#so fucking tired of people fetishizing and demonizing mlm

[autisticastiels]

(stupidly) decided to try and track down that godawful dean being a serial killer = gay meta to see if it was as disgustingly homophobic as I remember and Yep! It’s Somehow Even Worse!

Content warnings for homophobia, rape and sexual assault under the cut:

#op needs to go outside and touch some fucking grass #so fucking tired of people fetishizing and demonizing mlm #and mlm attraction/love/sex etc #especially those who dress it up in progressive language but end up somehow being even more gross than loud and proud homophobes

[correctproseka]

You know what, as a wlw im extremely tired of this fandom.

There are:

4 boys

15 girls

1 Mizuki

And the fandom manages to get the 4 boys twice as popular as the most popular wlw ship.

Up until a few months ago there were more wlw fics even if ruikasa and akitouya were always top 3 but then the genshin fujoshis entered this fandom but this isn't about that now.

I understand ruikasa and akitouya are great ships, but can't people spare the time to give wlw some love too or are people gonna continue being straight up lesbiphobic and misogynist?

MinoHaru and Anhane are THE MOST EXPLICIT SAID ships in the full game. And anhane still gets more attention because they're from vbs, a group with two boys. MinoHaru has so few fanfics actually dedicated to them, most of them are chatfics or background couples.

Its full on misogynist when:

The fandom treats leo/need and more more jump too, they're the only full female group (im not counting niigo because of Mizuki) and said as "boring" and the girls without personality, Saki saves actually because she is Tsukasa's sister.

Both of those groups has amazing stories that might not be for you, but it does not gives anyone the right to say its boring when you didn't even pay attention to it.

I've seen people call Kanade, Mafuyu, Ena boring even, but then go and amplify Tsukasa's depression (which is another fucked up thing) because sure, girls cant be as interesting as boys.

Treat Shiho, Ena and Airi as this assholes but turn around and say Akito is the best written character as if those 4 dont have the same thing of acting harsh but genuinely caring.

People put stuff like ruinene and mizurui as past abusive/toxic relationships for the sake of mlm.

People keep up putting Saki on the hospital or dead in favor of Tsukasa angst, which is not only misogynist but also ableist.

People treat Ena as this abusive older sister when really, it's not that at all. (Also used for Akito angst because people love doing this to the siblings apparently)

Its full on transphobic when:

People dont treat Mizuki as nonbinary, or their ships being nblw/nblm or even wlw would be more correct, people treat Mizuki differently. Yall barely treat them as a person, just for your ship. Mizuena and Mizumafu are extremely sexualized as if thats the only good thing for the character.

Its full on lesbiphobic when:

The 4 boys have more content than 15 girls.

A lot of the most popular wlw ship is just as a background for Akitouya. (Seriously dont even tag them when its not important to the story, when i want to see Akitouya i go to the akitouya tag).

In early fandom, people demonized Anhane to say how Akitouya is this great thing.

Someone had to write anhane fics near daily (Kohane420 if you're out there you're a legend) because there were more akian fics than anhane.

It's straight up homophobic when:

The mlm ships has a lot of fetishization and smut.

They change Tsukasa's personality to be an innocent bean who does no wrong and Rui's personality as this sexualized person just to write fanfic.

I wont be mad if you like the boy characters or the mlm ships because that is valid but sometimes you should stop and look at if there's any reason to that or if you're not leaving the girls behind for it.

#i dont usually do fandom rants but ig ive had enough now #project sekai #proseka #pjsekai #puroseka #colorful stage #prosekai #rant #idk how to tag this if theres any tw can someone tell me plz?

[emo-firespirit]

purecacao is honestly so weird as a crk ship because it’s like. it’s fine, I guess, in theory. it’s cute, I suppose, if you wanted to make it work. the art people make of it is neat (sometimes). but the level of popularity it has as something a large collective of people have put time and effort into when pv and cacao have literally never been shown in canon speaking is indicative of a larger problem within the cr fandom. a problem which is that people can and will ignore women and wlw as hard as they physically can to ship two men who have never spoken together. and that’s not even mentioning the barrage of other issues present as to how people portray cacao and pv

it was just...bound to happen. pv is shorter, more feminine, and lighter (although he is not white). cacao is taller, black, and also much more masculine. do I even need to explain how fetishized a ship like this is gonna be become in the larger conscious fanon? not only is pv already sexualized to hell and back for being a gnc man as is, we also have to pile the way people hypersexualize cacao in relation to him and I’m so sick of tired of seeing purecacao art that does this kind of shit.

the cr fandom is already hideously racist enough as it is and also notorious for trying to pretend the devs don’t have a long history of the same issues, of villainizing their dark skinned characters, of rampant orientalism and just overall shittiness. I’ve seen so much stupidly disgusting art of these two on twitter and tumblr, where so many fans insistent on portraying cacao as domineering, almost aggressive and suave. you know who you are, people who only talk about cacao in hypersexualized terms and call him d/lf and act like pv is his personal toy. do you know who the fuck you’re talking about? mr. “I don’t know how to laugh”, the guy who would rather isolate himself than deal with his problems, the guy who has depression and literally lives off the principle that wanton destruction is dishonorable and a blasphemy to the cause to protect others?

(none of this is even taking into account the way people portray pure vanilla when they do whitewash him—it’s pretty obvious yall wanna indulge in some white savior fantasies when you do that)

if we’re going solely off theoretical ideas as to why the ancients would be compatible, hollyberry is a far more acceptable symbolic pair for cacao than pv is. she has kids, she suffers from the same flavor of moral hang ups as he does (she was also ensnared by the burdens of family and desired to escape such things, only to realize in the end that she needed to take up her mantle again and that she was overall worthy of doing so) and she also has like. A rivalry with a dragon? like c’mon, you can’t deny how funny it’d be for pitaya to whine to hb about how cacao refuses to engage with them and their dumb stupid dragon desires of being hit in the head by a really Large weapon. like he’s tired of dragons. if pitaya was a real threat he would have killed them already

that’s not even mentioning another reason why so many people ship purecacao besides what I already said here—so many of you hate white lily and have the most misogynistic takes on her character (insisting she’s abusive, manipulating pure vanilla, etc.), or just, like, refuse to engage with female characters in media because they get in the way of your precious yaoi mlm gay ships. like I’m sorry, she’s not evil, she’s a victim of circumstance at best and a morally grey person who killed a few headmasters at worst. cacao has arguably caused more harm to others than she has because he’s been letting his entire kingdom starve and has been neglecting those who have trusted him to protect them (but that’s a post for another day, but it’s not like cacao isn’t a deeply sympathetic character otherwise. it’d be untrue to say the story is not set on making him out to be a good person). you just want an excuse to demonize a female character for doing what the male characters have always been doing and you’re not being slick about it! (This is specifically aimed at the not insignificant number of people who want to or have tried to write white lily out of the story and give cacao her role. like, I’m sorry but none of the ancients hate white lily, pure vanilla doesn’t hate white lily and cacao sure as hell does not hate white lily. stop trying to pretend that this is the case)

(and yes, I’m aware cacao is black and white lily is. well, lol, white. my point here isn’t on how the fandom treats white lily vs how they treat cacao outside of shipping dynamics, it’s on how (mostly nonblack, mostly fujo) misogynistic weirdos will go out of their way to ignore her to fetishize the fuck out of cacao. just because cacao is being shipped with another man of color does not mean he is being treated well by the people doing so—don’t try to fucking argue that lmao, fetishization is not representation. there’s another conversation to be had on the status of ships with black characters in cr but that’s not what this post is about.)

it’s just. yall, I’m tired. I’m tired of this fandom and your consistent and persistent ignorance of wlw. im tired of y’all pretending women shouldn’t exist if you don’t like them, im tired of your racist bullshit and I’m tired of decent ideas like two old men being in love being twisted into something in furtherance of fetishizing mlm, black men, and feminine gnc men. im tired of how much you all hate women and refuse to make content for them or even acknowledge them as complex people worthy of the same introspective dissection and character depth as the fanon personalities you’ve made up in your minds for your favorite male characters. it’s pretty obvious why pv x cacao is the premiere ancient ship that involves two characters who haven’t talked to each as compared to, say, golden cheese x hollyberry, you know?

this isn’t a post on why I hate purecacao or think it’s a bad ship btw, because I know there’s gonna be people who will not read this entire thing and pretend like I hate the ship when I dont. I don’t want this to be seen as such, I just want to finally get this off my chest. I just want to finally get off my chest the feelings I have on the hideous amounts of racism and misogyny present in one of the most popular crk ships, which is only growing more and more popular with the recent update.

so like? if you ship purecacao, fine. more power to you. congrats. but maybe ask examine yourself (especially if you’re white and/or male aligned) how you are most likely being influenced to produce subtly racist content, and how your discussion (or lack thereof) of the women in cr is most likely indicative of the fact you have misogyny to work out.

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #dark cacao cookie #pure vanilla cookie #mod hb

[akari-hope]

Not sure why you think that wlw are more shunned, viewed as predatory, and otherwise demonized than mlm relationships, particularly enemies to lovers dynamics? Sapphics are by and large wayyyyy more well-received than mlm. Sapphics are seen as soft and harmless and lovely even when they’re fighting, while mlm are seen as dirty and emasculated and generally viewed with complete disgust.

i said that mlm are FETISHIZED more in enemies to lovers dynamics than wlw. wlw are more DEMONIZED than mlm in enemies to lovers dynamics. and i gave clear examples of dynamics that reflect this in that post, so i'm not pulling this out of my ass. neither is good. both are bad. they're just different kinds of bad. i'm pretty sure i made that clear but if i didn't, i'm restating it now - NEITHER MLM NOR WLW ARE TREATED WELL IN MEDIA REGARDLESS OF DYNAMIC. THIS IS NOT OPPRESSION OLYMPICS. DIFFERENT PROBLEMS DOES NOT EQUAL BETTER PROBLEMS.

i am, however, a lesbian, and i'm going to be able to speak more coherently and authentically to the sapphic representation and general treatment of women in media than anything else. it's my firsthand experience and it's always going to be easier and more accurate than my musings on the experiences of other groups of people. and given that i have a particular fondness for enemies to lovers dynamics, of course i'm bound to contemplate sapphic enemies to lovers dynamics specifically.

but if we must dance this dance bc you decided to take a bad faith interpretation of my words, women have to do more to be loved in media, and they have to do far less to be hated. this is a fact plain and simple, and if you can't acknowledge that we are not even remotely on the same page. You can look at ANY piece of media and see this is true. the supernatural fandom's treatment of basically any women vs. the kingdom hearts fandom's treatment of kairi vs. the naruto fandom's treatment of sakura. etc. etc. etc. i could name examples all day. these are women who, yes, have shoddy writing, but instead of getting the same treatment of a male character with shoddy writing - immediately getting fleshed out by fans - they get set aside as annoying, bitchy, mary sues, etc. even female characters with GOOD writing will get this treatment, a la lightning farron from final fantasy xiii. male characters with the SAME EXACT TRAITS are often beloved by fans. easy example, see cloud strife from final fantasy vii, who shares a hysterically huge amount of personality traits with lightning farron.

and this is BEFORE we even get into the discussion of being sapphic, or god forbid any other type of minority. traditionally beautiful white cishet women who are feminine and kind are the only women to ever pass for general audiences, and even then it's not consistent. women must be "palatable". versus white men, who are allowed to be dark, messy, gritty, murderers, even genocidal dictators and still be beloved by fans. and yes, the qualifier of white is necessary here - men of color, especially black men, do not get this same generosity from fans, and you bet your fucking ass it goes triple for women of color.

and again, this is BEFORE WE EVEN FACTOR IN BEING GAY OR MENTALLY ILL OR ANY OTHER FACTORS. THIS IS ASSUMING ALL CHARACTERS ARE CISHET AND NEUROTYPICAL.

women are "soft and harmless and lovely" as you put it when they fight...if they're fucking tifa lockhart. if they're feminine and sweet and cute normally, or at least perceived that way. if they look like they're out of madoka magica (and oops not even then, bc you bet your ASS there's insane demonization of miss homura akemi). and also, friendly reminder, that "soft and harmless and lovely" thing isn't a compliment. it's fucking infantilizing at best.

for sheer simplicity's sake, to compare two ships that are on a relatively equal playing field in terms of representation, i'm going to take a look at the general reception of goro akechi/ren amamiya from persona 5 (i'm using ren as his name for simplicity's sake) and madoka kaname/homura akemi from madoka magica.

some brief context for both: both are heavily queercoded, homura is initially introduced as an antagonistic character but it is later revealed to not be the case, akechi is initially introduced as a friendly character but it is later revealed to not be the case, and both homura and akechi have clear and intense struggles with trauma and other mental health issues.

judging by what i've said, from your own logic, surely homura is a widely beloved and not at all vilified character. after all, she's feminine, she's not REALLY a villain, and she's got sympathetic motivations. right? wrong. homura is widely beloved... by sapphics. but even people who LIKE THE SHOW DO NOT ALWAYS LIKE HER. homura was WIDELY hated and discoursed back when the show first aired. you still get people who hate her. and even more frustrating, despite the blatant, you-absolutely-cannot-miss-it queercoding, sapphic fans of the show still have to argue that it's not just "girls being friends". it's not even a true enemies to lovers setup, and you still cannot escape homura being called toxic and predatory.

now let's take a brief look at akechi and ren. like previously stated, akechi is revealed to be an antagonist later in the story. and when he is, he tries to shoot ren in the head and frame it as a suicide. this is, quite obviously, a lot different from homura and madoka, where homura never even directly fights madoka. surely by your logic, akechi would be widely seen as a villain, unforgivable, horrendously terrible? well he most certainly isn't. he's one of if not the most beloved characters by fans. his relationship with ren is more often than not read as romantic, and it's practically treated as canon by a large majority.

and like i previously stated, i am not saying the mlm example i've given is without issues - akechi/ren is highly sexualized and fetishized. it's just a very DIFFERENT problem from the vilification that wlw characters often receive. and i am not saying that mlm are NEVER vilified. i am simply saying the large, overarching trend in fandom is to be forgiving of men, and unforgiving of women.

i simply do NOT see mlm ships get the same treatment in this regard to wlw ships. sora/riku from kingdom hearts and catra/adora from she-ra have...practically the same narrative in many ways. childhood friends separated by a worldwide conflict, becoming enemies, fighting each other multiple times, arguably with intent to kill, eventually saving each other and finding a way to reconcile in order to emerge victorious against the true villain. riku and catra are strikingly alike, as are sora and adora. but riku is once again a fan favorite character. and catra has received backlash after backlash after backlash. i hardly even post about she-ra anymore and i STILL get people in my inbox talking about catra discourse!!

again, i'm NOT saying the script is never reversed. there's not really anything to be won by making absolute statements like that. i'm just saying that i have never seen it, and even on the odd chance that i do it's never as severe.

once again - yes mlm characters face backlash. no one is saying they do not. but it is different backlash. i am specifically discussing the fan reception of wlw characters and ships bc that is my personal experience. different problems do not equal better problems.

i'm tired of bad faith interpretations of my posts. unless you want to have a respectful and thoughtful conversation (which i AM open to), don't come at me with boldfaced accusations.

#anon #long post #disclaimer: i conferred with my roommate who is mlm for the general reception of the characters and ships mentioned

[groundramon]

Let me be very clear:

- it is homophobic to say gay people cant be villains

- it is racist to say POC can’t be villains

- it is transphobic to say nonbinary people cant be villains

- so on and so forth

To say “no, gay people cant be *insert non-sexuality-based thing here* in fiction” is homophobic.  You are saying a gay person cannot be something a straight person can be.  You are saying that on the basis of sexuality, gay people cannot be something straight people can be.  This applies to stuff like...being attracted to the opposite gender (unless they’re bi or pan, in which case they can be attracted to both and still call themselves gay) or heteronormativity, but other than that?  No, a gay person can be anything a straight person can be.

Am I saying that a gay stereotype isn’t offensive?  No, not at all.  But you need to have context to the show and context to the creative process.  A flamboyant gay man who is clearly demonized for his sexuality is offensive.  But a gay man who happens to be flamboyant, as well as many other things (perhaps nerdy, overly enthusiastic about his interests, ect), is not an offensive stereotype - ESPECIALLY if he’s in a story with a bunch of other gay men.

My point is, Joseph in Dream Daddy?  Call it a missed opportunity if you’d like, avoid the game if you’re personally uncomfortable with it all you want (seriously if someone tries to shame you for personally being uncomfortable with it then slap them, you’re by no means required to like the game), but for christ’s sake, demonizing the game and the creators and saying to steal from them is fucking ridiculous and gross.  First off I dont think turning into FUCKING SATAN is a gay stereotype, but if you’re arguing that “oh he could’ve been a great example of a religious gay person”/”homophobes often view the LGBT community as a cult of sorts” then yeah I see your point on how he himself could have some bad implications but...he’s in a game full of single men and single dads?  Were it him on his own then yes, he could unintentionally spread some harmful assumptions about gay people.  But any homophobic mindsets he’d spread are immediately canceled out by the fact that he’s IN A DATING SIMULATOR FULL OF GAY DADS, said gay dads are also well-rounded and lovable characters.  He basically cant contribute to homophobia because he’s locked in a cage full of gay positivity.  Also, a bunch of LGBT+ people worked on the game, so you’re literally calling LGBT+ creators working on an LGBT+ game homophobic and saying that stealing from them is okay.  Nice.  See it’s people like you that are the reason we dont have more LGBT+ creators, but I digress.

I am SO TIRED of hearing “dont make fat characters like food!!” because I know the people who say these kinds of things have good intentions, but you’re focusing on the wrong issue.  The issue is when it’s their only defining trait, or their main defining trait, or one of their main defining traits.  The issue is NOT that they like food.  I’m sick and tired of hearing “Steven and Amethyst are fatphobic” because no, no they fucking aren’t, please stop.  Steven isn’t even shown to like food that much and Amethyst has a lot more to her than the fact that she eats everything.  Amethyst’s love of food is used as a comic relief every few episodes.  That’s it.  And Steven?  The first episode happened, but after that...?  He’s not shown to like food anymore than any other kid.  You’re making me feel bad because I’m a fat person who likes food.  Like I’m all for fat characters having personalities that dont include that personality quirk, but you need to not immediately get up in arms just because a fat character likes food and instead focus on the fat characters that ARE no more than stereotypes.

I get that homophobia and fatphobia are on two different levels as far as stakes go (to the point where I dont even like calling it “fatphobia” but whatever I’m too lazy to not use that term) but it’s the same mindset.  Saying that a character of a certain minority group cannot be a certain vague thing without it being racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/fatphobic/ect is bigoted against said minority group, and I will defend that mindset to my grave.

“Oh but you shouldn’t speak over gay people1!!!”  Listen.  You’re are FREE to be uncomfortable with the game.  I am completely okay if the concept makes you uncomfortable, and I apologize if it’s plastered all over your dash and your blacklist feature can’t get it, or whatever else. (BTW I dont tag Dream Daddy half the time so if you follow me and the game makes you uncomfortable, or any other game/show makes you uncomfortable for that matter, feel free to ask me to tag it!)  You shouldn’t be forced to be exposed to something that you dont like.  But you also shouldn’t force people to not enjoy something just because you find fault with it, and you ESPECIALLY shouldn’t encourage people to FUCKING PIRATE IT.  As I mentioned earlier, YOU ARE TAKING AWAY FROM THE VERY LGBT+ CONTENT CREATORS YOU CLAIM TO BE SUPPORTING.  And besides that, I’m not going to fucking call up my gay friends and be like “uhhh hey can you support what I’m saying so I dont look like a homophobic prick?” because that’s 10x more homophobic than anything I’ve said here.  I’m not speaking over gay people, I’m just agreeing with gay people that disagree with you.  “Listen to gay people” applies to gay people that disagree with you, you know; it’s not a free pass to shut up straight and ace/aro people.

I’ve seen people call Steven Universe homophobic for falling back on too many stereotypes that could give viewers bad impressions of lesbians.  Steven Universe.  And you know what?  Those people express their concerns in a fair, understandable way, and they are 100% allowed to do that and I encourage them to continue dissecting SU as such.  Even overanalysis is beneficial to the content creator.  But SU is also created by a bisexual woman and loved by millions of LGBT+ fans, many of whom have said they’ve become more comfortable with themselves because of SU or have otherwise been helped by the show.  To say that it’s 100% homophobic and enjoying it as pro-LGBT is wrong and that people should be shamed for doing such is taking away other LGBT+ people’s right to enjoy something they love.  Again, “listen to gay people” applies to gay people that disagree with you, too.  You need to listen to them to the same extent that you expect them to listen to you.

But point being, the fact that people are analyzing Joseph’s arc as problematic is okay.  My problem is forcing that on other people.  Making people hate a game even though it brought them some joy at one point because of how you interpreted something, ignoring how revolutionary said game or piece of media is.  Something can be revolutionary and still have problems, so you’re allowed to nitpick and analyze.  But don’t force other people into the same bubble of overanalysis that you’ve found yourself in.

Let people enjoy Dream Daddy without accusing them of being horrible mlm fetishists.  I know for a fact that while I’m sure there are some fetish fans out there, there are plenty more who are in it for the representation and the cute storyline.

#stormy speaks