#nobody is cishet! its literally canon

[tateisntcute]

Jegulus - an Unserious Critical Analysis

My two cents on the Jegulus ship. Dead dove, do not eat, shippers.

In my opinion, Jegulus (the James Potter/Regulus Black ship) is the culmination of about two decades of the general fandom practice of ignoring all other characters in favor of shipping two white men. This isn't a new phenomenon, we've seen it in every fandom since the beginning of time (time started when fanfiction was invented, right?).

On its own, there's nothing wrong with crackshipping. It's someone looking at two characters that don't interact or barely interact in canon and thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be crazy if they smooched?" And that's not inherently (sorry in advance for using this word) problematic. It's just for fun!

But then a trend starts. You start to notice that all these ships are between men, and almost always cishet white men. And again, not inherently an issue, but it's weird that that's the overwhelming majority of crackships and even regular ships, right? Anyone who has taken a look at the AO3 yearly statistics knows what I mean. Most ships in most fandoms are between two white men who are canonically cishet. Less ships are m/f, fewer are f/f, and most of the POC in these ships are headcanoned as such or paired with a white person.

So: Jegulus. What is this shit ship? We don't know all that much about the 1970s era of Hogwarts aside from a handful of characters and the fact that four of them were best friends. It's an era of the canon that is primed as a playground for headcanons, fanfiction, and fanart. It's been a popular era to speculate and write about since the third book came out. James Potter is the father of Harry Potter (duh, no one that's read this far is unaware of that). Regulus Black is his... best friend's little bigoted brother. They never interact canonically.

In canon, James is in love with Lily Evans. It's kind of the main thing we know about his character. His job is just... loving Lily Evans. And their relationship is, arguably, the single most important romantic relationship in the entire series. Without them, we wouldn't have a series. There would be no story. Their love quite literally saves the world that they inhabit.

And no, that doesn't mean that nobody is ever allowed to ship either of them with anyone else, ever. But... Regulus? Really? It seems to stem 50% from the "best friend's brother/brother's best friend" romance trope and the fact that Timothee Chalamet has become a popular fancast for Regulus.

And what do we know, canonically, about Regulus? Next to nothing. The main things we know are that he's Sirius's younger brother, he hates Muggleborns, and he sacrificed his life to steal one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. And while him being Sirius's younger brother is an interesting tidbit for fanfiction purposes and sacrificing his life is noble, it's kind of hard to overlook the fact that Regulus Black was a fucking Death Eater. But I guess if you can overlook that little factoid, it's easy enough to ignore the Muggleborn character James's whole character is based around and ship him with Timothee Chalamet a Death Eater instead of her!

After decades of fandom, we have finally found what I believe is the most egregious example of the "ignoring a woman in favor of shipping two men" trend. In a move that is both darkly hilarious and objectively cringe, the new young wave of Marauders fans have decided that the best possible ship for Harry Potter's father is a man who hated the fact that Harry Potter's mother existed. A character he has no interactions with, a character he only knows by proxy of being his best friend's brother, a character that is part of a group that is an allegory for Nazis, a character we know nothing about besides the fact that he was a Death Eater who drew the line at Horcruxes. Everyone give yourselves a pat on the back, it doesn't get better than this.

In conclusion, would this be the worst thing on its own if it wasn't part of a long and storied history of fandom spaces ignoring women just to write smut for two random men? Not really. But if Regulus can draw the line at splitting a soul into seven bits and hiding them in historical relics all over Britain, I think I can draw my line at erasing Lily Evans from the narrative of James Potter's life.

[tottymatsuno]

three of my favorite homophobic todomatsu headcanons ranked

3. queer but homophobic - hates seeing other people happy to the point where hes telling lesbians, “can you do that at home?” Posting on gender reveals “nobody cares that you guys had sex.” Telling dudes who look better than him, who are open and proud, “pack it in, fruitcakes.” Would beg and pay for lick any of their stomachs.

2. homophobic, not gay, but but trans. I think this is a funny flavor bc totty being trans is so canon to me, you cannot explain that gender as cis. Anyways an added layer is being homophobic but trans like, “you’re doing too much.” “This is annoying.” “You’re really loud and this the womens section, so you shouldn’t be here.” And constantly in the same way he tries to one up his brothers goes, “idk who these ppl are but im not one of them” (is clearly one of them) just hating to hate and being annoying bc he wants to be one of the good trans. Absolutely transmed, anti tucutecore. Wants women so bad it makes him look stupid.

Cishet - its just so funny to me. So you look like THAT. Talk like THAT. Dress like THAT and you wanna be a pussy slayer, and you hate gay people? I have to laugh. If this dude said a slur i’d automatically assume he could reclaim. I would throw up dying, if i knew him and he was being homophobic i would never take him seriously and if someone called him out for it id always defend him like, “thats todomatsu, he’s literally wearing earrings, pink, with hearts and capri pants you know hes not cishet.” And he’d be like “i am. Im cishet, robin i keep telling you im not trans and i want to have sex exclusively with wonen” and id pee laughing at him bc who tf says that dressed like that. Id be patting him on the back like, “its so funny every tine you say it.” He wouldn’t even know what to do. He’d be so conditioned that like if he tried to be homophobic around real homophobes he’d get scared and be like “wait i just think penis is ugly and hate anyone else who has sex or is happy :(“

[thepunkmuppet]

There is no canon set up for tedbecca, though? The writers, the actors, nobody was ever planning on tedbecca. There is no set up for it that isn't you with your cishet "the main man and main women must be love interests" goggles on. The fact that you feel it's cool to come into the tedtrent tag and basically shit on the shippers and say there isn't anything there and then turn around and ask us to explain it to you is REALLY fucking presumptuous and arrogant and SHITTY of you. Writing a whole ass essay about how you don't get it, these younger, hotter actors or this basic cishet ship is better, that's fucking rude and you can fuck all the way off.

Like. We don't care if you don't get it. We don't care if you're so basic and unimaginative and boring that you can't see the subtext that makes Ted and Trent great. We get it.

And you're a Spike fan. You stan an abusive rapist. So why does your opinion even matter?

hi, I’m genuinely sorry that I offended you, I really truly didn’t mean to! my tone must have come across really badly, reading it back I can absolutely understand that I come across a bit shittily but you are reading WAY too much into things here and being really rude yourself over a post that’s literally about a slash ship from a football show

I never said anything bad about the ship or the shippers, and the ships I like are just my personal preference, just like yours. there’s no insidious deeper meaning behind it like you seem to think there is - it’s a tv show, it’s all chill in my book! also I can’t speak for writers and actors, just what I personally saw and interpreted on screen. if you didn’t see the same thing, then that’s fine, it doesn’t matter to me at all! we can like the same thing but disagree on stuff that’s fine and good and normal

again my tone must have come across REALLY badly, because I didn’t think anything was “cool” and I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, just asking a genuine question to prompt a conversation is all. I’ve got loads of sweet and interesting responses telling me all about why they like the ship. I like the ship! its cute! people’s responses have made me like it more!

also and most importantly it’s not that deep!!!!

“fuck you” and calling me basic and boring is completely unprovoked and really weird and inappropriate considering the subject matter. you clearly do care. a bit too much lmao

all that being said I feel like I have to clear this up. I am trans and pansexual there is not a cishet bone in my body just to make that abundantly clear!!

tldr please calm down my guy. I’m sorry you thought I was being rude but I wasn’t and this is literally a non-issue :) I like tedtrent. kind of a lot actually after reading other people’s comments. everything is fine I promise

also also sorry but it is so fucking annoying that this keeps coming up so I have to include it. I don’t “stan” anyone, I just think spike is a good character like most people in the buffy fandom. emphasis on CHARACTER, he’s literally a fictional demon murderer with no soul who sucks blood, enjoying him as a character obviously doesn’t mean I endorse his (FICTIONAL NOT REAL) actions in any way. I really don’t think that’s a hard concept to grasp 🤦‍♂️

[mikiruma-art]

6 13 19

happy pride month from the clixie cast!

(nb lesbian flag by @more-moodboards!)

[poppyseed-cookie]

If y’all think the fandom here is bad just wait until you see the *Cookie Run* Amino

[betweenlands]

blatant misinfo still fucks with people: an explanation

okay eye-catching title aside. hey there, we’re the solar system, we have occasional unreality issues that can go from very mild to extra dissociation inducing. we’ve also been an mcyt fan since, like 2014. here’s how those unreality issues work (for us specifically, we’re not speaking for anyone else) and why even stuff that’s “obviously fake” can be an issue if untagged.

here’s an example (pulled directly from a dream we had so we’re not putting anyone on blast) -- let’s say there are several posts abt Fortnite streamer Ninja coming out as nonbinary and getting a divorce. this is obviously very silly, and would normally be hard to believe.

if they’re tagged as misinfo/unreality: cool! we now know it’s a Bit and can engage with it as such.

if they’re not tagged as misinfo/unreality, but we see a post that breaks kayfabe to summarize the meme: we know to block it ahead of time, and its impact isn’t quite as bad as it could be. still going to have issues, though.

if nobody breaks character and nobody tags it properly: this sucks. we’re going to start dissociating heavily and have issues for probably the rest of the day.

why does this happen? well, without getting into the finer details of our brain being Weird: when we see information that directly contradicts things we Know (using the same example, “Ninja is a cishet guy” is information we know), it basically short-circuits our brain and tries to make us reckon with both things at the same time. even if we’re 100% aware that the thing is fake, either through our own preexisting knowledge of things or seeing a post that breaks character, it still messes with us.

so we’re now trying to figure out which of Two Things is true; this can quickly spiral into bad territory because it leads to us questioning other stuff. think of it as sort of an unstoppable slide of “well if we’re wrong about this, what else are we wrong about?”. it goes from a funny joke to us completely dissociating because our understanding of Literal Reality starts breaking down in a way that is not a funny joke.*

and that’s just what happens if we already know the information is fake. if we don’t know for sure if it’s real or not, that slide happens even faster and even worse than if we have a “baseline” for the information. 

anyway that’s why you should tag your misinfo/unreality based jokes, even if they are kinda funny sometimes. give people a choice as to whether or not they want to engage with it, and give them a baseline to stand on. or, y’know, just don’t joke about that at all, but this is the internet so we can’t exactly tell people to stop trolling altogether.

-----

* (side note, this is also why we take separation of canon information from popular fanon so seriously; claiming one is the other will often set off the same unreality issues, even if mildly or unintentionally. it’s tough articulating this in a way that doesn’t make us sound like an asshole tho)

[takaraphoenix]

Everyone who reblogs my bi!Spuffy GIF set and tags it with something along the lines of “isn’t this canon?”/”counting AtS/the comics it’s canon” has me close to tears. I wish, fam, I really really wish.

We all know Buffy’s been queercoded since season 1 and it is a canon fact that Spike has had sex with Angel at least once.

However. The comics go out of their way to have Buffy sleep with a woman. Not once, but twice. And still vocally deny any bisexuality. They give her a sexuality crisis that has her settle back into “yeah no definitely 100% straight”. Even though making her have sex with a woman would be a wonderful opening to actually make her canonically come out as bisexual, after spending seven seasons queercoding her every chance they had.

As it stands, canon went outta its way to declare her heterosexual, even though you, me and everyone who’s ever watched this show know better.

And that behavior is why I take canon bi!Spike with a grain of salt too, because if asked point blank or if given a chance to bring it up again - in more than a one-line-throwaway joke - I’m fairly sure Whedon would also go out of his way to establish that Spike is 100% absolutely heterosexual (hahahahaha) and that Drusilla and Darla dared them to or whatever.

Again, we all know better. Nobody who dresses like that and behaves like that (and sleeps with a man like that) is a CIShet guy. Spike is incredibly queer in layers, both in his sexuality and his gender.

But canon adamantly refuses to give genuine confirmation and if asked with a gun to their head (let me repeat: they put that gun there themselves by making Buffy have sex with a woman), they will still loudly proclaim heterosexuality where no heterosexuality can be found.

So, sadly, based on actual canon, they’re headcanons. Even if we all know better. Spike and Buffy are two bisexuals in love.

(To clarify: This post is not to say “I mind your tags” or to wag my finger at the people tagging it, like some “ha, gotcha there! It’s not canon”, it’s honestly mostly just me venting my frustration that it is not canon and just how poorly canon handled Buffy’s sexuality in particular. This franchise literally made unicorns real before it made a bisexual character real.)

[destroy-trash-boys]

i know everyone loves angst and doesn’t care, but the way atlus won’t commit to anything with akechi makes their shuake teasing actively homophobic

the word queerbaiting gets a lot of debate but i can’t think of what else to call it. cool, they danced under a heart in a concert and hugged in a stage play. a stage play can get away with more than a major game released so while it’s nice for fans and cool of the actors, it just reinforces how cowardly atlus the company is

but it’s been six years since the game released in japan. i can’t tell you how not normal it is for any writer to write a character like this. i hated how much akechi felt like bait for a new installment in vanilla, and then people act like royal was much better even though it left him in the same place. you can’t ignore him in royal since he’s so hyped up and so part of joker’s character, but it’s done in a way that becomes actively homophobic when it comes with baiting a ship like this.

nobody baits a character’s status like this. either kill them or don’t. even p3p was clear about shinji only living in the femc route. nobody baits a character unless they want the fans to spend money. the real people winning are the people who hate a character. the people who don’t want to see any homosexuality in their games. that’s why the beauty of interpretation is a coward’s answer. you cannot do “interpretation” when we still live in a homophobic society where straight is the default. letting people ignore any gayness, when we don’t have the option to ignore straightness, is just homophobia. how come literally every fandom calls out homophobia except this one??? it’s insane!!

the irony is people wouldn’t have hated akechi in vanilla if atlus committed to something with him in the first place. now his fans just accept this because of angst and because fandoms think mlm ships without death and abuse are boring, even though wlw shippers don’t act like this is a requirement. tying the gay subtext to a character who can’t be confirmed alive or dead is homophobic. teasing it in a canon that’s going to be ignored is homophobic. all the leering at ann and all the sexist remarks from the boys are kept in, but gay relationships still need to be hidden, ~up to interpretation~, and easy to dismiss because the character is safely dead and won’t be ruining the good heterosexuality of everyone else

other companies have done better with lgbt characters. even other shipbaiting has done more than atlus. instead people get yelled at if they don’t appreciate what atlus did, so maybe it’s because i’m not into the ship and because i don’t think potential for fanfics outweighs bad canon writing. the writing being so bad is why the ship has so much fanfic, but it’s only because they’re easy to write in the same mlm tropes and i hate the fanfic, so that doesn’t mean much to me. what i hate is homophobia, baiting, and fandoms that eat it up. cishet men will protest if they can’t date every female character in the game but nobody can even ask for better. atlus cut a gay romance route in persona 4 over a decade ago, and still we can’t get anything. stop praising this and making people think its good! it’s just homophobic!

there’s something about male writers who see they have female fans, and who want to punish those fans, and its at play here too. not just the way female characters are written in p5. most people who like akechi seem to be women. if you’re a woman, or an lgbt person, atlus hates you. they are making that obvious. they hate you, they will take your money, but they won’t reward the way they reward cishet men. if you personally loving akechi or see something romantic in shuake, atlus has contempt for you. they’ll bait you with a heart over some them dancing at a concert, but they won’t do anything to upset homophobes. it is not normal for good writers to bait a character like akechi over fans for years. i’ve seen fans back during vanilla days spending money on merch for more akechi. and then years later, you get more bait for atlus can get more money because what if this time, guys!! don’t fall for it. 

personally no amount of headcanon angst would get me to be okay with this treatment. even though i’ve said a lot of mean shit about this ship and the fanon and akechi’s character, i can still see homophobia when it’s happening. at the very least don’t praise a company or a story that actively hates your guts.

[ectonurites]

the core four for the ask game about headcanon types! ? no matter what i believe in Ur opinions

HFSDG im glad u have so much confidence in me... thats very flattering. im doing them as a group here esp bc i already did tim on his own (but if u/anyone wants me to take a stab at them individually i can also do that just send another ask fsgfdh)

A (realistic headcanon): 

alright so this kinda sits on the edge of hilarious and realistic but i have something different in mind for that one so: there is LITERALLY NO WAY they don’t have a group chat. they are Teens in a modern setting, like especially now that everyone’s back in continuity and reunited and everything. they HAVE a group chat. and god i can only imagine the chaos. bart can type so fast, so if he had an idea he was trying to communicate he would just be crazily spamming the chat. tim sending really weird cryptid-spotted style photos taken around gotham while on patrol. cassie going OFF on rants (also cassie like lowkey canonically likes kpop she makes Diana go to a kpop concert with her in WW:Agent of Peace #13 sfdhgf... cassie on kpop stan twitter and talking about the drama) and the rest just emoji reacting bc they support her but don’t always know what she’s talking about. kon just sending videos of the all farm animals and giving updates on things Ma bakes. i am open to suggestions on what their group chat’s name would be

B (hilarious): 

SO. you may have seen a lot of art i’ve made of the core four/yj in general that were based on memes. i have a whole planned fic i am GOING to write someday that essentially connects & gives context to the situations around creating those memes and pretty much is just a social media au crack thing but treated kinda seriously and is set relatively canon compliant at the start. basic premise being young justice makes an instagram account just for general PR stuff once they have reunited and it goes off the shits. but yes so the headcanon here would be: wanting to explore the inherent chaos of making an instagram account for your teen superhero team and all the possible ways it could go both so right and so wrong

C (heart-crushing): 

ok so i kinda talked about tim’s side of this a little bit already in my last post like this, but in general this is less of a headcanon but more just... i think when you actually think about the stuff these four went through that pulled them apart and how they managed to come back together only to get then pulled apart again by the reboot and now having reunited in yj 2019, (JUST FOR KON TO BE GETTING SEPERATED A G A I N but im ignoring that part for this rn) and how that would impact each of them, theres just a lot of angst there.

mostly gonna focus on the current current here but god Bart and Kon both coming into this new world that they don’t know how many people actually remember them, with Tim and Cassie managing to be there and having some memories and being some of the few people who can be a familiar comfort... except it’s not all there. i talk about it a lot but that one scene in yj 2019 where Tim isn’t sure if his memories of him, kon, and bart’s sleepovers in mount justice are real or just a dream... that hurts! there’s likely a lot of stuff like that in the time before death metal when the only force giving back memories for him is some brain magic from Zatanna. the four of them managing to come back to each other despite all the odds but having pieces of it just not quite the same because of how the world was tampered with... that hurts me so bad and i wish we could have gotten that explored more 

D (canon is a coward and won’t):

im sorry that for pretty much all of my ‘canon wont do it’ hcs are just about actually making the characters lgbt but its the truth. nobody in young justice is cishet. i think i’ve mentioned before that im pretty loose on specific gender and sexuality hcs for a lot of comic characters (because it just... the way characters are written isn’t always consistent bc Comics Be Like That so my hcs can kinda change based on different things/eras of characters) but yeah. feeling particularly strong lesbian cassie vibes today tho i will say that

also again another thing that unfortunately canon won’t fucking give us right now is just the four of them staying in one group... why the hell are they making Kon go on the suicide squad in upcoming stuff im dying 

[nightcoremoon]

i only like pop music when I can choose to hear it.

if rock's on, I'm on board. even if nickelback or creed is playing and I fucking hate them both.

if metal's on, I'm on board, as long as it's metal and not grindcore or deathblast or djentfuck or whatever the fuck else 4chan is concocting in their parents' basements.

if r&b's on, and I mean real r&b and not just "cishet male literal sex predators are sad", I'm on board.

if jazz is on, I'm on board, and I'm not even the biggest fan of jazz.

if classical music is on, I'm on board- I'm just so goddamn sick of vivaldi's spring, beethoven's symphony number five, bach's toccatta and fugue, pachelbel's canon in D, and liszt's hungarian rhapsody. THEY HAVE OTHER SONGS, GUYS.

if opera is on, I'm on board, just as long as it's not just fucking one of three ave marias by andrea bocelli. there's more opera artists than bocelli and there's mores songs besides ave maria.

I think you can see where this is going.

if rap is on, I'm on board, as long as it's not just fucking Drake Drake Drake Drake Tyga Drake. they're not even good rappers ASIDE from being two steps from pedophiles. give me wu tang, tribe, roots, nwa, public enemy, kid cudi, wiz, biggie, tupac, outkast, kurupt, beasties, jay, bone thugs, busta, eminem, nas, nate, luda, cypress hill, childish gambino, tech 9, snoop, give me real rap with meaning, feeling, flow, cultural impact, bass, clever lyrics, RHYTHM.

if country is on, well, if it's pre-9/11 i'm on board but if it's post-9/11 then fucking kill me. because post-9/11 country music is glorified pop with subliminal fascist ultranationalism and commercializations for alcoholism and cars. except for lil nas x and probably a small handful of others I don't know or care to know because I don't give a fuck about country music.

if punk's on and it's real punk I'm on board but not if it's just nasally white boys crying over an ex girlfriend or ugly british men with bad hair because THATS NOT WHAT PUNK IS. black flag, bad religion, bad brains, jack off jill, ice t, cromags, poison idea, rancid, misfits, against me, nofx, even sum 41, green day, offspring, and four year strong have redeeming qualities. but plain white tees, all american rejects, all time low, mayday parade, ramones, sex pistols, simple plan those are just pop groups who play four chords kinda fast, maybe yell sometimes. and while I do like songs by these bands, they are essentially pop, not punk.

if grunge is on and I mean like alice in chains (not rooster) or soundgarden (not black hole sun) or nirvana (not literally half of nevermind) or stone temple pilots or mudhoney or mother love bone (oh yeah and pearl jam is there too but honestly pearl jam is overrated, mike and eddie were way better in mad season, temple, and all the other configurations) then I'm on board. even if it's A- tier grunge like pumpkins, bush, live, spacehog, screaming trees, melvins, silverchair, veruca salt, l7, meat puppets, blind melon, local h, which isn't AS good but it still quality music made outside of commercialized bullshit which is what grunge was created to ESCAPE FROM after england fucking ruined metal in the 80s with hairspray and leather taking precedence over the actual music itself.

wait look commercialization ruined metal and grunge and punk and r&b and rap and country. I wonder why that is-

The Fucking Pop Music Industrial Complex.

so, look. there's a lot of music I don't know. I couldn't tell you billy eyelash from lil rubber ducky. maybe they're amazing and maybe they're not. I'm not gonna talk shit about modern music or pop music or anything. my problem is I can't go anywhere without hearing katy perry or taylor swift or miley cyrus or any number of dumbass inbred white trash idiots, and they all have like 80 songs each on replay. drake and cardi b are the same way, without the inbred and white parts. but they're all still horrible people made worse by $$$. it's a huge circlejerk of millionaires sonically engineering the airwaves to brainwash the masses into the sweet sweet ad revenue from youtube spotify itunes etc. it's made as a product to recycle. "Your style's like garbage cans meant to be taken out on a weekly basis, ever since your first record you've been in a state of suspended animation." There's no artistic integrity in the same song made over and over again except oh this one's about someone breaking up with you over booze and this one's about someone you broke up with because they cheated. 😑

Now I like some music that was made to sell for a product. Backstreet Boys, Nsync, New Kids on the Block, Britney, etc. I like it now 30 years later. Because I can choose to listen to it on my own terms. But I have no control over the shit they play now that's constantly pumped into my ears. It's all the same goddamn drivel and come a decade we're not gonna remember any of it. You know how much terrible music there was in the 50s? The 60s? The 70s 80s 90s and 00s were so full of the worst garbage anyone could ever churn out. Billboard was stocked to the brim with terrible music that nobody recalls and we only remember a tiny portion of it. The top 500 of 1982 is horrible. Even good bands like The Cars had boring unlistenable shit. There was good stuff too like Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull and The Who and other bands THAT DIDNT SELL WELL AND WERE PERCEIVED AS FAILURES BY CRITICS IN 1982. It's always been that way. The popular shit is always bad and the good stuff subsists through the popularity to be remembered fondly. Why do you think the 80s are making a huge resurgence right now in meme culture? Because we know that Toto and Men At Work and A-Ha and Depeche Mode and Tears For Fears are actually good no matter how poorly they may have sold back then. But now, post-9/11 with American culture becoming what it is today, it got worse. So much worse. I watched it happen. There's no nostalgia filter here, music just sounds different at its core. The notes themselves affect my ears differently and actually cause pain nowadays. I use the same pair of earbuds and I can listen to stuff from earlier time periods just fine, even if I've never heard it before. But new music now? Either something's different with production and mixing or I just have auditory hallucination issues. Which I don't. I don't even have chronic tinnitus. Something is wrong. And looking at the fossil fuels industry, the software industry, the cinema industry, the automotive industry, the prison industry, politics, social media, and the economy, there's no possible way that everything is just a coincidence.

The things that make money benefit the ones getting that money and hurt everyone else. That includes music.

...

...

...

or maybe pop music just sucks.

[ad1thi]

hey, I’m not trying to me mean but seeing as you’re cishet I don’t think the way you talked about queer-coding in the half of it was really okay and tbh, it seems like you don’t really know what queer-coding actually is. Also, this is maybe a more controversial opinion but don’t call Fabiola queer, there are still a lot of LGBT people who consider queer a slur and aren’t comfortable w/ straight people calling them it and seeing as she’s unambiguously a lesbian, just call her gay/a lesbian!

okay im gonna address this in parts because im going to work under the assumption that this came from a good place

1. i identify as cishet because i haven’t figured out my sexuality and i don’t think its right for me to say i am anything else unless im sure. however, a cursory glance at my blog will tell you that im bicurious and im just hesitant to label my sexuality because i don’t want anybody to take my journey with my own sexuality and then call me out for queer-baiting. that being said, my sexuality is nobody’s business but my own and labels change over time.

2. i explained in the tags under the specific reblog where i called Fabiola queer that i was using queer because at that point in the show, her sexuality hadn’t been definitively labelled. at that particular point in the show, she was still pursuing a relationship with Alex Young and i didn’t know whether her character was going to be lesbian/gay or bi/pan, 

3. as far as i understand it, queer is an umbrella term that applies to anybody that isn’t heterosexual. i don’t mean to assume anything on behalf of the lgbtq+ community, and i apologise if i did offend anybody by calling her queer, but as i explained in both that post and in this answer - i didn’t know which direction the show was going to take and at that point, i didn’t want to assume that she was going to give herself a label

4. when i said that Fabiola was queer-coded, it was a critique on the way the show was playing into stereotypes. something ive personally never seen represented on media is femme lesbians, and lgbtq+ women are generally seen as liking more “masculine” things, like for example - the fact that Fabiola’s wardrobe consists of men’s clothes. there isn’t anything wrong with this, i just think that its a bit on the nose for some of the stereotypes, and they could’ve chosen another route. 

5. i never meant to take away from the fact that she’s canonically gay. but in episode 3, she was still going to go on that date with Alex Young, and at that point in the show she hadn’t expressed a lack of attraction to men. that was the only thing i was trying to be respectful of

//

i apologise if me using the term queer offended you in any way, but literally all you had to do was look at the tags where ive specifically explained why i was using the word queer. its right there in the tags. 

[alienshepard]

1, 5, 9, 19, 21 have fun :D

1. What OTP(s) in your fandom do you just not get? Jack x Miranda tbh. They clearly don't like eachother, they're barely becoming friends at the end of the Citadel DLC and threatened and insulted eachother multiple times during two games and yet people call it "sexual tension" and "clearly they're just frustrated by how much they love eachother" and?? People call out the "hate sex is hawt" trope, call relationship like theirs abusive when it's an m/f ship but because its two women it's suddenly okay or less toxic? I don't get it and its my biggest NOTP ever.5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? Ye, shakarian was def ruined by the obnoxious part of the fandom. Don't get me wrong, there are so many chill shippers but there's a certain part of the fandom who just made me never want to touch this romance. The way they hype up Garrus as The Only Romance, the way they talk shit about other romances, especially Kaidan (making him out to be an abusive stalker and borderline rapist), putting down the other romances as "less real" because Garrus is the only one who talks about having a family with Shepard so He's The Only One Serious About It, their homo&biphobia when it comes to Garrus possibly dating an mShep and their oftentimes sexist interpretation of both fShepard and her relationship with Garrus (writing him as super Alpha Male and White Knight who needs to hold the small fragile Shepard or her fragile female brain won't be able to handle the stress and emotions), their absolutely shitty attitude towards other female characters showing interest in him or their general assholery towards any other ships that aren't fShepard x Garrus, their unwillingness to acknowledge that so many other romances got fridged for the sake of theirs etc. I could write whole essays aboutthis but I think I got my point across asdfghjkl 9. Most disliked characters. Why? I already mentioned in another ask that I heavily dislike Garrus' character arc during Mass Effect 1&2 but the only other character I really dislike is Conrad Verner. I prefer playing as fShepard and I could never see anything funny in Conrads obsession with Shepard. It's not hero worship, it's not liking a certain celebrity and being awkward around them - it's just straight up stalking. He literally tells Shepard he lied about his wife (which is oftentimes a tactic abusive creeps use so that women let their guard down around them) and then confesses he has a shrine of them at home?? I hate him and I hate how everyone treats this as this funny running gag 19. What is the thing you hate the most about your fandom? Ohhhhhhhhh boy the Mass Effect fandom is such a shitshow it's hard to decide tbh. I mean apart from the biphobia (or just queerphobia in general), the racism and sexism, it really has to be the policing when it comes to other peoples Shepards and the way individuals design them. There are the militant fShepard players who vilify mShepard as "just your average cishet dudebro" and write essays how boring he is, without ever acknowledging that mShepard is far from being the average cishet dudebro, the people who get angry about people not using the default Shepards, people making posts like "if you dont use Jane/John as your Shepards names, I instantly lose respect for you" or "biotic Shepards are so boring, yall just want to have an excuse to have space mages, nobody wants to read about biotic Shepards anymore", the ones who are way too stuck up about ""military protocol"" and harass people with super feminine Shepards and making posts like "who has time to do their make up during the war it's so unrealistic" or "umm sweaty actually only light make up and tied up hair is allowed in the navy :)" (who fucking cares it's the future, people are fucking aliens, I think the alliance couldn't give less fucks about Shepards hair as long as they do their job lmao?) And just their general attitude when it comes to romances like the posts that go like "if you dont romance Garrus, you're playing the game wrong" or "wow I can't believe Liara is the only canon romance for Shepard" etc. The fandom is just so obnoxious about others OCs and police so many people on their designs (Not included in this is valid criticism when people actually have insensitive and harmful tropes/designs for their Shepard) The fandom likes to brag about how inclusive they are on OCs compared to other fandoms but then they have those ridiculous ship wars and tear other people down for the way they design their OCs smh21. What are your thoughts on crack ships? I don't mind them as long as they're not harmful (like shipping mShepard with Traynor or fShepard with Cortez) I'm normally a big fan of the "these people have never met in canon but let's make them fall in love in fics", especially as someone who creates OCs simply to romance characters I personally like and who don't have LIs in canon. Shipping my mShepard with Ashley and Miranda and having the three of them be in a poly relationship started out as a crack ship but now it's canon for me lmao (Thanks for asking this got super long I'm sorry ahdjdsjsk)

[grcndel]

just 2 be blunt stories about monstrosity and otherness BELONG to ppl of marginalized identity and anyone who shits on or harasses you for doing what u want with what’s essentially your property is a whiny fool

HONESTLY IVE BEEN SAYING … like! even in canon! the whole POINT of grendel’s character, right down to the visceral / physical level, is meant to exemplify his identity as a marginalized person bc he’s been oppressed by white european human society’s standards and expectations ever since he knew humans existed. that’s literally. his fucking backstory. that’s who he is. that’s what made him into who he is. grendel is androgynous & not white & openly (sometimes flamboyantly) gay & has an EXTREME hatred and distrust of government and authority because HE HAS REASON TO. grendel, as a character, is similar in the literary canon to frankenstein’s monster in terms of ‘monstrous entity used as a vessel for social commentary.’ that’s been stated. that’s a FACT.

and yet i still have, what, maybe 5 anons giving me shit every other week, on average? around 3 people stalking my fucking blog just to hate-read it? people legitimately trying to tell me all the reasons why gren CANT be gay? half a fandom that fucking hates me just because ill call them on their bullshit and say shit like ‘stop blatantly erasing this character’s queer identity’ and ‘stop coloring grendel like you’d color a white guy?’ people reblogging my ship posts with “lol what the fuck am i reading???????” people claiming i’m an abuse apologist because grendel and his boyfriend are both “imperfect” survivors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse & have done fucked up shit in the past as a result of that?

it’s fucking ridiculous. it’s transparent. the minute an actual queer person or mpoc/poc or survivor makes a statement, people will hound the fuck out of them for ‘proof’ that they’re ‘allowed’ to do that. but the cishet white majority of fandom spaces can get away with drawing gay people in straight ships & drawing brown characters white, etc. etc., and they can fetishize rape and abuse and all sorts of other awful shit, and they can erase identities, and nobody bats a fucking eye at it.

its almost like people go out of their way to demand answers out of actual marginalized ppl because their “criticism” is based on bigotry & not morality, and they’re trying to hide their prejudice under the guise of being pc or “wanting to stay true to canon.”

this is canon. grendel’s shit is canon. monsters belong 2 marginalized people. fuck all of you, suck my dick, gargle my balls, and goodnight

[amorremanet]

Arthur/moody, lucius/moody, lupin/snape?

the brutally honest ship opinions game

Arthur/Moody: ……okay, like, I have basically no positive feelings about Alastor Moody — I mean, I feel the same need to defend him from JKR’s ableist garbage that accidentally got me in too deep with Lockhart, but we are still talking about a guy who supports using Dementors on people and apparently dngaf about what someone’s done, just send ‘em all to fucking Azkaban (GOF ch. 30, the flashback of Moody we see in the first Pensieve scene)

who thinks that the best present you could give to a kid who’s lost his parents and just watched a classmate be murdered…… is going over a photo of the First War Order and telling him about how all of them died horribly and he doesn’t ever stop to think that this might not be the best idea (OOTP)

and who is legitimately less sensitive to other people’s needs and less dismissive of people who aren’t his exact model of “useful” than a literal fucking Death Eater one of the biggest points where Barty Crouch Jr. drops character in GOF is when he takes Neville to his office and gives him a pro-Herbology pep-talk, and goes, “so, hey, Longbottom, Professor Sprout said you’re super-good at this subject, why not pursue it,” because based on the actual canon about him? The real Alastor Moody would never do something like that.

Like, he might have the moment he has with Harry and Hermione, where he goes, “so, hey, both of you could be gr10 aurors if you wanted, you should think about it” because that, from Moody, would be a compliment, and Harry and Hermione more closely fit his own ideas of usefulness, but not so much the Neville moment)

—but seriously, do you hate him or something? Why else would you even dream of shipping him with Arthur Weasley? (okay, fine, I acquiesce that there is enough of a canonical basis for some people to roll with here, and I myself have made ships out of far less…… but seriously, why would you ship anybody with Arthur Weasley. Like…… wow, rude.)

Lucius/Moody: again, I’m not on the Alastor Moody fan-train or anything, but why would you even do this. Nobody deserves to be shipped with Lucius Malfoy, like? He’s not even an entertaining villain, he’s just pathetic. He’s a sad, pathetic fantasy-fascist who gets his kicks by bullying twelve-year-olds and torturing muggles who can’t defend themselves. He’s a complete waste of character space and forcing anyone to be in a ship with him is just unfathomably cruel

Lupin/Snape: meh, whatever. Like, it’s not my thing, but… *shrugs* meh?

Like, idk what you’re looking for here, nonny, but I’m guessing, based on the other two ships, that you’re looking for me to get cranky and ship-bashy and figured that Snu//pin was a good way to get there, since there are a lot of legitimate Problems with this ship in the text

But the thing is, I’m just under 900 years old (at least in fandom terms), and I remember the days back before HBP came out, when Snu//pin was the second-most popular Remus ship (after Wolfstar, to the surprise of no one), and was, in fact, so popular that it had its own private archive and got black-listed from most rarepair comms because it, “wasn’t really rare, just less popular than D//rarry, Wolfstar, Ro//mione, Dra//mione, H//inny, and J//ily”

—I mean, there was a short stretch before OOTP where I tried to make myself like it because there was a BNF whose art I loved, and she shipped Snu//pin, so I felt like I had to be missing something obvious and cool and because I was, like, twelve, I tried to make myself ship the thing. That didn’t work and I eventually just moved on, but one thing that I recall about the Snu//pin fandom that appears to still be more or less true, based on everything I’ve seen of the present-day Snu//pin fandom?

Is that they came out about the same as the Wolfstar fandom, in terms of how many shippers ignored or made excuses for #Problematic things about the ship vs. how many shippers work those things into the overall fabric of how they ship the thing, how many shippers LIKE the ship because of those Problematic parts and having the opportunity to explore them in fiction, how many shippers actively dive head-first into exploring those parts of the ships because that’s where they find the most engaging character interactions or whatever they’re into, etc.

For examples of what I mean when I say #Problematic things about the ships:

the fact that all three of them are self-loathing [human or werewolf] disasters who are often passively suicidal and either prone to acting out on those feelings (Sirius and Severus), or prone to repressing those feelings until they explode all over some innocent bystanders (Remus)

the fact that all three of them have suffered horrific abuse in their pasts — whether from their parents or other sources — and find ways to take it out on other people (Severus on his students, Sirius on Severus and Kreacher, and Remus on almost anyone who tries to get close to him, even as he makes it seem like he isn’t doing that)

Severus outing Remus as a werewolf because he’s upset and felt like punishing someone else for it, thereby leading to Remus tendering his resignation

the fact that Sirius assuming Remus had to be the spy would’ve been at least partially based on anti-werewolf prejudices, and Sirius still clearly had at least some of those prejudices on his own, because even if Peter totally manipulated them in his favor, there had to be something there for Peter to manipulate in the first place, so???

the fact that Remus doesn’t help shit anything, in any situation ever, with his habit of trying to weasel out of any Emotionally Difficult™ conversations and his tendency to mentally spin most situations so that everyone is going to leave him in the end anyway so it’s acceptable to shut down, close himself off, and pull stunts that more or less come down to, “totally up and bailing on everyone,” which is understandable, given his backstory, but dude, that doesn’t make it okay or helpful??

basically, “literally anything about the characters as individuals, or in terms of their interactions with each other — both past and present — that could potentially cause problems for either/both/any/all of them and potentially make the relationship unhealthy (or unhealthier than it already was, in the cases of Snu//pin and Snack because…… oh boy, let’s not even act like either of those — or any ship with Sev in it, for that matter — is ever going to be ‘healthy’ by any definition)”

So, like? Is Snupin #Problematic? Yes, definitely. Are some of its shippers prone to ship it in #Problematic ways? Oh, yes, absolutely (Hell, the BNF whose art I used to like even flat-out said things like, “Sirius would never be able to be there for Remus like Snape could” and… um? Even granted that this was pre-OOTP: ummm???)

But on the whole, Snu//pin shippers aren’t actually any worse about totally ignoring and/or excusing these elements of their ship than Wolfstar shippers are (and, actually, they might be doing better than a LOT of the present-day Wolfstar fandom, since I usually don’t see any more recently made Snu//pin that doesn’t grapple with at least some of the #Problematic elements of it — they don’t always do it well, but at least they’re trying, which counts for a lot, to me, because most people don’t even try — while most Wolfstar these days flat-out ignores all the #Problematic elements of Sirius and Remus as characters, and of their relationship, in the name of what often amounts to borderline-OOC caricatured fanon nonsense, so…)

(……Look, I love Wolfstar, and I have for longer than some people on this website have been alive. But I don’t love a lot of Wolfstar shippers, which has been the case since the beginning of my Wolfstar shipping

stayed the case when HBP came out and I was all, “Hey, guys? I don’t like this BS Remus/Tonks thing either, but can we NOT erase bisexuals or treat Tonks like garbage when we’re talking about it, it’s not her fault that Molly Weasley is a meddling nosy garbage buttinski who thinks it’s her job to play matchmaker to fully-grown adults who didn’t ask and don’t want her input,”

and is still the case as I’m over here, all like, “ugh, man, at least we used to have SOME people in this fandom who enjoyed reading Wolfstar angst, now it seems like nobody cares about anything unless it’s all fluff, all the time, with absolutely no room for anything else because god forbid you ever want to write about LGBTQ characters whose lives aren’t 5,000% perfect, that obviously must mean that you’re a gross fetishistic cishet and not, for example, a neurodivergent, mentally ill lesbian survivor who feels left out by the trend towards forcing every LGBTQ person to act like we’re happy, all the time, and to act like we’re only interested in fictional LGBTQ people who are perfectly 5,000% happy all the time

“and to decry any and all depictions of LGBTQ people being UNhappy as gross fetishistic straight people garbage even when they were actually created by and for LGBTQ people, only to be misappropriated by straight people, as if there’s no way you could possibly be LGBTQ and NOT feel ~used and maligned~ by depictions of LGBTQ people that are less than 5,000% perfectly happy, even when they are being created by other LGBTQ people, yeah? ……but yeah, no, clearly: the fact that I like angst obviously means that I am a straight person because no ~real~ LGBTQ person ever has any need for those ~gross negative feelings~ or fictional outlets for them, never mind how many LGBTQ people get excluded from our narratives and spaces by this bullshit bc lmao who cares amiright. ://”)

—anyway, my motto has been and remains, “It isn’t a question of WHAT you ship, it’s a question of HOW you ship it,” so hey. Snu//pin is not my thing (it’s not even as non-shippingly interesting to me as Sirius/Severus is, because I love how much those two hate each other while unwittingly being perfect foils for each other), but I don’t actually have any desire to ship-bash it and most Snu//pin shippers are okay with me because unless they’re actually doing anything that’s harmful to anyone else, it’s not my business what they ship

That said: “Snu//pin” is still one of the worst portmanteau ship names ever and it still sounds like a deadly virus or something, but *shrugs* Whatever, it’s not the shippers’ faults that their ship members’ names don’t smush up all that nicely

[lawlightfan42069]

1) im sorry i wasnt clear but what i meant is all headcanons that has to do with personal issue like sexual orientation-will they be good father- good bf or husband should all be treated as headcanons not actual facts. you talk about ur hc like a confirmed facts nd the other side who keep saying shinee are hetero nd will be good bfs also act like its facts. both of sides shouldnt act like what said is canon nd when they see the other hc disrespect nd deny it

2)i didnt say that fans who hv hc that say shinee r queer should shut up i said that fans who say that should talk about their hc freely but at the same time remember that it is not a confirmed facts the same thing goes for who say shinee are hetero and would be good bf these also should be treated as hc not as fact. i never said that queer hc are taboo i just said that i find the fights about shinee sexual orientation, gender nd religion are ridiculous. hc are hc nd all of them should respected

3)while hcs should be respected they all shouldnt be forced on others nd that what i find happening from both sides. about treating shinee as lgbt icons intentionally or not it looks like that nd you say shinee r lgbt icons is stating a fact what fact is that. theres a difference between finding something relatable nd treating that relatable thing as only be done be or stereotyped to a certain type of people. do u understand what am i trying to say here bc i cant really express myself well

i’m just going to copy and paste relevant parts from my first message bc i just feel like it bears repeating. i’ll elaborate on them a bit too. 

anyway i agree that ultimately what people are doing is making. headcanons. ive always agreed w this fact? this is a thing i continually say?? its why im not out there to Objectively Prove that jonghyun is gay or bi or whatever. the reason people respond to statements like ‘no jonghyun is not gay hes a straightie hetero’ with ‘no ur wrong’ bc the first statement is one that is Constantly enforced by society and it just functions as a way 2 shut down queer voices and reassert the heterosexual default present Everywhere. society treats straight as the absolute default. this is why straight “Headcanons” arent treated as well lmao… headcanons. theres rly no reason for anyone out there 2 headcanon something as straight?? when its the Assumed Sexuality in every situation?? tbh the only reason ppl are interested in doing that is Denying that idols might not be straight. doing this when ppl are Forced 2 be straight is gross. theres a difference between queer ppl saying Hey, remember not all idols are straight so lets talk about that and straight ppl being all No! ur wrong! he cant be anything but straight so shut up! these two things are coming from different perspectives.

like. imagine a pie being sliced up. historically, a 100% of this pie has been given to straight people. when queer ppl speak up, theyre trying to take some of their fair share of this pie. saying Hey, queer ppl exist!! is trying to section urself out a piece of the pie when youve been given none. someone saying Nope!! theyre all definitely straight is stealing back the measly slices someone has Actively Fought to obtain and attempting to perpetuate this imbalance.

please note this above thing. nobody is saying that headcanons are objective fact, just that i question the motive of anybody that says something like Um sweaty no jonghyun is straight :). we dont live in societies where ppl are equally assumed to be straight/bi/gay/etc, we live in societies where ppl are Only allowed to be straight. ppl who Go out of their way to assert jonghyun is straight are contributing to a culture of heteronormativity. ppl who make queer headcanons are Not equally shoving these opinions on ppl who assume every idol is straight bc Heteronormativity Exists. society is Constantly shoving straightness down everyones throats and queer ppl speaking out against that is a Response to this. straight ppl repeating that everyone is straight reinforces societal beliefs that are widely held and imposed on everyone its just literally not the same thing. the idea of queer headcanons dont happen in some kind of cultural vacuum. theyre created as a response to constantly being silenced and forced to be straight. take the pie metaphor in account. people who are like Every idol is straight :) do it backed by centuries of enforced heterosexuality and expectations that feed into oppressive social structures that not Only assume every person is straight but force every person to be straight. these are by no means equal things nor are they motivated by similar perspectives.

this next part is also copy and pasted from the first reply bc i Rly think ur missing the point: getting in discussions w ppl who say every idol Must be straight or cis isnt fighting w someone over shinees orientations Specifically, its fighting against the bigotry involved in this line of thinking. arguing w ppl who say “___ Msut be cishet” is not saying “_____ must not be cishet” its saying to question what motivates ppl to say the first thing. its not really About shinee exclusively bc its applicable to every single idol, and tbh every single person. its a discussion larger than any one particular person. i think this is an aspect that a lot of ppl miss. 

when ppl argue against statements like ‘jonghyun can only be straight sweaty :)’ they Aren’t arguing about jonghyuns orientation specifically theyre arguing against what led people to think like that. theyre arguing against the heteronormativity + unawareness of the closet that leads ppl to say the first statement. it is not about shinee Exclusively. when you dismiss these arguments are ‘just fighting about shinees sexualities :\’ ur honestly missing the point? ppl arent focusing on shinees orientations, theyre focusing on the uninformed ways of thinking that drew people to these conclusions. 

also i dont know if u just misread or youre purposefully misunderstanding me but “shinee r lgbt icons is stating a fact what fact is that” I Literally Said The Opposite Of That. i said that saying that shinee might be lgbtq is stating a fact. not that they are lgbtq icons (and i roll my eyes at ppl who say things like jonghyun King of the Gays! or whatever). Just Saying that someone might be lgbtq is not saying theyre a lgbtq icon unless u think being lgbtq is inherently being a lgbtq icon?? which is silly. lgbtq ppl can Exist and not be lgbtq icons lmfao. it Is literally stating a fact that shinee might be lgbtq and thats indisputable.