#this isn't about a specific fandom or ship

[acourtofaudacity]

Regardless of whether or not Elain has the right anatomy to have an Ilyrian baby it doesn't negate anything. We've no idea realistically where SJM is taking the books. Having or not having children doesn't make a woman more or less valid as a woman. It doesn't negate feelings that she has for anyone.

Why is there even a discussion about this?

We're not in SJM's head so realistically we don't know exactly where she's heading with any specific ships. Any theories are just that. Theories

We all have our own ideas, theories and our own ships which is perfectly fine.

It's not fine to harass people about it and I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Whoever Azriel and Elain end up with isn't our decision it's SJM's decision and we can theorise and ship. That's what fandoms are for.

We can be perfectly capable of having opinions without turning to insults and threats and accusations. It feels like the fandom can't handle different perspectives and it gets exhausting real quick.

[exhuastedpigeon]

Hey you. Yes, you. Sit down, let's have a chat. Grab your favourite beverage and let's get into it.

You don't have to engage with things that make you mad on tumblr dot com. Social media is one of the places where you're able to curate your experience and you should do that. You can curate your experience here more than almost any other social media platform.

If you don't like a certain fandom, you can filter the tags so you don't see it as often. If there's a blog or blogs that you don't like (for literally any reason) you can block them. You don't have to justify these choices, you don't have to tell anyone about it, you can just do it. You don't have to make posts saying that ABC fandom is toxic so you don't engage with it - you can just not engage with it.

And I know this might feel strange to you, but it is perfectly acceptable to be quiet about things you dislike and go play in your sandbox with the people who you enjoy playing with. You don't have to justify why you don't like something, you can dislike something because it just isn't your vibe. And someone enjoying something you don't like isn't a moral failing on their part, it's just human. Sometimes people like different things than you - that's fine!

Fandom is way more fun if you engage with things you do enjoy instead of spending time getting mad/upset about the things you don't. Other people are going to have different interests. They're going to interpret things differently than you and that's okay! In fact, that's good. If we all though and acted the same life would be so boring.

Instead of making posts about how you dislike XYZ and people who like it are toxic, just... don't engage with the people. It's easy. The block button is right there. By engaging with the thing or people you don't like you're actually bringing more attention to it... so just... don't.

The longer you're in fandom the more you'll realize there are people who just enjoy the drama. That's how they want to engage with fandom and that's their prerogative, but if that isn't fun for you then you can simply not follow those people or even block them.

You can easily avoid fandom 'wars' and ship 'wars' by curating your experience and not engaging with the people who are involved in them. If someone said something that made you uncomfortable you can block them. If someone likes a ship you hate then you can block them or filter that ship name. Not everyone is going to like what you like, but them not liking your favourite thing isn't a personal attack on you, it's actually not about you at all.

Curate your experience. Find the people who you vibe with. Filter and block and unfollow the people or fandoms you don't vibe with. It might sound hard, but the sooner you realize that you control your destiny on this site, the better off you'll be.

[theminecraftbee]

so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

[beanghostprincess]

I mean… wlw content get overshadowed by mlm ships everyday so it is insensitive a little

Not to sound too mean but what do you expect me to do? I get that sapphic ships get overshadowed and underrated all the time in comparison to achillean ones. Believe me. I am a lesbian who is constantly pushing their sapphic ships everywhere.

But you can't expect people to suddenly stop posting about the achillean ships they enjoy just because they're more popular than YOUR favorite ships. Is it bothersome that achillean ships get more attention for the sole reason of being a male pairing while sapphic ships get ignored or not even suggested? Yeah!!!! It's frustrating.

But if you want some change in the amount of content you see then it's YOUR fight only and others should be allowed to post whatever they like. If you want to post only sapphic ships or you're bothered by them being talked in the same light as achillean ones, then it's YOUR choice to make.

Fandom is NOT activism!!! Fandom is meant to be enjoyed in whatever way you want. Fandom is to interpret media in your own way. So, honestly, if I want to make a simple post comparing two ships I like, why should I be trying to defend myself here for that? If people don't like it, then they can just block me, scroll, move on, etc.

To think a post about comparing fictional ships is insensitive is insane to me, tbh.

[charlesherbertlightoller]

If Madoka Magica was released in 2014-2017, you'd have tags like #pmmmcritical containing unhinged and opinionated discourse posts like: "Unfriendly fucking reminder to STOP fucking joking about He/ad/less Ma//mi because her death fucking TRAUMATIZED Mad//oka and Sa//yaka and you're a monster if you think a 15-year-old getting decapitated by a witch in front of her friends and giving them PTSD is funny", alongside various random posts rabidly hating on Kyubey or Madoka's little brother.

[hydrachea]

I’ve always loved the dynamic between the ot3 we've had since 1.0 and with firefly joining the party it instantly became an ot4 for me lol so that's fun! Speaking of firefly infantilization, I absolutely agree with what you said and what’s sad is you know damn well that if the person inside SAM was a man people would’ve cared to explore the odd connection & parallels between “him” & blade beyond “dad & daughter 🥺” posting (not to mention the fact that she’s much older than him). And she literally told kafka to “stop playing with her food” in the jepella trailer. They're partners & equals, not a nuclear family 💀

It's the exact same for me! Well, except I started playing in 1.3, but don't worry about it. As soon as Firefly's identity as a Stellaron Hunter was leaked (wow that was a while ago now) I started waiting to see how they'd portray her relationship with the other three, since they all already had a great dynamic - and wow did 2.2 and 2.3 not disappoint. She joined the ot3 now ot4 easily!

Alas, infantilization is just the fandom fate of any short young looking woman with a man she's close to in her life. Over on Genshin's side, Sigewinne still largely gets treated as Wriothesley's daughter even though she literally saw him grow up and clearly acts like an adult. Nevermind that she, just like Firefly, is the much older one of the two. Just because Firefly actively tries to enjoy her short life in as many ways as she can experience instead of brooding 90% of the time like Blade doesn't automatically mean he's older or more mature... He's just depressed.

That said! There are people with very nice takes out there, even if they aren't directly ship. And since I too am very interested in the dynamic between Blade and Firefly, given their respective situations and wishes - have you seen this comic yet? Only part 1 is out and I don't know if the webnovel (fic?) it's based on exists in English, but just that part 1 is so nice.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

the way some people straight up have no respect for asou's writing is actually kind of insane to me 😭 like youre a fan of HIS manga, but you outwardly express your disregard for the intentions he had when writing....... disregarding canon can be super duper funsies and cool sometimes, but to straight up say "i dont care what he intended and think my headcanons are more canon than what he wrote because i think he wrote it badly/he sucks at writing this dynamic/i dont like the ship (or whatever) he was trying to imply" is literally just insanely disrespectful IN MY OPINION 😖

i think maybe im just annoyed at how badly people misuse the words "canon", "coded", and "implied" (which im also guilty of occasionally- especially when i first came here) cuz like... "i choose not to acknowledge this thing that is canon or technically canon or implied" is fine (usually). "i know what the author intended but i dont like it or care, so im going to call my headcanon/ship canon and anyone who disagrees is disregarding canon and is stupid because i said so" is NOT fine... ☠️☠️☠️

[scarycranegame]

>be me, fan of specific character

>find a handful of fics that characterize him particularly well

>the authors are all antis

>fuck my stupid baka life.wav

>a few other fics are written by proshippers

>they're all either trollfics, hastily-written basic smut, or fics where he shows up for like 0.5 seconds

mfw

[veryaren]

Hello! I'm quite new to the idv fandom, and I was wondering why luchinini is so popular among many? No hate or anything like that towards it, I'm just curious!

welcome. it is batshit in here be prepared. AS FOR YOUR QUESTION.... I actually don't know. for me it's the character dynamic. I think they fit together well as far as complimenting eachother. antonio is a romantic hedonist who lives to love and be loved. and luchino is. WELL. other than being a freak for reptiles. a logistical sort with a great curiosity and an even GREATER penchant for sating that curiosity. other people might have different reasons!!!!!!!!!! I just think personality wise they compliment each other well. It's popularity (i say that lightly) could honestly potentially be attributed to the fact they're both Italian. WHICH IS KIND OF FUNNY. a lot of ships are very random here anyway so I wouldn't be surprised lol

[greentrickster]

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

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

And, y'all.

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

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

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

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

[geekgirles]

Seeing content of your NOTP be like:

On the outside: *keeps scrolling because even though you don't like something, that's no reason to be a prick about it and pick a fight with its enjoyers*

On the inside:

[a-roguish-gambit]

I recently saw a person comment that Rogue was better off without Remy in her life.... My brother in Christ she literally went on a rampage. She tried to kill a man. She tried to kill several people in trying to kill that man. She fell into a coma in part as a result of this. She literally tried to join magneto against humanity. Her actions in helping magneto unintentionally lead to wolverines fucking bones getting stolen. And you think she's better off without him? I love rogue so much but she makes some objectively pretty bad decisions when she's had her emotional support Cajun forcibly removed from her.

And when Remy isn't in the picture all together look what happens look at the X-Men movies and how she's portrayed. You may not like Rogue and Gambit as a ship and that is totally fine but Gambit is basically the last line of defense from her being used as pure creepy fan service to the audience a good chunk of the time from what I've seen.

You only think she's a better character without Remy and more complex because he's literally a grounding force in her life her life gets incredibly toxic and complicated in bad ways without him. It's why he's considered her home and harbor. Even if the relationship was entirely platonic he is often just someone she can go to for anything and helps her cool her head and keeps her from falling back on bad coping mechanisms.

[sigmxnd]

Who does your oc love >0<

i can't pick one to answer this question so im doing all of them :3

Sleepy -

romantically: Cassandra (they are MARRIED😡👍💍💍💒💥💥)

familially: her family + all my other ocs that will be mentioned, cause they're pretty much all a big family

platonically: the other ocs + all her old friends from her childhood

~

Sigmund (td) -

romantically: Duncan

familially: his friends are his family

(queer)platonically: Leo (in some aus)

~

Leo -

romantically: Ezekiel

familially: his friends are his family

(queer)platonically: Sigmund (in some aus)

~

Aaron -

romantically: Scott

familially: his friends. im not gonna keep doing the thing lmao

platonically: see above

~

Pebble -

romantically: Gnarly

familially: pretty much only the other ocs, he has distant family in-universe but he doesn't like to talk to them

platonically: his friends

~

Malcom -

romantically: he'll never admit it, but the bowers gang + Eli

familially: he's a bowers gang insert. his family is garbage and he'd admit he's gay way before saying he loves them

platonically: the other ocs, a little bit. he's trying not to both feel threatened and bigger and meaner than them, but normal friend feelings are hard

[princsstwilightsparkl]

"your ship will never be canon" yeah my ship is a four-person polycule where two of the people are basically a canon couple, two are dead, and two hate each other, what the actual fuck did you think i was expecting? use your imagination.

[eldritch-flame]

What happened to just smashing two characters' names together when making ship names...

No, I don't care if it's a nice play on words or whatever. Just mixing the names together makes it easier to know who the hell you're talking about. Plus, it makes it easier to look up compared to if the ship name's just a common phrase or smth

[bogunicorn]

I'm in a mood right now and I'm going to load my queues back up soon so my blogs are more than just bland salt, but truly fandom was a mistake, I don't think I'm having fun with it at this point, and I want to just go back into my hole where I reblog or RT fanart and shitposts and just avoid anything with a whiff of discourse.

And, yes, that means avoiding the legitimate conversations, too, bc a lot of people don't know how to act in the mentions of those. I want to be ignorant of fandom shit, the real world already sucks so much ass.