#This is not a call out post about how we should go around accusing anti-fujoshi people

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[makeyju]

Replies and Thanks Re: Otayuri post

hey everyone!

my Otayuri defence post I’ve written after getting some anon hate from an anti got so MUCH more attention than I could ever imagine so I had to make this follow-up post.

first of all, THANK YOU to everyone for your likes, reblogs, supportive tags, replies and comments, I really appreciate your support! it’s a bit overwhelming tbh how big it all has blown. it’s great to know that so many people can relate to my little rant :)

a lot of people followed me because of it, I hope you won’t be disappointed because my blog is really not much too look it. anyway, WELCOME EVERYONE!

now to the second part. I’ve got some nice (and not so nice) messages that I’d like to address and maybe add some things I forgot to include in the initial post.

unless something especially interesting comes up, this post will be it

I’ll start with anons

WARNING! image heavy + some slurs

thank you so much kind anons!

you were not familiar with my blog because I’m a nobody lol. also... what? which name? O-O

I totally agree with you! I am of firm belief that any romantic relationship should have a strong foundation of friendship, otherwise it’s just a recipe for disaster

thank you!

YES, Yura said he wanted to skate Eros from the very beginning! the adults around him want him to be an angel, a prima ballerina, a fairy, anything but what he actually is - a rebellious teenager punk. also, teens want to be sexy. I wanted to (despite being an ace lol) and everyone around me wanted to as well. it’s normal, it’s want teen DO.

unfortunately, yes. they will get a lot of shit for it. considering they are men, they will probably be beat up :( and Viktor, as a public figure, will get judged under our “anti-propaganda” law. it’s all very very sad

I really want to make a post and/or video about all the Russian things the fandom ignores or is not informed of but idk

oh yeah, everything is horrible because I ship Otayuri. there are no problems in this world aside from us horrible Otayuri shippers xD

now on to some people’s answers.

@definitelynotvikturi

1) there’s one, ONE bullet point about the “gap” because that’s what half of you antis call it

2) yes, a 15 year old. do you think hormones start at 18 on clock? or what, 16 is okay, but like 3 months shy of 16 is NOT OKAY HOW DARE YOU? or what do you mean by “under 18″? yes, people in 9th grade date people in 11th grade, we don’t have segregated school, it’s all in one building. idk where you live but it’s what happens here. and it’s okay. well, mostly. fucked-up relationship happen at any age. and as long as a girl won’t get pregnant, no one will screech

3) yes, we do. if you actually researched instead of rushing head on into hating and accusing, you would know that there are a shitton of maxis with slow burn or friends-to-lovers. everyone ships differently. I, for example, usually don’t read Otayuri smut and prefer cutesy fluffy things and maybe some pining. but it’s not like you care, right? you want to attack people so you will do it.

4) I’m not obsessed with anyone, actually :) I like a lot of ships. I ship and let ship. seems like YOU are much more obsessed, if you look for and target Otayuri shippers and write posts about your hate instead of clicking block and ignoring

5) and if you’re worried about Yura’s “innocence” you can rest in peace - I’m an ace so no masturbating over my ships for me xD

again, ship and let ship. don’t want to see “trashy” ships on your dash? block #Otayuri and live in peace, dear :)

@amazonite-the-dragon

well, if someone specifically comes to my blog to anonymously accuses me of being a “paedophile” and a “creep” (which, how the hell are those ~fair~ points, please enlighten me?”) because of the ship I literally posted something of for the first time ever then hell yeah they’re getting dragged.

like I said, I’m not a popular blog, I haven’t posted Otayuri before so that anon had no reason to target me specifically. know what that means? it means that they stalked one of the posts defending Otayuri and just sent hate to everyone who reblogged. I have no patience for that. I usually don’t post any of the rants that I compose in my head but this time I thought that I actually have something to contribute + I actually know what I am talking about.

so yeah, the post was supposed to be bitchy/sassy. initially I wanted to use another gif but I couldn’t find any of Yura/Beka/Vitya/Yuuri storming out dramatically so I settled on sassy Yura :)

@doves-cooing-leaves-in-october

is 3 years seriously and age gap to you??? do you like date only people that were born in your year?

if you think that Otayuri/Viktuuri age difference is a freaking gap then let me shock you: in Russia women from older generations say that ideal age difference is AT LEAST 5-6 years. my parents’ age difference is 6 years and it’s completely normal. so yeah, here you go :)

@itsjustyouraverageweeb

it’s the same in every fandom, so I kinda don’t envy you, you’ll always be pissed off like that

calling fans “crazy fucking fujoshi” is not nice and you know it. maybe it’s not the fandom that’s the problem, hmm?

I like them both as OTP and BroTP. and there’s a lot of building in the ship, you just won’t see it ‘cause you hate it, you know? :)

@asterin-x

thank you! yes, the matter at hand was the peadophilia/age “gap” accusations, not the existence of the ship as it is.

the ship is here, deal with it. don’t like it, fucking block it. I dislike a lot of ships too but you don’t see me going to people shipping Harry with Snape, Lucius or Voldemort and harassing them, do you?

also, linking what people ship with what people support/do irl is absolutely ridiculous and should’ve stopped like 3 years ago :/

anyway,

here’s some people, who basically were/are Otayuri irl:

@preobsessed

@sweetbitterland

I know! same thing for me. I didn’t know there even was a ~discourse~ before Welcome to the Madness. crazy, huh?

@sweetvictuuri

MJ out (for good this time)