#and once again I know the answer is just misogyny and that fandom hates complex female characters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angelsarecomputers · 3 months

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I know it’s been said but I find it so weird when people demonise Dora. The one interaction that we get with her- the REAL her- in the whole game, she is extremely patient, despite the fact that Harry is calling her in the middle of the night and asking creepo shit like ‘are you sleeping naked’. We can infer through context clues that this has probably happened multiple times before, and yet she still knows no signs of ill-will towards Harry- she just seems tired and concerned.

And it would be completely within her right to be angry at him for harassing her, as well! Knowing how volatile Harry can be, perhaps she even learned through fear not to confront him. And yet, there still seems to be this perception that, out of the both of them, DORA was the abusive one, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary! It’s not even that I don’t think she wasn’t at least slightly abusive, given Harry’s disabilities and their class differences, but what I am saying is that it was likely mutual, and that, out of the two of them, Harry was worse.

Their relationship probably got horrible and toxic towards the end, of that I have no doubt. What I don’t get is why the fandom seems to believe that Harry, as he currently is, is in any way capable of viewing the relationship objectively. There’s ample evidence that he was violent, frequently misogynistic, and that the experience gap between him and Dora was significant, and yet people still take his worst thoughts at face value. That she’s a ‘war criminal’, that’s she’s a goddess- people seem to think Harry’s deification of her is the main issue, and not the opposite; his virulent hatred towards Dora, towards ‘Revacholian women’.

It just boggles me that people are so willing to believe that Harry was the only one truly hurt- that Dora’s decision to leave was made lightly. We don’t know exactly what happened, and what glimpses we do get are filtered horribly through Harry’s grief, but they were in a relationship for more than a decade! They were planning to get married! I don’t think Dora just up and left for Mirova one day- the way the dream conversation goes seems to suggest they hadn’t been together for a while.

There are so, so many things said during the final dream that are probably just Harry’s self-hatred masquerading as Dora/Dolores- and while I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of it did come from Dora, at other points in their relationship, I think it’s pretty obvious that the final dream is meant to be a confused muddle of Harry’s memories and grief. Why else would she appear as Dolores Dei? But, while no one ever explicitly says it, I feel like a lot of people want to believe that the way things are during the last dream is how they were in real life. That Dora really was cold and cruel to Harry- when in real life she appears as just the opposite, despite what he puts her through.

#and I know the answer as to why people do this is misogyny and also that we simply don’t get to know her very well on her own #and trust me I am well aware that Harry was also hurt badly by Dora. I am in no way trying to villainise him here #their relationship is obviously very complex and multifaceted with both sides being wrong at different points which is extremely realistic #that’s why I love it so much. what I don’t understand is why people will shelve these discussions in favour of woobifying harry #and once again I know the answer is just misogyny and that fandom hates complex female characters #ESPECIALLY if they’ve hurt a male character in some way. but the amount of flat surface level takes I’ve seen about these two…#let’s try and do a bit better instead of just boiling shit down to ‘Harry bad’ or ‘Dora bad’ yeah?#harry du bois #dora ingerlund #harrydora #dolores dei #disco elysium #de meta

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kane-and-griffin · 7 years

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Hey! So I know that you're the most famous person of the kabby fandom (and I love you btw) so there's something I need to tell you. I've seen a lot of people from the kabby fandom (which I am a part of it) getting mad whenever someone on twitter doesn't like Kane or Abby, saying that it's because they are ageist which I think is really annoying (like they start going off on them almost every time ) 1/2

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if they don’t like a character it’s not necessarily bc they’re ageist. I think that this is the reason a lot of people don’t like us so (if you agree with me ofc) could you maybe pass the word? I love you btw you’re an amazing person and your ff are the best 😘 2/2

Okay. So.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

I have a lot of thoughts, some of which may notbe the thoughts you were hoping that I would have. I do want to thank you for your very sweet words, but I also want to address a few things about this askI find extremely frustrating, not with the intent of making you feel bad butbecause I think there are some big conversations here worth having in a broadercontext.

First and foremost, and this is something most ofyou have heard me reiterate many times, I am a strong advocate of peopleaddressing their problems with each other directly. If you saw someone on Twitter accuse someoneof being ageist and you disagree, that’s fair to say! Social media is a free and open exchange ofideas. Also, if you’re a member of theKabby fandom, and you witness another member of the Kabby fandom engaging inbad internet behavior, call them out! It’salways better for communities to go collect their own people when they crossthe line rather than expecting others to do it. If your fellow fan tweets something mean, call it out. We all need to do our part to shut that stuffdown and make the fandom a better place. But the right forum for that is to bring it up with the person whoactually said or did the thing you’re upset about, and not to bring it to acompletely unrelated party.

Which brings me to my second point: I’m extremelyuncomfortable being addressed as though I speak for the entirety of the Kabbyfandom. I don’t. No one person does. Fandoms are communities made of individualpeople who have shared interests, but there’s no hierarchy. I don’t want to bethe Bad Fandom Behavior Police. This is especially frustrating when I getasks where one member of the fandom comes to Kabby Mom about something anothermember of the fandom did … especially when it’s something I wasn’t part ofand didn’t witness.

And that, my dear Anon, is the big problem that I’mhaving with this request. I don’t haveany idea what incident you’re referring to, what was said, by whom, to whom, orwhat the context was. You’re asking meto agree with you that somebody was out of line, and that, quote, “that’s whypeople don’t like us.” But I can’t grantthat premise without knowing what you’re talking about.

(Also, by the way, I would urge you to let go ofspending too much time caring about whether other fandoms like us. I can assure you, most of them honestly probablyaren’t thinking about us that much.)

If I understand the situation correctly, and ifwe’re referring to a real incident and not a hypothetical, you’re saying that PersonA tweeted something negative about Kabby and Person B said “that’s ageist.” You, Anon, believe that Person A was not being ageist, that Person B overreacted,and that B is the one whose behavior is the problem. And that’s certainly one possibility. But the other possibility is that maybePerson A was being ageist but neither Person A nor you have recognizedit.

And I cannot make that determination for you,because you haven’t told me anything concrete, and I wasn’t there.

I am also a thirty-six-year-old woman in a fandomfull of teenagers and if you are not thirty-six then it is entirely possiblethat you and I are seeing the concept of ageism from two very different andincompatible points of view in the first place.

That being said, if you want my opinion, here is my opinion.

First, there really is no excuse for being a jerk onthe internet, no matter what you disagree about. There will always be people who love thingsyou hate and hate things you love and ship things you find incomprehensible andreject headcanons you treat as gospel, because we all fandom in our ownways. So if you’re asking me, shouldKabby shippers get a pass on being jerks to non-Kabby shippers just because I,personally, ship Kabby, my answer to that is, “of course not, that is insane.” Disagreement and discussion are always okay;Twitter is a public forum, and if someone voices an opinion, you get to haveyour own opinion about it. But being ajerk is never okay.

In general, I am a strong proponent of stayingin your lane. I’m a pretty ruthless curator of my Twitter and Tumblr feeds, soI don’t follow anyone who talks shit about Kane or Abby (I have a one-strikeblock policy with this), and I recommend this approach to everyone. Make your social media feed your happy place.

Now, there are lots of people in the fandom who don’tlike, or simply don’t care for, Kane and/or Abby. There are probably plenty of reasons forthis, and not, not every single one of these reasons is inherently ageist. HOWEVER!The fact that you did not see the comment in question as being ageist does not actually mean it was not ageistor that the person who called them out was wrong for doing so.

Ageism is hardwired into the very fabric of oursociety – like misogny and heterosexism and racism – and just like with thoseother -isms, most of the time when we serenely think that we are guiltless ofit, we are lying to ourselves. And that goes for internalized prejudices,too. This stuff is ingrained in us from birth. In general, the sameway I am inherently suspicious of white people saying “I AM ZERO PERCENTRACIST” and men saying “I AM THE MOST FEMINIST MAN TO EVER MAN”, I tend to takewith a grain of salt the words of people much younger than me talking about ageism in this fandom because I actually see it a lot.

And fam, we need to talk about the differencebetween fandom discourse about Abby and fandom discourse about Kane.

Now, your mileage may vary, but I will say thatin my personal experience, when I stumble upon someone who does like Abby but doesn’t likeKane, I agree that it frequently has its roots in reasons which are notinherently, automatically ageist. Ittends to be rooted rather clearly in plot. More often than not, they’re still tripping up over something he did in aprevious season that they can’t get past. (We should probably save the conversation about our fandom’s selectiveforgiveness problem for another time.) Theycan’t get past the Culling, or arresting/shocklashing/attempting to float Abby,or being too hard on Bellamy, or losing the election to Pike by choosing toally with the Grounders, or floating Aurora or Jake, or just in general being amega-dick in the pilot. And that’sfine! I mean I feel like you’re missingout by giving his four-season character development arc short shrift andignoring the way all the terrible things he’s done in the past shaped him intoa better person once he confronted them, but whatever! The point is that, you’re right, thatreasoning is not, in and of itself, inherently ageist. That’s not to say that there aren’t any fanswho straight-up just don’t like him because they think old guys are boring, forthe most part, when I see people dislike Kane, it’s a reaction to something that he did.

But we actually do need to talk about ageism andAbby in this fandom. Because it is a big fucking problem.

The problem with ageism and Abby is that moreoften than not, from what I’ve seen, when people dislike Abby, it’s a reactionto who and what she is. It is absolutely impossible to separate itfrom internalized misogyny and the way older women are systematically devaluedby our culture in ways that sometimes we can’t even see as ageist, because they’rejust hardwired into us.

Sure, every once in awhile you get an easy one,and someone whines on Twitter about “gross old person sex,” and then you canpoint to it very clearly, and nobody will dispute that we’re talking aboutageism here. But it’s often so muchmurkier than that. Ageism can look likea lot of different things, many of which you’ll believe are completelyunrelated.

Ageism can look like fans who show up in thecomments of the writers’ room Twitter and Instagram when they post pictures ofthe adults to say “nobody cares about them, post [whoever I personally stan themost] instead.”

Ageism can look like gifset after gifset featuring “leading ladies of The 100″ where they include Fox and Maya and Charlotte, but not Abby (who has second billing in the cast after Clarke).

Ageism can look like a blanket refusal, under inany situation where Clarke and Abby are at odds, to grant that Abby might havea point, even when the narrative is clearlytelling us that Clarke is the character at fault. The tendency within thisfandom for young girls who closely identify with Clarke to graft their own momfrustrations onto Abby is virtually never-ending, and it can be hard to sift throughthe the complex intersection of ageism and misogyny that makes it impossiblefor them not to see mothers as human beings who are interesting, who are wise,who are right, who know things their children do not, who are sexual, who areallowed to make mistakes, who deserve screen time and plot agency, who are justas vital to the story as the teenagers.

Ageism can look like giving Clarke sole creditfor establishing peace with the Grounders through Lexa, when in fact it wasKane who made the first contact with her and got her to offer the treaty in thefirst place, and it was Abby turning Lincoln from a Reaper back into himselfagain that cemented the alliance.

Ageism can look like shutting down Kabby shippersgleefully enjoying headcanons about bunker baby theory because Abby is “too oldto have a baby” – a misconception that has permeated so deeply into our culturethat we have all internalized the belief that no woman is supposed to have ababy over the age of 35 as though it is inarguable scientific fact, even thoughit may interest you to know thatis a myth. (“What? How did I notknow that that was a myth?” BECAUSE OUR ENTIRE SOCIETY IS AGEIST TOWARDS WOMENAND THE STUDY THAT GAVE US 35 AS THE MAGIC STOP NUMBER IS FROM LIKE THE 1700’S,THAT’S HOW FEW FUCKS THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY GIVES ABOUT UP-TO-DATE RESEARCH ON THEHEALTH OF OLDER WOMEN)

Ageism can look like a fan who ships all thenon-canon ships … except Doctor Mechanic, because it’s “gross” and “Abby isbasically her mom.” The inherentdesexualization of age-difference relationships is often rooted in ageism. You don’t have to ship it! But if you insist that no one should ship it, then there may be some ageism in the rootsof your ship-shaming.

My point here, dear Anon, is that if you arelooking for someone to tell you, “you’re right, Kabby shippers overreact aboutageism in this fandom,” you are barking up the wrong tree, because from where Istand, as a woman far closer to Abby’s age than Clarke’s, I’m going to venturethat we don’t talk about ageism enough. And like many -isms in our society, if itdoesn’t appear to you to be that big a problem, that may be because it doesn’tapply to you. (Yet.)

Now, to be clear – before someone sends me anangry rebuttal to this – not in a million years am I saying that it makes you inherently ageist if you don’t shipKabby. Just like it doesn’t make you inherentlyhomophobic if you don’t like Lexa or inherently racist if you don’t like Bellamy or inherentlymisogynist if you don’t like Clarke. Butall squares are rectangles, even if not all rectangles are squares. By which I mean that, contained within thegroup of people who don’t ship Kabby, there is a lot of ageism, just as,contained within the group of people who hate Bellamy, there’s a lot ofproblematic racial shit, and it means we need to have a clearer understandingof where those lines are so that we recognize the ugly stuff when it shows upon our timeline and call it out when we see it.

#Anonymous #From the Inbox #kabby #marcus kane #abby griffin #metas and headcanons #the 100 #the 100 meta #ageism #fandom ageism #kabby mom is old and tired y'all

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