#and really fetishises wlw stuff

[schizowitchic]

save me from petty friendship drama please. why must this happen to me. im about to start throwing hands

there's three ppl who we have known for a while but only recently properly joined our "group", except 2 of them are highly .... problematic, shall we say, (L & S) and pick fights with everyone. and ive never felt fully comfortable. the third (E) is ... i know she joins in with the petty stuff but a lot less and she's easier to talk to (plus i have the bias of being best friends with her from the ages of 3 to 10)

anyway on friday they deliberately picked a fight on the groupchat with one of our friends (K)(who we are a lot closer to tbh but don't see as often due to scheduling difficulties) bc they fell out with her in December. L & S pretty much only ever go on the groupchat to start shit with her, and K's gotten good at ignoring it, through the interventions of me and another friend, I (mainly I. I feel bad for her bc she's really caught in the middle and both sides message her when shit happens)..

K removed L and S from the groupchat, but E added them back, then K removed all three, which honestly took care of the problem, but then A messaged E privately (A is also hardly ever on the groupchat and she really shouldn't have gotten involved) to ask why she did that, because A doesn't seem to have picked up that E will fully and absolutely enable & join in with L and S. this prompted S to send an awful voice message to A on E's phone, saying shit like "Why are you being so immature, we weren't being hostile it was just a joke, believe what you want to believe, enjoy your little groupchat" and stuff along that vein (Me and I were hanging out at this point, A sent the voicemail to K who sent it to I)

it's just so hypocritical, because L and S especially are constantly pulling shit like this, being immature and petty (They've started the habit of making fun of me to my face because they've picked up that I struggle to interpret tone, reality, and whether they are joking or not). they're always at the centre of every drama, make it about themselves and always paint themselves as the victims, never admit that their behaviour patterns are wrong and that they harm people

(side note, but L actually makes me and I feel very uncomfortable, and neither of us realised we both were super uncomfortable with how she acts - constantly making sexual jokes about the two of us that get way too explicit (because we shared a hotel room once and winked at each other AS A JOKE), she touches us (usually just on the hand/arm but with the implications of inappropriate undertones) even when we express discomfort and ask her to stop, she still invades our boundaries. neither me or I are particularly touchy-feely, I is a lot more averse to touch than me, and we didn't realise that this actually probably constitutes harassment of some sort until friday. which is. a fun realisation)

anyway we thought we'd leave the situation be since we knew we wouldn't be seeing them over the weekend, and we have other friends who stayed out of it and don't have as much knowledge of the situation (N, M, Y, T, C)

which brings us to now. where L and S pretty clearly seem to be ignoring us in person (like we have some sort of obligation to get involved and take their side in drama they started?? they tried to get I involved when it happened but she told them she didn't want to get caught in the middle). E seem to be ignoring us, but she has actually spoken to me a bit, about general stuff

so yeah. fuck my life.

[lansplaining]

As you seem to be the go-to person for Disk Horse, what your opinion on women being horny over mlm stuff and men being horny over wlw stuff? Like. On one hand, I do get there's a degree of fetishisation that can seep into the real world. On the other, as a dude, I've enjoyed a lot of danmei made by women, and slashfics by them too, and I know women who do the same for horny wlw art by men. And I don't really feel that there's anything with women enjoying mlm stuff, not even in a fetishtic way if it's done with an ability to acknowledge the root of it if that makes sense? IDK

am I!!! am I that!!! I think I just bully anons!!!! do not lay this burden on me!!!!

i don't fucking know, man, here's my way too personal take:

actually first i'm putting this under a cut so i can delete it if people get weird

i was a pre-teen in the 90s/early 2000s when "gay" was the universal synonym for stupid, and one day when I was 12 i was walking down the hallway in my middle school and thought "what if I liked girls?" and then I thought "oh, I'd get bullied so much I'd probably die," and proceeded to not think about it again for about a decade. queer content of any kind made me wildly uncomfortable for some mysterious reason, which wasn't really a problem because there wasn't that much of it. but then I got into anime (lol) and reading fanfiction, and one of the shows I really liked had a semi-canon M/M pairing that involved my favorite character, and my habit of avoiding M/M (or F/F, but again, not really a problem because lol where) fic suddenly became a lot harder to sustain, because there wasn't much else! so i tentatively started reading it. and i realize how utterly embarrassing it is to be like "reading M/M anime fanfic helped me work through my internalized homophobia as a pre-teen" but that is, sadly, exactly what happened.

which is all to say: i don't think we can make any assumptions about what people are doing or experiencing when they read and watch this stuff. maybe some people are being fetishistic and weird, and maybe it's warping their view of real-world queer people in a way that eventually causes them to act in materially harmful ways, but... a) i can't imagine that's happening all that often and b) anything short of that just feels like... who cares. let people enjoy what they enjoy, you just can't know what they're actually taking away from it

[redheadbigshoes]

oh the conversation about fetishisation of sapphics... that stuff drives me up the wall. cishet women are often as guilty as cishet men. affection between women is so normalised that two women can make out with each other and people will still rationalise that they're friends. why does no one take sapphic relationships seriously? i'm not talking about aro lesbians btw, that's a completely different thing. and i don't want to say that the lines can't be blurred between romantic and platonic and sexual if that's what the people involved want. but there's still an issue of sapphic relationships being trivialised and taken less seriously just because it's two women. i'm talking about cishet women (and cishet men) who don't see romantic and sexual love between women as real or serious. they see sapphic relationships as frivolous and stupid, a costume they can put on, a porn category and nothing more. it's a joke or game to them and then when they (cishet women) engage in traditionally romantic behaviour with their friends, they find it ridiculous or offensive when someone understandably assumes they're wlw. it's so frustrating

It’s not even that affection between women is normalized (which it is compared with men), it’s more about how you can make out and even have sex with another woman and people are still going to think you’re just friends and that you’re straight.

Sapphic relationships are not taken seriously and are not seen as real in this society, because society doesn’t think a relationship is valid if there’s no man involved. That’s why when it comes to sapphics, coming out might be harder in the sense of people not believing you.

And I totally agree with you that cishet women are also at fault in this case. They want to hide how they invalidate and promote prejudice against sapphics with “we’re also a minority, don’t put the blame on us, cishet men are the ones you should really blame”. And that’s just not true. Sure, cishet men are also to be blamed, but cishet women are still in power comparing with sapphics, they’re still the oppressors when it comes to being cis and straight.

[orhelponefaintingrobin]

Musings on Bumbleby

Big RWBY Spoilers under the cut, big enough that I'm putting a full spoiler cut here.

They actually did it.

I didn't expect this to, like, mean something to me. I expected it to happen, I expected it to be something I was glad to see, but I didn't expect to feel like this about it. And I certainly didn't expect to tear up over it.

The thing is, go back to a few years back, pre-Volume 3, I was not a fandom person. In fact, I was always a bit dismissive about fandom. Now, was some of that the reality that the only person I knew involved in fan stuff was into Dan & Phil RPF and was that my introduction to the concept of fanfiction, yes. But I entirely lacked nuance and dismissed basically the concept of being that into something, and was at a lot of times very shitty about the concept.

And then, just at the end of Volume 2, I started watching RWBY on the recommendation of a friend, enjoyed it a lot, and, having started to dip my toes into Tumblr anyway, had a glance through the tags. Eventually, I came to the first Bumbleby content I found, and for some reason it all started making sense. I saw it, in a way I hadn't really before, and more, I actually got invested in it. I enjoyed seeing fanart of them, I enjoyed reading meta about it, I cared. It was the first time I understood shipping especially, but really fan content in general.

It was weird, though. Why was this the one. I definitely had some... shame is perhaps the wrong word, but I definitely thought it was wrong in some way, being someone who at that point still identified as male and getting this into a wlw ship. It felt like I was engaging with something I didn't have a right to, I worried about fetishising wlw relationships, all of that. But I did care. I cared a lot. I cared enough that the most emotionally resonant and shocking part of V3 was Yang losing her arm and Blake's reaction to that, I cared when they reunited in V5, I cared. Whether I had a right to or not.

As it turns out, I had a right to the whole time. I wasn't some outsider looking in from outside of 'their' community. I'm not saying that Bumbleby helped me realise I was queer, or trans, or a lesbian, not on its own. But starting to engage with queer content in general certainly did, and it was this ship that started me on that path.

I'm a fan of letting artists tell the story they intend, I'm never going to get overly angry if a story doesn't go the way I think it 'should'. But god, I would have been so disappointed if this dynamic was all in my head. Obviously, those fears dulled over the years, it's been pretty certain that this is where Blake and Yang have been headed since at least V6.

But, after all these years, seeing these two finally reach this point, seeing all of it pay off, with no ambiguity, no interruptions, no metaphor... it sort of validates everything. I was right, and they are in love, and despite the fact that they are fictional characters I find myself so, so happy for both of them. And, at a point, I didn't think that was something I was capable of saying.

[milfzatannaz]

Someone else adding onto the Hob thing here-

yeah, I like his character, and I’m a firm believer in ship and let ship or whatever, but it’s just becoming really irritating to me how I can’t scroll the tag anymore without being bombarded with the Hob x Morpheus stuff considering how little screen time they had, like I wanna see some lucifer and mazikeen content

Also something about the fact that there is so much canon queer rep in the show, particularly wlw and poc, yet the majority of the show fandom is focused on the non canon hot white dude ship like hmm something something fetishisation of conventionally attractive gay couples something something

SO TRUE BESTIE. Your last paragraph is SOOOO TRUE bc yeah. the fetishization of a non canon white dude ship. It happens in every fandom, but like, it’s extra annoying here bc so many of us read sandman BECAUSE it’s got wlw and (more so the show) has got people of color. I hate watching them get sidelined!!!!!!!! What the fuck!!!!!

I have a hypothesis that this is mostly bc a large amount of show ppl are strictly in these spaces because of Good Omens.

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

I don’t say this in an accusatory tone or like I think anyone is a bad person or to be blamed. Just a guess on what I think is happening based on what I’ve seen.

You know you see a lot of people say oh I wish wlw media was like mlm media or I wish it was as good as etc etc.

I’m thinking maybe part of the issue (and I’m not a gay or bi man so I can’t speak on how this makes them feel and I won’t try to ) but from what I have seen m/m media is consumed in average by a larger audience. Bi women, lesbians, gay men, straight women, bi men - in a general sense it’s “likeable” and “enjoyable content” for a large group of people. And yes there is definitely arguments of fetishisation going on in some cases. I feel like that’s a whole other thing as well though and I don’t know if I’m really qualified to talk about it. But I definitely recommend it.

But then in general when you talk about f/f fiction on average the only people consuming it the most are women who are attracted to women. Like obviously that’s not a hard and fast rule but it seems to be disproportionately more noticeable that the main consumers of it seem to be bi and lesbian women. And again , this isn’t a bad thing necessarily because I get it, but on TikTok and stuff you see SO many people say “I just relate more to mlm fiction because I’m mlm, so I just don’t read wlw”

I mean I guess that brings into age old debate of are men the default , you know the like a universally relatable character that more people can relate to , but women are only relatable to women. Is that something that’s happening here or ? Honestly I don’t know lol. And again I’m not blaming anyone or saying anyone is wrong, just a thought I had.

But at the same time I get it too sometimes. Like I feel like I have higher standards when it comes to lesbian fiction compared to gay male fiction. And I feel like a lot of people feel that way too. And I can’t explain why that is. Is it because lesbian fiction doesn’t have the foundations modern gay male fiction has, so it’s still finding its roots? (And again there is a whole discussion on that around straight women creating the modern foundations of what’s expected in currently traditionally published gay male fiction - which I don’t feel super qualified to talk about it).

I don’t know lol. I don’t know where I was going with all this. Just something I’d been thinking about

[thesiriusmoon]

Harry Potter ships I truly hate

Disclaimer: I’m not telling you who to ship and whatnot, I’m just expressing how awful these ships are to me and then explaining why.

1. Harry X Draco

Now this is coming from a former drarry stan who before, hadn’t read the books. I thought Draco ‘had no choice’ and ‘just wanted love’ until I opened my eyes and saw the character for who he really was. That is a spoiled blood supremacist who hates muggleborns, and is loved by both of his parents. Draco bullied Harry. Although Harry fought back, it was because he was the victim and had to defend himself. Harry never went out of his way to hurt Draco, but Draco did it constantly. Draco and Harry would never work because Harry hated Draco just as much as Draco did him. You could ship Harry with so many others that wouldn’t be toxic such as, Ginny, Cho, maybe Hermoine (but I prefer Romoine), maybe even Ron if you want to. (I don’t ship Harry and Cedric because the ages are too weird). It’s so obvious throughout the entire book that Harry didn’t have romantic feelings for Draco, he only ever thought he was doing bad things, seeing as he was a bad person. Harry found love in Ginny in like the fifth book? Which is when the crush started, and no one else was in the picture for him once he began dating Ginny. In conclusion, Ginny is the one he married and had children with, not Draco, because he hated him and wanted nothing to do with him as he was nothing but a bully who hated muggles and muggleborns. Seeing as Harry is a half blood, and his mother was muggleborn, why do you think Harry would turn around and be like “oh he’s just broken I’ll fix him.” And ignore everything Draco ever said about his family???? That’s such a toxic thing to think... because believe it or not, in a relationship you’re supposed to be with someone you like as a person. Just because you may find Draco attractive, that doesn’t make him a good person!! Harry would never choose Draco over anyone for that matter. If it were between Ginny or Draco to be saved, you better bet on Harry saving Ginny.

2. Hermoine X Draco

I genuinely hate this ship with my entire being. It disgusts me. This isn’t an enemies to lovers, this is literally bully X victim. Hermoine didn’t fight back, meaning Draco was the full oppressor and she was the oppressed. Draco is a blood supremacist who called Hermoine a mudblood constantly and hated her, and the feeling was mutual from Hermoine because why would anyone like their bully? Falling in love with your bully is a book trope, that doesn’t happen in real life. When Hermoine was being tortured in Malfoy Manor, Draco stood and watched because he didn’t care, meanwhile Ron, the boy Hermoine was attracted to and loved, was screaming and crying begging for him to take her place so she would be protected. That’s true love, something Hermoine and Draco will never have. I really will never understand why so many people love shipping victims with their oppressors... like do you get a sick kick out of it by babying the oppressor? Saying things like “oh he’s just unloved” or “he can change!” When none of that is true. Draco chose to be who he is, which is a blood supremacist and was loved by his family, and Hermoine chose not to ever engage with him because of his personality and attitude. Draco hated her, and everyone else like her because of their status, and overall, Hermoine just isn’t attracted to him. Hermoine is attracted to Ron and he’s the only person I can see dating Hermoine because everyone else would be a bit strange. Dramoine is unbelievably toxic, and all it does is romanticise abuse. “Oh Draco only bullied her for 7 years because he was afraid to love her.” Stfu. You’d never hurt someone you love. Draco bullied her because he thought he was ABOVE her, and she was nothing but dirt on his shoe.

3. Hermoine X Pansy

When it comes to fanon, I still don’t understand why it gets shipped because in order to do that, you have to change Pany’s entire personality to the point where it’s not even Pansy anymore. It’s just some nice girl with the same name. Because the real Pansy bullied Hermoine and made it known how much she didn’t like her. Not only that, but Pansy was head over heels for Draco. This isn’t an enemies to lovers, this is shipping the bully with the victim for some weird reason... because Hermoine didn’t fight back just like Hermoine X Draco. If they were both at each other’s throats I could see your enemies to lovers, but that’s just not what this is. If you ship them because you’re looking for a wlw ship, why not take a look at Ginny X Luna, Lavender X Parvati, or even Tonks X Fleur, rather than picking the toxic ship that would never ever work and would only hurt Hermoine. Ron Weasley exists for a reason. Again, shipping someone with their oppressor is a very weird thing to do. For example, Ron is a pureblood, but Ron wasn’t prejudice towards muggles or muggleborns, because he’s a decent and normal person. Pansy and Draco aren’t decent people, and they bullied people. Really there isn’t much else to say as all canon stuff about Pansy is about her bullying people, and encouraging people to capture Harry because SHE’S A BLOOD SUPREMACIST THAT’S ALL SHE IS. Hermoine is a strong and independent woman and would NEVER date someone prejudice like that, she has standards.

4. Lily X Snape

We have to stop with this “she can fix him” mentality, because women don’t exist to fix men. Either Snape was a good person, or a bad person. He should be able to choose that himself. Which he was actually, and he was very clearly a bad person. You can’t force someone to be attracted to another. Attraction forms on its own, and it’s something Lily never had for Snape, they were only friends. To say that Lily owed Snape something because he liked her... is so wrong and disgusting. If she doesn’t like him, she doesn’t like him and Snape should fucking move on instead of obsessing over her. But, Snape overall was a creep so you can’t say “oh he made a mistake” when that man knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Ripping Lily’s happy photograph of her with her husband and baby, and taking the letter she wrote for Sirius who Snape could pretend she did that for him. Literally disgusting. Even the friendship was toxic. When reading I realised that Snape played the victims card a lot when talking about the marauders as if he wasn’t doing WORSE thing to them. Lily knew that Snape wanted to join Voldemort, as seen in the books. ‘You and your previous little death eater friends — you see, you don’t even deny it. You don’t even deny that’s what you’re aiming to be! You can’t wait to join you-know-who, can you?” Then she says “I can’t pretend anymore, you’ve chosen your way, and I’ve chosen mine.” Lily PRETENDED that Snape wasn’t going to be a death eater because she didn’t want to believe that her own friend would hate her kind so much. Though once reality hit her she was gone and was never coming back. To ship someone who was oppressed with the oppressor is so weird and wrong, and I genuinely think you’re strange if you do that 😐. Snape already didn’t like Lily having other friends... so what does that tell you about what kind of relationship they would have? A manipulative one and an emotionally abusive one. James Potter was a pureblood, and not once did he ever bully someone for their blood status. He did things to Snape because Snape was a prejudice piece of shit and deserved it quite frankly. I would have done the exact same thing. Remember, the Potter’s were ‘blood traitors’ and Snape was a blood supremacist, of course the two aren’t going to like one another. But the difference is, Snape bullied innocent people (laughing at the fact Mary MacDonald was subdued to dark magic) and James fought back for those without voices. Getting revenge for people who couldn’t do it themselves. That’s the difference between a bully and a hero tbh. There’s no way Lily would ever date a death eater, she’s a strong woman who can make up her mind for herself rather than having people on the internet say things like “she was brainwashed!” And things like that. She became attracted and fell in love with a respectful man who would never cause her any type of emotional or physical harm.

In conclusion, I will judge you if you think shipping abusers/oppressors with their victims is ok in any way.

If you made it this far, feel free to comment or reblog with your own opinion. Just know that my opinion on these ships will never change because they’re all extremely toxic whether you like it or not. That’s just common sense. It’s canon that Draco, Pansy, and Snape were horrible people who liked to make fun of others. Fanon doesn’t mean a single thing in this because fanon isn’t real. If you have to change the entire personality of someone so they aren’t abusive... what does that tell you about their character? A lot of people do this because they like how a character looks, which is so tone deaf. If you think a victim should date their oppressor because of looks... I’m judging you heavily. If a character is wrote to be abusive, I don’t understand people do fan art of them with the people they hurt in a romantic way.

You might say I’m being over dramatic, but really it’s not that hard to understand that you shouldn’t romanticise abuse or say that oppressor X victim would make the perfect couple just because of their looks.

Would you ever ship Neville with Draco? No you wouldn’t. And it’s not for the reasons you would think. I bet if Neville was conveniently attractive (in the books, I love Matthew.) people would have shipped him with Draco despite Draco mercilessly bullying Neville for 7 years. A lot of people would have made excuses like “Draco was broken!” In order to be able to ship two attractive men together. (Which also plays into fetishisation of lgbt+ couples I think...) This fandom is rather toxic when it comes to this, and they’d rather ship a very abusive relationship with two conventionally attractive people rather than a loving one with two people that aren’t.

[quillsink]

who's chandler bestie?

BESTIE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE JUST UNLEASHED

So you’ve probably heard of Friends right, the 90s american sitcom everyone’s watched, this shit

So Chandler is one of the characters in this show! He’s the dude on the left :D

So his full name is Chandler Muriel Bing and he’s played by Matthew Perry! He’s one of the main six friends in the show and he is very hot and also he’s very gender

So basically he grew up in a pretty weird household—his mom writes trashy novels with a ton of sex stuff and earns money from that. When he’s ten, his dad comes out as gay and his parents get a divorce—his dad fucks off to LA and basically becomes a drag queen, and his mother dumps him in a boarding school and continues writing novels!

Chandler meanwhile is insecure as fuck, desperate for any sort of approval or affection, and now fucked up by his parents splitting up! At age ten he starts smoking to cope, and he struggles with smoking his entire life

Due to his parents splitting up bc his dad was gay, he subconsciously associates being gay with the shit his parents pulled on him and turns out to be a homophobic piece of trash

Oh also as a kid he frequently walked in on his father in weird sexual situations with men and also his dad used him for dance routines and stuff—It’s a bit unclear and he doesn’t mention it often but it’s clear Chandler’s childhood was fucked up and his dad wasn’t the best—

So yes anyways to cope with all this he became really sarcastic and also funny (he’s so funny lmao) but yeah! He’s known for his humour and sarcasm

Anyways he goes to college and befriends Ross Geller, who’s the brother of Monica Geller, and her best friend is Rachel, and that’s how the gang begins to form!

Chandler’s really insecure so he basically clings to Ross lmfao, he also sucks at dating and all that shit (I theorise it’s bc he saw his parents relationship go to hell and he’s scared smth similar will happen to him) and anyways yeah he gets through college and he gets a job as a data processor!

Chandler doesn’t rlly have a job he hates or loves he just works as a data processor lmao

Anyways-

So after college he moves into an apartment across Monica’s and Ross has a house nearby, and Phoebe, a girl Monica meets, becomes her roommate, and then Chandler’s looking for roommates and he meets Joey Tribbianni, an actor, and they become roommates :D This is Chandler and Joey (i ship them lmaooo)

Anyways did I mention Chandler is fucked up and bigoted-

So yeah I like to ignore canon and pretend he’s bi and trans and just live in fanfic universe but unfortunately in canon Chandler is quite fucked up!

He makes a few transmisogynistic jokes, calls a man a “man slash woman” when he wears makeup, the typical stuff, also low-key homophobic, and also lesbophobic (ugh) he’s the typical cishet guy fetishising wlw yknow that guy? Yeah that’s Chandler and I hate it. He’s the type of guy to be homophobic and then watch wlw porn and I’m going to hit him over the head with a chappal istg yeah he’s fucked :/ He had so much POTENTIAL i hate canon so much i’m just gonna binge read gay chandler fics and pretend he wasn’t a piece of shit lmao-

I totally see Chandler as bi and very repressed, 99% of the fandom does, he was written to be gay but they made him straight at the last minute ugh

Reasons why he’s gay-

Have you SEEN him and joey together HAVE YOU SEEN THEM OH MY GOD

When his coworker thought he was gay and tried to set him up with a guy he found out who the guy was and immediately said “well, he’s no Brian,” (another guy) and proceeded to say he could totally get Brian to date him

He kissed a guy in a bar once and when Ross brought it up he was like “In my defence, it was dark, and he was a VERY PRETTY GUY!”

He comments multiple times on attractive guys to the point where the girls stare at him weirdly 

One example is when he sees a pic of a guy Phoebe shows him and goes “WOOOAH” and then immediately goes “dont tell my girlfriend I said that-”

Come on this man is Not Straight

Anyways I sorta went on a whole rant about him lmfao, but yeah that’s my boy Chandler!!

[bisexualsdeservebetter]

BL is guy-on-guy Japanese media. Short for boy's love. I've watched a lot of "activists" who claim to be for LGBT people say that any guy-on-guy stuff will always fetishize gay/bi men, even if it's men who enjoy it too. BL tends to be more geared towards women, but that isn't to say men don't enjoy it either. The men who like bl/geicomi (gay comics) tend to get treated as "traitors" for their enjoyment. There's a very big cultural component with LGBT women enjoying that kind of stuff. Japanese context, I mean. There is the stereotype of women who have looked at gay/bi men as something to fulfill their shipping fodder, but I really do think that can be fixed with more socialization. And those girls thinking that's how real gay/bi men work. Unhealthy dynamics, yadda yadda. It's a matter of separating fiction from reality, I suppose? And the stereotype of those girls is them drooling over a gay couple irl, waiting for them to kiss. "Oh, this is just like one of my animes!" If I can paraphrase Hal from Metal Gear Solid. I'm summing things up and probably not doing a good job of it. Sometimes those girls are just starting to realize things about their own sexuality. Doesn't exactly excuse them, but I've seen guys get creepy about gals on that side too. Real gals, I mean. Does that make sense? While I personally wretch at the whole "male gaze theory" and stuff like that...at the end of the day, those characters are fictional. What truly matters, I think, is how you treat real people. Treat those as you wish to be treated, y'know? That's how I've gone about it. Dunno how it'll work for you, Nonny.~From an older bisexual weeb-ass woman who enjoys bl/geicomi/yuri/straight stuff and who has seen some shit since the early 2000's to the BL anon girl.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I mean, I don't think that women fetishising mlm relationships should just be swept under the rug like this. This sort of feels like you're just trying to say that it isn't really a problem, when it kind of is. Like I do think that some stories of people like that are exaggerated, but that doesn't mean that fetishising mlm or wlw relationships is like, an okay or good thing to do.

Basically, if you are very very invested in a group (especially a minority group) that you yourself are not a part of, why? Why are you so fascinated? What specifically is it about mlm relationships that non mlm are so invested in? Usually when it's wlw relationships being fetishised it winds up devaluing the relationship and putting it 'not on the same level' as hetero relationships. It's treated like it's just entertainment (generally for hetero men) who just think the idea of 2 women is hot even though they don't actually view that as a valid or 'real' relationship. I think that the fetishisation around mlm relationships in fandom spaces, which I usually see coming from hetero (although sometimes bi, apparently) women is kind of the same thing on a smaller scale. In a lot of fandom areas mlm relationships get treated like their only real value is as entertainment.

Frankly fetishisation of mlm and wlw relationships is just kind of another flavour of homophobia. That being said, it obviously isn't inherently fetishising for a woman to enjoy some mlm content or a man to enjoy some wlw content. It's just when it becomes like, very close to an obsession, or like the only sort of media that you're interested in that it becomes problematic.

The way the last anon described her feelings felt kind of off, and idk if I just misread or something, but it sounded like she said that even though she's a bi woman, she feels liberated by only mlm media which goes against gender norms and toxic masculinity. Well.. why not also wlw media? Why not women who go against gender norms also..?

Tldr, I'm not saying it's wrong or bad for someone to enjoy stories about people who are not the same as them, it's fine to do that. But when you become obsessed or very enamoured with a group of people that you are not a part of, you really need to ask yourself why.

[thedreadvampy]

aaaaarghhhhh just thinking about my comic script and realising that the plot point that made me Mildly Uncomfortable But Felt Probably Ok in 2015 is like. about the worst possible idea from a 2021 perspective. so I'm going to need to rethink the whole script again if I ever want to use it

like. It's a noir tragedy and part of the story is adapting The Bacchae, which involves a powerful man trying to break into a space of wild women in order to spy and destroy it, dressing as a woman, being exposed by his inability to act like a Fucking Person, and being torn apart and destroyed.

and I had it as a musing on lesbophobia and cishet men's fixation on queer women as a symbol of both fetishised sexuality and horror and the ways that that (in my life and others) has manifested in violence, with like a cathartic murder and then ultimately a tragic ending touching on the criminalisation of survivors. But it did retain the element of Pentheus dressing as a woman to enter women's spaces and assault women, and I tried very hard and worked with some pals who are trans women to try and make sure that my script and thumbnails draw a clear distinction between Pentheus the man-entering-a-woman's-space-deceitfully and trans women who are just Being. like half of the protagonists are trans wlw, I tried to be explicit about the difference between what Pentheus was doing vs what the women he was targeting were doing, I did my best to avoid transphobic tropes about like drawing Pentheus as a Stubbly Invading Man In A Dress and all the ~good trans women~ as being Perfectly Feminine, and the story I was telling intended to be pretty explicit about the fact that people prefer to twist the truth to frame the actions of cishet white men as a reason to exclude marginalised people.

so like, it isn't that I hadn't noticed the issue in 2015. and part of the reason that I haven't carried this work forwards over the interceding few years is that it is very much About Bigotry and some of that (misogyny, homophobia, ableism) is in forms I've experienced but a lot of the stories are About racism and transphobia and homophobia against men specifically and as someone who doesn't experience that I think it's risky to write those stories unless it really is being done Extremely Right and very carefully and with a lot of discussion.

but. In 2015 I thought this was justifiable. six years later with TERF rhetoric and policy so absolutely mainstreamed I don't think there's any way to do the Bacchae storyline in a way that isn't open to TERFery. however explicit the story is about trans women having an entirely deserved space in closed wlw communities I can't think that there's any way to handle the image of a man dressing up as a woman to spy on and assault women that doesn't play into the utter bullshit ideas that are unfortunately mainstreamed about The Trans Menace. even if you're explicit about that person not being trans even if every part of his story is very clear about his cisness and his motivations it still fundamentally comes back around to the image of a man in a wig pretending to be a woman to invade spaces that are closed to men. which is fucked.

and idk it sucks a bunch to have to yeet this whole script. there was a lot I really liked in it and of all the stories in Underworld Blues it was in many ways the most personal for me, it touched on the joys of queer community, polyamory, of defining womanhood in your own ways, and very directly on the ways that power and spite and entitlement can absolutely destroy that. like the story I wrote was very about My Trauma (me me me it's about me) and the frustrating thing is that honestly the beginning and end points I think are salvageable, but I'm not sure how I'd reconstruct the story to include the ideas about safe and unsafe spaces and the treatment of wlw spaces as playgrounds for straight cis men with an expectation of power while excising the bits that are. a) kind of grossly gender essentialist by accident, implying that the problem with men is that they're The Enemy rather than that some cishet men are socialised to entitlement and b) feeding into some EXTREMELY transphobic ideas about gender expression as costume and about the deceptiveness people associate with that idea.

like six years ago I talked this through with trans friends and we discussed the need to feel able to (carefully) risk writing problematic shit and being prepared to be held to account but ultimately it seemed justifiable. it doesn't now. if I could think of a way to get Pentheus from point a) which is 'the Gay Parties Are A Threat To Our Ordered Society I'm Going To Spy Creepily On Them' to point b) which is 'Pentheus attempts to take advantage of what he percieves as a consequence-free environment to do what he wants, Is Rightly Shot Dead' while retaining the stuff I want it to say about gender, queerness, power, judgement, sexualisation and rape culture, I would. but I'm. not good at original plot points that's why this is an adaptation of Greek plays.

so. idk. this thing might need to go off the backburner and in the bin for now. which sucks.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

I read your opinion on the porn stuff that it doesn't really matter what kind porn you're watchinga nd doesn't define your sexuality(I'm explaining it really badly sorry)

I might be wrong but isn't that kind of fetishizing the sexuality in the porn

Like if a straight girl is into just wlw porn or just mlm porn isn't that kind of fetishizing those relationships just for getting yourself off???

No. Just no! Honestly that word “fetishisation” is being thrown around on this discourse hellhole of a website by people who have no idea what it means.

There is nothing wrong or inherently bad/harmful about someone getting off to porn that doesn’t “match” their own gender and sexuality. You cannot fetishise people btw. A fetish is when you experience sexual arousal or gratification from things that are NOT other human beings and their primary or secondary sex organs. Like... getting horny from looking at pictures of feet is a fetish bc feet aren’t sex organs. Being turned on by leather is a fetish.

Experiencing sexual arousal from seeing other people have sex is NOT a fetish by definition! And even if it were then ask yourself where the fucking problem is with that? Why should people not be allowed to watch whatever pornographic material they enjoy watching - assuming that the performers in that material were consenting adults.

A straight girl rubbing one out to gay porn doesn’t have any effect whatsoever on the countless of gay and queer men who will never even know she’s done that. Finding it hot when you see other peopel fuck (regardless of their genders) doesn’t say anything about how someone treats queer people irl. You can be a straight person watching lesbian porn and be the biggest ally ever. You can never watch lesbian porn and still be a homophobic asshole.

Not to mention that a “straight” person watching queer porn? Miiiiiight not be as straight as they think. So let people watch whatever the fuck they want. It’s not harming me or you as a queer person what someone else does in their private life.

Maddie

[bondsmagii]

I'm pre-emptively wincing but.... what's the slenderverse tea

alright. so.

recently it’s come to light that the creator of a Slenderverse video series the name of which has something to do with a certain number of tribes is an unmitigated piece of shit. basically he’s been doing the usual bullshit that assholes like that do when they get any kind of influence or power: he was grooming minors and sexually assaulting people. now, I hate the guy, and I have since 2012, so I never doubted it considering some of what I saw even way back when 🅱ribe12 was first starting out, but you know how it is. cancel culture, a lot of people do tend to stretch things... I thought it would be a few messages, more of him being a fetishising creep, etc. and it was. but it was also so, so much worse. I won’t go into detail because it’s nasty, and the accusations are pretty graphic in their detail and there’s a lot of screenshots of him being an unholy jerk, but I’ll link the megapost at the end for anyone wondering.

on top of the assault and grooming, he’s also highly inappropriate when it comes to his massive list of fucked up fetishes, which are incredibly messed up (z**philia, b*stiality, inc*st, etc). he also apparently has a fetish for trans people, which he’s pretty explicit about, and the whole thing is just :/ yikes. he was out there sending graphic messages about this stuff to people, including trans people and minors, and also people who had told them they were uncomfortable with it. he was also a shitty friend in general, trying to scam people out of money, worrying more about losses to his Patreon account when a donor was considering suicide, etc. generally everything you would expect from an entitled asshole, but somehow so much worse.

honestly? I feel so bad for everyone affected by this, both his victims and the people who have to come to terms with the fact that someone they respected turned out to be a complete asshole. it’s extra frustrating because I saw the warning signs in 2012, and I have always hated this particular creator. my beef started when 6x2 Tribes had just begun and I saw a lot of plagiarism going on -- a lot of things were ripped off directly from some Hornets That Have Been Marbled, and I was pretty vocal about how shitty that was. this lessened pretty quickly, probably due to backlash (the creator later said it was just a “homage”, but like... dude, that would not have passed TurnItIn) but I always had a bad feeling about him because someone who can do that so shamelessly always sets off my asshole vibes. 

I kept a close eye on him after that, and I quickly saw him saying a lot of inappropriate shit on Facebook. the way he interacted with fans skeeved me out -- it was clear he was using them for an ego-boost, for validation, and just generally to make himself feel important. the way he would also bully newer fans for being too cringe or whatever also set me off, and I yelled at him a few times for that, as well. finally he made this gross post about shipping, where he said that mlm stuff grossed him out but wlw stuff was OK because it was hot, and I knew from that moment that he was going to end up grooming and probably assaulting people. I even said to some friends at the time that this asshole displayed the exact kind of power-hungry arrogance that predators always had, and I’ve been waiting for something like this to break with profound dread. now it’s blown up and it was so much worse than I thought it would be. I’m so glad that he’s no longer active and hopefully he’ll just disappear and stay gone, but I really wish that I’d managed to get more people to listen way back when. the only problem was that he hadn’t done anything serious enough by then, because so many people would defend him and he would just say he was joking or it was taken out of context, and unfortunately you can’t persuade people to give up something they love just because you have a hunch. but man, was I right about this dickhead.

megapost of all the accusations, statements, and screenshots (Reddit link). warnings for just about everything you can think of.

[beclynn-herondale]

Thoughts on Cassandra Clare ? Are u pro cc ?

dear Anon,

So I am gonna start this out with I wouldn't say I am pro CC,

do I enjoy her writing? Yes

Do I think she does ignorant and hurtful things? Also yes

Do I think it is okay to criticize her In a non hateful way? Yes, i don't approve of hating on someone that's something you can never take back, nor do I support pulling people apart cause let me tell you it fucks people up I have experienced this it is one of the worst things you can do to a person, you make them doubt everything about themself and for some you can fuck them up mentally and it can lead to more extreme measures.

Criticism doesn't need to be hateful or mean, it can be civilized and educational instead, in my opinion we need to educate and explain why it's wrong not hate them or cancel them that's not gonna solve anything, it's not gonna erase what the person said or did, you're only causing more pain and hate and let's be honest there's enough of that already.

Do I agree that she doesn't handle her POC well? YES

Do I acknowledge she said some islamophobic things? YES

Do I agree she may fetishises? Yes

Do I acknowledge she mistreats her wlw ships? Yes but also I do understand that LGBTQIPA+ rep is harder to get in cause publishers can be assholes and the world is still not as accepting of LGBTQIPA+ as we wish it would be.

Do I think it's wrong that most of her POC are half white? YES, and she needs to acknowledge it and give better representation.

Do I think her incest fetishization is wrong? YES, but also I wish you all would stop bringing Clace into this I have my reasons on why I love them but also keep in mind they were teenagers who Valentine manipulated and tried to take away what they loved most, he saw how much they loved each other and used it to try to destroy them cause he knew how powerful they are together and that together they could take him down, but also he saw that he was losing control over Jace and an abuser can't stand that, I know cause I have abusers and everytime I do something that's out of their control they do something to get it back. I saw through it from the beginning and maybe that's why, but it was never a story about incest, was some of it wrong? Yes but also they loved each other so much and you can't just stop loving someone with the snap of a finger, if you did then It wasn't really love, it would be lust, so the fact that Jace and Clary never stopped loving each other proved how much they did love each and that it wasn't lust. Listen I'm not saying it was right or that CC handled it well but I am saying that I get Clace and Valentine knew what he was doing, also CC is who you should be criticizing, as you can see Clace is actually later on a healthy couple and we need that for Heterosexuals just like we need healthy mlm and wlw relationships, the world is so negative right now so why do we have to make it more negative?

So instead of focusing on the bad parts (I'm not saying to not acknowledge them cause I do, but i also acknowledge people grow and change ) let's focus on the good parts as well like how much they love each other, Jace showed me that I can heal from my abusive past and that I can love and be loved in return. They showed us to never give up. Jace showed us Family isn't Blood. Clary showed us that you can be both a warrior and still be whatever hobby you like. Even Simon said in City of Heavenly Fire that they are a team and that's development and in my opinion what a relationship should be. Emma Carstairs said that they are girlfriend and boyfriend but also best friends again an important part of a relationship. Let's acknowledge the fact that Jace went from and Ignorant, angry, broken, mentally unstable boy to as he says a happy man and he isn't who he was at 16, he has grown a lot and it's time to acknowledge it, you wouldn't hold other characters to their past mistakes so why do you do it with other characters? And yes in order to acknowledge the growth we need to acknowledge the mistakes but I have done that myself and I love Jace cause he wasn't perfect, he wasn't automatically a the best person, he had to grow, he had bad qualities and that is human, and I don't think we are gonna hate people for being human? Jace showed abuse victims they can be happy and heal. And honestly I hate how I have to explain personal things for people to understand how important he is to me, and I am tired of hearing how I should find a different character to love this much cause Jace is shit, well I will say I am very much like Jace so i guess I'm shit too then, but also I have sadly tried to not but I can't help but love this character cause he came into my life when I was not great and I needed him and he's always there for me in my darkest moments along with Clary, I could be having a panic attack and guess what I see fanart of Clace and I feel better and it calms me down. Also of it weren't for Clary's bravery I would have had something really bad happen to me recently but because I remembered how brave Clary was and still is I made the brave decision and saved myself from bigger trauma then I already have. Recently Clace is one of the only things keeping me going. So just be respectful and try to understand. Also again it wasn't incestuous. Also when you say Jace is terrible it makes people like me who love him and relate to him feel evil and like we are terrible people for liking him, at least for me it does, i am constantly doubting myself after someone told me Jace is shit and a terrible person. Keep in mind when wording things what you are saying and how it will effect others. (Please be civil about this and remember that we all interpret the story differently, I saw things a lot of people didn't see) also we need to keep in mind that TMI Gang were all teenagers except Magnus and Alec and Alec was a young adult at the time, when they all went through all that stuff and had to save the world, they had to things Teenagers shouldn't have to do and make decisions they shouldn't have had to, and let me tell you as someone who has had to do things as a teenager that I shouldn't have had to, it sucks and you don't know how to feel about it or how to act about it.

Do I think some of her POC are stereotyped? Yes, but also some people like the characters for that, and some see other things in them that. I am no way saying your opinion is invalid, you can be offended and hurt by the stereotyping and feel unrepresented, that's your right. And I really do hope she does better in the future, cause I want POC to feel as represented as i do, and you all deserve it.

No CC's books are extremely important to me, but I can also acknowledge she can be problematic, but everyone can in their own way, and sometimes we need to be called out. So we should criticize her in a none hateful way. Hate Breeds Hate.

And do I think she should give her LGBTQIPA+ couples explicit scenes? Yes but I can understand how CC may not want to mess it up and maybe she is trying to handle it right, and publishers don't always allow LGBTQIPA+ explicit scenes. CC did have to fight for Alec to be Gay in the time she was writing him. Am I hoping for better rep? YES!! And maybe TLBOTW will give us that but I don't know.

Also even if you don't agree or don't understand, Listen To POC When They Say Something Is Racist! Hear their opinion and take their opinion and thoughts into consideration.

I would also say to stop whitewashing characters and find models, actors/actresses, singers, that are the same race and ethnicity and use them for reference for art and edits, and writing descriptions in fanfics and books. Educate yourself on it and ask people, get other prospectives.

But no I wouldn't say I am Pro CC but i am not Anti either, I acknowledge her mistakes and ignorance, I acknowledge her mishandling of POC and wlw and her problematic ways. But I also enjoy her books, I can criticize the author and still love the books.

So in conclusion Listen to POC when they say something is Racist and take it into consideration. Acknowledge that you may not know why someone loves a character, and respect them. Try to be more sympathetic towards others. Remember you can criticize the author and still love the books. Educate yourself and try to learn. Try to understand others. Ask yourself if what you are saying is the right way to be going about things. Just try to be nice and respectful and listen, try to see where the other person is coming from.

( again like I always say you don't have to have the same opinion and you don't have to agree that is your right however you can be kind and respectful and civil)

( I will add more later )

[adamsvanrhijn]

hi just wanna say as a gay cis man who is actively involved in several fandoms and reads lots of fanfic i def see m/m slash as empowering and validating? like you care enough about my identity to support it and write about it and make art about it which is so powerful and important to me and it does not come across as creepy sexual fetishisation to me unlike straight men with wlw (also you write very good gay smut and i appreciate it lmao keep up the lord's work xx)

i am glad to hear that from you and glad i can provide some of that!!!! <3

tbh i think the problem, when there is one, often just comes from like... not ... actually knowing any gay men lmao. or even just having no romantic experience at all—people don't like to hear it but it very often shows. nothing wrong w/ writing it if you don't know it, inherently, but it Does show haha. and i think that might be where a lot of the problems come from honestly. sometimes it isn't fetishistic so much as just a very idealized and projected concept of what an intimate relationship is—and you see this in straight fanfic, too, but these people don't know that because they don't read m/f!

it's less of an issue in f/f fic because i think most writers of that, and this is completely anecdotal, have more experience being in those relationships on average.

for me slash is definitely been something i've been able to connect w/ my gay male friends about so there's that lol. and for me at least, i like to & try to read gay fiction By gay men to see what notes people are hitting, but i think w/ fic i do have a broader audience than a lot of like, existing online gay male fiction & erotica for example? [the kind written by/for gay men] which is not to say it is For Women, bc i really want gay guys to be able to enjoy my stuff (especially the smut; i worry about that lol).

and thanks omg. as someone who isn't a gay man there definitely is the like, striking a balance to remain engaging + stimulating for the audience and keeping things true to real life, when writing smut, but that happens w/ erotica written by gay men too because that's just. the nature of erotica. glad you're liking it !!!

[mimikyuno]

(incomplete) list of explicitly gay/heavily gay coded anime, rated 🏳️‍🌈

1. amanchu (only s1 and the special, s2 is a hecking mess): pikari literally tells teko she loves her, all the blushing and falling in love cuteness is there, to watch. also, i love the art style. 8/10

2. asago to kase-san: VERY gay and sweet and cute and lovely. the girls are super cute, and even tho they are canonically in a relationship, they are not fetishised for the male gaze. just. wholesome. could have been longer tho. 8/10

3. citrus: bullshit, im just adding this to the list bc its explicitly gay, but it was a fucking mess of fetishising wlw relationships for the male gaze, theres a middle schooler who sleeps with much older men, noncon stuff happening between the main couple. its only redeeming point is that it ends well and the last ep is cute. 5/10

4. doukyuusei: i watched this years ago but i remember it being. WHOLESOME!! SHOWSTOPPING!! REVOLUTIONARY!! canon mlm relationship. to watch. 10/10

5. hibike! euphonium (i just watched s1 tho): im just putting this there for the “confessions of love” reina and kumiko exchange. but its not really gay. just an honorable mention tbh. 7/10

6. kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon: okay, this would have been good if not for a. the sexualisation of kanna (a literal kid) and the jokes about lucoa hitting on a literal elementary school boy. koboyashi and tohru are cute tho, also fafnir and makoto are gay. disappointing bc of the aforementioned issues. could have been great. 5/10

7. kono danshi, ningyo hiroimashita: innovative art style, and a boy and a merman falling in love? noice!! 7/10

8. liz to aoi tori: same as h!e, not really explicitly gay but. oh god the homoerotic subtext will kill u. liz and the blue bird are gay too. i love the art style more than i love myself. 8/10

9. love stage: a transphobic mess. non con elements. why did i even watch this? the story seemed cute, and the elder brother and the other guy have a healthier relationship than the leads. 5/10 (not a 4 just bc of the other two guys i mentioned)

10. puella magi madoka magica: okay, homura is canonically in love with madoka. she says so in “rebellion”, do not @ me. also sayaka and kyouko are pretty gay. 10/10 bc its my favourite anime.

(continues on rb)

[twiceblackvelvet]

part of me wishes that all of this could have happened back in May when the original issue really gained traction and when they were first called out but this is still such a huge step for this community to have come together on something like this in order to protect others.

i do realise it’s likely going to come with some backlash but the me from May who became so scared to even speak here, who was genuinely terrified of interacting with my own followers because of being attacked by them/their audience and who unfortunately believed a lot of the hateful stuff i received is not the same me who is discussing it now today.

please, however, keep this energy and continue to call out any bullshit you see. protect trans/nb writers and don’t let anyone make excuses for letting cis-hets into lgbt+ safe spaces to fetishise wlw content.