🦠Papyrus🦠

not to be a joyless hag but I've started seeing genderbent "yuri" shipping Markiplier and Ryan Gosling and I can't help but think of someone I recently I unfollowed for posting that they have an easier time caring about genderbent versions of boy characters than regular fictional women

and I'm also building some connections to that post I made about reading books by Black women (you know the one) and the people who would respond by saying something akin to "joke's on you, I only read fanfic 😜" as if that were some kind of clever loophole and not a demonstration of the exact thing I was talking about

like yes fandom is about fun or whatever but idk man at what point has your desire for no thoughts head empty uncritical consumption left you splashing around in something that's been blended down to an indistinguishable goo for the sake of avoiding anything remotely challenging. with the thing that's "challenging" here being. you know. giving a shit about women and Black people and like frankly anyone but your shippable white men (and honorary Markiplier).

Exactly, like fandom can be helpful for a lot of things and can be a space to make people feel safer, but it is not equivalent to helping people in the outside world. Engaging in fandom is great, its fun, it's cathartic and it *can* be a great place to find community you might not find anywhere else but it always frustrated me when simply being a part of a queer fandom is propped up by white fans as being the pillar of advocacy for queer people. Like yes its nice and it's fun and it's engaging, but there is SO much more outside of that, and im not saying everyone in fandom needs to go out and do as much activism as possible all the time (tho that would be great lol) I just think it's so important to acknowledge that fandom is a fun hobby thing, it can make changes in people's lives and thats great but so can volunteering at your local library or food pantry or whatever other places in your community are struggling in real life. Fandom is great but there is so much more joy you can add to your community outside of that.

irritating as fuck when people get mad at Black people existing in premodern historical fiction/fantasy media. like first of all, you're racist. and second of all, you are acting as though Black people didn't exist in premodern Europe which is simply false. especially when we're talking about the Mediterranean, like what the fuck do you people think is along the southern half of the Mediterranean Ocean?? everyone's on boats, there are GOING to be interactions with Black people in Northern Africa, and there are GOING to be Black people in Mediterranean Europe. stop being stupid. your imagined homogeneous white European past is not historical reality, get over it you massive losers

not to be a joyless hag but I've started seeing genderbent "yuri" shipping Markiplier and Ryan Gosling and I can't help but think of someone I recently I unfollowed for posting that they have an easier time caring about genderbent versions of boy characters than regular fictional women

and I'm also building some connections to that post I made about reading books by Black women (you know the one) and the people who would respond by saying something akin to "joke's on you, I only read fanfic 😜" as if that were some kind of clever loophole and not a demonstration of the exact thing I was talking about

like yes fandom is about fun or whatever but idk man at what point has your desire for no thoughts head empty uncritical consumption left you splashing around in something that's been blended down to an indistinguishable goo for the sake of avoiding anything remotely challenging. with the thing that's "challenging" here being. you know. giving a shit about women and Black people and like frankly anyone but your shippable white men (and honorary Markiplier).

I think this is also a lot of why so many ppl in fandom spaces refuse to engage with any media that involves anything "problematic" because if their entire identity of being some "radical queer activist" only hinges on what media they consume and what ships they like, then liking anything with any elements they don't agree with is equivalent to them being a bad person. "umm Isn't that book like problematic or something?" is meant to be a judgement on you for reading it, but also a lot of the time a desperate plea for you to tell them its not 'problematic' so that maybe they can enjoy without being a Bad Person. I've known so many people who think this way and it makes sense when ur younger but after a while its like "damn you really cant engage with anything that you dont 100% agree with?" Like you dont have to agree with every element of something for it to be Okay for you to watch it you can actually like something and acknowledge that there are parts you disagree with. Like thats okay, good even.

not to be a joyless hag but I've started seeing genderbent "yuri" shipping Markiplier and Ryan Gosling and I can't help but think of someone I recently I unfollowed for posting that they have an easier time caring about genderbent versions of boy characters than regular fictional women

and I'm also building some connections to that post I made about reading books by Black women (you know the one) and the people who would respond by saying something akin to "joke's on you, I only read fanfic 😜" as if that were some kind of clever loophole and not a demonstration of the exact thing I was talking about

like yes fandom is about fun or whatever but idk man at what point has your desire for no thoughts head empty uncritical consumption left you splashing around in something that's been blended down to an indistinguishable goo for the sake of avoiding anything remotely challenging. with the thing that's "challenging" here being. you know. giving a shit about women and Black people and like frankly anyone but your shippable white men (and honorary Markiplier).

not to be a joyless hag but I've started seeing genderbent "yuri" shipping Markiplier and Ryan Gosling and I can't help but think of someone I recently I unfollowed for posting that they have an easier time caring about genderbent versions of boy characters than regular fictional women

and I'm also building some connections to that post I made about reading books by Black women (you know the one) and the people who would respond by saying something akin to "joke's on you, I only read fanfic 😜" as if that were some kind of clever loophole and not a demonstration of the exact thing I was talking about

like yes fandom is about fun or whatever but idk man at what point has your desire for no thoughts head empty uncritical consumption left you splashing around in something that's been blended down to an indistinguishable goo for the sake of avoiding anything remotely challenging. with the thing that's "challenging" here being. you know. giving a shit about women and Black people and like frankly anyone but your shippable white men (and honorary Markiplier).

life is better when you're not malnourished btw

too many people have the idea that racism is a nothingburger thing. like. people die from that. it’s not “cancel culture” to call out racism. and if you’re white and you say anything close to that you have some serious self-reflecting to do. idc if you’re a content creator. idc if “it could happen to you.” having a platform on the internet and saying stupid bullshit doesn’t make you more oppressed than the marginalized groups you’re criticizing for being upset

I dont think we ever need to forgive people for racism even if it was 7+ years ago. It's easy to say you just had a phase and that we all just gotta move on. But personally, 7 years ago I was a kid in school being bullied for my skin and my heritage. I dont see why perpetuaters of this violence get some sort of invisible expiration date while we have to bear the burden always. Where is our justice? Why is there always a convenient excuse?