#but like. the reason ship discourse exists is because people have preferences and like certain dynamics over others.

[purple-dreams9]

If Thea was Theo, a controversial opinion

I want to preface this post by stating that this is not meant to change anyone's mind or opinion. I am not here to tell you to like a character or to ship a certain ship. You are free to hate Thea, write her off your fics, ignore her existence, and ship Kevin with the milkman if you so desire. This is also not an essay. Instead, think of it as the thought dump of someone munching over it for days.

This all started with a conversation about Thea with a couple people on a Discord server. I've been mostly neutral about Thea, not understanding the overall hate but not knowing much about her either. It led me to read Nora's most recent post about Thea, the replies and the "Why do you not like Thea?" poll, and I've seen plenty of Tweets about her, too.

In general, I noticed one main element when people explain their stance: it is not because Thea is a woman and people want to ship Kevin with male characters. The real reason(s), branched in different directions: the age gap, the lack of building of her character, how little she shows up/how little we know about her/the feeling of her being shoo-ed in out of nowhere as Kevin's love interest, and her attitude (inc. her lack for communication with Kevin after he left the Nest, her comment to Jean in TSC, etc.)

I have been in many fandoms for over a decade, some with more prominent mlm ships, and to be honest, none of those reasons seemed to truly justify the dislike of Thea to the degree she is disliked in the fandom as a whole, especially as the romantic interest of a main character. It seemed to me that most of it is rooted in the desire for Kevin NOT to be straight, but to be gay and be with a guy (or bi, but I see more people using "gay" for Kevin. And some prefer Aro/Ace Kevin, but these fans are a bit more quiet and subdued with their headcanon.) See, even taking Thea out of the equation, there are no popular mlw ships for Kevin with characters from canon, and even in fanon ships the counterparts are mostly (if not all) men.

That got me thinking: "What if Thea was Theo? How would that change how fans interact with this character, even if her personality was the same? What about the relationship with Kevin? Would fans approach the ship differently if he had had Theo as a boyfriend instead of Thea as a girlfriend?"

Of course, it is all hypothetical. For one, a big part of her character is that she is a woman of color (note that I am not black, so I am in no position to talk about how her race plays out with her character) in a predominately male and white team (violent cult) that had to fight her way to the top. It wouldn't quite have the same weight or the same background if she was a male. For two, I am aware it would bring another discourse to the table, that of the "predatory gay men stereotype" (even though there was nothing predatory or "grooming" in their relationship, but that conversation is not for this post.) I am sure plenty of fans would still hate the Kevin/Theo ship, and Theo himself.

Still, I allowed myself to picture it. I read, once, that women used to ship male characters together because female characters were underdeveloped and were not interesting. I wondered if this applies to fandom as well, how certain fandoms prefer to develop and grow male characters.

Things like "lack of canon information about Theo" would not be an issue. Fans are very good at filling in the blanks and building a character from the few spare parts given by the source. This also applies to "there is almost no interaction with Kevin" because let's be honest here, guys, ships are sometimes made from nothing. Rarepairs exist, and even ships like pre-TSC Jerejean can explode in popularity.

With how big of a part Kevin plays in the books and how big his shipping fandom is, if Theo was a thing, I truly believe we would have seen him bloom in fanon spaces. He would have given space and opportunity to grow, change and develop both as a character and in his relationship with Kevin.

The "forbidden relationship" trope and the possibility for angst would have fans foaming, fics working around Theo's past and how he had to fight his way to the top would be written, AUs where he leaves the beliefs of the cult behind and reunites with Kevin would also exist. We would see stories about how his and Kevin's love story played out before and after Kevin left the Nest (at least one primarily focused on the notes they used to pass each other in secret). His mean comments and bitchiness would be ignored, played down, understood, forgiven, or found charming (like Andrew's throughout the series, or even Abby's in TSC.) In a few words, he would be more present and less disliked.

AFTG is a predominately queer fandom, and there is nothing wrong with wanting representation, but I also think it's necessary to use the same scale for female and male characters that are romantically or sexually involved with more popular ones. It's fine not to like Thea, but also to sit and think: would I asses a male character in the same way? How would my view of them change regarding their gender? Just food for thought, I guess.

Again, this is not a call to action of any sort. It is just me, rambling and putting my thoughts down. I can't see different realities so this is basically all fiction. I wanted to take it out of my brain, hear what others think and that's it. Ship what makes you happy. Create what inspires you. Curate your experience. All that being said, Id love to hear your thoughts, but I wont debate anyone's opinion because that's truly, not what Im seeking.

This got longer than I intended so I'll end this here. If you made it, thanks! I hope you have a nice day.

[babygirlkaeya]

To put it in terms that purist ragbros enjoyers will understand:

If you hate on kaeluc shippers who ship them through the chinese context of sworn brothers, you're racist.

Like, sorry that you just can't grasp the fact that a ship that exists through the context of clear and cut cultural history because you can't pull off the westernized lens that it's been filtered through for your understanding, but to claim that an entire group in a fandom that is separated by race, region, and language must be wrong about the game that is from their country and natively in their language is racist.

ragbros enjoyers who dgaf are real ones. People who are uncomfortable kaeluc because it's not their preference are valid, but we really gotta stop with the whole kaeluc dni when it's really just a thinly veiled movement to ostracize people based on a long passed misunderstanding. If you don't like the ship, just ignore it and move on. People will spin romantic context out of any non-romantic pairing, but for some reason people find the most issue with it for kaeluc and find the need to blast 'kaeluc dni' everywhere instead of curating their own space correctly???

What are you classifying as an interaction; do people think kaeluc shippers are inherently evil and liking your posts is a terrible thing to do?? Sure, people coming into your space and spinning romantic context on something you didn't Intend to be romantic sucks, but trust me, those people are not checking your bio to see if you asked for them to dni with you; use the damn mute feature/block button if they make you uncomfortable.

And kaeluc shippers who Do ship them incestuously are in the same boat with sworn brothers shippers either way, outsiders view you all the same.

Fandom people have got to learn how to come to terms with people disagreeing with their views without being assholes about it, and doing some proper fucking research if they want to make a point.

"But I'm Chinese/my Chinese friend/significant other/family said--" Being a certain race doesn't make you an expert on its culture, especially considering the nuance of pre-existing prejudices (and let's not get into ABCs with their flawed judgements right now), but there are stories dating hundreds of years past the existence of the United States on what the sworn brothers trope is, what characters are used for it, what it means, and there's plenty of information out there to explain it.

It is unmistakable what their relationship is currently, based on existing canon content in Chinese. English mis-translation is a bane upon us all.

实在受不了这个情况。

YESSS YESS EXACTLY

and to add on; i think the only reason hoyo hasnt "fixed" the mistranslation yet is because, within the sworn brothers trope, it was used for censorship, it was used to Censor Gay Relationships, so i think the "oh its just adopted haha!" bit on hoyo's part is continuing to just censor it further so they don't get in trouble

^and thats really all the discourse boils down to.

[isalisewrites]

I'd just like to say that, while I much, MUCH prefer bottom Harry no matter the ship, the way you've written Terrible, But Great has me sold on literally WHATEVER you choose to do. Like,,,, I have no doubt that I'll still enjoy whatever dynamic they have bc you're literally so fucking talented.

I've always said that the right writer would be able to sell any ship to me with good writing, and I have the full belief that you absolutely can sell top harry to me (totally as a figure of speech) and if you didn't for whatever reason, I'd read it anyway.

Interacting with fandom involves adapting a certain amount of "fuck it, we ball" mentality if you want to truly enjoy it. Instead of, like, arguing with strangers over silly shit. Being open allows you to enjoy more content, is what I'm getting at.

I love your fic. I love your writing. Thank you for doing what you do! I literally gasp and squeal every time I've see you update.🩷

-ArcticArcana on Ao3

Ow, ow, ow, my heart.

Dear lord, this is exceedingly flattering. Thank you so much.

See, this is the same for me. I can be sold on just about any ship if the writer convinces me of it. I’m old and I’m hungry. I want it. Hell, I’ve read good Voldemort/Fenrir before. I’m out here hardcore shipping Voldemort/Tom with Newt Scamander all by lonesome self, doing my damndest to make it make sense. 

And it’s not like people aren’t allowed to have their preferences. I tend to enjoy bottom Draco/top Harry a little more than top Draco/bottom Harry, but I’ll read both regardless. (Also, where the fuck are our switches at??? Come on, now. We do exist, thank you.) I don’t generally care in the end. They’re both great. I just note what I enjoy a little more.

There is one ship where I note I gravitate towards a preference more often than not and that’s top Zhongli/bottom Tartaglia (Genshin Impact). But that’s because I prefer to see Tartaglia get railed, not because it’s ‘not in his character to top.’ I also love seeing Zhongli be a service top, but I’m here for both, of course. 

And EXACTLY. The reason why I will complain about the discourse or call it out as poor writing now is because I’m tired of seeing the closed mindedness. We're losing nuance in our society at an alarming rate. You’re missing out on some amazing stories if you’re filtering for bottom/top tags. It’s why I refuse to add that in any of my stories, even when we get to the sex scenes.

Obviously, these characters aren’t alive. They’re not real. However, when I write, I write as if they are real people. I do not impose very much on them.

So, when it comes to intimacy, TBG Tom and Harry will let me know. It’s their decision, not mine. In TBG, they’re also young and stupid. They don’t know anything. They don’t have the internet to tell them their options. They’re just going to experience each other in however way that is.

I will say this: I already know what happens in those intimacy scenes and it will be unlike anything you’ve ever read before. (At least unlike anything I’ve read.) These are two boys just figuring it out together. It'll be in character with the patient Harry and the asexual Tom.

Also, I really appreciate your kind words. It encourages me in a time when things have been hard in my life. I will continue to keep writing and hopefully continue to bring you all a little more joy in your lives. <3

Isa

[margridarnauds]

How come you're treated like an evil feminist for asking fans to give female characters the dame tolerance, respect, and love they afford male characters on this site?

Honestly, I think that so much depends on your circle. Like, I'm lucky in the sense that most of my mutuals are like minded on these things, and so I see a ton of posts/gifsets/fics on my dash that celebrate female characters, I see a lot of femslash content, I see a lot of posts that talk about the nuances of female characters. (Anyone who follows me who doesn't care about female characters...I mean, they can keep following me but they usually self regulate.) It doesn't fix the broader structural issues that lead to women being routinely ignored by fandom as a whole, but I think that it's good for my overall mental health.

For the actual reason...I think so much comes down to the idea that content about women + queerness are mutually exclusive, or that, when we're saying "hey, I think people should seriously examine why they will frame male characters a certain way VS female characters a certain way", they mean "you are now banned from liking male characters, ever." Or "hey, I think we should consider why we automatically assume that femslash is boring or less nuanced than M/M slash", that means "you are forbidden from writing M/M fic." And I'd argue some of this goes back to the height of the Proship/Anti discourse, where things were really polarized and went into extremes of "if you say that fandom could reflect societal biases, ever, you are personally trying to censor me" VS "if your ships aren't 100% healthy and wholesome with both characters using language that reflects my family therapist, you are literally the reason why people get abused." Neither of which was helpful because (1) Fiction doesn't reflect reality and (2) Fiction can still reflect pre-existing societal biases. And where one ends and the other begins can be a complicated thing, but I think that self reflection is always a good thing.

I was a feminist Reylo, I saw BOTH sides of this back in the day and it's the reason I stepped away from the discourse....because I thought that BOTH SIDES WERE FILLED WITH ASSHOLES! Personally, I enjoy the process of self reflecting to see if the reason I'm framing a character in X way reflects any biases I have and acknowledge it. It doesn't inherently mean I'm going to change or self censor, but it means understanding that, even if I'm queer, even if I'm a woman (?), that doesn't mean that my work can't reflect any unconscious biases that I might have. But to some people, they hear "I think you should reflect on whether your fic or preferences reflect any biases you might have" and think that means "write the fanfic that I want, you MUST write F/F fic or I'm going to write a call out post about you."

And...to be fair...I have seen *some* people who WERE like this! Or who insisted on treating F/F ships as inherently purer or "better" than F/M or M/M. And I blocked them! Because I didn't think that their approach was particularly useful and it got to be very draining to constantly justify my M/F ships or to see them constantly go after M/F ships as a whole. I see posts from that time where I say things like "People wouldn't think that X M/M or M/F ship Was Abusive If It Was F/F" and I look back and go "...yes, it would be...you're just surrounded by proto-radfems, get better mutuals who know what Catradora or Swan Queen discourse is."

But what I'll say is is that (1) that's a very small minority of femslash shippers or WLW members of fandom and (2) most of the WLW members of fandom I know also can't stand them, because THEY want to explore more nuanced dynamics as well. When I blocked that side of things, I didn't go to strict M/M shippers, I went to M/F shippers who are interested in dynamics that don't 100% prioritize the man or to F/F shippers who are interested in nuanced dynamics.

But i don't think this aversion REALLY comes from that proto-radfem side; I think that this sentiment is really...kind of an excuse to not care? Like "WELL, if I TRY to write femslash, THOSE PEOPLE will STILL hate it, so I'm going to stay in my corner." Which...no, the feminism police aren't going to arrest you if you write shitty femslash. It's an excuse to not push your own boundaries. And I do think, on one hand, fanfic writers do not have the same reach as a famous author, I agree, but I think that when we say that fandom should be a refuge or a safe space...we should consider who we're leaving out when we say that. Is it a safe space for Black fans? Or Asian fans? Or lesbian fans? Is it a safe space for people who like female characters? I think someone should be able to write the most obscene fanfic possible, but the problem is that people are not tagging fanfics with "Racism" or "Orientalism" or "Sexism" (unless they're addressing these things as being harmful...with varying degrees of taste) or "I am fridging this female character so that her male love interest can get with a dude" -- because they aren't thinking critically.

And, on a personal level, I think it's always good to push your boundaries, just on the basis that trying new things in your writing and working from different perspectives is good for your writing.

This is getting well away from the initial point, but I think that it's all tied together, in the sense of people equating a suggestion that fandom CAN reflect pre-existing societal biases, that it is not inherently apolitical, with an attack on creative freedom. And that...to some extent, I think that there HAVE been times when the rhetoric was slightly more aggressive, and I don't think that was useful (especially because it also alienated bi fans), but that that doesn't justify an unwillingness to move beyond a very straight, white, male view of what fandom is.

[paragonrobits]

there's a few ships i specifically dislike because they did not happen in canon and their supporters complain non-stop about how the series personally betrayed them (often for a relationship which is not only noncanon but the characters in question barely interact and this hypothetical relationship is unrelated, or even contrary, to their narrative arcs) but a lot of the discourse they create around this is also eerily similar to the discourse you see with people propping up a faction or group that is inherently antagonistic and, using very similar arguments, these people straight up make up stuff to make these groups look better, and their opponents (the canonical protagonists, the characters they view as romantic rivals for their fanon ship) as being villified in very similar ways.

Let's take, for example, that One ATLA Ship. You know the one. The one that those big name fans never shut up about; the most frustrating discourse about it is that the diehard shippers have straight up invented all manner of details and criticisms that have no actual relationship to canon, and this is important because the validity of their arguments revolves entirely around these facts they've made up and have no basis in canon.

Lets take, for example, the ever popular 'Katara should become a bad ass Fire Lady and rule over the Fire Nation' fic concept. A lot of this premise requires certain details that either directly antithetical to established canon, or presume aspects of the character that are not canonical. The Fire Lady has never been shown to have any real political power at all, and novels have indicated that the consort to the Fire Lord has only one purpose: to produce heirs. That's it. They have no political power at all. And to be blunt, these fans SHOULD realize this because the Fire Nation has been established as exactly the sort of empire that puts all its power in the hands of an autocrat revered as a god-king.

Other facts further tear down this notion. Katara is characterized as wanting freedom and happiness for everyone, regardless of nation, but she is also characterized as someone who loves her homeland and would prefer to live there, and not abandon her cultural customs and visual details (as much of the Fire Lady Katara imagery does, having her dress entirely in FN style, including her hair, which is culturally an extremely loaded thing, as I understand it). She certainly doesn't give the indication of wanting to rule over an enemy nation like a conqueror. I think a lot of this mentality comes from the idea of 'absolute power = empowerment' to some people, which is also where we get the whole girlboss concept; the idea of absolute political power equating to personal empowerment and being liberating, rather than it being exercising power over others, with all the moral difficulties that entails.

The arguments of the people who support this concept relies heavily on aspects of her character which do not exist in canon or she has given no indication of but her existing characterization leans towards 'no', both in terms of romantic interest and long-term goals. She is the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. She wants there to be more waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, and living the rest of her life in a nation populated by the people who systemically destroyed her people's culture and killed most of them is not in any part suggested as something she would want to do.

Now, consider the Sith. In Star Wars canon, they are a pretty blatant faction of bad guys. They are built, from the ground up, to be evil. Their philosphy explicitly hates compassion and any form of love outside the context of possession; their ideology revolves around selfishness and weaponizing hatred, and just about every iteration and established character is incredibly cruel, heartless and even the most reasonable of them, so much so that they are no longer considered Sith, constantly yell at you if you do things like 'give homeless people money' or 'help anyone for any reason that does not further your personal goals'.

There are no canonically good Sith. You cannot be a good person and a Sith, because their ideology explicitly forbids things that generally make a person moral and kind, and that same ideology expressly encourages hatred, jealous possessiveness, and betraying others for gain. When we see Kylo Ren in the first movie of the sequel trilology throwing a violent temper tantrum that could kill anyone nearby when he lost his temper, that's the logical conclusion of all Sith mindsets.

However, the Sith are very widely believed in fandom circles to be more inherently moral or capable of heroism compared to the Jedi.

Part of it, I think, comes from the Jedi's philosophy discourages certain things that people tend to romanticize or believe are essential; its very common to believe in the idea of love being inherently ennobling or making you a better person, in family as the ultimate good, and personal being the most important thing. The Jedi do not permit marriage if you are a part of the order (and its crucial to mention here that leaving the Order is perfectly fine and usually doesn't even have any stigma; Dooku did so and he was well regarded by the Jedi until his actions were revealed), they don't usually have children and instead adopt children into their culture, and their philosophy stresses about letting go from attachment, due to the nature of attachment as inherently jealous and thus giving the Dark Side a way into your spirit.

It is important to remind a reader here that this is NOT attachment as in 'cares for someone' or 'values another'. The term instead is used in the philosophical definition of attachment as jealous possessiveness or, at the very least, the inability to accept that all things fade; everyone dies, or all relationships end one way or another. The desperation to keep those things by clawing at them or pulling them closer is attachment; causing harm, to yourself or others, because you cannot accept the inevitable. This is fairly basic philosophical stuff.

However, because these Sith apologists refuse to accept either the Sith being the big bad villains of the franchise or what the series means about attachment, they view the idea of attachment as a moral good in its own, believing the Sith to be inherently more noble than the Jedi because they believe that a personal attachment induces morality. Just because you care about ONE person does not mean you care about others.

Many people in real life love their friends and family deeply, but could not care less about anyone outside that family. Consider the classic case of a family man or woman who loves their family, kisses their children goodnight, is unfailingly faithful to their spouse, and then goes to work and tortures people for a living, or participates in genocide and the systematic oppression of other people, all without the faintless twinge of guilt or moral compromise.

Caring for a specific person does not induce universal compassion. Love for a speciifc person is exactly that; just love for a particular person. It doesn't guard you from indifference, callousness, or anything at all.

So, its very interesting to me that a lot of these fandom obsessions, despite being very different, have very similar arguments going on about them; whether its AtLA fandom trying to argue that Aang is the most evil person in the universe actually, or insist that the Sith could secretly become the greatest heroes in the setting, while ignoring both Aang being a compassionate hero while his foils are explicitly selfish (and crucially, KATARA is also just as compassionate and not focused solely on her loved ones), and the Sith's iconic technique being a torture beam.

[hogwarts-legacy-confessions]

What is Hogwarts Legacy Confessions?

@hogwarts-legacy-confessions exists for fans to share your "confessions" related to Hogwarts Legacy.

For example:

you might have a crush on a particularly unpopular character.

you secretly love certain dynamics in fanworks that your friends would not approve of.

you may loathe aspects of the game that other people enjoy.

perhaps you have other insights or opinions that you feel would not be well-received.

Whatever you'd like to get off your chest - to say to fandom at large about the game and the characters is welcome to be posted.

Frequent Topics: Shipping Discourse (frankly, we've had enough of it), Smash or Pass, Polls, Ship it or RIP it, Hogwarts Legacy MC (and of course the usual character tags!)

Other themes you're encouraged to explore: Would You Rather, Fuck/Marry/Avada, Favorite Minor NPC, Discomfort Characters, Too Much Information, True or False, Two Truths and a Lie, Bookmarked Fics, Fucked Up Ships, Unpopular Headcanons.

We're always open to suggestions!

Rules & FAQs ↴

1. Nothing that targets a specific person will be published. This includes a specific MC, OC, fic, or other specific fanworks with the exception of praise or a recommendation, with the exception of discussing your own work.

2. Please avoid negative posts about fanworks or creators. We want to foster a positive environment in this blog while expressing our opinions respectfully. This includes all types of fanworks - not just writers and artists. 3. Please be polite when referring to members of the fandom (ie: us flesh and blood folks.) You can be rude, insult, and use profanity/slurs against fictional characters - that's fine. Just please avoid using them in reference to actual people. If you're criticizing an aspect of fandom, do it politely. If your post is worded too harshly, we may take the liberty of rewording it while preserving its message. 4. Please keep your responses to comments and reblogs. Please do not respond to confessions by submitting a new ask. If a confession prompts a topic you think warrants its own post, feel free to submit it, but I don't want this blog to become an endless cycle of replies on the same topic. 5. Provide details and avoid redundancy. We have confessions on many subjects already. For instance, don't just submit an ask that says "I hate __________ character," please provide unique reasons why you dislike them. Or why you like a hated character, for that matter. 6. I reserve the right to abstain from posting low effort confessions or those that come across as being purely provocative.

General Info

ADMIN: Feel free to DM at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.

POLLS: Your post may include a poll to gauge the fandom's reaction to your confession. You may opt out of having a poll added to your post. Just add [no poll] at the end if you have a preference - otherwise we will add polls at our discretion.

TIMING: We will publish the current number of queued confessions from time to time. Currently, the queue is set to post every few hours, more or less in the order that the posts were received. We may adjust the queue frequency based on the number of queued posts.

TAGS: No trash-talking posts will be tagged for any specific character. Positive posts may receive more specific tags if warranted.

CONTENT: Posts are not checked for factual accuracy.

"Why was I blocked from this blog?" - Chances are you were blocked because you have the admin blocked or sent asks intended purely to stir drama or insult an admin. Kind of a no-brainer.

Pretty please

Try to post something positive on @hogwarts-legacy-hype if you post something negative here! Positive posts are also welcome here although they still need to fall under the realm of a "confession" - ie: something you would not say publicly.

This will help keep fandom morale up.

Why wasn't my post posted?

Unfortunately given the anonymous nature of posts there is no way for me to provide feedback regarding why a post was not approved. Here are some common reasons a post may not be posted:

It violates a rule above.

Off topic. It's not a confession of any kind (if the queue is low I might post non-confessions but at least make it interesting) and/or it's not about Hogwarts Legacy or its fandom.

Recently-exhausted topic. If your confession is similar to others posted lately, I might reject it or save it for a later date.

Have patience. Depending on the length of the queue, most posts will appear within 2 or 3 days.

Please don't post posts about why your post didn't post. (DM instead, I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.)

The Unrestricted Section discord is a good place to discuss posts.

[alchemistc]

Help, I'm so confused. How can it be, that shippers and antis have such a wildly different perception of the 911 daddy issue szene? I don’t watch the show, just saw some gifs of it, but the discours my dash provides from both sides is astonishing. Wtf is happening? (And for context: even if I'm not in the fandom, I have read Buddie and BuckTommy fics and like both ships.)

Honestly I'm incredibly new to this fandom so I can't really do a deep dive, but from experience in fandom dating back to like, the late nineties, I can tell you there is always, always a section of fandom that wraps themselves in fanon and ties their entire identity into making their own preferences canon.

I have zero problems with the idea of b*ddie. I think it definitely has its merits, and through a certain lens it makes sense. It's not what drew me in and so far there hasn't been a particular fic or take that calls to me, but that's a me thing and there's nothing wrong with having preferences.

What it comes down to is a purposeful misunderstanding of the context given - Buck is into sex, Tommy is clearly into sex, they are into each other and they are exploring that with healthy communication ahead of time by having a flirt about it. That's it. That's all that scene was. It showed us that Buck and Tommy meet each other where they're at and enjoy each other's company and wanna fuck nasty.

But as it ALWAYS goes in the minds of shippers/antis who have wrapped their identities in 'this HAS to be canon or there is something intrinsically wrong with the world and I'm going to make it everyone's problem's (which is NOT ALL SHIPPERS, MIND YOU, THESE GUYS ARE JUST THE LOUD ONES) - they aren't making a genuine connection with either the source material or the character arc. I could tell you twenty different ways off the top of my head that that particular scene could make for EXCELLENT b*ddie content but that's absolutely not the way the antis are coming at it - it's a personal insult to them that they didn't get their way so instead of feeding that into beautiful fanon they've made some bonkers banana wild exclamations about moral superiority.

This is not new. This is exactly how the (small but loud) subsect of shippers/antis has always operated. It's failed media literacy and making it personal when the reality is that this is currently the story the writers want to tell. Antis operate in an echo chamber. It's a bad faith argument (I hesitate to use that word because it's more like proselytizing) based on personal preference.

If bucktommy ends up being a flash in the pan, I will still have enjoyed the dynamic it brought. If Bucks storyline continues on a different trajectory that I don't particularly care for, I can either fade from fandom or dig in with canon divergence and be happy with that.

To answer your actual question though, which is how the two ends of the spectrum have such wildly different readings on the Daddy scene: everyone is looking at this through their own lens of experience/understanding, so of course, of course people who ship Buck and Tommy are delighted, and of course (some) b*ddie shippers don't enjoy it.

There's an element of maturity levels to it that I don't really feel like digging too deep into, as well, but lets be real: the infantalizing of Buck is a big part of the 'ick' we're seeing, the kinning/stanning going too far.

It's the taking it personal bit that's causing all the discourse. It'll fade, it always does, until there's another thing to clutch pearls about. It's just noise. It sucks, but at the end of the day this is a fictional TV show about first responders that is for the most part very Unserious™️ and these are all fictional characters that people from different walks of life are seeing themselves in.

And at the end of the day, there are creative outlets that allow you to change whatever the hell you want about canon if you aren't jiving with it - fanon exists for a reason.

I'll just be over here in my corner enjoying two grown ass men being so down bad for each other they're a little stupid about it.

[adanseying]

ask game: for TRC what's a pairing u are Not a fan of? 👀

I’ll just answer all the fandom asks for trc since that’s one of those questions

Favorite character: Adam and Blue could fight it out depending on my mood since they’re all time favs for different reasons, but these days have had clinical levels of Adam brain rot so Adam <3 love that demented freak so bad

Least Favorite character: both Niall and Artemus for different reasons Niall I hate more as a person but he at least brings some interesting things to the narrative (even if I think the narrative also is kinder to him than he deserves) whereas Artemus is just boring + takes time away from more interesting Blue plots + dynamics so I resent him more ultimately. So Artemus. But of the mains + fandom favs there’s no one I strongly dislike I would have said Kavinsky a few years ago but that was only because I hated his fandom passionately, his char in a vacuum I’m quite centrist about.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

Adam x Gansey, Blue x Gansey, then if we’re including td3 Jordan x Hennessy is in third place and Jordan x Declan in fourth, and fifth Blue x Noah. not counting td3 fourth is Pynch (I’m mean about them sometimes but when trc Pynch is good they are really good.) and 5th hmmm. will go with Gansey x Henry but it could be one of a few ships depending on my mood, this is the everyone loves everyone series after all.

Character I find most attractive: middle school Sana was in love with Helen lol to the point where I mentally wrote some self insert-y Blue x Helen fanfiction. Now I would probably say Gwenllian (which is helped by the fact when I went to work on her section of my trcverse minor women Pinterest board I saw a lot of Katie McGrath/ Morgana images and I’m watching bbc Merlin rn so! relevant to my interests).

Character I would marry: Jordan <3.

Character I would be best friends with: I don’t badly want to be friends with anyone from the verse of protags..Jordan and Blue are the only candidates out of them everyone else is just automatically nope. Oh and I could hang with ghost Noah but probably not Noah back when he was alive. In general honestly I’d love to spend time with Persephone as her research assistant in her phd writing or being trained by her like Adam was or having her as an Aunt/maternal figure like Blue did.

A random thought: very normal about this series as you can tell

An unpopular opinion: well I just said this in the tags of that poll but even though I love TDT a lot it’s not my unequivocal favorite like it is for a lot of people / I prefer BLLB and TRB as overall books. Part of this is def character biases related since TRB is the Adam book but also has quite a bit of Blue/300 fox way and then BLLB is the Blue book but also has quite a lot of Adam focus (although ironically TDT is probably my favorite book of them all for Adam content specifically. I love when my favs get messy <3) and I love Ronan but gravitate towards him least out of the core four.

My canon OTP: Blue x Gansey

Non-canon OTP: Adam x Gansey

Most badass character: honestly not a lot of chars in this verse I think of as badass… I mean Adam’s ruthlessness and cleverness are impressive as hell but I also think of him as more pathetic than he gets credit for being in certain ways so hesitate to call him that. Calla or the Gray Man

Pairing I am not a fan of: I really don’t have a ship I hate or even strongly dislike overall in this verse, it’s more about active vs passive interest in various pairings or that existing on a scale, or it’s about how I feel about fandom’s take on a dynamic. I used to say Rovinsky but again that was for fandom reasons not canon ones and certainly not for morality discourse reasons. These days if I’m being negative about a ship it’s usually Pynch and that’s for a combination of late canon reasons + fandom issues. BLLB Pynch will always have been a slay though, and they get to take that to their graves some ships never achieve that level of slay even for a limited time. Least interesting relationship across the board…. Sorry to say it but honestly Carliana. I enjoyed some td3 yuri in that I was obsessed with the Jordanessy clonefucking vibes and intrigued by what little Carmenessy there was but Carliana… I can’t say I found it terribly compelling. But not to the extent of hate just like a flatline.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): trc wise Blue but Not for the reasons I’ve seen fandom go for in the past as some of the things fandom slotted as bad writing / screw ups I would defend as good character writing specifically the types of criticisms that were just like. “It’s bad writing that she has dimensionality and flaws such as being judgmental or insecure or hypocritical and having imperfect views of feminism or being occasionally classist or displaying internalized misogyny but when the boys do this sometimes to worse extents (especially on the misogyny front) I think it’s a realistic flaw boys will be boys” DIE! And then as a response to this criticisms ik Blue stans in old school fandom (I might even have been a bit guilty of this when I was like. 13) would write a million headcanons about Actual Blue who is a perfect feminist unlike canon Blue and like… ultimately that’s not Blue / not the char I love. Not that this is specific to Blue it happens all the time with similar molds of character or female chars in other archetypes with adjacent discourse surrounding them Piper McLean is another example that comes to mind, so many others count especially in male-lead media where there’s then pressure on the fewer female chars to represent ideals rather than being three dimensional people the way the male chars are. So I think Those criticisms of Blue’s writing are ultimately not relevant in my mind / aren’t real criticisms. And in general I think she’s a well written character in the first three books which is not to say that misogyny doesn’t impact how she’s written in those books I could certainly be analytical about that if I wanted to be but nothing that detracts from her overall character. HOWEVER, the writing still Does ultimately fail Blue / do her dirty / is misogynistic towards her not because she has these flaws but because the narrative ultimately *resolves* these flaws by having her only learn to not be so judgemental of rich white boys and one rich Asian boy instead of anyone else or spending an equal amount of time breaking down their assumptions about her, TRK doesn’t give her personal struggles almost any page time and she has the sloppiest resolution in that book with her whole fundamental nature being boiled down to her being a tree before she has to Plot. So yeah I do think she’s done dirty by the writing but I’m generally hesitant to agree with people who say that she deserves better writing before I hear qualifying statements about what exactly they mean / how they mean it, for these reasons.

Favourite friendship: despite also shipping them my gut instinct was Blue and Noah, otherwise it’s Adam and Persephone

[cherrymoonvol6]

Hey your analysis are nice. Do you want to share your opinion on common/popular TOH proships? As an also proship-but-not-really-THAT-proship, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.:)

:D thank you for your nice words!

truthfully the reason why i call myself a proship is that, as a label, it aligns way more with my outlook in media and the way that i consume it. i'm just interested in well-told stories and interesting dynamics, and often that means that i gravitate towards those pairings that deal more with obstacles and conflict. but fandom hates that sort of stuff, mainly because discourse in that wavelength brings the worst out of people every single time. and like, i think it's important to address how certain tropes or execution of characters/narrative beats could correlate to the thing in real life, kinda like the works of youtube channels like pop culture detective or lindsay ellis. i believe there's a lot of value in that and it's interesting to explore and it's been a very helpful tool to understand other perspectives. but also, the moment that people in fandom begin to have discussions about something in media as if it's Real and happening in our world, i just fall asleep immediately lmfao. mostly because like, why would you analyze a piece of media through the only lens that DOESN'T acknowledge this media as a work of fiction? what's the point of media existing then, to begin with?

this is why i've never liked certain huntlow criticism, like willow using her magic to physically push hunter around. IMO willow could stab hunter through the heart and laugh it off and it wouldn't change anything, because hunter is not real. it's pointless to me to be all up in arms about it when he can't be harmed, not like a real person could. the most offensive thing about huntlow is that it's boring as shit and takes up space where luz's story could've been expanded and developed better. and thinking about it like that allows me to meet the story where it's at, instead of getting stuck on little nitpicks that, if they were to be taken out of the story, wouldn't make huntlow a better couple because their problem in the show is different and far bigger. now, you could argue that in certain places, willow's forceful attitudes towards hunter diminish his agency as a character, like how she makes the decision for hunter to come back to the team by yanking him to the courtyard. you could argue that it's dumb that willow is shown to be more powerful and resourceful than hunter when we know hunter is essentially a child soldier and willow just goes to highschool. and then i'd agree with you and i'd be willing to keep talking about it, because we're back to understanding the show in its own terms, and talking about it as it is: a connected thread of narrative beats and characters written by a team of people with the objective of telling a story. also, you could question the ethics of making willow treat hunter that way in a kids show, kinda saying that women being forceful with guys is okay and funny, and i would also be willing to considerate it through that perspective. but it's just the conceptualizing of the least impactful aspects of hunter and willow's dynamic (like, 10 total seconds in the entirety of the show of willow manhandling him for an in-show joke) as a huge problem that feels pointless to me.

all this preamble is to say that a lot of TOH ships in general fail to really catch my attention. this comes in part to my personal preference in ships. i think it's important that all the people involved in a dynamic have agency in order for their interactions to be really interesting. this is why i've never been into empgold, for example, given how their relationship works in canon: belos grooms hunter into a distorted understanding of the outside world, which leads hunter to close himself off and trust belos and belos only. and then that changes in hollow mind, and their dynamic essentially shatters from there. the resolution of hunter rejecting him and choosing his own path, as it happens in TTT, is therefore a sound conclusion. like, there's not really a lot a fucked psycho-sexual stuff or romantic interest can add to their dynamic, IMO. mainly because the moment hunter finds agency in their dynamic, the whole premise of it falls apart. only deviating their characters from their canon identities could make it more interesting, but at that point we're no longer talking about the characters from the show, are we.

at first glance a ship like beluz could be better in that regard, because luz has agency in the dynamic. she rejects belos over and over, and even manages to get the upper hand in a few occasions (see: king's tide). but looking at their interactions in canon, every time they talk to each other is like they're both interacting with a brick wall: luz is dead set in protecting the witches, and belos is dead set in going through with his philosophy. in that sense, that part in hollow mind where belos goes "can't reason with crazy" is a perfect embodiment of how their dynamic goes lol. even the whole angle of luz fearing she's becoming like philip is window dressing, because she's just being paranoid out of the guilt of the selfish decisions she's taken during the show: not at any point does this parallel make any real sense in canon, and then it's swiftly shut down by the end. it makes sense why this works like that in canon, because belos is supposed to be the irredeemable villain, as the ending shows. maybe there's more window for this to be changed though, because of the wittebane story. and obviously as a lunter enthusiast i'm no strange to using these hints and integrating them in the story to make it a better one. but personally, i just don't see the appeal -- and i'm not a belos enthusiast either, like i see other lunterinas tend to be.

from what i know those two are the more popular proships in the show. there's probably other stuff with the collector and king, or the actual incest pairings, but tbf i'm just pretty uninterested in any other ship in the show besides lunter. it's funny though, because i don't even think lunter has the most potential in the show -- i think lumity could be the best one under the right circumstances, if you could even believe me lol. but this involves a fundamental change in the premise of the show along, kinda converting amity into the deuteragonist by making her become the golden guard by the end of S1. it solves the issue of amity having zero connection to the plot, it adds stakes to luz and amity's relationship, also gives amity a lot more agency... i think that would be the best version of a love interest for luz in the show. but also i fear that that would make it so amity overshadows luz in the narrative. like, idk, a lot of stuff would need to be changed there. and that's what makes it hard to truly envision what the best (aka, the most interesting) version of lumity could look like. in lunter's case, we already have a case in canon of luz being the evelyn to hunter's caleb, and if you watched episodes like "hunting palismen" or "hollow mind" with no knowledge of lumity, i'm sure a lot of people could see the potential of their bond becoming romantic in the future. stuff like luz sadly looking back at hunter at the end of HP or hunter taking luz's hand in HM is pure ship fodder tbh and i'm tired of pretending it's not.

i've also toyed with the idea of terra and raine becoming an interesting dynamic in an universe where lilith and raine got condensed into a unique character. i've mentioned this before in my ideas of making eda and raine a better couple (cause good lord they're just as bad as every other couple in the show and i don't understand how people can deem them as "the good one" ?????), and to realize that it's raine's dynamic with terra that would be more appealing to me if those changes were real is very funny to me. there's also a lot that would need to be changed but so, so much untapped potential. however, it's another case where whatever is in canon barely resembles the best version of their dynamic, and it's hard to picture it with how raine and terra actually behave in the show. in that sense, they're very similar to beluz: raine's mind is completely made up at all times, which means that they would never accept terra's vision of the future.

of course, this is all my opinion. like i said, this also comes down to my personal taste in dynamics. like for example i'm personally not into poly ships in media, only for narrative reasons (economic storytelling: the optimal number is always 2). it's hard to find something that strikes that perfect balance between fucked-up and salvageable, and some of my beloveds like jackparse (from the check please comic) or asgoriel (from undertale) are some examples of that. but in true proship fashion, i think any pairing that you could come up in the show is fine. and of course i'm happy to share my opinions (and bless you anon for giving me a reason to yap about my thoughts <3), but they're just my opinions and the way that i personally approach media. you can like any dynamic in the show, platonic or romantic or sexual or whatever, and it's fine. they're not real people. that's the fun of media, that's the point of it: it's a playground to test ideas and make them interact. as long as you're doing that, all is fine by me.

[eexomei]

Genuinely, people like them also seem to forget that fandom culture, especially here on tumblr dare I say, has often been a safe space for people within the lgbt+ community to just… Be themselves! And that’s a good thing, someone for example shipping two outlaws who happens to both be men (and fictional) genuinely doesn’t do anything bad to anyone!

Then there’s the talk of what would be ‘realistic’ and such, which is a whole other thing due to how queer people have always existed and in this case the Victorian era and the Wild West era it could be quite common for many men who worked as cowboys for example, specifically to be with other men/cowboys for a multitude of reasons including their sexuality. Then obviously that didn’t mean that people wasn’t faced with bigotry and oppression. I have no problem with people discussing things in general in media on what would be ‘realistic’ or not and in fact I love people who analyze things both from a more personal perspective and as well as those who analyze things from a more ‘realistic’ standpoint.

It’s one thing not liking or shipping a ship, but to go out of your way to attack (and be extremely bigoted in this case) to people who do like the ship — that’s absolutely terrible!

Maybe it’s just because I’m bisexual myself who has always had a preference for people who identify as women, but I cannot fathom seeing people get so personally angry over a person liking (or not liking a ship sometimes) that they jump to misgendering people seemingly on purpose, being racist etc. When I was a kid and first joined certain fandoms online, I remember genuinely being so shocked and overjoyed over seeing random ships, and wether it was canon/or ‘realistic’, that depicted a queer relationship! Even when I had no sort of emotional attachment to some ships that were depicted online, it still ended up giving me the courage to start allowing myself -for lack of better words- to be something other than straight!

Once again, I think most people (in the red dead fandom here at least) are okay with people not liking a ship, or perhaps even expressing their own opinions on a ship — sure, I’ve seen snarky comments and some most likely directed ‘call out posts’ over someone unproblematically expressing their views and beliefs about different ships. But that is okay! Sometimes people get passionate and it can be quite unpleasant to navigate for everyone involved, but that’s normal as long as it doesn’t come down to such bigotry for something so simple as people (in my personal opinion) rightfully pointing out something’s they might not see as correct etc.

I genuinely am so sad to see this, I’m a firm believer that all ships are okay (obviously unless it’s not pedophilic for example) and that ship discourse is fine too, as long as it’s kept to a normal standard where people are respectful. See a ship you don’t like? Don’t interact! You want to rant about a ship you don’t like? Sure, BUT don’t attack the people who do like it, especially not in such a vile way.

Ships doesn’t need to be realistic, hell, I still remember watching random YouTube videos back in the day about Rapunzel and Jack Frost. If you prefer ‘canon’ ships or more ‘realistic’ ships, that’s fine too! But remember that you don’t get to decide for everyone what would be ‘realistic’ because realistic doesn’t always mean true.

It’s so sad to see some people genuinely stoop to such low levels over something as silly (in a good way) as ships. This isn’t necessarily about anyone in general, I’m just reblogging because I agree with what has been said.

loving that one person in the rdr2 main tag that gets really pressed about charthur for no reason and is fully insistent that it's problematic in some way

[sweetlytempests]

in 2021 can we make an agreement to stop telling disappointed shippers to just multiship or polyship as a means to solve shipping disputes. if i don’t like A + B by themselves, why am I suddenly gonna like it because it’s A + B + C. “B has two hands!!!” yes to hold both of C’s hands, A doesn’t need to be up in here at all, stop it. 

[catgirl-catboy]

So. You've just heard the words "proship" and "anti" for the first time. Or maybe you've been hearing them for a while, and you decided to look up what they mean. Or maybe you've just stumbled upon this post.

A quick disclaimer! I, the person that wrote this post, am a proshipper. However, I will try to present both arguments from an objective and unbiased point of view. However, there may be small mistakes from the antiship side of things, of which I am sorry. This post was made in good faith to help people who have never heard of this discourse before. If you're an anti and would like to give your two cents about my section on antis, feel free!

I have also linked several sources in the replies section, since links tend to fuck with the tumblr search engine. Feel free to look into those if you'd like to read more on the subject. (and please do before trying to correct this post, since there's a lot of misinformation going around on the subject!)

Antishipping:

Since the term antishipping originated before the term proshipping (even if the proship ideology existed first), it seems like a good place to start.

Antishipping is the belief that certain types of fandom content reflect badly on the people that create and consume it. Antishippers believe that if you interact with that content enough, your real-life morals get loosened, and you are more likely to want to commit the crimes depicted in said content.

Some antishippers think that people that already have a desire to commit said crimes are more likely to enjoy content depicting those crimes, and thus liking that content is a "red flag". I've seen both arguments about equally.

What do I mean by said content? You'll get a slightly different definition from anti to anti, but common targets of this logic include:Ships with a large age gap. Ships that have one character under the age of adulthood, and one over. Incestuous ships. Ships between real people like celebrities. Ships deemed racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/transphobic by the fandom. Abusive ships. One thing I've noticed about antis is how sex and romance focused they seem to be. They rarely apply the same logic to fics depicting crimes such as assault and murder, despite those also being just as illegal IRL.

Proshipping: If antishipping is the belief that certain ships reflect badly about your character, proshipping is the belief that it does not.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the word proship, so allow me to do a quick tangent about what a proshipper is not:

Proship is not short for problematic ship. The term proship was named to oppose the pre-existing anti ship. It is pro as in for.

Proship is not a synonym for pedophile. Proship is all about what you think is okay to depict in fiction, not your real life sexual preferences. For instance, the proshipper writing this is asexual and incapable of having a sexual interest in anyone.

Proship is not an assertion of comfort for every type of problematic ship. Quite a lot of proshippers are uncomfortable with incest and age gap ships. The only requirement to be a proshipper is that you don't think someone is a bad person for writing/reading problematic fiction.

Why do proshippers think this? There is a variety of reasons among the community, but as a general rule of thumb they try to give people the benefit of the doubt. That person who writes incest fic could be hitting on their own family. But they also could be a victim of incest and write to come to terms with what they went through. They also could be an only child that finds the idea of a big brother having a crush on them hot. Without having an honest conversation with them, we have no real way of knowing.

I won't overshare, but the main reason I enjoy abusive dynamics in fiction is because I was abused in the past. I like the idea of finding catharsis in fiction, where characters that remind me of my abusers can grow and change for the better. I don't think that'll make me more likely to abuse the people close to me. I'd argue that since I understand what behaviors are abusive better, I'm actually less likely! (I had to unlearn a lot of shit.)

Problems with the antiship community:

A lot of antishippers harass people that make content for ships they dislike. Despite antishippers being upset at the perceived normalization that problematic ships might cause, a lot of them normalize using violent language to people they disagree with. A lot of antishippers are comfortable dehumanizing proshippers and have little compassion. Despite a lot of antis calling for better trigger tagging of fictional content, they rarely trigger tag their violent threats to people that make content they are morally opposed to.

A lot of antis overuse words like "pedophile" and "Child Porn" (tangent: the proper terminology for pictures of a (real, IRL) minor is CSEM or Child Sexual Exploitation Material. It is never porn.) in situations when they don't actually apply, creating alarm fatigue and difficulty communicating when an actual crime is being committed. Governments have asked antis specifically to stop clogging up their hotlines with reports of porn of fictional characters.

A small but dangerous subsection of antis will knowingly expose NSFW content to minors to show them what proshippers are creating. This is an IRL crime, and should be reported if you ever encounter it.

A lot of antishippers strech the definition of problematic to include ships they personally dislike. I have seen anti shippers bashing the relationship between a 14 y/o character and a 16 y/o character, despite that not being much of an age gap at all. This causes the rise of excuses like "sibling coding" (the implication that two characters that are not biologically related or are adopted siblings are siblings for found family reasons, and can't be shipped.)

Antishippers frequently call for problematic content to "remain out of the main tags", which would seem a logical request at first. They do not wish to know such content is being created. However, this makes it harder for the people not in the fandom to avoid seeing said content. Some people have fandom tags blocked for trigger reasons, and following the antis advice of not putting things in the main tags can put those people in danger. (Most proshippers put multiple trigger warnings on their content for people to search for and filter out.)

There is a lot of ableism in the antiship community, with two of their frequently used insults being "get help" and "proship freaks". Many antis frequently expect users who want to interact with them to check a "carrd" (an external website where they keep lists of who they do and don't want to see on their blog.) which can frequently be eyescorching and hard to read for people with visual sensitivities.

A lot of antishippers overshare information about themselves to dangerous levels. It is common for them to share their names, exact ages, and triggers. This could be used to hurt them by malicious trolls, and is not a good idea.

Instead of creating new websites where the rules cater to them, antis will try to bend (or just) the rules of existing websites that are more in line with the proship ideology. Despite believing these websites lower the moral character of everyone that uses them, the willingly choose to use them anyway.

Problems with the proship community:

(this is by far the section I am the least confident in writing, so if you would like to reblog this with problems about the proship community I did not mention, I will not be upset. I try to make this post as objective as humanly possible.)

Many critics of the proship community describe it as an "echo chamber", and there is some truth to that. There is a lot of pressure to be comfortable with the darkest of problematic ships, else you may get accused of not being a real proshipper.

There is also overlap between the proship community and several communities like consang, radqueer and transid. You have to do your research on who you follow if you (understandably) wish to avoid those communities.

There is a lot of hostility to "neutrals" of this discourse from the proship community. (Personally, I don't think neutrals exist. Either fiction makes you worse, or it doesn't. Its a binary issue. That being said, ID as neutral to this if you want, I won't stop you.)

This could either be a bug or a feature depending on who you ask, but I notice a tendency to prefer ship positivity over nuanced discussion or talk about dynamics/headcanons.

Quite a lot of proshippers have victim complexes (probably due to all of the suicide baiting) and will take any disagreement with them in the worst possible light.

[astriiformes]

I know it's very likely to end up romantic in the show but like I am choosing to see Huntlow as Queerplatonic until otherwise stated because it's just so sweet

I'm going to tell you fun little a secret anon: You can see it as queerplatonic no matter what! There's no rules against it!

Like perhaps this is something we lost the plot on a bit in back in the aspec discourse mines of 2015-2018, but there's nothing wrong with preferring a duo as queerplatonic instead of romantic -- they're both meaningful types of relationships that, depending on the people involved, can look incredibly similar. I'm a little baffled by the fact that so many people talk like you can only think that up until a point.

People ship non-canon ships, I don't see why we're not allowed to do the opposite and say we like it when two characters that appear to be a couple are actually into each other queerplatonically. Especially with characters where the shoe really seems to fit. I know I happen to like queerplatonic Willow and Hunter because the two of them remind me so much of my and my qpp (Which is one reason I'm not a fan of how a lot of shippers tend to talk about them -- it's fine to prefer it as a romantic relationship, but looking at their interactions and saying the "only" explanation is romance or there's no way the two of them stay "just friends" makes me feel pretty uncomfy, seeing as Willow and Hunter don't really act any differently than she and I do with each other)

Anyways, that's just my two cents, but I really do hope more folks take it to heart. I've seen a lot of people saying they would like to interpret them as aspec or in a queerplatonic relationship but feel like they won't be able to anymore if the show does certain things, to which I say: Be free! Queer headcanons are tethered to our wants and desires, not some specter of what we're "allowed" to do. Queerplatonic partnerships are not obligated to exist only until eclipsed by romantic desire! We are allowed to steal them back!

I know I've got at least one aspec Hunter fic idea I intend to write sometime after TOH ends regardless of how things play out in the show (and possibly even influenced by them), as does my qpp if her curse allows, and I hope other folks who like aspec/queerplatonic Willow and Hunter as a dynamic will join us.

Queerplatonic-ing ships is good for the soul! Don't settle for having dynamics that bring you joy stolen from you! People like us are allowed to take up space and tell stories too!

[dangermousie]

That narrative is insane. Insane!

Honestly, ship wars make NO sense in a narrative as well written as this one - sure people can disagree who they'd prefer XY to end up with but the narrative is so clear and logical and inevitable (based on characters and interactions) as to why things end up the way they do, shipwise and otherwise and what it means.

I remember there was a narrative from fandom in s1 too that she settled for Jing and even then it boggled me. Yes, he does not fulfill literally every possible need and want for a person in her life she has (he can't take her on insane dates a la XY or share childhood connection or or) but nobody can, not if you are in any way emotionally healthy. In s1, she clearly fell for him and liked him and desired him. If that's settling, sign me uo.

And s2 - I agree so much that the reason XL has a chance is because she can't have Jing - he'd never have gotten a chance for her heart if the break-up of s1 did not happen. Yes, now as things stand provided XL would be willing to let go of his cause, she might eventually move on to him and be happy (and it wouldn't be settling either; just as earlier it was not settling for Jing and/or later it won't be either - people are complicated) but she is not there yet (and she never will be since he won't let her - one of the things that drives me insane about a certain type of discourse is that she cannot pick someone who won't LET her pick him; how would that work?) but that is not what's going to happen. It's a what-if at best. She's a woman who didn't settle when she chose Jing the first time and she won't be settling now either.

The very fact that she can't let go of Jing despite wanting to and she's the queen of let go shows how much she loved him (and yes, so do her insane standards for him - they are in proportion to how much she let him into her heart and how vulnerable and hopeful he made her and how unguarded.)

It does not make Xiang Liu less cool or less worthy or less anything but it's how the narrative rolls due to all these characters' traits and experiences.

I think fandoms in general tend to impose their preferences (in both "this is the guy I'd like" or "this is the narrative I want") on the existing narratives without much consideration of what the story is actually telling. But in a story as well written and as good at explaining exactly what people feel and why it's especially bad. Also, the need to bring down one love interest to bolster your preferred one is odd to me.

(And insert yet again my rant about fandom, for all its talks about green flags blah blah, really disliking gentle men with traditionally feminine virtues in fantasy narratives - see TSJ, see GZY in My Journey to You or Asule in NEF.)

Anyway last word on the Cdrama ship war of the century for now; the popular narrative is that XY ‘settled’ for Jing, that she only hooked up with him because Xiang Liu was impossible.

There’s a lot of reasons this doesn’t make sense. For one, just timeline wise; by the time that Xiang Liu went from guy that shows up and bites her sometimes while they talk and have sexual tension, to genuine good friend, she was already in love with TSJ.

But this season also shows that— it’s the opposite if anything. She starts considering Xiang Liu when Jing is (in her eyes) no longer an option. And even then, it’s still Tushan Jing on her mind as she walks down that aisle. It’s still the loss of him that sends her into this morose state for years.

Xiang Liu is a potential temporary escape; he is the one she waits for by the sea, hoping he might take her away from this wedding. Tushan Jing is the one she thinks of when she is actually getting married.

The reason she’s estranged from TSJ in the first place is because she held him to a standard higher than anyone else; a standard meant only for the person she wants to spend her life with.

I don’t know if it would be different if, in another story she’d met XL first, and they’d met on better terms, but that’s not this story. Lost You Forever has a million what ifs.

She’s not settling for Tushan Jing; she’s certainly not viewing him as a second choice, and she is CERTAINLY not less in love with him.

Anyway it’s a very rare good love triangle, but I think it diminishes the story to treat TSJ as some consolation prize. She has loved him since early on.

[mogai-sunflowers]

Thoughts on being neutral for any kind of discourse?

i think it depends. some things to me shouldn't be discourse topics, like i hate that mspec lesbian/gay and lesboy discourse still is a thing, to me i don't necessarily trust when i see people say they're neutral on mspec lesbians because it makes me think that im not completely safe with them.

however, that's just my personal boundaries with certain "neutral" stances- in terms of being neutral or having a neutral stance, i think it's perfectly respectable. especially with online culture and mob mentality, so many people feel pressure to have all the right beliefs and say all the right things even if they're not educated enough on the subject to form their own opinions. a lot of my "stances" used to be much more based on not wanting to be harassed, than by me actually putting thought into what i believed. but it all gets so stressful that we forget that it's completely normal to not understand everything. it's impossible to know every little niche discourse from every community you or others are in, and to me, it takes a lot of strength of character to take a step back and acknowledge that you're simply not knowledgeable to form a solid opinion on something. there is never any shame in not understanding something.

plus, "neutral" could mean a lot of different things. like, i guess you could call be "neutral ship" because im not proship or antiship, but i'm not at all "neutral" on the subject. i heavily dislike proshipping and proshippers, but for different reasons i equally dislike antishippers. i'm not neutral on the subject, but neutral describes me more than proship or antiship, so that's what i would put if i had to. neutral can mean you don't know, do know but don't care about that particular discourse, that you see and respect both sides, that you aren't knowledgeable enough about the subject, that they prefer to stay out of discourse, and so many other things. plus, no one owes anyone else an explanation of all their beliefs in order to exist online, especially if that kind of discourse is triggering to them.

so long story short, being neutral on discourse is completely fine and natural, i just don't personally feel safe around people who are neutral on *certain* topics that are important to me, but that doesn't mean i think they should change at all, just that my boundaries are to not interact with them that much!

[captnjacksparrow]

Should I feel ashamed for liking dom/sub type of fanfics related to sns? (sasunaru shipper btw)

Ofc I’m able to separate that kind of stuff when it comes to understanding how their canon relationship works, and I don’t try to force my preferences on anyone. When I’m trying to understand their characters, ofc I don’t bring bottom or top into it. I honestly get a lot of hate for my preference and I’m constantly accused of not understanding sasukes character or their relationship dynamic because I ship Sasunaru. I hate it a lot, im able to differentiate how their relationship actually works and how it is in the ff I typically enjoy.

I just hope im not a cruel person for liking that kind of stuff with characters who likely don’t even follow the bottom/top dynamic. Your thoughts?

Okay...

Before I write anything related to this ask, I suggest you to read these short posts from one of our renowned SNS blogger Fourangers.

This and This and This

The reason I attached these posts is because I want you to know why people feel certain way about SasuNaru (including me). Not bashing you or your Choice, Anon. Even Fourangers also wasn’t bashing. What she said makes total sense. 

Like, it depends on Doujinkas and Fanfic writers INSTEAD of the seme/uke thingie. It’s unreasonable to pin an entire sub-fandom as a negative (a sub fandom of the very ship I ship) just because of the Top/Bottom discourse. And that’s exactly how I feel too. Because few days ago, I was on Cloud Nine to have found an 100% canon compliant SN doujinshi which even led me to make a dedicated post about it because most of them I’ve came across were a terrible Porno mess. My gripe about SN is.. “I wish it were more characterization first and sexual preference last... Rather than conforming the character under a stereotypical seme/uke and make it unpalatable”

So, Keeping this as a Preface.....

Should I feel ashamed for liking dom/sub type of fanfics related to sns?

No. Definitely not. 

I said, I usually don’t read these genre because ‘Romance/Smut’ is not my thing. But if smut appeals to you, then Please Go ahead... and have fun.

Well, Why should you feel ashamed anyway? 

Because Did the other side AKA NS virtue signaled you that they are the better species filled with only pureness, canon-ness without any smut or dom/sub contents??? If that’s the case....  

Please ignore those Incels AKA morons who is guilt tripping or making you feel ashamed about your preference. They are no better than those Homophobic assholes who shames other people for their sexual orientation.. And FYI, Dom/Sub thing exists in that side too... 

So, Screw those accusations and read whatever you want... After all you are very aware of what you like, what you don’t, what is canon and what is not... Especially you are not insisting your Head canons onto others.... I guess, this Self-Realization is what I feel is very important for anyone who wish to participate in the fandom. Most people don’t even have this basic thing.

Let me say this once more. Until and Unless the Author confirms something directly or implied indirectly.... Nothing is Canon. Hence, Insisting xxx character is a Top/Bottom is still only an Headcanon and not the one true fact... 

I honestly get a lot of hate for my preference and I’m constantly accused of not understanding Sasukes character or their relationship dynamic because I ship Sasunaru.

My Question.... 

Do they understand Sasuke’s character, first of all???? Not that I am claiming myself to be that All-Knowing... If anything, I am still learning new things about these wonderful characters everyday. But what gives them the moral superiority that they understand everything about Sasuke while pointing fingers at others being lacking??? 

Let me say this....

I found 2 English translated... 1 Chinese.... 1 Russian translated dj (which has 8 chapters)... All from SasuNaru artists... And I must say, they got Sasuke’s characterization much better than... atleast 20% better than how I found him in NS djs... All the while keeping Naruto’s characterization damn fucking well... And also None of those djs had sexual elements in it....

This is Naruto from a SN dj named Melting Snow. *** I don’t know why it was tagged under NS *** 

Here, Naruto was drawn with his confident charisma who gives off this hopeful aura... Just like how he was drawn in Kishimoto’s works.

My observation is that.... If SN gets it right... then their contents are much more enjoyable and will have higher degree of canon-ness than their NS counterpart. But sadly, it’s a rare thing though.

I just hope im not a cruel person for liking that kind of stuff with characters who likely don’t even follow the bottom/top dynamic.

Most of the best Yaoi novels I’ve read has 98% Story and 2% Sex. Even the sex part comes towards the very end of the story and Not gonna lie, it was very very BDSM-esque. Does it means, those Authors are cruel??? Or does it means, the millions of readers are also cruel??? Such a guilt tripping, moral policing incels.

If that’s the case... I am very Cruel Person too... And I am happy being that way.

Anyways, If someone accuses you that You are Cruel just because you are reading those stuffs just know that they are some self-projecting Clowns who are very similar to SS peeps. 

The following pic is from a Popular SS fic comment section.

LOL... SS peeps are also so much into Bottom Sasuke... Now NS can’t accuse others that SN behave like SS, can they???? Because they also behave just like SS....