strawberrycables

[strawberrycables]

i ask this genuinely: is it just me or do fics with no smut get virtually no engagement now?

seemingly it creates a cycle of writers only writing smut because it's the only genre that gets interaction, which in turn encourages writers to include smut as it becomes a sort of norm and requirement if you're going to publish something for a character.

I do believe we go through patterns and trends within fandom spaces, and right now it seems to be an emphasis on smut, dark fics, or fics that take place in darker aus. fics in other genres very rarely perform well, especially in contrast to numbers from a few years ago.

series have it even worse, especially series that have no smut guaranteed. i scrolled through the top bucky x reader posts in the last year-- every story over 3.5k notes was a smut fic, other than 2 (it may have been more varied as i continued, but i scrolled for a pretty long time)

i don't mean in this in a 'puritan sex evil everything you write must be a exploration of the human condition way' but as a 'what does this say about the current state of reading and engagement in fandom especially in the context of current trends of reading elsewhere'

[strawberrycables]

additional context on the Olympics boxing situation:

[ID: screenshots of a comment made on Reddit by user RampantNRoaring, under a post that links to an article titled 'Logan Paul Admits To Being "Guilty Of Spreading Misinformation” About Imane Khelif, The Algerian Olympic Boxer'

"In the interest of spreading… actual information, I’m copying my comment from another thread, because this is infuriating.

The short(ish) version is that she's a cis woman who been competing for years against other women, and there was no issue, including at the 2020 Olympics. Never any question of her gender or testosterone levels, no articles, no headlines, no commentary from her opponents, nothing. She doesn't even have a particularly stellar record, though she's been improving in recent years.

She was even tested at the 2022 World Championships and they didn't find any problems. She took the silver medal without incident.

Up until the 2023 World Championships - **when she beat a Russian boxer.**

Quick backstory on the IBA, the boxing organization that tested her and oversees the Boxing World Championships: it's been in contention with the IOC for years for issues of corruption and concerns over refereeing and judging, but things have gotten worse over the past few years. The IOC was concerned about the IBA's complete financial dependence on their sponsor: Russian-owned Gazprom. The IBA also elected a corrupt Russian president in 2020, and in 2022 they (wrongly) declared his re-election opponent ineligible, so he won an uncontested re-election. Multiple countries including the US and UK boycotted the 2023 World Championships because the IBA suspended Ukraine and un-suspended Russia and Belarus in 2022, against IOC guidelines. All of this ultimately resulted in the IOC severing ties with the IBA, which hasn't happened with any sport in decades. They fucked up so bad that the IOC may drop boxing altogether; another organization has risen up and is attempting to replace the IBA in order to save boxing at the Olympics.

Anyway. Imane Khelif competes in the World Championships in 2022, undergoes testing, no eligibility issues, takes the silver medal. She competes in 2023, no eligibility issues. Gets to the Round of 16, beats a Russian boxer...suddenly, she gets tested again and based on the results of that test AND her test from 2022, they declared her ineligible.

The IBA never said what kind of test it was, just that it wasn't a testosterone test, nor did they explain the results, citing privacy. In an interview with Russian state-owned media, the Russian president of the IBA said that they did a DNA test and found that Khelif had XY chromosomes, but again...look at the source, the audience, the track record of corruption, the timing...

Plus, they did this test in 2022 and didn't have any issue with the results? They used the 2022 test as part of their basis for disqualifying her - even though they allowed her to compete in 2023, up until she beat a Russian athlete.

So there's no evidence that she has higher testosterone. She competed in the 2020 Olympics without incident, even when other female athletes with high testosterone were withdrawn. And the IBA didn't administer a testosterone test.

There's also no other information, testing, questions, or anything that she has talked about that would allude to any sort of chromosomal or hormonal difference. She identifies as a woman and always has.

People are diagnosing her with all kinds of conditions but there’s actually no evidence for any of it aside from one vague test that an extremely corrupt organization associated with Russia subjected her to when she beat a Russian athlete, the results of which were only discussed by the Russian president of the corrupt organization when he talked to Russian media." /End ID]

link

[strawberrycables]

a reminder that these idiot yuckyfucks care more about painting a cis woman as trans to further their stupid fucking agenda, rather than actually put their money where their mouth is and go after the Dutch volleyball rapist who raped a 12 year old girl. so much for women's rights. absolute terminal levels of brainrot and bigotry

the Algerian football club has entered the conversation and are currently demolishing on twitter

[strawberrycables]

the Algerian football club has entered the conversation and are currently demolishing on twitter

[strawberrycables]