#That the het ship has a more equal footing with each other

[okamirayne]

Hi luv. I wanted to ask you what some of your favourite ships have been throughout the years? And what was it about them or their dynamic that drew you in?

Hey there, lovely! Oh wow, great question/s...let me rev my mental engine and see what memories come sputtering out...

I'm assuming you mean the slashy-goodness pairings, rather than the het ones?

Assuming that's the case, as far as the dynamics and what draws me in...there's a noticeable trend with the pairings I like, though I'm not sure if it's required exactly, but seems to be how the slashy-cards fall...which is the whole old as dirt 'enemies to friends' (and in my headspace, lovers) trope. Oorah, I do love a good 180 on all that super-charged energy. I also happen to be a diehard sucker for warriors/cops/soldiers -- this, undoubtedly, is the biggest draw for me.

Yeah, warrior trope (in its myriad forms) is my hands-down favourite. It's what I write and what I enjoy watching/reading. Most of the m/m pairings I like have the dynamic of wit/banter, opposites colliding (though not always), strong male energy (effeminate guys not my thing), equal footing (not a big fan of the top/bottom, uke/seme dynamic, though I can roll with it if both characters stand strong in their male energy no matter who's 'on top'). I also appreciate a bigger picture sense of urgency, depth, or story, that draws the characters together rather than a domestic or fluffy kind of setting (absolutely nothing wrong with either of those, just not my cuppa chai if that's all there is to it).

In no particular order of preference...

Scott/Stonebridge (Strikeback): warriors/soldiers...Yank and Brit. SAS and Delta. Hell and Yes. Mercy, I'm a puddle on the floor. Great combo.

Jorian (Almost Human): cop and robo-cop! Fascinating concept of an android with empathy/emotions partnered with an anti-robot detective. All up in there with this ship. Layered, funny, great chemistry. Was so gutted they discontinued the show after only one season *cries*

Destiel (Supernatural) -- Ooooh, now this Titanic vessel comes with a big caveat insofar as my kinda ships go. I'm predisposed towards what I like to call the pre-Castrated version of Cas (you see what I did there? (^_~ ) Yes, I'm a muppet), where he doesn't allow himself to be treated like such a bloody doormat. Take Cas outta the 'lost puppy that constantly shits the self-esteem rug' persona and thrust him back into his more 'you-should-show-me-some-respect’ warrior energy and I'm aaalllll over that. Doesn't mean he has to lose his fun and endearing quirkiness, or even his devoted attitude towards Dean...but the whole I'll-be-your-punching-bag passiveness for an eons old entity (a 'warrior of god', no less) just rubs me wrong. Ridiculous how epic this pairing would've been if it made canon (though I supposed it kind of did...was legit, albeit unrequited...as far as we know and can assume.)

Rickyl (Walking Dead): cop and...er...outlaw? ;) Loved so much about their dynamic and the depth of their bond. The way they read each other. There's something animal in it at times. They've been through some hella bad shit together.

Sterek (Teen Wolf): ha. Jokes. Now this one is certainly somewhat of a curveball for me, but I couldn't help it, given the brilliant way Dylan O'Brien played to this ship. Not my usual go-to for several reasons, but it tickled me and was good fun.

Thanks for the ASK, Anon! <3 Hope these gave you some indication. The last one is a bit tongue in cheek. I'm sure there are other pairings that just aren't springing to mind and I'll probably kick myself later for it. Either way, these bring back fangirl memories ^_^

[shoulderpads-mcgee2]

hehe salty ask 5

“Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?”

Hmmmm I’m not sure I’ve ever had a pairing completely ruined for me by the actions of others but there have been some insufferable interpretations that can make certain pairings more difficult to enjoy. Like, there’s a lot of soriku fans who can make the pairing feel annoying when they reduce the scope of the story and relationships to those two. Especially when it causes Kairi to be ignored and put on the sidelines as if she’s not an important leg of the trio. There’s also a lot of babyfying of Sora in this part of the fandom where instead of Sora and Riku being equals who are always lifting each other up, the scale gets tipped into Sora being overly naive and incompetent and needing big strong Riku to protect him.

FF7 shipping can be tough too, especially with the way people fight about cloti or claerith. Like, they’re both good, guys. Clack can run into those same infantilizing issues I have with soriku but worse because there is canon basis for helpless damsel Cloud, and Zack and Cloud inherently aren’t equals due to Cloud being a nobody foot soldier and Zack being a super powered high ranking individual. When one person in an m/m ship is written as noticeably weaker, more naive, or in need of protection from their SO, it just starts feeling like reskinned bad het romance. You feel?

[procrastinatingfeminist]

I have written a long diatribe about the impending shipping wars for the new Witcher series, and hopefully gotten it out of my system, so here is an abbreviated version.

Geralt meets Jaskier in ep. 2 and continues traveling with him up to the end of ep. 4. They have three episodes to establish the dynamics of their relationship and the division of tasks, and despite Geralt constantly asserting that he needs no one and how much of a burden Jaskier is, they both are shown as at least having a somewhat shaky friendship, contributing to each others comfort and success and caring for each other.

Which is also the starting point in ep. 5, when they meet again - their friendship is shaky, they quarrel with each other - and as soon as Jaskier is cursed, Geralt starts to frantically look for a cure. He doesn’t hate the guy. He just has the emotional awareness of a barrel. (to which I could write oh god so many words).

We, the audience, meet Yennefer in ep. 2 and have several episodes to learn her tragic backstory and to sympathise with her sweeping ambitions. Geralt though meets Yennefer in ep. 5, awkwardly shuffling through negotiations for his probably only friends life in the middle of her sex fantasy. They talk during the bath scene, all the while Geralt is painfully aware that he owes her and expecting an outrageous demand to fulfill - their dynamics are not on equal-ish footing like with Jaskier, but purposefully skewed. Then Geralt proceeds to save this virtual stranger and uses his with to declare that he doesn’t want to lose her and they bang. Are we supposed to believe she is one true love? On what ground? Where is the emotional foundation for the viewer to believe that they are destined to be? At best, they have a spark, a moment of mutual understanding during the bath scene, which has the potential to grow into a relationship, but is immediately squandered since in ep. 6 we find out that they parted ways after they banged.

So, people who are defending Yennefer and the Geralt/Yennefer ship - I get where you come from, I hate that the handful of canon female characters we get in any media gets shoved aside and shit on in favor of the fan favorite slash ship. But this isn’t solely on shippers. This is on the producing team as well. (Because the way Hollywood is used to writing het romance is not the way you actually successfully write a believable het romance. They would have been much better off if they imagined Yennefer being a male character and changed her gender afterwards.) Whatever additional knowledge you have from the books and the games - at this point it doesn’t exist in the measly 8 episodes we got. And right now, I see much more basis for Geralt/Jaskier than for Geralt/Yennefer.

[ober-affen-geil]

So literally every one of your recent gifsets has made me pause and curse softly. I mean, I adore your gifsets in general(I have no sense for lyrics or poetry but you make me feel things, it's very odd in a good way) but I did not expect these to hit so hard. Mostly because while I definitely understand the draw for Miluca I still don't...want it, I guess. Mostly because all I can see is Maria getting hurt by his secrets, one way or another. I want her happy, in some ways more than I even 1/3

{Alex and Michael together.(which, I ship them so hard it’s weird for me. I actively want them to kiss onscreen and that’s usually a thing that I more suffer through. Reading it is fine, but seeing it - I don’t see the appeal. Except no, I see the appeal, of course they want to kiss each other. I would have watched the show on the strength of their relationship alone, for the novelty if nothing else) But Maria just - I don’t want her hurt and I can’t see a way to avoid that here. I’m against 2/3

[third part missing thanks to tumblr, ask continued after advertising on my blog]

Oh man dude that got out of hand very fast so honestly I don’t remember. (I just wanted to say I liked your gifsets and then I realized I was talking about why and that dovetailed with why I can’t really get behind Miluca even when I see things that make me like it) But yes it was because the third part was when I actually figured out the point. Highlights are that I don’t like Miluca(they’re both going to be hurt, I feel like, but Maria esp and I love her too much to want to see her hurt by ½

his secrets. Plus, I feel like Michael can only really move up or stay stagnant atm, Maria could go up or down and I fear a downswing is coming. I definitely think they’ve got an interesting dynamic, but I’d honestly be much more interested in that dynamic if they weren’t romantically involved, or even dancing around it) Also I like your gifsets because every relationship feels equally prominent and complex and compelling, even ones like Miluca that I normally just don’t want to deal with. 2/2}

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Whew. Anon that is a lot, but who am I to say anything lol. Also very glad you found me again! Welcome!

First of all, thank you for your very kind words about my sets. I’m beyond flattered, so <3.

Second of all, big ass mood on the surprise at shipping them so hard. And for me hardcore SAME for Echo, which was a big shock because I’m usually not here for het as much as I am for Echo so like. Idk WHAT they’re putting in the water but. Go Roswell go!

Third of all, woof. This is like reading my own thoughts immediately after the finale, and I mean that literally. I try to stay more or less neutral on this subject, partially because I know it’s a contentious one and I try to have my blog be welcoming to everyone from the fandom who might want to see content and partially because I really don’t like to speculate overmuch ESPECIALLY with shows like this that can turn on a fucking dime, but. In the interest of reciprocity and because I am absolutely starved for new show content, I’m gonna step out from under my neutrality umbrella for a hot second.

I am an endgame Malex shipper. I don’t try to hide that. But the reason I am an endgame Malex shipper is one of the reasons I’m not all that bothered by Miluca, and that is that the way the narrative has been set up (from episode one) Echo and Malex are on squarely even footing. Literally the second meta post I ever did for this fandom was about parallels between the two, that’s how strongly it speaks to me. (I am very, very happy to do another upon request.) In my mind, Malex is as clearly endgame as Echo is. That’s just the way I see the storytelling.

The other reason I’m not all that bothered by it addresses your concern about Maria being hurt. Because honestly, I’m frustrated about that too. I really like Maria and I don’t love seeing her in a situation that I’m pretty certain is going to end badly. But here’s the thing. As much as I doubt Maria is going to end up with Michael (poor boy has to finish crashing from last season, someone please get him a hug and a therapist ffs), her involvement with him is also almost certainly going to blow the doors off her story.

We didn’t see her a lot in season one, not as character with an independent story line, and I think that’s going to change in season two. Mostly because we now know that her necklace, a family heirloom, contains the non-native flower whose pollen happens to subdue alien powers. And she suspects something is up with Michael’s hand. And there have been too many seeds planted about her mother’s undiagnosable decline from mental stability for me to sit there and NOT expect that to become relevant. 

Basically, like Isobel, I think we’re going to get to see Maria stand on her own a lot starting in season two. And it’s going to come from the fact that Michael came to her in the Wild Pony at the end of the season one finale because he was finally at a place where he could step away from Alex. (Which I believe is a good thing, I’ve talked about that before.) I think it’s going to open her up and yeah, she’s probably going to get hurt. But frankly, so is everyone else.

Michael is going to crash and burn. Hard. Isobel is apparently dealing with all of her stuff from last season in not the healthiest of ways. Max up and fucking died and while I absolutely LOVE THAT (no really, I do), Liz isn’t gonna take that too well. Kyle has now found himself in the middle of quite the shit storm, so heaven help the poor man. Rosa is just. Well, fucked, basically. And Alex, as much as I love to see him having found himself, seems like he’s going to go a little too far in the other direction which is going to be fascinating.

All this to say, yeah. I super feel where you’re coming from. But I can’t see the ships in this show as isolated from each other, they are all interconnected in ways that very much affect and inform all the individual arcs and journeys for me. So I guess that’s why my sets come across the way they do lol. Thanks again for the lovely words anon, I hope you don’t mind me riffing off them.

[bacchanta]

My problem with ship haters

The reason I hate Internet liberals sometimes despite our overall proximity on the political spectrum is that their 'righteous cause' often turns into a free-pass to walk on other people for absolutely no justifiable reasons. Specifically, thorki haters. Fuck. you. all.

It's become a daily routine where I search the tag just for discussions or creativities and have to take extra care to step over loads of hate-tweets. Fetishizing, abusive, homophobic(?), incestuous, disgusting, you name it. There seems to be absolutely zero reservation when they fucking use 'a fictional relationship between two fictional characters' as the monolithic standard to decide if actual persons with feelings on the other side of the Internet qualify as a foot mat on which they can casually rub their self-righteous ego and feel good about it.

First thing that bothers me is that many of them are character-shippers. It doesn't take much probing into the corpus of 'slash culture' studies to understand that 'shipping' is by and large something to do with one's fantasy, esp. a reflection of feminine sexuality which lacks legitimate outlet in a patriarchal society. If shipping A/B is such outrageous sexual exploitation deserving constant shaming, shipping C/D is not so different. You read smut, you bend characters at your will, you create arts, then you are fucking FANTASIZING, too, and there is nothing wrong about it as long as you don't actively press any form of your fantasy in the face of those who don't like them. But stop fucking pretending that you like a fictional relationship because it's morally flawless while dirty fetishizing het girls are sexually exploiting the minority. I am not saying that slash is not sexual exploitation of homosexuality. It is. As much as we like it we have to keep that in mind. But see? SLASH being a largely female-oriented genre is in itself sexual exploitation, not because two characters grow up together or whatever.

The second thing that absolutely baffles me is the casuality of the hate. There are countless times when I see people complaining about 'seeing something BUT the OP turns out to be thorki'. Or just occasionally dropping anecdotes about how all thorki shippers' advocacy for equality is hypocritical because, thorki, the trending new favourite target of Internet social justice advocates. If some major argument or drama triggers some hate tweets I won't even care. But it turns out that the hate is so casual. To the point that it becomes nothing more than cyberbullying. Maybe it's a cultural thing, that US users do not put in hyphens or slashes in the subject matter of criticism to avoid searching. Either it's not common practice in the US or they are actually so entitled as to think that their opinions, ALWAYS phrased with cringey passive-aggressiveness and no more useful content than teenage whining, are so important that people who like thorki should stand named and shamed and listen to their preaching and walk away fully enlightend and totally repented.

The third thing is the disturbing observation of the Pavlovian instinct among young, western liberals to ALWAYS find a moral justification for their personal judgements. But aestheticism can be separated from morality. You can dislike or hate, but don't think that there is always an explanation about how you liking or disliking something is because you are morally superior and lonely in the patriarchal world and the best you can do is cyberbully people (whom you know nothing about) and make groundless accusations for liking a fictional relationship.

BE FUCKING FRANK when you dislike something. Don't be so fucking delusional as to believe that your taste in which fictional characters should or shouldn't shag each other makes a reflection on your noble personality.

Thorki haters please please just grow the fuck up by taking the first step of admitting that you are still so childish as to hate on people for liking a ship you don't appreciate. By this point it says much less about fetishizing LGBTQ+ than about your own immaturity and vitriol. Back when me and my friends are in primary school we did hate on ships and shippers. We've got over it since. That's probably asking too much out of you whiney cohorts, but maybe, try? Take the first step and perhaps people will cheer you on to actually get over it?

Grow the fuck up and be considerate and take personal responsibility for what you express. Think twice before you hide personal biases behind moral righteousness, because moral appeals by nature pressures more people to concord and that, nowadays, easily grows into a mob. If you dislike something just say you don't like it. Or at least don't be so quick to shout 'OPPRESSION SPOTTED' because let's be honest, when you say that you intend it to be open season on those you accuse. You intend to hurt people you don't even know with malice because they like to see one fictional character getting with another but you don't, and you don't seem to understand how tolerance works.

We all know how Internet populist-leftism works. When you make accusations of oppression, you want as many people to criticisze those accused as possible. Individuals, personal thoughts and feelings mean nothing to you. Who diminishes individuals to labels and attack them?

Using your all-time favourite buzzword. Bigots. Fucking bigots.

The leftist movement has always been about allowing individuals to thrive regardless of various labels, about showing care to individuals' feelings. It's not up to anyone (NOR YOU) to decide whose feelings can be overlooked and trampled, especially when you are only using a label for people whom you know nothing about.

It's so fucking exhausting when people back where I'm from are struggling to save the very right to create non-het content, and then crybabies on the Internet are all smugly charting up which ships are pc and which shippers are oppressors.

Some of you thorki haters embody the highly hypocritical and selective kind of social activism at its best. The only actions you take are those that are 1) useless or even harmful and hence 2) the best form of self-righteous egoistic whacking off at the least effort. All I ask is that you do it the right way, aka by your own, not in front of other people who are not interested in your thick ego by the slightest.

[sage-nebula]

I wanna send BlueEx ships for the meme but I'm having a hard time choosing one. Pick your favorite between Rin, Shiemi, Bon and/or Izumo x3

Why not all of them? ;D

Rin/Shiemi:

I definitely ship this.

Aside from the fact that I’m 95% sure that this is going to be the canon endgame pairing (or at least one of them), this is one of the rare cases in shounen manga where I feel perfectly comfortable and happy with that because of how wonderfully it’s being developed. Although it was established pretty much from the start that Rin thought Shiemi was hecka cute and had a huge crush on her, their relationship has still been primarily developed in the arena of friendship rather than the arena of love interests. I mean, for starters, Shiemi hasn’t even realized until recently that dating Rin/being romantically involved with him is even a possibility; and when she did realize it, she asked him what the difference between romance and friendship was, because she honestly didn’t know (given that this would be her first relationship and they’re both still quite young!), and he didn’t have a real answer either (aside from what you’d expect from a hormonal teenage boy =P). Because of this, all of their interactions from Shiemi’s side have been steadfastly rooted in friendship, particularly since Rin was one of the first friends that Shiemi ever had (her second ever friend, actually, after Yukio), and she didn’t even realize that he considered her to be a friend at first, considering he was stupid and lied about it when Bon teased him about it right after Shiemi started attending the cram school.

And you know what? From Rin’s side, things have been pretty focused on friendship, too! While not as obvious as Shiemi, Rin also has a pretty much friendless background; he was always getting into fights and being disruptive as a kid, and as such pretty much no one outside of his family wanted anything to do with him. The fact that the other ExWires consider him a friend is shocking to him, which is what makes it so heartbreaking when they all become terrified of him a couple scenes later thanks to Amaimon’s shenanigans in the woods. But it’s because of this that even though Rin has a crush on Shiemi (and has since he saw her, pretty much), his interactions with her have still primarily been platonic. Even in instances where he confessed that he liked her, or asked her to dance—even in those cases, Rin still put their friendship first, rather than his desire to date her. They’ve been steadily coming closer as friends and companions rather than love interests, growing as people in addition to building their budding relationship. And we can see that this is only going to continue with Shiemi formally turning him down for the time being, because she feels that she still has a lot of growing to do, and wants to continue to grow as a person (and wants him to wait for her, though she refuses to say that out loud because she knows it isn’t fair—baby). So this is a rare situation in a shounen manga where it’s very, very evident that even though Shiemi is Rin’s primary love interest, she’s also much more than just his love interest, and whatever eventual romance they have is going to be one built on a solid foundation of friendship. I’m pretty sure this is going to end up canon, and I’m excited for it, because we’re seeing relationship development in this series on par with FMA, and that’s pretty hard to accomplish.

Rin/Bon:

But that said, I also definitely ship this!

I’m pretty sure that the BlueEx mangaka is going to go the typical route of only having het ships, so I don’t have any hope for this one being canon. But that said, if it was, I’d be really happy with it! This is one of those rare instances in shounen manga (so many of those) where we see an actually healthy rivalry. Rin and Bon are rivals, sure, but they’re rivals who encourage, inspire, and support each other. Even when they fight, it’s clear that they aren’t fighting with the intention to be hurtful, per se, but rather because they’re coming from opposite views and they’re both headstrong, passionate people who sometimes have a hard time seeing where someone else is coming from. This has made it difficult for both of them to reconcile with others in the past (most notably, both of their fathers—but god damn it, Bon, Rin warned you). But with all of that said, it’s also pretty apparent how they each care about the other quite a bit and hold them in high esteem. Rin has felt that Bon was super cool since the moment they met (and only had that opinion drop when he saw Bon going off on his own father, making the same mistakes that Rin himself did), and while Bon was eternally frustrated by what he saw as a lackadaisical attitude from Rin at first, the fact that Rin continually managed to succeed and so very plainly cared about all of them regardless of the circumstances won Bon’s respect, too. I also think that, as of S2E5, Rin flipping out on Bon for treating his father like that has cut deep to Bon’s core as well. I think that is what is inspiring his change of heart toward Rin after the whole “son of Satan” thing repulsed him so.

Essentially, I think these two are a wonderful example of rivals who actually boost each other up rather than tearing each other down. They have a lot of similarities and differences, and while this causes clashing sometimes I think that, on the whole, they work beautifully together. So I ship this, too. x3

Rin/Izumo:

I like this … but I lean more toward brotp. 

I do think that Rin and Izumo work pretty well together. They’re both honest, blunt people, which means that communication isn’t likely to be an issue. Izumo also knows what it is to be a pariah, ostracized and looked down upon by others for being unapproachable or frightening, which I think is a big part of the reason why she was the first of the ExWires to reach out to Rin after what happened in the forest. Rin isn’t afraid to cut right through Izumo’s BS, either, which is something that she needs considering that she has a lot of it (I mean, I love her, but it’s true). So I definitely see the merits in this ship, especially since—like every other possible ship among the ExWires—it’s been developed wonderfully as a friendship.

That said, I will admit that the attitudes of some Rin/Izumo shippers have been pretty terrible from what I’ve seen. Namely, I’ve seen quite a few of them tearing down Shiemi with some pretty horrible things (everything from calling her a useless bimbo to accusing her of not caring about/being afraid of an ungrateful toward Rin, wtf), and that kind of behavior can cool me off a ship real fast. It’s fine if you prefer Rin/Izumo, but you don’t have to bash Shiemi or Rin/Shiemi in the process of celebrating your ship, you know? So I do like Rin/Izumo, but at the moment I’m more solidly in brotp territory thanks to the way some Rin/Izumo shippers have behaved.

Bon/Shiemi:

I haven’t really thought about this too much, but I think it could be really cute! I could see Bon getting flustered with trying to date someone like Shiemi, who is still pretty sweet and, well … I don’t want to say naive, but she is learning about romance via shoujo manga, so. =P (Which isn’t all that different from Rin, so hey!) I could especially see Bon trying to follow tropes to the letter, too, but getting flustered when things don’t go exactly the way he thinks they’re supposed to, and ultimately just throwing caution to the wind to just be himself. I don’t know, I really haven’t thought about it, but it could be cute! I wouldn’t be opposed, even if I mostly see them as a brotp at the moment.

Bon/Izumo:

Again, I haven’t thought about this one a lot either, but it could be cute/funny, even if I … don’t really see any romantic chemistry between them at the moment at all, heh. I’ll have to get farther in the series before I can really make a judgment on this one either way, since at the moment they haven’t interacted very much beyond insults and arguing.

Izumo/Shiemi:

EXORCIST GIRLFRIENDS. I really, really like this one because of all the wonderful development they’ve had. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, they started off on a horrible foot. Izumo was downright horrid to Shiemi (something Paku called her out on, finally), and Shiemi took it because she was so desperate to make a real friend for what she felt was the first time in her life (because she didn’t feel that she was on equal footing with the Okumura twins). But thanks to Paku’s callout and Shiemi’s steadfast tendency to be wonderful, Izumo realized the error of her ways and has really improved. These two have had a steadily developing relationship built around the fact that they encourage and support each other. Izumo, thanks to Shiemi’s support, is realizing that there are people who support her outside of her one friend (Paku). And Shiemi, thanks to Izumo’s encouragement, is finding her own confidence and inner strength and is learning to stand back up when things get her down. I’ve also seen spoilers from a most recent chapter in which, after Shiemi makes a rather shocking declaration, Izumo is the one most upset about it, which really shows how far they’ve come, both as individuals and as companions.

So yeah, I definitely ship the exorcist girlfriends. ♥ They’ve come a very long way and I’m so, so happy that they’ve been allowed to develop such a strong, wonderful relationship outside of their relationships with the male characters. Seriously, bless Blue Exorcist, it makes me so happy. ♥

(Put a ship it my ask box and I’ll tell you if/why/why not I ship it.)