#fandom amatanormativity

[rjalker]

Still not over the fact that Fandom™ is so fucking obsssed with shipping that the Nope (2022) fandom decided to ship OJ with a literal gods damned animal.

And then they got pissy when they started getting criticized for this because people were "ruining their fun" of shipping a Black man with a literal animal instead of engaging with any of the themes of the movie.

[walterthemelon]

I think that some of y'all need to realize that your ship does not have to be cannon. In fact it is in fact more fun for it to not be cannon. It is not wise for one to spend all their time going SEE THIS SHOWS THAT THEY WERE HINTING THAT MY SHIP IS ACTUALLY CANNON AND NOT YOURS. Enjoy shipping but don't do conspiracies SVP

[chickenleafs-world]

Was tempted to put this on the last post ranting about dating sims, but those were more general and these are more specific to me.

I hate how many visual novels/relationship games have sex/implied sex/kissing/accepting a confession integral to the good end, even when romantic love isn’t integral to the plot. It opens it up to the people only interested in one/a few/no love interests. As an Aro/Ace, I sometimes want a story driven game/visual novel focused on building relationships and character study *without* having to use the “make an oc and rp your ass off” method. As much as I don’t want queer routes to be relegated to implication/friendship, I also don’t want all het routes to be locked behind romance. Playing romance games for the plot gets really tiring after the billionth time pretending you want to kiss the love interest so you can see the end of their arc.

It sucks that alloromantics (and to a lesser extent, allosexuals) have the monopoly on intimate stories. Even saying I’m aromantic but a fan of any number of otome franchises makes people doubt either my status as a fan or (more commonly) my status as aromantic. I try not to mention it because it’s awkward to explain how in the world a romance game is appealing to an aromantic. It’s become a meme when people say they’re playing a romance game “for the plot” but some of us genuinely are. I wish I could just say “these are for another target demographic” and play something else, but there aren’t really many games with the same appeals but no romance.

I know some people are gonna think “why are you complaining that dating sims have dating” but that isn’t the issue I’m having here. Asking devs to just make games marketed solely at Aros is obviously unrealistic, we’re a tiny market that won’t even all be interested. But is it always that hard to give a little bit of optional changed dialogue that lets us have the same experience minus the romance? Again, romance has an unfair monopoly on stories and games about intimacy and relationships. I have to complain about dating sims because dating sims are the closest thing to the genre I want to play. It isn’t fair (and is indeed quite limiting to the art form) to insist that aromantic people aren’t allowed to want representation in the media we consume just because there’s no precedent for representation.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

not to complain about ultimately negligible things that probably no one else even knows have discourse around them but like. duo name haters kinda suck and I'm so petty about that. they have terrible arguments and no joy or whimsy tbh (and I think some of them genuinely just don't see the value platonic relationships /extra-petty)

"It's not creative enough! they're all so boring!" it's literally seeking out a narratively or aesthetically compelling element of their bond or relationship arch together that can serve to represent them in a cute or satisfying way, in what world is that less creative that taking half of each's name and smashing them together?? (sure some of them are genuinely just reaching at straws, but that doesn't means they all suck, and as long as they still function it's fiiiine. just make up your own if you hate one too much, see if it catches on)

"It's not recognizable enough! You don't know who it's about unless you're in the community already!" as if redscape, redwood, shadowrot, treebark, moonrot, peskyrot, and any cobbled together combo of random looking letters and syllables in standard ship names don't have that issue. (The names for these things are more for the fans to be able form a community around and tag anyways, not everyone needs to immediately know them all)

Not even to get into the fact that having a tag specifically for the platonic dynamics is a life saver when you just want to see platonic content at at the moment / for that group (/sincere). Sometimes my aroace self gets really fed up with the sex and romance everywhere and if the platonic tags didn't exist I would've become a bitter and resentful dragon and eaten y'all years ago (/silly). As is, with the platonic duo tags existing, we can coexist peacefully and it's great! (/sincere)!

[battlecriesandroses]

none of y'all are ready for this conversation

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

The problem with amatanormativity is that even though it's RAMPANT in Fandom spaces, none of you know enough to even be able to recognize it, much less address it at all.

[darkandstormydolls]

I’m going to be honest, sometimes being on the DBDA fandom is hard for me as an aroace

Now, most of my experience in fan spaces has been with American Girl, and since the doll characters are all preteens, we really don’t have shipping and things. So I really wasn’t ready for what I stepped into getting into DBDA stuff on Tumblr

Thing is, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, ships Edwin and Charles. And now, not finding anyone agreeing with my ace Edwin headcanon was annoying, but that’s fine. But the entire fandom agreeing that of course the two of them must be in love? That’s hard for me

I mean, Charles has literally said that he doesn’t think he likes Edwin romantically, but he’s still the most important person in the world to him. And I love that. I thought that they were a perfect example of a QPR, and that’s really rare. I’ve only ever seen I think two other QPRs represented in fiction, and those were both in books (If It Makes You Happy and Not Even Bones). So for me, it was really important to see characters in a show that’s so wonderful in so many other ways represent this kind of relationship.

So it’s really, really hard for me sometimes, to see everyone else saying that of course they must be in a romantic relationship. For me, it can be really invalidating. Lots of aspec people struggle with feeling like they’re missing out because of allo- and amatanormative society making us feel lesser for not feeling the kinds of things that our society prizes above all else. And then, when you think you finally have found a piece of media that represents the kind of relationships that you can have, it’s wonderful and really validating.

And then you realize that everyone else in the world thinks that of course it must be a romantic bond. Of course Charles is in love with Edwin and doesn’t realize it.

But maybe he isn’t. The fact that Charles always looks for Edwin in a room, smiles whenever he sees him, says he’s follow him to the ends of the earth? That’s not explicitly romantic. And I see posts gushing about “oh my goodness look at the way that they look at one another” and… I look at my queerplatonic partner that way sometimes. I love them deeply. My mood lifts every time I see them. And we’re not romantically linked. Because we have a different relationship, one that’s just as deep and meaningful as a romantic one can be

And I’m not trying to tell anyone that they can’t ship who they want to. I’m just saying that it can be hard to see a beautiful relationship of a queerplatonic couple be only ever interpreted as romantic

[poibynt]

Not to stir shit but. Yes, romantic relationships are prioritised in fandom. Yes, this is is part of amatonormativity. Yes, a-spec coding is often ignored for the sake of romantic parings. BUT I think people, especially a-spec people, need to watch it a bit when they talk about this stuff bc recently I’ve been seeing more and more takes edging towards “non romantic relationships or media that does not have romantic parings as a focus or “encourage” shipping is inherently better” which starts so slide into “romantic relationships bad and gross & all shipping nasty” which can get a bit homophobicy.

I know that a lot of us are a bit fed up but I’m begging y’all to understand that a-specs just like everyone else in the queer community are not immune to falling into anti-queer mindsets or being queerphobic against other identities within the queer community and that online fandom spaces are deeply queer spaces with a long history of shipping as a way to safely engage with queer experiences when you can’t do it openly or IRL. To degrade shipping bc it’s gross and frame all of it (which is very very often queer pairings) as downgrades from pure and untainted nonsexual nonromantic relationships is kinda fucking questionable!

These spaces need positive & healthy relationships to sex and romance because queer people and society at large needs those things and yes that includes acceptance and respect for a-specs and a deconstruction of amatanormativity & allonormativity but it ALSO includes a-specs managing their own online experiences so they can engage with sex and romance as much or as little as they want & respecting and understanding the allo queer community. Want more non shipping centered fandom experience? Well friend you are on the curate your own experience website! Make what you want to see, manage who you follow and what tags you have blocked. There’s nothing wrong with discussing amatanormativity and allonormativity in fandom spaces. I think it’s important. But please, you are not immune to the propaganda. None of us are. Try not to swing too hard in the other direction bc nothing good will come of it.

[coffee-at-annies]

🥰 🤠 💗 for the ask game!!

Fic Reading Ask Game // Open

🥰 what tropes do you gravitate toward?

I tend to gravitate to ship tropes first because in fanfic it tends to be short hand for the plot. Like the plot is mutual pining with a side of slow burn and a falls first b falls harder and then at the end they kiss. There might be a grand arranged marriage regency romance or an enemies to lovers space au around that but at its core the relationship and the romance is driving the plot. AUs are worldbuilding set dressing (which I love) but they inform the story they don’t effect the story. So it’s a balancing act for which I’m more excited about. There was a while where I was reading through the idiots to lovers tag because man that’s what I wanted, two people that are just stupid for each other. I’ve also done dives into the non-traditional omegaverse tags, always a different sex, alternate universe - magic, etc etc. I probably do gravitate most towards aus as a high level and then decide based on what the ship is doing cause that’s the plot being pitched to me. I love spec fic. I think it’s so fun. I know omegaverse is a bunch of junk science. I know cisswap gets a bad rap as being transphobic. I know *gestures at hp aus* but like they’re fun. It’s all fun. “What if we took these characters and moved them to the left, what then?” is so so interesting to me. I love when people lay out a premise and then meaningfully think about it. However the shit has to be interesting. I have to care about the ship and what they’re doing. If they’re perfect little robots the entire time, that’s not interesting. It’s a balancing act.

🤠 favorite au genre?

I love AUs. If it’s weird and left of center gimme all of it. I’ve always love a near-canon au which is everything is the same except this one thing. Maybe that one thing is magic, maybe that one thing is Sid is a girl, maybe that one thing is vampires, I don’t care I love alternate universe - this specific change. At the same time I love genre aus. I love these are the boys but they’re in space. I love we’re in a magic urban fantasy town and Sidney is a witch and Geno is new in town. It really really depends. I go through phases with fandoms where I find a niche au and then read everything in it. For example one of my favorite niche aus in dc comics/batfam is reverse robins!aus. Its so edgy and dumb and there’s a lot of delicious angst thrown my favorite character’s way because you get the Tim+Damian hate relationship but flipped to mirror the original Dick+Jason relationship and then you get to give Tim all the angst Jason has of dying and coming back different. Delicious and delightful. For hockey probably my favorite AU is goalie nesting. I fucking love nesting man. I’m hit or miss sometimes on omegaverse but this is technically separate and so so delightful. Bury that goalie in a pile of blankets, sweaty disgusting game worn jerseys, and whichever teammate you think looks hottest on top of him and call it hurt/comfort. Yum.

💗 a fic you’ve reread again and again and why!

Okay so actually I forgot one of my favorite aus is soulmates since I haven’t been in the mood recently. Yeah yeah I know I’m a bad aroace person cause soulmates are inherently amatanormative and reinforce heteronormativity and compulsory sexuality and the idea that it is normative to want to be in a romantic relationship and all that jazz. I just like it. I like the idea of what if two people were puzzle pieces who fit together perfectly. Then also what if they fit together and it wasn’t perfect and they have to work at it anyway because relationships take work. Anyway this is a preface for one of my favorite hrpf fics that I go back to when craving that feeling of home with the old team. It’s SidFlower platonic soulmates, SidGeno romantic relationship set during the 2016 season. It’s so delightful and homey. It’s one of the fics I keep coming back to whenever I want to recapture what I love about hrpf.

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

I'm aro and amatanormativity is bad but fandoms going 'there is no heterosexual explanation for this' is so not an issue. yeah fanon is annoying but most of the time i see this joke it's specifically in shonen fandoms and like. The thing about shonen is that it doesn't prioritize platonic relationships, it prioritizes male relationships. And if male characters exclusively have shallow relationships with women and meaningful ones with men it makes you go 'why is this man ONLY passionate about men' and an obvious reason is 'gay'

Write a gendered difference, get a gendered answer

[rjalker]

"it's possible to ship aroace characters who explicitly do not want any kind of relationship of any kind, including queerplatonic, who hate sex and hate romance and hate being touched! It's possible to ship these characters and still be respectful--"

No, it quite fucking literally is not!

If you ship this character sexually, you're erasing its asexuality!

If you ship it romantically, you're erasing its aromanticism!

If you ship it queerplatonically, you're erasing its nonplatonicity!

If you ship it sensually, you're erasing its touch aversion!

There is literally no fucking way to ship a character like Murderbot who explicitly does not want to be in any kind of relationship and hates being touched without being a bigot!

Murderbot represents real living people that you are erasing and speaking over!

You would all be flipping your shit if Murderbot were any other Queer identity besides nonbinary and aroace and people were erasing that, but because it's aroace and nonbinary and uses the Icky™ Gross™ pronouns (that you think only fictional characters use) you think that means erasing this single shred of respectful representation is magically okay now.

Literally all you have to do to not be a bigot is not be horny and weird about one (1) fictional character that canonically explicitly would hate the shit you're all writing and drawing about it.

But no, you'd all rather be bigots and erase everything that makes Murderbot who it is because it's not palatable and Relatable™ enough for you. You people are so fucking weak. You literally cannot stand to see one (1) fictional character that's different from you without immediately leaping to erase every thing about it that lets it represent real marginalized people.

[theguardianace]

the pjsekai fandom would be greatly improved if people would learn of the concept of amatanormativity and the fact sometimes people can love one another deeply without being romantic in nature and without invalidating the love they feel towards another

[exilley]

I hate that post that went like "people who say gay ships are too pervasive in fandom don't have a grasp on reality and lost sight of the way oppression operates in society" when really critiques about fandom's obsession with romantic queer shipping seems to be directly tied to an inability to view non-romantic (or even non-sexual) bonds as having the potential to be queer at all. It's not homophobic to discuss potential amatanormativity and i think it's very telling when you project your own limited notions of the complexity of the world onto expressions of lived insight that would contradict or challenge your worldview

[oldscratch-thebigd]

hey can you people start listening to aromantic people when we say that there's an issue with amatanormativity and the erasure of aromantic people in fandoms. thanks

[deastrumquodvicis]

fandom: HEY HERE IS A SHIP YOU'LL LIKE! I KNOW, BECAUSE IT'S A VERY POPULAR SHIP! WATCH THESE CHARACTERS MAKE BEDROOM EYES AND STAND TOO CLOSE, THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY DOIN IT me: that's very amatanormative and it so happens that I do not in fact ship that ship for a number of reas-- fandom: THEY SHOULD FUCK! THEY SHOULD SHOW IT TO US! THEY'RE DEFINITELY FUCKINGGGGGGGGGGG RAW AND SLOPPY AND HERE'S PROOF me: no that's just people being friends and weird directing choi-- fandom: THEY'RE FUCKING!

[rjalker]

Reposting for 2024. Originally made in 2023. But bigots keep being bigots.

Allos in this year, 2024, still don’t see aspec orientations as genuine orientations. They see it as an empty space where the orientation is inexplicably missing, so they see a character who is cannonically aroace and viscerally repulsed by all forms of relationships and touch, and think that, because this is a “lack of orientation” rather than an orientation directed at, explicitly, no one, they think it’s perfectly fine and not bigoted at all for them to shove their orientations onto the explicitly Queer character, erasing the aroace representation in favor of turning it into another Cis Gay Man who uses he/him…even though the character is literally nonbinary, and uses it/its pronouns.

Because they also see being nonbinary as a “fill in the missing parts” puzzle. They think the character describing its gender as “not applicable” and “indeterminate” means that, really, it’s a guy! it’s a man! Because it’s funny and relatable and only Men��� are relatable! Only Male Characters™ can be  funny and well-written!

In 2024!

Fully grown adults are fucking pulling this shit in 2024 and think they’re the perfect Queer Allies™, and like this isn't the world's most basic misogyny to top off the exorsexism and transmisia. You people are so proud to admit that you think women can't be funny. And think nothing of it. Do you have any idea how bad you look doing this shit, even if you ignore the fact that you're shitting on nonbinary people?

You people don’t see aroace or nonbinary people as actually existing, and actually having meaningful identities. You think we’re walking fucking ad-libs and you can fill in the “blanks” with whatever’s most palatable to your tastes. 

And that means misgendering the canonnically nonbinary character who uses it/its pronouns, erasing literally every single aspect of its identity that gets in the way of shipping it (removing its aceness, its aroness, or just straight up pretending it’s not aroace to begin with, and erasing its solitaremit touch averseion and disgust towards sex and intimacy of any kind), and then pretending their actions are completely harmless when they’re called out for it.

Because according to them, it’s not bigotry if the canon Queer identities they’re erasing are the ones they think don’t exist in the first place. Being aroace isn’t an orientation for them, it just means you’re broken and need to be fixed. Being nonbinary and using it/its with them isn’t a real gender identity and presentation, it means they’re something wrong with you and you need to be fixed. Being touch averse isn’t a real disability, it just means there’s something wrong with you, and you need to be fixed.

They don’t fucking see Murderbot as representation for real Queer disabled trans people. They see it as something broken that needs to be fixed, by taking away everything that makes it who it is, so that they can fill in all the now gaping wounds with their own much less stigmatized identities instead.

Even though the literal entire theme of The Murderbot Diaries is that you should treat people with respect even if you don’t understand their experiences.