#but i've been frustrated with fandom and shipping discourse for a decade

[queerofthedagger]

not to stir the pot but i’ve seen some really shitty takes recently about arthur being gay and completely erasing gwen’s importance to him. what are your thoughts?

oof well that is in fact a loaded question but I genuinely feel your frustration so let's give this a shot lmao

the short of it, to quote a friend of mine: 2012 tumblr called and wants its shitty shipping discourse back (derogatory)

the slightly longer of it.... to start this off, no one has to ship anything. no one's saying that anyone has to ship anything, or headcanon characters a certain way, or that you're not "allowed" to say that you don't ship certain ships. that's just . not a thing that's happening, and I do wanna reiterate strongly that you don't have to ship anything.

that said, well. maybe if you find yourself with the urge to nail your 'why i don't ship this canon interracial couple' against the proverbial church doors, you should ask yourself.... why is it always the black characters you find "badly written." why is it always the black and the white character who have "no chemistry." why is it always the black character you find unrelatable, that you think would be soo much better suited dating another character of color, etc. etc. These things do not happen in a vacuum, and you don't need to hate or even dislike that character to play into tropes, stereotypes, and issues that very many people have very extensively explained to be less than stellar, to put it mildly.

And Imma come out and say this: fandom is not activism, you don't need to be a loud, outspoken activist and/or turn this into anything more than a hobby. if, even amongst the discussions had in the last years, you have never once stopped to ask yourself how you might deal with the internalized racism that we're all dealing with, how it might affect people in the spaces you share while doing your hobby, then, frankly, you gotta do better. fandom is not activism, but we all have some basic responsibility of not causing more harm than there already is going around. this should not be a controversial statement either.

you can ship merthur without invalidating and trampling all over the frankly brilliant fact that this show went and casted a black woman as queen guinevere. you can ship merthur without taking away scenes that are not about them - god knows there are enough. you can acknowledge that 75% of your shipping takes are subjective, that merthur isn't, wasn't, and was never going to be canon, and literally none of this takes away from the two generic white dudes whose faces you'd like to smash together. this entire fandom is and has been majorly about those two generic white guys, for well over a decade, and i'm saying all this as a white merthur shipper. like, this is the bare minimum. and yet, here we fucking are.

as for the arthur being gay thing - again, you don't need to headcanon anyone a certain way, but whenever i do see this specific headcanon it "somehow" always comes with an incredibly weird (to put this mildly also) understanding of sexuality, top/bottom discourse, and - you guessed it - takes on arwen, that are maybe something people might want to uhh. examine also.

this isn't a callout, or a call for a witchhunt, or or or. personally i block and move on, and I wouldn't have said anything more on this than a vague shitpost on my sideblog, but god knows i can never shut up and even less so when asked, and I do think that while, again, fandom is not activism and I'll stand by this, people should... try and aim to make some basic attempts at not causing harm. it's not even hard (although that should not be your measure but like, again. bare minimum). it really is as easy as not constantly invalidating and side-lining ships and/or characters, by doing basic research in how not to whitewash characters, why not to compare skintone to food when writing, etc.

On that note, none of these are things that I've come up with. A lot of people, especially fans of colour, have done a great deal of work to provide resources and education that are... incredibly easy to find if you can be fucked to make some effort. Imma link a bunch beneath too but like. Yeah I guess that's my take. You can ship whatever you want, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart. But 1. maybe sometimes take some time to consider what you're saying, 2. maybe take some time to do some basic self-education on some issues in general, and 3. writing posts on why you don't ship whatever ship has never accomplished anything beyond getting people who agree with you to stroke your ego, and step on the toes of people who don't. at best.

But also, last but not least, the block button is your friend and all that

Resources by people much better equipped to talk on these things than me:

How to stan the white guy with minimal contribution to fandom's racism problem

The racism in the Merlin fandom and towards Gwen specifically

Educating Merlin - a blog that's specifically tackling racism in this fandom

Fanlore on Fandom's Racism Problem(s) (use to find many links leading you to further discussions on it)

More Fanlore with further links

When white people talk about racism in fandom

Writing with Color - Resource blog for writing specifically, but honestly also covers so many topics that it's incredibly useful for doing some self-examination too

I'm not saying you need to agree with everything said in all of these sources, but also if your constant reaction to these discussions as a white person is to get defensive, to dismiss it, etc., I'm saying this in the nicest way possible: maybe sit with that for a bit. Ask yourself why requests like not constantly making fun of a ship gets you in such a huff. Etc. etc.

Lastly: if people would like to add onto this with more resources, that's highly welcome. That said, anyone clowning/harassing/being a bitch on this post will be blocked.

#answered asks #anonymous #mona rambles #fandom wank #discussion of racism

[semercury]

Okay so WHY does Shipping Wiki list Bruno/Abbachio as "semi canon"??? Y'all pls don't give me false hope 😫😭

(Meanwhile Fugotrish/Giotrish pages: cricket noises 😭)

i honestly didn’t even know there was a shipping wiki lol!

before i attempt to answer your question and give my opinion, i do have to just say like... what does “semi-canon” even mean? and what qualifies as canon? i ask the second one because like. i remember being confused one time when someone said a ship was canon (in a different anime) and i was like “but they never got together?” this person considered it canon because, i believe, the creator said both characters had feelings for each other and it was strongly implied within the text that they had feelings for each other. but because of their roles and jobs, they couldn’t actually be together. so like... does that count as canon? because i feel like, obviously if a couple does start dating, that’s obviously canon. but what about things like that? do reciprocated feelings without an actual romantic relationship count as a ship becoming canon?

which then begs the question what SEMI-canon means at all! does semi-canon mean if the feelings are there but for whatever reason they can’t or don’t end up together? does it mean ONE person has feelings? does it mean it’s strongly implied but never confirmed? like what is the definition? i feel like you can’t categorize something without having a clear cut definition.

(i keep babbling way too much with these and i don’t want to clog up people’s feeds rip)

but as for answering why it says that... i think it’s mostly wishful thinking. wikis can be edited by anyone. i would question the sources and what was cited if they have anything listed. because my understanding is that there really aren’t any canon ships at all in va, at least not with the main cast. like, i think it was pretty clear sorbet and gelato were together as were squalo and tizano (tho i believe even they’re not technically confirmed by araki?), and i guess we could say diavolo/doppio and donatella are a canon couple? but again like... do one night stands/flings that don’t amount to a full relationship count as being canon?

i feel like i was told (and i tried to look up a source, but all i got was like. people yelling about ships and articles with bad takes, as you do when you look up anything to do with ships, so don’t quote me on this) that araki said none of the va crew were in a relationship? that like... he wasn’t writing romance and he was just writing an adventure story. and while i generally don’t take what authors say outside of their works to mean anything important (i’m sorry tolkien, it’s a war allegory. i don’t care what you say.) it like... isn’t a romance and there isn’t a focus on romantic relationships. and while i’m all for finding little nuggets of information and drawing your own conclusions as a reader/viewer, it does also require textual evidence in my book to be considered any kind of canon or formal interpretation of the work. and while i certainly see where fans are coming from with abbacchio and bruno and why they’re shipped together, i don’t feel like there’s enough concrete evidence to confirm anything. i think there’s lots of room for the imagination to fill in blanks and draw lots of different conclusions, but to me, that’s not the same as being canon (or semi-canon, which i still don’t fully understand what that means). (and please also note this is coming from an anime-only. idk if there’s smth in the manga that maybe i’m missing that does confirm something more.)

i have a sneaking suspicion that someone edited the wiki to that because they shipped it and have lots of headcanons that they are treating as canon. and like. fanon can be fun! popular theories and headcanons can be fun! but i feel like a lot of people confuse the popularity of a headcanon with being actually canon. i think they knew they couldn’t get away with marking it actually canon, since there is no confirmation, but since enough people want it, they could get away with semi canon. and i’m not saying it was done maliciously either. i think a lot of people really do want proof and feel that validates their ship.

which like... brings up an unpopular opinion i have, which is like. i prefer shipping non canon ships. a lot of times i don’t want my ships to become canon. i’m in another fandom where i actually ship the main, popular ship (which is shocking for me, as i almost always ship rarepairs or at least like, less popular ships) and the creators have confirmed that the ship will be canon and endgame at some point. and like. i don’t like that. and i’m sure it has to do with how i go about shipping and why i enjoy shipping. i enjoy the what if’s of it all. and coming up with different ways they could get together and why they aren’t together now and what little hints can i use to show why they should end up together. and like. once it becomes canon, idk. like that’s it. everyone now has a concrete answer for how they got together. like show’s over, time to go home.

and i’m aware i have this attitude because i prefer using fandom for transformative works. i enjoy writing and reading fic. i enjoy the creativity and exploration of it all, and i want the freedom to let my imagination run wild and come up with different ideas without having to worry that someone’s going to tell me i didn’t do it like canon, or this canon thing contradicts my idea.

i know some people want their ships to be canon in order to use it as like... some kind of leverage against other shippers. as if having their ship become canon proves they’re superior to people who ship the characters with someone else. like, i’ve been involved in fandom for a long time, and boy oh boy have i seen my fair share of ship wars. and i always thought they were stupid. like. someone shipping a character with someone else does not invalidate your joy from shipping your ship. like at all. and i’ve never understood why people get so angry about it. like this is supposed to be for fun. and like. none of these people exist anyway.

but back to the canon/semi canon stuff... i’m very wary of what a lot of people in this fandom say. i’ve had people tell me certain things happened or certain characters were confirmed this or that only for me to find out that like... no, that didn’t happen at all. there’s a lot of misinformation in this fandom, and i think it’s because it’s so large. it all becomes one huge game of telephone, where someone suggests something and then down the line people are swearing it’s 100% canon. and idk, i do find it harmful to a degree. because there’s instances like what you’re describing, where you’re getting false hope. or there’s times where like i’ve had opinions formed for me about certain characters because of things i’ve been told only to find out they were completely false. (the best example i can think of off the top of my head is about jolyne. since i’m anime only, i really don’t know much about her. someone told me she wanted to have sex with snails, and i was like well idk if i’d like a character who wants to have sex with snails?? that just seems weird. and i told my friends who have actually read the manga, and they’re like “no... sarah that was so out of context... no, here’s what she actually said...”)

so like... idk. i wouldn’t put too much stock in the wiki or what youtubers say (because many have led me astray too. someone on youtube said narancia passed the lighter test, like actually kept it lit, and i was like then wait, where did his stand come from? and my friends who read the manga looked all that up too for me, and we came to the conclusion that the “passed the test” line in the manga was supposed to mean that like. he didn’t die. but i spent several months wondering where the heck aerosmith came from.)

at the end of the day... read the manga, watch the anime, draw your own conclusions. and canon or not, enjoy shipping what makes you happy. none of these characters are real anyway. we’re all just having fun with fiction.

#ask #anon #all those articles and pages i found were like ''what's the best jojo ship?'' #and i'm like the one that makes ur heart do the most smiley emojis NEXT QUESTION #idk. shipping politics and the obsession of ships being canon never sat right with me #but i've been frustrated with fandom and shipping discourse for a decade #so like hghhfds the more things change the more they remain the same #anyway i apologize if this doesn't make sense #i have a horrible headache hghgfds

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

I've been following this "space for minors in ATLA" discourse. I'm 16. I have different feelings about stuff I've seen and I don't completely agree or disagree with any of the takes I've seen. I do have to ask though: Why are we talking about this yet giving a pass to a nearly 50 year old dude who is still big mad he wasn't put into a fictional relationship over a decade ago?

I mean, I know why people say it is, because "D@nte is Zuko!" or whatever. Except, he isn't. Zuko is a 16 year old fictional character who is in love with someone not named Katara. D@nte is a nearly 50 year old man who is skulking around ZK fandom and is still pissed ZK didn't go canon. And tbh, M@e enabling him is really disappointing, but I want to keep the focus on him.

My dad is 43 and thinks Katara should have ended with "mustache guy" as he calls Haru. But if he joined fandom and posted Haruara meta or whined about how it didn't go canon, people wouldn't be thinking it was cute. People would be thinking this old man is weird. And look I get it. It's validation of sorts for ZKs. Whatever. It's still creepy. I adore Kataang, but ZTE is nearly 30 and I would think it creepy af if he was all over Kataang fandom talking about the way D@nte does ZK.

firstly, your dad calling haru "mustache guy" SENT me, omg, thank you for that 😂

okay. gonna be real here: i pay No Attention to VAs, because to me, most VAs are just like any other fan in that 99% of the time they don't control how their show is written, which means i really don't think too hard about how they feel regarding anything 😂 their influence on canon is always pretty minimal at the end of the day

that's all to say that i know Nothing about DB, lol. i vaguely recognize his name when i see it and that's pretty much it 😂

based strictly on the content of your ask... yeah, i admit that sounds a little weird. the show is 12 (?) years old at this point, yk? i don't think there's anything wrong with him liking zvtara, necessarily, but based on your description? yeesh, lol. he sounds a little overly involved; maybe he needs to take a step or two back*. i mean, i don't think there's really any harm in him supporting zvtara content creators (again, VAs are like any other fan!), but if he's still angry/frustrated/whatever about zvtara not being canon?? that would make me wary tbh

i feel very limited in my knowledge here, anon, so i apologize if my response wasn't as detailed as you might have been hoping for; but if anyone else has thoughts on this, feel free to rb with them!

*to be fair, of course, i might say the same to anyone thought zvtara should have been canon. take a step back. rewatch the show. you can ship zvtara, but it was clear that k@taang was in the cards from day 1. ain't no big thing! that's what fanon is for, babey! now go drink some water i don't want anyone getting dehydrated 😤

#amy answers #anon