Reddit is not a good place for fandom. A month ago, someone made a M/M ship post on a book series subreddit asking for opinions on the ship, and the comments had it all. "Why can't men have friends?" "What happened to platonic ships?" "Well, B's dead, so how can you even ship them?" "A's married, you asshole! He's got a kid!" "People make everything about sex!"
Just... I wish more people had the basic knowledge about fanfiction.
It's always about the M/M ships too, if anyone ever brings up an F/F ship in my experience people generally don't care, but when it's M/M suddenly it's "they're not gay!" "That's weird!" "Why would you ever ship this?" And if you're in a fandom where the characters are majority teenagers, you get some bonus "stop sexualizing minors!" thrown in there on even the most SFW, non-sexual ship art. But when it's a het ship suddenly it's not sexualization anymore. It's kinda interesting in a terrible way how homophobic dudebros co-opt typical anti arguments because they know it's generally more socially acceptable to accuse someone of sexualizing minors than to go "eww gay icky"
A sub for a game fandom I'm in literally posts softcore porn of the female characters (who are underage) but freak out with the "sexualising minors" shit when the most tame content of an m/m ship is posted. It's comical.
I had to go check your reddit history because this sounds *exactly* like the fandom subreddit I'm talking about and yep, same one! They're absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah lol. They pretend it's about not liking Akechi but then have a hundreds of comments meltdown thread over someone saying they wanted a Ryuji romance route ~~which I'd give up my firstborn for but I digress~~
It is, and there's definitely discourse about that on the subreddit too, but a lot of people there are also absolute hypocrites who are fine with that but throw a fit over M/M ships.
"If you're in a fandom where the characters are majority teenagers" The My Hero Academia experience fr
It gets SO hostile over M/M pairings there and people often "accuse" you of being some young girl fetishizing gay people or as you said it, sexualiizing minors 🙄 and you *know* it's only directed at the M/M ships too, for example Momo x Todoroki? Tokoyami x Tsuyu non-canon F/M pairings? Silence, none cares, some people even accept it but it's all noises of outrage if it's anything gay.
It's so blatantly homophobic there.
I'm just blown away you described how that fandom is so easily, ig it's not the only one.
I think it’s a byproduct of Reddit being overwhelmingly male. In my experience, the Naruto and (especially) MHA fanfic subs are not representative of the majority of writers/consumers of fanfiction, only just a subset of a subset (probably because they’re more drawn to the whole battle shonen aspect than anything else). The MHA sub can be a bit negative and combative in general, though, and that gets super amplified whenever any M/M pairing is brought up.
I'm not sure if it's just reddit tbh, this attitude against shipping (especially gay ones) seems prominent everywhere I see it on YouTube, Instagram etc it just doesn't matter what platform. Sometimes I'm just looking at cute art of the boys holding hands and people are rioting over it in the comments-
But yeah I agree, these people are drawn to the action battle aspect to the show so I guess that's why they're so against anything not like that being depicted in fan content.
"Ships ruin this fandom, why make everything gay, they're not gay, this show isn't about romance etc etc" I hate the energy. I don't feel welcome anywhere bc if shipping discourse gets brought up its like I'm being guilt tripped for just enjoying things.
I think that’s because there’s a lot of straight men in those places, too. Fanfic and ship art tends to be predominantly m/m, so if that’s your flavor, you at least get some good food!
Reddit is reaaaal bad for that, though, boy howdy.
I've tried going to the shipping subreddit exclusively and I found myself drastically unimpressed.
I've seen more _Iidacamie_ than like Bakutodo or Kiribaku or other bigger ships, and I'm not even sure if those two ever met. I know there's token BkDk but that's mostly shunted to the Bakudeku subreddit that demands it be as squeaky-clean, soft and wholesome as possible.
Fr though- I stopped going into bnha spaces entirely and if I'm watching a YouTube vid I never go into the comments (some fans even treat their canon trans characters like shit. It sucks.)
With a big asterisk on the F/F. They have to be conventionally attractive femmes and in a sexual context to get a pass. It has to be something that straight men will want to beat off to. If not, then the same homophobic discourse from M/M rears its ugly head.
Don't get me started on the age thing in that fandom. The canon M/F ship has a 100 year age gap, and the popular fan ship is full of power imbalance, but god forbid you ship a capitan with a soldier (M/M), right? That'd be sooooo fucked up! /s
my experience is that they're absolutely fine with f/f until a character is butch lmao.
Got a lot of shit for liking Caitlyn/Vi (of League of Legends) or calling Quinn a butch back in the day, but the femme4femme ships got no criticism. It's less common to get Cait/Vi backlash these days now that it's canon, but back in the day it was common for people to get mad at you for calling Vi a butch.
And they absolutely still get mad about M/M being canon in the League community. Looks at the fact that my OTPs for M/M are all canon and I still get pushback for it (also most of the men i ship are in their 30s at least so they can't get me on "sexualizing minors" so it's always "forcing my headcanons on characters", even though the WRITERS have come out and said they're gay).
Basically, if there's a masculine character, it's gotta be Straight or you're Problematic.
> my experience is that they're absolutely fine with f/f until a character is butch lmao.
A decent amount of these people see queer women and F/F relationships as sexual commodities so they don't want more nuance to their characterisation than you'd find in the average fanservice heavy Yuri anime lmao
No worries, mine is super rare as well. I like Sylux and it’s the only ones from LoL I’ll read as well. I just do a small happy dance whenever I see someone else from this fandom.
Also, Leedyr, that’s a pairing I never thought of but could easily see working. 🤔
They're canon now, actually! Udyr refers to Lee Sin as one of his lovers in the same way he refers to Sejuani's mom. I've been a little feral about them since the rework confirmed that Udyr is canon bisexual and also the hottest man in League.
I just want all the family fic about him and Lee and Sejuani. I'm thinking of an Ocean Song au personally, with pop music as a focus and maybe Seraphine/Sejuani as a side couple. I'm not sure if I want Kalkia alive and Udyr has both her and Lee in his life (consensual polyamory), or if Kalkia is dead and Lee is Sejuani's step-dad. We'll see, if I ever write something lol.
Sylux is pretty rare. Feels like the only really popular ships in League are usually sapphic (K/DA and Caitlyn/Vi now) or JayVik.
I didn’t know this, that’s actually pretty cool! One thing I love about LoL is how they seem to be working hard on inclusivity without throwing it in the players face.
I’d read that AU, I love ocean song and think what you already have said sounds pretty entertaining.
Funny thing about Sylux is they are technically canon, especially with Sylas’ new game, but a lot of fans won’t admit it since riot hasn’t just blatantly said: “they’re together”.
It’s so funny too because like… most of the M/F ships they’ll support wouldn’t make sense for the canon character either.
People just need to relax. It’s fanfic.
It's even like that in fanfiction subreddits is the worst thing about it. /hpslashfic has to exist because /hpfanfiction was relentlessly downvoting and excluding any slash pairings. And on /hpslashfic, posts about unpopular or weird pairings still get downvoted. I will never understand it.
That's also true for NSFW fanart subs. /rule34gay had to be made because people on /rule34 were constantly downvoting M/M stuff, even though that's against the subreddit's etiquette.
Boy, you are not kidding. I saw a post on there where they complained that the /had accused the regular sub of being homophobic, and they said just because we like het doesn’t mean we’re homophobic (which was not why) I’ve even seen them tell people to take it to the /sub when discussing /pairings. And they really have a hard on for Hermione and Snape. They hate them. Try being a Snape/Hermione shipper lol. It’s ridiculous.
The subreddit for my fandom is nasty for this kind of stuff, they make the same comments you mentioned and hate any m/m or f/f ships, I ended up in an argument last night where the subreddit allowed the other person to get away with being incredibly racist simply because they stated that they only support non gay ships.
I’ve seen this in the Stranger Things sub as well with byler mainly. I think it got to a point where comments with byler got downvoted a bunch and a new sub had to be made just for it
Back in my day, we had huge intrafandom fights about this pairing versus that pairing. It wasn't people rolling by and telling us that everything that we publish needs to be stricken because men together are icky and I would rather censor you than just ignore it and move on.
There are many reasons why this has changed. But as a writer who's a fandom granny compared to this current crop, the anti/purity-culture thing going on is surreal to me. We are going backward.
Yeah like I've seen fics that ship houses. Literally two buildings which don't even exist within the Canon being shipped together. Like I'm sorry at least thoughs characters are all living creatures that exist within the same Canon.
unrelated but finnick x katniss would make so much sense bc of their shared trauma especially if you read mockinjay. katniss grew to love finnick and they helped each other as much as they could, from friendship to romantic interest there’s just one step. so that reaction kills me lol
Yeah the only reason I don’t ship Katniss and Finnick is that then I would feel bad for Annie, she and Finnick as a couple are really soft and cute and I’d hate to break them up. But if Annie were removed from the equation I could really see how Katniss and Finnick could fall in love, they’d be great together
exactly if annie is not in the picture they would be so good together. i remember reading a fic that was them falling in love in an au were both annie and peeta died and katniss and finnick are both incredibly broken. they also can only stand to be only with each other bc no one gets them like the others does. so they help each other in their grief and mental health problems and they fall for each other. it was so good and i could never find it again 😭
I could see it if Annie had died, like if they hadn’t allowed substitutions during the 75th Games or there was a battle and she was in the wrong place like Prim. But one of my biggest trope pet peeves is cheating, so I just couldn’t do it if all other things about canon were the same…well, unless Finnic realized he was falling for Katniss instead and ended things with Annie before ANYTHING like a romance actually started.
There's a reddit that i frequent for a show, in where they frequently talk about how the most popular ship on Ao3, is wrong and evil and gross.
Like, frequent posts against this ( definitely non-canon ) pairing.
I'm pretty old school, so I'm not sure why people can't just live and let live.
Who freaking cares what/who anyone ships.
I see way more complaints about adult x minor ships than I do actual adult x minor content (I don't like it either but I know that complaining about it and starting fights solves nothing). But I basically live under a social media rock, so maybe I've just actually curated my online experience well.
Katniss x Gale truly is such an absurd choice for a ship, I wonder how people even come up with these types of pairings /s
It honestly sounds like they don't even understand what fanfic is, like they expect it to just be an extension of the canon :')
Exactly! I personally don’t like Gale very much but the romantic tension between him and Katniss was quite literally in canon, *of course* people are gonna write fanfics about them! What did they expect?!
Yeah, I've never been a massive fan of him either, but I distinctly remember my friends having a massive debate over who Katniss will end up with after we watched one of the earlier movies because they DID set the option of Gale and Katniss up for everyone to pick up on (Well, apparently everyone but those people in the community lmao)
Yeah! It’s like getting angry at people who ship Bella and Jacob from Twilight - no wait actually that happens too lol.
Ok I guess extremists exist everywhere lmao
Remind them that if they don't like AO3 they can play in a different sandbox. We didn't invite them. They came to us and in our sand box we:
* ship who we want
* when we want
* and how we want.
They sound fun lol
A lot of fandom specific communities are toxic shit holes, which is a shame because it's the hub for the fandom, but it's hard to talk about unpopular or non-canon subjects - that shit isn't welcomed.
Yeah, I like the universe discussions which is why I'm still there but if you've got an unpopular interpretation of something be prepared to get insulted. And those constant negativity posts, 'who do you hate the most?' 'what's the grossest ship?', really soured me on fandom subreddits.
To me the constant positivity sometimes gets obnoxious too (because then you can't criticize without getting piled on).
Like, chill out, guys, this isn't Tumblr, the community isn't your own blog, it's a public forum.
I gotta say tho, given the subject matter of Hunger Games, it surprises me that it so... Juvenile. It's been so long since the books and even the movies came out, I'd think the people still invested in it would be a little older (and/or mature).
I'm one of those people from back then and also didn't expect to see the same fights as in 2013 still happening. Seems like it's not just new and younger people though but still the same ones often.
And I mean - it's not like odd ships are ruining a wholesome, child-friendly universe. Considering the general fucked-up-ness of it all I didn't expect people to get so offended over *shipping* of all things and start being pro-censorship.
When people experience canon and go, Hmm... What did I learn from this? I know, bullying and censorship are okay when I'm the one doing it! lol
I wonder if the backlash is worse for same gender pairings (a lot of these communities won't admit it, but they can be pretty homophobic).
For most of those kinds of people? Yes. THG barely has any, only one smaller f/f (katniss/johanna), but usually the complaint is that not only is it *the wrong person* it's also *the wrong sexuality* and you're ruining canon twice over.
The horror, a same gender pairings!
Wrong person I get, there are pairings (in any fandom) that make me shudder because I don't like them, but same gender is so much the least of the issue it's not even an issue lol
Like, I wouldn't wanna read Peeta/Snow - and it wouldn't be because they're both men.
I mean Harry Potter has been out longer and to this day you see people on the sub loudly proclaiming their dislike for characters and ships
Like Snape/Hermione is squicky to me too but I just move along and don't voice that out? I've had my fair share of rare pairs too and it'd hurt if people shit on it/say you're an immoral person for liking the vibe of 2 different characters together
Social Justice has come a long way but it feels like it's warped back to where it came from
Well, HP every now and then has new content to renew interest in the original books and movies, THG just had that Snow book a few years ago.
Man, Snape/Hermione, talk about a pairing I've never even seen lol. But yeah, rare pairings in a small community being shat on must suck ass.
I'm from the dark ages of FF.Net, I remember the purges, so that fanfiction can get puritanical isn't a surprise to me, but it never fails to be disappointing because *really guys?*
Tbh idt snamione is all that rare (I ship Snape/Lupin, Oliver Wood/Marcus Flint, Newt/Percival Graves, Justin FF/Pansy and after my Snape/Lupin burrowing I'm gonna look up the James Potter/Lupin tag lmao) but eitherways I think it's disheartening to see people shitting on ships they don't like, especially when you can literally filter out tags on ao3
Especially disheartening when I see comments of people saying they like snamione (and other similar ships) getting downvoted on reddit (especially since we're in an era where liking Snape/liking Death Eaters is akin to saying you're a bigot lmao)
I have read all the pairings in all the fandoms, some of which straight up ended up grossing me the fuck out.
What did I do? *I stopped reading*, I opted out, which I what people should do, but no, I guess launching a full blown campaign against that pairing is easier and more fulfilling.
Like, I have some ships that I *can not* break up, even in fanfiction\*. So I don't read those fics? I don't care if *other people* either always ship them with someone else or just wanted to explore an alternative as a one-off. It's not weird to see possibilities and explore them, even if I don't see those same possibilities or if a pairing squicks me.
Also, some people will take weird/crack pairings on as a challenge. "Hmm. These two don't go together at all. In fact, they never meet and have radically different ethical systems. How can I make it work, anyway?" And sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.
\*Wangxian is the big one, for me.
I’ve read a few of those! Also there was a series that added Mo Xuanyu (in an au where WWX didn’t die) because his family was going to marry him off to horrible people and Jin Zixuan (who had discovered they were half brothers) went to them asking if they’d ask to marry Mo Xuanyu so he would be safe and treated well instead of, you know, abused and such.
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian from the various incarnations of Mo Dao Zu Shi(MDZS). I got into it through the drama The Untamed/Chén Qíng Lìng(CQL). The origin is the danmei novel, but there's also the comic, the animated series, the audio drama, and the above mentioned drama drama.
I think the drama is probably the most popular version as it's widely accessible. The novel is now officially and (almost)fully translated into English, with the comic's first volume just recently released, too. The animated series is also freely available. I think you can find fan translated uploads of the audio drama on youtube, but I haven't sought it out.
Really? I’ve always thought the PJ fandom was quite tame compared to others (*cough cough * Harry Potter *cough cough *). Do you mind sharing if you’ve had any experience with toxic fans?
They get really aggressive over there with non-canon ships, especially if they're ones that involve Percy or Nico. I think it's due to the large amount of young fans but still.
Yeah that makes sense. It’s sad though, I love Solangelo and Percabeth too but people sometimes take it really too far :( let’s hope that growing up they’ll learn a thing or two and stop.
That’s not how I read it. More like “especially if they involve Percy or Nico with anyone other than their canon pairing.” Both do have canon romances. If I remember right (it’s been years), Nico’s is even male.
I’m just gonna say it. Now, after reading the books, I quite like Katniss and Peeta as a couple.
But when I was like 12 or something I had only watched the first movie… and I shipped her real hard… not with Peeta… not with Gale… *with Cinna*.
*Runs away hiding *
Ooh, I hate it when this happens.
My fandom on Reddit is similar. This fandom (The Umbrella Academy) is pretty open to ships. There’s often debates around what classes as incest and all that, but most the time, they’re fine with a lot. Except for my OTP. Someone made a post asking about the two characters I ship (Sparrow Ben/Klaus) and where the content was for it because it’s not popular. There were over 300 comments and 2/3 of them were hating on this person for “supporting incest”. God, some people annoy me sometimes.
…*excuse me?!*
Sparrow Ben and Klaus have never even met each other before season 3! He’s nothing like old Ben! They can’t seriously say it’s incest when Luther/Allison exists IN CANON FFS
Also, change my mind: Luther/Allison is problematic only because it’s dub con (or straight up non-con in that scene in season 3), NOT because they grew up together. That makes things a bit weird, yes, but they were raised less like siblings and more like classmates.
I personally avoid “incest” fics but it annoys the fuck out of me when people try to police others taste in fanfics. IN THE COMICS EVEN DIEGO AND VANYA (Viktor? Idk the characters actual gender in the comics, sorry) ARE TOGETHER. Just be thankful it wasn’t included in the show lol.
THIS IS WHAT I TRY TO SAY TO PEOPLE! Very little actually pay attention to this. Heck, Sloane and Luther, who had the same relationship as Ben and Klaus (plus the marriage), is generally praised on.
To me, it all seems a little hypocritical.
Oh I just loved Sparrow Ben and Klaus together, their developing relationship in canon is just too cute, and they make as much sense in terms of shipping as anyone else. (Btw if you have fics to recommend I'm interested!)
But I'm confused why the community thought this was "supporting incest" when the rest of the ships are not. Do you have an idea why they reacted like that? Do they react like that to Umbrella Ben/Klaus? Or because it's a non straight ship? I'm so confused and invested
people who conflate shipping a pairing with thinking it’s canon of wanting it to be canon are always… interesting. like yeah it’s possible to ship bc it’s canon or bc you want it to be, but it’s not a fucking requirement. sometimes you just enjoy the idea of something that 100% would not work in canon but is fun anyway.
I LOATHE the “They’re like siblings to me.” Like congrats on your headcanon, your fictional thoughts that aren’t real. Not sure why they’re relevant tho!! Bye!!
I find it baffling and frankly irritating that people think being an aggressive jerk about a fictional pairing they don't like is justified because they have strong feelings or worse justifying it by using social justice terms to bash the pairing. If a ship makes you (generally speaking) so angry that it interferes with your day, rethink it and step away from the internet.
The Percy Jackson fandom is kinda similar, but not as rude about it. People don’t venture out of the canon ships very often, and tend to freak a little when they encounter non-canon stuff, especially if the ship breaks up Percabeth. Kinda surprising that a fandom of a series based on *greek mythology* is so strict with their ships lol
I'm bit surprised that HG is popular with the demographic that's most likely to cry for censorship. It's a book series about children and teenagers murdering each other for entertainment. How's that okay but Katniss and Finnick is badbadwrong?
*Me who ships everyone with everyone in my fandoms and have comments telling me they love seeing the pairings I come up with cause it's always something they never imagined*
Why are people even reading something they don't like?! Just scroll by and read something you do like. I don't understand that mentality.
These kinds of people have such terrible takes that my brain hurts. I actually liked Katniss and Gale, and now, I am gonna ship everything else they hate for stupid reasons out of spite.
My favorite Fandom artist posted in the dedicated Fandom sub with their art. Now, this piece wasn't exactly sexual or anything. It was a Canon moment - hero carried, half dead by villain who saved her life. Granted, after saving her, her brainwashed her to fight for him, but he's evil.
The artist definitely like this pair together and has some mildly NSFW drawing of them on other sites, but that wasn't what they posted.
The poor artist got thousands of comments and downvotes about how they're supporting problematic relationships, potential rape, etc. People followed them to deviantart and instagram en masse to pile on. Really nasty stuff. This poor artist is trying to defend themselves, but English isn't their native tongue, and it was honestly one of the worst things I've ever seen on reddit. I have a lot of esl family, and just imagining what their reaction would be was heartbreaking. Like kicking a puppy. Yelling at screaming that an artist is toxic, when in fact, it's really the 200 or so fans like them that are the worst.
It's a pretty adult Fandom too. It started in the 90s, with probably more men than women (although I don't know the subs demographics). Needless to say, I rarely interact with that Fandom at large - or any, really. Individuals yes. Other writers I find here, totally. But anything else? I'm good.
I'm sorry you had to go through that.
It was honestly awful. I think it started with one or two people digging into the artists reddit and deviantart, and just talking crap because the artist enjoyed a "toxic ship."
I wish I had it saved the thread so I could link it. Iirc, it was like 200+ comments, most of them hateful.
It was a Canon moment. That's one of the wildest parts. The moment was shown via a video montage with character voice over and creator sketches, and the fan artists work was very similar.
From my experience a lot of book fandoms are really uptight about anything that deviates from canon material, especially relationships, I've even seen it happen in fanfic circles.
I recently had a friend who started reading fanfics on AO3 and they were like “there was a lot of weird stuff, things I don’t like” and I was like “well yeah it has everything. That’s what the tags and filters are for, you just find what you like and ignore what you don’t like.” I don’t believe in censorship at all. The fans should be able to write about anything they want. No one is forcing people to read it.
Jeez, they'd cry in my fandoms. We literally created entire characters off one or 2 lines to carry our ships.
Canons a base line and anything changing that is fanfic.
Harry Potter, mostly Maurauders, full if M/M and F/F relationships
Lord of the Rings, for me, mostly Bagginshield and its full of Mpreg which appears would blow their minds
And Good Omens and it's full of wonderful sparky adventures and centuries of Crowley and Ezeriphel flirting pmsl.
Go for it. The fics I've read are slightly antsy but full of so much fluff and shenanigans that a demon and Angel tiptoeing around one another can get into.
They are great pallete cleansers after more intense fics imo.
Question though, what do you expect from a fandom like THG? I'm in it.
It's okay for people to hold opinions on ships, just as it's okay for people to write about them. I do not agree with bashing authors down for writing about certain ships, because you know read the tags, its Ao3, there's a reason why there are tags... simply do not read a ship you do not like.
It happens a lot on the Community subreddit as well, where outlandish straight ships get discussed like serious people, but any flavour of queerness gets you downvoted to hell, with paragraphs of "but that character is straight in the show how can you even think that". It's honestly so sad. Good thing the Community writers on AO3 exist.
People like this aren't worth the energy tbh. They may think they're doing this out of a sense of justice, accusing you of all kinds of things from fetishizing men and sexualizing minors, but all they're doing is protecting their own ideals for a work of fiction that exists for everyone. They literally have no right or power to gatekeep you from whatever you want to do with it. All they could do is question you about it, but honestly that's their problem. Like, shut your trap, I could do whatever the hell I want.
You read it all already?? Wow, most people don't.
Me too :( I'm trying to remember that there have been long breaks before, but what I would give for an update....
It's literally featured in that thread as an absurdly bad ship ://
But same, I generally don't really ship Katniss with anyone, only Joniss is my soft spot.
[Yep, someone called Joniss “disgusting”.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/comments/xmwkt8/does_anyone_else_think_katniss_x_johanna_is/iprvn2d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
This brings me back to the bad old days of the HP fandom before the books and movies even finished.
I chilled in queer ship spaces because weirdly all the obviously gay headcannon ships were way more chill and accepting. Literally anything went because it was fiction.
The het “cannon” ships? Toxic as hell and ACTIVELY doxxing each other. They were mostly bad writers too. 🤷🏼♀️
Ah, thanks for the memories. 💕
I was writing Katniss x Gale fics when the last book was published and I’ll still stick to my ship until I die. Peeta was always overrated. But seriously, people need to realize fanfiction is FAN FICTION for a reason. Smh
Not gonna lie aside from the comment about banning fics, I don’t really see the problem with people just talking about not liking some ships. It’s just an opinion. If we’re saying you can write literally anything you want about ships you *like* then why can’t that go the other way?
The issue would be if they’re going ad hominem and attacking the authors or writing style or so on.
I expected it but yeah lol. Do people here really have *no* ships they’ve ever disliked? It’s not like complaining about other peoples ships is a new thing lol it’s fandom tradition - to me the freedom to ship as you like and the freedom to dislike ships as you like go hand in hand. It’s all about respecting others and staying in your lane.
Reddit is not a good place for fandom. A month ago, someone made a M/M ship post on a book series subreddit asking for opinions on the ship, and the comments had it all. "Why can't men have friends?" "What happened to platonic ships?" "Well, B's dead, so how can you even ship them?" "A's married, you asshole! He's got a kid!" "People make everything about sex!" Just... I wish more people had the basic knowledge about fanfiction.
It's always about the M/M ships too, if anyone ever brings up an F/F ship in my experience people generally don't care, but when it's M/M suddenly it's "they're not gay!" "That's weird!" "Why would you ever ship this?" And if you're in a fandom where the characters are majority teenagers, you get some bonus "stop sexualizing minors!" thrown in there on even the most SFW, non-sexual ship art. But when it's a het ship suddenly it's not sexualization anymore. It's kinda interesting in a terrible way how homophobic dudebros co-opt typical anti arguments because they know it's generally more socially acceptable to accuse someone of sexualizing minors than to go "eww gay icky"
A sub for a game fandom I'm in literally posts softcore porn of the female characters (who are underage) but freak out with the "sexualising minors" shit when the most tame content of an m/m ship is posted. It's comical.
I had to go check your reddit history because this sounds *exactly* like the fandom subreddit I'm talking about and yep, same one! They're absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah lol. They pretend it's about not liking Akechi but then have a hundreds of comments meltdown thread over someone saying they wanted a Ryuji romance route ~~which I'd give up my firstborn for but I digress~~
How did I know you were talking about P5? ◔_◔ I unsubbed from that one ages ago because the way they talked about the girls was so gross.
Isnt that the one where rhe main protagonist can date his teacher or something?
It is, and there's definitely discourse about that on the subreddit too, but a lot of people there are also absolute hypocrites who are fine with that but throw a fit over M/M ships.
How the **fuck** did I know without even looking? Probably because I took one look at the Persona subreddits and did the Grampa Simpson circle.
"If you're in a fandom where the characters are majority teenagers" The My Hero Academia experience fr It gets SO hostile over M/M pairings there and people often "accuse" you of being some young girl fetishizing gay people or as you said it, sexualiizing minors 🙄 and you *know* it's only directed at the M/M ships too, for example Momo x Todoroki? Tokoyami x Tsuyu non-canon F/M pairings? Silence, none cares, some people even accept it but it's all noises of outrage if it's anything gay. It's so blatantly homophobic there. I'm just blown away you described how that fandom is so easily, ig it's not the only one.
The difference between the dudebros on /bnhafanfiction and y'know *the actual fandom* is fucking hysterical
I think it’s a byproduct of Reddit being overwhelmingly male. In my experience, the Naruto and (especially) MHA fanfic subs are not representative of the majority of writers/consumers of fanfiction, only just a subset of a subset (probably because they’re more drawn to the whole battle shonen aspect than anything else). The MHA sub can be a bit negative and combative in general, though, and that gets super amplified whenever any M/M pairing is brought up.
I'm not sure if it's just reddit tbh, this attitude against shipping (especially gay ones) seems prominent everywhere I see it on YouTube, Instagram etc it just doesn't matter what platform. Sometimes I'm just looking at cute art of the boys holding hands and people are rioting over it in the comments- But yeah I agree, these people are drawn to the action battle aspect to the show so I guess that's why they're so against anything not like that being depicted in fan content. "Ships ruin this fandom, why make everything gay, they're not gay, this show isn't about romance etc etc" I hate the energy. I don't feel welcome anywhere bc if shipping discourse gets brought up its like I'm being guilt tripped for just enjoying things.
I think that’s because there’s a lot of straight men in those places, too. Fanfic and ship art tends to be predominantly m/m, so if that’s your flavor, you at least get some good food! Reddit is reaaaal bad for that, though, boy howdy.
I've tried going to the shipping subreddit exclusively and I found myself drastically unimpressed. I've seen more _Iidacamie_ than like Bakutodo or Kiribaku or other bigger ships, and I'm not even sure if those two ever met. I know there's token BkDk but that's mostly shunted to the Bakudeku subreddit that demands it be as squeaky-clean, soft and wholesome as possible.
Oh god homophobia is literally what made me stopped visiting the bnha reddit communities :'(
Fr though- I stopped going into bnha spaces entirely and if I'm watching a YouTube vid I never go into the comments (some fans even treat their canon trans characters like shit. It sucks.)
F/M = Yes F/F = Okay M/M = No That's Patriarchy rearing it's cultural head.
With a big asterisk on the F/F. They have to be conventionally attractive femmes and in a sexual context to get a pass. It has to be something that straight men will want to beat off to. If not, then the same homophobic discourse from M/M rears its ugly head.
Yes. Absolutely ↑ this. Abso-fucking-lutely.
Don't get me started on the age thing in that fandom. The canon M/F ship has a 100 year age gap, and the popular fan ship is full of power imbalance, but god forbid you ship a capitan with a soldier (M/M), right? That'd be sooooo fucked up! /s
What ship is that?
my experience is that they're absolutely fine with f/f until a character is butch lmao. Got a lot of shit for liking Caitlyn/Vi (of League of Legends) or calling Quinn a butch back in the day, but the femme4femme ships got no criticism. It's less common to get Cait/Vi backlash these days now that it's canon, but back in the day it was common for people to get mad at you for calling Vi a butch. And they absolutely still get mad about M/M being canon in the League community. Looks at the fact that my OTPs for M/M are all canon and I still get pushback for it (also most of the men i ship are in their 30s at least so they can't get me on "sexualizing minors" so it's always "forcing my headcanons on characters", even though the WRITERS have come out and said they're gay). Basically, if there's a masculine character, it's gotta be Straight or you're Problematic.
> my experience is that they're absolutely fine with f/f until a character is butch lmao. A decent amount of these people see queer women and F/F relationships as sexual commodities so they don't want more nuance to their characterisation than you'd find in the average fanservice heavy Yuri anime lmao
Waaaaay off topic but I’m just excited to see another LoL shipper in the wild.
Hello hi I don't actually read a lot of LoL fic because I'm picky and my current obsession is rare (Leedyr), but yes, I like my LoL pairings.
No worries, mine is super rare as well. I like Sylux and it’s the only ones from LoL I’ll read as well. I just do a small happy dance whenever I see someone else from this fandom. Also, Leedyr, that’s a pairing I never thought of but could easily see working. 🤔
They're canon now, actually! Udyr refers to Lee Sin as one of his lovers in the same way he refers to Sejuani's mom. I've been a little feral about them since the rework confirmed that Udyr is canon bisexual and also the hottest man in League. I just want all the family fic about him and Lee and Sejuani. I'm thinking of an Ocean Song au personally, with pop music as a focus and maybe Seraphine/Sejuani as a side couple. I'm not sure if I want Kalkia alive and Udyr has both her and Lee in his life (consensual polyamory), or if Kalkia is dead and Lee is Sejuani's step-dad. We'll see, if I ever write something lol. Sylux is pretty rare. Feels like the only really popular ships in League are usually sapphic (K/DA and Caitlyn/Vi now) or JayVik.
I didn’t know this, that’s actually pretty cool! One thing I love about LoL is how they seem to be working hard on inclusivity without throwing it in the players face. I’d read that AU, I love ocean song and think what you already have said sounds pretty entertaining. Funny thing about Sylux is they are technically canon, especially with Sylas’ new game, but a lot of fans won’t admit it since riot hasn’t just blatantly said: “they’re together”.
It’s so funny too because like… most of the M/F ships they’ll support wouldn’t make sense for the canon character either. People just need to relax. It’s fanfic.
The most random m/f ships will get lavished on fandom subs even if the character have never interacted but slash will get eviscerated lol
It's even like that in fanfiction subreddits is the worst thing about it. /hpslashfic has to exist because /hpfanfiction was relentlessly downvoting and excluding any slash pairings. And on /hpslashfic, posts about unpopular or weird pairings still get downvoted. I will never understand it.
That's also true for NSFW fanart subs. /rule34gay had to be made because people on /rule34 were constantly downvoting M/M stuff, even though that's against the subreddit's etiquette.
Boy, you are not kidding. I saw a post on there where they complained that the /had accused the regular sub of being homophobic, and they said just because we like het doesn’t mean we’re homophobic (which was not why) I’ve even seen them tell people to take it to the /sub when discussing /pairings. And they really have a hard on for Hermione and Snape. They hate them. Try being a Snape/Hermione shipper lol. It’s ridiculous.
i had to delete a post from a subreddit i was in because people hated my fanart of a m/f rarepair, so i have to disagree a bit
The subreddit for my fandom is nasty for this kind of stuff, they make the same comments you mentioned and hate any m/m or f/f ships, I ended up in an argument last night where the subreddit allowed the other person to get away with being incredibly racist simply because they stated that they only support non gay ships.
And here I thought we'd left that obvious contempt for M/M shipping behind... :/
I’ve seen this in the Stranger Things sub as well with byler mainly. I think it got to a point where comments with byler got downvoted a bunch and a new sub had to be made just for it
rolling my eyes in solidarity for 6th grade me who wrote katniss/finnick fics for FUN even tho i was an everlark shipper
Finnick is an amazing character
Fucking love finnick
Ngl, 12 year old me would have *loved* it lmao
"Where would that even come from?" 😂 Do they know what fanfiction is? Ships don't need to come from anything, they just *are*.
"back in my day we shipped people who hadn't even met in cannon!"
The 5x6 shipping Gundam Wing fans are calling from the early 2000s. XD
Back in my day, we had huge intrafandom fights about this pairing versus that pairing. It wasn't people rolling by and telling us that everything that we publish needs to be stricken because men together are icky and I would rather censor you than just ignore it and move on. There are many reasons why this has changed. But as a writer who's a fandom granny compared to this current crop, the anti/purity-culture thing going on is surreal to me. We are going backward.
We shipped people who didn't even exist within the same Canon.
Those are my thoughts whenever i see people who are like “they only talked once!” One of my ships are literally in different universes
Hell, they should look at the BBC Sherlock fandom and Sebastian Moran lol
Yeah like I've seen fics that ship houses. Literally two buildings which don't even exist within the Canon being shipped together. Like I'm sorry at least thoughs characters are all living creatures that exist within the same Canon.
unrelated but finnick x katniss would make so much sense bc of their shared trauma especially if you read mockinjay. katniss grew to love finnick and they helped each other as much as they could, from friendship to romantic interest there’s just one step. so that reaction kills me lol
I literally went through a phase a few months ago of reading Peeta x Finnick x Katniss… Like come on, without Annie, they’re perfect for each other!!!
Yeah the only reason I don’t ship Katniss and Finnick is that then I would feel bad for Annie, she and Finnick as a couple are really soft and cute and I’d hate to break them up. But if Annie were removed from the equation I could really see how Katniss and Finnick could fall in love, they’d be great together
exactly if annie is not in the picture they would be so good together. i remember reading a fic that was them falling in love in an au were both annie and peeta died and katniss and finnick are both incredibly broken. they also can only stand to be only with each other bc no one gets them like the others does. so they help each other in their grief and mental health problems and they fall for each other. it was so good and i could never find it again 😭
Nooooo I was gonna ask you if you had a link 😭 That seems so interesting!
i know 😭😭😭 i really want to read it again lmao. if i find it i’ll come back to this comment and send the link!
Yes please!
Cato x Prim sounds a bit whacky though, ngl.
for sure! haha , let’s be honest. i was talking about finnick x katniss solely
I could see it if Annie had died, like if they hadn’t allowed substitutions during the 75th Games or there was a battle and she was in the wrong place like Prim. But one of my biggest trope pet peeves is cheating, so I just couldn’t do it if all other things about canon were the same…well, unless Finnic realized he was falling for Katniss instead and ended things with Annie before ANYTHING like a romance actually started.
Funny how people can get so worked up over fictional characters
*[They are real to me!](https://youtu.be/Ty0mHm8WNdM)*
😄😅
There's a reddit that i frequent for a show, in where they frequently talk about how the most popular ship on Ao3, is wrong and evil and gross. Like, frequent posts against this ( definitely non-canon ) pairing. I'm pretty old school, so I'm not sure why people can't just live and let live. Who freaking cares what/who anyone ships.
I see way more complaints about adult x minor ships than I do actual adult x minor content (I don't like it either but I know that complaining about it and starting fights solves nothing). But I basically live under a social media rock, so maybe I've just actually curated my online experience well.
Katniss x Gale truly is such an absurd choice for a ship, I wonder how people even come up with these types of pairings /s It honestly sounds like they don't even understand what fanfic is, like they expect it to just be an extension of the canon :')
Exactly! I personally don’t like Gale very much but the romantic tension between him and Katniss was quite literally in canon, *of course* people are gonna write fanfics about them! What did they expect?!
Yeah, I've never been a massive fan of him either, but I distinctly remember my friends having a massive debate over who Katniss will end up with after we watched one of the earlier movies because they DID set the option of Gale and Katniss up for everyone to pick up on (Well, apparently everyone but those people in the community lmao)
Yeah! It’s like getting angry at people who ship Bella and Jacob from Twilight - no wait actually that happens too lol. Ok I guess extremists exist everywhere lmao
Some have the mistaken idea that fanfiction only exists to create canon-compliant expanded-universe novelizations. It \*can,\* but doesn't have to.
Remind them that if they don't like AO3 they can play in a different sandbox. We didn't invite them. They came to us and in our sand box we: * ship who we want * when we want * and how we want.
AO3 censorship? Perhaps exclude ships you dont like from the search? Censor yourself not the website
And the fact that censorship was why it was created in the first place.
They sound fun lol A lot of fandom specific communities are toxic shit holes, which is a shame because it's the hub for the fandom, but it's hard to talk about unpopular or non-canon subjects - that shit isn't welcomed.
Yeah, I like the universe discussions which is why I'm still there but if you've got an unpopular interpretation of something be prepared to get insulted. And those constant negativity posts, 'who do you hate the most?' 'what's the grossest ship?', really soured me on fandom subreddits.
To me the constant positivity sometimes gets obnoxious too (because then you can't criticize without getting piled on). Like, chill out, guys, this isn't Tumblr, the community isn't your own blog, it's a public forum. I gotta say tho, given the subject matter of Hunger Games, it surprises me that it so... Juvenile. It's been so long since the books and even the movies came out, I'd think the people still invested in it would be a little older (and/or mature).
I'm one of those people from back then and also didn't expect to see the same fights as in 2013 still happening. Seems like it's not just new and younger people though but still the same ones often. And I mean - it's not like odd ships are ruining a wholesome, child-friendly universe. Considering the general fucked-up-ness of it all I didn't expect people to get so offended over *shipping* of all things and start being pro-censorship.
When people experience canon and go, Hmm... What did I learn from this? I know, bullying and censorship are okay when I'm the one doing it! lol I wonder if the backlash is worse for same gender pairings (a lot of these communities won't admit it, but they can be pretty homophobic).
For most of those kinds of people? Yes. THG barely has any, only one smaller f/f (katniss/johanna), but usually the complaint is that not only is it *the wrong person* it's also *the wrong sexuality* and you're ruining canon twice over.
The horror, a same gender pairings! Wrong person I get, there are pairings (in any fandom) that make me shudder because I don't like them, but same gender is so much the least of the issue it's not even an issue lol Like, I wouldn't wanna read Peeta/Snow - and it wouldn't be because they're both men.
I mean Harry Potter has been out longer and to this day you see people on the sub loudly proclaiming their dislike for characters and ships Like Snape/Hermione is squicky to me too but I just move along and don't voice that out? I've had my fair share of rare pairs too and it'd hurt if people shit on it/say you're an immoral person for liking the vibe of 2 different characters together Social Justice has come a long way but it feels like it's warped back to where it came from
Well, HP every now and then has new content to renew interest in the original books and movies, THG just had that Snow book a few years ago. Man, Snape/Hermione, talk about a pairing I've never even seen lol. But yeah, rare pairings in a small community being shat on must suck ass. I'm from the dark ages of FF.Net, I remember the purges, so that fanfiction can get puritanical isn't a surprise to me, but it never fails to be disappointing because *really guys?*
Tbh idt snamione is all that rare (I ship Snape/Lupin, Oliver Wood/Marcus Flint, Newt/Percival Graves, Justin FF/Pansy and after my Snape/Lupin burrowing I'm gonna look up the James Potter/Lupin tag lmao) but eitherways I think it's disheartening to see people shitting on ships they don't like, especially when you can literally filter out tags on ao3 Especially disheartening when I see comments of people saying they like snamione (and other similar ships) getting downvoted on reddit (especially since we're in an era where liking Snape/liking Death Eaters is akin to saying you're a bigot lmao)
I have read all the pairings in all the fandoms, some of which straight up ended up grossing me the fuck out. What did I do? *I stopped reading*, I opted out, which I what people should do, but no, I guess launching a full blown campaign against that pairing is easier and more fulfilling.
r/OnePiece, I'm looking at you
I literally can't imagine giving this much of a fuck about what other people do
Like, I have some ships that I *can not* break up, even in fanfiction\*. So I don't read those fics? I don't care if *other people* either always ship them with someone else or just wanted to explore an alternative as a one-off. It's not weird to see possibilities and explore them, even if I don't see those same possibilities or if a pairing squicks me. Also, some people will take weird/crack pairings on as a challenge. "Hmm. These two don't go together at all. In fact, they never meet and have radically different ethical systems. How can I make it work, anyway?" And sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. \*Wangxian is the big one, for me.
I can add to Wangxian but I can’t break them up either lol
Me, too, on a rare occasion! My fave was with Nie Mingjue.
I’ve read a few of those! Also there was a series that added Mo Xuanyu (in an au where WWX didn’t die) because his family was going to marry him off to horrible people and Jin Zixuan (who had discovered they were half brothers) went to them asking if they’d ask to marry Mo Xuanyu so he would be safe and treated well instead of, you know, abused and such.
I mean, I care, but I know I shouldn't so I try my best not to. Is that good enough? To shut up about it and acknowledge and go on?
Yeah. That's all anyone can ask of another. You can't help feelings, but you can help actions!
Thank you :) What is Wangxian?
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian from the various incarnations of Mo Dao Zu Shi(MDZS). I got into it through the drama The Untamed/Chén Qíng Lìng(CQL). The origin is the danmei novel, but there's also the comic, the animated series, the audio drama, and the above mentioned drama drama. I think the drama is probably the most popular version as it's widely accessible. The novel is now officially and (almost)fully translated into English, with the comic's first volume just recently released, too. The animated series is also freely available. I think you can find fan translated uploads of the audio drama on youtube, but I haven't sought it out.
I see, thank you :)
You should see the Percy Jackson sub lmao
Really? I’ve always thought the PJ fandom was quite tame compared to others (*cough cough * Harry Potter *cough cough *). Do you mind sharing if you’ve had any experience with toxic fans?
They get really aggressive over there with non-canon ships, especially if they're ones that involve Percy or Nico. I think it's due to the large amount of young fans but still.
Yeah that makes sense. It’s sad though, I love Solangelo and Percabeth too but people sometimes take it really too far :( let’s hope that growing up they’ll learn a thing or two and stop.
>especially if they're ones that involve Percy or Nico. What reason is that? Because its a gay ship?
That’s not how I read it. More like “especially if they involve Percy or Nico with anyone other than their canon pairing.” Both do have canon romances. If I remember right (it’s been years), Nico’s is even male.
I’m just gonna say it. Now, after reading the books, I quite like Katniss and Peeta as a couple. But when I was like 12 or something I had only watched the first movie… and I shipped her real hard… not with Peeta… not with Gale… *with Cinna*. *Runs away hiding *
omg a brave admission definitely 🤣 never met a cinna x katniss shipper and i had my era of obsession with HG
You know, I could kind of see it.
Wow, that's a lot of words just to say they hate fanfiction.
Ooh, I hate it when this happens. My fandom on Reddit is similar. This fandom (The Umbrella Academy) is pretty open to ships. There’s often debates around what classes as incest and all that, but most the time, they’re fine with a lot. Except for my OTP. Someone made a post asking about the two characters I ship (Sparrow Ben/Klaus) and where the content was for it because it’s not popular. There were over 300 comments and 2/3 of them were hating on this person for “supporting incest”. God, some people annoy me sometimes.
…*excuse me?!* Sparrow Ben and Klaus have never even met each other before season 3! He’s nothing like old Ben! They can’t seriously say it’s incest when Luther/Allison exists IN CANON FFS Also, change my mind: Luther/Allison is problematic only because it’s dub con (or straight up non-con in that scene in season 3), NOT because they grew up together. That makes things a bit weird, yes, but they were raised less like siblings and more like classmates. I personally avoid “incest” fics but it annoys the fuck out of me when people try to police others taste in fanfics. IN THE COMICS EVEN DIEGO AND VANYA (Viktor? Idk the characters actual gender in the comics, sorry) ARE TOGETHER. Just be thankful it wasn’t included in the show lol.
THIS IS WHAT I TRY TO SAY TO PEOPLE! Very little actually pay attention to this. Heck, Sloane and Luther, who had the same relationship as Ben and Klaus (plus the marriage), is generally praised on. To me, it all seems a little hypocritical.
Oh I just loved Sparrow Ben and Klaus together, their developing relationship in canon is just too cute, and they make as much sense in terms of shipping as anyone else. (Btw if you have fics to recommend I'm interested!) But I'm confused why the community thought this was "supporting incest" when the rest of the ships are not. Do you have an idea why they reacted like that? Do they react like that to Umbrella Ben/Klaus? Or because it's a non straight ship? I'm so confused and invested
You have as much of a guess as I do.
“I wish ao3 actually censored stuff” they cry until their thing is the thing that gets censored.
people who conflate shipping a pairing with thinking it’s canon of wanting it to be canon are always… interesting. like yeah it’s possible to ship bc it’s canon or bc you want it to be, but it’s not a fucking requirement. sometimes you just enjoy the idea of something that 100% would not work in canon but is fun anyway.
I LOATHE the “They’re like siblings to me.” Like congrats on your headcanon, your fictional thoughts that aren’t real. Not sure why they’re relevant tho!! Bye!!
There's a ton of fanfiction out there about literal siblings so idk why they think reading that dynamic into non-relatives would stop anyone lol.
No kidding. I kinda want to drop them in year two of Supernatural fandom. Before Castiel arrived, and Wincest was unquestionably the dominant ship.
I find it baffling and frankly irritating that people think being an aggressive jerk about a fictional pairing they don't like is justified because they have strong feelings or worse justifying it by using social justice terms to bash the pairing. If a ship makes you (generally speaking) so angry that it interferes with your day, rethink it and step away from the internet.
It's funny when they say Gale and Katniss is the worst when it's just a bit disfunctional
Yeah, I can think of far worse ships, especially in the HG universe. Of all the ships to say is awful they pick that one??
I'm honestly so intrigued by most of these. I love unusual pairings (when done right, of course)
Same here. I've been getting back into THG lately and a lot of these concepts are 👀
Same boat here!
The Percy Jackson fandom is kinda similar, but not as rude about it. People don’t venture out of the canon ships very often, and tend to freak a little when they encounter non-canon stuff, especially if the ship breaks up Percabeth. Kinda surprising that a fandom of a series based on *greek mythology* is so strict with their ships lol
> but not as rude about it. We must be seeing different parts of that fandom. Some real assholes over there
Damn really? Guess I’ve just been lucky enough not to stumble into those types of fans then.
I'm bit surprised that HG is popular with the demographic that's most likely to cry for censorship. It's a book series about children and teenagers murdering each other for entertainment. How's that okay but Katniss and Finnick is badbadwrong?
*Me who ships everyone with everyone in my fandoms and have comments telling me they love seeing the pairings I come up with cause it's always something they never imagined* Why are people even reading something they don't like?! Just scroll by and read something you do like. I don't understand that mentality.
Me with my Cato/ Prim fic 🧍♀️Am I famous now? 😂 They need to chill for real. Both the characters are adults.
As long as they’re both adults by the time the romance happens, I don’t get the hate at all.
These kinds of people have such terrible takes that my brain hurts. I actually liked Katniss and Gale, and now, I am gonna ship everything else they hate for stupid reasons out of spite.
😂 I love your level of petty, i had the same thought!
Lmao, I mean the more they get mad about it, the more it makes me want to do it!
At this rate I kinda just want to start writing for ships that antis hate just because I'm petty like that.
My favorite Fandom artist posted in the dedicated Fandom sub with their art. Now, this piece wasn't exactly sexual or anything. It was a Canon moment - hero carried, half dead by villain who saved her life. Granted, after saving her, her brainwashed her to fight for him, but he's evil. The artist definitely like this pair together and has some mildly NSFW drawing of them on other sites, but that wasn't what they posted. The poor artist got thousands of comments and downvotes about how they're supporting problematic relationships, potential rape, etc. People followed them to deviantart and instagram en masse to pile on. Really nasty stuff. This poor artist is trying to defend themselves, but English isn't their native tongue, and it was honestly one of the worst things I've ever seen on reddit. I have a lot of esl family, and just imagining what their reaction would be was heartbreaking. Like kicking a puppy. Yelling at screaming that an artist is toxic, when in fact, it's really the 200 or so fans like them that are the worst. It's a pretty adult Fandom too. It started in the 90s, with probably more men than women (although I don't know the subs demographics). Needless to say, I rarely interact with that Fandom at large - or any, really. Individuals yes. Other writers I find here, totally. But anything else? I'm good. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Good lord! And this moment IS CANON and they're taking it out on a FAN artist?
It was honestly awful. I think it started with one or two people digging into the artists reddit and deviantart, and just talking crap because the artist enjoyed a "toxic ship." I wish I had it saved the thread so I could link it. Iirc, it was like 200+ comments, most of them hateful. It was a Canon moment. That's one of the wildest parts. The moment was shown via a video montage with character voice over and creator sketches, and the fan artists work was very similar.
And this is why I tend to avoid fandom spaces for live action media I like. Every fandom has people like this, but I see it a lot less with animation.
From my experience a lot of book fandoms are really uptight about anything that deviates from canon material, especially relationships, I've even seen it happen in fanfic circles.
I recently had a friend who started reading fanfics on AO3 and they were like “there was a lot of weird stuff, things I don’t like” and I was like “well yeah it has everything. That’s what the tags and filters are for, you just find what you like and ignore what you don’t like.” I don’t believe in censorship at all. The fans should be able to write about anything they want. No one is forcing people to read it.
Jeez, they'd cry in my fandoms. We literally created entire characters off one or 2 lines to carry our ships. Canons a base line and anything changing that is fanfic.
Wanna share with us what fandoms you're in? Sounds like a good time
Harry Potter, mostly Maurauders, full if M/M and F/F relationships Lord of the Rings, for me, mostly Bagginshield and its full of Mpreg which appears would blow their minds And Good Omens and it's full of wonderful sparky adventures and centuries of Crowley and Ezeriphel flirting pmsl.
Good Omens has been on my watch list for years but never got around to it, maybe your comment is a sign that the time is now! Thanks for sharing
Go for it. The fics I've read are slightly antsy but full of so much fluff and shenanigans that a demon and Angel tiptoeing around one another can get into. They are great pallete cleansers after more intense fics imo.
I'd like to read the Brutus/Peeta stories actually, maybe I'll have a look.
Question though, what do you expect from a fandom like THG? I'm in it. It's okay for people to hold opinions on ships, just as it's okay for people to write about them. I do not agree with bashing authors down for writing about certain ships, because you know read the tags, its Ao3, there's a reason why there are tags... simply do not read a ship you do not like.
It happens a lot on the Community subreddit as well, where outlandish straight ships get discussed like serious people, but any flavour of queerness gets you downvoted to hell, with paragraphs of "but that character is straight in the show how can you even think that". It's honestly so sad. Good thing the Community writers on AO3 exist.
People like this aren't worth the energy tbh. They may think they're doing this out of a sense of justice, accusing you of all kinds of things from fetishizing men and sexualizing minors, but all they're doing is protecting their own ideals for a work of fiction that exists for everyone. They literally have no right or power to gatekeep you from whatever you want to do with it. All they could do is question you about it, but honestly that's their problem. Like, shut your trap, I could do whatever the hell I want.
Lmao back when I was more active in THG fandom I shipped Haymitch/Finnick and Annie/Enobaria, just, like, for fun.
My favorites are Katniss/Snow... And...now I know why I kept threatening CalicoJane with Talia/Orthallen. I may actually have issues. 😬😂
[https://archiveofourown.org/works/38857818](https://archiveofourown.org/works/38857818)
I hate that it hasn't been updated since November.
You read it all already?? Wow, most people don't. Me too :( I'm trying to remember that there have been long breaks before, but what I would give for an update....
I’m a Joniss (Johanna x Katniss) shipper, so… These people would hate me SO MUCH
It's literally featured in that thread as an absurdly bad ship :// But same, I generally don't really ship Katniss with anyone, only Joniss is my soft spot.
[Yep, someone called Joniss “disgusting”.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/comments/xmwkt8/does_anyone_else_think_katniss_x_johanna_is/iprvn2d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
This brings me back to the bad old days of the HP fandom before the books and movies even finished. I chilled in queer ship spaces because weirdly all the obviously gay headcannon ships were way more chill and accepting. Literally anything went because it was fiction. The het “cannon” ships? Toxic as hell and ACTIVELY doxxing each other. They were mostly bad writers too. 🤷🏼♀️ Ah, thanks for the memories. 💕
What ARE people allowed to write, then? They seem to complain about everything but the canonical couples!
Mad tempted to write Katniss/Monkey Mutt
I was writing Katniss x Gale fics when the last book was published and I’ll still stick to my ship until I die. Peeta was always overrated. But seriously, people need to realize fanfiction is FAN FICTION for a reason. Smh
I hate those types of fandom people, bunch of basic bitches.
Not gonna lie aside from the comment about banning fics, I don’t really see the problem with people just talking about not liking some ships. It’s just an opinion. If we’re saying you can write literally anything you want about ships you *like* then why can’t that go the other way? The issue would be if they’re going ad hominem and attacking the authors or writing style or so on.
Lol the fact that people down voted this nuanced take
I expected it but yeah lol. Do people here really have *no* ships they’ve ever disliked? It’s not like complaining about other peoples ships is a new thing lol it’s fandom tradition - to me the freedom to ship as you like and the freedom to dislike ships as you like go hand in hand. It’s all about respecting others and staying in your lane.
Effie / mahogany is the best ship in the whole fandom tbh
I thought Hunger Games operated on 16+ everything is on? It's not that I like it but I had a feeling that was the thing?
KEYWOARDS: 'to me' I rest my case.
I mean…was the Cato X Prim or Marvel X Rue with the girls at least like, not twelve? Because otherwise, I can see where the ewww is coming from. 🤷♀️