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blueratgrmln · 3 months

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🌟OPEN DISCUSSION about the 2020's era of shipping culture, Sonadow in the Sonic Fandom, and how well-intended activism can circle back to the language and violence of oppressors 🌟

(Link to chapter PARTS >>>HERE<<<)

INTRO

I gotta get something off my chest in regards to shipping. I wasn't super invested in the shipping part of the Sonic Fandom community when I was growing up. There were a few ships I liked and I enjoyed the fanart people made of those ships. And then I forgot about it for a number of years. Now in adulthood I am getting back into shipping Sonic characters a bit more, because it's fun to look back at the things I liked as a kid and seeing how my opinions have changed since gaining more life experience. Plus I've become much more active on the internet, in Fandom spaces, and more aware of social justice issues during adulthood. So here is a long-ish essay where I gather my thoughts about Sonadow shipping, fandoms, and activism together💙

MIDDLE CHILD EXPERIENCE IN THE SONIC FANDOM

It's odd being a Middle Child of the Sonic Fandom "family" that grew up during the age of "cringe culture" cyberbullying and shipping wars. I was aware of the stereotypes and disdain people had both on and off the internet toward the Sonic Fanbase and the notoriety it had. It influenced me to tone-down my external Sonic geekiness around my peers. While some of the stereotypes had some truth to it (when they weren't used as cyberbullying put-downs), I noticed that there was a very prominent difference how the Sonic Franchise/Fandom was viewed by the pop culture savvy public and how the fandom acted amongst/within itself as a creative and meaning-making community, despite the in-fighting that occasionally happened. On the internet, I oddly didn't experience or witness much discourse about ethics, specifically about shipping, when I was a kid cruising the internet for the fanart I liked. The spaces I visited were usually very supportive of people creating meaning, joy, and comfort with these ships. These shipping spaces loved Sonic × Amy, Shadow × Amy, Knuckles × Rouge, Sonic × Sally, Silver × Blaze and also any ship between Sonic, Shadow, and Silver. While there were specific ships that I enjoyed, I was happy to see other people enjoying other ships and hearing them geek about it. Yes, there was sometimes shipping discourse pitting pairings against each other, but I did not notice intense targeting or harassment in the name of "ethics" to the same degree as I am witnessing nowadays.

THE ETHICAL VS UNETHICAL DEBATES

Fast forward to the 2020's age of the internet and fandom culture. I had no idea what the evolved discussion about "ethical vs unethical" shipping was beyond just "this ship is the best" mentalities until about a year ago. After reading about the various viewpoints, I started out not really caring about the ethics of fictional shipping and not fully caring on which "side" I would fit, even though my views in adulthood realistically lean towards anti-censorship sentiments. However, it's important to note that if I'd discovered this specific "ethical vs unethical" debate when I was younger, I would have leaned pro-censorship, a view directly influenced by the small-town evangelical church indoctrination that kept my mind closed-off from the nuances of sociology, psychology, and humanity. I was the type of person that got emotional and reactionary about the idea of people being sex workers, about the idea of kink and BDSM being a normal thing between consenting adults, and about other socially charged topics. Then as I learned from other people's experiences and researched those topics, my mindset changed to be more supportive and more aware of all the nuances that go beyond black vs white thinking. I learned to not demonize people and instead find out the reasons WHY something happens or WHY people do something, and actually LISTEN to the person and BELIEVE them when they give their answer. Similar mindset changes have happened in adulthood since I've done research about both the generational divides and social justice intersectionality of this cultural shift in today's internet Fandom spaces. I am noticing this divide and these debates happening more and more in the Sonic Fandom.

SONADOW IN THE 2020'S

For some context, when I was a kid moderately involved with shipping content, I did not ship Sonic × Shadow. I somewhat avoided anything to do with gay ships or gay content due to my small-town church upbringing teaching me to not support anything LGBTQ+. So now as an adult having interest in shipping again, having discarded homophobia, embracing my own queerness, and having new understandings of the Sonic characters' personalities/backstories/dynamics, I am opening myself up to considering ships I hadn't been interested in before and ships that I actively avoided due to internalized homophobia. Watching Sonic Prime and the wonderful joy it sparked across the Fandom (in both shippers and non-shippers alike) was the marker when I finally started enjoying the Sonadow ship. It was after reading people's interpretations of Sonic and Shadow and understanding the ship more when I realized why Sonadow is such a beloved and timeless ship. In response to the new wave of Sonadow popularity, it's getting lots of heated criticism. People are having arguments everyday about both Shadow and Sonic's true ages, whether Shadow is 15 or 18 or 50, whether it makes any difference that SEGA quietly removed the characters' official ages. The debate creates these polarized "sides", with some people on one side claiming that it's an inherently unethical ship and claiming that you are a bad person, or at least suspicious in some way, for supporting it.

REPRESENTATION & QUEER JOY

One prominent feeling I have about the common criticisms toward Sonadow and about other shipping discourse is feeling alarmed that a lot of Queer people end up getting harassed because of these debates, sometimes by fellow Queer people. From my Middle Child perspective in the Sonic Fandom, the reasons WHY many people embraced LGBTQ+ Sonic ships was to create and celebrate representation in a franchise that doesn't outright confirm or have much on-screen representation. Even though Sega has a general "no official confirmed couples" mandate, the company has consistently supported and encouraged the fans' shipping headcanons including LGBTQ+ ships, and the company has showed real, tangible, and financial support for the LGBTQ+ community (to my knowledge). Tangle and Whisper in the IDW comics are written with specific chemistry that leads most people to view them as a lesbian couple with the writers' and company's encouragement, even if they're not verbally stated as "officially canon." Sonic × Shadow, although not canon, has been a noteworthy ship acknowledged by the writers, company, and voice actors as being one of the most beloved and celebrated gay Sonic ships. It has given Queer people a sense of joy, hope, comfort, and visibility ever since 2001 when Sonic Adventure 2 released and Shadow debuted as a character. The reasons people immediately shipped these characters together was never about being creepy or encouraging "unethical" dynamics. It was simply Queer Sonic fans, both closeted and uncloseted, creating meaning via representation as an act of queer resistance and radical acceptance. This has been a constant throughout the present day, Sonadow being one of the most recognizable and longstanding ships that inspires widespread Queer Joy that even breaks the boundaries of the internet microcosm.

LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE OF OPPRESSORS

Now is where I will delve into the connection between Sonadow shipping (and overall shipping) debates and how well-intentioned activism loops back into mimicking oppressors. Thinking about how Sonadow is historically important to the Sonic Franchise, the Sonic Fandom, LGBTQ+ Sonic Fans, and maybe even video game history as a whole, I feel major discomfort and even dread when I see so many people (particularly those that are young) throwing around very serious accusations at (fellow) Sonic Fans and (fellow) Sonic shippers. Accusations supporting pedophilia or pedophilia itself is one of the most egregious. I've seen it thrown at Sonadow shippers, Vector x Espio shippers because Vector is 20 and Espio is 16 (despite it being another extremely popular LGBTQ+ headcanon-ed ship due to lack of representation), and even Knuckles x Rouge because Rouge is 18 and Knuckles is 16. It strikes me as counterintuitive and unnecessary at least, and actively dangerous at most/worst, seeing fellow Queer people utilizing the morality-policing, fear tactics, surveillance methods, censorship mindset, and rhetoric/language of our oppressors and using those things against the people in their own communities. Realizing that long-time Sonadow fans who felt inspired to come out and be unapologetically Queer because of that specific ship have been facing harassment and slander from fellow Queer people (who are likely younger than them), getting called "pedos" or "dangerous" or "suspicious" or "unethical" over the mere act of creating representation and Queer Joy with fictional characters and seeking some sense of comfort while surviving homophobic environments...bluntly, my stomach is churned and my blood is boiled. The last thing we need in this rapidly backwards-turning world is more in-fighting within the broader LGBTQ+ community that distracts our thoughts, emotions, time, energy, organizing, education, community-building, and activism away from the oppressors who are causing us real-world tangible harm, suffering, and death.

A random teenager on the internet drawing fanart of Sonic and Shadow holding hands, or even random adults on the internet drawing suggestive art or outright porn of these characters, is NOT going to be the catalyst that rapidly or gradually normalizes pedophilia or inspires worldwide support for unethical relationships. And yes, this includes content about the "weirdo/unethical/dark" ships that are found in the shadowy fringes of the internet and Fandom spaces. I am uncomfortable with a lot of it myself. But those ships and the people that engage with them ALSO DO NOT have the same level of impact and reach (key words: Same Level) that real life oppressive systems have to cause widespread suffering. The key difference that makes widespread abuse possible is that the real life oppressive systems are disguised as wholesome safe environments that develop trust and closeness with community members. Those oppressive systems and the harmful people that support them are usually NOT on the freaky/dark/weird fringes of society, they don't outwardly appear that way, and they demonize the "degenerates", not associate with any such label. The Catholic church institution is a big example, the institution covering up uncountable cases of their clergy members abusing minors while those clergy members are positioned as a pure, trusted facet of society that people actively look to for guidance, safety, and belonging.

At NO point am I ever going to say that everyone online is perfectly pure and that we should ignore everyone's behavior online. When we do encounter legitimate creeps causing harm to real people (not watered-down definitions of what being a creep means) we absolutely need to call them out and keep each other safe. HOWEVER, by pitting fellow Sonic Fans, fellow Queer people, fellow shippers against each other with this blanket "us vs them" mentality that overshadows the real life patterns and signs of how widespread oppression and real life harm happens, we end up accomplishing a lot of what our oppressors want anyway: divisions, distractions, and outright mimicking the violent language and behaviors that they display toward us at ourselves. This is the point where well-intentioned activism goes wrong and circles back around to oppression without meaning to.

Many people are super-duper-sure that they have dismantled all of their -isms and -phobias and now identify with labels and movements that are on the right side of history. But all of us STILL need to be aware of the fact that our thought patterns, behaviors, logic, and emotional responses can be tied to previously held beliefs and mindsets, and they can sometimes carry over and linger in our minds even after significant "character development". This is true even if we don't immediately realize it and think that we are a "safe person" within our own marginalized communities and for other marginalized communities. It can be really hard to identify if/when that is happening sometimes, but it is pertinent that we are actively checking in with ourselves, listening to constructive criticism, and cross-analyzing whether we are unintentionally mimicking the language, behaviors, and violence of our oppressors, and what effects that can have on the people in our shared communities and the people we care about.

ADDITIONAL: MY PERSONAL OPINIONS AND LOGIC ABOUT SHADOW'S AGE

Most of the fandom will continue arguing about Shadow's "true age" for the rest of time and how that "should" influence people's shipping headcanons. In my opinion, it is a very unnecessary thing to argue about simply because of the uniqueness and the fantastical nature of Shadow's existence within the Sonic Universe. Very specifically, he is a test tube science project super soldier who is immortal with an unclarified "birth date."

It's most likely that Professor Gerald Robotnik started the process of creating Shadow AFTER Maria was born and they discovered her incurable disease; Project Shadow could have taken a significant amount of time to complete considering all of the scientific processes, research, and intergalactic communication needed. It is also important to remember that Maria died when she was only 12 years old. If we are just talking about the amount of time that Shadow was physically and mentally conscious, communicating, and learning (excluding the 50 years he spent in cryo-stasis), this would mean that Shadow's age could be anything up to Maria's exact age at her time of death. Realistically his youngest possible age would be much greater than 1 day, since it probably took a noteworthy amount of time for Shadow and Maria to develop their trusting best friend and/or sibling bond.

Otherwise, in the less likely scenario, Professor Gerald could've had foresight and somehow gotten confirmation about Maria's condition before she was born with the scientifically and medically advanced technology aboard the Space Colony ARK, and then completed Project Shadow before she was born. But in EITHER possible chronology, Shadow could be around the same age or a handful of years younger than 15 (one of the possible ages in this debate), if we are to consider his game manual or Wiki-page biographies for his true age. This could put the Sonadow ship in the same boat of age-gap and maturity-difference criticism that the Sonic x Amy ship gets because Sonic is 15 and Amy is 12.

Even though Shadow is one of the most complex characters within the broad Sonic Lore, at the same time he's one of the most mysterious characters, especially since we don't have any official content that shows the complete scientific/medical/technological details of his creation process from start to finish. Everyone has a different opinion whether the game manual and Wiki-page age(s) indicates Shadow's number of conscious years lived, his current physical age, or both. People also debate whether his current physical age matters in terms of shipping ethics. Considering that Shadow is an immortal science experiment with the DNA/blood of an alien species and he could have grown up in a test tube, I like to think that any of the "teen" ages used in this debate could simply describe what his physical vessel looks like (compared to 100% Mobian hedgehogs) at the point Project Shadow was deemed successfully completed. It's possible that his early development deviated from that of a human baby, a Mobian hedgehog baby, and a normal hedgehog baby. Maybe he grew generally faster or went through the same developmental stages of his Black Arms alien siblings. Deciphering what it would mean for Shadow to become "fully mature", or even what "age" in general means for him, would require solving the complex puzzle of his circumstances: the science of genetic engineering that splices Black Arms DNA with Mobian hedgehog DNA to design a being that is artificial and specifically exceptional in every way. We DO know that Shadow's Black Arms DNA gives his mind and body a connection to the species' Hive Mind (which is explored in the Archie comic books) and that Black Doom's DNA was one of the necessary ingredients to give Shadow immortality and disease immunity. But that's the extent of what we know about Shadow's Black Arms biology, its overall effects, its benefits, and its downsides. In addition to this, the "immortal artificial super soldier with alien DNA" context brings up questions regarding Shadow's mental processes, intelligence, and learning capabilities. He could have gone through rapid psychological development, or can learn and gain skills at an enhanced rate, have increased intelligence, or have alien mental capacities beyond his connection to the Black Arms' Hive Mind.

The limitless SCOPE of possibilities for Shadow's physical and mental reality is why I completely avoid any attempts at shoving this complex character into the same quantifiable boxes of human OR Mobian OR normal hedgehog maturity, development, intelligence, socialization, emotions, learning, and age. Which is why I do not judge people for their shipping preferences and don't assume the worst of the people that ship him with other characters. An integral part of the tragedy and isolation of Shadow the Hedgehog as a character surrounds him being the Ultimate Lifeform, a being that is so unique, advanced, artificial, medicalized, scientific, revolutionary, mystical and powerful that he cannot relate to most of the other Sonic characters and vice versa. TRYING to force Shadow to be 100% understandable, relatable, and quantifiable both by our real-life human standards and by the standards of the other Sonic characters can diminish his uniqueness and essence, and it hinders the broad Sonic Fandom from creatively exploring the magnitude of possibilities (both shipping and non-shipping) that his mysteriousness inspires.

(Thank you for reading and sticking with my train of thought! :) I expect constructive conversation in the comments if any are made at all, whether it's criticism or agreement.)

#sonadow #shipping #shipping culture #sonic fandom #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic and shadow #shipping wars #debates #open discussion #fandom culture #antishipper #proshipper #LGBTQ+ community #LGBTQ+ activism #LGBTQ+

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saezurumurmurs · 9 months

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Hey!!...how are you??. I just wanted to ask you about what do you think about Alice Osman words about bl/yaoi. From my point of view, she sounds quite pretencious, because I dont feel "heartstoppers" is that great , and she just from be british she has the opprtunity a big plattaform as netflix oppen their doors, so she cant imagine what is been an asian author and how actually his work is BL.

Taking Advantage of A Fandom

I watched the show, and haven’t read the comic. However @absolutebl posted a terrific commentary on this issue a while back:

From my perspective, BL and by extension, yaoi, is a uniquely Asian sub genre of erotic romance.

Alice Osman is a British creator who wrote a young adult LGBT+ romance comic. So the comparisons made seem ‘convenient’ for ‘marketing purposes’.

I personally resent the accusations lobbed against fujoshi of fetishisation, because it’s rooted in anti-woman rhetoric and I won’t have my tastes dictated to me. Everybody has opinions, but not all of them are valid.

BL is full of problematic tropes, just like regular M/F romance… and I’ve been reading romance and erotica for forty odd years. But these tropes are part of romance as a genre, and these tropes reflect our lived context. To single out BL/Yaoi as unique is nonsense. The tropes exist because the reality exists. Storytelling exists to allow us to find empathy for one another.

There are some good academic pieces out there, that debate this far better than I can. What I can tell you is that the internalised and externalised misogyny regarding BL content, is quite painful to me. Somebody always gotta rush on to tell women what they can and cannot enjoy. Dictate their sexuality and shame them for their pleasures.

We literally can’t have a damn thing nice, without some bozo trying to make us feel bad because we like it. Chile, I’m too old for that shit. We are allowed to like what we like, and enjoy problematic media just like anyone else. We are people too!

And lest you think otherwise: homophobia and transphobia’s roots are in anti-woman thinking and policies. That women do it to other women… well, it’s nice to be somebody’s favourite pet isn’t it. You get a padded cage, and the best kibble.

Osman benefits from the BL label, even though her story isn’t in my opinion BL. But criticising and alienating potential readers within the BL fandom seems to be a bit of a sport across ‘BL’ as it’s being broadly defined here. Because throwing shade on fans happens too much… by too many creators both Asian and Western.

Which is interesting, because the global market consuming this content is HUGE. You don’t understand the numbers of people reading Painter of The Night. I believe last year, it was more than all the people who bought romance novels in the West COMBINED. So if you think the Western authors don’t know the market for their stories are pale compared to what BL is doing on a global level, I should encourage you all to get interested in the business of BL. There is a lot of money and soft power in it.

But because it’s a FEMALE audience interested in SMUTTY stories, well… it’s a PROBLEM. Even in the countries of origin.

I get that we should analyze the problematic tropes in BL/Yaoi, but that’s what storytelling is for. I’m not for false equivalencies, because I personally disdain most Western content… and where do you see these types of stories in profusion from Western creators? No place. That’s where.

Maybe Osman has feelings because her story is no Painter of The Night. Maybe somebody asked her one too many times about our smutty stories… and what we got was shade and salt.

I did watch Heartbreaker on Netflix, and it was cute but I don’t feel compelled to rewatch it, the way I do say KinnPorsche or Love In The Air. I haven’t been moved to hunt down the comic to find out what happens next, the way I did when I watched that last scene of Twittering Birds Never Fly: The Clouds Gather.

Chile… Osman could NEVA.

#boys love #yaoi #debates #bl fandom #yaoi fandom #yaoi manga #yaoi manhwa #bl series #thai boys love #kblseries #shounen ai

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