#this is my problematic ship and I will not be taking any criticism at this time

[sydsixxftm]

Older hypermasculine stealth transsexual man x young feminine early transition they/he

[strawberrymilkyumyum]

i think a lot of the hate that zutara gets, and non canon ships in general nowadays, is that a lot of people put atla on such a pedestal that they don't believe there's anything that can make it better.

for years now, i've seen so many people call atla the 'perfect show' and going on and on about how it's so well made and there's nothing that even comes close. while i don't disagree that it's an amazing show, it's not perfect, and i think a lot of people are afraid to admit that. it's okay for something you like to not be perfect, no piece of media is flawless, but people cling onto this idea that atla has no flaws.

the thing is, while there are so many cool and progressive things about this show, it's still 'problematic' (i hate that word.) there are racist moments, and themes, the writing has structural flaws, and there are parts that don't age well. this doesn't mean that it's not an amazing show - because it is. it's just acknowledging that there's still work to be done.

a lot of casual or nostalgic fans don't want to see atla as anything more than that amazing kids show they watched when they were younger and now look back on fondly. and that's fine, it is a great show but holding it to the highest standard doesn't help anyone. canon doesn't define a fandom, and it literally never has. critiquing the show, creating head canons and ships, and disliking the creators doesn't make the show any less amazing than it is. liking something doesn't mean you can't think critically about it, and it's fair for other fans to do so or simply want a different ship.

no one is trying to take canon away from you. we're all in this online space because we enjoy the same show. my dislike of an aspect doesn't make the show bad, it doesn't change what it was. i think once fans (of everything rn not just atla) realize that critique isn't hate, fandom will be a much less toxic space.

[oscconfessions]

a vast majority of the ships in the ii fandom are actually problematic if you take a moment to think critically (something i know you people hate doing)

first of all, everyone tends to forget that characters that originate from different seasons have a Significant age gap.. if we consider that the ii timeline is 1:1 with the real life production timeline (which is basically canon considering that in season 1 the contestants on idiotic island say that theyve been there for months, and at the beginning of s2 mephone says its ii's second anniversary, and in episode 7 trophy also mentions that they were stuck in oj's closet for months), then the contestants from different seasons have an age gap of AT LEAST 2 years (between the s1 and s2 contestants), and obviously that age gap only increases between s2 and s3 contestants, or even worse, s1 and s3 contestants.

an age gap like that would already be somewhat problematic in real life, but with the ii characters its even more accentuated: if youre shipping a s1 contestant with a s3 contestant, youre shipping a 14 year old with a 4 year old. I don't think i need to explain to you how messed up that is.

also, any mephone x contestant ships are problematic too. ignoring the agegap (which is already a huge problem), theres a huge power imbalance in that relationship. since mephone CREATED all the contestants, its not unlike the dynamic a parent and a child would have. no im not saying mephone and all the contestants are related, im just saying he obviously has power over them because he made them, and he's been in control of their ENTIRE lives (and has probably been an idol for some of them at one point, or at least someone they saw as a trustworthy or admirable figure) up until now.

on top of that, mephone is responsible for basically all the trauma that the contestants have endured. why would you ship an ABUSER with his VICTIMS.

i just know some people are going to try and disregard this by saying "oh, ive been shipping these characters since before the reveal" or "well, its not problematic because of my headcanons". first of all, lets say if you were in another fandom, and you shipped two characters, but later on they were revealed to be related or in another dynamic which would make it problematic, would you still continue shipping them? of course not. it can be dissapointing but you just have to accept that thats the canon now. also, headcanons dont just Magically fix the problematic aspects of a ship. if its "fine" within your headcanons, but its problematic in the source media, then guess what? your ship. is. problematic.

im open to people trying to change my mind, but i really dont see how you can defend something like this.

-⁉️🐟 anon (hopefully that signoff isnt taken yet and i can claim it)

.

[bucksboobs]

i was told to come ask you, and i will repeat this part, please treat this ask with kindness because i feel so dumb, i don't really understand why people are saying not liking tommy is homophobic. i'm only on tumblr, and i follow a very select few ppl, but every criticism i've seen of tommy has been bc of his past actions (which does feel like a major overreaction bc clearly the characters moved past it) the writing and acting choices, or a combo based fully on the fact that he's not who they wanted to be with buck. i just haven't seen anything that says they are hating him specifically for being a gay man, and i was wondering if i was missing something. sorry if this wasn't a good place to ask this!

So it’s never as blatant as “we hate him for being a gay man” it’s the language used. Calling him creepy, or gross, or a predator, or a groomer, or poisonous, or insisting that he’s sexually harassing Buck when he’s literally just flirting. The way they misinterpret every scene to say that Tommy doesn’t ACTUALLY have feelings for Buck and that he’s just a pervert in it for the sex. The way they gleefully imagine killing him in the most violent ways possible for the sole reason that he is dating Buck. Saying any gay man that is like Tommy sucks. It all adds up to this overwhelming feeling for myself and other gay men that we are not welcome in this space.

And the idea that we as mlm aren’t welcome is bad, but what hurts the most? The fact that we are so quickly swept aside by the people doing it as irrelevant to the conversation. “It’s just a joke, lighten up!” “It’s no different than what Taylor Kelly went through but suddenly you care because he’s a man?” There was a person in my notes just the other day telling me fandom “isn’t primarily about men” so my experiences don’t matter.

What hurts even more is the passivity that many people in the fandom seem to have towards the rising tide of ridiculous nonsense leveled at Tommy as just “fandom shipping tradition” people I used to follow and admire as Buddie shippers turned out to not fucking care about how they and their friends were harming the gay men in their fandom, when it’s based on a m/m ship. I’ve said this many different ways but the fact that gay men are only relevant when we’re fictional (and only if the fictional ones behave correctly and do nothing remotely problematic) feels a lot like fetishization… but you can’t say that because these people take that as an attack on fandom as a whole and they close ranks and accuse you of being a spoilsport.

So the homophobia is in the reckless use of language that evokes homophobic tropes, yes, but it’s also in the way its allow to fester and it’s more unacceptable to many people to call it out than it is to do it in the first place. And THAT creates a hostile environment for gay men, which is homophobia.

[ceasarslegion]

Anyway if you followed me recently because of my election results post there's a few things you should know about me:

-im a boring left-liberal who works and believes in electoral democracy and doesn't believe in the viability nor the morality of a burn-it-all-down revolution, you won't find any of that here.

-I genuinely like mark carney as a politician and worked for Rachel Notley's provincial election campaign, when I celebrate his win I'm also celebrating him as PM, not just the conservatives losing.

-im a trans man in Bible belt Alberta who grew up a third culture kid in a middle eastern dictatorship, so i do know what it's like to both be systemically oppressed and what its like to live in actual dictatorships. It's because of these life experiences that I'm a boring left-liberal who doesn't take my right to vote and criticize the government for granted and do not ascribe to burn-it-all-down revolutionary politics. I do not believe these things from an ivory tower of suburban isolationism, I believe them from personal experience.

-I work airport security so, if you're going to loop me in with cops and shout ACAB at me for that this is not the place for you

-i believe in solidarity among oppressed minority groups where we have to unite on common ground to tackle all of our systemic oppression as a single force, I do not believe in being divided among arbitrary lines of who is the most or least oppressed.

-i don't tag for content warnings. Not out of meanness, it's just logistically difficult for me to remember everything when I have my own ways of categorizing my blog.

-i enjoy many media properties that have been classified as problematic and irredeemable. I also openly think sex is cool and fun, that fanfiction is not reality, ship wars are stupid, and if it's not harming real actual people that it's not harming anyone. What consenting adults do in the bedroom or the club or the ao3 tag is their own business.

If all of this sounds Coolio to you, welcome aboard. If not, you're probably not going to have a good time here and for your own sake I suggest you step out.

[theotterpenguin]

the performative accusation that shipping zutara (and occasionally this criticism is levied at jinko/zukka) is colonialist apologism has been addressed in some excellent posts, explaining the inaccuracies and problematic implications of this logic far better than i ever could - like this post and this one and this one and this one and this one.

and i know this topic has been talked about to death, but if you could indulge my contribution for a moment, i just find it interesting how this sentiment results from the cognitive dissonance of atla fans being unable to reconcile with the idea of their favorite show's political beliefs not lining up with their own.

atla is a largely philosophical children's show that at its core deals with themes of love, redemption, and destiny vs. free-will. atla examines these themes through an anti-colonalist, anti-imperalist lens that deconstructs the idea of racial divisiveness and the idea that people of different ethnicities are inherently different. this is message is pretty explicitly stated by guru pathik:

Guru Pathik: "The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same." Aang: "Like the four nations?" Guru Pathik: "Yes. We are all one people. But we live as if divided."

and also by uncle iroh:

"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations will help you become whole."

this theme is developed across three full seasons, with the crux of this message culminating in zuko's friendships with the gaang - despite coming from different nationalities and different backgrounds, they have all had their own experiences being hurt by the fire nation and work together to take down the oppressive fire nation government. the question of destiny vs. free will is also explored through zuko's character - despite starting off as an antagonist, he develops into a symbolic representation of how the fire nation's oppression hurts its own citizens. he unlearns the fire nation's imperialist propaganda while simultaneously unlearning his father's abuse. rather than following misguided beliefs of what he thought his destiny was as the heir to the throne, instead he forges his own path.

thus, to claim that zuko can never form a deep and meaningful relationship with any of the gaang because of his nationality goes unequivocally against the themes of the show. and a major part of this is because these are fictional characters being used to analyze different theoretical questions within the show and in some cases, are used as symbolic representations of different philosophical ideas - their friendships and their character arcs serve a purpose within the text that cannot be easily transcribed onto real-life dynamics between people.

it's illogical to criticize fans who are choosing to understand atla at the level of the themes that are presented by the text - who are interested in exploring similar philosophical questions brought up by the show through the context of relationships.

if you don't like the themes of forgiveness and redemption that atla explores, your criticism should be aimed at the writing of the show itself rather than other fans. because you are giving far more thought to the "implications" of a close friendship or romantic relationship between someone from an imperalist nation and someone from an oppressed nation than the writers ever did. (and if you fall in this camp of people, i would hope you wouldn't be reblogging fanart of zuko and the gaang together while simultaneously claiming zuko could can never escape the sins of his ancestors and can never form a deep relationship based on trust and intimacy with katara or sokka or jin - because that would just be hypocritical).

and as a side note, people seem to apply this flawed logic to zutara far more than other ships solely because the show spends the most time exploring the complicated nature of fire nation imperalism in the interactions between zuko and katara in the latter half of b3. this is because they've been juxtapositioned against each other and paralleled with aang since the beginning of the show in ways that toph, sokka, and suki are not, who have mostly been used to examine different themes. there simply isn't enough time to explore these complicated themes with all the other characters, even if they theoretically exist in zuko’s dynamics with these characters, so the writers focus the most on zuko's relationships with katara and aang, and these relationships are given far more narrative weight, so have more content to criticize. but zuko and katara also canonically become friends by the end of the show. if you want to discount the existence of their friendship, claiming that it will always be tainted by the fire nation's oppression regardless of what is shown in the text, then you also have to discount zuko's friendships with aang, suki, toph, and sokka - because even if this isn't shown as a permanent barrier to their friendships in the show, it’s also not shown as a permanent barrier to his friendship with katara. if your logic is solely based on the idea that a person's identity in a relationship as a colonizer or a victim is fixed and unchanging regardless of character development, this would apply to zuko's friendships with everyone else as well.

[vroomvroomwee]

You know that controversial Hellaverse opinions post you made? I want to add something (that might be too woke):

I've disliked radioapple since the moment s1 e5 came out but I could never fully explain why it was the only Alastor ship that genuinely disgusted me UNTIL I saw this tweet yesterday. The tweet only addresses a certain radioapple week not the ship itself but it sums up why the dynamic between fanon Lucifer and Alastor always gave me the ick. Most of the time Alastor is depicted as this feral, animalistic creature who FINALLY learns what love is by UWU sweet angel Lucifer

Anyways, here's the tweet I saw, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it: https://x.com/wispiicoatl/status/1929576173756928212?t=TJgB9jll-ZdbjOOLRgY1Uw&s=19

Oh my fucking god! The way I've been hating on radioapple for so long and I didn't even think of this! The ship keeps getting more problematic the more time passes.

Absolutely no hate to radioapple artists and I don't condone harassment in the slightest! Everyone is allowed to ship what they want. But, the fact of the matter is radioapple has some really really toxic fans. I've talked about how Lucifer keeps getting infantlised, despite being the most powerful being in hell. I've talked about Alastor's aceness getting erased in this ship more than any other ship with him I've seen. I've talked about the blatant misogyny fans hurl at Lilith. And I've talked about how so so so so so many people ship radioapple just because it's two conventionally attractive men and they don't actually care about chemistry or compatibility. The mlm fetishisation is astounding.

But, I'm honestly ashamed to say this is the first time I'm seeing radioapple from this perspective and it's horrible how true it is. So so so many fics and fanart depict Alastor as this scary huge evil violent monster, while Lucifer is this short, slim gentle angel figure. Especially during doecifer week. Sure, it's interesting, but if we take a more critical look it's... really not okay. Especially since there's such a history of black and poc characters being depicted as brutish and crude and animalistic.

It could be argued that "but Alastor IS animal based, he's a deer!" Yeah, a male deer. Lucifer is also male. He is also strong. He is violent and not the defenseless "doe" people keep depicting him as. Why not make Lucifer a stag too? Why not draw both Alastor and Lucifer as does? Why not draw Alastor as a parrot or goat which Lucifer takes after? And honestly, Alastor isn't even that violent compared to most of the other characters in hazbin. The only times we've seen him lash out is when others prompt him (the scene with husk is still abuse I'm not disputing that). But, he still acts like a gentleman, poised and collected. And let's not forget the fact that he's ace, and the entire "consumed with lust to a feral degree" wouldn't really work for him. And honestly even if he wasn't ace, regular heat/rut doesn't excuse the fact that people always use that trope for Alastor and never for Lucifer. As though Alastor is a rabid, wild beast that Lucifer somehow tames or is able to "endure". So, taking all these into account we have: aphobia/ace erasure, mlm fetishisation, heteronormativity, misogyny and racism all put into a nice package that we really really need to adress.

Thank you so much for this ask! This needs to be talked about more because it isn't really a "small number of people problem", but more of a collective mindset the fandom has practically ingrained at this point

[the-invisibility-bloke]

can you spare tumblr and save your incest brother fics for ao3 or something? why all of you doing incest suddenly it’s super cringe and on top of that it was SA

Spare Tumblr? Tumblr, the freakshow site? Have you seen some of the shit on here, ​m​y friend? Nah, but I will spare my followers the rest of my rambling.

I tagged my post saxloch and saxon x lochlan. I warned for nsfw and incest so anyone who had those tags/keywords blocked wouldn’t see it. I very deliberately did not include any broader TWL tags, nor did i tag the characters’ names as an extra measure of sensitivity, and my bio explains I am pro ship. I did my job. Your job is to curate your online experience. Tumblr makes it very easy to block tags and keywords you don’t want to see, and tons of folks have been posting about these bros for months, I'm no pioneer, so I really wonder how someone could run across something they hate unless they’re trolling those tags or failed to use the tools available.

“All of you doing incest suddenly” uh the Bible did it first, so take it up with that god. Or at least take it up with Mike White, the queer man who made it canon. Second of all, incest ships have been around as long as I’ve been in fandom (20+ yrs) and beyond I’m sure. Back then it was Starcest. Wincest popularized it, then there was GoT, which didn’t bother anyone because it was het and I guess because there were dragons or something. Feature films have romanticized incest. Nothing sudden about it, either way. As for its increase in popularity, that’s partly because fandom as a whole has increased in popularity, and more pointedly, because people are realizing (this just in!) fiction is not reality and it’s okay and normal and even healthy to explore taboo/toxic/problematic things in a fictional context because it isn’t real. People are tired of policing and censoring their imaginations and fantasies. Our thoughts have no moral standing. Real-world choices are all that matter. Actions should be regulated; imagination and art should not.

“Super cringe” is probably the most subjective description in the world. Mpreg is cringe to me, I find violence and noncon nauseating. You know what I do? Shut up, keep scrolling, and let people enjoy what they enjoy. We’re all just playing with dolls here.

As for the SA, I find it interesting you call that out but not the grooming that led to it? You are welcome to interpret what happened as SA, but given the deliberate ambiguity of the narrative, to claim it was definitively one thing or another reveals a lack of critical thought. Mike White is known for (and proud of) creating subversive queer sexual content. He is a brilliant storyteller who developed a storyline intended to confuse, distort, spark debate, and challenge our perceptions of sexuality, abuse, and the human psyche. This storyline hinges on its ambiguity. Each line of dialogue, each editing choice, each frame was meant to leave us wondering. As an audience, we were intentionally not given adequate information to make irrefutable claims about what happened. You cannot analyze this story in black and white, and in trying to do so, you've misread the entire creative intent. We have no idea what transpired between the kiss and the infamous handjob, nor do we know what happened after. That was a total of maybe, what, 60 seconds of severely intoxicated flashback content? And the incredible vagueness of the brothers' final conversation afterwards? That was all intentional, man. We were intentionally deprived of further clarifying footage in order for the narrative to uphold ambiguity. For all we know, they could've engaged in other sexual activity before and after the handjob heard 'round the world. The point is we don't know, so no one can definitively claim it was or wasn't SA.

But none of that matters because it's fiction, and ships can be as fucked as we like. :)

Please be sure to block me because I'm not done "doing incest," thanks!

[blitzwhore]

I just saw Blitzø get called Stolas stockholm victim I can't with this fandom anymore😭

😂 As outrageously incorrect and stupid as that take is, I'm going to go on a tangent here. I hope you don't mind.

I think every fandom has annoying people with awfully terrible takes in it. People with zero media literacy. People who hatewatch. People who think they're entitled to the exact show they would've wanted, which has nothing to do with the actual, existing show.

This is especially true for queer media, and especially true for queer cartoons. (Hi, yes. I was active in the Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Voltron, and She-Ra fandoms when those shows were airing, respectively. I've seen some stuff). Some people just can't handle queer cartoons, period. If the queer characters/ships are soft and wholesome, they're infantilising and boring, and if they're complex and nuanced and actually have conflict, they're abusive and problematic. You'll hear the same recycled arguments over and over again. Like, the shit some people are saying about Blitz and Stolas after The Full Moon? Is literally almost word-for-word what they said about Catra and Adora post-season 3 of She-Ra (and even at the end of the show).

Here's the thing, though! Those people and their bad takes are not what I want to think about what I think about a fandom. Those aren't the people I want to call the fans. They don't deserve that title. Not when so many other people are out there dedicating their time to making gifs and art and meta posts, and writing fic, and commenting/reblogging to show support, and sliding into people's DMs to scream and squee together about a thing they love.

At the end of the day, "fandom" is just a lot of people each doing their own thing. Which people you engage with and allow to stay within your line of sight will determine your fandom experience. Fandom can be a huge, convoluted, online space full of people who are constantly arguing with one another and whose takes make you unfathomably angry... Or it can be you and your 5 friends and mutuals who scream gleefully at one another in 2-note posts. You can't control what others post online, but you can control your engagement with it.

How? Well, here's what I personally do to avoid getting upset by people's stupid opinions online:

Filter 'critical' and 'anti' tags (eg. #anti stolitz #anti vivziepop #Helluva Boss critical #HB critical #vivziepop critical). Many people actually do tag their critical posts because they know it's the respectful thing to do!

If I come across a post that has one or more of those tags, obviously, I don't click through to see it under any circumstances.

If I stumble across a stranger's untagged post with hate/criticism that upsets me: I stop reading and BLOCK. Immediately. I don't look back. I don't finish reading. I don't engage. I just block block block. I <3 the block button, seriously.

If I feel my mind reeling from a bad take I just came across: I take a step back, close my phone, breathe, remember life is beautiful sometimes. Go back and watch an episode I really like. Clean my living space a little. Vent about it to a friend (but only if I really need to, because if not, I'd rather not dwell on it).

If I'm starting to feel the need to reply to someone's bad take (directly or via my own post), I instead make the decision to channel that energy into making fandom posts out of love. (I don't do this just with fandom. If I see something transphobic online, I usually react by reblogging a bunch of trans art or trans positivity posts on my main, for example). I like to think of it as putting some positivity out into the world to compensate for the negativity I just saw. So, for example, if I see someone shitting on my blorbo, I may make a silly post just saying how much I love blorbo. Or I'll make (or draft) a post about how interesting I find some of blorbo's actions. Or reblog another person's positive/interesting post about blorbo.

And finally, I stay the hell away from Twitter. Or at least, if I go on Twitter, I try my best to avoid any tweet that has text in it instead of just art. Even the people who have good opinions spend too much time arguing with the people who have bad opinions on there. I don't want to see people's bad takes! No, not even while reading founded and perfectly articulated criticism of those bad takes! So I just limit my time on Twitter. And again, if someone is putting bad takes on my TL (even if it is to counter them), I unfollow and block as needed.

All this to say, yes, it really fucking sucks to read the opinions of people who don't understand and who hate the characters and ships and worlds you love. Gosh it's the worst. But you can curate your fandom experience. You can focus on the things you can control. You have the power to decide if your fandom experience is draining or fun!

And because I don't know how to finish this, here, have a Stolitz kiss to heal you:

We will keep winning and there's nothing the haters can do about it. 😌

[aurum-stultus]

This is what I meant by my art getting worse because I used to be an anatomy fucking PRODIGY and now my anatomy looks like someone tried to put an adult rig on a child in Sims 4. This is probably a good example of the worst thing I've drawn in a while but something is urging me to post them anyway.

I'm trying to post generally what makes me happy, I guess. I drew these months ago but never uploaded them to Tumblr bc I felt like Tumblr would eviscerate me for pairing Sevika with a man, let alone Silco. I don't pair them in the main universe. This is the canon AU's Silco and Sevika. I'm also not against lesbian Sevika headcanons. I really don't hate any ships unless they're problematic.

I definitely don't view them as straight, the relationship would just be straight passing. I don't know specifically how to put into words what that means, I'm aro so I don't have many other labels besides that and every time I look for labels to describe them, there's another label out there that describes it better or the label I thought was good ended up having the wrong definition or the label is too descriptive or it's not descriptive enough.

Regardless I just assumed from the Arcane fandom that people will just think I'm trying to purposefully erase a common LGBTQ+ headcanon since this fandom lost its critical thinking skills after season 2. I especially hate "She's OBVIOUSLY a lesbian" comments bc that's not being pro-LGBTQ+, that's actually just re-enforcing gender norms by saying "masc woman = obviously a lesbian."

I headcanon Sevika as pan and then Silco is still a mystery since its impossible for me to find a label for him. Just an unlabeled man in love with his butch wife y'all Idk.

Sometimes I think Sevika's care for Silco in the main canon gets a little suspicious. She's loyal, jumping in front of bombs for Silco, killing Finn instead of Silco even though it's obvious Silco is beginning to waver the same way Vander did, hating Jinx but caring about Silco enough to give him parenting advice (and he listens to her ??), hating Jinx but taking her in and finally accepting her only after Silco dies, and then still mourning Silco's death over half a year after it happen and after finding out he was going to do the same thing Vander did ? That's a lot for your boss whose goals and loyalty have been wavering right in front of you whose only ever treated you like garbage despite your loyalty. Almost like something there isn't entirely for Zaun.

But main universe Silco could not and probably would not ever recipricate that.

AU Silco actually has his shit together, though.

P.S. I wanted to give AU Sevika dreadlocks like she had in her S2 concept art but since I already wasn't proud of this, I struggled to make them look right on a drawing that already looked wrong. Once I get the motivation or energy to draw again I'm still going to try to give her dreads, I went with her default hair from S1 because it's the only thing I'd already drawn prior at the time.

[to-be-a-dreamer]

you sound like a right winger. cancel culture?

This is legitimately the funniest insult I’ve ever received thank you Anon. Like, you can’t think of any better way to discredit my post about how I wish people would just let a character be Not Racist and acknowledge that sometimes people can learn they were wrong and become better people so you call me (a queer woman of color who is college-educated and an immigrant, btw, just so we’re all on the same page) a “right winger” for using easily-recognizable terminology to ensure everyone reading understands what I think is the core issue. Incredible, insane, I wish you weren’t a coward who posted anonymously so I could scroll through your blog because I’m sure you’ve got jokes.

But anyways, since we’re all here I’ll take the opportunity to explain what I mean and my thoughts on cancel culture.

Original post that Anon is talking about for reference

People on the internet are obsessed with this idea of perfection. They think that a person has to do the right thing, always, every time. They think that a person who does or has ever done something shitty is just a shitty person who doesn’t deserve a platform. And they think that a person who was a shitty person in the past should always be viewed in that way. They can never accept that someone could have toxic or harmful views, realize they were wrong, and then become a better person, especially if they went through that journey offline or a long time ago. They don’t care if the person they see before them is clearly an open-minded, good person who doesn’t possess those views anymore. In their eyes, that person is still that same bigoted asshole from three, five, ten, twenty years ago and they have to acknowledge that past and be publicly shamed for it every single day in order to be “forgiven”. (They will never truly forgive)

And it’s just. I don’t understand it because what is the point of activism and education if we’re not going to allow people to learn what we’re trying to teach? How is our movement supposed to grow if we don’t accept the people who have been touched and reformed by it? How does any of this get better if we don’t allow people to be better?

Here’s my biggest problem with “cancel culture” (the mass ostracism and shaming of someone who has behaved or spoken in a socially unacceptable way). I think that this kind of mindset has led to an entire generation of internet users who are terrified of ever doing “the wrong thing” on the internet. We’re so afraid of making mistakes because we know how hard it is to come back from that and how unforgivable the rest of the internet is. And it’s turned us into overly defensive people who struggle to admit when we’ve done something wrong. We’re terrified to consider the possibility that we’re the "bad guy" in any situation because we've convinced ourselves that doing something shitty makes you a shitty person. We think our individual actions are lifetime sentences. I've seen so many people on the internet make small mistakes but double down and take things way too far when they're called out for it because they don't want to see themselves as a person who does problematic things. Because we've convinced ourselves that making a mistake makes you a bad person on a fundamental level. We've tied the amount of criticism we receive to our self-worth.

I also notice that it prevents people who actually need to learn and be better from realizing that. Because the amount of hate someone receives is so disproportionate to any mistake they actually made, it's so easy for a person to think "okay there's no way I deserve to be harassed this much, this is probably just the internet overreacting again, I haven't done anything wrong" and instead of learning the small lesson they needed to learn they just brush off the hate and dismiss it as cancel culture.

And so to bring this back to 9-1-1, I do think that some of the hate towards Tommy is due to shipping wars, but on a deeper level I think people just can't handle the truth that Tommy is actually a good person now. Maybe it stems from people hating the idea that someone who made their own lives miserable could learn and grow and become a better person later in life like Tommy did. Maybe people have some unresolved trauma about bigots that they're projecting onto these characters. Maybe they want to feel morally superior and just don't like the idea that someone who was shitty in the past could go on to have the same views and ideals as them. It's hard to tell for sure and it probably varies from person to person but I think the idea that a person has to be defined by their past is a big part of it on all levels.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on cancel culture as a whole and why I think the current generation of internet users has a really tough time taking accountability and why we all have rejection sensitivity (not RSD, the actual real medical condition, just a general sensitivity to being told you're in the wrong). We don't like to confront our own flaws because, according to the internet, those flaws make you a terrible person always and forever and you will never be able to overcome them or move past them. I hope this all makes sense I've been thinking about this a lot since 2020 but I've never tried to explain it in words. I don't think there's anything wrong with holding people accountable for past actions, I think there's something wrong with the disproportionate hate those people receive and the amount of shaming and shunning they have to go through before they're allowed to move on with their lives.

[zuzuelectricbugaloo]

I don’t get why some fans of Yugo get mad or annoyed at him for disliking his own Sans. He’s been dealing with nonstop fans for years who only focus on the memes surrounding Epic!Sans. Yugo has even expressed regret over making his Sans just a walking meme in the past, and of course, that would take a toll on his mental state and how he feels about the character. When people say he should stop talking about it, they don’t seem to understand that others constantly bring it up to him. It’s his character, and he has every right to vent about it however he wants.

You’re absolutely right, Epic is Yugo’s character, and he has every right to do as he pleases in how he uses said character and feels about it. I don’t condone harassment, and am firmly against attacking a creator simply because you passionately dislike or like a character of theirs.

One of my qualms with Yugo about Epic is how they blamed all of their mistakes and “cringe” of Epictale as a whole and projected it onto Epic and claimed the character’s death and celebration of his end meant that Yugo was absolved of any discomforting behaviors or jokes.

When he still continues to do so, even with characters from Epictale he likes.

Silly and goofy memes, might not be everyone’s preferred taste but there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Memes are supposed to be silly and fun.

But then Yugo having to be convinced by their fans not to do NSFW commissions involving minors?

No no sorry, that’s not fair. Of course anyone who is broke would be desperate, and they’re just fictional characters, right? Whats the harm? No way does fiction impact reality in anyway.

Doesn’t that reasoning sound familiar?

And anyway, Yugo rejected it in the end. Of course that should be ignored then and any criticism of it is unwarranted.

My mistake. It’s still not fair. At least with Epic dead and gone, Epictale is free from anymore cringe and problematic anime tropes!

Again, I don't mean this as an attack on you or Yugo. It's a criticism, and one where my overall point is that my biggest gripe with Yugo isn't that I love his character and he doesn't. It's that Yugo seemed to absolve himself of all his shortcomings by projecting them onto Epic and therefore is free from error or criticism now.

Disliking that Red/Lara and Mettaton are in love with Papyrus who is seventeen makes you a hater. SEVENTEEN. They are literally centuries of years old, even in the remake. I know in reality, the age of consent varies per state in the USA and especially varies depending on country, with minors able to be married in some with their parents or guardians' consent, but still. It's uncomfortable. It's unnecessary. Papyrus could be shipped with Lara and Mettaton as an adult, as he is in Undertale by the fandom and in other AUs. But now with the context that Lara and Mettaton knew Papyrus since he was a child, it's disconcerting to imagine romance with any of them. Look, it's understandable for a creator to feel a certain way about their work and how it's interpreted. Especially in what they choose to do with their creations, in revamping or remaking things, and how they feel about it and choose to get rid of some things entirely.

For the most part, I enjoy Epictale and have read his brief Neutral!Frisk storyline. Yugo is a talented artist, and I adore Epictale and the characters and the great potential they all have and what can be expanded on it.

The old Epictale bore the same errs as many AUs within the UTMV fandom in its early years. Fantastic AUs with amazing concepts often had something problematic about them and this was sadly normalized. From the past Cream comics portraying SA as romantic or silly, to PJ's Daycare and the like also joking about minors/adults, SA and r*pe, SH, etc. Or it could be problematic with Frans or Fontcest, either in canon within the AU or played around with as concept. Epictale wasn't worst of them, nor was it the outlier in one of its characters joking about or portraying these problematic things.

Here's a big one: Underlust. It's not a masterpiece, and like many AUs, has so much potential. Unfortunately, there's so much that detracted from it that a remake or dismissal of most of its canon is needed if you want to find any enjoyment from it at all.

Same thing with the past Cream comics. At that point, the blog itself caused too much for its creators and they deleted it and made it non-canon entirely. I don't know what happened to the UL creator, but I assume something similar happened.

Sorry, back to Lust. I was not active in the fandom in its early years, I only witnessed glimpses of it and when I wanted to get into something, like Cream, it upset me too much and I left the fandom. In particular with Underlust, it makes me so sad because I was introduced to him through fanon first, where someone had an SA experience and used Lust as an expression of what it was like to go through something like that in his line of work. And it felt cathartic. Comforting. A character who could understand how I felt, who was was unconventional in their self-expression and yet happy and at peace with who they are, would be able to heal and find happiness regardless of what happened to them. But then I found the parts of his canon with Fontcest. And it turned out Lust had nothing like his fanon and it hurt. I could no longer enjoy the AU and ignored it entirely from then on. But Lust, today, is still so dear to me because of what he could be.

Yugo wants to move on from the past and be a better person. I think that's a noble endeavor. Anyone can be a better person and change. That doesn't make it easy, and it certainly doesn't mean that everyone will try.

And for the most part, Yugo seemed to make progress. Epictale in and out of its comics doesn't make any more jokes about sexual harassment as far as I'm aware. There are no harmful slurs used in a joking manner. For the most part, it seems Yugo made good on their word and is trying to move on from his past mistakes. Many creators of UTMV's past seem to do something similar, and I wish them all peace and commend them for trying to move on and be better. However, when Yugo crucifies Epic as the source of all his problems, and uses him as the symbol for burying the past and amending his mistakes, only to then make similar ones (far less severe than the ones he used to do, admittedly, but still concerning nonetheless) instead of using Epic's potential to make him be as Epic as his namesake, it doesn't piss me off, at Yugo or his fans. Fans won't always focus on what a creator originally wanted them to focus on. That's simply the nature of fandom. And memes are one of the most popular enjoyments of fans and is the most unifying act among them. But there would also be fans who love things besides the memes, who will work to enjoy and create what they can gleam from canon and expand on it, in art or fiction, with other characters in the story. So long as fans don't attack the creator, harass them, insult or demand they do more with their preferred character(s), I don't see anything wrong with this. It sounds like a regular community to me. No. It just makes me sad. But as you pointed out, it's Yugo's character and his right to do as he pleases. So, respectfully, Yugo wishes to have nothing to do with Epic anymore; I am all too happy to love him along with the fandom. Because to truly move on from the past, you need to accept accountability. I know Epic used to have problematic characteristics, be it in the noncanon comics or art, but it was a part of his character. I acknowledge that. And I want to move on. Remove the parts of the past that are bad, and instead of ignoring it, use it as a reference of what not to do, as a reference to be better and do better. I want to build on his potential and love him. Because Epic makes me happy, and I know he makes others happy too. Why not heal and work together to create something everyone can enjoy?

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #8412:

Read this somewhere and I think it's worth repeating here. I could have ghostwritten it:

Someone made a comment on a subreddit about how a lot of people, especially young people, are more online than ever. And that the disconnect between having people in front of them versus across the screen makes the separate between fiction and reality harder to grasp - particularly those who were isolated during the COVID shutdown.

I think there is something to be said about the convergence between social isolation, loneliness, and the sudden dramatic increase in people being swept up by these weird social movements. Especially if the person is young and is under the thumb of potentially radical parents - and/or is just highly impressionable or gullible regardless of age. Since we also saw a huge boom in other radical ways of thinking like Qanon and a push to place more emphasis on Evangelical ideals in the broader society over the same period.

The latter could correlate to why so many anti talking points are steeped in purity culture and oddly anti-LGBTQIA+ language. I say oddly because it often comes from people who consider themselves LGBTQIA+ and/or allies, and yet the words coming from their mouth would genuinely fit the nonsense my older Evangelical relatives peddle when they try to claim being queer is a sin. Like I'll hear that 'people are homophobic for not supporting a queer ship' in one breath, and then in the next breath that same person will be saying that 'being gay is inherently sexual and that being outwardly sexual is problematic'.

It just smacks of a movement where the majority don't really have a firm grasp on why they're a part of it. They just see and hear that it's the moral stance to take and then run away with it sight unseen. No time to think about the broader implications. All they hear is that everyone who opposes them is the worst kind of person imaginable and that's all they need to dump critical thinking out the window. Which is frustrating because I get having squicks. I get having things that you aren't okay with in fiction and that you find morally reprehensible. But these people never seem to understand that when you have those squicks you need to avoid the content that makes you uncomfortable and not give it any attention. Instead I've seen way too many post genuinely triggering content to their young audiences for the sake of moral grandstanding. Completely bypassing their own logic of not wanting that shit to be spread or seen by those who are too young and impressionable to see it. Make it make sense.

[tlonista]

I wish the conversation over Problematic Relationships In Fiction weren't so heavily framed around individual stories. Because I don't care about some random fucked-up novel, but I do feel like current romance media trends toward a recommendation-fueled monoculture with some frustratingly rigid gender norms, and a lot of "does fiction affect reality" discourse offers no way of talking about it.

Every time I dip my toe outside AO3 (Wattpad, Kindle Unlimited, Reddit, my BookTok experience is limited but that's the vibe I get there) I'm dismayed by how hard it is to find M/F romance that's not implicitly or explicitly about eroticized male-dominated power imbalance. Not just "he's a serial unaliver" dark romance, but the huge focus on hypermasculine heroes taking care of heroines and possessive alpha-male fated mates and nigh-inescapable trends like "good girl" praise-kink stuff.

Obviously this was always common in romance publishing, but a) the internet was supposed to support niches and b) I find significantly more diversity on AO3, so I think it can. It's just that no other platform or online community seems structured to do it. Instead a combination of recommendation feeds, word-of-mouth virality, and fast-fashion self-publishing surfaces infinite variations on a handful of the most broadly appealing industry blockbusters and buries everything else.

So instead of offering an alternative to old monolithic print publishing, online platforms seem even better at elevating male-domination kinks from "a fairly popular dynamic" to an inescapable default of What Romance Is. Even if you're fully aware it's a sexual fantasy, it gets downright hard to articulate desire in any other way, especially if you don't have a fully-formed picture of what you like. Unless you think sexuality simply isn't a "real" component of people's lives, I think this is a reasonable example of fiction in aggregate affecting reality in a negative way.

(It's also obviously not unique to romance lit. I just can't speak to stuff like video porn firsthand, and I don't see a ton of pushback on people criticizing the gender dynamics of Pornhub.)

But if the only available question is "is X book corrupting impressionable young women," then... no, that's silly. If anything, the aggregate system makes individual books feel bad in ways the authors probably didn't intend. Like, in Popular Kink Land, "your feminism says no but your body says yes" tropes are appealing for some women working through a particular kind of purity culture. In Inescapable Dynamic Land they take on this Gorean overtone where all women secretly want a man to take charge of them. The former is not my thing but fine; the latter feels like some kind of weird accidental gaslighting.

To the extent AO3 escapes this, I think it's for four reasons.

A focus on tags and chronological sorting, which helps surface non-popular stuff and gives readers more control

It's strictly non-commercial so there's less incentive to write for the broadest audience or fill the site with boilerplate sludge

It doesn't segregate categories like "romance for men", so there's less gerrymandering of cross-gender niches like femdom

The fourth reason, which is most interesting to me, is that fanfic ships (specifically not X-reader ships) create easily discoverable literary microgenres drawn from a huge range of media outside the tropey echo chamber of Romancelandia Proper.

In my experience it takes hours of scouring Reddit and Goodreads to find non-normative original romance, but one AO3 search and a few clicks to get from "I played Resident Evil and liked Ada and Leon's vibe" to a substantial microgenre about a badass woman making a cute guy stutter, or "I loved Kaz and Inej in Six of Crows" to a bunch of takes on a not-conventionally-masculine hero and a powerful but vulnerable heroine pining for each other. Since a decent number of fanfic authors also write non-fanfic, there's even a chance you'll find somebody who does original characters with a sensibility you like. I have no idea how you'd bring this system outside shipfic, but I'd love to see someone try.

[chaifootsteps]

Based on the logic of writing problematic thing = wanting to do the thing in real life, then the guy who wrote the play “Equus” and every actor that’s played Alan in that play wants to literally fuck horses.

Based on that logic every horror film director or writer is actually a serial killer or mass murderer or has tortured people in a dark basement.

Based on that logic if you’ve ever enjoyed or written or engaged with any sort of story, art, or media that delves into darker topics it must mean that you secretly long to do those things.

I need these people to be fucking for real for one second.

These are literally the most braindead takes I’ve ever seen, and if that’s really what they think, then why the fuck haven’t they openly accused Viv of being a rape apologist? She wrote a bunch of scenes where Angel gets raped right??? She even hired someone she knows ships ValAngel and has a rape fetish! So why haven’t they accused viv of being a rape apologist??? Why haven’t they accused her of being a zoophile for writing Stolas with a cloaca or Pentious with a hemipenis or giving Blitz a weird horse fetish???

Because accusing her of ANY of those things would be literally ridiculous, and is so so far from the truth and such a heinous thing to accuse anyone of. And they KNOW that. They are ONLY accusing you because they want to make you look bad.

It’s not about standing up for victims, its not about concern for real people or animals, it’s about creating a weird culture of moral superiority and purity and trying *desperately* to find a justification, ANY justification, for hating you and anyone who talks about how unprofessional and toxic Spindlehorse is. It’s so disgustingly hypocritical that I could almost laugh.

I’m so sorry, I can’t believe you have to deal with all of this shit, Chai. You have way more patience than I ever could, and I admire and respect you so much for it.

(And for the record—just in case any Stans see this and try to misconstrue my ask—no, I’m NOT saying Viv is any of those horrible things. Im making a point. I don’t like Viv’s public behavior and the way she runs Spindlehorse. I think she’s most likely a very toxic person. But guess what, that doesn’t mean I get to accuse her of the literal worst things you can be. And no, criticizing her writing decisions around dark subject matter like sexual assault and rape, is not the same thing as actually accusing her of being an apologist. Can’t believe I have to even say that but I know do)

Under their logic, you'd think they'd be picketing productions of Equus. Instead, they're online shouting at me for drawing dicks on my adult dragon OC that's old enough to predate fire.

I love how all of them, stans and certain critics alike, ignore Pentious's hemipenes and Stolas's cloaca when talking about this. Always. Even the ones that take issue with Zoophobia and the bathtub snakes never bring this up. It's the weirdest thing to me.

[olderthannetfic]

I'm not really contributing to any of the ongoing discussions here. Just relaying a recent experience I had.

I was perusing ao3 (as you do at 1AM) and came across a fic with a promising premise. The summary read like it was centralized around one of my favorite characters, and the tags were all tags I liked, especially so with said character.

So, I got that initial reader's high, tapped the title link like "let's gooooooo," only to get a few paragraphs in and realize that this was not a "favorite character" positive fic. Very quickly, it became apparent that this author did not like this character. The narrative was written from others' POVs with a focus on said character's less endearing traits. Traits that were not all that significant in canon. It was kind of like they took a behavior, exaggerated it to the max until it consumed and rewrote the character's personality, and then had others (that, in canon, actually like the character) bash them for it. Which is kind of weird-funny to me cause, 100%, the character is controversial. There are a lot of reasons to be critical about them. I've seen fics where the basis is 'everything is canon, but the character is completely written out.' You like them, you don't, or at the very least they're tagged character bashing.

But okay. Whatever. The tags and description were misleading. The story was disappointing. It happens. I'm the one who decided to keep reading anyway because it was actually quite well written despite the characterizations making me sad. It's all good. It's the expected hazards that come with the perusing. But then, I had let my curiosity get the better of me.

I read the comments.

Four down, I found a deleted comment. I don't how bad it must have been. But the responses to it were certainly... yeah. Someone, not the author, responded with quite the vitriol. They shared the user's pseud 'in case they deleted their comment,' said they went through the user's bookmarks, aired out the "problematic" pairings the user had read, said 'of course they like this character, they already have the leanings,' and then concluded by calling them an incest loving pedophile.

The author also responded with a remark along the lines of, "while I appreciate you taking the time to read my work, I hope you never do so again as I don't want 'your sort' here." And ended it with a 😊 ❤️.

Like... I don't know what the original user said, but did it really warrant that? The problematic ships listed weren't even problematic. The only ship they could even be referring to as 'incest' among the ones listed was a ship I know is between between two people, not related, never canonically thought themselves to be so, three years apart, mostly just really good chaotic friends, that the fandom had decided blanketedly were brother and sister. Plus, the controversial character I said was one of my favorites, canonically, has only loved one person their whole life, who is the same age as them. So I don't even know what they mean by 'leanings.'

Which, subsequently, made me wonder if the original comment had even been genuinely deserving of such harsh responses. I guess it also just bothered me a lot cause, like I said above, the pseud is still there despite the deleted comment. Anyone can go and harass them if they wanted.

I don't really have a point.

It was just a lot. I'm still thinking about it a day later, and I don't really know how to feel about it all.

--

I know how to feel about it:

This author does not deserve comments.