#and any other mlm ship in any fandom ive ever been a part of

[boilingheart]

i know its not quite the same scenario as navy seal, but ive highkey avoided ever talking about or publicly enjoying poly pirates content for the same kind of reason, but instead bc it involves shipping jay and chip.

like. yes, i know many people (including the jerboys) interpret them as having a more sibling-esque bond. I fully acknowledge it and I can even agree w it!* but i hate how it has been made that any other interpretation is not only wrong but also bad.

idk man like. i just hate how it feels like enjoying any dynamic of poly-pirates outside of fnc is wrong-- bc at that point, what is the point?

*i personally tend to see the two as very close, but the specifics of whether that closeness is platonic/familial or romantic depends on interpretation (whether of the individual, author, etc). they're two people who've found connection and safety in each other and also enjoy ribbing the other for jokes- what specific type of connection that is can vary for me, yknow? the type isnt the Core of their dynamic to me

(sorry the asterisk part got so long i just want to properly explain myself and dump a bit fjkdsjf)

Oh yeah, I'm 1000% with you on this. I mentioned navyseal cause that's my personal guilty pleasure that I am highkey obsessed with but had to keep it on the downlow after twitter decided it was just as bad as inc*st apparently (as someone who is very very deeply uncomfortable and revolted by that type of stuff in genuine, that shit pissed me off!!!), but this absolutely applies to Chip and Jay and polypirates as a whole. Hell, when I first started the show and didn't really have much fandom influence in my first 30 something episodes I was actually way more of a poly enjoyer

Anyways, as a whole I do sincerely think Chip and Jay work better as a platonic bond, I like this interpretation of their relationship better than romantic, but that doesn't necessarily make the ship bad or wrong you know? Literally ditto to everything you said in your asterisk I couldn't word it better myself.

Like bruh it really felt like these characters are stuck being bitchless fr LOL that whole twitter debacle made it feel like the only CORRECT ships were fnc and pistolwhip (as if fnc doesn't Also have some of the same dynamics listed in navyseal and chip/jay!! (although im certainly keeping my mouth shut further on that since people have started gunning to convince people fnc is a Bad Boring Ship, Actually, and it's better platonic (unrelated to the wlw vs mlm take that just happened there, big disclaimer (I spend too much time on twitter can u tell... there's so many shipwars there for no reason...))) anyways yeah there was just too many people trying to police these ships and instead of just being NORMAL and saying "oh X isn't my cup of tea I enjoy a familial/platonic bond between them instead" they start bending over backwards to prove that ACTUALLY it's PROBLEMATIC, SEE? And sourcing the boys' opinions on it doesn't Wholly matter to ships (unless it's in regards to boundaries, in which it Absolutely Matters) cause Bizly regularly dunks on fnc and that hasn't changed anything

This got very long winded sorry LOL I've been holding onto this irritation for a while now, it's one of the reasons why I'm trying to move away from twitter and come back to tumblr tbh. It is simply fandom culture to ship, and while I love fnc to absolute death as my main ship here, it's nice to explore some variety yk? navyseal has CRAZY potential cause of their parallels and their journey of self discovery and how much they deeply care for each other, polypirates is just a lot of fun altogether cause of all their personalities and that shared strong bond, then you have swordfish, fish² and chips, caspian/chip, marshall john/gillion, like, multishipping is FUN dude. Unless it's GENUINELY problematic or Actual Proshipping like twitter Claimed, I don't see the big idea. There is such thing as "Don't like, don't read". There is such thing as muting/blocking words and curating your own experience. You don't have to put down others because their enjoyment of something clashes with your personal interpretation of it. It's fandom bro!!!

[theunconcernedembalmer]

what’s the issue with elisop? is it just bc you hc aesop as ace? im so concerned by seeing ppl adamantly opposed to mlm/wlw ships but im also genuinely curious about why you dislike it and other lgbt ships so much lol

hmm. that is a strong accusation, n i find it just a bit odd. are you new here? or perhaps you are taking personal offense at my dislike towards a favourite ship of yours and using the lgbt argument as moral high ground?

whatever the case may be, i thank you for asking. if u r truly looking for an answer, its below the cut n it is very very long. mind u these are all my personal opinions n i am in no way policing how others enjoy ships. just in case this wasnt clear; i dont wish to start discourse on this blog, especially since my takes are probably... unpopular.

firstly i would like to address the “disliking lgbt ships” bit, because this has very strong implications in itself. i have nothing against lgbt ships. i enjoy them, even. if the two characters have chemistry between each other, i ship it. however, the moment characterization is broken for the sake of romance, i lose interest. this is generally my stance on ships in general, n this applies for both straight n lgbt ships. 

the ships themselves are fine. however, i do have issues with the ship dynamics, so ill let u in on that.

i want to touch on mlm ships in particular; i believe u are familiar with the top/bottom dynamic that is rampant in these kinds of ships? (i wont deny that this dynamic can be found in other types of ships, but for arguments sake i will be focusing on gay ships because i feel that this occurs more commonly here) its such a popular dynamic that is prone to stripping the personality from one if not both characters, only for them to be reduced to being dominant/submissive. for a character to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical category based on... preferred sexual positions? its just downright insulting, never mind the larger more problematic implications of it. top/bottom is not indicative of someones personality, by the way. flattening multi dimensional characters into these stereotypes is so so so insulting.

unfortunately this is The Most Popular portrayal of just about any gay ship around. ive seen it being used everywhere in so many fandoms n it just about becomes apparent to me that ppl come to stories looking for a Ship. not the stories, nor the characters, just a ship. while id like to say theres nothing wrong with that, keep in mind not everyone is just looking for 2 characters that look pretty next to each other. if i ship something, i see interesting n meaningful interactions between 2 characters, which is so often not the case once u bring in the top/bottom dynamic. why is it so popular? because somehow this is what ppl like from a gay ship n hence it sells. ppl want the drama, characterizations be damned. ppl want to see the big kiss that happens in the end, n maybe the sexy parts that come after. characterizations be damned.

so u can say im a little wary of gay ships when they cross my feed. hell, as a joseph aesop shipper i see this trope everywhere n im pretty disappointed as well. small tangent but i feel like this is the reason why zh0ngli n ch1lde is so popular in g3nshin. i try to see the appeal, i really do, but after a long while of analyzing their respective characters i dont think they have as much chemistry as ppl think they do. dont even get me started on how incredibly ooc they make either of these very interesting n unique characters in ship portrayals. all because of the top/bottom dynamic that ppl want to see. i say this for that particular ship, but this is pretty much the case for a lot of ships out there, n the latter part is painfully true even when the 2 characters do have potential between each other. ill say it again im disgusted by the blatant disrespect to the characterizations if all ppl ever want is 2 pretty puppets to mush lips together. cos thats what theyre essentially reduced to this way.

n its so obvious to see when an artist subscribes to this rhetoric, because u can so clearly see it in the way they draw their characters. the “top” generally has sharper features to go with their “dominating personality”, while the “bottom” has disturbingly softer, feminine, dare i say sometimes child like features “to submit”. n thats where the uwu soft gay trope comes from, i believe. which, in case u still dont know, i hate with a burning passion.

so again for ppl with impaired reading comprehension, im fine with ships, including lgbt ones, but the moment u break characterization for the sake of the ship, im not that okay with it. u want to do it for a short crack comic? fine. but if thats the only way ur portraying the 2 characters then im immediately wary of ur content. ill still look at it cos usually the art is really good, but im very very wary. so im not “adamantly opposed”, just very critical of how the ships are being portrayed. if other ppl want to enjoy their ships like that, sure. just dont expect me to join in on something i dont agree on.

.

now id like to address not shipping “because i hc aesop as ace”. for ppl who are new to the blog (hello there), im an ace in a romantic relationship, so thats definitely not the reason i dont ship elisop. its more of being in a relationship has largely shaped my views towards romance as a whole. even before i met my boyfriend, i hated the romance genre in stories n media. most of it comes off as incredibly forced, especially those love triangles they seem to love putting into teen novels. thats one reason why i stopped reading when i was younger, but i digress.

did i partake in shipping when i was younger? i did. for a gay ship too (if anyone really wants to know, its kurotsukki from haikyuu. at least this was one that i can remember, i was mostly working on my 20 odd ocs for the longest time). i also used to write little short romance ficlets that i never posted anywhere cos i hated (n still do hate) my writing. but writing romance when u dont have experience was really just a way of projecting n probably a way of coping for myself, not that i knew at that time. but after i actually started a relationship with my boyfriend (whom i love n cherish a lot thank u very much), i began to see how much all these have skewed my views towards romance n have actually done some harm to our relationship. the bullshit that the general media feeds u constantly doesnt help in the slightest either.

quick topic shift to elisop in particular (about time, right?). i already stated that i only ship characters if i sense chemistry between the two personalities, n if u have seen the part where i dont ship elisop then u must have seen how agonized i am over not being able to have a concrete personality for eli. that is the main problem i have with elisop: eli does not feel like a solid character to me. n that is a huge problem, because if he doesnt have any defining characteristics besides being mild n nice, then he can be whoever i want him to be. (i have done this in my exorcist comics, i will admit this. n the fact that i can just do that... it really does not sit well with me personally.)

n that is dangerous.

back to young me doing lil ship things. i think its also pretty safe to say when u really do ship 2 characters, chances are u kinda really relate very very hard to at least one of them. that very quickly can turn into projecting, n shipping therefore is not “exploring the relationship between 2 characters” n it becomes “my preferred dating simulator 101″. of course this isnt always the case, but at least it was for me, n subconsciously it might be for lots of ppl too. n since this is ur mental playground, u call the shots, n there is no consequences if u slightly (or even entirely) alter one or both personalities to fit ur desired narrative. n u wouldnt even notice or know, cos ur blind to ur own biasness.

we bring our perceived notions into real life, im sure u know that. so when ur partner does not become that perfect knight in shining armour, or when they get upset at things that u do (which is a very normal thing by the way), n u think (very subconsciously), That isnt what my otp would do, something is wrong here (nothing is wrong, actually its just ur skewed perception of a stable romantic relationship). why wouldnt ur otp do this? because u are both halves of ur otps, there is no hidden secrets between them (apart from the pining part but thats irrelevant), n again they have been altered to fit ur preferred narrative. 

a real relationship requires a lot of communication between parties, because newsflash, liking someone doesnt mean that u have to like every single thing they do, they will make mistakes n it will hurt u, n guess what, the reverse is also true. if u do go with absoutely anything that they would do with 0 objections whatsoever, ur not crushing on someone, ur idolizing them, n that power imbalance is detrimental to a relationship. these things are not obvious to ppl, especially when the whole climate is hell bent on getting into romantic relationships by a certain age or some bullshit. communication is key n is pretty much the only way to solve relationship issues, because the other person has a lot that u r not seeing n vice versa. as similar as 2 ppl can be, i doubt u can have 100% the same thoughts on all things. i dont make the rules.

so in ur mental playground u focus on the fluffy parts, maybe there is communication, but rarely is there any meaningful conflict. thats unrealistic, n if u bring that mindset to an actual relationship, thats not going to end well. i say meaningful conflict, because yes, generally u shouldnt have conflicts with ur significant other. but inevitably when ur with each other for long enough, u will realize that there are habits that u must change in order to be with the other person. habits that are harmful to the other person directly, or harmful habits towards yourself that indirectly harm the other person. these are meaningful in a sense that if left alone, it will manifest into larger problems that will harm u, the other person n the relationship as a whole. its meaningful to the relationship.

all these is made even worse if ur neurodivergent. maladaptive coping practices, self sabotaging behaviours, inherent disabilities. all these must be adjusted n addressed. im so incredibly thankful for my boyfriend for being incredibly patient with me when working all these out, n it has not been easy for me to work on myself n all my problems, n im still not done working on them. this aspect is often not explored in romance in general (or properly), n there is a very good chance i would have still been stuck in the unhealthy mindset of “this isnt like my otp, maybe we’re not meant to be”. because loving someone is a choice. no one is made for each other, it is a conscious choice made between 2 ppl to make things work. this is how arranged marriages work, i am told, n i do see the appeal, not that it actually does appeal to me culturally.

special mention to the kurotsukki ship, cos from there i found a very, very good fic that explored their relationship before n after getting together, n it actually showed aspects of this problem in the incredibly slow burn of (at that time) 20+ chapters. it was just one fic (n a very good one at that, i believe it was called Leviticus), but it had a lesson i never thought i needed to learn, n learn it i did, with a lot of help from my dear. 

this is also probably the reason why i dont really want to delve too much into romance now. i know its a lot of work, n everything (mostly) that the media feeds u is really false advertising, but ppl eat that shit up n so it remains one of the most popular genres to date. im just very wary that if i do start on a romantic story, i want to be able to show it in a way like that fic did, the truths of relationships, because i dont want to make something that sells, i want to make something that meaningful to me, if a little indulgent. n that also includes being very careful in how the respective characterizations will change in a relationship. almost too careful now that i think about it, but its not something that i mind. i was never one for romance from the start, n now im very careful about shipping because of what happened to me persoanlly.

okay enough about me, lets talk about aesop. in any au u put the character in, the essence of the character must remain despite the change in environment. so lets say we have ur typical modern au. dead mom, check. shitty mentor doing illegal stuff? also check. autistic boy with social anxiety? we’re good to go. all these have implications on aesop as a character, n while ppl are aware of this, again the way they go about portraying it can go, in my personal opinion, very wrong. ppl who immediately woobify aesop completely because he has autism annoy me. ppl who reduce him to uwu soft boi cos he has social anxiety do not know how the disorder really works n as someone who has that i hate it to the core. ppl who do all these for the sake of ship have lost my respect. its insulting.

remember the top/bottom dynamic? not that elisop is completely free from that (even if i dont know much about eli, to put him in either one of those stereotypes feels very insulting to his character. i wont even say anything about doing it to aesop its so upsetting), but its not entirely made up of either. but now i want to introduce another trope i am very wary of, which is “i can fix him”. im sure u guys have seen the meme going around poking fun at this trope (for those who havent, its along the lines of “u can fix him? well i can be his worst nightmare”) n no doubt yall would have seen it n gotten sick of it in some forced hetero romantic bullshit. we have one damsel in distress with a saviour that solves all their problems just by existing n being romo with each other.

remember “my preferred dating simulator 101″? this is not mutually exclusive n from my point of view this is dangerously close to this trope. lets be real, if it was actually a thing that all ur deep rooted trauma magically disappears if someone were to waltz into ur life, we would want it. definitely. no painfully dissecting ur own problems n constantly facing them head on. real life states that this is not the case, but it will not stop us from dreaming. n so this trope is born n lives n will go on.

(finally) pulling aesop n eli into this, at least in my mind, u have one severely traumatized boy with lots of issues n u have this. nice mild guy who can be anything u want him to be. i hope u can see where im going with this, n thats the direction i see some elisop heading towards (i dont read a lot of elisop to be fair). if u came from my eli character talk, i mentioned that it is incredibly one sided. this is exactly what im talking about.

putting it all together in case u havent already, aesop is the damsel in distress, whose problems magically disappear because of elis godly kindness n little to no work on improving himself, n they lived happily n gayly ever after.

can u tell how much that does not appeal to me. 

never mind the butchering of character that inevitably happens somewhere somehow, the unrealistically perfect themes n implications of this trope makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. this is, of course, due to personal reasons, n i definitely see the appeal of this dynamic because i would probably have been interested in this once upon a time as well. but as i am now, with everything i have explained up there n everything i have been through, i would politely rather not.

n its difficult to think of another dynamic, because of how little i know about eli apart from him being this saint, which easily makes him a candidate for being aesops trauma panacea. never mind aesop rarely, if ever, does anything for eli as a character in return, n its so damaging to buy into this rhetoric, where a person like this who would solve all ur issues no strings attached exists somewhere in the world. they really dont. a relationship has to be mutually benefitting, or it will be draining n disastrous. maybe u say, Oh its nice to imagine it once in a while. n yeah, i agree, except once in a while is a little difficult to keep track of n that is sort of what happened to me. id rather stay as far away as possible from this kind of unrealistic fantasy, i just got this shit sorted out with myself n my boyfriend.

i have some other reasons, but theyre more personally problematic, so i wont go into them here. but this is mostly n generally why i do not ship elisop romantically. if u do, u do u, and have fun, but again dont expect me to join u. thank u for coming to my ted talk, this took a lot longer than expected.

[freckliedan]

can u please explain what an phanti//anti is (like moree specifically)? ive only really ever seen ppl talk about dan & phil from the perspective of they’re (prob) together or they don’t feel comfortable with speculation/don’t care either way

oh my god anon i’m so glad that things have changed so much that this is the culture now. oh my god i’m so glad you don’t know what a phanti is

i think in the most basic sense of the word, a phanti is someone who believes that dan and phil are heterosexual, and that they’re just friends, and that shippers are super disrespectful/being bad people for forcing the idea that the two of them might be together on them & in their faces. phantis tend to think we’re seeing things that aren’t there/making things up, and they’re really, really shitty in the ways they aggressively will argue with people about it. they have blinders on, essentially, when it comes to the ways dan and phil have been subtly coming out for the past few years.

and an anti is someone who’s opposed to a ship? so like ok cool, that’s a fair word to have made up, but most of the time that you see that being used on tumblr, i’d be wary. a lot of people who talk about antis in general on tumblr are complaining about being criticized for fetishizing mlm or shipping unhealthy ships, and i’m going to go into more detail about that under the cut but i’m gonna put a few trigger warnings first bc it’s some potentially triggering reasons that people get criticized and then pull out the word anti.

the overall point about the general word anti is: it means someone who’s against a ship, but usually if people are making posts about how antis suck and you shouldn’t police other’s enjoyment of fandom, be wary/check out OP’s blog before reblogging because it might be someone defending a really shitty stance.

(for under the cut: csa tw/, pedophilia tw/, incest tw/, rape tw/; i’m having a serious discussion of toxic parts of fandom under the cut so please take my trigger warnings seriously and gauge your comfort level/whether it’s healthy for you to click to the read more. i don’t want to feel responsible for causing hurt, and the discussion under the cut doesn’t have any information that’s not explained in broad strokes in the main body of my post.)

oftentimes people who use the word anti are adults who shipping an adult character with a minor & not listening when people tell them that doing so supports pedophilic attitudes & contributes to societal grooming of minors to be abused by predatory adults; this is the most common original poster of things about how antis need to stop policing others’ enjoyment of fandom, and i’ve seen a number of people who describe themselves as fandom moms who also behave in this way. typically the antis in this specific scenario are minors who are saying that the adult’s actions are making them uncomfortable, and the adult will mobilize their larger follower base against the minor who spoke up about their discomfort. 

and i’m not talking like, an 18/19 year old who’s shipping two characters of a similar age to themself together when one is still like 16/17; that’s different; i’m talking like. someone who’s 20+, usually mid twenties or older, who describes themself as a fandom mom and who will not listen to criticism or people who tell them that they’ve been made uncomfortable. i’m not saying that all fandom moms are like this, i’m just saying that i’ve seen it enough times that i get wary when i see someone constantly and proudly self defining as a fandom mom.

other times the unhealthy ship will be incest, or will be focused on dub con/non con. and there’s a place for that in fandom; i know that there’s a lot of people who process traumas through writing fic about characters that they relate deeply to, and rape survivors and survivors of incest should have a space in which to do that, too. i’m not talking about that kind of fan content though; there’s people who get pissed about being criticized for eroticizing rape, incest, and dub con, and for romanticizing abusive, unhealthy relationships, and when they get pissed for the valid criticisms people are bringing up, they roll out the word anti and start getting self righteous. 

fandom is a really wonderful place for the most part, but a lof of minors get exposed to extremely toxic ideas by adults and those ideas get normalized through the constant repitition. that normalization can leave a kid vulnerable to manipulation by predatory adults, or lead to the adoption of unhealthy behaviors or a kid being put into unsafe situations. this especially happens due to the way that sex is discussed in fan spaces without regard to age a lot of the time. 

i really want all minors to be safe, and i think talking about this is important, because none of the adults i was following when i was a minor were discussing this even though it should be the adult’s responsibility to protect minors and make sure they’re not interacting sexually with young people, even when it’s about a fandom, not about people’s personal sex lives. this is a hill that i’m willing to die on, and although i turned out okay and didn’t end up in any bad situations, i know that i was exposed to some super toxic ideas through fandom when i was growing up and i did internalize a fair amount of shit. 

so. yeah. beware people who use the word anti and if you’re an adult reading this, don’t behave sexually with minors on the internet. nobody tells us that it’s our responsibility to protect minors on the internet, but it is, and this is me telling you that if you’ve not already realized it yourself.

[jokeson-u]

so ive been absolutely terrified to talk about this for a while because i dont want to be attacked, but i wanna be able to get my ideas out here with an explanation so that next time i say what im about to say, i have my reasons to back me up, even if you disagree (which i know like 99% of you do, which is fine!)

ok, well. I dont like yuri on ice. its not that i hate it, but... ok.

this is a dumb reason lol but the word ‘yuri’ is also used as a sub-genre of romance anime shows between two girls. now that yuri on ice is out, the first thing that coems up when you type ‘yuri’ into google is ‘yuri on ice,’ and its the first thing ppl associate the word ‘yuri’ with more often than not, which lowkey erases a term that was frequently used to refer to wlw and replacing it with a popular mlm trope.

thats not that big of a deal to me i guess, so ill move on. ive had so many people tell me that yuri on ice is the best anime they ever watched, and when i ask why, they say, ‘BECAUSE ITS GAY!’ now, dont get me wrong, this is great! im a gay girl, ofc i support this with all my heart! but its pretty obvious to me that the majority of the fanbase only love it so much because theyre blindsided by the queer elements to it. any show that relies pretty heavily on using same sex relationships (especially between males) to get a lot of fans and attention just doesnt sit right with me.

But let me add to that last reason- a lot of those ppl in the fandom who love yuri on ice because its ‘gay?’ are straight. thats right, im lookin at all of you straight people who like yuri on ice because of its same sex representation. i dont even think i have to explain why i think thats a problem because this is tumblr and ive seen many posts explaining why its wrong for straight people to be obsessed with same-sex ships on the level that many people are with those in yuri on ice. coughfetishizationcough. 

and this part is probably gonna piss a lot of people off, and no number of ppl who try to argue with me on this is going to change my mind: if yuri on ice was the same exact show- but all the male characters were female- the fan base would be so much smaller. SO. MUCH. SMALLER. why? because the media has a habit of using queer rep between MALES to draw attention. for some odd reason, a bunch of girls (mostly straight) like to fangirl over two men who love each other because ‘its cute’ and all that jazz. no. thats disgusting of them to take the love between two men and objectify it. do u know how many yuri shows/shows with yuri that ive seen that were spectacular and got little to no attention? hell, its not just in anime. lesbian rep dropped dramatically on broadcast television, down 16 percentage points to 17% of all lgbtq characters. 

i guess technically i dont dislike yuri on ice. but i hate how and why it got popular. if these were all girls, it wouldnt be as popular, because the percentage of wlw in media is drastically lower than that of mlm, because lots of straight girls enjoy fetishizing mlm which is sick. as a wlw this makes me sad. as someone in the queer community, it makes me sad that men who love men are often objectified. 

im not saying all yuri on ice fans are like that. not at all. i just feel as thought they hype for the show was almost only because it was queer, and that fact triumphed over the storyline and all else. im so happy it DID include mlm! i really really am! im just disappointed that thats what its known for, i guess.

none of what im saying probably even makes sense. im hoping at least some of you will read this and kinda get an idea of where im coming from. i dont hate the show, i dont hate all the fans. i just hate objectifying same sex relationships and how that same objectification damages not only the genuine relationships between mlm, but it also lowers the representation of wlw in media. 

sorry if this is all unclear. and if you disagree, thats fine. we have our opinions. no need to attack me.