#now i'm not going to be actually petty and tag all of the straight ships like some folks love to do while saying this shit but iykyk

[armoralor]

Sabine Wren just doesn't set my straightdar off. Anyone that calls me straightphobic is dumb because I love straight people and have lots of straight friends. I'm apart of the straight community myself, so I get to perpetuate bigoted beliefs I've internalized growing up and never examined. Don't be a snowflake and get upset, you just don't understand humour. Where's the proof she's straight anyways? Don't say it's because she wears make-up, I'm so tired of that straight person trope.

[ask-serendipity-sky]

That thing with Holland is so sick. I've been seeing armys do bs for a long time but this genuinely made me ill.

Harassing a queer idol because the fetishizers in your fandom won't stop harassing him? Of course he named them, he's obviously getting requests from one group the most. They're so proud of being the biggest kpop ship - they should own this too. Why act innocent and naive now? And they all managed to completely ignore the point he was trying to make about how insane it is that these people are trying to forcefully out their faves even if they were actually not straight.

I just unfollowed every army I used to follow. They're either shifting the blame onto him or staying silent. They'll speak about a bunch of things when they need to virtue signal and it costs them nothing, they'll get into fights about the most stupid stuff with other fandoms, but the moment you can actually use your clout for something and speak on how awful it is that your fandom is essentially bullying a gay artist who we know has gone through so much - literal hate crimes - because he came out, you're completely silent? ARMYs have lost all sense of proportion, logic and morality.

The hypocrisy also strikes me because they'll go around naming pjms every day of the week. They always drag Jimin into fanwars. I don't see anyone saying let's not use his name then other than by solos themselves. But this isn't even the first time they've shielded tkkrs. They'll drag up random accounts with hardly any followers and a handful of likes and talk about solos infecting the fandom but god forbid anyone talk about tkkrs unless it's in the most general way so that you can sweep it away as a shipping thing.

And this discourse about namedropping is also ridiculous. They have 70K+ Jimin anti tkk shipper and 300K+ tkk shipping porn accounts running around freely. They tag JK in all their gross edits on Tiktok. We all saw them waving around the tkk banner during Jimin's bday event. Nobody had much to say about it except Jimin biased.

Plus do they actually think Tae and JK don't know? They just need to look at their comments during their lives to find out what tkk is. What are they even talking about? They've nursed these Jimin anti delusional shippers in their fandom for years but the problem is when others point that out?

I actually prided myself on following a variety of people so I'm never too enmeshed in any one group think. I used to follow ARMYs, shippers, solos and other KPop fandom accounts from my main but I'm done now. I was actually so proud that the fandom was being so active in speaking up about the Palestine cause but if your sense of mortality can't tell you how wrong what is happening now to Holland is and if you are too scared to sacrifice clout to speak up for him, then I can't take anything you say seriously. Sorry to bring up a serious real world issue in the midst of all this but what happened yesterday just tells me that if you can't stand up for a queer idol for petty bs fandom reasons or because you don't want to get involved when you know it's wrong (because I was very careful in curating my tl so I know the armys I used to follow at least have that much sense) then there's no way you'd actually do anything if were to cost you something in real life.

So yeah I still listen to BTS, I still like all the members but I'm done with 'army'.

Hello,

This was a tough read.

I can feel your anger and dissapointment and the only thing I can say is that I feel the same way.

It's "small" things like these that tell you who people really are and they are a sign of the person you could become. It may seem silly because it's kpop but it's real people with real struggles with real hate.

You don't have to be army or pjm or a shipper. None of those names mean a thing at the end of the day. Support what you want and stand up for what you believe.

I get you 🫂

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[idolcandy]

hiii! i love ur fics and I'm a goner about caslys, if you could write it like lysander distances himself from castiel cus of his crush, castiel gets mad, they argue, lys pisses cas even more, and then lys apologizes and they get together and cas is like super soft? not necessarily sappy, just soft lol. idk if any of that made sense, but honestly u don't have to do any of that, if it could be caslys is more than enough lol!! merry christmas!!!

Awakening

Rating: G Ships: Castiel/Lysander Tags: Romance, Confessions

Lysander hasn’t answered his texts, which isn’t that strange in and of itself; he frequently misplaces his phone, lets it die, or simply disconnects for a while. What is strange is that he’s left Castiel on read.

Multiple messages, everything from a simple “hey,” to an attempt to arrange band practice, all ignored. This isn’t like Lysander, if Castiel had offended him or done something wrong, Lysander would be the type to tell him he was being rude. But radio silence is new.

Lysander can be the type to bottle things up and pretend he’s fine; he suffered in silence for a long time before sharing that his father was ill. But it was all internal, he never pushed anyone away. So, what’s changed?

What he’s about to do is petty, he knows it is, but what choice does he have? Castiel sends Lysander one final text.

To: Lysander From: Castiel Talk to me or I ring Leigh to find out what’s going on

The gambit works and it doesn’t take long for Lysander to send a response.

To: Castiel From: Lysander Can we meet at the park?

Castiel rarely goes to the park without taking the dog for a walk, but tonight the mood feels too serious for that, and Pancake stays huddled up in his bed so that he doesn’t get dragged out to an argument.

Castiel finds Lysander sat on a bench in one of the quieter spots in the park, far from the pathways where strolling dog walkers might pass him by. He’s slumped over, his gaze fixed firmly at his feet.

“Hey, are you going to tell me why you’ve been ignoring me?” Castiel demands, forgoing any greetings. He never was one for subtlety.

Lysander breathes a deep sigh and sits up straight. “I owe you an apology, I was wrong to push you away…” Lysander’s voice trails off there, seemingly searching for the right words.

Castiel scowls, “I’m looking for an explanation, Lys.”

Lysander nods in understanding but returns to staring at the ground as if his boots were the most interesting thing in the world. He pauses again but Castiel’s groan of complaint prompts him to speed up.

Still avoiding looking at Castiel, he rattles off a vague excuse, “I’ve been under some stress with family issues and- “

Castiel cuts him off. “Don’t give me that bullshit. I can tell when you’re lying, you’re not able to look me in the eye and lie.”

Lysander looks up at him, “I’m not lying.”

Castiel grits his teeth and turns his back on Lysander, almost retreating to let his anger out in private, but at the last seconds he turns back and unleashes it.

“Fuck you, Lys. I didn’t do shit to deserve this and you’re just going to sit there and lie to me? We’ve been through hell together and now you’re just going to cut me out of your life and you won’t even do me the decency of telling me why?”

Lysander still can’t look at him. He looks so small sitting there, staring at his lap like a naughty child who’s just gotten into deep trouble. And he has nothing to say in his defence.

The corners of Castiel’s eyes scrunch up as he tries to keep the tears at bay. “Do you really hate me that much?”

Lysander leaps to his feet. “I don’t hate you; I love you”

Lysander collapses into the bench, his face looks even paler than usual. It wasn’t meant to slip out like that. It was supposed to go unsaid, forever.

“Christ,” Castiel mumbles, as he puzzles over what to do. Eventually, he settles on taking a seat next to Lysander. “Well, that, uhhh, explains a lot actually.”

Lysander recoils from Castiel. He remains seated but his whole body curls away from Castiel in shame. His hands are trembling by now.

Castiel reaches up and lays a hand on Lysander’s shoulder. “Don’t freak out, I’m not mad.”

Lysander closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Castiel’s face. “Aren’t you disgusted though?”

“No!” Castiel’s grip on Lysander’s shoulder tightens. “Jesus Lys, no. Never.”

It’s then that tears start to roll down Lysander’s cheeks. So much that he’d bottled up, and hidden away for fear of rejection, fear of losing Castiel entirely, starts to come to the surface. Soon his head falls into his hands and the tears fall harder.

Knowing words are useless now, Castiel pulls Lysander into him and lets him sob against his chest. Instinctively, he presses a kiss against Lysander’s head, into a mess of white hair. At that, he feels Lysander’s body stiffen and his sobbing quietens down, but he doesn’t question the gesture.

What did that mean? It came from nowhere, a feeling he hadn’t recognised yet. With Lysander so morose, he was overcome with the need to quelch all the reasons for it, to have him and to hold him and kiss the pain away.

As Lysander lets the last of his tears run out in the comfort of Castiel’s gentle embrace, Castiel is left with questions more far-reaching than the ones he arrived with.

[roxannarambles]

the anti-lunter lumity shippers actually scared me away from liking lumity-or participating in TOH fandom at all. i saw the "hunting palismen" episode right around when it first aired, thought "oh those two characters (luz and hunter) would make such a cute couple" and started poking my nose around the fifty different pairing tags lunter has just to see what was up-the level of absolutely off-the-charts biphobia abt lunter from lumity shippers and viciousness towards anyone who DARED to ship them (p*dophilia? really? over a TWO YEAR age gap? and incest? off of nothing more than vibes and headcanons?) made me, a bisexual woman, back away, and then turn around and SPRINT away from this fandom. I'm *just now* daring to look back around the tags, and even then i'll only ever "like" work other people have done-i'm sorry, but i just can't bring myself to reblog any of the gorgeous art or writing i see, or interact with this pairing in any way that has my name attached-even this ask is on anon, not after seeing the harrassment that's handed out over it.

Yeah, it can be pretty discouraging when you keep running into crappy people in a fandom. I used to be a big Lumity fan. But the more I interacted with mainstream TOH fandom, the more unwelcome I felt there. For example, I'm (mostly) straight, but I found in the discord servers and twitter that a large portion of folks were expressing open disgust and intense hatred towards anyone straight and said nobody straight should enjoy a LGBT ship. (???) It really soured my enjoyment of Lumity.

And yes, the claims that fans make to justify their Lunter hate are always utterly absurd. Sadly, it seems that petty bickering and bullying is just part and parcel of any online community. The only consistent solution I've found to all this is simply to be very particular about who you interact with. Poke around in fandom long enough to find particular people who are chill and not jerks. Maybe also look for sub-groups within the larger group. Sub-groups or sub-fandoms make it a lot easier to find cool people. And then once you've found some neat people you click with, hang out with those and ignore everything else, because there will always be some drama happening, but that shit's boring and not worth wasting any time on.

I completely understand if you choose to never interact directly with Lunter content, though. For what it's worth, I've seen a lot of folks create 'throwaway' accounts just for Lunter, so it's not connected with their main online identity; that's always an option if you felt like going that route. Or you could choose just to interact in the ship's discord server but not social media. Even a simple 'like' or silent enjoyment is still appreciated, though.

[crispyjenkins]

I... I felt I was all alone being uninterested in kid fics so I'm very happy to see it's not just me. (Sorry I'm going to rant for a bit) It's probably linked to the fact that I personally don't want kids but sometimes... I just want to see people able to be happy without children? Even if they don't dislike kids or anything! And sometimes it straight up makes me uncomfortable to see kid fics for this exact reason. (Also it depends on the fandom but SW is definitely one where I generally dislike kid fics, which I think wasn't improved by all the Luke-as-Rey's-father thing)

HI I'M HERE TO VALIDATE YOU

and i have a whole fecking lot of feelings about this topic in particular, this is gonna get a little wordy, but i've tried to organise it somewhat

First: i don't want kids. i'm fairly to extremely confident i'll never want kids. partly because I do not have the mental/physical capacity to devote the time and energy and emotion that children deserve and need. someone on tumblr said it ages ago, "if I don't WANT a kid, if i'm just indifferent, im not going to have a fucking kid until i actively want one", because children are sentient beings and not cute things to make you happy or feel more put together.

Okay, second: i very rarely see parenting written well (and i don't mean about perfect or unproblematic parents), i would even go so far as to call it trivialising. or maybe just completely unrealistic? it's either all honeymoon-period schmoop (which is not necessarily a bad thing) or it's hardly even about the kids and at that point, well, what's the point? especially if the kid is an oc, they can't just. exist on the sidelines of their parents life.

Third: if the kid is a canon character, their entire personality gets nerfed into one or two traits and are shoehorned to fit the narrative the author is trying to tell. this is a complicated issue because i sincerely believe in fun for the sake of fun and interacting with your fandom however you want, but i also just. kids deserve better?

Fourth: on that subject, i most often see the child in question be an oc. again, they're given one or two traits, but are then just a prop for whatever plot is happening to the actual ship. maybe i'm missing something, but i don't understand why you wouldn't use a canon character in the first place? very few fandoms don't already have paternal/maternal/parental relationships to play around with, ESPECIALLY if the author has already made it an au!! i'm not going to pretend a big reason i don't seek out kid fic isn't because they're almost always modern aus, which i already don't like. maybe this one is more petty, but i think kid characters deserve more time and attention put into them as characters, and tbh i've never once seen it done with an oc kid.

Fifth: if it's about adoption, i only EVER see babies (esp in modern aus). the implication that kids aren't adoptable past a certain age is horrendously damaging and i'm so uncomfortable with it that this is another reason i don't seek these stories out.

if it ISN'T adoption, then it's either a) cis mpreg, which is so incredibly transphobic and weirdly fetishising and blehhhhh, or b) transmasculine mpreg which i've. literally never seen written by a trans person so like... aight.

Sixth: the parents are out of character. i've talked a little about woobification before, about the hyperfeminising of one half of the ship and the hypermasculating of the other to fit the mother/father binary that is also inherently transphobic. the characters are sort of just replaced with an honestly hurtful binary rooted in systematic misogyny at the complete sacrifice of their entire personality, and it’s honestly exhausting as both a trans person and a romantically queer person.

before getting into prequel star wars stuff, specifically with mando ships, i don't think i even once read a kid fic where the parents felt plausible and in character, especially if it’s put into a modern au, and i've been reading fanfiction for a decade.

Seventh: i really don't know how to word this part without airing out my own trauma, but back to the trivialising bit, the way authors tend to write this honeymoon-phase type of parenting makes me feel really gross? maybe that's petty or very specifically personal, but the way kids are only in scenes to prop the parents' storyline hits a little too close to home. i'm the third child and the middle child, and that so many "takes" on parenting implicitly hold up the notion of kids only being worth mentioning/caring about/developing is when it's important or relevant to the parents. i dunno, kids deserve better than that.

Eighth: okay finally bringing this back to star wars. i blacklist any parenting anything from any ships from the Original Trilogy. for the prequels, I exclusively read adoption-based stuff, partly because I don't really have any cishet ships i read specifically about, but also because that means the rest is mpreg.

now, i've been positively spoiled by Mando and/or Jedi ships and their culturally important adoption. like i get to read stuff where the parents feel in character? and aren't one dimensional binary caricatures? and the kids are treated as characters and not plot props? AND they're usually older than ten?? to be fair, there are ships i still don't read kid fic for, CodyWan for example, for many reasons i actually haven't covered here, and Boba and Anakin are given the most justice as adopted kids (that i've seen; fingers crossed for more ahsoka and twins content) so there's a massive disparity in representation (which is a star wars-wide issue) but this is also the first time i've even wanted to write child characters.

your bit about characters being happy and having fulfilling lifelong relationships without kids is so incredibly important to me, because it feels exactly the same as an ace person constantly being told i'm missing out. so i'm also wary of fixits centered around parenting, or even "adopting the clones" themes because it's. there's so many more facets to family than parent and child, and i dunno. this is the second time i've written all this and i haven't slept yet so i don't even know if I'm making sense anymore so just basically

i feel you, anon. i'm exhausted by having to blacklist or exclude so many tags just to find content that doesn't make me uncomfortable, and i'm so so so happy to be in the prequels corner of the fandom, because i'm also seeing this problem improving as i watch it. so i have hope, but right now, keep kid fic as far away from me as possible.

(you are correct, the luke and rey dynamic was bullshit and has set us back a lot, though maybe not as much as the fandom's frankly horrifying reaction to kylo ren and blaming all his faults on leia, but that's another topic entirely)

i'll also add that i'm fucking terrible with kids, and reading how they're treated by authors upsets me greatly

[serenagaywaterford]

1) Okay, I'm late (bc rl sucks), but I'm back and I'll gradually address everything. "Also do not feel any pressure to respond to my multiple essays! I understand completely!"The same goes to you, bc I feel like I'm bothering you too much. That being said, I truly enjoy talking to you. Not only you offer fresh/perceptive insights into the characters' minds (which made me a. reconsider scenes and motives, b. wanna rewatch S1 --some scenes you're commenting on are SO fuzzy in my head-- mind you,

2) 2) I’m already rereading the book), but you also provide such hilarious, sarcastic lines (some of them are absolute killers).

3) personalities” I know you have an inkling of who’s who. :D But damn, that ‘lesbianing’ bit had me giggling. Kudos, fellow anon. Since we’re on the subject, I have another question about your fic (if you don’t mind): is it post s2 or s1/s2 canon divergent? b) “Add horrid fangirls to that and it’s a big ass no lol.” Ugh. Fandom smh manages to sour my opinion of characters/ships/series I personally like. Especially when fans start pestering the creators to cater to their whims or harass actors

4) or start ship wars. Double ugh. c) “So, that’s the Mass Effect connection!” Two more similarities: i. Mass Effect’s Miranda Lawson got a lot of fandom hate back then (even though she was a famous character), just like Serena. ii. She has a back-and-forth, bickering (hateful but not THAT complex) relationship with another female character. d) “I have seen Westworld! Well, okay, just the first season. I got too tired/confused to get past the 2nd season premiere.” Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have

5) assumed. Believe me when I say it’s a good thing you stopped watching when you did. The overall quality of the series remained pretty much the same (e.g. acting, cinematography, direction), but, oh boy, some new plot twists (which I usually like) are SO OVER THE TOP in order to impress (?) the audience. It’s reached a point where some characters are unrecognizable, bc they’re servants to the plot. Maeve has a lot bigger arc in S2 and Newton is thriving (imo, S2!Maeve >> S1!Maeve), but so is

6) Strahovski/Serena. :D e) “don’t go around bitching at people who say shitty things or stuff I don’t agree with, or blocking anybody who doesn’t like her."Ah, another thing we have in common. There were times I’ve been blocked by fandom people (with beautiful edits) that I NEVER interacted with (except for maybe reblogging from each other). That’s not me complaining. Like I said, each to their own.I just find this phenomenon funny at times. Story time. Once, an out of nowhere anon (whose msg I

7) didn’t publish, bc drama is SO not my thing) said they’d block me, bc of an uploaded gifset for a canon pairing (which wasn’t to their taste apparently) that was tagged as #[series]edit (although the ship!portmanteau was right there, too, so that people could easily block it). I remember being like: "Okay. Good for you, anon!” LOL. f) “I dunno if you see spoilers but there’s one about them.) She needs therapy so much more than a cutesy feelgood storyline.” I did NOT actually, but feel free to8) enlighten me.

——–

I am sort of back! (RL does get in the way of incredibly lengthy essays about fictional TV shows!) NO APOLOGIES NECESSARY!! I am just so happy I get to read all these excellent thoughts, analyses, and feelings you have! (and that we clearly share lol, including the sheer amusement of your writing!). I really want to write more at the mo but my hands are doing that weird old lady thing where you can see the veins popping out and it makes me v uncomfortable to look at. Especially since I have little baby hands. I hate it.

Ok, I’m now kneeling on the floor and the computer is on the kitchen island. This is better. I cannot see the top of my hands. 

SO. Where was I? OW. my kneeeessss. This is a bad idea.

I’m so lost. Fic question. right. It’s post-S2. Like… quite post-S2. I didn’t even deal with HOW or WHY June is back in the Waterford’s house tbh cos I can’t be bothered to sort that out. (Thanks, show.) So, it just assumes that for some reason, she’s back. Which, if the BTS pics/video is to be believed, that’s the case anyway. 

Fangirls (and boys ofc) ruin so much for me. Even if I like the same thing initially. Ugh. Then sometimes they’ll annoy me so much that I end up liking the complete opposite of what they like. Dunno why.

No worries about Westworld! It’s a reasonable assumption! Please don’t apologise, my friend. I do agree that Thandie was very good in S1. IIRC, her character was my fav (other than Clementine lol). Yvonne S2 was just next level shit to me. Like, what you’re saying makes me wanna give S2 WW another shot but when shows get overcomplicated, they’re not much fun anymore when I’m like “BUT WHAT IS HAPPENING LOL”. 

>> “There were times I’ve been blocked by fandom people (with beautiful edits) that I NEVER interacted with (except for maybe reblogging from each other)”

EXACT SAME. It was actually in THT fandom most recently lol. Like, I reblogged one of their pretty edits once. Ever. I didn’t even say anything snarky or bitchy or rude in tags. I don’t think I added any commentary at all. Next thing I know? BLOCKED. Never interacted with them in any way whatsoever. (Typical N/J fangirl lol.) It’s the strangest behaviour and it’s that kind of thing that sours me towards sects of fangirls, and sometimes even the characters they like. Maybe that’s just petty but I think it actually just reinforces pre-existing feelings I had towards the character or pairing.) The only blogs I block are ones that are gross, RP, or spam. (RP blogs is a long history of them stealing and spamming and adding awful commentary to my posts way back in the day, so I just… block em. lol.)

>> “they’d block me, bc of an uploaded gifset for a canon pairing (which wasn’t to their taste apparently) that was tagged as #[series]edit (although the ship!portmanteau was right there, too, so that people could easily block it). I remember being like: “Okay. Good for you, anon!” LOL.”

Oh. My… WHAT. There’s a very odd sense of entitlement here that seems so peculiar to me. Like, that’s what the blacklisting feature is for? I’ve put every version of my most despised pairings, characters, etc. and it works? Very rarely does it miss on. I guess we’re just dramaphobic, mature old fandom farts. Like, “Kids, let me sit you down and tell you about this site before you could block things. Before even XKit was invented…” Not to mention every other website ever lol.

HOLY GROSS… I just got up and a centipede fell off me!! WHYYYYYY. THIS IS WHY I DON’T SIT ON THE FLOOR. (we live near the beach/woods so we get lots of bugs no matter how clean we are…) no more painful kneeling for me i guess…

OKAY. Spoilers. It’s not much but other than the June in Martha costume (which was shown in the teaser Superbowl trailer anyway by now)… there were set pics of Emily, Sylvia, Nicole, and Luke all happy and smiling. IIRC. I can’t find the post anymore. So it may not have been in character. But I dunno… it all seems… too easy? Like, I’m glad Emily is safe but omg. She’d better not be all hunky dory “I stabbed a lady and threw her down the stairs, murdered another, and ran a dude over with a stolen car, but now I’m Canada, I’m all healed!” (Not including the heart attack/crotch kicking here cos that was fair play to Emily. She deserved that.) Like, honestly, as much part of me was like YESSSS at all of those, still… that’s grievous bodily harm with intent to kill, flat out murder, and vehicular manslaughter. For Emily to do those things, you don’t do those crimes without being really broken and damaged. And… yeah. That doesn’t magically disappear when you hop over a border.

[sage-nebula]

Did the Kl//ance Stans do something particularly trashy of late or have you just Seen Too Much? I'm really feeling the latter but it wouldn't shock me at all if they blew up over some imaginary thing in the last 24 hours.

Putting this under a cut, because it is both long and negative.

It’s pretty much that I’ve seen too much, though I do feel like certain behaviors of theirs are increasing over time. Essentially:

Part of it comes down to the fact that the vast majority of them that I’ve seen treat Keith rather terribly. For the most part they treat him as a pretty trophy boyfriend to make Lance look better, either because they make him very OoC by having him wring his hands while Lance goes off into danger, or because they just make him Lance’s biggest cheerleader while Lance becomes the Black Paladin, defeats Zarkon and/or Lotor single-handed, is beloved by everyone in the universe and saves the entire galaxy all by himself. They’ll constantly go on and on about Keith’s faults and shortcomings (either actual ones that are exaggerated, or ones they’ve made up) while treating Lance as an unbeatable hero who can do no wrong. In their eyes, the only use Keith has is as Lance’s pretty boy-toy. If he isn’t that, he’s worthless to them. I don’t appreciate seeing my favorite character (much less one I relate to) treated that way.

Part of it also comes down to the fact that theirs is the ship fandom that I’ve seen behaving the most horribly to other people, whether it’s the actual creators of the show, the voice actors, or other fans (usually fans of “rival” ships). They’re the ones I’ve seen sending death threats, harassment, things of that nature. I’m sure that fans of other ships do it as well---most fandoms have some bad seeds here or there---but since the Keith/Lance shipping fandom is far and away the most powerful juggernaut ship in this fandom, their bad seeds are far more noticeable than others’. The sad fact of the matter is, while I have seen some pretty art, most of what I’ve seen from their fandom is toxic. That sort of behavior, even if it exists outside of fanworks, doesn’t really make me feel warm toward them or their ship. Not when they act like that out of supposed love or support for their ship.

Part of it also comes from the fact that the vast majority of them have been (at least in recent times) actively posting “Keith is gay omg” over and over and over again in his tag, not because there’s actual canonical evidence of this, or because they want to headcanon him as that so that they can relate to him, but solely because of their ship. Like, again, this isn’t care or concern for Keith that is making them post this, but rather, insecurity about the possibility of Keith/Allura becoming canon, and their desire to continue shipping Keith/Lance. Personally? I view Keith as asexual, with his romantic orientation TBD because he’s a teenage boy who is dealing with Far Too Much™ to really deal with romance right now. I don’t ship him with anyone seriously, and only casually ship him with Hunk. (Thanks to a really, really good fic I read, I could potentially ship him with Allura if the actual Voltron writers handle the ship as well as this fanfiction author did. We’ll see.) But even though that’s my headcanon, I really don’t care what other people headcanon for his sexuality. If they see him as gay, that’s fine. If they see him as bi, or pan, or straight, all of that’s fine, too. What bothers me is the fact that they’re reducing him down to a sexuality without any actual care or thought put to his character, solely for the sake of a.) using him as a trophy boyfriend in their ship, and b.) bashing on another ship. The fact that this is blatantly their motivation, and yet they still use that to harass and send hate to others (including, again, the actual voice actors and crew behind the show) is really repulsive to me. Again, I don’t like seeing my favorite character treated that way.

Part of it comes from how OoC 99% of the content I’ve seen is. This kind of goes back to point one, but in a slightly different way, because I often see both Keith and Lance reduced to nothing more than cutesy boyfriend stereotypes. Even if they did end up dating, I can’t see them calling each other by pet names and being super cutesy, fluffy, romantic shoujo tropes. That’s not them, that’s two people who vaguely resemble them in terms of physical appearance and have the same names. If I was going to ship Keith/Lance, I’d want to ship Keith and Lance, meaning that I’d want to see them IC. Unfortunately, fanon!Keith/Lance is nothing at all like canon!Keith/Lance, so good luck finding that. (And that’s not the Keith/Lance fandom’s fault specifically, to be honest---it happens with most juggernaut ships in most fandoms---but it’s still off-putting to me.)

Finally, going back to point two, the Keith/Lance fandom has been absolutely horrid to other ship fandoms, and in particular the Keith/Allura fandom as of late. Keith/Allura shippers are few in number as it is, yet they’ve had their tags invaded, have had nasty messages sent to them, and all sorts of other gross and toxic behavior sent their way. I can understand being upset at the idea of Keith/Allura being canon for a multitude of reasons, but especially if you’re invested in an alternate ship. I can understand, even, passionately hating Keith/Allura, even if I disagree with some of the reasons I’ve seen for feeling that way. But there is no excuse for being so nasty to other fans (just as there’s no excuse for being so nasty to the creators and voice actors of the show). Stay in your lane. Make positive content for your ship. Act like a decent person. I don’t think that’s so much to ask, and yet, looking at the fandom . . . And again, I’m sure they’re not the only ones---I’m sure that other ship fandoms in the Voltron fandom have their bad seeds as well---but since they by far have the biggest ship fandom, I’ve seen this behavior almost exclusively from them, and it’s a huge turn-off for me.

So yeah, at this point, I’m just done. I’m sure there are some lovely Keith/Lance shippers, but they need to make their voices louder, because right now the bad ones are completely drowning them out. I could even forgive all the OoC content and all that if it wasn’t for the obnoxious, awful behavior spouted toward other fans and the show’s crew, but it is what it is. I’ve gone from “well, I don’t ship it, but I also don’t mind it” to “I definitely mind it and actively hope it’s not given anything in canon” thanks to the fandom. I know it’s petty to feel that way, but that’s where I’m at right now.

That said, please, please, PLEASE no one reblog this, I’ll just delete it if it is reblogged, I don’t want any Discourse™ or drama brought my way. This is a pretty harmless opinion for a not harmless at all fandom, and I really don’t want to be dragged into anything. So please do not reblog, or I’ll just delete the post and block the reblogger. Thanks.