#feels weird given that fandom is such a queer space that it should be SO focused on amatonormativity like characters are only interesting

[snifekinner]

2024 is the year i recruit people to my platonic shipping agenda. bored of the talk of who's fucking who. i want to get into really petty friendship drama.

#ngl so bored of romantic shipping fandom is SO focused on it #feels weird given that fandom is such a queer space that it should be SO focused on amatonormativity like characters are only interesting #when theyre matched up #all writers and artists who produce platonic ship content ilu #gonna curate myself a sex and romance free year

[apostatehamster]

Oh no! Another person's 2 cents on the OFMD finale situation!

Yes, because unfortunately my mind still hasn't settled and is in a state of disbelief over what happened, and I am trying to unravel all of this to make sense of it. Written from the perspective of a sad Izzy fan, so if you do not care to read about that or are simply tired of reading these mind pieces... well don't. And do not bother interacting.

I want to preface this by saying, I do believe Writers should be writing the story they think is right. It is impossible to please everyone so I prefer Author's sticking to their vision rather than bending to the loudest (in most cases, read: displeased) voices of the audience. However, I also think people are entitled to voice their displeasure over writing decisions in a constructive way. I don't condone hate towards authors, actors or anyone involved in the making of the show and if you feel angry enough to send hate or threats, take a walk and calm down instead of being a jerk. That being said, I watched many shows with decisions I did not agree on and few made me as angry & sad as this one, hence me trying to dismantle why.

False marketing, expectations and broken promises

Frankly I hadn't seen much advertising about the show before, most of it was fandom activity that praised the show as feelgood and comfort, with good queer representation. I got into it pretty late, so I can't tell what the show itself presented itself as, but to me it seemed like they fully embraced that image and encouraged the show to be perceived as such. It's a rom-com after all, many laughters and sappy feelings. A safe space-ship for outcasts, so to speak. We expected drama but also making-up and possibly more shenanigans. What we did not expect, was a rather prominently featured character dying as one got used to happening from other shows.

OFMD promised to be different, or at least that was my and many others' impression, and then it turned that around in the last 10 minutes of the finale. But more about that and tonal shifts later.

What baffled me most were the interviews hailing in at the start of season two. I've read articles about how season 2 was leaning into the Ed/Izzy/Stede triangle with David Jenkins saying these three "are on an arc together that’s pretty inseparable". I mean we had Izzy being called a jilted lover before, and in addition to Ed & Stede's love declaration, we also had Izzy declare he had love for Ed, and Ed as well saying He loved him, best he could. There was a lot of love, but it was complicated, and the article gave hope that this season would sort this out.

But after the finale, we got interviews that declared Izzy was a father/mentor figure to Ed, which is such a weird claim that is absolutely unfounded in the way the characters interacted with each other, as well as the fact that Izzy's death apparently was something planned from the beginning as an ending to his arc. And well, I find that death separates characters quite definitely.

I am not saying that Steddyhands was promised to us, gods no, but we were definitely given a chance at it happening, when in fact, the ending had already been written as the complete opposite.

Reception and cognitive dissonance

Every person is different and thus has different feelings and opinions. I've seen Izzy fans hating the finale obviously, I've seen Izzy fans who said they liked it. I've also seen people who weren't explicitly Izzy fans say, they did not like the finale, so really, opinions can go any way.

However what baffled me is Jenkins feeling he delivered a truly happy end. Personally, I've never watched a character die and thought "This makes me happy." I especially would never describe a character struggling through hardship, just to ultimately die as happy or beautiful. I can only imagine that the focus was on Ed and Stede, when a happy ending was mentioned, but Jenkins kept pointing out in the interviews, how Izzy was his favorite, which gave hope for a happy ending for Izzy as well. As much as I enjoy seeing my favorites go through hardships, I also prefer to keep them around by not dying. I especially do not build my favorite up to be a well fleshed out character with growth, just to reduce them back to a plot device for the main character.

I know this is all based upon the interviews, and less on the show, but when I read "And what's the most interesting thing we can do with Con[...]?" my answer definitely wouldn't have been "kill his character off". Con O'Neill does a great job at playing emotional scenes, but we already had him act his heart out in the first three episodes. A last hurrah wasn't needed.

I am also trying to put myself in David Jenkins' shoes here, because I think he truly expected the last episode to be a happy ending, and a gift, just to be proven differently. I just wonder what went wrong, how one can read the room so completely wrong.

It wasn't malicious, but the fact that it was apparently meant to be a genuine attempt at offering a happy end makes it even worse.

Tonal shifts and established in-Show laws

It's an understatement to say that the tone of season 2 was decidedly more dramatic. To the point where I questioned myself if this was still allowed to be called a comedy show. I would have described season 1 as mostly slice-of-life, little adventures between the crew and the captains. People got hanged, fingers severed, people got stabbed, but you never felt the threat of actual death hanging over anyone's head, because everything was kept humorous. (Speaking of the non-baddies here. Calico Jack got a cannon ball to the head but with plausible deniability of his death & (apparently) an interview saying he could be brought back, if needed)

Enter season 2, which starts off with murder attempts, major wounds and a suicide attempt. Nothing was played off as a joke, and for that I am grateful because that would have been in poor taste, but the tone was noticeably different and darker. But it still wasn't 'realistic' by any standard. With no real doctor on board, Izzy should have died from his wounds and comatose Edward would have wasted away in the hidden cabin. Everyone came out (fucked up but) relatively fine.

The show goes back to the humorous tone with Anne & Mary who enjoy a good backstabbing and poisoning. We had our crew surrounded by death and a curse in the next episode, but there was any fear of them coming to harm, obviously. The crew gets boarded and tortured by Ned and his crew after that, but they are able to take it out and come away unscathed (some wounds aside). Oh no! Stede challenges Zheng Yi to a duel! Which we know means no one is allowed to interfere, until one of the duelants dies. But it's fine, Zheng Yi is just playing with her food. But watch out, a Cannonball flies towards Zheng Yi's head! Ah but she is fine, she escaped. The Swede pulled a Rasputin and got immune to poison without him even noticing! Look, even Auntie survived the explosion, badly wounded but she lives. Oh no! Izzy gets shot! But it's his left side, we established no vital organs are there. Roach and Stede are already on their way to get bandage- Wait they are back with no bandages, and Izzy he-

Oh, wait. He...died?

When watching season 2 I legitimately considered Izzy dying as an end result, because I am used to my favorite characters dying, frankly. But then I dismissed that thought because OFMD has proven again and again, that people do not die. Heck, Lucius was considered dead in the season 1 finale and he came back, albeit traumatized. But he lived to tell the tale.

Season 2 finale made it a point to leave no room for doubt that Izzy did indeed die. They dug him a grave, and they panned to his grave at the end to remind you, he is definitely dead. So, why did Izzy have to die in a world where our favorites can survive about anything? "Pirates die, that's just pirate life", okay but why was he specifically singled out to be the only pirate dying? In comparison to everyone else, it feels unjust, and it feels cruel towards the fans who felt safe in the knowledge that this was the one show where none of their favorites would die. And it feels like such a betrayal of the fans’ trust, who had hoped this show would do better.

I've seen a take along the lines of "Nowadays people expect the stories to be written explicitly for them, and then they get upset when it doesn't happen" and that take pissed me off enough to write this down. This isn't a case of entitled fans asking to change the story to be exactly what they want to be, there is fanfiction for that. No, this is fans upset that their favorite character got singled out by the narrative to be the one exception to the no dying rule. And I use the narrative loosely, because there was no ramification to the death that couldn't also have been established by the character staying alive and giving advice, so the death didn't even feel purposeful. And for a show that always stresses the "Talk it through as a crew" point, they did not care much for choosing talking it through as a solution.

I also heartily disagree that Izzy's arc was over and had no more stories to tell. I mean the guy followed Edward around for decades, I would have loved to hear more about their past.

I would have especially loved to hear more about their future, as two people who learned to let go of Blackbeard and became their own people again. Where exactly did the idea of that even come from, I don't know.

Pacing and Confusing decisions in the Final episode and the build-up into nothing

(Rambling alert!) 

Personally I didn't feel any pacing issues until episode 6. While I generally liked the episode, it felt crammed with both set-up of the baddie, fun-times, then appearance of baddie (and disappearance) and return to fun-times. The episode ended and I was literally perplexed that it was over, like we basically ran through that episode. But episode 8 took the cake.

Now I am well aware they had to cut corners, and the strike didn't make it easier either, and I wish we could have seen the result without these factors. But we got what we got now, and I have to judge based upon that, but I really would know how the final cut decision came to be.

I did like the beginning with Ed chilling as a fisherman, but in hindsight I wished they had cut that part a bit shorter to give more room for the final parts. We get a lot of Ricky dicking around the pirate republic, showing Jackie reluctantly bringing them drinks. Later on she finally decides to poison him. Why she didn't do so earlier, I have no idea, unless the show is trying to tell me The Swede had to build up enough poison tolerance within one episode to withstand the poison attempt, which would be ridiculous. Why the Swede was held as an emotional hostage, I don't know either. I don't want him dead but Jackie has many other husbands, the Swede being singled out was more to hurt the viewers than for Jackie imho.

We have Zheng Yi suffering through Stede's presence. Our queen is suffering through the loss of her whole crew and her aunt, while Stede unsympathetically offers that being a failure gets easier. I expected more compassion from a guy who treasures his own crew and also enjoyed the hospitality of Zheng Yi's ship, but okay. Being a dick for the sake of comedy, I suppose. "Thing's have a way of working out. At least for me" And Zheng Yi proves Stede right by killing the soldiers, and Stede claims that went just as planned. I am not sure what happened to the Stede who successfully avoided being backstabbed in episode 5 and defended his crew in episode 6 and actually seemed competent, just to go back to an ignorant fool, but hm.

Fisherman Ed returns, thinks Stede in danger, and recovers his leathers that somehow are still in the same place, after mindlessly killing everyone in his way. Whatever happened to not wanting to be a monster and not killing and running away from that, it doesn't matter anymore. The flashback of pop-pop tells him he needs to go back to what he is good at, and I guess... this is it??? The Kraken rises from the sea again. Will there be consequences for Ed's emotional state after that? Well, no. Not really. Or not in this season anyway.

Okay Ricky invites Izzy to a drink, he's quite obviously a Izzy fanboy. For what reason he took him out of prison, I don't know. He later says "Sad, I wanted to let you live", implying he had plans for Izzy. What those plans were, we will never know, Ricky never tells us. Izzy talks about what piracy means to him. "It's not about getting what you want" and I don't know if he means pirates generally robbing ships to get treasure, or of himself being perceived as a mastermind or being a captain, because he never inclined he wanted either. So, what a weird thing for him to say. "It's about belonging to something when the world has told you, you're nothing" is a beautiful line that makes me wish we had gotten at least some backstory to Izzy. Then we're shown a picture of the crew from season 1.... with Izzy in the background, quite obviously not belonging (yet). What an odd choice to cut into. You could have used something from season 2 that showed him actually belonging

Ed finds one of Stede's love letters, it's cute, but I am not sure why we needed that to somehow reinforce that Ed loves him. We already saw him worry for Stede and literally revert to his Blackbeard persona to set out and save him. He also didn't leave because he didn't love Stede or doubted Stede's love for Ed, but because he needed to find himself first to make it work. It's not a long scene but it took a bit of the momentum of the Kraken rising from the water from me.

Ed and Stede see each other again and we have a callback to the episode one opener. Which was also the moment where I slowly realized, death was in the cards for Izzy because that dream sequence meant his death. But no, this is OFMD, it'll be fine...

We're back in the cell, and our mates are trying to escape. Auntie is there! Very much alive, despite having been on an exploding ship. Who brought her there?? When was she brought there?? How long has she been there and why did no one bother to check the cloaked figure in the corner? NEVERMIND, Auntie is here and alive I suppose. Bleeding out and we've got no supplies to treat her, but she will walk it off just fine.

Captain trio congratulate themselves on beating a bunch of soldiers. Honestly impressive, outnumbered as they were. Mh, maybe they should get back to the crew tho...?

Auntie realizing she was harsh on Zheng Yi and admitting maybe she needs a different approach. I am seeing a parallel to Izzy later admitting his approach was wrong too. Except (and excuse the bitterness) Auntie gets to continue to "mentor" Zheng Yi.

We get a weird hard cut from "I don't do soft" to the talk between Izzy and Ricky. I really thought the talk had been talked, but some more insults get thrown at Ricky, and the deus ex machina happens as all prisoners are freed from prison, the captain trio arrives and all soldiers die of poisoning. Personally this was the moment where I had to slow blink in disbelief, because everything was happening so fast.

Stede talks about how they need a plan, and how a royal hostage could prove valuable. Another hard cut "SO, that's the plan". We do not hear the plan. We just gather from the following montage that it has to do with dressing up as English soldiers. We get a montage of everyone preparing for battle and dressing up, looking cool in slow motion. And, they did look hella cool, but there was so much buildup for them dressing up for the plan...without knowing what the plan even IS.

And then the plan apparently is.... just Izzy holding Ricky hostage? And the rest waits around and sees how it plays out? And they're just trusting Ricky to go along with their plan and say what they want him to say? Why was Izzy the one who had to hold Ricky hostage? The one person with a visible wooden leg? Not sure if peg-legs are an established pirate thing in this world, but the British seem to think so, because they look down at it. Why did no one check that Ricky had no weapons on him beforehand? And most importantly, where the fuck was Stede during this suicide plan? He is the one who planned it, yet he was nowhere around the group with Ricky, nor did he fight any Soldiers. He only reappears when everyone is running away. What the hell!! Where'd he fuck off to. Again, all this epic plan build up, for the barely existing plan to go up in shambles within 5 seconds, and then they all run. At this point they could have just left Ricky at the Inn and attempted to walk to the ship safely in disguise without ever drawing attention to the soldiers, and they would have had as much chance.

Ed asks Izzy if he is okay and I raise an eyebrow, A) because we as the viewers barely saw him get hit and B) Ed hasn't cared much about Izzy after Stede returns. But okay, we're stumbling back to the ship, surprisingly no one else gets shot.

Izzy is bleeding out on the ship, Stede and Roach run off to get bandages. "Bonnet is in charge, oh great I am fucked" is a true statement, considering Stede was in charge with the plan already and got Izzy to here. Later you hear footsteps approaching offscreen, which I guess were Stede and Roach. They just appear again, with no bandages and no comment. I don't want to get into detail how much I despise Izzy's parting words, and the message they send out, but Izzy throughout this season proved he wanted to live and got ready for living again, just to end up saying he wants to go here, and it's just so utterly wrong. This scene was presented as someone who was healed and now got to die amongst his loved ones, but he was not healed. He practically still believed he deserved what he got, and he died believing Ed did not need him and thus he was unnecessary. If he truly was healed, he would fight to live, if not for himself and his new found family, then for Ed who he still loves, but no. Okay maybe I did want to go into detail, but anyway, many have said it better than me already.

The crew who bonded with Izzy over the whole season stands mutely in the background, leaving the stage to Ed, who has barely cared about Izzy all season. Out of nothing I am supposed to believe Izzy means something to him, after Ed shot him down, discarded of him, happily mentioned to Frenchie that "But most importantly, no more Izzy" like Izzy had been the bane of his existence, the guy he didn't even have the balls to approach first to apologize but instead mocked Izzy when Izzy himself finally broke their silence, I am supposed to believe that Edward suddenly realizes Izzy's worth and that he deserves to be the one grieving, not leaving any space to the crew? I don't think so.

All season I was waiting for them to make up again, patiently, full of hope, but the remaining episodes got less and less. And I held out hope for them to bond over talks and teamwork, remembering how well they worked together before it turned sour, acknowledging that they could do better if they tried, but instead we got this. This is supposed to help Edward move on as Not Blackbeard, but Izzy had already encouraged Ed to not be Blackbeard, yet Ed came back deciding on his own to don his leather outfit again. This is such a back and forth, it's frustrating. They could have accomplished growth without a death, but I've already talked about that.

Also Izzy telling Ed has family now, because the crew loves him. Ed bonded exactly with one person outside of Stede, and that was Fang, who was once Blackbeard's crew anyway. Other than that Ed only hung back and did not give a shit about what the crew was doing, but sure they love him after the non-pology. Where were the scenes to back this claim up, it was utter nonsense.

Okay, we get a burial. No one says a thing, no one's got to say a thing about their unicorn. Everyone leaves, and "That's that then". Stede talks about Izzy, like he hasn't personally bonded with Izzy over the last episodes and like he was simply a guy Ed dragged along (the way season 1 Stede would have felt). Also, no acknowledgement that Stede's plan was what got Izzy killed whatsoever, no remorse.

Aye no time to be sad, we got a wedding now! It lasts less than a minute screen time, and I am still recovering from the emotional impact of a death scene + burial, maybe give me a minute so I can feel happy for LuPete? No? okay.

Stede and Ed decide to build an Inn, nothing either of them has experience in. Also the "family" Izzy promised Ed is sailing away, so that was for nothing as well. What happened to Stede wanting to be a pirate? What happened to Ed returning to being a pirate, because it's what he's good at? What exactly made them change opinions to leave their crew behind and start this? *lame hand gesture at Izzy's grave* This?? I am usually good at looking for clues and details and figuring stuff out in between the lines, but I am left clueless as to what inspired this.

I am 100% sure there were missing scenes that could have helped soften the blow of the death at least, but like this the episode feels jarringly badly patched together. There is no visible impact to the death that would explain the necessity to the narrative (and yes, we are in a story, not real life. Plot points happen because they bring the narrative along, and it didn't here) With everything established beforehand, it felt like the death got shoehorned in, simply because someone said "I want this character to be dead at the end of the season", and then a story was somehow built around this.

And of course people are upset about this, when I watched I thought it was a joke and I was waiting for the little wink telling me it's not what it seems. The theme I gathered from this season was "belonging", and to see the guy accepting that he belonged and deserved to be loved to be left behind and denied a chance to continue with the crew where he BELONGS, because he's dead and gone, is a very stupid choice.

The season had many unexplained and unresolved things that I chose to overlook because the show was still ongoing and I had hoped they would all work out in the end, but they didn't and this sours the whole experience.

Fandom

This has less to do with me unraveling the happenings of the show, but whatever.

I joined very late, a few weeks before season 2 aired. I was however vaguely aware that Izzy was controversial to the fandom and that fans got hate mail for liking the character who "broke the main couple apart". So going into the new season as someone who utterly loved Izzy in season 1, I was skeptical lol

But it was a nice experience. Season 2 showed parts of Izzy that I had already seen but in a way that made it clear to everyone that this guy has Emotional Layers TM and is capable of more than just being the guy throwing a hissy fit. Everyone could sympathize with him, people enjoyed seeing him, and I legit loved going through the tags of the gifsets and reading all the reactions.

Generally I loved seeing the reactions after every new episode, seeing how fandom came together to talk over what happened, and over what they enjoyed. I had expected a very split fandom but it seemed season 2 was somewhat gluing it together. Izzy was finally an "accepted" character and thus it was "okay" now to love him, now that he wasn't trying to break Ed/Stede apart either. The show was feeding fans too, I felt like I feasted every episode up until the finale happened.

And /then/ the finale happened and the illusion went away.

Up to then I thought this was a season for the Izzy fans, with the opener episode showing how ridiculous the take of "Izzy has to die for Ed/Stede to be happy" was in a mocking dream episode, I thought that was David Jenkins acknowledging the hate that has been sent in the direction of Izzy & his fans, and how it's Not That Easy. And then he proved Izzy was more than that.

And then he killed Izzy off, so Ed/Stede could be happy and we've come full circle again.

Of course Izzy fans were upset, because it felt like a final fuck you after a season full of promises that it would be okay, and of course people were voicing their displeasure and sadness over it. Some people were downright grieving the character, and I can tell you I Am People. I went through the 5 stages of grief, through bargaining and anger directly after the finale, sadness the whole day after, crying over it because it felt so unjust to me. And maybe these reactions seem extreme to you, but that does not mean that people aren't feeling awful about the finale, that it truly hurt them. And you do not get to mock people for feeling in pain. What do you gain from that? If you liked the finale, fine, everyone is different, but allow the people who were shaken by it to express their emotions. Processing emotions takes time, and as a part of this I wrote a goddamn essay to make peace. The least you could do is not be a dick.

Parting thoughts are that the final episode was both a product of unfortunate cuts in screen time, and a writer who didn't expect the effect it would have on the audience.

I am not hating on David Jenkins, I loved every other episode of the season and eagerly anticipated the next one, but I am so incredibly sad that one botched finale broke my trust into the show, soured my love for the previous episodes with the knowledge of what it all built up to, and left the fandom back in shambles.

So long, and be kind to each other.

#ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 spoilers #izzy hands #ofmd meta #That was the longest I've ever typed. But also at least I feel more content now #You actually do have my respect if you went through this #and to everyone still struggling with sadness: i feel you #ofmd critical

[rappaccini]

I think that ship is really ruining things for both characters and rotting the brains, because I keep seeing people invent a 42 varint of gwen solely for the purpose of shipping her with the other Miles...like that literally all she seems good for to them huh...to be shipped with him. A character being reduced to a love interest for a man. Literally the issue people had with her character in the first place. Not to mention, 42 variant Miles entire story and background, which I feel will tie strongly into his culture/community which will be highly afro centric...is being ignored and made all about a white girl. Do they not see the issues and weird implications?

Given I honestly don't think that's the way they'll handle his story...it's still annoying to see people push for it because like...is that all you got from the story? Are y'all even paying attention to what the movies are doing and trying to tell you? (Given there's still issues there, but the overall theme/message is clear)

agreed. i'm staying the hell out of main spiderverse fandom discussion bc there are too many terminally online kids using purity politics as an excuse to control fanspaces, but the way the fandom treats gwen these days makes my blood boil. she's either hated for having flaws and trying to be her own person, or put on a pedestal as the Perfect Girlfriend Whose Entire Existence Revolves Around Miles.

even in older spider-gwen fandom spaces, now you can't have a single conversation about her without a flood of new people bursting in and insisting that we make it All About Gwiles. like... i hate gatekeeping! i'm happy more people care about gwen now! but ffs do you care about gwen, or do you care about gwiles?

(it's the latter. they care about gwiles. they don't see gwen as a person, they see her as a person's girlfriend with no purpose when her boyfriend isn't in her presence or on her mind. and/or as a vessel to project themselves into a relationship with miles.)

as for why... most of the people in this fandom haven't read the comics at all or the most they've seen is three pages from sitting in a tree out of context, or they've read the inaccurate fan-operated wikis. all they're going off of is the movies, where gwen being The Girlfriend is framed as a positive, subversive thing. so to them, gwen getting to have powers, date spider-man and live feels progressive in comparison to tasm gwen, because they have no clue what her narrative actually is. and as far as they know, gwen and miles are a perfect couple who have no better romantic interests.

(again i don't like gatekeeping! if you move into a new neighborhood, you shouldn't have to make your house look like your neighbors', but if none of them have a basement, you should probably talk to them to figure out if digging one's gonna make your damn house collapse i before you start ripping up the foundation.)

i also blame fandom being fandom. no matter how subversive the source material they are fans of, even if the fandom's not dominated by white guys, fandom will always reflect the same bullshit from greater society. same racism, same sexism, same homophobia, just often under a layer of progressive paint. same disregard of female characters unless they support a more popular male character. same surface-level championing of diversity and inclusion... while characters of color are both ignored / stereotyped / tokenized and fetishized / sanded down to be more palatable to a presumably-white audience (the same applies for queer characters). like, the same shit's happening in the spiderverse fandom.

as for gwen 42... yeah i'm not loving how the fandom took the possibility of her existing and immediately made her into a darker edgier girlfriend for miles. really? that's the most you can imagine?

(... esp considering if earth-42 is similar to earth-1610 in that there was a peter parker spider-man before miles, odds are gwen-42 is 30something and long dead. and even if she isn't, why does she have to be attached to miles in any way?)

#asks #spiderverse salt #i guess the 'tiana toomes exists in 42 and has a batcat vibe with miles g' headcanon is too galaxybrain for most people. #i have spicier more specific hot takes on the fandom but no way in hell am i sharing those in public

[lesbianremu]

stranger things + fandom spaces

idrk which fandom spaces typically cross over with the stranger things fandom, but as someone who is an avid marauders stan, joining this fandom has genuinely given me whiplash. 

for those who don’t know, the marauders fandom is like a subfandom within the harry potter fandom, and it’s a predominantly queer space, much like the byler subfandom of the stranger things fandom. 

the source material the marauders fandom have really isn’t much (because *spoilers* these characters are side characters, and most of them are dead when they’re mentioned in canon), so technically its a bunch of queer kids making shit up about their fav characters (like right down to their basic personality traits because we literally know NOTHING about them). which doesn’t have to be a bad thing — i personally find so much beauty in this little community and ik i’ll always cherish it — but the fact it exists at all, speaks to much more pressing issues that i’ll get into later. 

but look... idk wtf is in the water where the stranger things’ GA lives, but i’ve never seen a group of people so openly and unequivocally bigoted in fandom spaces. maybe it’s just my luck being in the marauders fandom (we do have shitty incidences, don’t get me wrong), but it so blatant in the st fandom. 

like people COMPLAINING about max being disabled after vecna’s attack, and saying outright that she’s better off dead. people using the 80s as an excuse to justify not having quality queer representation on the show. people JUSTIFYING billy’s abuse and racism just bc he’s hot. people sympathising with jason despite PULLING A GUN ON LUCAS. people saying will should contract hiv/aids and die because it’s accurate for him in 1980s america as a queer boy. people denying will’s sexuality (even AFTER noah confirmed it) and insisting he’s in love with el. people saying robin will “wake up” and realise her feelings for steve. people having no issue being outright racist, homophobic, and ableist to the few minority characters we have. 

it’s genuinely fucking insane. 

and i think maybe it’s so surprising to me specifically is because i purposefully avoid mainstream media. the marauders fandom basically just consumes fanfic (all hail lord zeppazariel). it’s kinda our new “source material” ig, because who wants to read what stinky terfs have to write? but what i love most about it is the fact i don’t have to worry about the quality of representation or whether there will be explicit representation at all, because in fanfic, it’s written by us, for us. 

i only started watching stranger things THIS year in 2022 (bc my gay ass saw an edit of nancy wheeler and i binged the entire show in a week for her but moving on) and i kinda already knew the show was going to have a white cishet majority. but it’s just insane that even GA isn’t satisfied with being the majority. they want to push out any scrap of representation the show gives minority audiences, as if the show isn’t literally about OUTCASTS.

like this show, called STRANGER THINGS, at its core, is about minorities. it’s about the “weird”, it’s about queerness. it’s about those pushed to the sidelines, those on the periphery. it’s about the nonconformists, the marginalised — ITS ABOUT US.

just seeing so many white, able-bodied, cishet people treat it like it isn’t, just astounds me. it really just reinforces how much i despise being outside of queer spaces like the marauders fandom, because this behaviour? it would never slide there.

and like i said, im beyond thankful to be part of a community where a bunch of queer people create and share art, purely because we love these characters and we feel seen by them. i love the marauders fandom and the people in it. but the reason it exists at all is because we were initially excluded from the canon.

it’s bittersweet, because whilst i’m so proud of the people in the fandom creating these beautiful stories and fanarts, the fact we have to write our stories in the first place to feel represented is fucked. we deserve better than that — the byler subfandom deserves better than that.

i have no doubt in my mind that even in the VERY RARE occurrence byler doesn’t happen, this subfandom will prevail like the marauders fandom (which is 20 years old btw!). but it shouldn’t be like this. this shouldn’t have to happen. ever.

it’s exhausting having to draw representation from subtext. it’s exhausting having to create our own representation FOR FREE. this is not something we should have to do, and i hold out so much hope for s5 because it will make or break the entire show.

we deserve to be included in the canon. we shouldn’t have to do the labour that showrunners were too scared or indifferent to commit to. we deserve to sit back and enjoy like GA has the privilege of doing.

#stranger things #marauders #queer representation #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #robin buckley #wolfstar #jegulus #billy hargrove

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe? #C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess? #there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

[tossawary]

I’m definitely enjoying this fandom (barring, like, one or two bad encounters), but, oh, man, earlier other fandom has definitely left some scars. I am often so scared (often irrationally) of actually establishing OCs as characters, because there are some people who just... absolutely despise them and will outright tell you that they want them to die. 

Minor rant. Not to be passed around, please. 

Like, I absolutely understand not wanting to read OC-centric fic. I have definitely seen OCs who could have been better written. I have read fics where I’ve gone, “Ah, they should have tagged this as OC-centric.” I have definitely seen OCs I did not enjoy (but in the same way I’ve read takes on canon characters I don’t enjoy), but I’ve always just exited the story quietly. Like, hey, I’m not here for what this person wants to write about, but I wish them the best. 

Though, I feel I should state, I’ve also read OCs that I’ve LOVED. I’ve read OC-centric fic that makes me sad they don’t exist in canon. I have read OCs who were better written than all of canon. 

Writing the Da-Ge Mobei-Jun fic and posting was honestly a little bit agonizing because, like, of that 1% bad encounter in fandom. Me saying quietly to myself: “I hope no one tells me they hate the baby.” 

(This has not happened yet, thank goodness.) 

(But I hate the fact that I have to use the word “yet”.) 

I had the same thing with “pride is not the word I’m looking for” and Luo Jiahui (then with Luo Fanli, the Huan Hua Palace disciples, and SQH’s disciples). Only a little bit worse, because in my experience, people are more inclined to dislike female OCs, OCs of color, and queer OCs (yes, even in fandoms for gay media, if it’s a type of queerness that they think is “weird” and “unnecessary”), especially if they take up space and are loud and disagreeable in any fashion. 

I was expecting at least one message of serious hate for the Luo Jiahui and Liu Qingge romance (like, how dare he not be gay and only gay, instead of any other form of queer), and I have been genuinely surprised not to get any so far. 

I was honestly expecting someone to tell me that they wish Fanli had died. 

People generally like cute babies! People generally like their fave (or “acceptable”) pairings to be given cute baby OCs. But children are often uncooperative, self-centered, and can be vicious when frustrated, and they are OFTEN frustrated. And I don’t want to feel like I’m writing a prop instead of a person, which means opening myself up even more to people who can’t read a “no concrit, please” author’s note to save their life. 

I have unfortunately become very, very conscious of how I use my original characters. I feel like I’ve become quite good at writing them these days, but I really fucking wish I hadn’t also developed a back-of-the-mind stress every time I use an OC or establish an OC as a recurring character or have an OC be a main character. It sucks. 

#tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #da ge mobei jun fic #babe in the woods #mobei didi #luo jiahui #luo fanli

[gulfportofficial]

Watched a doc on furries with my gf the other night, and we kinda liked it. It was critical of the scene, critical in particular of the attempts to make the subculture mainstream by presenting a particular image of furries to the world. This was of interest to me, as I’ve always been more sympathetic to an honest weirdo than I am to someone who tries to insert their weirdness into inappropriate spaces and claim there’s nothing weird about it. People who let their freak flag fly and are like, “you know what? I like to pretend to be a dog, and it’s hella sexy to me. I’m off to do that with my friends who like it too. See you later,” are just a million times less annoying to me than people who are like “actually, there’s nothing sexual about my dog suit, you have the wrong idea, perhaps you should participate in the subculture before you judge. Many of us are respected members of society and...”

(See also: kinksters. I have no interest whatsover in regulating the rainbow of depraved shit people do in their own bedrooms. But if you bring it up in general public spaces, I’ll shame to my heart’s content and I will not feel the slightest bit bad about it.)*  ANYWAY I mention this because there was a guy in the doc who was... he had some pretty weird vibes but mostly I cruelly laughed at him because he got bullied at work for telling people he was a furry (and they then found him online). I entirely believe it’s possible that people bullied this guy in a really cruel way, that was also most likely pretty homophobic given how many furries are gay. But I also thought, Jesus Christ man, why would you tell people you’re a furry? You can bang on and on about the fandom being “not sexual” all you like, but you know that’s most people’s impressions of it, and hence you shouldn’t bring it up at work! I’m a lesbian and I play a loooooooong pronoun game before I ever mention my partner at work (if I ever do), and that’s something I actually SHOULD be allowed to bring up, I just have a sense of self preservation and enjoy employment. How are people ever thinking it’s acceptable to bring up being a furry in the workplace environment? How? Do you think it’s the same as mentioning your same gender partner? It’s not! Were the other people at work talking about their weird kinks first or something? Report them to HR! 

So long story short I was skimming through a blog by a furry guy documenting other furries with incredibly shitty politics, and it turns out this furry from the doc is an extremely racist Trump loving MAGA guy who open carries a gun bc he walks around in perpetual fear of being attacked by Black people, is mad misogynist to boot, and, this is fun, loves to piss in his adult diapers while in a fursuit, and then put on other people’s already soaked diapers on top of his. Which is not something he keeps to his DMs. Oh no. It’s right out there.

So yeah he sure left that part out of the “fursecuted at work” story. Lol. - *Kinksters in particular doing this I don’t get. Isn’t the taboo what makes it hot? Why would you tell everyone and try to normalize it as an oppressed identity like the adult babies keep trying to do in Huffpo Queer Voices? Doesn’t a kink lose all sex appeal if it’s not naughty and deviant anymore? Is that just me being a Catholic and, crucially, not an adult baby?

[soupthatistohot]

Why do I write primarily mlm fanfic?

This was something I asked myself the other day. I am a girl, I think I'm queer (but I am attracted to men, whatever I am), so why do I fixate on mlm relationships? Why do I never feel compelled to write wlw or even just some good 'ol straight stuff? I brought this up to a few friends of mine who also watch anime. One of them said that it’s because lots of popular media only really focuses on developing their male characters well, and I think this to be a very suitable explanation (as well as the fact that I’m queer and thus gravitate towards queer stories).

Take Sk8 the Infinity for example. I could count the number of female characters in this anime on one hand, and one of them is a robot. The others are supporting roles who only serve to support the male main characters. I love Sk8 very much, and with the possibility of a 2nd season I’d love to see a prominent, well-developed female character (but if they make her Reki’s love interest I will literally stab someone). But as the anime stands right now, there are no female characters that aren't just basically plot devices.

Another show I love dearly, Yuri!!! on Ice, is much the same. While there can be more of an argument made here because 1) competitive figure skating is split up between men and women, and 2) I believe that the story Yuuri and Victor is absolutely meant to be a romance, so having the two men as the focus is somewhat necessary, there's an overwhelming lack of fleshed-out women in the story. All the female characters are supporting members that only exist for the benefit of male characters. Yuuko and Minako support Yuuri, Lilia exists so Yuri P. can improve, Mila is just... kind of there, and Sara's whole character is centered around her brother being overprotective of her.

Okay, so let's look at something a little less... fruity. Horimiya. I've only watched the anime, so if there's stuff I miss from not having read the manga (yet), please forgive me. I still think this is a valid perspective, though, because if there's female development that the creators decided was so unimportant that it could be cut, that still supports my point here. In my opinion, Miyamura is a lot more developed than Hori. He has his tragic backstory of being a loner, and having his secret piercings and tattoos and all that. A lot of the story ends up focusing on his side of things... despite the fact that Hori is the protagonist. The story follows her perspective for the most part, we learn things about Miyamura as she does, yet I feel like she's a bit dull. She has a uncommon home life and has to take care of her younger brother, that's her big bad secret? I get that it's kind of unexpected since she's the pretty, perfect, popular girl, but I still feel like it's a tad anticlimactic. It's hardly ever addressed beyond the first few episodes, too, and it just kind of exists as a fact within the story. Even beyond our main couple, it seems like the other female characters development and stories are all focused on the boy they're interested in (except for Sawada, but she's there for like a couple of episodes and then doesn't really show up all that much again... and her crush on Hori is handled really weird, I didn't exactly love it). Remi's entire character is pretty much centered around her boyfriend, and Sakura and Yuki are basically competing for Toru. Meanwhile, the guys have story beats themed around the girls they're interested in, but I feel like it's not as obsessive or dramatic as how the girls are depicted.

So, we're given these female characters, who are really watered-down and honestly kind of boring, and we're not super compelled to write about them. When we are given flat female characters, there's nothing to work with. It's more fun to use the characters who have had development and play around with the "what ifs" and our own personal headcannons. The characters who get this special treatment are primarily male. And while I commend a lot of shows for developing their male characters in such a way that doesn't exactly fit with society's idea of masculinity (ex: Reki's insecurities and depression, Yuuri's anxiety and femininity, Miyamura's isolation and depression), in the end these characters are still boys, men, males.

I also think mlm is so prominent because of both straight girls and queer people. For straight girls, it can often be fetishization (forgive my generalizing, I'm sure not all straight girls are like that, but an overwhelming amount definitely are). I think one of the best examples I can give for this is Phan. This is a bit different since it's not anime, but instead real people, but if anything that really drives home the point even more. The way Dan and Phil were (and probably still are) treated in the fandom internet space is disturbing, to say the least. Their audience, while much of it was queer, was also made up of an overwhelming amount of heterosexual girls who not only shipped them intensely, but also often sexualized them. And look, there's nothing inherently wrong with being a straight girl and writing smut, but it gets to a point where it can be kind of weird if its excessive. Like, if that's all the relationship is really about, and if the people you're writing about are real human beings, that's definitely overstepping. I will admit that I had a Wattpad and that I wrote Phanfic way back when, and this is something I'm not exactly proud of. Granted, I did not write anything explicit, it was still super weird, whether or not I was queer. And I'm not saying all the problematic aspects of the Phandom were because of straight girls, because what I contributed was arguably problematic, and I did not identify as straight at the time. At the same time, though, there were straight girls who wrote exclusively smut (or "lemons" as they might've been referred to at the time). There were those who analyzed every post, every bit of information they could find about these men on the internet. They obsessed over the fact that they occasionally shared clothes (which is fairly common for roomates of similar sizes to do), and gathered evidence to support the theory that they shared a bed. It was bad. It was invasive, and it got to the point where it wasn't about the people, it was about the fetishized fantasy these girls made up in their heads about these real, actual men.

Dan and Phil's online presence kind of disappeared for a few years... and I don't blame them.

Getting back on track, mlm is prominent for queer people because it's the LGBT representation they so desperately want to see actualized in media. If a show doesn't make their favorite queer ship canon (and they often don't), they'll do it themselves! That's what fanfic is for! I also know that queer people project onto these characters a lot, and that writing about them is almost like a form of therapy. They see these characters as queer, and they see themselves in these characters, so they write about these characters experiencing similar emotions to them. The thing is, the most compelling characters are male, so those are the characters they end up focusing on, even if the person in question is strictly sapphic. My best example is how I project onto Reki. Personally, I end up thinking of him as (and thus end up writing him as) having some internalized homophobia around being bisexual. That's literally what I am currently going through. I can't project this onto any of the female characters in Sk8, because I couldn't see them going through this experience because they're not developed enough to.

Despite all of this, I still enjoy all of the shows I mention a lot. I think it's just an interesting topic that I was thinking about. I'm not trying to bash anything that I used as an example, these were just my personal observations based off of what I know about these shows and their fandoms. I do, though, believe shipping real people isn't super cool, and I stand by that as someone who used to do it. I'm not going to stop you... I just think it's intrusive and inappropriate to pretend like you know enough about influencers to dictate who they should be involved with romantically. Their love life is, frankly, none of your damn business.

So, long story short, we should make anime (and popular media in general) less misogynistic.

(Also, please leave Dan and Phil alone, they deserve privacy)

#fandom #anime #mlm #queer #lgbt #lgbtqia #sk8 the infinity #yuri!!! on ice #yuri on ice #horimiya #kind of an essay #kind of a brain dump #I hope I got my point across #I spent a little bit too much time of this probably #yes I was a phannie a little while ago #don't judge me #I didn't want to tag this as phan for fear that they would attack me #I don't need the wrath of the phandom

[rainbowsky]

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

#fan fiction #fandom reflections #ask

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

#rant #fujoshi #I SAID WHAT I SAID #personal #gender stuff

[trilies]

an argument for AO3

So I’m in a conversation with someone who is kind of in the “against AO3″ camp, and they asked me a couple of questions. Namely, who wouldn’t be uncomfortable with pedophilia? Isn’t it sketchy that a beta website is asking for so much money despite reaching its goals?

And my answer became so long... I figured it might as well become its own post. Please bear in mind that this is cut from a whole conversation.

But here it is.

------

No. It doesn't seem sketchy to me at all. Why would it? I know we make jokes about how much money tumblr has cost the various sites which purchase it like Yahoo, but there's some truth there: it's really expensive to host a website to thousands and thousands of people. It's why we see so many tumblr owners trying to shoehorn in ads or make people buy services, or why Photobucket tried to pull that truly atrocious bullshit a year or two back. Without image hosting capabilities (tumblr and photobucket's big thing), the strain isn't as huge.... but AO3 is MASSIVE. It is hosting literally thousands of accounts, millions of stories. That's massive on a server scale alone, ignoring all the other work they do. Yeah, it's in beta... but that's because it's trying to reach a goal of being as good a fanfic archive as they can be, and they don't believe they've reached that goal yet. Being in beta means they can better listen to their uses on shit like tagging systems and make those changes. Not to mention, again, they are INCREDIBLY transparent. If you are worried about where the money is going, you can go on the site and they have all their stuff up there.

As for the pedophilia subject matter.... Please give me a moment. because there's honestly a lot to say on that particular issue, if nothing else. This will take a while, so if you see this and there hasn't been a reply yet.... I'm still typing lmao.

To start with, of course people are uncomfortable about pedophilia. However, there are a lot of problems with how pedophilia is viewed or *used* as an accusation in the current fandom climate.

For example, in honestly EXTREMELY recent times, I was told I was "defending" pedophilia because I disagreed that a character (an immortal food gijinka) was "minor-coded" or "designed as an underage teenager". (As a note, an argument for this view was that the character's breasts were too small.) When I pointed out, hey, that's kind of a fucked up accusation to throw at a complete stranger, especially as I am a CSA survivor, I was told "You have to be lying about that, then, because a real CSA survivor would understand."

c o o l

That's just my personal experience that happened within a couple of months. Other people have talked about running into people who think that a character turning 18 means they're a pedophile for still dating a 17 year old. Or running into people who think a 40 year old dating someone in their 30s is pedophilic. Or believe that even SHIPPING characters who were not yet 18 was pedophilic if you yourself were over 18.

(Of course, you also have the kinds of people who try to use Moral Purity as a way to bash ships they don't like. I once saw someone try to claim that a popular mlm ship, A/B, was pedophilic because one half of the equation looked young.... when some other artists drew him... Of course, on the side, this person liked to also get angry that *their* favorite ship, a dude/chick ship composing of A/C, wasn't more popular. So. You know.)

So that's one half of the problem: the word "pedophile" being so warped that a lot of people now have no idea if the person using it has a genuine concern or if the accuser is trying to smear someone who doesn't ship the same thing. FFnet and Tumblr have gone with the "burn it all down" approach, which hasn't actually helped anyone and is, to boot, sloppily moderated. So we know from history, from experience in cases like mine, that it doesn't help in that area.

The other half of the problem is... How far is too far?

This is where "anti" culture begins to find similarities with the whole Warriors for Innocence thing. If you completely and blindly block an entire tag, or anyone associated with it, you have to ask: who are you hurting? Warriors for Innocence hurt actual rape victim, and queer folk, and a whole lot of others. Far as I can tell, anti culture is on the route to the same thing, because I have yet to see appropriate answers to a lot of issues.

If one says "anything with underage sex in it is bad and should be banned", what about fics that tackle it in a serious manner? The young adult novel "Speak" deals with rape of an underage girl and how she works through that mental trauma; are fics with stories equivalent to that allowed? Do fics with underage sex have to focus purely on how it is Horrible And Bad to be allowed? Does only a chapter have to be allowed? A paragraph? An author's note? A tag? Or are we allowed to never explore dark subject matter?

Is fic with underage content in it only horrible if it's someone over the age of eighteen who writes it? Can a teenager write smut (terribly written as it may likely be) between teenage characters? Can a teenager write smut between a teenage character and an adult character? For the record, i did in fact, over the summer, run into someone who said that teens/minors "shouldn't even know about NSFW", which is asinine to me, because Abstinence Only is a terrible thing to put in schools, and somehow worse in a way when you try to put that into effect in fandom. If the answer is 'yes', what are you going to do, demand to see people's birth certificates in fandom?

(As a note, I think this is a terrible message to put into fandom for teenagers because I believe it will inevitably lead to self hatred and a warped view of sex. If you make the extremely simplified black-and-white statement of "teens and sex should never go together ever in any way", that's going to mess up teens who are starting to experience arousal in their bodies. The message, whether intended or not, ends up as "NSFW things are bad, which means my brain which thought NSFW thoughts is bad, and my brain thought those thoughts because my body had these feelings". )

(This is bad for any average teenager. This will be especially worse to CSA and rape victims, along with queer youth who, in a lot of places, are still struggling with their bodies and/or feelings because the world is still pretty damn queerphobic.)

Speaking of CSA and rape victims, what about those of them who write/read underage ships or dark content as a way to cope with what happened or Just Because? That's a thing lots of us do, especially those of us who don't look like the Perfect Victims people can use as an excuse for whatever crusade they're waging. I've heard anti types go "Well, it's an unhealthy way to cope" or claims that CSA/rape victims who write such dark content are "just as bad as their abusers"... But are they psychiatrists/therapists? Are they the psychiatrists/therapists of *those specific people*? Will you moderate this kind of content by forcefully interrogating CSA/rape victims to out their trauma to a complete stranger? Will you demand to speak to their therapists? Over fanfic?

When I was a teenager, I wrote all sorts of stuff. I wrote dark dub-con fic, because I liked to explore those dark feelings in the process and the aftermath separate from myself. I wrote a fic with a fairly young teenage girl (what age was kh2 kairi? who even knows, I sure didn't) falling for a MUCH older man built like a brick shit house so that there was never any doubt to him being an adult, even giving him her first kiss, because they were my favorite characters, I wanted both of them to have a moment of happiness (that i promptly ruined but hey), and, *in this fic*, I knew it would be alright. I knew the girl would always be in control, she'd be the one making moves, that the guy was nonthreatening and kind and protect her and work alongside her.

(and then I began the process of killing him off in the next paragraph through him saving her life, but, like. Drama (tm), baby)

This was all good for me. At an age where I was young, vulnerable, and figuring out weird shit like arousal and romantic feelings, it was *invaluable* to have a space where I could explore all of that while relatively safe from actual danger, even if the stuff I wanted to explore was a little messed up. This whole thing against AO3 wouldn't have helped me, and I'm pretty sure it's not helping a lot of other people too.

There is an issue with underage people and sex stuff- not just in fandom but in culture at large. We have Hollywood dressing up young girl actresses in super slinky or revealing clothes. We have schools saying girls basically should never wear shorts, and capitalism fucking this up further by only selling SUPER SHORT shorters. We have media of all sorts giving us adults, whether in real actors or character design, in the roles of young people. (See: "how do you do, fellow kids") We should probably take more care about fandom spaces, so that people of all ages don't feel pressured to engage in sexual shit they're not 100% game for or into, or just have it shoved into their faces without consent. It's a complex issue... and it's not stuff that can just be 'banned' and have that fix it.

AO3 has on its plate a very complex problem that will, if we're all honest, never have a perfect answer. It has given us the best that can possibly be asked for. It obeys the law by not having actual child pornography on it (aka visual proof of actual real children, defined by us law as such), which is closest to "objective" we can get at the current stage in humanity and state of fandom. It has a very comprehensive and moderated tag system, so that people can post warnings along their fic so that people don't stumble onto shit they don't need to, and so that people can moderate their own reading experience to some degree.

If some people aren't comfortable with AO3, that's fine. However, most of us are getting annoyed not with those people, but with the people who just blindly say "AO3 supports child porn and is probably stealing money" (statement simplified for the purpose of this post). It shows an ignorance of the fandom history that lead us here, no understanding in either AO3's practices or how expensive it is to run a site, and no consideration for how complex this problem can really be. It would be great if this was a black and white issue, if there was an easy answer as just "banning" certain kinds of content... but there isn't. And that's where I am.

#long post #ao3 #fandom #here comes the ruckus #csa tw #rape tw #you never realize how long what you've written is #until it's in a whole ass tumblr post #well!

[steponmepinkjun]

I NEVER FINISHED MY STORY OMG. ok so i left off at being too proud to tell my friend she was right and kpop fucked hard. the difference between u and me is that i’m too good of a liar. too good. i kept up the “i hate kpop it’s cringe” facade for ALMOST TWO WHOLE YEARS, I SHIT YOU NOT. why? bc my dumb ass, extra ass, dramatic ass self thought “ok if i’m gonna have to deal with the embarrassment of admitting i’m wrong, i better do it in such an extra ass way it’ll knock ur socks off so hard that YOULL be the one embarrassed not me.” the original plan was to learn the entire choreography to bts dope, bc it’s the song that she told me to listen to and inevitably the song that got me into them, but later switched to bts fire bc i saw too many of those “choreo matches w any song” videos, and then her birthday party came up. and here’s the real kicker. her birthday is April Motherfuckin Fools. so it would be So Perfect for me to reveal my kpopism as a birthday present And a april fools prank in one. so i was Set on the Reveal being on april 1st, but the day rolls around and god that choreo is so fucking hard and i am Not a dancer. never have been. so i abandon that and go ykno what… i’ll do it Next Year. BC MY BITCHASS WAS LIKE NO THE MOMENT IS TOO PERFECT TO DO IT ON A NORMAL ASS DAY ITS GONNA BE ON APRIL FOOLS ON HER GODDAMN BIRTHDAY OR NOT AT ALL. a year rolls by, i’ve told most of our friends except her and they’re all in on it, i’d made so many subtle kpop references to her without her realising they were fully intentional and had too many scares where she almost figured me out but i lied my way out of it, and i’d given up on showing off with choreography bc i couldn’t make that shit look good. i’m not a dancer. i am, however, a rapper, and a damn good one, so i inhaled the agust d mixtape and decided i’d just rap the eminem of kpop’s anthem at her face. in korean. and change the lyrics at the end (if u haven’t listened to agust d, the bridge repeats “i’m sorry” a lot) to “i’m sorry i kept this from u for so long” and “i’m sorry i actually ult got7 not bts” (this was like the april after skz debuted ok i was holding onto got7 for dear life knowing full well skz we’re going to convert me smh) and the best part? she never saw it coming. her official present was a cd with a bunch of kpop on it but she thought it was just a personalised mixtape for her so i told her to play the first song out loud and she knew the song Instantly. it has a long intro so she was like “i guess u did listen when i recommended u this song!! i knew you’d like it since u like rap so much!!” and then i started rapping and i shit u not. she started SCREAMING. like the initial reaction was her jaw dropping and then instinctively covering her mouth but when i kept going and she realised i wasn’t fucking around she just fucking screamed like a banshee. at the end during the sorry bit i threw off my jacket to reveal a got7 shirt on the inside and she fell off her chair and started rolling around on the floor. needless to say it was every bit as satisfying as i thought it’d be LMAOOOO afterwards her ass was like “I CANT BELIEVE U HID THIS FROM ME FOR OVER A YEAR” and when i tried to explain my ego couldn’t take the “i told u so” she was like “you know i wouldn’t have made fun of you for it right? i would just be glad you’re not hating on my boys anymore” so basically i’m a big dramatic fool and she was always too good for me.

don’t mind the weird spaces here my ipad is being all fucky wucky w me rn. damn sad to hear ur sideblog experience didn’t go so well, i’d have shown u the cool side of the fandom if i knew 😤😤 leading u thru the cursed halls of kpop stan tumblr like a sketchy tour guide that’s actually 3 small raccoons stacked on top of each other like a trench coat, like “over here we have the fanfic writers that honestly need to publish a book, over here we have the gif makers that are responsible for my entire camera roll, if we take a quick swerve past the death threat anons and the twt fanwar screenshots - mind ur feet bub the 14 year olds were tryna make a grab for ur ankles - ah here’s the holy grail of shitposts, you might be here for hours, to the right we have the weird aussie side of the fandom that projects our childhoods onto chanlix but also all the members as we decide what their life in australia would’ve been like, and down there is a secret trapdoor to the blogs w endless random headcanons that will make you laugh, cry or blush depending on if the author woke up and decided to choose violence today. enjoy your Stay!” but then again i’m not so active on tumblr anymore (ngl you’ve become the highlight of my tumblr experience these days, interaction wise,) so maybe all my Local Hotspots are inactive now. i know a bunch of them are, it’s sad. “i don’t fw stan twitter for the same reason i don’t hang out in meth dens” oop. guess i’m a meth addict. no but i get u i rly do, it’s a hellhole out there, but the fact that things get shared and spread a lot easier than on tumblr and how short most things have to be (therefor keeping up w my adhd attention span without having to resort to the mental torture that is tiktok, with the added bonus of not always needing headphones.) that i just. couldn’t leave if i tried. maybe i should try being active on tumblr again but it’s a dying site in comparison.

“their music doesn’t consistently hit for me as much as skz” i’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore. what. what. you don’t dramama ramama ramama hey? you don’t feel a little jealousyyyyyy, naega anin? you don’t shoot out, shoot out, shoot out, or aremdaeun love killa love killa? you can’t be your hero du du du du du du du du du dududu? u disappoint me. literally like everyone i know who likes skz music likes mx music like it’s a rite of Passage. they’re kindred spirits, monsta x music is like skz’s music’s cool but mildly heterosexual older brother. neither of them know what a bad song is it runs in the family. and both their music runs in my VEINS. whenever i describe my music taste they’re always the first two that come to mind, skz being my number 1 bc they are my best boys but mx bc of the Flavour. pls listen to the entire the code album then get back to me 😤🙌 ok but fr ur so right they are 7 of the finest men i ever seen (yes i say 7 bc i’m including wonho cause he deserved better and i’ll die on my ot7 bullshit.) like don’t get me started on them either LOL i LITERALLY downloaded that one insta video of changkyun working out his back n arm muscles w his tattoo showing bc i needed that shit saved for Science. they could do Anything w me like frfr. yes vixx is the bdsm contract group i’m telling ya they wildin. or at least they were. it’s been years since their last comeback idk what they’re doing anymore tbh. and yeah that makes sense, savouring the hyperfixation i feel it, but also i’m so attached to skz that i never let it die. like i hyperfixate on other things and other groups but i will Always go back to skz cause they’re my homeboys. hell, they’re my home. being a predebut stay i’ve spent more time w skz than most of my actual family members at this point. but that’s just me you do u boo xx just know that if ur anything like me ur never letting go once skz it’s been my longest lasting fixation cause they hit like Nothing Else Do. ik i’ve already said that but i cannot stress it enough. they’re really special. i’m gonna stop here before i get all sappy and emotional bc i really love those boys so fucking much and i don’t drop the L bomb often. SIDE NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE UR LIST OF GROUPS RANKED BY THORSt. i need to judge ur Taste. and omg cat&dog is such a guilty pleasure song bc the lyrics make me cringe so much bc while pet play can be fun they be doing it in more of an “i’m an innocent soft dogboy uwu” kinda way that just Does Not Sit Right with me. it comes back to the objectifying of asians that asians themselves don’t help in industries like these and maybe i’m looking too far into it when rly it is just wholesome n cute or maybe they are into some pet play shit idk idc i will bop to the song regardless but i will not acknowledge the lyrics nope.

YOURE RIGHT THO SKZ’S OPENNESS IS IN FACT, A BIG DEAL, i’ll grab them for u if u want but i found these twt threads of skz supporting the lgbt community and i just felt a special kind of happiness man like sure the delusional part of me likes going “haha they’re gay” bc my brain likes to imagine them as my polycule of mlm boyfriends bc sometimes thats what gives me the serotonin to get me thru the day ok don’t judge but also bc it’s nice knowing that yes i’ll never know them personally, but at least i can support them knowing they’d respect my gender identity and my pronouns, they’d respect who i choose to love, and that’s already more than the general public can say so shit, it is special! it’s special that they don’t treat being cishet like the norm - they constantly remove gender from their songs and speech entirely, they don’t assume all stays are female anymore, we don’t talk abt the babygirls incident cause we got babystays in the end outta that ok, and it’s just. so refreshing and important to me bc i can’t get that anywhere else!! like my semi ults are the boyz and while i love them very much and there’s no way all 11 of them are straight i refuse, i do get just a little bit sad whenever they she/her their fandom by default and call them their girlfriends n shit even tho i do still identify as a girl, i’m also genderfluid/nonbinary/transmasc, and i have a very love/hate relationship w my womanhood and rarely use she/her pronouns, cause it’s like, do you not see me? see us? the ones who aren’t cishet women? i mean i know kevin does bc he congratulated a fan who came out as nb but it’s just not the same as the openness we get w skz. like how do i trust cishets i could be supporting them as a queer person when in reality they’d call me a slur. what would i know, behind the screen? so it’s so good that skz go the extra mile to make it a safe space for everyone. this is already long enough i will reply to the second half of that ask in another message… tomorrow cause it’s 1am and i’m tired gn -felix bi anon

I'mma have to start putting these under a readmore so that i don't absolutely make everything who is still following me for some reason go totally fucking insane 😂

NDJDHWJJAHFNAKBSJSBFBHHDBDNAJD YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE FACES I WAS MAKING READING THIS, I WAS FUCKING CACKLING AND GASPING EVERY OTHER SENTENCE SO HARD THAT I SCARED THE CATS NDJWHSHSB the fact that you went "oh you want me to get into kpop? Give me a hot minute, and I'll give you a whole ass private concert for free" biduehsjdbd biiiiiiiiiiitch you're a fucking ICON, I stg I could NEVER 😂 (and not just because I couldn't find a tune if you gave me a printed set of Google maps directions and that I embody the steriotype that white people can't dance, like my sister kept sensing me tiktoks of the whole "dance like a white girl" trend going lmfao look it's you and eventually I was like "sis please this trend has me feeling like being white is a disability and these mothafuckers are being ableist 😭 also I could NEVER be that on beat so yall ain't even doin it right 😭😭😭😭"). Tbh if I told one of my friends (lol what friends, i got jokes) to get into Skz and they showed up at my bday and performed the entirety of I Got It I would simply shower them in money and go "aight everyone else go home, you are no longer needed, you are being laid off, your position has been eliminated, we're downsizing, the company is moving up and you're moving out, you are not qualified for this role any longer, best of luck with future endeavors" 😊

I think part of the reason I can't deal w Twitter is the exact reason I refuse to leave tumblr, in that I've been on tumblr since 2006 and twt since 2008, and tumblr literally has not changed at all, not even a little, whereas going from the early days of twt where there were no corporate sponsorships or ads and you had to manually copy and paste someone's tweet and @ them to retweet it, to how it is now, like 90% ads and showing me shit from the timelines of people I don't even fuckin follow n whatnot, it's just not enjoyable. Idk how anyone finds anything on twt, it confuses and frustrates me because I am old and have not adapted well to technology changing 😂 But arguably, the skz fanbase doesn't want me on skztwt anyways so like it works for both of us lmfaooo. I am old and cringey, and also still think of twt as stream of consciousness whereas tumblr is your teenage bedroom where you can decorate the walls with anything that interests you. I do really love the nonsensical kpoptwt shitposts tho fhshsbdjjss like it is a very specific flavor of mental instability that I enjoy immensely 😂 OH and also I initially misread part of that and thought you were saying you actually irl do meth and I was like 😳 WHAT DO I SAY TO THAT. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS. Like how do I express like "I wasn't being judgy of people who use substances cause I've been there but I was just being insensitive 😳" And then went back and reread it and was like WHEW, IM JUST AN ILLITERATE FOOL 😂😂😂😂 ejeywhdhrhjwbfbdjshdhdhd I spent like an hour bwign like "IS THE REASON WE GET ALONG BECAUSE THEY'RE ON METH???? WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION??????" hrhehshe I am literally a fuckin idiot it's fine

It's not that I don't fw them, it's more like... Okay so like there is no situation in which I am going to skip a skz song if it comes on shuffle. You will not ever catch me NOT in the mood to listen to Sunshine, if God's Menu comes on we are THROWIN the meager amount of booty meat I got hither and thither, I could be in the happiest mood of my life but if Ex comes on I will stop to SOB. And I'm not like that with most music, so mx just falls into the category of "there is a time and place." Idk why but it just doesn't forcibly grab hold of my heart and ass the way skz always does. I really don't WANT my skz fixation to ever end, but I know that eventually it'll stop giving me dopamine bevause my brain is my worst fucking enemy 🙃 like my arcana fixation is to date the longest running hyperfixation I've ever had, going on almost three years, and I used to not be able to spend every single second of every day thinking about Asra, but now... I just feel nothing when I look at arcana stuff. As you can probz tell by the fact that I hardly post arcana anymore 😂 So I know that eventually all my happiness will end, it always does, I can never stay just as obsessed with something as I was for long. I CANT SHARE THE LIST BECAUSE I DONT *HAVE* TASTE YET 😭 I'm basically just compiling a list of any group someone tells me I should look into, ranked by how strong the kitty purred upon googling pics of them 😂 My mom read my ass to FILTH over txt lmfao she was like "they're not that adorable. Maybe your standard for adorableness has gone down with You Know Who still on hiatus 🤔" bfjwhdhd like MOMMAAAAA THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED 😂 she attacks me any time I even hint at stanning other groups, she is a skz purist and stans skz only, unofficial Momma Stay of All Stays keeping me in check lmfao.

I feel like skz really do follow thru on their promise that they're a safe space for stays, it's nice to see that they hold space for anyone and everyone in their fanbase and do it in a really simple and elegant way, I feel. Like they never make it seem like "okay here are the fans and here are the token weirdos that were only recognizing to make a buck off of them" the way a lot of artists make it feel like 😑 like they don't go out of their way to act like it's some revolutionary act to do the bare minimum of not shitting on certain parts of the fandom, if that makes sense. They feel very "yeah, of course we love all our stays, this is a welcoming space for literally anyone, that's how it should be, that should be normal," instead of like "Hi fans we love you 😊 and special shoutout to you ell gee bee tee folk, make sure to buy my rainbow merch after the show!!!" you know? Like, they're the friends who would never make you feel weird or different for some shit, the friends that take the attention off you if something they know ur sensitive about comes up, instead of weirdly snapping at whoever brought the unfomfy thing up which ruins the mood and makes you feel tiwce as bad, yk? They just give off this vibe that they, and the space they create with their music, is just a genuine and chill place to be and hang out and relax and bond. I feel like they'd be the friend group that is so goofy and sweet and silly and accepting and lovely and always makes you feel loved and excited to be alive 🥺 They are all good noodles 🥺🥺🥺

#felix-bi-anon #asksteppie

[maggot-monger]

some musings on shipping culture

just to get this out of the way: this post is prompted by things i have seen people say and reblog recently about a variety of ships and fandoms, some of which i have been in, some of which i have not. it is not directed at any individual in particular. 

i am also not upset. how other people like to enjoy fandom is interesting to me but ultimately it’s totally irrelevant to how i like to enjoy fandom. in fact, my apathy about other people’s favorite ships is a major reason i am curious about how some people respond to each other/canon/whatever.

the main question is: why do people care what other people ship and why they ship it?

here’s what i got. this list is not ordered by importance.

1) purity culture 

tbh i am kind of burnt out with thinking about purity culture. probably a lot of reasons are somewhat related to purity culture, but i don’t want to get into whether or not it’s ok for people to ship stuff they wouldn’t condone in reality (although for the record, if you couldn’t tell, my opinion is: ship literally whatever you want). so, moving on.

2) whether or not ships are likely to become canon

a lot of the time, this debate gets avoided either because none of the ships being argued over are likely ever to become canon, or because one of them is almost definitely going to become canon. sometimes it’s an argument about which relationship is more important, whether romantic or not (two examples: 1) most wincest shippers understand that sam and dean were never going to kiss on the mouth on tv, but are very invested in the brothers’ relationship being the central relationship in the show regardless. 2) debates over whether elsa in frozen should have a girlfriend or stay single). 

much of the time, people get passionate about ships going canon because of issues of representation. wanting the queer ship; wanting the ship involving at least one character from an underrepresented group; wanting the ship that resonates with some meaningful experience much of the audience can relate to. that’s all cool. i get all of that. i don’t personally have many feelings about ships i like going canon because that’s not really part of the experience for me, but i understand why it’s appealing to others.

i do not, however, understand why some people whose ships might become canon care about telling people whose ships are never going to become canon that their ships are, uh, never going to become canon. like, in my experience, usually people who ship a never-going-to-be-canon ship know that it’s never going to be canon, and while they might be salty about it, they aren’t claiming that their thing is going to be what happens in canon. i get why never-going-to-be-canon shippers might get pissy at might-be-canon shippers because it sucks to “lose,” or because often (not always) might-be-canon ships are very popular comparatively and it can get tiresome to see your fandom dominated by something you don’t like/care about. but why do fans of popular (might-be-)canon ships get pissy about fans of never-gonna-be-canon ships, within fandom spaces?

a lot of this tension might be because of fandom dominance wars, rather than canon dominance wars. the never-gonna-be-canon shippers might feel that the might-be-canon shippers are dominating fandom spaces, but the might-be-canon shippers might feel that the never-gonna-be-canon shippers are dominating canon spaces. often when this happens both ships take up a lot of fandom space regardless of which takes up more, and might in fact be equally popular. so this might be just misperceptions about relative popularity, and feeling like your ship is being attacked/ignored disproportionately in the fandom when in reality it isn’t. i have definitely seen this sort of attitude from warring flagship supporters many a time.

but ok, to come back to why might-be-canon shippers make arguments against never-gonna-be-canon shippers based on likelihood of canonization: why? i don’t get it. i’ve seen this happen even with people who ship fully realized canon relationships arguing against people who ship fully non-canon relationships. why? 

my instinct is to think that last one is a sore winner thing. like, you won dude. good for you. take your winnings and let everybody else lick their wounds/carry on with their own preferences in peace. i’m even inclined to think that canon shippers as a rule should ignore most baiting by non-canon shippers because losers should be allowed to be little a bitter, as a treat. but at this point, i realize that i have just made a claim about how people should act in fandom, and who am i to say that? no one. so: never mind. and it might not be a gloating thing anyway.

another piece of evidence i see people bring up in these arguments is about basis in canon, rather than likelihood of canonization. that seems like another major point, so let’s move on to that. 

3) basis in canon

whether or not a ship is likely to become canon, there are lots of conversations about which ships make the most sense given evidence from the canon. 

i, being a massive slut for characterization, get this sort of. usually even when i enjoy crack ships i want to make them work with textual evidence somehow. i personally just think it’s more satisfying to figure out how two characters might have met and what would have appealed to them about each other to lead them to connect/date/bang/whatever, even if it never happened and never will happen and nobody would even think about the pairing unless either they were trying to be funny or they were really far down a rabbit hole. that’s my own geeky cross to bear.

i don’t get why “basis in canon” makes any ship better than any other ship though. sometimes a ship is within reach of canon characterization/story, and the work to go from non-canon to canon is suuuper minimal. these ships make sense pretty much as they are. that’s cool! such ships are usually popular for a reason: they appeal to a lot of fans of the canon because not a lot has to be done to the source material to make it work. often, the more you have to modify/do interpretation footwork, the more people’s interesting is going to drop off because you’re getting further from the source, and the source is why everyone is here in the first place. (some fandoms are of course exceptions to this.)

but why is closer-to-canon better? sometimes the work to get from canon to a far-from-canon ship is really clever, and does actually make a lot of sense if you follow the reasoning. sometimes far-from-canon ships are satisfying in a way other closer-to-canon ships aren’t (at least to some people). sometimes far-from-canon ships allow for creativity that closer-to-canon ships don’t. sometimes the appeal of far-from-canon ships is none of that, and it’s purely because the ship is sexy, or it’s controversial, or it’s weird, or people have gotten tired of the fandom flagships and they’re looking for something new. 

i don’t understand why any of that is worse than the reasons for shipping something with “more basis in canon.”

personally, i get tired of fandom flagships in most of the fandoms i’ve been in very quickly. furthermore, i lose interest in ships almost immediately if/when they become canon. that’s not a value judgment; it’s just a pattern in my own preferences that i’ve observed from 15+ years of fandom involvement. i enjoy having to work in the murky waters farther from canon to justify my weird little ships. i find the moment of canonization exciting and satisfying (and sometimes emotional and vindicating), but i do not enjoy watching people actually being in romantic relationships very much (part of this is probably due to the fact that i personally do not enjoy being in romantic relationships very much). i also just tend to enjoy elements of ships that a lot of people find off-putting, but this is going back to purity culture and, again, i don’t want to get into that. these preferences reliably lead me away from close-to-canon ships and fandom flagships. 

(just to be clear: i’m not being attacked. i do not feel attacked. i'm just using myself as a rhetorical example here.)

does this make my taste in ships bad? i don’t know what "bad taste in ships” means, but if you’re going to say that my taste is bad, i’m going to want you to justify it. 

does it make my taste in ships stupid? well, sure, i do like stupid shit sometimes. but i also feel that it would be strange, if not flat-out incorrect, to claim that my taste in off-norm ships is not thoughtful. i think about many of my far-from-canon ships a lot — often, i think about them a lot before i start shipping them/see anyone else ship them, and i decide i like the characters together because i’ve come at it from a character analysis perspective. i have liked ships for some extremely nerdy reasons. a lot of people who like far-from-canon ships get there because they like thinking about characterization and plot and symbolism. to be completely honest, i often end up liking rarepairs in part because the people who end up liking rarepairs often have higher overall intellectual skill and desire to think about things extensively on average than fans of fandom flagships do on average. so, is liking far-from-canon ships stupid? that’s subjective. is it unintelligent? probably not.

is enjoyment of these ships dumber when people don’t get there through a lot of analysis, or when they don’t try to justify their enjoyment once they’ve decided they like a ship? i have seen extremely well-written, clever, extensively researched fic about pairings the author had no interest in justifying, and imo that’s just as intellectually motivated as analysis about why the ship makes sense. so, i would say, no.

is it bad to ship stuff and have no intellectual interest in it all? i mean, everyone can have whatever opinion about this, but in my opinion, no. this is fandom. this is for fun-having. i’m a nerd, but not everybody has to be a nerd. sometimes i like to read stuff that is not nerdy, that just shows me something comforting or new or evocative and doesn’t ask me to care about how we’ve gotten there. i might care anyway, but that’s on me, and it doesn’t make my enjoyment better than the enjoyment of someone who doesn’t want to overthink it.

finally, even if a ship having no basis in canon does make it worse somehow, who cares? what is the point of arguing over ship quality, of all things? is it just elitism? is it defensiveness against criticism of fan work being inferior to original work? is it a desire for everything to make sense, paired with a belief that people prefer things that make the most sense? if anybody has read this far and has insight into this, please tell me. i see this so often, and it baffles me every time. i don’t really want to agree, but i want to understand.

so, i don’t quite get this one. i get parts of it, but overall, i don’t get it. 

4) i don’t have a number 4. i put a number 4 when i started writing this post but i think i covered what i was going to say here in points 1-3. alternatively i forgot my 4th point in which case RIP.

if you read this far, i apologize for the messy organization. i wrote this primarily to sort out my own thoughts. i’m not sure it helped, but it was something to do for an hour XD

#please don't reblog #(idk why anyone would but) #(i am happy to chat though! i am genuinely interested! my questions are not rhetorical) #further disclaimer: none of this is about my current main fandom which seems blessedly tolerant compared to many fandoms #i say things

[awkwardlittlepringle]

Queer ‘n Crazy

CHAPTER 10

Hello, fellow Fanders!

This is chapter 10 of Queer 'n Crazy, which I'm sure you knew, 'cause you can read... Me being an idiot aside-

I have fallen into the tartarus that is the BNHA fandom, and I am dying because Deku and Tamaki are my babies, and HNNNNNNG-

Anyway, I hope you're doing alright in these troubling times, make sure to stay connected with nature (humans tend to go mad if they don't see something green) and be sure to eat and drink properly. Self care is important! Even if self care means crying under the covers at night.

My point is, make sure you take care of yourselves. :) The summary is at the bottom of the chapter, though I doubt anyone will need it, this chapter's more of a filler. Sorry if it's cringy, by the way, I'm not very good at writing pining! I've only ever written established relationships before, if anyone has any tips please help me out!

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

WARNINGS : Swearing, feeling like a disappointment, probably cringy writing, pining gays, mentions of food, mentions of horror movies, I think that's it!

..................

"Virgil... What are you doing?"

Virgil grunted. As much as he loved Logan, he wasn't getting a straight answer this time. Logan sighed, bookmarking his page neatly and setting his book down. He turned around in his desk chair to face Virgil, who was currently face-planting onto his desk, his arms wrapped around his head like walls. Logan watched him disapprovingly.

"Virgil." No answer.

"Virgil." Logan reached across the gap between their desks to give Virgil's shoulder a little push. The cat-like boy frowned, letting out a lethargic hum. Logan decided the best course of action was physical contact. He stood behind his roommate with his arms crossed, watching as Virgil buried his head deeper into the space between his arms.

"Virgil." Nothing. Logan nudged (read kicked) his roommate's ankle. "Virgil!" "Stop!"said Virgil, popping the p. He then raised his head, resting it on one of his arms to glare at Logan, who moved into his field of vision. To his surprise, a small smile was resting on his roommate's face.

"What is it, pocket protector?" "Nothing." Logan hummed. "It's just that I don't see how that's a productive way to study." "Well it's working." "Is it now." Virgli nodded mock-seriously. "Mhm. I'm studying the depths of my brain." "And what have you gathered?" asked Logan, falling back into his chair. Virgil scrunched up his nose, watching as the male adjusted his glasses. "That I am more of a disappointment than I thought I was." Logan sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"How many times must I say this, Virgil-" "Yes?" "You are not a disappointment." Virgil rolled his eyes. "Yeah right. I bet you're sick of me already." he mumbled, leaning back in his chair. "Falsehood. I don't think I'll ever get tired of you, actually." Virgil turned away. A spark of hope ignited in his chest, but he forced it down. He'd heard that one too many times. "Virgil-"

"Anyway, I can't concentrate." said Virgil, cricking his neck. "By this point there isn't any merit in trying to, either." He could practically feel Logan's gaze on his back, but thankfully he let the topic go.

"Well if we go by your thinking, there's no point in sitting around doing nothing either." Logan shut his laptop and stood up, brushing down his sleeves. Virgil looked around at him with an eyebrow raised. "Do you have anything else to do?" Virgil shook his head.

"Then how about we do something together. Only if you want to, of course." Virgil couldn't help the smile that found itself on his face. "Yeah, that would be cool." he said, avoiding Logan's gaze. Logan smiled, before walking over to the cupboards.

"What time is it?" Virgil glanced at the clock by Logan's bedside. "7:30." "Perfect." He turned around to face Virgil. "How would you feel about watching a movie? You do it all the time at night anyway, might as well start early." Virgil's lips curved upward. "That would be nice. Any suggestions?" he asked, reaching for his laptop.

Logan hummed, rummaging through one of his shelves, before turning to Virgil holding a mound of blankets. Virgil snorted at the sight. "Not really... I'm not much of a movie person." Virgil's eyes widened. "We don't have to do something if you don't want to, you know-" Logan rolled his eyes. "Virgil, believe me when I say I know the basic codes of ethics." Logan then proceeded to dump all of the blankets on the foot of Virgil's bed. "Just because I am a movie person, does not mean I don't enjoy them."

Virgil blushed, diverting his eyes to his computer screen. "Right." Logan watched his roommate fondly, before sitting down behind him.

Virgil's body tensed up as he felt Logan's breath fan across his neck, and he felt heat rise up his neck. With trembling fingers he typed in his password.

Denied.

Virgil licked his lips, trying again. This time it worked. Logan smirked. "Messy typer, are you?" "Not usually." It's just that you're so fucking close, pretty-boy-

Virgil logged onto netflix and started scrolling through the movies. After a few moments, he turned to face Logan. "So what do you want to-" Virgil's words died in the back of his throat because holy shit he's close.

Logan's face was mere inches away from his own, which Virgil should have expected, honestly. He could feel heart rate sped up and his eyes widened, staring into deep blue ones. Were Logan's eyes always that pretty? Virgil couldn't tell. A blush mimicking Virgil's started to form on Logan's face, and he drew away (Virgil found himself missing the warmth already), and he started to ramble.

"S-Sorry, I know you're big on personal space, I really shouldn't have-" Virgil sat in place frozen, watching as the usually put-together teen fiddled with his tie, looking anywhere but Virgil's face. Virgil could feel what people would describe as butterflies -although they felt more like an angry moths- swarm around his stomach, his mind racing. Sure Logan's eyes were pretty, but there's no way they were that gorgeous the last time Virgil looked at him. Virgil could feel his throat close up, although this time it was in a way that made Virgil want to smile madly. His entire body was buzzing, even though they hadn't even touched each other.

He was snapped out of  his trance by the voice of his favourite nerd.

"-I'm so so so so so so so so so sorry, I know that's really stupid, but-" Virgil looked at him strangely. "Lo." "-I swear it won't happen again I just-" "Lo!" Logan started, looking at Virgil with what might have been the cutest blush ever. The two stared at each other for a few moments before Virgil broke the silence.

"It's fine." "Are you sure? I mean-" "Lo!" Logan clamped his mouth shut, his ears glowing. "It's all good." Virgil really felt like grinning, why did he feel like grinning? He hadn't been grinning a few seconds ago... he shouldn't grin, maybe just smile. Logan wouldn't feel weirded out  if he smiled, right?

"It's nothing, really. Chill." he chuckled breathily, before turning back to his laptop. Virgil had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning. That weird feeling from yesterday's back again... Never mind, he was grinning. Logan, who was still blushing, leaned closer to Virgil and peered over his shoulder.

"So... movies." "Movies." Virgil mimicked, his blush finally retreating. He turned around so that Logan was next to him instead of behind him. "What stuff do you like?" Logan shrugged. "I don't know, I'm more of a reader." "What books?" "Um... Pretty much anything, actually." Virgil mock groaned.

"That doesn't help, Lo." "Um, Stephen King? They made a few movies out of his books, didn't they?" Virgil looked at him incredulously. "Did they??? Dude, have you never watched It?" Logan furrowed his brow. "I mean, I've heard of it, aparently it was a turned out to be a hit-"

"Logan, it's like the horror movie." "The book was more of a thriller-" "Thriller, horror, whatever. The point is it's like the horror movie for beginners." "We don't have to watch it if you've already-" "Logan. We're watching it."

Logan smiled hesitantly as the emo lept off his bed, starting to gather various throws and blankets, adding to the pile Logan had placed on his bed. Once he was done it was clear that they had a considerable collection of blankets.

A slightly ruffled Virgil stood at the foot of his bed, looking at Logan.

"So, pillow fort?" Logan nodded. "Pillow fort."

About 10 minutes later they were finished. The two had pushed their beds closer to the center of the room and strung blankets across the gap in between, their desks providing sufficiant support for the "roof" of the fort. The floor was laden with cusions and pillows, which were then covered in yet more blankets, these ones the school issue ones they'd been given. Virgil was just adding the finishing touches when the door opened, revealing Logan, who'd been scouring the building for snacks.

"How'd you do?" asked Virgil, pinning his fairy lights in place. "There's a vending machiene in the lobby, Virgil. So I think I did alright." He smirked, dropping an array of gummies and chocolate across the floor. Virgil snorted, returning to his task.

"You really do have a sweet tooth." "I don't lie if I can help it." shrugged the teen, adjusting his glasses. He then sat down next to Virgil, crossing his lanky legs. He watched the emo with a strange glint in his eyes. Virgil sat back, satisfied with his work, and raised an eyebrow at Logan's expression.

"What?" He said with a defensive edge to his voice. Logan smiled. "Fairy lights?" "You got a problem with them." Virgil muttered, turning away. "Not at all." he replied. "I just didn't peg you as the type." "Loving fairy lights is universal."

The two of them fit quite comfortably in their bundle of blankets, shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee. While Virgil was trying his best to ignore the butterflies in his stomach, his skin burned wherever it touched Logan's, and an insufferable blush had found his way onto his face yet again.

"So... Should I be scared?" Virgil looked at Logan, who was munching on a chocolate kiss. "What?" "Should I be scared." Logan repeated, turned to face Virgil. "You said that it's a horror movie...?" "Oh, like that! Nah. It's famous because it was the first movie of it's kind, I think. It's not actually that scary." "Alright."

Logan turned back to face the screen, his muscles relaxing as the beginning credits began. Virgil turned to the screen too, although he wasn't paying much attention to it.

A strange feeling had come over Virgil, it was dizzying and grounding at the same time. An odd warmth that started from his chest and expanded like a balloon to strain against his skin. Virgil's lips were curved in an unconcious smile, his body relaxing against his roommates. The fact he was so calm around Logan was confusing, but it felt so nice that Virgil didn't want to question it.

Regardless of the fact he was facing the screen, all of Virgil's attention was fixed on the figure in his peripheral vision. Logan was slumped against the cusions behind them wearing a sleep-shirt, his eyes fized on the screen. If Virgil looked past the glare on his glasses, he could see those captivating eyes, twinkling with interest. There was a small smear of chocolate next to Logan's lip, and Virgil swore there was no combination of words that could explain his overwhelming urge to kiss it off.

Wait, what the-

..........

Summary: Virgil can't focus on anything, and so Logan suggest watching a movie together. They build a pillow fort, and my probably awkward attempt at fluff ensues.

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#virgil sanders #ts virgil #virgil #virgil sanders angst #ts virgil angst #virgil angst #virgil sanders fluff #ts virgil fluff #virgil fluff #virgil sanders fanfiction #ts virgil fanfiction #logan sanders #ts logan #logan #logan sanders fanfiction #ts logan fanfiction #logan sanders fluff #ts logan fluff #logan fluff #ts logan angst #logan angst #logan sanders angst #analogical angst #analogical #ts analogical #analogical fanfiction #fanfiction #roman sanders #ts roman #roman

[trashyeggroll]

Look at you getting analytical on the ARROWs Professor Trashy. :) Next please do why not shipping a queer pairing on a show and or pointing out flaws about it doesn't make you homophobic! Sitting patiently for your class.

😘 I would be a terrible professor anon bc flattery would make me buy fyre fest 2 tickets

PARAMETERS/DISCLAIMERS:

1. So you said queer pairings WHICH I accept as a blanket term for LGBTQ+ on my blog, but I think based on how simplistic gender identity is almost exclusively depicted in US media so usually this just means canonically only knowing a character’s pronouns and I’ll come back to that. Basically, let’s assume for the sake of this we’re talking specifically about mlm and wlw ships.

2. I’m also going to assume you don’t mean where a character has canonically identified with a monosexual queer label, eg lesbian, and under the fairly narrow way sexual orientation is typically defined in media. Because yes, it is typically homophobic to ship a lesbian with a cishet man over litch rally any woman in the general setting, but more on that later too.

3. This would be a much less fraught issue if we had a robust catalogue of queer stories told by queer people with all kinds of endings (happy to sad) and genres (war movies to romcoms), but because that’s not how capitalism and moralistic censorship in media works… we know that our attention and dedication to a franchise/ship is what the studios want from us to get that content.

This topic is another one where people tend to focus on individual examples, but the real issue is the big picture and repetitive behavior as experienced by queer folks. Western media and the male gaze love a “lesbian finds THE RIGHT man” storyline, and it’s not a coincidence that that also is a line delivered in abuse to lesbians: “you just need to try some dick”. I’m sure lesbians are not the only ones who’ve experienced this but because lesbians are women, the element of misogyny adds an extra twinge of violence to that outlook.

But a less basic and depressing approach to this, the Captain Marvel/Thor v Captain Marvel/Maria Rambeau example is a fairly decent example where one meaningful look between m/f characters can set off an Internet shipping lovefest but then folks gets real “friendship is the truest love” re: someone with whom a woman has a substantive relationship that isn’t given a romantic label. But that argument will never be resolved by Discourse, right, because the canon is the only place that can clarify, and MCU never will, so we’re left to our own devices. That’s just one example among a repetitive behavior that makes mlm/wlw ships feel inferior. Please don’t @ me, ya’ll know this is a Space Wives house no matter what anyone says 💆🏻

OK, now—

Most of the time, we are left to infer a character’s identity the via relationships they have, rather than any spoken identity. And most of the time, we are put through some heavy handed coming out reference for wlw and mlm characters, but it seems like we are increasingly getting some actual, spoken identities, ex: Grace Choi says the words, “You do know I’m bi, right?”

But IRL and with media, straight people still are just there, right? That’s why the coming out narrative belongs to queer people, and straight people “coming out” ain’t cute solidarity. The absence of words is what makes characters straight (and sometimes it’s queerbaiting), and we are right to demand the actual language we use to form community is used in the media representing us, in a substantive and respectful way.

Also IRL, when we are kind and at our best, we know that someone who has identified as a lesbian for years entering a loving, healthy relationship with a cishet man is OK. Nobody’s being invalidated. It’s not commentary on my marriage to my wife. It has literally no impact on anyone but the two people in that relationship, as long as we on the outside aren’t trying to be the Sexuality and Gender police… which we humans are much more prone to doing with thousands of strangers on the Internet 😬

So keeping in mind that people get so worked up at least partially due to #4 above, I think the question isn’t even about the ships necessarily, but how this friction in fandom is occurring. First and foremost, we should listen, without defensiveness, to everyone who tells us that the things we say or create make them uncomfortable in some way, and that doesn’t mean you have to agree, because it’s up to you to decide to hold yourself accountable what you feel is right. And if you’ve ever been the person trying to hold someone else to account, same applies to listening to the answer (including not accepting half assed apologies or whatever you have the emotional bandwidth to do after saying your piece). I think that if someone is going to someone else’s blog, commenting on their content, essentially proactively taking steps to let someone know you don’t like their ship for reasons other than problematic ones… you’re just stirring the pot for no reason. Make your own posts. Keep it out of the main tags. Filter and block content and blogs that make you angry.

Anyway, how’s that for the windy lead up to my answer to the question, which is: When we’re dealing with labeless characters, no matter how they present or who they date in canon, I think everything is fair game for fanon, and there’s a weird demand for performativity in calling someone homophobic for not supporting a wlw or mlm ship. In a general sense, and given the disclaimers above.

The most important questions to me are: Is the construction of this fanon relationship healthy? Would they be happy?

Outside of that, if we don’t have any indication otherwise, what’s the harm in shipping a “queer” pairing, a straight pairing, or both? Or neither? Or, why are we playing into the baseline assumption that no label = cishet? And, isn’t it at least partially bi/pan phobic to call a m/f ship hetero by default? 🤔 Same for it being transphobic to call the characters cis by default? The “phobic” words aren’t really right here: It’s more like passive reinforcement of heternormativity.

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH: That’s where I feel like Tumblr discourse (and I don’t use that word as a pejorative) has full speed lapped Hollywood and Western media bc no fucking way do they get to make that argument at us. Not until they have given us the utopia world of #4. We’re still getting your Call Me By Your Name’s and MCU patting itself on the back for that one dude referencing a husband. They get no benefit of the doubt until they make real steps toward inclusion and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to feel seen and understood and well represented on a worldwide stage.

So what I’m saying is, I just don’t think there’s any reason to fight each other when identity is left in the air, amongst the fandom worlds. We turn to fellow fans and content creators for the rep we want, the ships we want, and to commiserate on the sins of canon. The real enemy is scarcity, specifically a false scarcity created by the capitalistic media world, and we should be together in demanding to be seen by culture as fully realized human beings with just as much of a spectrum of experience with the world as cishets.

#asks #fandom stuff

[mild-lunacy]

Queer Sherlock and the Empty Space

Sometimes I recall that we were mocked for saying 'Sherlock is Gay' on Tumblr, of all places, and it strikes me as *really* odd.

Isn't it, though? Because surely, it's accepted now that everyone is gay, trans and/or black if you say so, at least in book fandoms, though not *only*. It's actually somewhat odd to think this would be challenged a couple of years ago; *everyone* says equivalent things these days almost indiscriminately, more or less. There's an understanding in fandom that a) if canon doesn't explicitly discuss or dismiss something, particularly re: race or orientation and gender status, it's close enough to being canon; b) even if canon does dismiss it, you can either disagree or identify a loophole (see: Ronan Lynch is black and Irish but simply has blue eyes; John Watson isn't gay but he is bisexual). People don't *ever* hedge about their headcanons in fandom, as a rule. In fact, people argue with the explicit canon or stuff creators have said was canon *all* the time. It's generally accepted on Tumblr as a whole that cishet or white readings and/or canon characters are boring, if not outright inferior. So it strikes me as... weird that that 'gay Sherlock' had been openly proclaimed to be problematic, and indeed this was often 'excused' by people saying he's otherwise queer (as in, aro ace). I suppose actually outright defending 'straight Sherlock' was usually avoided (even by people who obviously did read him as heteroromantic) through deflection or moving the goalposts: we're all straight fangirls fetishizing gay men, and then blaming/invoking Mofftiss or insisting the show was bad.

In the end, as is typical on Tumblr, it became just another senseless bout of SJW-style discourse, I suppose, so that many people arguing Sherlock was gay were arguing that he *should* be or we deserved it and so on, including many instances of supporting toxic masculinity (ie, he's too fashionable, too affectionate or not indiscriminately sexual enough to be a straight man). Of course, heteronormativity and a rather stubborn insistence on a narrow understanding of 'canon' and/or Authorial Intent held sway on the opposite side, no matter what people liked to claim. Naturally, bad arguments are simply par for the course.

Anyway, my point is that headcanons saying 'this character is actually canonically queer' are part of a widespread and widely accepted discourse on Tumblr. It coincides with but is separate from an actual *queer reading* that uses or requires evidence. Like, it's a bit quaint to even talk about evidence for headcanons or interpretations nowadays, it seems to me. I've certainly seen posts that implied or indeed explicitly rejected the idea of needing evidence for such readings. Projection (headcanons) are overwhelmingly the default in fandom, including headcanons that seek to define and/or overwrite canon (which was the sort of thing people said they found problematic about TJLC). So it's in *that* context that it causes a bit of cognitive dissonance to realize this wasn't as prevalent even a couple of years ago. And I also feel a bit hopeless in insisting, 'wait, no, this isn't what I mean; I'm actually talking about the text'.

The thing that I'd really like to argue is about the need to create a *space* for queerness. That is, I'd like to dismiss heteronormativity rather than insisting that any given character *must* be gay, or otherwise queer. In the case of Sherlock, I feel like it's more important to note that he's *not straight*. I don't mean he's 'not straight' the way *any* character doesn't have to be read as being straight no matter what, or that he's Sherlock Holmes and therefore *can't* be straight, or even that he's queer as in 'different', the way people argue regarding nonhuman characters such as Data or Castiel. I mean that the narrative of Sherlock intentionally creates a null space, a silent space where Sherlock is literally always silent or deflecting about his sexuality even though he's obsessed with getting in a last word, as John says in ASiB. It's literally canonically ambiguous, and it's deeply frustrating to me that this isn't simply taken as fact. I think it's fine to take that a step further and call Sherlock gay, and it's fine to not go any further and admit his orientation is either presented as irrelevant or ambiguous (in canon). It's just that this ambiguity doesn't mean he's automatically either asexual or heteroromantic by default.

I suppose it's a fair question to ask, then: why is calling Sherlock gay different? Isn't this 'homonormativity', somehow, especially given the rather critical view of fandom's headcanons I just took?

First of all, homonormativity does not exist. That's my answer even in fandom-- even with everything I described. You simply *cannot* truly default to it aside from issues of individual projection, because heteronormativity is that omnipresent and ingrained in society at large. I would *prefer* that any and all fans could consider Sherlock-- or a similar character-- as being in a truly liminal, ambiguous space with regards to sexuality, because I think that's a useful mental habit to get into in order to undermine one's inevitably ingrained heteronormativity. However, 'gay Sherlock' doesn't have to take away from that in the same way a straight or purely asexual reading would, because of the existence of heteronormativity and its unfortunate perpetuation and normalization through the desexualization of queer-coded characters. This is to do with the history of the portrayal of queer characters in film. As long as 'odd' or 'non-straight' characters weren't portrayed sexually or shown to be romantically involved, they were allowed to continue uncensored. Besides that, you really cannot default to actual asexuality, any more than to homosexuality; aside from a pure headcanon that exists totally apart from the text, it would need to be explicitly portrayed and established in its own right. This is something only heterosexuality would be exempt from. In other words, in the heteronormative environment we all exist in, no character can be *assumed* to be either gay or asexual. It has to be shown or otherwise coded. Sherlock, of course, *is* queer-coded. It may look and sound just like the rampant fannish headcanons, but it's actually a reading based on strong textual evidence.

I think I like the 'non-straight' reading best, though. I like how uncomfortable it is. I like how it's there *just* to confront heteronormativity, how it stands apart from any explanation or headcanon to explain it away. It just *is*, like the text. I do think that we *should* name things; there's power and meaning to naming these things, and it's not just about outing characters for no reason, like Gatiss might think. At the same time, I'll admit I do like how sexual ambiguity still makes people uncomfortable, even if they think they're fine with 'gay people' (properly labeled, of course). We could certainly use more of that, too.

#fandom meta #queerlock #pointless rambles #sherlock feels #gay sherlock #oh fandom #the great divergence #queer issues #tjlc