#i like some popular ships and i also like ships that aren't as popular

[hemingwaystan]

I know this is an old post but like I saw it and it was one of the most deranged, deluded things I've seen in a normally totally sane community and I can and will be mad at it. Brother are you impaired? Heisenberg/Rose????? Rose IN HER OLDEST PORTRAYAL IS A TEENAGER, HEISENBERG IS ROUGHLY A CENTURY OLD. Heisenberg is not running around diddling teenagers. That's sickening. And Ethan can be trans, it probably wasn't intended but not one thing in the game contradicts it. Does Ethan decide to triumphantly wave his cock around? I didn't think so. And Heisenberg/Zoe is just generally out of pocket, the fuck do they have to do with each other. And Heisenberg/Alcina, brother, I say again, the fuck you smoking??? It's a relevant plot point just how much they hate each other. Alcina rants about him in her diary and Heisenberg makes it very clear in his writings and speaking as well. THE REASON WINTERSBERG IS POPULAR AND THESE JOKES AREN'T IS BECAUSE WINTERSBERG IS ACTUALLY COHERENT AND CUTE. LET THE LARGE AMOUNT OF THEIR CONTENT CONTINUE BECAUSE IT'S GOOD, GOOD SHIT. Also this isn't a tirade against het ships, my problem is not that it's het, it's that these ships are all stupid and Wintersberg is not. I'm an ardent Donnaberg shipper, my problem is not that. Although, as an extraordarily gay individual person I appreciate some quality yaoi, ngl. Anyways, this is a stupid post, Heisenberg isn't going to fuck Alcina because he hates her, Heisenberg isn't going to fuck Zoe because they're completely unrelated, Heisenberg isn't going to fuck Rose because he doesn't go around diddling children and on a comparative timescale it's basically pedophilia. Alright, that's it, I just can't, I just fucking can't, who in the god damn do you think you are to be the arbiter of what people ship. You are clearly an aggressively straight man and if you have this much of a problem I bet you're deep down closeted. Like, this isn't intended to be personal but it kind of came out that way, it's just, why? Why? What is the reasoning to say something like this, go bomb an abortion clinic dumbass.

when the entire fandom is flooded with wintersberg shit, suppressing het pairings, especially when they are so rare and they have almost no fans, is disgusting.

[ask-codeearasure]

LifeAfterDeath Rant and Headcanons

I've needed LifeAfterdeath content for a week straight, because I enjoy bisexual polyamorous Reaper and his two lovers not only with unique history, but with a few screws loose.

This rant may be unorganized too, but I think you'll live. I got tired of seeing this hanging around in the drafts and I can't be fucked to look back and fix it.

Considering how popular Reapertale is, I'm impressed Reapertale Soriel and LifeAfterDeath aren't more popular, and I'm not saying this to shame anyone. I'm just appalled. I didn't expect this outcome even though I should have considering this fandom's history with shafting Life to the side and ignoring her importance to Reaper, characterizing Reaper as a perverted scumbag that doesn't respect Geno's fucking boundaries, and characterizing Geno as a sopping wet cat that wouldn't attempt to beat Reaper's ass or yell at him in self-defense at Reaper's attempt to collect his soul.

The mischaracterizations in favor of shipping never fail to piss me off, just as a general statement, especially in terms of who Geno is in canon because in truth, he has become a twisted and manipulative son of a bitch on part of his trauma, death, watching Chara complete genocide after genocide after genocide from the Save Screen, and especially on part of his own goal. Before Sans used Papyrus to get to him, Geno had a plan to destroy his entire timeline in order to stop that cycle of genocides, and there was still a part of him that didn't believe Sans's little plan would work in place of his own. Geno is also characterized to be extremely stubborn on top of that, DETERMINED if you will, unwilling to hear Sans out until he brings Papyrus with him the second to last time they met up in the Save Screen.

I imagine even after Geno is freed, he carries a lot of baggage, and with time, his prior decisions and reality of what he almost did and could have done if Sans hadn't stepped in begins to weigh on him. Even though he is free and he has a support system and two brothers to fall back on, I don't think Geno would be truly happy with the life he's living. This was implied when Error's origin was revealed, that Error was created because Geno fucked around and found out with another stock of DETERMINATION and ended up in the Anti-Void.

Geno is the kind of character that would benefit the most from adequate support, therapy, and perhaps some anxiety medication, NOT tsundere wubification and fetishization on the part of fuckass pervert Reaper so desperate for love he's willing to violate the first bitch he can touch with no consequence to them even though Life is right fucking there and has been there for AGES. He already has a source of affection. He already has an escape from the job he absolutely despises, and he's had that escape for centuries longer than he's known Geno exists.

And that's another thing, Reaper keeps getting turned into a sex pest that doesn't know how to keep his hands to himself when in reality he is the exact fucking opposite. Reaper isn't even that fond of physical touch to begin with, as touch-starved as he may be. He avoids making connections with people most of the time unless it's to reap souls. For a long ass time he has known that whatever he touches will wilt away and die. For a long ass time he has known that the vast majority of the other gods do not like him or his brother for the possibility they introduce: that gods probably can die, that life might not be eternal for them. Reaper and Grim weren't even born from stars like the rest of them; they came from black holes.

Reaper has a very depressing complexity and unlike Grim, who befriends the others to the best of his ability despite the social struggles they face, Reaper does the complete opposite and isolates in a sense. Whatever happiness he has in something else is few and far between, and once he meets Life by hanging out in her secret garden whatchamacallit, that is when their interactions start to establish a genuine connection, that even though they hated each other at first, interacting on their own terms and in an environment completely separated from the people they both don't like gives them a common basis to grow off of.

Reaper starts to learn more about life, and Life, more about death. They grow to respect one another, they grow to adore one another through this mutual understanding and growth, and when Chara kills Life, Reaper is absolutely devastated. Aside from his brother, he just lost the one person who bothered to give a shit about him and understand him, and regardless of conflict (surrounding Reaper's connection with Chara's death and "rebirth"), Reaper works tirelessly to find Life, and at some point he does succeed in reviving her or something using a glass flower.

But no, the only established part about Reaper's character that everyone knows about is he suffers from loneliness and social isolation, but now that it somehow impedes his ability to know what's appropriate or not in interacting with Geno even though he has free access to the rest of the multiverse and sees a bajillion social situations all at the same time simultaneously. He's so isolated from most accounts of living and culture that he can't be blamed for his stereotyped and fanonized behavior. Suuuuuuure. Fucking sure.

Good fucking job with that. What if I told you he's competent despite his isolation? I get that the majority of social interaction he gets has to do with his job, with collecting the souls of dying or already dead people and that most of them are difficult in accepting their deaths and letting Death the Elder take them to the Underworld, but the Reapertale gods are also capable of existing in many areas at once across the multiverse. There is no way Reaper wouldn't know better and there is no way his pain should be used as an excuse to treat Geno like a side-piece against his will. If you want a rapist villain in Reaper, then fine, whatever, but don't fuckin romanticize this shit like it has been for the last eight years. It's fucking deplorable and go have a seat in the corner over there, you asshole.

God you fuckers make me livid, and I don't even know you.

I despise how much Life is shafted off to the side as if she's one of Reaper's normal every day friends, like he has those in the first place. You are mistaking him for Grim in that regard, and I didn't think that was possible considering how different they are both in design and personality.

The history with Life mirrors a lot of themes from Classic Toriel. Asriel and Chara get fucking bodied and everything goes to shit, she leaves her husband, yadda yadda yadda. But with Life, on top of her children dying, she is furious at the creation of the very concept of death and is horrified at Asgore enforcing that. She loves all of her creations dearly and the idea that they all have to end at some point is a reality completely alien to her as a goddess, an immortal being.

This, on top of the deaths of Asriel and Chara, were Life's first introduction to death. There wasn't any peace to be seen in those things, no benefit, no bite. All she understood was the pain they felt. This is why she hates death in the beginning, both the people that are death and the very concept of it, and interacting with Reaper the way they were in her sanctuary and over a long passage of time was one of the best ways she'd understand what death really is and why it is necessary.

Life and Death coexist because an excess of either one is a disaster waiting to happen. An excess of Life would mean overpopulation, little appreciation for life, and the depletion of resources. An excess of death would mean little population and resources. In every literal way, they balance each other out.

Before meeting Life, Reaper felt as if barely anything life had to offer applied to him, that he had nothing to look forward to since he destroys all of it anyway. His meetings with Life over time showed him that there is value in what exists around him, even if it's still little. And when Life made him that glass flower from her flames, that is what that gift represented.

Over time, Life showed Reaper that his existence (and that of Grim's too) is not a curse. And in turn, Reaper has found someone else who values him.

But how would this apply to Reaper's relationship with Geno, since in this post I said Life and Death were an item before Reaper met him? I don't fucking like that this significance of Life to Reaper has been replaced by and glued onto Geno. And no, I'm not saying that as some kind of ship war whatever the fuck it's gonna be assumed to be; my claim is the characters have been skewered, when genuinely, Reaper can value Geno for different reasons than he does Life.

Geno could be many things to Reaper on top of being another lover. Reaper could really like him because Geno is a mortal or mortal-adjacent being that doesn't fear him and treats him like he does everyone else.

Reaper could experience things he hasn't before through Geno, like finally having a relationship lacking in fear or apprehension towards him as an individual, and also whatever fixations Geno would have about science or fiction. Just because Reaper knows about mortals and all the weird shit they believe and do doesn't mean he's done anything to experience it. Knowledge and experience of the same subject are two different things to have, and Geno being the closest equivalent to Reaper understanding mortals perhaps a little better would be very interesting to write.

Maybe Geno could also be Reaper's polyamorous awakening.

Of course, I could also say Geno is Reaper's bisexual awakening or both of those things at once, but I think Reaper would have already picked up on that given he sees people all the fucking time. I could also say that technically, in Reapertale, polyamorous gods are the fucking norm, but I don't think Reaper would have thought of how that applies to him given he's only had one lover up until this point and he's limited in every other relationship category anyways.

He knows the concept, he knows it exists, he knows/knows about people who are polyamorous, but he hasn't dedicated any thought to it beyond that, if that makes sense.

I also think it would be interesting, calling back on the idea that Geno is not happy with his life on the Surface, which is what leads to him experimenting with DETERMINATION again and landing his ass in the Anti-Void. I'm aware this might be bending canon information on who and what Reaper can kill via a simple touch, because Geno might not have that immunity anymore once he's free from the Save Screen, but I don't give a shit today. I'm tired of Geno always getting cornered in the Save Screen anyways, I need a change in setting and circumstances, and he can be just as much a glitch outside the Void as he was inside of it.

What if Reaper and Geno first meet in the middle of Geno's experiments, and his appearance and attempt at reaping Geno's soul is what distracts Geno from completing the events that would have led up to the discovery of the Anti-Void? While Geno is enraged, Reaper is beyond confused, perhaps a smidge horrified as well, considering the only other living thing that could resist his touch was Chara/Chaos. And since I'm working off what I know of the True Pacifist timeline of Reapertale as well, because I FUCKING CAN, Reaper does have the comfort of knowing Chara is no longer corrupted and no longer a threat, and since Geno has no sign of corruption, that must mean his resistance to the death touch comes from something else.

And there we have an issue between Geno and Reaper that makes more sense than Geno being an uwu baby tsundere and Reaper having his actual personality and history with other characters acknowledged and how that will apply to how he interacts with and becomes interested in Geno now.

Just because it ended well with Chara to some degree, as the new Demigod of Faith, does not mean there wasn't centuries upon centuries of devastation leading up to that point, and Reaper of all people could still be reeling from that as one of Chara's primary and personal victims back then. In this light, Geno and the Demigod of Faith have some similarity I doubt anyone in this equation is happy with, even though that similarity could be driven to the extreme in Reaper's mind and only Reaper's mind on behalf of the associated trauma.

Of course, with this taken into account, there is always the possibility that Reaper would resort to using his scythe on Geno anyway, but Geno is a case he doesn't know about yet and Geno is beyond PISSED that his life was threatened by this floating goth dude in a dress.

Geno would have just as much against Reaper as Reaper would have against him, since he has died before and the Save Screen was basically his purgatory for who knows how long. Geno has been tormented not at all by Death himself, but by dying and his own version of Chara as well, forced to watch the genocide of his loved ones over and over again. Dying was used as a tool against him, and there's more complexity in that area than I think we as a fandom gives that credit for, and I'm sure Life would be able to relate with that since she's had trauma related to death and has been killed before as well.

In a manner of speaking, Death and death is what brings these characters together. Life saved Death (indirectly and from his own perception of himself), Death saved Life, Death saved Geno from fucking up his own life (indirectly), and Life could advocate for Death.

Hell, if you look at the job Reaper actually does, even though his touch can kill, you will notice that he's moreso cleaning up after death than going out of his way to enact it, and Grim is much the same. The difference is what kind of souls they interact with and whether they'll cooperate in going to the Underworld or not.

If you look, all three of these characters have connections and experiences in common, whether from Chara-related trauma or dying. They could also have the same/similar interests as well, as Reaper, Life, and Geno are all fond of puns and some mode of sciences as well, such as Life with botany, Geno with the multiverse theory and DETERMINATION experiments, and Reaper most likely with how organic matter breaks down following death and other nuggets of information he picked up from time in thousands of AUs.

But regardless of how the gods in this equation can connect to other realities, whether though just existing as concepts or through social media (which is a headcanon for how Reaper keeps up), I doubt either of them know nearly as much as Geno would considering they live by a rule of not interfering with the lives of mortals beyond what their work requires.

So Geno is going to blow both their minds and maybe get them addicted to The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, because he is that kind of nerd to me. He'd fixate on looking into Surface mythologies after his interaction with Reaper and then be absolutely fucking confused and a little frustrated when none of them end up being a perfect fit to what Reaper is. He'd brew coffee as a peace offering to Reaper whenever he shows up after he finds out the dude likes caffeine.

I'm thinking Geno is the one who accidentally establishes a connection of genuine interest between himself and Reaper instead of Reaper constantly coming back to harass him for attention he already fucking has.

And all the effort Geno would go into to try and understand Reaper as a person, something more than a concept on paper, would be perplexing for Reaper to find out about, because most people either give up or attempt to escape whenever running into him. But Geno isn't doing that. He hasn't done that since the start regardless of whatever fear he might have. In this case, Geno's stubbornness and Determination would be mistaken for bravery or the closest thing he can get to that, and that plus his curiosity is admirable.

And if anything, it's Reaper who left the first time around in reaction to Geno's rage and inability to die from his touch. I would assume it was more out of shock than anything else as well, and Reaper couldn't think of an alternative to deal with him in the heat of the moment.

No one surprises Death itself that easily, especially not mortals, but Geno is no ordinary mortal and he would continue to surprise and amuse both Reaper and Life for the remainder of his days.

-- Sarco

[epickiya722]

bnha 431 was in no way homophobic nor is the epilogue of jjk having the mc get together with a girl is not homophobia ( not making a same sex ship canon isnt in anyway homophobic ( in regards to bnha 431 not throwing out buildup for izuocha just to go with a popular same sex ship isnt homophobia its good writing)

Okay, I wouldn't say "good writing" just because the main boy and girl get together. Most of the time really, it feels like a "must writing".

I know, Izuku and Ochako had some build-up, but that doesn't mean it was really "good". Most of the time, it did feel underdeveloped. Ochako was constantly brought up to be having a crush, yet on Izuku's end we don't even get the word for him.

Even in 431, I wouldn't call it "Good writing" for them because most of the chapter touched on how they were doing in life. There wasn't any mention of romantic feelings. They don't even say the word "date".

It just felt like they would hang out and that's about it.

Same for JJK. I wouldn't say that Yuji got together with Yuko because he doesn't. On the surface level of things, she is still fawning over Yuji who shows zero romantic interest in her.

For all we know, after he settles with everything in his hometown, he'll go right back to Tokyo and continue being a sorcerer and probably never see Yuko again.

Her whole epilogue just felt like it was showing more of the kind of person is. I know the whole "snow is romantic" thing, but snow also has different meanings. In this case, Yuji's connection with snow is shown again. Previous times was with Mahito and when he recalls a fond memory of Wasuke, his grandfather, to Sukuna.

While MHA 431 and Yuko's epilogue may seem romantic, and you can see them as such if you wish I'm not stopping you, to me... they really just lack romance and could just mean something else to their respective stories.

No, a girl and a boy getting together isn't homophobic, but that doesn't mean they win in the love department either. The gays may not win, but the straights aren't particularly winning either.

[eluminium]

an unfriendly reminder that the name "Skranchers" for the Skizz, Tango, and Jimmy trio is actually an awful fucking name! And maybe we should come up with something original instead of gluing Skizz's name onto the Ranchers name like he's just an afterthought! Calling it "Skranchers" doesn't fix the problem of people throwing Skizz out of his own series that he started with Tango! We could call them, idk, Crazy Chefs? Plate Up Pals? Goodfellas as a reference to the mafia "Jimmy Jiggles" jokes and how restaurants can be fronts for mob activity? the classic STJ, or TSJ, or JST, or whatever combo similar to ZITS, TIES, and JITS? JUST. SOMETHING. THAT ISN'T. SKRANCHERS. WHAT THE FUCKING IS A SKRANCHERS.

[zukkaoru]

the disparity in kudos between a skk fic and a fic for literally any other bsd characters/ship :/

[burkleswinifred]

i may enjoy other kurt and blaine ships every now and then, but at the end of the day klaine will always be my number one ship for the both of them. i genuinely can't see them with anyone but each other.

[rotisseries]

worst thing about getting into bsd rn is my trusted sources telling me that the fanfic fucking sucks like ok WHAT am I supposed to do when I finish this then

[musical-chick-13]

See, I think the thing about deranged, toxic relationships in fiction, is that everyone involved has to actively choose to walk into or keep coming back to this relationship. That's the interesting part for me. What would make someone, against every single ounce of reason, decide that being in a relationship like that is genuinely worth it for them? Why would someone willingly put themselves in that situation? What has to be going on in their psyche? What do they get (or think they get) out of it?

If the toxicity is one-sided or one party is completely railroaded into the relationship at every turn until they finally cave, or there's some outside force trapping both of them in the relationship and they don't actually want to be there, that's not particular interesting to me, personally.

(Obviously, other people can disagree with this; people have a wide variety of opinions and ways they engage with fiction, which is good, actually. I'm simply talking about my own thoughts.)

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

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[olderthannetfic]

/olderthannetfic/769334704445997057/another-fandometrics-year-in-review-another-bevy

I am - genuinely - very sympathetic to the frustrations of solely f/f shippers and I DO think some people are a little too quick to shrug off the lack of f/f in fandom spaces with “lack of representation in media what can you do” when fandom is all about assigning personalities and backstories to one-line characters. HOWEVER. As someone who likes all kinds of ships, the experiences I have had across many MANY fandoms with solely f/f shippers treating people who also liked the main m/m ship as traitors and bad feminists, not to mention the number of people who have told me, a trans man, that I HAVE to write more f/f and less m/m For The Sisterhood, has made me LESS likely to engage in f/f, not more. Some of y’all are your own worst enemy when it comes to this stuff I swear. (Hashtag not all femslashers, hashtag some of my best friends are femslashers, etc)

--

Demands that people defend and explain perfectly commonplace things always end up generating dumber and dumber explanations.

I agree that that explanation by itself is kind of weak, but "Why are you asking only about AO3?" (as people often are) plus representation problems plus the other commonly cited reasons add up to a perfectly sufficient explanation. People just don't like what they're hearing.

--

The kind of f/f fandom people are often looking for—a by cis wlw, for cis wlw one—is not that different in size from the by cis mlm, for cis mlm one. They are both small.

Yes, I know they pretend that's not what they mean. They are lying. Possibly to themselves. Just look at the bawwwwing over the idea that cis men liking f/f could add to the amount of f/f art or the audience for the same.

Many AO3 slashers are better compared to transbian catgirls making lesbian furry porn or cis dudes horny for Buffy/Faith or something. There are plenty of people who care about f/f. They're just not necessarily the ~right~ people in the right spaces making the right art to count in some wanker's statistics.

Part of the reason our explanations and discussions always sound so bonkers is that we constantly compare apples to oranges.

--

And while we're at it, let's talk about that hoary old ~one-line character~ thing.

The reality is that we like to talk about how we elevate random walk-on characters, but the vast majority of shippy AO3 fanfic is about fairly major characters. Clint/Coulson was bizarrely popular in 2012. It has been twelve years. It is time to get over it.

On top of most things focusing on leads, the focus is often on characters who are given a lot of interiority. The audience is invited to be in their head and care about their feelings. People aren't usually good at analyzing film, so they use more familiar metrics involving text: how many lines do they have in the script? How many minutes does that translate to on screen? They don't know how to quantify a character being treated as an object to be looked at beyond "Booty shorts bad". But it's not general sex appeal or amount of skin on display that matters here.

As audiences, we respond to film grammar and "Just happen to like" or not like some character as a result of it, but we aren't aware of the mechanics, so we can't explain why beyond vague spluttering and "How dare you! Everyone should think this because it's the natural response!"

In general, media with multiple central women who have intense relationships with each other and who are conventionally attractive generate plenty of interest in f/f. Media with one hot girl who has the camera trained on her ass all the time while the men do everything interesting usually don't.

It's a no brainer and the harebrained explanations come from trying to look deeper to find the secret conspiracy where there is none.

--

The biggest mistake of most of this dumb discourse is "But I see all these queer women here. Why isn't there more f/f?"

This presupposes some default "normal" level of f/f without any actual justification for why that would be expected. You see the same nonsense from people going "Why is there so much m/m?"

What's the default? 10% because of the fake statistic that 10% of people are gay? 75% because action movies are sausagefests and all the important relationships are between men? What's the "normal" level of femslash? 25% because f/f, f/m, m/m, and gen are all equally valid? 80% because lots of fanfic writers are women?

Chasing one precise number is a fool's errand, but building a whole theory on the idea that there's an implicit number without even digging into that assumption is more foolish still.

When you look at the fanfic (or art!) spaces that are full of dudes, they often look like a bit of a mirror of AO3. Lots of het still. Lots of f/f. Lots of lady blorbos people are obsessed with. Limited m/m. Depending on the space, there might be a lot more gen. It's not perfectly 1:1, but then AO3 isn't precisely like other chick-heavy fanfic spaces anyway.

--

In my experience, the thing that makes a blorbo take off is that they're fairly major in canon, often driving the narrative even if they aren't the main protagonist, and they show up early.

In the cases where they weren't there at the very beginning, them showing up was the catalyst for fans who like this type of character to get into the canon at all. It's not just Castiel: you see it with Methos from Highlander and plenty of others. It's usually in a context where that fandom didn't have that much established for this type of fan. There wasn't a second dude to pair the lead with or the ship turned some people off or something. Highlander, for example, had fucktons of het shippers, both of canon het and of various OFCs and canon dudes. It was the slashers who stampeded over there when friends told them there was new ship potential for m/m. SPN... Sam/Dean was very popular on LJ, but I think it's obvious why a viable non-brother ship was of interest to people. I watched tons of people get pimped into Teen Wolf for Sterek. Of course they ended up liking it and not really caring about other ships: they were pre-selected to like that specific vibe. (And they are all wrong because Scott is the best and Derek has weird teeth.) The same thing happens with f/f. People get into media all the time because they're promised such-and-such a ship dynamic.

Wynonna Earp had plenty of people who were there for the women because the women are who matter for the most part. People were super into the canon f/f because it's hot and because it didn't seem like they were just going to get hit by a bus and shooed out of the narrative.

How many things that everybody and their sister saw have that many main women who matter? Some, definitely, but they're outnumbered by the sausagefests and by the things with very central het. Not everything with a huge audience gets a big fanfic fandom, but most things with big fanfic fandoms do have a big audience. You need critical mass to make a fandom happen.

Something like MCU has a variety of tasty shipping options, but the characters it spent all its time on first were the small selection of guys fandom cares the most about. When other characters were established very early, they also had an early spurt of fandom. I can't be the only one who remembers Pepperony fandom on LJ. It wasn't just people tagging canon ships in the background: Pepper/Tony shippers were a whole thing.

Yes, there are exceptions, but we make a big deal of them while ignoring the overall pattern.

Again, it is time to get over Clint/Coulson, Arthur/Eames, and people hallucinating that Hux had a personality in that first movie.

These are rare exceptions, and they're all snark-based at that. Darcy Lewis was also obnoxiously popular based solely on a few lines of snark, but that didn't count because she wasn't the correct and virtuous choice of favorite female character.

(Seriously, you should have seen the whining about all the people horny for Darcy who didn't give a fuck about boring Jane. Sorry, but your blorbo is a snooze and mine has amazing tits in addition to being funny.)

--

Let's go look at what's big on AO3 since it's easy and that's what other lazy statistics compilers do and then base their whining on:

Looking at the M/M tag, here's the sidebar:

Castiel/Dean Winchester (111856)

Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (70823)

Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski (70134)

Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (67796)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (61397)

Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) (56548)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (55109)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (49179)

Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku (46679)

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (44754)

I'm seeing canons with huge audiences. Teen Wolf and SPN are way more popular in fanfic fandom, relatively speaking, but they're certainly not obscure media.

I'm seeing a lot of leads. Sirius/Remus does stand out a little: they aren't walk-ons, but fanon did elevate them. Same with Draco, but main protagonist/most obvious nemesis is hardly a surprising ship type.

Let's play with exclude filters and see what's next (numbers won't be exact since this is via excluding the previous batches):

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (43234)

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian (40115)

Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V (38398)

Keith/Lance (Voltron) (32757)

Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) (32744)

Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester (31834)

Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) (31527)

Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) (31011)

Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (30819)

Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (30133)

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson (27403)

Original Male Character/Original Male Character (26854)

Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou (26854)

Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin (26454)

Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (26453)

Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF) (21154)

Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion (20946)

James T. Kirk/Spock (20716)

Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jimin (20561)

Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet (20113)

Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru (20039)

Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio (18806)

Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel (18013)

Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier (17577)

Dan Howell/Phil Lester (17518)

Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager (17404)

Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know (17390)

Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou (17141)

Tartaglia | Childe/Zhongli (Genshin Impact) (17041)

Harry Potter/Severus Snape (16773)

Oh look: more leads.

Sure, there are some little oddities, like the fact that taekook is obviously the worst BTS ship and it is a personal attack on me that it is that popular. But come the fuck on: this is a parade of some of the most famous musicians and most popular anime, shows that had huge audiences and particularly huge audiences of the type that like fanfic.

Let's have a look at f/m:

Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug (33773)

Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy (33031)

Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s) (29586)

Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (24192)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (21606)

James Potter/Lily Evans Potter (21088)

Kylo Ren/Rey (16028)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader (15922)

Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley (15635)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (15335)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (14552)

Fox Mulder/Dana Scully (14214)

Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin (13616)

Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson (11471)

Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak (11383)

Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan (11272)

Castiel/Dean Winchester (11187)

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added (10529)

Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (9750)

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s) (9736)

Okay, it is AO3 after all, so some m/m ships have snuck in there, but the general trend is still leads, leads, leads, now with some readerfic. (For James/Lily, you can blame the insanity that is Marauders fandom on TikTok, or so I hear.)

And f/f:

Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (21520)

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s) (17873)

Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan (16168)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (13681)

Clarke Griffin/Lexa (12876)

Adora/Catra (She-Ra) (11532)

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda (10880)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (10532)

Caitlyn/Vi (League of Legends) (8925)

Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long (7766)

Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler (7369)

Korra/Asami Sato (7146)

Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair (6720)

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added (6684)

Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught (5764)

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s) (5529)

Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell (5347)

Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein (4895)

Jirou Kyouka/Yaoyorozu Momo (4662)

Charlie Magne | Morningstar/Vaggie (4402)

Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan (4284)

Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer (4223)

Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam (3936)

Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova (3876)

Maya Bishop/Carina DeLuca (3700)

Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva (3689)

Castiel/Dean Winchester (3664)

Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price (3471)

Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs (3394)

Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee (3324)

Carmilla might be a little obscure compared to some media, and some other ships have snuck in here, but again, we're seeing some fairly prominent canons and the leads or at least main cast who have intense relationships in those canons. If most fantasy tv shows were Once Upon a Time, all of AO3 might be awash in nothing but swanqueen and captainswan.

The big thing that one sees is simply that f/f fandom often revolves around different media, while m/m and f/m are more likely to be into the same stuff that's full, full, full of main dudes getting to do things with one woman who matters.

We do not, in general, elevate anybody.

Not unless some very talented writer leads the way first with a juicy longfic that establishes all the fanon.

We repeat the myth that we do because it suits a certain narrative about how creative and transformative fandom is—and another equally popular narrative about how the lack of ship A/B is a ~conspiracy~ to rob one of one's rightful overflowing feed trough of fic.

It's bullshit.

We write about leads.

[ultrasharpy12345stuff]

SUCCESS STORY (manifesting)

OMFG you guys! I did it! I made it to my desired reality! I'm living my desired life!

All I did was decide it's done. More specifically, I just did Angel's fulfillment challenge (which you don't have to do). Everyday I just decided to live like I was in my desired reality right now as often as I could and whenever I wanted to.

If I vented, I vented. If I ranted I ranted. If I sabotaged my manifestation I just decided it wouldn't matter and that nothing would ruin my manifestation and everything was ok and fine.

And this is totally optional but I affirmed sometimes. I just did to remind myself that it was done.

My affirmations were:

-I'm living my desired life

-Nothing can ruin my manifestation

-I'm in my desired reality

-I'm in my desired reality in my penthouse in Tokyo

-I have all my desires

-The 3D conforms instantly

And it worked! And now I'm happy! I woke up today IN my penthouse in Tokyo! The view of the city is amazing. I checked my bank account and it turns out I'm super rich! Like I literally have BILLIONS of dollars. And it's like I always get millions of dollars out of nowhere! So it's like I get paid just to exist!

Also life in this reality is soooooooo different than on Earth. Like the people in the city are nice... but they aren't just humans beings. I'm seeing Japanese monsters walking around wearing uggs! I can also see Godzilla walking around in a place in the city it's so cool! (don't worry, they made a place in the city specifically for her)

I can also enter the void anytime I fall asleep. Like everytime I go to sleep I wake up IN the void state completely aware. I know this because I just decided I would go to sleep and I did! (one of the things I also manifested, to fall asleep instantly)

And guess what? I also revised my ENTIRE life. Like all the shitty, terrible things that happened to me and all the awful things I've done are GONE! They never happened. All the arguments I had with people on Youtube are gone, they never happened. I never met those people. All the people who I argued with on Discord, well I never argued with them. All the problems with my family are gone.

I also have new memories of me being in Highschool. It went great! I made some friends, they never got angry at me, I got to play my videogames, and I never had to deal with any kind of stress. And I also have my college degree even though I never went to college.

Also let me show you what I look like:

This body:

This is my hairstyle (except it's white colored):

This is my face (trigger warning: AI art, also dw I'm black):

And I'm like popular on Twitter. I'm as popular as @rariatoo. People follow my art and they love drawing my OCs and characters, it's so much fun. Plus I have a patreon and a redbubble. I get to make my OCs as plushies and stickers and ship them off.

And the best part is that there's no wars! No covid, no genocide in the Congo or Palestine, no racism, no problems. And there never will be, everything is fine! Its literally a Utopia.

Summary of what I manifested:

-Desired life & reality

-Freezing Time

-Revising entire life

-Different family (same soul but different looks (slightly) and better personality)

-Entering the void whenever I fall asleep and at will

-A butler friend who I can summon and make disappear at will (he's super nice and never have any problems, perfect personality, kinda shy, and we just had some woopie 🥵🤪)

-Magic (I can do LOTS of crazy stuff)

-Being able to shift realities at will

-Visiting my family through a magic door (my family lives in what I call, "Reality # 3 and I can visit them anytime I want)

-Spawning groceries and food whenever I want (I still go out, dw)

-Friends on discord and some IRL

-Money money monayyyyyyyyyyy

-Perfect health and mental health, no problems with my body

-Never getting yelled at ever again or abused/nobody gets abused/abuse doesn't exist. Yellers don't exist.

& a lot of other personal things

You guys got this! You can get your dream life! Go for it! *I didn't get my dream life yet, that's why the title reads:

"SUCCESS STORY (���𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴)" When you put "manifesting in the title it means you haven't gotten your desires yet but you're doing it to help you live in the end. SO please don't be angry or offended.*

[epickiya722]

I think with popular ships when people say "it's boring" many factors can play into them.

Maybe you don't care for one or both of the characters, the fanonized version of said ship is so wrong but sadly it's the popular version of that ship, it's just your ship, all that whatever.

But it's the same case for even the less popular ships.

It may not be as popular, but that wouldn't excuse it from being boring to somebody.

[unholybacon355]

Kinktober Day 13 - Hirai Momo x M! Reader

Kinktober Masterlist

Momo is hot as hell, there is no doubt about that. She always catches the eye with her spectacular body. Wherever she goes, always someone is turning her head to take a proper look at her. She’s hot and she knows it and embraces it. How could she not know it when is always receiving compliments?. She’s hot as fuck and you love it too.

There always was the discussion about if her big round ass or her large breast was her most desired body part. You always listened to people talking about that in the hallways or in the bathroom. Of course everybody wants to fuck Momo, she’s the it girl of the campus. And you want it too., but she’s out of your league. 

Yeah, she’s a gymnast and you are part of the football team, but she’s still so out of your league. This can’t be the classical sport romance because she’s very popular and no one pays attention to you. Yes you’re on the football team, but you aren’t really playing. You had been benched almost the entire season till today when the injuries of your teammates allowed you to finally jump to the field. 

You were really fine with that, at least touching the field was good for you. Damn you love this sport, but sadly you aren't that good at it. Otherwise you would be on the titular team. But sometimes people get lucky, maybe something moves in the universe to make a poor bastard like you happy once in a while just to keep things balanced. And you were the lucky one today when in the final minute of the game out of pure adrenaline rush you were able to sack the enemy quarterback on their own end zone, practically winning a tied game.

Immediately everybody was shouting your name and rising you to the sky. You were today's heroe. And that leads to where you are now. At the bedroom of someone that you don’t even know, with your pants around your knees and the girls of your dream half naked kneeling in front of you. 

This was one of the many parties to which you were dragged tonight. Of course everybody wants to have the hero at their party, and your captains were shure you that you attended every party around the campus that night. Till you ended up in this house, very drunk, and in some magic way crossing paths with Momo. She was kinda drunk too and for some reason was also very happy to meet the new college heroe. Maybe because beside her almost no one brings joy to this university in sports. Yes, she wasn't just hot but also a champion.

Then things are blurry in your memory. Maybe you were dragged into a drinking game, and maybe you also ended up doing that stupid “Seven minutes in heaven “ game with Momo, you are seriously too drunk to remember if that really happened. But if it happened probably that was what led to this. 

You were kissing Momo in the hallway on the second floor, and touching her in a very inappropriate way, when you kicked a random door and both entered the room, shutting the door behind you. Things quickly escalated but sadly you didn't have a single condom with you. Why would you have one if you aren't getting laid in the first place? So Momo decided to reward you with something special instead. That's why she was on her knees with her torso naked, and spitting on her tits to make them slippery.

At this very moment in your opinion the discussion about Momo’s tiddies versus her ass is finished. Her boobs were by far the biggest you had ever seen in person. They are like twoo fucking ships on the middle of the sea, moving at a discontinuous and not symmetric passe while Momo is spreading her saliva between them. One coming up when the other is coming down at the rhythm of her breath and hands. You were frankly amazed by the size of her breast. 

Momo bites her lower lips looking at you in a sexy but shy way. “I don’t do this with anyone.” And you knew that was true, there isn’t a single rumor about her sleeping with anyone or hooking up at parties. In fact you weren't sure if a sports strat like her was even attending these kinds of parties, and that made you feel even luckier. “But you seem to be nice.” That and also that both of you are very drunk right now. 

Momo wraps her fingers around your shaft stroking you and spreading her saliva over you too, that is until your dick is wet and shiny. You desperately need her to suck you, to feel her warm mouth around your meat, but instead your reward is another. Momo puts your shaft between her monumental tits and uses her hand to push them together. Her boobs are so big that your tip is barely visible over the crack of her cleavage. God, obviously her tits are better than her ass.  

And then the fun begins. Momo uses her hands to move her massive breasts up and down, sending you immediately to heaven. The feeling is amazing, your shaft is surrounded by the soften skiing ever had been. And her boobs are so soft that seem like you’re fucking cotton candy. You feel on the clouds.

“Does it feel good?” All you can elaborate as an answer is a moan because everything feels so amazing. To be honest you haven't had action in a while, so at this point everything should feel amazing. But you know this is different, you know that her tits are casting some kind of spell over you. Otherwise why is your shaft so hard right now? 

You’re praying for this to not be a dream. You're thanking the universe to allow you to make that play and end this night like this, with the girls of your dream stroking your dick with her tits. And Oh God! what a great job she’s doing. Momo’s hand never stops moving her boobs, maintaining your shaft sealed between them and maximizing your pleasure. All you can do is moan and look at her with a freshly discovered passion. 

Momo isn’t just hot as fuck but also so damn beautifull. Her delicate features  always capture your attention, and now seeing her with her mouth open spitting more saliva over her tits to maintain them lubricated,  feels like an extra reward to you. You don’t even want that blowjob anymore, that feels out of please now. It feels like an abuse of your luck to want something more from her, because this is already so amazing.

 Momo is panting with the effort of moving her tits up and down, and even like that she looks beautiful.  She is like an angel with big boobs, but still like an angel. Even with her tongue out to let her saliva drip over her tits she looks so damn beautiful in your eyes. Well, not for nothing she’s the most desired girl on the campus.

You let her do what she wants with your shaft, and obviously she has a lot of control over her body. After all she’s and gymnastic start, she clearly knows how to move her body and what to do with every single one of her muscles, and that includes her big boobs.The waves that her fat tits create over your dick, stimulating you to a new level of pleasure,  is more than you can mange. 

“I-I-I’m… Clo-Clooooseee.” You warn her but all what Momo does is increase the pace of her movement, and pushes her tits even closer together, sending you over the edge of your climax. Your dick spills thick ropes of semen over her breast, covering her entire chest with your white and sticky fluid. Flooding her big tits with your seed and making it even easier for her to milk you using your semen as lubricant too. You shoot your load over her massive boobs covering that beautifull mole on her left tiddie, and even drop your semen over her hard light tea big nipples.

“What a mess we made.” Momo said panting and giggling once she set free your shaft from the warm and soft embrace of her boobs. “Can you find me something to clean myself?” Add while trying to gather your semen with her hands but all what she is doing is just spreading it more over her chest. 

You are still amazed by what just happened. You can’t think straight like if you were in some kind of trance, and without realizing what you are doing you take off your shirt and you give it to her. After a few minutes her tits are clean and you put your shirt on again, now stained with your own milk. You’re still in a trance, still very drunk and in disbelief. 

You're thinking of asking for her number, maybe if you're lucky enough another kiss. But you also think this is already too much. In the end what would you pursue asking for her number? What more could obtain from her a drunk loser that is wearing a shirt stained with his fresh semen? But you still have to do it. If it isn't tonight when again would you have the chance to meet the most desired girl on the campus? Maybe the hotter and more desired girl in the entire city you correct yourself.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Something I’ve noticed across collecting different cards is that Twisted Wonderland seems to have a bit of a skew in which characters get character x player ship bait. Between events and card lines, some characters look like they are getting neglected in the ship teasing category. Is there some kind of popularity bias behind this? Like maximizing profit or game popularity by targeting certain groups of fans among the fandom?

Mmm… I haven’t noticed a skew, personally. If there is one at all, I’d wager it isn’t significant and it’ll probably depend a lot on what point in time you’re evaluating at. Since TWST is consistently releasing new content, the voice lines are sure to “even out” eventually if given enough of a waiting period. For example, you could say that the GloMasq boys have “more” bait lines… until Playful Land boys were released the year after, thus leveling the playing field.

All cards have character x player ship bait to some degree. Most of them will have at least 1-2 lines which involves complimenting you/your look (and if not in the card lines, then directly in the event, especially when Yuu has changed into a new outfit), Yuu touching them in some way (or being invited to), or asking Yuu to hang out or to do an activity with them. Everyone gets these lines because there are fans of every character that have spending power; it doesn't make sense to intentionally devote more lines to one while leaving the others starving for content when there are big spenders for all characters (which will vary widely anyway depending on the server too, so there are very few consistent "favorites"). Devoting time and energy to every character is what makes the most profit in the long run, as you risk losing the fans (and money) of "less popular" characters if they don't get new food too. It doesn’t matter that the high spenders for like… Azul stay because they’d still be losing the revenue coming in from Jack stans who dropped the game due to content drought.

I would say that what is and is not categorized as a "shipping bait" line depends a lot on other factors, the strongest of them all being individual perception. For example, if you ship yourself/your Yuusona with the character, you may be more likely to perceive any line spoken by your favorites as "more romantic" than other characters. This feeds into your preexisting expectations, and is therefore a form of confirmation bias. Meanwhile, if you ship two canon characters with one another, there are many more potential combinations so it's less likely that the particular ship you're into will get "bait". Additionally, some people are more liberal with what they perceive to be romantic or not. For example, Ace inviting you out to do something can be seen as both platonic or romantic, based on who is judging the line because there isn’t anything inherently romantic in spending time together. This is also the case in the main story or events; some players see Yuu giving Malleus the VDC/SDC ticket in book 5 as "a date" while others do not. This brings me to another point: character relationships within the main story and their personalities will also have a drastic impact on what is perceived as romantic or not. Rook, for example, speaks in a very flowery manner. Because of this, a majority of his lines could be seen as "bait". Characters that are gruffer (Jack) or "loner" types (Idia) would naturally have fewer inviting lines due to their characters. And again, with Ace, since he is presented as one of Yuu's closest friends in the main story, it's easy to perceive him as a platonic bestie when reading his lines since your friendship is already established.

Lastly, I think it's worthwhile to consider that there are also nuances that are lost in translation between JP and EN, which may alter which lines are seen as "bait" and which aren't. A really popular one I see floating around is Malleus's vignette level up line, which is translated in EN as "You aren’t afraid of me. But I’m starting to become afraid… of losing you.” Many fans perceive this as romantic and often joke that “Malleus missed the meeting about TWST not being a dating sim!” However, this line has a different context in JP which reads as more platonic.

The original Japanese line is お前は僕を恐れない。そんなお前を失うことが僕は恐ろしくなり始めている。This roughly has the same meaning, but the wording Malleus uses seems to specify that he is afraid of losing the Yuu that is not afraid of him. EN omits the そんな (son na) part, which would refer to a type or kind of person (as in, “son na hito”). In this case, Malleus is afraid of losing “the kind of Yuu that is not afraid of him”. So really, the original meaning of the line is that he is expressing a fear of what would happen if his true identity comes to light (as Yuu is the one person who doesn’t know), not that he is afraid of losing Yuu as a whole.

To summarize: it’s up to individual perception and, given enough time, every boy will get their fair share of fanservice for the player.

[sunderwight]

Considering how popular Qijiu and Liujiu are as a ships, and that a lot of people seem to headcanon Liu Qingge as having at least crushed on Yue Qingyuan for a while, I'm surprised there aren't more throuple/OT3 fics for them.

I mean not actually because it would be such a bad idea. They would have so many problems. There would be so many hurdles, like even just getting two of these guys to hookup usually involves some degree of truth serum or cosmic intervention or fuck-or-die scenarios, but embroiling all three of them in something like that would just let their bizarro brain worms thrive. Each of them is convinced that they are somehow the third wheel. Shen Jiu thinks that the only thing stopping Liu Qingge from plotting to kill him is that he's not clever enough to plot, and that Yue Qingyuan is enduring his inclusion under sufferance of guilt. Liu Qingge thinks that Shen Jiu is definitely actively plotting to kill him to get him out of the way, and that Yue Qingyuan is enduring his inclusion under sufferance of guilt. Yue Qingyuan is sure that any day now Liu Qingge and Shen Jiu are going to figure out that they're actually perfect for one another and then eject him from the polycule. They are all not speaking to each other but also regularly having furniture-shattering sex. Despite everything, the sex improves their dispositions so much that none of the other peak lords dare to intervene.

[thankskenpenders]

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.