#where apparently the shippers were being oppressed or something by the fandom

[yarrayora]

kuromahi baking halloween cookies based on this servamp kinkmeme

Note: this fic is part of the kinkmeme prompt, where everyone who see it is encouraged to write their own version of it even if there are already others who filled it read more about it here

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A lot of people said that cooking was like art where you didn't have to follow the recipes accurately to get good results but baking was science where a single mistake could lead to a disaster. Mahiru thought it was a stupid comparison. His hamburg steak still turned out tasty even though he no longer looked at recipes because he already figured out how to make it tasty.

Meanwhile when he was baking breads there was always a chance of it not turning out well properly even though he had already followed the same recipe for years, and whenever he googled to figure out why it happened turned out it might be moisture in the air. Or the sun was too hot outside. At this point he wouldn't be surprised if astrology played a part in whether a dough would rise properly or not.

Today too was a bad day for baking.

"This is way too wet!" Mahiru complained. "The cookie dough isn't taking shape!" His fingers were sticky and gross from trying to knead the dough into submission. And failing, obviously. "Kuro, did you add something?"

Kuro knew his Eve didn't mean to sound so harsh but he involuntarily flinched anyway. "Just vanilla extract." He admitted.

"What? We don't need vanilla extract." Mahiru frowned.

Kuro fidgeted nervously. "Lawless said it would taste better if I add it."

"Oh, well." Mahiru put his hands on his hip in annoyance. "He's stupid. He should have told me if he wanted some vanilla cookies. The dough ends up too watery because you added unnecessary liquid... how much did you add anyway?"

Kuro fished for his phone and scrolled to find his DM with Lawless. "The instruction said half of the bottle's cap."

Mahiru got even more annoyed. "That's stupid. That's not how this works. You need to take into account of the dough's consistency."

"...are you mad at me?" Kuro asked warily.

"I... no." Mahiru sighed. "Sorry, I just got frustrated. Sorry." He sulked. "I'm going to wash my hands and work on this later."

Mahiru turned the faucet on, the room was quiet with only the sound of running water and Mahiru's hands squeaking together trying to get rid of the sticky dough.

"So..." Kuro awkwardly approached his Eve, his hands were massaging Mahiru's shoulders with hesitation. "You wanna fuck the frustration away?"

The offer just made Mahiru sigh. "Nnnooope. I'm not doing that to you."

"I could top for once—" Mahiru snorted loudly, accidentally cutting off Kuro's sentence. "I could! You could sit back and do nothing for once!" The vampire was slightly offended.

"Kuro, you suck at being a top." Mahiru pointed out.

"I'm an excellent dildo." Kuro huffed.

Mahiru smiled teasingly. "That just means I'll do all the work again."

Kuro's expression softened seeing Mahiru was smiling again. He leaned on his Eve and planted a gentle kiss on Mahiru's forehead. "Cuddle?" His long arms were now embracing Mahiru's body entirely.

"Mmhm, cuddle."

(Except whenever they cuddled, it never ended as just cuddling)

(This time was no exception)

---

"Soooo, how was it?" Lawless waggled his eyebrows.

"What?" Kuro's eyes never left the screen as he was still focused on his video game.

"Did my 'vanilla extract' help?" Lawless nudged his brother.

"Dude, stop that. I'll get mad if I have to repeat this level again," Kuro said, despite his tone remaining as monotonous as ever.

Lawless sighed dramatically. "Did you have sex last night?"

"Yeah?" Kuro replied absently. "Oh, is that what the vanilla extract is for? Dude, no need for that. Mahiru just ended up mad that he needed to redo the dough."

Lawless went quiet for a couple of seconds. "Dough."

"Yeah?"

"Did you use a fucking aphrodisiac for the halloween cookies?!" Lawless freaked out. "Nii-san! You stupid! You idiot! We need to get C3 to recall the cookies before people start fucking on the street!"

---

author's note: reminder that for tanakabox's halloween event, tooru basically commissioned his nephew to bake cookies to help stop halloween time loop, said cookies are distributed to people all over tokyo

[maoam]

Ramblings stemming from frustration with this fandom sometimes. ( Naruto. )

I know Naruto fandom has always been a tad toxic ever since it started becoming popular and such, but something about these newer fans who are so comfortable with d3ath threats, body shaming, sa threats, and d0xxing other people for the sake of a character. Fandom discourse is truly never that serious and the fact that they’ve become so obsessed with “ratioing” or “owning” other people that they’re willing to say absolutely vile things all for what… some likes? Validation from other gross people?

And then for these people to still say they’re the “good part of the fandom” or “the sane part”. It’s almost narcissistic for lack of a better word at the moment. ( not diagnosing anyone or speaking as if I’m some sort of mental health expert. Just can’t think of another word right now because of the headache this phenomenon is causing me as it is becoming much too common. )

They have this obsession with demonizing “the other side.” To the point of making false claims, which is insane. Or maybe they actually believe them? I can’t tell. They just spread whatever makes them feel good about what they like and don’t care about the source.

This is mainly a lame annoyed rant about the Hinata fanbase which have become somehow even worse within the past few days with their weird obsession with trying to get the Boruto artist (I think he works for sp? Unsure as he says most of his art is fanart but he made a like two or three official pieces that were on the official boruto/naruto page.) fired and sending him death threats for I guess just not drawing Hinata as much as they want? Like to the point where they were literally saying she was being “oppressed and bullied” by this artists. It was insane to see in person because you really would like to believe people WOULDNT compare a character not being drawn in a way they approve of to the oppression the people of Palestine are facing but hey, I suppose it’s a competition now to see how much of a bad person you can be for the sake of a character.

Also I know this is not just an issue in the hinata fandom, although the recent need to fetishize how “Asian Hinata is compared to that white girl sakura.” Is irking me a lot more than what other fandoms have done as of recent that I’m aware of. The Sakus seem to be their usual level of delusion and crappy attitude. Which is easy to ignore for me.

Does it sound like I’m making stuff up at this point? Because as I’m writing this I’m seeing just how insane this really is. This *shouldn’t* be real. This *shouldn’t* be things people say without shame. And yet, people just throw their morals for… what, internet points? The self validation that they defended to their favorite character? Who knows.

You might not even read this, I wouldn’t blame you lol. Just me being annoyed with how comfortable people within the naruto fandom have become so comfortable with being bad people.

My only real question is have you noticed an increase of toxicity within the fandom? Do you think this behavior has gotten worse with the ending of Naruto and beginning of Boruto?

I kinda get what you mean. I remember even before the manga ended there was apparently aggressive fights between Narusaku/Naruhina shippers, like the body shaming towards the other ship's girl and so on. And SS also were aggressive. But nowadays it indeed seems worse. I'm not sure if it's because we have new big platforms? Twitter and Tiktok I mean, both have really cancerous fandom spaces.

SS/NH harass official staff all the time, as well as other parts of the fandom. And then they act like victims because some people think Sakura and Hinata are shitty characters lol. Meanwhile they treat real people like shit. I think it might be because everyone makes fun of their ships/girls all the time, because it's so easy, so they become even crazier in trying to compensate, they try to harass the staff for more content for their ship, to get back at the people who say their ships suck. Also because so many popular content creators keep making content on Naruto and Sasuke being gay and Sakura/Hinata being their beards it's also humiliating to them.

Of course, they also need to fight which girl is the best girl. Which girl is less of a single mother for example. XD

"Or maybe they actually believe them?" Considering how many SS have convinced themselves that some moments that happened between Naruto and Sasuke actually happened between Sasuke and Sakura, I can believe them being that delusional.

"Does it sound like I’m making stuff up at this point?" No because I have witnessed it myself, plenty Sakura and Hinata stans on twitter have that toxic "bad bitch" attitude that they think makes them queens or whatever, they harass people and are extremely aggressive and think female character doing the bare minimun = queen behaviour. It comes off as very childish and narcissistic. No wonder Sakura and Hinata as characters appeal to them.

[forestwater87]

Tales of Fandom Past: Harry Potter and the Shipping Slaves

So, in my spare time I read a lot, lot . . . lot of fandom_wank. A lot. More than should be possible, considering it’s a dead website linking mostly to other dead websites, but I’m a woman addicted to drama who has the gift of long periods of quiet at work, so I’m working my way through almost 2 decades of fan history and it’s just fascinating.

Fandom, back in the ‘00s? Was so much more wild than it is now.

Plagiarism! Fake suicides! Fraud! Theft of real people’s actual money! Stalkers, both real and made up! Fanfic writers so popular they finagled it into mountains of free stuff and a book deal! Everyone was really gross and homophobic! 

There were no rules, and that made it a terrible and incredibly fun time to be part of a fandom.

And we’re not talking enough about it. I guess that’s where I come in.

I’m interested in telling these stories -- not in the incredible level of detail of the MsScribe Saga or the Cassie Claire Plagiarism Debacle, but enough for us to all have a moment to think: Hold on, what the fuck was fandom doing during the entirety of the Bush administration?

A lot, it turns out. Much of it totally wild.

Today’s topic: Shipping wars are as bad as slavery

Date: August 2005

Fandom: Harry Potter

Supposed topic(s): Shipping, canon

Content warning(s): Accidental and ironic diminishing of slavery, complaints about political correctness and free speech, racism in general, lots of hurt feelings and drama

"Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want."

Background

In August of 2005, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been out for a little less than a month, the film version of The Goblet of Fire wouldn’t come out until November, and the last Potter movie had been released over a year ago. In terms of shipping, fans had just discovered, to either their delight or horror, that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione were canon; while some would continue to hold out hope that there would be a last-minute reversal of expectations, most of the fandom both on and off the internet was in agreement: 

The shipping wars were over, and the Harry/Hermione fans (a.k.a., H/Hr fen, or “Harmonians”) had decisively lost.

The Harmonians’ ire seemed to have been pretty evenly split between J.K. Rowling -- who they felt had let them down -- and the R/Hr and H/G shippers (a.k.a. “Herons” and “Chocolateers,” respectively, though I’m not sure anyone actually used those terms for themselves; they appear to have been given from without), who were taking a victory lap. Depending on one’s perspective, this was either a long-overdue celebration by two groups of shippers who’d faced the fandom’s ire for approximately 5 years and were now vindicated, or it was the tactless gloating of sore losers who were thrilled to get one over on their hated enemies. Either way, tensions were no lower just because canon had decided the victors, and the battleground seemed to shift from the books to the movies -- where shippers of all kinds were in debate over which romance would win out onscreen.

Enter Emerson Spartz, a teenager in charge of one of the most popular fansites at the time and king of creating controversy . . . who had very strong opinions about shipping, and Harmonians in particular.

The Inciting Incident

Emerson had already incited the ire of Harmonians by calling them “delusional” in an infamous interview with J.K. Rowling. The wound was still raw, having come shortly after the release of Half-Blood Prince, and in some circles Emerson was already Public Enemy #1.

Therefore, when Emerson was one of two “anti”-Harmonians interviewed in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the shipping wars, some fans cried foul.

More responses can be found in a summary of the incident here, but personal favorites include a letter sent to the author of the SF Chronicle piece:

The majority of Harry/Hermione shippers are not merely upset that we didn't get what we wanted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That makes us sound childish. While I'm forced to admit that there has been much bile and vitriol posted on various H/Hr shipping sites, the majority of us are reasonable people. What really hurt our feelings was the way the Mugglenet/TLC article made it seem as if J. K. Rowling herself felt we were really dense, missing her "anvil-sized clues." Emerson's subsequent "apology" for the harsh words directed at the Harry/Hermione 'shipper community was a non-apology, which you [the author of the SFC article] would have known if you had done more than just take his word that he apologized. He simply used the "apology" as an opportunity to issue another dig. I suppose not much better can be expected from a child of 18 who has suddenly become a bit of a celebrity. But I do expect better from a colleague; a professional writer. ...

You have assisted one side of the argument and failed to represent the other. Did you attempt to interview the webmasters of any Harry/Hermione shipping sites or did you merely cut and paste posts that were pointed out to you by Emerson and Melissa? Your article shows no evidence that you made any attempt to give the other side equal time, so to speak, and as a result, you have contributed to the perceprtion [sic] that ALL H/Hr 'shippers are irrational, bitter, spoiled brats. And that's quite unfair. (Hughes, 2005, paras. 13 & 18)

Or this comment in a Harmonian forum by a disappointed reader: 

History is written by the victorius [sic] (or something like that), isn't it how the saying goes?. I'm afraid we are witnessing it firsthand. Herons feel they are the winners on this war, and as such, they feel they have a right to treat us anyway they want to, and they think we have no weapons to defend ourselves since even J.K seems to have sided with them. Even if most of us are pretty reasonable people, at this point anything we say in regards of J.K's apparent disregard for our feelings (thoughts, opinions, whatever), will be gladly taken as the lashing out of sore losers. ::sigh:: I say, just ignore Emerson, he's just some lost kid desperate for attention. And how good can the guy who wrote this article be if he didn't bother to check the facts before he went slandering us?, not much me thinks. (Remolina, 2005, para. 21)

These responses, while perhaps silly or overblown, were not enough to make history. That honor belonged to a Harmonian going by the username Panther.

How, one might wonder?

The Blowout

Ya know, come to think of it, people like Emerson were probably the kinda people that started slavery. I mean, think about it, they thought the slaves were animals, just because they had different colored skin. Emerson thinks we're stupid and delusional for having different beliefs. Get the similarities here, people? Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want. (Panther, 2005, paras. 23-25)

The reaction was immediate and explosive from Panther’s fellow Harmonians. Some understood and empathized with Panther’s view; they saw it as a bit hyperbolic, but agreed with the underlying point being made.

I can see where they were going with this...a different analogy would probably have been better. Maybe the religious persecution during Mary Tudor's reign, or the Salem Witch Hunt/Trials, the religous [sic] crusades, the wars in Bosnia etc. We harmonians are being "persecuted" for our differening viewpoints/perspectives. (Anndee Granger, 2005, paras. 30-32)

The belief that H/Hr shippers were being persecuted for their beliefs was a pervasive one, and extended to fans, Emerson and other fandom “authorities,” and the author herself.

No, what we are experiencing is not at the same extreme level because of the world we now live in, but the base level is still the same. The base level taking us back to different beliefs and views without the ability to be heard in the correct manner, and yes it does feel like a form of persecution. (*Under your Skin, 2005, paras. 36-37)

While not on the same level as slavery, the intolerance of their ship did call to mind other examples of discrimination and bigotry:

Of course no one is dying because of this, but all in all we are being persecuted for our different beliefs. "Bloody" Mary Tudor, killed Protestants because she so hated their different views on Christ. This is an extreme indeed, but the mentality behind it, the vitrol [sic], is the same. (Andee Granger, 2005, para. 38)

This extreme point of view, while widespread, was not universal among the Harmonians. Many of them were . . . understandably appalled by the comment and those agreeing with it:

No wonder other people find it easy to portray us as reactionary and vicious. Some of you bloody well are. (jane99, 2005, para. 43)

I agree that it is very vicious and out in left field . . . Slavery was an oppressive movement for hundreds of years, resulting in the deaths of millions. I would hardly regard that with 'shipper treatment, nowadays. However, the schoolyard bully is a very appropriate analogy, in my opinion. Hopefully you understand the difference. (myrhlyn, 2005, para. 52)

The Response

NarcissaM brought the subject to the outside world by posting it in fandom_wank -- a defunct LiveJournal specializing in fandom drama, which now exists primarily in archives -- and the result was universally disbelief and amusement. The responses ranged from insightful, if crass, commentary . . .

Emerson did not kill your dog, tell you that Santa wasn't real, and touch you in your swimsuit areas. And the more I read the more I'm convinced that H/Hr fans aren't angry because what he said was insulting, they're angry because what he said was *accurate*. (iczer6)

I'm also wondering where keeping slaves was a matter of, y'know, people having different beliefs, and not the subjugation of an entire culture by another which had more money and more powerful weapons, and needed a lot of manual labor but didn't want to pay for it. (slackerbitch)

To good old-fashioned sarcasm and snark:

That's not the stupidest thing I've ever read, but it's in the top five. (Anonymous)

That's right. There is a conspiracy, Hermionians! The world is against you and want to take a shit on all your fan fiction! XD (Anonymous “Mary”)

QUICKLY! SOMEBODY CALL A WAAAAAHBULANCE! WE HAVE INTERNET PERSECUTION! (aerobot)

F_W, known for good and ill as a site that takes nothing seriously except the desire to laugh at themselves and especially others, took the slavery comment and ran with it:

So how much does a healthy H/Hr fan with good teeth go for these days? (xero-sky)

Which H/Hr's are in the big house and which ones are working in the fields? ... We didn't land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us! *throws up the fist* (prettyveela)

If we're going to start enslaving delusional people, I want to start with the scientologists. Who's with me? (ladybirdsleeps)

Big Daddy Heron:*hits the H/Hr fan with a whip* Your ship name is H/Hr, H/Hr! Say it! H/Hr shipper: H-Harmony (sewingmyfish)

Bully for the slaves! In fact they would have been sooo much better off if all we 21st century people could trade places with the whites that lived back then. Not only could we tell them to get a life, none of us would have kept slaves! (chief)

You know, just like slaves, they have to work out in the hot sun for no wages and be beaten and whipped and raped and sold like cattle deal with an author not writing the fictional pairing they wanted. (slackerbitch)

Mere hours after the controversy was reported to F_W, a user named ahiru created some icons to celebrate the controversy:

And with some more chuckles about the inherent ridiculousness of such a claim, the fandom and its onlookers dropped the subject.

For a few months.

The Aftermath

In November 2005, some users rediscovered the icons made by ahiru and found them insensitive and racist. This is immediately reported to F_W not once but twice, and the folks there were no longer entertained, responding with less amusement than outright hostility. A couple of F_Wankers understood to at least some extent why there might be people who didn’t love the icons, though they did generally come down on the side of parody and feel those upset were missing the point of the joke. A lot of F_Wankers were upset about political correctness and free speech, and were eager to point out the oppression faced by other groups of people.

Someone anonymous entered the fray with racist guns blazing, and was summarily eviscerated by gleeful F_Wankers.

After that, the dust settled, and all was quiet on the fandom front . . . at least, until the next inevitable disaster.

Further Reading

The Interview that sparked the Emerson outrage

An offshoot of Harmony that believes in Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson’s undeniable chemistry and romance

A collection of Harmonian controversies, 2006-2010

Other HP controversies

[rulingsolo]

     why does the mainstream always like the uncomplicated fluffy “wholesome” ships? don’t you see the potential of the angst, the drama, the shared misery or anger or pain that creates the most beautiful bonds - platonic and romantic - of a rival ship? of an enemies to lovers ship? of a difficult ship? obviously we all want love and peace and harmony in our real love lives ( i guess ) but what we ship in fiction =/= what we want for ourselves in real life, so why? honestly, every time i read a post that says “why can’t x and y just stop fighting and instead realize how much they have in common, become best friends and open a knitting shop together” i can only shake my head. who wants to honestly read/watch that? it sounds boring as hell. good stories live from the conflict within them, that’s what grabs the attention and builds tension and keeps you on the tip of your toes until the end, doesn’t it (shouldn’t it?)?

villain x hero ships, for example, have so much potential, and yet everyone and their grandma gets their panties in a knot about them, because the villain character used to be a dick to the hero at some point (to varying degrees) and that means they can never ever ever become not-enemies (or more) ever, because nah. of course there are such relationships that have taken this so far that i would not be able to see it turning into something romantic without some kind of trauma or oppression or stockholm situation involved (e.g. jessica jones and kilgrave). [people still ship this, and it’s their good right. shipping is a very personal thing and as long as you don’t drag someone into it against their will, you do you.] but sometimes it seems to be enough that these characters used to be on opposing sides, had one or several physical fights, and maybe hurt friends on either side in the process. that already is enough to make the ship forever problematic and therefore demonic, disgusting, to be shunned. instead we should all ship the hero with their best friend, because they’ve been nice to them from the start, and well, they’re right there. well, no thanks?

don’t get me wrong, there are some best friend ships that i absolutely adore. sometimes my non-canon ship was the best friend instead of the anti-hero/villain/rude bad boy they clearly would end up with, actually, because when it comes down to it, it’s all about chemistry and story for me, not about what’s objectively speaking the least complicated or “problematic” thing. i feel like the term problematic, aside from being overused af, doesn’t even factor in the feelings and development of the good character™️ anymore, but just expresses what some people objectively decided is bad™️ based on an utter lack of personal experience, or a distorted perception of reality (and resulting inability to distinguish between fiction and reality apparently) based on actual bad experiences in their personal lives.

on top of all that i’ve noticed that younger generations of shippers (that makes me sound so old) seem to think that canon ship = the one and only truth sometimes? if there’s a good™️ ship in canon (e.g. good gay character™️ x other good gay character™️) and you DARE to ship good gay character™️ with canon-non-gay bad character™️ 80% of the fandom will think it’s okay to declare open season and start a witch hunt. what the hell happened to fandom? it used to be about filling gaps in canon, creating and exploring new stories when you were disappointed/frustrated by canon, or simply wanted to live in this story a little longer and wanted to make a new experience. now it feels like a war where you have to pick sides - either you go by the rules and only like good™️ things, or you stand by what you actually enjoy and are curious about and accept that random strangers, 10+ years younger than you, will think it’s their fucking job to come to your house and tell you that you suck for making them go on your blog and seeing something they don’t like, when they could have just stayed away in the first place.

well, since i have to choose, i am the latter. i ship what i ship and i write the stories i want to write. i am not forcing anyone to write with me, i am not forcing anyone to read my stories or talk to me about them. in fact, if you hate what i like or write then chances are i don’t want to talk to you at all and wish you’d stay away from me. do yourself a favor and use your energy to find like-minded people instead of harassing and bothering people who like other stuff because you feel like god’s gift to the world with a heavenly duty of informing everyone of their wrong-doings (= things you, personally and subjectively, don’t like). you only make yourself look like an ass.

[echo-bleu]

Clubbing (in the library)

This is a gift for @nearly-conscious (who I can’t see to tag) for their birthday. Their prompt was Hermione/Padma, crushing over common interests.

I haven't written in this fandom since I was seventeen, and I'm not a big shipper, but it was a lot of fun to write. I hope you like it!

Happy Birthday! :)

Title: Clubbing (in the library)

Fandom: Harry Potter

Words: 2178

Summary: “I thought you would be there.” “Where else would I be?” Padma shrugs. It's nine-thirty, and all the other students have already left the building for the night, but Padma likes nothing more than having the library for herself. “I don't know,” Hermione smirks. “Clubbing?” “Yeah, that sounds like me."

Relationships: Hermione Granger/Padma Patil

Also on AO3 and FFnet.

--

“I thought you would be there.”

Padma looks up from her homework. Hermione drops into the chair next to her, her book bag making a thud as it hits the floor. She's wearing jeans and a comfortable sweater rather than robes, and she looks vaguely tired, like she just spent the whole day studying. It's probably the case, Padma reflect. Mid-terms are just around the corner, and trying to complete two completely different degrees must be exhausting.

It came as a surprise to almost no-one when Hermione, once her NEWTs over, couldn't choose between the high level Muggle university course she was offered and magical studies. The Wizarding university, to which Padma now also belongs, is small and less structured than its Muggle counterparts, so it's fairly easy for Hermione to follow all her courses without needing a Time Turner, but it's still at least twice the workload.

“Where else would I be?” Padma shrugs. It's nine-thirty, and all the other students have already left the building for the night, but Padma likes nothing more than having the library for herself.

“I don't know,” Hermione smirks. “Clubbing?”

“Yeah, that sounds like me,” Padma groans.

Over the years of being the two most bookish students of their year at Hogwarts, they've become casual friends, although Hermione always had too much of an exclusive relationship with Harry and Ron to be close to anyone else. Padma, after her twin sister started to become interested in very little else than boys, make-up and Divination, spent most of her time in the Library, usually on her own. Oh, she was never friendless and she still has frequent contact with all the Ravenclaws and most of the Hufflepuffs of her year and the year above, but she hasn't had a best friend since Parvati stopped filling the role. She loves her sister, but they're not confidants anymore.

But since the day she and Hermione first put foot in the university building four months ago and recognized that they didn't know anyone but each other, they've gotten closer. They usually study together in the evening, for one thing. Hermione doesn't have a boyfriend to go home to since she and Ron split up on the first day of term−something about different plans for the future−and Padma has no particular wish to step back into the drama that is her parent's house too quickly, most nights.

“Can I join you?”

“In what, my very energetic clubbing? Sure,” Padma smiles.

“Thanks. Midterms are coming way to fast. All this studying is going to kill me.”

“You love it. Admit it.”

Hermione blinks Padma with a very endearing look of naked surprise. The banter is coming almost naturally, but it's something they've never done before.

“Not at two in the morning on a Sunday,” Hermione answers. “Otherwise...okay. I do. It's just so interesting!”

“Our courses or the Muggles ones?”

“Both! The history of the Wizarding World is fascinating, but it's incredible how much social theory we're just missing out on. The Muggles have studied it all! Race, gender, oppression, intersection, it's all right there and we just ignore it.”

Padma shrugs. “Does it make them better?”

“Yes! No! Uh−” Hermione blushes. Padma laughs. She loves to see Hermione flustered.

“Yes or no?” she pushes.

“It's complicated!” Hermione exclaims, apparently out of words. “Some things are better, like, you know, slavery is outlawed in the Muggle world.”

“We don't keep slaves,” Padma frowns, her thoughts going straight to her ancestors enslaved by the East India Company. She's learned that history early on, the one she's never going to be taught about in college. The English wizards and Muggles working side by side to colonize India and abuse its inhabitants.

“What about the Elves?”

“They're not slaves!”

“Aren't they?”

Padma comes up with a vague memory of Hermione's fifth year crusade to free the House Elves. It seemed like madness, at the time.

“They don't get paid,” Hermione continues. “They punish themselves for things so mundane as being late or failing a task!”

Padma tilts her head. “Okay, you're right, they don't get paid. But where did you read that Elves punish themselves?”

“I saw them do it! The Malfoys'−” Hermione stops herself. “Never mind.”

“My parents' Elves are treated like they're part of the family,” Padma says. “They would never accept any money, but they have a day off a week, and they seem happy with their situation.”

“I guess I haven't seen many elves, and maybe they didn't have good masters. The Hogwarts Elves seem happy too. But still, masters. Coming from a Muggle background, it's...very odd. Outdated, I guess.”

“I never thought of them as slaves,” Padma says.

“That's what I mean when I say we need to bridge the gap between the Muggles and our world. They have so much to teach us, if only we were willing to listen. And we could bring them a lot, even without going into magic.”

She launches into a tirade of all that the magical community could do for Muggles, which seems to include, in no distinguishable order, better garbage disposal, gay marriage rights, library index cards and a non-capitalist economy. Padma is lost in the references to Muggle law and technology within the first minute, but she nods in all the right places, admiring Hermione's enthusiasm. This girl could change the world, she thinks.

It's funny, because it could be argued that she already has. But looking at her, it seems obvious that Hermione's prime was not the year she spent on the run under a tent with her two best friends, or the spells she threw at Death Eaters during the battle of Hogwarts. Her prime will be in many years, when she accomplishes all she strives for and cuts the ribbon in front of a brand new school for Muggle and Magical studies. Padma can see it in her mind's eye, a strangely attractive older Hermione with a pair of scissors in hand, a wide smile on her face, waving at her.

Why is she imagining herself looking back and laughing in pride, two steps behind among the school's new teachers?

“Do you have books that need to stay here?” she asks suddenly, taking advantage of Hermione needing to breathe between two rapid-fire sentences.

Hermione opens her mouth, frowns, and closes it again. She looks down at the pile of books peeking out of her bag. “No, they're already checked out,” she says. “I did that before coming to find you.”

“Good,” Padma says. “'Cause I want to get out of here.”

Hermione deflates. “Alright,” she says. “The Library's about to close anyway. I...I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

Padma stares at her for a second, agape at the misunderstanding. “No, I mean we should get out of here together,” she says. “To...somewhere else.”

She hasn't thought this through. She can't invite Hermione home, not with her parents there and her younger siblings−Parvati is probably spending the night at Lavender's again. She curses that family tradition forbids her from getting her own place. It's not that her parents lack the money, but a young woman living on her own is just not done.

“Clubbing?” Hermione offers with a smile, looking relieved.

Padma snorts. “Clubbing sounds right,” she says.

“I do have an apartment,” Hermione hesitates. “If you wanted to−”

“Are you inviting me to your place?”

Hermione bites her lip. “Sure. It's not big, but it's quiet.”

“Sounds good. Let's go.”

Padma is very curious about Hermione's apartment. She follows her friend outside the library to the Apparition point, where Hermione offers her arm.

“I can give you coordinates if you prefer,” she says, “but I'm pretty good at Side-Along.”

Padma smiles. Since nearly all adult wizards and witches have their own license, Side-Along Apparition is considered quite intimate, unless you do it with children. She could be reading this wrong, because Hermione isn't very easy to read on the best day, but she's now fairly sure the hints she's been dropping have been received loud and clear.

Hermione's grin when Padma takes her arm is like a confirmation. The trip is nearly instantaneous, from London to Oxford, and smoother than most Side-Along Padma has been on as a child.

They land into the entrance corridor of a one-room apartment. It's warm and cozy in a bookworm kind of way, one wall lined with a giant bookshelf and another with a large desk. The sofa bed is swarming with pillows and comforters, looking more like a nest than a bed. It looks exactly like Hermione, and Padma is impressed that she's managed to create that feeling in just four months.

“It's nice,” she says. “I like what you've done with it. I could live here.”

Hermione blushes again. “It's comfortable,” she says.

She kicks off her shoes and drops onto the nest-bed, so Padma imitates her. She stays far enough to give Hermione some personal space, hoping secretly that that space will shrink as they get comfortable. It doesn't have to be tonight, she promises herself. But then, sitting on her friend's bed at ten in the evening on a weekday, the opportunity seems perfect.

“How is it going on the Muggle side?” she asks. “We're close to campus, right?”

“Yes. The university is very old, older than ours. It's weird to have to hide when I'm doing magic, but it's been fine so far.”

“And the studies?”

“I'm missing a lot of Muggle references and stuff that Muggles learn in school. I'm doing my best to catch up but...for once I'm not at the top of my class.”

“What? Hermione, a mediocre student?” Padma asks in mock-shock.

“Most of the students here were the best of their year in high school too. That or they come from old money.”

“So you've finally met your match.”

Hermione laughs. “Something like that. So, why choose History and Anthropology? I can't imagine that's what your parents wanted for you.”

“No. They wanted me to become a doctor, or at least some kind of well-paid job with a high social standing. But Parvati threw them off even further by going into an Apprenticeship with a seer, so I got off easily. The way they figure it, I'll marry straight out of university and stop working to raise kids. They don't see what kind of worthy job I could do with those subjects.”

“My parents don't really understand magic at all,” Hermione says, “so they were relieved when I chose to pursue a Muggle degree as well. Relieved enough that they didn't care what subject it was in.”

“But why did you choose it?”

“Hey, I asked you first!”

“Okay. So, Binns was horrible, but I like learning about history. I'd bring library books to his classes and read them under the table.”

“Me too!” Hermione exclaims. “But who didn't?”

“Anyone who wasn't in Ravenclaw beside you?” Padma jokes.

“Um, I guess I wasn't really aware of other people,” Hermione admits sheepishly. “I'm a real dork, aren't I?”

“A very adorable one,” Padma says without thinking. She didn't mean to say it out loud, but Hermione blushes in the most delicious way.

“Anyway,” Padma continues, “I think...I've always been in between two cultures. I was born here, but my parents never even learned English. They just use translation spells whenever they need to, but mostly they only have Indian friends. Home is like...like we were in India, but in downtown London. You look out the windows, London. You look inside, Mumbai. I had an Indian tutor and an Indian maid and I played with Indian kids. Sometimes it feels like I'm not English at all.”

“So you wanted to learn more about English history?”

“That, and I'm fascinated by how different cultures see the world in a whole other way. We're all human, and yet−”

“I know! I felt like such an outsider when I first came to Hogwarts. Wizards have this whole culture and traditions that no one ever tells us about! We have to figure it out on our own, and honestly I'm surprised there aren't more Muggleborn students who drop out. It's so confusing!”

“Do you still feel like an outsider now?”

“No. Not much, anyway. I still miss things, but I've grown with magic in my life for years now, and I've read everything I can on Wizarding culture. Now I want to branch out.”

“Into Muggle culture?”

“Yes, because it's what I was born to and that's where I feel out of place now. But also other magical cultures. You know, different countries, people, species even…

“Maybe we could go together to Mumbai some day. I could show you some things.”

Hermione smiles. “Maybe we could,” she says slowly, biting her lip nervously.

Padma can't take any more hesitation. She bends closer and kisses her. It's sweet, though awkward and uncertain.

“That okay?” she asks, pulling away slightly to look at Hermione's reaction.

“Yeah, it's okay,” Hermione nods. “Very okay.”

“Should we do it again?”

Hermione doesn't answer and just pulls her closer.

[breeeliss]

so i wanna talk about this

in case you’re wondering, these are all tags pulled off of one anti-klance (and apparently anti-lance) post. and this isn’t even all of them. and these are mostly left by sheith shippers. 

frankly i think this speaks for itself, especially because this seems eerily similar to the nonsense that antis have thrown at me for shipping shiro with the other paladins. and before anyone says “yeah but at least we’re not sending death threats and doxxing users,” stop setting the bar for your behavior so low. just because you’re not doxxing and sending death threats doesn’t mean you’re not being an asshole. and that up there is called being an asshole to your fellow voltron fans. so let’s talk. 

i’m a multishipper. without any exaggeration, i have been driven out of sheith servers because i dared say that shitting on klance is mean and unnecessary. i have joined entire servers that were created specifically for getting away from sheith shippers who love to spend inordinate amounts of time talking about how klance is abusive, klance is unhealthy, klance is shit, klance shippers are shit, sheith is better than klance, people are delusional if they like klance better than sheith, and so on and so forth. i’ve had to start blocking anti-shaladins and anti-klancers because this is starting to get so bad. and based on the posts that are starting to crop up, people are noticing and getting fed up. 

once upon a time, sheith shippers demanded that klance shippers stand up for the sheith fandom and hold other problematic klance shippers accountable for their rude behavior. right now, i want other sheith shippers to stand up for the non-anti klance fandom and hold problematic sheith shippers accountable for their rude behavior. this bullying, bad mouthing, ship bashing, character bashing crap is running people out of this fandom and frankly it’s embarrassing. 

i don’t care if you don’t like klance, but don’t you dare start creating posts and spewing salt about how i and all other shippers are apparently deluded, idiotic, suspicious, and worthy of breaking a friendship with because they dare like a ship. especially as you simultaneously demand that people respect your ship in return. there is no hierarchy of oppression when it comes to fandom ships. it’s just shipping. there’s a very simple rule: don’t like, don’t interact. ship and let ship. treat others the way you want to be treated. they teach you this shit in kindergarten, and some of you are in your late 20s acting like goddamn children. if you spew hate, i have a problem with you. pure and simple. 

i really hope sheith shippers start speaking up about this because frankly it’s getting to the point where there are very few people in this fandom i feel i can speak to. and a lot of klance shippers and multishippers are feeling this way as well. if you cared about our comfort, you’d say something and fix your behavior. 

[minblush]

Leave mimi alone. If you could get over your jealousy for one second you would see would a sweet person she is. I follow her because she doesn't look for fights unlike blogs like yours. Yet there are fights on her blog cause of people who don't have anything better to do like you.

so it’s been a while and i finally worked up any sort of courage to address all of this and i will do it under this one ask because out of all the ones mimi’s “fans” sent me, this one was the most civil

i’m still shocked that i got so many people attacking me over rightfully calling mimi out, and ofc there is no jealousy involved, i guess i just don’t understand why she is the blog that anyone would want defend, like let me summarize

she only gets notes because she is fast with her updates, why is she fast? she just takes updates from twitter and twitter translators a lot of the time without crediting and without any factchecking herself

she spreads unverified information and rumours because of it and got into trouble because of it more than once

she posts sasaeng information and photos taken outside of official schedules in the boys’ private time despite being criticized for it (like the jikook vacation)

she also still has the fact that she “stalks” the boys in her bio, even though i know for a fact people told her many times it’s inappropriate in the context of the fan culture in korea

she is very ignorant about mental illness (the post where she claims that jimin suffers from depression and was saved from it by jin as a fact is still up btw), the entertainment business in korea, colorism and racism (she thinks “reverse racism” is an actual thing lol) and she spreads her harmful opinions by writing essays about it to her large following

what bothers me personally a lot as a gay person, she is one of those obnoxious delusional shippers and normalizes that behaviour to her followers and also fetishizes gay men to a really ugly extent (i’m not talking here about normal shipping BTW I SHIP LOWKEY TOO, it’s about boundaries though, i’m talking about writing conspiracy theories and fetishizing, FETISHIZING, treating sexuality as a joke and treating it like a commodity, direct quote from one of her very “funny” posts: “BTS is gay ! Shippers : Of course. Why would I stan straight boys ? Who does that ?”)

(and yes as someone said in the tags, apparently she also did make racial jokes and jokes about north korea etc, but i haven’t seen those myself, only saw people mention it second hand so since i don’t have receipts i wasn’t going to include it initially)

and that is all before the jonghyun issue, which i feel like is kind of a culmination of a lot of what i dislike about her blog

she didn’t wait for an official confirmation from SM and immediately started posting about his death, all actual fanbases of jonghyun and shinee waited until after the confirmation to actually post about it, because can you imagine if it wasn’t true (no matter how real it may seem?), just like other actual bts fanbases most of these serious blogs wait for official confirmations for anything, unlike mimi who just jumps on any opportunity for notes and for her to be the news bearer. you could see people asking her to wait until the confirmation in the notes of her first posts, BUT SHE DIDN’T LISTEN, instead she let her posts spread and only added confirmation much later when it came out (which is what she does in general, spreads rumours / unconfirmed info, then when confirmation or denial comes out she edits the post and apologizes in some extremely lowkey way, despite her getting the heat for it she keeps repeating the same pattern)

her posts were made from the point of view of a bts fan instead of a human being, she was extremely tribal by saying things like that “as a bts fan, as an army” i offer my hand to shawol etc, “jonghyun took care of bts”

then she made her post about saying how we should be grateful the boys are under BigHit and not SM, because bighit supports the boys in expressing themselves about mental illness and provides help for them, blaming the company and the entertainment business for jonghyun’s death, showing her complete ignorance, not only do we not know what bighit is actually like behind the scenes (do people not remember the scandal where one of the managers hit jungkook on camera?), but the issue is that this didn’t apply to sm anyway… because…jonghyun was very outspoken about his issues with mental illness, so were other sm artists like taeyeon or leeteuk, there was/is even a support group for idols under sm that these guys as well as others like onew or yoona were a part of

and depression isn’t that simple, jonghyun had friends and outlets, but if anyone has ever been depressed or suicidal, then you as i would understand that sometimes that doesn’t matter, depression is a serious illness and the illness just won in this case, this is an opportunity to spread awareness about the illness, to urge people to seek treatment as well (jonghyun sought it himself) not try to analyze and pin it on any company or any circumstance

yet mimi linked jonghyun’s death to being oppressed by his company, by having to hold things on the inside, as if he didn’t talk about it candidly and didn’t express himself in his music

what i also found distasteful but i also can’t prove anything and people grieve differently, i still raised my eyebrows because when she lashed out at people who got rightfully angry for her for using this opportunity for notes and to make it about bts and bighit, she revealed that she was upset and cried because she thought about how it could’ve been “one of her idols” that this happened to and that she didn’t even know shinee that well… she was very coherent up until that point, but when people called her out she started to cry and be very emotional and started to talk about how she had liked shinee since debut and jonghyun was her favourite (so she has been following them for like 10 years? that is longer than i have been into kpop and i am OLD and have liked shinee since 2009.. so she’s been a fan that long and doesn’t even know the basics of what jjong was like and what he dealt with?) and then went onto analyze his lyrics and talk about how she should’ve known, and her blog transformed into other people consoling her despite her being the person that upset so many people with what she had done… that stuff doesn’t add up for me, but that is just speculation since grief is different for everyone etc, it’s just something i personally can’t buy considering how she behaves online a lot of the time

she said she was sorry without actually acknowledging what she did wrong and after people defended her vehemently she actually changed her tune and started to say things like how it was a misunderstanding and even asked her followers to approach any people who were still “misunderstanding” and let them know, which,,, what even? i suppose i’m party this to thank for all the people that told me i was an ugly/jealous loser that should delete and/or die

and despite her being like this, despite her never learning from her mistakes, people still keep defending her and attacking people that call her out, and why? 

i would agree if it were one mistake, everyone always says.. let’s educate her instead of attacking her, let her learn from her mistakes, that’s what life is all about, right? i agree, people grow from their mistakes

but.. SHE NEVER LEARNS! she keeps repeating the same things, no matter how many times she gets in trouble, and you guys keep enabling her, i think it’s this culture of fans stanning other fans that creates toxic behaviour like this, why would she change? why would she learn? why would she start and mature, why? when she has so many people telling her that it’s okay, that she is right and everybody else is wrong everytime she messes up? i think people that send me those messages are complicit really

i just wonder, what will she have to do for you guys to see that she isn’t someone worth sticking up to to this extent, because due to this environment, she won’t learn?

is she the hill you guys want to die on?

i often see people saying that she does a lot for the fandom, but? she doesn’t actually do anything special, she basically takes from others and profits from them, if you follow actual update blogs that do their homework, like allforbts, ktaebwi, sweaterpawsjimin, or vlissful on twitter, you will see the difference right away.. those are the people that do work for the fandom, she redistributes and doesn’t even thank those that did the work, there are people that spend dozens of hours translating and researching, books worth of content, people that paid for japanese tv subcriptions so they can record those shows for you, those are the people that do a lot, reposting tweets, anyone can do that (and a lot of people do, which is fine as long as due credit is given, what i’m saying is… it isn’t special and doesn’t require any effort at all, so why worship someone for like… doing the bare minimum? and sometimes not even that?)

why would you guys go to such an extent to then attack people that called her out, and rightfully, you guys would tell me a person with depression and an actual fan of jonghyun, that “if you care about jonghyun so much why don’t you join him”

over mimi? over someone who acts like all that i described? is that worth it… i don’t understand this cult-like mentality, even if she were an actual angel that did save the fandom, what in the world would make this okay?

i now have anxiety every time i try to get on tumblr and will have to work to overcome it because you people told me to die over calling HER out while going to her and telling her how everyone else sucks and she is a lovely angel…

and why she doesn’t pick fights? i talked to her in the past and let me tell you… she is stubborn and won’t change her mind and when she sees she can’t out-argue and manipulate the person SHE BLOCKS THEM and doesn’t let them express their views on her blog, no she only lets views that paint her as a victim there, she doesn’t let her followers see any validand CONSTRUCTIVE criticism

that’s why she seems like she is above it, like she is only nice and the angel and people like me are scum for ever saying anything, she is very smart about that aspect of things. but she isn’t above criticism (and neither am i), she is a human being like me or you :/.

i’m not telling you to hate her or attack her, don’t please.., i’m just asking you to see her for what she is, someone who is notes and attention hungry, someone who refuses to learn from her mistakes and someone who actually flaunts her ignorance, please give your time and attention and thankfulness to people in the fandom that aren’t like that :( and mostly, don’t go around telling people that call her (or anyone) out to die like.. please?

if she wanted to defend herself she could always talk to me, or anyone, or address it in a constructive manner, instead of relying on her followers to do that for her while publishing dozens asks on her blog that praise her and tell her how everybody else is wrong

she isn’t a celebrity, she can speak for herself

the fact that she chooses to deal with things the way she does says it all, right?

just…please reconsider stanning other fans, it creates all this toxicity, nothing good comes out of it, that is mostly what i wanted to say

and she specifically isn’t worth all the hurt

thanks

[mentaldisordercartooncharac-blog]

The trickiest thing about tumblr is its level of anonymity, and the ability it gives a person to not be entirely truthful about who they are. You can be whoever you want to be! Nobody will know. You can roleplay anyone and no one can question you. In most cases, this is a good thing. Protecting one’s privacy is important, especially online. But in a lot of cases, it creates awkward situations where you might need to question the legitimacy of someone’s claim because they’re dropping red flags that they’re lying just to have an excuse to be abusive and avoid criticism, but in doing so you risk being labeled -phobic or -ist or a horrible person in general for daring to invalidate someone’s experience or abuse.

so when I see someone throwing a tantrum all over ship tags and equating shippers with pedophiles, while blatantly misusing that word in the same sentence as claiming to be CSA survivors themselves, that really makes me doubt that they’re being entirely truthful about their trauma, and that they’re likely just making up some story out of the mistaken assumption it will add some legitimacy to their false accusations. If you were really a victim of child sexual abuse, you wouldn’t belittle it so candidly just for a cheap attempt at policing strangers on the internet, you wouldn’t exploit it as a manipulation tactic, and you’d have a little more respect for the term (and actual survivors of it) and use it appropriately.

that goes for the transtrender thing too. Believe it or not, I dislike transphobes and terfs as much as the next guy, but when it seems like being a trans guy is the new iteration of last decade’s empty boast of “not like other girls”, and then seeing so many teenagers on here who have clearly never experienced dysphoria in their lives and are solely using that identity as a means to shit on girls for shipping the wrong ship and backing up their reasoning with “well AS A GAY MAN~~ I’M TELLING YOU HOW STUPID YOU ARE BECAUSE I’M TOTALLY A GAY MAN THEREFORE I’M THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY ON GAY MEN,” you’ll see why I’m so doubtful of a lot of people about who they claim to be. I doubt actual trans men would dedicate such a large portion of their leisure time to yelling at strangers on the internet over inane trivia, because I’m assuming they’d have bigger fish to fry, and actual real life problems to worry about. And probably also a considerable level of empathy on the subject of bullying and harassment, so…needless to say, that sort of behavior would likely be, erm…beneath them. Also, maybe let’s not appropriate that identity, because I imagine it’s demeaning to actual trans guys and the shit they’ve had to go through when all you’ve done is tapped off a hasty afterthought of pronouns in your bio and then assume to speak for them.

There’s also the implication it carries that it’s apparently a lot more beneficial on this site to be othergendered than it is to be female, that we’re still stuck in this shitty online culture where being female is still considered unfashionable and the Absolute Worst Possible Thing a person can be and that claiming to be anything but female is ideal, but that’s a conversation for another time. It’s just, illuminating, I suppose. 

Don’t think I don’t feel bad for pointing this out. I really don’t intend to invalidate anyone’s identity or past abuse, but when it seems like most of you are simply using those labels as weapons for the lone purpose of being huge steaming shitbags to people in fan spaces, you’ll understand why I can’t really take anyone seriously, and why my knee-jerk reaction on this site is to immediately disbelieve that anyone is really who they say they are and not just catfishing for catfishing’s sake. It’s a red flag that goes up whenever someone makes claims as to their identity or education or general worldly experience, when everything about their personality and claims suggest otherwise. Like CSA survivors misusing the word pedophilia, presumed law students making serious accusations of federal crimes with absolutely no evidence to corroborate it, trans people whose only motivation to be on this site is bullying and harassment. 

Pardon if I’m way off base here, I don’t mean to assume what might be considered “normal” behavior for any of these groups of people, but these traits seem a little out of character for those identities, so you’ll forgive me for my skepticism. I think a lot of people here are exaggerating a little about who they say they are. I know it must have been unpleasant, but accidentally stumbling across your parents’ porn stash doesn’t make you a CSA survivor. Occasionally attending a paralegal night class at your local community college for burnouts and recent divorcees doesn’t make you a law student. If you really want to make a convincing case for any of these things that you kids are impersonating, you need to start…well, playing the part a little more convincingly. You’re too obvious in your lie. 

So just a little litmus test the next time you find yourself arrogantly opening any rebuttal with “As a _______, I’m telling you with unassailable authority that you’re wrong/immoral/harmful for liking this thing”, perhaps delete that and try again with something a little more substantial. Because for any of you that haven’t yet made it to sophomore-level debate class, that is a fallacy called “Appeal to Authority,” and it fails from the start because it assumes an individual’s dubious claim on an identity/experience gives them justification to speak for all people in that group. 

This is flawed because it doesn’t rule out the imperfections of personal bias or intersectionality. Instead of using your identity to condescendingly explain why you’re right, try using factual evidence or actual statistics from reliable sources and studies rather than anecdotal evidence. We’re in a post-truth world now (in case any of you haven’t peeked out from under the tumblr-echo-chamber-induced rock you all obviously like to hide under and haven’t noticed), and you’d do best to not contribute to it if you want anyone to take you even remotely seriously when you claim to represent the rights of all those innocents and Others that make up the downtrodden minority of society. Just remember, anecdotal evidence cannot be proven, and it’s useless because literally anyone can just make up some bullshit and apply it to a situation to make themselves look right. 

You know who else does this? Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his lackeys. This little missive is directed mostly at fandom antis, but this can apply to anyone on here who claims to be of any left-leaning persuasion: maybe don’t do that, because you start looking like the very people you claim to oppose, and it weakens every argument you’ll ever make. And I have faith in all of you, that you’re better than that. That you’re smarter than that. Even if your anecdotal evidence is true, it’s inadmissible because it can’t be proven. And it shouldn’t be, for that matter, because you don’t owe that to anyone. All it’s going to do is result in some asshole at some point coming out with their own anecdotal data that’s made up or highly embellished for the sole purpose of belittling yours, and then you’re at an impasse because A) you just spilled your most painful, humiliating memories in vain and B) you either have to acknowledge both accounts or acknowledge neither, and everybody loses. You’ve achieved nothing.

So we’re not here to play oppression olympics or win edgiest blogger award. There’s this really gross thing about tumblr where people are pressured into exposing their traumatic histories and deeply personal information in order to validate enjoyment of their fucking hobbies, and in turn it inspires the children harassing them to “beat the score” or whatever, and that’s when you have them firing back with really dubious accounts of their own, more seriouser trauma that makes them totally righter than you!!! (and is in actuality just a regurgitation of a Law & Order episode they saw once, and very obviously never fucking happened). Fake Tumblr Stories are everywhere, we all know this, we’ve all encountered plenty, but you’re not allowed to question the veracity of any of them or you risk being labeled an abuse apologist or victim blamer or something.

That’s fucking psychotic. Someone shouldn’t have to bleed their darkest moments to some snot-nosed 16 year old brat just to keep from being harassed or falsely reported as a pedophile, and some asshole who arrogantly self-identifies as the fucking moral police shouldn’t be so obsessed with getting the last word on trivial nonsense that they feel obligated to play this woker-than-thou pissing contest with people who have experienced *actual* trauma. I mean, do you kids not see how completely unhinged this behavior is? You children need to be fucking sedated. You’re goddamn nuts. I fear for the day we have to rely on you assholes in the job market, because you’re just gunna fuck everything up. You’ll always be failures. You’ll make a trainwreck of everything.

For lack of a better word,

Yikes. 

Anyway, the point is just a reminder that your identity shouldn’t be relevant when you’re trying to prove a logical point or have any of your arguments taken seriously, if you really are right or justified in your stance. If your argument has any basis in sustainable fact, then your gender/orientation/mental illness/personal history will have no impact whatsoever. So lying about them really isn’t worth it and gains nothing. Just be yourself! I know at the tender ages of ~14-20 you’re desperate to be recognized for how unique you are and you’re struggling to be celebrated as a special individual when you’ve done absolutely nothing, but realistically…that’s a pretty tall order, there are like 7 billion people on the planet, so nothing you can make up about yourself will ever really be that impressive. Stop trying so hard and enjoy your fucking childhood.

And if you find you can’t make a stable argument without using a desperate appeal to authority like that, then maybe you should reassess your stance on things because chances are, it’s because you’re wrong. 

[avelera]

My wishlist for Voltron season 3 as well as speculation as to where the series is going, what’s happening, what we’re going to learn, some meta etc etc...

(cut for spoilers)

- Galra Keith who actually turns purple is a serious wishlist item, like I’m still over the moon that we got confirmation but I am here for the transformation angst. I also feel like one of the reasons we got the disappointing “non-reaction” from the team is that the revelation isn’t very... impactful? Like Hunk says, we don’t even know if it’s a grandfather or otherwise distant ancestor. I know the fans are disappointed but finding out that someone had a distant alien ancestor is kinda only mildly interesting, to be fair. Like, we’ll see how this plays out but it doesn’t impact their day to day lives. Hunk’s questions, Shiro’s natural acceptance, and Allura’s period of adjustment to the idea really are the only reactions one can have at this point. Nothing actually changed about Keith yet, so it’s just a footnote about who he is but it really doesn’t mean anything yet. (Also, I find Allura’s reaction completely acceptable for a three dimensional, well-written character I don’t even know where the idea that her reaction doesn’t make sense or is “bad” comes from). 

But if we get some purple and ears like the fandom art, then we’ve got grounds for some actual reaction from the team members, because then it’s going to start influence Keith’s day to day life. Infiltration missions with the Galra become easier, but missions like going to the mall or to help oppressed aliens are going to change dramatically. Allura’s initial acceptance may hit a speed bump. The other team members are going to have to deal with a dramatic shift in the visual makeup of the team, with Keith looking like their enemy, and that’s a harder thing to cope with. 

My prediction? Like Alteans, Galra can change their appearance (they have no reason to at the moment because they’re the dominant Empire and don’t need to go undercover that we’ve seen). Keith has been unconsciously doing this his entire life, something will happen that throws his control into chaos, we’ll have an episode or two while he adjusts to the full consequences of his heritage, and once he accepts it he’ll reclaim his ability to look the way he is more comfortable with (as the Keith we know). Further predictions, both his mother and father are Galra, his father was just shifted to look human at the point. Further, more mainstream prediction, his mother was the mysterious Galra in the crystal harvesting episode and she’s part of the Galra resistance. 

- No Prince Lotor/Allura, please: apparently was pursuing Allura in the original anime. Now, as much as I would love the Keith/Allura/Lotor “love triangle” to be shifted to a Keith/Lance/Lotor one, and I would really love it, I can understand if that doesn’t happen. That being said I am firmly against Lotor/Allura. Please just let them be childhood enemies or just plain antagonists towards each other. The last thing Allura needs is a plotline where she is just a prize to be won or a woman to be seduced. I get that a lot of men think that’s an “empowering” plotline, and maybe at one point it was, but it has been done to absolute death. One reason Pidge is such a great and revolutionary character is that their gender really wasn’t brought up again after the initial revelation, it never comes up during a fight. Please let Allura’s identity not be reduced down to a love interest, even if it’s by a “bad guy” and therefore a “bad” thing. It's just exhausting at this point. So please, no Lotor creeping on Allura. Just let them hate each other if anything (eventual friendship, now, that could be interesting...)

- No Keith/Allura either - Somewhat feeds into the previous point and is one reason I’d love to see the Keith/Allura/Lotor replaced with Keith/Lance/Lotor, because quite frankly even in this season of not much Klance, Keith and Lance had more chemistry than Keith and Allura. They were literally floating romantically in space, carrying one another bridal style, going through the revelation of the other’s past, etc etc. all things that could be a decent romantic arc and I felt... absolutely nothing. Maybe friendship? It was nice to see them bonding? But there just wasn’t a hint of spark there and I don’t even say that as a shipper. Shiro/Allura seems to have the most actual connection, even with the little we’ve seen I just can’t imagine Keith making a move there with Shiro gone and second, making a move at all. For all of Lance’s flirting, Keith has been pretty self-contained and disinterested if not oblivious to the idea of relationships. Even Pidge and Hunk have at least talked about significant others (Pidge with the “girlfriend” photo misunderstanding and Hunk with Shay had a little something going on, even if it was denied). Keith is an absolute blank on the romance front, and it showed even more in the traditionally “romantic” scenes we saw with Allura. Let’s also mention that Allura could not get out of his arms fast enough, and there was no crush-y blush to go with it. It was pure lack of interest and I really hope they let it stay that way. 

- Better Hunk & Lance - At first I didn’t quite get what people were talking about, since Shiro is sort of my darling and Galra Keith was my favorite theory, I found the season extremely satisfying. But going back to rewatch season 1 I can see, yeah, their characterization got Flanderized to Guy Who Flirts and Guy Who Eats, rather than as the engineer and pilot etc that we got in season 1. The worst culprit was the scene of Pidge’s Galra Prediction Engine. It’s a tired out trope already to do the whole “speak English not Science!” and I rolled my eyes that it was there at all, it’s just bad writing, but that fellow members of the academy like Lance wouldn’t let Pidge finish their sentence was just too much. It would have been better for Hunk, who in season 1 was shown to be extremely intelligent, to finish Pidge’s sentence for them. Hunk and Lance aren’t my focal characters, I think some level of their lesser exposure is just because there is a limited amount of time. Keith had almost no personality or plot in season 1, it’s just the trade off of developing characters and Hunk and Lance got a huge amount of development in season 1. But I do get where their fans are coming from now. I feel like this is an outcry the writers will hear though, I think we’ll get a better story around them next season and this was just a lull to set it up because...

- Shiro disappearing is a big deal - Shiro is literally my favorite character but I was still 1000% ok with his disappearance. First of all, there’s no way he’s dead, if he or any other character does die we’re going to get a really big scene if not an entire episode around it, not just an anticlimactic vanishing. So no fear there. Something is definitely Happening with Shiro. That being said, as much as I love Shiro, the team couldn’t mature with him there any further. Hunk, Lance, Keith, Pidge, etc are going to get their maturation arc against the backdrop of Shiro’s absence, there’s just no doubt about it. He was just too good at his job of being the Space Dad and Leader for them to grow very much on their own, he helped everyone a lot and they didn’t have to go through any sort of painful maturation as a result. Season 1-2 got them through the awkward stage of being kids to being full Paladins, now they have to grow further into those roles without that crutch. Shiro has to grow too, and a lot of his pain is tied up in what the Galra did to him, something he can’t really explore so long as the whole team is protecting him and he’s got people around that he has to keep it together for. So that’s good too for character development.

What we’re going to get is this: Keith is going to be the new team leader, and there will be some friction and growing pains around that. We’ll have a period where they can’t form Voltron, which will hurt their effectiveness. Ideally, rather than Keith becoming the Black Lion pilot (which doesn’t make sense in this iteration of Voltron given the importance of the personalities and bond) we’ll eventually get Allura stepping up. As a bit of a Shallura shipper, I’m thinking she and the Black Lion will bond over missing Shiro and basically she’ll get it to work with her on the basis that it’ll help them find Shiro (cue badass pilot Allura, hell yeah!), which is better than bringing in a new team member. 

On the other side of the story, and this is my perennial angst-writer heart speaking, we’re going to get Shiro in captivity. Him vanishing IMO isn’t just a random accident, so he’s not going to just be stranded on some random planet (after all, that was already the opening of season 2). Almost certainly this is the work of Haggar or the Galra using magic, since no way Black would let someone board and kidnap Shiro. So he was probably transported right off somehow, possibly using his arm as a tracking device. Whatever happened, I’m really, really hoping we get Shiro as a captive again of the Galra. We know a lot of awful things happened to him the first time, but we’ve still only got glimpses. I think we’re going to get what really happened fully fleshed out, it’s going to tie into rescuing Pidge’s family, we’re going to learn more about the arm, and generally we’re going to see Shiro broken down and allowed to be vulnerable in a way that he hasn’t been as a leader of the team (because he hasn’t been able to, which has limited the growth of the character). We’re probably going to get a few episodes next season where Shiro is just missing and we don’t know where he is or if he’s alive. Then we’ll find out how he was taken, where he’s been, what’s been happening to him and if I have my way it’s going to be dark dark DARK.  We’ll also get a lot of revelations of what the Galra empire looks like from the inside, something easier with a POV character situated there. 

- The relationship between Alteans and the Galra is going to be revealed to be much more complex than we thought. Allura is a princess, which means she probably has a fairly idealized view of Altea. I know people are speculating that Haggar is her mother, I find that impossible for the same reason that Thace (sadly) isn’t Keith’s dad (though could be a relative) - even with a disguise, we can expect family members to recognize one another. No, Haggar is someone completely unknown to Allura (but maybe not to Coran?). My money at the moment, given no real information, is that she’s someone lower class, perhaps even a servant or slave, since she willingly took part in the destruction of her own planet, which indicates a serious grudge. Now, with episode 2.2 we saw a queen we thought was evil turn out to be mind controlled by a parasitic artifact, it is possible that Haggar isn’t evil but controlled. However, it’s also possible that she’s a victim of the darker side of Altea and therefore would gladly see it fall and work to that end. 

Zarkon used to be the Black Paladin, so at one point the Galra and the Alteans had a close alliance. My theory is that the Paladins used to each be from a different planet, a bit like the Sailor Scouts from Sailor Moon, and protected the galaxy as a visible alliance of the rulers of those kingdoms before it broke apart. We don’t know what made Zarkon shift, but given the vitriol towards the Alteans, either Haggar influenced it or the Alteans did something we don’t know about. 

Another thing that’s curious is the space mall. We’ve seen a lot of aliens on the fringes being oppressed and tormented, but the Galra have to believe they’re in the right somehow. If we have stability and peace at the heart of the empire, a place we haven’t really seen yet, it would create an interesting moral gray area and beg the question of whether the Paladins and Allura, who has admittedly been disconnected for 10,000 years, are actually on the right side of this war or if they’re just terrorists. Now, given who the good guys are and that this is a kid’s show, it’s unlikely we’ll go far with that line of questioning, but I do find it curious. 

The Galra being more complex than we know is one reason that I just nodded the minute we were introduced to the Galra resistance. Look, you can’t just kill one guy and expect everything to be fixed, even in a kid’s show. There needs to be a structure already out there to substitute in to fix the Galra Empire, otherwise the only method of ending their reign is genocide which I doubt is going to happen either in a kid’s show. So we need rebels who will take over and start the path to peace once the bad Galra leadership is taken out, just like in Avatar the Last Airbender with the good Fire Nation members like Zuko and Iroh. It’s just natural from a storytelling perspective that we’ll get people like the Galra resistance, and Keith being likely descended from members of that resistance (though not recently enough that he was recognized) just brings it full circle.

- I have a feeling the show is going to kick off  with season 3. Season 1 and 2 have given a great proof of concept, it’s a huge success and very well received, they’ve shown they can sustain an A+ narrative. Now we’re getting more Galra Empire, more backstory, more moral gray area. This show is on the route of Legend of Korra and Avatar, so while we have to understand some things won’t happen or be fully explored because it’s aimed at children, we can be somewhat hopeful of themes being dealt with maturely. I for one can’t wait.

[shinriki]

About Ship wars

Ok, well don't say I didn't warn you. A couple terms first: * Shipping - Derived from "relationship." Imagining two characters being romantic. This is usually accompanied by producing fanworks that depict those characters in a romantic situation. The relationship can be canonical or not, and the fan works can be everything from PG handholding to XXX vore. (If someone ships Kylo Ren/Rey it means they like to think of them in a romantic/sexual relationship.) The pairing itself is called a ship. * Shipwar - When shippers of two different ships attack each other over their ships. * Wank - common fandom term for drama * Antis - People who invest energy in attacking shippers of a particular ship, and employ arguments of morality of social justice to do so. * Fandom in this case refers to a particular subset of fandom that is traditionally female oriented, focuses a lot of male/male pairings, and often chooses fanfiction as its primary output. There are 2 big things to remember as you read this. 1) Some people are SUPER SERIOUS about fictional characters getting it on together, and 2) they will use any means at their disposal to stop people from doing it wrong. Imagine the ridiculousness of PS vs. Nintendo fanboys ratcheted up to 11 and you get an idea of how some fans approach shipping. Generic ship wars have been happening for a very long time. If you thought Harry Potter deserved to fall in love with Draco Malfoy and Ginny was the devil you were in good company and would gather together to get those dirty Ginny fans run out of the internet. Bad actors have always been around to exploit this, either to troll, or to worm their way into popular or rarefied circles. [The Ms. Scribe Story](http://web.archive.org/web/20140401225619/http://www.peeep.us/0418dc98) is a good example of what the old school shipwars could produce as far as wank was concerned. And in it you see the seed of what would become the modern "Anti" mentality, which is framing yourself as a victim of bigots to win sympathy points, all for the purpose of forwarding your preference of who bangs who. This portion of fandom has always been closely linked with genre fiction, since many people in the latter are engaged in the former. Genre fiction had and still has some issues concerning race, sexism, and homophobia, which is par for the course in almost all media everywhere. In 2009 those issues came into contact with some MASSIVE WANKERS, leading to what continues to be known as [Race Fail '09](https://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_%2709). A lot of people don't know this, but the term Social Justice Warrior started to pick up usage around this time, to define some very particular, very caustic people who were destroying communities by claiming the moral high ground and attacking anyone who had an opinion even slightly different from them. A few of them are listed at that link. It quickly became apparent that pointing the finger and claiming -ism! was an efficient method of silencing certain people. Fandom, however, remained relatively insulated from this fail, which was spreading mostly in certain websites and in professional circles at the time. In '09 the internet was still relatively decentralized, and fandom was dispersed among various livejournals, archives, webforums, and so on. This limited the damage one movement could do, because just because Winterfox was shitting up one site didn't mean there was another that hadn't escaped unscathed. Enter web 2.0, and specifically, Tumblr. As the internet began to coalesce into platforms that aimed to monopolize user engagement, the separation between communities grew more and more difficult. Before, if you wanted to see Kylo Ren and General Hux having kinky tentacle sex you went to a community specifically for that and didn't have to worry about those people who had their own community for Rey and Finn. But now, all the shippers were converging into a single pot, a pot that had no filters, no privacy functions, and actively wanted everything to be shared as widely as possible. Another massive change that happened about this time is that the attitude towards kids in fandom had shifted. Back in the good old days a 13 year old understood that lying about their age was the price you paid to get your porn. The kids these days no longer have that mentality. They don't think twice about declaring themselves children on the internet. This will come into play later. Ok, as we near the present here's a quick review. * Ship wars are serious business to some people. * Screaming about social justice is a proven method of getting people to shut up. * There are some crazy people out there who will do anything to manipulate themselves into a position of infamy. * Everyone has slowly been squeezed into the same fandom spaces, adding pressure. * Children are fucking everywhere. When you combine all those elements what you get is this, some really loud ass motherfuckers who think that whoever can claim oppression and bigotry the loudest is the one who deserves to ship things the way they want, and there can be only one. There have been some reaaaaaallly bad fandoms for this, but since the OP is specifically about the age issue, I'm going to stick to that and not get into some of the ridiculous racism angles this has also taken. A lot of shows that fans like to ship for are cartoons, or shows that are ostensibly aimed towards younger audiences, but adults often are a big portion of the fandom. Ponybros are the more infamous version of this, but they are a bit of an outlier as they don't run in the same fandom circles as the old lj>tumblr fandom that is the source of this particular wank. Big targets of these conflicts include Welcome to Nightvale, Homestuck, Steven Universe, and the new Voltron series. When Voltron came out it got super popular among fandom. A lot of fic was written, and a lot of art was drawn. Since it's a show with a team cast, people were shipping a lot of pairings that shared a member, which is often where the worst of the ship wars happen. For example, two of the biggest ships were Shiro/Keith, and Keith/Lance. Now if you're a kid who ships Keith/Lance and haaaates Shiro/Keith, and you need to stop people from producing things involving Shiro/Keith, and you know accusing people of moral crimes is an effective tactic for this, it turns out your best option is to use pedophilia as a weapon. So people started insisting that Shiro had to be at least 20, and Keith had to be a minor, and shipping these two meant that you were a pedophile. No, it doesn't make any sense, but the people who do this are dead serious about this. They called themselves anti-Sheith (the pairing's "smushname") and went so far as harassing the showrunners for the exact ages of all the characters and tattling on professional artists for indicating a fondness for the ship to their employers. And if people push back and say you're being an idiot, you can throw that back in their face by saying that they are adults abusing minors while simultaneously endorsing abuse and pedophilia! 20 year olds started calling themselves children so they could position themselves in a place to abuse 22 year olds. Teens started declaring 30 the age in which all women should get off the internet and stop having hobbies. And all this was done because they didn't like a fictional pairing. This is by far not the only instance in which pedophilia was brought up as a massive reach to support attacking shippers of the wrong ship. One of the most absurd instances was spearheaded by a 30-something woman named graceebooks, a member of The Johnlock Conspiracy (another very deep rabbit hole) who actually harassed a rape survivor to tears, in public, because she preferred to have Sherlock topping John rather than John topping Sherlock, and even though these people share the same ship, and the SAME FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE INVOLVED, the TJLCers actually had the balls to make the claim that Sherlock topping John = pedophilia because John was being infantalized or something, IDEK. Both Voltron fandom and TJLC share this absurd notion that their "gay babies" will become a canon couple too. That's a whoooole other ball of crazy, but it explains why some people go insane over this. They genuinely believe that if they fight off the rival ships in fandom space the showrunners will reward them by making their faves kiss on the show. So that's the context. What then happened is that these idiotic arguments that were being used for ship wars were then adopted by young, stupid children who did not understand or care about the context, and saw only the arguments themselves, and took them as reasonable and good arguments, and believe in them completely. While most of the initial wankers were just cynically throwing shit at the wall and hoping something stuck to drive out rival ships, there are now a large number of people who believe in a moral code that came out of that. It's like watching a religion form sometimes. The end result is OP, who has bought into a convoluted logic process developed to legitimize the harassment of shippers, and is now trying to apply it to the actual real world, with predictable results. Soucrce: Redditor shares a detailed explanation of how Tumblr's fandom culture formed into the mess it is today, complete with examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/6b5ke3/redditor_shares_a_detailed_explanation_of_how/