though it’s a grey area when they’re not), but alas.

I’m sick of seeing anime fics where people can’t afford to go to the doctor. Sick of reading fics where a high school in Korea somehow magically operates like an american public school. Sick of having tags flooded with Christmas fics every December where non Christian people in asian countries are celebrating a traditional christmas.

WHAT IS NORMAL FOR YOU IS NOT ALWAYS NORMAL FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD.

Yet for some reason that is the norm and it is what everyone does and how everyone writes and it is accepted by one and all on the internet because according to the internet the american way is the right way and everything else is not.

If I were to write fics about non Indian characters in countries outside of India and incorporate my culture in them it would be a crime. People would leave comment after comment going “um actually this is how things work” and others may even send me hate tell me I’m stupid and I shouldn’t write and so on and so forth. Yet, the fact that fandom is so Anglo centric and has almost entirely whitewashed and westernized non white and non american works and characters is “just how things are.”

The amount of Star Trek fics where the characters use Imperial instead of Metric irks me to no end (for those who aren’t familiar with the franchise, it is explicitly established canon that Metric is the sole system of measurement used in the future).

The same thing happens all the time with fics set in countries which use metric (which is literally 98.5% of the world).

I’ve had people outright tell me that I was spelling things wrong because I spelled things using Canadian English, being told that “color doesn’t have a U in the word”.

Like, if an American character is spelling something out then yes, you should use the American spelling because it’s what they’d use. But for the purposes of narration and dialogue, the spelling that you use should be the spelling from your dialect.

It’s acceptable for tween writers to impose their lived reality on characters of different nationalities because they’re still at the stage where they’re learning to to even tell a story. In their case, it works like literary training wheels. And you can tell when a writer fits this category. The kinds of issues and mistakes in their writing are very distinct. Plus, they’re still learning how to research.

But if you’re past your tweens, you have the necessary skills to research how things are like in other countries.

If you don’t want to research, at the very least contrive a logical reason for the characters to be in the setting that you’re familiar with. Are the characters Korean exchange students? Send them on a student exchange.

I remember reading a True Blood fic where the writer was Swedish so they found a reason for the main character move to Sweden.

When it’s logically possible, I nationality-swap American main characters and make them Canadian so I can write them with confidence (e.g. Darcy Lewis from the Marvel Cinematic Universe).

I’m tired of looking for Christmas fics and getting snow when my Christmas is at summer because, guess what? Inverted seasons! Those characters warming up by the fireplace? Throw them at a beach or at least at a 30°C sunny day.

Starbucks every day? Friend, unless you’re fucking rich and willing to find a shopping mall that has one/look for one at the very centre of the city, you better just be content with some pure coffee at the padaria (which, hello! We don’t have many cafes here, but a padaria will probably do more for you than a cafe anyways)

Spring break? Honey, you get three months of vacation: January, July and December. If you wanna a break, you better pray for holidays. Also, school year starts in February and ends in November, just to make sure we’re all in the same page. And no, we don’t get A+, we get 10 points, because numbers are easier for everyone than whatever the hell “A+” means

Turns out the cockroach was named Darrel. 

I apologize for my inaccuracies.