I guess this is me being strategic

[yvannairie]

Like, I do overwhelmingly think that in fandom the way to attract people to your ships and characters is honey, not vinegar. I generally dislike leading conversations by pointing out that people are generally biased towards characters like Saga because of the double whammy of being the only black woman in a cast of mostly white men, and I think any kind of mud-slinging about not being into het or "fandom thinks het is icky!" is entirely unnecessary and distracts from the point about how people really do have an empathy gap towards black characters.

...however. For the purposes of having a rich, diverse fandom, sometimes throwing my lot in with someone who thinks differently than I do on both of those points is acceptable to me. Because as much as I disagree with "the problem is that people think het is icky and would rather Objectify Those Gays" and think it's actively poor analysis, the core problem of "people will ignore the compelling dynamic black lady leads have with their white supporting cast" is very important to point out and address.

I'm not gonna linger on a single bad phrasing, or a single mischaracterisation of the source of a problem if I can go "Yeah that's a problem -- and I'm gonna do my part to solve it, now when it's been brought to my attention". Sometimes, the honey is agreeing with some poorly worded points because you think the core message is worth addressing. The way to get people to be more considered with the way they talk is to take seriously what they're trying to communicate. It's much easier to communicate someone's mistakes to them if they take you seriously in the first place.

I can recognise the pain of rejection. Snide nitpicking of the way they express that pain isn't going to make anyone believe I'm taking it seriously.