“Don’t like, don’t read” is so exhausting because it acts like fandom can only be harmful if people go out of their way to read triggering fanfic. As if it’s all isolated and underground and easy to avoid. Like. I’ve never read a Reylo fic, but if I search for Finn stuff, there it is. If I scroll the TFA tag, it’s there. Fans write “Finn meta” that tears him down to elevate Reylo (shit, journalists do it too). Finnrey shippers and Finn fans are demonized for noticing any of it.
We can avoid it, sure – if we leave fandom. We’re fans, we’re not going anywhere.
Some good points here. The meta bit is pretty distasteful, and just in general I think people shouldn’t tag character hate, or tag a character just because they show up in a fic if they’re not going to be a focus of it.
That said… being upset because you see a ship you don’t like when scrolling through a tag for the whole fandom is maybe a wee bit excessive. ‘cause honestly, if you find it harmful just to know there are people who write your NoTP, then maybe you SHOULD leave that fandom.
You have a right not to have to read content you find upsetting. You do NOT have a right to demand it be so “isolated and underground” that you don’t even have to know it exists.
You have it a wee bit backward. I demanded no such thing. Do I think reylo belongs in the main tags? No, I don’t. It has nothing to do with The Last Jedi, it’s a white fantasy wankfest that buries posts that are about the movie and erases the inclusiveness of the actual trilogy. There’s nothing I can do about that, the Star Wars fandom has always been racist as hell.
But don’t tell me “don’t like don’t read” when it’s everywhere, making just about every tag a shitshow. I DO have the right to say I don’t like it when I can’t avoid it. Don’t like criticism, don’t shove it in my face.
Do you use Xkit or Tumblr Savior?
Those are browser extensions that work with tumblr (i.e. make it goddamn functional for a change) on multiple browser platforms.
You can use the Blacklist feature in Xkit or Tumblr Savior (and for AO3 this works too, with the AO3 Savior extension) to completely block a chosen tag or keyword.
It might show you something was blocked from your dashboard or whatnot depending on the extension but it won’t show you the actual posts with that tag (some people have also managed to set it up – I think in Tumblr Savior specifically? not sure, I stick with Xkit and haven’t fiddled much with this but I think it has a whitelist option too- so that it would whitelist something so that for example a fandom tag would only show up with say, your preferred ships and not any other content, something the Teen Wolf fandom has made heavy use of in rebellion against canon’s apparent queerbaiting turnaround – I say apparent because I’m not in that fandom, but that’s what I’ve seen some people in it say they did).
If you use an extension like this to block the reylo tag/keyword then you should almost never have to sit through those posts on the Force Awakens or Star Wars tags again, if they’ve been tagged with the ship or otherwise include the ship name in their text they should get blocked. 🙂
At worst, you’ll spot a few “blocked based on this keyboard” notifications but they’ll be like a single text line with no post and no content attached other than mentioning what keyboard it was being blocked for.
Options like this are exactly why a lot of people are okay with saying “don’t like, don’t read” because we CAN filter better now – but if you didn’t know these were common options (because why would you? it’s not like they’re official through tumblr, which hates that third parties attempt to make this hellsite functional apparently) then I can understand your frustration. So I hope this reply helps you out with your annoying reylo issue! 🙂 I don’t tend to browse the main tag for TFA or Star Wars, but I really don’t like that ship either (just?? why??) and so I could see how if you’re looking for neutral content and can’t block it, that could be really frustrating
Unfortunately there is no fix for character hate tagged with just the character name though : that’s a matter of individuals tagging accurately, and that’s in turn a matter of internal fandom tagging practices/culture. I’m sad to hear Finn hate is being tagged with neutral tags, that sucks. 😦 If you spot some common lines that get repeated though you might be able to cut down on it with keyword blocking? Again, not a perfect fix, but >_>
Wow, patronizing. Of course I know about and use xkit on the web. Dropped Tumblr Savior years ago. I know how Tumblr works. I’m on mobile 90% of the time, and yes, I know about Washboard, too. All but one of the examples in the op? Xkit doesn’t fix it.
Personally, because of the nature of my blog, I don’t blacklist or block, ever. It’s important for me to see the reality of the fandom. That’s my choice, yeah. It doesn’t make flooding tags with irrelevant ship content reasonable or above criticism. It’s not that I can’t handle all they reylo, it’s that it pisses me off when fanon ships like reylo sideline Black characters. I’ve used blacklisting, and believe me, seeing dozens of “this post has been hidden” posts isn’t any better.
And why is it so damn hard for this particular fandom to be respectful? Kyluxers, regardless of how I feel about the ship, somehow manage not to infest every corner of fandom, on and off Tumblr. I don’t see them harassing SW directors and actors on social media. It can’t be that damn hard.
This isn’t just like, I don’t want to look at Adam Driver’s face. It’s about maneuvering through a fandom for a trilogy that offers inclusion that aggressively prioritizes whiteness.It’s about antiblackness. A band-aid doesn’t help.
I’m someone who does black list things I hate, and I STILL see them! Part of my problems with my current fandom is that there is literally no way to avoid the problematic stuff without leaving it entirely.
And that’s before getting into all the insidious ways in which hate continues to permeate even after you black list the obvious stuff. i.e. My fandom is tremendously racist towards the main character – which would be fine (or, well, tolerable) if people tagged it. But they don’t, because the fanon has spread so far that people think it’s canon, and thus no one thinks to tag it.
Not to mention microagressions. No one is going to tag their fic or write in a warning that “I took the main character’s good traits and gave them to the white leads while giving him all their bad traits” – but that’s exactly what happens.
One of the biggest problems with things like racism, sexism, etc., is that they most often AREN’T intentional – which means people aren’t going to tag for them. The racism will run so deep that people don’t even see it. The hate will run so deep that people don’t even see it. If you don’t see it, you can’t tag for it, so how are you supposed to block it?
“Blocking” problematic content on Tumblr, AO3, or anywhere else, relies on the person generating that content, AND on *everyone* else reblogging that content, to accurately tag it with what you have blocked.
How likely do you think that is to actually happen when people don’t even think they’re doing anything problematic in the first place?
Exactly. People will trigger warning all kinds of things, but not racism, not unless it’s like a screencap of an “alt right” Twitter rant. Tagging their own potentially triggering posts for racism? Doesn’t happen. People can use fandom to cope, unless it’s coping with racism, then it doesn’t really count. What is upsetting to Black fans is just fandom fun. They wouldn’t even think to tag it as racist.
In any event, I’m not going to expend time and energy on helping to create a space that fosters the comfort of fans who make fandom a hurtful place for fans of color who don’t toe the line. They want me to do the work so fandom can be a nice, happy place where racism can flourish while xkit makes me (partially) oblivious of how shitty it really is? Lol no.
On the 20th anniversary for her foray into show business, Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood is set to make her directorial debut this year, and she has lined up quite the cast to join her.
Jenny Slate, Alison Pill and Cynthia Erivo are set to star alongside Wood in a mysterious road trip movie that will soon begin filming in Vancouver, according to Vulture’s new profile of Slate.
On July 1, 2018 Evan Rachel Wood posted an update on the movie indicating that it was stuck in development hell, unable to get financing. She tweeted out:
Fyi I have been pitching a film, starring 4 amazing actresses, written by 2 women, to be directed by me, for TWO YEARS, to nothing but room after room of white MEN and ‘weirdly’
no one has given it money. And we wonder why there is a bias in hollywood?? Your move guys. (x)
Pretty much every woman on my timeline is like YES!! And everyone who is saying “well the idea probably sucks..”
Guess who? Not saying ALL men, but a vast majority still cant handle. And this is where we are in the film industry and pretty much everywhere. (x)
.. it’s all about how you take it. You can be triggered by it because of your own insecurities or you can love it because of your own insecurities. There are 2 sides to the coin and promoting censorship of art because of how it makes you feel is about the most hypocritical thing anyone who is not a straight white male can do. Simply put, those who wish not see, need not look. But I don’t want my children growing up in a world, where they don’t have the option.
I find g!p gratifying
It’s literally not all about how a person “takes it”. It has nothing to do with triggering (although those are valid experiences), and everything to do with the way the trope reproduces and directs sexual violence against trans women, deeply fetishizes and dehumanizes us categorically, and erases our lived experiences and the realities of our bodies in ways that render us vulnerable and conditionally worthy of desire and love.
So, uh, yeah. It’s got nothing to do with whether it gives an individual person the warm fuzzies.
And I’m not promoting censorship, since I can’t censor anyone. I’m promoting that people recognize the harm their works do and find it in their heart to weight the wellbeing of trans women over the orgasms they get off our backs.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
If you want to understand more, read this, this, this, or the other posts on my education page on g!p
Because you may find g!p gratifying, but it’s literally deeply cissexist, transmisogynistic, trans-fetishistic, and reproduces a whole host of stigmas and taboos about trans women that direct real physical sexual violence against us and promotes our exclusion from women’s spaces, wlw spaces, lesbian spaces, often while casting us as dangerous male predators. Those are the facts, regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
In a time when women are standing up to male violence and saying ‘no more,’ trans women are still being left out and here, ‘censorship’ is the excuse – even though there is no call for censorship, only understanding that will lead to better choices that do not harm others.
I remember when Roman Polanski was defended by Hollywood actors and actresses saying that his raping of a child should be forgiven because he was a ‘great artist’ and how his working life should continue. Same for Woody Allen.
Now that the tides have turned, sympathy for these ‘great artists’ has eroded – we recognise the harm done, the harm that continues, when we allow these men to be given power and feted. Dylan Farrow’s story of the ongoing hurt and harm of watching Woody Allen escape justice, the harm he did to her family, while he kept working, kept receiving awards – can you see some parallels here?
No one calls for ‘censorship’ of a ‘great artist.’ It’s the human equation that is being left out. The human cost of allowing oppressors to maintain status quo – one that only benefits a few. Will people throw away ‘Chinatown’ or ‘Stardust Memories’ as crap because the men who made them are rubbish?
How many films or books created by ‘great artists’ featured content that we now consider backward, harmful, ignorant, sexist, racist – and those books and films still exist? No one ripped them off the shelves (that’s something fascists and Nazis do). I find the 50 Shades books to not only be terrible, but terrible influences and the woman who wrote them is another rubbish human being who benefited enormously from spreading wrongful, harmful text – that was openly derided far and wide. Did anyone get offended and call it ‘censorship’ to point out her work was harmful? I’d never call for anyone’s works to be banned – but we do seek to educate others on their content, don’t we? How many posts have you seen over the years of readers declaring 50 Shades is harmful? Is it a censorship issue or education?
But trans women point out g!p is harmful and support disappears (insert gif of Mariah Carey in sunglasses, unable to read suddenly).
How much g!p fiction mirrors 50 Shades?
It’s time to to allow those they have harmed to be free from that harm and to know we will progress in better ways. Society either improves and becomes genuinely inclusive and equal – or it continues to fall apart, thanks to selfishness and greed.
If trans women are shouting what is harmful to them and you are not listening, take some stock of the world around you. Look at all the other women who weren’t listened to when they told the world they were harmed. Look at all the other women who were too terrified to come forward, who were told they were asking for it, who were told it was all their fault it happened.
Instead of looking at trans women as something separate, maybe we could start seeing them as women who are pointing out the harm being done to them and stand with them.
Would that be gratifying?
I’ve pointed out before, in the Clexa fandom, fans stood up to a man who did them harm. We pointed out a HARMFUL TROPE that should not be used – no one called for ‘censorship.’ We asked straight content creators to be better allies, to be better educated and not perpetuate the writing of harmful content. It’s about representation.
Trans women are usually the last ones who receive any kind of support. Is ‘time’s up’ inclusive? Is ‘me too?’ I believe them when they tell me someone is hurting them. I believe you, I’m listening, I hope to be a better ally.
who looked at Alycia and said “ah yes. bloodthirsty warrior. fearless queen of battle.”
Probably the same person who realised they were about to cast a rather fine young actor.
PS: just to take the piss, Lexa was never actually written or presented as a ‘bloodthirsty warrior.’ Fearless, queen-like, excellent in battle, yes.
Perhaps without meaning to, this post kind of reinforces a sexist norm that a (young) woman can’t be taken seriously in such a role. I think ADC (and many other women in similar roles) completely disproved it.
“Hundreds of top Hollywood actresses and executives, directors, producers, writers, and agents have launched a sweeping initiative to combat sexual harassment in workplaces across the US, with a focus on blue-collar industries.
The initiative, Time’s Up, includes a legal defense fund backed by $13 million in donations to assist women in low-wage industries, a campaign to advocate gender parity among corporate leadership, and proposed legislation to push companies to adopt policies on harassment and discourage the use of nondisclosure agreements.
The movement addresses a common criticism that the national conversation around sexual misconduct in workplaces has frequently excluded women who typically have less public influence and fewer resources to take on systemic abuse than Hollywood stars.
“Harassment too often persists because perpetrators and employers never face any consequences,” said an open letter from 300 women in film, TV, and theater. “This is often because survivors, particularly those working in low-wage industries, don’t have the resources to fight back.”
CBS: Hey let’s make a new Star Trek show and put women of color in the lead roles!
Star Trek fans: Oh! That sounds really cool!
Also CBS: Let’s put it on our overpriced streaming service so the fewest amount of people possible watch it
Star Trek fans:
This is the network that declared Sarah Shahi’s Nancy Drew ‘too female,’ then proceeded to present an all-male led lineup of shows.
Now it wants US audiences to pay for this privilege and, so you know, if you choose to do so, you’ll still have adverts running through it (unless you want to pay for a higher tier).
The conversations I’ve seen on Twitter and elsewhere suggest many fans are unhappy about this and do not want to pay the extra fee, when they are already paying for Netflix (who have the rights to stream the show abroad) or Hulu or whatever else.
I read a Salon article earlier that suggested CBS does want this show to succeed, else why give it a prime Sunday slot – but the author missed a point. That Sunday slot won’t be on their main (male-centric) network. It won’t be seen by this audience, unless they choose to pay for it – and who would choose to pay for stuff you get to see for free anyway, or is already available through a streaming service you already have?
Disney is planning something like this, too, and if everyone jumps on their individual streaming programme wagons, they will effectively lock out millions of potential viewers who cannot afford multiple services.
Once again, only the elite benefit.
It renders the hopeful, post-capitalist message of Star Trek completely useless.
I have been afraid of speaking out or asking things of men in positions of power for years. What I have experienced as an actress working in a business whose business is to objectify women is frightening. It is the deep end of a pool where I cannot swim. It is a famous man telling you that you are a liar for what you have remembered. For what you must have misremembered, unless you have proof.
This is the lived experience of so many women even far outside of Hollywood, and for women of colour, for trans women, for queer women, it is only worse.
Men hide behind screens or one another – their cowardice is like a beacon in the fog of their narcissism. All women – and men, too – deserve to be free of it.
The Doctor Is Out 