#there's the issue with the fetishization of mlm ships

[dxringred]

no, this is not intended to be anti-ste/ddie or mlm ships in general, i’m just an extremely tired lesbian who needs to vent.

i know i’ve already complained once today, but my god am i bitter about the amount of attention ste/ddie gets over ronance. don’t get me wrong, good for them, whatever, but they had significantly less canonical interactions, and yet somehow they’re doing double -- triple -- the numbers, and it infuriates me. i’ve seen numerous ste/ddie posts in my explore page on instagram but only one or two ronance ones despite actively searching for and saving them.

the ste/ddie ao3 tag has triple the amount of fics in it than the ronance tag, and a good 50% of the latter’s are also ste/ddie fics because for some reason people can’t type “background robin buckley/nancy wheeler” instead of the primary ship tag. meanwhile, the ste/ddie tag isn’t being even remotely clogged by ronance fics. and yes, i checked. on the first page, as of writing, ste/ddie only had two non-ste/ddie fics. ronance? thirteen. thir-fucking-teen. out of twenty!

the ronance tag on here? 9k followers, with 111 new posts today. pretty fucking cool! that’s easily the most popular thing i’ve shipped since swan/queen, like, four years ago. okay, well let’s look at ste/ddie.

oh.

29k followers. 489 new posts today.

[sukibenders]

"Why did they make Michael into Michaela? They took away one of the hottest men in Bridgeton now!" Okay, now it's one of the hottest women in the show. What's the issue now? Still got Francesca and Michael, in a way.

"Francesca's infertility plotline is ruined now! It was so important in the books!" Why can't she still have this particular plot, while still being with Michaela? Why is that suddenly erased now that Michael is a woman? Do you not believe that sapphic woman can't also struggle with infertility? There are multiple ways that the show can still incorporate this.

"Why are they making everyone gay now? It was fine when it was just Benedict but now-" I'm going to stop you right there. What's wrong with having more than one queer character? There are multiple straight people in the show, and in most forms of media, but you draw the line at having more than one gay/queer person? Imagine what it's like for other queer people to not be represented or to only have that one person be a vessel for the entire community. Doesn't sound very fair right? Another thing, because I see a lot of people who say this call themselves "allies", it doesn't sound very supportive when you say things like this. It doesn't instill confidence in your support for the queer community when you can't even fathom the possibility of more than one queer person on your screen without complaint. It's okay to be a little bummed out about the change, but to use rhetoric like above feels very...it leaves a sour taste in the mouth personally.

[thebubblesoutlet]

The Bridgerton BOOK fandom is a-ok with a genderbent Sophie because they enjoy fetishizing white mlm ships. It makes no sense for Sophie to be genderbent considering that her main internal struggle has to do with her intersecting gender and class identities.

They're ok with making Eloise a lesbian because according to them all angry feminists must secretly be gay. They're also ok with it because they hate her (borderline emotionally abusive) storyline and have a hard time projecting onto her.

The push back against Fran and Michaela has been interesting to say the least. They're trying to justify their homophobia because of "Fran's fertility issues" as if its something exclusive to heterosexual relationships.

Just very eye opening. Anyways, I'm officially excited for Fran and Michaela, my 2 pretty ladies. I hope Netflix at least tries to protect the actresses, and Masali especially.

P.S i totally get being queer and feeling like eloise is a lesbian. I personally shipped Creloise and I'm still hoping that that relationship will come to fruition. I am in no way referring to the accepting, inclusive show fans. I'm instead SPECIFICALLY referring to a section of white straight women on Instagram and Twitter who don't like outspoken eloise as much as their sweet docile little Fran. Its layers of homophobia and internalised misogyny all wrapped up together tbh. The instances I've discussed in this post are all things I've observed/ seen people who are overly invested in those ridiculously mediocre books discuss these last few days. The only straight bridgerton IMO is daphne😭😭😭😭

[stormsbourne]

alright listen

I know we're all having an evaluation of how eagerly we believe people who present with even the slightest air of authority and frankly good! we all need to be less credulous of people on the internet who tell lies.

but I think there are also other lessons to learn from james somerton. namely about his raging and blatant misogyny, which I've often seen similar forms of in fandom and on this specific site. to paraphrase bombs himself in the ctrl alt del video, if you see shitty behavior within your sphere, it's important to recognize it and try to fix it instead of rejecting it and asserting that no REAL members of the ingroup are like that. and nerds have a misogyny problem. including tumblr. so let's reckon with it.

do you append "white" or "straight" to your comments about women even when those things have little to do with the topic being discussed, just to make your comments seem more legit? (and no, m/m shipping discourse does not give you a ticket to say it's all straight women -- it's fictional characters, james.) do you often theorize about how (hurriedly appended "straight/white/cis") women are responsible for a problem in fandom, nay, all problems in fandom? have you made up a guy based on a single post that annoyed you and extrapolated to say that all (appended signifier to make it ok) women in fandom are like that? do you see women as uniquely fetishizing, uniquely stupid about politics or social issues, uniquely annoying to talk to? do you assume when there's an issue, even a real one and not the fake ones james made up, that a woman is probably at the root of it?

all of this still applies to you if you're a woman. it also applies if you're gay or a person of color or trans. being an oppressed group doesn't mean you are immune from sexism, and sexism is still rampant in everyday life for pretty much everyone.

your shipping and fandom discourse isn't immune from this. no, I'm not talking about how not enough people like yuri. I'm talking about how women who like "bad" ships like r*ylo or whatever are seen as open targets for harassment. how women who are into "bad/problematic" fandoms are seen as idiots and enablers who deserve what they get. how there's an attitude that women who like shitty bad porn must think it's good, must be too stupid to know better, and must need to be handheld and taught about good, acceptable fiction. I've already talked a lot about tumblr's complete refusal to admit that fujoshi wasn't a term coined by delicate japanese mlm to complain about evil women (and I wonder if james contributed to that idiotic concept), but the way I've seen people assert that women into m/m must be straight, must be stupid, must be lying about their identities, must be hurting gay men in real life in addition to wanting some anime boys to kiss ...

I've seen how some of you people talk about amb*r h*ard, is all I'm saying, and I've seen what you've tried to do to dozens of female creatives that, for some reason, you've decided deserve to be taken down or taught a lesson. I've seen the descriptions you use. shrieking, bitchy, whiny, uppity, shrewish, karen (don't get me started on how karen has been turned into an easy excuse for misogyny). you're not bystanders to what james did and is doing, you're a part of it. sure, you might not have the nazi fetish, but you've said things about women that put somerton to shame.

just a thing to keep in mind while the plagiarism discourse is ongoing. somerton is a shithead for many reasons but this is one that's important to remember because I think people often treat misogyny like a lesser crime, a smaller concern, and it's not. just think of what laws are passing and what views popular movements have of women and then, for one moment, consider that maybe your reflexive need to blame women or pick them apart might have been influenced by the Society In Which We Live.

[devondeal]

Long Chaggie rant ahead

I think a reason Chaggie get called "boring" is that they are waayyy past that beginning stage of their relationship TV love to glamorize.

They've been together for three years and already have that comfort level with each other that not everything is a new discovery. They accept each other's differences and just support. That's what a well established relationship is like.

Of course they are still heavily affectionate and loving with each other because duh, they're in love. Society loves to repeat the bullshit "losing the spark" problem in relationships and how "marriage is so hard" but most of these situations are people that barely even like each other let alone love.

I think that's why media loves showing either beginning stage relationships OR trope-y enemies to lovers and variants of that.

ESPECIALLY in the case of queer relationships because it's only fairly recently that it's been normalized onscreen and I don't think we're used to seeing a normal queer relationship. Like think about it.

Media has always loved showing the gays as deviant and toxic because that's been the only way it was allowed to be seen. I think many of us have gotten used to seeing ourselves that way that it's been normalized.

Personally, I'm in the boat of I'm sick being seen as deviant and like it's bad and wrong thing to be in love with someone of the same sex. For me, Chaggie has been healing because it's just two women being a healthy happy couple. Something that society and even family have told me is not possible which hurts beyond words to hear.

So yeah, I love Chaggie. It is the best wlw canon ship in fucking YEARS and I have been craving representation like this. The very things that I get dirty looks at for irl, is completely normal with Chaggie.

They can hold hands, lean in together arm around shoulder, quick casual kisses in public, give each other goo-goo eyes, just general affection and couple-y behavior as well as the "been together for 3 years" quirks and routines. Like I swear I cannot remember any other wlw ship like this so yeah, it's gonna hit me hard in the feels.

And when characters like Lute and Adam are disgusted or fetishize it, it's very obviously portrayed as villainous behavior. Everyone else just accepts them as they are.

Of course it's not just the normalization of those things but specifically in the context of they've been together for 3 years and are still very much in love and have nothing to prove to each other and just face any conflicts as they come like a normal couple.

Most media especially TV have gay couples break up after that amount of time just for drama points and cuz us gays cant ever last in a long term relationship apparently 😒 And I feel like that especially goes for lesbian relationships on TV. I've seen wayyy more long terms mlm relationships than wlw in main roles.

(Wonder if that's cuz it's just so unbelievable that women could actually love each other cuz society just is so attached to the idea that all women hate each other)

Basically fuck Chaggie hate. We need more wlw long term relationships like this onscreen. I'm tired of being seen as deviant and likely to be toxic. And I'm not saying they need to be perfect. They're obviously not and have some issues but that's a good thing. Every couple has issues.

I'm just saying not all gay onscreen need to almost destroy their relationship in order to repair it.

I just really find it incredibly annoying that some will slap the "boring" label on Chaggie when it's more likely that a long term healthy happy wlw relationship is just that bizarre to them. Just let women actually love women for fuck's sake.

[olderthannetfic]

Honestly, the internet and fandom at large has made the words “fetishizing” and “romanticizing” pretty meaningless to me. I’m an aspec nb person who really enjoys a certain mlm ship and it’s hard for me to even like it anymore because in the back of my mind I’m always thinking “but what if I’m just fetishizing this.” I’m constantly checking my groinal reactions to fanfic. I’m pretty sex repulsed so obviously I don’t read sex scenes but I do love romance fic, so even then I’m constantly thinking about my personal reactions to it. Therefore the word fetishizing in regards to mlm fic seems like an attack on me and I know it shouldn’t be that to me because it’s a real issue surrounding queer people but it’s hard for me to take it seriously anymore. It sucks.

--

To be fair, you really shouldn't be taking it seriously when it comes to what you ship or what fiction you like.

Actual fetishizing is annoying dudes thinking "lesbian" means "lady from porn who wants to do a m/f/f three way" or people acting like real live trans women are some sort of weird sex fantasy nonsense.

The dumb fandom misuse is just people being uncomfortable that others aren't sex repulsed and have libidos. "Oh no, you had pantsfeelings, and now you've gotten sin cooties on this media I like!"

Or sometimes, it's just a way of policing all the AFABs and getting mad when we identify with male characters.

Realistically, when people spread this bullshit about fans shipping m/m, it is an attack on you and not at all a real issue.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

While Vivzipop is a very flawed person, Vivzipop haters are just as annoying. People are just constantly either lying, ignorant, or being racist/biphobic about her.

I saw someone saying she was fetishizing wlw??? Bitch she is wlw. Either you don't know what you're talking about or you don't consider bi women to be valid wlw, and in BOTH cases you should shut up.

And people say that Vaggie is a racist depiction of a latina even though Vivzi herself is a Latina and based Vaggie on HERSELF. So either you don't know what you're talking about or you think latinas should only represent themselves in media when it's nice and flowery uwu, and again in both cases you should be quiet.

No actually I think the main issue of Vaggie is naming a lesbian character Vagyna. The issue isn’t that people of various demographics aren’t allowed to align with a stereotype, the issue is that every character she has is one stereotype or another. I think there’s an issue with every mlm character being a perpetrator of sexual violence or a victim to it as a fun gag. I think she’s a terrible writer who doesn’t actually care about anything but shock value and sex jokes.

I think a person in their 20s befriending a quirky Nazi artist and shipping their OC with an AU variant of Josef Mengele maybe has some issues actually.

[they-them-that]

The Complex Misogyny Enacted by Queer Men

Call outs: James Somerton, Trixie Mattel, Katya, Le'Ron Readus, The Roundtable, Rupaul, Karl Lagerfeld, Dolce and Gabana

With the James Somerton scandal, although I only watched some of his videos in passing, it has definitely made me make sure to be more vigilant about the content I consume and how they source.

I also want to address James' misogyny, something that tragically isn't unique to him. The "straight girl" scapegoat many queer men target has bothered me for a long time. They try to frame it in a way that is "punching up" at the privileged but their problem is entirely against them being women. Trixie Mattel has a habit of complaining about "straight" girls that has put me off, especially when her complaints are incredibly presumptuous and small minded. We wouldn't know random women's sexuality yet we choose to assume they're straight so we can openly ridicule them. Even if these women are straight, the problems queer men levy towards them doesn't so much call out any discriminatory behavior as it is shaming women for what they think is "shrill", "annoying", or just for sharing a space with them.

I recall an episode of UNHhhh where Trixie and Katya said how straight people are guests in queer spaces and in the same way, they can be "uninvited". Even though they use a gender neutral term here, we know that the bulk of straight people who attend queer events are women. In the same way that queer spaces are a safe space for gay men, it's also a safe space for women who want to avoid sexual advancements and sexual violence. Gay men overlook women's issues and needs when they find their presence inconvenient despite women posing little threat to them.

I've also seen the way queer men target queer women when they feel like they've been benefiting more than them. James Somerton, La'Ron Readus, and Tom from The Roundtable have all argued how the ratio of wlw representation in media compared to mlm is due to favouritism towards wlw relationships. This is a pure assumption, at the point they made this argument, we never heard of a canon mlm relationship being shot down by TV or movies and the accusers provided no examples of such, just that wlw representation has been making a breakthrough at the time thanks to the vehement pushing of its writers and show creators. It has nothing to do with preferences for wlw relationships as these studios have tried to stop it and still push back against it to "appeal to a broad audience". It just so happens that the queer creatives who have made waves for representation wanted to represent queer femmes, most identifying closely with sapphic experiences. To underestimate the amount of discrimination these queer creators got for getting wlw representation out there by assuming they have some type of privilege over queer CIS men is grossly ignorant. Although mlm representation is important, it's upsetting to see queer men look at wlw representation and respond with jealousy, unknowing of how queerness already centralizes them. RuPaul's Drag Race, for example, was only allowed for CIS men before trans women were recognized as legitimate drag performers, many of the "CIS" contestants turning out to be trans women. Drag kings still have not made any appearances on the show and are still overlooked and undervalued in the Drag community.

Even though queer men cry for their turn when it comes to something like queer representation in the media (even though it exists, they just have a problem with women having more than them), they don't bat an eye in the way queer men dominate places like the fashion industry that heavily discriminate against women (Karl Lagerfeld and Dolce and Gabana being infamously misogynistic). They also wince at gay shipping culture and mlm representation when it's created by women, accusing them of fetishism, something I've been guilty of in the past. Although, there's an understandable desire for mlm content that is also written by queer men and discomfort about women being voyeurs in gay fiction, we're also assuming these women aren't queer themselves or that they even identify as women. Love Simon's author, Becky Albertalli was forced to come out as bisexual after years of scrutiny for being a "straight woman profiting off of queer romance".

"I legitimately didn't realize. I'm thirty-seven years old. I've been happily married to a guy for almost ten years. I have two kids and a cat. I've never kissed a girl. I never even realized I wanted to. But if I rewind further, I'm pretty sure I've had crushes on boys and girls for most of my life. I just didn't realize the girl crushes were crushes."

There is an oversight on how many people divulge in queer fiction in order to explore their sexuality and gender long before they even consider that they could be queer themselves (I know that was my experience). But even with straight women, many of them are actually drawn to gay fiction because it subtracts women from the equation. Female characters are subject to sexist tropes and many of their romances are imbalanced and toxic. Gay fiction has been a way for women to enjoy romance without feeling the weight of patriarchy through femme-presenting characters.

All this to say that misogyny is still fervent in the queer community and queer men do not get a pass on how they talk about and treat women. I noticed that the most privileged of the queer community, that being White CIS gay men, are the ones who act the most entitled in the queer spaces they enter, not the "straight" women they constantly antagonize. Queer men still struggle with what all men struggle with and that's acknowledging their privileges. Even if they swear their problem with women is because of their sexuality, it really ends up coming down to their gender.

[cringengl]

"Delusional fangirls": the 'never ending story' of the dismissal of byler being rooted in misogyny.

As someone who is passionate about both feminism and fandom culture, when I got sent this ask a little less than a month ago, it made me ask myself the question on why shipping byler has been viewed in such a negative light, and you'll never guess, but it's rooted in misogyny.

Even if this ask is a troll, it's clearly replicating what can be seen not just in the Stranger Things fandom, but in general fandom culture, showing the prevalence of this issue. Although this post will be looking specifically at byler, what I'm discussing in this post isn't an issue specific to byler, even if I will be considering some things that are byler specific, such as the likelihood of byler endgame.

Before we start, I just want to talk about why I'm talking about misogyny instead of homophobia (though homophobia will be discussed a little later but it's not going to be the main focus of this post). Homophobia and why people dismiss byler has already been talked about a lot (for example, I've seen posts about people saying that making byler endgame would be a 'risky' move and as Stranger Things produces a lot of money for Netflix, therefore they won't do it, the belief that they wouldn't/shouldn't break up a heterosexual ship for a homosexual one or the failure to put Will outside the 'tragic story of a gay kid that falls for their straight best friend' box).

The dismissal of byler as a 'valid' ship is just as much down to misogyny as it is homophobia and it's an issue that I haven't seen as talked about, likely due to how byler is made up of two guys. If anything I've seen way more people call the byler community misogynistic, and whilst these things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, I do want to open up the conversation about how misogyny deeply affects the public perception of byler and byler shippers as well as talk about how ingrained misogyny is in fandom culture.

The average dismissal of byler as a ship tends to look like this:

All bylers are teen girls.

All bylers are stupid and delusional.

The motivation to ship byler is born out of a fetish of mlm relationships.

Not only is this a summary of what that anon sent me in May, but it's also a rhetoric that can be seen across multiple anti byler statements/posts/comments etc. It's way more common than you may think.

So what is the fangirl stereotype?

A fangirl by Oxford dictionary definition is mainly characterised by the word "obsessive", which has been constantly portrayed in a negative light by the media, and isn't exactly a new phenomenon, with Beatlemaniacs being called "the dull, the idle, the failures" in a 1964 New Statesman article. In fact it hasn't been until the 2020s where the epidemic of constantly making fun of teen girls has finally been criticised.

The most common stereotype of a fangirl is someone who is screaming, crazy and rabid, with "rabid fangirl" having its own Urban Dictionary definition.

Even fangirls of fanbases that are most notorious for 'crazy, rabid fans' have come out and said that they have been misrepresented, such as the comments section of this documentary about One Direction fans made by Channel 4 in 2013.

The stereotype of having a fetish for mlm relationships.

Another common stereotype of fangirls is the fetishization of mlm relationships. Whilst this is a very real issue that needs to be addressed properly, I very clearly remember seeing women talking about "getting off" to scenes in Call Me By Your Name when the movie first came out, however this accusation is often misplaced, meaning it loses it's power as an accusation, leading to the perception that it isn't as big of an issue that it actually is.

Girls, women or even afab or feminine presenting people who ship two men together are often seen as people with fetishes and accused of such. Not only is this sexist as it assumes that women's interests are sexually motivated, but it also reduces women's intelligence by suggesting that the only reason that they are interested in it is because of a sexual factor. This also ties back to the oversexualisation of gay relationships due to traditional, religious, conservative roots- classic homophobia.

And whilst this might sometimes be the case, this ideology ignores something extremely obvious: not all fangirls are straight (which clearly shows why we need lesbian visibility day haha).

This era we are in right now seems to be the dawn of LGBTQ+ rep that seems to be more and more prevalent and the amount of mainstream movies and TV shows that have positive and well developed queer rep is growing day by day. However, queer representation had been previously very hard to find and even now is not perfect (remember that one lesbian purple cyclops from Onward that appeared for like 10 seconds, said the easily censorable word "girlfriend", and was then never seen again??).

Whilst fandom spaces with TV shows and movies such as Stranger Things may have lots of female or female presenting/aligned people, there is also an abundance of queer people in almost any fandom, especially one with existing queer characters or ones that claim to be "an anthem for the marginalised and imperfect", which of course leads to the abundance of queer women, and can also be seen in the byler tag.

However I do want to point out that obviously not all people in fandom spaces and the byler tag are female and/or queer, but a lot of them are and this does vary fandom to fandom. Furthermore, I really don't know the actual ratio of different genders specifically in the Stranger Things and byler fandom- however I feel that it doesn't matter as shipping and other fandom traditions have been associated with teen girls and women anyway. The suggestion that all bylers are teen girls is a sweeping overgeneralisation and the fact that it's used as an insult and a way to demean this ship is sexist.

Queer representation and shipping mlm ships- even if they are not canon.

So how does this link to the abundance of shipping male characters? This is clearly something that has been going on for a long time, as illustrated beautifully through this reddit post:

And you might be wondering that if there are a lot of queer women in these spaces, then why isn't there more sapphic ships? And of course the answer is misogyny.

Women in TV shows and movies are so often underdeveloped and fall victim to millions of sexist stereotypes that make them unlikeable and boring, such as 'damsel in distress', 'strong and unfeeling' or they just have a 2D personality. Furthermore, female characters in media are just less numerous in media. All of this is is we have measures of the Bechdel test.

This is also not helped by the constant cancellation of wlw shows after only one season, which does not allow for the development of the characters or their relationship (I Am Not Okay With This, Warrior Nun, First Kill, Willow, Paper Girls etc).

This idea is only supported by the arcane fandom, where the most prevalent ship is Caitlyn/Vi on pretty much every social media site and ao3, likely due to the focus and development on their relationship.

Moreover, male friendships often have a lot more focus on them than female characters and their relationships. This was particularly obvious and blatant in My Hero Academia, where despite Deku and Uraraka (the het ship) being set up to be endgame, the main relationship that has the most focus and development is the one between Deku and his friend turned enemy turned rival turned best friend (??) Bakugo.

Whilst positive and intricate male friendships are never a bad thing, it does become very annoying very fast when those pieces of media also push female characters to the sidelines (and then also oversexualise them, which is often seen particularly in anime and manga such as mha).

So it's no coincidence when mlm relationships become more popular through the want for queer representation, female characters being ignored and the male characters and friendships having better development (as well as the use of queerbait to bring in a wider audience). However, other fans with little critical thinking skills and the general audience tend to jump to the conclusion that the amount of mlm ships that include straight men (even though these 'straight' men are fictional and don't have confirmed sexualities) is due to fetishization and fans being "weird and delusional".

Back to byler.

So let's link this back to byler. One thing that drew me to make this post is due to how bylers have been called "delusional" which was a specific word I saw byler shippers being called a lot in the June/July era.

Even the word "delusional" implies a detachment from reality and one of the most common sexist views is that women can't lead or make good decisions due to their supposed inherent irrationality, which is apparently caused by hormones and being over emotional (despite testosterone being used as an excuse for cheating- high sex drive- and aggression issues as well as anger not being counted as an emotion. One of the biggest reasons that the stereotypes around fangirls are rooted in misogyny is due to the polar opposite treatment of male sports fans, which if you remember the insane violence that occurred when the fake Tubi ad appeared to disrupt the Super Bowl, this idea is insanely hypocritical).

It confused me as even from a general audience perspective, it would seem that byler at least had a decent chance of becoming endgame, so why is it being so easily dismissed?

It is because shipping, especially mlm ships, are strongly associated with fangirls and are therefore seen as weak, delusional and irrational, not something to be taken seriously and likely the product of a fetish.

Not only is this harmful for the perception of mlm relationships in media, but it also promotes internalised misogyny- distancing yourselves from "rabid fangirls" as soon as possible so that your not seen as one and are instead seen as more rational and sensible.

The powerful arc that Mike and Will have gone through for four seasons now doesn't matter, nor the fact that El's independence is linked with Mike's absence or even what the implications of mleven endgame for not just a queer audience but a general audience would be. None of that matters as ships like byler aren't taken seriously, they're dismissed, due to misogyny (and homophobia).

In conclusion, fuck the patriarchy, let's change fandom culture for the better.

Links to things I watched/read in order to help make this post (not including the misogynistic and homophobic is reddit/tumblr/twitter posts lol):

(Do bear in mind that these tend to talk more about music fans/fandom rather than TV shows)

Frailty, Thy Name Is Fangirl: Misogyny and Fandom Culture

Shaming Fangirls: A Practice Rooted In Sexism

How misogyny-laced comments, actions in fan culture can drive others out

Ted talk: For the love of Fangirls | Yve Blake

From Beatlemania to the Beliebers, What Makes a ‘Fangirl’?

The Channel 4 Crazy About One Direction documentary and the ad for the documentary

Fetishizing Gay Relationship: When Ship and Fan Fiction Turn Toxic

[aphverse-confessions]

Hello hi, self-proclaimed favourite anon here to respond to anon who said that Jess being an irl shipper/mlm fetishizer isn't exactly the most pressing issue compared to everything else (link for everyones convenience -> https://tinyurl.com/response-to-original-anon). Personally speaking (and no shade to anon at all) Jess's fetishization of mlm being dismissed as a 'non-issue' is… a little frustrating since the fetishization of mlm is a very real issue a part of a larger issue of Jess's treatment of queer people and queer relationships. Warning: This will get lengthy because I do want to articulate why I included Jess's fetishization of mlm and her Septiplier involvement and to provide a broader perspective of all of the issues with the former has caused. I want to be as thorough as possible with writing a response to the original anon.

My point was Jess used MLM and queer ships to fuel her own amusement/fantasies but doesn't show ANY queer relationships and queer folk at all. To Jess, queer men were objects to get off to and find amusement in, Jess could toy around with and discard when she gets bored. Jess's fetishization and queerbaiting very much go hand-in-hand together because she didn't treat queer relationships as a tangible relationship for the characters but she still used the chance that these relationships could have any screentime to string her fanbase along. Look at Garrance in MyStreet and MCD. Back in MyStreet, Laurence wanted to kiss Aphmau in a Romeo-Juliet play so he used a potion that would switch Garroth out (since Garroth was Romeo and Aph was Juliet). Hijinks ensue, Laurence swaps out Aphmau, he and Garroth kiss and there's a HUGE spectacle made about it. Both of these men DID NOT want the kiss, they were reacting quite badly to it actually. It VERY MUCH was fuel to the fanbases love for Garrance in MCD as people read the queer undertones between the two characters.

To my memory, I don't think Jess didn't confirm that Laurence nor Garroth were ever queer or expressed interest in men. Their sexualities were very much written to be straight as Garroth and Laurence only pursue women: yet in MyStreet and MCD they were pushed into a compromising situation where they had a kiss with another queer man + Garroth and Laurence both did the devils tango with one another according to 'The-List™'. Garrance is deeply important to this fanbase because a majority of people are queer, and Garrance was very much their exposure to queer relationships and queerness in general. To have two fleshed out characters have the possibility of being in an actual relationship was deeply important to people.

Jess hyping up the idea that Garroth and Laurence could have an actual queer relationship despite never explicitly making/stating either characters queer, a relationship Jess herself supported amongst fan to just…. NEVER follow through with it nor even bother showing that either character is queer despite putting them in situations where they can be read as quer, isn't just queerbaiting you're fucking queerfishing with hook line and sinker. Something Jason Bravura himself agreed with (link -> https://tinyurl.com/jason-admits-the-queerbaiting), Jess was writing MLM to string fans along and for her own amusement. Jess never bothered to confirm Garroth or Laurence queer, Jess never bothered to confirm or show that Garroth or Laurence had an attraction to men, Jess never bothered to even put Garrance as an actual possibility aside from subtext and blatant queerbaiting. She only portrays Garrance to be put in wACkY situations to be made a spectacle out of and to string along fans.

Also anon, I'm going to be blunt here: you're absolutely downplaying the extent of Jess's involvement with Septiplier to 'Jessica thinking it’d be cool if two YouTubers kissed in 2016'. Alongside the link to her tweet about Septiplier, I included a link of a person reacting to a whole ass VIDEO of Jess CREATING a whole ass Septiplier fanfiction for her own amusement. The entire premise of the whole video was Jess making an entire fanfiction and having her characters roleplay to said fanfiction. Like, Jess sat down, decided that she will write a romantic fanfiction between two real breathing men, will make an entire video dedicated to roleplaying this fanfiction, even telling audience that "if you enjoyed this fanfiction, leave a like + comment + subscribe and don't tell mark or jack about this please". And mind you, this is all from watching 1 minute and 30 seconds of the video. I implore anon and everyone else to watch this clip of the video (since the other video is an hour long react) for yourselves if you wanna confirm -> (https://tinyurl.com/jess-septi-video)

Jess profited off of violating the boundries of two men and their discomfort, acknowledge how uncomfortable this entire fucking video will be (don't tell mark and jack, amiright) and profited off of said discomfort. Holy shit, Jess had a whole ass room DISPLAYING Septiplier fanart and she was super giddy about roleplaying this fanfiction for her own amusement. And mind you, she was fully aware of the consequences that real life "shipping" causes between two people as seen with the linked -> (https://tinyurl.com/max-ross-ship-tweet)…. Like, anon do you not see the issue with her fetishizing this relationship??? It's one thing to privately write fiction and ship two real people, and it's another to make it a whole ass fanfiction to make a fucking video milking the hype between the relationship of two real people.

Like… that IS really questionable behaviour for Jess. It's really questionable that Jess, who was 23 years old, was actively treating the relationship between two REAL men as amusement and content to profit off of. It's really questionable that Jess presented the idea of a queer relationship between two men, hyped up that relationship to her very much closeted/queer fanbase and NEVER bothered to canonize either men as queer or their relationship.

Everything I have mentioned above is JUST one side of the coin. In a vaccum, its not an issue if Jess enjoys MLM pairings and/or 'it’d be cool if two youTubers kissed'. The other side of the coin is that there has been REAL tangible HARM that Jess contributed to. There's a reason why Jess took down that horrendous video because it ABSOLUTELY contributed to the disgusting sexual harassment Mark and Jack received; she was a stupidly popular youtuber making roleplays and feeding into the Septiplier hype of the 2010s. The reason I say she fetishizes MLM because Jess didn't treat queer men or mlm romance as actual who are worthy of respect, she used it for silly scenarios to hype up the shippers and to string along her fans. Jess absolutely contributed to the social-othering queer men faced online, seeing them as 'exotic' spectacles to be gawked at and admired yet simultaniously be disrespected and seen as toys to be discarded off once the awe wears off. Queer people and their queer romance is sexy and hot for straight people to get off to, but god forbid we actually make it serious and have queer people have queer romances that aren't just kiss teases or ship bait. Jess wasn't some teenager who had an underdeveloped perspective of queer people and queer relationships, she was a grown ass woman making these videos and making these decisions and DISREGARDED all of the potential harm that it would cause to people.

When you step back and consider the implications of Jess's actions, yea its. Not really a non issue now it is? It's absolutely awful behaviour and awful actions that were done, and as a queer person themselves, it's fucking uncomfortable as shit to look back upon. Watching that Septiplier clip just, felt like I was being lobotmized by a yaoi paddle while sitting in a sharpie bath. It was uncomfortable to see how queer romance was to be gawked and oogled at and feeling so othered by it. It's really uncomfortable and I would not invite Jess and Jason to the Aphblr Pride Parade, they get to watch from a safe distance in the safety of an Arby's parking lot. Regardless, this was a super lengthy response so as compensation here is your shrimp for reading it to the end 🦐

.

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

hey i noticed an anon mentioned submitting a lot of arcana characters and i wanted to pop in to say that that game is a racist, fetishizing mess. not only do they have a brown character who is kept literally in chains and is a vessel for one of the writers’ thinly veiled bucky barnes slavery kink, one of the bad endings features their fantasy-jewish-coded character turning into a literal bird, not to mention his numerous bird motifs.

between asra, nadia, and julian, asra and nadia are clearly more sexualized throughout the course of the game, even when fans have asked them to tone it down and stop fetishizing their “exotic” brown characters.

the fandom is and has been historically overwhelmingly hostile to fans/people of color who try to mention these problems. fans of color trying to dissuade people from writing nadia as a step on me dommy mommy queen have been shut down by elle trying to spin it into a “women can be dommes too!” issue, when the problem is that nobody would be treating nadia like this if she was white. asra gets his paid scenes hijacked by the white LI and then is painted as the toxic one in his and julian’s relationship (of which is only there due to elle’s mlm abuse fetishization) because god forbid their favorite white boy isn’t a perpetual victim.

outside of the game itself, dana rune has run a fanzine about an incestuous fire emblem fates ship (corrin/ryoma/xander) and further information can be found at the relations_zine handle on twitter. she may have scrubbed her name from it but it’s clearly her art style lmfao, and iirc she’s still in the followers/following list on that account. elle has a long history of fetishizing mlm abuse/slavery/“yaoi” on their tumblr that they’ve since deleted, but like. i googled “elle thalassiq fetishizing mlm” and immediately found posts with thorough screenshots so it existed lmfao. and even if it didn’t, it’s very evident with how they treat asra/julian/muriel.

this is heated and not thorough, but i’d like to end this by saying that this is coming from a former fan who eventually had to leave the game and fandom altogether because of the compounded issues that were never addressed, brushed under the rug, or actively encouraged time and time again. do not play the arcana. there are better games out there. and the last i was in it, the fandom was a toxic cesspool that would attack anyone, especially fans of color, who ever voiced a dissenting opinion about anything in the game. i hold my queer media to better standards and you should too. this game does not treat dark, heavy topics with respect, it treats them as fetish fodder.

Okay, I figured something like this would hit this blog eventually. The point of this blog is not for me take a stance and say what media is good and what media is bad. I am not brushing off your concerns - that’s a whole lot of awful information, and from me posting your ask, people can make their own choice about wether they want to engage with the game or the fandom. But I am just one person, and I don’t know anything about 90% of the media that is submitted here. If I excluded every piece of media that someone said was below a standard, I wouldn’t have any media left. This blog is simply a recognition game, I’m not trying to promote these pieces of media. I’m not saying that because they have queer characters that they’re fantastic or anything like that. I’m not taking any stance on any of it, actually.

This isn’t about the quality of a media, the quality of a fandom, or the quality of the representation that a character represents. It’s just a recognition game.

I am not going to get into any of these debates myself, since I know almost nothing about most fandoms here, but if you have serious concerns with a particular media posted here, send in an ask like this detailing the problems and I will post it, so that people looking at this blog can see valid criticisms before diving into a new piece of media.

As a further note, racist and antisemetic comments or tags on any post will be blocked on sight.

I will tag all asks like this with “media critical”.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

This is more general fic related, but I am curious what your take on it might be. I've enjoyed your thoughts on fanworks and this particular bugbear has been gnawing at me for years.

There's a trend in some fandoms to take a (usually) mlm relationship, both canon and fanon, and turn one party into a cisgender woman. A genderswap AU where both characters are cisgender women (or men, though I have yet to see this specific occurrence with wlw ships) or one comes out as trans are not the same thing as what I mean here. It would specifically be a cisgender woman, thereby turning a queer relationship cishet.

It was popular in the Gotham tv series fandom to turn the canonically queer Oswald Cobblepot into a straight woman and then ship her with Oswald's canon love interest, Edward Nygma*. It was also always Oswald who got this treatment, never Edward. To me, this reads as "straightwashing" a queer relationship to make it more palatable, as though they enjoy the canon dynamic but dislike the fact that it is queer. So they turn one half of the pair into a woman.

So at the end of all that explanation my question is, what do you think of this occurrence? Am I wrong in thinking it happens because someone doesn't like the queerness of some ships?

Also, I am glad to say that I have yet to see this turn up in OFMD fanworks. There are plenty of genderswaps and trans headcanons, which I welcome gladly, but thankfully I have not seen Stede as a cishet woman and Ed as her equally cishet boyfriend...yet.

*Oswald/Edward is canon, though it was only confirmed as romantic on Oswald's part, making him at least canonically queer. Edward's sexuality and the nature of his feelings for Oswald were left open to interpretation.

So I haven't seen this particular thing in action, as my fandoms are generally relegated to OFMD, The Avengers (UK) (very cis het but quite kinky couples), and a bit of Good Omens. So I'm taking this as it's offered and assuming that what is being described here is accurate.

Fandom, and especially shipping fandom, trends female and cisgender (and white, but that doesn't seem to be the thing at issue here). This varies from fandom to fandom, of course, but that's a general trend. It's often hard to really get down to demographics on who ships what and how, in part because a lot of fandom is anonymous and based on people deciding to disclose gender/race/sexuality/etc.

What is being described above does read to me like straightwashing a gay couple/ship to an author's preferences, for whatever reason. This could just be personal desires or interest in dynamics, but it does have the effect of taking a semi-canon queer couple and turning them cishet for the sake of...something. Hard not to see something at least a little problematic going on there.

I think that there may be a bit of self-insert going on, as well, and this is where we get into that problem of cis women placing themselves into gay male ships. This gets into what I would call a porn aesthetic from the perspective of a cis woman - fantasizing about being with/being part of a gay male couple. We gotta be careful there because female fans tend to get marginalized for shipping two male characters together and are often accused of fetishizing gay men, and of course this is all fantasy anyway. But while I do not at all think that the majority of fandom shipping is fetishization, there are times when it does cross over into that and should be considered and interrogated a bit more. I wouldn't apply a blanket statement to it, but consider the media itself, what is canon/what isn't canon, and what the goal is of an individual author/artist/fan. There's nothing really wrong with self-insert, but it does become something we should think about in context of the specific media involved.

(I'm very much someone who believes that fic/art is fair game and that it should not be censored in any way, but also that all fic/art can be critiqued in the same way anything else can, and indeed should be. No art can develop if we're not allowed to critique it.)

[acewitch-writes]

hi I am the last anon from 2017 marauders fandom. it’s just silly to me cause, like, sirius is the one with the fucked up family background who covers it up with bravado and cockiness? remus is the one with a personal secret that makes him fear getting close to others.

Exactly! In canon, Remus was very isolated until he started attending Hogwarts. I bet he was super weird and awkward and riddled with anxiety and that's where the nickname "Loony Loopy Lupin" came from. I really don't understand why the fandom has rejected this version of Remus because I personally find him SO likeable and relatable? Every time I try to think of a reason that might explain it, it always leads right back to internalized misogyny, heteronormativity, and the fetishization of mlm.

This new, tough guy Remus resonated with people. I guess being a dominating asshole with a footlong schlong and explosive anger issues is soooo attractive when you're an abused orphan 7 ft tall werewolf with the darkest and most checkered past out of ANYONE ELSE

It's no coincidence that Sirius (who used to be portrayed as cooler, taller, more masculine, dominant, whathaveyou) is now unrecognizable in so many fics today. I wish this fandom would reflect on the reason WHY that is, because it's incredibly problematic that we as a fandom felt the need to dumb down and soften one half of an mlm ship in response to the hyper masculinization of Remus in recent years. Why does Sirius have to be ditzy? Short and delicate and dainty and hairless? Does femininity = small, weak, overdramatic, helpless, porcelain damsel in need of a big strong man to save the day?

I love a feminine Sirius when it's done well. I've written him that way myself. Sirius can be feminine AND a top AND smart AND strong AND tall AND cool AND badass. So please, let's stop trying to shove our mlm ships into small-minded stereotypes of femininity and masculinity.

[fandomfluffandfuck]

Hi S! I’ve been wondering. I know some (gay/bi/…) men hate it when women write m|m. And well as a woman. I love to read and write m|m. I find it way more intriguing than m|w or w|w. (I don’t even know why.) I mean, I love Stucky and Evanstan and I’ve been writing my own OCs story (without smut, cos I can’t know how it feels to be hard and shit like that, and heterosexualisation)

Anyway so this got me thinking about how you might feel about this. Because I don’t want to hurt people and your opinion kinda matters to me. I look up to you even though I think we’re the same age.

Bye and thx 💙❤️

Hey, sweets!

First, I have to stay, I can completely relate to this. I've had--few and far between, but still, it's happened--people ask/request me to write smut with genderbent stucky with Steve and Bucky both as women. And, yeah, I always have hesitations about it. So, I've never actually done it, lmao. I, personally, always feel weird about it because of the history of men (usually straight men, but, I'm clearly not that 💀 so we'll go with men who are attracted to women exclusively or otherwise) fetishizing lesbians.

Realistically, going outside and touching grass, I'm of the opinion that this is fiction. We're writing fictional stories. It doesn't bleed into my real life. I understand the difference between fantasy and reality, and I try to assert that on my blog. So, in theory, it is harmless. But, funnily enough, just like you, I also don't feel qualified to make that judgment. I always try to mark my fics appropriately--whether it's me, as a man, writing about women or it's me writing about a subject I am not an expert in like history, specific careers or jobs, legal issues, exact timelines of canon, etc., etc.-- that way, appropriate readers will continue if it doesn't bother them, and other readers will move on if it does. Of course, there will always be people who ignore those tags or are outraged by it existing to begin with and... there's no pleasing those people. So. They don't bother me. The tags are there. The warnings are present. So, it's their responsibility as a reader to act appropriately from then on. I can't do it for them.

Anyway, my ramblings aside--

It doesn't bother me when straight, cis women write mlm fanfiction! It doesn't bother me when women write mlm fanfiction at all.

Obviously, there would (and probably will) be outliers in women who have unchecked homophobia/transphobia/general queerphobia that is expressed through their writing but... I have yet to come across that. So, I don't really care.

Think of it, like, I don't have a problem when straight, cis women talk to or about gay/bi/queer men. It only crosses a line for me when those women start to think they know better about the the queer community and talk over queer men. (And the fact that you're concerned about it being strange points toward you not being like that. Not crossing that line.) Or, because I like to explain everything to death, think of it like like acting. I am of the opinion that I don't need every queer character to be played by a queer actor--what I want is fair representation and job opportunities for queer actors in Hollywood across the board, not necessarily the ability for only them to own those roles. Some straight and cis actors might not have the range or ability to play a queer character, and so they don't. However, straight and cis actors exist that can portray queer characters in vibrancy and outside of harmful contexts. What makes those actors good? Their ability to learn and understand queer people as people. Clearly, you, anon, want to learn and understand. That's good!

Fetishizing, I obviously understand, can be some people's fear but with fanfiction... again, it's fantasy.

(That, and, my understanding, is that mlm ships are more common because of men often being written more in-depth and more readily available in media within the patriarchal society we have constructed and because it can be refreshing to completely take yourself out of fantasy and pleasure and that sort of thing when it is so taboo in our society (especially women's pleasure). Which, mlm relationships provide more so than mlw or wlw. So, I can understand the appeal!)

I will say there's a layer to my answer, too, of how much a lot of fandon spaces can feel like women's spaces to me. Obviously, it's not all women, and I know that well. There are lots of nonbinary people and men around here! Though, fandom has been something that has, from my knowledge, been dominated by women historically. And while I love seeing more diversity in fandom as people of all types embrace and love the art that speaks to them with wild passion, I still see a lot, lot of women. So, I don't feel like it's my place as a man to police the space and say what belongs or doesn't belong, y'know? I'm just here enjoying my time. And with all the incredible fanfiction that's out there that has been written about mlm ships by straight women, cis or trans, I wouldn't want to change that.

So, TLDR; I don't mind when women write about queer men, whether they themselves are straight or not. Obviously, there are limits to that, and harm can be done when straight women try to speak over queer men (queer people generally, too), but it seems like with your concern for the topic you'll do just fine. So, go out there and write!

P.S. thinking about sensations in smut... you might be interested in these two drabbles I've written 👀

[cogaytes]

i saw the woobification thing! although i havent interacted with the fandom long enough to get a concrete feeling of how far it goes with, well most of the characters, but tam and linh specifically. curious what u think abt it and if u could clear it up a bit!

the best comparison i can think of is low key the way white people in the kpop fandom tend to talk about the idols? where there's this weird idealization of them as soft and sensitive but refusing to show that part of themselves because they're too dark and mysterious and bad and whatever. but a lot of the time they do that in a kind of feminizing way which plays into that stereotype of asian men not being masculine; for instance, i've seen people in both fandoms post about how tam/an idol "still enjoys feminine things like makeup." obviously i am in favor of breaking down the gender binary around activities, but when you're headcanoning just tam as someone who acts less masculine and not doing the same for other characters like fitz or dex it gets kind of weird! i also see him headcanoned as short a lot, but in a "uwu small angry cinnamon roll pouty face" way that kind of woobifies him? and i guess in general the parallels just rub me the wrong way a little because they remind me very much of the low key fetishization of kpop idols (how they get written as shy and uwu and sensitive and emo).

there's also a huge tendency to headcanon tam as mlm/transmasc (which inherently isn't bad! i'm queer and nonbinary and i love headcanoning characters as queer and nonbinary too! but i feel kind of weird about how tam gets so consistently headcanoned as gay and trans), which also happens a lot in kpop fandoms. and again, nothing wrong with trans/queer headcanons or even trans/queer headcanons of asians folks specifically, but i think there's kind of a pattern of people immediately deciding asian men have "lgbtq vibes" and it's got some funky implications.

i guess i'm saying people need to think very hard about what about asian men makes them want to hc them as trans/queer and what that says about how they think about asian/lgbtq men. because asian men tend to be seen as less masculine/more feminine and softer than white men, and it kind of feels like people headcanon them as trans/queer because there's an association of softness/femininity with queer men and with trans men. which is also playing into a shitty transphobic/homophobic stereotype as well as a racist one. folks also tend to feminize him more when shipping him with other male characters, which kind of implies that there needs to be a masculine and feminine man in mlm relationships.

just gonna close off by quoting some stuff i've seen in posts, not to call anyone out specifically, but to demonstrate how pervasive an issue i feel it is:

"loner energy" "dramatic emo" "skater grunge aesthetic" "my chemical romance"

"tam is the moodiest...person ever"

"his shove his feelings in a bottle mentality is showing"

"he keeps his curiosity under lock and key hidden underneath his prickly attitude"

"his s/o's parents probably wouldn't like him [at first] because of his exterior, but love him once they realize he's really just a lovesick puppy for his s/o"

"is never turned off by feminine activities"

"tam and dex both scream gay to me. like they are either gay or aroace because i just can't see them liking women"

[heavenlyhandscribbles]

Alright I'm Back

Gay trans men protecting their safe space and implementing boundaries is not grooming, nor is it misogyny. We've been fetishized like many other queer people who exist on this space that is tumblr. WLW and NBLM have been so long fetishized through fics and esp through corn, but unfortunately it's occurred for too long. But thankfully this is tumblr, and you can put something called a DNI. And MLM and NBLM are utilizing that as well now, since it's hard to not come across a cis woman who HASN'T written some sort of queer ship and severely fucked it up and fetishized people like us. It happens everyday, and it keeps happening and it probably won't stop happening. But the best we can do, is politely ask people to not read our work if they are women. This isn't new, you just haven't been on a queer man's side of tumblr, so you haven't seen it. We have been curating our spaces for far too long, and until the cis heteronormative society heals itself from years of embedded racism that's lead to every other issues, it will most likely never change.

You cannot ask us to change your need to glance at us like we are an object.

If you ARE AND MLM AND NBLM READER,

@beautifulblooms (sfw only)

@eddieverse (funny person, sends good reqs, writing coming soon)

@alexs-playground (sfw and nsfw)

@mlmmetalhead (also a fantastic nsfw writer and SFW WRITER)

@bakeryblood (fantastic nsfw writer and sfw writer)