#why do you ignore and delegitimize certain characters so much more than others

[t4tpumpkinduo]

fandom racism dsmp chewing a hole through my stomach fr

[btsandvmin]

Shipping vs Believing

I felt like talking about this, because in general a lot of people I come across seem to think that they are the same thing. And maybe the purpose of the word is changing, but the original use of “shipping” was actually to show you liked something, changed something into being or wanted something to be romantic or sexual between characters or people. Basically it’s about liking something that might not be romantic or sexual yet, or something that never has been or never will be romantic/sexual or in the case of making fanart or fanfiction sometimes expanding on something that is romantic/sexual with fiction because you want more than what you get.

95z is love. We know this. But, what kind of love is up for interpretation.

Shipping was originally mostly about fiction, but as it has become a more widespread expression it now also applies to relationships between real people.

And again, maybe times and overuse of the word “ship” has started to change the meaning of it, but to me shipping will not be liking a bond platonically and it will not be believing something is real. When someone says “I ship Vmin platonically” they are basically missing the whole point of the word if you ask me, as it’s used to differentiate between liking a friendship or platonic bond and wanting or liking a possible romantic or sexual connection.

However, what bothers me the most is when people don’t realize that shipping isn’t real. Shipping is liking to interpret interactions or other things in a non platonic way. It can even be hoping or speculating about characters or people being together. Basically “wishing for my ship to become canon” aka. turn real.

But if you already believe a ship is real, that is no longer shipping. At least not to me, because that was never the meaning of that word.

I have been a shipper for a long time, before ao3 and tumblr when I read and wrote fanfictions on livejournal or discussed pairings in random threads or blogs. And since the beginning you used shipping to show you liked a certain dynamic in a non platonic way. Same with ship names, which has also become so mainstream to use now that it’s lost it’s original purpose. Ship names like Vmin or RoMione (Ron x Hermione) etc. were to show it was liking two or more people together in a romantic or sexual way. If it’s in fiction it can also be to explore or expand on a canon pairing because you want more material.

In fact ship names and the word shipping had the point of separating reality from fantasy so you knew if someone said Vmin in stead of Jimin and Taehyung you meant it as a romantic or sexual thing and not just them together. Now people use ship names because its easier, and sadly that makes it a bit confusing with what people mean when they say “I love Vmin”.

I have shipped a lot of ships, both fictional and real people. And I know that most shippers behave and act the same when they reach a certain popularity and get support from each other. They help each other get convinced that their ship is real or will become canon.  They also start to downgrade or downplay interactions between rival ships and sometimes goes as far as trying to dehumanize or delegitimize shippers of other ships. For example saying “most of their shippers are young/don’t know how it’s like to be in a relationship/don’t understand their personalities” etc. and essentially simply try to show why their camp knows best and why others just don’t see the truth. “I never used to ship but XXX just felt different” is another common one to justify why it’s not just shipping, the vibe is simply different. But, that is still just your own feeling and interpretation, and many others feel the same about other ships. 

Lumping all shippers together as the same and generalizing also creates a us vs. them kind of mindset. Then with time and size of the community and more “evidence” the echo chamber effect makes everyone harden their belief in combination with confirmation bias until you have a whole community convinced they have the only real truth and everyone else simply doesn’t understand.

It’s honestly the same psychology you can find in religion and even in people who believe in conspiracy theories like that the earth is flat. Same type of behavior even though the subjects and situations can vary. I have studied warfare and war psychology at university and it’s a bit scary how ship wars are so similar to actual wars when it comes to the reasoning and psychology behind it. Because in the end it’s the same type of mindset and how the brain works to convince us something is the way we want it to be, for various reasons, while making the other side the enemy in a way.

I have seen shipwars in basically every fandom I have been in that has gotten big enough and that has “rivals”, like with One Direction or One Piece or The Hunger Games for example. Or even in ones I wasn’t in like the “team Jacob vs team Edward” in Twilight. There is a good reason for why I am very careful to say or try to convince someone a ship is real, when we don’t know. The only way to avoid ship wars is to stay open minded and not get defensive or aggressive, which will only further a generalization of your whole shipping community. “Vmin shippers are crazy/delulu/toxic/aggressive” etc. are situations I want to avoid, but that I know is likely to happen simply as the Vmin fandom grows in size.

We have similar moments that we got years ago that no one reacted to much, but with the growth of the community has become “proof”. People get more and more convinced as they get more and more things that confirm what they already want to believe. At the same time they also more and more ignore things that goes against their own beliefs and become less prone to accept alternative realities to the one they have created.

People believe in very different ships, and people are equally convinced they are the ones who are right. Which speaks for itself as it’s not possible for everyone to be right. But it is also possible for everyone to be wrong. When this involves real people it also becomes much more complex and difficult to analyze. Because things aren’t happening all planned out as in a story. Not everything is a hint for a ship being real, and it’s very difficult to try and understand a person or a relationship from afar when every person and relationship works very differently and there could be many different forces and reasons behind what we see. Especially when we don’t get to see everything and when there are good reasons to now show everything openly, as in the case of a possible LGBT+ couple.

In short I think people should realize that liking a dynamic, shipping something and believing in something are three different things.

For me I ship Vmin 100%, I love reading fics and putting possible romantic or sexual twists on their relationship for fun. I know this is fiction, and simply something I enjoy on a personal level based on my preference. I know I like many similar ships as well. I ship a lot of things in general, for different reasons. I can’t ship them with anyone else. 

When it comes to liking real Jimin and Taehyung and their relationship I do that as well, I know the border between my shipping fantasies and what they say and do. This is why I say that I will love Vmin no matter their bond, because I don’t need the ship to become real for me to love Jimin and Taehyung’s bond. It’s still a beautiful relationship even if it is 100% platonic. But, as a shipper I still dream and fantasize and enjoy them as more than friends. But if they are together with someone else for real, I can accept that. I don’t own Jimin and Tae and I don’t get a say in how they live their lives just because I like something else than what they want.

And when it comes to supporting and believing a relationship is real, that’s when in my opinion and shipper stops being a shipper. The exception for me here is if the relationship actually becomes or proves to be real and you keep enjoying it through built fantasies to explore a real couple or a canon pairing. But generally, shipping equals imagining something, while believing is obviously beyond that.

Believing a ship to be real or to become canon can be very toxic, both in regards to creating friction between different shippers who believes and KNOWS they are right, which makes people who think differently wrong and in a way “the enemy” or a threat. Investing so deeply into a relationship can be very dangerous emotionally as well. For example, how people burned their books after a series is over when their ship didn’t end up together. This is a light version, as there are much worse things people have done for their ship or when things haven’t gone the way they thought. And that’s in fiction where it’s usually easier and more straightforward. If you feel bad watching another ship interact or dislike another member for getting in between your ship, then it shows you are involved to the point of feeling threatened by another dynamic. In a way it’s a second hand jealousy. Imagine that feeling if your ship isn’t real, or if a rival ship is real. It might lead you to even hate the people you used to love, or feel betrayed, even though it was originally just a fantasy in your head that you got too invested in.

I obviously write analysis, which definitely goes beyond just shipping, but that’s why it’s extra important for me to try and remember that it’s all just speculation. I do think Vmin act weird and have things worth discussing, and I think it’s interesting, so I write analysis. Having a discussion is not a bad thing, as long as it remains a discussion in which where you can accept being wrong and change your mind. Vmin is weird, and I think there might be something there, but I also know it can be me reading them incorrectly.

Everything except what we hear or see directly from the boys is speculation.

I might sound like a hypocrite as a analysis writer, but I have been in a lot of fandoms and have fallen in this trap myself before (not with a real ship, but the feeling is similar for fictional ships as well). I know how important it is to stay grounded and how easy it is to be swept away by plausible narratives or “proof” for a ship. But all ships have it, and all shippers act the same after getting popular enough or having enough weird moments to piece together. Vmin are getting to this point, and when I write about this it’s simply to be aware and try to avoid this trap.

It’s ok to believe a relationship is romantic or sexual (though I personally recommend not crossing the line into being convinced), and it can bring a lot of joy, but just know that there is always a possibility that you are wrong. Because when people ship basically everything they can see, and we don’t even see everything, it’s simply impossible for every “believer” to be correct.

That’s why I will keep speaking about speculation and not proof. Me being certain about Vmin being real or talking about their interactions with confidence like I know exactly what they mean won’t help anyone, not myself and not you who read what I say.

I know this might sound a bit much, and that I might come off as a know it all or even a hypocrite. But honestly, if you only read and reblog one of my posts I hope it might be this one. Because I truly think it’s important to be aware of what we and other people in this fandom are doing.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this rant... And I hope you might understand me a little bit better because of it. Thank you! <3

[dgcatanisiri]

On the one hand, the part of me that is fully aware of the way that fandom in general will dismiss and downplay the women in canon in the name of emphasizing the relationship between two conventionally attractive white guys is a legitimate problem, only brought more starkly into perspective by way of The Witcher TV series, where we have a canonically “respectful of women” dynamic taking place between Geralt and Yennefer, and Yennefer also being a strong independent character with a narrative of her own who is reciprocally complimented by Geralt’s own development, her story does not depend on him, but the fandom darling pairing is Geralt/Jaskier. AND that based on all the canon material - not just the show but the books and games that comprise the franchise outside of the show - Geralt/Yennefer is endgame.

On the other hand, I’m a gay man looking for the scraps that canon isn’t going to move beyond, of course I’m going to favor the exploration of a romantic pairing featuring two men over a male-female pairing. Especially when you consider that much of the episodes of season one feature Geralt and Jaskier as a combined unit, taking place over in-universe years (decades, even). The existing narrative in this continuity HAS given a significant focus on a M/M pairing, even while establishing and building Geralt and Yennefer coming together. And again, I approach it with a mindset of “I know it’s never going to be canon, but it at least makes me feel like I’m not alone.”

I feel like often, when these critiques of how fandom approaches M/M pairings over M/F ones get made and publicized, they ONLY focus on them as “M/M pairings as approached by women in fandom.” Which, okay, I get on the conceptual level of “transformative fandom is predominantly a space for women.”

But... Really, transformative fandom isn’t JUST for women. It’s for anyone NOT represented in the mainstream - women, yes, considering that women usually only average at best a ratio of one female character to every two male characters in the material, but also people of color, queer people, the disabled... Transformative spaces are where the people who are not privileged enough to see themselves always on their screens go to mess around with what has been established and see themselves.

And so when you get the comments and studies and examinations about how poor fandom treats certain M/F pairings and building up M/M pairings, I do feel like the odd man out in the conversation, because... When people talk about transformative fandom, about things like fanfic, I see it mostly focused on women in the fandom. 

It just leaves me feeling lost and ignored in the overall conversation, because these big articles and studies seem to really never acknowledge or explore the concept of gay men in fandom, that there are gay people (and not just men) in fandom who are looking to represent themselves, who are taking the characters they see on screen and making them the representation they need just as much as anything else. 

Like, sure, focus is falling on a legitimate and serious issue that should be discussed of how fandom treats women. But in the process, it ignores, maybe even silences the perspective of gay men in fandom, the gay content creators who are building the stories that they’ll never see on screen, since usually, even if there’s canon gay characters, they’re with some minor character who literally only exists to be part of their life, instead of being a fully realized character in their own right, with relations with other characters. Then people wonder why they end up shipped with canonically straight characters...

I don’t know, I feel like while focusing on the one problem - a problem that absolutely deserves attention and needs to be dealt with, I don’t want it to come across that I’m delegitimizing the problems of women in fandom - it ends up ignoring, or at least sidelining, another problem entirely. And I don’t know how to get the other problem the attention that it needs, because a lot of the time, people seem to treat problems like this as singular, individual, separate from one another, when in truth, they’re a tangled ball of interconnected issues that stem from a structural problem, but the symptoms are more easily definable than the cause.

[centuriesofexistence]

I understand your point on support and agree but what has Emily Andras done that was so bad to be deemed unworthy compared? I think she’s done insurmountable good for lgbt tv representation.

Nahhh. This is gonna be long, but… “insurmountable good” my ass.

But first off, I want to point out that I wasn’t *exactly* pitting Emily Andras and Nafessa Williams against each other. It wasn’t an either or. It was more pointing out the discrepancy between the support for a straight white creator who only deals with white ships and says incredibly questionable things about LGBT+ characters, tropes, and even real people, and the support for a black actress portraying a groundbreaking black lesbian lead character. It was a call-out post for fandom, asking people to do better and try to expand their horizons and the people they support, rather than leaving it up to the amorphous and scapegoat idea of “some things are popular and some aren’t, you can’t force people to like something” which only carries so far as an excuse.

At the same time, separate from that issue, Emily Andras is trash and here’s why.

Throwback to the day after Lexa’s death, to the quote most people know about: “I am seriously impressed with #The100’s writers’ lady cojones. And I don’t even watch the show! #Iwillnow”

So after writing on lost girl and writing and filming her entire first season of Wynonna Earp…homegirl is so excited by the courageous use of the BYG trope that she’s gonna start watching *because* Lexa died.

She doubled down on being totally ignorant and insensitive a few weeks later: “Look, this is the absolute truth and people don’t like to hear it, but what the fanbase wants is not always what is best for drama. First of all, I’ll just say that without making apologies. If you are on a show where danger is ever-present, and the stakes have to be that anyone is expendable, sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is, and I don’t think someone should not be expendable just because they happen to be a girl who likes girls”

There was also the time she ended up on a panel of LGBT+ creators talking about their work…and she was the only straight woman, taking up a space that could have gone to an LGBT+ person.

And since then, she has had various issues on twitter, such as flippantly using the word “queer” despite being straight, misgendering someone and refusing to apologize until dozens of people applied pressure, and dismissing LGBT+ fans’ questions and concerns about rep.

But the worst thing? It’s something I’ve kept to myself for a while, but I really don’t care anymore.

I was one of the original LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better organizers. It was quite a while ago, but back over the late spring/early summer of ‘16 while we were fighting to gain some legitimacy and really help make fandom voice heard following the mass of sapphic characters being killed off in brutal fashion, we actually got some fantastic allies: a couple of queer writers up in Canada reached out to help create the Lexa Pledge. The Lexa Pledge was a promise that creators could make, to treat their LGBT+ characters with the respect they deserved. I won’t get into all of it now, but it was an important, positive, preliminary step toward the positive representation we’re all fighting for. It was created by LGBT+ fans and LGBT+ creators working together, and it gave the LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better movement some real legitimacy. People were listening. The media was listening. The Lexa Pledge was evidence of that.

It was also Emily Andras’s first target when we pissed her off, with LGBTFDB being the other.

During that same time frame, LGBTFDB had a page on our site that listed all of the shitty quotes that showrunners had given during that Bloody Spring of 2016, with all of the lesbian/bi deaths. Emily Andras’s quote, which I mentioned above, was listed on that page. And she hated it.

It was also during this time that Wynonna Earp was running through it’s first season and hadn’t yet been renewed. It was a bubble show, meaning it was at a serious risk of being cancelled, and Emily Andras knew that one major factor that could decide its fate was the strength of her gay fandom. But the fact that she’d outed herself as a dumb straight woman and said those things about BYG and LGBT+ rep, was really hurting the size of her gay fandom. She didn’t like that we had that quote up and we were actively calling out creators who said harmful things…so she retaliated against LGBT+ FDB.

She applied pressure to the LGBT+ creators up in Canada who had helped us with the Lexa Pledge. Emily Andras has quite a bit of weight in the Canadian TV world. The writers who had helped us asked us to take the quote down at her request, and we refused, because we weren’t going to play favorites when it comes to shitty rep. When we refused, the writers told us they had been put in a very difficult position, under pressure from Emily Andras, and that if we didn’t take the quotes down, the Lexa Pledge would be withdrawn and they would no longer be able to work in tandem with LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better.

In retaliation for us standing our ground and refusing to be bullied or cajoled into protecting certain creators, Emily Andras attempted to torpedo the Lexa Pledge and derail the entire movement by applying pressure to the queer writers who had reached out to us. It would have delegitimized the movement, it would have hamstrung our attempts for better rep, it would have severed the connection between queer writers and queer fans…but that didn’t matter. We were making her look bad and she didn’t like it.

I remember sitting in my car and typing out a long, desperate email to the LGBT+ writers who had helped us, explaining the need for their support and how much hope they had given a community who had previously believed they had no voice in the media. The writers were in an understandably difficult position: under pressure from a powerful producer desperate to look good in the eyes of LGBT+ fans, or beholden to the promises and responsibilities they’d made to a bunch of queer fans. Ultimately, we managed to convince the writers to leave the Pledge with us, but the pledge and our work with them never advanced much further.

Obviously, it was not the end all be all solution to our rep issues, but I will absolutely never forgive Emily Andras for her bullshit studio politics game and her completely callous lack of compassion or care for a bunch of LGBT+ fans trying to make a change in the media. She only cares about herself; her “care” for the LGBT+ community extends only as far as they benefit her. She’s trash and I’ll never support her or anything she does.

[enigmasong]

Since the other day, seeing @scriptscribbles talking about the upcoming Eight Doctor Time War set from Big Finish with other people and someone saying they hoped it would focus on seeing Eight try everything to stay away from the fighting instead of just, you know, fighting in it, I’ve been thinking: gosh, Big Finish has really underplayed War’s prescribed role in the War, playing it way, way too safe for what the situation is supposed to be.

I mean, I only ever listened to the first two sets of his, so maybe there’s something that happens in the second two that proves me wrong and I just don’t know about it; but the big bad ‘Monstrous’ thing he did in the first set was blow up two people, both of whom were the first to accept they had to die for this, to save a planet. The second one had him give up on saving a planet filled with Time War and Dalek armies stuck in a living hell after trying to establish the two devolved species as parts of the same peaceful society. My gosh, how does he sleep at night?

Seriously though, the Doctor’s done a lot worse things than those and just called it Tuesday. The way Eight dealt with the Sanukuma in the last part of series one of the Diary of River Song (a version of him from during the Time War, no less) was more monstrous than these. Hell, the way the Doctor emotionally manipulated Bill into shooting him just to prove her loyalty in Lie of the Land was more monstrous than these.

My point is, the point of the War Doctor is that he’s suppose to have done these massive terrible war crimes; things on the scale of blowing up his own home planet; things that leave him scarred for the rest of his days and can send him into a goddamn panic attack on seeing a painting of a battle from the War more than four centuries later. These audios just had him overreact to things he probably would’ve done anyway. It just makes him look like an over dramatic shithead, and while that would be humorous with any other incarnation (since he very much is, in fact), in this case all it does is deescalate and delegitimize the tragedy of the situation.

And I know exactly why they did him this way. Because Big Finish is running on the idea that the Doctor has to be a Role Model(TM), scenario and established character be damned. The Doctor can’t be shown doing Bad Things or Losing because he’s gotta make a good impression on the little kiddies. But trying to make a character a role model is one of the most restrictive things you can do them. It doesn’t allow characters the room to evolve, because they have to remain in a certain parameter, and ignores that morality is relative and that what one person might think is a beacon of goodness another might see as still bad. It’s also in this case redundant as, like I’ve already mentioned, the Doctor’s already done a lot of bad shit in many other occasions. It is far too late for him to be counted as a role model.

I know Big Finish’s tag line is ‘we love stories’, but sometimes they are not the right people to tell them.