fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5019 ]

[ SECRET POST #5019 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5019 ⌋

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

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04. [SPOILERS for Mulan (2020)]

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05. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia]

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06. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of child abuse]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #718.
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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

02. https://i.imgur.com/kTfgbiY.png

...why do you think anybody who ships something cares whether other people think it's problematic?

A ship generally finds and grabs a person. If some critic thinks there's something "wrong" with it...I...don't...care.

There are ships that gross me out, but I keep my mouth shut, because whining about some "problematic" ship adds zero value to fandom.

I think what OP is saying is that people who claim to dislike a ship purely for it being 'problematic' are just using that as a shield for their real reasons - they may claim to dislike Bella/Edward because he's like 200 years her senior, but its actually that they ship Bella/Jacob. Something like that.
I don't think OP is saying that everyone who (to continue the example) ships Bella/Edward or Bella/Jacob or Bella/Jacob/Edward cares at all about it being problematic.

[Personally I agree about finding some parings icky and just not going near them because I have better things to do with my time]

...why do you think anybody who ships something cares whether other people think it's problematic?

Because some people have low self-esteem about everything, including what they ship, and if someone says "Your ship is problematic" and backs it up with fancy, intelligent-sounding language, they can convince the shipper that their preferences are wrong and guilt them out of shipping it.

I find this annoying, and it actively hurts fandom if people are dissuaded from creating fanworks and being a part of a community because of this sort of judgment.

I get that you don't care but... there are people who care. Or they start to care when the harassment sets in. And again, it's good that you don't get on people's cases about problematic ships but... there are people who do that. Lots of people.

I mean, that's a ridiculous argument

Sounds spot on the money to me.

You think it's on the money that *every single person* who criticizes a ship has an ulterior motive?

i do think is likely about %70 of the time. but i also think there are those who dislike a ship, or the writing of it, who don't ship anything counter to it. i say this because there are ships i could talk about why i can't stand the way they're written, but i don't ship a rival ship, i just think the ship is shit on it's own.

so i half agree with you.

Um, no.

If you pair a parent with a child, or two characters coded parent/child, I will find it problematic whether or not I like both characters or have a favorite ship involving one or both characters.

I will respectfully leave shippers alone as long as they aren't deliberately shoving that shit in my face or are screaming from the high heavens that their problematic pairing is the one true canon pairing, to the point where I can't shut out the noise.

If you ship problematic shit, it's a little silly to judge others' moral stances or their reasons for objecting to it.

And if you're not the one shipping it but are just watching everything with your bucket of popcorn, well, I guess it's your right. But it's not really a good look either.

The ship isn't "problematic". It's a ship that you, personally, find revolting. This secret is also, clearly, about antis, who are wankers that spend a lot of time accusing people who like ""bad"" ships of being genuinely terrible people and contributing to the abuse of IRL people.

This secret is also, clearly, about antis, who are wankers that spend a lot of time accusing people who like ""bad"" ships of being genuinely terrible people and contributing to the abuse of IRL people.

Where are you getting this from? The secret says "there is no good faith approach to criticizing a problematic ship in fandom. Behind the moral outrage, there is always something else", some ulterior motive. It doesn't say anything about antis or people who say that liking bad ships make you a genuinely terrible person. It says that anyone who criticizes a problematic ship or expresses moral outrage has an ulterior motive.

If OP had meant to say that specifically *people who say that liking bad ships make you a genuinely terrible person* always have ulterior motives, then why didn't they say that? Are we just supposed to intuitively know that when OP says that ANYONE who criticizes a ship ALWAYS has an ulterior motive, they only mean antis? Because it really, really, really isn't what they said.

I feel like this is handwaving away the following:

1. It's perfectly reasonable to find problematic ships that the text positions as problematic. Like Harley/Joker, Lechter/Starling, or if we're going to go back to the roots of fanfic, Hamlet/Ophelia. (Yes, most of Shakespeare's plays were derivative of works that were popular at the time.)

2. And sometimes the text itself has problematic issues WRT consent, abuse, or how relationship dynamics are presented. To avoid all the recent punching bags, it's quite reasonable to be weirded out by mating-flight sex in Dragonriders of Pern.

You're equating things that are problematic when people do them in real life and things that people write about. Nobody has any difficulty understanding the distinction when it's something like murder. Murder is bad when it happens in real life, but writing a story about a murder is just writing a story where something bad happens and doesn't mean the writer has done anything bad themselves. Take that concept and apply it to everything, and you will finally understand how fiction fundamentally works.

NAYRT

Let's not go too far here.

Fiction is fiction, but fiction also applies to real life, and there is some fiction that really does promote, or at least intend to promote, bad real life views or even morally bad actions, and we should be able to have a serious discussion about it without just falling back on fiction is fiction.

To be clear, I'm not referring to original fiction where the author clearly has a vision and place and reason and a meaning for everything. I'm talking about fanfic writers who just slap a pairing together just because, and not because they care about previously established canon, or the many ways the pairing doesn't work, especially when they're trying to base the relationship on previously established canon. Just because I personally object to parent/child pairings doesn't make them not problematic. And I'm well aware there are exceptions.

Your final line comes off as really rude, and I don't appreciate being made out to be a person who doesn't know the difference between reality and fiction.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-10-03 04:39 (UTC) - Expand

But people do find certain murders in fiction to be problematic and a reflection of the author's attitude. Tropes such as "Black Guy Dies First" and "Women in Refrigerators" come to mind.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-10-03 15:46 (UTC) - Expand

Murder is bad when it happens in real life, but writing a story about a murder is just writing a story where something bad happens and doesn't mean the writer has done anything bad themselves. Take that concept and apply it to everything, and you will finally understand how fiction fundamentally works.

Look, antis suck and I don't agree with them, but this argument is incredibly obtuse, and always has been. Ask just about any anti if they object to erotic depictions of murder and they will say an emphatic yes. Ask just about any anti if they object to romantic depictions of uxoricide (wife murder) and they will say an emphatic yes.

Most antis do not object to the subject matter that is being portrayed, they object to how that subject matter is being portrayed. This whole "if you're an anti you'd better not watch horror movies" argument is apples to oranges. They're horror movies; the way the content is being depicted is in the name: HORROR. They're not called sexy-swoon-time-hands-in-your-pants movies.

Antis think the way bad things are depicted in fiction should at least roughly align with the real-world nature of those things. I will say it again: antis suck and I don't agree with them. But their stance isn't that hard to understand if you're not being willfully obtuse.

I used to be a low-key anti (I.e. didn’t send hate, but I did think a lot of stuff was disgusting and potentially harmful). And no, I never had a rival ship or a hate-on for a particular character. It was literally just that I believed fiction that romanticized abuse and rape was harmful and I didn’t understand how anyone could kink on it.

I am telling you, from the vantage point of someone who used to be kind of an anti and isn’t anymore: a lot of antis honestly just believe the people who are into that stuff are fucked up sickos whose gross kinks are actively contributing to rape culture, the romanticization of domestic abuse, and the normalization of pedophilia.

This. Because a lot of them are.

Sure, sure. But somehow the ones with the "sick" ships usually aren't the ones sending death threats and hate. No, it's the uwu, high and mighty wholesome ships croud that's harassing people over fictional stuff that doesn't matter.

I often wonder what people like you would make of someone like me. Someone who was sexually abused at a time when there was little to no support for victims and I had to find my own way out of the mental hell I was in. Dark dub and non-con fic helped me work through and process a lot of my emotions. I credit both dark and fluffy fic as the reason I'm alive today.

If there had been people like you telling me that reading this stuff meant I was a fucked up sicko who was contributing to rape culture, it would have had a profoundly negative effect on my mental health when I was already vulnerable and hurting.

In short, as far as I can see it's you and people like you who are hurting people.

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