#and that fandom space is so much better

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

I must admit sometimes it gets tiring week after week reading comics and thinking to myself “Man people are going to get mad/fight about this”. Only to be proven right every single time. 

[evansboyfriend]

few months ago i met a woman on hinge who's writing an og m/m romance comic and when we got to talking about it and we both pointed out the abundance of women creating m/m content, whether fanworks or original things, and talked about the why behind it all, and she said something about the ease that comes from the detachment of it all, speaking as two queer women, when you're working with two male characters that don't force you to confront your own sexuality, your own history, your own gender identity, and i said you know what, i get it. it just made sense, she didn't have to spell it out for me. in that moment i felt seen.

a relationship that only features men can very much be a safe space for women, especially queer women (i'm not gonna talk about it from straight women's pov, because i don't get it, i'll never get it, i'm not straight) who want to read and write queer stories, and more specifically, watch queer stories without having to be subjected to viewing an f/f couple through the fetishising, dehumanising male gaze - and there's so much to be said about existing as a queer woman in a mens' world, and i dare anyone to try to deny that we're still very much living in a mens' world.

i will always defend this space - established by women, mind you, decades ago - and our right to create and enjoy fanworks and exist peacefully, away from the clutches of capitalism, away from made-for-profit, sanitised, family-friendly canon queer ships, where we can take whatever we like from canon and disregard the rest because that's what fandom is, that's what it was built around, where we can find queercoded characters/relationships and analyze the subtext to hell, where we can use characters and ships to uncover and unpack our own issues from a third-person pov because that's what feels safest.

but there needs to be a line that you cannot cross, even as a queer woman, and that line can't ever be defined by us. it's all the things queer men are talking about right now, very clearly expressing their discomfort, very plainly saying that this space - that's centred around a canon, established m/m couple - has become not only unsafe but filled with hatred and vitriol and very real homophobia. it doesn't matter if it's "just a fictional character/couple" - this incident has unveiled a lot of tumblr-girls' homophobia specifically targeted towards mlm, because we've grown a little too fucking comfortable with this 'women-only' space i think.

and i'm so glad to see people pointing out the 'self-insert' trend for the problem it is, when it crosses these boundaries. i'll never make someone feel badly for engaging in self-insert, as long as you call it what it is, because you're using one half of an m/m relationship for it, when instead you could be writing character/reader or character/ofc or character/self fic, because that's what we used to do. that's the first thing i did when i discovered fanfiction, some 15+ years ago. so this behaviour is just... baffling to me. and if you insist on using an m/m ship for it, check yourself and realise it needs to stay in your transformative works, and you need to be ready to re-think and amend your behaviour when it crosses that line.

we are not queer men. we will never know what it is to exist in this world as a queer man, in the same way that queer men won't understand the specific things we as queer women struggle with. and that's okay! we don't have to understand everything down to the finest detail to be open and empathetic and kind to each other. we're in the same fucking community. do better.

+ special mention to this excerpt shared by @canichangemyblogname

from this post

i didn't wanna derail so i made my own post.

[icras]

wip and ik charles looks weird im working on it i swear😭

[allastoredeer]

Oh no, I hope all the folks annoyed about the influx of radioapple art with Lucifer in a dress aren’t talking about all the recent art of flapper!Lucifer. I've been seeing tons of radioapple art with Luci dressed in drag as a flapper girl and being all flirty towards an incredibly flustered Alastor, and I've loved every bit of it! No sign of any of the usual Manlyman!Alastor/UuU!Lucifer crap, just flapper!Luci teasing a VERY red-faced Alastor. I really hope that's not what people are talking about😟

I think I've seen pics of that floating around Twitter. Love the dress design, made me want to draw Alastor in one T.T Idk if that's the one any of the other Anon's were talking about specifically, but even if it is, don't let that take away you're enjoyment of it. You are 100% allowed to like things even if other people dislike it.

This is fandom. Curate it with people and fandom art/fics/edits etc... that you enjoy and ignore the rest 😊It can be irritating and disheartening to see people hating on something you really enjoy (I get the feeling, I've felt the same way about characters and shows I like) but at the end of the day, you loving it and them hating it doesn't actually hurt anyone. We're all here to have a good time, whether that's gushing about a ship/show with a like-minded community or ranting about it with a like-minded community. Both can be fun and cathartic.

I mean, even if you did like UwU Lucifer and Manlyman!Alastor, I'm not going to seek you out and tell you all the things I dislike about it and why you shouldn't like it, nor should anyone else. I'm not here to rain on anybody's parade. That's why I rant here, on my own blog, in my own little space, with fans who agree and understand my frustrations. That way anyone who doesn't want to see my posts can block and/or mute me and go about their day enjoying the content that makes them happy.

Make sure to give the flapper!Lucifer and flustered!Alastor art some love so the artists know you're enjoying it too! As an artist myself, that does wonders for our motivation to draw it more often LOL

[lizzieraindrops]

osiris enjoyers i love you. i'll be over there but you boys have fun objectifying my grandpa <3 signed, a lesbian

[astralhope]

Me, trying to think of an interesting and meaningful first post:

Astral, exists:

Me, start to sob: my star, my moon, my sun, the most beautiful creature in the universe, the perfection as a character, my beloved, my - [incoherent sounds]

[suffarustuffaru]

I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

[macadam]

tf has somehow been the most and least toxic fandom I've ever been in.

I think it has to do with the fact that tf media is relatively (relatively) “tame/unproblematic” as far as large mainstream comic franchises go. So you jump in quite optimistically, only to discover that the fandom is really fucking messy but it’s mainly fans/fanon/headcanons/interpretations that churn out most of the vile content you see. And this goes for a lot of things. A lot of things

Easy low hanging fruit of an example is that when I came into the fandom looking for otp fics I expected that it’d be pretty vanilla and romance heavy because cybertronians are asexual aliens. They’re a dying race because they can’t reproduce. Only new life can be formed on their home planet and that’s been… well… you know.

And then when I fully properly officially entered the fandom space I discovered it to be one of the most porn heavy fandoms I have ever been in. (Which might not be saying much, maybe I’ve just been in really mellow fandoms but I think you get the point here).

I’m not going to take a stance on whether or not that’s objectively a bad thing but I will say I did not expect ever in a million years to read some of the crazy stuff I have read from the transformers tag on ao3. A lot of it is :(

So here we are. Walking the tightrope

[agnisleftpec]

the fun thing about being a nonshipper who's forcibly desensitized themself to romance so they can actually survive in fandom spaces is i am truly free. nothing can stop me. evryone is dating everyone and no one at once. and i get so much gorgeous art and fanfic

[woodchipp]

I've seen some OMORI fans talk about the "Sunny and Mari's parents were abusive" fanon and this discussion really fascinates me because like. They were certainly not abusive in the game proper because the story doesn't care about Sunny's family enough to elaborate on what kind of people his mom and dad were. I can also agree that a LOT of stories tend to make the main characters' parents abusive as a quick and convenient way to explain their issues, so it's an overused cliche by now.

At the same time, however, as overused as it may be, abusive parents still are quite a solid reason for a kid to end up with significant mental issues. And what OMORI's story lacks is just that - a solid reason why Sunny and Mari were the way they were. Trust me, you don't grow up with low self-esteem or into an overly uptight perfectionist by eating watermelon on the beach, building a treehouse and partying at your besties' birthdays lmao

[snickerdoodlles]

there's a lot of things people blame for why fandoms feel like ghost towns these days, but no one's really talked about the way discord's contributing to it

[athousandblessings]

OK, let's see, peeking back in... I think I've had enough self imposed exile. I've missed you guys!

[boyywithluv]

.

[blitz0hno]

Me pondering: kids are capable of going through and understanding complex problems and their feelings should be taken seriously when it counts.

Me practically: who are all these annoying fucking kids in the milgram fandom and why are they posting the worst takes and most irrelevant bullshit I've ever seen ever???

I think these are valid to coexist.

[sockdooe]

Every time someone edits Keith in the black paladin armor an angel loses its wings.

[amvro]

ok guys i was thinking thoughts and i had a hyoga blog on the side bc i have a chronic illness of separating blogs for different fandoms it just feels so much better to me but now that i want to write for kn8 as well perhaps its time to merge them all