fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3991 ]

[ SECRET POST #3991 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3991 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[The Fall]

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[Louisa May Alcott, Little Men]

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05.

[Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly]

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[Marvel Comics]

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07.

[Shetland]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 10 secrets from Secret Submission Post #571.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - this is not really the place for blind items ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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As someone who's never watched Star Wars before, what makes Reylo so much worse than every other hero/villain ship, anyway?

I've heard people say stuff like, "you're racist if you pair her with the bad guy over her black friend", "you support abuse if you ship this", and so many other personal attacks towards their shippers to, like, a much greater extent than these types of pairings usually get. Is it just because the hero's a woman this time, or?

What makes it different is a new generation discovering a huge fandom. If Harry Potter had gotten big now, people would probably hate Snape/Hero.

Imo like 90% of what you're talking about is just the typical stuff you see in any active ship war. I don't think you necessarily need to assign it any greater validity than that. I disagree with the way you've framed the terms of the debate.

Sure, but I consistently see people who otherwise like rival/villain ships vehemently hating on Reylo and its fans, so I honestly do get the impression that people find this pairing way worse than the usual ship war stuff.

I mean, the dude's seriously ugly, but that hasn't stopped anybody before, and het (in general) seems way more popular now than it used to be, so what's the difference this time?

I don't know, man. There's a lot of people out there. Maybe some of it is the specific dynamics of the fandom and a reaction to Reylo fans - it does seem like a very vitriolic fandom in general. I don't really care about the individual reasons people choose to ship one ship other another.

My point is that the kind of language people use, the kind of arguments that they make, the things that you're pointing to in your initial post - I disagree with the idea that stuff is really different and distinct from the history of ship wars generally. It's maybe somewhat more vitriolic - I think the whole internet across the board is more vitriolic than it was 10 years ago, for reasons that are certainly beyond any specific ship - but honestly not that much more vitriolic and certainly not fundamentally different. So I disagree with that whole fundamental idea.

You're basically coming in here and asking why the people on one side of a ship war are such meanies about it. I just don't think that's a useful question to ask. I can't tell you why some specific person that you know who likes villain ships at other times doesn't like Reylo. But I don't think there's any unique feature of Reylo that you need to point to in order to explain what's happening.

DA. I do think the internet has more of a... migratory hate fandom now than it used to?

I mean before a troll might be in 4-5 fandoms and attack people there, but now trolls will go out looking for popular problematic content no matter what fandom.

I mean just recent example, I had a Thor/Loki fanartist on my tumblr dash who hasn't posted anything Thor/Loki since Thor 2, they posted new just recently because Ragnarok and then followed up with posts going "Wait, since when does the internet hate this pairing for being incest? I've never gotten hate before. WTF is wrong with people?" So it sounds to me more like migratory trolls than just the usual in-house trolls.

Naryt

I totally agree with this and would add that virtue signalling has become a really big deal in fandom. Reylo is not any different than any other hero/villain ship, except that people have decided that it is and they must publicly condemn it. And sometimes not just that, but create something hateful and/or untrue to do so.

Some examples of what I mean:

-The fanfic with the most kudos (almost 20k) in the Star Wars fics, one of the most kudos-ed fics on AO3 is a twelve word troll fic saying that Reylo sucks. It was published the day after The Force Awakens came out. Reylo shippers hadn't even settled on a name for the ship yet.

-https://reysistantis.tumblr.com/post/157848074084/post-that-fuckin-wikia-post-jessie-love-tatum
And then you have stuff like this, where most people just uncritically like and reblog something totally made up. (It now has over 4k notes.)

-http://mytwistedexperience.tumblr.com/post/157536777139/after-a-year-plus-of-beating-around-the-bush-im
On the extreme end is people saying the bad guys=Nazis, so anyone who likes a bad guy/ships a bad guy=Nazi. This has unfortunately extended to the actors who portray those characters.

I totally agree with this and would add that virtue signalling has become a really big deal in fandom.

What do you mean by virtue signalling here, and why do you think it's necessary to explain anything that people do online? Are you saying that people only talk about disliking Reylo because they want to be seen to do so? Because that seems like a really strong claim to make if all that you're explaining is people not liking a ship. It's not any different than any other hero/villain ship - and sometimes people dislike those ships, especially in massive fandoms where they conflict with other popular ships.

-The fanfic with the most kudos (almost 20k) in the Star Wars fics, one of the most kudos-ed fics on AO3 is a twelve word troll fic saying that Reylo sucks. It was published the day after The Force Awakens came out. Reylo shippers hadn't even settled on a name for the ship yet.

People like jokes. I don't think that you need to invoke virtue signalling to explain why people like that fic.

And then you have stuff like this, where most people just uncritically like and reblog something totally made up. (It now has over 4k notes.)

People are idiots online. But again, I don't think that you need to invoke virtue signalling to explain that.

On the extreme end is people saying the bad guys=Nazis, so anyone who likes a bad guy/ships a bad guy=Nazi. This has unfortunately extended to the actors who portray those characters.

I agree that this is a stupid post. But it doesn't seem like it's necessarily an insincere post. And also, as you point out, it's very extreme and not necessarily characteristic.

Nayrt
You are really hung up about this one term. It's pretty obvious what it means in this context: Trying to appear like a morally righteous/superior person by hating on a ship - not because you you simply dislike it but because it's the "morally right thing" to do due to the ship supposedly being abusive/in any other way "problematic". That's what it means here. Stop it with your faux-academic "you don't need to ~invoke~ virtue signalling" harping, it makes you look silly.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 07:45 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 08:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 16:43 (UTC) - Expand

It's perfectly valid not to like Reylo. However, what I was talking about were people who use disliking Reylo as a shorthand for "see, I am a good person because I hate that disgusting ship." Like the people who felt it was their duty to tell a Thorki fanartist how disgusting incest is in the anon above. It's performative. There are people who haven't even seen TFA who are anti-Reylo.

People like jokes.

It's a troll fic. There are no joke. The only purpose is to put down a ship (that hadn't even taken off yet). It has ~13k more kudos than the next highest fic in the Star Wars section.

People are idiots online. But again, I don't think that you need to invoke virtue signalling to explain that.

Thousands of people reblogging without even one of them saying "hey, what's the source on this?" raised my eyebrows. (Maybe I just hang out in the wrong corner of fandom, but we would want to know.)

and not necessarily characteristic

Calling Reylo fans things like Nazis/Trump supporters/anti-black/anti-queer/abuse supporters (etc.) has, unfortunately, been very, very common. Outright stating that they are Nazis was the unusual part.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 07:55 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 20:15 (UTC) - Expand

Rey is a scrappy Mary Sue who fights crime with a funny, good-looking black guy of decent character development... and Kylo is if Mozenrath was an edgelord. It's abhorrent to want to see them kiss or do anything except slice each other up.

I think it's because there's a chance it might be canon and people always get way WAY more intense over that. Like Harry/Hermione vs. Harry/Cho and Harry/Ginny and basically any other plausible ship got a lot nastier than any of those vs. Harry/Draco or Harry/Snape because everyone knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that Harry/Draco would become canon.

So it's a lot more like Zutara vs. Kataang. Also it's in a franchise that hasn't really had a lot of experience with hero/villain ships in the past. Anakin/Padme was always obvious and Luke/Leia vs Han/Leia were boy next door vs. bad boy with heart of gold.

It's not worse, really, but it does feel more like people just ship them because they're there. In TFA, Rey's attitude towards Kylo bounces between "murderous ball of rage" and "if he touches me, I'll puke." Kylo's opinion of Rey is somewhere between "I want to eat her eyelashes" and "Mom, she's touching me."

So I think part of it is just that Rey and Kylo have lousy chemistry and most of the fandom got burned out on that during the prequels.

For the record, I'm not in the Star Wars fandom. I don't ship any pairings from TFA. I dislike the idea of Reylo but I have no intention of actively hating on the pairing, nor do I believe people are Bad or Wrong to ship Reylo. All I'm doing here is speculating on what the answer to your question might be for some people.

The way I see it, Kylo in canon is a petulant, embittered, self-aggrandizing man-child who's managed to gain some power and is using it maliciously in an attempt to placate his own warped ego. So basically, he feels far more like the kind of piece of shit you'd meet in real life/on some MRA internet forum, than your average villain does.

And Rey is the main protagonist. It's her story more than it's his, and she is stronger and better than him in just about every way. But she lacks his systemic power and his formal training, and thus is still vulnerable to attack by him.

I think Reylo just feels a little too much like Millennial Era Gender Politics In A Nutshell for some people. For some people, shipping them together feels like rejecting the feminist aspects of canon in favor of emotionally shackling Rey (and the story that is primarily hers) to a dude who feels like a particular strain of real-world toxic masculinity.

*shrugs*

Also, Star Wars is hella popular, and all the popular ships tend to spawn the most intense wank.

It’s Star Wars. There are 4 generations of trolls and wankers in the fandom. The ship doesn’t attract that much more vitriol than any other ship when you factor for the fact that it’s Star Wars.

It also doesn’t help that Tumblr’s culture of perpetual victimhood is especially prevalent among Reylo fans so the most vocal ones are like the nonny above who thinks a troll fic about her ship makes her Oppressed.

Come on. I hate Reylo too but anon above never mentioned being "oppressed" anywhere. You're not sounding any smarted if you put words in people's mouths to make a point - makes it seem like your argument is worth shit if you resort to that tactic. There are enough morons in that fandom, no need to make shit up.

It’s not trying to sound “smarted” to point out that Reylo!nonny is having an emotional breakdown over a12-word troll-fic all over this thread. If you can’t read “oppressed” into their “woe is the reylo fan” diatribe, that’s on you and whoever was responsible for teaching you reading comprehension.

DA

This is about the attitude I would expect from someone who thinks that mocking a typo is the highest form of wit.

Oh no, an autocorrect error. However will I atone for this.
And no, in this situation here, the only one with too much of a hateboner to think clearly and manage some basic reading comprehension is you. Maybe all that frothing at the mouth is obstructing your view. But I guess for every delusional Reylo stan, there is at least one moronic anti trying to turn a perfectly normal discussion into some hysterics filled whinefest even though it's not.

Antis in a nutshell

"I think you're exaggerating about anti behavior, I just don't see it."

"Ok, here's X, Y, and Z examples of anti behavior."

"LOLOLOLOLOLOLO look at the poor widdle shipper screaming oppression and so obsessed about every little thing! Learn to let it go!"

It's not really that clever.

NAYRT but, no, the problem is that the examples cited are very bad and hard to take seriously

They're really not

One of the examples is a 12-word troll fic that went viral and the other one is people on the Internet believing something incorrect at face value

i really don't know how you're expecting me to take either of those seriously, and be morally shocked at the evil of the antis

DA
They're not great examples but they're also not nearly the emotional breakdown 'playing the victim' hysterics the other anon tries to paint it as.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-08 22:02 (UTC) - Expand

I don’t ship many hero/villain ships in the “canonically bitter enemies/rivals/fighting for opposing ideaologies” kind of way, but I’m primarily a het shipper of “brooding male woobies with tragic pasts/sweet kind woman who helps him see the light” kind of ships, and despite not having any TFA ships, I can’t stand Reylo. I’m boggled by how many shippers make Reylo out to be an “asshole learns to respect women because Rey is awesome” (she totally is but) kind of ship.

Kylo’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t respect women or has trust issues from his tragic past or uses his power over others to be a dick. Whatever issues my ships have, the male half isn’t looking to exterminate the female half and everyone she cares for. They might massively fuck up and be controlling or abusive before they learn how disgusting their behavior is, but they never, even at their awfulist, were genocidal maniacs. I don’t really ship Jane/Rochester, but it’s the difference between “mad wife in the attic” and “concentration camp commandant/fiery Resistance fighter.”

That’s not to say I post anti-Reylo screeds or send hate to Reylo shippers. I just don’t like the ship. I can’t imagine reading Reylo fic just to point and laugh. Reading Reylo shipfic would just make me mad.

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