sapphoshands

[sapphoshands]

as a hater, it's important to keep in mind that true fandom is a long game. for example, yeah, it's fucking annoying when you genuinely enjoy a show or something for multiple reasons and it happens to have gay people (or people who could be read as gay) in it and so the fandom gets flooded with the kind of fans who are literally just here for the "Hot New Thing to Slash Ship" and therefore have bad opinions on everything because they think entirely in shallow fanfic tropes and are going to get mad every time something doesn't line up perfectly with their fanfics, but with time they will move on to the next "Hot New Thing to Slash Ship," and you'll realize your real enemy is and has always been That One Blogger who Sincerely Loves this Show as Much as You But Has the Worst Fucking Opinions on Planet Earth.

[sapphoshands]

When I tell you that this scene broke my heart and sent it soaring.

[sapphoshands]

Have you heard about the water bottle challenge?

[sapphoshands]

I think the other reason I don't really get into ships as portrayed by fandom culture is that it seems like the mindset is more like. "I want these characters to be in a Romantic Relationship(TM)" instead of "I want these characters' relationship to be romantic"

What I mean here is that, so often I see pairings enacting romance tropes to the point of heavily altering or downright replacing their original dynamic - as if the people behind it only understand romance as a series of checklists to tick off. Couples like to kiss and sleep in the same bed and flirt with each other, so it doesn't matter who the characters are, if they're a couple then naturally they'll do those things, right??

And that's where the whole thing starts to lose me, because I would assume that the appeal of shipping characters is, y'know... the characters? Rather than just, the idea of a couple? If I'm thinking about how it'd be cool for them to be in love, my first thought is always "so how would they show it," because just like everything else about a person, the answer is going to be different on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe the characters involved aren't really into kissing, but they like arranging date activities. Maybe they aren't committed to the structure of dating at all, and just want to be around each other whenever they can. And even if they are the types to like doing traditionally romantic things, that doesn't suddenly erase whatever else they had going on before they started adding that on top of it.

I'm not saying that the more typical romance tropes and activities are bad, just that they're applied kind of excessively, regardless of whether or not they actually work for the characters involved. I want to see my favorite characters having relationships that are true to who they are, not what the stock depiction of a couple says they should be.

[sapphoshands]

[sapphoshands]

No more apologizing for being horny on main. No more horny jail. We’re horny prison abolitionists. No gods, no masters! Wait. Okay maybe a few masters. Alright but no bars will hold us! No whips and chains will — fuck, hang on, let me start again.

[sapphoshands]

[sapphoshands]

i gotta remember this

[sapphoshands]

[sapphoshands]

nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.

[sapphoshands]

“Death blowing bubbles,” 18th century. The bubbles symbolize life’s fragility. This plaster work appears on the ceiling of Holy Grave Chapel in Michaelsberg Abbey, Bamberg, Germany. (+)

[sapphoshands]

becoming an adult is essentially having all your friends in different cities and permanently missing someone

[sapphoshands]

thank uou for showing me your little white boy i do not like him can you put him away please

[sapphoshands]

[sapphoshands]

stuck in a timeloop called i just have to get through this week