#i also know that this particular annoyance is a bit niche since not everyone who engages in this discourse reads academic txts about it

[secretsofthewilde]

There's something particularly frustrating about how academic fandom studies tend to talk about fandom spaces as being a place for inclusiveness and queer representation when there's still a very prominent misogyny problem throughout them. Even when these studies address issues of racism within fandom shipping dynamics, they still tend to perpetuate the idea that fandom is the rare place where queer ships tend to be more popular than straight ones, without really addressing the fact that this tends to only true when it comes to cis, white, m/m ships. If you want some kind of numerical evidence of this, you just need to look at the statistics on ao3 to see that f/f ships are the least popular kind of pairing on that site. And when you think of the stereotypical big name fandoms, most of them are well known for their m/m ships, with the f/f ships often being dismissed or treated as a joke.

I'm not of the opinion, nor trying to make an argument in support of the idea, that this is due to the stereotype of fangirls fetishising queer men. Instead, I think it's largely due to misogyny* - shocker, I know. I really do think that the stereotypical fangirl gravitates towards slash pairings due to both internalised misogyny and the general prominence of male oriented media over female oriented media (which will therefore have more male characters that are fleshed out with more engaging writing as opposed to their female supporting cast).

However, it's one thing for the abundance of male driven stories to generate more fan works exploring said characters, and another entirely for those same fans to then ignore when we do have media that gives us well written and enjoyable female characters. I think it's in part due to our internalised misogyny that fangirls have a tendency to gravitate towards their familiar male orientated shows and then fixate on the same familiar character types, rather than exploring and celebrating the breadth of female-centric media we have finally been getting produced in recent years. And this inability to allow ourselves to enjoy female characters the same way we do with male ones is what leads to an abundance of slash pairings being celebrated in fandom spaces, while femslash ones struggle to get recognition**. The fact that there's a common joke in fandom spaces about popular pairings developing between two characters who never interacted (or for only a brief scene) is all very well and good fun, but this is almost always referring to a m/m pairing.

As fans we should really reflect on why we might celebrate a male character for doing morally grey things, but then hate a female character for exhibiting those exact same traits. It's fine to genuinely not enjoy the writing of a female character (especially when sexist writing is often to blame), but we should consider how much more willing we seem to be to forgive poor writing when it comes to male characters than we are with female characters. If we can make a million headcanons and claim to love a poorly written male character, who is now viewed as something so far removed from the canon of the media he appears in its practically a different character entirely, why do so many of us seem unwilling to do the same for female characters?

We should be doing the same with our female characters - we should be putting more female characters into our favourite dynamics and tropes. I want to see more enemies to lovers headcanons with femslash pairings; I want nbc hannibal levels of art and meta posts about toxic femslash couples; I want johnlock levels of delusion posts about a femslash couple the story writers are claiming they didn't write the subtext for. I would just really love to log into tumblr and see a femslash pairings tag is trending more than once in a blue moon.

*note: obviously misogny is not the only contributing factor, and this initial argument I'm raising doesn't address the issues surrounding racial, gender-queer identities, and other inequalities within fandom. Please do not think I'm ignoring or downplaying them.

**Theres also an argument to be made here about fangirls projecting themselves onto male characters in order to explore queer relationships, without having to challenge their own internalised misogyny/homophobia, but I'll come back to that later (and this in general) and expand on it some other time I think.

[ecotone99]

[RF] Canceled

Bick pushed the hatch closed on the back of his beat up Jeep Cherokee, sending up a little prayer that he hadn’t overloaded his old friend as the latch clasped shut with a satisfying snap. He walked around the front and pushed the keys into the ignition, giving the car a little gas to bring it to life. As the engine purred, or rather rattled, he let go of the keys and the breath he had been holding hesitantly as if doing either too quickly would kill the Jeep’s drive for life.

“Are you ready to go yet?” Bick shouts out the window.

Across the yard, Amber is holding up a camera pointing at herself. She looks over at the loaded car with a scowl.

“Seriously Bicky? You can see I’m still vlogging right?” Amber yells back as she lowers the camera and turns it over to check the footage. “Ugh, I am going to have to record that again now. Thanks I didn’t want to put in a ton of cuts but the sound quality is going to be ass now thanks to your car.”

“Sorry babe, just film the outro inside…”Bick started to suggest but his words were apparently just for himself as the front door slammed closed before he could finish.

Bick leaned back in his seat and knowingly turns the car back off. He had become used to Amber’s constant vlogging of her life, tolerated her “off brand” outbursts of anger, and had become a costume to the major personality change he had seen from her since her Youtube channel had started trending. Her attitude today was nothing new but he had hoped her happy face would have kept up a bit longer through the day as they prepared to move in together. He chalked it up to stress since it certainly couldn’t be exhaustion as she didn’t help pack or lift a single thing even though they were only moving her stuff into the new apartment today.

Twenty minutes later, Amber appears at the door again holding her camera up on a selfie stick as she walks down the sidewalk with a small box propped up on her hip. Bick could tell from the car she had taken off some of her makeup and redid her hair to make it look like she had been doing more than sitting on the computer and looking at Instagram while he cleared out her whole room himself. Her room mates, fellow bloggers, were all dutifully gathered at the door waving goodbye and looking like they might cry. Bick waited until Amber was in the car and the camera was down before he dared to start it back up again. This time the cold engine gave a bit more of a whine then it did the first time.

“Looks like they are all going to miss you,” Bick comments cautiously as the girls all immediately disappear and slam the door closed again before they had even left the driveway.

“They’ll miss doing colabs with me all the time trying to skim my viewers,” Amber said as she threw her camera down into her purse and pulled down the mirror to check her makeup. “Freaking Gabi even asked for me to do a video for her snapchat story before I left. She’s never going to break a million followers.”

“I don’t know, Gabi’s channel is a little niche but I like that she does crafting videos instead of just makeup or vlogs or whatever like all of the other channels do…What?” Bick asks as he catches Amber’s gaze out of the corner of his eye as he maneuvers the trailer out into traffic.

“Nothing, it doesn’t even matter,” Amber says as she looks back down at her phone. A pregnant pause grows between them as they drive down the road. “It’s just that I can’t believe you think her content is good. She repaints dolls. It’s weird not artsy or whatever. She acts like she’s a makeup channel because she redoes eye shadow or dyes doll hair.”

“I didn’t say I would watch it all the time, I just said I thought it was cool her channel is so unique.”

“M’kay,” Amber responses before she flips her camera back on to get some driving footage.

Bick breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. The parking lot was a lot tighter here than the driveway they had just pulled out of and he creeped through the parking lot slowly, giving Amber time to point her camera at him again.

“Are you ready to see the place?” Amber says behind the camera. “Bick. Answer.”

“Yeah,” he says absent mindedly.

“Ok, I am going to need you to sound way more excited,” Amber explained hurriedly, a tint of annoyance hitting her voice. “Do it again.”

“I am trying to concentrate on not hitting any of these cars….” The red light starts blinking in the corner of his eye. “Oh man I am so excited to get unloaded! It’s a dream babe.”

As they pull up in front of the building with the single units, Bick notices a small crowd waiting around in the parking lot. He recognized them as some of the guys from a big prank channel that Amber had colabed with a few times in the past. They were all immature assholes but at least they would have some help moving all of the furniture upstairs.

“Did you invite the guys from the Crew 10 channel to come over?”

“Yeah, I figured I’d need some help getting all my stuff moved in,” Amber said with a shrug. “Stay in the car while I give them the camera, okay?”

Bick shrugged as Amber rang out with her purse, and handed the camera over. She stood talking to the guys who were all named something like Chad or Paul or something equally douchey before they walked over to the bottom unit and unlock the door. Bick frowns and throws the car door open.

“Hey, wait guys. I think the landlord must have given us the wrong keys. We rented out the top unit right there,” Bick explained as he jogged over to the group. Behind him the rest of the guys descended on his car, pulling boxes and pillows out of the back.

“No, YOU rented out the top unit. I rented out this bottom one,” Amber said with a laugh.

“What are you talking about?” Bick said, stopping short of her, still in the parking lot.

“I’m not moving in with you Bick. Why would I need to? Do you know how much money I make from ads and sponsorships?” Amber said walking towards him. Chad or whatever followed her with the camera and stopped so she could turn and look at it. “I am a strong independent woman and I don’t need you to take care of me. We are over.”

The Crew 10 guys busted out into a chorus of ooooos behind them, stopping their frantic unpacking to jump around like idiots. Bick clutched his hands into fists at his side as a cold sweat broke over him.

“Why are you doing this?” Bick asked quietly, the burning in his stomach quickly becoming a river of ice through his veins, turning his blind rage into calm disdain.

“I don’t want you riding on the coattails of my success anymore, honestly it’s sad,” Amber said.

“Riding on the…Girl you need a major reality check. I supported you for two years while you sat unemployed talking to your camera,” Bick said as he started taking steps back away from her, acutely aware of why the Crew 10 guys were now unloading her stuff so fast. She was afraid he would drive off with her things, like he wanted any of her shit.

“Petty talk like that just makes you look like a dick. You need to grow a pair and get your own dreams. I think you’ll be a happier person for it,” Amber said as she started walking over to check on the growing pile of stuff, apparently dismissing him.

“You were my dream,” Bick muttered as he stalked back to the driver’s side of his Jeep. Chad followed him around with the camera, causing his anger to bubble up all at once to the surface. “KEEP THAT SHIT OUT OF MY FACE AND GET HER SHIT OUT OF MY CAR NOW,” he yelled at no one in particular as he got into the front seat, starting the car and slamming it into gear.

Twelve days later Bick is lying in bed when his phone lights up with a text.

Randal [Have you seen the video?]

[Yeah when she put it up last week] Bick

Randal [No. The one CueStar just put up]

[No. I’m trying not to watch that crap]Bick

Randal [Amber lost all of her sponsors!]

[youtube.link]

[What? I’ll watch it now. Hold Up.] Bick

He smashes the link and turns the volume up on his phone.

“Hey Cueballs, it’s your guy with the news, Cuestar. Today all of the internet has their eyes set on former beauty guru and all around shit person Amber Beck. It seems we have an update to the story I covered last week. For those of you not in the know, Amber put up a ‘prank video’ titled TRICKED MY BF INTO THINKING WE WERE MOVING IN TOGETHER THEN DUMPED HIM…EPIC FREAK OUT. Well she apologized for it saying it was “all in joke everyone was in on” but sources close to her have confirmed that her boyfriend shown in the video in fact had no idea. The big news today ladies and gents though is that along with losing her channel for promoting bullying, she has also lost all of her sponsors on Instagram and is seeing the largest unfollowing ever. That’s right Amber Beck has been canceled! Her ex roommate Gabi also put up a video….”

[Don’t tell me karma doesn’t exist]Bick

Randal [Yeah, it is pretty hilarious]

[I’m guessing this is why she texted me wanting to get back together. Always trying to use me for something…]Bick

Randal [Oh man! What did back?]

[I just ignored it. I have a date tonight] Bick

​

​

This post was a special request. Love you Bicky.

submitted by /u/TryHardWriter [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2zIdEQA