#anyways. the aroace community is super positive and i like that. but not everything i feel about it is that positive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Ok, I want to vent about my personal experience with a subset of m/m shippers. I have a lot to say and I'm too afraid to express it to anyone. I have a friend who vehemently despises a particular m/m ship in my fandom (it's not a canon ship by any stretch of the imagination, just a popular fanon one) and she will openly say she hates it if asked and she's been attacked a lot for hating this ship and been called a homophobe and been told to kill herself etc. I feel the same but keep my mouth shut because I'm afraid of the same backlash. (Just to clarify, my friend doesn't seek out this content to hate on. In fact, she'd rather not see it at all and she actively blocks and mutes creators for this ship, she only talks about hating it if anyone asks her about it.)

So here's what I want to get off my chest. In my personal online experience, I have found that m/m shippers are the most pushy, rude and overbearing types of fans. This is not all m/m shippers, or even a majority. Most of them are great and very nice people but when there's bad behaviour, I usually have gotten it from toxic incel types and m/m shippers. I ship m/f of a popular 'bad ass' character that these kinds of incels like to think they identify with (wrong, the character is super respectful to women and is basically everything an incel isn't) but it triggers them a lot to see this guy they look up to being happy with a girl. So I think the incel reaction is self-explanatory.

But this subset of m/m shippers, and I've noticed them in all fandoms, I just don't understand. Their ships are all headcanon, just like my m/f ship. I live by ship and let ship. I mean, people could ship my beloved character with his refrigerator for all I care, that's cool. What's not cool is insisting, forcefully, rudely insisting that anyone that ships him outside the popular m/m ship is wrong.

My ship is headcanon and I have never remotely said anything like "This is the one true otp" and "everyone KNOWS X is actually straight". But I see this sort of thing all the time from the m/m shippers.

I recently saw an innocuous post on Instagram where the OP was giving their headcanons for different fandoms saying "I think these characters are straight, these characters are gay, these characters are non-binary, these characters are bisexual, these characters are aroace etc" and in their "Straight characters" they included Bakugo from MHA (not my fandom but it's a good example). You should've seen the comments tearing into the OP. "Um hello, everyone KNOWS Bakugo is gay", "Yeah no...Bakugo is gay lmao", "Wtf? Bakugo is obviously gay, this is idiotic" etc. And I thought...since when does *everyone know* Bakugo is gay? Pretty sure it's never been confirmed either way in MHA so why this hostile reaction to someone sharing their headcanons?

I've seen similar things in other fandoms including my own.

I understand there's a lack of positive representation of the lgbtq community in anime and manga and I think it's great that people explore characters' sexualities and create a variety of ships for them and create relationships that they can identify with. I've seen my comfort character shipped as gay, bi, straight, ace, pan and I think it's wonderful that people can take this awesome guy and write/draw him in a way that represents them, or comforts them but it's not so wonderful when you're beaten over the head for not making him gay with the other popular male character.

There's this sense of superiority among SOME m/m shippers that I haven't personally seen in m/f shippers in my fandom and it really gets under my skin. I'm sick of being told or implied I'm wrong or inferior because I don't ship m/m.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant but I've never let this out anywhere. I try to curate my online experience as much as possible so I don't run into ships or content that I don't like but sometimes these kinds of people still find me and it bothers me that I feel I can't speak out against them because it feels that any negative remark on m/m shippers, even when it's valid, will be very quickly labeled as homophobic.

I mean... where are you hanging out? I promise you that "How dare you not love my canon het ship?" types and many other shipwarring assholes are just as bad. You just haven't been meeting them. Which faction is the most toxic just depends on the fandom and the platform.

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years

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When/how do you think Ragnor and Catrina realized camille was being abusive towards Magnus?

Btw, I love u❤

fantastic question anon, i love YOU! i think that depends on a couple of factors. i think people who have already been or know people who have been in an abusive relationship are more likely to notice the warning signs, and/or to interpret stuff like the person pulling away as a sign of abuse. whereas people who haven't lived through it and aren't informed on it might not even realize what's going on until before it's over, and even be angry

so because we live in a hell world and catarina is a black woman, i think she is more likely to notice the warning signs than ragnor is, because black women are more likely to be in abusive relationships than white men. i'm not saying catarina herself has been in an abusive relationship necessarily but presumably her family has plenty of black women and she's also more likely to also be friends with other woc and marginalized ppl than ragnor is because again, hell world. so she has a higher chance of having been in a similar position before, although of course that's no set in stone rule and ragnor's circle of friends does seem to have a lot of marginalized ppl (and i hc him as aroace which makes him queer which puts him in an entirely different position than a straight white man and probably means something about the relationships he builds, but anyway) BUT my point is, i think catarina is more likely to notice earlier

i think ragnor is pretty perceptive tho, and also that they are pretty close and talk a lot, so i think once catarina noticed she would have talked to ragnor, and it wouldn't take ragnor long to realize that she was right

so okay when would they notice? i think that's always a slow process but i'm pretty sure their suspicions would first arise when magnus started to ditch them and stuff like parties and outings because of camille. first of all, i don't think that's like magnus at all, and second of all, there is an obvious difference between "i'm in the honeymoon phase" and "sorry, i don't think it's a good idea, my partner might not like it" or even "yeah! that sounds great!... just let me ask my partner about it". big difference

so that already has catarina in particular very wary of her because magnus is not the kind to ditch his friends because of a partner and the way he's acting about this is weird. so, she decides to keep an eye and maybe even put this to the test by making a surprise visit and invite him to a party like, right then doijadiosaj and she takes him out and she notices that magnus is Out Of It and he seems even a little... tense and scared and almost paranoid. and like, this is relatively at the beginning of their relationship so she wouldn't have been Horrible about it yet but at the beginning the person expresses enough control and discomfort with these things for you to be kind of uncomfortable even if you don't really realize that it's because you're Scared Of Hurting Your Parner

so THAT gets catarina really worried, because if magnus can't relax because he's afraid of camille's reaction, and worse, if he doesn't REALIZE that's why, that's the reddest a flag can get in such an early stage of their relationship. she tries to talk to magnus about it but magnus is the king of deflecting and basically waves her worries off. which just makes her more worried, but what is she supposed to do? she knows that pushing will only makes things worse and make it easier for camille to turn magnus against her and cut their ties. so, she lets it go and pretends that she buys his excuses. that's probably when she also talks to ragnor. ragnor probably had noticed that something was off but he hadn't really thought that it would be something super bad, and i think he'd still have his doubts about it, but well, he has that on the back of his mind now. and besides, he trusts catarina's judgement and he can admit when she is more qualified than him to assess something. it's why their relationship works

the first time they say anything is probably when magnus tells him about some fight they've had. probably because magnus told camille that he was upset about something she did - like idk, making fun of him in public about a topic that's sensitive to him. and like magnus wasn't even mad at her, he had never mentioned that whatever joke she made was off limits or related to a sensitive topic, he just wanted to communicate and let her know that it had hurt him, and she pretty much Exploded at him. and somehow turned it all around so it was magnus' fault for accusing her of trying to hurt him on purpose when that's not what magnus did, and now magnus pretty much wanted advice on how to apologize and let her know that he loves her

so catarina and ragnor try to subtly poke holes in her logic and show him that he has nothing to apologize for, without straight up being like "she's manipulating you" because Kids, That Does Not Go Well. and it makes magnus... heartbreakingly confused in that way abused people get when the logic they have been being shoved under shows cracks that would mean something too awful to even imagine

and catarina is a fucking wreck because at this point, she is sure of it and it makes her relive... so much trauma of other people she's seen go through that and lost and/or her own relationships if you want to go with that. and she doesn't want to lose magnus or have magnus go through that but she doesn't know what to do and she KNOWS that next step is magnus pulling away from her and ragnor no matter how careful she is

she probably gets the rare Comforting Hug from ragnor once magnus leaves and she also talks to dot and maybe elias? you know, their other friends. and they have a Catarina Comforting Day and hear her stories and cuddle and you know, try to make her feel better. and eventually they try to devise some kind of game plan so they can try to help magnus get out of this

it all goes to shit of course when they have the rare outing with camille, and camille is Obviously Refusing To Interact With Them If She Can Avoid It which is classic abuse thing - sure, i'll go see your friends, but you have to choose between interacting with them and me, so really you don't actually get to see with your friends because you'll feel bad that i'm isolated and eventually seeing your friends will feel either pointless or nervewracking cuz it feels like juggling your relationships. and if you want to see them without me i am going to act like you have something to hide and i'm a victim

anyway! so they notice that and they try to undermine that tactic by, you know, interacting with her a lot. so camille switches it up and tries to pick up a fight, and lo and behold, she succeeds - i know ragnor doesn't look like the kind of guy who loses his temper easily but i think when you push his buttons he is VERY bad at hiding it and half a snappy comment is all camille needs to lash out at him and play the victim. she's good

so that's when their plan gets fucked and everything goes to hell because then it's just too easy for camille to isolate magnus from his friends with really just a few tweaks to the previous tactic i mentioned - "are you really picking them over me, magnus? you're gonna keep hanging out with them when they are so rude to me, probably tell you all sorts of things about me, try to get you to break up with me? can't you see how manipulative they are? how they're trying to turn you against me? why do you insist so much on seeing them when you know how much that hurts me?"

and done

catarina and ragnor probably fight after that because god DAMN it, she fucking tOLD him that they had to be careful! and she's been swallowing all kinds of shitty comments from her but ragnor just had to fucking lose it at the first provocation, didn't he? and god knows how long it'd take for them to reach him after that, because camille is already preemptively making him think that they are trying to manipulate him to break up with her out of jealousy so he won't listen to anything they say directly. and she's right, of course, and ragnor is out of his depth and doesn't UNDERSTAND how these things go and how much this slip up will affect them in the future

i like to think that ragnor apologizes to her and catarina probably... has a breakdown because fuck she is worried and she is reliving way too many nightmares here. and ragnor is actually very tender and hugs her and apologizes and kisses her forehead and tells her that he's going to fix it. and he actually swallows his pride and apologizes to camille just to try and turn this thing around, but, well. the damage is done. and really, there is only so much friends can do when dealing with something like this. at the end of the day, they did all they could

and from then on they try their best to be there for him and pull magnus out of the camille-created isolation, but there's only so much they can do, and it's up to magnus to notice and get help to get rid with her. they'll always try to be his support system, but well. it's hard

and of course eventually magnus does get rid of her claws and catarina, ragnor, dot, elias etc., are all there for him when he does. and he probably feels guilty because he pushed them away but really they are just so RELIEVED that he's finally free of her. and him and catarina probably get a teary hug full of apologies for things that aren't their fault, and they try to make up for lost time by spending as much time as possible together now. especially because i think that it also hurts catarina to have her friends pull away - she obviously yearns for family, for closeness, i don't think she does well with people pulling away from her, she wants the kind of closeness that comes from routine and she used to have that with magnus and the rest of the immortal squad, you know? and magnus knows that, so, he tries to compensate

and eventually they start to heal their relationships, but magnus still has a long way to heal himself, but well. he'll get there. they are together and all

#sh #shadowhunters #magnus bane #catarina loss #ragnor fell #camille belcourt is an abuser #brotp: comfortable shoes #brotp: my dear little cabbage #immortal squad #abuse tw #racism tw #misoginy tw #misoginoir mention #ask #anonymous #meta #kinda #camille's trash party #i have always wanted to be The Camille Angst Blog is it finally happening pls say yes

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