#say it with me folks. we're not anti the ships. we're anti the writing that never fully explored anything satisfactorily

[kai-atlantis]

CW: pedo mention, suicide

I have a request. And this may get me blocked or hated even more by the AF community:

Can we stop the aminosity towards A/H shippers? Anti culture is celebrated in our fandom now, and like, cool if you don't ship anyone, but many of you on this platform find a way to literally bully or harass fans who are openly A/H. I also used to get endless inboxes of anon hate and harassment, even so far as telling me to 'KYS', or calling me a pedophile.

Let's make something very fucking clear: Redirect your issues to Colfer instead, because he wrote the 6th book. HE wrote the kiss. HE wrote them having feelings for eachother. Yes, as kids, a lot of us attached to this. Maybe it's from shared trauma, maybe it's a comfort place. Whatever someone's reason is for shipping, they DON'T need to explain themselves, or be made guilty for their preferences! Instead of harassing A/H shippers as if we spun the oldest celebrated ship from midair, how about you complain about damn Colfer?! He's not a poor innocent Irishman that had nothing to do with it. Give me a break.

Now, your hate and despise of the ship DOES affect other people when you go into the Hartemis tag and write on shippers' posts, literally heckling and harassing them. You know who you all are. I haven't checked it recently, but around 7 months ago, it was filled with HATE. HATE. AND HATE. I saw one very celebrated user telling Hartemis shippers to kill themselves. Honestly. If you look folks, it's there. Fuck that. If being an anti means you support hate and harassment, get the fuck off my tumblr lol.

I have had so many, SO many people come to me in messages to discuss A/H. I have had younger fans, literal kids, message me with art and explain they didn't feel safe posting it to tumblr because of the antis and hatred of A/H. ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME. Do you know how angry this makes me? This is disgusting behavior, that children can't post their work without an anti yelling at them they're supporting pedophilia.

Which do you think is more harmful?! Supporting A/H? Or isolating young teens or kids and making their work and art feel worthless and unwanted?

Btw: none of the A/H shippers call our ship Hartemis. That's a you guys thing, lol. We like A/H. They don't need a ship name so it's easier to mock.

In short, leave people alone. Stop intermingling your personal issues into other's lives. Don't like Hartemis? Leave the fandom then! You tell us to gtfo, so you can as well! 😬 I really dont have anything inspirational or nice to say here. I'm disappointed that such a tiny fandom has been literally split apart in half, and half of them are not allowed to interact with the other.

We're so tiny, guys. We literally don't have to isolate each other. I was so depressed when I first joined tumblr and got so much hate, and to know there are kids who are messaging me, revealing they're getting hate? That they're scared to post? To rant and rave and ramble like the rest of us? It's disappointing. It really is.

CW: pedo mention, suicide

#don't let your personal feelings get in the way and really look at the issue im talking about #my DMs shouldnt be a safe space #OUR FOWLDOM should be a safe space #thats all. #fowldom #hartemis #hate that name but whatever we need the tag #artemis fowl

[olderthannetfic]

the whole tiffany g mess has a lot of things one could talk about, on "both sides" of the issue if that descriptor is applicable, but i wanna use your inbox to rant about all the folks flooding out of the woodwork to say "why do you want to compare being queer to being a pedophile so badly?"

queer ppl are NOT the ones tying pedophilia to queerness, the CONSERVATIVES ARE. sorry to spam caps but guess what? THEY DON'T CAAAARE. they don't fucking care that ur one of the "uwu my blorbos only kiss and hold hands unlike those nasty fics" gays. they find you just as disgusting and reprehensible as the dirty queers that write sex scenes between two 17-year-olds and books like Call Me By Your Name!! (not that there's anything inherently wrong with CMBYN, i just know it gets shit on by antis a lot). the Don't Say Gay bill was literally being passed around in conservative circles as the "anti-grooming" bill bcuz they know most ppl outside the main discussion will hear "all we want is to prevent children from being hurt :)" and not think twice about being against it. we're protecting the children, who cares about any negative repercussions that come from this!!

ppl love making fun of queer terfs that get eventually get their faces eaten because they didn't realize the conservatives they side with on anti-trans laws will turn on them for similar reasons, yet at the same time, they close their eyes and plug their ears singing lalala every time a fandom elder warns them that every single strikethrough happened because people went after "illegal" content first and it snowballed from there

sorry for the vent, i'm just so tired of no one listening to literal goddamn history. you don't have to like the "gross" content. most fandom elders and newbies alike think it's reprehensible! but you give your enemies an inch and they'll sprint with it for a mile!

all i'm saying is that ppl don't get the right to come crying if they get their way and their precious "wholesome gays" start getting treated exactly like the "illegal" stuff when dozens of people warned them of this happening ahead of time

(and the real kicker about my frustrations? i'm aroace and dabble in platonic found family shit 97% of the time, and more often than not avoid ship stuff even if it's sfw. surprise! not every anti-censorship person is a weirdo predator these ppl love to claim we are!!)

--

[starry-eyed-fag]

Sorry fellow petekey shipper here but I am curious about how anti petekey shipping is rooted in ableism and transphobia? (Obviously you don't need to answer if you don't want to but I am curious, I'm also not super involved in the fandom so that might be why)

I've received two asks about this same thing with very similar wording so I'll just answer this one, hope other anon isn't too offended lol. I've spoken a bit about this before, but I'm too lazy to go find the post, and I have free time. The transphobic and ableist roots of the vocal group of anti-Petekeys that exist (and other anti-RPF people that go to a very far extreme in general) are very different so I'll address both of those separately.

(Also there will be very brief mentions of SA in my answer, addressing a common anti-RPF argument.) (Also also I'm not a Petekey shipper to clarify but I do welcome them on my blog.) (Also also also there is a TLDR at the end but please don't raise your pitchforks until you've read the whole post.) (Also also also also it's okay if you disagree with me, we can still be friends as long as you're civil.)

I also want to provide a disclaimer: it is okay to dislike any ship (or even RPF in general) for any reason. I'm not trying to claim that it's inherently transphobic and/or ableist to dislike or be personally uncomfortable with RPF. The problem comes in when people use their personal dislike of RPF and extend that to harassing RPF readers and writers (who I will henceforth call RPF enjoyers so I don't have to write that out) and trying to demonize us.

Part One: The Ableism

Many people who hate RPF to the extent that they shame RPF enjoyers do so because of ableism. In the process, they demonize us neurodivergent folk, whether we are RPF enjoyers or not. Often they will say "please just be normal about [person]" or "you're so obsessed and parasocial" when someone's just writing fic or making jokes about the ship being real.

Parasocial relationships, while real, are often used as leverage to further ostracize and discriminate against neurodivergent people, especially autistic people like myself. In RPF discourse, often visibly autistic people are accused of "breaking [person]'s boundaries" or, in some cases, even having our hyperfixations or special interests be compared to literal sexual assault.

As an actual survivor of SA, comparing a neurodivergent person's mostly harmless interests to SA is not only extremely disrespectful but also ableist. Often it is more visibly autistic or higher support needs autistic people that get this argument used against us, but any autistic or neurodivergent person can be targeted.

All of this is very weird and suspicious. Often, more moderate Petekey antis will say things like "you can ship Petekey, just be normal about it". This basically translates to "you can ship Petekey as long as you're a neurotypical". And this proves that a lot of what people are calling "just respect people's boundaries!!!!" is just ableism covered up with therapy speak and progressive language.

Part Two: The Transphobia

There is a lot to get into with the transphobia of the FOB fandom, and if I were to talk about this fandom's transphobia and all of my thoughts on it we would be here for several hours and a few hundred thousand words, but I do want to state a few facts to get us on the same page.

Trans people are targeted, harassed, and called out in this fandom far more often than cis people are.

Trans people in general society are often viewed as predators simply for existing, and when this intersects with a mental disorder or neurodivergence, we are even more likely to be ostracized or called out for things that really aren't that big a deal.

Our sexualities are seen as inherently predatory, no matter whether we're straight, gay, bi, or any other thing. In the eyes of society, there is no "good" sexuality that you can be when you are trans in the same way that you can be straight when you are cis.

When we are called out or targeted, we face the consequences of that worse than cis people do.

Many of these forms of discrimination are passive and not done on purpose, but good intentions aren't enough. Harm is still done to trans people while cis people look the other way.

So, how does all of this tie into Petekey?

WELL

Have you ever been on the Petekey side of Tumblr? Of course you have, you're a Petekey shipper. You may not have counted how many trans people you saw there, but you definitely noticed us. We were there. While we are about 1% of the general population, I would estimate that we are about 50%-70% of Petekey (and general bandom RPF) Tumblr.

All of this being said, the counter argument from the antis would be "we're not doing this because you're trans, it's because you're shitty and do [x thing they claim RPF is]". Unfortunately for them, this is no excuse to use transphobic stereotypes in order to "call us out" for the horrible crime of... writing fiction. And isn't it suspicious how these people very rarely come after m/f ships (exclusing x reader, because that's attacked a lot)?

HMMMMMMMMM

Trans people expressing our sexualities through this community, this ship, this form of media, are demonized and called predators. We are compared to people who commit SA, and legitimate abusers, for writing fiction. We are harassed and called out for being RPF enjoyers far more than cis people are.

Addressing the Bad Ones

Before an angry anon comes into my inbox talking about this, yes, I am aware that some Petekey shippers are racist, and I don't support that at all. Racists aren't welcome on my blog. Because I am white, I don't really have much to say about the vocal minority of Petekey shippers who are racist, but I do think that they are a problem and that it's important for the Petekey community to fight racism alongside the rest of the FOB fandom.

For those unaware, it has been brought to many in this fandom's attention that it is racist to reduce every FOB song written by a black man, Pete Wentz, to be about one white man, Mikey Way. This is indeed very racist. I don't know what the consensus among black fans is about how far you have to go about overanalyzing FOB songs in that perspective before it becomes racist, but I have never once seen a black fan, even one that doesn't personally like RPF, claim that it's racist to ship Petekey at all.

This vocal minority of racists is absolutely no excuse to harass anyone, especially those belonging to other minority groups that already have hate and harassment targeted at them for the most minor fuck-ups. Your (justified) anger with a few racists isn't an excuse to be ableist and transphobic because transphobia and ableism, even towards bad people, harms all trans and ND/disabled people who aren't racist.

I also want to state again that if this is your reason for disliking or being uncomfortable with Petekey in general, that is entirely valid! It's your job to curate your own online experiences and I have no interest in policing what you do with your own blog. Please just don't harass enjoyers of RPF or use transphobic and ableist language or stereotypes in your discourse.

This goes both ways. Even if you are an RPF enjoyer you should familiarize yourself with all types of bigotry to avoid accidentally repeating it, and if you do fuck up, own up to it, apologize, and don't do it again.

Conclusion/TLDR

Dislike of or personal discomfort with RPF is totally fine and normal, and so is thinking that RPF is bad, as long as you recognize that the negative aspects of RPF are a symptom, not the main problem here. The main problem is the commodification of human beings under capitalism.

However, RPF has been very important to queer and trans culture, especially bandom RPF in the 2000s. There is a vocal group of people who believe that writing RPF is literally the same as SA or that it is justified to harass RPF enjoyers. Neither of those beliefs are okay and they are rooted in ableism and transphobia for reasons I stated above.

Some Petekey shippers are racist, and unironically claiming that every FOB song is about Mikey is racist because you are reducing a black man to his feelings for a white person. This is still no excuse to go after the non-racist Petekey shippers.

I don't think that everyone who hates RPF to that extreme is trying to be ableist or transphobic, but the more you look at it, the more it becomes increasingly clear where their rhetoric comes from. This is still where they are getting their rhetoric from. They've likely internalized a lot of radfem and/or TEHM talking points as well, which is what I've seen for a lot of these types of people.

Also, mutuals: none of this is directed at you! If you were that anti-RPF to the point I would consider you transphobic or ableist, I wouldn have probably blocked you by now.

Also also, if I got something wrong, especially about the racism, feel free to correct me! I'm always open to good faith disagreement.

Also also also, I'm going to reblog this on my discourse sideblog because this post is more on the discoursey side.

#ask and ye shall receive #petekey #rpf discourse #shipping discourse #long post #discourse #shipcourse

[lamentationsofasinner]

best things abt cornwall: ( a very unserious post)

1: PIRATE FM!!!!

i'm not even joking, johnny off pirate fm raised me. and their little segments, omg! i'm so good at where are we to it's not even real, and daytime in the duchy is the best programme ever. and before you ask, pirate's been bred into me. so much that ik their hotline number. 01209313900 just in case you were wondering. and you can get a pirate windscreen sticker. genius.

2: falmouth packet

i'm from falmouth, and when i tell you that the falmouth packet is the most quality piece of journalism out there i'm not exaggerating. the reports from the truro crown courts are just TOO FUCKING GOOD and the headlines are so overwhelmingly shit! i kid you not, one week the front page was 'pig becomes stuck in house' . journalistic gold.

3: the blanket hate of tourists!

this is a hate shared by every single cornish person, even though tourism brings in shit tons of money to our communities. we all gripe and bitch abt your quba sails coats and your teslas and range rovers and god help you if you have even the slightest northern accent. i am praying for you as i write this.

4: poldark

i'm going to keep this short and sweet. WHEN HE GOES OFF RIDING TO TRURO HE IS RIDING THE WRONG FUCKING WAY!!!!

5: david fucking barnicoat.

let's face it, if you're from falmouth, you either love him or you hate him. basically, david barnicoat is the local busybody, but we love him sm. he also used to do a very good column in the falmouth packet abt the shipping movements at the docks.

6: the pronunciation of fowey

some ignorant twats pronounce fowey 'foewee' because they're annoying and stupid. these people are so prevalent that studies say that the pronunciation of the place is literally changing. pronounce it FOY folks!

7: regarding anywhere beyond the tamar as 'foreign'

if you're not cornish, you'll need this explained, but the tamar is the river between devon and cornwall, and there is an ongoing joke between the cornish that anywhere not in cornwall is foreign. my lovely gorgeous amazing friend eliza is from exeter and i call her a bloody foreigner. btw we're not being offensive, it's a joke before people start getting all anti-discriminatory.

8: we laugh at your clocks that say 'dreckly'

we don't actually say dreckly anymore. merchandise has cruelly robbed it from us.

9: TRAGO

absolutely fucking brilliant department store, and the best one is in falmouth, not newton bloody abbot. it may be in a castle, but you can't find a fucking thing in there. you can buy anything in trago (the falmouth one) because it is just too good. but they sell the randomest shit, like in the sports department, you can buy guns and crossbows. like wtf. buuuutttt, they have the best christmas display, that is set up in like late september, so your perception of time is all fucked up. honestly, when they set it up for the first time it feels like november. i forgive them tho because they have a little train THAT GOES ROUND ON TRACKS. INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS.

also they have the best advert on pirate ever. *headbangs* wHaTeVeR yOu wAnT -DUH DUH- wHaTeVeR yOu LiKe -DUH DUH-

TRAGO IS LIFE

thanks very much for listening to my totally unserious post abt cornwall. david barnicoat, you won't be reading this but if you are, i'm sorry!

#cornwall #cornwall live #pirate fm #sophie rants #tamar #devon #tourists #mining #falmouth #trago #im a trago stan

[ilikekidsshows]

Basically, the issue that's causing the anti-Dadrius folks is the same thing that caused so many issues in the Miraculous fandom, the Gravity Falls fandom, etc.: past generations thought "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong". Today's generation thinks, "everyone Secretly Agrees with Me Already, but some psychological dysfunction is preventing them from seeing things properly". So, today's fans are obnoxious because they don't think the rest of us are wrong, they think we're Brainwashed (TM).

I have seen the argument that some people online think that they're so correct that everyone does agree with them, but is just hiding it for whatever reason. That they're using the argument that: "you have no reason to trust anything a stranger online tells you," to justify completely making up everybody else's personality. But I've mostly seen that attitude in people who think: "Maybe we shouldn't act like asses 24/7 when online," should always be answered with: "This is the internet! Everybody's an ass!" while the fact that someone just politely asking them to be less of an ass should already be evidence to the contrary. "Everybody else is an ass, so I am justified." Basically, they feel they're so correct, they don't actually write any proper counterarguments despite being the one to start the argument.

There is more to the tendency to try to pick fights in fandom spaces, though. I feel stuff like tag-bombers and post-hijackers are a result of more people online disregarding the concept of personal space, even in a digital space. Like, how often does someone defend hopping onto someone else's post with something combatative with: "You posted this publically online, so I'm justified in arguing with you," completely forgetting the possibility that the post might be trying to reach like-minded individuals? They definitely show the Everyone Secretly Agrees With Me attitude in viewing this behavior as okay when they're called out on it.

These people also actively stalk the tags used by people who disagree with them to find posts to argue with, or just post their opposing takes but tag them with the tags used by the people who are guaranteed to disagree with their posts. They often play coy ("I used the ship tag because I'm talking about the ship no other reason I swear!"), but tag-bombing is about picking fights. Basically, everything is treated as an invitation to debate, every topic as something suitable to debate over and every other fan as a willing debate partner.

I've seen people lamenting how we no longer use phrases like: "Don't like, don't read." Basically, fandoms can no longer just accept that one group of people thinks this way and another group of people thinks that way and if you feel too strongly about mutually exclusive takes, you probably should avoid each other for the sake of having a lighter fandom space. Shipping wars have always been a thing, and could get pretty ugly, but these days people seem to feel so strongly about everything and feel the need to prove that they're correct more often than before.

For many, it used to be enough to privately think you are right and chuckle with your like-minded friends over how everyone else is wrong, but now you have to prove that your way of thinking is actually the most logical one. Like you said, these people think that the only reason anyone thinks differently from them is that they don't know any better and they just need to be educated, because, surely, if they knew all the facts, they'd agree with the "obvious correct take".

Some fandom behaviors have gotten more exhausting, is what I say.

#fandom nonsense #media and fandom response

[aelaer]

I came here to say thank you for your dedication on writing stephen-centric fics (especially the whumpy/angsty ones). There's a lack of fics out there with stephen being one of the main chars that don't involve the author putting him as a 'plot-setter' to give other characters more 'spotlight'. I love all marvel characters, I really do, but sometimes when I try to find anything to read from the Stephen Strange fandom or alike, it never really fulfills my craving/reaches my expectations. Especially with ironstrange being an extremely famous ship. :/ I may come out more of like an ass on this one, but I really hate fics that make Stephen ooc just bcs. I dunno. To give their fav char the stage? And ppl praise those fics. Say they were good. It's super annoying tbh. I'm probably just biased, idk.

So yeah, thanks for writing your fics. I would really have given up on this fandom if it weren't for you. Real grateful.

k;efw;ijogrz;ogzihoggdio grd <33333333 Thank you! Whenever I am having a writing slump or just a bad day, I try to think of messages like this instead of negative thoughts. People taking the time to just say nice things, it's just -- real nice.

Always great to see another fan of Stephen whump around. PEOPLE, he's so whumpy! Tony and Peter get wayyyy too much whump in fics where the three show up, and in Loki & Stephen fics, it's usually Loki getting the whumping treatment. Whumping the *competent doctor* is way, way more fun. Trust me. I know there's a lot of whumpy writers in the MCU, give Stephen some of your whumpy love. Please. And then tag me after you're done writing it, thank you!

Also, you opened a can of worms with that last comment, because I agree with you and it's been like, a year since I made a comment on this on tumblr, so it's about time I made another one, ahahahah.

Warning: superrrr critical of anti-character writers/Civil War Team Iron Man Only writers below. Sorry if you, the person reading this, are included in that group. I just don't think it's good stuff and bad for the fandom--and my blog, my opinion space sorta thing. But this doesn't mean I think you're any less valuable, or less moral, as a person. This is still just fiction we're talking about.

There's definitely a segment of IronStrange fics that make Stephen OOC. I'm thankful that it's not all of them, but there's still enough to make a Stephen fan just annoyed. It's one reason I refuse to read non-Team Cap friendly fics, or any fic labeled "Civil War Team Iron Man", because 9 times out of 10, Stephen's just a prop character in those instead of a character with his own agency and beliefs. And usually Tony's made into this perfect messiah type character which is just *weird* for a guy who did make his fortune off weapons, like the writers are willfully ignoring that. And beyond that, Tony's definitely a flawed char, which is one reason I enjoy him as a character. Exploring his foibles is one of the best parts of writing from his POV. So making him perfect as anti-fics/Team Iron Man fics tend to do? Not my cup of tea.

There's a tendency to make Steve's character stupid or a bully which is just more bad writing, even worse than what Endgame did to him (talk about bad writing). Folks can write what they want, but I have yet to read a good anti-character-fic that keeps the characters true to their characters instead of serving as some sort of mouth piece for the author which is just poor writing. It may be popular, but there's a *lot* of really badly written books in the NYT Best Sellers, so popular doesn't mean good!

Also, it's not to say that these writers aren't capable of writing better, as I will see their other works and see that, yeah, they can write in a more nuanced POV or have a technical ability that's already present. But they've surrounded themselves with opinions and meta that fit their mold and their mold only and, well, handicap their own growth and their talent by sticking to OOC characterizations. It's their choice, of course, but I find it baffling because they stick to it for *years and years* and I'm still of the opinion that that's not healthy. It's 2022; Civil War came out 6 years ago. It's time to expand your horizons, and probably rewatch the film because you don't remember it as how it really happened if you're still sticking with the old, tired tropes these fics tend to have.

I did almost leave the fandom at one point and delete all my fics in a dark place at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 (before the pandemic) because I was so tired of this trend to only IronStrange and the amount of vitriol in many of those stories. Thankfully other senses prevailed, and I got some outside assistance that helped make me realize that I still had a place in fandom, even if my opinion was a minority opinion. And asks like yours let me know I made the right choice in sticking around.

#about me #fanfic #ask #answered #anonymous #stephen strange #cacw discourse #discourse #i dunno what else to tag this #anti-antis #i guess lol

[sanktyastag]

genuinely so confused with people who hate show!darklng. show!darkling is as much of a part of oppressed minority as book!darkling is but with even more 'validation' for his purpose, and i see people still hate show!him saying "oh but he is very bad in book" but then i see them rooting for book m*l LIKE HOWWW [i do kinda understand with those who dislike book!darkling but im still as baffled when when they root for book m*l]

ah, the good old darkling vs mal debate, lol.

in all honesty, i think whether someone prefers mal or the darkling when they watch/read SaB really comes down to how different fans like to engage with media.

i really enjoy politics, moral ambiguity, and fiction as a tool to examine real world oppression. as a result (and incredibly predictably to every single person who knows me) my favorite character is the darkling, because his character is a great lense to examine those different aspects of the series from. but, let's be honest here - both the books and the show only engage in politics, gray morality, and discrimination and oppression against minorities in like... the most surface-level way possible. if you're not already prone to getting over-invested in those fictional aspects, there's very little incentive to do so - because both the books and the show only set the darkling up as a focal point to examine those concepts in book 1, when alina thinks he could possibly be a good person. as soon as the darkling is revealed to be an eViL mAnIpUlAtOr, quite literally all of the nuance is stripped from his character, and we no longer engage with any valid points he may or may not have.

which means, if you're not super interested in socio-political worldbuilding, or you don't really want to examine war from a philosophical or moral standpoint, the books and show won't make you, and so it's nice and easy to just view the darkling as the amoral antagonist who needs to be taken down. i honestly don't blame fans for not liking him in the books, because the books don't... really want you to. and the show does pretty much the same thing. the show stops sympathizing with the darkling the second baghra lets the truth drop, and so every single thing he was previously shown to care about is now framed as the manipulation of an evil, calculating villain. so if a fan looks at the darkling, sees all the evil shit he does, and doesn't want to look past all of that, in order to critically examine his character, and the biased way he's viewed... i mean. yeah. then they wouldn't be a fan of his. they're more than justified in that, in my opinion. "this character is interesting, you just have to look past all the nonsensical extremist, stupid bullshit he does that harms everyone around him" isn't going to be a universal opinion, and i don't blame them for not wanting to go out of their way to sympathize with an uncompromising, murderous bastard who doesn't really respect anyone else's opinions other than his own (which, i think, is true even of show!darkling, although he feels worse about the fact that he's screwing people over. like he might cry about it, but he's still going to go forward with his plan, regardless of who objects). there's a reason darklina fans spend so much time writing about what they think would have been a more satisfying or interesting character arc for the darkling to go through - because canon absolutely doesn't do him any favors. like at all.

and on the other side, there's mal. i actually like both show and book mal, even though i don't think book mal was always handled incredibly well. i think he's a fairly sympathetic character with phenomenally bad coping mechanisms, and that the story spends essentially no time actually exploring his negative character traits in a meaningful way, which means, again, that we're given a character who the audience is tasked with doing most of the legwork for, if they want to like him. just like darkling fans very rarely excuse every single thing he's ever done, i don't actually see mal fans defend all the shit he pulls - beyond when both sides are baiting each other, in which case everyone seems to say the most black and white shit i've ever heard. but that's just kind of how online discourse works, so i won't judge people based off that, lol.

i think most fans of book mal seem to take his character, examine his negative traits and where they stem from, pick how they, personally, would like to see those issues addressed, and then put in the work to give him and alina the breathing room to do go through that character growth together.

so, by and large, i think fans of book mal and show mal just have different concepts that they find interesting or satisfying to explore in the media that they like. i obviously can't speak for others, but generally with mal and alina, i do think it's an interesting coming of age story, and has a smaller-scale, trauma-focused approach to the over-arching, wide-scale moral dilemmas that i focus on when i think about the darkling and alina. they're two flawed characters, thrust into a horrible situation, and they're desperately trying to get through it together, while fighting for the happy, peaceful lives that no one else has ever cared about them achieving.

so, yeah. in the end, i think it's really about what a fan wants from the media they consume. there's not really a wrong answer, in my opinion. it's only when people start judging each other over their fictional preferences that things start getting rocky, which is something that both darkling/alina shippers and mal/alina shippers could probably be better about, as needlessly antagonistic posts are prominent in both ship tags.

#djafljkdalk i'm sorry if this isn't the answer you wanted anon. but it was an interesting chance to explore both ships! #even though trying to word my thoughts on them was... very difficult lol #because i have very strong opinions - both good and bad - on both #like at the end of the day there IS a reason i ship one of these ships more than the other #but it's an entirely personal preference that has to do with me liking certain tropes more than others #i think they're both equally bad in canon tbqh. i just have more fun exploring darklina stuff than i do mal/alina #but in general i think the romance focus of this series kind of ruined an otherwise interesting story </3 #say it with me folks. we're not anti the ships. we're anti the writing that never fully explored anything satisfactorily #and also we're anti the fans that make hating other ships like half of their personality #shadow and bone #darklina #anti leigh bardugo #mostly for my tags i guess lakdjflak

[nneefa]

That anti-sasuhina is down criminal for hating on creative works but ... there are some sasuhina fans that bullied a friend of mine (we're both on sasuhina fandom) some members are just absurd in their headcanons that we can't have another.

I’m not saying that there aren’t any SasuHina fans that aren’t downright vile and wretched. I know because I myself have encountered them too, but I hate this idea that the Naruto fandom - particularly the SasuSaku fandom - perpetuates when it comes to SasuHina:

that we’re all comprised of Sakura Haruno and/or Naruto Uzumaki haters (when some SH shippers love and treat them with more care than Kishimoto could ever dream of); that we’re all art thieves or that we don’t condemn art thieves (when there are art thieves in every single fandom ever made and that, contrary to stupidly popular belief, we actually do condemn plagiarism); that we all ship SasuHina out of spite towards canon (when most SH shippers are multishippers, never mind that some of us just like what we like without thinking about what is and isn’t canon, and even if we did ship SH out of spite, why does it matter when it doesn’t directly affect or harm anyone); that we just loves us some adultery/infidelity plotlines, or whatever other inane nonsense they seem to pull out of thin air, when that couldn’t be any further from the truth if they ever bothered to actually search for a decent SasuHina fic.

There are all sorts of shipping fandoms within the Naruto fandom that do this, but somehow, it’s only exclusive to SasuHina and we’re all labeled and painted with one brushstroke as the worst of the worst, by every stretch of the imagination, when the ship and fandom are literal blips on the radar in comparison to other fandoms.

It’s a shame that your friend was bullied, even worse that it was over something as harmless as shipping, but this sort of behavior is not exclusive to the SasuHina fandom, and I’m tired of us being generalized like we all are. The same thing can be said for SasuSaku or literally any shipping fandom within the Naruto fandom; in fact, the bullying from anti-SasuHina folks is so awful that we can’t even upload our fics onto AO3 or fanfiction.net without some douchebag leaving an unwarranted, disgusting comment under our stories before proceeding to tell us to kill ourselves because we deigned to write about a ship they dislike. Twitter is crawling with these kinds of people to the point where they tried to ruin SasuHina month - an event that’s been going on for more than a decade, mind you - for no other reason than to be assholes, because Hinata is “a big titty monster with an ugly husband” and Sasuke is “Sakura-sexual that doesn’t have eyes for a weakling like Hinata.” It’s all sick stuff.

As for headcanons: we can all believe whatever we want to believe, and the only way our headcanons can affect someone else is if we want it to. Hell, my headcanon is that Sasuke and Hinata would’ve understood one another on a level that far exceeds the relationship he has with Sakura had Kishimoto ever allowed them to interact with each other, platonically or romantically. I staunchly believe in it, no matter how stupid or absurd anyone thinks it is, no matter how much anyone disagrees with it, and no one can convince me otherwise, and it shouldn’t bother anyone that I do believe it to the point where they feel like it’s okay to insult me about it, because it doesn’t impact anyone’s life in any way, shape or form. And that goes for you anon: you can have whatever headcanon you desire.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: we cultivate our own experiences on the internet. Some of us like to torture ourselves by intentionally looking up stuff we know will piss us off, but at the end of the day, we are in control of what we do and do not want to see; and if something as small and insignificant and harmless as a headcanon over a mf crack ship can rile a person up so bad that they feel the need to bully and bash real life human beings, then they need to gtf off the internet and go touch some grass, because it’s never that serious.

#ask neefa #anon #SasuHina #and this isn’t necessarily directed towards you anon #but in general #some people take headcanons more seriously than the person that came up with the headcanon #none of it is real #and it shouldn’t bother us that bad that someone fiercely believes in something unreal #unless that person is a bully #but even then people are gonna believe what they want and the best option is to block them #lord knows I exercise that block button regularly #but like people need to stop acting like SH is the boogeyman #it’s one of the most chill fandoms #we used to tolerate bullying but we don’t anymore and we’re not sorry about it #those days of tolerating bullying are over

[laikuh]

Is it weird that whenever I see an anti!John post, I always assume that they're Destiel shippers? Because 9/10 of the time, they are. Which is weird because plenty in the fandom likes John as a character -- we see him as he is/was, as he was written; a broken man. Our voices we're just drowned out by crazy LOUD shippers. --- Here's my wholesome Dean&John headcanon w/o context. --- youtu. be/BsuY9lHxg88

idk if its weird, because i feel like you’re probably right. i ship daddycest, a bit of wincest, and also am a bonafide destiheller, and i def think john in canon is pretty terrible. i might have been more sympathetic before the episode where we learn he let dean get arrested and sent to the boys home for shoplifting food for him and sam, saying let him rot, like, that’s a line for me personally. i think destiel folk probably prioritize dean over john for shit like that (dean saying things with dad got “dicey” to sam in s14 also comes to mind) and so that gets reflected in fandom spaces. and bc their ship has nothing to do with john, just dean, there’s more space to be anti-john in their posts. 

i can’t speak for anyone else who isn’t in the destiel fandom, since i’m in it myself, but for me i just put aside my canon gripe with john for the sake of the ship and the fic, just like i put aside my real life problems with incest when i read or write daddycest/wincest. and i agree with you--john is very complicated and very broken, and that’s interesting to explore. it’s interesting to humanize him in depth, given the show really does nothing to engage with the contradiction that is john winchester, they just rubberstamp his supposed goodness and act like he...like he didn’t make his children feel like shit, leave them alone for weeks on end, let dean repeatedly suffer for crimes likely committed in service of keeping his brother fed and clothed, and then consistently treat them like tools instead of people when they were adults. 

idk, you probably didn’t mean to unlock all this with me, but i have a lot of thoughts and issues and love for john. i resonate with dean and sam, and i resonate with their choice to forgive him despite his flaws. that said, i also find it incredibly aggravating that the show itself disregards its own canon re: john. that it brushes aside the shit john did because jeffrey dean morgan is just that hot and cool and good at acting and genuinely close with j2. 

i don’t think my otp being destiel makes me more critical of john, but i think, as i said above, that destiel folk are just more invested in breaking down what makes dean so tragic, and like...a solid 75% of that is the damage john did him as a kid. whereas wincest/daddycest folks (i assume that’s the divide being drawn here?) have a bigger investment in both characters, that allows more room for humanizing and thinking about john outside of dean. if that makes sense? hope this doesn’t come off as wanky or ship war-y, but it IS an interesting dynamic that you point out, that a lot of john hate comes from that corner of fandom. i feel in an interesting position because im in both segments of the spn fandom. 

eta: i also think this is why i WANT to write a fic where john isn’t a garbage father. i want to explore what it would like for him and dean if their childhood wasn’t so traumatic. if he’d TALKED with them about mary, if he’d TALKED about this feelings and let them talk about theirs, if HE’D taken time to work a steady job every now and then to earn enough money to keep them fed and clothed before he quit to go hunting. i wanna know what a real partnership (insomuch as an incestuous father-son relationship can be real) between john and dean would look like if dean wasn’t holding on to years of repressed shame, guilt, and anger because of things john said/did/taught him. 

SECOND ETA: OMFG I FORGOT TO CHECK THE YOUTUBE VIDEO AND FUCK PERFECTION dean sings this under his breath whenever john’s in a mood and it always pulls out the faintest of smiles lmao.

#daddycest #asks

[asynca]

I don't remember if I asked you this already, but I just this year figured out that I am a Trans straight guy. If anything, this discovery's not helped my mental state, but we're working through this. A big part of why I feel less secure in myself after starting to figure out my transness is that on the internet, I am primarily part of wlw fandoms. I'm more than aware that wlw treat these fandoms as safe spaces away from men, and I'm not sure how my role in the fandom has changed as a (1/2)

(2/2) as a result of me now presenting as a guy online. Even now, I’ve started to get unhappy people telling me that they don’t feel like I have a place in these fandoms. I want to feel like I do, but I don’t know where. (Additionally, I feel weird about being much more drawn to wlw ships than strait ships. Is this me being a creepy dude? Is this internalized transphobia that’s keeping me from completely seeing myself as a guy?) thanks for taking your time to read my confused little ask.

You may have asked it - I’ve answered an ask like this before but I think it was a while ago. 

First of all, fandom is not a ‘woman only’ place. It’s not an anyone-only space. It’s a space where people get together to enjoy someone else’s creations and characters and use them to inspire their own creations, to continue the stories, to analyse and breakdown themes in the subject media, etc, etc. Fandom is literally just a big group of fans, and you are a fan, so you belong in fandom. While fandom should remain respectful and constructive - it’s also not anyone’s safe space. People can make little corners of the fandom and blogs that are safe spaces, but fandom itself in not an exclusive space. 

If you get people saying otherwise to you, mute/block them. If you’re a fan who wants to connect with other fans to enjoy media and consumer or create content relating to it, you belong in the fandom. 

Secondly, and I’ve said this numerous times, it is fundementally okay for straight cis (or otherwise) guys to enjoy media about lesbians. You like women, there’s two or more of them right there in that media. You’re allowed to enjoy it and you’re allowed to like the women and be turned on by their relationship. THAT IS: as long as you don’t write/draw them women as sentient sex toys, as long as you respect their personhood as characters, and generally just behave in a respectful non-gross manner about the media and the fact it is portraying the sexualities of real people. 

I know three guys who create media (including erotica) about lesbians that is widely enjoyed by lesbians themselves. So not only are these men enjoying lesbian relationships, they’re going out and creating MORE content for people (mostly women) who like the relationship between two characters. Men can add value to fandoms about lesbian characters if they’re respectful of the characters and the lesbians who like the characters. 

A lot of this hatred of Yaoi/Yuri fandoms (where straight girls obsess over gay men or straight men obsess over gay girls) is because there is a certain category of fan who removes the personhood of a character, disregards the fact gay men and lesbians exist and are real, and literally reduces gay men or lesbians to sexual items for their own titillation and entertainment whilst disrespecting real queer folks when their behaviour is criticized (or just disrespecting queer folks in general). 

You can enjoy gay characters in a way that is not at all like that. It’s possible to enjoy lesbians as a man in a respectful and constructive way without acting like they for your sexual satisfaction. And if you do enjoy the media in a respectful way: GREAT. You have nothing at all to feel bad about. 

I don’t think it’s internalised transphobia from what you’ve said. I just think there’s a lot of (understandable) anti-majority sentiment in fandoms that you have to navigate around and be mindful of. 

In short, you can enjoy any sort of relationship as any sort of person as long as you treat the characters respectfully and don’t reduce them to hot bodies for you to jack off to. 

ETA: Whoops! I nearly forgot! Congrats on figuring something about yourself out, and I hope whatever path your transition takes it’s smooth and easier than you expect

#fandom #Anonymous #ask auntie asy #sexuality #gender #fyi 'lesbian' and 'gay man' are shorthand here for wlw and mlm because people keep asking me what those terms mean #they're not widely used outside tumblr