#Like it’s not misogynist to prefer the fanon m/m ship to the canon m/f ship unless you’re saying shit like

[tana-draws]

>goes to tag for popular non canon ship I like.

>people shit talking the canon ship I also like that shares a character

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda under the cut

Peggy Carter

She’s a victim of Stucky mainly bc of the way marvel used her to give Steve an ooc ‘happy ending, but I know I’ve seen some posts calling her toxic or something it was 2019 so In CAT:FA, she’s introduced as a confident British agent. She has some chemistry w Steve Rogers (although more fans (on tumblr at least) preferred Steve and Bucky). She wasn’t just *woman who is strong*, but also had some emotional depth, with an actual range of emotion outside of angry and sad. She had a spin-off show, and she just continued to fight Russians and misogynists, even having chemistry in an almost wlw relationship and an eventual marriage to a famous shield agent. She went through character development and just was an awesome character. Then you know what endgame does? It has Steve Rogers travel back in time and take all of that development away. Most fans were mad at Marvel, and a lot were mad at Steve, but some fans threw Peggy completely under the bus, saying that they traded the (fanon?) queer ship/(canon) friendship for a bland love interest, which, um, she was so much more then that? I remember people really disliking Peggy, which isn’t fair to her character when she is/was so much more then that.

Peggy is vilified by people who ship Steve with his war comrade Bucky Barnes. I’ve even seen people claiming baselessly that she was secretly HYDRA the whole time. 

She gets in the way of stucky which OBVIOUSLY gives people, most of them women themselves, the right to be ridiculously misogynistic. Dismissing her character arc, traits, presence in the movies and her part in Steve Roger's life, saying she is insignificant on the ground of very subjective readings is one thing, but outright calling her 'just some old coochie', among other colourful, wonderful things, is another. They also keep reaching to villainize her (saying she's a literal nazi which she's not) and cancel her so their ship is somehow made more valid for it, erasing the competition as it were.

Mai

she’s constantly pushed aside for the zuko/sokka ship :/ like i’m not a fan of mai/zuko but they always forget her or make her a wingwoman or make her a villain. 

She's a very interesting character who had the misfortune of being the love interest of the series' most popular character, Zuko, which immediately made her public enemy No. 1 in certain parts of the fandom. Tbh I think she's more a victim of zutara (an m/f ship) than zukka (m/m) but zukka also screwed her over so it counts. She's at best sidelined and at worst demonized. There's a whole section of the fandom who'll swear up and down she's abusive for telling Zuko to deal with his mental health issues himself. There's whole essays on it and I'm not exaggerating.

tell me WHY people think she's abusive just because she?? got mad at zuko?? when zuko was being a horrible boyfriend to begin with?? because theyre both teenagers and they were literally Acting Like Teenagers?? anyway no more mai hate the world has moved past the need for mai hate

[roobylavender]

hello faatima your mind is very sexy to me so I would like to know what's your opinion on this argument

https://twitter.com/aquariahsrising/status/1752785184414699923?t=CqpcbbqgbtKgPwREC9dSIw&s=19

i'm ngl this was the last thing i expected to see when i opened that linkjgdksjglgsf 😭 i do get the immediate irritation at fujos like esp considering their rep is very commonly associated with shounen manga and the consequent misunderstanding and/or complete avoidance of main female characters as a result, but i also feel like i have to disagree with this person.. like it's one thing to point this out on a case-by-case basis and quite another to paint what is a large swath of gay fans looking for gay rep with a broad brush stroke. it's not to say these issues don't exist nor that misogyny (internalized or not) isn't prevalent within them but i think to go with the base assumption that anyone into gay fanon within shounen (or other comparable media) is trying to make it into a "peak feminism" thing (going off of their og tweet once you sort through all of the quotes) or is painting over it in hetero colors is a bit of a misdirect. gay people look for gay content bc they're gay. you can certainly make arguments as to the fact that repeatedly looking for gay rep in shounen specifically is a lost cause and that it would be ideal to support more work where the gay rep is canonically there. but these series are popular. a lot of people grow up with them. they attach what they want to see to what they're into, and so on and so forth

i think it's completely valid to complain about some of the things that leads to on an individual basis. you've seen me do this several times re: the naruto fandom's treatment of sakura and how they tend to misread a lot of things about her arc as an excuse to not have to engage with it at all. but i don't think there's any stock in implying m/f ships are comparatively higher up on the feminist ladder merely bc they happen to have a woman in them. i enjoy sasusaku bc i'm into tragedy and miscommunication as narrative devices. my attachment to sakura certainly factors into that enjoyment but i don't think it's inherently more feminist to prefer it to sasunaru merely bc sakura is there. what's more worth pointing out is how gay shounen fans almost exclusively look to ships between boys and almost never to ships between girls despite the latter also being a perfect avenue to explore non-heteronormativity; or how anti-intellectualism contributes to the way we engage with media at large and this includes many people's unwillingness to engage with female characters who get the shorter end of the stick in narrative bc making the effort is hard and can take critical thought; or how the misogynist vices of an author are often projected onto a female character even though she possesses no actual agency, and those aren't vices we should internalize ourselves

to go back to the og tweet you sent, hypersexualization of what is very often children's media is very much an issue, but i think that has less to do with purported fetishization and more to do with purity culture (aka the real purity culture, wherein the obsession with children's chastity drives mass conservatism and subsequently intense sexual repression of young people who need an outlet and latch onto unrealistic standards of sexual relationships bc it's what they have access to)

[tae-shimura-is-my-wife]

it doesnt even feel like gintsus care for gin or tsukki as characters with how badly ooc self inserty their content is

This is a anti gntsu post! So if you’re a fan scroll!

If it appears in the main tag, i’m sorry but this is a tumblr problem, search your content on “tagged” posts or blacklist the anti gntsu tag

!Long post ahead, you have been warned!

Before someone says something, gntsu is in everywhere and i tried to like gntsu before, so i ended up absorving content.

Gntsus who are also Tskki fans, have a tendence of being super rabid abt her, so i thought they cared a lot of her, but when you see how they act, you start questioning who they like more, gntsu or Tskki? I already said it before, they take out Hinowa and Seita from her life, but it doesn't stop there, a lot of them prefer Tskki interacting with Gn or alone, rather them she staying with other girls (with a excpetion of Kagura sometimes) and they also get mad at ppl headcanon her as lesbian, bc y'know... or even when someone ships her with other women, some of them are ok with other ships for her, but then the person also needs to ship gntsu, think that it's better than their opposing ship and never talk bad abt gntsu, so... And there's still the fact they think Tskki crush on Gn is a sacred thing, as if her character loses a giant part of herself if she's not crushing on him? They got real mad man, even say stuff like "If you don't like gntsu or prefer her crushing someone else, you're a misogynist! Plus how dare you don't want her to be happy? She only can be happy with this man, if you don't like this, you don't like her character because you're against her happiness!" i hate these kind of fandoms omg, it's like they arrest Tskki to with gntsu, y'know? And i not gonna even start with how they have Red Spider Arc as their favorite...

Despite that, her character in fanon doesn't stray that much from her og character, she still is a tsundere, which get frustraed easily and doesn't know how to show much affection, but she's way too submissive, because in every f/m ship they need to make women the submissive one, there's some exceptions same if it's totally out of her character.

Right now, Gntoki... A super funny thing, is that they don't hold him with gntsu, as they do with Tskki (HOW FUNNY ISN'T IT?).

About content, i know it's their content, they do what they want blah, blah, blah, but why Gntoki never looks like Gn? He's charming, cute, affectionate, romantic, clingy (Gn hates clingy ppl, how ironic), the only traits he still has are sweet addiction, being a shounen jump fan and a perv... His laziness? He not being able to show affection as well? Being broke? His addiction to games of chance? His mental scars from war? Fuck that! Let's make him a man from generic romance #5034... I really don't understand why... don't they love Gntoki so much? Why change him so drastically then? Don't they like their canon interactions? Ugh, why they do that to my man? Don't even get me started on ppl who turn him into a malewife...

And this is where the self insert enters! Because of course ppl would like to stay with the generic romance guy #5034 with Gn appearence, instead of a broke, lazy, kinda cold and addicted to games of chance and drinks.

[jyndor]

Okay but people who ship Zutara instead of Zukka this year are a little weird. I don't think Zutara is misogynistic, but Zukka has more and better content and queer creators. There's no reason to choose Zutara over Zukka when one has good queer representation, a solid basis, and one is known for being problematic, unless these people are kind of homophobic.

lol oh anon

1. no they aren’t

2. that is your opinion and also is not true (zutara has plenty of queer creators, myself included - I have personally written zutara fic and I am queer, please do not invalidate the queer creators just because it’s inconvenient for you) - zukka is supported by queer and straight people, and that’s fine - but you guys are actively harassing zutara shippers who are doing NOTHING to you. and if you think zutara, the ship fandom that invented ship weeks, isn’t one of the most famously creative, productive ship fandoms in fandom history, you’re just not educated on atla and fandom in general. maybe you’re new here, and that’s fine and hey welcome! but you gotta back your shit up with facts or you’re just making yourself look petty and immature.

3. there is one good reason to choose zutara over zukka, and that’s if you prefer the story that is unique to zutara and does not exist in zukka. if you prefer zukka, hey that’s awesome! I would love to see more intra-ship fandom positivity! guess what? for me, one of my top ships in atla is mai lee and always has been. it’s a story I love. zukka? it hits a lot of cool tropes but like it’s fanon.

4. I do not accept a ship as queer representation if it is not CANON. sorry I am too used to queerbaiting from creators to give ANY leeway on this. yes I headcanon many characters as queer, but if they’re expressly queer in the content, I don’t think they’re intended to be queer.

sokka is canonically with suki; zuko is canonically with mai. they’re not queer representation - and if you headcanon them as queer (I headcanon zuko as bi, for instance) that is awesome but NOT the same thing. it’s not like m/f ships are inherently homophobic, especially given how many zutara shippers are queer ourselves. oh my god this got me fucking mad aishadhahd

like go off about how I’m homophobic for not shipping a specific non-canon ship that happens to be a m/m ship, but I will turn that logic around and say that you MUST be misogynistic if you don’t ship m/f or f/f ships. like what the fuck? do not use other (assuming you are queer, which I never do with anons because anons forfeit the right to being trusted about that when they go anon) queer zukka shippers as a shield against actually learning about imperialism, colonialism and sexism. I’m telling you that no one who understands these things speaks as vaguely about them as you anons are doing, or would pick on poc and minors. so much for landback; you’re colonizing their asks. that is how I know you folks are regurgitating and weaponizing progressive talking points without understanding what the fuck you are talking about.

and of course we all know that historically marginalized groups HAVE been fetishized by their oppressors; since you’ve done your homework, you know that enslaved women were r*ped by the men who enslaved them, and that men were also abused. this is not just a misogynistic thing, although we do need to police the p*cahontas trope in fandom because of the high rates of sexual assault against indigenous women.

I don’t choose my ships based on a checklist of identities I want to see represented! that is so reductive and performative. I want better representation from creators, like give me fucking actual canon queer characters who get more than two minutes of canon queerness. give me black stories, indigenous stories, etc. and don’t do it for pats on the back; do it because those stories add value to our lives, they widen our perspectives, they give people representation to look to.

you know, most zutara fanworks have ALWAYS been thoughtful, even in the beginning. by s2, there was SO MUCH emphasis on redemption and reconciliation, and yes there are infamous shitty, racist fanfics but like... again, we have WORKED ON OURSELVES as a fandom to make sure that this space is safe for all people. if you knew anything about the history of zutara fandom, you might not be so quick to defend the harassment.

because that’s what you’re doing. you are making blanket statements with no real support for your claims, and you’re doing it to defend minors and poc, who are just minding their own business, getting harassed on tumblr.

[thefandomlesbian]

Hey, can i ask why you ship some m/m ships so much? Nothing wrong with it I just mean most m/m shippers are straight women that find those men or the ship hot and some gay men. I just haven't seen many lesbians having m/m ships and im curious. Like when reading f/f ships is relatable and yeah also the ships are hot and cute but idk how I'd feel reading about 2 guys fucking (I haven't read your m/m works so I wouldn't really know about that Im just assuming) and not be uncomfortable or bored idk

Well for one, I don't write any smut involving males, and all of my M/M works are strictly T (or M, but not because of sexually explicit material).

I write M/M the same way I write F/F, with plot and character development that appeals to me. I don't find well-written M/M stories any less compelling than F/F, and I would take a dynamic M/M fic over F/F smut any day of the week. Reading and writing smut just... doesn't really appeal to me. I do it in F/F because that's what people want to read and that's what I'm comfortable writing, and I don't mind most of the time, but if given a choice, I will always choose the story with compelling dialogue and character interaction over PWP. (No shame for those who do prefer PWP, and I'm still accepting smut prompts for F/F ships! It's not something I actively dislike doing; just not my #1 choice.)

I think it's important to emphasize here that the two M/M ships I promote on this blog are ships that I've been engaged with since I was literally nine years old (the time I started watching Criminal Minds and reading Harry Potter). I've been around these characters for a lot longer than any others. HotchReid in particular was a ship that made me realize that people could be gay when I inadvertently stumbled upon a cute fluffy fic where Hotch bought Reid a mint Oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen. I was eleven when I found that fic and it sticks with me to this day. That story haunted me and was a huge part of me realizing I wasn't heterosexual and made me devoutly attached to the ship. More or less the same for Snupin—it took me longer to conceptualize it as a ship, but once it happened, something clicked inside of me.

I also think it's important to emphasize here that within the realm of fanfiction, we are working with canon media, and all canon media tends to be overly misogynistic, making its female characters vapid and uninteresting, never treating them like real three dimensional people. This is part of why I latched onto HotchReid instead of Jemily—frankly, canon JJ got robbed of her personality by the writers because every time she made an appearance, it got screwed into, "I'm also a mom!" which is incredibly unrelatable to me. (Fanon JJ is so much better and I love her so much and am eager to start writing Jemily now, but having not read any works when I was returning to the fandom, all I saw was the mom!JJ on the screen who did not appeal to me for anything.) Fanworks generally skew one of two ways. 1.) Content creators have to give new dimensions to the female characters' personalities where the canon writers failed. Or 2.) Content creators have to work with the male characters who are actually given decent character development.

But again—my M/M work is a lot more than two guys fucking (and in fact, will not include any guys fucking, no matter how unpopular that makes it). It is just as well-rounded, dynamic, and compelling as my other multi-chapter works, and at the moment, Box Full of Darkness is on track to hit 200,000 words by the end. I don't write my male characters any differently from my female characters. To me, it is just a story that I need to tell, regardless of the identities of the characters involved.

I know there are lesbians who write M/M smut or smut with male characters, but you'd have to direct those questions to them, because that's not my wheelhouse.

[rpbetter]

As a female I get tired of seeing psa post about /It's important to treat female muses with respect/ or /Female muses deserve better treatment!!/ it's this constant thing I get slapped in the face by mutuals who reblogs that once in a blue moon, but ignore male muses or treat them like shit. I'm sorry to come off as sexist, I wish people would look out for male muses too and those who are gay since they get the short end of the stick and not appreciated. Don't get me wrong it's important to respect all muses regardless of their gender, but these post are coming off as quite feminist and Tumblr is known for being a man hater. I feel really bad for saying all of this.. I'm sorry for this rant, RPbetter. I just need to let it off my chest.

It's all good, Anon! I did tell y'all you could do exactly this!

I know, as in, I can actually feel the hackles of the RPC rising preemptively, this is going to rub people the very, very wrong way...so, I'm asking you to at least try to put that on hold and consider some things about this as a different view from what you've experienced before you get angry with Anon or myself.

Because I think the issue with this, and all PSA's that are especially full of delineation like these are, is that it isn't going to be everyone's experience in the RPC.

We tend to feel like the RPC is our little corner, or for some of you, vast empire. Sometimes, an overlap of both - our little area we have cultivated with our mutuals, our preferred resource blogs, all the blogs that branch off from us and the larger RPC specific fandom community we're a part of. I mean, I know my fandom is huge, my highly cultivated homestead within it is tiny.

I also interact with people from equally huge RPC fandoms. So, between the two, I see some major differences. The differences in some of the minuscule RPC corners I have people in can be even more extreme.

Example?

I have a mutual who is open to crossovers and spends time in three bigger fandoms with their muse. The muse is highly desirable in the fandom they come from, had no issue adapting and being desirable in the second big one, but in the third, it was quite different. Same approach that worked out wonderfully everywhere else did not work in this third fandom because the muse...is female in a male and gay ship predominant fandom. So, while this mutual never experienced trouble getting/keeping interaction and respectful treatment of their muse/themselves everywhere else, they suddenly got slapped with it there. It's often a problem of specific fandoms and their material.

Another example?

Myself.

My main muse is everything that the more hateful PSA's of this sort say is the desirable muse that unfairly gets all the attention and respect: extremely well-known main character, conventionally attractive, male, white, young, and the way he presents in canon, you can play with HCs about him being not being cishet pretty easily. Highly shippable muse that can be made even more so without messing with canon much, if at all.

So, you'd think that I would never have any trouble getting interactions, ships that I want, plots I want, and good treatment of my muse (I mean by other muns, other muns not being total assholes about my muse, what happens between muses, when it isn't directly due to the mun's attitude, is different), right? I don't.

Don't get me wrong, I have the interactions I want, they're perfect. I have the writing partners I always wanted, the best ships, stunning plots, but that's entirely because I am OC and crossover friendly. I'm open to accepting writing partners based purely on the writing. My own fandom does not like my muse, outside of one specific version anyway, the canon ship is not supported, the popular fanon ship is likely to get you a callout in the RPC.

In my fandom, the female muses do get more respect and attention for the most part. It's one of those fandoms pretty into...well, fandom as an act of activism. That's not to say, before anyone loses it on me, that creating or picking up a female muse is doing it for woke points. Just that there is a rather open prerogative in my fandom to create/choose muses based on the idea of "representation" and "fixing canon." If you have one that is like mine, you're automatically assumed to be a lot of really shitty things. Getting called a school shooter, love that for me.

The whole "respect female muses or die" take isn't necessary there, it's the take. Doesn't stop it from coming around weekly, though, so I do feel you on this, Anon.

Furthermore, I'd personally prefer it if we'd all consider getting back to the take of just respecting muse choices and writing, period. People are always going to have preferences, in one place it might align with your own, in another it doesn't. That's perfectly alright and does not mean anything horrible about those people unless they're actively being horrible with it!

Preferring female muses doesn't mean you're a radfem, preferring (or just having even one) a f/m ship does not mean this or that you're homophobic either, nor does it make a bi/pan muse suddenly heterosexual and "bad representation/you're just saying they're bi and that's gross." Just means those are the ships that developed.

Preferring male muses doesn't mean you're "part of the problem" or "taking the easy way," and having or preferring a queer ship does not mean you're a "nasty fujoshi." It also doesn't invalidate what someone has established about their muse's sexuality, a bi/pan muse isn't Gay Now because their primary ship is m/m.

And that's to say nothing of how weird, and often at least mildly offensive, all of this is to both muns and muses that are not on the gender binary. You should probably consider that before you keep implying to a mun that the muse they've established as not cis is exactly that.

Or, that writing a female muse might be impossible for some muns for more reasons than just preference, a thing that is valid enough on its own. A decent number of muns in the RPC are also not cis, this may be the only safe place for them to drop being gendered as they were assigned at birth, it might even trigger dysphoria for them to write a female muse. I know that I am incredibly uncomfortable writing female muses. It's a little ridiculous to keep dropping the implication to outright demand that everyone needs to do their part in filling the female muse quota in the RPC or they're misogynists and/or phobes.

My experience, and I am not alone in it, has been getting plenty of shit for having male muses only, always assumed to be cisgender and often heterosexual. Plenty of shit for not writing the canon as cishet, too...and plenty more for my main ships being with female characters because they're the ones that worked out and stuck around.

No one is lying when they say that there are places where their male muses and queer ships are not looked on positively.

The thing is, I also witness female muses being treated like shit, yes!

And I will say, that treatment is so much worse if the muse is also an OC, has a canon f/m ship they'd like to write or just to write a ship with a canon if they're an OC, or they're certain types of female muses. Because the demands do not stop at being female. You also have to write a Strong Female Character to be of interest, and she had better be available to shipping and smut while not presenting as too sexually open. It's become an impossible obstacle course.

I see it on the dash, I see absolutely valid complaints, and the majority of my friends write female muses. I'm very aware of the problems they've faced, bias against them does exist!

Example of this?

Writing partners who have both male and female muses experiencing, repeatedly, their male muses being picked over the female muses, and their emotionally softer or less sexually available female muses being chosen dead last. The writing is great, these muses are well-done and interesting, easy to interact with, but they'll get told on the blogs for the male muses that they're only interested in them, the other mun having missed that this is the same mun behind both muses.

And it always comes down to wanting to ship m/m. Even when the muse is established as being heterosexual, they'll just keep trying to push it into happening with their male muse. If your male muse is heterosexual, that is like a violent act against the whole RPC.

So, that's also absolutely not a lie either, it does happen, it is a problem. It's valid to be upset about this!

In my opinion and experience, these are both significant problems predicated upon the same, overall issues:

not respecting choices and preferences equally

performative activism in fictional communities

requiring personal information as justification in order to respect choices/preferences as valid and not problematic

not being interested in writing for its own sake and characters for their own sake, but rather, what they say about oneself/in validation and display of one's ideals and/or personhood

not understanding that just because a character is x, y, or z does not, actually, make them interesting or a good character, let alone to everyone

So, I really think the answer here isn't saying that there is a single problem with muse gender across the board, everywhere and without variables, and demanding that people "respect," a thing that actually translates into "you must accept all of x as writing partners no matter your interest in them or viability, as writing partners" all of any one type of muse. I think that's just weirdly pressuring and remaining at a distance from the incredibly simple answer of accepting that people have preferences that do not always benefit you, that you might even find offensive, but that's a right they have.

It's okay if you're not interested in the conventionally attractive, canon male muse, even if someone has HC'ed him as queer. It's okay if you're not interested in the Strong Woman female OC, even if someone has given her other labels of significance. It's okay if you're not interested in someone's well-developed, well-written female OC or canon, someone's male OC or canon, or someone's proudly genderless creature. (Again, don't come at me folks, I literally call myself that, it's a joke based on the way people who do not ascribe to the gender binary can be treated/viewed by others who do, thanks!)

Your likes and dislikes are okay! Even if they're "not inclusive," yes. So long as you're not being a fucking bigot, you're alright. It isn't anyone's job here to be correct the ills of reality in their fiction, let's just all start focusing less on the fine details and more on respecting each other regardless of whether individual preferences benefit us or not.

Forcing people to interact based on guilting or shaming them is the opposite of the answer. Always. And just because it is one extreme in your RPC area does not mean it's like this in everyone else's. I'm genuinely sorry that anyone has experienced negative things based on such ridiculous factors, but please, be sure you're not turning around and doing the same shit to someone else.

Going to repeat:

Forcing people to interact based on guilting or shaming them is the opposite of the answer. Always.