#hating on reylo does not make you popular

[beatrixacs]

Why the fuck do I keep getting an anti-ship tag in ‘For You’ section that specifically targets MY favourite ship? So I could see people hating on it? I see that the ‘For You’ section on Tumblr is actually getting worse than ‘For You’ section on Twitter that no one asked for. Ugh.

The ‘For You’ section should reflect the tags of the posts I reblog, post or like. Instead, I am getting pile of shit I am barely interested in.

[thrilling-oneway]

I’m here there the all time top 100 ships AO3 (you can search the user in ao3 that made this list centreoftheselights if you want to see more data, it is really interesting the user the writer has been writing this this type list since 2013 for fandom studies)

Follow up to this

this list hurts my brain for a multitude of reasons but at least i saw spots 1-3 coming from a mile away so the impact was minimal until we got to terf wizards in 4th. wincest in 15th i want to burn things people disgust me. reylo in 21st makes me want to throw rocks at people i hated reylo with a passion from TLJ onwards and it's been 6 years and i still hate it. it's just the whole emo boy x good girl with an attitude i hate how everyone waters it down to that and the whole dynamic is weird as fuck anyway like that fucker fully murdered his father/her mentor in front of her eyes and then they fought and i'm meant to view that as sexual tension? it gets worse in VIII and i know that movie is shit anyway but like the whole thing was engineered by guy who amounted to nothing and then they battled together and wow there's the romantic tension but then it's still toxic and then they fight each other and destroy anakin's lightsaber and that pisses me off that lightsaber deserved better and then the third movie at least wrote the relationship better but like what happened to it being horribly toxic why does it actually function now? what's going on? i hate it why are they kissing now?? wait why does she get the skywalker name so like she's the next skywalker is this like a she kissed ben so now she's in the lineage because he's leia's son or did she just get adopted in if so that's kinda weird what's leia's thoughts on this i know she was into bad boys but like at least her and han's relationship was i dunno actually fucking good. did you know there's published reylo fanfiction like the harry styles and twilight ones? Why is this ship so fucking popular???? I know i have terrible taste in everything but the only things i personally think deserve to actually be on here are lumity, catradora and also spirk because they're the fathers of modern fanfiction. where is narumitsu.

[dramionediscussion]

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you. Also, I had to block some titles and names from this post since we don't allow hate towards specific people and their work, we can discuss things in general about fics, but calling out names and specifying why you don't like a person's work is not allowed.

Here is the thing, art is subjective. Just because you do not like a thing, doesn't mean others feel the same. You cannot understand how people like these very popular stories? Well, those people can't understand how you cannot like them.

Not every story needs to be well written, or has character development, is plot-driven etc. A story can be simple, basic characters, easy plot, no drama etc. There are indeed so many great fics out there, and yes some of them are better than others, some have better world-building, and you wonder why hasn't this blown up? But just because they haven't gotten as much attention as others, doesn't mean the popular fics are bad.

I am one of those people who suggest you read the classics when you enter the fandom. The Dramione fandom started in the early 2000s, but mid 00 to late 00, there was an explosion of fanfiction and for a lot of us still here after all these years, these are the fics that pulled us in. Those are the fics that we first read, and that we have nostalgia for. Those are the ones we have read a few times. So when new people come and ask for recs, we tell them read those. Read those earlier stories to get an idea of how the fandom evolved. Read the most popular fics so you can get a feel of the fandom. Those stories were the ones that created some of the fandom's headcanons, those are the ones that later authors ended up taking inspiration from. Were they the best-written ones? No. Did they have a of spelling and grammatical errors? Yes. Was it incredible OOC at times? Of course. But they still shaped the Dramione community.

Onto your next point, you shouldn't get angry at fanfiction authors trying to rewrite their work to remove the HP references from their novels. You should be angry at the publishing houses for making them rewrite fanfiction instead of an original story. So many authors are getting book deals based on their fanfiction and the publishing houses want that, not original ideas, they want a novelization of the already popular fanfic. That fanfic has a built-in audience who will pay for the new version, and the publishing industry knows this.

A lot of people in general have some negative thoughts on fanfiction, so when they hear that a book was written by someone who wrote fanfiction, or that this new novel was once fanfic, they get turned off. The new Anne Hathaway movie is said to be based on fanfiction, the author said it is not, but she does take inspiration from modern celebrities. But people didn't listen to the author and listened to what the internet had to say and joked about the movie before it came out. (After it came out people really liked it and no one is mentioning the fanfiction thing anymore).

A good author can take a story based in another world and rework it. Having not read those Dramione authors turned novelists' work before, I cannot judge whether they accomplished that or not. And I rather read it myself than listen to Goodreads reviewers. (I use Goodreads a lot, but many times find myself disagreeing with the most liked reviews.)

Also I actually read a very popular published romance book that was once a Reylo fanfic, and I didn't know it was fanfic nor do I know anything about that fandom, but I still loved it.

Your last point about authors getting a lot of praise and not enough criticism. I kinda agree to a point. They have the ability to block or delete negative comments. There has been an instance where someone left a comment that was perceived as negative and the author complained about it publically and the fans went to harass the commenter! That is horrible. But I don't think it is because everyone is "sensitive now", there are loads of people who ask for criticism, they welcome it. Just because you have noticed a handful of people acting this way, doesn't mean everyone is the same.

And again if they "publish actual novels that in reality have flat characters, chaotic development of events and in general are objectively bad", blame the publishing industry who allow this to happen so they can put out stuff quicker and make money faster. Because for them and many other industries, that's all that matters, money, not quality.

-Lisa

[mermaidsirennikita]

From what I gathered, it's because she was praised by BookTok, and she's a Reylo shipper and her book was a Reylo fanfiction in the beginning.

People are just very sensitive about these two things.

Oh yeah lol, alllll that--but I think the extra level of criticism towards Ali got super personal, and because her books are so popular, the criticism really got picked up by people who have NO idea how writing and publishing works. Which made it so much worse.

I think you're absolutely right that Ali's books being popular on BookTok was a big part of it--and this is a combo of luck and her publisher, Berkley, being very good at marketing (.... for the authors they prioritize, and it makes sense that Ali was one as she had a preexisting following). So it's a combo of the book taking off and her having a preset great marketing hook for a publisher that seems to know its shit when it comes to marketing. She makes it easier for them, but Berkley is also good at marketing people who would typically be harder to market (Evie Dunmore writing very standard historicals, in a subgenre that's not super popular atm).

And while I do hate a lot of BookTok rhetoric, and while I don't get many, if any, recs from there... It makes sense that Berkley went for them with this book, because the Reylo thing feeds right into their audience. Ali is far from the only Reylo fic writer who's been published (I've read like, four Reylo fic books this year alone lol) but TLH was so distinctly Reylo.

The reality is that this did tee her up for a set audience, but she did write good fics and she did have an audience over other fic writers for a reason, you know? It doesn't mean she didn't work for success; it just does mean that she happened to latch on to a pairing that hit the zeitgeist in a big way, and, as publishing has done for decades now, but more openly in recent years--that pairing was sought out by trad publishing.

And then it snowballed because of the anti thing, and like... I remember this weird moment where people were going off on her because she mentioned her agent suggesting tropes to her? And it's like? Yeah? That's brainstorming lol. I get that the trope marketing thing makes it feel like everyone is suddenly writing to tropes, and it's like--yes, the marketing can be overwhelming, 100%. But writers, especially commercial writers, have always written to tropes. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard writers on podcasts go "I haven't written second chance romance, I'd like to do that someday" or whatever. Romance writers especially write to market. It's a job. And your agent will tell you what they think will sell, because it's literally their job.

But it was flipped into this thing where Ali couldn't think of shit on her own, and it's like--brainstorming with people? Is normal. It was really in the context of her giving credit where credit is due, tbh. Because a lot of your best ideas as a writer don't just pop into your head on a whim. Writing is actually a collaborative process. The indies everyone hates that suck balls? Usually don't have an editor working on them. Fic writers talk about their beta readers trading ideas with them all the time. But because people wanted a reason to say that Ali's work was inherently lesser (versus "not for them"), they turned an innocuous normal thing into her being unable to write.

It's really kind of bizarrely hilarious because it's like... if all you're really worried about here is a reylo being published, just say it. Don't try to discuss things you don't actually know shit about (or for that matter, speak over people who do know what they're talking ab out) because of this one fic writer getting published.

[trashsketch]

tropes game

tagged by @hxhhasmysoul thank you!!! I saw this making the rounds on twitter and i'm excited to do it here too

How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 -> don’t care either way

10 ->  very enticed

nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged

__________

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional… There are no points, you’re not marked on this, don’t worry :3

Add tropes that you think I missed XD

Tag others if you’re nosy like I am :D

Have fun!

__________

Trope List

age gap   -2/10 

ultimately to me it only depends on the ship dynamic itself? I enjoyed the ship in Canis: Dear Hatter, but it's not because of the age gap. I also will get kinda dissuaded if one of them isnt an adult but the other is when they first meet

codependency   9/10

oh boy me and my gf for real. we met through killugon and codependency really is killugon. It can be extremely cathartic to see it in fiction to me

enemies to lovers   8/10

it really depends on who handles it. i dont like how reylo does it, but man, This Is How You Lose the Time War is like a masterclass in how to do it. I rate it more favourably cause I think I enjoy the slight forbidden aspect to it? And I can immediately think of more stories that do this well (in the sense that, "enemies" are more like two rival factions and both sides are like equally grey, and your rival just so happens to be your equal, you hold no grudge besides what your faction has told you to believe)

enemies with benefits   10/10

now THIS has a nice flavour. I love it when it fulfills that meme "you wanna fuck me so bad you look stupid". Bonus points if the benefits begin when A is injured and goes to B's place for shelter (it was great watching this happening in zoolander)

fake dating/relationship   9/10

I've been won over by my friends, i love the awkwardness that comes with fake dating for meeting a mutual need that is essentially kinda stupid (like impressing grandma or to spite your ex)

found family   9/10

it's hxh in a nutshell

friends to lovers   10/10

GOD help me i love this a lot. it's my fave fic trope and it was literally my life experience

friends with benefits   10/10

my god. top tier. I love it so much it's good good mess

hurt/comfort   10/10

the comfort comforts better after the hurt has hurted real good :)

love triangle   5/10

I would love to see different ways of it being handled than anything from old and tired cishet dramas, so any queer spin on it kinda makes me go insane. Also bonus points if everyone can talk through it as sanely as they can while still feeling like their world is crumbling. It can be such good angst. Bonus bonus points if they can all agree on some level of poly

mistaken/hidden identity   10/10

very delicious in like, spy or superhero stories (and also what brought me on board with miraculous ladybug to begin with)

monster fu… relationship   10/10

I feel like most of us monster relationship enjoyers had an awakening after watching a Guillermo del Toro movie. For me it was the Shape of Water, and afterwards a wlw beauty and the beast drawing i did that really won me over. I have a monster AU thingy over on my danganronpa account that I love to bits.

obsession, possessiveness, etc   7/10

can be handled so well or SO BADLY. it helps when any act of possessiveness isn't too serious but is also laced with the real angst, the good shit, the flavour of insecurity. it helps even more if the couple knows how to communicate through this rather than lashing out at each other with passive aggressive arguments, which I hate to see :)

opposites (like grumpy×sunshine, etc)    10/10

LITERALLY KILLUGON. literally all of our preteen angel/devil OC obsession coming back as a popular trope. what's not to love about opposites being together and balancing each other out!

poly   10/10

So a poly ship took over my brain for a good 2 years. I'm in the middle of writing a fic about how three people get together, and even researching by picking up The Ethical Slut (which btw is a great read on how to have healthy relationships in general too, it has so much good advice)

pregnancy   -9/10

It's a personal choice, only because i'm scared of conceiving so i really prefer not to see it in fic. Giving it a -9 cause I do have exceptions in fic (being whether it was recommended to me or whether it's from authors whose work I enjoy)

second chance   5/10

Again it’s really down to the characters and how it’s handled. I enjoyed it in some fics I’ve read long ago, but I won’t go out of my way to find it

sex to feelings   10/10

the one thing i love about friends with benefits is exactly this. the potential for MESS

slowburn   9/10

It can be so so good. A kagehina fic once destroyed me with how slow the burn was but it was so neat to see it growing slowly but surely. I think it can only work if you and the author agree on the eventual endgame ship

soulmates   7/10

it can be a bit tired, but I still personally like reading it! I like any soulmates au with a good spin on it though, like a potential fear behind not liking your destined partner or liking someone else who isnt your soulmate

thanks for letting me ramble LMAO

i’m gonna tag @xyliane @thehuntyhunties @icefeather112 @murderkitten666 @loudpartythumpingmusic (no pressure though!)

[worst-ships-poll]

welcome to the worst ships tumblr poll!

I was inspired to make this blog based on seeing this post [tumblr post link], and looking it up to see if a blog like this already existed. (one does, but I didn’t like the submission rules there so I wanted to make my own) and I thought the carnage such a poll would create would be fun, so here we are.

I’m opening submissions now for ships to add to the bracket. submit them here: [google forms link]

submission guidelines:

you can submit up to 3 ships. that means you can submit less, but cannot submit more. if you submit more, I reserve the right to either toss your submission or choose which of your recommended ships I prefer to count.

please use the full names of the characters being shipped inbetween slashes or an “x” instead of the fandom-coined ship name and character nicknames. ex: “Tony/Loki” instead of “Ironfrost,” “Kylo Ren x Rey” instead of “reylo,” and “Dean Winchester x Castiel” instead of “Dean/Cas.” I know some characters have multiple names, but this is so I can know who is who if I’m not in a fandom, so use your judgement. if ships submitted don’t follow this guideline, your submission might get tossed because I don’t want to spend my time deliberating over which characters or ship you really meant, or recounting submissions because some people’s submissions were vague.

include the relevant fandom name/s the ship is from--no acronyms unless it's something very obvious like the MCU. just imagine you are explaining the ship to someone who has never heard of your ship, the characters, or the fandom, because you might be. acceptable examples: "Tony Stark/Loki Laufeyson | MCU", "kylo ren/rey from star wars", "Dean Winchester x Castiel supernatural."

ships can be from any fandom (movies, books, bands, myth, anything hate-worthy), any popularity (mostly), and any gender (M/M, F/F, M/F).

this poll is purely to cause drama because I’m bored and it’s funny and because I think it’s time someone made this poll on tumblr, the wild discourse site. your submissions do not have to be a top tier controversial ship, but it should ideally not be a niche ship from somebody’s podcast with 100 views on Spotify that has 2 fics on ao3. I reserve the right to ignore a submission from something that I or most poll-takers have never heard of.

similarly, I accept submissions for genuinely bad ships on all axises, but please don’t go out of your way to find the worst ship in your fandom that you rarely see and is really disgusting and even most ppl with bad ship takes in your fandom don’t ship. no one wants to see that. this poll is for fun.

as long as the ship is horrible and/or annoying and/or gets enough submissions, it’s good, basically.

feel free to tell me in the submission as well why you think the ship deserves to win. I will not be posting reasonings on the poll themselves, but I’d love to see the hate.

and most importantly: submit ships you really, genuinely hate to see! ships that are horrible in your fandom, ships you can’t escape on ao3 or in tags, ships that just really fucking annoy you, ships that caused a site-wide ship war in 2013 or something! go wild.

submissions will be open for 1 week: from today (Sunday, April 16th) to April 22nd. happy hating :)

[opinated-user]

Typically I believe that somebody can use a platform without necessarily also than being a hypocritical person for criticizing it, but with Lily and Ao3 I do think that its very much an exception to that. Not only has LO (to my knowledge) EXCLUSIVELY posted all of her fanfics to Ao3 over the past several years, but she also REGULARLY bragged and gloated about how supposedly “popular” that her fanfics were on that website while she was still frequently uploading them to it. Lily very clearly, contrary to what she would have you believe currently, ENJOYED using Ao3 a LOT while she was still consistently using the site, and has only started claiming that its a scam/should be erased from the Internet completely now that she has mostly stopped posting her fanfics to there.

Not to mention that LO also has a very long history of hating any and all media that wasn’t specifically made to be consumed by her, and it really looks like that THAT is the main reason that she wants Ao3 to be shut down. And NOT because of any of the potentially bigoted or pedophilic material that some people might come across while looking throughout that website.

i do think that whatever "hatred" she's posting about A03 is entirely performative and doesn't feel any of it. maybe she hates it more because reylo fans dare to publish their works there (and receive more attention than her works ever will), but that is about it. we already know that she doesn't have an issue with bigoted content, because she'll always makes an excuse for it when she already liked that product. she doesn't really have an issue with sexualizing underage people (reminder this woman said all her critics, some of them underage, want to SA her and her current fans want to have sex with her) or underage character being sexualized, she does that herself out in the open and without any shame. she doesn't have an issue with incest, if anything she openly enjoys it to the point of being almost an obsession. she doesn't even really care about scams, seeing as she herself has scammed her audience more than one time before. this woman has no real principles. but she wants to pretend like she does so all her misdeeds look less credible. don't believe anything she has to say about A03 as anything she does believe in.

[trickstarbrave]

what do you mean by ""reylo dynamic""??

okay. first thing to understand is when i say "reylo dynamic" in a ship or pairing or style of writing romance it isnt unique to reylo. a lot of popular fandoms have some variation of "the reylo dynamic" its just reylo has popularized and kind of mass marketed what used to be a niche fandom ship dynamic so its what i call it as shorthand

The Reylo Dynamic™ usually has specific traits (note: it does not need to have all of these, just a significant amount). canon characterization does not matter either, all it comes down to is the fandom portrayal of the ship by and large (think dramoine and kacchako). the only hardline one is this:

>spunky female character (usually protag of the story) who is at least a little combative with the male lead, and a male lead who is otherwise grumpy/brooding/mysterious

for the common traits:

>female lead is usually brown haired, shorter, with emphasis on being petite and small. idk why even reylo stories they do this even tho daisy ridley isnt that short???

>male lead is usually dark haired and typically described as "unconventionally attractive" exactly

>female lead usually has to prove herself or feels like she has to prove herself. like. as a big thing. it can be one big moment or her constantly feeling like shes being condescended to for some perceived weakness (like: being a woman, being small, not knowing how to control magic powers, whatever). important thing to note is she will often not get over this until like the very end of the story if ever

>usually bc this dynamic can be hard to accommodate for and write around (bc the two romantic leads DONT WANT TO BE AROUND EACH OTHER) there is usually some kind of plot contrivance keeping them together. fated lovers, soul mates, class project, you name it. i feel this is usually a cop out bc i spend most of the plots feeling like they should just fuck and get it over with

>there is almost always miscommunication. and the annoying kind. every time i have tried to suffer thru a story with The Reylo Dynamic™ in novel format i find myself annoyed. bc i dont believe most of the time this is a real, normal, very human break down of communication. i constantly feel like one of them is being an unreasonable or frankly stupid brat in the situation purely for the sake of plot convenience. do you know how dumb it is to see a woman who has lost her job, her only friend, her boyfriend, and her mom get told by some hot guy "hey due to circumstances outside of ur control that i dont blame u for we have to get married also im rich and will take care of ur every need and im not asking for romance i just need magic powers back of mine that u technically have and if u dont marry me they'll also go out of control and kill you" and the woman. is mad and pissy abt it and deliberately makes problems for him. bitch u were at rock bottom and this guy is offering u free rent and food and answers to all the questions you had since chapter 1. and ur mad abt it. theres no moral objections she has to him she's just annoyed bc????????????? i guess she is being asked to do something????????? bc she doesnt wanna look weak?????????? bc shes cranky??????????????? i dont know. id cut her some slack to start with but she just keeps deliberately antagonizing him until they fuck. i gave up reading it was a slog

>lots of bickering and jabs at the other. depending on the rating of the story this will only be resolved with hatefucking. even then it usually wont fully be resolved. while i am a fan of hatefucking there is smth abt how much of a slog it is to watch it in the reylo dynamic bc of the next point:

>usually the author never commits to them having a real, genuine, non-imagined reason to being combative with each other or hating each other, NOR having a real, genuine, non-imagined reason to be together and make it work and be happy. they live in this limbo between dislike. a constant "will they wont they" but instead of the will they or wont they in question being hooking up its instead if they will break up or not. it's like watching a very incompatible couple refuse to work things out by talking and sorting through their own issues AND refusing to just break up and see other ppl more compatible. id rather there be genuine dislike or even hatred they have to sort thru and actually make progress in. dont half ass making a guy horrible. give me a reason why the mc hates him. or if it is imagined by the mc, show the mc processing it properly and working thru it and having proper character growth. but they dont bc the bickering is part of the appeal and making one or both of them genuinely bad ppl breaks the fantasy. or smth.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

ok its been literally 15 minutes since the finale ended and im getting off the TOH tag.

I am SO DISAPPOINTED in a certain side of this fandom.

it took less than FIFTEEN MINUTES to see enough "lollllll lumity went canon and huntlow didn't, get WRECKED YOU STINKY STRAIGHTS LOL BURY UR GAYS UNO REVERSE LMAOOOOO HOW DOES IT FEEL NASTY ICKY BAD STRAIGHT SHIPPERS" posts to make me actually consider whether I'd rather the show have had a sad ending.

not bc of huntlow, i ship it but never put any hope or weight on it going canon. I'm not "anti-lumity" or whateverthefuck, I don't really think about ships that much in 99.9% of fandoms.

...yall are just extremely fucking

IMMATURE.

I'm queer. I understand how much pain we've dealt with even SOLELY in terms of media rep. I even understand the glee at the concept of "straightbaiting" actually being a thing that happened here.

I also understand the EXTREMELY JUSTIFIED concern and anger around some parts of the fandom seeming to abandon the BIPOC WLW main character/main ship in favor of the Sad Greasy White Boy Of The Week And His White Straight Girlfriend.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why so many "fans" are taking this EXTREMELY POSITIVE, LITERALLY GROUNDBREAKING and immediately turning it against their fellow fans. All this amazing rep, characterization, EVERYTHING and you still find a way to be cruel to your fellow fans.

this isn't a contest.

Lumity is canon.

Huntlow is not.

Huntlow was not a focus of the finale.

I can guarantee you that after that finale, NOBODY was thinking about Huntlow until yall started being fucking mean about it.

YOU brought up the thing you claimed to want the fandom to stop focusing on, for the SINGULAR PURPOSE of enacting some sort of "revenge" on shippers that you projected a whoooole lot of Racism, Homophobia, and Evil onto, despite:

Bi Hunter, Transmasc Hunter, Transfemme Willow, and T4T Huntlow all being EXTREMELY popular hcs/themes in and out of shipping context

A fair chunk of the fandom seeing Willow as BIPOC/East Asian -coded

ALL of the masc presenting queers w parental and/or religious trauma who have spoken out about how seen they feel bc of Hunter

I'm not saying Hunter was a perfect character. He definitely wasn't the main character, or even close.

I'm saying that yall have demonized this part of the fandom SO MUCH that after THAT FINALE.

*THAT. FINALE.*

your FIRST INSTINCT was to ATTACK THEM

over the SHIP (I REPEAT MYSELF) THAT YOU SAID YOU WANTED PPL TO STOP TALKING ABOUT.

I was having a really fun, good, genuine amazing time freaking my shit over Titan!Luz, and Lumity, and Raeda, and King and The Collector and TITAN LUZ!!!!!

yknow. all the stuff the finale was actually about.

and now I'm thinking mainly of huntlow (or at least the discourse around it), angry, and extremely sad that my experience of this finale has been ruined

and that this fandom is the latest to fall into the trap of "blame other fans for actual systemic oppression, regardless of whether or not they are actually upholding it."

I don't know how to get it through your heads that a heavily T4T-headcanoned, likely biracial-coded ship that is CANONICALLY a healing narrative for trauma survivors

is not fucking reylo.

this Evil In Fandom you're angry at 1000% exists but it sure as fuck isn't here.

unless there's a Secret Second Huntlow Fandom That Is Evil And Racist And Hates Lumity that idk abt, this is just a group of sad queer kids sitting next to your own group of sad queer kids

and despite me seeing ZERO ACTUAL HUNTLOW COMMENTS ABOUT THE FINALE * AT ALL *

you, whatever side of the fandom is doing this (I honestly don't know who is making these posts) aren't proving, winning, fixing or righting anything

you're going over to another side of the fandom whose ship didnt go canon

and with ZERO PROVOKATION

you're making them feel like shit for it.

why???

WHY??????

yall "won". you won as much as you can possibly win here. everybody loves the finale. nobody is giving anything but overwhelming love, happy tears, joy and awe to "your" win.

but you still felt the need to make sure someone, somewhere, knew that they "lost".

sry im just so angry at this rn. i was having so much fun. what the fuck is this kind of behavior supposed to prove?

also btw to be clear this is NOT DIRECTED AT ALL OR MOST LUMITY SHIPPERS, LUZ STANS, ETC. ITS NOT EVEN DIRECTED AT "HUNTLOW-ANTIS" EXCEPT THE *SPECIFIC PEOPLE* WHO CHOSE TO USE THE FINALE TO BASH ON OTHERS.

AS FOR THOSE SPECIFIC PEOPLE:

YOU SUCK!!!!!! Thanks for ruining this fantastic experience for me by being a piece of shit on main over some "shipper" crap im not even in.

[possessionisamyth]

Fandom is 90% minorities. You know what else fandom spaces are? Extremely racist without verbatim. A lot of white fandom think because they’re neurodivergent, disabled, or some branch of LGBT that it excuses their whiteness, and you coming at me like this absolutely proves my point. Do you know what I see when I participate in fandom at large? I see a lot. Especially while speaking from the perspective of someone who actively participates in fandom, has been for over 15 years, and who is currently running a fandom server with well over a thousand people in it. So yeah, I know what the fuck I’m talking about.

Also, I do think before I speak. And I can tell you that the real mega problem is the complete elimination of spaces for teens and children to figure their own shit out combined with the sanitation, all of which is done by corporate capitalist spaces requirement for things to be marketable. You know, the rich people who say whether or not these sites are allowed to be on their apps so they can make some kind of money.

Instead, if you want to discuss censorship, would you perhaps like to discuss the sheer amount of anonymous hate and racial slurs artists of color in fandom face for merely cosplaying or even drawing pale characters into a different race until they delete or have to “get thick skin” to endure the abuse? Would you like to talk about the colorism white fandom perpetrates onto brown characters of color so much so that people who offer corrections or alternate views are also bullied into silence? Maybe even the masculinization, hyper-sexualization, or racial fetishization as soon as someone’s race is slapped to a certain ethnicity, and the similar patterns that happen every single time we get a brown character?

Do you want to talk about how the most popular mod for an interesting fantasy game like, hm, say, Dragon Age is one where the main dark skinned black woman is made white? Do you want to talk about how in, errr, Red Dead Redemption there are concentrated hate campaigns to mass report people who even bring up the racism they’re dealing with within that fandom? Do you want to talk about, oh, idk, literally everything that happened with Reylo fans in the Star Wars trilogy fandom? These are all recent things by the way. I could go older, like the amount of fanfiction I scroll by that loves framing some of my favorite brown characters as hyper aggressive rapists since the existence of livejournal. Or! Oh! Oh, we can talk about how the constant yelling about “puritanism” within fandom spaces from majority white fandom users, is also being used as a silencing tactic for people who are simply criticizing the source material and not fandom content itself.

We could also discuss how the sheer lack of nuance and critical thinking has created this vocal minority, that has no idea how to use the block button when they see shitty underdeveloped opinions of teenagers online, and how they’ve morphed it using leftist vocabulary to frame it as though their personal rights to produce stories and art are being impeded on due to children and the mass public. Ignoring the fact this is also a case where they could, just, continue reading the books, and enjoying the stories like they have been. Or, do what fandom is supposed to be, like, make a small group of friends who all like the thing so you don’t have to see shitty opinions nearly as often.

I mean, I also like the prospect of being able to filter out tags and it absolutely sucks that certain people don’t know how to moderate their content, so there are a lot of bad faith takes to make and be seen. This is a problem compounded by previous statements, I won’t lie. It is also nice to get that dopamine boost of feedback from strangers when publicly posting the art and ideas that popped out of your brain. It does suck when people dunk on it for being “problematic” aka something they don’t prefer. Yet, as someone who does moderate their content to the best of their ability in this online hellscape, people like you get on my nerves the absolute most due to the fact you inflate your inability to mass block in the notes of posts you don’t like and it overshadows the very prevalent problems that actually lie within fandom.

I could go on. I have many examples of absolute bullshit from anime, to comics, to movies, to TV shows, to youtubers, and so on. I know how the internet has changed, because I’ve watched it happen and am watching it happen in real time. I simply wanted to address the misuse of this particular comic of which the original intention was for the difficulties minorities face offline when it comes to their civil rights being impeded, and their efforts to make safe spaces for themselves in public being intruded upon until they’re forced out of those spaces or silenced. But, we can gladly talk about how even in fandom spaces that’s a prevalent and recurring issue if that’s what you want to do.

Fandom was literally created for freaks by freaks. If you can't handle freaks in the freak hobby, then get out.

[arabian-bloodstream]

The fandom has become so toxic these days. People are attacking each other online just because they don’t support the one team they are rooting for and honestly I expected that but one thing I dislike the most is that they insult the actors, calling them ugly etc (especially Matt Smith people make viral tweets about how ugly they think he is all the time) it’s just ridiculous. I mean if you dislike the character there’s no need to insult the actors and especially their appearance? Just like whoever you want and stop harassing people for their favorite characters/teams. Sorry I needed to rant and get this off my chest. Love your account and your metas.

First of all, thank you, I appreciate the compliment! I certainly have fun writing them!

Alas, it is the nature of any popular fandom nowadays. The discourse just so quickly gets toxic. Tis a shame. :(

Honestly, it's why I'm doing what I did in my last fandom (GOT/Gendrya/Arya) and (Reylo/happy positive space of Star Wars) the one before (The Vampire Diaries). And what I do in my current others (Demi Lovato, Adam Driver, Maisie Williams, and Caryl/The Walking Dead). I'm staying (for the most part) in my little couple bubble. I don't go searching for House of the Dragon discourse. I just stick to Daemyra period.

I rarely read reviews now that Daemyra has started in full because the toxicity of 'OH NOES! Uncle/Niece!' Like, what kind of show did you think you were watching?! is just stupid. And I certainly don't read comments on any articles I do read. Life is too short to deal with the hate. And I'm certainly not going to spend my time reading comments from Rhaenyra/Alicent shippers or Rhaenyra/Harwin shippers or Daemon/Laena shippers or GOD FORBID anti-Daemyra or die-hard team!Green peeps who seek nothing but to tear apart Daemon, Rhaenyra and Daemyra, and their actors--who are lovely, talented and hot as fuck!

Ain't got time for that. Life is too short. They have their opinions, their analysis, and are welcome to them. Whatever. Fortunately, the vast majority of what they opine, analyze, etc. does not coincide with what is happening on the show thus far. And considering the discourse around Daemyra? Daemyra is hot, popular, and HAPPENING!

So, I will happily stay in my couple bubble enjoying THIS discourse instead of the haters. Haters gonna hate, but I'm gonna love!

[marunalu]

Hey. I read your blog and you said you don't ship Reylo. Glad we're on the same team here.

I personally don't hate Reylo, but I feel like there's a lack of chemistry between Kylo Ren and Rey. I believe they weren't intended to end up together from the very start.

My issue with Reylo is that they're rushed and there's no foreshadowing between them from the 7th episode.

Some people might argue that the 8th episode debunks this, but I disagree. I personally believe that Rey's and Kylo Ren's relationship is similar to Vader and Luke, but less familial.

I don't believe Rey had any romantic feelings neither does Kylo Ren and I'd blame the sequel trilogy for being inconsistent.

Not only didnt they had any kinf of chemistry, reylo is just plain toxic and abusive. Even daisy and adam showed their clear distaste of it and called it toxic/abusive. The only reason why lucas film and disney pushed reylo was because of ryan platantly shipping it and because of the loud shipper fanbase. But they failed to see that reylo wasnt as popular as they thought, the shippers were just loud, but like 80% of star wars fans hatet it.

Rey developing "feelings" for kylo was the biggest mistake and fail disney could allow to happen. They gave us the first female jedi in the main lead and made her "fall" for the spacenazi guy that literally midraped her (jj abrams own words), saw him killing her newly found father figure in cold blood, almost killed her very first and best friend who just tried to protect her, kidnapped her and emotionally manipulated her through 3 movies. And despite this they tried to sell their relationship as close and powerful as lukes with vaders. Vaders was lukes freaking father he looked up to his whole life and was told he was once a great guy and hero. Rey didnt know shit about "ben" and thought its her duty to redeem him, despite him treating her and her loved ones like gabage and bringing so much pain to millions of innocent people. Their was no emotional connection between them that actually worked and the only reason they came up with that "connection through the force" stuff shit was because jj abrams had to make sense of the mess ryan left him to deal with.

Its pretty clear that jj abrams, LF and disney originally planned to make rey lukes or leias daughter, but changed their plans after ryan fucked up and because they misinterpretet the popularity of the ship. Reylo IS the most popular ship in the sequels, but most people watching the movies didnt ship it and found it disgusting. Just think about how jj abrams made rey and kylo kiss in the last movie and then tried to explain it with "it was not a romantic kiss", because of the huge backleash he had to face for making reylo "canon"

[dramionediscussion]

Hi Asks!

How do you feel about the growing number of writers who are getting book deals through fanfic?

I can't really explain why, but it kind of makes me sad. I know the authors themselves truly love fandom and they deserve all their current and future success. But a cynical part of me hates the way literary agents are looking in on fandom and picking off the best of the best, it feels so manufactured.

(Also, how writers are often pressured to take down their fic before they publish their original works. Like it's something to be ashamed of, or they're 'too good' for this world once they make it big).

I think it is cool. It's awesome that authors are being approached and given deals from writing fanfiction.

But I agree with you. It does feel like they are being shamed for their fanfic by being made to take it down. Very rarely do you see authors mention that they started off writing fanfic and tell you about it. Most times, people still look down upon fanfics, so when readers hear that the author started with that, they think the author isn't good enough to write a "proper novel". Also, when people find out that an author's novel was originally based on fanfic, they immediately dismiss the story, thinking its silly or bad quality.

EL James wrote 50 Shades based on her Twilight fanfic. Obviously, there are issues with that story and its editing, but people were quick to laugh at it because it was fanficton. That writer of the After series wrote her story based on a Harry Styles fanfic, which people mocked. A very famous rom-com author, Ali Hazelwood, wrote her first book, which was super popular, from a Reylo fanfic she did. When people heard about that after the book was released and loved, it did make them look twice at the author's work and put off other people from reading her stuff. (Her second novel was just as great, so people quickly forgot her Reylo days and realized that she is a really talented author).

But there is nothing wrong with fanfiction. It's a fantastic way to develop your writing skills. There is nothing to look down upon. And publishers should let the author leave their stiff online, don't remove it, and have that author pretend that this is not where they came from.

- Lisa

[n0nsensew0rds]

The vast majority of people who are actually on the political right don’t CARE about the word ‘queer’. That is not a thing conservatives are concerned about. At all.

Not everybody who does something you don’t like is part of the political opposition. Lily believes in a totalitarian socialist utopia, leaning in to defending the atrocities of communism (according to Lily, the Holodomor -- the famine orchestrated by the USSR that resulted in death by starvation for roughly 4 million Ukrainians, at least -- didn’t happen, and if it did it wasn’t that bad.) Lily hates free speech and the free market. She hates guns and thinks only certain people should have the right to defend themselves. She hates the idea of rural living and rugged individualism. She picks and chooses how she respects LGBT+ language in order to ‘punish’ those she deems unworthy, but that’s raw hypocrisy-- a truly bigoted conservative wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.

To paraphrase Avenue Q, “Bigotry has never been exclusively right.”

She’s not a crypto-conservative. She IS an asshole.

Instead of thinking her as an ally or not-ally of your chosen political persuasion, think of her individually, because she is an individual. Lily is, fundamentally, a self-serving narcissist.

In this case, let’s look at the word ‘queer’. Let’s ignore it’s political history and cultural charge. Let’s instead consider what it means to Lily, and that when she was in school being called ‘a queer’ was a go-to easy insult for the weird kid (particularly among boys, which Lily was identifying as at the time). While I can’t be absolutely certain because I’m not Lily, I highly suspect her hatred of the word ‘queer’ is because people used it to make fun of her and is hopping on the cultural conversation because it’s a more potent argument than ‘kids in high school made fun of me therefore you are evil if you use this word’.

Most of her tactics for demanding change link right back to her own preferences and history. It’s all self-serving bullshit trying to put her on a moral high ground (Reylo isn’t bad because she doesn’t like it, it’s bad because people who DO like it are racist misogynists) or convincing other people to do what she wants (you should stop writing your epic fantasy and only write slice-of-life romance because Friends was really popular). She willfully ignores reality so that her points are always correct (anime has no cultural value in Japan, ignore the literal shrines to local mangaka, or the constant business crossovers, or how the style permeates advertising-- all things you can see just by watching a casual food review).

Lily a jerk. She treats her fans like dirt. She is comfortable sharing violent, murderous fantasies with strangers. She is a hypocrite. She indulges in slurs and erasure as long as it’s against people she doesn’t like. Everything she advocates is purely in her own self-interest. Worst of all, she can’t write.

You don’t need to justify not liking Lily by pretending she’s part of a different political ideology. People on any part of the spectrum can be assholes that you don’t want to be associated with. And she’s an asshole. That’s what matters.

Today, JK Rowling HERSELF retweeted some equally bigoted TERF screeching about how queer is a slur and saying that nobody should use it anymore. I know many people have already said this, but given this I feel the need to repeat it again: Being militantly against the usage of the word “queer” IS absolutely a fucking TERF dogwhistle. Its not even fucking close. Despite Lily’s and her rabid stans’s frequent objections, railing against any and all usage of the word queer is what TERFs fucking do, and its not changing/stopping AT ALL.

I believe that at least LO herself KNOWS this, and doesn’t actually give a single shit about it because, as has been shown MULTIPLE times by now. Lily is actually a deeply reactionary, far right bigot who shares far more in common with TERFs and other fascists than she EVER has with even CENTER—left fucking people!!

Now, now... The Far Left exists too, and they often sound just like the far right.

Horseshoe theory and all that.

But to be honest, Lily does clock me as someone who, if they didn't proclaim themselves left, would have no problem fitting in with the right.

[lesbianmarrow]

I hate hate hate the she ra fandom so much for how they treated/reacted to glimmer… like it was truly awful. I saw a lot of similarities between her and the treatment of Finn by fans, honestly

Like adora, like Rey, is white. Catra is kind of nebulous because she is visibly brown, but she’s also an anthropomorphic animal voiced by a white woman with no confirmed or implied racial identity… (like in contrast to a character like clawdeen wolf from monster high… a wolf girl who’s clearly meant to be read as black). Catra was read by many to be a woman of color, but read by as many (if not more) as white or simply “raceless” (by white people who see whiteness as default). Regardless, I don’t think it was women of color who saw themselves in Catra who were the problem. Catra was also a much better character than kylo, particularly as a sympathetic and reformed villain, but still.

Finn/Glimmer we’re both the secondary protagonists of their story, were both poc, were both besties to their main protagonist, who happened to be white, and were both in stories that seemed to have racism problems (the whole… she ra from before adora wasn’t white but pretty much became so as she ra was sooo fucked up). And both of them were so unjustly hated by white fans who would often try to minimize harm done to them by the antagonist(s) if they didn’t go out of their way to try to frame them as the antagonist in what they really saw as meta-analysis of the text. The justification ALWAYS boiled down to how they annoyed said white fans. Glimmer was written as a well rounded character who went through changes and had flaws and nuances which was awful to people watching the show who couldn’t accept that in characters of color. Finn was a black man (and also perhaps the best written character of the sequel trilogy) who had the audacity to be close to a white woman emotionally. Both of these were Crimes white fans felt the need to punish them for (or expand into full blown villainy) it was genuinely sickening to watch. It’s worse too since I feel like the storytellers gave into the pressure to sideline them. Like for Finn he clearly had a diminished role already in tlj so who knows if things could have been different but I kind of feel like glimmers story just. Didn’t get resolution there were plot threads for her that didn’t get tied

Not that the other comparisons you made weren’t valid and this does seem to be a particular issue for Asian girls/women/characters but my two sense bc your post threw me back to a darker time

yeahhhh like i love she-ra but i barely interacted with the fandom at all bc it had a lot of issues with racism especially with how it treated glimmer, like ppl were racist about catra as well but like the general fandom attitude that glimmer was annoying and detracted from the story was just so awful. i thought the show itself did a really great job of making glimmer a 3 dimensional character and giving her an excellent character arc over the course of the show. i don't really remember any unresolved plot threads with her? though maybe there were and i just forgot. but like overall i was very satisfied with her portrayal in the show, but the FANDOM was just.....eugh.

and the racism with finn.....oh it just makes me so boiling mad. tfa was not perfect in its portrayal of him but there was so much POTENTIAL and john boyega really made him such an excellent compelling character, truly the heart of the film, and the racist side of the fandom just could not stand it. like the thing about reylo and its popularity post-tfa is that it really was born out of a refusal to consider finn as a love interest for rey, even though their relationship is one of the most important and positive relationships in the whole film. the fandom would rather bend over backwards to find a way to make the creepy antagonistic tension between kylo and rey romantic than accept that rey and finn could be in love. and the way tlj validated those racist fans by sidelining finn and pushing the rey/kylo relationship was just awful. and that's not even getting into what tlj and fandom did with rose tico.

and then ppl will like minimize these issues by being like "well it's just fandom/shipping drama" which completely erases that it's an issue of RACISM. and aaaaaaaaaaahhh sorry for ranting there it just makes me so MAD.

[fandom-oracle]

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.