#i’ll elaborate on my opinions on shipping discourse if need be

[wlwanakin]

How do you enjoy black butler (a story where children are assaulted, violated and murdered) and be antiship?? /gen

first of all calling me antiship just cuz i don’t like proshippers is wild and i fully reject the proship/antiship binary because it’s stupid and both sides need to go outside and experience the joy of god’s creation. i am just chilling with my toxic yuri leave me out of that shit

second of all i don’t see how me not wanting a very specific demographic of weirdos to interact with my blog has any standing on the media i enjoy. like yeah bad things happen to kids in black butler. what does that have to do with shipping discourse. i understand there are weird things pandering to weird demographics in the series but that’s not a core pillar of the plot and ultimately proshippers and i are getting very different things out of this story and i don’t want to see the content they produce. my opinion on chronically online ship discourse doesn’t affect my ability to consume dark media or engage with media i also take issue with lol

[les-belles-infideles]

What happened with Kora @princesshamlet: A start at contextualizing the events of the past week

While I am writing this because Kora expressed that they would like it if someone would post something contextualizing what happened, I do not speak for them; my opinions and perspective are my own. I think the general response has been wildly disproportionate to their actual words and actions. Let me know if you have questions about anything or if my writing style is hard to read and I’ll do my best to clarify.

Tl;dr: Last fall, Kora, a new Supernatural fan, started rewriting Supernatural to be more racially diverse and to more overtly address social issues such as homophobia and misogyny. They continually asked for feedback, particularly from POC, and received overwhelmingly positive responses.

Earlier this week, Kora posted something that unintentionally played into ideas that harm trans men. They were horrified to have hurt people, immediately apologized and made an effort to learn more about the issues involved.

Yesterday, some of Kora’s friends cut them off, presumably over the abovementioned. Some people read Kora’s Supernatural rewrite and were offended by portrayals of various ethnicities; Kora tried to learn from these criticisms and apologize for them. People organized to spread bad-faith, extremely hostile claims and Kora left Tumblr.

Background:

- last fall, Kora started watching Supernatural, and posting about it, including making some popular reaction videos and an elaborate summary of the events of season 16 as of mid-November. They got really attached to Cas as a character and DeanCas as a ship.

- Kora made a post along the lines of “what if I drew Castiel as Indian?” and got encouraging responses, so they made a drawing. A lot of Desi people left comments saying that they really liked the drawing and that the representation was meaningful to them, so Kora started posting and reblogging a lot more about recasting Supernatural to be racially diverse.

- Kora accumulates a lot of ideas around how they wish Supernatural had been, and starts casually writing it up into a story. It didn’t even have a title for the first few chapters, but it quickly amassed a small, enthusiastic following.

- I started reading it at first mostly as a way of getting to know Kora, who was at the time a new friend irl (they didn’t mean to give me their Tumblr; I had followed them for Hamlet and Star Trek posts and then recognized them when they posted a selfie) but wound up getting pretty invested. I started watching Supernatural despite the fact that I can pretty much never commit to finishing a TV show.

- Kora’s general strategy was to post ideas on Tumblr and get input before including them in the fic, particularly regarding race and ethnicity. Plenty of people gave them feedback -- I remember one really long conversation where people swapped headcanons about what music a Mexican-American Dean Winchester would have liked growing up.

- iirc, they actively collaborated with multiple Latine fans of the fic on one chapter that foregrounded Mexican-American culture. These fans are credited in an author’s note.

- they received substantial encouragement from Supernatural fans of color for how they were writing the fic, and afaik no negative feedback.

- they also used the fic as a way to discuss and joke about their personal experiences with misogyny, repression, and homophobia, including writing Dean Winchester as undergoing a character arc involving working through and overcoming severe homophobia. When we called recently, they described going from homophobic to not homophobic as “the best character arc a man can have.”

- afaik they had beta readers or at least people to run ideas by for most chapters.

First incident:

- earlier this week, Kora posted a somewhat poorly-worded vent post about Dean Winchester’s misogyny in Supernatural canon.

- I think I reblogged it because I don’t have super high standards for my SPN blog and yeah, afaict Dean said some pretty gross things in canon? I’d seen a lot of people talk about it, particularly Asian women, it’s clearly a thing.

- several people expressed hurt at the post’s wording, which could be read as bigoted against trans men.

- Kora immediately apologized and started looking for ways to learn more about trans men’s issues (afaict, mostly asking friends and going through the trans dean tag)

- they messaged me about it (Tuesday 4/13/2021), and I took a closer look at the post and explained how in isolation it looked harmless, but some of the rhetoric fit into wider patterns of transandrophobia, i.e. part of the impetus for this post was Kora being surprised that some of their trans male friends project onto Dean, since he’s a pretty bad role model for gender -- I pointed out that one way trans men are marginalized within queer movements is by people perpetuating the idea that we’re more misogynistic than cis men (which makes no sense), and their post could be read as playing into that trope (that reading had occurred to me when I first saw the post, but I had initially dismissed it because Kora and I had been spending a lot of time talking about gender and I never felt that they distrusted me or saw me as a threat).

- they made another hasty apology post, quoting my message to them.

- I encouraged them not to worry too much about what strangers online thought about them, but they were very insistent that they had hurt people and needed to learn and make amends.

- I think what happened next was that the conversation sparked a larger discussion about transandrophobia in the Supernatural fandom? I’m not sure about this though, I was off Tumblr most of Tuesday and Wednesday. I saw a few well-written posts refuting the idea that it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans. I did not see anyone claim it was misogynistic to headcanon Dean as trans, but again, I wasn’t looking.

The Discourse™:

- yesterday, Kora started getting a lot more and a lot meaner messages.

- a large part of their social circle cut them off all at once, saying they felt unsafe and that Kora was transphobic. Kora did not/was unable to receive further clarification, while actively seeking the chance to learn more and repair harm done.

- someone made a dedicated hate tag for them.

- a new group of people read their Supernatural rewrite, and were offended by their portrayals of race and their writing about homophobia, and additionally mocking their writing style. The tone was often extremely mean-spirited.

- Kora responded to and apologized for some of the concerns around their portrayal of race, and refuted some of the bad-faith readings of their depictions of homophobia.

- Kora made an effort to understand what they had done wrong but a lot of the posts weren’t very specific.

- some of the claims got fucking wild. A lot of them involved taking stuff out of context. I think w*ncest got brought up at one point???

- Kora wrote another apology and took a break from Tumblr, on the advice of another friend.

- I spent like a day gearing up to write this because I vastly underestimated the speed at which Tumblr discourse moves.

[finnickodaiir]

I don’t see how you could watch the show and NOT think Will needs to have a storyline related to Lonnie. We saw Jonathan and Joyce with Lonnie and hopefully we get to see them deal with their trauma related to him but Will- I mean it’s pretty explanatory why that relationship needs to be explored. Why wouldn’t someone want that? What brenner is to El is what Lonnie is to Will (and the Byers in general).

Hi anon, my answer is a lot longer than you probably expected, so I put it under the cut:

People who claim that Will and Lonnie will not interact at all and that its only Jonathan’s arc are being willfully ignorant and are in denial. Why we would see Jonathan and Lonnie’s relationship being explored again? He already had the arc of rejecting his father's ways and telling him where to go in Season One, if that happened in S4, he would be having the same arc twice (which would just prove the Duffers don’t know what to do with him). It makes way more sense if Will is the one whose arc will involve interacting with his father. He hasn't yet rejected his father's ways, which can be proved by the fact that he chose to destroy Castle Byers with a bat (Lonnie tried to "man him up" by taking him to baseball games), that he said he isn't going to fall in love (Jonathan was, as far as I remember, was quite skeptical of romantic relationships as well in S1, which was a result of his parents' marriage and eventual divorce), he took Mike’s claims about "not liking girls" seriously, which proves it's likely true and that he suffers from a lot of internalized homophobia caused by his father's and classmates' homophobia (and there's also that fact that it's the 1980s, but one thing doesn’t rule out the other). Also, I think that saying that Lonnie shouldn’t play a part at all in Will's arc S4 (it's about a post I saw on Sunday), because he "wasn't deeply affected" (which as I pointed out that earlier is bullshit) or "wasn't affected by Lonnie as much as Jonathan", is both wrong and rather offensive, because this isn't a competition of who suffered the most. The reason why certain people don’t want that is because they think Will is a minor character who is there to be nice to the main ones and suffer in silence. Some of them are now acknowledging that he is gay but say he will only come out and will sit in the background for the rest of the show (which I think is pretty problematic, because if you confirm that a character is LGBTQ+ and then you don't flesh that character out at all, then you only did it for representation points). I didn't really want to bring ship wars into the discussion, but I feel like most of the "Is Will important or not" discourse boils down to the Byler vs Mileven ship war (which as toxic as it is, I think revealed some people's true feelings when it comes Will and LGBTQ+ rep, but I'll elaborate in another post), most of the people who don't want him to have a big storyline, happen to be Milevens, because if he is just a minor character, then in their minds chances of Byler happening are low, which misses the point, because not every main character necessarily ends up with another main character (basing this on their idea that Will is a minor character), for example, Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, Phoebe and Mark from Friends. So, yeah, I do believe the fact that most of the “Will shouldn't have much of a storyline in S4″ boils down to ship wars. I'm not saying he is the main character (this show has a lot of main characters, every character whose actor is credited among the main cast, should be considered a main character in my opinion), but he is not a minor character either, if he was then why would the Duffers create parallels between him and El? Why would his disappearance in S1 be the thing that drives the plot and his possession in S2 and why is he still connected to the Upside Down/The Mind Flayer? If he was a minor character of little importance, then his role in the show would be a small one like Mr. Clarke and wouldn’t affect the plot that much, but it isn’t. And the fact that he was used rather sparingly by the writers in S3 doesn't change that, S3 was about "the summer of love and being a teenager", Will isn't in a relationship and was reluctant to let go of his childhood, so it makes sense that he wasn't super involved and also El’s storyline in S2 didn't have that much to do with the main plot until the finale, her story in that season was mostly about family (bonding with Hopper, meeting Terry and Becky Ives, Kali), in some ways it was a journey of self-discovery. I think it was the writers intended to with Will last season, but if they had gone too deep into it, then they would have to explore certain things they probably hope to do in later seasons. In S3 we see Will feeling out of place in the "summer of love" and he still doesn’t want to let go of his childhood hobbies, but that changes after episode 3, in that episode he ends up lashing out at Lucas and Mike, their reactions suggest that he doesn't do that often or never did that before. He ends up that episode destroying Castle Byers, which symbolizes him letting go of his childhood, he also warns them about the Mind Flayer's return and takes a backseat, because after all this is still the summer of love and because he is not in a relationship, in some ways he has no place in the summer of love. But that's not to say he didn't have any growth at all, he still speaks up and calls other Party members out when he believes they are acting foolishly (something that judging by the other boys’ reaction, he never/rarely did before), it wasn't much but it was something when you compare it to S2 Will, who d who suffered in silence and apologized a lot. Sorry anon, this was longer than you probably expected, but I hope I covered most of the things you asked. 

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

ok i know you said that reblog didn’t just refer to Rakepick (i’m assuming that’s who you meant by “her” but correct me if not) but i don’t really see how it could refer to her character in the first place?? if you could elaborate that’d be great cos i feel like it’s flying right over my head lmao

Happy to! As I might have predicted, I did get several messages about the post I reblogged so now I’ll try to clarify my feelings on this, as I know it’s been a touchy subject in the past. (This ended up being quite long, so...) @dat-silvers-girl and @heleneplays I thought you might find this interesting.

The original post was talking about shipping and the difference between enjoying character dynamics and actually projecting onto characters to see the relationship style you would want in your own life. I feel like both of these things can happen and that’s okay, but the point was that shipping two characters doesn’t mean you condone any implications that such a relationship would have in real life. Enemies to Lovers is a great example. 

In regards to fiction, I took that mindset a step further and talked about characters in general, notably villains. The same way we shouldn’t assume that people like a certain ship because they want a relationship like that in their own life, I don’t think it says anything about a person if a villain is their favorite character. Very often, villains are the most interesting or fleshed out. They have a unique relationship with the story itself as they are often the driving force or representative of its message. You could say that Harry Potter is a story about love and family...and Voldemort exists as someone who cannot comprehend either, to demonstrate their importance. Anyway, the point is that there’s nothing wrong with liking a villainous character. 

When I was growing up, it didn’t seem like this was a contested idea. It was actually common, particularly for villains who were seen as “cool” and many of them were. You’ll find few people who don’t agree that Darth Vader or Darth Maul look cool. However, in recent years, I’ve noticed that purity culture has spread to the point where liking a villain is considered questionable. It no longer seems to be enough, necessarily, that one is merely enjoying the villain as a character. Just like the idea of shipping two characters now means one must condone that kind of relationship in real life, sometimes it seems as though liking a villain is now tantamount to condoning their actions. 

Then again, there are people who feel sympathy for villains and attempt to justify their actions. Sometimes it’s due to a personal attraction. It’s a meme that people get horny for villains, and there’s probably some overlap there with folks who lean toward the “projection” style of shipping I talked about earlier, but never mind that. Other times, this sympathy can overlap with seeing potential in the character. There is a fine line, of course, between rooting for a redemption for the villain and arguing that they did nothing wrong in the first place, but these days it seems as though rooting for a redemption for the “wrong” kind of villain is something people take as an insult. (Severus Snape comes to mind.) Alternatively, people also seem to take it as an insult if you don’t believe the “right” kind of character deserves redemption. (This happens a lot with Princess Azula.)

Now all that being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with hating a villain and just wanting them to go to hell and die. Like, that makes perfect sense. There are villains out there that we love to hate, characters who are so despicable that most people would agree they deserve a slow and painful death. Joffrey Baratheon is a great example. (Actually, a lot of Game of Thrones characters would apply here...) If a villain inspires true loathing from you, then paradoxically that also means they’re great, because they’ve been written in such a way that you as an audience can feel the evil. But this can become complicated if they overlap such despicable villains with the ones who have potential to be more interesting. It becomes complicated because of the aforementioned binary that now seems to be prevalent. The idea that everything one likes in fiction reflects what they believe should go on in real life.

Which brings us to Rakepick. 

Wow, we finally got here. I appreciate your patience. Rakepick is that character who has overlap. Whether we like it or not, she was presented as an ally for two years of the game’s story, before her betrayal. She spent a lot of quality time with MC and the other apprentices. We got to know her. It is not at all surprising, I don’t believe, that some of us see that “potential” to be more in Patricia Rakepick. But on the other hand, she sure has gone above and beyond in the effort to be one of those villains you just hate, given what she’s done. Having been part of this discourse, I think what’s going on is that the players who still feel a connection to Rakepick feel attacked by the players who ruthlessly condemn her. The players who condemn her feel insulted by the idea that players still like her after the terrible crimes she’s committed, after what she did to Rowan. No one is wrong here. Rakepick is a fascinating character who’s done unspeakable things. We do not need to fight about her. 

Everyone has different opinions about characters for different reasons. I have villains that I simply love because I see something more in them, or because I just think they’re cool. I also have villains for whom I feel the same contempt people have for Rakepick. Villains who I cannot stand and it makes me cringe to see their actions justified or considered - Cersei Lannister comes to mind. Likewise, there are just as many heroic characters that I love and adore, and some others that I find problematic. Others still that I flat out despise because of what they’ve done, villain or no villain, like Nozomi from SMT. Albus Dumbledore is probably the character I hate the most in fiction, even though he’s one of the good guys. I’m “Anti-Dumbledore” but when it comes to Rakepick, I don’t even like to use the term “Antis” because when a character is unquestionably a villain...isn’t it the default setting to hate them and root against them? 

Here’s the main thing. They’re fictional characters, first and foremost. They aren’t real, so it’s not like they know if we’re defending or condemning them. All of us are part of fandom to enjoy their story and share our enjoyment with each other. I feel like that should come before anything else. No matter if Rakepick is one of those villains you find “cool,” no matter if you love to hate her with how evil she is, no matter if you see more to her and wish she wasn’t considered a villain...or even if, like most of the HPHM fandom, you simply can’t stand her and root for a shallow grave...all of us have these opinions because we like HPHM. That matters more than our specific opinions about characters. Even villains. Even ones who have crossed as many lines as Rakepick.

[cero-blast]

Ramblings now that I finally finished the manga

The pace at which people read the last arc definitely influenced their opinion on it. I was late to the party so I could binge Bleach all at once, but I’ve followed weekly series before and I know there’s a lot more tension, speculation and anticipation building up if you have to wait for each chapter. That being said, consuming the manga like this, I really didn’t take much issue with the ending. The final battle could have been drawn out for 2-3 more chapters and a lot of questions remained unanswered, but that’s about it. It was nothing to be upset over. I concluded that the controversy around it was halfway because of shipping and halfway a self-fueling state of upset because people like being angry in general.

Ishida’s last intervention saving the day was a bit deus ex machina, but admittedly, if he hadn’t done that he would have been left with a lot of baggage and ‘unpaid debt’ towards the Ichigo-gang. The exaggerated importance he gave to his being a quincy (tying back to the first arcs) needed to be addressed, especially in a situation where they were the enemies.

Talking to a great extent about the Vandenreich would be like kicking a hornet’s nest, throwing it against the wall and stomping on it. People who like them are rabid about it. People who dislike them are rabid about it. I, myself, am just too tired to instigate conflict right now.

I wish there was more elaboration on Yhwach/Juha Bach’s backstory (as well as how on Earth his name is pronounced and how those two spellings exist simultaneously...). I found his powers and existence really interesting and I would have liked to see how he gradually regained his body and intellect. (It sort of reminded me of Dororo if I’m honest.)

This is probably self-indulgent of me but I love what they did with Aizen. It made perfect sense and underlined how he was ultimately on an ego trip and not against Soul Society in particular. I found it kind of funny how he was the one who delivered the closing motivational speech but it had something satisfying about it how, in the end, SS and Aizen could at least agree on the playing field of their conflicts, as in that fear of death needs to exist for there to be courage. It also wasn’t really presented as a redemption arc (which would have ruined it); Aizen straight up told them he’s doing it for his own sake and then got sealed again. The scene where he got stabbed instead of Ichigo? Fantastic.

More on the fear of death thing; it was interesting how this topic vaguely referenced things other characters have said. I thought of Shuuhei specifically, and how in his opinion anyone who wields a zanpakuto should feel some amount of fear, otherwise they’re unfit for it. I don’t know what to make of the ambiguity around him having/not having a bankai in the ending, perhaps he really did achieve it because they continued to live in a world where fear existed. It’s also telling how Äs Nödt was a Sternritter despite Yhwach’s plans with the world. I don’t think any of them really knew what his goals entailed, nor did Yhwach care about them to any extent beyond them being soldiers.

Why do people keep saying Orihime didn’t contribute anything? She clearly did in the final fight. I lean more towards the view that a lot more could have been done with her as a character, but it’s not like she did nothing at all. She fixed Zangetsu along with Tsukishima and that was pretty important considering it’s what Ichigo delivered the final blow with. It’s the only weapon he can use, he doesn’t know kido or have a monstrous enough physical strength to do anything to Yhwach (even Kenpachi didn’t...) — getting Zangetsu fixed was indispensable. I’ll say this again; I’m a bit tired of these complaints talking about Orihime not having combat skills. I’d understand if she was the type of character who actively got in the way out of incompetence, but she genuinely didn’t the vast majority of time. With a stretch you could say that about the Hueco Mundo arc, but her other option besides getting kidnapped was *people more battle-suited than her getting killed*. As for why they went to rescue her, it’s because she was the Ichigo-gang’s friend and they cared about her. If you’re gonna have a heroic protector character, he’s going to want to save his friends. It’s a prerequisite. You can’t have one but not the other. I swear I’ll stop it with this rant but I’m reaching my limit.

The final arc went through too many bankais too quickly. And I’m 100% convinced it’s a fanservice thing because, for some reason, everyone is maniacally obsessed with seeing every character’s bankai as if them not having it makes them somehow lacking. I don’t want to put the blame on either Kubo or the fans and it didn’t bother me *that* much but it wasn’t really needed — besides the fact that there wasn’t enough time to display all of these bankais’ full abilities and now we’re left with a vague idea of how they work. I’m conflicted about Kenpachi because I liked the reasoning behind his fight with Unohana, but at the same time it was nice to have a captain who got on just fine without using even a shikai. I would have preferred Yachiru to be just a random kid he adopted, too. (Though that’s effectively what she was to him considering he didn’t know who she was when they met, so whatever.)

Strangely, Renji and Rukia having a kid was way weirder than Ichigo and Orihime having a kid. Renruki are entertaining and useful at many things but I’m not sure parenting would be one. They feel... too youthful? Something like that? Rukia is a captain now (which I really appreciated) so maybe she had some change in attitude, I don’t know. I’m not calling her childish, just not very mother-like.

I’ll get the ship discourse out of the way. I still have no opinion on this. Yeah, Ichigo didn’t have any romantic development with Orihime, but neither did he with Rukia... It might be just me but he didn’t seem interested in anyone on a romantic level throughout the entire series, all he did was try to protect everyone equally. I guess it’s not unrealistic that even people whose main focus in life isn’t romance would eventually end up with someone, what I’m saying is that who the person would be seemed completely unpredictable.

A surprising amount of characters got a good deal out of the endgame and it’s sort of a relief, but it also surprises me sometimes. It’s an odd thing that hit me; thinking back to the pendulum arc I would have been sure that either Aizen or Shinji would die at one point, but they’re both still alive. None of the vizards died. Urahara didn’t die. Shunsui didn’t die. Ginjo and Tsukishima are doing just fine. Grimmjow and Nel are alive. The squad 11 higher ups are alive. Okay, a lot of people *did* die, but with the mess in the last arc I would have expected for the cast to be decimated. I need to highlight that *Aizen is alive*. That’s probably the weirdest part to me.

In the end, I have no idea what everyone is so upset about. I expected something way more nonsensical, outrageous and catastrophic to happen judging from the fan reactions but it was a pretty normal ending. I didn’t finish the manga thinking “Ah yes, this is genius, the most impactful and well-delivered ending I’ve ever read!” But it was... alright? I’m jaded because I’ve seen way, way worse than this. This fandom is spoiled.

[autumndiesirae]

what's your opinion on shipping discourse? in general

Is this related to the rainbowloli thing going on? lmao

I’m just going to address this using TL;DR bullet points - if you’d like me to elaborate on a specific topic from this list, send me another ask and I’ll be glad to explain.

Shipping and headcanons are not inherently activism or progressive. Both are just a fun hobbyist pastime that should not be taken as seriously as they are.

The livelihood of real people (with perhaps the exception of actual pedophiles, like self-identified MAPs) matters more than your shipping. Sending death threats/suicide encouragement, doxxing, or otherwise wishing harm on the well-being of an artist, writing, show creator, voice actor, etc, is unacceptable no matter what.

The internet and the content that is available on it is not necessarily a microcosm for the real world - a writer or artist creating content that depicts something ‘problematic’, like rape, is not necessarily an indication that that person fetishizes or enjoys that content. Fiction is widely considered a place where one can exercise their fascinations or interests on ‘taboo’ subjects that they would never condone or want to experience in real life.

That being said, fiction DOES affect reality, but NOT in the way that both anti-shipping and pro-shipping discoursers believe - it is not necessarily the idea that fiction in of itself has a say in reality, but rather the way something fictional is portrayed. This is the distinction between positive representation of marginalized groups vs the very clearly negative depiction of pedophilia or rape in a story. If something like rape or pedophilia is portrayed in a positive way that makes light of the situation either through humor or sexualization, then I agree that this is inherently an issue. If something like rape or pedophilia is portrayed in a negative way with the very clear intent to show ‘hey, this was a bad thing, that was the point’, then it is perfectly acceptable to add to a story for the purposes of conflict or character development.

Two adult characters in a relationship, regardless of the age gap, are not inherently a pedophilic model. Two underage characters in a relationship are also not inherently a pedophilic model. Individuals who enjoy shipping two underage characters or two adult characters with a large age gap are not inherently pedophiles for doing so.

In that same vein, however, my personal view is that portraying the sexualization of children or minors in a NON-NEGATIVE PERSPECTIVE is questionable at best. Yes, it is true that fictional characters, no matter the context, do not have personal agency, but I still have to raise my eyebrow at the idea that someone has no alternative motives for portraying a 10 year old in a sexual relationship with a 30 year old or portraying that 10 year old in any sort of sexual light. Whether this is attributed to my personal discomfort on the subject or not, I don’t enjoy consuming this media and I wouldn’t be especially on board with people producing this media unless there was a very clear explanation as to why. Note that this does NOT apply to the case of 17 year olds in relationships with 18 year olds, especially if the two knew each other prior to the 18 year old turning 18. I believe this is widely considered an exception and I agree with it.

Websites like AO3 have excellent tagging systems, warnings, and other methods of clearly presenting content to the reader. If you see a tag, ship, archive warning, or anything else on a piece of media that you dislike, it is no one’s fault but your own if you continue to peruse that media. You cannot control the work that other content creators make by saying that ‘this content hurts me, change it’ - if you don’t like something, it is your job to remove yourself from that content.

‘(Fictional Character) Discourse Blogs’ are inherently cringy and I have no interest in hearing a blog titled something like ‘sansundertalehatesshippers’ run by a 14 year old exclusionist lecture me, an adult, about fictional characters, sexual agency, CSA, or anything else mentioned here interspersed with gifs of their characters.

I think that about covers it, let me know if you need elaboration.

[ask-genderbent-klance]

Official Rules Post

Basics

1. This blog is primarily centered around Klance, but other paladins will be featured upon request, just not with the same level of frequency as those two specifically :D

2. This blog will keep pace with the canon material as best i can; i don’t read the comics, but if there’s any details from the comics you feel could contribute to the blog in any way, feel free to keep me posted! Currently, this AU is kept up to pace with all of the events in: Season 3

3. Try to avoid asks that request responses from ALL of the paladins specifically, though if you do, i won’t ignore the request! Just expect that some will not be drawn and will instead answer through text format.

5. I’m the only one managing this blog at the moment, so any OOC responses/questions/requests can be directed towards me. No need to feel shy if you’re curious about something :)

Most followers have just called me “Mun” in the past, but if you’re curious of what else you can call me, just “Tessa” or “Tess” will do. If you’d rather call me something else, or would prefer to use certain pronouns, i honestly don't mind; this blog exists to cater to you guys, so just do whatever makes you comfortable. With that:

Cursing/Swearing is Allowed

Blog is PG-13 (well, trying to keep it that way…)

NO Shaladin Discourse - Even though this is obviously a Klance-centric blog, and i don't personally ship any Shaladin ships, there will be absolutely no hate directed towards the ones who do ship them! I’m trying to maintain a blog where people can ship in peace and enjoy the same characters, and it’d be nice if i had your guys’ cooperation in achieving that. Please and Thank You!

Types of Posts

Standard asks and submissions of all types will be taken, and there will also be other more specialized requests that i’ll do; such as:

AU Prompt - provide an AU scenario and i’ll draw art for it, give a little background, and provide my opinion (because i’m a sucker for AU’s, they make me weak). I might occasionally drop a fic rec or two in there if i’m tempted, because promoting writers and sharing their work gives me strength <3 (Because these are relatively more elaborate, these will definitely be less frequent than others)

Magic!Anons (M!A) - Anons submit a change that will be made to the specified character(s) for a set amount of asks (Might not set them to the character(s) as soon as i get them, especially if one’s already active, but that doesn’t mean i won’t get around to them eventually)

Events - In case of a holiday, birthday, etc, i will announce what’s upcoming and how the paladins are preparing for it.

[More may be added in the future, but these are what are currently available]

Any updates to these existing rules will be revised in both the original post and notified to followers as they become prevalent! Hope you abide by the rules and enjoy your stay on the blog; any and all questions or suggestions can be offered when/if you have them! :)