#fandoms fetishize it

[bombuni]

We need to rally all of the hispanic and latino spiderverse fans and put a stop to the cringe spanish fic writers make Miguel speak

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[danmeichael]

the observable ''im not usually into this but it's kinda hot" to new fetish pipeline

[chandralia]

“‘bkdk’ is pure and wholesome but ‘bakudeku🧡💚’ is the nasty, gross and problematic name that only weirdos use”

I think—and I can’t stress this enough—you sound fucking insane.

[nestasminiaturepegasus]

My harsh SJM opinions

-- I disappeared for a minute, but I'm back and ready to shit talk sjm books again. --

Rowan vs. Chaol: 

If you can forgive Rowan for punching Aelin and being vile towards her, you can forgive Chaol too.

Nesta's New Family: 

Hating Nesta for finding a family that understands her more than her biological family is weird. She hasn’t disowned her existing family; she’s added to it.

Valkyries and the Rite: 

Claiming the Valkyries shouldn't have won the Rite because it's unrealistic makes me laugh. THAT is where you draw the line? Really?

Character Behavior vs. Plot: 

SJM writes weird, shitty plots, but that doesn’t excuse the characters’ behavior. Rhys fingering Feyre in a place for SA victims was, yes, a weird plot written by SJM, and it still makes him WEIRD.

Rhys and Hypocrisy: 

If you claim Rhys couldn’t have sa’d Feyre because he was sa’d himself but then say Nesta’s abuse doesn’t excuse her ‘abuse’ towards Feyre, go sit in the corner and think about your hypocrisy.

Rhys in ACOSF: 

“Rhys only looked bad in ACOSF because it was in Nesta’s POV." Rhys looked better in Nesta’s POV than in Cassian’s. He is the problem.

Nesta and responsibility

Nesta did not neglect Feyre. You cannot neglect something that is not your responsibility.

Nesta antis

Nesta antis who bash her and bring her up in any circumstance are weird as hell (especially in vids talking about how ACOSF helped someone’s mental health).

Valkyrie Hate: 

Hating on the Valkyries is weird. Emerie and Gwyn are LITERALLY the least problematic characters in the entire SJM universe. 

If you don’t like Gwyn because you ship Elriel, try respecting women for more than their potential partners. And then going and fucking urself :)

Amren Sucks: 

Amren sucks as a character.

That’s it. That’s the opinion.

If I hear ‘girl’ one more time, I’m burning the book.

Feyre and SA: 

Saying Feyre wasn’t sa’d because it saved her life is WEIRD.

sa is sa regardless of the circumstance. Are we forgetting that Rhys admitted in ACOMAF that he kissed her because he was jealous, and in ACOTAR when he said the only reason he didn’t take advantage of her was so Tamlin wouldn’t kill him?

Minimizing SA so you can love on an attractive man is problematic and gross. Please don’t talk to me if you do that because, EW BRO UR GROSS.

[spockandstars]

It’s honestly kinda funny when men act like women having slash ships is exactly the same as straight guys fetishizing lesbians. If a considerable amount of men were writing essays and novels about an emotionally complex romantic relationship between two well-developed female characters, well that would be a different story.

[peggingeddiediaz]

Hello, I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I received a lot of hate for not staning a side character and I had to take a break. Now though, I don’t care.

The obsession with BuckTommy as a couple is pretty much fetishization and misogyny bc I'm 100% sure that if Tommy had been a female love interest, his stans wouldn't have been so obsessed with the relationship and would’ve hated every single thing he did last season.

Buck’s coming out as bi should be the focus, but as always, such an important storyline gets reduced to a rushed relationship and a obsession for a side character with not enough background to fill a napkin.

Buck being bi doesn't mean he has to end with the first guy he kisses or that people have to like whatever he has going with Tommy, especially when he’s had so little development that his characterization is whatever head canon you guys gaslight yourself into and think that makes him the best gay character ever. Y’all really went insane over those cameos.

I don’t think you guys really care about good, well crafted, quality narrative representation of queer relationships, you only care about flaunting around your canon surface level ship. It’s pretty obvious why a lot of Bucktommy blogs used to be Buddie accounts in the months prior. It’s bc y’all only cared about Buck messing around with any guy he could find. A white man specifically.

The negativity towards Buck and Eddie skyrocketed from "They won't be canon, Eddie is straight" to the absolute extreme with "Why not just have Eddie die so Tommy and Buck can raise Chris?" The increase in blatant racism using shipping as a cover is incredibly sad.

A lot of you had no issue with Tommy, a white man randomly appearing again being revealed to be queer or Buck’s coming out but the idea of Eddie, a mexican man with catholic guilt and failed relationships with women, is too insane to happen somehow. And let’s not get into the “theories” about how Eddie, a latino man, is gonna side with Gerrard’s racism because of a mustache but Tommy’s active bigotry towards Chim and Hen during season 2 should be ignored because “he changed”. I wonder WHITE that is...?

[kittykatninja321]

The thing is, Jason’s gender presentation as a motorcycle-tough guy is part of a costume, it was constructed as part of his Red Hood persona to project a specific image (if you’re gonna take over the criminal underground, ya gotta look the part). This is never stated explicitly in canon, but I’m intuiting it from the way his style of dress changes once he becomes Red Hood. Sometimes I wonder about how aware of this he is, like does he consciously view it that way or was it more of a subconscious thing? Most people are not tapped into the “gender presentation is not innate and is a performance” meta so it could go either way. I’ve seen some people compare it to the “over exaggerated on purpose” masculinity that some masc gay men present themselves with, and I do love that interpretation also

[aaronsinferno]

They’re constantly hijacking and policing queer spaces, silencing queer voices that don’t align with the interpretations they get from fics online, and happily push harmful stereotypes in favor of their delusional fantasies. They throw slurs around and double down on them when called out, wish death on us along with certain actors, and then pretend to support Black/poc LGBTQ+ folks/characters as a smokescreen for their personal toxic agendas. For a fandom that’s been happily open to the idea of gay firemen, it’s been giving “no gays allowed” around here a LOT lately.

And now the new narrative is that Oliver Stark doesn’t like LFJR and hates Buck’s bisexual storyline because *checks notes* he didn’t post them on his ig story….

[nights-at-crystarium]

guide to comprehending gender in my art: - has long eyelashes, wears makeup and/or dresses, corsets, frills etc, hot as all hells? probably a man or enby - looks rugged, no makeup, would likely murder you, zero horny vibes? probably a woman

[dazeddoodles]

Everytime I decide to look through any TOH tags I regret it

[leventar]

stop hating women challenge

[local-limebug]

jason todd has so many underrated canon love interests. essence, isabel, artemis, and rose are all characters i love with him. like those are good ships. why is everyone ignoring them?

[ot3]

seeing the phrase 'actively reposts and comms fetish art' in a callout thread... oh it is so over

[artist-issues]

I’m so enjoying the whole “Harry Potter is good but whenever the Marauders pop in I feel like I could be reading an even better story” vibe, that I go into the tags to search and see Marauders fan stuff, and what are you guys doing?

…I mean I know I’m like 28 years late to the party, but what? Was Harry Potter like…the first fandom that ever just went insane and completely ignored what the characters in the canon material were actually like, so that they could make self-satisfying headcanons and slap the names “Lupin, James, Sirius,” on top?

Is this where the “yeah I really love this carefully-created, artfully-portrayed teenage boy character, so I’m naturally going to prove that love by oh completely re-writing his personality and interpersonal relationships in my own headcanon.” came from? From the Marauders and Harry Potter?

I mean jeez, where are you getting some of this stuff? I’m no expert. I know I just started reading these. But Rowling’s characterizations seem pretty straightforward, so when I look at the most prominent fan-accepted headcanons, it’s hard not to be like…Did you read these? Are we reading about the same characters, because this character in this book does not match with your webcomic. Is this the same character? Do you even like them?