#even the way wlw ships are featured as support characters feel a lot different than a lot of fandoms I’ve been in

[mariathechosen1]

The hype around aai2 is making me remember how much I love this franchise. More specifically, how much I’ve fucking missed being a part of a fandom with actual good quality wlw ships.

Most fandoms I’ve been in recently have either no popular f/f ships, or that one token wlw support ship with no personality of their own.

Meanwhile:

There’s Franmaya!! Junithena!!! Lanamia!!! Fradrian!! Truepearl!!! Aurametis!!!! Kay x every single female character she’s ever interacted with!!!!

It’s great.

[carryon-countdown]

MLM/Trans Rep Issues: a conversation

Hello everyone!

As was announced to the public in this post, we’ve noticed some voices of discontent from mlm/trans people in this fandom. We’ve spent the past week talking to many mlm/trans people in this fandom, to listen to what has likely been hurting them/making them uncomfortable. Our goal here was to educate ourselves on views that we’d been overlooking and to have a conversation about how to move forward.

We’re glad to say that every person who reached out to us was very patient and informative, so now we’re able to share what we’ve learned with our followers and the rest of the fandom. What makes everything a bit more complicated, however, is that it became clear quite quickly that not every mlm/trans person experiences these issues the same way. Most people we talked to had their very own way of viewing things, and we, as admins, think that each individual view had something valuable to say. There’s not a very clear right or wrong here, so we’re going to ask everyone not to approach these issues like there’s a definitive right or wrong.

What we’re going to do instead is explain the different views, in hope that it will educate many of you who’d had a blindspot to these issues. And then it’ll be up to each individual person to self-reflect and decide what you think is important. Once again, there doesn’t seem to be a definitive right or wrong, so we think the best we can do is make sure everyone has as much information to make their own choices with.

Fetishizing

One of the main issues that was brought to our attention is the fetishisation of mlm ships (in this fandom’s case mainly snowbaz). Some people we talked to said they came across this quite a lot, others felt like it happened here and there, and others said it happened so little that they had never been able to come up with an example of this within the fandom. So that already gives everyone an idea of what we mean by people seeming to have very different experiences.

What it means to use a ship for fetishisation is that you interact with the ship in a way that is purely focussed on the “hotness”/aesthetic of the ship, instead of focussing on the actual dynamic of this ship. This turns the ship into something more like an object of your fantasies, instead of seeing it as a representation of something real.

Everyone we talked to agreed that fetisising is wrong/hurtful. There were, however, more divided opinions on where the lines lie between content that is and isn’t rooted in fetishisation. Some views are more quickly to label a piece of smut that’s just straight up porn, with a strong focus on the “sexiness” of it all, as a piece rooted in fetishisation, while others think it’s more okay to have smut like this because wanting to celebrate a ship that you love having a bit of sexy-time can definitely come from a place of loving the ship for who they are rather than a objectifying sexual fantasy standpoint.

This shows that the whole concept of judging whether a piece of fan content is fetishising the ship isn’t something that’s just black and white. Something that is easier to judge, though, is yourself and where your love for the ship/certain pieces of content comes from.

We do thus strongly encourage you to take a look at yourself and the way you interact with the ships and content in this fandom. It’s good to ask yourself what your intentions are when creating/sharing any content relating to these ships, and to question whether you might be fetishising. We hope everyone will refrain from engaging with this ship from a fetisising standpoint. It’s often not something that happens to intent harm, but it is something that makes people who are actually represented within the ship highly uncomfortable and upset. It’s not a form of support to any sexuality/type of relationship that might be represented in the ship.

(Note: please don’t instantly write off the idea that you might be fetishising because you, for example, aren’t even attracted to men, because that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t look at a mlm ship in an objectifying way. Please, just, absolutely everyone, take an honest look at your view towards the ships in this fandom, and try to see if there’s instances where you are fetishising these ships.)

Genderbending

Genderbending/genderswap was the other main topic of the conversations we’ve had with mlm/trans people. Genderbending is simply put: changing the genders from one or more of the characters present in your work, to a gender that’s not their canon gender. In our fandom we mostly see this trope used on snowbaz, thus having them become fem!snowbaz.

A big critique for genderbending is that, very often, with genderbending the appearance/physical features of the character is what changes, and thus “that changes the gender”, which is a way of viewing gender that completely excludes the experience of trans/nb people. In the case of snowbaz, this means that Simon and Baz remain the same, but suddenly they have boobs and more feminine features, so that must mean they’re now women. While really, if you want to represent snowbaz with more feminine features, it doesn’t instantly have to mean that they’re now women, and being a woman doesn’t mean you need any kind of feminine features. It basically treats sex and gender the same, when they’re not. Genderbending also often treats gender like it’s binary, which it isn’t. For a bunch of the trans people we talked to, this is something that they consider quite harmful, not only to themselves but also to the way it inspires you to look at the concept of gender.

Besides that, there are times where genderbending gets used to explore a certain concept, such as: having one of the characters able to become pregnant, when really you can also avoid using genderbending here by using a trans headcanon/au for such a thing. The idea that the only way for you to explore these concepts with a mlm ship is having them turn into cis women comes across as both excluding the mlm and trans experience. So there are trans people who prefer if you use a trans au or trans headcanon instead of genderbending in these cases (here it is also preferred that you then have a trans person look at your work before you post it!). With this we do also want to note that not necessarily everyone trans person we spoke to experience trans au/hcs as something positive, and actually actively avoid them.

Now that we’ve spoken about the views against genderbending, there are still other trans people we talked to who don’t have an issue with genderbending. Their views on it with snowbaz are that when you have a ship that canonically consists of two cis men, it makes sense that people would have them be cis women when applying genderbending. (Also, not always everyone makes them cis women when doing a genderbend). The people that didn’t see an issue with genderbending generally came from the standpoint that people’s intentions behind genderbending are completely innocent and not done with the thought in mind that sex=gender, and that is enough for them to not feel hurt by it.

A thing that was also brought up here is that genderbending in this fandom is often used by wlw people to find a way to represent/express themselves in a fandom they love. The people who are in favor of genderbending see this as a very valid reason to keep genderbending around. If it has a positive influence on someone, and isn’t done with the idea in mind that sex and gender are the same, they don’t see why genderbending should be seen as a bad thing.

With this we also want to note that not all wlw are the biggest fan of genderbending. There’s definitely plenty that use fem!snowbaz as a way to see themselves represented, and for them it’s a very positive thing. There are, however, also wlw around who’ve spoken up against it. They see turning a mlm into a wlw ship by genderbending as a very objectifying way to look at a wlw couple. They don’t consider a mlm that now looks like wlw actual wlw representation. They often feel like it comes across very feishising and it makes them uncomfortable. So saying that it’s something positive for all wlw in this fandom is definitely an incorrect way of looking at it, but it is still also a positive thing for quite a number of them.

This shows how polarising the concept of genderbending is, and it’s really not in our interest to tell you what side to pick. We hope that you take in these views and use them to educate yourself on the topic. We hope you put in the effort to understand the different takes on it and then decide where you land. We want to at least make sure that your decisions around genderbending don’t come from a place of ignorance.

We also want to ask everyone to always tag genderbending if you do decide to post anything with genderbending. This way the people who are really hurt by it can at least avoid having to see it by blacklisting it.

This about sums up what we’ve been talking about with the people who reached out to us. We really hope everyone will use this to open their minds to different views on these topics. Since everyone's opinions on these topics seem influenced by personal views and experiences, we really cannot ask you to decide for others what’s right and wrong, and so we ask you to reflect on yourself and your own views instead.

We really want to thank @nonbaznary, @krisrix and others who will remain anonymous for taking part in this conversation! You were all super helpful and patient!

Both @nonbaznary and @krisrix told us that they were open to talk to people who still have questions surrounding these topics. Both of them represent different views, and thus will be able to give you different answers. (Please, if you decide to contact them, be kind to them and actually make an effort to listen to them. They’ve been nothing but helpful in all of this. Treat them well, this is something that can take a lot of energy out of a person)

@nonbaznary also mentioned that if anyone is ever looking for a trans person to look at your work before you post it, they’d be open to doing that for you, so you can contact them for that as well.  

We hope that the actions that were taken here will help everyone feel a little more at home in this fandom, even though the solution is such a vague one.

Much love, The admins of the Carry On Countdown of 2020

[kob131]

https://rwdestuffs.tumblr.com/post/625278536172879872/done-dirty-shipping

Maybe it’s because I’m still not over how the writers just up and offed Clover and are trying to use the ship he had with Qrow for marketing purposes, but still.- If they hadn’t done that, maybe there wouldn’t be as much backlash for what they did?

*looks behind Dudeblade to see all the Arkos shippers still trying to burn RT to the ground for sinking their ship.*

I highly doubt that.

They promoted Qrover (And that’s the name I’ll be using to avoid getting into the proper ship tags) for the sake of merchandise. They do the same with Blang (The name I’ll be using for the Blake x Yang ship to avoid getting into their tags as well), it simply seems as if these ships are just there to keep an audience invested in the show for the hope that their ship will become canon before the final episode of the series.

Ah huh-

Let’s check RT’s merch store shall we?

https://store.roosterteeth.com/collections/rwby

This is the store showcasing RWBY merch by the ‘Featured’ selection. Notice something...unusual?

Yeah, the front page of their ‘featured’ section (which would tell you how they market the show) has three pieces of possible shipping merch...and it’s Renora and White Rose. NOT Bumbleby OR Fair Game. And I do mean ‘possible’ because one could debate that since Ren and Nora are always paired together and considering White Rose is so ignored by the fandom equally ‘shippy’ moments are widely ignored- it’s not inherently romantic.

In fact, none of the three given pages have Bumbleby merch. The closest is the Yang Vs. Adam hoodie...which excludes BLAKE. SO it’s closer to Yang X Adam merch.

But maybe that’s not enough for you. Let’s switch to the ‘Best Selling’ selection. Of that we have...one shippy piece of merch. The same Renora piece from before. Odd, considering if they’re using shipping to sell the show: Why isn’t the merch, the open support of the show, flooded with shipping merch? Why is both the stuff they are pushing people to buy AND the stuff people are buying NOT showing up?

Seems rather counter intuitive ...unless they AREN’T doing that.

This post was made about a month after the finale. If miles pulls the same thing that LoK did with the LGBT+ characters in his show, not only is that hypocritical (As he would be doing the exact same thing that LoK did), but it would also be significantly worse.

Actually he fundamentally can’t. Because Miles wrote in at least three LGBT characters already into the show. So he’s being better by your standards.

Not only was LoK screwed by the network numerous times in regards to their budget, but they were also forced to not make the relationship between Korra and Asami as overt as they would have liked.

And so was RWBY screwed with budget AND resources by Gray. Andd yet no word from you on that...

And again- Already showed at least three characters being lesbians, if not five since Scarlet and Nolan are gay in Before The Dawn, a book written under Miles and Kerry’s supervision.

What network is keeping the writers from doing the same thing with stuff like Blang, Qrover, or whatever the ship name is for Terra and Saphron? Why do they only get hand holding, soft looks™, and confirmation outside of the canon show?

Bumbleby- Canonical status unconfirmed.

Fair Game- Never intended to be a ship. It was just a reference to the waitress back in Volume 4 along with the usual shipping exaggeration.

Terra X Saphron- They literally have a fucking child together.

Other shows like She-Ra, Steven Universe, and Black Lightning managed to have LGBT+ Representation in their shows despite the networks trying to reign them in. So a show that has no such restrictions can’t do it because…?

They have. You’re choosing to ignore it.

To say nothing of the quality of these since Steven Universe is the only respected one and is rather unique in comparison.

Nora and Pyrrha can forcibly kiss Ren and Jaune respectively, but Same-Sex couples have to settle for elementary-school crush stuff?

Terra and Saphron have a fucking kid. And two of your examples are bullshit.

Meanwhile, how are those ships fairing again? ... One is permenantly sunk and wasn’t even confirmed considering Jaune’s feelings for Pyrrha are not confirmed to be romantic and the other is having massive issues that could sink any romantic connections?

And how do people like you react to any kind of strife regarding same sex stuff? ... Called Illa a psycho lesbian despite being significantly more stable, regretful and safer than her straight counterpart Adam?

Yeah, why don’t YOU tell me why a fanbase known for being abusive towards the creators and hounded them for YEARS about this shit isn’t being fed?

Also, this is a dick move. $16.00 for a sunk ship? Not only that, it’s a sunk mlm ship. A kind of representation that hasn’t gotten any real representation outside of Scarlet? And even then, that was confirmed in a different book.

More like a set of pins that can be used for cosplay.

TBH, mlm shippers have every right to be upset about this.

Straight shippers have had the biggest ship sunk and permanently in limbo (Arkos) and the second one is going through a massive rough patch (Renora) while the third and fourth are regularly decried as pedophilia (Lancaster and Rose Garden) if not outright abuse (Tauradonna).

The others get confirmed ships but not the ones they wanted. Boo fucking hoo.

Whether the writers intended to or not, Qrover was coded, and they queerbaited.

Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment[6] in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.[7] They do so to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them,[8] while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.[6][9]

They literally CANNOT do that by definition. There are same sex relationships AND characters to connect to. If you try promoting this vague and broad definition of queerbaiting-

Well, what’s to stop the Snowbird shippers from claiming they were straight baited with Winter and Qrow or Blake and Sun?

Do you REALLY want to cross that threshold?

P.S. ‘Coding’ effectively means ‘I see stereotypes’ so you’re kind of being a douchebag here.

Let’s also remember that Pyrrha’s entire existence literally revolved around Jaune and she was meant to die to further his development. Jaune x Pyrrha was literally made to develop Jaune and pretty much only Jaune, with the other characters’ reaction to her death being an afterthought.

*cough* Ruby has gotten more development from Pyrrha’s death than Jaune *cough* 

Then there was also that one Blang bag that cost like… $60.00. The writers are using these popular ships for merchandising usage and to try and reel in fans who are wlw or mlm with these ships.

Which is why they...don’t...show...up on...the...merch store...

Fun Fact: Dudeblade never shows the so called 60 dollar bag despite CLEARLY being able to screen shot images. So we’re expected to take his word for it despite not being honest in this very video.

They didn’t even have enough self-awareness to feel bad about it.

So how exactly are we supposed to trust them when they don’t realize what they did to the community?

He says as he ignores aspects of LGBT rep in RWBY, outright called a lesbian a psycho for daring to be an antagonist despite a much more unstable person to compare to and ignores the LGBT rep in other RT shows, including Camp Camp which has two heroic gay married men in the show.

Whether you ship Qrover or not, this was a massively dick move to pull. And these idiots have a lot of things to make up for it. If they choose to do it at all.

You know, that dick move you forced onto them.

And yet you doing worse (’Hey when is Miles gonna die so he can be replaced?’) deserves no making up?

Where were the guys who said that revealing that Pilot Boi was gay before offing him was a bad idea? Why did the writers not realize that this sort of stuff was going to come off as queerbaiting?

Probably because Eddy did it himself and didn’t know about this.

But really… Way to go RT. Your dumbass decision has now turned off members of the LGBT Community and caused some of them to cancel their subscriptions.

Hope that shock value was worth it.

Just like with Pyrrha, something you yourself even said before.

I fail to see how this is RT’s fault outside ‘you dared to exercise free will!’ considering that your logic would dictate changing the show the minute an LGBT ship becomes popular.

Even as you’ve spoken out against this kind of thing with Death Battle (accusations of sexism).

Way to go with the hypocrisy Dudeblade.

[spiftynifty]

Hey there! I’m the same anon that sent that confusion ask to jojo. I saw your reply and Read your post about LGBT in kids shows and how (at the time) it seemed probable for a m|m canon. I wanted to ask what your thoughts are now? I personally think it seems most likely that Keith will end in a het. Relationship (despite it seeming a little rushed and lm and jds saying they wouldn’t) Keith ending with no one when such a strong relationship with shiro was built up just doesn’t seem likely either..

To be honest, I was worried about Kacxa at first too. Many, many other hetero romances have started with less than that and seeing underdeveloped relationships just happen because “he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious” is something we are extremely accustomed to. Heck the show kind of plays right into this with Hunk/Shay.

But Keith is different, he is a far more developed and story-focused character than Hunk is, and thus if he’s to be given a romantic partner then it needs to match that flow and level of development. One of the “rules” that we often get in media is that “romance is a higher level on the relationship chart than friendship”. And at this point, and even after 13 more episodes, there’s just no context this show could offer me where I could honestly believe that Keith could regard Acxa with a similar level of affection to how he regards Shiro, let alone higher. This was the biggest reason I stopped worrying; to be blunt, Kacxa doesn’t make sense on a narrative or character level. Keith aside, Acxa deserves to have a story told that doesn’t involve her following dudes around.

Also, revisiting the show I’m quite convinced that Keith is canonically in love with Shiro, that his feelings for him were intended to be read as so many of us do. There’s a reason so many people in and outside the fandom have written about their relationship with optimism and curiosity about where the show is taking it. It’s there, even for those who have never been looking for it. I know a lot of straight guys who have picked up on it despite never realizing Korrasami was a thing. 

But we definitely do a lot of speculating here in the Sheith fandom and I’ve seen some pretty elaborate meta for scenes that didn’t particularly resonate as shippy for me. So stepping back, shipping goggles off, speaking as a viewer and as someone who works in animation, there are really… 3.5 sequences that give me pause, that are so heavily coded and so… interestingly storyboarded and animated that I find it increasingly impossible to believe the showrunners and directors never intended for their relationship to be read romantically. They are:

Because there is something inherently romantic about the slow zoom on their smiles before the slow drift of them towards each other, the castle forgotten

Because this is blatantly highlighting how beautiful Shiro is and Keith staring at him in awe before he closes his eyes for the last time, resigned to their joint fate

Because I have run all the permutations and scenarios in my mind and there is literally no reason for Keith to stop mid lean, with his eye direction shifting lower than Shiro’s eyeline. It would have been faster and way less work to show him just hugging him without the pause.

And then this is the 0.5:

Because while the canon tempers this moment with “you’re my brother”, I am beyond convinced that that line was added because the scene was too romantically coded without it. And if you don’t believe me, check out this edit someone made of what the scene sounds like without the brother line. It’s incredible. 

But will we SEE canon Sheith? that’s… a little more complicated. 

My post ages ago about LGBT in cartoons was pretty optimistic but where I failed was considering the differences in studios. Some companies are a lot more chill about LGBT content in their shows. But they also aren’t the Big Two: Disney and Dreamworks, whose records of LGBT characters are utterly abysmal. Here are the two they had prior to July 2018: LeFou from live action Beauty and the Beast, and Gobber from HTTYD2 in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line that was ad-libbed by the actor and left in. Arguments could also be made for the Sheriffs in Gravity Falls (that had to be Dumbledore’d after the fact by the show creator who alluded to there being a fight over it).

NOT great, especially when you consider Disney is not just Disney: none, NONE of the 19 Marvel movies feature an LGBT character, nor do ANY of the Star Wars movies. It’s utterly inexcusable. Shareholders in these companies make things more complicated because they help dictate the direction a company will take and if a large portion of their major shareholders are say, more conservative, we’re going to notice that there is one area on the diversity checklist that is repeatedly getting passed over. The bigger the company, the more complicated the relationship is with shareholders. That’s why it’s difficult to compare Korra’s achievement, through Nickelodeon, to the potential of an LGBT relationship on Dreamworks. We should absolutely hold them to the same standards regardless of company size but we can’t expect to get an endgame LGBT relationship just because Korra did, or because of the giant 20-gayteen celebration going on for two wlw ships at Cartoon Network.

But we also got THIS on Voltron.  

And it’s a start. I think it outlines pretty clearly where the limits are for Dreamworks at this time, especially since many casual viewers seemed to miss the romantic implications of Zethrid/Ezor, and a more alarming number somehow walked away from Adam/Shiro’s fight completely unaware they were a couple. Which honestly, was certainly Dreamworks’ goal. Keep it vague enough to fool the shareholders, but implicative enough to pat themselves on the back for their achievement. Even though it only exists because JDS and LM fought tooth and nail for it. But at the end of the day, we still have Shiro, Shiro our canonically gay rep, and that’s so huge. I don’t think people realize how huge that is, and I wish his coming out party hadn’t been so marred by toxic antis and even non-antis who decided to take a really big moment in cartoon history and make it all about themselves and their own pain over the “more” that they didn’t get. 

It’s incredible that we are getting LGBT in cartoons finally, properly. 2018 celebrated three massive historical achievement in kid’s animation: A strong, muscular, leader hero was revealed to be gay and have had a boyfriends, and two wlw couples kissed–one of them got married, onscreen. 

This is HUGE. Prior to 2018 the biggest LGBT cartoon moment we had was Korra and Asami four years ago. 

It was like for four years everyone fought and fought and fought and 2018 was the breaking point and we got this glorious explosion of LGBT romance as a result. Audience reception to these couples has been immensely supportive, which is something the companies are definitely noting if it’s translating into dollar signs. It’s something that makes me much more optimistic for the future of cartoons in years to come. 

But I’m just going to come out and say it: the road to mlm is just a little bit harder. There are a ton of reasons for this but I’d say the biggest two boil down to: classic, gendered homophobia (the white conservative straight dudes with money supporting the studios have an easier time with the idea of two women making out, cuz that’s “hot” than two men, cuz that’s “weird”), and also because it is easier for people to accept that two overly-touchy women are “just good friends” than it is for them to accept that two male characters doing the same thing are. Guys Don’t Get Affectionate With Each Other, after all, because that’s not the Masculine Way. Or something. Tons of people watched the end of Korra and assumed they were just friends. Replace those characters with Shiro and Keith and it raises eyebrows. 

So where does that leave Shiro and Keith? It’s really hard to say and at this point it’s anyone’s guess. I truly believe Sheith was intentionally coded as romantic, but getting the green light is another matter entirely. In addition to the DW shareholders, JDS/LM have to deal with the Voltron ones and since that would include conservative-minded folk along with some Japanese shareholders and Japan has complicated rules about LGBT content… it’s a hot mess. Realistically speaking if you were hoping to see Shiro and Keith kiss onscreen, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that there is a 0.0002% likelihood of it happening. I think the best outcome we can expect at this point is that they both end up single, with bonus points if they’re still alive and on the same planet by the series’ end. I firmly believe that this IS something the showrunners are and have fought for and will continue to fight for until the last retakes are done and the show has been approved and shipped off to Netflix for distribution. 

My tinhat theory is that there is one, single scene/shot, that is blatantly canon, that JDS/LM and KR animated on the sly, and have at the ready that they are totally prepared to replace another more platonic scene with– should DW give the go ahead. But I doubt that go-ahead will ever come. At the end of the day the shareholders are the rulemakers and unless they’re convinced it’s worth the financial gain, Sheith is forever bound to be the “will they won’t they” friends we have seen for the last 7 seasons. And I don’t think that potential financial gain of the kids’ animation world’s first mlm couple is big enough to convince them. But god do I ever hope I’m wrong. 

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Just wondering if you have thoughts on why klantis can't accept if their pairing does not become canon. I mean, even with other age-appropriate pairings like Allurance and Kallura, they can't seem to accept their existence. But the mere thought that their OTP may not happen in canon seems to be an almost existential fear for them, let alone a queer ship like Sheith. They'll all turn into pumpkins if klance isn't canon! Youth and ignorance of how fandom works, perhaps?

so this pressing need for Your Ship™ to be the Canon Ship™ isn’t a new or even unusual phenomenon … but I think it’s taking on a new fever-pitch in VLD fandom due to how social justice is misused these days.

factor 1: it could be canon

As long as I’ve been in fandom, I’ve spent most of that time shipping ships (if I shipped at all) pairings that had no chance of becoming canon: i.e. slash or femslash. 

there’s a weird security in that! If you’re shipping mlm/wlw in a show where they will never canonically date, much less be endgame, you don’t have to worry that they’ll have a bad breakup or - in general - much serious relationship drama. (most series that feature romance only have serious drama in the romantic relationships.) Their canon romantic pursuits make no difference because you already know your OTP was never going to be canon. and even if you could reach the creators with your feelings about a non-straight ship, slash/femslash fans were the Weird Ones back then; you didn’t talk about your ships with anyone but other transformative fandom members.

This is no longer the case. As LGBT+/queer people have gained more and more visibility, media representation has been more and more realistic to expect. Younger LGBT+/queer fandom members are especially ‘used’ to representation being a genuine possibility, and they consume media with that expectation in mind.  They even boldly inform the creators that they demand representation! (we’ve come a long way from the early 2000′s.)

factor 2: the meta of vld raises hopes higher

In the case of VLD, the creators have mentioned that they want to include queer representation. Of course that’s got a lot of us looking out for when it shows up. Also, some of the executive team staffed Korra - the animated show for teens that made the queer ship canon.

According to the executive directors of Korra, Korrasami confirmation was grafted onto the end of the series partially because of the fandom. Its popularity online seems to have been the spark that led to the final handholding scene. If that isn’t motivation enough to beg and plead and bang on the door of the vld staff in hopes they will fulfill every dream of non-straight shippers, what could be?

Making sure the staff knows that klance is the best engame, of course.

factor 3: fandom is an echo chamber filled with purity/‘social justice’ culture

without getting into it at length: a lot of factors have made tumblr a dangerously toxic environment where saying something that bullies don’t like is volunteering for public verbal slaughter and holding the party line is the best way to avoid trouble. and that party line is extreme and getting more extreme because the people who dictate the social rules of tumblr are the ones who are willing to punish anyone who steps out of line (ie bullies). this has turned tumblr into an echo chamber of people repeating whatever the loudest people say and dissenting voices are more likely to catch hell than get heard.

currently the ascendant fandom voices are ones that support purity culture - that is, content needs to be free of ‘bad’ or ‘corrupting’ content to be allowed to exist - especially because kids might see it and get corrupted. therefore, all ships need to be ‘pure’ to be allowed to exist.

The other ascendant voices are exclusionist voices. the more gay/lesbian a ship is, the better it is: in fact, it makes the ship even more pure. (all other kinds of queer representation matter less.)

this is how klantis came to exist: pro-klance antis who use purity/exclusionist standards to prove that klance is the most pure ship of all - and therefore is the one most allowed to exist. everything that competes with it is problematic or not as good representation somehow.

why does this matter? because vld is a kid’s show! if klance is the most pure and the most LGBT, that means it’s the one that has to be endgame.

and they have to prove this because vld fandom is neck deep in a ship war (that klance would lose based on traditional standards. adds that extra spicy desperation flavor.)

factor 4: there can only be one

klance fans who demand klance be canon endgame are not all that different from the average ship war soldier.

the most epic ship wars are almost always sparked by one thing: sharing a popular character. Harmony vs Harry/Ginny, Zutara vs Kataang, Wincest vs Destiel, MaKorra vs Korrasami - they all have one character caught between two ships with so many fans that a few of them on both sides were bound to be pants-on-fire wankers that can’t stand people having different opinions than them and existing. sheith vs klance is the same old song (or would be if social justice wasn’t the most popular bludgeon of choice, as noted above.)

the traditional weapon of ship wars has been ‘being more canon’, so most warring is done by close canon analysis, scrutinizing the words of the creators for hints of how it ends, etc. This unto itself isn’t ship warring, but it quickly gets personal for the pants-on-fire wanker types: they accuse fans of the ‘wrong’ ship of all sorts of horrible things … even in the old days these wars could get hideous. (VLD fandom is giving the HP fandom a run for its money in terms of Real Life Consequences for ship warring, but HP was pretty intense.)

Where both ships have the possibility of being canon endgame, the ship that is chosen by the creator to be the Happily Ever After ‘wins’. and because these ships share a character, only one pairing can ‘win’ (poly isn’t a likely canon endgame for a while yet, I’m afraid). and the overwhelming intensity of ship wars can often make the participants forget that any third endgame option exists.

–

so adding up the above factors, a lot of klance fans are experiencing a range of pressures:

queer/LGBT+ representation has been hinted at by the creators & is a realistic possibility in today’s political climate

some of the creative team has a history of making ships endgame in response to fannish support

they feel that klance is the best queer representation the series could provide because it’s ‘pure’ and also very clearly mlm rep

other non-straight/otherwise progressive ships threaten klance’s position as the only ship that can be the rep the creators hinted at, and they don’t want to ‘lose’

all of this together, I think, makes some klance shippers particularly urgent that klance be the series engame - in a way that might have been less intense a decade ago.

(and honestly the fact that they feel they can influence the ending by being loud enough is the worst part. I’m worried they’ll blame themselves if klance isn’t the ending romance, or feel that the creators ended with something else only to spite them.)

[thatsjustsupergirl]

ur post about fic & racism in the supergirl fandom really got me thinking (especially about my own biases so thank you) but also like, how there’s this incredibly pervasive but subtle new form of racism I haven’t seen b4 in other fandoms? Like on one hand u have this loud condemnation of how racist monel is & how he was a slave owner blabh blah but no corresponding attention given to the existing Black characters. 1/4

I get wlw not wanting to write m/f fic but a lot of the fandom doesn’t reblog (or make) any of the gifsets, they don’t meta for him they don’t call for more screen time for Mehcad. Same for M’gann. SO many posts talking about how awful monel is compare him to Lena and strangely don’t mention the Black female character who also came from an oppressive society to become a hero? And there are like, idk, 4 people? Who write or post wlw fic with M’gann in it? 2/4

Same with Maggie. A huge segment of fandom decided Floriana is white (even tho hollywood clearly won’t cast her in roles for white women) so they use that as an excuse to exclusively stan the very light skinned white wlw. And the way it carries over to the characters, like, okay Flo is white? but Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character while overtly supporting lighter skinned characters ¾

And that same part of the fandom doesn’t ever seem to create content for Lucy or Vasquez either. IDK this isn’t something u can probably explore with stats but ur post really got me thinking and it just feels really gross now bc I see all these posts condemning racism but there’s still this extreme perpetuation of privileging white characters at the same time? & I haven’t seen this particular trend in fandom b4 4/4

Oh, anon, this made my day. I have a bunch of notes waiting in a doc to address the whole Mon-El thing with regard to the racist undertones and the rhetoric used by the show to frame his storyline, and I will do my best to write it before the season comes back again, because I genuinely think they tried to aim high and just … missed completely. (But I make no promises because my thesis defense is on Tuesday.)

To your first point re: fandom attitudes – I was surprised in the early half of S2 when so many people came out of the woodwork making posts in the main tag like “wait, why did they get rid of Kara/James??” because, oh right, nobody acted like they cared for almost twelve straight months. If y’all were so okay with this ship, where were you to acknowledge its social significance when it was canon? Where are you now? Why hasn’t there been an outpouring of tweets week after week at the execs and the writers for sidelining an interracial couple in favor of what we’re getting, especially since the storyline literally handwaved away human trafficking and slavery as minor plot points?

Not only that, when there’s unrealized potential for a non-canon ship there is typically an outpouring of fic in response, and while there’s been a statistically significant amount of new Karolsen fic in S2 because it’s pretty easy to top zero percent, the writing there is not keeping pace with any of the other dude-involved pairings. 

And you’re right, anon: it is not possible to prove anything with stats. HOWEVER, thanks to the addition of these new characters for S2, I *am* at the point now where it’s possible to see correlation between character race and fan engagement with different pairing choices. And the bias is there, whether it’s in the het pairings, the femslash, or even the m/m pairings. The whole reason I started tracking fic outputs in the first place was that any attempt to have this conversation last year devolved into yelling and finger-pointing because “you have no proof!” that racial bias is a thing. Except, yanno, all the POC who live with it daily saying that it’s a thing. Well, congratulations y’all: your choices leave digital footprints behind that are pretty easy to follow and chart for everyone to see.

This isn’t actually a new problem, by the way – racism and preferencing of white pairing happens a lot, in almost every fandom. The only difference maybe is that I’ve experimented with quantifying it, which is not something that people usually do when they study fandoms or fan behavior.

It pains me to no end that M’gann has been so overlooked, because her story has just as many dark character beats to it as Lena’s, if not more, plus the added bonus of her sharing a sense of “otherness” with Kara in a way that few other people can. And there is no way the disinterest in that pairing isn’t about race, because there are a whole bunch of ships from S1 between white women who’d never even met each other in canon that have more romantic fics than M’gann/anyone.

And the nonsense about Floriana, which I’ll remind everyone again was started by a white girl, had a demonstrable chilling effect on interest in Sanvers as a pairing. Like. I can actually show that on paper. And you’re absolutely right with what you said above, which bears repeating: Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character.

There’s also a treatment of Floriana herself that reminds me uncomfortably of how people went out of their way to demonize Naya Rivera’s personal life whenever she reminded the world she was black instead of just “very tan.” And a lot of the rhetoric people are using to talk about Floriana’s racial heritage is almost verbatim the same as what you’ll find on white supremacist discussion boards about Italian people. I’d love to think this is an accident, but I’ve made some people pretty angry for pointing this out in the past, so I suspect it’s at least partially deliberate.

Lucy was another case that drove me insane, for two reasons:

The vast majority of femslash fans flat-out ignored her as a romantic choice even though there were a whole lot of good reasons to ship her with either Kara or Alex, and a whole lot less negative reasons not to. (And it’s not like Supercat was already dominating the scene before Lucy’s character was introduced. That ship only became popular after the movie Carol came out during the winter hiatus of S1.)

People had the same fight last year about whether or not Lucy counted as a WOC and ultimately insisted that the answer was no. But then people kept on ignoring her anyway like somehow dubiously legal boss/employee relationships, potential treason, and incest were more logical bases for attraction.

Also, to the people who have been like “oh yay we could’ve had Dichen as Maggie, a real WOC” like somehow this would have made the fandom love her more – you’re full of shit. If you mean that, why has there been so little fic about Dichen as Roulette? Like, last year there were a whole bunch of shipfics featuring Livewire. There was Kara/Siobhan. And yet … no dark scenarios of Supergirl/Roulette? No Alex ones? There were even a bucketload of those for each Danvers sister + Max Lord, and this fandom isn’t even that into dudes. You’re telling me no one is interested in this kind of hero/villain dynamic with the Asian chick and somehow that’s not also about race?

tl;dr I suspect that a decent chunk of this problem is the result of subconscious bias, but some of it’s not. And what’s really sad about it is that, for all the talk on Tumblr about representation being important, we’re really doing no better as media producers than Hollywood when it comes to race. If anything, we might actually be doing worse.

[thesapphicagenda]

preface: during this thing I use queer as an umbrella term for the broader LGBT community and wlw (woman loving woman) when specifying a subsection of woman aligned people who are attracted to other women which can encompass lesbian, bisexual, pansexual identities as well as woman aligned people on the aromantic spectrum and asexual spectrum who experience same gender attraction of some measure.

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is a sci-fi webcomic (2016-2017) set an unknown but far way into the future where the galaxy has been colonized by people. Mia, a young woman, starts on a new job with a crew of four construction workers who travel into the long forgotten reaches of space and restore old buildings. Through this the reader learns about the crew and follows the present day actions. Simultaneously Mia’s story of growing up is told, as she goes to boarding school and meets Grace, a girl whose family controls part of the most dangerous places in space, the Staircase. Through these two parallel stories you see Mia and Grace’s relationship develop in the past, while in the present Mia struggles to find Grace on Staircase again.

On a Sunbeam is told in two parts. These two threads are interwoven and eventually come together with Mia going to Staircase and finding Grace. The parallels in these two opposing story lines speak to greater critical ideas that exist within queer theory. Although Walden has created a universe where every single person (with the exception of Elliot) identifies as a woman and every known romantic relationship is with another woman, the before and after aspect of queer identity is still present. This way of presenting narrative and the narrative arc itself strays from traditional storytelling, two stories existing, two separate identities the reader gets to know, both existing in tandem. The entire comic ends with Mia’s reconciliation of identities, with finding Grace and looking for some resolution to that chapter of her life. This is a common theme among coded queer fiction, the split identity or the journey from one world to another. When one examines sci-fi fantasy through a queer theory lens this is one of the ways queer themes can exist. 

In science fiction the idea of Other is key. In cases involving alien races or new customs, or even futuristic technologies, when creating a fictional Other, that will be rooted in our cultures concept of Other. In this case unlike a lot of science fiction there is no masquerading an unknown entity as an Other, but this concept is now given to us, the reader to process what is like, and unlike our culture now, which is what defines science fiction essentially.

One interesting feature of On a Sunbeam is the fact that it is specifically not diverse. Every character in this webcomic (again barring Elliot who is gender neutral) is assumed to be a woman, and every discussed romantic relationship is gay. This brings in the idea of the reader creating the science fiction, and creating the Other, reconciling differences between our world and the fictional world. 

On A Sunbeam is pointedly not inclusive in respects to sexuality and for a reason. Walden’s comic speaks of separatism and the specific catering to a wlw (woman loving woman) audience, a lesbian only piece of media leads to the lesbian Separatist movement that emerged in the 70s, where the idea was to be self-sufficient and independent from a patriarchal society. Lesbian only spaces are a form of resistance against the heterosexual institution.

Through this Walden points out the heteronormativity of media where queerness has to conform to an idea of reality. When consuming media it’s not a surprise to have an all straight cast of characters, it’s not questioned at all. Opposed to when the majority (or even a portion) of the characters are queer it is immediately noticed and the rules of “reality” are applied, whether having that many queer characters is realistic, especially in a narrative that is not a typical gay narrative. It is rare to find media where every character is queer opposed to finding a mass amount of media where every single character is straight. Side note if I have to hear that the diversity of a piece of media is just trying to reflect the world's demographic then clearly I’m missing the statistic that said that most of the world is white, everyone is gorgeous, and vampires and werewolves are better represented than trans people. GLAAD’s 2016 report of LGBTQ representation sits at 4.8% of characters on primetime television which is 43 characters out of 897. So my point here is that we can have this enormous mass of straight characters and not question it which is a direct result of heteronormativity. Only having wlw characters is a direct challenge of the heteronormative structure of the media we consume, and by doing this Walden asks readers to acknowledge this, the immediate discomfort with the unexplained fact that every single known character in her comic is a wlw and consider it rationally. 

Why are queer identities a feature of science fiction? Why is one of the things that is striking not the fact that there are space ships that are giant robotic fish, or that there is a place called The goddamn Staircase which has glowing giant fox beasts in it.  Where does the true other lay? Not in the world we live in entirely, but where we see ourselves fit in. Ain’t that poignant enough for y’all. 

Last point my man. The theme of family and community is prevalent in queer media too because so much of queer identity (or at least what media leads us to believe) is about acceptance. Acceptance into the community around (be it the general community or the LGBT one), acceptance into ones family, or acceptance into the greater world. Found family comes into play in many queer stories in opposition to biological family, “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” maybe?

The dynamic between Mia and the team on the ship and Grace and her family demonstrates this concept pretty accurately. This plays into the idea of building a community which can be more supportive and healthy than the community one is born into. This is really part of the queer identity because unlike some other intersecting identities as a queer individual you aren’t typically born into a queer community, you go and seek out one, or build one yourself. Part of being queer is trying to find other people who are queer and building a network of individuals who aren’t necessarily blood related but feel like family. This also can be coupled with the rejection of the patriarchal structure of the nuclear family, which plays directly into queer identity, which is inherently aberrant and maladjusted to fit into the heteronormative idea of it. The whole story, of two wlw girls who meet when they are separated from their families, in an institution which they both don’t fit into and get into trouble because they can’t conform and find companionship because of their isolation and dissatisfaction speaks to the reality of living as a queer woman.

Anyways that’s my analysis! On a Sunbeam is written by Tillie Walden who is is super bomb and very great for letting me use these images