[ SECRET POST #4681 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4681 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #670.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. https://i.imgur.com/FPXWsYD.png

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the kind of confusion you're talking about is fandom's fault. I think that kind of confusion is always going to exist, because these are complicated and difficult things. Also, separately, people use the concepts in dumb ways in fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

Not op. Yeaah, earnest anon, I don't think you're familiar with the discourse or how vicious modern day fandom is. Things that I've seen to earn a pair the term of "abusive" include:

-a slight disagreement.
-being a het ship in general
-being a villain/hero ship
-your general shounen rivalship
-having an age gap between adults, even a small one.
-bickering in general
-they headcanoned (without any evidence, mind you) one or more of the ship as being gay.

fyi modern day fandom likes to throw about buzzwords to attack their rival ships. Often it is completely without base and is just a way for them to try and discredit a ship they don't like. For example: a/b pair is inherently racist because it erases this noncanon ship I like which has a POC in it. Or a/c is automatically homophobic and abusive because I headcanon c as a lesbian even though she's had 30 boyfriends on screen and canonly loves dudes.

For an example, take Overwatch. Genji/Mercy (which is now semi-canon) was slagged as being "Abusive" by Pharah Mercy fans for having an age gap, being a doctor/patient relationship and unproven (now disproven) theories that Mercy experimented on him, and the aforementioned "she's a lesbian despite canon evidence of her liking at least one dude."

...except Pharah/Mercy has an even larger age gap (Genji/Mercy is only 2 years while Pharah/Mercy is much more and Pharah knew Mercy when Mercy was underage.) and technically Pharah/Mercy as is literally any Mercy ship if you take the idea that she heals everyone literally, and she canonly asked Genji out. (Though she still could be bi.)

And that's just Genji/Mercy. I could literally write a 10k essay on other Overwatch ships alone that get dubbed as 'abusive.'

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that fandom uses the concept in stupid ways. I don't think anything in this post conflicts with my post.

[ninefox]

"being a het ship"

- that one is REALLY not fandom's fault, it's old-school radfem rhetoric. They're 100% trying to use fandom spaces as a vector to recruit younger women, and it blends in really easily with the righteous paint people like to slap on their shipwars now, but fandom didn't originate it by a long shot.

...all that said it's possible for IRL abusive relationships to not have giant obvious signs, especially as an outside observer. Obviously it's not your job to police every couple that grouches at each other, but don't ignore something just because the internet has a lot of idiots, either.

[(Anonymous)]

... they're really not, though. Like, you do realize that there are actual legal definitions as to what does and does not count as abuse, right? That's how they prosecute abuse. There are plenty of things that are shitty behaviors/ways to treat people, but they aren't actual abuse.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not really my point. A situation like OP's talking about - where you're trying to judge whether a couple is abusive based on their public behavior, and figure out if it crosses the line or not - is going to be really, really difficult to figure out because it's not totally clear what's going on, not because abuse is inherently confusing.

So I don't think that the reason OP is confused is because fandom is confusing their head.

[(Anonymous)]

i have literally seen ppl call on-screen couples abusive bc one half went to comfort the other when they were sad, like that's not ppl getting confused about a situation, that's them being so absurdly wrong i feel like i'm in a parallel universe where caring for you SO is abusive.

sometimes ppl just have an axe to grind against a ship they don't like, and new fandom lingo means ppl use terms they don't understand, and that don't fit, to try and make some 'woke' argument instead of just admitting they don't like something. and the sad thing is i see ppl fucking fall over themselves to agree with shit like that bc they want to make it seem like their petty dislike is legit.

[(Anonymous)]

OK, I'm realizing that I misinterpreted the secret now, because I thought OP was talking about like, a couple they knew in real life, and now I realize they might have meant an unfamiliar ship.

That said, I still stand by my point, although maybe not as strongly (because few ships are actually in fact abusive). It can be really, really difficult to figure out whether a relationship is abusive from limited evidence, and that's not difficult because of fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

i have literally seen ppl call on-screen couples abusive bc one half went to comfort the other when they were sad

*Blinks*

How...on earth...? What could possibly make somebody come to that conclusion?

[(Anonymous)]

sa.

usually racism, bc the cases i've seen it crop up was with canon interracial couples. they abused each other by caring about the other's feelings you see?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

...ooooooookay, then. That's weird.

[(Anonymous)]

Those words make excellent signposts in terms of filtering your fandom experience.

[(Anonymous)]

You should probably separate your real life from your fandom life a bit more. Putting fictional standards on any real life situation is going to result in problems, especially in a case like this.

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if you're the same person above, but I don't think the secret is about their real life at all.

I interpreted it as "when I see people online calling a pairing from a fandom I'm not familiar with abusive, I don't know whether to believe it actually is or not because people are ridiculous and call all kinds of things abusive that actually aren't" but maybe that's just me?

[(Anonymous)]

No I'm a DA, but that makes sense. I must have breezed over the last line of the secret;;