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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 month

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Was I an ahole for warning mutual's friend about his past? 🫶

I had a mutual in a big fandom circa 2017-2018. She was kinda sweet but shy, sometimes really bitter at people so I didn't get too close but we chatted often. Now my fandom had a big incest/ pedo shipping problems and she was one of the few people on my tl who were loudly opposed to it. I don't think she sent hatemails but she ranted in tags or her own posts often. Saying this because we had a few older fandom friends who were much more vocal and she followed their words like gospel. So the conclusion was like a betrayal.

Some years later I felt her slowly ghosting me before she finally left fandom and deleted her account. Then she came back after a few months in a new persona, totally new fandom, going by they/them, no attachment to their previous fandoms, like a new person. I don't know if they meant to hide their past or not. They contacted me and we became moots again.

Then after maybe a year I noticed that we were no longer mutual, we sort of ghosted each other as our interests diverged more so no big deal.

About 4 years since then I found myself getting into the thing they were last into. I accidentally stumbled upon their popular posts and decided to reconnect. They were going by he/him now so he was very nice and welcoming. He told me to chat with him and ask anything I needed to know, recced good blogs etc. We chatted frequently as it seemed like he was a completely different person, no longer shy or bitter, very openly into shipping and smut, happily engaging with dead dove content in the new fandom. This one also has canon incest, so I asked how he coped, he said he lost his mind in the old fandom he just filters the unwanted things out.

Now I don't know, how he changed that much or became friends with incest shippers, how he could be so casually okay with this when he was vocal about supporting survivors before. Then I saw him reblog posts shitting on sex repulsed people and some about BPD too. It wasn't hard to figure out why he changed so drastically.

I got really angry that day and accidentally sent a message to one of his "proship" mutuals how he really used to be. That guy saw my message, then blocked me, then my moot also blocked me without a word. I have regrets but I don't know what to do. Am I wrong for wanting him to not be friends with incest shippers? I miss him and I don't think he shipped them but he still joked about shipping them and being annoying. The last fandom harassed me a lot over not liking brother brother incest so I only have bad feelings. I don't think incrst shipping should be banned or anything extreme I just think they should have a separate platform so only they can see it.

#aita #am i the asshole #incest cw #ship discourse #misgendering cw

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mecachrome · 2 months

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landoscar ao3 stats — 2023 overview

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retrieved ~sometime in march 2024

methodology: scraped metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag and...... that's it. however one important constraint is that all temporal data is date updated (not posted), so the above timeline isn't exactly a true representation of fic growth but rather how many fics were last-updated at that time. of course this is still its own reflection of fandom health in a way since dead fandoms don't update old fic but well... it's just not quite the same!

this is just info about general trends, fic content, tags etc... so nothing about kudos/comments or any authors specifically

i decided to focus solely on fics last-updated in 2023 (unless otherwise mentioned) because i wanted a tidy set that i can maybe compare & contrast in a year's time, because i expect a lot of details to look different then (tho as stated above this set isn't exactly static... 🤷‍♀️)

ngl i had to re-scrape a bunch of times because i forgot about it for like 3 weeks and then there were 100 new fics 😭 so if there are some minor discrepancies across the post it's because of that halfskh.

also i wanted to include more global comparisons (aka how 814 stack up against the f1 rpf tag in general), but this is also considerably difficult in some contexts since i can't exactly scrape 31,000+ fics can i... or i didn't even want to entertain the thought of trying to do so!!!

why did i do this? who knows.

anyway here's some viz T__T

ship growth

as evidenced in the opening graph, landoscar have been a very fast-growing ship over the past year — although interestingly enough they didn't really start growing substantially until july / the ~better half~ of the 2023 season. here are two views showing their "growth" (by date updated) alongside two other ships on the fringes of the f1 rpf top 10 (sebchal & galex):

landoscar are very much on-track to surpass them and officially enter the top 10 soon, likely before mid-april ❗️ :o

ship characteristics

onto the ship content — another thing i was mildly curious about was how landoscar differs in certain areas from other f1 ships, or the f1 rpf "global" average you could say. for example, here's a breakdown of rating popularity in their ao3 tag:

seeing as explicit is their most common rating, and that i don't necessarily expect this to be true for all ships/fandoms, i compared these percentages with the general f1 rpf tag to see whether some ratings are more commonly represented in 814 fic than average, which produced interesting results:

do lando ships simply skew more HornyTM in general? is it oscar? a secret third thing??? who knows... actually i think it would be fun to do more analysis in this direction but that can wait for another time!!!

similarly i also wanted to see which ships are the most "public" on ao3, as in have the highest share of fic that isn't user-locked... i will refrain from peppering in my feelings about the 4th wall too heavy-handedly but i was curious to see whether some sort of perhaps... er, generational gap (?) of sorts between ships that are more public vs. not could be identified. however i don't pretend to have any takeaways from this LOL i conclude absolutely nothing. (for ref landoscar is currently 72% public, vs. a global avg of 63%)

note that this graph is current stats, not filtered for 2023

looking at relationship tags, i also wanted to know whether landoscar suffer noticeably from Second-Ship Syndrome, so i tallied the first-tagged ship of every fic to find out. i know this doesn't necessarily mean that it's always the "main" ship but it's a good enough approximation. the results were quite positive!

filtered to top ships with count of >1 only

i then also calculated the number of ships tagged for each fic to discern the profile of multi-shipping in 814 ficdom; i did have to do a little bit of string standardization (all instances of implied / background / hinted collapsed to hinted for simplicity's sake + removal of other redundancies), but otherwise i left everything mostly untouched.

as you can see, landoscar also have a fairly promising amount of OTP: TRUE fic:

by the time you get to the fics with 10+ ships tagged, landoscar are less likely to be the primary ship, which makes sense just on a basic statistical level... this is also a very small sample size though

i also lazily tallied the 10 most common ships that weren't NOR/PIA or NOR & PIA to diff their shares of the 814 tag vs. of the general f1 rpf tag, to see which other pairings are more represented in the 814 tag than on average (because lestappen are the most popular by pure count but this is also true of fandom in general, so it would be a misrepresentation to say that their popularity is out of the ordinary):

maxiel's gap isn't really that surprising since i think that, generationally, in terms of when both pairings were teammates there is quite a gap; with carlando—actually let me tally this again but including all instances of "implied" and "past" as being part of the same ship, since that's how ao3 tag-wrangles as well:

Aha ! obviously as a direct ship there is competition between 814 and other lando or oscar ships, but this difference is somewhat less pronounced once we include all formats. tbh none of this really means anything but i thought i'd add it anyway... (it's also very possible that there are several errors in this, in which case my b 😔)

before we move on to additional tags, there are a few more basic characteristics of 814 fic we can calculate. i realize i never offered an overview of Super Basic Stats, so here are a few:

plus, looking at word counts, here is a distribution of those in 2023-updated fic, which shows that a majority of 814 fics were under the 5k mark:

85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & nearly 97% under 25k

i don't really have any reason to believe that landoscar's wc stats differ significantly from average ? so this is kind of just Data To Have Data, and it most likely reflects normal ao3 trends in general... but i thought i'd include it anyway because i already made it lol. similarly, here are word count distributions but stratified by rating:

& same info but heat map view:

i feel like this is also probably something you'd find across fandom in general — that gen fic is likely to have a higher share of under 1k works, since Building Up to sexual content often takes... Literal & Metaphorical Foreplay ! and the longer a fic is the more opportunities an author has to include a sex scene or other explicit content (ofc, not necessarily just porn but also graphic violence & so on). but i thought this was fun to visualize haha

additional tags & aus?

back in my old f1 rpf stats post, i made a table comparing fluff/angst "ratios" (not exactly a direct ratio because of how tag wrangling works, but an approximation) of the most popular f1 ships, and now that landoscar are somewhat popular i thought i'd first do an update:

also current data, not 2023 to make things easier

just like before, simi are one of the most fluffy ships and brocedes are by far the most angsty, but it's interesting to see 814 also extremely high up on the charts, with far and away the lowest % of angst. will be exciting 2 see how that holds or changes as the seasons progress !

finally, i also wanted to do a bit of au/additional tag analysis because you can kind of see this when you use additional filters on ao3 but the previews are limited and get bogged down by the prevalence of *checks notes* Fluff, Angst, PWP, Anal Sex and what have you. which are nice stats to have and all but what of the rest !

disclaimer that the set for these tables is a biiiit outdated because by the time i'd wrangled everything i was like I Am Not Changing It Again. unfortunately i clean my data with shoddy queries and regex functions in googsheetz...

there were 48 tags with at least 10 instances from 2023 fics, shown below, with ones that are (some ~vaguely) nsfw in red just to kind of get a rough sense of which tags get commonly used in M/E fic:

getting a bit too much into small sample size / specific fic territory so if you're an author i sincerely apologize for that... do not mean 2 put u on blast... TT__TT but i also tried to tally the most popular aus people write for 814, which is a bit dubious because people tag in really different ways and i had to accommodate for a lot of string formats but ... it's close enough ! (?)

i feel like this is very little interesting info but idk what else to add so i will stop here for now... well!!! if you made it to the end i hope u learned something or even vaguely enjoyed reading T__T and most of all thank you :')

#*m #landoscar #in a sense 😔#tfw don't have a tableau license so i live life on the edge across multiple unsaved desktop public files......#if ur interested in anything specific pls lmk before my computer inevitably Dies and deletes everything...!#this is so useless nsdflshdfh. Anyway

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orionsangel86 · 2 months

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Content Filters - Your New Best Friend!

I dont think we take advantage of content filters enough. So I'm putting together a little tutorial in case anyone isn't aware of them.

Now we may all be aware of tag filters, both via tumblr saviour and also tumblrs in built tag filtration system.

But that still runs into issues as some people just dont tag their posts, and therefore some posts will still find their way to the dashboards of people that dont want to see certain content that they have blocked.

If you are in a small fandom, sometimes popular content that you arent interested in can become quite prevailent and unavoidable even if you have tags blocked. But there IS a way to avoid that content regardless of whether people are tagging their posts or not

CONTENT FILTERS.

Content filters work by blocking certain words that appear in posts. If there is a certain thing that you really want to avoid, you can just block that word or phrase and boom! You'll never have to see it and everyone will be happier for it. If you don't know where the content filters are, I can show you. On tumblr mobile go to account settings:

Then scroll down to "content you see":

Here you will find the filtered tags:

And if you're anything like me you'll have a nice long list of blocked tags to curate your feed.

However if you just scroll down to the bottom of your blocked tags list, you'll find this:

Here is where you add words you wanna block. You can block trigger words, you can block things like "blood" if thats not your jam, you can block "omegaverse" if that gives you a squick, and you can also block ship names and names of whole fandoms if you find them annoying (blocking Supernatural may help with your mental health lmao).

It can be overzealous, so its best to block phrases more than random words as those words can be used in many contexts after all (which is why its excellent for blocking fandom ships as those are usually portmanteaus that wont appear in regular language). Blocking the word "omega" may be a bit too wide a net for instance, but blocking something like "omega Dream" will work wonders and calm those buldging temple veins.

Now this is just a tumblr app tutorial but I believe the content filters are in the same place on desktop. Its not hard to find them and I strongly suggest everyone uses them.

We all want to have a peaceful pleasant fandom experience, and as always, the best way to do that is to CURATE YOUR OWN SPACE. I'm someone who loves searching in the fandom tags, so I dont rely on following/unfollowing to curate my feed. I often expose myself to things in the tags i may prefer to avoid, or maybe I follow people for some content but dont wanna see other content they reblog. Either way, the content filters protect me from triggers, things that squick me out, and content I just find annoying.

Whilst we can all ask that people tag appropriately, it is never the OPs fault if you have seen something you don't want to see. You have all the tools available to you to avoid everything you dont like. Use them.

#tumblr etiquette #content filters #tagging systems #the sandman #fandom #fandom problems #curate your experience #no shade towards anyone here #but please stop with the drama #its not necessary

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utilitycaster · 23 days

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like actually it's wild to me as someone who mostly exists on the fringes of the D20 fandom, since CR is by far my main one, that a lot of the really popular voices there are popular fanartists who low-key hate like 99% of what D20 is and tend to fixate on like, ships between barely-seen side characters. Like okay, so you don't like D&D as a system and think it's inherently imperialist and violent; you don't like that they no longer do hour-long Adventuring Parties (which started when they were in full lockdown and quickly ended once the industry was back on fairly regular footing); you don't like that they joke around in the talkback show even though that's true of every AP talkback show and I listen to at least four of them; you don't like the D20 formula of ending with a big combat at the end; and you don't like that characters weren't redeemed because you feel as though the narrative didn't give them time to be redeemed and this season should have been longer despite it being standard length for an Intrepid Heroes season and "the narrative" is shaped by Brennan Lee Mulligan, DM, as well as the cast's choices.

Like, real talk, I watch/listen to a lot of actual play and at least four talkback shows (for CR, NADDPod, WBN, and sometimes D20) and when fans get mad that the talkback has too much joking around it's an almost flawless litmus test that person hates the show but their blorbo is on it or their fandom identity rests on it or some other sunk cost fallacy. And if they start talking about the story as if it is not driven by the DM and the cast, you know they're really mad about the DM-ing and the cast choices but are too cowardly to say "Hey, I disliked what Brennan did here." And if you add it to the fact that D20's fandom in particular has a real problem with "liking the right stories is activism :)" and this story doesn't spell out Capitalism is the BBEG (thought it does, hilariously, take some very good shots at Evangelical Christianity and the hypocrisy of the religious right) you get this. I really think a lot of these people don't like D20 much; they like some platonic ideal of D20 mixed in with no small dose of their own personal desires and it's like, if you want a more than 20 episode series that's low combat...why are you going to D20.

#people going FULL conspiracy theorist too like did the writer's strike hurt it? why isn't this the brennan i know BECAUSE YOU DON'T #d20 tag

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epickiya722 · 27 days

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Of course, Izuku can't have his moment without some people having an issue about it.

Not surprised, anything involving Izuku Midoriya someone is going to hate and has been for almost 10 years now.

Here's the thing that honestly has pissed me off about the fandom. And you know what, I know some of you are going to think I'm a bitch about this, but at this point? I don't care. I'm now at a limit that has been pushed.

When it comes to Izuku Midoriya, some of you seem to forget that he is an individual. This is still HIS story he's telling.

Look, I got my ships, but damn it. Sometimes, I want these characters to still be perceived as their own characters.

Katsuki showing up this chapter was enough for me. Yes, he is a big part of Izuku's story, but... I feel like it would not be right for him to be more included in AFO and Shigaraki's ultimate defeat.

Last time I checked, Katsuki was only a temporary OFA user... FROM A MOVIE. His journey didn't completely evolve around One For All. Izuku's did.

When Katsuki was having his awesome moments fighting AFO when he was a kid and a baby (AFO), I ain't seen no one going "Oh, Izuku should be by his side, BakuDeku" or anything like that. No, y'all was cheering Katsuki on and seemed satisfied that Izuku served as support.

That's all this fandom ever does is see as Izuku as support for Katsuki, just he always has to have his story evolve around Katsuki and nothing else.

He's the main character, but with some of you? He's not allowed to have his own moments to shine. He's not allowed to think about anything else but Katsuki. He's not allowed to put down the villain he was meant to face unless Katsuki is there to take the shine away.

Be honest, that's how you feel, isn't it?

Like, damn, Katsuki already won the last how many popularity polls!! When are y'all going to rest and let Izuku Midoriya be front row and center in his own damn story?!

I don't hate Katsuki, but I'm starting to dislike a lot of his fans.

Same for Shoto.

Look, Shoto also being more involved like how some of y'all wanted for this chapter would make no fucking sense to me. His fight was always meant to be against Dabi. His story involved his family. Izuku wasn't there fighting Dabi, so why in the hell should Shoto share some of the big moment when Izuku takes out ShigAFO?

How would that be fair for Izuku?

Some of you didn't even like Izuku being involved with the family drama and later he wasn't for the big fight because the Todoroki Family Drama wasn't for him.

As with Katsuki, Shoto is still a supporting character. He's a big one, but oh my gosh!!

I literally just woke up and the bull I'm already seeing is ridiculous, it is.

Sometimes, I feel like some of you who think they know the story haven't been paying attention at all. Some of you, I feel have that "this character should have been the main character" mentality so when Izuku does MC things, you go into some frenzy over it. Some of you, I feel should take off the damn shipping goggles and for once realize that these characters are still individuals and percieve them as such. Horikoshi, if you read this... don't make any ship canon. The fandom can settle for fics.

Ten years... for ten years... as much as some of you demean Katsuki for his actions, you act just as he did towards Izuku. Treat Izuku like some damn punching bag. You don't even have to like the story, I don't give a damn.

He gets moments to shine, it's a problem. "No, this character should be---" Just stop!

I'm not saying Horikoshi's writing is perfect. I'm not saying you have to like Izuku. I'm not even saying I'm an expert on BNHA because I'm still learning the story, too.

But what I am saying is, and it's going to sound bitchy, is that y'all are so blinded and muddled by your criticism and shipping that you're quick to make judgments. You're quick to rush and not sit back and really try to understand what's going on and your hatred or indifference towards Izuku is just doing a disservice to not just the story, but to yourselves. The way some of you think will ruin the experience for you and some of you sound like jerks, for real.

Like, every character is important to BNHA in some way, yes. But what about Izuku Midoriya? Doesn't his importance matter, too?

Or is he just some character for you to hate on or some character you only value for shipping purposes?

Feel how you about this chapter (even though it was just leaks and not the officially out chapter, let alone THE WHOLE DAMN STORY!! BNHA AIN'T FINISHED YET!!), I don't care.

But oh my gosh... do better, just do better.

It isn't just this fandom. It's all fandoms. There's this trend now of "criticizing" the main characters or saying "they're not really the MC" or how their value as a character for shipping purposes.

This can apply to any character, but right now I'm focusing on main characters.

When it comes to main characters, you should understand them most of all to understand the story and a lot of you or at least the loud minority have failed drastically.

#i mean it is still HIS damn story #i get some criticisms like pacing alright #but come on #izuku get behind me 99.8% of this fandom don't care about you #'but i do--' no you don't no the fuck you don't #just kiya's thoughts #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha 423 #bnha manga spoilers #bnha spoilers #bnha leaks #mha leaks #midoriya izuku #izuku midoriya #deku

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ecoterrorist-katara · 14 days

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love love love ur parentification analysis on sokka and katara especially katara’s section! it puzzles me so when KA’s say ZK’s do not understand the show nor katara when to me it’s so obvious we do 😭

thank you so much anon! I’m so happy that my post resonated with you!

A while back I saw a Tumblr survey about favourite characters and ships. It basically showed that for people whose favourite character is Katara, Zutara is the most popular ship. Obviously the Venn diagram between Zutara shippers and Katara fans isn’t a circle, but I think the overlap contributes to why so many ZKs are passionate about Katara. Also, ZKs who are Katara fans tend to be pretty flexible with Katara ships: many people like Harutara / Jiangtara / Yuetara / Sukitara / Azutara (though most shippers of Azutara tend to be Azula stans first and Katara stans second). What’s really funny and a little sad to me is that non-ZK Katara fans who dislike her canon arc get accused of being ZKs by antis (this happens weirdly often to @sapphic-agent). It’s like some antis can’t comprehend the idea that people might just love Katara without the ship war.

I generally like reading POVs from Katara fans of all ships, but I recently discovered that I tend to disagree with POVs from Zukka shippers. They often try to defend Katara’s “childhood” by pointing out that Katara sometimes goofs off and Sokka also takes responsibility, so she’s not just the “mom friend.” To be clear I’m not disagreeing with those points, but I don’t think downplaying her parentification trauma is defending her childhood, especially since goofing off & being impulsive make her parentification more realistic, not less. It feels kind of disingenuous to accuse the fandom of being the ones to parentify her when The Runaway exists, especially since they downplay Katara’s parentification in order to play up Sokka’s parentification. There’s nothing feminist about ignoring the invisible labour performed by a woman in a cartoon, not when brave women IRL have been agitating to recognize care work for literal decades. I wrote my undergrad thesis on invisible labour performed by women, especially women of colour, in radical activist spaces…so I feel really strongly about this.

I think it’s interesting that a lot of ATLA fans claim Katara shouldn’t be with Zuko on the grounds of her colonial trauma, but refuse to entertain the notion that maybe she shouldn’t be with Aang (a kid who evades responsibility) because of her parentification trauma. The murder of her mother stems from imperialist violence, but her subsequent parentification stems from patriarchal gender norms around divisions of labour and assignations of responsibility. The patriarchy is a thing in ATLA, and it’s canonically something that Katara hates almost as much as the Fire Nation (incidentally, reason 27363729 why the fic Southern Lights is so special to me is how it deftly explores both anger at a colonial apparatus & anger at your own people for their patriarchal oppression).

#zutara #pro zutara #stanning Katara like it’s my job #can i ask you a question?#anti zukka shippers #unfortunate bc again I like Zukka…I’m still foaming at the mouth for Feels Like We Only Go Backwards to update #anti kataang #Katara parentification discourse

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boneywones · 26 days

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talking about the excuse of “fiction doesn’t affect reality” in proshipping and how the excuse itself doesnt hold up. + some other tiny points about my opinion on some proshipping things.

firstly i want to say that the excuse of “fiction doesnt affect reality” does not hold up. it is also in fact, incorrect.

fiction does affect reality, you can see it happening through propaganda or any types of fiction at all. like for example, the jaws movie (a work of fiction) had greatly influenced peoples opinions on sharks and how people interpret them. the jaws movie in itself had shown sharks to be heartless creatures that eat humans, which is most definitely false. (How Jaws Influenced Shark Perception – Shark Stewards, Shark fear: Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water... | ScienceDaily for reference.)

propagandas term is quite simple to explain. spreading misinformation to change a persons opinion, or moreso political views in some cases. misinformation is indeed fictional, as it is not real. a lot of cases of propaganda has been shown through the years, and it has obviously shown that it has had an impact on reality and real peoples perspective on things.

another way that fiction can affect reality is if people give out enough false information that it can highly change the minds of people online or in real life. if people give false ideologies of certain types of people, then people will follow that false narrative and build up an opinion based on false facts. for example, a man online gives out a lot of false information about women. an impressionable minor or teenager will come across it, then learn from that person. this has been shown through podcasts that you see online, or people that give out false dating advice and what women want.

though sometimes fiction can affect reality in a positive way, like when fictional pieces give out positive messages and can positively influence people. messages or the “moral of the story” can let children learn what is right and wrong. this can affect how children think, and how they act when they grow up later in life.

now onto proshipping, or proshipping media specifically. first, lets talk about how the ship frans (frisk x sans) had deeply and negatively affected the utmv/undertale fandom.

back when the undertale fandom was starting to gain popularity, the ship frans had as well. a lot of people found out about this ship from comic dubs, which further pushed more popularity to it. since this media was circulating and was nearly everywhere, children or people in general had started to think that the ship was normal since they had consumed so much media of it and saw people liking it. if you do not know, frisk is a child and sans is an adult. this is a pedophilic ship. (its also not excusable to “age up” the minor/child, as the ship itself is pedophilic. if you need an excuse to ship something that romanticises real life problems, then why ship it at all?)

this is the same with fontcest, as i have seen a fair few people state that they used to ship one or the other (even both in some cases) because they were influenced by the behaviour of others around them. you get what im saying, now?

// anyway super unrelated but not rly but i think proshippers should openly state that they are in fact proshippers on their mains instead of making people look for shit so they can get full confirmation,, (the fact that i see so much people not know that some people they follow are proshippers is so fucking alarming??) also i think adult proshippers should push minors out of their little “community” instead of letting people like themselves groom minors into thinking the same things as them,,,, think thats just me tho!!!!!!! (/sarc) and to all the minor proshippers, please stay safe and get the help you need /srs /nm /gen 🫶

+ to the adult proshippers that actively make media that are about incestuous ships, i need you 2 know that doing something like that is normalising and romanticising incest ☺️ i dont care if its fiction, its still incest. there is no excuse to make normalised and sexualised media of incest.

#proshippers dni #proship dni #pros dni #proshipper dni #proshipping dni #tw pedophila mention #tw incest mention #yeah i yapped!!!!!#the yapperrrrrrr #/ref #yeah proshippers fucking dni or something!!!!!!!!#just block me i dont wanna hear you crying and pissing your pants

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anghraine · 5 months

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I saw a popular author post about how, while of course Elizabeth has some obligatory flaws, Darcy's are exponentially more severe, and it was like stepping into a view so far removed from mine that it was almost disorienting.

The thing is, I periodically see people wondering why Elizabeth/Darcy is such a behemoth in Austen fandom when either/both of them have substantial flaws that the narrative doesn't shy away from. Their flaws aren't identical, but they do obviously mirror each other and are thematically intertwined, with reflecting character arcs and specific beats. As I see it, the novel maintains a tense and careful balance between them—not in terms of centrality (Elizabeth's mistakes and growth are more central to the narrative than Darcy's IMO) but in terms of the weight given their flaws and virtues.

And for me that's essential to their appeal!

I love plenty of other Austen characters and relationships, but for me, personally, none of the other canon pairings are balanced in such a fun and satisfying way. The closest (and the other most conventionally romantic pairing in Austen IMO) is probably Anne/Wentworth, where at least the choices of both of them are heavy contributors to their current problems. But a) the novel is ambivalent as to whether Anne actually erred morally in the first place and b) that is long in the past by the time of the novel; the Anne of the main story of Persuasion is a fairly idealized figure by contrast to Wentworth.

I sometimes see arguments that, say, Anne or Mr Knightley or Elinor Dashwood or whomever are actually as flawed and prone to error as their romantic counterparts, but I just ... don't buy it, honestly. As far as canon Austen goes, I only really see that balance in the course of the main story with Elizabeth/Darcy. P&P loves them and holds them up as admirable (and they are!), but it also loves undercutting them in clearly paralleling ways and does it over and over throughout the novel.

So the idea of an Elizabeth and Darcy where one of them has obligatory storytelling flaws that can't seriously be compared to the other's is just ... blah. It cuts out the fundamental interconnection and resonance between them that I think is built into the structure of the novel down to its bones and is what makes their relationship special. A lot of stories pay lip-service to that kind of dynamic, sure, but despite the many (many) imitators, I don't often see it done successfully. But P&P is the real deal.

So yeah, when people are like "why do people like Elizabeth with Darcy so much when she could have a different man who doesn't make serious mistakes" I'm just thinking ... why on earth would I want Elizabeth "there was truth in his looks" Bennet with someone who would never make mistakes on that level? Or when people are like, Darcy's just misunderstood, wouldn't he be better off with Jane [or another relatively idealized female character] it's like ... hell no, I love him, but I do not want to inflict him on that poor woman.

It's not that there's something wrong with multishipping them (I've written alternate pairings for both!) or shipping them with other people, but just in terms of the novel as it exists, I do think the balance and echoes between them are part of what makes the novel work and one of the sources of their long-standing popularity. And I feel that trying to pin the "real" blame on one or the other up-ends that balance and diminishes a lot of what I, at least, find appealing about the dynamic between them.

#anghraine babbles #anghraine rants #austen blogging #austen fanwank #otp of otps #elizabeth bennet #fitzwilliam darcy #long post

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olderthannetfic · 1 month

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(spellchecking this was a nightmare; I got sent this a while back as a response to a topic I commented on, where I basically agreed there is an oversaturation issue of a specific nature form not friendly people making the community they clam to be supporting look bad in the process. I agree with them but what is your take?)

First off no hate intended but I sometimes forget form past experiences that Mod (s) form a specific blog get bit heated around the shipper issue. (Fujoshi is the proper term for this specific shipper type; but tumblr has issues with that term being used in its proper context. there is actually a darker reason why this became a term its a Idol culture rabbit hole to be saved for later.) As for the topic I genuinely believe that they can't really relate to this topic without proper context. A great deal of this is probably because they defend who they should not and I will do my best to explain this issue without calling anyone out. No hate intended, I like to see the best in people and encourage that to grow more as individuals. The fandom in question is pretty small but the issue is not. There are other fandoms that can relate thou this one is for a game genre. I can't fathom why people defend other users for this horrible behavior towards others just because they ship the only popular guy on guy ship in the fandom.

Lets start by providing context, there are two different types of user here the kind that just mind their business and enjoy their ship, these ones are not the issue, and (lets call them Troublemakers since tumblr hates the term. The term literally means "Filthy Girl" and more importantly I know why it means this but that is somewhat irrelevant here and not the topic.) Basically I really want to understand why no one is calling out their vile behavior because to me its just as bad to not hold them accountable for the bad things they do just because they throw around a trigger or two. I am not saying they can not better themselves, just that not frowning upon their actions does not help them.

Sorry for the long clarification I just wanted to make this clear before getting to the topic because this is about a specific set of individuals, not he group as a whole and I think some people forget that this is a thing with said group. The inconvenient truth is there is a good and bad way to handle it, ignoring the issue and praying it goes away is not a way to handle it.

NOW FOR THE STORY: Because it is a general issue we shall improvise with names, it also makes cleanup easer). In this Game story the ML (Author) and the FL (Gwen) are portrayed as having a deeper bond, the only other character (Lance) also has a deep bond but is a different relationship entirely and you can tell form the interactions hinted at the the deep lore.

During the course of the story Lance becomes cannon fodder for Author's development after he makes a bad deal; yet his tragedy is not a total loss for Lance as lore in this story says Lance IS able to warn Author of a plot form his father that would lead to Author being turned into a literal human puppet.

Here is where the Trublemakers come in, They have been drawing people into the fandom claiming that a offshoot of the story in question that is teased could be centered around Author and Lance as a couple to spite the writers of this series saying if Author were to get with anyone it would be Gwen.

They also mention that is not where they want Authors story to go. Basically developers were saying that the romantic openness is just that an openness to interpret the relationship as romantic and something they only put with Gwen and Author. They also clarify that Authors relationship with Lance before Author has to end him is a "Brothers in Arms" one thou they are very close as friends they are not romantic.

Lances story is meant to be a tragedy as you discover Lance was not in the best of health in the game he even says he "Made a deal with a devil and regrets it" and it is hinted that this deal has taken his freedom form him rendering Lance nothing more than a tool for the Antagonist to use against Author in the end. When Author makes the final blow Lance thanks him for finally freeing him form his terrible fate. This isn't to dog on the ship but in the end the issue is the Trublemakers are ruining the chances of this small fandom to grow by trying push that this is a canon Pairing when its a tragedy that was meant to grow the Protagonists resentment towards his father who is hinted as being the devil in question. Something that is meant to progress to the final confrontation where the protagonist is given a choice to side with his father (become the human puppet) or rebel against him which leads to his fathers tragic end after the epic final battle of this story. This series is NOT sunshine and rainbows it is classified as a Dark Fantasy hence why we using fantasy references. and Cannon fodder like Lance is common in this genre. The concern is that the Trublemakers are creating false expectations for incoming fans about the series; sadly Lance is not likely to come back, thou he was developed as a character who could, as it is made abundantly clear that Lance in the end found his freedom in his passing. The Bad actors are making light of the fact Lance sacrificed himself to Warn Author and is in some since disrespectful to the writers as well who are trying to not falsely advertise the games story or genre. Oh but it gets worse; in the fandoms they are literally intimidating and bothering fans that refuse to shill the ship going after people who just do not post the things and that could be any reason what so ever there. It could even be personal preference we are talking full on attack mode, hiding behind a gray face, trashing people behind their back to people they interact with exc. So enter my dilemma; am I really wrong for thinking this behavior is bad? I do not feel as if its right to consider my stance here flawed or worthy of scorn and hate. My concern is not the ship existing but the bad actors that are in it being coddled when they behave just as vile as the "Unicorns" in the Idol fanbase trying to force real people to bone to appease their single sex couple fetishes. (That is literally why its so bad I did say it was a Rabbit hole, thou the term Hole is a gorse understatement of how deep.)

Ahahaha. What the actual fuck is this?

Am I understanding you that most of this is a c&p of something you received? Okay, then, let's break it down.

Okay, big picture:

It is bad to pressure creators to make your ship canon.

It is bad to pressure other fans to ship your ship or harass them for not posting enough about it.

But as for this little essay, no, of course I don't agree with it: It's so full of red flags it has barely any room for anything but red flags.

'Fujoshi' has a ~darker reason~? What? The history is simple: 2chan bros used a rude but kind of funny pun for women who were "spoiled"—i.e. undatable—because they liked m/m content. Those women found the pun amusing and reclaimed it for themselves. The end.

It's just the 'fu' from 'tofu' and is a pun on a homonym, 婦女子, that refers to a married woman. It's "rotten" like food going bad, not like moral depravity (though I'm sure the 2chan bros do think it's morally depraved for women not to cater to them).

Right off the bat, this is a red flag because it's trying to hint at some dark depths here that just are not present and are not a big deal. It's trying to set up a tone that the author has Special Knowledge and we should just trust them. Sheesh.

I am not saying they can not better themselves

And here we dive straight into "I'm just trying to help you" bullshit. This is condescending and creepy.

The description of the canon is convoluted and pointless. Brothers in arms is the main driver of oldschool m/m ships. Yes, of fucking course people are going to ship this.

"Baww, the creators said they didn't mean it that way!" What the actual fuck is this? Who cares what the creators think? Why is this essay fellating the idea of canon compliance?

"The het subtext was intentional!!!" is not an argument that anybody should be making because there is literally no reason fans should care which subtext was intentional when it comes to whether they ship something.

Almost the entire description of the canon could have been cut out to just leave:

"They have been drawing people into the fandom claiming that a offshoot of the story in question that is teased could be centered around Author and Lance as a couple to spite the writers of this series saying if Author were to get with anyone it would be Gwen."

Now... I think the second half of that is a reach. Are they actually doing it out of spite? What's the evidence? Canon's plot is not evidence.

Tinhats are a plague everywhere, they aren't usually doing it out of spite, and they aren't all m/m shippers. It's far more likely that a bunch of dummies are seeing shippy potential and extrapolating to think it's intentional and leading somewhere. Sherlock fandom was full of this. Many fandoms are.

But regardless, the first half does make sense as a complaint. If I'm understanding the situation correctly, some fans are bringing in new fans with false promises of canon m/m.

in the end the issue is the Trublemakers are ruining the chances of this small fandom to grow by trying push that this is a canon Pairing when its a tragedy that

Okay, you've lost me. You've lost every fan with a single particle of sense.

Don't talk about fandoms like you're talking about the third quarter profits of a corporation. That's obnoxious nonsense.

Either your fandom will grow organically or, most likely, it will not. Some annoying m/m shippers aren't the real reason: the fact that most things don't get that popular is the real reason.

Why aren't the het shippers or the gen fans able to draw in more people? Maybe the m/m ship is more interesting. Maybe these other fans should make more of an effort if they really want to treat fandom as a job or religious evangelism.

And moreover, who says tragedy and ships are opposites? Even canon ships! Even canon ships where someone died!

Look, I believe you/the person you're c&ping that this particular canon is not gearing up for "Lance" to come back, but considering how many fujoshi are still creaming themselves over The Untamed or Scum Villain, I really do not think that one of the dudes falling off a cliff or even dying for real is much of an impediment.

This is Tumblr, dude. Have you not seen that "Your greatest enemy will rise from the grave and never leave you alone" story? Come the fuck on!

If the canon's creators wanted to bring Lance back and make this BL, they could. If they prefer not to, that's fine.

The issue is entitled fans demanding that their vision be the creators' vision. Full stop.

The minute you try to hand-wring about the m/m aspect of it, you sound like a homophobic and/or misogynist douchebag. It does not matter what specific thing the demanding fans are demanding. It only matters if they're harassing people.

their single sex couple fetishes

And now we have the mother of all red flags!

Having sexual fantasies is not a ~fetish~. Clowns who think it is are not to be trusted. Does this person (you?) think that, what, idol band RPF fandoms are where the concept or term 'fujoshi' comes from? I have bad news about the levels of bonkers stalker bullshit the band guy/female self shippers pull, not to mention the bullying by people who just like a group and don't want anyone to like them the "wrong" way.

The issue is not horny thoughts. The issue is bullying and harassment.

What I'm hearing here is "Wah, wah, waaaah. Other fans of the game I like keep inviting their friends, and they all ship a ship I don't like! Won't someone think of the (near) canon het!"

That shit was tired and old in the 1970s. It's worse now.

If you cannot describe the harassment without resorting to all of this anti-m/m nonsense, you're never going to convince anyone that there's a problem.

If the issue is "These tinhats say X is going to be canon, but the creators have said it's not", ditch the other shit and just say that part.

M/M fans have dealt with the likes of the Johnlock Conspiracy before. We also hate annoying tinhats who create false expectations and over-promise canon m/m.

Just say:

It sucks when people pretend a canon is BL after the creators have said they aren't going to include m/m.

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 9 months

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I'm new to a fandom's tumblr. I draw sometimes. After joining and posting my art I realised there wasn't much of a community here despite the fandom being fairly big. I'm basically unknown, still I got anons asking if I shipped others things and one persistent anon trying to know why I'm into a certain unpopular dynamic. Not my first rodeo, I blocked the anon and turned off asks for the time being.

Then I made a couple friends and joined a few discords from tumblr and twitter where I learned about some inner politics. Turns out there's a very popular artist (late twenties) who is one of those situationally leftist, functionally conservative types. They selectively highlight marginalized voices they themselves agree with, speak over the rest, harass people over fandom wankery, is an Asian but is known to hate Asians in mainland because we're all fetishizers or wrong kind of queers (for example they don't follow a single native Asian artist in a manga fandom because we're all gross "proshitters"), very big into cyberbullying people over fiction and idpol etc. They're trans too.

I've been to 10+ fandoms before and this is most puritanical one. This place is fractured and miserable. The community is built around hating people and characters.

This artist who is a fandom leader of sorts, with over 40k followers on twitter and of course a large following on tumblr, has a lot of fans who got popular by mimicing their style and that's a way to get endorsed by them. You're either a fan of them and in their community or you're a rogue fan who will not see one millionth of the notes they get, they'll actively avoid you if you indicate you're into things they explicitly hate, worse of all they'll flood you with anon hate on all platforms. Many of their fans are young adults or teens who keep secret accounts to view said gross things and secretly support said gross artists while harassing those artists and some writers in the name of this leadar. They say they're scared to disagree.

The more I learn (with proof) about what sort of community they have the more I want to leave this fandom wholly, which they'd like so I'm not gonna do that technically.

Instead I'm thinking about doing something I saw another anon here do, which is to make an image of myself as all the things this person hates, maybe make arts of ships and dynamics they hate and that way get all their friends and their two faced coattail rider fans to leave me alone, potentially gain likeminded friends in the process.

WIBTA if I did that because that'd be lying to the masses?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #ship discourse

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pinkyjulien · 6 months

Text

I really, really hate the "Female V is canon" vs "Male V is canon" debate that been popping here and here in the tags those past weeks

Cyberpunk 2077 is a Role Playing Game, there is no "canon" protagonist, that's the whole point. We all have a different playstyles, different stories and headcanons, our custom V is The Canon V of Our Own playthroughs!

After Phantom Liberty dropped, I've seen a lot of players, on Tumblr or Twitter, voicing their concerne and disappointment in how much more Female V focused the official promo, videos and even in-game credits became

I was one of them too, expressing my feelings multiple times, sometimes awkwardly, frustrated that Male V players were once again brushed to the side, because that's how it feels like, right?

Well, it might feels like it, but this isn't the case AT ALL, far from it. This is only what I would call a "Fandom Phenomenon" and I want to talk more about it a bit

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine who works in the game industry and it opened my eyes on the matter, and I've since been really interested in seeing RPGs statistics!

Because it's really, really important to make the difference between the Casual Player Base (majority of players) and the Fans / Fandom Base (minority of players)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I always been lurking in fandoms here on Tumblr, since Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and now with Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3

First I want to drop some stats- might be completly wrong, but I'm only sharing my point of view here, in an attempt to explain why some people are frustrated with Female V being the focus (and why we shouldn't be!)

I think it's not wrong to say that fandoms are mostly occupied by women and fem-identifying individuals; fandoms are a safe place for players and fans to share their passions. Women are STILL HEAVILY harassed and hated in the gaming industry as a whole, it doesn't take a lot of digging to catch a vile comment on Twitter or on Twitch for example, you cannot go far without seeing someone either attacking or sexualizing them

This is a huge problem in the industry still, every games that release with a female protagonist get trashed- just look at the bullshit surrounding GTA 6 just because players will be able to play as a woman as an option

Fandoms are also safe for non-gender conforming people, non-binaries, trans people and queer men, but I think fem individuals and women are a clear majority, at least on Tumblr (only talking about genders identity here and not about being queer or not, not talking about sexualities or attraction) (not an official stat at all and only my point of view and experience from being on Tumblr since ~2012)

Now let's talk about Cyberpunk 2077- because this is my main fandom since 2020, and what prompted me to write this post in the first place

CDPR didn't share any stats recently, but it's REALLY SAFE to assume the MAJORITY of players are playing a straight Male V romancing Panam, followed by a lesbian Female V romancing Judy, but the player pools for both options are still majoritarly cis hetero men (and they are still the focus for AAA studios to sell their games, this is sadly just how it is)

However on the fandom side, Fem V was always the focus; virtual photography, mods, ships, OCs... She was always more popular than Male V, getting more interactions and notes and why trends like "Male V monday" were created and why there is still a lack of male V focused mods (non-binaries and trans fem folks and characters are also sadly under-represented in all type of content and art)

So, being yourself as a non-fem player, playing as a Masc V, seeing CDPR officially make the switch from Male V to Female V, when the space you've been in for the past 3 years has been overwhelmingly Female V focused on all front, was a bit of a punch in the guts; like I said earlier, I was reaaally frustrated with this too!

And I'd say it's "normal"? or at least "ok" to feel this way, it makes sense considering how little attention Male V in general get in the fans community

BUT. BUT... It's REALLY important here to realize how we sound and how we look like when we voice our frustrations on the matter; we sound and look just like all the misogynistic people over on Twitter who screams about "woke games" everytime there is a female protagonist in their "non political games". We have to remember that fandoms are suuuch a small part of the game industry

Baldur's Gate 3 recently shared their stats and this interesting tweet got into my dash

▶ tweet

Astarion is nowhere to be seen in the official most romanced companions statistic, but I'm sure a lot of people will agree that he's probably the most popular one in the fandom side!

Another stat here from Mass Effect and really interesting info coming from David Gaider about how the hardcore fanbase aka fandom's choices were WILDLY different from the casual / main player pool

▶ tweet

Getting my head out of the fandom bubbles and seeing the bigger picture, how much under-represented women still are in official medias (not talking about fan content) and how insanly misoginistic the game industry still is, both on the player and devs sides, helped me handle my own frustration on the matter, accept and even celebrate Female V being the focus for the Phantom Liberty campaign

With all that said tho, we all should be able to vent about the lack of Male, Masc and Non-Binary content in the fandom side, while still being aware of the industry state, it CAN co-exist! It doesn't make anyone a bad or misogynist person!

We are all humans and can be awkward and make mistakes, especially when voicing frustration or talking while in a negative mood. Let's educate one another in good-faithed manners when we slip instead of jumping to conclusion and throw accusations

Not gonna lie I kind of lost my train of thoughts and not sure how to finish this post, but I hope this can enlight some people on why CDPR made this choice!

Repeating this as a finale note; this doesn't mean that Female V is the "main" V or "canon" V . It's simply her time to shine, and it's well deserved! The industry needs it

#cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty #text #long post #like- LONG LONG post hgfhgf #hope my rambling makes sense #I legit been really interested in reading these statistics #hope CDPR will drop a similar sheet since the Ultimate edition is out :O #blah blah

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