#mlm shippers as in people who ship mlm pairings

[mooseonahunt]

Got some more followers bc of my RE4 stuff so like, uh, welcome?? Disclaimer, I really fucking love Ada and will defend her with my life so if you hate her and try to slander her on my posts/in my dms/in my asks, my welcome does not extend to you. Also you’re getting blocked. Ada haters can fuck off I don’t wanna see any of that shit so keep it to yourself

[sabertoothwalrus]

I probably missed it, but what IS your favourite Dungeon Meshi ship?

WELL SINCE YOU ASKED, I have a chart already hdhshdh

1) Farcille is my number one!!! I wish I’ve drawn more of them, but most of my ideas for them are longggg and angsty and take a lot more mental bandwith. I’ve said before, I approach comics like I’m pitching an idea, and I mostly* agree with people’s depictions of them, so I have less to say.

*I say mostly because I cannot stand when people depict Falin as possessive, or disregard her characterization to give her generic dommy alpha monster traits hdhshdjs NOT THAT IT’S BAD it just doesn’t feel true to her character. I find myself bored by it.

I’m also put off by some of the folks I’ve seen in the farcille tags. They’re like,,, cliquey?? There was a point where people were dunking on mlm ships that came off borderline terfy, as if most of the dungeon meshi mlm shippers aren’t transmascs and lesbians?? I wasn’t a fan of the hostility like lmao it’s cartoons man

2) labru……… I love them….. mostly just post-canon. I really love Kabru (I think he’s my favorite character overall) and I loveeee the poetry of their individual character arcs and how well they play together. Guy who struggles to be honest, even with his own feelings vs Guy who doesn’t even consider being anything except honest. Kabru needing to carefully, painstakingly craft a mask tailored to each individual he interacts with, vs Laios, who is the only one to make all of Kabru’s masks fall apart. Also I think they’re kinda aro about it. They’re really good t4t flavored too.

The main appeal is post-canon. The King and his advisor. His right hand man. But it’s also the way like,,, Laios is DEFINITELY not the one in charge in their relationship dhshshsh (and this is what peeves me about how @myszkaa’s labru comic got memed to hell and back…. they don’t understand the later of comedy is from the KING asking for PRAISE from his SUBORDINATE!!!)

I will say!! This ship has a lot of folks with good takes on it, but it’s not immune to flanderization and boring yaoification. It’s popular enough that there’s enough of the good stuff.

3) chilshi!! I’ll admit this one has less canon validation hdhshsh but I think they have a lot of post-canon potential, and I think their difference in lifespans + the contrast in their lifestyle habits is really interesting and directly addresses a lot of the Dungeon Meshi’s core themes.

Part of the reason I like hanging out with chilshi shippers is cause most of em are chill, more nuanced in discussions, and are actually willing to draw fat & hairy people. And middle aged people.

special mention Kabumisu. I WISH I LIKED THIS ONE MORE!! I’ve tried,,,, I see the potential but I’m so picky about it and most of the content for it does absolutely nothing for me 🙈

Another thing is I HAVE to be able to like a pairing platonically to ship them romantically. Obviously shipping isn’t the only thing that matters to be about dungeon meshi.

I could say a lot more. Feel free to ask about my thoughts 👍

[explodo-smash]

Are you one of the people expecting bkdk to be canon? I just learned that there are people that sincerely believe Hori would have Deku and Bkg have an explicit confession of love. That he's going to be the first popular mangaka to have a endgame gay ship. I am in so many mlm ships of shounen but I've never had the delusion that the author would make them canon despite the evidences otherwise. Like I thought it's fine to ship mlm as long as we stayed in our lane and never harassed the author.

After speaking together, we do believe based on the evidence in the series that BakuDeku being canon is not an even vaguely unreasonable conclusion to reach. We think the story is written in a way you can reach that conclusion easily, so much that even casual viewers who aren’t shippers are questioning the nature/potential conclusion of their relationship.

One of the most consistent and convincing lines of evidence for us has been Katsuki taking on roles/positions traditionally reserved for female heroines/love interests (if you’ve seen anyone call him “narratively androgynous,” this is what they’re referring to). In the context of Jump magazine, we have a number of shonen heroines and love interests to compare Katsuki to. The similarities are so striking that many notable people (including the VAs for the anime) have taken to calling him the heroine of the series.

However, we do think things like homophobia (whether it’s the writer or the audience/consumerbase at large– in this case we’re primarily referring to the audience), the safety of everyone involved, and timing are all unpredictable factors people have to take into consideration when writing/reading a story of this magnitude. Needless to say, if Horikoshi is indeed planning an endgame for bakudeku, he’d also have to take these factors into consideration.

Horikoshi has a record of being pretty in-tune with his fanbase. He definitely keeps some eye on bnha’s reception–for example, he mentioned a while back that both the people who love Katsuki and the people who hate him will have something to look forward to in this finale (we can now see what he meant lol). He’s very likely aware of the people who love bakudeku and the people who loathe it. 

Taking into account that he tends to be very intentional with his writing choices, he’s written this story in a way that not only centered bakudeku’s relationship over others (notably Izuku + Ochako’s, the character he’d presumably end up with if things were going predictably?), but also went the extra mile to distinguish their relationship as unique, closer than all their other relationships, the “biggest pillar of the story” (x, x). He didn’t have to do all of this. This extra push is what’s giving bakudeku that undeniable chance at an endgame right now, because it’s come to a point where no one can ignore the implications of scenes like this:

On the flip side, we don’t think people’s hesitation is unreasonable. It’s scary! If bakudeku were to fall flat of all this buildup/our expectations, it wouldn’t be the first time the romantic implications between a pair of boys in a story like this was ignored. Hell it wouldn’t be the first time a popular pair in general, (gay or not) got ignored in favor of what the author just felt like doing, regardless of what any previous developments in the story or interviews or official artwork would have us believe. There’s enough written evidence that canon bakudeku wouldn’t be surprising, but there’s also (at the time of writing this response) still room for things to go another direction, for all of this to be recontextualized and passed as something else. 

As per social norms/patterns of behavior, this would be disappointing as hell but not surprising. Especially for people who have been let down before, we completely understand the need/impulse to distance oneself from the idea/hope that bakudeku may become canon.

In all honesty, if it turns out bakudeku isn’t canon or left open-ended (say, an ending where they’re partners of some kind/the closest to one another without that explicit romantic confirmation), we would be frustrated/heartbroken. Not because we feel like Horikoshi shouldn’t do what he wants, he should. But because there’s been a clear effort to bring LGBTQ+ readers into the fold, and tell and portray our experiences in MHA. Horikoshi has done a beautiful, incredible job of writing various LGBTQ+ and marginalized experiences as a metaphor in his stories. Toga is a prime example. This is something that readers around the world have noticed, and it’s something MHA is special for (see this data x, and the further context/commentary on it given here x). 

We think it’s intentional. This story and the relationships in it have invoked experiences close and personal to many of us. Things are in a state right now where we wouldn’t just feel baited, we feel like readers would have a right to feel unsatisfied.

That being said, feeling unsatisfied doesn’t equate to feeling empowered to harass or bother others. Especially not Horikoshi himself, and also including other readers who had differing expectations. This is really the case across the board. We should all be able to control our anticipation/expectations without becoming assholes. 

It’s not just the shippers, by the way. People who work on the series or work closely with Horikoshi have rooted for bakudeku to go beyond. Izuku and Katsuki have already done what a good chunk of the readerbase thought impossible and became friends. People see their writing, their potential, and they want more. The voice actors (x, x sorry for the crunchy pic it's all i've got atm), academics (x), musicians (x, x) , editors (x) and more have all kind of rallied around Bakugou and Deku’s bond, with a particular sensitivity towards the deeply and uniquely intimate nature of it + how it evokes romance.

We’d like to see MHA exist free of the burdens previous popular shounen series have had placed on them. But that’s a conversation for the ending. As far as the fanbase goes, I think it’s super important people practice humility and caution when speaking to others. We have NO way of knowing what will happen. People who have been traumatized by situations like this in the past have a right to be anxious, people in general are allowed to withhold judgment until we have all the information we need. However, we don’t think having hope or confidence that this narrative might lead us to a canon bakudeku is unwarranted or delusional.

At the end of the day one thing is true, and this was something we had to fight to “prove” much longer than we had to prove Bakudeku had romantic potential - it’s that Kacchan and Izuku’s lives are going to be forever intertwined in this new era of their world that births from the finale. 

They’re forever intertwined in a way that’s not replicable for any other character in the series, and that’s amazing all on its own. We’ll just have to wait and see how far they take it! Thanks for reading if you got this far, and Happy Holidays!

[pressplay-if]

ooooh, having both the top 2 popular fandom ships involve the MC is a recipe for drama 👀 not been into a lot of bands, but been in LOT of fandoms 😂 it always creates this weird tension between the stans... awkward for Zima and Stevie who I imagine as very chill w eachother actually ����

I can see the ship wars now: MCevie and MCima rising in popularity together, and shippers butting heads immediately. MCima's getting accused of romanticing toxicity, and MCevie's getting called boring prudes. Character attacks on the shippers, turning into attacks of the ships, turning into attacks on Stevie/Zima as people. Stans getting even madder at each other trying to defend their favs. Fanfic stereotypes emerging in both ships where Stevie/Zima get villainized in the respective MCima/MCevie fics... Zima reduced to just a player/slut manipulating and abusing the MC, contrasted to an angelic Stevie. Stevie as an annoying, clingy two-faced bitch only pretending to be nice, getting in the way of the OTP (characterization gets even harsher if Zima/MC is an MLM ship 😒). 'Are u an MCevie or an MCima?' being an actual divisive Thing in the fandom. The tiny contingent of Zima/Stevie shippers that pop-up just as counterculture to it all, that come out with surprisingly compelling stuff.

And in the end it was all just a very vocal minority, but Zima and Stevie stans still get a little anxious around each other after all the drama 😭 the vast majority are not rabid, and are in fact crossing their fingers that the other is gonna be chill about their fav 🥲

LOVE the shippers not even considering Angel for MC tho - he's really got perpetual comic relief/'only exists as a character to help the main pair get together' written all over him. Curveball for everybody when my MC ends with him in the end 🤭

Oh damn this ask is everything. Yeah Stevie and Zima are... surprisingly cool with each other, once the entire thing with Zima and MC is resolved. They can even become really good friends.

Ngl I can totally imagine it going the exact way you described. Fandoms can be so downright horrible, especially when they're about real life people. Like, I've mostly only lurked in fandoms in my earlier years, so I saw some... interesting things. And I'm glad I never got into it deep enough to partake in any controversies. And nowadays I kinda enjoy those videos about toxic fandoms and, like, their rise and fall hehe

I have nothing more to add to the analysis you gave. An essay for the ages. Sadly, it reads entirely plausible

And yes since Angel is rather average in his looks and presentation of himself, whenever someone's talking about him, it's actually about his guitar playing lol. Like its "oh monsanto was really laying it down at that live show" not "omg I wonder who he's shacking up with" and then when MC gets with him, all the stans just go "huh"

[yukishirostar]

So people are talking about a post in the Zolu tag by a certain tumblr user in regards to their issues with Zolu as a ship. They shall be unnamed because i dont wish to bring attention to them and instead just want to focus on their arguments because they're not the first people to make some of these points and so this is also an opportunity for me to talk about these things (a tweet is going around on Twitter containing these screenshots with the username so you can find it there if you need to anyway).

The way this person dismisses the relationship between Zoro and Luffy as a result of needing to pair gay Zoro with someone is too laughable, they must be very fit in order to be able to do these mental gymnastics. I believe that many people who are going on about the Zolu scenes in the OPLA were already Zolu shippers who were familiar with the original story and are enjoying the moments because they were well, really good Zolu moments? And there is actually, shockingly, many good Zolu moments in the original story too which is why many people ship them. Wild, I know.

Then there's 'straight-washed Sanji'. Equally if not more of a bizarre thing to believe. I might make some people mad especially the Sanji stans out there who constantly insist on the 'repressed queer' narrative with his character, but Sanji is written pretty explicitly to be seen as a cisgender and heterosexual character. The way you say with your whole chest that Luffy is 'canonically' aroace but don't acknowledge that Sanji is 'canonically' cishet is beyond hypocritical. If you believe Sanji looking like a 'misogynistic straight man' is different from the way he is written in canon then maybe you should go back and reread/rewatch series with your eyes open this time. If you wish to headcanon him with the frankly offensive repressed bisexual/transgender cliché then go ahead, but that is clearly not the intention Oda has with his character.

There's also the fact that aroace people can uh. Be in relationships. Get married. Have children. Did it occur to you that many people who ship Zolu ship them as an ace couple or-

First thing I want to say here, as a trans man who is 'mlm', can other dudes stop with this idea that women or fem-aligned individuals enjoying homosexual relationships between two men is inherently fetishising or that as a masc-aligned individual your enjoyment of a ship is morally superior in some way. Stop pulling out your 'mlm/ transmasc / cis gay' card in order to justify why your ship is superior. Its cringe af.

But if we are to insist that 'cishet female gaze fetishising mlm' is going on then ironically Zosan fits that the better than any ship in the fandom. It being by far the most popular mlm ship means there is likely a higher proportion of people who identify as cishet women who ship it. Its also the classic 'two men who dislike/hate eachother and have a toxic relationship but hot sexual tension' slash/yaoi stereotype. Majority of Zosan I've come across is depicting Zoro as the masculine male man in the relationship while Sanji the effeminate twink that Sanji stans project themselves onto and they go crazy for the bickering that is apparently reminiscent to them of a toxic heterosexual marriage. Meanwhile every Zolu/Luzo shipper I've interacted with has been some flavour of queer and Zolu is closest to the 'falling in love with your same sex bestie' narrative that the majority if not every non-heterosexual person has experienced at least once in their lifetime. This is just my personal view of course, but I think noting a difference in perspective on this topic is interesting and reveals that at the end of the day this is totally subjective and based purely on anecdotes.

Also it's just a very weird point here that apparently OP has 'plenty of varied queer rep' (it actually doesn't have that many canonical queer characters in relation to its cast size but anyway) and other media doesn't so shipping aroace characters in gay relationships is valid in those but not in One Piece … HUH???? So you're saying if One Piece had 'less' queer rep, then Zolu would be fine to ship? Idek my brain hurts.

"I have black friends so I'll speak for the black community and get offended for them" (btw this person then proceeded to block aroace people who had issues with their depiction of aroace people).

Also if we're talking canonical depictions, the only thing Zoro has been canonically depicted as is also aroace, equally if not moreso than Luffy. So by your own rules, you can't ship a cishet (sanji) with an aroace (zoro), therefore Zosan is now invalid. Stop erasing Zoro's aroace identity bigot.

'Categorically wrong' makes me laugh. I don't ship Zoro and Nami but like, people can ship what they want to??

'The general public is aware enough of gay people and how to spot them these days' uh... firstly this sounds very homophobic. Secondly the general public (cishet ppl) are famously bad at recognising queerness even when its in flashing lights before them. Thirdly you make it sound like Zoro was going around on roller skates and booty shorts listening to YMCA and Madonna in the show. I do agree he was gay-coded but it was mostly because he had sexual tension with every man he interacted with, not for the strange reasons you pointed out...

Its kinda the elephant in the room too but like. These are just headcanons. You can have multiple headcanons and interpretations of a character's sexuality. I can see Zoro as aroace virgin one day and a gay h*e the next. I'm actually allowed, legally, to do that.

The way they think shipping Zolu is harmful to aroace representation when BOTH characters are closest to being canonically aroace than anything yet ship Zosan, label being anti-Zolu as some kind of pro-ace activism, and then proceeded to block aroace people for criticising their incorrect depiction of what being aroace is...

This was a lot of words to say that you don't like a ship. Just say you don't like it, and it gets in the way of the ship you like, instead of writing a virtue signalling essay to justify your reasoning. Please.

They had some more to say on future posts I'll just pick my favourite bits

They really have this narrative that Zolu is only popular because of OPLA and can't fathom that its just a popular ship in general and always has been huh. And they couldn't make it more obvious that they're totally salty about it ranking in the top 100 most popular tumblr ships, lmao.

Your classic case of 'self-identifying ally who speaks over the people they are supposed allies of'. Its a general rule that you feel the need to declare yourself an ally you're probably not an ally, actual allies know they need to just shut up and do the work. Saying 'this character's aroace' and 'I have aroace friends' actually isn't what allyship is, thats just accepting that ace people exist which is like... the baseline.

Calling a wholesome loving ship like Zolu an icky ship is a severe consequence of online brain (this person is 26 years old btw)

[tender-emotional-music]

One of my pet peeves is people who claim that Will’s feelings for Mike were added in as fanservice for byler shippers. As someone who has been a fan of the show for many years, I can assure you that byler was never this popular until they explicitly introduced it in s4. It still had an active fanbase in the earlier seasons - mostly made of people who were into the analyst side of the fandom and recognised the seeds they were planting from early on in the show - but it was nowhere near as popular as mlvn was in that era, and there was no way you could talk about it in the main fandom spaces without instantly being shot down.

It’s honestly disrespectful to the story the writers are telling to imply that they only added in this layered and complex plot line to appease a portion of shippers, especially when that demographic wasn’t even large enough for that to seem like a profitable choice at the time. If they really just wanted to “appease mlm shippers,” then they would have made harringrove canon, because that was the most popular mlm ship at the time.

Byler wasn’t put into the show because it was popular, it became popular because it was put into the show. Those who like the pairing and theorise about their future in s5 are simply picking up what the writers are putting down.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Annabeth Chase

I feel like fandom is kinda split on her with percabeth shippers loving her but any m/m shipper I've seen does not like her, really. She is my bae tho <3

Percabeth antis grind my gears so much because they never hate Percy, nono, even though he's arguably done more questionable stuff than Annabeth. Not everyone who hates her is doing so because of a mlm ship— the Perachel stans claim that Annabeth is a misogynist. However, basically everyone that isn't trying to ship her boyfriend with Rachel is trying to ship him with Jason, Nico, or her old friend Luke. They make her out to be this horrible abusive girlboss(derogatory) that she's simply... not. She doesn't insult Percy for having ADHD just because she's highly intelligent. She doesn't physically abuse him, and doesn't lay a finger on him outside of training. She's really devoted to him in a non-anti-feminist way. They just hate her for 'getting in the way' of Nico's convoluted attraction to Percy, or Jason's close friendship with him, or Luke's rivalry with him. But those relationships all flourish the way they were intended by the author: non-romantically. It's not Annabeth's fault for being intelligent or capable or jokingly snide or determined or any of those non-stereotypically-feminine qualities. She's just out here existing and people hate her for not being a man. Sorry for the rant.

She's canonically in a relationship with Percy Jackson for most of the books they're in, but he often gets paired in canon with other male characters, such as Nico di Angelo or Jason Grace. In fan fiction (especially yaoi focused ones) she's characterized as being a stuck up know it all, but she gets into plenty of shenanigans in canon and can be pretty goofy and sweet!

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in 

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

[cryptar]

yknow i say im a huge multishipper but i wouldnt actually consider myself much of a shipper at all. just open to the idea of trying everything once. the term has typically romantic connotations and follows the assumption that i think, and want, these characters to be good for eachother.

I'm, personally, less interested in the prexisting chemistry than i am in the puzzle of figuring out what differing circumstances could potentially cause two characters who have seemingly nothing in common to become eachothers everything.

This could explain my favorism towards rarepairs and more convoluted dynamics, and my aversion to popular, fluffy pairings that have already been explored a thousand times over, there's no work for me to do there.

Not to mention that when a ship becomes too popular it starts cannibalising itself, and lots of good, interesting characterisations are lost in the sea of people bending characters into pre-orchestrated, saccharine dynamics. alot of which are usually downright fetishy in nature, particularly in mlm pairings.

I mean i would say being able to get ooc and self indulgent is downright mandatory for making a good fic, but there's only so many times i have to read a fic about a big, overprotective, manly-man top who does all the work and the shy, small, swoony, softhearted femme-wifey-bottom before it starts to just be lazy.

I actively have to go out of my way to search 'switch' tags if i want true-to-the-character, mutual emotional reciprocation. which i really, really shouldn't have to do as an ace person who actively skips through nsfw.

And it's not that popular wlw pairings aren't guilty of these problems aswell, but those tend to lean more into the 'soft lesbians who can do no wrong' stereotype, which always completely (butch)ers all nuisance that makes the ship worth shipping in the first place.

As well as that's if they're even the focus of the story at all and aren't just shoved to the side by the main mlm couple. mlw pairings can be culpable of both these things, with the added risk that you find out the author made a twitter post with the characters in front of the 'super straight' flag.

Though i also wonder if me being aspec plays any part as again; im not as interested in the romantic aspects as i am in the possible hurdles they may face throughout the potential relationship.

Anyone else feel like this?

[vulpes115]

Okay, so I have thoughts about a lot of the recent Jegulus vs. Jily discourse. Most of them aren’t bringing anything new so I’ll keep them to myself (Though I will add a Jegulus shipper, I believe that the Jily anons that have been sending death threats and other similar messages need to chill out, find some hobbies, maybe read some good Jily fics, and most importantly, stop sending death threats to people—mostly queer minors—who ship a fairly basic grumpy x sunshine pairing). However, the part I do want to weigh in on is the Marauders fandom and misogyny.

I will admit that this fandom has a problem with how we treat our female characters. We give our male characters a lot of depth and nuance, allowing them to be flawed and focusing heavily on their trauma. In contrast, many modern MLM-dominated fandoms, in an effort not to be deemed sexist, place all their female characters in the same "flawless, sarcastic, badass lesbian queen who rolls her eyes at all the boys' relationship drama while having her own much less dramatic sapphic storyline" role. The Marauders fandom is 100% guilty of this, and we need to address it.

Let the girls be messy. Let them make mistakes. Let them have their own ridiculous, adorable, and even scandalous relationship drama. Let them have heartbreaking, tragic storylines just like the boys do. Most importantly, let the girls have their own spotlight. They are all interesting characters with a lot of potential if given the chance.

However, I feel some of the arguments about misogyny in the Marauders fandom have lost the plot. For example, claims that Jegulus fics are reducing Lily to a surrogate are not entirely accurate. Only two Jegulus fics are specifically tagged with "surrogate Lily Evans," and only 114 (7% of the total Jegulus fics) involve them raising Harry—most Jegulus fics do not include him. Moreover, quite a few of those fics involve split custody with Lily and either Pandora or Mary. Jegulus fans are not bashing Lily; only 29 Jegulus fics are tagged with Lily Evans bashing, compared to 165 Jily fics with similar tags. Most Jegulus fans actually love Lily. Strawman arguments like these won't help; they only prompt Jegulus fans to think, "Well, I don’t do THAT," without critically examining how they treat their female characters or addressing other areas of concern.

Jegulus is not inherently misogynistic. It can be if you sideline Lily, but as long as you give Lily attention and make her a nuanced character—which many Jegulus fics do, like Crimson Rivers—there’s no real problem. Similarly, Jily is not inherently feminist. Sure it does help to give Lily the spotlight as one half of the main ship, especially since James is such a devoted malewife. However insisting that Lily needs to be in a relationship with James or be Harry’s mother can be misogynistic because it implies that female characters are only valuable in relation to the men in their lives. Given that canon, influenced by JKR’s misogyny, struggled to develop Lily beyond a flawless woman loved by both James and Snape who sacrificed her life for her son, as all good women should. Also Lily doesn’t need James to be happy and in love, ships like PandaLily and MaryLily are really good underrated and cute ships that come with new ways to flesh out Lily’s character and spotlight female characters more.

Also, since I mentioned Pandora and Mary, it's worth noting that when Jily shippers bring up misogyny in the fandom, they often use it more as a gotcha against Jegulus shippers, seeking moral high ground. They don't genuinely care about misogyny in the fandom; they’re more concerned that Lily no longer receives the same attention she once did. Lily seems to be the only girl many of them care about, often only in relation to Jily. Many don’t show the same interest in Mary, Marlene, Pandora, Dorcas, or the Black sisters. Lily is the only girl who truly matters to them, and even then, it's mostly in the context of Jily.

[oscconfessions]

Ik y'all are probably sick and tired of hearing about Tacomic but it still baffles me that people see any potential in them. I've ranted on here once before that it's clear that Taco manipulated Mic which is. Abusive. I can't believe that has to be said. That should be common sense. Why are people so fucking keen on shipping abusive shit. I've literally seen people complain that Tacomic isn't abusive and that only lesbian ships get called abusive when they're not. Which first of all that's all just incorrect. Taco manipulated Mic, that's a fact. Once again manipulation is abusive!! And the only reason people are calling Tacomic abusive isn't because they're lesbian it's because it's fucking abusive don't even TRY to play that card. By saying that, you're essentially saying that it's okay for a lesbian relationship to be abusive. Or that lesbian relationships are different from straight or mlm relationships cause they can't be abusive. Fun fact, any kind of relationship can be abusive. You can be abused by someone no matter who they prefer to dilly dally with. I can't believe this all even has to be said. Stop romanticizing abuse please. (Btw I say all this as someone who's been manipulated and I can see a part of myself in Mic.)

I'm not saying y'all can't explore their dynamic btw. In fact I encourage it. Because if you actually do and WATCH THE SHOW you'll see that it is, in fact, abusive. I'm debating even sending this ask because it's like talking to a brick wall when it comes to Tacomic shippers. Idk why you guys licking your lips over this abusive pairing. It's honestly weird tbh

.

[miela]

I do not think Jegulus is inherently misogynistic but I think their existence as a popular ship perfectly showcases the larger problem of misogyny in the Marauders fandom.

This fandom is painfully male centered with an unhealthy obsession with mlm ships, no matter how nonsensical they are. Jegulus, with all due respect, is a nonsense ship. I know some people like to ignore canon and make everything up but I don’t. Jegulus can work fine in AUs but not in canon compliant fics. And whenever Jegulus shippers speak about what makes them compelling, they always bring up tropes - brother’s best friend, sunshine x grumpy (don’t even get me started on thinking James Potter is a sunshine but that’s beside the point), enemies to lovers, etc. All that is meaningless to me. Shipping based on tropes is ridiculous because none of those tropes matter when James and Regulus, from what we know of their characters, are completely incompatible as people. I won’t speak on Regulus because we have little information about it and it’s easy to treat him as a blank sheet (although I think he’s too whitewashed) but we know a lot about James, including that he despised Slytherins, Death Eaters and the dark arts. So, in order for Jegulus to work, James has to become an unrecognizable character from what he actually is in canon. You are not writing about James Potter. You are creating an OC and slapping James’ name on it. Jegulus was born out of this weird necessity the fandom has for mlm ships. Take Drarry and Wolfstar as an example. Those ships aren’t canon but they have some canon basis because those couples interacted, had a dynamic together, had interactions and lore that could be interpreted in different ways. With Jegulus, it’s all made up.

And this leads me to Lily and by extent, the other girls. Lily was the main female character in the Marauders Era and Jily was the second biggest ship. Since Jegulus gained popularity, Lily has been sidelined, her story has been co-opted, even her own child gets snatched from her and given to Regulus. The girls that before had some developed (nowhere near enough because this fandom has always been misogynistic, let’s not get it twisted), have been shoved to the side or used as tools to further mlm ships. The reason why there’s such a pushback against sapphic!Lily, per example, is because unfortunately some people (definitely not all and definitely not sapphic women in this fandom) really only use that to get her out of the way of Jegulus and that’s the case for many wlw ships in the fandom. All they get is the yearly “I love [insert wlw ship]” tweet but get no more content or develop, unlike the men.

The general treatment of the girls is terrible too. The biggest Jegulus fic, Choices, has Regulus covering up Mary’s SA and James cheating on a pregnant Lily and yet we are supposed to root for them in the end. ATYD has Mary being routinely humiliated by both Sirius and Remus and we are supposed to be okay with it because they’re just two closeted teen boys navigating the world. Pandora and Dorcas have been placed in Slytherin and made besties with Death Eaters to make horrible men more sympathetic and so they can serve as therapists and saviors to people who joined a wizard terrorist group.

I could go on. I am genuinely not trying to be rude or aggressive, just giving my opinion. As I said, Jegulus shippers are not all misogynistic but Jegulus’ popularity showcases the implicit biases against women in the fandom. Other mlm ships and I will keep using Drarry and Wolfstar as examples have also led to the erasure and mistreatment of women. But it’s harder to justify Jegulus because unlike those other two ships, Jegulus is a completely random pairing that feels like was born out of the desire to pair James with a man rather than any interesting interactions those two characters had.

Hi!

Firstly, thank you for sharing your thoughts on it! I see your perspective well and agree with a lot of your points.

(Excuse my yapping below, it helps me get my thoughts out better and to better understand your points!)

For anyone reading this, please note that there are spoilers for atyd and choices below!

This fandom is definitely male-centered and I see your point on how focused the mlm ships this fandom is on. With the ships of wolfstar, the joke-gone-serious ship of jegulus, and the babygirlification and pairing of rosekiller, etc, etc...

I understand the canon compliant vs fanon complaint argument. I think that's where the lines get blurred when it comes to people's views on ships. Canon and Fanon are two completely different ball games when is comes with things making sense and what doesn't.

I lean more towards fanon compliant fics so for me that's where Jegulus makes sense to me because like you said, it's basically OCs with their names slapped on them. It's easier to mold them to work that way, so it's easier to ship them. Also I just love the idea of Sapphic!Lily too which was a concept I thought about before I even knew about Jegulus, honestly.

For canon-compliance, I am all for Jily 100% because it's canon-compliant. You can't fight with it. Even though wolfstar isn't canon, it makes sense to have them be something where as James and Regulus wouldn't have been anything. And I agree with you, they only work in AUs or fanon concepts.

With that being said, I also recognize the misogynistic nature of the fandom. I definitely don't agree with Jegulus raising Harry, because that's literally Jily's child (if anyone does, no hate towards you It's just doesn't sit well with me personally) and it begs the question, what happened with Lily that Jegulus has Harry?

I also agree with your point about how the girls/wlw ships in the fandom don't get a lot of development. I think it's a shame, truly. However, I have, recently, seen some people have different Headcanons of how they are as people. So I'm hoping that develops into something more than just ideas floating around. I also am not sure how they are in canon-compliant fics besides atyd (which I do have my opinions on too and im only halfway through it). I haven't read choices yet so I can only take your word for it.

I do at some point want to make a full long, academic-esque essay about the misogynistic nature of the fandom, because I do have A LOT to say, ESPECIALLY with the treatment of Mary. There's definitely a lot to unpack.

I'm fairly new to the Marauders fandom, so I'm trying to learn what I can. Again, thank you for sharing your perspective! I appreciate it!

[olderthannetfic]

Let me start by saying I love femslash and have a few favorite F/F ships myself, and *most* femslash fans are not who I'm talking about with this.

But there really is a certain contingent (not all, not even the majority) of femslash shippers who feel personally victimized when M/M ships have the audacity to exist. Sometimes they'll get mad at authors for only mentioning a female pairing as a background reference (and tagging "background [ship]" as appropriate or clarifying in the description that it's a minor appearance, I know it's annoying to see it clogging the main tags, but I have literally seen people effectively complain that the author hasn't written an entire fic of their favorite pairing when they have done their due diligence to properly label their work) when it's like... dude, do you not want me to put them in there at all? I could just omit them entirely if you want, although the story would probably lose something for it. because no matter what, I'm gonna keep writing my favorite M/M pairing, and I might give background shoutouts to other pairings I also hc even if I don't really have a complete story idea just for them.

it's like these people think writing is just a product that can/should be churned out to meet some kind of market need (for free! on a fanfic archive!) and not just an idea that strikes someone that they choose to write about for the joy of it alone. My brain worms just didn't tell me to write femslash, idk what to tell you. If you have a story you need to read, the best way to make that happen is to write it. Sorry if you feel like that's too hard and you need other people to do it or something, but all it takes is practice, and it's not my job to write your stories for you - do it yourself. M/M authors didn't choose for femslash to be underrepresented. We didn't do that. We didn't create systemic lesbophobia, and honestly, I think straight up having lesbian relationships in our stories is the least complicit we could possibly be without directly writing lesbian-centric fic. We're literally just vibing. Us (e.g. gay/mlm authors such as myself) telling our own stories is not hurting anyone even if those stories are well-represented already.

TL;DR representation discourse is kind of stupid when it involves shitting on other marginalized communities for not being you.

--

[musicalmoritz]

Defending Kousano online isn’t enough, I need to reach into people’s brains and make them understand that sapphic ships deserve to be just as complicated as mlm ones, and that a wlw ship being toxic doesn’t automatically make it unlikable. For years femslash ships in male-dominated media were only depicted as the “fluffy side-pairings” and we’ve been seeing a shift in that lately with the rise of “toxic yuri.” This is good!! Fluffy ships are great but lesbians deserve just as much diversity in their pairings as ships that involve men. Not everyone likes toxic ships but the people who do don’t deserve to be called evil when they’re not doing anything inherently wrong. The two strongest arguments against Kousano (“people only ship it because it’s hot” + “it would be toxic”) sound so hypocritical when you take into account how those same antis eat up mlm ships with the same problems. Most Kousano shippers are lesbians anyways so calling people lesbiphobic for liking the ship is both chronically online and just plain stupid

[greentrickster]

I see a lot of people commenting on how a lot of other people, especially cishet women, are really fond of slash ships where the two characters, for all intents and purposes, hate or dislike each other in canon. A lot of clips or screenshots of the characters being nasty to or hurting each other along with comments of "Oh yeah, it's obviously true love."

The thing is, I don't think this is some romanticizing of cruel behaviour or even just being desperate for some mlm action... I think it's just the result of a lot of RomCom tropes commonly used in mainstream media. And I don't say this in a good way, just as someone who used to watch a lot of heterosexual romcoms because I like romance stories, and then, for irl reasons, ended up watching a lot of Hallmark Original Movies, which are romcom tropes boiled down to their most basic forms.

And, y'all.

It's so freaking common, in this genre marketed to and written for women, for the male and female leads to start out absolutely hating each other, and especially for the male lead to be quite mean to the female lead only for it to turn out that they just needed to get to know each other a little better and it turns out they have the greatest love story you've ever seen (in-universe at least)! This sort of romance is really common in media marketed at young girls and teens as well, especially older stuff.

And in that context... yeah. If that's a big theme/trope in a lot of the media you see that was written for your demographic, suddenly a pair of people, of any gender, who show that same starting animosity start to look a lot more ship-able, if only because you've seen so many canon ships start this way.

TL;DR: I think this whole thing is more indicative of some very real issues in the way mainstream media treats romance as a whole than something to place fully on the shoulders of shippers. Yes, a bit more media-literacy would be helpful to help people explain why they're drawn to certain ships, but I think even moreso we need to take a more critical eye to the studios and productions that are framing these tropes and influencing these thought patterns as they are.

(Also, this isn't meant to shame or blame shippers for enjoying these ships, this is fandom, have fun, I've just seen a lot of posts complaining about cishet women liking or creating these ships for creepy reasons and slamming them for romanticizing toxic relationships when I think generally that it's more likely they're either enjoying some enemies-to-lovers fun or applying tropes they're used to seeing with het couples in media to same-sex couples.)

[mahoutoons]

i've had this thought for a while now but i didn't know how to properly put it in words. but the short version is: sonic fandom, i do not like the way some of y'all treat wlw ships :/

in the recent years i've noticed blazamy is becoming an increasingly popular ship. which i appreciate because its a good ship which has a lot of potential. what i don't appreciate is the way its treated compared to mlm ships like sonadow.

because lets look at how people treat sonadow compared to blazamy. sonadow gets so much fanart, fanfic, aus etc where the content is deeper than "they're cute bfs". they're allowed to be angsty, messy, they're allowed to fight and argue. people can write essays upon essays about their dynamic and how they'd work as a romantic relationship. but when it comes to blazamy? all people can say about them is just "they're cute gfs who go shopping and paint each others nails :)" nothing about the potential angst of them being in seperate dimensions. nothing about how their opposite personalities would bring out the best in each other. unlike sonadow they're only ever depicted as "cute gfs" in fanworks and nothing else. even in fanfics they're just the background sapphic ship while sonadow is the main ship but they're rarely ever the main focus. and when they are the main focus, they're never fleshed out half as much as sonadow.

and unfortunately, the reason i think this happens is because people just ship blazamy so amy can be out of the way of sonadow. its also the way some of them only hc amy as a lesbian so the whole "crush on sonic" thing is explained away and she can be out of their mlm ship's way. they know that hating a female character for getting in the way of an mlm ship isn't acceptable anymore so they do the next best thing - hc her as a lesbian or pair her off with another female character just so she can be out of the way of their ship. this way they won't get accused of being sexist.

but.... this is just sexism with extra steps imo. this is just people using a wlw ship as an excuse to not have a female character in the way of an mlm ship. they don't even bother to flesh out the wlw ship beyond "cute gfs". they only ever talk about said ship when its in relation to their mlm ship. they only ever use female characters to uplift the male characters.

and before people start typing already, i am not saying every sonadow shipper who ships blazamy is like this and i am not saying you're not allowed to hc amy as a lesbian. if you want to hc her as a lesbian with comphet, go ahead, its all fun! what i have a problem with is people only doing it as a means to get a female character out of the way of an mlm ship, and as such treating her and the wlw ship she's in as props to uplift their mlm ship.

and no, this is NOT a sonadow hate post. this is just me talking about something i've noticed.

[maoam]

I'm sorry for this long ass ask. I just wished to get a bit this out of my chest. Feel free to delete it if you would want to feel a bit more positive!

As you said once, if I remember correctly, there is no one more mysoginistic in fandoms (especially shonen) than the het shippers rather than the "fujoshis." In my personal experience, at least, I rarely have seen people hate a girl because she is in the way of their mlm pairing. But I have seen in het ships women be especially vile with their words like slut shaming, body shaming (flat chest vs busty discourses).

Especially in the Naruto fandom, I don't understand why NH and SS stans have to be on the march of war against each other, or why pit their favs against each other when they clearly are "not in the way" of their respective pairings, or even harass all other ships. In fact, I Hinata and Sakura are even in friendly terms. If not outright, they don't care about each other's existence for most of the time, I think?? So why so much catty?

Sometimes, I visit NH/SS/NaruSaku blogs out of curiosity, without doing anything but looking. Usually their content is all about shitting on other pairings but just that. They don't support other creators who appreciate the pairings, like writers or artists. Just shit on the rival pairing while be like "unlike that shit, this pairing has sense and is better". Like, they are more obsessive about what they hate rather than what they love. Absurd.

I have seen people call Sakura a cumdumpster (I swear to god that word-) and Sarada a hoe/slut, and considering Sarada is like 12 to 16 years old... well, it weirds me out. Or shame on the fact Hinata is a busty woman and usually that's the only bad thing they can say about her that comes to my mind, along with other slut shaming.

Or the weird obsession Sakura fans have about Sakura's body, like "THIS IS WHY SHE IS NOT FLAT." Why do you care so much if she's beautiful anyway?

I can go long but I won't because it sounds kinda frustrating.

But why can't these people just... stay in their planes? And ignore each other? Or if they love their one true pairing, just support artists or recommend fan fictions they like, or heck do something themselves and create a more positive environment not only for the fandoms but for themselves as well. Because most of the time, they go on anti - or pro tags and just harass people who think differently like they do with you or sneezemonster-

Again, sorry for the rant, and thank you if you had the patience of reading. Bless your day and keep doing what you do! What you write is always interesting to read <3

People mistake fujoshis (or just people who ship gay pairings) complaining about the het ships having no mutual development/how the female character in said ship has no individual development/revolves only around the guy she likes as "hating on the female character/misogyny". Which it isn't. Sure there might be couple who are misogynists, but that really isn't what I usually see. Meanwhile het shippers are indeed very vile in their ship wars.

"I don't understand why NH and SS stans have to be on the march of war against each other, or why pit their favs against each other when they clearly are "not in the way" of their respective pairings"

Because to them shipping is also a contest, and everyone is their competitor. They need to show everyone how they ship the best ship or how "their girl" is the best girl of the show. NH will talk about how Hinata is more "fertile" than Sakura (which is really misogynistic), how she is the heiress, how she is the richest girl in Konoha (lol). All very shallow things, none of them she even earned. And SS will go out of their way to "prove" Sakura is better looking than the other Naruto girls, because somehow that matters more than Sakura not having any dignity in the story... And yes, SS's crazy need to prove Sakura is not flat, sometimes they straight up edit Kishimoto's drawings so she would have a bigger chest.

This is also why these especially crazy people don't flock to shojo as much, since shojo doesn't usually have as big of a mainstream audience as shonen. And maybe they are addicted to one-sided interaction, because they relate to it? They can't relate to a female character that has reasonable feelings?

But yeah, recently I have seen a lot of Historia hate and it's all "she's spreading her legs to the farmer", "Whorestoria", "even her whore mother didn't like her", "blonde whore" and so on from certain het ship fandom. But sure fujoshis are the worst ones for saying Mikasa's character revolved too much around Eren...