User blog:Ceras SanMarina/Some rants!

Been a while since I blogged, though I'm thinking of finding a way to remove some older posts if possible (useless ones). Today I feel a little annoyed about some things related to Hetalia, some more loosely than others XD

This is not the "10 things I hate about fandom" post, but it might as well be a beta or it in some sort of spirit.

"Neutrality" on wikis
First annoyance: TVTropes and their bouts of censorship and vandalism that seem to go quite bad. Hetalia references have been hit with it too. You can try and make some clear additions, but bias can easily overturn any edits you make (and edits can be biased themselves, which I've tried to avoid and tried to present counterpoints to points too). Oh yeah, neutrality seems to be overrated there. You can try to remove flamebait that's really trollish, but your edits will even at times be overturned by the people wanting there to be more drama fueled up (sometimes it will stick). Then watch as even the site owner or someone decides to exercise their power to blank entire pages or remove things about characters THEY personally don't like, even if there are points and truth to be had. I've also found quite the pretentious attitude there. And people who overabuse trope terms in their debates to look holier-than-thou can grate on me.

I love quality control, but PLEASE Hetalia Archives, do not go down the path to where any little thing that you don't like winds up fodder for editwars blown out of proportion. Stupidity, trolling, or grammar issues are easy things to correct. On the other hand, someone pointing out that hey, Japan was a jerk in a strip and a Japan fan editing out that because they don't like their image of the character being "tainted" by others' opinions...uh yeah. Now if someone wrote "Ew, Japan sucks, he's a creepy bastard" and got flamey, yes, that's grounds for removal. Pointing out things that are established for characters though, shouldn't be too much of an issue. But you would be surprised at how serious it can get.

Here is a case of TVTropes vandalism at its finest: Someone mentions how A/B is a great coupling but fans of C dare to pair C with either A or B, and how dare they, all fans of C like to make A or B look like a bastard and C is a nasty stupid character for that, how dare fans like them. So then you decide to make that passage neutral from your experiences in the fandom and seeing both factions butt their heads. You write that yes, fans of C that don't like A/B do like to utilize "die for our ship" so either can hook up with C. But then you also point out that this C happens to get bashed as backlash by A/B fans in retaliation, that some take it too far to kill or mutate C in personality because they perceived them a threat to begin with. Bonus points if C is a character that normally wouldn't pose "harm" to the pair and if it's just fan backlash. So by trying to show both sides of the issue, you take a risk in haters of C removing your points and accentuating the negative about them while upping the positive about A and B. Or a rogue C fan will accentuate the negative about what you wrote with A and B, and glorify C more. Neutrality and pointing out that all shipping factions of a war can be crazy? Unthinkable! It must always solely be one character or one fanbase's fault (that may be true, but things like this get more complex over the years). Sure, cutting down too-long articles and useless "natter" is one thing too, but removing anything you specifically don't want that actually applies is just too selective.

Of course Wikipedia's "neutrality" is very shaky and hypocritical and TVTropes claims to not be Wiki, but it seems to me that making things too biased or letting such things go on is counterproductive to having a nicely-run place. I'll say nothing about a certain Hetalia fanwork that has caused much hype vandalism and hype backlash-type vandalism there, you could probably look it up if you wanted though. It's sick how far elitism can go.

I've also wanted to remove an ongoing (false) rumor about all fans of a certain Hetalia pairing that was added in, but it seems like someone is all too happy to let it spread to make the hated pairing's fans look all like pedophilic hypocrites (it's not US/UK btw, but the person making the claim says that all fans of the pairing hate it hypocritically. Which uh...I haven't really seen. If anything, there has often been nastiness on both sides of rival pairings, that goes for any of them).

The Livejournal community
Why, oh why am I still commenting there from time to time? There are interesting discussions but ugh, derailment can be imminent especially from the types of fans that want to bash certain nations and their fans because "ewww, they're in the way of my two favorite ones f*cking". Gee, you think? This is one reason why some people hate any single person that likes Hetalia. We're all seen as sex-minded insensitive little nits. Or Nazi fetishists that think "killing Jews is cute" (um, what does this make Jewish Hetalia fans then?).

Yes, you do have a right to hate characters. But keep in mind that they're based off of countries and some of the hate there...can be much more than just "I don't like this guy". And I've seen fans that have not-too-subtle racism in them that will simply hate on characters because they're the IRL country or race they hate (Hate the French? Feel free to flame France fans! etc). Add in when there are shaky issues between the IRL countries and it multiplies. The bashing of "unimportant" countries gets to me a little too, especially if they extend such unpleasantness past the characters just because oh no, Himaruya didn't write more about a big country or their personal favorite. Add in some misplaced nationalism, it gets worse.

Also, even minor pet peeves can be seen as serious business. If you decry rape being glamorized or used lightly in a fic, you are trying to do away with freedom of writing, it's not like it's something that simply bugs you and you're just venting and not telling people to go burn in hell or to harass people that are into it. But hypocrisy like that's universal, I'm sure we've all had a similar moment. But when people whine about you "caring", but then it's okay for them to rant about things that THEY would only care about that may be just as stupid or even sillier...it seems to be a very "Everyone sucks but me!" thing. Bonus if they're someone popular and they get people stroking their ego because they're better known.

No, the fandom is not perfect. When I see people acting like it is or "omg you guys are all so MEAN now" because someone dare call someone out on things like the AnimeBoston BS...ugh. But you know? We can't pretend the fandom is totally nice and idiot-free. Yes, the haters can be disturbing but certain things fans do only draw more negative attention.

I do worry about what will happen when FUNimation's dub comes out, but of course, "why do you caaaaare, I don't care, you shouldn't care because I don't lol" is a typical reaction I see to those who worry. Sometimes you can "not" care, but at the same time actually be concerned about something.

Hetalia's what you make of it, really. Is the fanon better or the canon? That question is such a tough one, but it's all about how you utilize the characters and your own ideas. Yeah, the canon's shallow, but it's a gag manga for the most part. Fanon can build on it, but it can either go good or bad. Tearing down one character (that may be some fans' home country) to be the single villain never really ends well, especially if it's to make everyone else glorified because they're your favorites and that one isn't and it becomes far shallower than the strips somehow in characterization. I'm now seeing this happen to another of my favorite characters, but if I were to voice dissent I'd be jumped on and accused of being so close-minded or a stupid __ fan. It kind of doesn't help that maybe a little nationalism comes in here, or rather what some of my lineage/blood is XD. ...so, this is long enough. Might add more later, might not.