#i was so aware that was a problem for teens in fandom spaces but i was not able to acknoeledge it might be happening to me on account of

[utilitycaster]

"There is zero attempt to extend anything but bad faith."

standing ovation for tidily describing this fandom in a nutshell tbh

Thanks, but I'm talking about a particular subset, the handwringy overwrought appeals to emotion crowd for whom the gods can never under any circumstances be redeemed, so unless you are also talking about that specific small piece of the fandom, I disagree! I actually think the fandom at large has been pretty receptive to the story as it's being told. And honestly, even when I've been in fandoms that frustrated me greatly with widespread bad faith interpretations (Midst and WBN have both had problems here)* they've come around when more obvious evidence came about. Better late than never.

I do think that an issue in this fandom, and fandoms at large, is not so much bad faith but as someone else said, motivated reasoning (though in the case of something the motivated reasoner dislikes, will become bad faith). A lot of people decide how they want to the story to go very early, often in a manner that validates their own existing real-world politics (even if they're not super applicable to the situation at hand) or personal preferences. I mean, that's in the end the source of a good number of shipping bad takes - people decide two characters must be in love and so even if they start dating other people and not talking to each other anymore, the motivated reasoning shipper decides that ACTUALLY this is all a front and the actor's blinks are in secret code and the relationship will definitely break up and the True Love was Always Endgame no matter how many times the creators say "no, it never was our intention to have those characters get together." But even then I think the silent majority of most fandoms are just. vibing and happy to be here. It's just that motivated reasoning people are loud.

And I'm not setting myself apart here; I'm loud and I'm certainly not without bias. My motivated reasoning tends to be based on foregone conclusions that I think are more likely to actually play out, I think, and I try to be self aware about it, but like, I do tend to assume stories will be good and follow some narrative lines and use the hints they drop, and that is itself an assumption because some stories are poorly made. Like, for example, with the gods, I do think that there is very little chance Matt is going to tell a story that's like "hey, Ashley, you know your first ever TTRPG character, who brought you into this friend group and whose life's purpose is to restore worship in the Everlight? Bad news, Everlight's a genocidal cunt and she's gotta die." That's obviously not my only evidence here. We've got the whole opening scene. We've got the fact that the non-Aeorian NPCs who aren't divine companions we've spent time with have been a sickly old man granted peace in death, a gnomish woman granted solace after being cruelly mocked by Aeorian forces, and the beggars who didn't have food despite wagons of supplies going to Aeor, whereas the Aeorian NPCs have been guards, slimy bureaucrats, teens badly beaten for minor crimes, and a drunk cop; the defaced and forgotten temple in a poor neighborhood that is heavily surveilled from afar because its laborers are unwelcome. Hell, as I said before it aired, the fact that the main PCs are gods and not Aeorian mages is a very deliberate and telling choice on its own. But yeah on some level, while I think Bells Hells have the space to decide to kill the gods since they are those same cast members (thought I doubt that is what they will do), I do not think Matt will tell an earlier story that says "hey, everyone at the table except Marisha? your beloved character(s) whom you played for all or most of a campaign followed a rotten-to-the-core lie."

Going off the meta of creators is a bit risky - a lot of dumb D20 discourse is based on assuming Brennan's leftism is the same as Very Online I Do Not Dream Of Labor Leftism and not his actual "the BBEG is the exploitation and undervaluing of labor and the dehumanization of others; labor itself can be deeply fulfilling, you just shouldn't be forced to rely on your capacity to do labor to the exclusion of all other things to be housed and fed" leftism and reasoning from there - but it's certainly more reliable than going off reasoning of "I as a random private individual want the gods to die for whatever the fuck reason and therefore that is the correct thing to happen and any other outcome is bad."

This is very rambly because I just got up and maybe it's that it's a nice morning and I can actually enjoy a leisurely breakfast before going into work unlike most of last week and much of the rest of this week, but for all I proudly identify as a hater, I am very much a lover of fiction and I want it to succeed and I want it to not just validate me. Like, if I hate on something it's because I wish it were better, but I don't hate on something just because it presents a different viewpoint than the one I already held. And I think you have to bring that good faith to fandom as well. If people are being idiots and assholes then yeah you don't need to keep acting like they're valid for that (I mean, they're valid in that everyone has the right to their opinions, but not in the sense that you need to grant those opinions intellectual consideration on par with thoughtful and evidenced meta and theories) but I do not actually go in assuming the fandom is going to be wrong and dumb and disappointing, and I think that's why I've found such enjoyment in it. Most people are chill! Chill people just tend not to loudly say WOW I'M SO CHILL AND THIS STORY IS GREAT.

*one bit of salt to cut the sweetness here but also still weirdly positive: the way I've dealt with that and specifically WBN is that I am trying to write one piece of meta after each episode that doesn't attack people or anything, just lays out my thoughts respectfully. Be the change you wish to see. I think a lot of people in fandom see someone disagreeing with them and go "OH YOU CAN'T LET US HAVE ANYTHING" and frankly this is the cause of almost all fandom unpleasantness I've experienced (in the sense of people seeing me say I don't like something and acting like I shut them down instead of simply didn't vibe), but it's important to remember that isn't how it works. Even if you do think the fandom has widespread bad opinions, you can change this by being thoughtful and patient and putting forth better ones. I mean there's limits, and if a fandom is genuinely hateful, get out, but if it's just surface-level takes for something that should be deeper? Be the one who shows the depth.

[ffviidirtyconfessions]

genuine question!! why do you care about sefikura so much when they are not real people? i get not liking a ship for whatever reason but your strong feelings on the ship seem unwarranted when you're literally running a dirty confessions blog. liking sefikura =/= condoning abuse nor invalidating real peoples trauma. cloud is not real. neither is sephiroth. thats why you can sexualise them silly style on a tumblr blog! i do not mean this maliciously, i am genuinely wondering

To start, above all of the other concerns, I don't like nor allow anything related to sefikura on this blog because it conflicts with the pedophilia rule. In game canon, Cloud and Sephiroth first met when Cloud was a young teenager, and Sephiroth was very much an adult.

That alone is enough to make it not the kind of content I want to promote to an audience. Though I do run a dirty confessions blog, I aim to make it as safe as a space as possible for everyone. Dirty, sexy, or NSFW spaces do not automatically have to be an anything goes, "you shouldn't have a problem with anything if you go here" place. In that light, I tag kinks that may be upsetting just as I don't allow underage, abusive, and other dynamics of relationships that can not only be triggering, but a bad, dangerous example for teens and other young people.

I am fully aware that fiction is not a direct equivalent to reality. However, I think it is very much true that it has a real effect on reality, especially in how individuals see themselves in it and relate to it. I've had a conversation on this same topic before with a veteran of the FF7 fandom who witnessed a Vincent/Yuffie roleplay couple online turn out to be a real pedophilic situation. Obviously, this is far from the case for every instance, but it happens. Just as I cannot allow confessions about underage characters to protect potential teenagers looking at this blog, I also cannot allow the romanticization of a relationship that could hurt or remind traumatized people of their own pain.

I do not believe that every person who ships sefikura "condones abuse" or "invalidates trauma". Likely, most don't even think about that aspect and simply like seeing the characters do whatever they want to together. I understand that. But speaking from the perspective of a traumatized person who has related deeply to Cloud Strife's story, I do believe that there is something to the dynamic that just isn't being understood if it's being ignored to play dolls. This is not to say that Cloud and Sephiroth being together is a 1:1 mirror that will remind anyone who's ever been in a bad relationship of their pain. Rather, it's what Sephiroth represents to Cloud, and how the games portray his feelings towards him. In some readings, you might even argue that Sephiroth is a metaphor for trauma: something unbeatable, always in the back of your mind, waiting to seduce you back to the patterns of self destructive behavior that the traumatic event might have created in you. I think that Cloud's struggle with this and his efforts to move past it are a large core of FF7's story, and to me it rings hollow to ignore that because neither character is, as you said, "real".

I don't expect to change anyone's mind, and my stance on this has already been clear on the front page of the blog for over a year now. I am sure that tens of dozens of sefikura fans who otherwise liked the blog have blocked me over this. And that's fine! Nobody has to agree with me, and there clearly will always be another space to go to for those that want to see that stuff. But it matters to me both on a personal level and as the mod of a public blog to talk about this stuff in a different light. Because if fiction can help people in a real way, it can also hurt them in a real way. I think that a level-headed perspective on all these issues can be reached. It's not all or nothing.

Thanks for asking.

[sleepanonymous]

Going through your archived material and getting a sense for just how much these guys are massive nerds behind the scenes (Vessel especially, just wow) has struck a fear into my heart that I didn't previously consider:

Given the general age demographic, interests, and time period for being chronically online teens/young adults, it's possible that at least one of the eepies (again, my bet would be on V) has a blog here.

Whether it's for lurking or a separate interest blog, the possibility of being perceived is objectively quite low but not zero.

Anyways, do with that what you will. I'm choosing to think that, if I'm right, they're just vibing with the memes and horny posting because it seems to line up with their IRL humor.

OR you yourself are one of them + that's the real reason why you've got your hands on so much lost media. I'm on to you pal (/j)

I literally don't know how to answer this, Anon 😅 Like, I don't want to freak people out but it's also a very real possibility they're at least aware of this corner of the fandom. They're in a very unique situation where they can and do lurk in certain online spaces, and I'm pretty sure a couple of them have burners for other platforms, but thankfully I don't think any of them are actively on Tumblr (thankfully).

I can tell you that they're aware of the thirsting and memes, so if they did have a problem with it, it would be stated. What they do have a problem with is fans crossing privacy boundaries or impersonating them online. That said, I know you were joking but I have been accused of being in Sleep Token or knowing them before, so I would like to take this moment to say that I am not and I do not lol. Have I been perceived by them, though? Absolutely and it's terrifying, but it's also always been my own fault 😅😩 The more I think about a certain series of events that happened the day before and day of the Phoenix ritual, the more I hope to god that none of the guys recognized me and my friends on the barricade 😨

[tsarisfanfiction]

Love Or Hate

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Will, Apollo A long overdue conversation about family, betrayal, and loving them anyway. TOApril day 15 - Without Requisite or Deadline. Halfway there and this was such a weird prompt, so thanks to @fearlessinger for translating it as "unconditional" for me, which finally got my muses churning on something...

Will opened his eyes with a gasp, residual light taking its time to fade away from the explosion his mind had conjured up once again.  It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of that moment, when he’d listened to Nico and death and his own hatred over the urge to heal and save within him, and he knew it wasn’t going to be the last, either.  Some demons just never go away, and regret was one of them.

What made it worse was that Will still didn’t know if he did regret it, and if he didn’t, did that make him a bad person?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

Around him, dawn broke softly, a gradual light intensifying oh so slowly in the inverse of the explosion.  There was no sign of the sun, but there didn’t need to be.  Will wasn’t in his bed, wasn’t in his cabin, wasn’t even in camp, and that told him that the dawn wasn’t real.

It was symbolic, instead, a caressing comfort to match the warm hands that were settling on his shoulders, drawing him against an even warmer body.

Apollo had drawn him out from nightmares into a dream safe space enough times in his life that Will had no problem recognising the signs again, here.

He closed his eyes for a moment, watched the rest of the explosion finish fading away, and then took a deep breath.  “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Will,” his dad said, and Will leaned back willingly as Apollo snaked an arm around his torso, resting his head against his father’s shoulder and tilting his head up to look at him.  “More bad dreams?”

“Yeah,” Will admitted, letting his eyes fall to half-mast again.  The nightmares wouldn’t come for him again tonight; once Apollo had pulled him out of one, the rest of his night was always far more pleasant, if not necessarily more restful.  His body got to keep resting, sure, but his mind and soul wouldn’t.

Not that Will cared, if it meant he got to spend some time with his dad, uninterrupted and unshared.

“Thanks,” he added, somewhat belatedly, but that didn’t really matter with gods, with Apollo, because they always knew what he was referring to even if it took a while for him to say anything.

“You’re welcome,” Apollo murmured into his hair, and Will felt a light pressure in his hair for a moment.

These gestures of affection had never been missing from Apollo’s various dream visits over the years, but they’d become far more commonplace since his mortality and all the various fallouts from that.  Will was sure he didn’t need them to know that his dad loved him, but that didn’t stop him enjoying them whenever they were dished out.

Apollo loved all of them, and Will was sure they knew it.  He certainly did.

Echoes of the explosion flickered behind his eyelids, rudely dragging him out from his gentle relaxation with his dad, and a flicker of… of something, danced inside his chest.  It wasn’t comfortable, rather closer to dread, and in a dreamscape there was no way Apollo wasn’t going to notice it.

“Will?” he asked, probing lightly.  “Is something wrong?”

Will appreciated the offer of an out, a way to dodge the topic, because Apollo knew something was bothering him, that was as clear as the dream-dawn sky above him, but he’d given Will an opening to lie about it.  They’d both know it was a lie, of course, but that didn’t really matter, because it wasn’t about lie or truth, it was about whether or not Will wanted to talk about it.

He didn’t, not really, but it was something he’d never had a chance to mention to Apollo, what with his father’s absence and then mortal stint, and he was self-aware enough to know that he wanted answers, somehow.

He hoped he wanted answers, anyway.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked instead of answering directly, glancing towards his father’s face.  Blue eyes, the exact same shade as his, met his look evenly and softly.

“Of course,” Apollo said.  “You can always ask me anything, Will.  What is it?”

Will took a deep breath.  “Octavian,” he said, and felt Apollo still behind him.  “I… How much was the truth?”

He’d never been able to reconcile what Octavian had to say about his father with what he knew of Apollo, but as much as he hated it, the older boy had been a descendant of his all the same, and Will wondered what that meant for their relationship.  He hadn’t really met many legacies of Apollo; they seemed to be a rarity at Camp Jupiter, for reasons his father had never explained.

Apollo sighed.  “Octavian… was not evil,” he said.  “Nor was he… entirely wrong.”

Will’s chest tightened.  “He wasn’t?” he asked, his voice cracking and coming out far too small.  “But-”

“I did search for more power,” Apollo confessed, “and Camp Jupiter was an obvious place to start.  Octavian was more than willing to help me.  Perhaps it was just because he grew up hearing stories of me from the cradle, but he was always devoted to me.”  Will thought Apollo sounded a little pained at that.  “How he reached the conclusion that he needed to destroy Camp Half-Blood, however, I don’t know.  That was never my intention, or my implication when I spoke with him.  We spoke of uniting the camps, much the same way they are now, not subjugating.”

“I hate him, for that,” Will admitted quietly, looking away from Apollo because he didn’t want to see disappointment in his father’s eyes.  “Everything from his attitude to what he did annoyed me, but it was what he was trying to do that was the worst.  He was going to pin the blame for it on you!”

“I know,” Apollo said, “although I don’t think he saw it as blame.”

Will swallowed.  “Do… do you hate him?” he asked, not knowing if he wanted to know the answer to that.  He didn’t know if he actually wanted to know if Apollo was capable of hating his own descendants, because it felt wrong but Octavian had done so much bad, caused so much hurt, that Will couldn’t comprehend not hating him.

His dad didn’t answer immediately, which could have meant anything and Will didn’t know which anything it was.  There was a tenseness in his body, where Will was leant against him.

“I… felt betrayed,” Apollo finally answered.  “And angry. Definitely angry.  Camp Half-Blood is my creation, and for anyone, let alone my own descendant, to attempt to destroy it…”  He trailed off, and shook his head.  “But at the same time, Octavian is my descendant.  He might not be my son, but… that doesn’t matter, really.  I still loved him.”

“Loved?” Will wondered, and Apollo’s arms wrapped around him, encasing him in a glow of warmth.

“Loved,” Apollo repeated, before shaking his head.  “No.  Not loved.”  He paused.  “Love.”

The emphasis on present tense startled Will.  “But he’s dead,” he pointed out.

“You hate him,” Apollo reminded him gently, and Will felt a little cold at the words, no matter how true they were, because his dad clearly didn’t, and that felt like he was the one in the wrong.  “And that’s okay, Will.  There is no law in the universe that says you aren’t allowed to.  Family doesn’t have to love each other.”

“They should,” Will mumbled, “shouldn’t they?”

Apollo sighed.  “Not if they’ve only caused pain.  You don’t owe anyone love if they’ve hurt you, not even family.  Octavian only ever hurt you.  It’s okay if you hate him.”

“But you don’t,” Will mumbled.  Apollo shook his head.

“No,” he agreed, “I don’t.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t.  It’s okay, Will.”

“Even though I killed him?”  Will didn’t mean to ask it, hadn’t even realised the thoughts had been swirling around in his mind until they gave themselves a voice, but he couldn’t take them back.

“You didn’t kill him,” Apollo said instantly.  “Octavian made his own choices, and followed the fate he carved out for himself.  Don’t take on a burden that isn’t yours to carry, Will.  His death is his burden, not yours.”

“But-”

“But nothing.”  Will’s hair bowed under the pressure of something pressing against his head instead.  “Don’t do this to yourself, Will.  You did nothing wrong, and his blood is not on your hands.”

Will didn’t know if he believed that, but arguing the point against his dad was clearly a futile endeavour.

“Why don’t you hate him?” he asked instead, dragging the conversation back a few steps.

Apollo sighed into his hair.  Will felt the strands move around with the force of it.

“He’s my child,” he said, “even if there are a few more generations between him and me than there are between us.  I could never hate him.  I could never hate any of you, no matter what you do.  I’m not strong enough, not to hate family.”

Will supposed he could understand that, at least.  Maybe if he’d ever actually seen Octavian as family, he’d be the same, but he hadn’t – and if he was honest, he probably preferred it the way it was.

Finding the strength to hate family seemed like it would be exhausting.

[korkiekenobiconfirmed]

I could go on here and say my problems with st*rek lie in the lack of scenes together or the fact that their canon dynamic was more comedic/antagonistic than romantic, but honestly that’s not even it. Idc when ppl ship characters that didn’t have great chemistry, didn’t get along, didn’t even MEET in canon! idc! What I do care about is:

1) Pedophilia. Stiles is a teenager, Derek’s a grown man. I’ve seen debates about derek’s exact age but tbh whether he’s 22 or 26 or 30 doesn’t change the fact that he’s way too old to date a high school sophomore. Period.

2) Stealing Scott’s personality. All the st*rek fics are chock full of Stiles being the nurturing “Pack Mom” while Derek plays Dad when Stiles is unforgiving, caustic, and sharp-tongued 90% of the time. It’s Scott who takes in strays and treats everyone around him with utmost kindness right up until they prove they don’t deserve it. Even then, he still sometimes forgives.

3) St*rek’s prevalence. Okay, so we’ve come up with a crack ship that doesn’t have much basis in canon! Great! Why is it suddenly THE MOST POPULAR SHIP IN THE FANDOM BY A FUCKING MILE? I can’t go anywhere in any teen wolf fandom spaces without the goddamn st*rek jumpscaring me. For reference, St*rek outclasses the second most popular ship on ao3 (which happens to be Steter for some fuckin’ reason) by MORE THAN 7X!

4) The delusion. I’ve seen lots of ships like Malia and Isaac where the shipping is a little…tongue in cheek. The shippers are self-aware, they know there isn’t much canon basis, but they’ve decided to go ahead anyways because this is fiction and it’s fun and it hurts nobody. I’ve seen ships like Scissac or Malira where the shippers are more delulu (admittedly me, lol) yet there’s a decent canon basis to those relationships that make the hc shipping more understandable… but I have never (and I mean NEVER) witnessed such widespread CONVICTION about such a canonically weak ship. Never in my life in any other fandom (besides maybe the rpf weirdos) have I seen SO many people who are SO INVESTED in a ship with such little foundation, while not one of them is self aware enough to look around and admit that it’s really just a crackship!

[frosty-tian]

Being a bit aggressive today because I’m feeling violence (and poor wording).:

Boiling take,

(Maybe it got better or the majority of these people moved to Twitter, IDK.)

Unless you’re doing it for self-representation (including black folks), making edits/darkening skin-tones of anime/manga characters but then simply saying they’re blasian and leaving it at that comes off as mega lazy, especially when there are darker-skinned Japanese people as well?

There are so many other Asian countries with many dark skin individuals which are underrepresented in media, so many other diverse cultures to explore.

Other things you could do is to make OCs so you have more liberty in showing their cultures, or even give more spotlight to dark-skinned characters which often get shadowed in the fandom.

Ones which particularly irk me so much are white Americans/Westerners doing it for the sake of ‘representation’ while having a superiority complex over taking the lazy route, like no, that’s the bare minimum and it comes off as you wanting to be seen as ‘progressive’ but don’t really care about doing research/putting work into it. Also, it’s very eye-brow raising itself, it’s true that many Asian countries have a huge problem with colourism, but doing so is implying that light-skinned Asians are not ‘POC enough’. There are so many thoughts I could say, but way too exhausted to say more at the moment.)

(I’ll try to word things better and provide a list that a friend made on other underrepresented Asian countries which have lots of darker-skinned individuals once I’m in a better head-space and situation, but that’s the most I can say for now/just wanted to get this off my chest.)

(Disclaimer: I’m aware a lot of people doing so are teens whom likely have good intentions, but aren’t approaching it in the best way.)

[lordystrange]

I used to be a rabid rpf shipper when those were my main fandoms (used to be huge into kpop, dsmp, otv and dnp from like 2017-2022 back to back). My opinion of rpf has always been "keep it restricted to fandom spaces, outsiders and the people themselves don't need to be seeing this", but of course it appears fandom culture has erroded a bit, especially from 2020 onwards and especially in the more parasocial fandoms, like dsmp and dsmp (im glad i avoided peak dnp, post-hiatus dnp fandom is so nice). I still have some lingering rpf-based-guilt even thought I used to go on tirades on reddit defending rpf XD.

I'm aware of how irl shipping can affect friendships. It's common for kids to tease each other about their crushes, and percieved crushes. When i was 11-12 years old me and this guys friends would tease us for liking each other even though we didn't, it was all fun and games yknow? I'm sure it was fun to see us yell and chase them afterwards. But it was constant, and after we stopped hanging out so much and I started to miss him, I started wondering if I actually liked him. I couldn't tell since I was constantly told and made fun of (lovingly) for liking him when i didn't, but did i actually have a crush on him? I mean, they said it so many times, so there must have been some element of truth behind it, right? Idk, I still can't tell years later.

There's also this thing called the Illusory Truth Effect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X23001811#coi0010 if u wanna read ab it), that describes a phenomenon where if someone is fed stimuli that asserts something is true, they're more likely to believe it regardless if it's actually true or not. I think it's why people are told not to get stuck in echo chambers. Anyway, I've noticed I'm particularly susceptible to this since I'm very (maybe too) open-minded, a people-pleaser and gullible. If everyone's telling me something is true, even if it's just a joke in good fun, if it goes on too long I believe it.

I don't even wanna imagine how I'd feel if I was constantly being told that me and my friend would look cute together if we dated, that they think we're secretly dating, all the reasons they think we like each other in non-friendly ways, I can barely handle it coming from my friends, let alone complete strangers.

But also, I know that it only really affects me when I'm being told directly, and I see it with my own eyes, if I know people are seeing it and thinking it, but they don't tell me about it then I'm completely fine, it doesn't really affect me, it's even fun (makes me feel desirable XD).

But that's why the number one rule in rpf fandoms is to never send it to the people involved unless they explicitly ask for it (maybe not THE reason, but it's an important rule anyway-), even then I'd still be weary. It's people who don't heed by this rule that're the problem. If it happens a handful of times it's not the end of the world, but if every fan of theirs that shipped them went up to them and just said one thing, I'd imagine that'd already be too much. But also the celebs shouldn't go looking for this stuff. I know most of them don't, but like I said I was part of dsmp during their peak, they did stupid shit XD.

So yeah conclusion: keep it in the fandom rpf spaces, the farther it is from randos, casual fans and haters the better 😅

sincerely, a non-rpf shipper with rpf-guilt

I’m gonna read the thing you linked later, but yeah, I know what you mean. That’s basically why people assume others and they themselves are straight. Everybody tells them so so it must be true 💁🏼 and that’s how comphet happens. Same thing with gender stereotypes and all stereotypes actually.

You mentioned the ages 11-12 and that got me thinking, if there should be an age limit to shipping. On the other hand I think shipping should only be about teens and up, so no shipping kids under 12. But then again, why? I didn’t have romantic interests before I was a teenager but many kids do. Ofc it’s different if a kid ships kid than if an adult ships kids, but I’m not forbidding bylers from shipping miwi 🤔

I have no answer to that age question, but it should be discussed more now that the society kind of has to ”choose” whether to keep up ”shipping kids” (that sounds illegal btw xD) and extending it to same sex couples, or to stop shipping kids at all (pls people let boys and girls be friends).

But yeah, as long as the shipping does no harm, it’s literally harmless. Who would’ve thought 💁🏼

Thank you for the ask and sorry for answering it so late at night for me that I’ve already turned my brains off 😌

[astridofraftel]

Yes!! These questions need to be addressed, we as fans can't deflect our responsibility by blaming the writers and proclaiming ourselves victims!

I saw this post about ships earlier this month and I wasn't sure how to feel about it, like... okay some good points were made about statistics. If I paraphrase roughly:

Misogyny first occurs in the writing, so male characters are favored and written in a "more interesting way" + Statistically, there are more male "characters with recurring speaking roles" than female ones, which means the majority of possible ships in a media franchise is M/M + The popularity of a character within a fandom is closely linked to the popularity of the ships that character is involved in = As a result, the fans have to work with what they get and it's easier to give attention to male characters, especially if they're the only ones the canon made us care about.

Okay. Okay, the majority of the writers are not necessarily good at giving as much space to female characters as they give to male characters. But the fans have their fair share of responsibility too!

Especially since these statistics really depend on the genre of a specific media. Why should we give so much attention to misogynistic stories? We as fandoms should try and focus more on female-leading media if we really care about fighting misogyny, OR we should spend more time fixing these issues in male-leading media.

Also, I have seen so many bad written male characters who get adored and fleshed-out by fandoms, sometimes more than they really deserve. Even more commonly, there are male background characters who didn't get enough time in canon to be 10% as detailed as the protagonists, but thanks to headcanons and shipping they get a whole backstory and complex lore around them! So fans CAN MAKE THAT EFFORT! Fans love to make that effort! There are so many fanfictions that explore characters so well that their canon versions pale in comparison—except now, it means that it is the fandom's turn to re-assess itself, because now the fans are the writers, and they're supposedly willing to make the efforts, however the statistics are not better.

Even worse, as it was said in the post I linked (last reply), female characters are sometimes demonized by the fandom so as to break canon couples and facilitate M/M ships.

I haven't published fanfiction but I remember clearly demonizing characters in my head because I did not like their canon pairing and I was seeing a lot of people do that so I thought it was okay—13 years ago, when I was 12. Maybe I was influenced by other teens who didn't know any better, maybe it's still younger people nowadays who perpetuate it in fandom spaces, I really hope everyone grows out of it eventually. My preferred version of Hanlon's razor is that I'd rather not attribute to malice something that can be explained by ignorance. If not, what the hell, what are we teaching the kids as self-proclaimed progressives?

And even if I haven't demonized a female character like that in years, fandoms made me care more often about male than female characters and I admit that I let them. As I said, often some characters barely appear in canon but thanks to fanfics and fanarts they become part of my favorites from the franchise. And as a community, we could have as easily deployed as much effort towards female characters, but mostly we didn't, and I know I took part in it, I'm so suggestible I know I continue to. I have to get myself in check daily! It's awful!

As much as I'd rather not shame or guilt anyone, it's important to spread awareness about this topic, because a lot of fans don't think they're part of the problem, so they never re-assess themselves.

are female characters devoid of complex characterization, or do you not afford female characters the same depth and complexity that you afford the guys? are female characters badly-written compared to men, or do you focus on the guys regardless of writing quality? are the female characters simply less interesting than the men, or do you think men are more interesting than women?

[whimsyrefrain]

REGARDING THE THING ABT SHIPPING HIMERU W ANYONE BUT RINNE IN YOUR RENTRY.

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE OH THANK GOD. istg i have never seen another person say this, especially with the exact same reasoning as me. i ALWAYSSSS get told im being too "sensitive" about it, but theres always a chance he could be multiple years older than most of the fanbase expects him to be and it makes me feel weird when i see him shipped w/other characters..

nothing else i wanted to say! just thankful someone out there agrees + your toujoubros sticker/chibis are absolutely adorable ^_^

Hello anon! okay first off i'm genuinely sorry that people have made you feel this way, especially if you're young. i do not know how old you are, but if you are a minor your worries are 100% reasonable and understandable. and do know that there are people who do share your stance.

Also thank you for the compliment!! i'm glad you enjoyed them :3

Okay with that out of the way, now onto my personal thoughts.

the thing is though, i'm aware that inherently fandom spaces care so little about applying critical thought when it comes to shipping. so i try to not let it get to me too much, even if i'm bothered. but i can't lie i am both perplexed and annoyed by how little thought people put into shipping himeru with other characters

like fine. i can admit that i am perhaps a little too sensitive when it comes to age gap relationships. part of my distaste IS a me issue because it's one of those things i cant separate the reality from fiction, but i find this really strange among enstars fans? because i feel like at least among younger fans, you'll see them denounce all sorts of weird dynamics... but somehow himeru is out of the radar for such discussions? which is odd to me

maybe the problem is i just don't understand what age people perceive himeru as? because i thought the fandom consensus was that he's probably older than rinne, the only question is by how much. but i personally find that hypothetical irrelevant to the discussion. because if that's true then regardless of what specific age himeru is, he's still considerably older than majority of the cast. why are we pairing an established adult with teens who barely graduated high school

or at least that's my opinion. i've seen people believe himeru is 20. which makes no sense to me considering his lore but 🤷 i don't know maybe my other issue is that i value kaname as a character too much 🤷

[x1e3ju]

its that time of the night again.

its 4 am, the eepiness is calling me but the voices are louder so ive come on here to rant abt shuake instead of doing smth productive like drawing❤️ i waste away ranting abt shuake on tumblr to drown out my sadness and overwhelming nostalgia at random times of the day, how wonderful!

i did one of those song association annotation thingies to capable of love by pinkpantheress (she’s so queen may i add) and it got me thinking so much about shuake and just as of late ive been thinking of them bc schl is ending so i finally have time to replay and play the games like p3 or tactica and q1/2 and be able to focus my time on them and also bc im seeing a psychiatrist very soon from now! which makes me think abt shuake a lot bc they are like. HUGE projection dolls for me and i think on that.. quite often especially akechi since he’s the main one for me, the one more personal to me. i think abt his bpd and mentally unwell brain quite often (lol) and i think the way their love is is just very fascinating to me.

i guess its nice or interesting i guess, to see the way i feel and view love be shown in a character so out of the blue. the way akechi’s love is for akira can be viewed this way and again, i think it’s all very interesting. i love shuake so much for this reason and what i wanted to talk about mostly today is how much they truly mean to each other. This is one thing i hate ppl in fandom spaces for bc they always manage to find SOMEWAY to ruin any nuances anything COULDVE had (ik atlus did not try past queerbaiting lmfao) and i hate how to anyone else not apart of these spaces but aware of them just sees anyone talking abt a ship and specifically any popular gay ship and is so quick to assume like wait i actually care lol 😭 and i bring this up bc i really love to view their characters like akira and akechi’s characters individually through the shuake lenses and perspective. tbh i dont really care for persona outside of them and obviously a few other things of course but shuake is the real reason why im even fixated on that game still in the first place so of course, naturally i will focus on this.

i love to think on how akechi subconsciously views akira in his head. i like to interpret akechi as just a nerd girlboy who has a little crush and all the fun cutesy things abt being a teen or whatever 😆 i think that’s all so cute and fun for him and i believe its so him and i love to view him as the teen he is, the child inside of him that’s ridiculous and goes off for hours ranting about his favorite things repeating himself over and over until he tires himself out or the lovey dovey part of him that thinks about akira in random parts of his day and cant stop giggling and smiling at a simple text yk like all the cutie things ☹️ it doesn’t remove nuance and it doesn’t remove character bc thats how teens act, obviously not as stereotypical as i described but that’s how ridiculous we are sometimes! and i love to think on how he views all these big horrible issues in a simple lenses.

doing the song associations with so many taylor songs and then a pink one really reminded me of this bc of the fact that taylor’s (OLD) lyrics are just so serious and more “mature” and i mostly mean folklore and evermore bc im talking abt cardigan specifically rn (that song is just so akechi im sorry) to now doing capable of love bc pink’s lyrics are simple! not bad just obviously more simple so i get to really view akechi in these lenses. I get to have that minute of writer relief even if he isnt my character but yk wtv ig😞 anywhoanywho, again, i love to view akechi in a simple lenses as the simple teen girl he is, its fun and why particularly? bc i personally feel it adds so much more depth to their dynamic. akechi has. ALL these problems going on, akira does too but they still make time for each other and ik i dont focus on akira much (im so fake lmao) but he plays into this just as much! although the council of the world has decided for him he must save it not them, he still makes friends with the enemy and enjoys their time together as if none of that wouldve mattered. he still loves unconditionally like if nobody was going to take that all away from him someday and i think thats so beautiful.

akechi still loves akira so much as if they really were together and akira loves him just the same. akechi is going through all these problems mentally and on the outside but still that child part of that craved love and connection/affection seeps through and overtakes him and his emotions, allowing his crow persona to like be free ig? and of course, that was not the only reason i like to think that it couldve been a part, even a teensy part bc again, they are just kids in love lmfao (so cringe) and yes, it is going to be cringe and a bit ridiculous BUT ITS SO SERIOUS YALL DONT UNDERSTAND

the way im not even done unpacking 25 PERCENT OF THEM YET there’s just so much depth that can be added to their connection, i love them they are so cringe-friendly i hate atlus but god bless shuake frfr 🙏🙏 but i just wanted to highlight this a bit bc i felt like i didnt enough in the insta story and tbh still but yk, to get some of it off my chest. i love gay people i can project on always a great flavor im off to my cave of inner thoughts now hopefully i knock tf out ❤️

[stars-in-a-jam-jar]

Thinkin' about how Gamzee Makara is genuinely a Really Tragic Character. Like he spent his entire childhood unsupervised and unattended in the throes of a cult, developing an actual substance abuse problem in an attempt to self medicate because of the constant voices he appeared to be hallucinating. Except He Wasn't Fucking Hallucinating, THOSE VOICES WERE FUCKING REAL they were the Literal Devil and an unholy fusion of what would become of his debilitatingly loyal and subservient friend after Gamzee kills him and some thirteen year old alien But Fucked Up And Dangerously Overclocked By A Supercomputer made as a response to apocalyptic loneliness and said someone else's need to keep occupied and feel on top of things, and Gamzee could only hear them because his soul is irrevocably tied to the cursed artefact they all reside in that brings nothing but misery and paranoia wherever it goes. He developed a very laid back unbothered inscrutable personality in response to all the awful things he didn't want to be aware of and relied heavily on his faith in a pair of Mirthful Messiahs that would give deliverance to all and forever erase any unpleasant stagnancy in favor of a chaotic carnival of wonder.

When Gamzee calms down from his whole murderous rampage/vindictive ruining of the Beta Kids' Session thing, he Can't go back to the way he was. He Can't be the same person he was before. He never speaks the same again, we hardly see him speak again At All. His thirteen-year-old mind breaks under the realization that he is not who he thought he was. He is not the person who extends his own brand of kooky clownish shangri-la to those around him until they see the world as it should be. He is the tool of something malevolent and petulant and calculating and selfish. He decides (correctly if the deterministic Alpha Timeline is to be followed) that this cannot be helped, and simply leans into dissociation.

Like-- Karkat sees this kid when they're still on Alternia and is like 'I can fix him' and he tries so god damned mother fucking hard and fails in part if not only because he simply was not meant to fix Gamzee. Not because Gamzee never wanted to be fixed, but because when Gamzee sobers up and his head becomes clear enough for him to reckon with reality and he understands that: he hasn't been hallucinating the voices, the religious beliefs he has held above all else throughout his broken memory were corrupted half truths at best, and at least two of the trolls on this void forsaken meteor are dirty backbiters and bad friends who he believes don't deserve an ounce of forgiveness, he completely goes off the deep end and starts relying on The Literal Actual Most Evil Person To Ever Exist for judgement. How is Karkat supposed to remedy that when he doesn't understand or won't believe that the voices are realer than he previously believed and He Is Powerless To Dispel Them? When he truly wants all of them to just. Fucking. Be A Team and trust one another and be good to one another, but Gamzee no longer believes that was ever an option? What does one Knight wager against the Devil and The Narrative for someone's soul?

In that space of three years where he's growing into the offputting smelly clown husk of a teen that Jane meets in front of her house just before The Trickster Incident and that everyone in the fandom in my experience collectively frowns and groans audibly at, he tries to become comfortable in this new state. In the dreaded Retcon Spree that removed a huge chunk of the complexity happening in an effort to power through to an ending, it's revealed that he did genuinely develop black affections for Terezi, He Just Also Was Bad For Her and she wasn't what he needed because Nobody could give him what he needed because what he needed was to Not Be Connected To Lord English for one second longer. He brought out self loathing in her and no amount of fucking with her and getting into fights that were supposed to be stimulating and romantic but in reality were just hurtful and toxic could make him feel like he could be any semblance of any normal ever again.

I have thought about Gamzee taking care of Calliope and Caliborn from the shadows for Literal Actual Years at this point. He does it because he has to. Because it is his duty as steward and passive enabler to the evil locked inside Lil Cal. Because he has faith that this little sugar loving skrellington squiggle worm will grow up big and strong and horrifying, and it is imperative that he help that along. We never once hear him say anything about Calliope. It's as though she's not a factor that weighs at all in his mind. As though her existence is incidental to the fruition of his grander purpose in her brother's life. Does he think about her? Does he know that another version of her is what will do in the voices that have tormented him since he could comprehend speech? Does he want good things for her? Does he think Caliborn is good at this point, or does he just think he's Important? Is his perpetually placid vacant stare a mask he uses to become inscrutable, or has he truly locked away his every emotional reaction from even himself never to be found again?

The interaction he has with Kurloz and Meulin between becoming sober and becoming a caretaker where the other two are going all 'Hail Lord English' and doing The Cult Thing and he just looks at them with such deep contempt and says in all lower case 'shut the absolute mother fuck up' is So Fucking Important-- like he does not think this is fun and glorious and enriching anymore. He just knows it to be true and knows he's in this shit whether he wants to be or not. These two Chose this. Kurloz could've Run The Fuck Away from the chucklevoodoo bullshit that deafened his matesprit, and Meulin could've simply Not leaned into this evil toxic nonsense, but they both actively turn to it to cope. They see serving the power of Lord English as their salvation. Gamzee sees his salvation as completing his grim purpose and hopefully finding solace in oblivion, and he Cannot Fucking Stand these two talking like that grim purpose is a blessing that gives his life new dimension instead of a horrifying curse that ruined his health and relationships.

I don't mind the existence of The Retcon, I think a retcon was a perfectly sound writing decision given The Everything, but I really hate that the solution to everyone's problems in The Retcon was just bringing back Vriska so she could be The Most Important Person Ever just like she always wanted with no downsides and no caveats. This is in no small part because the solution she provides to The Gamzee Situation is just to domesticate him essentially. He won't be a problem if we keep him leashed up and under control. After all Gamzee's always been passive and only started being a problem when he started committing murders, so just keep him where we can see him and keep the option of murder off the table and Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen With Him Again~. And he Never Does Anything Else and We Never Hear From Him Again. Or if we do, it certainly wasn't consequential enough for me to remember it. Like, if you're gonna take the Gamzee Piece off the board while still holding the story together, just create a scene where the others banish him to Earth A during the timeframe where he's taking care of the cherubs and then bam! He's no longer a factor in the Alpha Medium while also still being able to do the things that he Must Do in order to retain the most continuity. Like I get that keeping him in the fridge for the rest of canon is a joke about fridging a character, but It's Not A Good Joke.

Gamzee Makara Deserved Better! I'm not even necessarily saying he should've gotten better. He deserved like. A Moment for us to see into his head before/whilst he went Full Catatonic Sycophant, as a token of respect for the Really Fuckin' Tragic arc he underwent. He deserved the ability to speak his mind post-Sober Murder Rampage. He deserved to be given weight beyond 'Anyway, now the murder clown is Also Here, so you know some funky shit is about to go down.' Or at least a proper transition into that 'portent of further chaos' role and not just a weird disconnected moment of Calliope going 'Yeah, bards are real passive and real fucky, y'all are lucky you don't have one in your session.' as a vague hint that Gamzee is doing the shit he does and appearing where he appears for completely inscrutable reasons that you shouldn't be looking into. Gamzee is one of plenty of characters in Homestuck whose arcs and selves kinda got lost in the shuffle, and It Makes Me Sad.

This essay has been brought to you by the emotions that arose in me thinking about how Gamzee Makara could've been a really good kid, and the only person who seems to mourn that loss is Karkat offscreen.

[perpetuallurkernazanin]

A teenager appeared in my DMs saying that Eny “seriously fucked [them] over mentally” and asking for help in spreading the word so other teens don’t also get hurt. Here’s the story they shared, and that of another teenager. (cw: the doc-linked-within-the-doc contains screencaps of fetish talk by Eny and another).

https://twitter.com/thrwawyy2/status/1634429570429452289?s=20

TLDR: Eny has been emotionally abusive and sexually irresponsible (to say the least) with multiple minors during the past year.

Near the end the doc says: “I just want people to be aware of the things he’s exposed me to and for him to stay away from minor dominated spaces permanently. I don’t want him to hurt another kid ever again.”

As the doc reports, Eny made this response.

In addition to the multiple screencaps the teen added to their doc showing that Eny is lying about being a fan of 4lung, here’s a screencap I have from 2020 (just taken today in a previously-shared server)[image]

Also, “I looked at this person as an equal instead of a 17-year-old” is a problem, not an excuse. When Eny was pretending to be an adult, he talked about maintaining proper boundaries between adult content and teens. He has not kept those healthy boundaries since becoming a real adult.

This is on top of two incidents less than a year ago.

He knowingly did erotic role-play with a 17-year-old in April 2022. There are screencaps of him talking about it here [https://imgur.com/a/CfBnrkR]. Source: this document, which documents more toxic behavior by Eny in the OSC fandom.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XT6keyvq9B-BDaWzBXLP99FkO0_oNKgMwrduhXyPmOg/edit

Here is a Tumblr post that links the above doc and says that Eny had been talking about plans to re-join OK KO fandom: https://www.tumblr.com/richestindaworld/707160361659432960/awareness-on-eny-luridbrainrotcornenjoyer

In addition to the above, in July 2022 a 13-year-old shared art on Twitter depicting one of Eny’s fetishes (involving teeth). In that post the 13-year-old said they’d never drawn fetish art for Eny, that the art wasn’t fetish, and I do not doubt that for them it was not… but in the past Eny has drawn and shared similar art in Discord servers and talked about how the subject is a sexual fetish for him. I’m not going to post those screencaps for minors to see, but adults may DM me to see them.

*

Apparently Eny has now deactivated accounts.

Hopefully he really is seeking real-life help, this time. Like Eny says: “It’s going to take years for this stuff to even begin to think of healing.” But if past behavior is an indication of future behavior, it’s possible he’ll be back in a few months expecting or insisting that people forget or excuse his previous bad behavior.

He should not be in contact with any minor, as he has shown repeatedly that he can’t help being emotionally abusive and sexually irresponsible to them.

The safest thing for everyone is to not interact, and to simply warn minors to stay away.

[with-love-from-hell]

Tw: grooming, sexualization of minors

Hey. If you have "dni with me im a minor" and you engage with adult content written by AN. ADULT. that is a huge problem and you need to fucking stop.

Minors. Do not follow me. And ESPECIALLY do not engage with my smut.

Jesus fucking christ. I dont know how many of us adult content creators have to tell you not to butt yourselves into adult spaces. This isn't about gatekeeping because we're meanies. This is about legality, but most importantly its about preventing you from experiencing grooming. There are a lot of nasty ass adults in the Obey Me! Fandom (and other Fandoms too) who sexualize minors and you inserting yourself into adult spaces by interacting with our stuff or making adult content, it puts you at serious risk of being a target of that. Thats not to say grooming is ever your fault, because adults should know better and NOT SEXUALIZE KIDS, but you need to know the risks associated with being on the internet. I know it seems like a bunch of adults just saying "you kids get off my lawn!" But I promise you its not that.

I was groomed as a young teen. I know how this shit works. And I wish I would have had someone to explain this shit to me.

Check blogs before you interact with a fic or any other form of writing. That goes for you adults too. I've seen some folks on my dash reblogging some pretty gnarly stuff from accounts that clearly state "im a minor." We can't prevent minors from making their own content, even if they shouldn't. So just be aware that that's a thing and do your own due diligence. Just because you have "dni" does not give you automatic free range to do whatever you want.

Anyways. My rant is over.

Minors, please. For the love of God. Dont interact with my shit. Or any other adult creator- ESPECIALLY ONE WHO WRITES SMUT- even if they don't have "minors dni" on their blog.

[chappybird]

Warning: Text wall incoming! Prepare your bottom!

While I do still have notifications turned off, I admit I did look today after not even trying to look in about two or three days, where I saw the first few words of your post. I was a bit apprehensive in clicking on your post, but I took a gamble.

I did mention a message that a Homestuck Facebook group led me to the MXRP Tumblr, and then to that Discord server. So when people were assuming I knew this or that about, or mocking me for not knowing all about it, it was strange.

The mixed race thing is I am Puerto Rican-Black, like Miles Morales. Heh. I could have kept going with that, but I quickly realized it was going nowhere fast.

LGBTQ+ stuff: What's funny with people bringing up my age is they don't realize I was a teen, and then an adult, protesting and marching and raising awareness during the times when those marches didn't often end without a hitch, let alone peacefully. When it was illegal to get married in the US. When it was very legal to outright fire LGBTQ+ people if they were accused or found out about being LGBTQ+. I think maybe a very old message on my blog talked about what sexuality I am, but I rarely bring it up because of old reservations about that and I like seeing what people assume about me. Kind of applies to the race topic as well.

And I am dogshit with text interactions, especially while upset. But if you were there in the VC, I got a little snippy at the race discussion, and then passionate about the LGBTQ+ topic, but everything else seemed calm throughout, with MMOs being the ending topic. I really wasn't expecting both the accusation and the ban. So I got emotional about such a serious accusation. Which I guess is "only my opinion" from the other replies. Then this fornication cluster went on.

I did fuck up on many things. I even brought up in one post that the things I did say could've been looked at as queerphobia. While I would have still been upset about an accusation, thinking it over would have made me slap myself with how bad I phrased it all, and apologized with hopefully clarifying everything I said.

But this is still over and done with on my side. If other people want to keep arguing about it, it's out of my sight and out of my mind.

I don't know how to do TL;DR things. I suck at synopsizing stories. Uh... something TED Talk.

I hope you don't mind me answering this publically, but I will keep it out of the tags. If you want me to delete this let me know.

I think it's unreasonable to ask you to be perfect, tbh. I don't expect it, and I don't think that launching a witch hunt is the appropriate response to something like this anyway. You misspoke on a few things (Not everything tbh as said in the original post I made I don't think all of your points were incorrect and even the ones I disagreed with I could understand the reasoning.) I've misspoken before. Everyone has misspoken before. The problem with "fandom activists" like the sort of people found on this site is that they care less about making the world and their spaces a better place for everyone, and more about feeling right by lauding "justice" at people they think are wrong.

Thanks for sharing some of those things about your experiences and life. I hope that this will blow over soon. Have a good one.

[ghost-shipping]

I think it's ok straight people like gay/lesbian romance content and also understand that fiction =/= reality, the only problem is that people can still like yaoi/yuri still be >homophobic< against lgbt people in real life.

(Example: straight man who likes lesbian content because "women kissing is hot" and is homophobic against gay/bi men or straight woman who likes gay content for the same reason and wants to have a "gay best friend" and is homophobic against lesbians women /bi.)

I as a lesbian woman as much as I'm fine with straight men writing content with lesbian characters, sometimes i feel uncomfortable just watching lesbian character series and movies that exist only for straight male gaze or being seen as the "lesbian best friend sidekick that helps the main straight female character" and other stereotypes etc is very tiresome. 😐

As I've said before I support straight people liking gay content and creating gay content too, it's just that sometimes i want to see lgbt content written by other lgbt people that aren't geared towards straight people, like, having a preference is not "misogyny" or " sexism".

Sorry for answering this so late! I was traveling for the past week.

I think the real problem is that, because queer people are a minority and have only recently been deemed acceptable to put in mass media explicitly at all, a lot of the representations we get are designed to make straight masses as comfortable as possible even when we aren't being sexualized or degraded. We are objects and not subjects to them in terms of screen writing when it comes to movies and tv. It is easier to write "the lesbian best friend" for tv than it is to write "lesbian main character who is authentically queer in a way that might not resonate with the straight audience". And a lot of tropes that do take off are because of this implicit need to cater to straight audiences who may or may not have unaddressed queerphobia.

But this gets exhausting if you are queer and want any kind of actual fucking variety! I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a butch lesbian in a movie. There's only the smallest handful of fictional gay couples the general public is pretty aware of, and almost all of them are exclusively between feminine gay men. Prior to Wendell and Wilde last month I had never teen a transmasc character in non-indie media at all. We just gotta be careful to not let this frustration lead us into the trap of being pissy with random (presumably) cishet people consuming or making queer content who aren't even doing anything else that can be read as being queerphobic that's so common in fandom spaces.

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

All fans are equal but some are more equal than others. NOT.

There’s been quite a few people in the fandom lately getting very stressed, feeling they’re obligated to constantly be on the defensive re: their fandom choices.

Apparently, whoever has a different opinion about a character or a ship must be said character’s/ship’s stan i.e. overzealous and/or obsessive, i.e. not an objective viewer. Even worse, they must be a dreadful person, who condones a number of moral offences that said character/ship perpetrated (or is thought to have perpetrated). Because, of course, the only acceptable reason for appreciating/enjoying a fictional character or dynamic is their morality. And, by that reasoning, fans who support the correct character/ship must be better fans and better people.

Nothing is more ridiculous than the notion of the objective fan. An “objective” fan is called a “viewer”. You and I, Riverdale friends, we are not just viewers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have created blogs and dedicated hours of our lives to a fictional couple from an extremely mediocre show. We are still undoubtedly capable of critical thought and objective analysis but we are also aware of our own emotional investment in the show. (Or, at least, one hopes). As a fandom, we engage in activities that exist independently of the show. Fandom is a space of free expression. No one gets to play the higher moral card here. Needing to loudly tell everybody how wrong they are? That’s not the sign of an objective viewer. That’s the sign of a viewer who is also extremely invested, just for different reasons than I am.

Are we seriously holding the morality card over people’s heads for a show that used a poc woman’s pregnancy (Toni) as the means to retroactively establish trauma for a white male (Kevin), all the while touting it in every media possible as a woke response to the BLM movement?!

Are we seriously holding the canon card over people’s heads for a show that treats its 5th(!) season as a tabula rasa?! If the Lodges new backstory in 5x12 shows anything, it’s that s5 is not a time-jump. It’s a reboot.

There are so many people “enlightening” others on their inability to understand canon …

Seriously? That’s the hill you’re willing to die on? Canon Riverdale? You think that people don’t understand what they’re watching? That they’re interpreting canon incorrectly?

No, but seriously: canon for a TV show consists of what the characters say, what the characters do and how the actors portray them. Does this really apply to Riverdale?

Let’s take Donna for example.

Canon explicitly tells us Donna did what she did to avenge her grandmother. At the same time none of her canon actions were against the people who were actually responsible. So, riddle me this, fandom friends: why did Donna do what she did, as per canon?

Let’s try this another way:

Donna is a psycho bitch. Both in terms of Riverdale’s canon (the writers’ intention) and real-life criteria. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is deranged.

On the other hand, her character is (like a lot of Riverdale’s characters) an inconsistent caricature. Canon uses ridiculous dialogue and a lot of the Bonna scenes are cartoonishly enemies-to-lovers tropey. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is hilarious.

This doesn’t mean that Bonna is a canon couple. It does mean, however, that a Bonna crackship is based on Riverdale’s campy and over-the-top canonic writing.

A viewer who thinks Bonna is disgusting is not more “objective” or more “correct” or more “true to canon” than a viewer who thinks Bonna is funny. Nor are they a better person for it, and this cannot be stressed enough.

Similarly, who is canon Cheryl?

1. Cheryl is an absolute bitch: if a privileged student was calling an actual homeless boy a hobo in your real-life school, you would neither think her a queen nor use “hobo” affectionately in your tags, comments etc.

2. Cheryl is a deeply traumatized person: her father killed her brother, her mother killed half the town and forced her in conversion therapy, she attempted suicide and more.

(Note #1: this more does not mean more than the other Riverdale characters).

(Note #2: nor is it an excuse for her rudeness, affectionately called “mood for chaos” by the writers).

3. Cheryl is also a caricature of the archetypal mean girl who’s there for laughs and meta comments. She’s not to be taken seriously.

4. Cheryl is lgbtq+ representation …

5. … who canonically shits on other lgbtq+ characters.

6. Cheryl is one half of Choni, who are canonically presented as an uber couple.

7. Choni is also, as per canon, a couple with an acute power imbalance (cough!gaslighting!cough) that visually very clearly panders to the male gaze.

But most importantly:

8. Cheryl canonically is not the sum of her parts. The different facets of her character do not intermingle in any meaningful way.

Was Betty kissing Archie specifically a sore spot for Jughead?

Canonically no [2x14]. But, also, canonically yes [5x03, 5x10].

Are there seriously fans that are astonished that Betty is making some highly questionable choices while investigating?! Did they just discover Dark™Betty/Killer Genes Betty? That is canon Betty! Was it ok before because she was then smooching Jughead instead of giving him the cold shoulder? Honestly, the only newly outrageous part of s5Dark™Betty is the fact that she still believes in “killer genes” despite having spent 4 years at Yale …

As for liking/disliking Betty and morality …

Look, I’m going to be very honest: I am NOT particularly enjoying s5 Betty. And it’s not because of b*rchie.

S5 Betty has 99 problems but the sexcapades ain’t one.

For me, it’s the fact that she’s turned into s1 Alice 2.0. But surely that’s not news either? Ever since the first info about the time jump, everyone and their mother have been speculating about the teens becoming their parents …

Just because Jughead is better written (and written to be more likable), it doesn’t make him more worthy of redemption. Just because the writers are keeping Betty’s redemption “secret” (insert eye roll) for their big reveal in the season’s penultimate episode, it doesn’t mean she won’t have one.  

Simply put, the writers have made Jughead more likable. He’s still the underdog. He’s the only character in Riverdale actively trying to deal with his trauma, since the very first post-time jump episode (working at Pop’s explicitly to fend off the debt collectors). He has scenes with a new and extremely likable character (Tabitha). He has the only new plot line (the Mothman). Said plotline is narratively already tied to both his unknown past and the town’s destruction by Hiram. His behaviour is explicitly explained, even as his recent trauma remains unknown. He’s transparent.

In comparison, s5 Betty is traumatized but not the underdog. Her trauma (TBK killer) is both known to us and a repetition of previous storylines, which makes it narratively less exciting. She is completely disconnected from any other storylines. She comes out as being judgmental and self-interested: telling Tabitha Jughead’s not her business while previously accepting his help? Berating Polly for lying while not keeping in touch and lying about her own life (TBK)? Please note: I’m not saying there isn’t a reason behind her behaviour, just that it comes out in a negative way.

You don’t like Betty’s current behaviour? You don’t consider trauma a good enough excuse? Cool.

You feel sorry for what she’s going through? You consider trauma to be a valid explanation for her behaviour? Also cool.

Personally, I don’t give a flying fig, either for Betty’s trauma or Jughead’s. Because, even though Trauma™ is s5’s actual mystery plot, narratively speaking, trauma never affected the plot of the past 4 seasons, nor s5 trauma will affect future plots, once revealed. And you know what? That is also cool.

None of the above is better.

And just because I’m not enjoying Betty right now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to overcome her current situation or that I won’t cheer for Bughead like a River Vixen on fizzle rocks, once they reunite.

This thing though, where people are made to feel as if they owed anyone in the fandom an explanation about why they like the things they like, because, somehow, their preferences are a reflection on their character or their cognitive abilities to read a TV show? This is a joke.

There is no “wrong” way to consume any show, let alone Riverdale, with its fractured format, its short-term memory and its see-sawing characters.

Look, everybody’s here for their own reasons. For most people this is a place of escape. No one’s escaping better than the other, because of how they enjoy their teen TV show ...