#just calling out some of the hypocrisy in this fandom

[jikookuntold]

Jikook and the Untold Narratives

As a hardcore Jikooker who deep-dives into everything related to Jikook, I always have different ideas, theories, and analyses in my mind. But most of the time, I hesitate to contextualize them, develop them into actual essays, and share them in this blog. This post you are about to read was an almost a one-year-old topic running in my head, but I wasn’t sure about writing it until the Bangtan episode for D-Day Seoul concerts came out a few weeks ago, but as a professional procrastinator, it took me this long to write. According to the title this was supposed to be about the narratives related to Jikook, and I tried rooting and analyzing them, but somehow, it turned out mostly as a long rant about hypocrisy and misunderstandings in this fandom. Anyway, these are only my opinions and observations, and I don't claim to be 100% right. I hope you enjoy reading this post.

The Narratives

What do I mean by the narratives? Are there any narratives related to Jikook? Why did I even decide to write about this? Well, at some point I noticed that we, as Jikookers, have always been blamed for falling for "company narratives". It is widely said and believed by Jikook antis that the company wants to represent Jikook as the "couple/ very close and special duo" in BTS to the point that they call the Jikook ship the creation of Bang PD himself. A specific group of antis believe this is for hiding their real relationships, and the rest of them think it's just for fanservice. They think we are fools to fall for it because if Jikook were a real gay couple, they would hide it from us because of homophobia.

I know this is literally a conspiracy theory made by them, but conspiracy theories are also theories, and like any other theory, they have to be based on some external evidence. So, where is the evidence that leads antis to the conspiracy theory of Jikook being the “company couple”? Antis believe everything Jikookers get as moments, is company content, and this content is designed, faked, and manipulated to make us believe Jikook are a couple, and based on their logic, believing the things we see instead of their conspiracy theories means that we have fallen for company narratives. I can’t deny the fact that we get lots of Jikook moments from official content, but this applies to every other duo, not just Jikook. Then what is so special about Jikook that makes antis believe there is a narrative being pushed?

The answer is the nature of the Jikook moments we get. Some of the interactions between Jimin and JK are nothing like the interactions between the other members. The high dosage of couple behavior in these interactions is not justifiable with common excuses like Korean culture, flirty friends, or even KPop fanservice. Therefore, antis need to make up another excuse, which is the conspiracy theory of the company narrative. This narrative contradicts the principle of “Gays have to hide because homophobia, duh!” which their theory is based on. Also shipping culture in other boybands always insisted on the company and management hiding the gay relationship, not pushing it. And this is another thing that makes Jikook different and special.

Let’s deep dive into this contradictive narrative. Being the company couple doesn’t stop in the company narrative and spreads much further. Let’s imagine Jikook is the official couple that the company is investing in, to make fans and the general public believe they are special and gain more money from the narrative. Then the media should follow this agenda and use them together for headlines and clicks. Then fans also have to go with the flow and make their sub-narratives aligned with this agenda. But does any of this happen in reality? The following parts of this post is going to be a long answer to this question.

Company Narratives

Does BigHit/Hybe use Jikook? pairs the two of them together more than others? encourages them to behave in a certain way? includes more interactions of them in the official content intentionally? In order to answer these questions, we need to overview the official content provided by the company. First I have to clarify that not all the official content has the same weight in this examination, and we can classify them into different categories regarding the prevalence and accessibility to the public.

The first category can be called the public content. This type of content is usually free and accessible to everyone online with just a few clicks. These are the things you get when you type the names of the BTS members or songs in a Google search, like official MVs, Bangtan episodes, Run BTS, or live performance videos, that introduced most of us to the Bangtan world. The other category is a part of the main content that is mostly not for free, like documentaries, travel shows, Army zip content, seasonal packages, etc. This content is accessible in its original form to a big group of fans who can afford to pay or know their ways to pirate.

The last category is the content that not all the fans consume despite being officially released, even a big group of them are not aware that this content exists. This group of content might be free or paid, like Behind-the-scenes episodes of the main shows, official DVDs of the concerts, and memories of each year. They are like the leftovers of the main content that for some reason, didn’t end up in the public or main content, and only the dedicated fans or chronically online ones originally consume them.

Disclaimer: This classification was all done by me, and it’s not claimed to be official or accurate. Feel free to disagree and have your own categorization and conclusion. But what is the point of this classification? As I admitted earlier in this post, we get lots of Jikook interactions in official content released by BigHit/Hybe, same as the unofficial content like Vlives/Weverse, social media posts, livestreams, or fancams from concerts or award shows, which gave us so many incredible and unforgettable Jikook moments while they were not released by the company, but my focus is on the official content and how it’s connected to the narrative of comply couple.

If you pay attention to the ship moments, you will notice that they are not equally distributed in the different categories of content I named above. In the first category AKA, the public content, Jikook moments are not much dominant, and all the ships and duos pretty much equally have their moments overall. The second category is almost the same as the first one, maybe the Jikook moments in these two categories still feel more couply and spicy compared to the others but they are still balanced because the editors usually push the extra moments to the last category.

The last category which we can call as “leftovers” is where we get the most of the eyebrow raising moments of the original content, like almost kiss or hickey. It's the content all the extra Jikook moments that had to be cut out of the main content for balancing things up, end up there, and it’s the content not all the fans follow because a big portion of this fandom is not chronically online and do not have stan Twitter/X accounts or care about Twitter trends.  For me, the best example here is the second season of ITS and how all the organic Jikook interactions were pushed to the behind-the-scenes episode with viewers one-third of the main episodes. This doesn’t mean that the main episodes of ITS2 have no Jikook moments, they do, but not more than Taekook or VMin or Jihope, thanks to the modifications done by editors.

So, based on this analysis, can we say there is a narrative going on? I leave the conclusion to you, but I think there is no narrative here other than showing some fun interactions and closeness between the members. They have more of the Jimin and JK interaction moments because Jikook happen to spend more time together and interact more, and these interactions sometimes cross the platonic line regarding the nature of their relationship. I believe if BigHit wanted to palm Jikook off as a couple to the public, they wouldn’t push their couply moments into the content that the vast majority of fans don’t even know about.

Another thing we should keep in mind is that the leftover content is the most organic one, and unlike most of the moments from public or main content (for example the Run BTS episodes or Bon Voyages), there is no script involved. It’s just how members naturally interact and cameras happen to be there to film them. I’m not saying the first two categories are fake. In fact, I believe the majority of the BTS content we get is authentic, and even when there are scripts involved, it’s based on the natural dynamics between the members. If you have been following the members and listened to them carefully in the past decade, you know they are never being forced to do things together against their will, at least not after their rookie era.

Antis also bring up another argument to prove their conspiracy theory, and it is the argument that “Jikook have been paired together a lot”. I don’t have access to any reliable statistical information to confirm that Jikook had the most pairings between the BTS members, but if someone makes this claim, I can partially agree with them. This might not apply in all the eras of Bangtan group activities, but overall, this can be considered as a fact, and it has a simple explanation; Jikook get paired together a lot because they are the main/lead duo, and their vocals match very well, and they can work in sync and communicate perfectly. When a duo can do the job with great chemistry, without wasting time and energy for syncing and communicating, why the company has to give it to any other duo in the group? This is how things work in the entertainment industry, and there are no narratives and forces needed to be involved.

This is mostly about the vocal and dance projects or photoshoots Jikook have done together several times, and there have been no other examples except the potential travel show we know they filmed in 2023 that made antis stand on their conspiracy theory even stronger than before. First of all, we don’t know how and when this travel show will be aired and what agenda it will follow. Will it be this year or the next year? Will it be a whole series or just a 30-minute Bangtan episode? We know nothing until we get an update on it. We are not even sure if they traveled just for the show or if it was an excuse for Jikook to travel before their enlistment. I recommend you to read this post about an interesting theory on the travel show.

Okay, now let’s talk about the other narratives related to Jikook, the ones that were not conspiracy theories and were actually planned by the company. BigHit, as an entertainment label, debuted BTS with a narrative, and Jimin and JK, as the members and a duo, had their designated roles. At first, Jimin got the role of the macho man in the group who had to go through a physical transformation because of it. Fortunately, this harsh role changed after some time, and Jimin got a new narrative. This time, he was the awkward member who became the punchline of the jokes by losing every game, the member who got rejected several times and wasn’t supposed to debut at all.

These parts of the narrative were far from the real Jimin, but some parts were close to his real personality like he is the sweetest member, a hug and gift fairy who is there for the others. But even these positive features were misused and turned Jimin into a cheerleader and outcast who might get “left out by the heartless" bandmates he loves and supports. You may say I’m exaggerating, but these narratives are still going on to this day and feed his antis. These narratives were one of the main reasons Jimin’s successful self-made solo debut became a hard pill to swallow for the majority of fans ad even the company because they expected this triumph from any vocal line member other than Jimin.

As I said earlier, Jikook as a duo also had their narrative since their debut. This narrative was technically a roleplaying between them; Jimin was assigned to show one-sided affection to JK on camera, and JK’s role was to reject Jimin and rank him as the least handsome member. This narrative went on for some time until it stopped around 2014/2015, but the damage was already done. Some people might question this one-sided affection being a narrative by BigHit. I’m sorry, but if you think a teenage rookie idol in KPop can show real affection in public to his same-sex bandmate, the joke is on you. I know most fans believed this roleplaying, and that was where everything went wrong.

Antis may say this narrative by itself "birthed the Jikookers breed", while it did the opposite. Despite this narrative being over for years, its aftermath is still visible in the fandom, and even dramatic Jikookers use it for their “fell first, fell harder” agenda, which I find really toxic and damaging. Other than portraying JK as a mean and insensitive kid, this roleplaying with the help of the narrative of awkward Jimin, turned Jikook into something unacceptable and even cringe-worthy because “how could JK even like Jimin when he hated and rejected him for years? because Jimin is not likable and makes JK uncomfortable”. It’s ironic, but the antis who keep repeating these lies, are in fact the ones who fall for the company narratives.

If Hybe wanted to push the narrative of Jikook being in a relationship, why did they pick such an unusual approach that backfired, and turned fans against them, and drawn them to the other ships? Hybe not only doesn’t promote Jikook more than other duos but also stops them from becoming mainstream by pushing their moments to the content no one sees. Maybe this is their way of gatekeeping and protecting Jikook which I appreciate, but it’s time for this fandom to realize that Jikook has nothing to do with the company narrative, and in fact it’s the opposite.

For example, in one of the recent Bangtan episodes (public content), when JK was resting backstage at his music show, and Tae came to visit, according to the Weverse live JK had before the show, we knew they cut the part where he said “Army” was looking for his whereabouts because otherwise, it would look like he doesn’t care where he was. But in the other Bangtan episode, they didn’t hesitate to keep the part where Jimin sounded like being left out, meanwhile, we knew all of them were headed to the same destination to celebrate Yoongi’s last concert. because that’s the narrative they push, the narrative of Jimin being left alone and Jikook having nothing to do with each other.

If Jikook were the company couple, they would have sat down together to announce their ship name for the official content. If Jikook were the company couple, Hybe would not cut out their moments, and we would have gotten some content from their numerous rendezvouses during the SYS tour in the US and Europe, but we got nothing, not even for the leftover content. If Jikook were the company couple, Hybe would not released their buddy system announcement only in the Korean version of the statement. If Jikook were the company couple, the GCF videos that had started with Jimin, would have been kept that way, and wouldn’t be turned into ot7 videos. If they can’t force JK, then nothing is forced.

If Jikook were the company couple, they would not plan Yoonmin/Taekook's solo debuts at the same time to make them appear in the same promotional activities and namedrop each other. This doesn’t mean Yoonmin/Taekook are the company couple, in fact, the dumbest question is "Jikook or Taekook?" The whole point is, that there was never a ship agenda, they never tried to push any ship as the real one to the general public or common fans. But their bonds have been used a lot for clicks and clout, and as a Jikooker I am confident enough to say I was not the one falling for any narratives or mediaplay by the company or media.

Media and Jikook

It’s a known fact that all different forms of media earn money from public attention, this is what keeps them going on. I said earlier, that if Jikook were the company couple, and Hybe intended to promote them as the official duo, then the media wouldn’t lose this opportunity to chase the clout because in that case, they would have the permission to follow this agenda and use the duo for headlines and clicks, but in reality this doesn’t happen to Jikook.

I’m not saying that Jikook don’t get any media coverage, they do. The media inside or outside Korea make headlines for their duo activities like the Black Swan dance or vocal collaborations, but there are many examples that Jikook didn’t make it to the headlines while another duo did in a very similar situation. I bring an example from Dispatch that everyone knows has the closest connection to Hybe; when Jimin posted the shirtless photo of them together for JK’s birthday, this media didn’t make any headlines for it, not even as the announcement of Jimin greeting JK's birthday.

But when Tae posted the screenshot of his video call with JK the night before his enlistment, while they were both shirtless, it became a headline on the Dispatch website. If you check the Dispatch website for 2023, you will not find anything about Jikook other than their departure and arrival together for the Japan trip, even their trip together in NY was not worthy news for this outlet. Also their joint enlistment in the military, despite being the first and only case of Buddy System in the KPop industry, didn’t get much media attention or specific headlines.

Jikook have never attended any event as a duo, they never had a photocall together as a duo, and since they have never made an official name for themselves, the media can't use a duo name for them. Meanwhile, they can use “Taekook” for the Tae and JK duo in their headlines and tags because the company has permitted by making this duo name official. As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe that Taekook or any other ship is the official one, but the audacity of antis to ignore these facts and label Jikook as the company couple is just ironic.

I’m not really interested in giving examples from Taekook, but I have no other option. Everyone remembers the premiere night of the movie “Dreamers” in April last year when Tae and JK attended together and had their photocall moment. Like any other movie premiere with big stars, this event also was covered by the media, but they got the biggest attention and social media engagement because of Taekook appearing together. Even though the reports of JK being shy and having a feminine haircut caused Taekookers to think they were being announced as a couple lol, in general, it was a pleasant moment until it wasn’t anymore.

A few months later, in August, a similar event was about to happen, and the media announced that Tae was going to attend his friend’s new movie premiere along with JK. As expected, a big wave of social media engagement started, but JK didn’t show up. I don’t know if he never intended to go or if he changed his mind just before the event because according to Dispatch, his name was in the guest list. All we know is that he logged into the Bangtan official Twitter account after years and posted some random photos just an hour before the event and logged out.

After that embarrassing moment for the media, I was expecting them to stop using Taekook for mediaplay, but they didn’t stop, and again in November, the media outlets reported that Tae would attend JK’s solo concert while we knew he was busy recording his Running Man episode the same day. I’m sure the media knew it better, but chasing the clout was their priority. There are many other examples of how media doesn’t work in favor of the “company couple narrative” for Jikook, but I will stop here because this post is getting too long.

Fandom Agendas

When there is a successful narrative launched by an entertainment label, the fandoms go with the flow, and alongside accepting the main narrative they make their own sub-narratives aligned with this agenda. But in the case of Jikook, this is far from the truth. When I say fans, I mean the collective representation of a group supporting an artist, something non-fans see from the outside, not just a focus group. Yes, we Jikookers exist but we don’t represent or control this fandom. According to some unofficial polls, we are not even between the top three of the biggest groups of shippers. So, it’s safe to say the so called narrative of Jikook has not been successful. 

It’s not a secret that this fandom is against Jikook, but the discussion doesn’t end here. The sub-narratives made in the fandom have their own story. This opposition with Jikook contradicted their observations of them being close and always together, and they had to make the sub-narrative to justify it. But since they had already accepted another narrative made by BigHit, it wasn't a hard one. They decided that "Every interaction between Jikook is initiated by Jimin because he has always been in love with JK, and anything JK does is forced because he has always been uncomfortable with Jimin." This narrative and its sub-narratives caused Jimin to be labeled as the intruder and much worse names I will not mention, and it caused him to get so much hate, especially after every interaction he has with JK. It's true that he has the biggest fandom and the most devoted and supportive fans, but his anti-fans are also the biggest and the vilest ones.

JK also had his sub-narrative made by fans, and according to the vast majority of them, he is a straight playboy. I don't know where this sub-narrative comes from, maybe confessing to having a girlfriend as a teen or naming himself the "international playboy" did it for fans and made them ignore all the queerness in his personality and behavior, but this is the reason this fandom treats his "dating rumors" very differently even by his gay shippers. Army joke and say he is scared of girls, but they never make stories up about him being uninterested in women like they did for others (for example: an influencer asked Tae for his phone number, and he gave his manager's number, 100% fictional, but vastly believed as fact).

It’s actually quite funny when we see a local Youtuber is able to guess Jikook are the closest just by watching a few minutes of content, but the fans who have been here for a decade can’t and don’t want to see it, they can’t even let go of the 2013 jokes of “JK hates Jimin”, let alone accepting that they are close. They do any mental gymnastics they can to normalize, delegitimize, or ot7ify Jikook moments, meanwhile, when JK and Tae, themselves talk about drifting apart, fans dismiss it and call it fake. For example, last year, when Jikook were in Tokyo, JK was seen leaving the location of his shooting, which was a hotel different from the hotel where Jimin was staying, antis said: “They hate each other, to the point they can’t stay at the same hotel”. While a trip would have been solid proof for any duo in BTS to be close and in love, for Jikook, it becomes the reason for being distant and despising each other, and this is the hypocrisy of our fandom.

Maybe we get lots of Jikook from official content, it’s the outcome of Jikook’s closeness, but in the end, it’s Jikook themselves who confirm it with their behavior. When antis were celebrating Jikook not interacting, amid their lack of public appearance, it was JK who showed his love and support for Jimin by streaming his videos on YouTube. When antis claimed they don’t spend time together, it was JK who begged Jimin in his half-naked live to join him. He went live at his place right after the movie premiere, and musical theater, and explained the situation after Vhope did a live there. He explained Tae's claims about recording Layover at his place and talked about his delightful alone time when he was at the ski resort with Tae and his friends. He read JeonJimin comment out loud and announced that he wouldn’t stop holding Jimin. Maybe an older example is his post on Weverse right after the 2020 Taekook live apologizing for not talking much, and then a month later, when he went live with Jimin, he made it clear that he had a great time just doing the live.

These examples are countless, but there is no hope for the fans who even label the moments from unofficial content like lives and posts as planned or even forced by the company. If you think antis will let us have a happy day and enjoy the legit Jikook moments, you are mistaken. If there is Jikook, they always find a way to ruin it with their toxicity, and if there’s no Jikook, they use it to hurt us and spread their lies and fake moments on every social media platform.

Antis have the upper hand in social media because Hybe failed the so-called Jikook narrative, and it not just didn’t become the mainstream ship of Bangtan, but also fans turned against it. Despite this failure, Jikook still bothers antis so much, and they try hard to fight it and its shippers, but these fights and attacks are limited to social media. Whatever they do on social media, the hashtags they trend, the lies and hateful tweets and comments they leave out, are not gonna affect what Jikook have in real life because Jikook are real people, and against all the odds and real struggles, they are together and closer than ever.

[almostbeabeauty]

Helaemond shippers are doing the exact same thing every other shipper is doing in this fandom, yet they get the most crap for it I swear. Smh..

"Helaemonds shouldn't pass off headcanons as canon." Why not? Everyone else does it..

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Aemond x Alys shippers: "This couple is in love and they were married, It's canon!"

No. It's canon that they were lovers, she was pregnant when he died, and she SAID they were married. That's it. The love story everyone makes it out to be is only headcanons.

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Aemond x Luke shippers: "Did you see that look on Aemond's face when Luke said he was already betrothed? He must be romantically interested. He gets with a strong bastard later. Must be thinking of Luke when with Alys. Romantic feelings Canon."

None of that is canon, only headcanons.

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Rhaenyra x Daemon shippers: "They are soulmates and the love of each other's lives. Look at their wedding and Rhaenyra saying they were meant to burn together. Canon!"

What is "canon": Daemon abandons and leaves Rhaenyra in danger more than once. Chokes her when upset. The writers have also been pushing back against this ship a little, saying it is a grooming scenario, he loves her but views her as a second best option to the person he truly wants, his brother (the subtext was there so it shouldn't be a big shock but..).

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Helaena x Aemond shippers: "Aemond wanted to marry her, he said he would in episode 7. He let his grudge go against Luke (until he laughed) to turn his whole damn chair around and stare as she danced with their nephew, must be jealous. The kids are his & Helaena's. Did you hear the kids say 'Aemond' when Alicent said 'father'? Canon!"

How is this any different than any of the things the shippers claimed above?

It's not. I guess except the fact there is stage blocking and subtext to back up these 'headcanons'. Let's also not forget the leaks from BEFORE the show aired (or anyone shipped them) that stated the call sheet for Aemond directly said he was in love with Helaena. 😗

Every ship in this fandom has shippers that claim their ship is canon in some way. In no way is this habit exclusive to Helaemond shippers. It's getting a little old for only Helaemonds to be called out for this. Some fans need to ask themselves why it's only Helaemond shippers that make them this upset..🧐

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Oh and let's get into one more ship. A ship that people early on and even after the season just ended said wasn't canon because there was no proof (there was, it was just rooted more in the subtext).

Rhaenyra x Alicent: Shippers said right away there were feelings between them but Antis said "no they are just friends, you are reading to much into it. Headcanon all you want but it's not canon."

What is actually canon - Milly, Emily, Hess, and others behind the scenes have confirmed that Rhaenicent had romantic feelings for each other since the beginning of the show and there is still love between them.

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Just because something isn't spelled out for you doesn't mean the subtext surrounding it isn't canon.

[nonokoko13]

<<DNI if you shame people for having "cringe" interests>> *proceeds to shame or disrespect someone for having interest in fictional stuff they don't like instead of using the block button even though that person has done anything to anyone*

[e-adlirez]

A Callout Post

You've read the title, and Geronimo Stilton fandom, today's subject is this guy, @geronimosothercadilac.

Warnings: Misogyny, hypocrisy, crappily done suggestive art

Do not be deceived by the blog's innocent title, he is.... well, we're gonna get into it right here.

See, Cadillac, on top of the occasional post about the Geronimo Stilton movie and some nifty old illustrations of G, he also makes R-16 content of Geronimo, mainly him having an open shirt or having no pants. Viewer discretion is very much advised when browsing his blog.

Now, for some this may not be a problem, since we live on a hellsite. However, the line has been crossed since Cadillac has also been reported to have harassed fandom residents into making art that suits his "tastes". (These screenshots are from a dm between me and deadkat, and a dm between deadkat and ratonahat, respectively.)

And the line has been crossed even more with sheer hypocrisy, because he's gone on record being a prude about mundane things that have appeared in the Geronimo Stilton books.

This reply comes from a Violette sketch by melonforbrain, and yes, you're reading this right. This same guy who's made at least five MS Paint edits of Geronimo with his p$nis uncensored, is being this much of a prude over this sketch post that has since been unfortunately deleted. Have a look and feel free to make your own judgments on it (credit goes to @melonforbrain give them some love please). Please keep in mind that this was a WIP at its time of posting.

If you think the rabbit hole is done there, then you have another thing coming for you. The guy's also pulling a door-to-door salesman and sharing his posts in DMs with random people.

(Little warning for uh, his Geronimo Stilton open shirt MS Paint art)

Yes, that is him roping in people who have and want absolutely nothing to do with him! He mentions @2deadkat in these DMs and says they can vouch for him, but uh, around the same time Kat had him blocked for harassing them on similar grounds. (I've tried finding an @showdraws and I couldn't find anything, I think it might be showdrawn, who I don't think does any work for this fandom?? idk, all I know is that uh, no one's on this man's side fr.)

Also with him talking about an open-shirt G not being "suggestive"? Can I just point out that he's called this cover of Thea "sexy" and "seductive"? Do you smell the hypocrisy and misogyny yet? I sure hope you do because this man is pathetic. Do Not Interact, block this man's ass to kingdom come.

And Cadillac? If you're reading this, this is my message to you: Take down those reposts of 2deadkat and ratonahat's drawings you made without their permission, as well as these ones where you didn't even credit an artist. Leave us alone, and don't you dare say someone else is sided with you. I can assure you, no one is. Take your creepy art and your rotten vibes to R-34, you freak.

[atthebell-moved]

hi, i completely agree that the fandom has a problem with misogyny and often fails at self-introspection. my question is, do you have any resources/tips/thoughts on how to be better about it? even, how to recognize it in yourself the first place? "ok i'll stop being a misogynist now" is a lot easier said than done, especially for people who might not be that educated on the subject, and majority of the people in this fandom are quite young as well.

this is long as fuck and possibly somewhat incoherent bc it took so long to write but i did my best

my biggest tip for people who don't know much about misogyny is to look at your own behavior and learn how to clock what you're doing as sexist.

are you criticizing a female creator? think about why you're doing it, what the actual beef you have with them is. if it seems to be just a sense of discomfort or thinking they're annoying or overly loud or pushy, think about male ccs who act the same way and why you dont consider them annoying. are you annoyed with them for being on a male cc's stream? why? does it feel like theyre taking up too much attention? do you get annoyed with them for talking too much or flirting with guys? for gaming especially-- do you get annoyed with them for not knowing something or being "bad" at a game? think about why that is and why its just funny when a male cc is bad at games or doesnt know something.

a HUGE problem i see in this fandom is the Madonna-whore complex, repackaged as the little sister-racist dichotomy (kudos to @yourlittlemenace for that phrasing).

if a female cc is deemed to be "playing nice" (doesnt talk too much, is "nice", streams with male ccs but doesnt flirt with them, isn't "overtly sexual"), she's the little sister of the group. all the male ccs "protect" her, she literally folds their laundry, she doesnt call out how people treat her, and the fandom pretends that this is a normal and cool way to treat women who are public figures. this also goes for mom/big sister/etc. if you think you haven't done this, think about all the aus where you've forced puffy into some kind of maternal or sisterly role when it made no sense. then think about how pissed people got when she decided not to be the server therapist and was "mean" to Tommy (in lore, with permission. that she didnt even need to get. see that clip i rbed earlier from her podcast.)

if the fandom decides she doesnt play nice, if she flirts with male ccs too much or stands up for herself or points out how unfair it is that she's being treated this way, she gets demeaned, harassed, and shunned by the fandom. consider, again, puffy. consider how niki flirted with wilbur and talked about misogyny and got called a racist for *checks notes* "speaking to schlatt and fundy" and "not being a native english speaker". she got called a slut and a queerbaiter for kissing another woman despite being bisexual.

consider how hard people went down on hannah for having said the r slur several years back versus how hard they went on dream for the same thing. and how people dug it up as a direct response to her being on stream with dream. consider how every time hannah talks about how unfair it is that the mcc subreddit treats her like trash, she has to delete all her tweets bc they harass her to hell and back and act like she's an asshole for pointing out their hypocrisy.

the fandom doesnt do this across the board; i shouldnt have to say this, but its not an everyone versus no one issue. some people do this outright and loud, some dont seem to realize theyre doing it, and a few people dont do it at all (incredibly rare, i can count on one hand the number of people who genuinely seem to try to avoid these issues, which is why im complaining).

in terms of lore, have you ever once done analysis on a female character? why do you think you haven't? the bechdel-wallace test is an (imperfect) way of gauging how a piece of media ignores women and prioritizes men. think about the fact that there are FOUR female ccs on the DSMP and they are continually ignored in favor of male characters. consider that puffy and aimsey both talked about trying to do genuine lore and getting shafted, either because no one was online and wouldn't put in the effort to stream with them or because they received insane amounts of criticism for breaking anything on the server, despite the clear lack of "no griefing" rules and the precedent that you can blow other people's shit up (tommy leveling one of puffy's builds, amongst many other examples).

a quick thing about ships: have you ever wondered why m/m ships are so popular? the general consensus amongst people who care about feminism and are into fandom studies is that for a long period of time, m/m was hugely popular because women are so rarely written as full and complete characters in any media. so people took to engaging with m/m ships and writing about them because they were the most fulfilling relationships, and because misogyny led them to be predisposed to be uninterested in female characters.

say an m/m ship is incredibly popular, something like, i dunno, john watson and sherlock holmes from bbc sherlock. lets also say the canonical media presents one or both of the characters with a female love interest. how do you think a fandom that prioritizes m/m ships and is primed to be disinterested in women as characters (either because of our society's role in teaching people that women do not matter or because of fandom's history in assuming female characters are not fleshed out) is going to react? if you said theyre going to send undue amounts of criticism her way and act like its an act of homophobia to give a canonically straight character a female love interest, congrats, you've figured out a huge component in fandom misogyny. take this, amplify it over several decades, and add the psychic damage that supernatural gave society. queerbaiting is bad but mistreating female characters in service of nonexistent queer relationships is also bad.

this is relevant in general but i also believe its relevant for the dsmp because of the complete lack of m/f ships. aside from phil and kristin, who are literally married irl and kristin isn't even on the server, there are no m/f ships that involve female creators. this is not, despite what you may think, due to the inherently yaoi nature of minecraft roleplay. this is because the creators, including the male ones, are afraid of the blowback of m/f flirting and how fucking awful people are to female ccs anytime it happens. once again look at niki. as another example, consider how notfounders harassed the living daylights out of mxmtoon for flirting with gnf on twitter. if i was a cc i would avoid it like the plague too considering how happy people are to dig shit up about them or accuse them of being a slut or an attention whore/"pick me girl" for speaking to a man.

one last thing, this is more about fanart than anything else but stop drawing women to look like teenage boys. the amount of fanart i see where i literally cannot tell if someone has drawn niki or tommy is fucking insane. niki has curves. draw her with them. if you cannot draw women or people outside a very specific body type you cannot draw. fatphobia and misogyny have a clear overlap.

i cant think of anything else and ive already spent forever on this. look into feminist media analysis. think twice about how you react to female ccs & female characters. consider not just what characters have interesting stories but who is allowed to have interesting stories. you might be neglecting someone who has a lot going on because you're dismissing a female character as inherently less likely to be interesting. you might not even know someone has an interesting story because the fandom neglects it so completely.

as a final little note: like i said earlier, if you're not familiar with gender & sexuality studies, you may not know this, but homophobia and transphobia are rooted in misogyny. the idea that gender is immutable and rigid is because of the patriarchy. this is why gendered slurs are used against queer people and why queer men in particular get accused of and demeaned for being feminine. your understanding of queerphobia is incomplete without considering how sexism plays a role.

also go read everything rayne fisher-quann has ever written but especially this piece on getting woman'd and listen to you're wrong about

[neuroticbookworm]

Another Thai BL, another Asian parent-child conflict that enrages the audience and yet, is extremely nuanced. I’m gonna try and speak on it as an Asian kid who grew up in the East, but currently lives in the West, carrying complicated feelings on the Asian parenting I received.

I’m seeing a good discourse in the tags from @lurkingshan, @respectthepetty, @bengiyo, @heretherebedork and @williamrikers, among others, on the hypocrisy of a dad who hit his son in anger and is now lecturing him on the importance of controlling one’s actions when angry. I agree with everyone that the dad is being a hypocritical piece of shit. But I do not think that this is a failure in the writing of the show. Quite the opposite, actually. Because of how Ten responds and acts in the face of this hypocrisy.

Ten comes across as belligerent and confrontational in every interaction he has had with his dad, but it is never uncalled for, and he never seeks it out himself. He tries to stay out of his dad and his stepmom/his dad’s girlfriend’s way as much as possible, and only responds in a defensive manner when provoked. And in today’s episode, he even kept himself open enough in the conversation with his dad, despite his anger, to concede and accept a very good point when raised. Ten understands his dad’s hypocrisy but refuses to stoop to the same level of pettiness because he knows being a good partner and a good friend is more important than being right. This is a mark of excellent writing, in my opinion. The main character is fiercely loyal to his partner and his friends and does not let his baggage with his dad cloud his course of action.

I also see calls for an apology from the dad already brewing in the fandom. And I understand the instinct to want that. It is always so satisfying when mistreated children finally get the apology that’s been long overdue. But it’s rarely this simple in an Asian household. Times are changing faster than most people can in a lifetime, and there are systemic, cultural flaws in how an Asian society understands and teaches parenting. And if we factor in the social, economic, religious lines that heavily influence how an Asian person forms their social circle, it would’ve left these parents with little to no peers who can tell them what they’re doing is wrong. Parents striking their kids is clearly considered evil nowadays, but only a few years ago, it would’ve been a perfectly acceptable response to control a bratty child, on and off screen (and it still is in some Asian cultures).

Now, NONE of what I said above is an excuse to write off the behavior of Ten’s dad as acceptable, just because it’s very Asian. As an Asian who grew up in the East, the demand for an apology does not particularly resonate with me, because Ten and his dad both know that their problems are not gonna go away as soon as Ten’s dad apologizes. Because:

If Ten starts demanding an apology for every shitty thing his dad has ever done, where should he stop? Should he demand an apology for the time his dad probably struck him as a kid when he was trying to get him to memorize multiplication tables, as is wont of every Asian parent ever (it is such an ubiquitous experience to Asian kids everywhere that there are reels with millions of views on IG, referencing this experience. Does this mean every Asian parent is evil and must be put on trial by their kids? Holy moly, think of all the money therapists would make if every Asian kid in the world decided to call out their parents on their shit. Entire economies would crumble to dust from the sudden disruption in cashflow.)

Is an apology going to comfort Ten? Asian parenting warps the sense of self of both the parents and the kids, because of the levels of abject sacrifice involved in it. It is extremely possible that Ten’s dad had worked day and night to provide well for his family, for his son, before Ten’s mom fell ill. It’s the same choice he made for his wife, but in this case, it paid off, because now Ten is financially well taken care of, and he is privileged enough to pursue a career in medicine. If Ten demands an apology from his dad for not being there when his mom was dying, do we know for sure that when he gets that apology, his mind won’t conflate the sacrifices his dad made for him, thus making him feel guilty for forcing someone who clearly cared about him enough to work hard for him, into defeat (look at this rich soup of Asian parenting misery, yum yum yum. I know it’s delicious because I’m paying my therapist weekly to make the broth less spicy).

The dialogue in the show whenever Ten’s mom is brought up and discussed is always very carefully worded:

Not “because you did not act”, but “because you took so long to act”. Looks like Ten’s dad made a choice that ultimately did not pay off. He cared, and he wanted to do something to save his wife, but whatever he chose to do ultimately did not help. And now she is dead and he has managed to not help and comfort his wife in her final days AND unwittingly traumatize his son with his absence. The show has painted this storyline with enough nuance that I don’t believe we are meant to read Ten’s dad as a simple villain, but rather a father who does care but has made some serious mistakes. This situation is so emotionally complicated and realistically, it’s gonna take years for both of them to find a middle ground. Ten is gonna have to grow up and make a few mistakes of his own in life to develop proper empathy for his dad, and that’s gonna put a couple things into perspective for him (I’m not saying Ten is bound to make mistakes because he is bad. He is going to because shit happens in life and human beings always do better in hindsight than in the moment). And the dad is gonna have to grow old and let his aging body humble him a little and shrink his ego enough to see that he had failed his son by not being emotionally available to deal with their trauma, together.

I’ve been watching Kim’s Convenience, a Canadian sitcom that follows a Korean-Canadian family and their shenanigans. I’m only on S04E02, but there is a father-son conflict at the centre of this show that is still not directly addressed by both the dad and the son. It’s been years (almost a decade, I think) since the son has been driven out of his home by his dad for a dumb mistake he made as a teen. And the way the show works on it is so infuriating, because it is so Asian. It is rarely addressed aloud in the presence of the dad or the son, lest it leads to anger and screaming and storming off. The path to reconciliation is built with mom calling her son for help to fix something in their home because his dad is too stubborn to ask for it. With the son visiting the hospital when the dad had to undergo surgery, and having their first real conversation in years which the dad forgets after waking up from the influence of pain drugs. With the daughter’s old phone passed down to the dad with her brother’s number on it, which leads to them texting each other. It is all extra frustrating for me because I’m extremely straightforward in my conversations with my parents. I do not like ambiguous endings to verbal conflicts because they are a ticking time bomb and I do not have the capacity to forget its existence and let it tick away in the background. But, I understand it when my friends, and Asian characters in TV shows, don’t want to force things out in the open if it can be swept under the rug for the time being, because peace of mind in Asian households is fleeting and you would be wise to take what you get.

Good TV shows can best serve their audience when they serve their characters, and stay true to the experiences of the people they are trying to represent. My teen ass was regularly shocked, appalled and intrigued by the sexual liberation promised by Western media I consumed while I was in school and college. I was surrounded by a sexually repressed society that was convinced that the only moral way to enjoy pleasure was after marriage with your partner. And very predictably, this means a lot of dead bedrooms, unhappy marriages and kids growing up with no real understanding of what romantic love looks like. I would’ve never had the courage to move my entire life to the West, if the Western media I watched had not represented its people in all their messy, horny glory, albeit with a rose-tinted lens on gender, race and sexuality.

Some Asian parents in media need to fall at the feet of their children and apologize. I remember being absolutely fucking enraged while @lurkingshan and I watched Double Savage at the behest of our friend @waitmyturtles, and in the finale, Korn was the one who fell at the feet of his absolute piece of shit of a dad to apologize for FUCKING NOTHING. And after Shan and I were done surviving that show, I remember telling my friends that most Asian media does not have strong writing whenever Asian children need to defy their shitty parents and come to terms with their destructive parenting, because chances are, most Asian creators would not have successfully done it. Hence, intergenerational trauma (gasp! It’s all connected!).

So. I would never demand to see Ten’s dad apologize to him to consider Cooking Crush a successful show, because that is not the cultural context this story operates in. Would I enjoy it if he does? Hell yes. Would I be mad if he does not? No, because Ten is proving him wrong time and again, and that’s a constant reminder from the narrative of who is in the right.

[simplepotatofarmer]

This is just me but something I was a bit worried about for a while is that there might be some bitterness between the Dream fans and other people in the mcyt fandom. Like I get it, some of the people there were awful and did whole harassment campaigns. But…I don’t know sometimes I go to some blog and find a bitter post about a qsmp or some of the mcyt people and o get a bit worried that some might lash out against them. Like yeah they’re not perfect and I get why they’re angry. But sometimes I worried that some people might take it too far and end up doing the same as the antis. sorry if it dont makes sense but this is just me

I mean, you've got to understand that we went through over a year of not just false accusations (which people still spread despite being disproven and despite understanding how terrible false accusations are especially after recent events) but through absolutely awful harassment that hasn't stopped.

there's lies that are spread (dream had airhorns playing during the 'uieud' video?? which did not happen), people supporting not just assault but ableism, homophobia, and antisemitism solely because the 'other side' was dream, and people making posts in mcytblr spheres talking about how dteam fans should die.

and then as an ojibwe person who was watching the qsmp, it was awful and disappointing to see that all go down and to feel genuinely scared and unheard when voicing my feelings on it. and that's just one event, that's not counting being forced to leave discord servers or feeling unwelcome in them.

i don't know how to explain how bad it is. just recently a large mcyt blog made a post about chasing off dream fans:

if there's bitterness, trust me, we'd rather there not be! we'd love to just be able to exist but it's not possible half the time.

things are getting better but man. i lost friends for venting about being harassed because they were more focused on how i was venting.

none of us want this. every single person i know would love for it to go back to how it was.

and i get what you're saying. i do think people take it too far sometimes. i'm absolutely against that kind of thing. i do understand, though, how deeply hurt people are. and i think there's a level of hypocrisy that happens where it's okay to lash out at and make pretty awful jokes about dream and his fans and when one of his fans calls something out, it becomes 'petty fandom drama'. like getting my concerns about racism on a server i was actively watching (and still do for people like niki) dismissed as 'well you don't like the server because you're a dream fan so of course' sucked. or people making jokes about death threats, stalking, and SA threats being called out becomes drama, y'know?

basically, i don't know man. it sucks. i had to change my phone number. i had threats made against my kids and pets. and a lot of it was dismissed so i'm not surprised there's bitterness. people were deeply hurt. people are upset at some of the hypocrisy shown (it's okay for this cc to do xyz but things from years ago are still brought up re: dream).

which means, yeah, sometimes they do take it too far and i don't like it and i think it's become this very toxic cycle that's probably never gonna stop until people just. leave things alone, y'know?

and stop thinking there's an 'acceptable' target for harassment because there's not.

i know you get it, though, and i appreciate that. i really wish other people would be as understanding.

[chubs-deuce]

Charlastor brainworms anon here again. I was reading your reply to a recent ask and i have to say I agree, and also it's really silly to me that some people act like charlastor is some kind of morally dubious ship.

I don't think anyone's here to ship this because they want it to be canon, it's honestly just for fun! There's nothing wrong with it being non-canon compliant.

As an aroace lesbian, charlie isn't even lesbian herself, just in a lesbian relationship. So many ships split up canon pairings anyway, it's not something new. And i think people tend to forget aromanticism and asexuality are broad spectrums, it's not a black and white one or the other. The aroace label can encompass a lot of different identities, and there are many ways to pair alastor and charlie while still respecting his identity. He could be romance favorable, or they could be queer platonic, or people could just generally have different headcanons for him. It's also very telling that I don't see people bringing up how he's aroace nearly as much with radioapple or other ships. Fan works don't have to be an exact mirror of whatever's canon, and that's not the serious issue that some people act like it is.

Right?

I've generally noticed in recent years that people act so much more viciously towards non-canon ships when they're het-presenting.... :')

I think a lot of it has to do with how fandoms generally tend to assign more inherent moral value towards more visibly queer pairings... Combine that with the bs that is twitter's infestation of performative activism and morality policing in modern age fandom culture and this is the result lol

What gets me is the sheer fucking hypocrisy of it all tbh?

People keep conflating Aromantic and Asexual and confusing them with one another in their anti posting about this ship and it will never not be the bane of my goddamn existence tbh, especially because they're not even consistent with what ships they apply this criticism to, as you've also pointed out.

I will personally assume that anyone who can't tell these two labels apart and acts like they're one and the same yet whines about shippers not respecting Alastor's canon sexuality is probably nobody worth listening to anyways.

Charlie btw is canonically bisexual, and the amount of blatant fucking bi erasure I keep seeing people do just to feel morally superior for calling her a lesbian like it's a clever argument against a non-canon ship is so tiring...

Ultimately the best course of action is to silently block and ignore them.

Can we go back to that era of the internet where people would explore shipping two characters just because they stood next to each other for three frames or because their color schemes match or something equally insignificant?

We had so much more fun getting creative with how we just made random dolls kiss for fun back then :(

[sgiandubh]

Saw your comment: "We're not all thirsty mommies, nor 12, nor bitter bitches. I'd love to see and hear more about what is beneath that mask, not beneath that shirt." Sam has done that before. He wrote an entire book about his journey but the book is called bullshit and he a liar. He's written well-thought out articles and forewords to books. He speaks intelligently and passionately and knowledgably about his liquors and the process of getting to market, and is called a shill. His work with Prickly Thistle is expensive and taking peoples' money, even when it helped this woman-owned mill immensely. It goes on and on. Today he's been accused of hypocrisy for a plastic cup, thirst trapping to change a conversation and using his social media as a PR tool to fool gullible women. Some may want to see beneath the mask but when he's shown what he is willing to you get the above.

Dear Hypocrisy Anon,

Thank you for your thoughts. I have read your long comment very carefully and let's say I agree with about 85% of it. The itching point is, of course, the book: Waypoints is a good ghostwritten memoir I have commented at length, with a more benevolent view than most of those who found it took some substantial liberty with what they (and I, for that matter) think it's the current state of play in SC Land. Note I am not saying the truth: that's only for Them to know, not for us. So dismissing it and calling everything a lie is a bit of a stretch. It's just a memoir, to be followed by other projects, other books. And who knows, another memoir, later on, where he could correct the course again at his convenience. He's only 43. Give the man some credit.

Trouble is, the world is a vast and diverse place. It's not just this fractured fandom. If he wants to remain relevant beyond OL, he needs, in my humble opinion, two things: a) to score a big role in a big budget production, which would improve his notoriety and help him reach a different public and b) curate his personal image a bit more and get out of this midlife crisis fake character he's peddling around. The only people who find it interesting are the thirsty mommies in *urv's crowd and that's, uhm... a bit irrelevant, in the big scheme of things.

So, no more political blunders, please and thank you. Shut the hell up and play Switzerland on complicated and divisive society issues which can get one in boiled water for a comma. Carefully picked and curated CSR projects, he'd ideally be more actively involved in. And yes, maybe a bit more transparency on the so many great things he does, like that partnership with the Edinburgh's Youth Theatre he didn't even mention himself or include in his stories (no doubt, out of a very British and endearing sense of modesty). And always remember: when faced with something beautiful and fragile, like that story, people will try their best to smear it and break it. I am not bitter, just realistic.

Same goes for your conclusion: I am sure many would like to see more of what is beneath that mask. It's too bad that a bunch of bitter, nasty, clueless, but also very noisy women occupy a bigger part of the stage than they should.

But have faith, Anon. For the moment, all of this is nothing what a good PR, not the clowns he obviously hired, can't fix with relative ease. Trust me. I've seen way worse. And remember, always remember what dear Wilde (God, I love that soul!) said: 'every saint has a past and every sinner has a future'.

You just gave me an idea for a future post and for this, I thank you, Anon. But for now, I have to catch up on a thing or two, rather than determine the morality of a plastic glass. I hope this long answer helps somewhat. Thank you for dropping by: it was a pleasure reading your musings.

[lisbeth-kk]

Sherlock fandom

Never Whole Again

Sherlock’s been dead for months. Literally. John’s been dead for months too. Not literally. He doesn’t exactly live either. Exists if he must put a word on it. The grief shouldn’t still be as raw as it was when he realised that Sherlock had no pulse, laying on the pavement outside Barts. Doesn’t matter what everyone tells him. That it’ll get better. Less raw. More faded.

“Faded, my arse!” John had shouted at whoever told such a ludicrous lie.

The love of John’s life was dead and buried, alongside with John’s heart and soul. He felt like an empty shell, and he knew he could never be whole again. The love he felt for Sherlock was all-consuming and no one could ever replace him. John still kicked himself several times a day for never telling Sherlock exactly that. To Sherlock, John was his friend, nothing more.

When Philip Anderson’s campaign, I believe in Sherlock Holmes, made it to the papers, John was indifferent. Easy for Anderson to say now, wasn’t it. He never seemed to have believed anything Sherlock had said or done when he was alive. Paying tribute to him now seemed like hypocrisy to John. He believed in Sherlock. Always had. Until it was too late.

***

When the restlessness becomes too much to bear, John writes to Sherlock. For some reason Sherlock’s email account isn’t deleted, and John’s emails are never returned, so he continues to write. What he writes, varies. It can be anecdotes about Mrs. Hudson, customers at Asda, John’s nightmares, crimes he’s read about in the papers or watched on the news, the latest Bond film, or new knowledge he’s learned from QI. He writes poems too. All of which circles around Sherlock.

The solar system wasn’t important you said

I thought you were a pompous arse saying that

You’d be glad to know I finally agree with you

What significance does it have now when you’re not here to mock it?

Who cares if the Sun moves around in space now?

Not me. Not anymore

You called me your conductor of light

I never told you what you were to me

If I were the Sun, you were the Moon

You appeared cool and bright

You shone just as much as the Sun

The moonlight broke when you died

It went out just like the light in your eyes did

And I’ve been wandering in the dark ever since

Until the day I die, I’ll never see such a light again

John’s mentally exhausted after finishing and sending the poem. It’s his last email, because two days later the light returns to John’s life. Sherlock’s broken in many ways, but John’s determined to heal him, to love him, and to never doubt him again.

I guess I needed to write a bit of angst in between all the fluffiness of Fluffbruary. Sorry, not sorry!

@flashfictionfridayofficial @totallysilvergirl @keirgreeneyes @calaisreno @a-victorian-girl @phoenix27884 @topsyturvy-turtely @safedistancefrombeingsmart @gregorovitchworld @helloliriels @peanitbear @raina-at @7-percent @ninasnakie @sabsi221b

[lychniis]

tw. rant beneath the cut.

with the amount of anti dark content posts going around i might just start trolling people because good god, even if i love arranged marriage au's do i have problems with it outside of fandom spaces.

maybe i should go out there with all that horrific bluster those users seem to hold and detail how people are problematic for liking arranged marriage au's. oh you like arranged marriage fluff? you're 'normalizing problematic content' then and thus, you deserve to be called out and mass reported.

'but it's not that problematic'

sweetie, most of my issues stem from the fact that my parents hated each other due to a forced marriage. i grew up in a country where marital abuse is normal. where men and women are forced to marry each other, either subtly or outright. i was almost sold off if i hadn't passed my 12th grade papers and any fucking report over it would have been met with an "aiyo putta but if you don't go to university then what will you do? getting married is the next best option, no?"

sure anna. i guess i'll just roll over and die then.

if you like arranged marriages as a trope, great! so do i! but there is a deep seated hypocrisy where some problematic tropes are accepted, especially in western spaces, because they are so disconnected from the issues these tropes entail. i'll be straight up. if you are not fond fictional incest, non con and other dark content, that's okay. we have preferences. filter your tags. curate your experiences. stay safe. real predators aren't so outright. i'm not a fan of incest myself and content with that stuff is blocked and ignored with little fuss.

but if you go about making whole callout posts for people who do, actively censoring and mass reporting their accounts instead of blocking and moving on, but then turn gush over an 'arranged marriage au fluff' with ayato then good god look at a mirror because you are not at a moral high ground for liking a trope with less moral implications in fics.

if you did care about people irl, you would be looking into it.

you would be renouncing a good chunk of 'acceptable fanfic tropes'.

you would be renouncing fanfic as a whole because it's just as fucking illegal as incest and smut and dark content. or need i remind you of the number of petitions people keep signing to stop the law from suing fandoms?

because a lot of these tropes? well they are still 'issues irl' as you so like to put it. i could get into the nitty gritty of arranged marriages in this country and how messy they can get. but i won't. i know you enjoying this trope is purely in a fictional set up, that you won't condone it in real life.

but you won't. you'll cherry pick what's okay with you. you'll keep screaming at the top of your voice. do it. you'll be blocked by most of the good creators on this site. you'll have your little space of haters and you can stay in that corner while we go about our lives and ignore you.

this is the first and last time i'm posting about this. i'm not keen on censoring any content. neil gaiman said it the best. 'the law is a blunt instrument. it's not a scalpel, it's a club'.

[maria-taiwin]

Top/bottom discourse in mlm couples is so ridiculous, especially on twitter, people talk like sex dynamics is some unfunny activism or the meme of the superior galaxy brain but you should just chill and mind your own business.

Especially you need to learn how in reality whether top or bottom is not tied to any gender shit stereotypes, these are just very personal preferences and many couples even change role.

However you can't brag to read MDZS and love wangxian because uuhh LWJ is got associated with some maiden trope and then making him a top is a synonymous of huge superior brain, and then making stupid discourse over how is bad that Xie Lian is over feminized (?) because he's the bottom. You know you are talking about characters from the same author, right? It's really dumb this fight about what trope is progressive over a fucking sex dynamic. It's 2023 folks.

I don't think MXTX would be proud to read such old stereotypes about femininity and how the dignity of her characters depend on random bed positions.

Sure, analysis over masculinity/femininity and gender roles in fiction are always interesting, and I too love how WangXian take both male and fem elements along the story but without being tied to just one personality trait. I really like to discuss it. But why this is a matter of praise only in mdzs fandom (mmmh half of it honestly, hypocrisy is high there too) and then everytime I interact with TGCF fandom I read misogynyst bullshit against Xie Lian and how he's a shou stereotype just because he's shorter, tiny, called a princess etc.?

Active your brain and stop relying your beliefs over old unrealistic 2000s porn magazines 🤷‍♀️

Top/bottom roles depend just on how you seek pleasure in bed, that's it, it's not a standard over morality, dignity, strenght, and sure it doesn't depend over height difference or physical appearance or either gender.

Both Xie Lian and Lan Wangji are amazing and complex characters and this doesn't change over who is the top or the bottom. Sure you can prefer one over another, but if you tell stupid misogynyst (plus homophobic) bullshit then don't cry if I call you out about this 🙃

[andreal831]

TVDU and Morality

I've recently said, a few times, that the morality debates in the TVDU fandom are boring, and some people have gotten offended so I thought I would explain.

First, this idea of hypocrisy in the fandom is laughable. The amount of times I've been called a hypocrite because I've called out problematic behavior, while also liking a problematic character. The gut reaction for so many in this fandom when their favorite character is being criticized is to shift the conversation onto a completely different character and even to the commenter themselves. This is boring and even downright offensive at times. Every single character has been a hypocrite at times. It doesn't inherently mean someone is bad. It means they are "human" and life can make hypocrites of all of us at times. Also, just to clarify, I am not a hypocrite for merely liking a problematic character. I promise I have never nor will I ever commit the acts that I criticize these characters for, which would be the definition of hypocrisy. I have also never told anyone they can't like certain characters.

We have these complicated characters and none of them are "good" people because, guess what, people aren't just one or the other. Everyone has the capability to be "bad" or "good." Trying to put a character firmly on one side is a generalization and ignores so much nuance. Some of their actions may be completely bad or completely good, but typically even that is an oversimplification. Are there characters that seem to do more bad things or more good things, definitely. Are their some characters that cross certain, unnecessary lines, absolutely. Are we allowed to criticize and question every character, please do! That's literally what media literacy is about.

Every single one of these characters has had completely selfish moments (except maybe Bonnie) and every single one of them has had moments of selflessness. These acts don't inherently demonize a character or automatically redeem one. This is what it means to have interesting, complex debates about characters. Looking at the characters as a whole and having open discussions of what it means. We can still love the character and acknowledge the good and the bad of the character.

Another annoying point that is always brought up is, "they weren't born evil, they were made that way." Yes, we get it. No one is born evil. Whether it is mental illness or life events that shape a person, they still have to take responsibility for their own actions. Obviously certain mental illnesses didn't have treatments for a very long time, but that doesn't just allow people to be serial killers.

Every single character has dealt with trauma, and how you react says a lot about a person's character. Separating out characters to say well "x" didn't deserve it but when they became "x" they did. No one deserves good or bad things. I know I say it all the time, they deserved better, but when I do, I'm being facetious. I'm saying I wanted better for that character, better writing, better storylines, a better ending, etc. That phrasing implies that some people deserve better lives than others and I just morally don't agree. No one deserves trauma or abuse. That logic only furthers the cycle of abuse. Now, that being said, people are responsible for their own actions. Spend centuries creating enemies, and guess what, a lot of bad things are going to happen to you.

But the real debates I enjoy having, and have been fortunate to find so many people to engage in these debates, is the morality of the decisions in context of the characters. I like to apply similar logic from the Trolley Problem. If you don't know what that is, enjoy this tik tok I made of Cami teaching the Mikaelsons.

Essentially, many of the characters weight their options, like Jeremy killing Kol and thousands of vampires with it in order to find the cure. Kol is a thousand year old serial killer and is attempting to kill Jeremy, but again Kol is attempting to stop Silas from rising. Neither side is inherently right or wrong. There is a debate to be had.

In the majority of situations in the show there is a debate to be had. The only exceptions being any SA. I will never debate the morality of these actions. Even for immoral characters, there is a line to be drawn.

These debates get even more complex in TO because we move into a world where nearly every character has done absolutely horrendous things. It's okay to sit down and say, "This thing that x did was awful, but I can see their reasoning." It is not justifying their actions, but allowing the characters to be the complex morally corrupt characters that they all are.

[meircury]

Hello everyone! I hope everyone have a nice today! I very much rarely engage in fandom directly but there's has been something nagging me for a while, and this has something to do with SOME of Grey and Gauche shippers, alongside SOME of Gauche 'fans', treated him. I'm mostly talking about English speaking side of the fandom. I feel like the need of talk about this because I really hate the way they treated canon Gauche:

(Fair warning: LONG)

I absolutely hate seeing fans turning Grey into another Marie for Gauche or a replacement of his sister and makes him simp for her just like how he acts around Marie. In the story Gauche‘s simping for Marie is called “complex” because he simps out of unhealthy familial love and attachment because of what happened to them in the past and as a result of Gauche’s trust issues. His simping is NOT normal. It’s an ISSUE. FLAW. That needs to be FIXED. Not deflected to someone else. I see a lot of shippers make Gauche shoves his problems into Grey and repeats all his complex action with her. Example, a lot of memes show Gauche being weird about Grey’s photo. Whyy? One of the charms this ship has is how it brings out a unique caring side of Gauche we rarely see, like when he told Grey to work on her magic in the seabed temple, or when she saved him with the bulls after the elf fight. Yeah. That… that side of Gauche acting tsun and shy because he’s not used to be nice or open to others. Yet a lot of fans choose to use his unhealthy simping and shove it to Grey rather than builds upon his established development.

Nosebleeding over Grey. I saw this troupe is used TONS of time by the shippers artists, specifically English/West ones, and it's bothering me A LOT. Like. This troupe is used a lot in western Grey and Gauche shippers community and it's so fucking weird because aren't the same community despise the way anime over exaggerating this troupe at the point it's destroyed gauche's characterization? (For the record, after his arc Gauche only nosebleed for 5 times in manga, while in anime? Idk 50 or smth 😂😂😂) Then why they act the same way with anime with over-using this troupe when he found Grey's cute or adorable or anything sexual? Like, I'm so sorry but this such a huge hypocrisy. Hate the way anime treated him but do the same. Do you know what's ironic? I've seen less of this troupe used in the Japanese bc ship community, where most of them didn't mind the troupe. There's more irony. Most of the nice fanarts and actually depicted their relationship right it's also from JP artists who's not even have Grey and Gauche as their main ship. They're drawing them once in awhile and that's it. It's sad because why ppl who doesn't have them as their main ship understand the ship's dynamic better more than the actual shippers?

Grey Fix Gauche. Grey will Fix Gauche. Oh my God. This is the most cringiest shit ive ever heard when it came to a ship. This is also the biggest reason why I lost all of my love I had for this ship and ended up disliking it. Like. No. Grey ain't fixing Gauche. Gauche is the one who's fixing his own problem. And if you really want to insist of using 'fixing' troupe, then Asta fixing Gauche is way more valid than her. Because, he's the one who changed Gauche's mind. If Asta didn't do this then Gauche will still not giving any shit about Grey. But yeah, I hate the fixing troupe as I'm firm believer one can and SHOULD fix their problem by their own self, not by others. This troupe is problematic and I'll stand by it. That aside, saying her fixing Gauche is literally disrespecting Gauche's own development and the others characters that help him grow up (henry, gordon, Theresa, YAMI). Like, stop. Stop thinking Grey took all of those efforts that's she's not even done. Stop being delusional. Please. Why y'all not trusting him to became a better version of himself by his own efforts? Damn.

Gauche has sister complex and I hope people especially his fans will accept that as one of his character flaws instead of being denial x') he's not some poor guy who show his love differently. I know the anime explained it like that but in my honest opinion he reads to me as a man in need of therapy help because his traumatic past of having his family killed is left untreated and resulting in him developing attachment issues to his sister, the only family he has left. (Manga - Context) Did Gauche get better at not being a full siscon? Yes. Did he enterly get over it? No. Because he will always show sister complex gags and it's the same with any other bulls with their gags (ex. Noelle's royalty tsun, Luck's fight obsessed, Vanessa's alcoholic). These are flaws that make them more humans and will need more time to smooth over. As his fan, I want Gauche to fully love Marie in the healthy way of course, and I'm happy he's not as bad as before. Some bulls already helped him with that by showing him there's others he can protect beside his sister. I'm sure Grey is also gonna help him because she's his love interest but fixing him? Nah. He’s already getting better by his and the bulls’ efforts not just Grey.

(I'm saying this again just to make sure: NOT ALL Grey and Gauche shippers act like this, there's only SOME of them (the rest are good) but the way they treated Gauche is just too much I need to make a post about it lol)

Alright that's it. I had more complains like how people keep drawing gauche with muscles (he's a twink omg y'all following anime way of drawing him 😭/hj), ignoring Gauche's canonly beautiful blue greenish eye, etc but that's my personal preferences and I believe everyone deserved to draw him in their own way x) with this vent is clear enough that I do not like and vibes with Grey and Gauche as the ship because of the shippers (also the way tabata treated them but that's a different topic lol) I know this two will eventually be canon but I don't care and I still want to give more loves for him and drawing him with others characters because he deserved to have more fanarts thats not tied to his canon ship x')

Lastly. I just wish the Grey and Gauche shippers can see more from Gauche's point of view instead of being huge biased towards Grey. Because at this point I'm convinced that the shippers is Grey fans who only cares about Gauche because he's her love interest. Please respect and adore Gauche's character as y'all do with Grey 😞

Thankyou and have a nice weekend everyone!

[anonymous-dentist]

the thing that has been pissing me off the most in those whole qjaiden/fear room situation is the hypocrisy, really (and not talking about the charater hypocrisy even if she was actually being kinda of hypocritical)

i'm talking about the hypocrisy of the vast majority of the fans lmao like when qforever came up and invaded bobby fields everyone went for his ass (rightfully so) but when it's her doing something similar it's ok and she's just being silly! bc apparently it's just her who can have a secret safe spot and have her feelings hurt ig

it's a very curious phenomenon in this fandom that i think it came from it having different povs and each being in a different language probably, but it really seems to me that to some people the only characters that have the right to be defended, and do something wrong and all of that is the ones they keep up with. otherwise, then they can be execrated and all of that

It's because the only characters allowed to be criticized are the Brazilian characters tbh, the English fandom gets really pissy when you criticize their favs, the French fandom is too busy criticizing itself half the time to pay attention to the others, and the poor Hispanic fandom is down to two active povs to pay attention to. But, if you've paid attention over the last several months, it's always the Brazilian characters getting shit for things the other characters have also done.

It's like you said with qForever and qJaiden's parallels here, but there's another parallel between them that people went crazy over last month with the Happy Pills arc when qForever made that fake house for Richarlystone and qJaiden fans went "Good, it's what he deserves", and like. No? Nobody said that qJaiden "deserved" to lose herself briefly in her grief and build Bobby Fields, but qForever "deserved" to be forcibly drugged by Cucurucho and deluded into building a house just like Bobby Fields to memorialize his son as best as his fuzzy mind could.

And then there's everybody always giving qCellbit shit for him infiltrating the Federation and pretending to be Normal about it while actively encouraging qFoolish's very similar arc, because qCellbit is apparently the evil one here because he isn't telling other people, even though he has been telling people it's a literal infiltration mission for months now.

qForever starting to sort of get along with Cucurucho? It means he's been corrupted by the Feds and he's evil and should be kicked out of office. qJaiden being actual best friends with Cucurucho? She's just being silly!

qBad being right for getting upset over characters getting into his closed-off areas of his base versus the English fandom getting very angry at Brazilian fans getting annoyed over qJaiden breaking into a very very very closed-off area of qCellbit's base.

qFoolish was just silly when he arrested qPac and qMike, but I can guarantee that if it was qMike arresting qFoolish or something that he'd be given so much shit for "false imprisonment" or something. Because that's just how this fandom works.

This issue used to actually apply to the Hispanic characters, too, because I remember the English fandom getting furious when qVegetta set up turrets specifically because qBad kept breaking into his house back in early April, because that was unfair!! qSpreen challenged qBad to a fight and, if he won, he was going to be allowed to take one of Dapper's lives was evil and irredeemable, but qSlime running around for several hours trying to murder every single egg on the server was just him being silly. qMariana being called a murderer for legitimately accidentally misclicking poor Flippa versus qSlime killing Tilin being called an accident (which it was, to be clear.)

I can guarantee that qRoier would have gotten So Much Shit from the English fandom back in April if they actually watched his pov and realized that he was the one that started spreading rumors about qQuackity trying to kill the eggs and effectively rigging the Strip Club Interrogation to make qQuackity look more evil than he actually was and basically singlehandedly causing poor qQuackity's downfall just as he swore to in early April that the English fans would have been furious. But, because he doesn't interact too often with the English members outside of Foolish and Jaiden, he's labeled Just A Silly Guy and he's promptly ignored, which is probably for the better tbh considering how they treat the other Latin American characters.

TLDR; the English characters are the only ones not allowed to be criticized while the Latin American characters are always the ones criticized, especially the Brazilians, and it's super fucking weird considering this is a global server and everything

[fanfic-lover-girl]

What do you think is the worst case of hypocritism in Harry Potter.

I just realized how many inbox messages I have. Gosh, I need to address those...

It's hard to choose but if I had to choose:

In the story itself

The morality of an action depends on who the character is. The purebloods like the Malfoys and Blacks are bigots for scorning mudbloods but it's A-ok for the Gryffindor characters to discriminate against and endanger muggles and magical creatures. If Draco disrespects Hagrid it's a sin, but when Hermione disrespects Trelawney she's a girlboss. Draco objectively and simply points out that Molly is fat in a relatively mild Yo Mama joke and it's framed as bullying (no complaints there). But Harry describes how obese Dudley is in excruciating and needless detail, it's funny. This is the same Harry who regularly compares people to animals when he describes appearances. Draco bullies Neville - it's wrong (as it should be). Harry and co. bully and degrade Neville - it's funny and ok. There are many more examples. JKR is a disgusting and mean-spirited writer. I have several 'Double Standards' posts because of this.

In HP fandom

This extends to how HP fandom views certain fans. In particular, some Hermione, Romione and other Gryfindor stans will sneer and condescend to you if you happen to like characters like Draco and other Slytherins like the Death eaters. And if you criticize their darlings, they discredit your criticisms because you like the 'morally questionable' antagonist. It's hilarious how these people refuse to admit that THEIR characters are morally questionabletoo. Almost every HP character is morally questionable. They act as if the golden trio and the other Gryffindor characters are heroes who are justified in all their crappy actions. I have seen a disgusting Hermione stan (whom I blocked) condone and justify Hermione kidnapping and imprisoning Rita, erasing her parents' memory, attacking Ron with canaries and scarring Marietta for life. If stans like that don't outright say Hermione was right, they downplay it by saying she's a young girl and/or she had no choice. They say the criticism is overblown. Yet, they have no issue overblowing the actions of the unlikable characters like Draco and Rita. For example, they act as if Draco calling Hermione 'mudblood' is such a devasting crime. When wonder witch herself could care less about Draco's stale taunts. And Hermione being muggleborne has little impact on her for the most part. Total hypocrisy.

Honestly, I would like JKR's 'good' characters more if not for these atrocious double standards in the fandom and the narrative. But it's fine, I'll just enjoy my HP babies like Neville and Draco in my corner.

As much as I feel sorry for the hate JKR gets, I can say that she is partially to blame. She taught an entire generation of kids to believe they have the right to violence if they think they are the heroes in their story. And that their opponents are subhuman if they don't share their views. I hope Joanne realizes that one day.