#anti whoever the other showrunner is

[witchqueenvisenya]

they really went ahead and turned rose and lissa into show arya and show sansa wrt their preferences regarding "feminine" activities....

book rose loves dresses, she just isn't able to wear them as much because of her being always on duty. book rose laments not being able to indulge in perfumes and nail polishes because one fight will ruin both these things. book rose and book lissa planned their weddings together. rose doesn't hate dresses, and rose never ridiculed lissa's fantasies of getting married. women can simulatenously like such things and be able to beat the crap out of people, and to generally prefer violence as a solution. stop treating female characters like this jfc

[stoplookingup]

I just finished rewatching Star Trek Enterprise S3, aka the Xindi arc, and realized something I'd missed before. Don't know if it's been discussed elsewhere, but anyway....

The S3 story of a horrific attack on Earth by distant aliens who see humans as their worst enemy, and the Enterprise going after them to prevent Earth's annihilation, was explicitly inspired by 9/11. The showrunners said as much. Like most Enterprise fans, I've always appreciated the gradual development of the arc from a story about angry, grieving humans thirsty for revenge to one of diplomacy, mutual understanding, and cooperation.

But...cooperation against whom? Turns out there's a shadowy cabal behind the whole ugly mess. Literally shadowy. They're beings from a transdimensional realm who are transforming the fabric of space to be hospitable to their kind and uninhabitable by anyone else. They know that in the future, Earth will play a key part in defeating them, so they operate secretly and deceitfully to change the time line, manipulate the Xindi into destroying Earth, and prevent that future from coming to pass.

So...conspirators, puppet masters pulling the strings, a hidden enemy who's been there all along, controlling everything, with only their own interests at heart, causing suffering, death and destruction for their own benefit. In a story about 9/11. That's...troubling.

Almost immediately after 9/11, conspiracy theories began to circulate about who was "behind" the attack. A common one:

"The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory in which adherents believe that a cabal of powerful elites is secretly implementing a dystopian international governing structure that will grant them complete control over the global populace....Many modern-day conspiracy theories – including the NWO theory – have anti-Semitic origins....Within these narratives, Jewish people are frequently framed as the orchestrators of global events and accused of creating a supranational governing structure for nefarious purposes. These dangerous narratives are still widely promoted today....The NWO’s application within American discourse can be seen through the reaction to major events, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As millions mourned, questions naturally arose as to culpable parties and their potential motives....Conspiracy theorists took advantage of the emotional turmoil to further sow their conspiratorial beliefs. NWO adherents were no exception and stood as major players in this conspiratorial competition."

-- Middlebury Institute of International Studies

No, I am not saying Star Trek writers were intentionally promoting antisemitism on Enterprise, any more than they were when they created the greedy Ferengi or the Illyrians-as-conversos. Star Trek is chock-a-block with cringy, unintentionally racist alien stereotypes, doubtless due mostly to lazy, thoughtless writing. What I am saying is that a lot of stuff floating around in the zeitgeist -- stereotypes, myths, conspiracy theories, etc -- makes its way into popular culture and implants an attitude that predisposes people to at least find it plausible that this is how things work, this is a thing that happens, this has some basis in reality. As story-telling creatures, humans are really good at finding the hidden messages and lessons. These story elements prime the pump. When people then encounter conspiracy theories steeped in bias, at least some will be disposed to think, "Yeah, sounds reasonable, an international conspiracy of Jews (or whoever) explains a lot," or at least, they'll buy into the vague notion that Jews (and Others) are disloyal, untrustworthy, etc.

So, hey, Star Trek writers, and all writers: Do better. Please.

NB: I still think Enterprise is kick-ass Star Trek. What would my life be without problematic faves?

[starry-mist]

Alright, I’ve mellowed a tiny bit, and here’s where I’ve landed:

While nothing has officially stated that Charah have broken up, there were very strong vibes in the characters’ actions that lead me to the conclusion that it’s a strong possibility.

Setting up this subplot with Sarah taking time off to go back to school feels like a parallel to Julia going back to school and the end of Charlie’s first marriage. I don’t love that. It could also be a way of explaining reduced screen time for Mayko, and with that, she could have another project on the go (though I follow her on Insta and have read recent interviews and nothing suggests that that’s currently the case.) Or, and I hate this option, it’s the show pandering to the anti-Sarah crowd.

And I know we got genuine-sounding reassurances from Sarah to Joe that she’s not going anywhere. And I know that this picks up that thread from late season 4 when Sarah mentioned an interest in criminal psychology. So there are all kinds of possibilities in which this might be a positive. But at the same time, planting the “Sarah might leave” seeds in episode two (which tbh would have worked much better as episode one) when I already have trust issues based on prior seasons…I’m definitely going to react strongly to any hint that she might be leaving the show.

Charlie. Oof. Charlie seems different this season so far. I did not love that scene at his house alone with Rex, working on the motorcycle that apparently Sarah knows he’s back to but also she’s not around? He seemed distracted. He looked troubled. We could chalk that up to the stuff about his dad, but he also seems…I don’t know, it’s almost like he’s emotionally shut down again. It’s reminiscent of seasons 3/4 Charlie. While I don’t mind some occasional brooding, I need to see some of that warmth he had in season 5.

If they’re going to put the focus mostly on Charlie and Rex, I need the acting to be believable and it feels to me like Charlie has regressed. And, like others, I’m worried it’s symptomatic of an offscreen Charah breakup.

We did get Sarah reaching out, inquiring about his dad’s friend, his motorcycle which for whatever reason she hasn’t been around for. We did get him seeming to tease her a bit in the lab, which is normal for them. There were some fun reactions during the coffee sweetener discussions. But all of that was overshadowed, in my view, by Sarah taking time off and Charlie being home alone. That’s what I’m stuck on, that’s what’s had me spiraling, and the fact that this is affecting me emotionally to this extent two episodes in gives me pause.

We also had Rex seeming upset in a couple of the Charlie/Sarah interactions, and Charlie having to reassure him at least twice with “it’s okay.” Rex is often used as the narrator with these two, and I very much think he was saying something was off.

If Charah are still together, I actually do have some fluffy ideas that I could use for fic purposes. Stuff like them supporting each other in their interests. And I’ll likely write those.

But for the moment, I can’t see myself continuing to watch this season until I know more about how it’s going to pan out. I’d love to see someone interview whoever the new showrunner is, perhaps to assuage some of my doubts, or at least to confirm my suspicions that things might be going in a direction I don’t like.

I’m frustrated, I’m annoyed that I’m frustrated, and I’m just generally down about this show I love and the main parts I love about it. I honestly don’t know how much I’ll continue to engage right now. It’s taking a lot of emotional energy for something that isn’t currently sparking a lot of joy, and I’ve found in the past that it’s going to be better for me in the long run to just take a step back when my fandom faves go downhill.

[shortnotsweet]

I got a kind of upsetting ask the other day about my Rhaenicent art. It wasn’t malicious, but it was phrased (non-verbatim) like: “you draw Rhaenyra much prettier than she is in the show. I enjoy your art, though!” and although I knew they meant well and I was glad they could appreciate what I made, my first instinctive reaction was to feel indignant, followed by rage and then sadness, and eventually a more contemplative state.

I started sketching Rhaenyra because I thought she was beautiful. She has sort of bone structure that is both strong and delicate, aristocratic, and has a very fine nose, the kind that makes for a sharp profile. I started drawing Rhaenicent admittedly because I wanted an excuse to sketch her in all kinds of armor—full suits, armored dresses, etc. and the scenario I imagined at first was one in which she donned armor and presented Alicent with a crown of flowers in a tourney.

I think the term “pretty” is subjective, obviously, and incredibly personal, but often very telling nonetheless. It irked me slightly first because oftentimes there’s a lot of focus both by editorial photoshoots and official promotional content to emphasize Olivia Cooke’s beauty in comparison to and sometimes to undermine Emma D’Arcy’s, and we know why: it’s not about objective attractiveness but rather conventional feminine presentation. This is also reflective, I think, in fan consumption. That’s not to say that Olivia Cooke is not gorgeous—she definitely is, and I think she has one of the strongest performances in the show. BUT it pisses me off instinctively when comments about Emma being less attractive crop up, because they genuinely ARE attractive, they just are not as feminine presenting. Fans or anti’s or whoever often bring this up in a competitive sort of way, either in an IRL context or in the actual show. So it feels more like a projection of “they are less feminine and therefore less beautiful”, which is ridiculous, and extends to Rhaenyra the character, who is female. The showrunner’s themselves made a lot of…questionable decisions, I think, given hair and wardrobe and characterization, to align the idea of a less feminine character automatically being less comfortable in their own clothes and therefore being given less-than-flattering and uncharacteristically non-ornate clothing as a result, as if their idea of non gender-confirming suggests frumpiness, or lack of confidence. That’s the thing about pretty, I think, that set me off. People suffer for pretty. People are happy because of pretty, or apathetic. People die and kill themselves for pretty. Pretty means things, like not ugly, not-not good enough, my standards, your standards, acceptable bodies, things like that.

The text has a lot to say about female beauty and presentation and identity and what the public projects onto young women on the basis of femininity and vulnerability, and the narrative even includes smear campaigns alleging Alicent’s supposed beauty and thinness over Rhaenyra’s waning youth, due to having children in rapid succession. The text largely grapples with the bloody transition from girlhood to womanhood and the question how women should or shouldn’t behave, and the consequences for doing either. Our own society and the society of the text align physical beauty with moral righteousness, and of course the ideal of physical beauty is heavily based on our own patriarchal, in this case Western standard of femininity. All’s that to say, I remember rereading the ask and thinking: “Less pretty? What does that mean?”

I’m not insinuating that they were trying to necessarily compliment or insult the actors, or that they were trying to belittle my own ability. It just felt strange to me, and disheartening: incredible effect, for only being about two sentences. Perhaps they meant “less accurate” in which case there could be an argument made, but still, it was a rude and backhanded way to phrase it, perhaps. I could just be overthinking it. Maybe it was just my ego that was bruised, that could be it.

The universe that I usually draw Alicent and Rhaenyra in, as stated in the tags, is a show-to-book hybrid, with a substantive age gap and different plot points. Both women are considered conventionally beautiful by their society’s standards. The Rhaenyra usually being drawn is usually a teen, sometimes a young adult, somewhere between Millie and Emma’s portrayal, and while I use references for both, the in-between is not a fixed face, and there is no definitive reference for her older and younger self. Perhaps that makes her “less accurate” which I wouldn’t argue with, but to me, accuracy is not the point when I draw from that universe and it discourages me that it has to be stated. I don’t want to draw Rhaenicent if the reaction is that I am not drawing them to an acceptable or comparable standard of pretty.

Similarly, while Alicent is loosely based off of Olivia Cooke largely bc she’s got great expressions and because the show’s visuals still play a part, half the time she is simply drawn as a woman with a round face and large eyes. Occasionally I draw and picture her with black or dark brown hair instead of red. There is no fixed face for her; she is an amalgamation. Maybe she is as ‘pretty’ as her onscreen counterpart, maybe not. It’s subjective, again.

I enjoy asks immensely. It makes me happy when people ask me questions, when they let me know what they’re thinking, when they make me think. I don’t want people to stop, and the vast majority have been wonderful to receive. This one made me think, definitely. It made me reflect. It also made my stomach twist and my drawing hand (that’s my left) twitch. I like drawing pretty things. I curate my Instagram and Tumblr based on pretty things. I like to look at pretty people. If I’m not pretty, I want to die. God, I should be sick of it.

[absolxguardian]

Andor and the freedom of metaphor

Disclaimer: I have not watched any of the Bourne films, but I have listened to all of the Kill James Bond episodes on the series.

Tony Gilroy, as you might have seen in some of the trailers, is the showrunner of Andor. He also co-wrote Rogue One, the first three Bourne movies, and wrote/directed the Bourne Legacy. The Bourne films exist in a constant conflict between depicting the CIA (accurately) as evil, the antagonists who operate an illegal CIA death squad that birthed Jason Bourne and are now hunting him while also staying within the pro-American imperialism party line of mainstream Hollywood. The Bourne Legacy is the film where this comes to ahead, where it is revealed that inside the CIA there is a second evil CIA that actually did all the Treadstone stuff.

Given what we’ve gotten in Andor, I believe that Tony Gilroy himself is not conflicted in this way. He has a clear conception and hatred of imperialism in all its forms, as shown in the well crafted analogies and real world similarities in the show that many other people have written about. It is implicit or explicit executive interference that has muddled the themes of the Bourne films he has been involved in. Despite Andor being as mainstream as the Bourne films in its production, Tony Gilroy has been able to write something a lot less compromised because on its surface it isn’t about the evils of the American (or British, or whoever) state. 

This is one of the powers of speculative settings like Star Wars. Not only does working in metaphor and similarities to the real world allow you to present unique angle and address a different variety of topics than you could with a single story when only using the real world (or think about how many different people could relate to the Dhani when they aren’t just one real world group),  it also lets your work have a wider reach. Somehow Disney didn’t object to all the themes present in Andor, but they sure would if it was about America and a real mega-corporation. While the ISB hasn’t really done any intelligence work on screen yet, they are the space!CIA, and unlike in the Bourne films, there is no equivocation required. You’ll also avoid the controversy that would otherwise emerge if the anti-imperialist themes in your work were explicitly anti-American. This could perhaps help your message reach some more people, people who when you aren’t making them start on the defensive by criticising “their team”.

If you want to make even a subtextually anti-war film using real world militaries, that isn’t going to happen in Hollywood anymore. The studio is going to want to get the free sets and props and rather than hire an consultant so that you can actually depict everything accurately, they’re going to bring on the DOJ who while they will help keep things accurate in the technical sense, the involvement of the government will turn your film into propaganda. But there’s no easy financial carrot when the military you’re depicting are a bunch of stormtroopers instead.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened with Star Wars. George Lucas could have never made a film where the heroes team up with the Viet Cong and then drive America out of their country. Except, he did. It’s called Return of the Jedi and the Viet Cong are also cute little teddy bears. And that’s only one example. Andor is just contiuning the long tradition of using an sci-fi fantasy setting to depict anti-imperialist themes while still being acceptable to executives and embraced by a wider audience, even if many of them don’t pick up on the subtext.

[giantkillerjack]

Cannot freaking believe that the first ever on-screen version of Bruce Wayne actually dealing with and processing the trauma of his parents' death is probably going to be on 'The Harley Quinn Show' of all places.

[ID: a gif from the Harley Quinn show of Harley at some kind of Gala doing the flossing dance and scowling at the Joker as she moves away from him. Joker looks confused.]

Except I can totally believe that because, besides generally good writing, the whole reason the show works is that because it is about villains, and so the corporation that owns the characters lets the showrunners do WILD, UNTHINKABLE THINGS like center loving gay relationships, be openly anti-cop, and - perhaps most outrageous of all possible things - SHOW REAL AND LASTING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, EVEN FOR THE GODDAMN BATMAN.

That man hasn't been allowed to have meaningful character development on tv or film since 'Batman Beyond'! And even then it was small and mostly in the one movie ('Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker' is a good movie btw).

But Bruce was STILL 25 years away from EVER being allowed to even begin to process his trauma onscreen, despite the fact that his trauma is fuckin' always shown onscreen and is at the core of the character. Which I'm sure bad writers (probably straight cis men like usual) believe he can never process or else there will be no character left. Just set-up, no pay-off; set-up, no pay-off... The pearls hitting the ground again and again and again and again.

Which is just so fucking basic, and SO hilariously and excellently illustrated in the Harley Show episode that came out this week. (The episode was called "Batman Begins Forever," which is PERFECT BECAUSE IT IS TRUE.)

The concept of Batman is like a 100 years old now and he has spent that whole time avoiding his most obvious and necessary character arc. Just 100 years of trauma avoidance. It's as poetic as it is pathetic. A man kept so stagnant through poor writing and careful corporate oversight that he has become boring despite being dressed as a crime-fighting bat!

And the show that is finally FINALLY going to follow through is also the show in which Clayface is spending an entire season canonically disguised as Billy Bob Thornton after accidentally killing him with Catwoman's pet tiger. It is like a silliness Trojan horse and inside is actual good storytelling!!!

[Edit: OMG. I just realized that the only other onscreen trauma-addressing character arc that I've seen Bruce have was in the LEGO BATMAN MOVIE because again, the man is apparently ONLY ALLOWED TO DEVELOP if the studio execs can be convinced it is mostly for a joke. Also now that I have made this post, if the Harley show doesn't follow through on what they have set up, I can legally slash the tires of whoever is responsible.]

[sylkied]

The Statistics of Sylki

Listen, it seems like the antis are the majority at first glance because of how unapologetically vocal they are. I talked about this a little in the Sylki discord but what’s happening is a feedback loop.

From Wikipedia:

Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. That is, A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A.

Obviously, some people don’t like Sylki. That’s fine, and I respect their choice to ship what they want to ship, even if it goes against canon.

It’s the rabid anti-Sylkis that scream the loudest, and here’s where the problem starts. It’s a whole lot easier to attack something over the internet and get a lot of people to agree with you simply for the sake of fighting, rather than inviting people into open, civil discussions. The former is easy, quick, and unfortunately very normal in this day and age. That’s just a fact regarding the internet: it brings out the worst in people. And when a whole lot of people, especially anonymous people, are nasty, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

Never mind that regular viewers of the show who do not interact in these circles overwhelmingly DO NOT MIND SYLKI.

Case in point:

Out of 238 people, very nearly 75% of them ship Sylki. That’s ¾, three-quarters of the sample that are okay with it, compared to just ¼ that aren’t. If there were a larger sample size of voters, we could even extrapolate that proportion to the rest of the show’s viewership. It very well could be a safe assumption that three-quarters of the rest, millions of viewers all around the world, are okay with it. If it’s simpler to picture this way, that’s three out of every four people that watch the show. That’s not a fallacy, it’s just statistics.

So why are anti-Sylki posts getting so much attention? Because again, they’re the ones that scream the loudest. The more they scream, the more people wonder what the fuss is about, and, if they’re not disposed to rational thinking, they shut down the rest of the argument and start screaming as well, leaving the rest of us who want a little peace and quiet to be drowned out by the “apparent majority”. I say that last part sarcastically, they are NOT the majority. They simply project the illusion that they are. The rest of us, even people who don’t care one way or another, aren’t going on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit to wail abuse and slander about a fictional pairing. We’re living our lives, enjoying what the showrunners have produced. We wouldn’t be the “apparent majority” on social media because we aren’t screaming. And that’s the point I’m trying to make.

People love this show. It’s rated 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.9/10 on IMDB. Whoever actually wants to enjoy it isn’t going to spend every minute of every day spamming the threads in some self-righteous hissy fit. We watch it, we theorize about it, and we wait with baited breath until its conclusion. The most we do is create our own positive feedback loop, one that actually has positive intent: to show praise for the writers, the director, the producers, the actors, everyone who put their time and energy to create this show, during a pandemic of all things, because they deserve it. We make content, we inspire others to as well, and we share it amongst ourselves. That’s the majority, that’s what people are forgetting.

Antis are NOT the majority. We are. And eventually, it will show. They’ll be drowned out by the love for this series that’s growing in force every single day. If anyone wants more proof, watch some reaction videos on YouTube. See people’s reactions to Sylki moments, and judge for yourself. I can say with absolute conviction that the majority of them are fans of the pairing, even if it’s a little unconventional.

It’s a beautiful story about two broken people that share one soul, learning to heal through loving each other, and that’s what we’re here for.

P.S. 

Also, because I’m extra, it’s worth it to point out that the concept of Variant-Variant romance is not as taboo as antis make it out to be:

What do you know? Another ¾ - ¼ split.

Sorry, antis, but humans are kinky devils and we just don’t give a fuck. You really should calm down, and stop trying to impose your fascist order over the chaos of reality. I wonder if there’s a show about that somewhere?

[akimfu]

"The Terror" was a lighting in a bottle masterpiece, but I don't think most people in the fanbase understand this. If handled by a less talented screenwriter and got the early GoT seasons treatment, where it would have a straight-up adaptation of the book with the most awkward scenes of the book cut (like the platypus pond scene, oof), the miniseries would've been still a very good and solid TV show, although I think the fanbase would be mostly comprised by horror fans/Dan Simmons fans. But "The Terror" was adapted by David Kajganich*, a man so A S C E N D E D and who I assume truly understands the "boat" subgenera (way better than Dan Simmons perhaps) and made such amazing historical research that, like Hannibal, "The Terror" became more than just a book adaptation, a supplement for book fans to watch because they have to: it's a masterpiece on its own and that doesn't happen that often in media.

__________________

* Soo Hugh is often credited as co-showrunner in some websites, while in others, don't. She works mostly as a producer, while Kajganich is a screenwriter. But what is interesting is that David Kajganich wrote the "Suspiria" remake who was also as good (if not better) as the original film, and it has similar themes of family and parenthood and similar scenes of body horror. So while Soo Hugh might be responsible for making The Terror into a masterpiece as a producer, David Kajganich is responsible for the writing, which many believe is the strongest element of the show, alongside the acting ofc. (Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) I mean, turning Mr Hickey from an outdated gay villain character into a Jean Genet type anti-hero... Whoever allowed Adam Nagaitis to be free to do whatever he wanted has +200 IQ mastermind and I can't believe the show didn't get any Emmy or Golden Globes noms.

[hotniatheron]

thots on. hm. name your least favorite trends on Tumblr edu and why theyre your least favorite (like the Elias fetishist thing. btw im coming out as an evil old man fetishist)

1) absolutely cannot stand when people find out someone doesn't like something they like and have to go bother that person about it. Like just bitch about it on your own blog like the rest of us. Don't complain to me either idc.

2) people who run and tattle to creators or showrunners or big name blogs about others doing mundane shit....like talking about spoilers in a spoilers tag...annoying

3) whoever jumped up my ass because I said disney was making a hamilton movie and spent 10 minutes trying to tell me off for not clicking thru on an article...please find some other musical to be that aware of 🙏 I don't care. You theater gays are all so annoying god bles, glad you're having a good time.

4) tumblr having the same discourse every 3 months like clockwork...will y'all please get your Queerly Bugle news somewhere that isn't 35 year old anti-antis on here.

5) If your celeb crush is an ugly man, just own up to it. I have like 5 of them. Get a grip. You can be sexy and ugly. That being said, you Timotea Chatroulette fuckers are out of your minds.

6) I block people that I think are annoying ans I don't think that should hurt people's feelings because I know I'm annoying and some people on here are just in people's business and notes like they know me and it's like? Do I look like the RQ team to you? You need references for me to tell you anything. But also this website does not matter and if you get a hobby of any sort outside of fandom that's good because then you you won't take shit so personally.

That's all 😌

[femmescripter]

To all of the Anti-Shippers, Whiners and Adam haters in VLD...

E-FUCKING-NOUGH!! Just stop it already! Stop it with the pairing wars, stop it with the death threats to the Voltron executives, stop it with the whining of not getting what you want and stop it with the hate on Adam. Just stop it all together! I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but I have seen so much of this foolishness come up on my dashboard that I can no longer ignore it. And since my friends and favorite artists are also being picked on over the recent drama in Voltron: Legendary Defender this makes me feel especially obligated. To make this post in defense of those people dear to me. So sit down and get your text books - because it’s time for a lesson. 

First of all, and I’m going to put this in bold italics so the people in the back can see it, YOU DON’T HAVE TO ABANDON YOUR OTHER SHIRO SHIPS JUST BECAUSE OF ADAM. Same as it is with Lotor, just because Shiro has a fiancé in the show doesn’t mean you have to delete that Shance artwork, revise that Shallura fanfic or edit that Shulaz comic. It really doesn’t. Also like I said in my post concerning Lotor the canon events of a series doesn’t define your pairing. It really doesn’t. That said there is no need to go around telling people they can’t ship Shiro with someone else just because it was revealed that he has a fiancé. A friend of mine actually had someone say this to them. And I’ve seen a lot of people get bashed over not “converting” to the Adashi pairing and dropping all of their current Shiro based ships. Seriously people? Are we really going to stoop that low? And I use the word “low” very loosely because people have gone beyond just telling folks that can’t ship one another with another or just bash them. There are twisted folks who actually tell people they should KILL themselves for so much as liking another pairing. How devoid of common sense and conscience can someone be to say that to another person? What’s even more concerning is that, even in terms of minority, there is more than just a handful of people who act this way and says stuff like that. I don’t know about you all but I find that very scary. But anyway, you can still ship Shiro with whoever you want to. No need to drop one pairing in favor of Adashi. If someone you thought was a friend stops talking to you because you didn’t “convert” then don’t lose sleep over it, because they are obviously not a real friend. And if you dropped whatever previous Shiro based pairing you had without someone telling you to then you have no one to blame but yourself. So don’t take it out on someone else who still ships Shallura, Shance, Shulaz or whatever else just because you’re feeling spiteful for giving up those or similar pairings yourself. Secondly, quit bashing on Adam already. You guys saw a glimpse of him in the trailer that lasted for a good three to five seconds. And now you suddenly know he’s abusive and unsupportive of Shiro? I sure hope you guys have tweezers to get that bullet out your feet from jumping the gun like that. You haven’t worked with the artists, scriptwriters, voice actors and showrunners to develop Adam. Y’all don’t know diddly squat about him so quit acting like you do. Besides as someone who, as the VLD creators themselves said, who has been with Shiro for so long I highly doubt Adam would suddenly turn unsupportive and abusive unless you he was mind controlled or blackmailed. So don’t go saying that he’s always been that way just to justify your other Shiro based ships. Yes I know that Adam broke off the engagement, but I’m not even going to give my opinion as to why he did that. It will only open up an even bigger can of worms. All I will say about it is that whatever reason Adam had for doing so must have been a valid one. And if you all don’t find it valid then that’s your problem. To that extent you shouldn’t lose sleep by racking your brains to figure out WHY Adam broke off the engagement. Just wait for season seven to come along and we shall hopefully get some of the answers then. Besides I’m sure you all have other, more pressing matters to think of. Like a chore you forgot to do or that important assignment you should have done two hours ago. If you haven’t done that yet then go do it now. Keep your hands and minds busy with someone else. Third, but must importantly of all...It. Is. A. God. Damn. CARTOON!! What boggles my mind the most about this is the fact that people are sending death threats and telling the real genuine fans to go kill themselves over a work of fiction. Now out of the ten reasons that come to mind as to why doing that is stupid, two main ones come up front and center. Reason number one because what you put out there is out there is out forever and WILL come back to haunt you. Even if you delete your mean comment someone can still reblog it or post a screenshot of it so people can see just how nasty your personality really is. And just because you delete the email you sent on YOUR end it’s still there on the other person’s end, and they can hold that over your head. Further more when you apply for a job that’s the first thing companies are going to check - any and all platforms of social media you use from Google+ to Tumblr to Pinterest to Twitter to Discord to Instagram to Facebook and everything else to see if you posted any malicious comments. After all no company is going to hire someone who says to some tween that their family wouldn’t miss them if they didn’t or sent a promise of fatal accident to somebody else. So think twice before you press that “send” or “comment” button or slip that envelope in the post office mailbox. Because in the long run the only person those words will hurt is you. And reason number two, the moment the series is over you have to pretty much fix all of your broken relationships or start new ones from scratch. Because if there’s one thing that people remember it’s who hurt them and how they were hurt. Do you honestly think your friends/acquaintances are going to act like everything is fine and let it slide that you told them to drink a cup of bleach because they told you they liked Mattor over Latte or Sheitor or Shiklance? Unless they develop a heavy dose of amnesia or have an saintly tolerance for bullshit, I highly doubt that. Having said that there is a very good chance that you’ll come out of the end of VLD with either little or no friends. Is that a price worth paying just for the sake of defending people who don’t even exist? I mean I can understand wanting to stick to your guns/principals/standards and while that’s admirable...there’s a fucking limit, y’all. It’s better to agree to disagree and let it go instead of browbeating the point at the risk of having people disassociate themselves with you because they’re tired of your argumentative personality and constant need to be right. And hold up - I didn’t forget about you people who are actually complaining about the LGBT representation we got with Shiro and Adam. First you were getting on the case of the Voltron: Legendary Defender creators for not having any LGBT characters. Now you have them and you actually nitpick it!? Come on - make up your minds! You guys should be more appreciative since the scriptwriters, voice actors, artists, and showrunners worked so hard to do this for you - the fans. It may not be Klance but it’s better than nothing. Alright - now having let all of that out I understand that my words will most likely fall on deaf ears with a majority of the people reading this. But if my words got through to at least one person and stopped them from doing something stupid that they will regret for a long time, then that’s good enough for me. In short ship whoever you want to ship Shiro with, give Adam the benefit of the doubt, never threaten or bash people and don’t let fiction rule your life. This really isn’t the end of the world, guys. Just breathe.

And that concludes me thoughts on the matter. I’m going to bed now. I’ll see you guys next time. Hopefully with a much happier post than this one. Toodles~

[travllingbunny]

Thanks for the tag, @weareagentsofnothing

Rules: Answer 30 questions. Tag 10 blogs you want to get to know better whoever you want, if you want

Nickname(s): I don’t really have any nicknames, at least not once that stuck. Most people call me by my first name, Ivana. Back in high school, people used to call me “Cveta” because that’s shortened from my last name - because that’s what we used to do in high school, especially when there were multiple people with the same first name in the class, and even when there weren’t. Fortunately, no one has ever called me that since.

Gender: female

Sign: Taurus

Height: 163 cm (for those who don’t know the metric system, hat’s a little above 5′4″).

Time: CET

Fave band(s): where do I begin? Depeche Mode, Joy Division, The Smiths, Florence + the Machine, Massive Attack, Portishead, 

Fave solo artist(s): the late and great Leonard Cohen. I also like many jazz singers such as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Krall...

Song stuck in my head: For the last few days, I had a really annoying popular song stuck in my head - I don’t know what it is, one of those they just can’t stop playing everywhere. But for some reason, it seems to have disappeared, and right now I have “Ship to Wreck” by Florence and the Machine in my head. I don’t know how it happened - I don’t think I’ve heard it in the last few days, and it’s not even one of my favorites by Florence, but it’s certainly very welcome.

Last movie I saw: Deadpool 2

Last show I watched: Sharp Objects, the first episode

When did I create my blog: I don’t remember, but I think it was 9 or 10 years ago, because I got a notification about an anniversary recently. It was definitely while Lost was still on, and not along after after the season 4 finale, when I started using “Time Travelling Bunny” (because it was a line from the finale and a nick that I found funny) for some of my accounts (my YouTube/Google account still has my BSG nick, FrakkinToasterLuvva, which I created earlier, during/after season 3 of BSG - yes, it also comes from a line of dialogue). But I wasn’t as active for the first few years as I’m now.

What do I post: looking through my tags makes it clear (not that I didn’t know that before) that most of my posts are about: A Song of Ice and Fire; rants against Game of Thrones and its showrunners, the way they choose to not adapt the series, and everything they stand for; then behind that, there’s a lot of AoS and Buffy related stuff (I’ve been mostly posting a lot of AoS-related stuff lately), then there’s Jessica Jones, MCU movies and other MCU shows, The Hunger Games book series, history-related stuff (especially Wars of the Roses), general topics... There are a ton of my favorite shows, however, that I haven’t written about - I hope to make some top lists about The Americans and BoJack Horseman soon. I also have, in my anti tags, aside from GoT, The Walking Dead (which I used to really like), Big Bang Theory (which I never liked) and the YouTube channel Cinema Sins (which is just annoying).

Last thing I googled: France-Croatia. I was walking my dogs when the match had already started, and wanted to see the resul.

Do I have any other blogs: Not on Tumblr. I used to have an active blog on Livejournal, when it was still a thing (too bad what happened to it - the format was more suitable for discussions than Tumblr), and Dreamweaver (just to post stuff on Livejournal when it used to malfunction). I had many Buffy episode reviews there. Actually, they’re still there and the blog exists - it’s just that, well you know, no one uses LJ anymore.

Do I get asks: I’ve gotten a few

Why did I choose my url: See above, under when I chose my url (Time Travelling Bunny turned out to be too long).

Following: 409+

Followed by: 233+ I think I’ve blocked all the porn accounts, so they aren’t among those.

Average hours of sleep: I don’t know, I never fall asleep immediately, and my sleeping habits are incredibly uneven (it comes with the job - I’m a translator who works at home and has no working hours, but has deadlines)

Lucky number: I don’t think I have one.

Instruments: piano/keyboards

What I am wearing: err. this is going to sound weird, but I’m washing my hair (I’m about to wash out the hair mask), so, not much, because I don’t want my clothes to get wet.

Dream job: This one is pretty good, but dream job.. probably a writer? 

Dream trip: I dunno, maybe Rome or Paris or New York? Or even LA? 

Fave food: breaded cheese, falafel, grilled cheese, pizza, etc. Something salty, tasty, not spicy, and without any meat, since I’m a vegetarian.

Nationality: Serbian, but I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the world.

Fave song: I can’t even pick one band, you expect me to pick one song?! No idea, there are too many of them. 

Last book I read: The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin. It took me a while, because I just couldn’t get into it.

Top 3 fictional universes I wanna join: Most of the fictional universes I enjoy watching/reading about are horrible worlds where I would never want to live in. Star Trek and MCU are the only ones that are OK. In Trek, I guess the 24th century Earth would be the obvious choice, since it’s supposed to be a ‘paradise’, but I would probably be bored out of my mind, and prefer to go and work on the post-war Deep Space Nine, with working trips to Bajor and post-Dominion Cardassia. MCU would be nice if I get a cool superpower. As for the rest... I guess Buffyverse is OK, as long as you don’t live in Sunnydale or Cleveland or any other place that’s on a Hellmouth. Alternatively, if I had to live in the world of ASOAIF, I could only endure Braavos or Dorne (book Dorne! Not show Dorne - yuk!) Tagging... @jaehaerys1 @misskittyspuffy @miraculousagentsofkrypton @kateofthecanals @ladyofthefrostfangs @eyesofmist @maddalenamackelena @maidenoftheforestlight @annedey @irritatinglyboring and anyone else who wants to do it.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: The Handmaid’s Tale Was a Warning. Three Decades Later, Margaret Atwood Is Back With Another

Margaret Atwood wants to know more about The Bachelorette. We’re chatting in her publisher’s office in Toronto when I mention the dating show where 30-some men vie for the affection of a single woman, all on camera. She has questions: “Why are they even participating in this?” “What if they’re rejected?” “I’m wondering if she’s just pretending to go along with it?”

There is an irony here, observing Atwood equate the show to Sartre’s adage “Hell is other people” come to life. She is, after all, known for a book that describes one of the most brutal mating rituals in the canon. In her landmark 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, a totalitarian theocracy has taken over the U.S. in the midst of a fertility crisis. Offred, one of few women who can still bear children, is forced to participate in reproductive-slavery ceremonies in the Republic of Gilead. Offred’s story ends with a notoriously ambiguous cliff-hanger: she steps into a van that will take her either to fresh hell or to freedom. For 34 years, Atwood, now 79, has deflected readers’ questions about her protagonist’s fate. But on Sept. 10, she will publish The Testaments, a new book that promises to resolve that mystery and many more.

The Testaments arrives at the peak of Atwood’s prominence. In 2017, her 32-year-old novel soared back to the best-seller list when it became one of a handful of classic dystopias that seemed to portend troubling themes of the current era and evoke prescient anxieties about women’s rights. Three months after Donald Trump’s Inauguration, Hulu premiered an adaptation with Atwood’s involvement that has won 11 Emmys. Women’s-rights demonstrators around the globe — at pro-choice rallies in South America and Europe, at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in the U.S. — have donned the handmaid uniform of crimson cloaks and white bonnets to make their case. Atwood’s voice has become a rallying cry against climate change and threats to equality — last year she headlined a summit on the intersection of those issues, named after a reference to The Handmaid’s Tale. Protest signs at the 2017 Women’s March bore the slogan “Make Margaret Atwood fiction again,” her name now synonymous with resistance.

Atwood long rejected calls for a sequel because, she says, she knew she couldn’t re-create Offred’s voice. But as she saw the world change, she realized Offred wasn’t the only way back into the story. She began drafting The Testaments partway through 2016.

The anticipation has few precedents. The U.S. publisher announced a 500,000-copy first-print run, and the novel made the Man Booker Prize short list despite a strict embargo. Atwood will launch it with a live interview onstage in London, which will stream to 1,300 cinemas around the world. It’s a larger-than-life reception for a larger-than-life figure, one still a tad bewildered by the fanfare. She makes a point of stating the obvious: “It’s just a book.”

***

Growing up in Canada, Atwood wrote whenever she could — in the high school yearbook, in a college magazine under the pseudonym Shakesbeat Latweed. Her early jobs included a teen venture in puppeteering and later market research, and she published her first novel, The Edible Woman, in 1969. Since then she has published more than 60 works of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, poetry and children’s literature. The Handmaid’s Tale was a breakthrough, landing her on the Booker short list for the first time. In 2000, she became the first Canadian woman to win the award, for The Blind Assassin.

Photograph by Mickalene Thomas for TIME

On the patio of her neighborhood café, Atwood glances over her shoulder to scan for eavesdroppers. “Things never used to be like this,” she says, peeking out from under a sun hat. Caution is justified: the plot of The Testaments is the closest-guarded secret in publishing since Harry Potter lived (again). Impostors posing as book agents tried to steal the digital manuscript, so publishers around the world agreed to go analog. Rare copies were distributed under fake names, like The Casements by Victoria Locket.

Atwood famously wrote part of The Handmaid’s Tale in Cold War–era Berlin, influenced by the fog of distrust that shrouded the East. That same atmosphere propels the sequel, which is narrated by three women. One was raised in Gilead, too young at its rise to remember a life before it; another is a Canadian teen with a past she has yet to understand; the third is Aunt Lydia, a villain in the regime and the only one of the three to have appeared in the foreground of The Handmaid’s Tale. In swift prose — lightened by winking references to American history, like a café named for anti–Equal Rights Amendment activist Phyllis Schlafly — Atwood weaves together three distinct narratives to chronicle the rise and fall of Gilead.

Over the course of several interviews, Atwood doles out measured tidbits about her experience writing the book. She admits to feeling some nerves about the highly anticipated project but closes the topic with a pat “What is life without challenges?” She often veers toward history and deadpans jokes; she’s not a “Dear Diary–type of person,” she says. When asked how she feels about the excitement surrounding The Testaments, she offers a few words but soon dives into a lesson on Icelandic manuscripts. Before describing her path to writing in terms of the politics of the 1940s and ’50s, she pauses to ask when I was born. “That’s hilarious,” she says. “You remember nothing.”

Atwood’s talent for capturing history’s tendency to repeat itself has led some to call her a prophet. (She insists she’s not — just ask her old colleagues at the market-research firm where she declared Pop-Tarts would never take off.) Certain scenes from The Testaments — children ripped from the arms of their parents, flights across borders, inhumane detention centers — track closely with today’s headlines. But Atwood can point to multiple historical examples for each. She has a rule that each of the dark circumstances, rules and customs in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments and the TV show, which range from genocide to ritual rape, must have a historical precedent. “I didn’t want people saying, like some have said, ‘How did you make up all this twisted stuff?'”

She sees her role as the person who drops a flare on the highway — she wrote the new book in part because she worries the world is trending more toward Gilead than away from it. A child of the ’30s, Atwood sees authoritarianism tightening its grip in Europe, but also in leading U.S. Republicans’ response to election interference: “It just does not compute,” she says. “Unless of course what they really want is an authoritarian regime. If that’s what they really want, spit it out: ‘We hate democracy.'”

Yet even in Atwood’s darkest writing, optimism prevails. Both Gilead novels end with scenes that indicate common sense has triumphed. Their narrators record their stories for the benefit of history, a perspective that leaves room to hope for a better world. “If you are reading,” Atwood writes in Lydia’s determined voice, “this manuscript at least will have survived.”

***

One autumn, as Atwood was sweeping leaves outside her Toronto mansion, the man next door told her people refer to her as the “wicked witch” of the neighborhood. (The broom didn’t help.) Her mythology precedes her. Bruce Miller, the Handmaid’s showrunner, remembers every head turning as she entered a restaurant. When someone at the table asked her what it’s like to be a national treasure, she offered a perfectly Atwood response: “Exhausting.”

The author exists in a surreal intersection between her image and her life’s more stark realities, where caring for loved ones often takes precedence. Her partner, the novelist Graeme Gibson, is living with dementia. The morning after a doctor’s visit, Atwood runs through to-dos in the basement office in her home: there are appointments to schedule and bills to pay, a condo dispute to chase. (She stays in caretaking mode with me: “You were a naughty person, you didn’t eat any muffins,” she scolds, then sends me off with banana bread.)

Atwood has never been the type for superstitious writing rituals. She wrote The Testaments in hotels around the world, on trains and planes, wherever the phone couldn’t ring. Gibson wanted to re-create a voyage from his youth, traveling by ship to Australia. So Atwood did the first edit of The Testaments over the 21 days at sea while he slept.

She has a list of things she’d like to do but wonders if she’s too old: trek across Baffin Island, travel to Africa. She won’t say for sure whether she’ll write more Gilead novels (fans: it’s not a no) — in fact, she’s not much for discussing her future at all. Someday, she acknowledges, she’ll be “forcibly” retired. But she takes aging in stride. “There’s a lot of respect that comes with being the me that people recognize,” she says. “But if it’s the me that people don’t recognize, I’m just another old lady.”

In her office, Atwood strides past shelves of her archives — first editions, foreign translations, the original art from the best-known Handmaid’s Tale cover — pulling an item here and there to give away. Later she’ll meditate on the meaning behind our choices of what we keep and what we discard. What she’s really talking about is legacy, what we leave behind and how it may one day prove useful to our “Dear Readers,” whoever they may be. She asks me how many love letters from 1961 she should keep, and I suggest she hold on to the ones that speak to her, missing the point. “I don’t think it matters whether they speak to me or not,” she says. “Whether they speak is more interesting.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[larathia]

Dear Sheithfen: We Don’t Know That.

So it’s going around twitter (again) that the utter disaster of the last two seasons was down to execs listening to antis screaming, and...guys, we don’t know that. All we know right now is, somebody’s lying. 

Welcome to the big game of Catch The Culprit: VLD Edition.

1) The showrunners have blamed execs at WEP, the property owner. They’ve basically said that WEP didn’t like the direction they were taking the show and forced a rewrite of the final arc.

Being completely fair, there’s some believability to this.  Voltron is a worldwide property, and technically rates as a ‘boys’ anime’. It was intended to sell toys to young boys. The showrunners have mentioned a few times that WEP wanted them to fit ‘new gadgets for Voltron’ into the show, because that sells toys, and that is in fact what WEP did with the original iteration of Voltron. (I’m old enough to remember the commercials, y’all. I even owned some of those toys as a kid. This is totally something they do.)

And it is important to realize that homosexual content is much more tolerated in girls’ cartoons than it is in boys’ cartoons. This is mostly due to parents, but the sexuality of young boys is policed every bit as thoroughly as it is young girls. Where girls get pushed to be Pretty and Sexy, mostly young boys get pushed to Not Be Gay. Toys that promote Teh Gay Agenda (tm) wouldn’t get bought by parents as much. The screaming of antis, if it factored at all, would only be taken as confirmation that Shit Has Gone Too Far and a correction must be made. Because it’s not the antis screaming that would have WEP’s attention - it’s the screaming of the antis’ parents.

I’m not saying this is the correct/true scenario. It’s just one scenario that’s been put forth.

2) WEP has said the showrunners were free to tell the story they wanted to tell and had nothing to do with how the show ended.

And again, there’s some evidence for this. For one, if WEP was policing this show as much as has been claimed, I am frankly stunned that we got to see the beautiful Black paladins episode at all. I mean if WEP is clamping down on All Teh Gay Stuffs, why didn’t it clamp down on that ep? Keith didn’t have to say “I love you”. 

And while the showrunners have said WEP was constantly pushing for new Voltron skills so they could sell more toys, we really don’t see Voltron using new skills very often. Several toys that have come out, came out with powers that Voltron just never displayed, or showed maybe once.

So it does look like it’s entirely possible WEP is telling the truth, and they’re not the reason the show had the ending it did.

3) So somebody’s lying - or at least hedging. But there are two more possible players here: Dreamworks execs, and Netflix execs.

And it may actually be a combination of all of the above. But we can surmise that both of these groups may well have had some influence on how the show played out.

a) Dreamworks had a massive staff shuffle after S6.

It’s entirely possible that the new staff weren’t up for the possible original third arc, or maybe the shuffle happened because the original staff were way too in favor of the original arc. (PLEASE NOTE: I am not saying I know anything about this, I’m theorizing based on the shift in tone, direction, and characterization after S6.)

b) Other Netflix animated productions have been edited to reduce gay content.

Like, for example, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Been hearing a lot about the Netflix version of NGE missing some overtly homosexual content lately. There’s really no reason for them to have done this - the anime’s been out for decades, people know that content’s supposed to be there. Unless, possibly, Netflix imposes hard limits on How Much Gayness Is Allowed In An Animated Series.

Possibly. Again, this is theorizing.

So. Concluding. WE DON’T KNOW.

It could be the showrunners are lying and it’s all Dreamworks’ or Netflix’s decision. Or their own! Maybe they decided they’d made Keith too gay and one gay character was plenty and rewrote the final arcs. Shittier decisions have happened.

It could be WEP is lying and they really did put their foot down.

It could be a combination of all of this, execs from different companies agreeing that Voltron needed to be reined in.

Or, yes, possibly, some teenagers screaming on the internet about their favorite ship not being canon changed everything. That’s not a bet I’d put money on, though. It’s just possible. Given how far in advance of production a lot of the decisions would have had to have been made, I don’t think it was a big factor.

One day, we will know. It may take whoever made the decision leaving the post where they made that decision from, or someone coming forward with Industry Leaks, or just a bunch of NDAs running out. But we’ll know, eventually.

Until then, it’s really just a lot of finger pointing and guesswork.

[shinriki]

About Ship wars

Ok, well don't say I didn't warn you. A couple terms first: * Shipping - Derived from "relationship." Imagining two characters being romantic. This is usually accompanied by producing fanworks that depict those characters in a romantic situation. The relationship can be canonical or not, and the fan works can be everything from PG handholding to XXX vore. (If someone ships Kylo Ren/Rey it means they like to think of them in a romantic/sexual relationship.) The pairing itself is called a ship. * Shipwar - When shippers of two different ships attack each other over their ships. * Wank - common fandom term for drama * Antis - People who invest energy in attacking shippers of a particular ship, and employ arguments of morality of social justice to do so. * Fandom in this case refers to a particular subset of fandom that is traditionally female oriented, focuses a lot of male/male pairings, and often chooses fanfiction as its primary output. There are 2 big things to remember as you read this. 1) Some people are SUPER SERIOUS about fictional characters getting it on together, and 2) they will use any means at their disposal to stop people from doing it wrong. Imagine the ridiculousness of PS vs. Nintendo fanboys ratcheted up to 11 and you get an idea of how some fans approach shipping. Generic ship wars have been happening for a very long time. If you thought Harry Potter deserved to fall in love with Draco Malfoy and Ginny was the devil you were in good company and would gather together to get those dirty Ginny fans run out of the internet. Bad actors have always been around to exploit this, either to troll, or to worm their way into popular or rarefied circles. [The Ms. Scribe Story](http://web.archive.org/web/20140401225619/http://www.peeep.us/0418dc98) is a good example of what the old school shipwars could produce as far as wank was concerned. And in it you see the seed of what would become the modern "Anti" mentality, which is framing yourself as a victim of bigots to win sympathy points, all for the purpose of forwarding your preference of who bangs who. This portion of fandom has always been closely linked with genre fiction, since many people in the latter are engaged in the former. Genre fiction had and still has some issues concerning race, sexism, and homophobia, which is par for the course in almost all media everywhere. In 2009 those issues came into contact with some MASSIVE WANKERS, leading to what continues to be known as [Race Fail '09](https://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_%2709). A lot of people don't know this, but the term Social Justice Warrior started to pick up usage around this time, to define some very particular, very caustic people who were destroying communities by claiming the moral high ground and attacking anyone who had an opinion even slightly different from them. A few of them are listed at that link. It quickly became apparent that pointing the finger and claiming -ism! was an efficient method of silencing certain people. Fandom, however, remained relatively insulated from this fail, which was spreading mostly in certain websites and in professional circles at the time. In '09 the internet was still relatively decentralized, and fandom was dispersed among various livejournals, archives, webforums, and so on. This limited the damage one movement could do, because just because Winterfox was shitting up one site didn't mean there was another that hadn't escaped unscathed. Enter web 2.0, and specifically, Tumblr. As the internet began to coalesce into platforms that aimed to monopolize user engagement, the separation between communities grew more and more difficult. Before, if you wanted to see Kylo Ren and General Hux having kinky tentacle sex you went to a community specifically for that and didn't have to worry about those people who had their own community for Rey and Finn. But now, all the shippers were converging into a single pot, a pot that had no filters, no privacy functions, and actively wanted everything to be shared as widely as possible. Another massive change that happened about this time is that the attitude towards kids in fandom had shifted. Back in the good old days a 13 year old understood that lying about their age was the price you paid to get your porn. The kids these days no longer have that mentality. They don't think twice about declaring themselves children on the internet. This will come into play later. Ok, as we near the present here's a quick review. * Ship wars are serious business to some people. * Screaming about social justice is a proven method of getting people to shut up. * There are some crazy people out there who will do anything to manipulate themselves into a position of infamy. * Everyone has slowly been squeezed into the same fandom spaces, adding pressure. * Children are fucking everywhere. When you combine all those elements what you get is this, some really loud ass motherfuckers who think that whoever can claim oppression and bigotry the loudest is the one who deserves to ship things the way they want, and there can be only one. There have been some reaaaaaallly bad fandoms for this, but since the OP is specifically about the age issue, I'm going to stick to that and not get into some of the ridiculous racism angles this has also taken. A lot of shows that fans like to ship for are cartoons, or shows that are ostensibly aimed towards younger audiences, but adults often are a big portion of the fandom. Ponybros are the more infamous version of this, but they are a bit of an outlier as they don't run in the same fandom circles as the old lj>tumblr fandom that is the source of this particular wank. Big targets of these conflicts include Welcome to Nightvale, Homestuck, Steven Universe, and the new Voltron series. When Voltron came out it got super popular among fandom. A lot of fic was written, and a lot of art was drawn. Since it's a show with a team cast, people were shipping a lot of pairings that shared a member, which is often where the worst of the ship wars happen. For example, two of the biggest ships were Shiro/Keith, and Keith/Lance. Now if you're a kid who ships Keith/Lance and haaaates Shiro/Keith, and you need to stop people from producing things involving Shiro/Keith, and you know accusing people of moral crimes is an effective tactic for this, it turns out your best option is to use pedophilia as a weapon. So people started insisting that Shiro had to be at least 20, and Keith had to be a minor, and shipping these two meant that you were a pedophile. No, it doesn't make any sense, but the people who do this are dead serious about this. They called themselves anti-Sheith (the pairing's "smushname") and went so far as harassing the showrunners for the exact ages of all the characters and tattling on professional artists for indicating a fondness for the ship to their employers. And if people push back and say you're being an idiot, you can throw that back in their face by saying that they are adults abusing minors while simultaneously endorsing abuse and pedophilia! 20 year olds started calling themselves children so they could position themselves in a place to abuse 22 year olds. Teens started declaring 30 the age in which all women should get off the internet and stop having hobbies. And all this was done because they didn't like a fictional pairing. This is by far not the only instance in which pedophilia was brought up as a massive reach to support attacking shippers of the wrong ship. One of the most absurd instances was spearheaded by a 30-something woman named graceebooks, a member of The Johnlock Conspiracy (another very deep rabbit hole) who actually harassed a rape survivor to tears, in public, because she preferred to have Sherlock topping John rather than John topping Sherlock, and even though these people share the same ship, and the SAME FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE INVOLVED, the TJLCers actually had the balls to make the claim that Sherlock topping John = pedophilia because John was being infantalized or something, IDEK. Both Voltron fandom and TJLC share this absurd notion that their "gay babies" will become a canon couple too. That's a whoooole other ball of crazy, but it explains why some people go insane over this. They genuinely believe that if they fight off the rival ships in fandom space the showrunners will reward them by making their faves kiss on the show. So that's the context. What then happened is that these idiotic arguments that were being used for ship wars were then adopted by young, stupid children who did not understand or care about the context, and saw only the arguments themselves, and took them as reasonable and good arguments, and believe in them completely. While most of the initial wankers were just cynically throwing shit at the wall and hoping something stuck to drive out rival ships, there are now a large number of people who believe in a moral code that came out of that. It's like watching a religion form sometimes. The end result is OP, who has bought into a convoluted logic process developed to legitimize the harassment of shippers, and is now trying to apply it to the actual real world, with predictable results. Soucrce: Redditor shares a detailed explanation of how Tumblr's fandom culture formed into the mess it is today, complete with examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/6b5ke3/redditor_shares_a_detailed_explanation_of_how/