#[i literally reblogged that gifset and then when i saw it on dash]

[hellflcmes]

...I am only now just realizing that Enji's suit...Has his flames on his butt...

[iam93percentstardust]

so one of the things that i think is happening in the likes vs reblogs debate is that when people who support reblogging over liking say things like "likes don't do anything," they don't mean they literally don't do anything. what they mean is that in the grand scheme of how this site works--as a blogging platform--a like doesn't share the post any further than your own blog. no one else is ever going to see the post; it's going to end right there.

but, for whatever reason, whether it's in bad faith or just misunderstanding, people who support liking over reblogging seem to consistently take this as the other side does mean that liking literally doesn't do anything, which they then meet with the argument that of course it does something. it, as i saw someone put it today, gives my internet friend a boost of serotonin.

the thing is, a lot of these people who are against "likescolding" seem to have this idea that they're fighting against the all-terrible algorithm, and what they're forgetting is that in the process, they're hurting the very real people on the other side of the computer screen. going back to the serotonin argument, yeah, i do get a boost of serotonin from receiving a like, or i did back when i was still bothering to post here. so it would follow, therefore, that i get more serotonin from more likes. but in order to get more, someone is going to have to suck it up and reblog the post so that other people can see it, because my reach on its own only goes so far. if the entire argument rests on giving me serotonin, then shouldn't a reblog give me serotonin as well? why are likes the only form of acceptable serotonin givers?

which leads me into my next point, that by demanding reblogs, i'm supposedly just a greedy numbers counter who can't be satisfied with what i have. and frankly, at this point, after watching this argument go round and round in circles for literal years, i don't think that anything i say is going to change anyone's minds. the people who say i should be satisfied with likes are going to say that i'm greedy and want more attention no matter what argument i present. it doesn't seem to matter to them that i have activity muted on tumblr and statistics muted on ao3 and therefore can't even see the numbers. but i'm hopeful that some of the newer people on this site will see this and understand why i'm arguing for the value of reblogging, so i'm going to say it anyway.

let me paint a picture for you: i joined my current fandom on tumblr almost exactly five years ago. the biggest movie to date had just been released, the fandom was thriving, and i vividly remember seeing artwork after fanfic after gifset on my dash. if i tried to scroll back through my dash in the morning to where i'd left off the previous night, it would take me hours because so many fanworks were being created and posted and shared while i was asleep. the very first fanfic i posted to tumblr for this fandom got more than a thousand notes literally overnight. i'd only been a part of the fandom for a few months at that point and had very few fandom followers, but the field was more than welcoming to a new writer.

but then the landscape changed.

within two years, i'd started to notice a drop in reblogs. i can't tell you for certain what the reason was. maybe it was covid fatigue, maybe it was purity and anti-culture being driven to an all-time fever pitch, maybe it was that people were leaving my fandom, once one of the biggest on the site, for other, more diverse media. i really can't tell you what the reason was, but as the reblogs started to drop, fan creators started begging. and as the creators begged, i suddenly started seeing these posts circulating about how creators should be grateful for the likes and lurkers, and asking for anything more was just being greedy.

slowly, the number of fanworks on my dash started to drop. the fanfics went first. for whatever reason, maybe because reading a fic is more time-consuming, people were particularly hateful towards fanwriters wanting more reblogs. writers tried various tricks, writing shorter fics, putting things under read mores, posting in the form of bulleted headcanons, but nothing really worked. and so they stopped posting. and then they left tumblr altogether. i see a lot of them on discord, and occasionally, twitter now, but i don't see them on tumblr.

the art was next. see, a lot of the artists in my fandom make money off their art, which meant they relied on those reblogs as a way to get their name out there. and if those reblogs aren't happening, and if people are deriding commissions because they think fanworks should be free and available to everyone, then no one is seeing their commission posts. and if the site is already hostile to artists, which it has been since the tumblr purge of 2018, then why are they still on this site when they can be on twitter and instagram?

now i'm watching it happen again with gifmakers. that old resentment is building back up, this time around reposting gifsets and claiming them as their own creation. people claim to be unable to make cool gifsets so they have to steal them, and in the process, other people stop reblogging the original gifmaker. as of writing this, i haven't seen us reach the point where the gifmakers start to leave, but i'm betting it'll happen soon.

you know how many new fics i've seen this last week on my dash? three.

you know how many new artworks? eight.

you know how many shitposts i've seen? political posts? posts lamenting the deaths of whatever current fandom op is in? too many to count.

i'm one of the people who doesn't post my fics on tumblr anymore. i don't see the point. i'll get a much bigger reception talking about them on twitter. and i feel bad for all the newcomers arriving here because their dashes are going to be full of shitposts and politics and misinformation and reposts from tiktok where they once would have been full of stories and art.

but i wonder. if people keep on this reblogging hate train, will we lose the shitposts and politics and reposts from tiktok too? you're not obligated to reblog everything, i'm not even saying that you're obligated to reblog anything, but if we keep going the way we're going, if more and more people drop a like and keep scrolling, will we soon reach a point where there's nothing on our dashboards at all?

fandom is a community, and i think that that's something that people tend to forget. creators create for themselves, but they share for everyone else. i see a lot of posts talking about how creators will stop sharing if all they receive is silence, but most of those are old posts that miss that creators have already received silence. they've already stopped sharing. they've already left.

the thing is, before i gave up on posting to this site, i used to remind myself that if ten people were sitting in my apartment, listening to me read my fics, i would think that's a lot of people and be very honored in the hopes that it would make me feel less sad about the fact that in just a few years, people stopped reading what i wrote. and it isn't that it's wrong, but five years ago, even as a new writer, i was reading my fics to packed auditoriums with standing room only.

and there's a big difference between speaking to an auditorium and speaking to my living room.

no one is obligated to reblog. no one is owed a reblog. and likes do actually do something. but sharing does something too, and it doesn't hurt anyone to reblog it. truth be told, i think we're already past the point of no return; i don't think we'll ever see the creators who've already left come back. but that doesn't mean we can't make this a welcoming space for new creators or that we have to make them feel bad for wishing that more people would share their fanworks. i see a lot of those posts railing against likescolding talking about how it's not okay that likescolding makes them feel bad, so i guess my question to those posters is this:

why is it okay to make the creators feel bad instead?

[sgtmickeyslaughter]

Thank you so much @callivich for taking the time and effort for coming up with these questions, and thank you @such-a-barbarian for tagging me also!

This got long lol

What’s a fic you’ve read more than once? 

one of my favorite generas of fic is shameless Mickey worship and for that I aways come back to from head to toe and the many things Mickey Milkovich has been called, Unforgiving Touches and the Feeling of Their Bruises. 

also, in no particular order You’re Tough To Love When You Don’t Love Yourself, the broad shouldered beasts series, sincerity is scary.

for something a little smutty go back to sleep has always been a favorite of mine

and as always, my favorite fic of all time Boy In The Box

What’s a gifset you always have to reblog? 

i love that gif set of Ian sniffin’ on his husband, also I think there’s one thats a compilation of Mickey’s best smiles through the series, gorgeous.

this beautifully edited (?) gifset I stg this is better quality than the actual show idk how they did that

this gorgeous art/gifset is awesome also!

this one is very important to me but man it hurts

another heartbreaker

everyone say thank you gif makers!!!!

What’s a fanart you love looking at?

I literally just saw this one for the first time, it immediately went to the top of my list!!

Its so beautifully done and captures the tone of the original piece so well while also transforming it into a unique moment and commentary on intimacy in their own relationship, ugh, gorgeous 

What’s a headcanon you can’t stop thinking about?

creative mickey! the best thing season 10 gave us was mickey and his notebook. i just know when Ian sees that thing come out post canon a part of him locks up in genuine fear

i don’t really think he gets into art persay, but just being a creative thinker, figuring out how to run their business, decorating their apartment, building ian a garden on their balcony when he gets put on the waitlist for the community garden

What’s an idea you’d love to create if you had the time/inspiration?

so I had this idea very vaguely floating around in my head for a while, but it wasn’t even remotely formed, let alone developed and then suddenly last weekend the plot just came to me in that beautiful and cruel way inspiration comes and goes, but it will take forever to write because I want the pace to feel very slow and syrupy and a little dream (or nightmare) like.

i dont want to give away the plot but its very southern gothic, slight true crime elements, cults, slight age difference (younger Mickey)… anyways if anyone from the rural south wants to be on call to explain geography and culture to me, hit me up 

i also have an idea for a dirty filthy, nasty smut fic but i would have to post it anonymously i wouldnt be able to look anyone in the (virtual) eyes

What’s something you’ve discovered since entering this fandom? A new trope you love? A different analysis of the show? Something else?

in all seriousness, analyzing Shameless as a show overall is so interesting, understanding each of the characters as case studies in different particular expressions of being raised in poverty, which is what makes it twice as upsetting when someone is like, ‘why would this character do this, thats so stupid’ and the answer is that statically speaking that character was actually very likely to do that because of the circumstances they were born into and the way they’ve been affected by that throughout their life, but okay. I also noticed that a lot of people on here are not from America and I always wonder what their take on the social/political reading of the show, if it feels familiar at all etc.. 

i also remember the first time someone commented under my fic to be like, ‘why are you giving Mickey a pass Ian did this’, and someone else commented underneath that ‘oh well Mickey did that so he’s a bad person etc.’ and it was just so upsetting to me, I dont see a lot of that on my dash but I just personally believe that if you are judging teenagers/young adults who are in the middle of their first major mental health crisis or who have suffered unimaginable abuse and neglect their entire life, you need to recalibrate your empathy levels 

What’s your favourite season? And has this changed after multiple rewatches of the show?

I love love early seasons (1-3) there is just something so nostalgic about it and as a show that’s when the writing was at its most creative and interestingly paced

also who doesn’t love baby gallavich?

What line/dialogue/description from something else (a poem, a book, a tv show, a movie, or something else) do you feel describes Ian and Mickey’s relationship? 

Ugh Im so sorry I am going to have to add all the lyrics to In Your Love by Tyler Childers, the inspiration for my first fic title because it is the most perfect song to encapsulate the passion between them and the work and sacrifices they put up for each other

What’s a plot hole you wish had been answered or resolved?

where is mandy? where the fuck is my girl?

also the fact that kevin had a son with v’s mom and just, has no interest in a relationship with him? like that made the story easier for sure but it doesn’t make sense with his character

What scene or moment do you feel isn’t discussed enough?

guys, there is not a scene in this show that we have not done to death already (affectionate)

and you know what? we’ll do it again!

but just for the sake of it, the “would you take care of me if i was paralyzed” scene, you can see that Mickey is almost idk, hesitant? but that’s because he’s really picturing it and that his yes is genuine and thought out, and ian’s face of wonder when he realizes that he has someone who loves him unconditionally and forever? earth shattering

What do you think is next for Ian and Mickey post-finale?

listen, i think the laws of television writers being assholes would dictate that they would give a break up (and maybe reconciliation) arc which is my least favorite television trope

but irl? (u know what i mean) i think they do have some hard, stressful times both out of their relationships and in it and realize pretty quickly that they have to work as a team and lean on each other and it only makes them closer

i also think that they simply refuse to sleep without each other, like one night when Ian gets stuck at the gallagher house taking care of sick franny mickey will drive over and sleep in the twin bed with him or if mickey gets wasted on a night out with sandy and debbie and his battery runs out he’ll stumble his ass home instead of going with one of them when they offer even if it takes forever

and ian grows his hair and stubble out to look like it does in the most recent photos (fluffy mullet) and mickey adores it he can’t keep his hands off his husbands head it’s a sensory dream

Thanks again for tagging me!

i’ll tag @stocious @mybrainismelted @sirrudo @solitarycreaturesthey @juliakayyy @jrooc @jezzibelle89 @i-think-you-mean-reduction @iansw0rld

[tiltingheartand]

OK so, I've been following you for a bit and obviously I have seen the 911 canon bi dude flailing and I am interested, because I like procedurals and also canon bi guys (and canon bi girls obvs). HOWEVER I feel kinda bad because I cannot tell the different buff, brown haired, white dudes apart in the gifs and I want to know if they are more easily distinguishable in the show (distinct voices and/or mannerisms) or if you just get used to it? (love the enthusiasm btw, it's great to see on my dash, i love people genuinely loving things)

… oh my god, okay, so, fun (and actually unrelated) fact — my mom started watching the show before i did, so i saw bits and pieces of a few episodes before i committed to Watching, and i distinctly remember asking her how she could tell buck and eddie apart because i wasn’t sure who was who.

(… it was an episode where the characters were wearing those yellow hazmat suits at the beginning, which Did Not Help)

anyway she started listing off all the differences, and pointed out “first of all, eddie isn’t even white, he’s half mexican” which is SUPER HELPFUL when characters are wearing yellow hazmat suits, let me tell you.

BUT. ANYWAY. i sympathize with going “wait but which one is which, i am Confused”, even if it’s with a different character than i had the issue with.

i will say, they are absolutely more easily distinguishable in the show — it’s hard to tell from the gifsets i’ve been reblogging, but i (personally) would put buck as closer to blond? or like. somewhere between that and actual brown hair. (like, his stubble grows in super fair when we see it. thing.) whereas tommy has super-dark hair/stubble/etc. and they’re very distinct characters from each other, in ways i can’t quite articulate because i’ve been up for an hour already by accident.

(ALSO, as i was reminded, buck has a birthmark above his left eye/eyebrow, and i’m not sure how clear it is in any of the million gifsets i’ve reblogged. i swear i remember mentioning that but apparently i was wrong)

but also, crucially, there is the time element to consider — buck is a main character from the very first episode, he’s in almost every episode of the show, and up until s7 we know tommy from a) three flashback episodes in the second season, showing us what the 118 used to be (starting in 2005, ending in … i wanna say 2017?); he transferred to a different firehouse before the show started, and b) a phone call chimney makes in one episode where he’s calling in a favor, which we only see chim’s side of.

which is to say: i think part of it might genuinely just be “you get used to it”? because by the time tommy shows up and has any time in the same scene as buck, you’ve known buck for six full seasons and the first few episodes of a seventh.

ALSO, oh man, if you like procedurals you will almost definitely love this show. i looooove procedurals, and this is such a good one. it also! in fact! has canon queer rep from the beginning!!! hen is a married black lesbian raising a kid with her wife (who is equally awesome, and also a literal rocket scientist).

[shioaoi]

Today is finale day for Nancy Drew.

I've attempted to keep myself busy, not let the sadness envelope me at the loss of somthing so precious to me. But at some point you have to stop moving, so I thought I would be sappy here on main cos so many other fans are, and reading everyone's experiences has shown me that I'm not the only person this show has touched so deeply.

I was rather late finding this show. Here in the UK, we don't have the CW network, though to be honest I don't watch a lot of cable anyways. It was simply by chance that a gifset was reblogged onto my dash, one of the morning-after scenes from 3x13. The softness of Nancy and Ace in that scene melted my asexual heart, and then I read the tags and saw it was from a show called Nancy Drew.

The Nancy Drew games were some of my earliest experiences with video games, my aunt for my Birthday and Christmas would buy me games from a site called Big Fish and install them onto my PC, and one of the ones she brought was a Nancy Drew game. Visual Novels, Point and Clicks, and Mystery Games are still a core part of my tastes as a gamer, even as I branched out into more modern, AAA games and the growing indie market.

So I downloaded the show, and watched it while running raids on an MMO - and I was instantly in love. It's difficult for me to find the mental capacity to consume media - particularly anything new - but the story telling, mystery and characters kept me hooked and guessing every episode, and by the time I had finished watching it, I was inspired in a way I had never been before.

At the time, I was working a corporate admin job, one I had been working ever since I had turned 18. I was a collage dropout with no grades, complex mental health issues, and PTSD from abuse, which caused me to lose a good few many years of my life just trying to stablisie. This show came into my life when I was starting to find a footing, and wanted to do more after all those years lost.

I began writing, creating narratives for characters I long had ideas for; fanfics that made me connect with fans; and fanart I used as opportunities to push myself out of my comfort zone of drawing.

It made me realise that I was discontent with where I was, and that what I wanted to do was create. I left my job to pursue art. Things didn't go according to plan, but the show was there for me throughout it and I kept writing and drawing even when I was in recovering from almost dying thanks to pancreatitis - 7 fics in 7 days is something I will forever be proud of but will never repeat.

And then I made the decision to apply to Uni, despite my disabilities and having no grades. I applied with a portfolio that featured the fanart and fanvids I made for this show, and I got accepted - now I will be going to learn how to make games, with the aim to make ones like the Nancy Drew games that got me into gaming as a kid.

I found a fandom that I wanted to engage with, even when I was bad at doing so.

I made my own merch because I was sad there was nothing official.

And now, even with this show ending, I will keep going forward with the spark this show ignited within me - and maybe I'll get to tell my own tale with this crew someday, you never know.

Thank you to the cast and crew, and to the fans, for quite literally changing my life

[kwon-eunbi]

I do not miss the constant deadlines of academia at all. Like, I loved going to class and learning and filling my head with interesting things, but the stress of deadlines and exams were awful. Being a librarian would be so amazing, would you want to work in a small library or a big one? Or like a community library or an academic one?

It was actually for Chinese linguistics, it was about tracing modern languages back to Middle Chinese and untangling how they evolved. I speak Mandarin, Russian, and English, and I’m supposed to speak French, but I don’t, don’t tell anyone. I lived in Paris and my dad’s partner is French Canadian, but I can only kind of read it. I love learning languages, though, I started Korean for an ex (when we were together ofc) and even though that’s over I keep going back to it because I enjoy the puzzle of sentence construction.

It's a good cover! Sounds basically the opposite of Wooyoung’s, and yet I think both of them capture the emotions of the song and lyrics in different ways.

I have such a soft spot for “Say My Name”, it was when I started listening to them, and I was like look at these kiddos going WILD. “Bad bitch, watch her do coke” indeed! But I do love when Hongjoong dresses fashionably but in an artsy way, if that makes sense, where he uses looks that aren’t exactly pretty as part of his performance, like the mullet in 2019. But honestly he’s just a crazy good performer, he could wear a paper bag and I’d be applauding wildly like YES king you are SO right. And Wooyoung with his little brother vibes off the chart through the whole era (and every other era tbh).

I like their melodic songs a lot, when I get frustrated with a piece on violin, I’ll play a little kpop song as a reset for fun, and “Precious”, “Horizon” and “Inception” are all go-to songs for that. But when I listen to their more melodic songs, I’m digging through there for the harmonies cause I just find those so much more interesting, when San finally gave in and started modulating in their performances of “Turbulence” on It’s Live? Ohhh those got me. He said no tritones on my watch! I might prefer their less pretty music tho? Like “Fireworks” or “Deja Vu” or “The Real”. I don’t know, but there’s not really a wrong answer.

For “Guerilla”, I joked that I wanted a nardcore comeback, my friends told me to be realistic, I said well now I’m gonna speak it into existence, and when Jason Sears possessed Mingi for those thirty seconds I went back to them like What Did You Say To Me. I think I would have liked it more with less pitch correction but I’m very annoying about punk music so ignore me.

I’ll check out Lucifer then! I need a new show for my cardio workouts, and if there’s five seasons then it’ll last a while. I remember what I saw of it was that it was a fun show, and I love a good monster-of-the-week show, so it’ll be great for those early mornings.

Thanks for letting me ramble haha I love talking about music. I hope you’re resting well and getting lots of sleep.

--🎅

hiiiii, sorry for not responding sooner, i didn't have time to sit down and respond properly bc yk uni and my friend came to stay with me so it's just been hectic lmaoo (i literally open tumblr, reblog the first gifset on my dash i see and close it), but how are you doing?? i hope well!! <33

ahhh i so get you about the deadlines. i enjoy going to lectures the first few weeks of the semester too but then i just... get bored of it and i just wanna skip them all but most of them check attendance so i can't skip too much :(( honestly i would just love to work in a library, idec which one just one yk, but in this economy and yk libraries not being such popular places anymore, i would be lucky to land a job anywhere....

omgggg that sounds sooo interesting!! i really love chinese but i don't think i would ever attempt to learn it cause honestly my brain isn't equipped for that so i truly admire you for not only knowing it but also studying its linguistics wow!! and ohh damn you speak russian too, well yk we could understand each other on basic levels cause my mother tongue is croatian. and yess, korean is so fun to study, i really wish i had more time to dedicate to it.

ohhh so you're basically a "veteran" atiny, love that! omg yess hongjoong and his fashion sense and his painted pinkie ahhhh it's amazing trulyyyy, and i agree he's an amazing perfomer, honestly all of ateez are, they're just crazy good it's insane!!

OMG YOU PLAY THE VIOLIN???!? wooow!! i love violin so much i always wanted to learn to play it wow you're truly so talented wowww!! and honestly i agree with you on it all! they truly have a discography to fit your every mood like no joke! btwww did you see the teasers for the new cb??? i caaant wait tho i am a bit disappointed that we're getting only two new songs but yk they've been working too hard this year i wasn't expecting a cb yet anyway but i'm definitely going to enjoy it fully!!

broo i love punk/rock/alternative in general so i'm really loving all of these new songs, like since rocky i was just AHHHH YESSS this is what i needed!! yk even tho i do love their more melodic songs, i hope they go in this punk direction a little longer cause it suits them so well and i definitely love the songs

yess lucifer is amazing and yk some seasons have more eps so it would definitely last you a while hahah

and feel free to ramble whenever you want! soon in the dms too hehe and again sorry for not responding sooner! i hope you're doing well too and getting rest <333

[niallandtommo]

i was tagged by @farfromthstars​ a while ago and i just found this in my likes so let’s do it. thank you pia :’)

1. Why did you choose your url? louis posted a selfie on instagram. niall commented with hello tommo and louis replied with hello neil. and i’m a nouie 

2. Any side blogs? nah not anymore 

3. How long have you been on tumblr? october 2013 i think 

4. Do you have a queue tag? i used to have one, it was ‘queue’ but i don’t use my queue anymore 

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? because i had another multifandom blog before this one and i wanted to have a one direction blog so i made a new one  

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp? it’s one of my favorite pics of niall. it looks really good with the blue sky in the background

7. Why did you choose your header? because we basically don’t get any new nouis content and i think this was the last time we saw them together? and it still makes me cry

8. What’s your post with the most notes? oof i think a really old text post that i made back in 2014 and it said ‘all i want for christmas is niall’ lol or maybe a gifset i have no idea 

9. How many mutuals do you have? i’m pretty sure 95% of the people i follow also follow me but most of them haven’t been active in years so idk 

10. How many followers do you have? lmfao my follower count has been stuck at 12k since 2015 dkjghdf right now it’s 12.166 but that number means absolutely nothing because literally all of them are inactive

11. How many people do you follow? 76 but i really need to follow more people because my dash is dead

12. Have you ever made a shitpost? i mean all of my posts are shitposts, no?

13. How often do you use tumblr each day? believe it or not i’m here all day every day. even if i don’t reblog anything for days i’m still here. i have nothing else to do so i open the tumblr app at least 50 times a day even though there are no new posts 

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? oh yeah back in like 2014 i used to fight larries all the time lmfao i also had arguments with “friends” and we ended up blocking each other so yay but now? nah i’m too old for this shit. you either like me or you don’t dkfgjdf

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts? i literally never reblog them. i don’t care what it is if a post starts with you need to reblog this there’s a 100% chance that i will not reblog it

16. Do you like tag games? i do! they’re not really a thing anymore but when i get tagged i usually always do them (sometimes a little later but they’re fun!)

17. Do you like ask games? yeah! i miss the old tumblr days when you actually got asks when you reblogged one lmao 

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? i mean lots of my mutuals that haven’t been on here in years used to be super famous in the niall/one direction fandom but now? idk if any of us are tumblr famous anymore because we all reblog like 2 posts per week and that’s it. tumblr is not what it used to be 

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual? actual crush? nah but there are a lot of people that i like a lot and i’m either friends with them or i want to be friends with them but i’m too shy to start a conversation

[spnshameblog]

i really hate when, in an attempt to not be unhealthily obsessed stans, people pivot 180 degrees and say incredibly weird things or borderline threatening things. or not necessarily when they don't want to "worship celebs" but when they dislike some of them, like i just saw the other day someone in spn fandom answer an ask about why they've been suspended from twitter that it was bc they said actors should be burned at stake. how is that not extremely weird to say?

Yes, i completely agree and it so annoying bc its utterly performative. Like ive seen people viciously hate on jackles a few days ago and now theyre back to just reblogging gifsets of him? Idk if its a me problem, but once ive worked up enough rage to actually make angry posts about it, i dont "get over it" within the week.

So yeah, i feel like a lot of the anti jackles posts of the past week came from ppl who saw ppl being vocally upset about the goings on and wanted to look supportive without actually understanding the problems. Like, this attitude of his isnt anything new and while i absolutely get that people are upset (i am too!!) ...... why are ppl calling for his head NOW? The walker info has been around for a while, he has literally always been weird about destiel and while that doesnt mean its less infuriating, it kind of shows that people only got upset about it once they saw other people on their dash get mad about it. Which is normal to a point, but people feel this need to be THE MOST ANGRY and the MOST visibly upset about it in a way that just screams "look at what great and correct opinions i have" and then they forget about it a week later.

but this ask was probably about that post where someone listed a few shitty things misha has said, which irritated a lot of ppl bc it was mostly stuff that happened years ago and he has apologised for and modified his behaviour wrg to most of these. i agree to a point, theres no need to intentionally dig up missteps and present them in an inflammatory way just so you can show the world how good and critical you are about the celebs you like. on the other hand posts like these (when they include context and whether or not somebody has apologised and made up for the mistakes) can be good, bc they show that even famously wellmeanin people like misha can fuck up and that you SHOULD tell them that theyve fucked up, but that theyre capable of seeing the error of their ways and leaarning from them, too.

its not anyones job to educate celebrities, especially about stuff they should already know, but if everyone reacts to their fuckups in a “well, all celebs are trash anyways and anyone who looks up to them is naive and should feel stupid for being disappointed”  type of way, then how is anything ever going to get better? some people arent willing to learn, but you wont know that unless you try.

and yeah, i hate the casually violent way people talk about actors, too. this might be an inside joke in your tumblr bubble, hell, even I tag stuff as “killing that man” every once in a while, but you cant expect everyone to immediately catch that as a joke, especially when you do it on a platform that person is also on. and the ‘burned at the stake’ bit.......... lmao the way people actually, 100% unironically say this bc they want to look intellectual and aloof. babe, you reblogged a gifset about this man 10 minutes ago, nobody believes that youre “above stanning celebrities”. and, fyi, its not ok to wish harm upon a celebrity, even if you really really dislike them. why are you surprised that people dont like it when you wish bodily harm on a person, joke or not.

the supernatural fandom didnt invent “being a fan of an actor”, people have been doing that for years and there have always been people who go too far or who excuse inexcusable behaviour, but the way people act like any kind of admiration or affection for a celebrity is toxic or ‘too parasocial’ or naive is such bullshit.

[thisissirius]

Do you not get upset when people like instead of reblogging?

no, why would i?

when i’m writing, or even if i’m making a gifset, of COURSE i love when people reblog, but they’re literally liking it because they saw it on their dash and went “omg yes”.

everyone’s blog is different and personal and i, as a creator, am not owed anything because i put my work out there, just as people aren’t owed anything from me because i create things. i just love to do it!

[lesbianjamies]

How did you get into skam and also can you pls rank your top 5 skamverse ships?

oh wow okay okay this is gonna be long but ill try to shorten it as possible

i got into the skamverse through crisana, someone i followed reblogged a crisana gifset and my interest was piqued! little backstory that you didn't ask for: with juliantina, spanish gays were the thing in my little corner of tumblr in early 2019 so i watched skam es immediately. the whole concept of skam, "real time" storytelling, the immersion and the social media stuff, plus it had that *vibe* that really spoke to me, it changed me as a person for real and then cris' season ended and i thought meh im fine with one remake im not gonna watch another lol

and so i ate my words a year later when skam france s6 dropped and literally the second i saw maya's face via a random gifset on my dash? sold!! yes this season also changed me as a person, but mostly bec of maya and lola, i will not speak abt anything else

third, oof oh wow okay druck, if i thought that crisana and mayla changed me? kieutou has done that five times more. two queer women of color!! and one of them is southeast asian like me?? im crying as i type this literally bec i fcking love seeing this on screen

anyway this has been long enough lol time to actually answer your question

top 5 skamverse ships:

1. kieutou; 2. mayla; 3. crisana

and since ive only watched three remakes:

4. amiris; 5. fatou/ava and nora/eva (brotps ftw okayyy 💕)

[taeyungie]

hi 🥺🎨

SHIVI ANGEL YES HELLO!!!! ✨ ahhhh i am so excited to do this for you!! your creations are always so stunning and well 😌 i try my best but often i just don't have time to tag my reblogs the way I'd really want to (by tagging i mean screaming KJDJSKS) but BELIEVE ME in my mind i just explode with love and admiration for your stuff every time 😌🥰

okay let's goooooo

THIS ONE....it just had to go first, i couldn't wait to talk about it KSJSKSK so now listen... LISTEN. 🙏 WHERE DO I EVEN START AJSHSJJS when i first saw this literal tears pooled in my eyes because good lord 1. coloring 2. quality 3. framing 4. size 5. all of these together JUST *HEART EYES* you're a genius for this coloring, please. when i was making my own gifs of telepathy i had such issues with adding more color to the skin and surroundings 😭😭 and so like, i'm not joking, i was looking at this gifset for so long and every time i scrolled through my own page i stopped to admire it for a while 😭 jimin looks great here and your edition made him look even more beautiful 😌 the funniest thing is that you made the coloring so pretty that beside jimin, the scooter he's sitting on in the first gif looks so pretty, these whites and reds.... and i was like 😭 wtf i want it?????? 😭😭 LMAO now I'll be ending my essay quickly but once again i wanna say ✨THE QUALITY✨ because truly wow WHOLE THING IS AMAZING

anther GORGEOUS SHOW STOPPING set from mtv unplugged!! as a part of some fellow europeans on my dash, i was up at night and after giffing my own stuff i waited for someone to make ot7 set of fix you and i was THIS close to going to sleep again but then you just *noises of angels stepping from heaven* POSTED THIS SET AAAAA ITS SO AMAZING, IT LOOKS SO GOOD 😭 the coloring is so beautiful and it captures the vibe of the song perfectly, you know 🥺🥺❤️ i love all the beiges and yellows and UHHHH i'm the biggest sucker (oh my god it sounds bad DKAJSJSKSKSKW) for good use of curves adjustment for shades and reflections and this here is just *chiefs kiss*

SHUTUPSKSSJ THIS IS SO FUNNY 😭😭 the way they just chased each other around like it's the most casual thing in the world like jimins face in the second gif when he realized he needs to move was literally "🗿" 😭😭 and please JUNGKOOK AS AN ANNOYING YOUNGER BROTHER THAT HE IS SKSJSJ someone said his love language is slapping butts 😭 and i won't ever stop thinking about it LMAO and the way he just yeeted himself away from jimin on the last gif AKSBSJSJSKSK 😭😭😭😭 okay now moving onto editing stuff OMG CAN I JUST SAY HOW BEAUTIFUL YOUR CAPTIONS HERE ARE?? like idk i'm always scared to use orange filling on captions and here it looks SO DAMN GOOD 😳 and oof coloring is so pretty too, it love how you captured contrast of black and white here it's perfectly balanced 🥰

HOBI'S BDAY POST AAAAAAAA there's so much good stuff in here, i felt like a child getting a bowl of candies when i saw this set 💘🥺 ALL these moments are so amazing and precious, literally cannot point my finger on one that wouldn't fit BECAUSE ALL THESE GIFS ARE SO PRECIOUS 😭 i love how you balanced him being a complete demon on stage, his absolute jaw-dropping looks and then he just 🥺🥺 "dimples" and "playing with the plane" 😭😭😭😭 PLEASE ITS SO GREAT 💓 your coloring is amazing, if this message wouldn't be so long already (which i apologize for SKSJSJ) i would literally write a comment on every single one of those.

okay that's it LOL moral of the story is understandable and known to everyone - YOU'RE A TALENTED QUEEN 😭💘💓 thank you so much for all your work! 🥺

creators send me 🎨 & I’ll tell you my favorite of your last ten creations and why

[beccs]

hey rebecca! i just saw your post about negative jughead comments and i think it’s just that he’s not a favorite? i could be wrong but for me personally i was never a big fan of him until like.........3 episodes ago kdfkjdkfhsd and ik a lot of people still dislike him so i think it’s just that! anyway i love your gifsets (both riverdale & well literally everything else) and not to sound cliche but don’t let the negativity get you down :)

hi izabella!! thank you for letting me know, i was so confused when i saw all of the comments and tags on my post. i barely follow any blogs that post/reblog riverdale content so i wasn’t in the know! i thought maybe cole had done something that i wasn’t aware of it. now that you mention it though, i don’t really see any jughead on my dash. 

and thank you so much 🥺💖 i really appreciate it. i’ll try not to pay attention to the negativity 💖

[theteapotofdoom]

lmao your reaction to reno is the exact same as mine when i got into ff7, i first saw him in advent children and was like "Oh? Who's this gorgeous red-headed bastard man?" so the sudden flood of reno with you going nuts in the tags on my dash is both amusing and appreciated

I’m glad you appreciate it!!! Whenever I start to like something, I tend to dive in the tag and reblog everything I like, so I often worry about spamming too much or just overwhelming everyone. Glad to know it was appreciated! :D

I was actually aware of Reno’s existence for years because one of my first mutual ever was really into him when I joined Tumblr in 2014 (holy shit ...) and they were reblogging gifsets of him every once in a while. At the time I just thought he looked pretty but nothing more, because back then I wasn’t really into video games and I was BARELY getting into anime. So I didn’t pay much intention to him, I didn’t even know where he was from.

BUT YEAH since then, I’ve got really into anime, mangas and video games and with the remake of FFVII coming out I was really intrigued by the hyped and decided to check it out! I watched Bun’s best of let’s play to get into it, and then ...

BOOM! THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!! JUST WALKED INTO THE CHURCH!!! JUST LIKE THAT!!! WITH HIS SHIRT WIDE OPEN!!! BEING ALL BASTARD!!!

I was not prepared. I was shaken to my core. Not only was I like “OH SHIT IT’S THE PRETTY BOY FROM YEARS AGO” but also it was a whole new experience, because I had only seen him through gifsets of the FFVII movie before. And suddenly he hit me with HIS VOICE, with the HD CHARACTER MODEL, with THE BASTARD ENERGY, and his POTTY MOUTH ... 

I’ve been trying to recover since then but there is not use. This little bitch is now living in my head rent-free. I’m currently watching Jesse Cox’s let’s play to get the full story (only had the best of from Buns) and I am falling more and more in love with Reno but also with all the Turks in general.

Reno? Fucking super you funky sexy little bastard man. Rude? What a classy beautiful strong man, putting up with all his boyfriend’s bullshit. Tseng? The prettiest man I've ever seen in my life, a beautiful distinguished gay. Rufus? Giving me flashbacks from local goat bastard Lucio from The Arcana and I’m loving it. Elena? Haven’t technically met her yet, but she is already my wife.

Tbh I’m kind of falling in love with every character in FFVII right now, they’re all so charming and well written (Aerith please I am three tomorrow night and literally every night of my like if you want to go a date and maybe kiss haha), but the Turks feeding my “villain found family” needs. I know they’re all doing terrible awful things, but you don’t have all the facts: I love them.

[elriell]

Do you ship SQ now?

I am so sorry I have no clue when this was sent as my ask box is awful at notifying me but I think I checked about… idk a week ago? So hopefully you haven’t been waiting too long. 

There is a long and a short answer, short is yes. and i have been a multi shipper for a few years now (even tho i haven’t been on tumblr in ages prior) I even made a post about it WAY back when which you may have missed, So I will copy and paste it below (bare in mind this was written years ago when I first sort of began multi-shipping) but it still relates to this day for those who might be confused as I was a 100% CS shipper back in the day, they are still my OTP for the record! 

I just started enjoying other areas of the fandom too. If you dont care for the long answer no worries I’ll leave it under the (read more) bar and just ignore it, but if you do want to know a little about my experience and feeling with all the toxicity within the f OUAT fandom back then, then go ahead and give it whirl and come back and we can chat

Hellooooo. *blows out breath* Where to begin…

I made a post months ago about fandom negativity and how over time it got to me, I’m going to copy parts of it over here and add some more, newer thoughts since that post…And hopefully if you have the patience to sit through it you’ll understand a little better by the end.

*

I am a Captain Swan shipper (along with many other ships), I have been a member of the CS family for years and have loved it, I have made so many lifelong friends that I talk to outside of tumblr daily, however, there is something I have been…struggling, for lack of a better word, with for a little while.

Negativity. Fandom negativity to be specific.

(I also want to preface this by saying I am not calling anyone out at all, people who are discussing and standing up for their characters and/or actors. People who are having debates, wording discussions in way I never could articulate so beautifully, are awesome. I enjoy these posts and reblog them often. This is not directed anyone in the slightest.)

But there has been a lot of negativity surrounding certain areas of the fandom, there is no reason to beat around the bush, I am talking about anti-sq/anti-regina stuff. I see it on my dash from a few shippers, I see it in the “OUAT Spoilers” tag and on twitter and everywhere. There is literally this dark energy everywhere. This hostile feeling, and maybe I am the only who feels it but I am just going to honest and straight up say, it got to me.

It crept up in a way I can’t even explain…

I am the biggest believer in ship and let ship, shipping is supposed to be fun! It shouldn’t matter what is canon and what’s not, it’s about enjoying characters that you think have potential. It’s about discussing it with your friends and making fanart, and just enjoying. And yet at some point during my time in the fandom something in me changed.

I let the bad apples get to me, I let the hateful people get to me and twist my views on an entire fandom. When I thought of the Swan Queen fandom all I saw was the bad, and became so bad that I’d see a gifset or anything in relation to them and feel physically ill. Like a pit in my stomach, like a uncomfortable twist every time they came up.

I realise this sounds melodramatic, I mean how can seeing a gifset actually cause such a strong reaction? Such strong negative emotions… I suppose it was the accumulation of so much anger and bitterness towards the bad apples  (and also seeing my dash constantly with negativity, it is like being in a bubble) that I forgot that they aren’t a entire fandom, that I became hyper sensitive to everything surrounding SQ. It was confusing, I absolutely love ships between women, if anything 8/10 i prefer them, being a bisexual women i’ve learned take/appreciate representation where we can get it or possibly get it. [sidenote: it f* sucks that there isn’t more out there and i could rant about that for daaays] but anyways in this one show something just didn’t click originally.

I get so upset when I see posts about how the CS fandom is the most hateful fandom because there are so many amazing people who have become my family and who literally are like literal sunshine and I think to myself “How can you (sq’rs) judge a entire fandom by a handful of bad?”

But then I know what you’re now thinking… Isn’t that what you’ve been doing, Morgan? Yes, yes it is.

I don’t want to argue about which fandom has done the most wrong, or which is more guilty of hate, I just want to move forward. I want to watch the show again and have fun doing so. I want to watch OUAT and not feel annoyed every time Regina is on screen with Emma (because there is no reason for it). I want to watch OUAT with a lighter heart, like I use too back in season 3.

“I don’t know how, but I’ve simply decided to let go of all my hostile emotions, lets call it my new years resolution. At the very least I am trying to and you know what, I think I am getting somewhere good, I felt a lot better lately, my mood is up. You might have noticed a slight increase of Regina on my blog, I saw a gif of Regina looking at Emma (from 4x12) and thought “oh, you know I can see what you mean about the way she looks at her sometimes…” (tbh she looks at a lot of folks that way), it’s simply Lana’s acting.  But my point is, that physical negative reaction is gone.

And I am so fucking happy about that.”

-A quote from my months old post

That feeling has only gotten better and stronger in the months ahead, I have followed a few multi shippers and begun to interact outside of my usual circles, and its going good. There are always days were anti’s irritate me but I think that is normal, overall I am happier.

I am so sorry if this feels fake to some of my friends on tumblr, who I have openly talked negatively about characters/ships with, I don’t take back my beliefs on  some of their actions or our discussions, I’ve simply chosen to try and move past it. And look at it from a wider lens…

I don’t know if I have properly articulated myself during this post but I really just wanted to get this out in the open because I love and adore the CS fandom but I also want to open up a little more, I know that although I few of my friends on here wont agree with my opinions on trying to be more regina/sq friendly I am sure you’ll support me because you always have, and thats what friendship is.

HOWEVER, back to the main purpose of this swan-queeen side-blog I understand and acknowledge that this is my change, and my choice. A lot of people don’t have to follow me in it and don’t want it on their dash, I have a little under 5k on my main and I know that they followed for a specific set of content. With that in mind I am putting this kind of content on a separate platform, if you want to join me I’d love that, if not I understand everyone has a right to their feelings/opinions.

Anyways I have so much more to say but I’ll stop here or you will be falling asleep, I am always here to chat and discuss things so feel free to hit up my ask/messenger/etc…

[femmetay]

Okay no disrespect but how are you going to get mad at people for self reblogging when you do so too?

i self reblog my edits to get them back onto people’s dashboards so they can get notes and i don’t have to get paid dust for my hard work and contributions to this online fandom while everyone else reblogs their selfies and posts about how much they love taylor and need to meet her even though they’ve been noticed 2852378572839 times and probably have already met her before! 

i don’t even understand how you can compare me to the someone who literally just self-reblogged their post 198 times when taylor was online. 198 times. 

i self reblog to get my edits out there. i do it all the time and i’ve been doing it as long as i’ve been making edits. i’m like actually offended by this message because the self-reblogging that editors do is not comparable to the self-reblogging issue at large in this fandom. 

self-reblogging my gifsets is sometimes the only way my work can get recognized? sometimes i’m not on my dash at all, working on gifs for hours, coloring them to perfection, i upload and post only to discover that taylor is online and my gifset is completely BURIED under thousands of posts and not a single person saw it. if i reblog it a few hours later, bam. 1000+ notes. this is why editors self-reblog.

i’ve never made a post all about *me* and tagged taylor in thousands of times and reblogged it over and over hundreds of times when she’s online. i generally leave tumblr when she’s online because it’s impossible to find any content to reblog………..im not a self-reblogger lmao sorry but not sorry that i like to show off my fan art?

[thehollowprince]

Hey, it’s the “coding” anon here and honestly that answer to my question was excellent and the exact reason I come to your blog. I would absolutely love to hear you go on about the fetishization of m/m relationships!

This has been sitting in my inbox for over a week, and I want to apologize. I'm sorry for taking so long to get to this one, but I'm overworked at the moment. I've been pulling 60+ hour work weeks, by myself and I haven't had off since the first of December, so I'm a little tired. But I'm here and I'm ready to murder this bitch of a subject.

For starters, and for context, in case anyone who sees this doesn't follow my blog or, if you do and don't really pay attention, I am a gay man, so a lot of this comes from my own personal experience.

Now, onward my fandom soldiers.

M|M Fetishization & Objectification

I've only been super active within fandom spaces for the last couple of years. Before that, I just scrolled through Tumblr and reblogged gifsets and fluffy headcanons and whatnot, but even then I noticed a trend in fandoms that made me uncomfortable. That trend was the overabundance of gay men (chatacters) in fandom works, especially when there either weren't any gay men in that show or book or whatever.

I'm not at all saying we need less of that. I want and need more gay characters in the things I watch and read. That's actually one of the criteria I look for before I start a new show, or a book series or comics. I want to see myself represented in the media I consume, even if it is only this one tiny piece of who I am. But the problem for me arose when I saw all these fan works and headcanons and gifsets and thesis length metas about gay or bi male characters that were neither of those things in their original source material.

The biggest examples of this occured in fairly popular shows that I loved at one point, but do to a combination of bad writing and then the horrible fandom, drove me to actively dislike and avoid them. And that's always a sad thing, when you end up losing the love you had for something because others just won't let you enjoy it as it is.

Those two examples are Teen Wolf and Supernatural.

For years I watched people go on and on and on and on about Stiles Stilinski and Dean Winchester and how they were bisexual and so on and so forth.

There's nothing wrong with headcanoning a character as gay or bisexual, especially when those characters are severely lacking on screen and on paper. The problem arose when the fandom at large started to ignore the ACTUAL gay or bisexual characters that are in these shows and focus solely on their headcanons as the only representation in the show.

To start with Teen Wolf, we had, in the first season, an openly gay character that everybody in the school loved, that being Danny Mahealani. This character was introduced as gay from the very start, but oddly enough, there is almost no large fandom meta or fics or anything about him. In fact, a lot of his traits and qualities ended up transferred to Stiles, such as his intelligence and overall popularity. Hell, even Danny's attraction to Derek was stolen and transferred to him. These aren't things that Stiles is overall known for in the actual canon. He's clumsy and socially awkward and on the outskirts of the school like Scott (the main character) and has been obsessed (to the point of being considered a stalker) with one girl since elementary school, but somehow, in fandom, Stiles is suddenly the genius polyglot queer with severe depression who has a crush on the broody muscular werewolf who just wants somebody to love him.

Fandom created this portrayal of the character that didn't exist anywhere in the fandom except for his appearance. The reason I saw behind this was twofold. 1: fangirls (fandom is mostly female) want to see two "hot" guys kiss and get it on because they get off to it, much in the same way that straight men get off to lesbian porn. 2: Stiles (or any of these headcanoned characters) becomes a sort of self insert.

What I mean by that second one is that women and girls find a male character that's not "too masculine", usually kind of gangly or skinny, somewhat on the effeminate side. Someone that they can project their ideas and insecurities and so forth onto so that they can that pursue that relationship with the hunky manly man that they want to bang.

You may be asking yourself, "Why don't they just use one of the female characters as a self insert?" and I'm here to tell you that I have neither the time nor the experience to go into detail about internalized misogyny and how effects the way women do almost everything, even watching and interpreting their media.

But the reason they chose the male character is that, years ago, during the dark days of FF.net there was a lot of self insert OCs that infiltrated almost every level of fanfiction. Which caused the fandom gatekeepers to rear out of their hibernation and just shame anyone who tried to introduce an Original Character to this already beautiful world and ruin it with their lusts. Thus the OCs slowly disappeared and identifying with the male sidekick was born. And this is generally where we get the whole "my smol gay son!" bullshit. (side note: please keep in mind that 75% of shows are male characters and their problems, which is another cause for female fans to identify solely with men.)

So, for years, I watched Danny, and then his boyfriend Ethan, being shoved aside in fandom spaces so that the fans could focus Sterek (Stiles and Derek) despite the fact that both characters were stared to be heterosexual and that, on screen, they expressed nothing but mutual dislike for one another, if not outright hatred. This got so bad that Sterek, the crack ship whose members had no romantic or sexual interactions whatsoever, managed to beat (by a very large margin) actual gay ships from both this show and others in a fan poll. It got even worse when the character of Danny was written off the show (with no explanation) and we were introduced to the character of Mason.

Mason Hewitt was everything that fandom!Stiles was. He was smart and funny and openly gay and crushing on a hot werewolf. He even did the research that the fandom loved to attribute to Stiles, literally everything that the fandom had Stiles doing in fanon, but somehow the love for him (Mason) wasn't that big of a note in the fandom. I mean, Mason was even a major plot point of season five and the pack's mission to stop the Beast, but i heard nothing but cricket chirps from the fandom.

You'd think that after Stiles was written out of the show for the last season that maybe Mason will get some love now, right?

Wrong!

I didn't think it was possible to get any worse, but the fandom proved me wrong. Because instead of focusing all their pent up energy on Mason and his boyfriend, Corey, who had a number of cute moments in that final season, these fans focused on another crack ship that had no basis anywhere except in their fantasies. That ship being Thiam, which is based, once again, around two characters who actively dislike, if not outright hate, each other and even physically assault one another. But no, that apparently is a display of affection by someone who is emotionally stunted and just needs love to blossom and be his true self.

You notice how often the fetishization of homosexuality (even if only imagined) intersects with woobification?

You'll notice, if you look at Danny and Mason, that they're both POC, with Danny being brown (Hawai'ian) and Mason being black. Now, as I've said before on this blog multiple times, I am the Whittest White Man to ever White, so I don't have any qualifications to talk about fandom racism, so I'm just going to leave that little nugget there for you to think about and interpret how you will.

Moving on to Supernatural...

Before we start with this one, understand that I have not watched this show outside of an episode here and there since season eight, because I realized that no, this show wasn't going to get any better, so if any of this is contradictory to what has happened over the past six seasons (god, this show needs to die!) I do apologize.

Dean Winchester... I never really liked this character, especially as the show went on and I started to actively dislike and then, hate him. So it was annoying not being able to go into any aspect of the Supernatural fandom without coming across a post about Dean and his issues or his Bi sexiness or how his brother was mean to him.

Also, people, understand that this wasn't a new revelation for me. My dislike for Dean and the fandom's obsession with making him bisexual just so they could hook him up with Cas wasn't an overnight decision. I was there...

I was there at the Beginning, when this show first aired, when the ONLY constant characters on this show were Sam and Dean. I endured the hellfire that was Wincest and its infection of almost the entire fandom. Like, that right there, that was one of the most extreme cases of m|m fetishization I've ever seen, because the fandom needed to get off to two guys being together so badly that they turned to actual brothers for want of any other male character.

That's why Destiel immediately became so popular, because here was another guy that we saw with semi regularity that wasn't rated to the Winchesters, obviously they were meant to ship them.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "I thought this bitch was going to talk about gay fetishization, not his dislike for one character?" to which I'll just say I very easily go off tangent. But all of that is relevant because, come one of these later seasons, there was a scene where Dean was at a bar and the (male) bartender hit on him, and he didn't react negatively or homophobic.

Oh, my God, I watched my dash and the tags explode in post after post, meta after meta, about how Bi Dean was canon confirmed! Now he and Cas will HAVE to be together, because its canon that Dean likes guys. and Cas is an angel, who doesn't follow human sexual limitations, and... blah, blah, blah.

Cut to a few years later, and we're introduced to a character named Max Banes, a witch and hunter, who is openly gay and flirts with Sam in his first appearance. Where were all of his metas and fanfics and headcanons? Granted, he only appeared in two episodes, but I have watched people in this and other fandoms build mountains our of molehills, going on and on about how two male characters weren't actually straight and how they were destined to be together because the once wore similar style shirts a couple of seasons apart, or because of a carnation in a jacket pocket that signified love via the Victorian flower code (or something like that), or how the wallpaper of that room they shared a scene in was a subtle clue to their true desire for each other, etc.

And I'm not exaggerating there, those are actual examples I've seen in fandoms over the years.

But back to Max, why is it that he was left along the wayside, despite fitting most of the criteria that fandoms love in their m|m ships while Dean had entire thesis level posts about that time he shared a glance with Castiel or he let a bartender hit on him and not get upset?

And its not just these two shows, not by a long shot. If you were to go into literally any fandom of a certain size or bigger, you will come across fans putting two straight characters together because of "the chemistry" they have. Even if those characters are confirmed to be straight - especially if those characters are confirmed to be straight. Because when these loud fans don't get their crack ship that they rub one out to, they scream queerbaiting and homophobia and oppression, harassing the actors and producers and directors and writers.

Here are some others that just pop to the front of my mind...

Asher Millstone from How To Get Away With Murder (saw him shipped with Connor a lot, despite Connor's actual boyfriend)

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from BBC's Sherlock

Tony Stark from Marvel comics (all because of one panel where he said "ladies and gents" when he announced he was off the market

Literally any male character in the MCU, which is his we get the things like Stucky and Stony that permeate the fandom on almost every level (and some leeway is given here because of the MCU's lack of wueer characters)

Klaus Mikaelson and Stefan Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries/The Originals (honestly, I was surprised that people in the TVD fandom weren't immediately all over Josh and Lucas, because they're literally everything that fans want and use in their headcanon gays)

Kol Mikaelson and Jeremg Gilbert, also from TVD

Elia and Filippo from Skam Italia (despite there being, once again, actual gay characters on this show. Hell, the entire second season was dedicated to a character coming out of the closet and being with a guy)

Etc.

I could go on and on but then this post would seem infinite.

Closing thoughts, please keep in mind that I am just one guy and that my opinions don't represent everyone in fandom spaces. But also bear in mind, that my frustrations are well founded and valid from my own experiences in the fandom.

My sexuality and the fact that I'm attracted to men is not a toy for a bunch of sexually repressed fangirls who think two guys being together is hot.