#maybe women are generally more active in fandom?

[platearmourpiglet]

😲 I think you're right!!

On Adam's stream last night he said that only 2% of their Youtube audience is female. Which is, tbh, kinda shocking, since the majority of VLDL active fandom is female, including mods and content creators. I knew women were more active but that's insane.

[almostempty]

it’s not that deep but it is that serious!

(editing and reblogging to clarify a couple things at the end of the post - edited once more to combine the second reblog into one)

I just want to come to this app to talk about deep throating mean!Joel and to make friends with other hot freaks. But I need my fellow heathens to hear me out for a moment.

I’ve tried to keep this space a little escape from reality, but that’s not a realistic privilege because life and art are inherently political.

I've seen friends and mutuals receiving hateful, racist, and cruel anons recently. I know these issues aren’t new for our Black and brown peers.

I see a lot of folks jumping to offer support and to express their disgust at the racist remarks.

I also see a lot of shock and disbelief and I want to talk about that.

Racism, bigotry, and prejudice are not new issues for Black and brown folks. If you find yourself shocked, surprised, and outraged when folks share the hate they receive I ask that you reflect on this. It’s a privilege to be surprised, to not be used to navigating and experiencing that vitriol.

I know it’s well intended when folks say things like, ‘if you’re a racist piece of shit get off my blog’ or similar messages, and i understand the anger and frustration. (*i appreciate seeing solidarity and i also do not want to police (acab) how people respond to the hate they receive)

I also don’t think anyone who is aware and actively spreading hate will be deterred. I imagine there are 4chan incel type trolls that just thrive on the attention and reaction of using the most inflammatory language they can, and trolls will troll. They inevitably will pop up.

What I want to address is the levels below the overt and active hate. The accidental or inadvertent covert racism. The micro aggressions. The passive silence or enabling of rhetoric that lets folks perpetuate harm without even thinking.

Black and brown creators in our community have been disregarded or overshadowed when they speak up about diversity or inclusion in this fandom or feeling unwelcomed.

They wade through oceans of moodboards with faceless, thin, white women paired with our favorite characters. They power through reader inserts with freckles, red marks, and pink pussies that say and do things they might never feel safe saying or doing in those universes. They scroll through bad Spanish or fetishized latino caricatures and romanticized colonial values. And they still show love and support by commenting and reblogging and uplifting other writers.

Maybe there are footnotes about the moodboards only being for inspiration, but that doesn’t erase the constant messaging that it was easier to find those pictures and add a note than to search harder or leave the pictures out.

When I saw a fic with a detail about the pedro character having a confederate flag in his trailer I had to pause. This is a perfect example. I don’t read this as malicious or intentionally harmful. I understand the stereotype it’s rooted in and the general humor of the story as a whole. I get that it’s a small detail and that racism wasn’t a core part of the character or the story.

But if we sit with this longer.. what does this tell our Black and brown peers? When the reader notices it and it’s just as notable as a calendar on the wall? And she fucks him willingly anyway?

Hate symbols aren’t unserious. Background or not. Imagine writing a Joel fic and giving him a swastika tattoo just as a background detail. Sounds extreme right? Maybe you’re writing an AU felon Joel and just trying to show how hardened and dark he is. Maybe in your headcanon he only got it in prison to protect himself and he isn’t a racist.

But to nazis it says this is a safe place to be. To the general audience it says you don’t care if this makes them feel unsafe or invisible.

To folks reading that a confederate flag isn’t a big deal, it signals that it’s an acceptable symbol. It shows that people are reading and commenting and sharing this story and are unbothered. That maybe people don’t even notice.

I’m not asking anyone to send hate and I’m not writing this as an attack on the author or anyone who shared the fic. We don’t know what we don’t know, but we have the opportunity to learn!

I am asking my peers to step in and step up, because I think y’all are smart and capable of more.

I am not an expert on anything. But as someone who went to grad school for social work — a field that only exists to combat the societal harm of power, privilege, and oppression — I don’t take it lightly. I work in advocacy fighting discrimination and prejudice from institutions built on systemic racism daily. I’m aware that I have the privilege of training, language, and awareness around diversity and inclusion, and that not everyone has the same knowledge or experience.

I also know this fandom is full of incredibly smart and well spoken folks who craft moving stories and analyze characters with nuance and passion.

I’m not interested in censoring what anyone writes and I happily abide by don’t like; don’t read.

If I only wanted to read I would stick to ao3. But I’m here and I stay here because of the community. The friendships and the extra tag games and challenges and support and camaraderie.

I know I make mistakes myself. And I know it can be uncomfortable to be called out for something you never intended to hurt anyone with. I know it can feel like your voice won’t be heard or your experience won’t be validated in such a big space.

I shared a post a while ago by a creator that doesn’t write for this fandom. It was an ode to Black fanfic writers in general, and in the comments Black writers were tagging each other to show love. And I knew there was something wrong when I wanted to share it but felt deeply hesitant about tagging anyone because I didn’t want Black writers to receive hate.

One of my favorite things about this fandom is how global it is. Getting to make friends with folks around the world is such a treat. I also know racism and fascism are not unique to one region.

It’s Black history month in the states and in Canada. I know other countries observe Black history month in other months. It’s an intentional observation for a reason.

For us, this is a hobby. We’re here voluntarily, and mostly anonymously, but we’re all people. Community is so vital to thwarting the dangers of fascism and hateful rhetoric.

This IS a post about racism.

But racism is absolutely entangled with sexism, classism, ableism, ethnocentrism, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchal hegemony, etc.

This isn’t just a rant. It’s an ask. I’m asking my peers—writers, readers, gif makers, lurkers, etc.— to help.

Reflect on what you share and post. Think about how others perceive you.

I’m asking my peers to be curious and open to discussions. To ask questions if you see covert racism. To be willing to accept feedback.

We can be gentle with one another.

Like, ‘hey, I saw this and am wondering if you’re aware of the origin or the impact it might have?’ or ‘can I share how this may be misinterpreted or harmful?’

Be kind sure, but be an advocate!

If you see someone posting about a character being their ‘spirit animal’ — send them a DM! If you read something that stereotypes a race, let the author know! There’s plenty of online resources for writing characters from other races without falling back on harmful tropes.

And even better… support your Black and brown peers. Share their work. Show them you value their presence in the fandom.

I encourage folks to read fics with original characters or reader characters with explicitly diverse ethnicities and tell the author you appreciate that character! Recommend the work to friends.

I never shut up about how much I love Heat and the story is incredibly compelling *because* the reader is a Latina written by a Latina.

Anyway, I come to this hellsite to laugh and be horny—but at my core I am an ethical hater and I only wrote all of this because I care and I want this space to be inclusive.

I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone else and I don’t want to speak over anyone. I’m open to feedback or ideas.

I’m tagging some mutuals I interact with and some that I don’t know very well, not to curse y’all with reading my long winded post but to ask: when you have the capacity will you help take action to make this community stronger? Will you commit to being open to feedback and growth?

Bottom line I just wanna read about getting railed by that fictional guy and I want my Black and brown peers to have the opportunity to enjoy the same escape from reality.

I feel like this is worth posting because I think y’all can make a difference. So many of y’all write and analyze stories and characters with such nuance and passion and detail—and that’s why i believe you can help spot subtle and insidious forms of racism and make real changes.

TL;DR: I’m asking everyone to be proactive when you see microaggressions or covert racism in the fandom, and to be willing to accept feedback and learn from each other. Being passive is a luxury and a privilege our marginalized peers do not have. Let’s be more than performative or not racist. Be active. Be anti-racist.

some tags for folks (no pressure to share, I don’t want attention I just want to encourage folks to take time to reflect or let me know what you think idk): *not calling anyone out as having committed any offenses just feeling compelled to share the message i guess

@auteurdelabre @joelmillerisapunk @lotusbxtch @probablyreadinsmut @ace-turned-confused @baronessvonglitter @yxtkiwiyxt @slimybeth69 @bitchesuntitled @thundermartini @sin-djarin @strang3lov3 @mermaidgirl30 @for-a-longlongtime @mrs-hardy-hunnam-butler-pascal @evolnoomym @wannab-urs @sanarsi @yopossum @almostfoxglove @itwasntimethatdidit40 @syd-djarin @miss-oranje-disco-dancer

to anyone: please start conversations or reach out to me or send me an anon ask if you want to discuss something or share, idc but i’m begging y’all to listen to each other and advocate for one another and be open to self-reflection 💗 editing to add: if i tagged you it was not a callout that i think you've done something specific to reflect on-- just a general invite to join me in being intentional and to invite feedback if you have any! if i made anyone anxious i apologize! - to clarify when i said 'it's not that deep' i mean that maybe fanfic is easily brushed off as not that deep, but every blog is a real person (minus the army of porn bots) and we form real connections in this community <3

edit:

one more thing, 

first and foremost! a reminder that i am speaking about the inclusivity in this fandom as a whole. i don't want to lose the plot over one specific example that blew up. my point is the bulk of the racism in this fandom is perpetrated through micro aggressions and covert racism EVERY DAY. we can make sweeping statements and tell racists to fuck off, but next week we will be back to the status quo (aka where many non-white folks feel unwelcomed, aren't represented, and are disregarded when they raise concerns, etc.) unless we commit to examining ourselves first and looking for the more subtle things that perpetuate the current culture (e.g. harmful stereotypes and racial tropes, fetishizing latinx characters, bad Spanish, writing reader insert fics with specifically white features and characteristics without tagging, using slurs or coded language, etc.)

(i am behind on everything today and haven’t gotten back to everyone who added insightful thoughts and considerations to my original post yet) 

i did see some folks share examples of positive experiences calling-in peers or learning something new themselves and wanted to say thanks and highlight those positives. 

maybe other folks have already brought up the rest of my points and if so i do not mean to speak over anyone, but i wanted to add on to my first post: 

i originally asked everyone to step up and commit to advocating for each other— but i’d like to explicitly ask white folks to step up and look out for our Black and brown friends (who are tired and don’t get to check out irl or online). i am asking white folks to be open to learning and growing with compassion. i am asking white folks to be persistent, proactive, and brave enough to be uncomfortable or wrong. 

when i say we can be gentle with each other i do not mean to minimize pain or anger. i gladly and willingly validate that everyone has a right to be upset and outraged by hatred and racism. i am not asking my Black and brown peers to soften their reactions or dismiss their experiences.

i am (again) asking my white peers to be mindful, to take a breath and listen to what BIPOC folks have to say. to sit with the discomfort and know that seeing hate or racism might be shocking but it is not surprising if you’ve been listening. 

i am asking my white peers to be kind and also strategic. if you have the patience and capacity then do what you can to increase the odds that your peers will be willing to listen and learn. it’s free to try at least. 

most of us that commit micro aggressions or covert racism don't consider ourselves to be racists. we see posts that say 'racists and bigots aren't welcome on this blog' and we agree! we reblog those posts! we pat ourselves on the back for being an ally and continue on without making any other changes-- not because we are bad people, but because we have the privilege of feeling welcomed, represented, and valued as a baseline.

this is also my call-in to myself because i’ve allowed myself to stay quiet. i’ve relied on the comfort that my close friends know who i am and what my values are, but i have been passive. i have seen comments or posts that i recognized were ignorant or offensive and continued scrolling. i felt like it wasn't worth the drama to speak up.

i’m fallible and open to feedback ! i am also comfortable being an example, being vulnerable and sharing my mistakes or opportunities for growth. i've gotten more comfortable because i have hours of training and practice but i don't expect others to feel good being called-in or to anticipate what might make them act defensively.

i know the core principle of cultural humility is that nobody is an expert on culture, that the best practice is to remain open and curious, to identify your own values and beliefs, and to confront stereotypes. it is an ongoing process of self-reflection and commitment to growth 

and so i volunteer to be here for any of my white friends that want to make this fandom a more inclusive space, but are feeling uncertain or uncomfortable. (i am not offering to defend racism or excuse hate)

there is extreme cognitive dissonance in believing you are a good person, a not-racist person, and a friend and ally— and being confronted with the idea you are perpetuating stereotypes, inadvertently causing harm, or alienating folks you care about. 

I know it seems like a safe option to stay quiet if you think you might say the wrong thing or make a situation worse. 

I know it’s hard enough to send someone a friendly message or to know what to comment on a fic you loved, let alone to feel empowered to point out something that might make someone else react defensively. I’m not volunteering to be the morality police (acab) but i’m here for all of my friends, mutuals, and peers in the fandom who want support with calling-in others or learning. i encourage and welcome discussion and curiosity. 

i ask white folks to make conscious changes so that when these conversations die down we don’t fall back into enabling white ignorance to infect the fandom and harm our friends.

bonus thoughts

i see and am grateful for the folks that called my first post eloquent and at the same time i am deeply aware of the ‘angry Black woman’ trope that undermines and minimizes Black women’s voices (especially when they are rightfully angry). i guess i’m just repeating that i don’t want to speak over anyone but i am committing to speaking up. 

i don’t want to harp on the confederate flag example anymore, but i would like to be clear that this isn’t about censorship. Consider the context and don’t turn this into a straw man argument or dilute the message with whataboutery. It speaks volumes if you’d rather argue semantics than listen to your peers about the reality of impact vs intent with that example or others. 

thank you for reading and being here <3

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I know that Yuu is gender neutral in the game for many reasons so it makes me wonder if Yuu was a girl in Conan would that change the dialogues and the way the characters interact with her?

Like not a major change to the main story or turning the game into otome but some small ones like in some characters interaction with Leona when stepping on his tail he won't want to beat us (because of the respect woman thing lol) in book one or Deuce being shy in the beginning of their friendship.

Hmm... For the most part, I honestly don't really think so? Cater still calls Yuu cute, Azul is still pretty polite, etc. Rook still waxes poetic and creepily recites your sizes, etc. regardless of gender. At best, maybe some of those traits would be exaggerated a little more or expanded on to suit the scenario?? Like maybe Ace would initially tease fem!Yuu about being at an all-boys school or something, isn't she bothered by it? But I really doubt that anyone would be tripping over themselves to protect or befriend fem!Yuu or anything, especially when most at NRC are primarily concerned with their own interests. Most of the characters aren't noted to treat women particularly differently than other genders. We also don't get to see the NRC students interacting with girls around their age either, so it's hard to discern how they'd be with them. I think even the "Deuce being shy in the beginning of the friendship" headcanon comes from a perspective colored by writings in fandom; Deuce in canon doesn't really seem to demonstrate major issues interacting with girls, at least not that I can recall. At best, he expresses surprise when Grim mistakes Epel for a girl and fails to romance the Ghost Bride (he freezes up and his mind blanks; it’s difficult to say this is how he’d act around most women or if he just acts this way due to the demands of the situation). Deuce does mention in Ace’s Suitor Suit vignettes that he mainly interacts with his mom, as most girls—and guys—would run away from him due to how intimidating he was. He says he gets nervous about hurting girls’ feelings, though this is in reference to faking a proposal and not romance or interactions in general. I think if we eliminated romantic interest altogether--because, to be clear, one girl in a cast of mainly guys is NOT always meant to be romantic or a harem--most of the cast would be their usual selves, if not maybe a little more polite due to how they’ve been socialized to see women as the “fairer” sex. For example, Riddle, Epel, and Jade underestimate Sally, though this isn’t clear if it’s gender-based or because they sympathize with her poor home life. They may also be instances of the guys not really knowing how to deal with girls? For example, Trey fails to help Sally up after she has fallen (which Sebek chastises him for); Trey later admits that he doesn't know many women beyond his mother and sister who is 4 years younger than him. Because of this, he says it may be that he was subconsciously nervous to interact with her.

The exception to this, many would point out, is Leona, who comes from a country in which women are respected. The strange thing is, whenever this point is mentioned, I always see people speaking about it in relation to Leona and Leona only, even though Ruggie and Rook also come from the Sunset Savanna (so technically those latter two would also theoretically be respectful to women). Now, there's a lot of discussion in the fandom about just how far Leona's "feminism" (a term used by fandom, never said in official materials) stretches. The most extreme of takes paint Leona as a misandrist who actively hates on or mistreats men while upholding women as superiors. And that... Well, I don't agree with this interpretation whatsoever. Yes, Leona no doubt respects women and is more likely to listen to them if they ask him to do something (for example, attending a party for a female painting in Cater's School Uniform vignette or taking a picture of himself in his robes for his sister-in-law in his own Ceremonial Robes vignettes). However, he won't just keel over and do whatever is asked of him simply because it is coming from a woman (think back to Ghost Marriage; he was still pretty pissed off when Eliza slapped him), and nor is he shown to disparage his own gender.

Rather than putting women on a pedestal, I think it would be more accurate to say that Leona doesn't underestimate women or think lesser of them because of their gender. (If you're interested my detailed breakdown of "feminist" Leona, check out this analysis.) For example, while his classmates worry for Sally's wellbeing in Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas, Leona lauds Sally's cunning and ability to save herself. We also get a pretty good look of this in the Episode of Savanaclaw manga, which features a female Yuu. (And before anyone says, "Yuuka could be hiding the fact she's a girl!", take a look at these panels. She is clearly not making an effort to hide her chest and given her nonchalant personality + ability to physically defend herself, Yuuka has no in-universe reason to be hiding her gender. The other students probably don’t bring up that she’s a girl because she’s already been around at NRC for roughly a month at this point and have likely acclimated to her presence. Besides, people don’t normally bring up “well, that’s a girl” out of the blue in everyday conversations.)

Riddle seems to treat Yuuka the same as the gender-neutral Yuu in the game; he still adjusts her tie for her without any flourishes, flinching, etc.

If you read the Episode of Savanaclaw altogether, pretty much all of the characters treat Yuuka like another fellow student and not "oh, this is a woman and a woman has to be treated differently".

Leona stops Savanaclaw mobs from beating up Yuuka and co., but this isn't significant because he does the same for gender-neutral Yuu in the game. It's not "I stopped the guys from hurting a woman" behavior. And get this: Leona still challenges Yuuka and co. to a magift/spelldrive game and he STILL kicks their asses and expects them to get up for more. He doesn't give even Yuuka special treatment or leniency because she is a woman. He wants her to play him again, the same as the other students (who are all guys). It is Jack who has to intervene and stop his dorm leader from bullying Yuuka and co.—but again, this isn’t a change from the game, as Jack always steps in anyway.

Yuuka recognizes Leona as "the garden caretaker" from back when she accidentally stepped on his tail. Unfortunately, we don't get to see if Leona attempted to attack her from this instance. It could be that the manga excluded it because he didn't try or it could be that he did (if the magift/spelldrive demands were of any indication) and the manga just didn't have time to show it in full. Buuut we should also note that Leona makes exceptions to his own... "moral code" when it is convenient for him. For example, he tells his students to not pick on outsiders but then still wails on us through sport. When Yuu steps on his tail in the garden, he says, "Well, can't say it'd be much fun to hurt someone so helpless," but then adds, "Still gonna do it, though."

My point is, this is the closest we'll get to "how would the boys treat a fem!Yuu", and that's what I'll leave you with.

[angelbarelywrites]

♡ slashers scenarios | first meeting (part 2)

♡ fandoms; Friday the 13th, House of Wax, Black Christmas, Scream (kinda)/ Dead by Daylight, slashers (general)

♡ characters; Jason Vorhees, Bo Sinclair, Danny Johnson, Billy Lenz, Bubba Sawyer

♡ reader; gender neutral

♡ cw; Billy Lenz, mentions of violence and general slasher activity, kidnapping, stalking

♡ notes; i didn’t include Bubba last time, so i slipped him in with the pt 2 team :v

also for ghostface i went with Danny over Billy + Stu, just because i’m more comfortable writing older characters tbh. and he’s very attractive to me. maybe i can do a college au fic of them in the future?

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

Jason Vorhees

> you were lost

> utterly, hopelessly lost without a map, compass, or even your backpack

> you were out camping with a couple of new friends when you wandered off to pick flowers

> well, acquaintances more like- they weren’t particularly nice to you, but you knew one from your home town

> before you knew the sun was starting to set and you had no clue which way to go

> you’re kicking yourself for being so dumb but try to make the best of it, continuing to collect flowers and pretty rocks

> soon enough you find yourself on the edge of a lake

> that couldn’t have been good- there weren’t any lakes near the campsite at all

> maybe this was that old summer camp they’d mentioned?

> either way you turn around and try your best to retrace your steps

> but even with a full moon it’s just too dark and too dense and you’re exhausted

> holding in tears, you find a small meadow and finally sit to rest

> you’re still sniffling and rubbing your eyes when someone walks up to you

> you were so oblivious that Jason was able to get a few feet in front of you before you noticed

> he seems…perplexed to find you there

> he thought he’d gotten all of the campers

> and you didn’t really look like you belonged with those fornicators

> (or at least that’s what he told himself to justify leaving you alive)

> he’s holding his machete and soaked with your companions’ blood, but you don’t seem to notice

> “…can you take me back to my friends?”

> well he most certainly cannot do that, not if he wants you to like him- though he’s not sure why that matters

> he’s still staring so you, exhausted, do the only thing you can think to

> “…do you want a flower? I picked a lot”

> he’s delighted and takes it before finally gesturing for you to follow him

> you can’t keep up, so eventually he picks you up

> and like that you’re nearly dozing off

> you don’t even notice he’s taking you back the way you came from

> and he’s glad- he wasn’t going to give you much of an option anyway

Bo Sinclair

> single travelers are so much easier to deal with

> so when Lester gives him the call that some college kid was stuck on the road, he’s eager for an easy catch

> you take your sweet ass time getting to the station- even though Lester drove you most of the way you let him drop you off just outside of town

> the smell of the truck was really getting to you, and you’re happy to let the dog lead you

> when he strides out you’re cooing over Jonesy and giving her a belly rub for her troubles

> he’s seen his fair share of attractive victims

> men, women, and folks that didn’t fit either category

> and he’s slept with most of them

> but you… there’s something extra special about you

> he decides right there he’s not taking care of you without at least getting a taste

> you’re not too impressed by his flirting- or at least you try and act like it

> but he catches your pink cheeks and quiet giggles as he takes you on a walk

> because of course he’s got the part down the road at his place

> by the time you get there he’s decided he’s marrying you - or maybe keeping you tied up, beggars can’t be choosers

> he’s impulsive but he’s never wanted to keep anyone before

> “hey sugar-“ god your face heats up just hearing him call you that “turns out I don’t have that part you need. It should be in by tomorrow, if you can stay the night?”

> you say yes before you can think critically- he’s good at getting folks wrapped around his finger like that

> “Good. Cause I’m just dying to show you some real southern hospitality…”

Danny Johnson

> he knows you long before you know him

> he’s a natural nosy guy- he’s a journalist after all

> and a serial killer, of course stalking is on his to do list

> originally you were going to be a victim

> you’d make a good story, a young person taken tragically early

> but you were too cute to die just yet- he had to at least meet you, just once

> if you were a dick no one would say anything nice for your article, right?

> so he just happens to bump into you outside your work one day

> literally bump

> when you spill coffee all over yourself he smoothly apologizes and offers to help clean you up

> “What a mess- I’m so sorry sweets. Let me take care of all this”

> and you fall for it, hook line and sinker

> he’s a handsome guy, he’s used to that but he’s smug anyways

> he gives you a spare shirt of his, though you still skip work

> he buys you another coffee and you sit in his car chatting

> you’re innocent enough to trust him like that- to get in a vehicle with a strange man?

> a strange man that’d been stalking you, no less

> it’s adorable- if he wasn’t so attached he could kill you right there

> but you’re just so damn sweet, and genuine

> and you’re so fascinated by these Ghost Face killings…

> maybe you’re worth keeping around for a bit

> just a bit

> that’s what he says to himself anyways

> when you meet him as Ghost Face, it’s after you’ve already got him all figured out

> and he’s lucky that you like a bad boy

Billy Lenz

> it’s a given that you first meet him over the phone

> you’re renting out a spare room from Mrs Mac, not in the sorority but a good enough tenant that she keeps you around

> you get along well with the girls and cook them meals, run study sessions and help clean

> it’s almost parental at times, even if you’re not far off in age

> Billy hates you at first, for taking such good care of ‘filthy piggy whores’

> he tells you just as much over the phone, but you’re not bothered

> you never seem to be bothered by his calls

> and that pisses him off more

> but you’re so so cute… it quickly becomes an obsession

> he’s in your walls constantly, watching you

> and the calls from the moaner start coming more and more frequently at times you’re home alone

> one day you just start giggling at him, tipsy “you know, you scare the girls,”

> “good i—“

> “but your voice is sooo nice. that’s why i pick up so much”

> you didn’t mean to confess that , and you hope he takes it as an awkward joke

> when he hangs up you think that maybe he did take it that way

> its not until late that night that you realize that he knew he was sincere

> before you can register that there’s anything wrong he’s covering your mouth and pinning you to your bed

> “hi there, baby doll,”

> his grin gets huge when your still horrified face goes bright red

> he always knew you were perfect

Bubba Sawyer

> you pick up Nubbins hitchhiking one day, and he’s just dumbfounded by you

> you’re nonplussed by his rambling and you don’t squirm at his yucky pictures. you don’t even kick him out, just drop him off at the gas station.

> you’re not really his type, but you’re fascinating

> he’s gotta get you home to meet his brothers

> so he pops your tires when you go inside- all four

> when you come back out Drayton is cursing him out and smacking him upside the head

> he makes him take you back to the house to rest up while he gets you tires

> of course he intends for Bubba to kill you

> but Nubbins doesn’t pass the message along, because he’s Nubbins

> “Here Bubba! I made us a new friend!”

> you shyly greet him, but he’s an oddly calming presence

> let’s be honest you’ve gotta be okay with a lot fast to like the Sawyers

> so maybe you’re just in denial about the material

> but you tell him you like his mask- and you do

> he obviously worked really hard on getting the makeup just right- and it compliments his suit

> he stares at you a long while before taking your hand and giving you a grand tour

> well, more a tour of his favorite spots

> the chicken coup, a patch of wildflowers out back, and his room full of trinkets collected from victims

> you’re strangely enamored by this big, quiet man

> and you don’t get the sense you’re allowed to leave

> especially when Drayton comes home and goes on and on about witnesses

> but you didn’t really even have an end goal in mind on your road trip anyways

> and now you’ve got Bubba to protect you

> maybe it’s not so bad, stuck with those weirdos

[olderthannetfic]

There is something confusing to me about older queer people (which is to say, older than I am, at a relatively young 24 years old) who get mad at original fiction whose worldbuilding involves neopronouns. I'm hoping maybe, ONTF, since you've been in queer spaces a lot longer than I have, you can explain why people have such a negative reaction to the idea.

Basically, I'm working on a novel based that takes white-throated sparrow biology and uses it for building blocks in the same way A/B/O takes (now debunked) wolf science and used it for building blocks. This means there are essentially four genders, the two viewed as more intelligent (brown-haired men and women) and the two viewed as more physical (white-haired men and women). Those two groups then get further divided along the lines of 'women are better at making smart decisions under pressure' and 'men are better at staying home and defending the children, as God intended'.

So it seemed natural to me that this worldwide quaternary system would result in at least some languages having pronoun sets for each of the four options. Some languages in real life have more complicated pronoun systems than that, particularly ones where there's a bunch of formal and informal pronouns. It'd also help the reader keep track of who was a part of what group without my having to turn around and state people's coloration constantly. Yes, these people are human, just as humans in A/B/O are, but society is fundamentally very different. I'm not throwing this in to just complicate things or sound smart or something. It's here because my minoring in Anthropology and majoring in Linguistics taught me language usage reflects the needs and values of a people.

The writing group I'm a part of IRL is mostly queer, mostly 40+, with some cishet women who are also present and active writers. The writing group I'm a part of on DW is mostly DWRPers, in their 30's and up, though no older than 50, and entirely queer. I did not expect these to be groups that were uncomfortable with the idea of "different world, different pronouns".

Instead the reception has ranged from suggestions it's pretentious or overthinking things to requests I reconsider doing it. I've been informed this could be seen as mocking the real life queer people who go by pronouns other than she, he, or they. One person asked if this was went to be me "artificially justifying" nonbinary pronouns and implying I didn't find them valid in the real world. That was an awkward conversation, to say the least.

In reality I wasn't really thinking about real life people who use nonbinary pronouns when I was writing. I was just asking, "Logically, wouldn't it make sense for things to work very differently under a quarternary than it does under a modern European binary?" and following my brain along to its' conclusions as it processed that.

I have gotten zero negative feedback from my queer friends my age regarding this. So obviously, generation and the experiences informing a generational context are key, here. I'm just... still lost on how anyone finds this objectionable.

Help?

--

Ahaha. Oh god.

Well, as a reader of sff in the 90s, the first reaction I have to such things is "IS THERE A CONLANG AND A MAP?" Because, man, the conlang people were some of the most tedious motherfuckers I ever had to deal with in sff spaces.

But broadly... I think the reasons queer people get annoyed about this stuff boil down to a couple of big factors:

Disrespectful children who don't know history

Idiot old people harrumphing about "history" they clearly failed to pay attention to while it was going on in the first place

I personally hate being asked to use new words most of the time. A few bits of fandom slang I'll pick up at once, but I'm usually like "Why would I call it 'spirk'? We already have 'K/S'!" *shakes cane*

If you're American, they're your "roommate", not your "flatmate". No, I don't care how much more precise this foreign term is, you pretentious wanker. (But then I'll use 'wanker' because fandom adopted that years ago...)

So my reaction to being asked to say aloud any pronoun not in very frequent circulation in my offline life is "Urrrgh. Do I have to?"

However, the reality is that people have been messing around with pronouns in English since forever. Do you see 'heo' in Modern English? No, you do not! (Not that it was gender neutral, but the point is that even words as ancient as pronouns have changed quite a bit.) The early internet was full of pronoun stuff in MUDs and the like. You had a choice of a lot more than just three in a bunch of these. People besides men and women have always been in queer communities.

So some people like to cry about neopronouns being actually neo, and they're just wrong.

As for the why do you care part...

There is a nasty habit in contemporary queer spaces to act like gay rights issues are solved. Bisexuality? Passe! etc. Gays and lesbians finally got a little mainstream acceptance only to suddenly be treated like the worst of the establishment by the queer youth. How dare?!?! It's even more egregious with bisexuality where the focus of a bunch of queer activism finally swung that way in the 90s... only to be sharply cut off in the 00s.

There's a real "You already got yours. Where's mine?" vibe to some queer discourse today, and it's directed at people who never got theirs. It shows up in demands for mentorship by people who've barely had a chance to escape a rocky start and figure out who they are themselves. It shows up in yowling about this or that bit of queer media we finally got not being progressive because it's the wrong letter of the acronym.

None of which has a damn thing to do with what pronouns you use in your novel, obviously, but I think some unresolved embattled feelings are why some older queer people are very weird about pronouns.

Some of them are also doing the old person version of throwing the weirdos under the bus to placate the normies. Respectability politics became a term long before the behavior was rife on tumblr.

--

If someone really does find it pretentious, though, and not just as a cover for crying about nonbinary identities being fake, I suspect they just remember how 1970s SFF was full of privileged anthropology students misunderstanding kinship systems from elsewhere in the world and then trying to tell everyone how ~deep~ their extremely contrived novels based on them were.

I'm not saying your writing is like this or that every one of these old sff novels was either, but when I hear "anthropology student", I groan internally. It's an instinctive reaction. It's less about the real fields and more about the bevvy of dilettantes I've run into over the years who'll say they study those things but really want to talk my ear off about Joseph fucking Campbell or the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or something.

--

Those birds are a really cool source of inspiration. Like with A/B/O, the first thing I wonder is how queerness works in that context and how much people like to defy their designated roles.

Omegaverse started on porn logic, so "The one I say tops always tops!" makes sense. When it gets expanded to try to make it make logical sense as a whole world, I often enjoy it, but it can break down quickly if treated as biology is law. I don't know how often the birds veer off of their set patterns, but humans certainly would.

One place where I get a strong "Oh god, this again" feeling from people's plotbunnies is when they're trying to make up a sff society that strikes me as too rigid in a way that real humans aren't. I'll see people using fake wolf biology (not just for horny reasons) but never looking at what's going on with gender in contemporary Thailand or whatever. Like... Le Guin may have made sedoretus feel plausible, but nobody I've ever seen stanning the concept as something fandom should play with has. That's probably because Le Guin was using over-complicated social norms as a thing that breaks down and causes trouble, and "This should be the next A/B/O!" posts are treating it as something that actually works and is a good way to get the pair you don't ship separated while shipping poly.

"It'd also help the reader keep track of who was a part of what group without my having to turn around and state people's coloration constantly."

This, in particular, gives me that cold shudder of recognition from when Homestuck fandom was everywhere and everyone wanted to over-explain those stupid playing card suits and why I should care.

Your concept sounds neat, and I think a set of four pronouns could easily make sense there...

But I also think that if people need the pronouns to keep track of coloration, you haven't set up a system that feels organic enough or haven't given enough cues about how characters are treating each other or why. Use the pronouns too, but just keep that in mind. It's like the "m/m is hard because the pronouns don't tell me whose hand is where" problem. It's almost never actually a pronoun problem.

--

Anyone else have thoughts here?

[kanguin]

You know it deeply saddens me how much of an echo chamber Terfs are in. I'll be on desktop and I'll go into the notes of a post, see a shit take from a blogger with a glowing red username, go to their blog, and it's just. 10-30% normal posts, the rest nonstop Terfarama going on. Click on one blog, and all of a sudden there's a free blacklist the more I scroll through. Like, idk, I do not understand people who can dedicate so much of their life and their free time to hating other people. I hate bigots of all varieties, from your common conservative to the libertarian horde to ecofascists to the common Acolyte of Rowling, but this is the first post I've independently made about them because, I don't know about you, as much as these people actively work to make my life and the lives of people I love miserable, I just generally do not want to think about them in my spare time? Idk, I like being happy, I struggle to be happy, so why would I spend so much of my time dwelling on how unhappy a group of people make me?

But idk, maybe they're just keeping themselves in a different environment than I am. I used to consider Tumblr hellish, but ever since I've started curating my dash through selective following and liberal blocking, it's just been so much more peaceful. I come here now to relax, to hear about global events, and to share interesting posts I find, be they fandom or science or what have you. Life in general is rough as it is, why would I ever want to spend more time dwelling on that reality when that doesn't change anything?

I honestly don't think terfs know nor care that all they're ever going to do is push people away, isolate themselves, alienate the world, and harm the people they care about. They're an interesting hate group, one that isn't solely a group in power at the top punching down, but one that is largely comprised of cis women who are scared and shaken by the pain and suffering inflicted upon them by misogynistic society. But fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to teaming up with all the other people who hate just as strongly as you to feel powerful. But that feeling of power is only ever going to be a feeling. Terfs neuter their capability to effect actual change because instead of actually going after men who abuse their power, instead of nurturing their communities to grow past the need for toxic masculinity and the degradation of women, they direct all of their focus on attacking trans women, policing other women, gaslighting trans men, pushing cis men as far away as possible, and throwing everyone else under the bus to get there.

This is such a stupid strategy that even if trans women were actually secretly men and bioessentialism was true, trans women still wouldn't be men with any actual power because they neither claim masculinity, act it out, benefit from it, nor are welcome among it. Cis men regularly attack and abuse trans women en mass, deny them human rights, and deny them positions of authority. It is so, so apparently clear that trans women are below cis men in the social pecking order, so even if someone is so wrapped up in 8th grade science class biology that they can't see trans women as women, it STILL wouldn't make sense to devote so much of your energy and hate toward a group of people who objectively do not hold any societal power over you instead of the ones that do.

I sincerely hope that this epidemic of faux-feminists who court neonazis when it's convenient for them becomes a footnote in the history book someday. Ace exclusionism was largely nipped in the bud years ago, though there still are some shitheads who've never left it, but I've seen hategroups come and go. This one has had staying power thanks to JKR and other prominent figures championing it alongside the global movement mobilizing against the increased rights of trans people, but it can't last forever. I hope all the blogs I've blocked so full of hate get deleted one day when their owners can't stomach the hate poured into them anymore. It probably won't happen, they'll probably still be here until the site goes under, but I still hope. Everyone is capable of change with the right incentives, so hopefully someday soon it will be more rewarding to love trans women than to hate them.

[rewritingcanon]

what are some popular hp nextgen headcanons you dislike

idk if this fandom is big enough but i’ll take my stab at some stuff, although i do think i’m more open to fanon when it comes to nextgen so this is more stuff that i disagree with rather than dislike (so pleaseeee no one take offence)

any fic that portrays victoire as a bitch. i dont know nothing about her but ik she wouldnt act like that

scorpius and albus being in any other house besides slytherin. its just odd to me

albus with glasses

similarly, lily without glasses

redhead james sirius. just seems wrong idk.

when james sirius acts like SATAN to albus without any redemption arc. he’s got two loving parents btw 😭 i can believe him being hella mean but ive read fics where this loved child has committed crimes against albus for the sake of…. irdk actually

a BIG one i have is any other wotter besides albus being sorted into slytherin. most of them gotta be in gryffindor for me to believe it, maybe sprinkle a token ravenclaw or hufflepuff in but albus is THE slytherin. no one can take that away from him 😡😡 grr

i’ve mentioned it before but portrayals of scorpius and albus having large or even medium-sized friendgroups. i can see them having casual friends (like work friends) but not close friends outside of each other mainly. its not that i dont like when they do i just dont believe it lol.

any portrayal of james sirius potter as bitchless. again, dont know much about him but i do know he’d be getting huzz

one i actually do actively dislike because its rampant in fics but i dislike when harry is portrayed as an the Devil and draco in turn is the best father albus never had. bro wasn’t even that nice to scorpius, what makes people think albus is gonna jump at the opportunity to replace harry with him 😭 ? i get the vision but it seems disingenuous to the characters

any fic where scorpius is mean to rose. or women in general but especially rose. its irrespective if the woman in question actually deserves it, i dont think scorpius would ever raise his voice at a girl lol

ok the “albus is bisexual” headcanon is NOT something i disagree with but i do disagree with a popular reason why people headcanon it and thats that he had a crush on delphi so he must be bi. like bro was fourteen and GROOMED chat.

this one less so because i go back and forth with it, but albus as a potioneer. irdk, im on the fence but theres a very strong breeze yk

[cinnaleaf]

For the Racists Hiding in Anon: Log Off or Step the Fuck Up

Let’s have a chat!!! Because some of you seem to need a very CLEAR and LOUD wake up call about the way you conduct yourselves in fandoms.

Quite frankly, the racism running rampant in fandom spaces is disgusting and embarrassing. We shouldn’t have to keep circling back on this topic just because people insist on showing how truly uneducated and bigoted they are.

To the racists hiding behind anonymous accounts to send racist messages to others..I find you to be absolutely simpleton and pathetic. You’re not clever, funny, or even giving the read you think you are – so I’ll do you one better 😇 I think you’re a parroting bird that loves to hear yourselves chirp. You would never do this in public because you know the consequences it has. So why are y’all so suddenly bold online?? Your anonymity on the internet will not save you from being a pea brained buzzard hiding behind a screen. It only proves you lack the educational substance to inform yourselves of biases and at the very least correct it – it’s really the least you could do, seeing as black people live rent free in your mind.

Secondly, Trent is a black man. He’s not some token for you to project your racist fantasies onto. Regardless of his antics, this man has black ancestors, family members, and friends who are black. Thinking you can simultaneously froth and feen over him, read my fics, and send microaggressions and blatant racist hatred to other black women in this space is pure cognitive dissonance. Trent doesn’t want you. He never will. Even if you do feel that you fit his publicly conceived ‘preferences’. He’d take one look at your vitriol and be just as disgusted as we are. Sit with that and ponder.

I started writing fics because I wanted to create stories that are fun, reflect my experiences, and to connect with like minded people in the football space. My blog will ALWAYS be a safe space for black people, queer people, disabled people, women, and anyone else who understands what it means to be marginalized. If you cannot handle that, if my existence (and others) somehow offends you – this space is not for you. I don’t want you reading my fics. I don’t want you lurking on my blog. I don’t want you interacting with other black bloggers and people of color. And I definitely don’t want you bringing your racism into a fandom space that’s meant to be a fun refuge for people like me.

Your microaggressions don’t move me. Your overt racism doesn’t scare me. All it does is prove that your ignorance is a vast wasteland – you should honestly be embarrassed by that. And to be real, I refuse to make this space a comfortable place for you. If you want a space to spew your nonsense, find it elsewhere (where you’ll probably be banned) because it won’t be here. You’re not welcome here and I’ll brick the wall you try to crash into every time you attempt to make this an unsafe space for others. Maybe then you’ll understand what your hostility feels like when you dish it to others. 

And to anyone who’s been on the receiving end of this bullshit – your frustrations and exhaustions are 100% valid. This corner of the internet belongs to you just as much as anyone else, and you should feel free to make it safe for yourself in whatever you deem fitting. I don’t want anyone holding their breath before scrolling because of these people. Do not allow them to poison your safe space with utter nonsense, it’s YOURS.

I have only been active here for a few months after lurking for years, but in that short time I’ve connected with some really amazing people over these blood pressure inducing games, silly men, and just life in general. That’s what this space was meant for and I refuse to let anyone take that away from us. If you feel like this space has become more stress than it’s worth, I totally understand and would suggest taking a break if you need to, but your presence and perspectives will always be welcome to me and many other like minded individuals who aren’t smooth brained.

Anyway, I say all this to say I will not let someone else’s hatred exist here and I’m actively working on making sure these people are weeded out entirely. Make them uncomfortable, they deserve it.

If this bothers you racists in anyway, step the fuck up without anon being on so I can really give you the read you so desperately deserve.

x

[rogumi]

JPN Nintama Fandom Hashtags & Etiquette no Dan

Since the fandom is increasing in numbers, both in its country of origin and in western spaces, I thought I could help people better understand some of the hashtags more widely used on Twitter/Bluesky and other places. And maybe give some more insight on the more basic etiquette expected of you in Japanese fandom spaces. This is, after all, a predominantly Japanese fandom space and you're bound to interact with users who don't speak English at all and aren't familiar with our fandom culture. Let's be polite!

First, let's tackle the hashtags and how Japanese fandom users use them.

A twitter user, Yada-san, kindly summed up the most popular hashtags in their post here, and I thought that was such a nice summary I could just translate it and hopefully give you a little more cultural insight as I go.

#忍たま Mainly used by the official accounts and such. You can find official information and updates here. Yada-san specified since official accounts use this tag, they refrain from using it themself. You'll find this sentiment is shared among a lot of otaku, specially women who are into either the BL or yume subculture. (And going by word of mouth, the fandom online is mostly adult women lol.) #RKRN (From the title of the manga, Rakudai Ninja Rantarō). Since a lot of fans feel uneasy using the "official" tag, this is the tag most use for their gen fanart. Yada-san says "personally, I don't think it's a good idea to post shippy content to this tag."

#rkrnプラス The yume tag for the fandom. Here you'll find yume art/fic and scenarios in general. Yumes in the fandom usually use the 🌸 emoji.

#nin_draw Now this tag is quite popular and causes a lot of confusion to newcomers. Some people think that since it's such an active tag, it must be the main fandom tag but that'd be incorrect. What happens is that every 2 days, the manager of the account nin_draw on twitter will post a new prompt (usually a character name or the name of a committee or a group) and then you have 60 minutes to draw it. Everyone is free to join! You just have to make sure you follow the rules. They have quite a few, but basically. No NSFW, no ships unless they are canon, no ninmyu, no kemomimi or animals, no modern aus, no genderbends, no aged up or aged down characters (unless we've seen those versions in canon). Basically, they want to keep things gen and as close to canon as possible.

These are not rules anyone can force you to follow, but if you ignore them it will make users uncomfortable and more likely to ignore you/mute your or straight up block you.

(Yada-san mentions a tag for people wanting to connect with other Nintama fans, but I'll skip it for now.)

And what about ship art, you ask? Yada-san states "I post it by clearly stating the ship name and without any of the other tags. If the art is too risque or it might need more warnings, I either mark it as sensitive or post it on poipiku. However, determining what's appropriate or not can be hard at times, and I still have a lot of room for improvement in this area."

And that's it for the original tweet!

Now, for a more general overview of etiquette in the Japanese fandomsphere. You may have noticed through a lot of it, Yada-san offers suggestions or examples of what they do rather than say "don't do that!" and that's very common in the fandom in general. Nobody will confront you directly (at most, they might through an anon messages) but they will most likely just mute you/block you/ignore you.

Some users give foreign fans more of a leeway but others don't. A lot of them are very unforgiving of people who use official art as icons. This stems from NHK itself not allow sharing screenshots on social media, a rule most Japanese fans follow. Consistent with this, if they see you posting screenshots and gifs they may steer clear from your account. Again, we live in an era in which we are in constant communication with people from other countries, so some users are more forgiving about this than others. Remember that this is just a guideline, and in the end, whether you follow it or not is up to you.

You also don't want to use other people's art as icons, unless specify in their profile that it's okay. That's a surefire way to get blocked by an artist you like. On the same vein, don't repost OR trace art. Recently, there was an issue of a foreign fan tracing art and they thought they could get away with it since Nintama is such a small fandom in English speaking circles... don't be that guy!

Also if you're an adult you may want to add your age to your bio. Sometimes, just putting 18+ won't be enough since Japanese users don't want to risk someone still in high school seeing their works.

As for Pixiv, the Yume tag is 忍玉-夢 and the BL tag is 忍玉-腐.

If you're interested in a ship but aren't sure what tag people use, I highly recommend looking at the pixiv dictionary entry for Nintama BL ships! If you're not familiar with the characters names or how to write them in Japanese, the Nintama English wiki has the kanji for the character names as well.

⚠️ ⚠️⚠️ The name order in which ships are written in Japanese is really important! ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Unless the artist states they are into reversible ships (riba/リバ）it's safe to assume they are fixed and the first kanji/name of the ship indicates the top. So don't go to an AB artist asking for BA! That will, again, get you ignored/muted/blocked.

And I think that's it for now! I got tired and can't think of anything else haha. Hopefully this was helpful. I can't overstate how much these rules aren't enforced by anyone but the users' preferences, but if you don't follow them it may be the reason why people are not engaging with you or blocking you.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask me on this post, via ask, or in the Tasogaredoki Jou discord server! Take care and be a 良い子。

[fanhackers]

Anne Kustritz’s Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction

Anne Kustritz’s new book, Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction: Pocket Publics has just been released by Routledge (2024).  You might know Kustritz, a scholar of fan cultures and transmedia storytelling, from her early essay “Slashing the Romance Narrative,” in the Journal of American Culture (2003) or maybe from some of her more recent work on transmedia and serial storytelling. But this new book is an exciting addition to the fan studies canon, and Fanhackers readers might be particularly interested, because the book “explores slash fan fiction communities during the pivotal years of the late 1990s and the early 2000s as the practice transitioned from print to digital circulation,”--which is the era that a lot of the fans involved in the creation of the OTW came from. As I noted in my book blurb, “​​While there has been an explosion of fan studies scholarship in the last two decades, we haven't had an ethnography of fan fiction communities since the early 1990s. Kustritz's Pocket Publics rectifies that, documenting the generation of slash fans who built much of fandom's infrastructure and many of its community spaces, both on and off the internet. This generation has had an outsized impact on contemporary fan cultures, and Kustritz shows how these fans created an alternative and subcultural public sphere: a world of their own.”

Kustritz doesn’t just analyze and contextualize fandom, she also describes her own experiences as a participant-observer, and these might resonate with a lot of fans (especially Fanhackers-reading fans!)  Early on in the book, Kustritz describes her how her own early interest in fandom blurred between the personal and the academic:

Because I began studying slash only a year after discovering fandom on-line, my interest has always been an intricate tangle of pleasure in the texts themselves, connection to brilliantly creative women, and fascination with intersections between fan activities and academic theory.  I may now disclaim my academic identity as an interdisciplinary scholar with concentrations in media anthropology and cultural studies and begin to pinpoint my fan identity as a bifictional multifandom media fan; however, I only gradually became aware of and personally invested in these categories as I grew into them.  This section defines the scope of the online observation period that preceded the active interview phase of this research.  In so doing it also examines the messy interconnections between my academic and fannish interests and identities. Trying to pick apart what portion of my choices derived from fannish pleasure and which from academic interest helps to identify the basic internal tensions and categories that slash fan fiction communities relied upon to define themselves, the pressures exerted upon these systems by the digital migration, and complications in academic translation of fannish social structures.

Later in the book, Kustritz discusses how fans have organized and advocated for themselves as a public; in particular, there’s a fascinating chapter about the ways in which fandom has adopted and transformed the figure of the pirate to forge new ways of thinking about copyright and authorship.  If the OTW was formed to argue that making fanworks is a legitimate activity, the figure of the pirate signifies a protest against the law and a refusal to be shamed by it: 

[F]ans also use the figure of the pirate to make arguments that validate some fan activities and consign others to illegitimacy.   At the urging of several friends involved with slash, I attended my first non-slash focused science fiction and fantasy convention in the summer of 2004.  The program schedule announced a Sunday morning panel discussion provocatively titled “Avast, Matey: The Ethics of Pirating Movies, Music, and Software” with the subheading “Computers today can distribute [more] intellectual property than ever before--not always legally. Is it ever okay to copy, download, and/or distribute media? Sorry, ladies, none of us will be dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.”  The panel’s subheading, which obliquely warned away both lusty women and pirates, led a small contingent of slash fans to shake off Saturday night’s convention revelries unreasonably early and implement a plan of their own for Sunday’s panel.  As many fan conventions encourage costumes, known as “cosplay,” one of my friends and research participants happened to have been dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean that weekend, so I entered the piracy panel with Captain Jack and a motley crew of slashers, some of them intent upon commandeering the discussion.

The clash that followed exemplifies a structural fault line between various types of fan communities regarding their shared norms and beliefs about copyright law, the relationship between fans and producers, and appropriate fan behavior.

If you want to find out how this clash played out–well, you’ll just have to read the book. 😀

–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

[cpericardium]

So! I've gotten a host of messages and asks regarding recent disk horse and I wanted to address them as a collective.

I know I have anon asks off, I won't share your URLs, but I do want to thank you for asking and clarifying some of the frankly vile things people have been saying about me, my girlfriend, and friends. I value those of you who offered your words of support, and didn't jump to believe screenshots taken out of context and lies written with the utmost confidence and none of the facts. I am a little tired of having my morals questioned and my views conflated with every single person I associate with, but there it goes.

tumblr user cpericardium suspiciously silent on the subject of Gaza: does this mean you support ethnic cleansing???

My reticence when it comes to posting about topics like I/P is because:

-This is a fandom blog intended for lighter topics, except maybe the occasional vent about life stuff, which I usually hide under a cut. I don't have sideblogs. They seem tough to maintain and I don't post nearly enough to justify it. If I were to make one it would be for another fandom or maybe just the freakier bugs. I simply prefer my social media experience to be stress-free.

-Anti-slacktivism. It's a documented thing: posting about an issue makes you feel like you're doing something, you get that little shot of dopamine, so you don't actually go out and do something that effects meaningful change. I'm trying to do less of that. I'm good with the friends and people I follow who choose to post about it and this is a strictly personal belief, but when I engage in activism, it is offline or it is a donation. You're not going to hear about it.

But don't you reblog lgbt and women's rights posts?

Yeah, and that's usually when I want to save a post for one reason or another (e.g. to talk about with someone on discord later). The bottom line is that the main purpose of my blog is not to post political takes or to spread awareness of anything. It is just a collection of my interests (fan stuff, bugs) and hopefully a way to share those interests with like-minded people.

I will state my views clearly for the record: I support Palestine. The ongoing genocide is heartbreaking and so is the violence against protestors. Additionally, I am against antisemitism and the harassment of Jewish people in the name of supporting Palestine. This shouldn't even need to be said.

Is your girlfriend a Zionist?

No.

Does she support Zionists?

No.

Wasn't she in the military?

Yes, years ago.

But the military is evil?

It is. She's extremely hardcore anti-war and anti-military, does not believe the US should even have an army, and actively PMs strangers on reddit to try to convince them to not make the same mistake. If they're dead set anyway, she gives them detailed advice on how to survive. Because she actually cares about the human cost of war, not the social clout gained from shunning or sneering at people who make wrongheaded choices. I have seen her doing this, seen her seeking to understand their reasons for joining so she can systematically explain—from personal experience!—why they're not going to get any of that out of the army. It is a hell of a lot more effective than bitching them out or writing callout posts or starting whisper campaigns about them. She cannot delete those years of her life no matter how much she regrets them. There is only forward. I think we can all agree on that.

But what about all those things she said. "I regret nothing, I have no qualms, VA nipple money etc."

Well you have to understand that while of generally upright character, she is a bit of a scamp. She believes she fundamentally should not have to explain herself to randos who do not know her, who have never, not once, interacted with her, who are clearly digging for dirt and will twist anything she says no matter how banal. People see what they want to see and they look for evidence to reinforce their preconceptions; they'll go so far as to make alts to join servers, cherry-pick screencaps, crop them, and conveniently fill in the rest of the narrative for curious onlookers. So she decided to exaggerate and amplify and twirl her mustache like a supervillain. Give them a show, as it were.

To be clear, I'm not sold on this strat because it makes her look cartoonishly evil to people who can't understand sarcasm and hyperbole. But her friends and I are aware of her actual beliefs from actually talking with her for more than one (1) second instead of immediately believing two mysteriously cropped screencaps from a thirdhand source, and also aware that she did not in fact do those things people imagine she did. And isn't that what matters? Real-life harm? Do you even care?

Re: screenshots/so-called proof from shakertwelve & lakesbian's "callouts"

Girlfriend addresses them here. I will also note they have spread lies about me and other people before.

[raynaisanerd2]

Too much of the fandom really likes Renee. I hate her. I can understand that people find her attractive, because she is, but I can’t stand her. Obviously each to their own, and if you don’t particularly like both Andrew and Ashley you will find Renee’s actions less hate-able. I’m not taking you who to like and who not to like, this is just my opinion.

I hate her and here’s why.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee made Andrew into a parent for Ashley, which in turn didn’t allow him to have a proper childhood. It’s also teased in the Episode 3 trailer that there’s rumours of incest between the siblings around school which is no doubt stemmed from the two being forced in such close proximities due to the mother and father’s neglect. This more than likely affected a lot of Andrew’s social life, pushing him towards other women to ‘prove’ he isn’t ’like that’, which isn’t particularly healthy for a teen boy.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee likely is the cause of Andrew’s severe anxiety and she made him repress his true feelings in fear of pissing her off, or generally bothering her. Both parents seem to brush off any concerns Andrew has, making him internalise his feelings and not seek any mental or emotional support for what he is going through.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee forcing Andrew to be Ashley’s caretaker tore away any form of other support network for the young girl. This is clearly shown with how she struggles to make friends and genuine connections with others outside of Andrew, seen with Julia and Nina. It is also why she never sought out support for herself, Renee would never get help for her clearly neurodivergent or somewhere on the ASPD spectrum, so Ashley in turn also did not.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee not allowing Ashley to have birthdays may seem like a small and insignificant detail but it speaks volumes of what she was like as a parent to me. She never allowed to have nice things and Renee made sure of that. Or didn’t. She didn’t care enough to even check up on the girl, so probably didn’t remember her birthday.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee calling her a problem and an annoyance, again, something insignificant to some that I am reading into far too much. Your parent is supposed to be your biggest supporter in life, the one that brought you to life, who is supposed to love you unconditionally. Ashley has none of that. The only unconditional love and support she has is from her older brother. Not having support from her parents, her mother actively calling her an annoyance doesn’t help with her obviously festering insecurities and self hatred.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee thinking that the only way Ashley could have value to anyone (Andrew) is if she is having sex with them. Ashley’s mindset about sex is very contractual (I will maybe go into further detail about this in a later post) and I believe that that has been taken from her mother.

🌺 Selling her children to the organ harvesting scheme is just generally fucked up, and how she shows absolutely no remorse is even more concerning. Even if she seemed to show some remorse when she was extending the olive branch to Andrew it could just be some manipulation tactic. I don’t know, I don’t trust her.

🌺 Renee may not be the cause of all of the siblings problems, there are external influences as well as the father, though I feel with the lack of content we have around their father that I am unable to judge him on his actions, bar being equally responsible for his children. The fandom also really likes Renee and barely anyone mentions the father, and this post is specifically made because people overwhelmingly like Renee. Which I don’t understand.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts. Apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes, this was typed out in my notes app and was just a way of venting my frustrations about how the fandom treats Renee (about how aspects of her character remind me of my own mother). If you got this far, thanks for reading 💚🩷

[hellobitchlet]

(this post contains leaks for Mizuki's kit animations)

My take on the Mizuki discourse is that... well, I feel like the people complaining about her sexualization have a good point, but aren't explaining themselves well? Or maybe some of them are literally just finding an excuse to shit on a female character, who knows. But there is a good point to criticizing her sexualization!

The thing is, Genshin defenders are entirely correct when they say that Mizuki's outfit is pretty mild with the sexualization. She doesn't have a chest or back window, and you can't see her underwear. A lot of people are directing their complaints towards her outfit, and she does undeniably have a sexualized design, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the other women and children in Genshin. So, why are so many people complaining about her when very few people complained about, for example, the literal children wearing booty shorts and crop tops?

Well, her main sexualization isn't actually in her outfit, it's her gacha card and burst animation putting her in a weird stress position that shoves her ass in your face. And the burst even has her looking you in the eyes and covering her mouth shyly, like she knows exactly what she's doing.

"but it's still so mild!!! Other gachas do so much worse!!!" I hear Genshin bootlickers who haven't read this far already typing in my notes. Here's the thing- Genshin doesn't do this type of fanservice very often anymore. That's why it's so noticeable.

Before Sumeru, well, they did do more fanservice. They made Ei's titty sword, and treated quite a few female characters like generic waifus instead of characters with potential. Even with Noelle, who explicitly states in her voice lines that she's not drinking age yet (aka a minor).

Except... a lot of people hated that. Inazuma was hated a lot. So they stopped for a little while, seemingly realizing that Genshin's audience has a lot more fans that don't like male gaze fanservice than they thought. They limited the sexualization to just the parts that fewer people were complaining about; the designs. They still did some weird things with female characters (see: Collei and Lynette being treated like props for their 5 star male family members a lot, Furina being infantilized, etc), but didn't specifically sexualize them outside of their designs. And the fandom let them, even when these designs actively pandered to pedophiles.

The way I see how Natlan has been going, stuff like Mizuki's ass-in-your-face-while-staring-you-in-the-eyes pose, Citlali getting a waifu treatment similar to certain other cryo women, and Xilonen's boob jiggle burst animation are all signs that Hoyo may be going back to how they handled female characters before. And... *sigh* yes, the lack of male characters also points to that.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this- it's not that she's actually that sexualized, it's that she's more sexualized than others. Not because of the outfit, but because she's sexualized in multiple ways- and we don't want Hoyo to do that because it could bode badly for future characters.

(note; I'm not saying that everyone making this complaint is meaning the same thing. It's likely that some (not all, but some) people are just disguising their hatred for female characters. But I don't want all of this to be written off as just discourse for the sake of discourse)

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

I don't understand, what's going on with Taylor and Matt trash being a couple? Could you explain to me?

nothing is really going on at the moment tbh, cuz they broke up a pretty long while ago, but the issue is the album (if that's what you're referring to) and taylor swift herself.

[will add sources and more stuff when I find the links and if I realise I missed something out, cuz this is a general thing based off of memory]

Context: dating history

Basically she and matty had been friends for a few years (there are rumors of them hooking up ig in 1989 era maybe, but I don't really care enough to believe shit like that). Apparently he had also been pining for her (according to stuff he said in interviews and tweets) for years, but again, you can still chalk it up to rumors if you wanna.

The thing is that post her breakup with joe alwyn, she started dating him (in like april I think) [there had been dating rumors of them since 2014 tho, and again in March 2023] and the fandom kinda got divided.

Here is the link to their entire timeline

Context: what matty healy did

Matty healy (you prolly know this) is basically racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic and God knows what else I have missed out or not been aware of. He did shit like doing the nazi gesture on stage, mocking asian accents, tastelessly making fun of ice spice on her race and bodyshaming her, laughing and basically confirming that he watches violent rape porn of black women on a site that is known to be highly problematic and force their actors (gender neutral) to do things they dont consent to (there was also an actress who was assaulted or something but im not informed on it). Even when he was called out on stuff like this, he accused people (who were poc, btw) of overreacting.

Context: taylor and activism

Taylor had also, in the past (lover era, and miss Americana the doc) had talked about how she had been too quiet about political issues and politics itself for too long, that she understands her influence and power in society, and that she "needs to be on the right side of history" and even specifics such as that she thinks it's spineless to go on stage and say "happy pride month" and not acknowledge the political oppression that queers in USA were facing (something about a bill or the republican party idk man I'm not american, i dont remember but i did research when i watched the doc tho). She has claimed she was gonna be clear about where she stands (many republicans had considered her to be one, and many thought she's conservative or something, but she was always quiet about it, until the lover era). However, she just stopped that activism after the lover era, and went back to being quiet on where she stands (I've seen many swifties refer to the lover era as the activism era) and hasn't spoken about anything substantial really. She did some things like post a black square with 13 hearts during blm, and stuff that every celeb who wasn't openly a pos did, but that's kinda it. Even as a self proclaimed feminist, she didn't speak up on issues such as roe v wade, or about an issue regarding drag queens despite having them in yntcd, or talking about trans/queer rights until she was in a blue state (im not an American, I just like to keep up a little with stuff in usa cuz it's always up in my face sadly, and thus i cant be specific, but anyways, correct me if I'm wrong, or if I missed something).

So even after saying she'll be vocal, she was just... not. And that's basically her on politics or giving a shit about minority communities.

Context: Fandom's reaction

Swifties were extremely disappointed that taylor CHOSE to associate with a man like this, and there were fans calling her out, and she received backlash, too.

Most of these swifties were poc (myself included) and they felt hurt that an artist that they not just supported and developed such a deep connection with, but also financially supported for years, would have such disregard for them. Not just was she dating him, but she kept saying things such as "I have never been happier in all aspects of my life" or saying "I love you" or "uk who you are" in romantic songs on the tour, which was just adding insult to injury. She also did a collab with ice spice (which was completely out of nowhere, and the collab itself seemed badly made and rushed), which fans and others speculated to be a pr cover up for the fact that matty healy had mocked her (many ppl also believed that it was too quick for it to be a pr cover tho).

Now, in the fandom, when poc swifties were calling her out on dating mh, (mostly) white swifties started harassing poc swifties for doing so, or saying that they are hindering with her happiness or some bs about it being "just a fling" (again, myself included). They said it's the same as seeing a friend get out of a long-term relationship and make bad dating choices, and poc swifties should let it go (as if taylor is our close personal friend). In a mostly white fandom, poc swifties felt alienated and sidelined.

Ofc, taylor never addressed any of this backlash, and after she broke up with him, there were articles saying that sources say (which mostly means her pr team atp) that her breakup had nothing to do with his controversies or behavior.

The album release (lyrics, references and reaction)

Now, with the release of ttpd, contrary to what most of the fandom believed, most of the songs on both the albums are believed to be (and heavily hinted on) about matty healy. These include 4 songs- "ttpd", "but daddy I love him", "I can fix him (no really I can)", and "guilty as sin?"

Ttpd, the title track, talks about mh being "a tattooed golden retriever" (wtf) and about him love-bombing her, and her pining after him, thinking about marriage and shit. But daddy I love him and I can fix him, are basically that no one supported her dating decision and she's claiming that she loves him oh so goddamn much, but more importantly, her talking about her fans' reactions. Specifically, describing her poc fans to be "vipers" and "judgemental creeps" who hate her and them being hurt as "bitching and moaning", and basically took the side of the (white) fans who defended her, indirectly. She described his racist bs as "crazy" and said shit like she could "handle a dangerous man." She also has another song, "Guilty as sin?" and while I genuinely don't give a fuck about what she chooses to do in her private life, unless it is problematic, it is about her fantasizing about being with that racist man while being in a long term relationship with joe alwyn. She sings about how she wants him and wants to be with him... in multiple ways, iykyk. Again, out of context, I love this song so much, but that doesn't erase the context, right?

She also has a song "I hate it here" where she says the following lines:

"My friends used to play a game where

We would pick a decade

We wished we could live in instead of this

I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid"

And while there are many reasons why this line by itself is racist (romantisization of a time that was extremely shitty to many communities, most of which she is not a part of, showing herself to be "oh look I'm so woke I still remember the bad things even when I romanticize bad eras in history" which is something you expect from an ignorant white high schooler maybe, not a 34 y/o billionaire who claims to be well-read, etc.) but taylor swift herself saying these is adding insult to injury cuz she has shown time and time again she has no problem with racism (she kept quiet when antonia gentry, a black actress, received hate and racist threats by swifties because of a line BY NETFLIX that taylor didn't like, and she shouldn't ofc, but it wasn't the actress' fault), or associating herself with them (matty healy, for example). It is hypocritical to write something like that after writing an album about pining after a man and his "dangerousness," which is just bigotry. Way to romanticise racism, sexism, and antisemitism, taylor.

Even now, after listening to the album, she clearly doesn't like mh anymore, NOT because of his actions, but because he broke her heart, showing that she still enables and is okay with everything he did.

And that's kind of it (ig) about her and matty healy. I'm not really sure exactly which part you wanted to know, so this is just a gist of it all. Hope it helps :)

[olderthannetfic]

Whenever I see the "there is no F/F content in fandoms, fandoms hate women" discussion on Tumblr, all I can think of is a phrase that is guaranteed to enrage half the Tumblr fandom audience, maybe more: "Have you tried imageboards?".

When I was younger, I used to frequent different anime and cartoon-themed imageboards. Big ones like 4Chan's /a/ and /co/, smaller ones meant for specific fandoms or kinks, non-English ones in my native language, you name it. The users were mostly straight men, and the F/F content and shipping flourished there. The "waifu threads" exclusively dedicated to gushing about female blorbos. The wast majority of kink content involving fictional women, either alone, with a nondescript self-insert man or with each other. The F/F fanart, fanfiction and ideas were just limitless, to the point where you would struggle to find one or two discussions about the guys in the midst of everyone celebrating the women.

The anime, cartoon or comic has a cast full of women? They will all get love. Women and men both? Women will generate much more discussion. One or two women amidst the cast full of men? People will mostly post about the two women, deal with it. Sure, there were designated boards and threads for the male characters, but good luck expecting there to be as much activity as there were in the waifu threads. The fandoms with lots of female characters, such as Touhou Project, thrived on these grounds, and much F/F shipping was had by everyone.

Now, of course, the imageboard culture is an entire separate beast. Right-leaning, edgy, bigoted - basically, what you get if you put a bunch of ostracized and lonely cishet male nerds in an echo chamber and let them feed each other bullshit all day long. A lot of the F/F art they made was sexual in nature, something that could be decried as sexualisation, but, the way I remember it, it was not much different from what is often done to male characters by straight women who ship M/M because they find the two dudes hot. A lot of gushing about waifus by the anonymous 4Chan dudes could be seen as misogynistic, despite the language being practically the same as when a Tumblr fandom girl is describing her blorboman and the things she wants to see done to him.

It all comes down to the the real life influencing the way we interact with fiction: male sexuality is viewed in a different light than female sexuality, despite both being more or less demonized in our society, just in different ways. Men are always predators, women are always victims. When a guy has sexual fantasies about a female character, he is a creep who wants to hurt real life women to enact these fantasies. When a woman has sexual fantasies about male characters, she cannot tell fiction from reality and is at risk of getting hurt by men while trying to enact these fantasies. And if either of them fantasizes about a same-sex couple, they are fetishizing queer people, obviously.

However, that's just how people roll - you cannot change what gender you are attracted to, and people with similar attractions stick together. It just so happens that the fandom side of Tumblr largely consists of straight women and queer men, so you get ships with guys, while the fandom side of 4Chan and the like largely consists of straight men, so you get ships with women. Both sides also happen to have cultures that don't mix well, and someone who frequents one place is likely to avoid the other.

I don't frequent 4Chan anymore, and I'm not big on fandom Tumblr, either, but Tumblr continues to be the unique place where I am more likely to stumble upon erotic fandom content featuring men than women, who are the majorly discussed and shipped characters practically everywhere else. I obviously do not excuse 4Chan's bigotry and rampant hateful bullshit, but my point still stands: if you want to see more F/F shipping and discussions of girl blorbos, but don't feel like making some yourself and creating a like-minded community on Tumblr, you should try your luck elsewhere on the Internet, especially when it comes to anime and cape comic fandoms. Tumblr is a unique place in terms of male-centric fandom content, and honestly, it's not that bad, if Tumblr isn't the only place you find your stuff at. It simply occupies a specific niche and doesn't offer much of everything else (though you can still find it if you look).

--

Now, be fair: plenty of imageboards are full of nominally straight guys who love millions of female blorbos... and art of Link getting wrecked.

[technicallyfurrydetective]

Hey people I am one of the trolls who stir some shit up and no not the one who sends death threats or stuff but the one who stirs shit up,

ABOUT ME

Interestingly opposite to popular belief i actually do have a life, a husband and 3 girls who are teens now, i started working again 8 years ago after my youngest started 5th grade and yeah i live a cozy homey life but sometimes i just find stirring shit up for no reason at all so amusing & interesting, like irl no one could guess it would be me, my kids teachers praises me for being a god mom and supporting not just my girls but donating and helping her friends who need it, my girls love me and i love them too, i do don't drink or anything i work, spend time with my friends/children/ hubby and that's about it,

WHY I DO IT

But since last year I posted a post where unintentionally people got heated and the arguments got passionate, and I love watching it unfold and sometimes I can't help but post some stuff on other's tags/anons to stir shit up, i am guilty but sometimes i can't help it,

HOW I DO IT

Takes two minutes to make a new ID with an email which doesn't exist.

HONEST OPINION

It so funny how down bad you are for your ships and honestly a little pathetic as well, like i spent some time on both sides of the shipping fandom and it's so pathetic watching you guys fight tooth and nail to prove your imaginary friends will make it in the book and the other side are disgusting rats with no reading comprehension, especially elriels, like sometimes i make stuff up and send them anons that gwynriels said this or that and they get so triggered like most of the time they won't even fact check, with gwynriels i think they are more pathetic because they generally keep their pro tags clean and pretend to not care but you can tell that they hate elriels to death but will pretend otherwise like to me being a two faced cunt is more pathetic,

Like i can't decide which side is worse because elriel on one side makes it clear that they stalk the other tags and openly posts stuff from others tags on their tags, like i have seen too many "tell me why i saw this EL/GA theory/art?" and care about GA/EL opinions too much, they will fight to death to prove how the other side is crack ship, idiots to see any sort of romance in two characters which they can't see, will follow and support elriel blindly and many more but i don't like typing anymore,

Proof in the comments

WHY GWYNRIELS ARE PIECE OF SHITS

They romanticize and choose the weirdest hill to stand on, like they will die defending tamlin X nyx and tamlin X anyone, they hate the main characters to death why the fuck are you still reading the books and sitting here if you hate the main people so much?

They will romanticize the wierdest shits "GA having sex where most women feel comfortable after being raped, Gwyn felt the bond and the love after she was actively raped,

As a survivor myself i think these people need to be more mindful and intelligent,

And the whole elain gate thing, dude who posted tamlain? like they whine for no reason at all,

Cry bout minor stuff and are the reason for the threats trolling like if they kept quite and ignored the trolling would've stopped,

Hate elriel and also think they are idiots for not seeing sparks and glows but will act like a two faced cunt and pretend they don't

Proof in comments:

So really both sides are pathetic and i am too but honestly life is getting too busy so maybe i won't be here,

And i wanted to say this before i left,

You guys are the real ones who need a life and i need a psychopath assessment, i'll get it done soon or go to therapy but for now BYE,

Hope you all love and hope you guys understand that you are all the same people