#ship wars is probably the second worst fandom discourse

[moonlightdancer26]

being a huge ron stan while shipping a dramione is such a struggle. i feel whenever i talk about him i get side eyed by the rest of the fandom

RIGHT? And when you ship Romione too you get eaten alive by both sides 😭 I love both ships and both characters, I will never be converted to a side. Being a Dramione > Romione girl (before y’all come at me, I obvs know it’s toxic in canon and that Romione is wayyy healthier, but Dramione just has more potential imo) while being a Ron > Draco girl makes it insanely difficult to manage, it’s probably one of the most disagreeable/provoking-arguments opinions to ever have in this fandom. We deserve better fr

[itsclydebitches]

Have you seen the posts going around saying shit like "If a mutual likes Hazbin Hotel I will block them"?? It's genuinely upsetting me tbh, not just the idea that people don't like the show, but that they despise it so much they can't even stand the thought of someone they know liking the show. It reminds me of the Steven Universe hate train only worse. They also say shit like "the show is just someone saying swear words and expecting you to laugh", and if for a second we put aside the fact that that is blatantly not true, what's wrong with that? I'm allowed to like something that's a bit trash, right? I've already seen two different people I follow reblog posts to that effect (and worse, someone saying all a character boils down to is "i love being sexually abused <3" and i don't know how they ever came to that conclusion) and it's driving me mad. And somehow I just know that they don't actually give a shit about any "controversies" surrounding vivziepop, that's just a convenient excuse for most of them. I don't even care if Vivzie is a bad person, that's none of my business. just live and let live, you know?

Sorry for ranting, you're literally the only blog i follow who posts Hazbin fan content

Rant away, friend! Luckily for me I haven't come across any of those posts yet. Plenty of discourse surrounding whether fans are allowed to make romantic and/or sexual content for Alastor, the expected shipping wars, and - as you say - vague references to Vivzie controversies (which I'm too new a fan to even be aware of yet)... but nothing that's a complete rejection of the show itself. That's probably because I've only engaged with blogs posting a lot of Hazbin content though.

I'm a big fan of old school Internet rules which includes an emphasis on cultivating your own online space. You know, the thing tumblr is explicitly designed for. So in theory I applaud anyone blocking users/tags for a show they're not a fan of. Performatively posting about it more as a way to guilt others for liking Hazbin at all... not so much. If you want to block something just block it. If you're mutuals with someone you both presumably like each others' content. Not all of it necessarily, but enough to have followed in the first place, and often being mutuals for long enough leads to friendship because you're both getting interacting with one another a lot. All of which isn't to say that people don't unfollow mutuals, or that you can't drop a mutual because they've started posting something you dislike. Obviously both situations do happen, but it feels like an extreme enough response that these posters probably aren't actually doing this very often. Most people will wait the mutual out until their interest gets hooked on something new, or block the Hazbin tag and keep the friend, or just block without making a big announcement about it. So posts like that feel more like a way to show off how much you dislike the show and guilt others for their enjoyment which yeah, can be upsetting to see. Especially when, as you say, it costs nothing to just let people like things.

Which might sound hypocritical on my part given my RWBY interests, but I think there's a big difference between critically examining a show while supporting others who genuinely love it, and simplistically blasting it. I COMPLETELY get why Hazbin wouldn't be to everyone's tastes and, like with the SU example, anything that gets popular enough is going to develop its haters (especially cartoons trying to tackle non-childish subjects. That's always going to be a fandom landmine). But if you're going to make claims about a show, at least watch it to ensure you can back up your stance? And if your takeaway is still, "This is the worst fucking thing I've ever watched"... cool. Go forth and write about that on your own, personal blog. But no one should be surprised when they're also blocked for bragging about how many Hazbin fans they've blocked.

[problemswithbooks]

ykw, pick 10 of your choice for mha

Worst part of canon

Star and Stripe. I like her character concept but she really has no reason to exist at all given how little she contributed plot.

which ship fans are the most annoying?

Toga/Ochako, but this is just because I really don't like the ship. I'm not really a huge shipper so I don't go looking in ship tags so, I don't actually think the shippers themselves are annoying (I wouldn't know), I just find the ship it's self annoying.

what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

Probably Shigaraki, though Dabi's close second (There's more canon issues with him that would have soured me on him anyway which is why he loses). I'm just a little put off by how many of his fans tout him as the best written character--miles above the others in his complexity, and Hori's favorite. He's defiantly one of the deeper characters of the story, up there with Enji, and All Might, but sometimes it feels like people think the story was written specifically for his character which is taking it a bit far.

common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

The idea Enji only changed because he got what he wanted, and that Touya's death should have been his wake up call.

Yes, Enji got the #1 spot, but that's not actually what he wanted--he wanted to be the strongest, to beat All Might. He never got to beat All Might the way he wanted and won on a technicality in his mind.

Meanwhile Touya's death only pushed Enji further into training Shoto, afraid that if Shoto didn't become #1 it would make Touya's death meaningless along with everything he did to his family. After Touya's death he was essentially fighting tooth and nail to avoid the outcome he eventually got--which was all the pain and hurt he caused his family being for nothing.

worst blorboficiation

I was going to say Touya, but then remembered Twice. I love Twice but I think people have sort of just overlooked or excused his bad actions since his death. I mean, I'm more than sick of hearing that he did everything for his friends, as of that is an inherently good thing.

Like, Twice has really gotten the tragic uwu angel treatment post death, and that's a bit annoying.

that one thing you see in fics all the time

Going back to what I said in a prior post, Tensei always having gone to UA--it's in a lot of fics with Aizawa and Present Mic. Also, Tensei being friends or knowing Manual.

there should be more of this type of fic/art

As a fan of both Stain and Tensei I sort of wish there were more fics with Tensei getting the news that Stain's free. Tenya too for that matter. I think it was actually a huge waste that Hori didn't have Tenya react or even see him find out that Stain was out there. I mean I get that Stain isn't really tied to Tenya's arc anymore (given they didn't even interact during the war) but it'd have been nice to at least have Tenya say something about it, even if it was him not being interested to really solidify his character growth.

part of canon you found tedious or boring

Izuku's emo arc (have no idea what it's official name is). Not a lot happened that was interesting and what few things that were, didn't get as much focus as I think they needed. I think it also suffered because we got such a small cool down after the first war. I just felt poorly paced, with not much time spent with anyone but Izuku which made it kind of hard to get through, especially when so many characters lacked a follow up after the war to show they survived/were okay.

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

Anything Enji or Todofam related really. They always bring the drama. Hawks is a very close second.

common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

"x hero/civilain isn't being understanding of y lov villain!"

I get that Hori seems to be going for a 'forgive the villain' theme, but at the same time most of that characters yelling at the LoV are making more than reasonable statements, like Shoto telling Touya to stop hurting innocent people and focus his rage at the family instead, or Ochako saying she'd stop Toga if she's going to continue to kill/maim people. Like, I'm sorry but telling someone to stop murdering people isn't being rude.

[marley-manson]

Ask game: 3, 24.

Thank you!

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

I've been on tumblr since 2014 so this is impossible lol, but the worst take I've seen on Mashblr is probably the take that BJ's antics in episodes like Dear Uncle Abdul, Bottoms Up, Joker is Wild, etc, are theraputic for Hawkeye, ie making him spiral in a safe environment/giving him an excuse to throw a tantrum which is good for him.

It just seems like, well first of all blatantly ott excusing of BJ's mean streak to justify characterizing him as a selfless perfect caretaker whose every action is done for Hawkeye's sake lol, which is just silly. Second of all it ignores like everything about Alan Alda's acting choices in those episodes in which he conveys frustration and exasperation rather than enjoyment. And it's also a horrifying take on therapy imo. Like tbf I usually have issues with characterizing like, interpersonal interactions between romantic partners as theraputic, which is a pretentious way of saying I don't like bdsm fic that frames it as therapy lol, but this also extends to anything else that's done for a character's own good.

I'm not saying it's always like, a bad fucked up mischaracterization of therapy ofc, or that even if it is no one should ever write it, I got no beef with people who enjoy fics like that and I can totally see the h/c appeal even if it wigs me out personally. But this take on BJ and Hawkeye's relationship is probably the most extremely wild and nonsensical example of that trend I've ever seen in any fandom.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

Anything can bring up wildly rancid discourse if you're dedicated enough, I don't think I could possibly narrow this down to just one answer when literally any dumb petty fandom argument from top/bottom wank to ship wars to villaincourse to character popularity contests turns into accusations of any ism under the sun at the drop of a hat.

So just as a general answer: using social justice as a baton in petty fandom slapfights based solely on your favourite thing not being as popular, or other people liking something that you don't like. It's good to call out concrete examples of bigotry in fandom, ie offensive statements people type on their keyboards and post online, but imo it's incredibly transparent when people just default to assuming bigotry on the part of other fans because it's the easiest way to feel superior about your own preferences. I'm talking like, Rey/Finn shippers accusing Finn/Poe shippers of racism, het shippers accusing gay shippers of fetishization, lovers of the sole token female character in a sausage fest show accusing people who got into it for the gay ships and prefer to focus on them of misogyny, etc.

[gooddayfellowgays]

I’m in a mood to fight some fangirlies so welcome to...

THE CIRCULAR HELL THAT IS FANDOM!!! (a mini essay)

yes I’m taking this too seriously shut up.

When I was about 12 I had a surgery that got infected and was put on bedrest for 6 months, right up until my birthday. For a lonely 12 year old there was nothing better to do than catch up on a show my bestie suggested and browse Wattpad tags about it. And that show was Voltron. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, Voltron was a kids animated show that ran for two years and six months, with EIGHT seasons. EIGHT! It was my first proper fandom and if I had to describe the environment in one word, it would be unsupervised. The show itself was a simple space opera/ comedy.  It was fun, it was quirky and it gained a following really, really, quick. 

Because of how quickly the fandom built itself (and the fast release dates) Voltron became a hot bed for the worst sorts of discourse. Now I’m 1000% sure there was extra context from where these people came from before that would give some explanation but I’m only aware of this; A toxic mix of older fans harassing others and younger fans learning from them led to fans actively harassing a voice actor to the point they had security protecting them at cons. More than usual.  

But before I tell you that story; we must know what led up to it. What convinced fans to harass this poor actor? Well.

Within vld (Voltron) there was this huge shipping war  between Klance and Sheith. All you really need to know about those too is that a character named Keith was involved in both of them and there is only one Keith. The actor shipped Sheith. And Klance shippers had been harassing Sheith shippers for as long as they both lived. If you look at any posts from back then you can see just how violent the threats got. 

This actor shipped Sheith. And I still remember the open letters big name fans posted begging people to treat the actor like a person. 

But then Voltron ended in the worst way possible (honestly, look it up) just before my 13th and suddenly a whole bunch of disillusioned fans need somewhere to go, to try and heal.  And where did they go? 

She-ra and Dragon Prince. 

I really recommended watching the Choledoesthings seires on voltron to get an idea of what the fandom was like during its running and after. 

Now heres the circular part. The older fans came from places like Miraculos Ladybug, Hamilton ect. all the bad ones. And then they went to anime and queer kids shows (qks) fandoms, keeping there bad habits and teaching newbies how to act and, in the end, causing the burgeoning toxicity in the Owl House fandom. 

I’m writing this just before  my 18th. I, like so many others my age, got pulled into the same set of QKS fandoms with barely a second thought. Except I watched two season of She-ra and saw it was doing the same thing vld did and got out before I got hurt. 

I like to think I learn’t from my experiences on Wattpad (and boy do I have some stories). Namely that I don’t argue with people on the internet about ships or fanfic or whatever. I keep to myself and if I don’t like something I suck it up. 

But I know for a fact, if you go far enough back on some Owl House fans accounts, you’ll find VLD. Everytime. 

This is the problem. Fandom is great, but only if we work to maintain it. Personally, I'm probably gonna bail on the Owl House if things keep getting worse. But I really don’t want too. I’m going to keep my little buble as it is and recommend you do too. 

Stay safe out there loves. And remember, ships aren’t worth the harassment 

[purplehoodiesimon]

Okay now i am just curious as to in what fandoms youve been with so much drama lol

I was heavily invested in Voltron, shipped both k/l and k/s (I do not DARE to type the ship names even now) and lived through everything in real time as it happened, that's all you need to know

But um seriously, a few others I've been in with crazy drama have been Supernatural (literally just everything about that fandom is crazy, still heavily invested in it though), Harry Potter (the wattpad side of the fandom in 2015-17 was A Lot), Sanders Sides (the ship discourse was insane), Dan and Phil (thank god I missed the 2012 era but it was fucking nuts over on wattpad from 2015-17), and probably the second worst fandom I've ever been involved in���Hamilton. I lived through everything in Hamilton in real time as well from 2015-2018, it was, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yea. Hamilton and Voltron just tag teamed young teen me into insanity.

Was about to hit post and realized a bit of background for anyone who doesn't know these fandom histories might be useful, so some of the drama I personally remember was a fan gave cupcakes with glass in them to a showrunner (Voltron), a fan took photos of scripts and storyboards and threated to leak them if a ship wasn't made canon (Voltron), a well known fic author faked having HIV (Hamilton), constant releaking of a certain video for years that the creators didn't want on the Internet centered around their sexuality (DnP), address leaks and photos taken through windows due to stalking (DnP), blatant racism and fetishization of a certain character (Hamilton&Voltron), and then just general ship wars, death threats, rape threats, harassment, pedophilia accusations, morality arguments, etc etc etc that I have seen in all the aforementioned fandoms and smaller ones like ODAAT. I also was never personally part of the 1D or Undertale fandoms but I had friends who were and I remember the airport hacking and needle cookie incidents pretty well, and just everything about Harry and Louis.

So yea, Young Royals is definitely the best fandom experience I've ever had and let's please keep it that way.

[bereft-of-frogs]

loki series discourse thoughts dump: (I’ve been hanging onto them)

- honestly, I’m not touching the selfcest=problematic discourse because I think you can guess my feelings (who cares, it’s hot tho right? hahaha also not the worst thing I’ve ever shipped so) and also I vehemently agree with the twitter thread that’s like ‘....y’all know this is not a scenario you will ever have to face in real life, right?’ like, this is the ultimate fantastical ship, it’s been around for years before this, I do not care that people are upset about it

- I think one of the problems, for me, with the ‘is it objectively good or bad’ discourse is that the negative takes are so negative sometimes that it genuinely makes me question my perception of reality and my ability to critically view television. like, I’m talking about the ‘the effects are the worst and amateurish and it sucks’ sort of hyperbole. (I thought for the most part the effects were quite good, which is why the couple times they were bad really stuck out to me). or ‘they had no chemistry!’ (I actually thought the chemistry was great, particularly in their first episode together, I was really surprised by how quickly I was like ‘oh but I like this dynamic). things like that where they’re either of a subjective nature or they are problems, points if I were inclined to write a larger critique I may have mentioned as well...but they’re perhaps not as big a problem as some people are making them out to be, which is what’s throwing me off.

- this also I think, comes from ‘contextual reviewing’ or in this case the lack thereof. like when I talk about it being good, I’m not saying it’s prestige television. but I’m placing it against its direct competitors - the disney+ series: The Mandalorian, Wandavision, Falcon & Winter Soldier most directly, but also its similar genre shows. for me, the series was right up there with The Mandalorian and a bit better overall than Wandavision, but was it Dark? Was it Altered Carbon? No, but if I want those things....I’m not going to the MCU for that. I was entertained, which is about as deep as I expect out of it. And yeah, the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig for those buried themes, but I’m also not super bothered because I think Loki fit really well into the MCU

(*and if you think this is just me bootlicking disney or whatever, accepting mediocrity from the mouse, I think this problem of contextual reviewing is something that exists even not talking about the mouse. like, I have different standards for a show if I know it originally premiered on SyFy or the CW, versus HBO or AMC, versus Netflix or Amazon, and I have a whole longer post to be made about why some shows are struggling in the age of prestige tv, because we’re flattening the context and holding shows that would have been perfectly well-received on SyFy to HBO standards and I do think it’s sometimes unfortunate and perfectly fun shows get raked over the coals because they’re not performing to prestige TV’s standards)

- I’m starting to see a potential evolution of my predicted conspiracy. still not as intense as tjlc just the rumblings but I gotta say. Cut it out. it is inappropriate to speculate on the personal relationships of actors. It is doubly inappropriate to with no evidence make vague accusations of an intensely personal nature. leaving this one vague. but just...speculating on accusations of a personal nature because you are disappointed in a tv show is inappropriate. stop it.

- that being said I’m also operating on the assumption that the ‘let’s get a protest mob to tom hiddleston’s house’ anon is trolling but still. stop it. seriously. it’s inappropriate. the show was perfectly fine. it may have disappointed you and you have absolutely every right to be disappointed but you do not have the right to attack people who were doing a job, even if you didn’t like the end result. they pitched a show. their pitch was accepted. they made the show. that’s it.

- speaking of, an interesting observation I’ve had throughout the show’s run is how the fandom seems to feel we’re at war with the creators. a lot of putting them down like ‘[theory] but they wouldn’t be smart enough for that’ or bitching about ‘Michael Waldron’s OCs’. Michael Waldron’s job is to write OCs. he has to make characters for Loki to play off of and to further the plot. There is no reason to assume that fanfiction writers are better or smarter or care more than original content creators. in general, canon content creators are held to different parameters than fic writers. honestly, even calling them OCs feels weird to me because creating new characters and worlds is the literal job of the canon creators? but I guess it also makes sense in a way because they are creating new characters in a world already establish but...I don’t know. it’s different somehow. further articulation on this point required.

I think that’s it for me - I probably have some more episode-specific points to contend, but I think that’s it for my general discourse opinions, just to know where I’m standing at this point. I was really entertained, I hadn’t looked forward to a weekly airing of a show this much since the second season of The Mandalorian finished up. As I said last night, looking forward to the multiverse fallout and season 2 and the other films in the lineup!

[grishaversecommunityyy]

The Grishaverse Ship Survey Results

So! After all of that, we finally have the results! What is the general opinion on the ships in the Grishaverse? Well, that’s for you to read below! It’s actually pretty interesting and, while some parts make sense, there were definitely some parts which... surprised me... Anyway, onto the results!

Everything in this post can be split into:

The Grisha Trilogy

Six Of Crows Duology

The Nikolai Series

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

Most Enjoyed Ships

Least Enjoyed Ships

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

Notes from the Survey 

(note from mod emily: i tried to bold all of fritz’ comments, but i might have missed a few! be aware there are two of us analysing here :))

The Grisha Trilogy

The first book series we asked about was, of course, the first chronologically: the Grisha Trilogy. The most popular ship, with 83% voters for this series selecting this, was Genya/David (Fritz was glad to hear that; Yes I am). This is likely due to the lack of alternate romantic interests in the series, which seems to be a major issue for Alina’s ships. It also seems to be one genuinely enjoyed by most fans, in contrast to Darkling/Alina and Mal/Alina (each around 30%) and Nikolai/Alina (just under 20%), for which I have definitely seen plenty of debate. The second and third most popular ships for this series were Tamar/Nadia (55%) and Nikolai/Zoya (47%). Interestingly, Genya/Alina (43%) and Zoya/Alina (30%) ranked surprisingly high, especially considering how few of my friends and associates I hear talking about them. Good for them!

Honourable mentions:

Alina/Sun (no doubt inspired by that crack fic I wrote a while back) (Still havent read that out of fear)

Alina alone (a common concept among those surveyed, though most mentioned it later)

Zoya/Genya or Alina/Zoya/Genya

Six Of Crows Duology

This series was a little less divided, I would say. Predictably, Kaz/Inej came out on top with a whopping 96% of voters (:relieved:), with Wylan/Jesper next (90%) and Nina/Matthias just after (83%). None of the others really came close, despite Nina/Inej gathering 35% of the votes and Colm/Aditi at 25% (yeah, I’m not sure why that was so popular on AO3 either, but nobody really has objections so I assume that’s why it amassed so many votes). As Six of Crows is decidedly less divisive about ships and doesn’t have such controversial ships (more on that later), it seems the fandom agrees with canon pairings and the votes are... pretty unanimous.

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper/Wylan/Kuwei

Polycrows (platonic or romantic)

Kaz/Inej/Nina

Whoever didn’t read the instruction about this being for only the book series and put Jesper/Milo. I will never escape. 

The Nikolai Series

This one is a little harder for me because I actually haven’t read this... so over to Fritz for analysis! But first, the stats. At 85%, the most popular ship is Genya/David, followed by Zoya/Nikolai at 77%. Tamar/Nadia and Nina/Hanne draw at 61.5% and Nina/Matthias has 56% voters onboard. There’s no real honourable mentions for this one, sadly. Hello Fritz here! Read the books and very glad to see Genya/David as the top ship as it damn well should. Although still a bit surprising since its more of a side-arc of the two and only ties in with the importance of the story at a specific chapter that I feel like I don’t need to elaborate about, if you read Rule of Wolves. (I believe the popularity of the ship also sky-rocketed due to ROW) Following of course Zoya/Nikolai, the high ranking makes sense, it is the main ship and lets be honest they deserve it <3

I think the only really surprising thing about this is the high votes for Nina/Matthias since [SPOILERS CROOKED KINGDOM] he’s dead so I feel like people should move on from that. Nina/“Hanne” having not as high a ranking as I would’ve thought, but with Matthias still being in the frame I guess we shouldn’t be surprised either.

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

This one is really interesting, with the exclusive show watchers now taking part! We have 89% voting for Kaz/Inej, 76% for David/Genya, 71% for Matthias/Nina, 67% for Ivan/Fedyor (that’s a thing???-->Yeah they had a few somewhat sweet interactions in the background-->nvm i watched it you’re right fritz) and 62% for Mal/Alina. What’s really surprising is how high Malina is compared to Darklina, with Darkling/Alina at 36%. Who knows, maybe Fritz’ analysis can shed some light on this?

Yes yes Fritz to the rescue: First of all we have to see their interactions a little different from what we already knew of them by the end of episode 8. I still think it is a surprising number, since the Darkling in the show isn’t as nasty as he was in the books BUT over all his actions are now seen on TV. We all thought the deer antlers were a necklace amirite? Well no apparently not, the darkling used the worst kind of small science to fit Alinas collarbone to the bone and out comes a gruesome sight: a reason why many people might have started thinking: Wow what a disgusting person he is. And on the Malina “ship”: Mal finally has personality!! jkjk :eyes: Mals and Alinas friendship has been portrayed way better in the show and I believe that the people noticed more chemistry between them especially by the end of season 1. So I’m still a little surprised Darklina has such a low ranking (what with him being all sweet and cuddly in the middle of the show) but it makes sense and the Malina ship as well. Their vibes are just *chefs kiss* and thats coming from someone who didnt even like any of these “ships” <3

Loving the quotation marks for the word ‘ships’, Fritz. Over to the honourable mentions!

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper and Milo (isn’t milo a goat? guys, why?)

Nadia/Marie (huh that didn’t appear anywhere else)

One person had several - Kaz/Inej/Jesper, Dubrov/Mikhael, Dubrov/Mikhael/Mal - and yeah, you can really see the show differences in these mentions right? (whose dubrov...and whose mikhael...)

16% actually voted for Inej/Alina which is wild to me because of book context (they did have chemistry in the show tho :cowboi_smirk:)

Another person with several! We have Nina/Inej, Genya/Alina, Zoya/Alina, Zoya/Genya/Alina. Very sapphic. Good for you.

Kaz/Jesper and Nina/Inej all in one

That’s a lot of honour and mentions but it’s so interesting to me and I think you should see too

Most Enjoyed Ships

The most enjoyed ship was Kaz/Inej. This had unparalleled support, being at 35%. Jesper/Wylan, which was next on the list (23.5%) and Nina/Matthias (18%) were also pretty popular. Most of the others were quite low, though interestingly Mal/Alina only had 1 vote (plus one for the show version). Overall, the SoC ships were a lot more popular in this section, which makes sense - this part is really about your favourite ship, and those were more unanimous in the last sections.

Least Enjoyed Ships

Most people said Darkling/Alina, which got 47% of the NOTP votes. A lot more people disliked Darkling/Alina than liked Kaz/Inej. Make of that what you will, but I take it as a somewhat general agreement among many of you guys. Mal/Alina was also strongly disliked at 22%, but around a half or more of these were clarified to be about the book version of the ship specifically. They really must’ve upgraded in the show! Jesper/Kuwei and any other Darkling ships were also voted by a few, but all of these pale in comparison to the anti-Darklina votes. Shoutout to the person who said Apparat/Anyone. I agree, though it’s not something I thought of before seeing this response. Also one person said they didn’t like the poly ships, which I hope meant just the ones mentioned earlier and not all poly relationships in general... Another shoutout to whoever said Kaz/Heleen, because why did I have to read that. A fun question, all in all!

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

I love talking about crack ships, so let’s start with that! This time, I really don’t want to have to count and list because... well, let me show you:

I think that sums up the sheer variety, to be honest. Then again, it would be rude not to mention that the most popular were Jesper/Milo, Darkling/Nikolai and Alina/Sun. (If you’re still confused about that last one, I take full responsibility.)

YES KAZ/KRUGE I SUPPORT!!!

Honourable mention to this:

which was a lot to take in, and:

Now for the discourse. Yep, the part you probably came for. 

Actually... maybe you didn’t? Looking at all of these responses, I see a lot of people genuinely don’t care about ship wars and so on, and often enjoyed the books regardless of the romances involved. Quite a few disapproved of the ongoing (though small) wars between Darklina and Malina, and others had a similar line of thinking, saying we should maybe stop focusing so much on it. You guys are right. I know this is a ship survey, and the conclusions should not include that shipping isn’t as important as we make it (Yes it should), but... that’s where it’s at.

And then again, a lot of you guys expressed disapproval for Darkling/Alina, discussing how it is often one-sided and manipulative and overall unhealthy, so I could be completely off with that last one. Some people mentioned that they ship this but as a slightly different version that the one given to us, recognising the flaws of the canon ship.

Someone said they headcanon Tolya as aroace (OMG YES!!). We need more aroace characters, so thank you for that headcanon :) We also have a few gay ships mentioned here, and one person telling us they love Malina. Yes, you’re right - it’s pretty unpopular, it turns out. Someone else said Alina should’ve been single, and I agree, actually!

One person rickrolled me here. Thankfully, Youtube’s ads saved me. *wipes forehead*

I leave you all with this, in the end:

Notes from the Survey

Statistics Stuff:

The top ships were taken from AO3, so some ships may be more focused on in other books and may not provide accurate statistics for an earlier series.

The main circles this was sent around may have had bias as most people are from the same discord server, which has debated these topics in the past. Hence certain ships may have lower-than-average results. In future, this could be improved upon by sending this to other servers and areas of the fandom.

Personal bias may be present in the analysis, though I have tried to minimise this in the more formal sections.

Observations and Notes from Me:

You guys really don’t like Darklina. Or you love it. Usually one or the other. Wow.

Be glad I didn’t talk about any of the cursed ships in this. The things I have seen... (:cowboi_eyes:)

I thought more people would rickroll me, ngl.

What Surprised You Guys:

Kaz/Inej/Jesper

A few of you guys saw some of those cursed ships, and that surprised you. Well, me too!

Nikolai ships being in the TV Show section at all, what with his character not being in the show (yeah what was up with that huh tztz)

Inej/Alina

The existence of The Severed Moon

Darkling/Nikolai(/Alina)

How fun the quiz was :D

Things You Sent Me:

Bee Movie copypasta

“Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!”, except via an AO3 link

A fun fact about enzymes! I liked this one

Fic recs for Feriku and Sarai (esp for Wylan/Jesper shippers)

Another rickroll

Nice compliments :) aww you guys

I asked everyone for some kind of placeholder name and never used it. Sorry! But hey, anonymity, right?

Closing Statements

If you got this far (I feel like ive been sitting here for hours), thanks for reading! This was fun to do and I hope you enjoyed all of this too! The survey is still open for anyone who hasn’t done it but wants to. If I get a huge amount of new responses, I might update this post! But for now, adios!

-mod emily (and mod fritz)

[kitkatopinions]

It's silly how RWBY's biggest ship war has the two participants in the Blake tug of war never interact with each other beyond a few seconds. Are there any other ship wars in RWBY where this happens?

Me just realizing that Yang and Sun have like, never talked. I don't think there are any other major ship wars that I know of, though I've heard that Rosegarden and White Rose have had a bit of tension - hopefully nothing too bad!

I don't know, I was not in this fandom back when things like V2 with the Neptune/Jaune/Weiss/Pyrrha thing happened, so I don't know. I wasn't even in this fandom until after the bees/blacksun war thing had started calming down. I mean, I've still seen discourse, people are still sometimes really venomous about it and spreading awful things, but I wasn't here for the worst of it, thank God.

But I'm just... Really hoping that V9/V10 doesn't reignite things. If MKEK are stupid enough to try to go with a love triangle, especially if they use said love triangle to try and drag Sun's character, I'm going to lose my entire mind. And look, I'm probably still going to be invested and interested in any BlackSun moments, because I do love the ship and there's nothing wrong with that (hopefully they don't ruin another ship I love like they did with Renora, but then again, them trying their darnedest to ruin James and Qrow didn't make me stop loving Ironqrow.)

But that isn't going to change the fact that it'd be a garbage decision that would be so blatantly wrong if they did it. Fingers crossed that they actually treat my boy Sun respectfully and let him and Blake be great friends while they also stop the queerbaiting and finally actually develop Blake and Yang and start trying to make their ship good and healthy.

[gascon-en-exil]

10!

16!

And for bonus points - 20!!

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Game of Thrones has multiple arcs that I do not care about in the slightest, but in some cases they take up so much screentime they become genuinely annoying. Arya's Braavos arc (two seasons) or Daenerys's Meereen arc (three, or four if you count all of Slaver's Bay) are probably the worst. The latter is longer, but at least has small amounts of male nudity. Braavos is weirdly-paced and completely whiffs its ending. Take your pick.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Depends on what we're talking about, but between GoT and Versailles I seem to have a knack for picking up shows that rush to their endings and suffer for it. So not doing that, for starters.

It would have been nice if Neflix Voltron hadn't completely lost the thread of anything interesting after about the second season, and if it hadn't framed its most homoromantic dynamic in such a way that the resulting shipping war turned anti-shipping into a bonafide plague on all fandom culture.

FE, specifically FE16...well, I feel like I've written about that enough to where everyone must be tired of it, but axing Byleth would all by itself go a long way toward fixing so many of the game's writing problems.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

Looking at every ship from every fandom I've ever been in, it's probably something like Marius/Cosette from Les Misérables: hard canon with a happy ending, no real ship competition or arguing over it in fandom (and Les Mis has gone through discourse episodes), just pure fluffy cuteness.

As far as pure ships I actually care about, Dimidue is surprisingly pure under all the trauma and bad faith fandom wank. I applaud the efforts of those who've gotten them to be dark and/or kinky, because it's an uphill battle through all the wholesome mutual devotion. I practically need the black comedy goodness of Ferdibert for contrast.

[vecna]

For fandom meme-swtor?

Send me a fandom!

This one isn’t as spicy as the Dragon Age one, but I still got Wordy.

Also there’s lots of KOTFE/KOTET/etc spoilers in here, so don’t read if you don’t want to see em. (Looking at you, Chignon.)

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

My own OCs haha.

But more seriously: It was actually Darth Malgus! I was always going to play a Star Wars MMO, let’s be real. But when they started posting promo videos and cinematics for the game, my Sith-loving ass immediately gravitated to that guy haha. And then, it turned out he had the same VA as The Architect from Dragon Age, and that was it for me.

If we’re talking about companions, then it was probably Malavai Quinn. Sith Warrior was the first class I got to 50, and Quinn was the first companion that I really got overly attached to haha.

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Most (not all, but most) of the “new” companions that came in with KOTFE and beyond. I was initially really sour when I realized we were losing all our class storyline companions, and they were being replaced with a new crew of Lana, Theron, Koth, my mother-in-law Senya, etc. Especially when they – at the time – said we’d eventually get our class companions back, but it would be a while. So I started KOTFE sure that I would hate the new crew because I would rather have the old one…. and ended up liking them quite a lot! Mostly, lol.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

Doc is the main one, jesus christ. If you didn’t read my last post, I just really really really do not mesh well with overly sexual and Adult Humor-y characters who scold you with a “You’re no fun.” if your OC isn’t into it. Doc is the worst example of it that I’ve ever encountered. I always play a male JK, and the fact nearly all of his convos amount to, “Boy, you and me are going to be up to our eyeballs in vagina when this war ends, amirite?” “You don’t want that? Come on, the Jedi Code doesn’t say you can’t FUCK, live a little.” “You’re no fun. Well, more for me.” drives me NUTS. This combined with how he interacts with Kira just does me in. Shoves him out an airlock.

Dark Side Jaesa is another big one, albeit mainly for OOC reasons. I just hate the fact that she even exists, really. I get the appeal of a story where a Sith corrupts a Jedi to the Dark Side, but the way she does a total 180 into gross hedonism while Serving You always just makes me cringe. Plus there’s the fact that straight dudebro gamers are really nasty with her, and she’s the main companion I always see men put into the slave bikini outfit, and just yikes.

Also just a lot of one-off NPCs that everyone goes crazy for and ships their OCs with, but I  constantly forget who they even are lol. Attros Finn comes to mind. I don’t hate them! Just don’t get the appeal I guess.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Lord Scourge, although I’m not sure he’s really hated as much anymore. I just remember at launch, when all of the overly invested Revan stans absolutely HATED him because of what he did in the Revan novel, and then flooded the tags with vitriol over being “stuck” with him as a Knight, and having to hear about Revan in his companion convos. It was really, really tiresome! Maybe it’s because I never really cared that deeply about Revan as my personal character, but I could not understand the backlash.

Anyway, Lord Scourge is my favorite companion in the game by a long shot. I love the conversations you can have with him about the Jedi vs Sith, and I love the mutually respectful tone those conversations take. (Where other Bioware companions who disagree with you have a tendency to just go, “You’re wrong.” and shut you down.) The fact that he’s so tied in with the plot just makes me love him more, really.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Cytharat, Koth and Theron mostly. Although this takes a bit of explaining, and is a bit Discourse-y – because I really appreciate them as characters, but their role and Bioware’s decisions with them is what made me no longer love them.Here’s the thing: Bioware has a bad habit of introducing male characters that are bisexual, and then having them betray you, leading to situations where they either get murdered or vanish from the narrative entirely. Meanwhile, bisexual women like Lana are untouched and around forever.

I was overjoyed when I first saw Cytharat. Y'all know I’m a ho for purebloods, and the fact that he was Malgus’ apprentice was fascinating to me – and then he turned out to be a bi romance. I got very hyped for him, only to find out he dies like 5 minutes later – or if you save him, he’s never seen again. Huge letdown.

Koth was the first character I fell in love with of the new KOTFE crew – I even initiated a romance with him! – but it quickly became obvious there’s no way to play the expansion without him turning on you judgementally at some point or another. And then, hey big surprise, you can kill him or else he’s never seen again.

Theron I’ve loved since we first got to know him in the Forged Alliances content, but that whole storyline where he seemingly betrays you out of nowhere, only to later reveal he didn’t actually, idk. And then, once again, you either kill him or he disappears from the story. It felt like a weirdly shoehorned in plot for shock value, and robbed us of a second bi MOC character.

You see the trend here? I want to love these characters, but Bioware continually electing to do this shit with bi dudes is tiresome and makes me unwilling to invest any interest in the characters anymore.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

None really come to mind? I just want to be a Jedi, come on.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Hunter all day every day.

The pairing(s) that I love:

Haha, this question is hard, because most of the SWTOR ships I’m invested in are between my OCs and my friends’ OCs.

However.

SCOURGE / KNIGHT IS THE BIG ONE, THE ULTIMATE, THE ALL-TIME FAVORITE. It’s really hard to describe just how much I love this ship, and just how much time and energy I’ve invested into it over the past… 8 years wow……….. To the point of being almost territorial. And it’s also near impossible for me to talk about why I love it, because the version I ship is so personalized with my specific Jedi Knight, especially since it had to live exclusively in headcanon land for so long. Scourge is, more or less, my Knight’s support pillar and the thing that grounds him and keeps him humble, in a world where my Knight is surrounded by people who expect him to be a pure flawless messiah. But, I mean. How can you have a man look at your character and say, “I’ve waited 300 years to see your face.” and not immediately ship it. And then I finally got vindicated after all these years when it was made canon!

I really love Arcann / Knight for a lot of the same reasons as the above, but I just really adore his one (1) romance convo haha. Granted, yes he did a lot of fucked up things, but I was so grateful when he had like… a Zuko-esque redemption. Where he comes to your character and firmly believes he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, and especially doesn’t deserve affection, and is instead met with acceptance and a chance to grow and heal. That’s the good shit.

Others:

Lana / Warrior and Lana / Inquisitor are my particular jam. I endlessly enjoy the mutual respect between Lana and those particular PCs.

Malavai Quinn / Sith Warrior is a longtime fave, and although I DO love him with a female Warrior, I really do with he’d been an option for dudes as well. And I feel the same in reverse about Vette / Warrior – I do like her with a male Warrior, and it’s so sweet and wholesome and endearing, but man I wish she’d been an option for female Warriors.

I ship Risha with every woman – especially Vette and Sumalee – and will be salty until my grave that Risha / f!Smuggler isn’t possible, because I love Risha with the Smuggler but she gives me powerful WLW vibes.

Agent / Watcher Two is also a lowkey favorite, but I ALSO wish it could be done with a female Agent instead. Same with Agent / Raina Temple.

Agent / Vector is very sweet, but again, I will be salty until my grave that it couldn’t be done with a male Agent.

Can you guys sense a running theme here?

Finally: NGL I love Valkorion / Senya, even though that ended in pure disaster.

And people around here used to ship Keeper / Lokin, and tbh, I still kinda love it lol.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

In general terms, I fucking hate every single romance that involves the male PC romancing his padawan or underling, especially since most of them seem like very young girls. I don’t know why this is so pervasive in the game, but yikes Bioware. Consular/Nadia is the worst offender, but they’re all just cringe central for me.

But the big one is Agent / Hunter. This would have gotten me run off Tumblr back in the day, but god I hate this pairing. I mentioned in the last post that I just will never enjoy ships where the two characters actively want to murder each other, but. This just gets magnified for me with Agent/Hunter, where all the mind control and blatant abuse comes into play – and people have a tendency to write noncon rape fic of the two and present it as ~sexy rivalmance~, which is awful. Add to this the “no homo” reveal where Hunter turns out to be a woman, after getting everyone hyped about a dude flirting with their male character the whole game, and it’s just a huge No Thanks from me all around.

And for largely personal reasons I just don’t like seeing female Knights with Scourge. Listen, for YEARS  I was treated like a pariah for shipping Scourge with my male Knight, while being unable to find Scourge content that didn’t have a female Knight plastered all over him. Even though he wasn’t even a romance option one way or another, the way the fandom treated m!Knight/Scourge with disdain while ardently shipping f!Knight/Scourge was offputting as shit. And then, after years, he was made a romance option for women AND men, and all these awful people acted like they were robbed, the way people reacted when Kaidan and Jaal were made bi in Mass Effect. I’m so tired. I never want to see Scourge with a female Knight again.

[deecherrywolf]

My opinions on discourse crap because I see some of it to know it exists and feel like I want to lay out how I feel about each thing so you can either agree w me or think less of me, whatever, here we go -

Klance vs Sheith, Shaladins, and whatever else

This one is probably the discourse I see the least of, but hear the whispers of through people who have seen it? Which thank god, I find this discourse to be the most ridiculous one out of them all. Ship wars aren’t productive, at all. All ship wars accomplish are either 1) pissing off people 2) making shippers hate your ship and 3) scaring people away from the fandom in general. Being hateful in any shape or form in something that is meant to be enjoyable is the worst way you can behave in fandom, imo. The right course of action to something you don’t like in fandom is to ignore it. Going on some sort of witch hunting crusade is pathetic and pointless in fandom. It saddens me to see a bunch of klance fans be all against so many ships and actually lash out at fans over things that are fictional?? Like really guys, all you’re doing is making people hate klance lmao good job.

Sexuality Issues

Okay so with the Second Season, came not only the big old scare of the weblum galra being a girl (?? why is that a scare, we kind of need less dick in the show anyways) and the cute Kallura scenes, people were up in arms defending their Gay Keith headcanons. Which, look, I understand if you want to headcanon your fav as gay, I understand but listen... there are other sexualities aside from hetero and homo... just saying.... But now to probably make some people think less of me. If the creators have any sort of romantic subplot happen (hey Voltron is about saving the universe first and foremost!!) I don’t care if it’s Keith or Lance or not that this happens to - but I want one of the characters to at least say themselves that they like the same sex to an extent. I don’t want a cheap, plastic bone thrown at me by the creators. I want proof inside the show, verbally or physically done by one of the characters.(not that physical, you dirty minds) Until that happens, its all headcanons, which is nice and fine - but lets be real - gay characters are few and far between, bisexual+ even fewer! I want representation. I want one of the heroes to come out and either flirt with the same sex or in passing say they are as such. Some people probably think ‘well, they are already did it with Korra, so you should be happy w what you get’ and yeah, they did, but Avatar didn’t, and oh... how many cartoons that has existed since the dawn of time didn’t?? Just because one exists already doesn’t mean LGBT+ kids don’t deserve more. Basically what I’m trying to say is - If a romantic subplot is ever introduced - I want at least one LGBT+ main good character, shown in canon, not by word of mouth via cast. Will I be mad/disappointed if it doesn’t happen? Probably not, because as previously stated - romance is not the focus of VLD lmao. That is all.

Lotor

Do I even need to state my stance on this? I mean, I write Lancelot fanfiction, I am a part of the discourse lmao ;)

Lance’s Insecurities

A trend that is cropping up, that a friend on twitter made me realize(I won’t name you if you want to keep that opinion on twitter, but ya know who you are c: ), is coddling Lance. I get wanting to explore Lance’s insecurities, I definitely get wanting to have Lance be the center of attention. I love Lance, he is probably my favorite character (w Keith a close second), but I don’t want him coddled. That is the last thing he needs. I think Lance needs to step up on his own two feet, not be held up by the others. Do I find some behaviors from others towards Lance sad? Absolutely. But, Lance isn’t a child nor are the others responsible for his feelings. He is the only one who can make himself grow, the others can help by letting him do this on his own. I hope that in season three, Lance has to face these things - realize he has to and grow from that. Realize he doesn’t need validation from anyone and realize he is important without having someone coddle him over it.

I think that’s it? Well, aside from the age discourse but that counts in the shaladin stuff so whatever. If there is any other discourse stuff that anyone who reads this (lmao no one) wants my take on it, I’ll give it a look. But overall, I don’t see that much discourse on my dash thank god.

Keep my fandoms full of happy please and leave your hateful bullshit outside where it belongs.