#b) normal people aren't in fandom culture

[invisiblyvisiblejay]

the girl im dating doesn't know what the omegaverse is which is like lowkey insane to me. she's like. the first person ive been close to who has never really been involved in fandom or like. twitter culture which is just really interesting sometimes like for example i forget that the omegaverse isn't common knowledge. or like. the way i use the label asexual is sort of Technically correct but is very confusing to most people outside of Knows A Lot About Specific Identities culture because even though it's technically about sexual attraction and not really associated with someone's willingness to have sex the general public (or. the general public who has a working idea of what asexual means) understands it more to be about wanting or not wanting to have sex. and i don't use the label correctly anyways lol i don't particularly use any of my labels in a way that would actually convey what i mean to a normal person. but the general point is wow all of my close friends up to this point. every single one of them. have been involved in fandom culture

[sadakodx]

honestly i have another extremely depressing addition to that last post which is that i've just been on the internet long enough that i always view certain extremely innocuous, plain-seeming phrases and terms with extreme suspicion, so i double-check op's blog before reblogging [usually. sometimes i forget] and often they're a freak.

like. it's important to note that on the opposite side of the spectrum of "sometimes these dogwhistles are just whistles" is "some of these aren't even just Strange Things Only The In-Group Is Meant To Understand, they're 100% meant to trick the average layperson into agreeing with them, too".

an example i've brought up a lot recently is people saying "censorship" when they mean "normal well adjusted people being against written and illustrated csam". same folks also invoke youth rights a lot, which is fucking evil considering the circumstances.

i keep typing more stuff but its all so obvious [to me, i guess.] and i'm trying to think of stuff that would seem Genuinely Fine to the untrained eye. ummmm. a lot of """fandom discourse""" posts that are mysteriously vague about what they're talking about are usually Also talking about simulated csam, or otherwise fetishization of abuse. but sometimes you get a wildcard and it's something deranged like the most 1800s level racism you've ever seen in your life! it's like finding a shiny pokemon if every aspect of that scenario was terrible.

key phrases include shit like "pshhh i can't believe YOU PEOPLE can't HANDLE when a VILLAIN is PROBLEMATIC" [reading comprehension exercise: What precisely did this villain do? Who are they? Why is this poster phrasing this in the most shallow, easily-molded way possible if they're so passionate about it?] and "UGH i can't believe you guys RUIN FRIENDSHIPS over SHIPPING DISCOURSE" [reading comprehension exercise: what 'ships', precisely? What was it about Person A's fixation on this fictional relationship that would make Person B uncomfortable befriending them?]

^ in general these types rely on the """fandom discourse""" angle a lot because if they couch it in that language it sounds sillier to the average person. "i can't believe i'm being CALLED OUT just because of ANIME FANART XD" sounds ridiculous, whereas "i can't believe i'm being called out just because i keep drawing naked 10 year olds" is a reason to consider someone a danger to those around them.

as u can see i'm mostly highly attuned to a Specific Type of Creep but with time i hope to hone the rest of my Asshole Detecting Skills to that level and become a human radar for shitheads, at which point i will probably never want to go outside again 👍

edit: OH I JUST REMEMBERED ANOTHER ONE people ALSO co-opted sex positive/kink positive language when really they just mean perpetuating rape culture and cycles of abuse and it sucks! it sucks and its shitty to the people actually trying to improve the conversation around these topics! AAAAAAUGH

[hamliet]

In the context of fiction and media, everything is so sexualized especially when I think of shipping. Even ships with underage minors and adults are popular and why?? Fiction directly affects reality does it not? Why is it okay to show that?

Sexuality is a very normal, healthy part of human behavior. While some people are asexual and that is also normal and healthy, the majority are not. Most people like sex, find it fun and meaningful. All human experiences should be reflected in art (what else is art for?), so sexuality should be reflected in a lot of art.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that paradoxically both idolizes and shames sexuality, and this is as prevalent among the fundamentalist religious as it is among leftist spaces. So when art ignores sexuality completely, or ignores certain types of sexuality (see, the female gaze, or queer expressions of sex) fans will create that art themselves--such as via shipping. Shipping is simply "there's a story to be told here" and that story may or may not involve sex (most often does) and even in some cases, be primarily about sex.

Fiction is both shaped by reality and can shape reality, but that's not the same as saying it's a 1=1 mirror of reality where you can exactly correlate A cause with B result. Like, look up the anti video game movement of the 90s, the Satanic Panic and the way emo music was blamed for tragedies like Columbine, and ask yourself why people who like detective mysteries aren't murderers.

Yet, there is nuance here for sure. Like, I'll just bluntly state moral policing is a boring way to engage with art and fandom, and that goes beyond just sexuality. However, that isn't the same as saying take off your critical thinking hat, anything goes. Criticism is a very necessary part of fandom and engagement, and must be allowed (shakes fist at toxic positivity). But criticism as a field is designed to open doors more so than close them. It's a discussion more than anything else (note: discussing does not mean conclusions can't be drawn; they can). I have called out the real life implications of different stories before, and I'll do it again.

Me saying "moral policing stories is boring" also isn't me advocating for amorality. Not at all. Ethical questions posed by works can elevate a work to the realm of a masterpiece. There's a reason The Brothers Karamazov is considered top-tier literature. But ethics and morality are best explored not through statements, but through examination of what someone means when they say something is wrong or right. Fiction is a fabulous way to do this.

Let's use the example of minors and adults. Sad face, because "minor" in fandom can mean anything from "short person" (yes, really, I've seen that argued that someone who is short is "minor coded") to "17 year old" to "five year old." Shipping a 17 year old and an 18 year old is way different than, say, a preteen and a person their parent's age.

Like, in real life, people do not have a magical switch in their brain when they turn 18. An 18 year old dating a 17 year old is normal. It's not ethically dubious. An 18 year old (legal!) dating a 40 year old? Is ethically suspect to me, even if it isn't illegal. Ages are the best ways we have to protect children and keep them safe, but there's a reason most laws allow for an 18 and a 17 year old to date. At the same time, no one in their right mind would object to the moral statement "minors shouldn't date adults" (unless you're Matt Gaetz) with a "WELL WHAT ABOUT" because basic guardrails can't be built around exceptions, and the alternative is so horrifying that the guardrail exists for a damn good reason. But real life or fictitious, an 18 and 17 year old is not really sketchy.

Plus, I caution that the portrayal of a thing isn't necessarily the endorsement or "normalization" of said thing. Framing matters. A story can be used to powerfully show the pain of entering a relationship in which a young person is in way over their head. In fandom specifically, the shipping "story" people are interested in, regardless of ages or whatnot, might not be a happily-ever-after one, and might be a way to process their own abuse. I think there's a famous queer author who got "cancelled" for this, but she was processing her own experiences and framed it as negative, which is very sad.

There are other considerations too. For example, the medium of a story also matters. Film (and theater) inherently muddy the fiction and reality discourse dilemma in a way that written or drawn mediums do not: they use real people, so there are multiple layers in which this discourse can be discussed. Fandom and shipping, however, does not (on the whole) use these mediums.

I also know some people age up characters or de-age them to ship them at the same age, because they like the dynamic but do have ethical concerns about ages. I personally feel squicked out when there's a power dynamic like minor/adult (as in the paragraph above), teacher/student, or mentor/mentee, even if both are adults. And yet despite this I still like stories like Scum Villain's Self Saving System which are literally designed to provoke questions about shipping and fandom and morality, because they make me use my critical thinking and are aware of the problematic aspects of their works and precisely explore what makes it problematic, and what makes it not. SVSSS approaches it like:

A teacher who abuses his pupil enters into a relationship with him when they are adults, no grooming when kids. Sounds ethically suspect, right?

What if it's set in an ancient fantasy world where people fly on swords and live as immortals?

What happens to the idea of age (past a certain point in development) when you're immortal and stay physically young? (We don't have a real-life starting point for this.)

What if said teacher is literally no longer the same soul, but has been swapped for another soul?

What if the new soul is forced to be unkind under pain of not just death but soul obliteration?

What if age becomes speculative because the new soul isn't necessarily older than the pupil?

You see, there are a million angles from which SVSSS approaches this question, and ties these questions in with themes about individuality and presuppositions (essentially: see the individual more than the "type" of character). It's not mocking the questions. It's genuinely exploring them.

So, ethical questions can be very interesting in stories, and in terms of how fans interact with fiction as well. But not in terms of preaching, but in terms of interaction, in terms of making you question things--which is not the same as tossing aside all principles of morality.

[tinylittlecubby]

In the following possibly concerning for my psychiatric health rant , I will be covering what the actual definition of parasocial is, the function and normalness of regular parasociality, why some mediums invite stans more than others and what would need to change to eradicate stan culture. Im unfortunately just someone with an internet connection and im writing this on mobile so if any degree of understanding in regards to those facts can be maintained I would be very grateful!

1) i would rather do a flip off the bellagio instead of meet any of the people who's art/content I consume I just want to say that first

1b) however I have participated in fandom since I was literally 7 years old so I know way too much about fandoms in general and also parasociality.

2)the partition between social worlds is an illusion. If it happens in one place it happens in another. People putting artists on a pedestal and then tearing them down is something that also happens in arenas outside of popular culture like the sciences and in peoples very own homes. Uniqueness of circumstance is rare and the breadth of human capability in terms of horror and beauty is present no matter the field.

3) Parasocial relationships have an actual psychological function (more on this later) Because of the term 'relationship' and the cultural baggage around that term it is assumed that it is something that is purely done outside of the bounds of the time it takes to consume the media. Even the term caring is loaded more than it should.

Art and media should push us to care and ultimately, a parasocial relationship is JUST caring about a subject ( like a person or object or idea) BUT they/it LITERALLY can not care about you back due to lack of knowing SPECIFICALLY you.

Off of that definition that is why in order for media to be effective a parasocial relationship has to exsist. It makes sense to care about one character over another depending on how a film is written, and this state/relationship of caring last the duration of the film.

That feeling of caring about the character can persist beyond the literal duration of the film due to how emotionally moving it could've been however I find that for films most people do not continue that state beyond the literal duration of the film (in terms of fantasies about the character as I dont find that there are many fanfictions for example about movies -unless they have been made into TV shows as well- etc), due to it being one of the shorter mediums today both in the media itself and the promotion cycle/exposure to the people involved, which is why I picked movies.

I want to make that distinction cause people often say we need to eradicate parasocial relationships altogether and I dont think they understand that parasocial is a sociological term that was coined in 1956/57 and has an extremely long history OUTSIDE of social media. And if the term was coined then that means the phenomenon was going on prior.

Also, films are fake. Literally everyone knows this, no one gets mad at anyone for saying that cause we all know this. However films, when the term was coined, were seen as THE medium that facilitated parasocial relationships (in the sense i described above in terms of the duration of the film, rather than the sense that is used now in terms of being a stan)

And about movies being fake and maybe that being why people stan actors less (sometimes def not all the time)

A) the amount of films and TV shows that try and use this narrative to go far beyond actors zone of consent ìs one of THE main problems with the entertainment industry. They are real people doing fake things but they are still people first.

B) i personally believe that it is in a streamers best interest to create a degree of a character to be on stream (can be a genuine persona or just to the degree of customer service agent. Aint nobody their god damn selves when being a customer service agent but they also aren't not being themselves. If you know you know.) So they too are in an arena of fakeness as well. This lack of understanding is why they constantly have to tell their audience "bro i don't know you AND you don't know me"

4a)and in regards to the statement that I made in terms of parasocial relationships having to exsist, I'm saying that with finances/politics/sociology in mind. There is a business theory in the arts that if you have 1000 true fans (defined as someone that will buy ALL of your merch, concert tickets,will listen to 90% of your music and genuinely enjoy, talk about the music to their friends to get them to like it as well etc etc) you can make your art on your own terms and consistently from a financial stand point. However, that kind of consumer is the exact type that participates in the parasocial relationship outside the duration of the medium and can take them to stan town. And record labels know this, that is why pop music lyrics are the way they are and even when they aren't romance oriented they still market the artist to be as 'authentic' as possible so the development of the parasocial relationship can continue outside the literal duration.

4b) in terms of the psychological function of parasociakity I would read into how children develop relationships with their toys. During active play it is developmentally normal for the child to act as if the toy can react back to the child's own affect/actions, that's why children will talk to or feed etc their toys. Outside of active play sometimes the child will mention the toy (usually in terms of requesting for it to begin active play OR talking about it like they are a friend and saying to a parent "do you think Bella would like this dress?" And the parent knows they are talking about the toy and would respond in kind and maybe they buy the little dress to dress up the toy (think of build a bears model of the type of inventory they sell) it is also common that if they are playing with a sibling or a friend and the other child is being rough with the toy the main child will use language such as "you are hurting them!" suggesting the child believe that the toy can feel literal pain the same way they can (because they are a literal child duh)

A child being able to show the capacity to communicate, empathize, emote and respond to stimuli the object may provide back (like if its a talking to) is absolutely MAJOR and is used in clinical studies during neurological testing in children literally all the time. And if you as an adult were to go up to a child and start berating them for this dynamic pal....you yourself got problems.

This is one of the many types of ways that children learn how to socialize and it happens concurrently with other types of learning in terms of interacting with peers, adults that may use language they dont know but helps them build they own language tool kit etc etc. It is absolutely NOT to be seen as the ONLY type of socializing. That is horrifying and I dont know what the hell would happen if it was literally the only type of socializing a child or even an adult would be receiving (also I dont know how that would literally happen either like do they live in the woods with literally no one else around??)

I say all of this to say that parasociality should NOT be demonized because doing so would be inconsistent with the overall cultural narrative about being social animals. If we are social animals then it makes sense that parasocialism exists. UNHEALTHY!!!!!!!!!!!!! parasocialism ABSOLUTELY needs to be extinguished i am not fighting anyone on that at all. Being a legit stan is VERY VERY SCARY! and I dont mean arguing about charting stan I mean hacking airport security cameras stan (if you know you know unfortunately)

My personal hesitation in terms of putting hope into this changing though is we would need to do the following

Reduce the social capital tied to perceived authenticity

Remove profit motives tied to artists being accessible

Eradicate amanormativity

Build safe,accessible and thriving third spaces

Invest in psychiatric infrastructure and resources

Create a healthy culture that supports the notion that individuality and interdependence can exsist at the same time

Eradicate misogyny

Eradicate ageism

Eradicate racism

Eradicate classism

Eradicate ableism

Eradicate whorephobia (BIG ONE!! the amount of female/non binary stans that are wild about their targets because they feel like its the only safe place they can express their sexuality via fanfiction, fan erotic audios (which is new and the audio stuff i dont know too much about but its something I'm seeing more and more)amongst other things is a proportion that is tooooooo high!

And the list goes on and on and on honestly

(Added this poll on accident because I'm on mobile and it won't erase oooppss)

I dont know if any of this made sense I feel like I just blacked out and I'm coming to but yeah yell at me if you like or ignore this its just my thoughts about parasociality and the like okay byyeeeeee

[glittering-snowfall]

Your post has made me realize just how massively fucked up the fandom is right now.

I'm going to speak as someone who never even saw the Frozen movies and thus has no real investment in the ship. Just a queer person from the early 2000s era fandom. And to me it has always been 100% clear what Elsanna shippers were about. No one from that fandom era could look at this ship and seriously think, ooh, all those folks are into actual incest. The idea just breaks my brain.

The point is, the whole "don't normalize it" argument makes zero sense. Because very few --a vanishingly small!-- number of people are actually fighting the urge to get with their sibling. No amount of "normalization" would ever make me want to get with mine. Not even if they were the last person on earth! So even actual incest represented in canon, like in GoT, has not resulted in a "normalization" of it in the broader society. And those actors were hot af! If anything was gonna do it, that would be it! But widespread incestual attraction it's just not a thing. To most people it wouldn't even occur to think of their real life sibling because it is simply not a thing most people think about. They don't want to think about it. They are not looking for an excuse.

What the current fandom police doesn't understand is,

a) we were used to looking for any shred of representation wherever we could find it. It didn't have to be 1:1 representation--that was rarely a thing anyway. It's easy better now, but I remember how any cultural text with explicit queerness in it was basically a treasure, and how there were lots of cultural texts that were broadly taken as queer without ever explicitly representing queerness,

and b) fandom was all about silliness! Some "problematic" ships were just crack. And those that were not crack still existed in the same environment. The crack just emphasized that it was all, at the end of the day, play. If someone could come up with tentacle porn, surely one could also disregard bits of canon such as "they are sisters."

I want to end with something that doesn't apply exactly 1:1, but since we come from an era when people still knew how to engage with texts, I hope this doesn't get misinterpreted. This is Captain America consoling his gay best friend and telling him that the bullies who tortured him are the wrong ones. So that's the bit that I think applies: the sickos are those who would look at something as innocent and, frankly, silly (sorry XD it can be both silly and mean a lot to people) as Elsanna and immediately think about actual real-life incest.

This ask is beautiful. Thank you for it. It's cathartic to read responses to people who understand what I'm trying to say.

Also, another ridiculous thing about the "it'll normalize it on a vast scale" argument that proves it's not logical is... all the former shippers - the artists who used to ship it a decade ago but don't now - did actual incest becomes normalized for them and did this ship become a dark gateway for hurting people? NO. They just moved on... cuz it was a ship. The fact these artists moved on proves the ship wasn't some kind of "gateway drug" to true evil. And the fact that people who STILL ship it (like myself and others) aren't actually committing incest etc. is further proof.

And, like you say, if anything was going to normalize it, it would be a popular mainstream television show, not shippers on tumblr who have neither the money nor the cultural reach of large-scale television productions. But it doesn't happen because no one wants to commit actual real-life incest; they KNOW it's bad and they KNOW it's fucked up. And even if there's someone who doesn't, that's because there's something wrong with THEM as an individual.

And yeah, this ship means a lot to me. It's difficult to explain in the current fandom environment because people will immediately accuse me of equating LGBTQ+ identity with incest (which I'm NOT DOING and that should be obvious) but the ship WAS a haven for scores of LGBTQ+ youth back in the day and I'll always have an emotional connection to it. The antis can be mad that happened... but it did happen.

And the antis can call it "tragic" that we had to resort to a Disney incest ship to find community, but I don't think it's tragic in the slightest. I think it's amazing that we were able to look at a film that moved us and make it our own in a beautiful way, allowing our creativity to overflow in a thousand beautiful ways.

I know I'm waxing poetic here but no, it's not tragic. I find it inspiring.

(Also, as you say, it IS silly in the grand scheme of things because it's a bunch of folks on tumblr and FFN and Ao3 having fun, so the idea that could have the reach and influence of actual propaganda/cinema/well-funded works of cinema is... misguided.)

[ilistentogirlinred]

ramblings

because i watched too many kpop music videos and dance practices and now youtube thinks i want to know about lee know's cats

i think a lot more people would hate kpop less if the fans weren't generally a bit less insane.

a lot of the music is actually rather good, but if you want to watch the music videos then youtube will forcibly send you down a spiral of fan edits and other off putting frightening things. the music videos are good, though, and the dance practices.

people do tend to be put off by the fans because even the average fan is a LOT. quite a few of them treat being a [insert group] stan like it's a sport, but not in the sense that they're a highly invested LA lakers fan. being a kpop stan seems to be a sport in the sense that the stan is the player. streaming, voting, spamming hate comments, that is the sport, although i don't think you can actually win.

kpop stans are frighteningly dedicated, i feel like they could probably take down and reform an entire government if they felt like it. although there is a lot of infighting between fans of different groups. that being said if they teamed up they could do quite a bit. i stand by the fact that if they unified they could easily overthrow the australian government. not the USA government but definitely the australian government.

did you know the greater kpop fandom has a word for people who stan multiple groups? the fact that there are so many people who are aggressively fans of one group that they need a word for people who like multiple groups is astounding (and furthers my point that being a kpop stan is a sport). MULTISTANS. as in stans of multiple groups. aka people who listen to music like a normal person.

i do feel like another turn off for people who might like some of the music is the industry itself, which is deeply fucked up. the training is dreadful, the culture is cruel and the idol-fan stuff is just off putting. (oshi no ko does a great job at showing this and its so funny to me that all these kpop idols were doing dance challenges to the oshi no ko theme song is so funny cause like... that song was written from the perspective of an idol. like you. who gets fucking stabbed by a fan. which is a thing that has happened in real life.)

ooh you know what else might push people away? the SHIPPING. those are REAL PEOPLE. yeah they could be dating but you realise they're probably a) acting a fake/exaggerated dynamic BECAUSE the shipping draws views and b) probably only like that on camera. idols are pretty much acting when on camera or in public. they are playing a character that is palatable, likeable and appealing to the general public. some of them might be more like western celebrities and be more like themselves on camera (generally the idols who were born/raised/spent at least 5 years of their childhood in the USA/canada/australia/new zealand usually) but they're still acting. they've done a fair bit of media training. when they're on camera they aren't people. they're idols, celebrities, characters, personas. BUT THE SHIPPING. fuck i hate the shipping. sometimes the idols might have a good friendship and then they'll stop interacting because of the shipping. it makes them uncomfortable sometimes! probably generally, it makes them at least mildly uncomfortable. and the odds are, they probably aren't dating. there is like a 1 in 1000 chance that two idols from the same group are dating, in that 0.1%, there's a like 1 in 10000 chance that they'd ever go public with it. AND STOP THEORIZING ABOUT REAL PEOPLE'S SEXUALITIES! it's invasive, it's gross, it's rude and it does absolutely nothing good.

another thing that might turn people off music they could like is the generally poor vocals. there are very few kpop vocalists (not korean vocalists, just kpop idol vocalists) that are on par with western singers. solar (mamamoo), lily and haewon (nmixx), wendy (red velvet) and belle (kiss of life) are the few i consider to be as good as your average western vocalist. lots of idols generally mediocre vocals are overhyped because, usually, they have good control over their higher vocal range (cough cough han from stray kids). the thing is, lots of the idols in this category could easily be good vocalists with more formal training! THE IDOLS DON'T GET ENOUGH VOCAL TRAINING BECAUSE THE INDUSTRY VALUES LOOKS OVER SKILLS!

the industry is basically: looks > dance > personality > sense of rhythm > vocals > rap > actual skills pertaining to creating music and performance i.e writing, producing, composing, choreography, etc (don't yell at me ik there are self producing groups and those are usually my favourites but my point still stands)

if you read all of this, i do highly recommend watching some music videos and dance practices because they are honestly phenomenal. the editing in the MV's is top tier and the dances are usually just so fun to watch.

[beggingwolf]

I need people to tell me about other fandoms because I have been so deep in hockey sauce for like over half a decade (in varying degrees, thanks omgcp) that I no longer know what's normal or kosher elsewhere. someone just told me that hockey has "a lot" of a/b/o relative to another fandom and that just didn't compute for me. what do you mean other fandoms aren't resplendent with the best thing fandom culture has gifted us with. what do you mean hockey has a lot of a/b/o (like, REALLY? is that true?) what's going on in other fandoms. what are the niche little fandom narratives populating the internet these days. I am so lost.

[b-rainlet]

Pt2 😅 people have been shipping literal incest in shows. like spn. It's even named wincest. and the show went on to basically confirm they were soulmates btw. I've never seen anyone harassing them as much as it happens in tua fandom. These are shows about gray people with different circumstances. And not everything in a show is supposed to be right anyway,The age limit is there for a reason. It's not like all the other relationships they had aren't fcked up too. 🙄

I think it’s because Spn is fairly old and back in the day fans weren’t as entitled. Like, there was a clear line between fan and creator and also the Fandom rules that I grew up with like ‘Don’t like/Don’t read’ so even if there were people who weren’t into incest, they simply blocked tags or stuck to their own platonic fics and fanarts or whatever. 

And the people who proclaimed incest shippers ‘icky’ or tried to start fights were few and far between and not the overwhelming majority. 

But now there’s a lot of - younger - people in Fandom who expect everything to cater to them. 

I personally blame purity culture and radfem ideology seeping into everything but now you have stuff like people thinking Fandom is for teens only (which is such a shitty take obviously but tbh, if there were only teens within Fandom, most of your fave fics and fanarts wouldn’t exist because writing is a skill you have to practise and a 16 year old simply isn’t as far advanced as a 30 year old and also probably doesn’t delve into more mature topics - without trying to bash younger people, but just imagine only teens are allowed to write fanfic and then add the fact that now it’s trendy to shun people for writing about stuff that doesn’t 100% reflect their life experience and you would have hundreds upon hundreds of fics that are simply high school AUs). 

And now there’s also the fact that creators are easier to reach which some people seem to translate to ‘I can have a say in what happens on the show’ and that’s why the backlash is so big now because instead of thinking ‘The incest part is icky but what can I do except ignore it?’ you know have people going ‘This is bad and if I harass the creators long enough, they will do what I want instead!’

(And like, maybe this is just me but this obsession with not only the show but also the cast of a show you like is so...exhausting. Like, most of the time people who like the show seem to glorify the cast and then inevitably turn on them when something ‘problematic’ happens instead of....simply following the show and that’s also why most people seem to have such a problem with separating actors from their characters which is sad honestly. By all means, follow actors on insta - I do too! - but don’t stalk their every move and start fights online over them. They don’t care for you. They don’t know you. They have PR Teams who deal with drama they don’t need you defending them). 

Same with people who stan singers, they genuinely scare me. 

But since harassing the actors and producers doesn’t work most of the time, how about we send threats to fellow shippers who don’t ship the ‘good’ ship or like the ‘good’ characters because that’s even easier! 

What baffles me the most is how antis tend to create an entirely new show that has nothing to do with the original most of the time that exists solely to back up their own ideology. Which is how you end up with takes such as ‘Luther harrasses Allison all season while she desperately tries to get away, poor thing’ which is just so obviously false that I sometimes go ‘D-did we....watch the same show?’

I think at some point, maybe you should just stop watching the show if everything that happens in it is something you hate or don’t want to see, instead of trying to bend canon until it breaks and then pretending it’s always been like that. 

I mean, that’s what AUs are for. Make believe! 

(And yeah, I am always like ‘???’ when minors are in Fandoms where the source material is obviously for adults? Like, the IT Fandom for example. I mean, y’all can do whatever and I used to watch and read stuff for adults when I was a teen, that’s probably just part of growing up and exploring new things but I can’t believe how normal it seems for these minors to walk into adult spaces and then demand that the adults a. Leave or b. Only produce kid friendly things. 

Like, dude, you do understand that the source material is r-rated? We should be asking what you are doing here, not the other way around).

[chaos-and-recover]

Figured it out. Back in tumblr heyday tags were used for categorical purpose but also kind of -mutter quietly to self- so often people would out snarky remarks there. Back then literally everything was Discourse. I literally was told that I was worse than a Westboro Baptist person for liking South Park. I was sent harassing anons for months, every single day, telling me to KMS because i didnt ship Johnlock. I am a lesbian trans woman and was told that I was lesbophobic and transphobic because I watched Hannibal and didnt think Will was AFAB. This was just totally normal back then and expected. A lot of people who showed up after canon destiel haven't been on tumblr since the heyday and don't know that we just don't really do that anymore. But you know who does? Twitter. And you know what is happening on twitter? People are saying that either thr dub itself was fully fake, or sending actual homophobic messages to people who are discussing it with the appropriate tags. As in, people are literally gaslighting the SHIT out of us by saying that we are making it up. People are posting factual evidence and then hordes of DMs telling them they are crazy liars. All of your tags have been mocking and implying anyone who ships destiel is crazy because that is absolutely what would have been true five years ago and IS happening in twitter. Destiel is canon, the cast has repeatedly confirmed it. Multiple cast members have repeatedly confirmed it. Tumblr culture changed and they don't know and since people on Twitter are like "nah you are wrong and all of this evidence is fake the dub doesn't exist and the Spanish people are idiots unlike us Americans and the cast never did that" (even though they did). So if you come onto tumblr thinking a) tags are passive aggressive remarks because they USED to be b) EVERYTHING is Discourse because it USED to be and c) you have just spent thr last two days being constantly harassed on Twitter, which is basically exactly how they remember tumblr being, then you are going to see things in a certain light. Especially because people in the dubbing industry are being attacked and called liars for explaining how they dub and are sort of being accused in very racist ways of destroying the show. Everyone in the #TheySilencedYou tag is talking about the repeated misogyny and queerphobic and racist bullshit Supernatural has pulled, it is NOT only about destiel, it is about censorship and queerbaiting and pisspoor representation (lots of ableism with Eileen as well) but loads of people are sort of gaslighting the movement to be "oh you just want Dean and Cas to fuck and didnt get your way." Which I dont blame you for not knowing as an outsider. So even to me is came off like you were saying "the dub doesn't exist and you are crazy and think there is a gay sex scene somewhere." But tumblr has changed. Twitter has become tumblr. Your tags aren't what they would appear to someone who hasn't been on tumblr in years and after being called crazy by hordes of wincest shippers for discussing actual physical evidence that truly exists and having your job AND race insulted all day then you come on here and get told "I know you are a foreign dubber but i think you are lying and are crazy fuck you" you absolutely would have reacted that way too. (I am not saying that is what you said I am saying that is how you were percieved.) There is a reason why I have started using tumblr again and it is because it is nicer than it used to be! But even I get my hackles up sometimes.

THANK YOU FOR THIS I think that makes a lot of sense and you’re def right. All this SPN finale stuff probably brought a ton of people back to Tumblr who’d probably moved on years ago and don’t know what it’s like here anymore. That’s also why I don’t really do fandom on Twitter because I don’t wanna do the legitimate discourse anymore. Also the whole “that’s where the creators are” thing.

Also I just want all destiel shippers to know I would never ever ever side with wincest shippers intentionally, because hoooooooooly shit. (that goes double for j2 shippers. I probably just kicked a whole new hornet’s nest with that, but oh well).

Anyway you’re right, I think what we have here is a misunderstanding.