#yeah it's not like those fictional characters are real people or something

[asgardian--angels]

you know it's bad when tumblr's being the more mature social media site when it comes to rancid takes on izzy's death

[angeltism]

"spar.kle is fictional who cares" I have seen people praising her for her racist anti-romani comments what the fuck kind of world do you live in

[goldensunset]

re: the music rant I tagged you in I am so sorry for tagging you in my double-dose caffeine fueled haterism explosion post. truly was off the shits and did not realize how much random garbage talking points I was ready to spill on the first person to ask

but i love haterism…..

[anti-dazai-blog]

Got the most baffling ask from [redacted] about an hour ago saying that I should “stop judging Dazai for past actions” and I’m still thinking about it.

What. what does that mean.

[musical-chick-13]

I know I complain about this just. So much. And I’m sorry, like even I’m starting to get annoyed with myself, but I’m just so tired of how, pretty much unless a work is SOLELY populated with ONLY female characters, when it comes to who people spend their time on in fandom, overwhelmingly without fail, they will pick a (white, conventionally attractive) man at every turn.

[skitskatdacat63]

Boy King au literally haunts me, I feel like one of those medieval age monks who would receive divine visions, except it's historical au old man yaoi. They just. Live in my head. Constantly. Like I so badly want to draw and write things for them, but it just can't live up to the world that's developed in my head 😭😭 Idk. I just think about them and I'm just lost in it aahsjdkfkfk. Just the whole world of it, and their characterization within it. They are real to me >:)

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

[your-resident-boat-person]

I think it's so sad that Ace Attorney as a franchise has been reduced to the "haha! Lawyers don't act like that!" game. Whether it be real lawyers just reacting to the game and explaining that real courtrooms don't work like that, or literally anyone I talk to going through the "cross examining a parrot?! How silly! And ghosts in the courtroom?! Ridiculous!" schpiel. Meanwhile, none of these people have any context for how and why these things are happening in the game. Of course the parrot on the stand looks silly, but when you understand WHY it's happening, and you've been the one playing the game up to that point, not only is it perfectly reasonable, but it's quite easily taken seriously. None of this discussion is useful or constructive. This is the equivalent of me getting a scientist to sit down and watch the back to the future trilogy for them to explain "well actually, science doesn't work like that." Like, yeah, no shit. The things that happen in fiction are often unrealistic and over the top. This should not be surprising. "Oh my God, a country where lawyers are banned?!" Shut up. This is an over the top and hyperbolic representation of a radicalized and sheltered public, and an exploration of the necessity for people having representation, even if their guilt seems extremely obvious. This is a theme that has existed and been explored in the franchise in game 1. And once you know WHY that country is like that, and the decades long series of events that led up to it, it's not all that far-fetched. Why can Superman exist in his reality without people going "a journalist with the powers of a god?! How ridiculous! This could never occur in real life!" Like I get that lawyers are a rather mundane and ordinary real life occupation, but isn't all fiction an exploration of the fantastical in the mundane, at least to some degree?

Also, those objection.lol skits are getting really old. The punchline is ALWAYS "Lawyers don't act like that!" or “That's not something youd talk about in a courtroom!” Seeing these intricate, well written characters with intense backstories and decades of trauma reduced to literal talking heads used to play out what people THINK Ace Attorney is like just makes me so depressed. You can tell that most of these people have never played Ace Attorney and only know it from the memes.

Like, I don't want to be one of those "stop having fun" people, but like, it is deeply frustrating seeing a franchise that literally changed the trajectory of my life get so deeply flanderized.

[elucubrare]

What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

[lxdymoon0357]

Hi, Navi! May I request some headcanons for Felix Chamberlain from I have become the hero’s rival with a transmigrator!reader who just wants her favs to be happy and to have a peaceful life too, but somehow gets the magician’s attention anyway? It would be interesting if one of the original male leads had interest in the transmigrator!reader, though it’s all up to you! :)

Felix Chamberlain X Transmigrator! Reader HCs

▼ You were ECSTATIC to be a transmigrator and that to your special manhwa!! You were definitely gonna help Irene, Claudia and Felix and you really wanted to see Irene and Felix's love bloom in front of your eyes and luckily you were a middle-class person and you applied to be Claudia's playmate or something...

▼ You quickly got close with her and Irene and you three were the ICONIC trio!! and you quickly became friends with Felix as well, you'd help Claudia escape the male leads as much as you could by remembering the manhwa!

▼ And you slowly started developing feelings, before it was for him like a fictional character, but now for real....But you were afraid that after this finished, you'd be thrown back into your real world, so you didn't act on your feelings...

▼ You became very close with them and eventually told them about you being from another world, Irene was VERY happy to learn someone was from her world, and you couldn't bother to explain to her how she was also a part of the manhwa, so you went along with it!

▼ Also Irene was mean to end up with Felix, right? Yeah, it's not like the manhwas you read where you might end up with the character when their love interest is RIGHT THERE! But he seemingly never got close with Irene in a romantic path and neither did Irene...and this confused you...

▼ Felix would love to bond with you by asking you how you used to live, what you used to eat, where you lived, what you looked like...and whom you dated, yes he's jealous of them...don't worry...

▼ And soon you confessed and you started dating, it was such a big thing for Irene and Claudia who had been shipping you two since day 1 and Lerase himself was quite happy as he seemed to have taken a liking to you as well...

▼ He would love to hear stories about how you lived, how things are different in your world and whom you hated and loved and liked or some random stories from childhood...He wanted to know what you are like before you came into his arms in this world.

▼ He would have a portrait of you painted on what you looked like before, and he gets a smaller copy on a page and he sleeps with the smaller portrait beside his bed! He can not get over the fact you looked so cute!

▼ Irene and you would often reminisce on how life was before you came here and how much you miss things from back then, but you both are so utterly grateful to be here and be in love with the Chamberlains...Yes, Irene liked Claudia...

▼ Oh btw, Benjamin took a weird liking for you and Lerase apparently didn't like that....and crushed his skull in his bare hands, of-course you didn't see him crush his skull, but you were there during the aftermath and god in your eyes does Felix look hot covered in blood...

▼ Oh you got Irene and Felix and told them how in the original story, Irene and Felix were meant to be together and how they both....yeah...of-course those two looked a bit grossed out and a felt a bit weird, because first, they don't like each other, they like Claudia and you respectively and they can't honestly see themselves together, no matter what you say or do...and you honestly find it funny and bring it to make the two cringe up and look grossed out...

▼ Claudia loves to hear about the pretty dresses and what women can do and can't do in the modern world and how much people wanted her and Irene to get together and sh's happy to hear that

▼ In all honesty, it's a adventure everyday with the trio and you being with them! Double dates, double couples and quadrouple trouble~

[runaeveena]

intense meta acting boot camp was actually the best decision they made for filming band of brothers because those actors truly Truly embodied the characters so much so that they physically look different from any other character they play like if i look at any picture of donnie wahlberg anytime in his career i am filled with apathy and disdain EXCEPT for when he is on screen as carwood lipton. you ask me whos my special man that i wish was my mom and i point at his potato ass head, you say "that's donnie wahlberg" and i say no that's band of brothers real life character carwood lipton and you say "bro that's donnie wahlberg he's in blue bloods" and i say no no no thats lip that's my mom and he's having speirs' baby and you say "what" and i point at real life character ron speirs and you say "is that matthew settle? from gossip girl?" but im not even listening anymore because i can't acknowledge these actors existing in anything outside of the 2001 masterpiece band of brothers and then you say "arent these real life people? dont you think youve crossed a line in how you interact with the fictional portrayal of these real people who felt vulnerable and embarrassed about the most traumatic part of their lives being made into a ten part television series?" and i say yeah that's all true, a character is bordered by an outline of historical fact that influences the way a writer or researcher who never met the man can perceive them and then mold personality traits to fit into something palatable for a story that can only try to achieve the truth because all media is art at its core. maybe the real men felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that their lives and stories were not accurately shared, and that's why there's about fifty books about them, but really the reason why there's so many people who are willing to read those books, who want to know more about these men's lives, is because the series showed us a snapshot of ordinary lives being celebrated, and those ordinary lives were crafted, honed, and acted so well because those actors did the most work they could to make each character feel alive and special. even if they weren't accurately portraying the real men, i continue, they are nonetheless influenced by them, literally taking their direction in how to behave and the final product of the show lives on as its own entity, separated from the real people, yet connected by a moment that happened eighty years ago. you nod a bit, "and that's why you're okay writing donnie wahlberg mpreg now?" and for the last fucking time its not donnie wahlberg anymore dale dye beat that name out of him for the entire duration of filming it's LIPTON

[petitprincess1]

Hey, I'm really sorry for asking this, but do you and how do you deal with any guilt for liking Hazbin Hotel? I think the controversies and antis have got to me because I can't watch it or any content without thinking about those.

I love the songs (both the show's and PARANOID DJ's because they're bangers) but I also can't help but think "am I a terrible person with bad taste for liking this?"

Parts of this show also just make me happy, especially Angel Dust. He became such a comfort to me after I went through a similar situation. Not as extreme, but it messed me up. And Alastor is just the best character to ever be created. He sings and dances and kills and eats people, what more could you want in a man? But yeah, I just want to enjoy the silly demon show without feeling gross afterward and I don't know how to shake that feeling off.

First of all, I don't have any guilt watching anything I enjoy.

Second of all, neither should you. And this is the problem with antis and "critics". No one should EVER be made to feel bad about liking anything. Hell, I'll even extend that thought to those who like Velma. I'll never understand it, but I can't hate you for liking something.

I know Vivzie is tied to a lot of controversies, but so what? More than half of them have been debunked or shown to have changed as she grew older. Even if you still feel iffy, Hazbin is more than just Vivzie. There's an entire crew attached to this show and they should not suffer bc of one person.

I mean, you've most likely played a game or watched a movie that has had a problematic person connected to it. Yeah, that person is scummy, but you can still enjoy the content that has them featured or they created bc...that doesn't define you as a person. What you like in fiction does not translate to real life.

It's different when it comes to someone like Onision, who's content is nothing but his life and about him. I'd be more disgusted if you liked him vs you liking Hopper from A Bug's life, despite him being played by Kevin Spacey. Awful person, but Hopper is disconnected from Spacey other than voice. Or liking a song by a problematic artist. You like the song, not the person.

Once again, YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR ENJOYING SOMETHING! NO ONE SHOULD EVER FEEL GUILTY FOR ENJOYING MEDIA THAT'S MEANT TO BE ENJOYED! VIVZIE MADE THE SHOW BUT SHE IS NOT THE SHOW!

Anyone who dares to feel self-righteous over a cartoon needs to get that tree branch out of their ass.

[boreal-sea]

Yeah people that are interested in stuff exclusively like Lolita or pedophilia fiction definitely don't have an interest in those things and doesn't say anything to their character that that's what they're into in reality at all. Nope just crazy that projecting things onto fiction isnt indicative of inner character at all or a way to explore those things. Certainly wouldnt enable people into making those things real.

You're a joke and a clown.

You have no idea if they have an interest in those things IRL. You have no idea if it's enabling or not. You are listening to your knee-jerk feelings and trusting your disgust about something you don't understand and you are not thinking with your head.

I like noncon in fic. I like rape fantasy in kink. I find it to be incredibly arousing to momentarily pretend a character (or myself, or my partner) is being taken against their will, often by a villain or a beast or something so strong they cannot resist. I like the "sex pollen" trope, wherein characters are driven to feel an uncontrollable urge to fuck someone they normally wouldn't. I love stuff like vampiric mind control. I love omegaverse heats and ruts, where the character is so driven by their biology they can't stop themselves, even if they wouldn't normally consent. I love "fuck or die" scenarios.

All of those scenarios involve a lack of consent or questionable consent on the part of the participants. A lot of those scenarios, if they they were happening in real life, would be outright rape.

Now. According to your logic, all of this means that I actually, secretly, think rape in real life is super awesome, and I either actually want to be raped, or I want to rape someone. According to you, reading that kind of fic and participating in that kind of kink play should turn me into a rapist or someone who wants to be raped.

It hasn't.

I have always thought and still think real rape is in fact a horrific violation of someone's rights and boundaries and is inexcusable.

Because I know the difference between pretend play and reality.

Horror movie script writers, directors, and actors don't secretly yearn to be serial killers. David Jenkins and Taika Watiti do not want to become pirates. Bryan Fuller, who developed the NBC Hannibal show, does not secretly yearn to consume human flesh or murder people.

Authors are not always the things they write. You have got to learn this.

[narutouzumakiarchive]

what are your thoughts on the “kishi based off naruto and sasuke off him and his brother so it’s weird and morally wrong to ship sasunaru.” IMO I’m like…you know what else is weird? kishi making the two characters that are supposedly based of him and his brother kiss accidentally and not only did they accidentally kiss but that scene is replayed multiple times in the manga and anime. So yeah…

Well I many thoughts.

For starters, the interview in question (and I'm still not sure of the source) states that the bond between Kishimoto and Seishi, his brother, was based on the aspect of feeling mutual pain.

Now let's look at another interview, from Kishimoto the lying liar. In it he states that his wife might secretly realize that Hinata isn't the real model for his wife because his wife is quite strong, which the interviewer noted was kind of like Sakura. Isn't that interesting.

In this interview he also implicitly acknowledges the implicit similarity between Sakura and his wife based on the particular aspect of strength. And yet, sasusaku's wouldn't use this interview as an indication that Sakura was in a romantic relationship with Naruto. Nor would they claim that Kishimoto (who frequently acknowledged that Naruto was a reflection of him) was writing a manga in which his wife (Sakura) was romantically in love with the analogue of his brother (Sasuke) Why?

Because while fiction is a reflection of life, it is in no way an exact representation of life. People in real life are complex multi dimensional beings and have complex and multi dimensional relationships; in other words, people and relationships have dimensions and depth that extend beyond one singular aspect, especially characteristics that are as common and generic as strength, and shared feelings of pain. Thus, Naruto and Sasuke, who also have additional depth in their bond beyond feelings of shared pain (let me know when brothers have feelings of uncertainty regarding the nature of their relationship btw) aren't a perfect analogue of Seishi and Kishimoto.

But I also want to note that they never extend this logic to the reverse. For example, Naruto and Sasuke are explicitly likened to Izanagi and Izanami, who in the Japanese mythos Kishimoto drew inspiration from, on the basis of perfect complementarity, were married. Surely, according to their logic, since basing the fictional dynamic between Naruto and Sasuke of of one aspect of the dynamic between two Gods who were married means that Naruto and Sasuke had romantic feelings for eachother, right? And yet something tells me those hypocrites who are triggered by Naruto and Sasuke would disagree. Because even they can intuit that fictional depictions don't necessarily have a perfect 1 to 1 relationship with the things they derive inspiration from.

But, additionally I need to add that Kishimoto could say that Naruto and Sasuke are the most brotherly of brothers and that it would be a crime to ship them — he could even have them end the series affirming they were like brothers — and it still wouldn't matter for two reasons.

One, intent does not equal impact. It would not matter if Kishimoto intended for Naruto and Sasuke to have a brotherly dynamic if what we were shown in the text is NOT a brotherly dynamic. People put a lot of stock in information from interviews, but while that paratext can help enhance our understanding of the text, ultimately, it is seperate from the text and the text is king — in other words, the purpose of a system (in this case, the Naruto text) is what it does.

But let me talk about a funny example first before I discuss Naruto and Sasuke. In 2009, Folgers Coffee released an infamous commercial that made the relationship between a brother and sister take center stage.

Now I suggest you watch the video for yourself, but for people who want the TLDR: It received a ton attention and backlash as a result of the very obvious incestuous undertones.

Now the video was obviously meant to depict the dynamic between a normal brother and sister. I mean, taboo themes in a commercial for a brand that has consistently utilized rhetorical appeals to wholesome conservative family values makes for bad business. And yet, despite the commercial making it obvious that the main characters in the ad were brother and sister by having them explicitly indicate as much, that line didn't do much the quell the underlying tension that viewers picked up on when watching the coy flirtation and intense gazes.

Which brings me back to Naruto and Sasuke. Most people that interact with media do so casually. Many are looking for simple minded entertainment. They aren't going to comb through the internet to look for cherry picked interviews to discern the nature of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship. They'll simply look at what's presented in the narrative to do so, and what the narrative presents is that of an overwhelmingly romantic dynamic between Naruto and Sasuke.

Romance is a "social structure that's biologically potentiated." This will receive more elaboration in another post, but at its core much of what we consider to be romantic has been shaped by shared socioculturally produced conventions (that can be specific to particular cultures/societies or more globalized). And when it comes to determining what is romantic in a narrative, the shared conventions and expectations are further mediated by the values that the text promotes.

People who interact casually with Naruto won't see Kishimoto's interviews, but they will see things like...

The classic romantic kiss/almost kiss intimate moment in the rain

Sakura stating that all she wants from Sasuke is acknowledgement in an explicitly romantic context (which is an example of a convention/ideal being promoted in the text as romantic), Naruto internally identifying with Sakura in this regard, and Sasuke giving Naruto the acknowledgement that he wants but not Sakura

Naruto getting tingles in his lower parts when thinking of said acknowledgement from Sasuke

Sasuke thinking about his kiss with Naruto and Naruto's dream during what he believed to be his final moments, and indicating it was one of the many reasons why his body decided to move on its own to save Naruto, a moment that was explicitly paralleled with Haku's sacrifice for Zabuza's dream a mere few chapters later, the same Haku that was implied to have subtextually romantic feelings for Zabuza [and a quick interjection, acknowledgement of what is presented in the text does not equal promotion. Moral critiques are important and just as valid as more stylistic analyses BUT they are distinct things. "Haku was never implied to have feelings for Zabuza because that's gross" is not a meaningful analysis]

Naruto making a proposal that significantly resembles the structure of shinju (double suicide), (a concept that has great significance in Japanese and Western popular culture, hello shared cultural conventions, hello Chikamatsu Monzaemon, hello Romeo and Juliet) a concept that was invoked by Omoi at the beginning of the volume that Naruto's proposal was in. This concept is promoted as a romantic value in the text via Omoi, and of course, is accords with popular sociocultural understandings of what we know to be Romantic.

And make no mistake, Kishimoto was intimately aware of the history of the romantic convention he drew from.

Naruto being Sasuke's tether to humanity in the same way that Rin was Obito's tether to humanity as well as Naruto being visually framed in Sasuke's memory in the exact same way that Rin was framed in Obito's memories in back-to-back chapters.

And there's more, but there's no need to continue because even just these moments highlight how far beyond the het dynamics Naruto and Sasuke are in terms of mutual, romantic implications. Naruto and Sasuke's dynamic is shown as romantic which it why it wouldn't even matter if Naruto and Sasuke weren't intended to be romantic.

Now, the second reason why it wouldn't matter if Naruto and Sasuke were intended to be non romantic brothers is that.... they aren't brothers. Like the most surefire way to make a bond be brotherly is to make the characters related. [And not have their first pivotal interaction be a classic "accidental kiss" ship bait moment that was iconic enough to be recycled by their kids who are now love interests.] And further, the trope of two people (gay people in particular) who aren't siblings but have a unique, powerful and intimate bond that's metaphorized and/or euphemized as sibling-like doesn't inherently negate romance.

But let me provide an example. There's a show called Breaking Bad, centered on a man who ostensibly turns to a life of crime in order to protect his family, but he's not important here. In the show, we're provided with the backstory of the primary antagonist in Season 4, Gus Fring. And the viewer gets to see that the reason Gus decided to devote his life to getting revenge on the cartel was because the loss of someone that was particularly close and precious to him, a man named Hector.

Within Gus' backstory, there's really only one scene of note that implies the two are gay. When a previous antagonist named Hector crudely pees into the pool, in the presence of Gus and Max, and is chastised by a fellow associate, Hector remarks that the two men won't say anything because they like what they see and makes suggestive kissing noises at them.

But there's something interesting about the way Max describes the relationship between himself and Gus. He explicitly states that he knows Gustavo like a brother. Hell, the name of the business that he planned to start alongside Gus was called Los Pollos Hermanos (translated in the show as The Chicken Brother's) and even the episode in which their story is expounded upon is named "Hermanos." And yet, many viewers picked up on the romantic subtext between Max and Gus, subtext that the showrunner confirmed was intentional. In the viewers minds, the subtext wasn't wholly negated because they knew eachother like brothers.

And that's because, the metaphor of the sibling, is often merely utilized to invoke desirable traits of idealized siblinghood (like friendship and trust) while setting aside the biological limitations of actual sibling bonds. Hence, in Japanese and Western media, this invocation of the sibling-like bond often occurred (and still does) in tandem with romantic subtext, and this is especially common in gay narratives when characters are trying to understand the nature of their feelings.

But this is a nuance that is lost by people that only chronically consume battle shonen. If you showed them the scene of Max talking about his dynamic with Gus they'd decry the people who dared to call it gay and make some fake deep statement about how people want to undermine pure brotherly bonds by making everything romantic. Because only in the Naruto fandom will people complain about you bringing up the fact that maybe it's gay to think about a kiss when you're about to die or to feel special butterflies when you're acknowledged by your rival. They'd combust if you tried to explain that idealized characteristics present in particular relational categories (like friendship and brotherhood) can overlap.

And if you go back to the interview, in which feelings of intensely shared pain are regarded as brotherly, you'll see that Kishimoto notes just that. He states that feelings of brotherly love and friendship are the same exact thing. Which means that in the period when Sasuke considered Sakura a nakama, something that obviously ended after he left the village, according to the very same interview that narusasu antis foolishly claim debunks our ship, it would mean that Sasuke also had fraternal feelings for Sakura as he did for the rest of Team 7 and thus was morally wrong. But you can't expect logic from het shippers.

Which brings me to my final set of points. I've already reached the 30 image limit so I can't post more images on this post (and will probably save it for another ask) but my post this far has only adressed the demographic that genuinely believes in the narusasu are like brothers argument. But, you need to understand that a significant portion of the people that push that argument don't even believe in it themselves, and I'm not joking. Search any narusakusasu account or popular "poly Team 7" art post and I can guarantee that at least 7 out 10 times, if you click on the profile of a someone with a cherry blossom and tomato emoji pair and search "incest" or "brother" on their account, you'll find a post of them speaking negatively about narusasu. It's almost funny how consistently it turns out to be true, but again, I'll address that in another post (along with the behavior of naruhina's because they tend to use different argument against sns). The point is that their issue with narusasu has never been about "moral wrongness" but about the fact that Sakura (and Hinata in the case of SasuHinaNaru's) isn't involved in their dynamic.

In fact, many Sakura stans are multiSaku's that have no problem shipping her with every man that ever breathed in her vicinity (Madara, Sasori, Itachi, Kakashi, etc.) and even the ones that didn't (Shisui).. I mean they're even publishing reworked fanfiction, [see this ItaSaku novel]. And yet they only bat an eye at Naruto and Sasuke. That's why ultimately, you shouldn't take them seriously, because they aren't looking to engage with you in good faith. They just want to undermine narusasu while stealing our tropes for their ship.

But since the word of Kishimoto is law to them, just bring up any one of the interviews in which Kishimoto's mocked Hinata, Sakura NH and SS, like him calling Sakura detestable, or his reaction to someone liking Hinata being "so you like girls with big boobs," or him initially agreeing that SS and NH were unrequited, or him stating he didn't know if Sasuke and Sakura would last, or him stating that Hinata isn't a regular heroine that stands at the main character's side but the type that watches him from the shadows (when her entire goal during the manga was to stand by Naruto's side), him laughing at an interviewer that stated Sasuke dealt with Sakura by leaving, or Kishimoto stating that he didnt have any devotion to the love story between Naruto and Hinata and he didnt plan to write it until Studio Pierrot suggested it, or Kishimoto stating that he avoided writing the reason for Sakura's love because it would sound too contrived, or — well, you get the point.

[olderthannetfic]

I have really mixed feelings about the small proportion of F/F fiction (original or fanfic), because yeah sure, people have their desires, they should write what they want, I get it. It all works out when I hear it from person to person. But somehow the logic only ever applies in one direction? "There are more male protagonists because men only care about male characters! Women also mostly care about male characters, because that's the majority of characters they get!" And then somehow we also yet kvetch when men write female characters (because it's incorrectly or something, nevermind if women are writing male characters correctly). Why don't we expect gay men to feel compelled only by femslash for the same reasons (but gender swapped) as the lesbian slashers/fujoshi? All of those very rational justifications are applied selectively, "for me for not for thee," and it all only leads to "idk I just don't wanna write femslash", for Reasons. Do we get to call them microaggressions yet?

--

No, you don't get to call other people's fantasy life a microaggression.

That is indeed "for me but not for thee" in the sense that you get to want what you want but other people aren't supposed to follow their id.

Do you also police gay men who spend too much time on drag and obsessing over female divas? That's an actual real world behavior that's somewhat equivalent. It frequently goes unchallenged, at least by progressives, because men are allowed to do whatever they want with chick stuff, while women are "stealing" if they dare to stray into dude stuff.

(God, I've seen so much more policing of drag kings being ~problematic~ for acting out stereotypical gender than policing of drag queens for the same. It's nuts!)

Fujoshi are often queer, but it's absurd to think we're mostly lesbians. We tend to be bi or asexual women with gender stuff going on, though there is a mix of everybody, including lesbians. There are also a lot of AFAB non-women who get lumped in with us. On the rare occasions I find a man willing to admit to being a similar demographic, he usually does like gender play in his hobbies and entertainment. It's just that men face even more pressure than women do to fit into tidy categories. Bi women get told we're whores. Bi men are told they don't exist.

Yes, I know plenty of lesbians who write more m/m than f/f, but in the big picture of all of AO3 or all of fanfic or all of media, they aren't the demographic driving these numbers. They're vastly outnumbered by the bi women, the asexual women, and the straight and gnc women.

The men we should be looking at as an equivalent aren't cis gay men but bicurious soy boys and the like.

Do most of us fujoshi object to equivalent men doing an equivalent thing? I've seen it sometimes, and I agree it's hypocritical. I'd like us to afford men the same ability to play and take on identities in their art. I remember enjoying Ranma fandom back in the day and reading quite a lot of f/f that was probably by men. It had some of that same sense of distance and fantasy that I so enjoy in m/m aimed at fujoshi. (I do consume some by-cis-gay, for-cis-gay content, both m/m and f/f, but it's often too literal and too bound up in specific named identities for my taste.)

On average, the people I see complaining most about men producing f/f material are the same people who think that because I have a clit, I should center my life around women exclusively. In other words, people spouting radfem ideology, perhaps on purpose or perhaps without realizing.

I do agree that some of the ways of expressing a lack of desire to write femslash can get pretty douchey. I want us to move away from some of the less accurate ones like "There are no compelling female characters" because of this.

But the reason for all these jerkass explanations is that women and people perceived as women who like m/m are constantly asked to explain ourselves. These aren't usually microaggressions: they're openly hostile. People get defensive and try to answer with important-sounding reasons about identity and pain because society at large won't accept "I like this" as the true explanation.

Pleasure is never enough of a reason for a woman to do something.

[the--queen-of--hell]

I don't know what to think about anti proshippers anymore.

Antishippers say "stop normalizing child x adult ships" "stop normalizing incest" "stop romanticizing child x adult ships" "stop romanticizing incest" while being okay with romanticizing murder in some shows/movies and romanticizing cannibalism in some shows/movies. I didn't see any antiship throw hands the moment someone said "I like Hannibal" although it romanticize cannibalism. It's weird, isn't it?

Antishippers say "shipping fictional minor x adult ships is gross and disgusting" "shipping fictional incest ships is gross and disgusting" and "shipping X is gross and digusting" while being okay with telling real people to kill themselves. While being okay with telling real people "you should be raped" "you should be tortured" "you should burn in hell" and more things. Do you even pay attention to your actions and the actions of other people? How shipping two characters is worse than telling a real person "kill yourself"????

Antishippers say "you are gross" "you need help" "you're insane" "you need therapy" while being the ones who tell proshippers "you deserve to have trauma" "you deserved to be raped" (for those proshippers who were raped and were told they deserved it by antis- I'm so sorry). I'm no therapist, but if I were I would honestly find more disturbing an anti saying "kys" to a real person than a proshipper liking problematic fictional content.

Antishippers say "protect the children" "children could see this and think it's okay" "victims of pedophiles/abuse don't deserve someone romanticizing their trauma". You have no right to claim you want to protect children when you're harassing or telling children to kill themselves. Because yes, in the proship community there are minors. And no, they haven't been groomed into being a proship. Actually, if anything, they would have been groomed into being an antiship because they're scared of people telling them "kys" "you're a pedo" "you're fucking disgusting". And what are children doing in Tumblr/AO3/Wattpad anyways? They're not supposed to be here. They're not supposed to see content not made for them. If they are in these websites, I'm worried about why their parents aren't there to tell them "this is not a safe place for you". And if people were hurt by real pedophiles or were abused, I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry for them. But why the hell they're seeing fictional content that triggers them? If it upsets them, then block the content, ignore its existence, and trust me, you will feel less upset and more happy.

Antishippers say "you deserve to be harassed" "if you don't want to be harassed then stop being weird" "if you don't want to be harassed then stop sharing that type of content". Do you realize you sound like those people who say "if you don't want to be harassed for being gay, then don't be gay" "if you don't want to be harassed for being trans, then don't be trans" "if you don't want to be bullied, then stop being a weirdo", right? Or you didn't realize that?

Antishippers say "this ship is fucking gross" "this ship is fucking disgusting". I'm sorry, didn't you see the thing that said "block button" "filter tags"? Because you can do that. If you don't like some kind of content, use the filter tags/block button. Watch the content you want to see. Use the block button and filter the tags. Search for the ships you like instead of the ships you don't like. I forgot something? Oh yeah. Use. the. block. button. and filter. the. tags.

Antishippers say "why there are so many fics of these ships on AO3?" "why people are so gross?" "why people have to write about this?". Bro- I'm sorry that you didn't realize before but- AO3. IS. A. FUCKING. WEBSITE. FOR. PROSHIPPERS. So don't start with the "Proship DNI" in your tags because AO3 is a PROSHIP web. If you don't like it, GET OUT of AO3 and go WATTPAD or FANFICTION. AO3 is for PROSHIPPERS and we're TIRED of your "Proship DNI" bullshit.

Antiship community is honestly one of the worst communities I've ever seen. There's no other community so inmoral, digusting, and horrible in the Internet.

To my proshippers fellows, if I forgot something antis say you're free to add it.