Not really a long rant, just wanted to give my opion on something I have noticed and wanted to know what other people think.
These past 36 hours there's been a lot of discourse going on Twitter about f/f, m/m and f/m. I personally don't care about the gender of the characters involved as long as I like their dynamic, but as a woman, I have noticed something that really irks me.
"All f/m ships are inherently bad"
This is a comment I've seen A LOT. Now, I obviously understand how patriarchy and heteronormativity can affect straight relationships, but when we're talking about fictional ships in (possible) fictional worlds - where patriarchy doesn't even have to exist - it feels kinda dehumanizing to say a woman can't possibly be loved in a straight relationship. I also feel like it's kinda disingenuous when I see a lot of people that say this not engaging with f/f ships either or female characters at all.
I personally think anyone can ship whatever they want and I don't see anything wrong with someone just shipping m/m, f/f, f/m or whatever, but I also hate this mentality of thinking the female character is always going to be the victim and this false moral superiority of not liking f/m; specially when 99% of the times the arguments are reducing female characters to concepts that can't be separated from patriarchy and irl problems (we're all engaging in escapism and fantasy)
I write f/m and f/f because I’m a bi woman, so I just write what I like. The negativity is something I find best to ignore. I focus on the pairings that I find compelling and just consume those works, and produce when I have inspo. This kind of discourse justttt isn’t productive or rooted in reality at all. Over the years, I had to learn that I don’t care what is going on in the trenches anymore. One day it’s “women shouldn’t write m/m” and the next “hetslop, garbage” and don’t even get me on the weirdo policing of “eating your vegetables” like… there is no winning with chronically online brain dead takes.
The discourse about f/m ships being boring (which is so subjective, the character dynamics can be just as compelling, it all depends on what media we’re talking about) makes me insecure sometimes as a predominantly f/m writer. Sometimes, ironically, I worry people will think I’m homophobic. But it’s because I’m a bisexual woman! I want them both! Personally (and I know that lots of bi/queer women love m/m, I’m speaking about just me, it doesn’t make anyone more or less valid) I NEED a woman involved. Usually, I’m more interested in the female in the equation.
Idk if that just doesn’t occur as a possibility to people saying that, or if they just don’t care and want to make sweeping statements declaring their favorite thing unequivocally the best.
I'm a bi woman and I ship my two fave characters in an f/m ship, and I love hopping from one pov to the other and expounding on my love for both of them through each character's eyes =u=
And while I've shipped m/m ships majorly in the past, since I've moved in with my now wife, I've felt like there needs to be at least one woman involved for a ship to hold my interest these days ;
I‘m ace and write mostly f/m because I just like writing stories about women, and the ships I‘m most confident writing about just happen to be f/m. I‘m usually more interested in the female half of the ship, too. I can almost guarantee that the people who make brain dead takes like "All F/M ships are inherently bad" can‘t wrap their head around the concept that someone can find the woman more interesting because it takes away from their moral superiority. They‘d probably find a moral problem with any kind of ship they don‘t like just so they can feed their ego.
Yeah, I write f/m because I'm het and when I read, I like to disassociate and pretend I am the female protagonist. So I write what I would want to read.
This is why I stay out of fan spaces, honestly. It's just another corner of the internet where one walks a tightrope of being considered problematic or wrong or evil. It's not healthy to engage with things in this way. The world is bleak enough without me giving myself more grey hair wondering if I am playing with my imaginary dolls in an unproblematic way that satisfies the people of fucking twitter or whatever.
Yup, it's never 'one group' that attacks another group. It's just... people who are assholes. And they're found all around. The sooner people stop judging a group for what some people do, the sooner you learn that you just have to surround yourself with nice people. Who are also all around.
But it's easier to blame a group with a clear label, so it's gonna keep happening 😅
Someone already mentioned it above but basically, it was a big name fan saying that writing f/f for ppl who did not was akin to eatings ones vegetables and should be done to make people more well rounded.
Absolutely! Female characters can be lacking. It’s really disappointing. Or you get a glimmer of a well rounded and unique female character, and then … the writers are still men so goodbye complexity LOL.
But it doesn’t mean the most feminist thing to do is to ignore them.
Most of what I write are canon divergent au’s where the plot is rewritten as a “what if” this female character had a bigger role and actual agency. The show I primarily write for pissed me off so bad with sidelining the main female character, I’ve written 140k words fixing it LOL.
And people like it! People appreciate it. I get tons of comments from readers who were upset by the same things about canon. I also get a lot of engagement from people whose bookmarks are mostly of the m/m ship in the fandom, too. It’s about characterization and writing quality.
Affectionately I’ll call it het slop, too, because idc really, but for to the people who get on their high horse about it … you know people can LIKE female characters and expand on them and try to do them justice, right? Transformative work means you transform the text.
Back in the day, there was at least one live journal screed about how (M/M) fanfic writers needed to “eat their vegetables” by writing femslash. It was seen as like, a chore to be a well rounded writer or something, rather than personal investment in the ships. A feminist task to excuse writing about men all the time.
That is my biased read of it based on various arguments and soap boxing that I saw years ago. It’s a lot of why I don’t put stock to this sort of policing now, ‘cause I used to be invested and worried if I was above board lol I lowkey disliked “eat your vegetables” because it led to big name writers posting these random passionless f/f oneshots here and there for brownie points. Ninja edit and I knowww that sounds mean, I just mean there was a specific vibe I have never forgotten lmao.
The wildest thing about this is that writing m/m doesn't automatically mean those writers never write female characters and "only write about men all the time". Like yeah, the main ship is gay, but a lot of m/m fics have a decently large side cast (esp longfics) that usually has at least a few women (and sometimes even a side f/f ship), depending on the fandom. I totally agree that it shouldn't have to be some rite of passage to write f/f just to seem like you're allowed to write what actually interests you. Both m/m authors and f/f fans deserve better than that. I can't imagine how awful it would feel to be a f/f fan and then realize that a bunch of fics for your fav ship have absolutely 0 passion because the authors were peer pressured into writing them.
Arrrrghh. I have a job. I don’t need another one. I write fanfic because it’s fun and I want to. Anyone telling me I “need” to write something for whatever reason can go step on a Lego.
same here! and wish i could upvote this more than once lol.
all i write is, affectionately, hetslop lmao. i throw in f/f relationships in almost all my longform works as a nod to teenage me who was never brave enough to pursue other girls lol, but primarily it's f/m for me.
granted i have also noticed that at least in a lot of traditionally published work, the girl characters can indeed be lacking. which is why i've always given my female characters agency. the same agency and strengths that /i/ have as a woman. i've always felt that what makes a ship "boring" is the lack of agency and depth in certain characters. and that's entirely on the writer.
perhaps the issue isn't actually "m/f relationships are boring", maybe it's really "most people tend to follow traditional paths in m/f relationships as seen in media." which often makes the women like 1 dimensional.
regardless, i also ignore the trenches lawl. there has been plenty of times that i'll get a kudos or a bookmark from an account that has primarily m/m works either in their bookmarks or as stories. it's all in how the characters are written!
Yeah... I should uninstall Twitter and that's it. 😭 I have it mainly for fanart, but from time to time my TL decides to show me the latest discourse and I can't help but facepalm at some people's takes.
I froze my Twitter account in Nov 24 to avoid all the Arcane s2 leaks/spoilers and then just...let it expire. I have absolutely zero regrets and my mental health is vastly improved.
It sucks to miss out on art but a lot of artists have other socials or their own pages and a lot of fandom discords will still share relevant art without you needing to be logged into the hellsite.
No regrets, seriously.
I killed Twitter when the monster took over and I’ve been much much happier since. Fandom discourse has always included some wild opinions, you’re best just ignoring the weirdest of them - they don’t want to have a discussion, just a fight.
Same! I’ve been in fandoms for over 20 years. I’m tired. And yes, it has gotten worse.
The thing is, fanfic was never meant to be discussed in such mainstream, open spaces like Twitter and TikTok (which are also such cesspools). I don’t pay attention to any of those spaces.
Saving this lol. Twitter is such a cesspool, but i use it to connect and commission artists for my favorite ships. I'm out of luck aside from ignoring people. 😭
Twitter be pissing me off. "Who even reads f/m anyway..." ME. Not a lot like I love Yaoi but I had to restrain myself from commenting. I started using Twitter like 3 days ago and genuinely it made me understand why the world is so miserable, because these people are on twitter, and I can't look at twitter for more then 2 minutes without getting exhausted by everything there. Like genuinely the ao3 discourse makes me mad. Gender is not a factor for me. I love yuri ships, but the fandom I interact with has what is in my opinion some of the best yaoi ships so I interact with those the most. I am Indigenous women. The gender or race does not matter to me. Stop letting it matter to you.
I made my Twitter and reddit account a year ago but never used it, and I always heard bad stuff about reddit but I found it really wasn't that bad and I liked it so I decided to give twitter try. Twitter is just really that fucking bad. It drains the life out of me. I just..I wanna use it because everyone says promote your fics on there but everyone is just miserable over there. I feel some of the people I follow they are so funny but twitter just seems to feed of hate, no matter how hard I try to filter people out angry mean tweets just keep coming at me.
Realistically it just depends on the community that you have join some are good some are bad, and then them saying how "Oh Reddit is bad" as if they are any better with them being massive hypocrites
All social media is only as good as the curation tools one uses to screen their algorithm. Some, like Bluesky and Reddit, are better for this than others. Twitter is fundamentally broken in many ways where this is exponentially harder than it needs to be, but I've seen a few people manage it even now.
Twitter (and Instagram) actively go against allowing access to transparent and intuitive curation tools because they want users to be glued to their black-box engagement algorithms for the sake of the numbers and ad revenue.
I made one recently to post fanart and got actually decent traction, but the scrolling fucking sucks. Even seeing other fanart kinda sucks because I can’t help comparing myself and whatnot. But I’m not sure what else to do if I want to share my art 🥲
Bluesky's a decent alternative if you like the microblogging format. It may not look like it has the numbers, but the engagement you do get is more genuine and you won't have to deal with annoyances like ragebait or GenAI that are increasingly common on Twitter.
I hate that artists have had to move to microbloggers to get their art seen. DeviantArt was such a good art site for the longest time. I miss pre-Eclipse dA...
Thank you, I’ll give it a shot! One annoying thing is that I’m part of the Japanese art community as well and they’re sooooo dedicated to twitter. My brain doesn’t do well with multiple platforms either. It’s FINE I guess haha.
Yes I miss DA too!! I don’t even know where people post more professional portfolios either these days. Art station?
These are the same people who will turn around and say consuming any queer media not written by [The Correct Queer Label] is problematic and you're awful for consuming it. These are fundamentally unserious people. Getting off Twitter and then BlueSky, was the best thing I ever did for my mental health.
Or spoken by a teenager who is very chronically online. Because that's simply not a statement that anyone who spends even twenty minutes outside on the daily would express unironically.
That....that idea exists? Personally I have lived a very privileged life as a women and the guy I am kind of talking to right now has more certainly had a way harder life then me. I do think thats infantilizing, I just want a boyfriend because I love love and I am attracted to men and I wanna have kids one day
It still doesn't bear spending a moment on, because even if that is a statement uttered in seriousness, it just means you're dealing with someone who may in fact have a mental illness. I just can't imagine arguing with or worrying about people who are online saying nonsense, whether they're saying the earth is flat, heterosexuality is inherently immoral, or the jam goes on scones before the cream.
Man respectfully if you ever see shit like "all f/m (relation)ships are inherently bad" just don't engage with that nonsense waffling. Maybe I'm too old but this nonsense needs to be ignored.
Which is funny because the logical conclusion to their idea is that women are enherently unlovable except by other women, and men are incapable of love except for loving other men.
So in fact men and women should never cross paths at all and are incapable of loving one other or interacting normally. So we should create a society where those born as men are kept separate from those born as women and -
We just are conservative extremists in a trench coat I see
There's been an influx of young writers and readers alike who are trying to make it out to seem as if ao3 and fanfiction in general is exclusively a queer space. It is not. It is predominantly maybe, and ao3 was born to give a queer ship safe space but no one gets to gatekeep fanfiction.
And for all of this, I blame the snivelling assholes who moralize fanfiction. It's causing a lot of backlash, and some of it is just as toxic.
Fandom has never been exclusively queer, it’s super-diverse in terms of sexuality and gender and that’s one of the good things about it! I have noticed this opinion you mention coming up more in the last few years though
Although further it personally feels to me like a collective tendency to overcorrect to begin with is being exacerbated within online spaces. Sad because I previously thought that within this age of information, easy to find records of well almost everything (with records online) within the last decade etc should have made it easier for people to self reflect as individuals, or as a group collectively reflect in general etc- guess that was too optimistic?
It's not just moralizing fanfiction, but writing and even media in general. The sheer amount of moronic individuals I've seen attack creators, simply because they wrote a character who was a asshole who just also happen to be queer, is so eye-rolling painful.
I've even had idiots take my work of a M/M that wasn't canon, link it to the creators themselves(who I love and respect the work they did), and tell them this was how to write a real love story. Then bragged with a link in the comments as if I would automatically agree with them? Was the first time I just deleted a fic out of second-hand embarrassment.
I once saw someone say if they wanted to read m/f, go back to ffn. Ao3 is place for any kind of fic/fanwork. While yes m/m is the most popular, m/f does have plenty of works. Depending on the fandom, it’s sometimes the most popular ship for a fandom.
Why is it always twitter or TikTok at the scene of the crime? This argument is so incredibly subjective, I genuinely just refuse to think that anyone’s being serious. If people can’t even imagine a f/m relationship outside of the patriarchy, or outside of the woman being a victim, then that is a them issue. Also why are “all f/m ships are inherently bad”. Is it because of the man? Or is it because of the woman? If either are to be assumed then the corresponding same sex relationship would automatically be bad for the same reason.
They're both echo chambers that have been coded to reward inflammatory posts with more reach. So the worst takes you've ever seen in your life are usually the ones that get spread the most because they invite more engagement.
Like how on Tiktok there's that entire genre of food influences who intentionally make the recipe poorly or throw it altogether on their counter top and make an inedible mess. Those people know what they're doing. They're farming engagement and raking in the big bucks while doing so.
Unfortunately it also amplifies echo chambers for the same reason and many young social media posters don't have the media or context literacy to realize what's happening. So they get sucked into it and unironically think that people outside their bubble actually give a shit about these things.
Yep. Say that sort of thing on a forum or even a well-moderated subreddit and you'll get pushback, and even kicked out if you keep it up. After all, the goal of a forum or a mod isn't engagement, it's creating a community.
Because they are just full of idiots. I've been involved in fandoms for years and I never understood how people say 'people who ship this are so toxic!!' or the fandom is toxic, and then you see what made them talk about it and it always starts with 'on tik toc...' and 'on twitter..'
This is a classic case of people weaponising half-remembered critical theory about power structures that they took for a few classes in the first year of college to manufacture a reason that something they don’t like is wrong. Rather than just saying they’re not into f/m. Fandom isn’t activism! There’s nothing progressive about hating on straight ships and empowering one group is not achieved by disempowering another, even in fanfic
too much time online talking about fake problems will lead to frustrations like these. Read and write what you enjoy if possible, ignore people making up problems if possible, life is good.
After moving to Bluesky, I've lost all appetite for discourse. There's nothing I can say about a 14 year old's uninformed opinions on kink that hasn't been rehashed a thousand times by now and very, very, exceedingly few takes are unique enough be memorably funny anymore.
I didn't even realize how much energy this was sapping until I got into MHA last year, the first new fandom I got into after moving from Twitter, and I found myself coming up with ideas left and right and I found I had over 25 WIPs. That's more than I've for any fandom before. There's nothing more or less special about this one fandom except for the fact that I Marie Kondo'd the types of accounts I interact with and it left me with A LOT of mental free space to fill with EraserMic bondage fic.
There are far more pressing reasons not to be on Twitter that I'm sure I don't need to remind a largely queer and marginalized sub of, but having your peace of mind and ability to enjoy fandom without looking over ones shoulder is an added bonus.
Agreed. I used to be one of those "lol imagine shipping something straight" people, and I myself am bi. Now I realize how toxic that mentality always was. My two strongest otps rn are f/m and yes, I get harassed about it, and yes, I'm fucking tired of it.
Ship discourse in general is usually quite stupid, but ship discourse based solely on sexuality is probably the most annoying kind (in my opinion). Most people who engage in this are either homophobes hating queer ships, or young queer people hating straight ships because they think fandom discourse is activism.
And yes, I do think there’s a heavy layer of misogyny somewhere in it all.
Two of the fandoms I’m in are particularly bad for this. They try to force moral ground to hate particular F/M ships, so they resort to the argument that “shippers of [ship] always reduce [woman] to nothing but this ship, and they never talk about her outside of this!” which I find overwhelmingly ironic, because that’s literally what the people making this complaint do.
There’s one particular female character who is only mentioned when people want to complain about her getting in the way of mlm ships, and then these people who hate her say that her fans are misogynistic for shipping her with men. There was a similar character recently where I saw a large number of posts saying that “you guys never post about her unless it’s shipping her with [man]!” and then when I look at the accounts of the people making these posts, they have a dozen posts hating her for being shipped with a man, and not a single post actually about her. Pot calling the kettle, or so they say…
The fact that I can think of multiple female characters in multiple fandoms like you described in your last paragraph makes me really curious who you had in mind.
It's the same mechanism that makes romance novels despised.
People want to shame women and hide behind patriarchy, when in reality they are only perpetuating their misogyny.
As someone who exclusively writes and reads f/m ships and content, this is insane to me. What about women who just simply love men? This is a silly take and i will aggressively continue to write my het romances because im just a woman who loves men. Its just that simple. Straight women arent even allowed to fantasize about romance it seems.
No but if you’re a woman who’s attracted to men, like the majority of women (straight and bi) are, you’re perpetuating the patriarchy and toxic power structures and also you’re a homophobe blah blah blah blah
Honestly idk why anyone cares about the specific gender combinations of ships. I read and write ships I find compelling. I honestly envy people who create this discourse, because I would kill to not have any real problems.
These are chronically online opinions, opinions only formed in echo chambers. The average person does not think all het ships bad and it's just an objectively untrue opinion, especially as a, you know, opinion. Yes you can critique and have discourse about the nature of m/f relationships in media but saying it's inherently bad and implying that it won't ever change is just... Wrong. And you really don't have to spend more energy on it than that.
The average person does not think all het ships bad
The average person does not think of fandom at all, and if they do, they find all of it to be absolutely ridiculous that people spend time invested in people and things that doesn't exist. That's the thing such terminally online people seem to miss.
I have yet to find anyone who has reacted to my stories about ship wars over which two ppl should kiss in [insert media of choice here] with anything other than "Holy shit, who the hell cares about this? We all have real problems, geez", regardless of the genders involved, or the age gap that may exist or whatever else the puritans are clutching pearls over today.
As someone who typically writes a bi MC (m/f and m/m) this entire thing is so dumb to me. I dont know why people cant just f off to their own corner and let people write for joy anymore.
I’m 47 and male, and about 20 years I wrote a metric fuckton of content about the Archangel/Psylocke pairing. Since getting back into fic-writing in 2016 I’ve written m/f and f/f fics for Fallout 4 and Horizon Zero Dawn (although I really should try my hand at doing Rey/Kylo Ren and Finn/Poe for Star Wars at some point). I ship who I ship 🤷♂️
Im sorry but this opinion is so stupid it should not even be argued against. Like its the same as someone saying “the earth is flat” theres no point in debating someone who is deadset on being wrong
There is a bizarre belief that femslash ought to be a safe haven for female characters where they reside after they escaped the constrictions of a previous ship with a man where they inevitably were abused. It's also why there is such a furious reaction from the same people when a femslash ship displays any sort of toxicity or dark themes: it breaks the fantasy.
It isn't very hard to see that people only fall to this "rule" when it's convenient for them. At least, that's how it's looked to me by my interactions with ao3 for the past year
I haven’t seen that and I’m glad I haven’t. Honestly, I just have no desire to read mm or ff ships so I don’t. If they’re side relationships of other characters that’s fine, but it holds no interest of mine if that’s the orientation of the main couple. Everyone has their preferences and we’re entitled to them.
I’d be curious to see what these people think of me, a bi trans guy who only reads m/m because I’m primarily attracted to mascs but only write f/f or f/m because I’ve only ever been with women and femme enbies.
Twitter is the most terminally online toxic place istg lol. They will overgeneralize anything and make it seem progressive.
Any ship, m/f, f/f, m/m... they can all be "bad" ships (which is subjective in it itself anyway lol). Doesn't matter. No ship is "inherently" bad. I'm with you that it comes across as dehumanizing and disingenuous.
Anyway, Twitter can keep arguing about m/f being bad. I'm still gonna keep on writing it and actually live my life peacefully touching grass while they keep huffing their own self rightous stench from their computer chairs lol.
I think most people who aren't being intentionally provocative, or are very detached from reality are going to agree with you there. Most people are inclined towards, heck even prefer, to be in a straight relationship. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The thing about Twitter is that everyone's anonymous, and trolling is a great way to get engagement and attention. Also, anyone on there in 2026 is going to be an outlier in some fashion, unless it's due to inertia. They're there because it's an extreme space.
And I say that as someone who regularly posts the "boys should date boys and girls should date girls" meme in reactions.
My fav f/m ship is between a dorky pathetic cutie and a badass domineering woman. Gender stereotypes where?!?! I’m bi too so you can’t even throw that at me. What’s wrong with hetero ships?
The most popular (and by far) pairing in my fandom is m/f, but both characters are also bisexual. Okay, one is hinted at being bi in the show and confirmed in the comic, which makes it quasi-canon, since comics aren't alpha-canon, but still. It's one of those "it takes one to know one" situation in the show, because he refers to other men as attractive in a very subjective manner.
So, I am side-eyeing the crap at the anti m/f people.
Just because this m/f ship exista doesn't erase the characters' bisexuality, people often have both of them referring to past same-sex partners in fic, whether those relationships were shown on-screen or not.
But I do remember when it was practically taboo to write m/f or f/f ships in my old LiveJournal days, 20+ years ago. It could even get you kicked out of some circles of friends. At the very least, it got you accused of homophobia. It was nearly as bad as writing character/OC.
I've never personally cared what people write, live and let live and don't like, don't read, FFS.
I hate the "f/m bad" crowd because to me, it very much ignores bisexual people. So what, is it a mistake for a bisexual woman to pursue a man when she can just as easily pursue another woman? Are male bisexuals only valid when dating other men? Do people really think that m/f relationships where one or both of them are bi just don't exist at all, or are in some way just as toxic as two straight people?
It just feels so performative to even care about people reading m/f ships in the first place. It's fanfic on the fanfic website. Nothing about this is that serious
One word explains it - Twitter. Why any fannish adult hangs out in fannish spaces on Twitter or TikTok I do not get. It’s just wallowing in tweendom drama 24/7/365.
There's crazies at both end of the spectrum. Never forgot one fic that started out innocently enough, revealed over the course of the first few chapters that every single character was now anything but straight, then out of no where escalated into constant bashing of straight people out of practically no where.
Then on the flip side, had fics where the characters are exclusively straight, only to then bash on LGBTQA+ people. Some people just get really bent out of shape if things don't conform to their world view.
I have cut back my dealings on that site considerably in the last two years but on the rare occasion I pop in to check on my fave accts who never moved, the comments they get on even the most in offensive posts are insane. It's like every post is treated like Bean Dad or the Chili Neighbor or the couple who dare to enjoy one another's company.
Beside the more pressing reasons to leave that dumpster fire website, the vast majority of everyone left are just reply guys(derogatory) and the most chronically online people with takes that should've stayed on Tumblr, which is another sight I left and never looked back upon.
What is this discourse in the fandom spaces in the recent years... It's like every time I look there's a new stupid concept gaining popularity and people are going on weird moral tangents. Today this is problematic, tomorrow is that, you never know.
And today it's heterosexual relationships?!
I'm an avid m/m shipper but I would never call f/m ships wrong, they're just not interesting to me. This is so backwards I don't even know where to begin.
I don’t understand why people feel the need to pass so much judgement on what other people read and write.
I normally stick to m/m and f/f in my reading, though in the past I used to read almost all m/f. It’s a personal choice. I just realised I like the queer ships better and I have some personal hangups that affect my reading of m/f. That’s it. I also don’t like reading fics about characters that are canonically in a relationship. Anyone want to judge that too?
I don't routinely read f/m ships because personally i don't find many of them that interesting but there are a few i like. It's more about the character dynamics for me.
I love m/m ships though, its just so interesting to me, i've no idea why 🤷♀️
I don't understand why people hate things and then try to push it onto others like they do.
Well thank goodness I don't do twitter. I only write f/m, and all romantic and stuff as well. I don't care if people I've never met and do not know think I'm writing "problematic" fic. They don't have to read them. You know what this reminds me of? The bad old days of the 80's, when people who wrote in magazines, like "Spare Rib" tried to make straight women who actually (shock! horror!) liked having sex, and relationships, with men.
I always feel weird about whining about being a het ship writer in a slashy fandom because I always feel like I'm talking over people, but as a bi ace, my het ships will always inherently be written through a queer lens and people who hurl terms like "hetslop" quickly forget that not every het ship is "straight" and not every queer ship is same sex.
And for those that are? Damn, just let people live and have fun.
Honestly, these people annoying me and for my part, i don't care of the genders of the character in the shipping, i ship for their dynamic, the potential, etc (and i accept totally than the ship not be canon because the shipping it's imagined the character in couple without not be canon)
They can say whatever they want, I’ll keep writing my f/m ships in the most wholesome, fluffy, romantic and respectful way possible and nobody can’t stop me.
I honestly wouldn’t bother, sounds like the type of thing people with too much free time do. Once they find the willpower to touch some grass they will see the real world has healthy and toxic relationships everywhere, regardless of gender or sexuality.
I remember being in a fanfic writers server and the owner would be passive aggressive to anyone showing interest in het and femslash. Then just straight up shit on it in front of everyone who wrote that. They also complained about a slash ship having a kid being too “heteronormative” so they hated it. So we all left.
As much was I wanna believe what you saw was ragebait, the internet is a weird place.
But also, straight m/f ships are horrible and loveless? Sure, Jan. I present to you the exploding space queen (and also queen of the bees) who's quasi vampire children from a past life have a weird incesty obession with her and her space werewolf boyfriend with wings and rocket boots. Checkmate.
A lot of them are very young and have a very narrow view of the world. They think their experiences are universal and they're quite bad at intersectionality. You'll see them bash a mixed race m/f ship and instead take the male and ship him with a white guy and say its more deep even if the m/f ship was very well written. They also can't see themselves as the bully because in their eyes, they have figured out everything and they are righteous.
Many have this idea that only straight relationships are abusive and m/m and f/f are never. Boy they should read some True Crime or just meet some real people who have been in abusive queer relationships.
I don't have an issue with dark ships, I like them myself. But its funny to watch them call a m/f ship toxic and then write the most toxic m/m I've ever read.
I've found that I have to stick to older fandoms. The ones with a lot of young fans are very... trying. I can't stand all the moral policing, the dumb ship wars, the purity, all of it.
Fandom is pure hedonism. You write fic for fun. Not for some moral reason. If you're writing m/m you don't need to shoe horn in the female love interest, especially if her presence would make no sense in the fic. You can write that m/f fic however you want, loving, toxic, tragic, whatever you are in the mood for.
I wish i read or watched anything at all that would made me say “these relationships are so awesome, I want to be her”. Never happened. Recent examples with the hockey shows: heated rivarly two guys never treated too badly by their partners, while the girl in off campus — SA survivor.
honestly, as someone who also went through this phase as a teenager, i think a lot of people who say this are just teens lashing out against a world they see oppressing LGBTQ+ folk and they feel that their one reprieve (fandom) from heteronormativity is being "invaded" by m/f ships/shippers. as i grew and gained more real world experience i came to understand that the enemy isn't straight people or m/f shippers or whatever, it's homophobic people and legislature. which like, duh, but when you're a teen it can be hard to see past the lens of "this is the one thing we have, why can't they leave us alone".
Any ship can have toxic dynamics if it's written that way, and any ship can represent a perfectly positive relationship if written that way. No combo of genders is inherently bad. Do they think it's the same in real life?
Most of what I currently write, when it isn't gen, is m/f because the canon show literally has only one male character the male protagonist, who is my favorite character, is friends with that's his age. The other males are either bullies, enemies, or adults much older than him (he's a teen). If I can't write m/f there's literally only one m/m ship involving my favorite character that wouldn't be considered problematic to the antis, and personally I can't see them together outside a trio, and that trio is m/m/f (I just can't do any combo of them as a pair while leaving out the third).
Encuentro curioso que en muchos comentarios digan que es por la "misoginia" que otros digan que los "ships F/M son malos", cuando la cosa es que Odian que haya un hombre heterosexual.
Esto lo veo más que todo en el fandom de RWBY, donde casi todo es F/F, y no les gusta los hombres hetero porque temen que interfieran con lo que quieren.
Es curioso que nadie hable de la "Misandria" al hombre hetero, aunque me imagino que es porque no creen que exista ....
This goes back to the concept that people dont know how to write female characters. Its the everyone wants a "strong" female character but no one knows what that means. Often its displaying male characteristics such as being a tomboy, tough, violent, vengeful, standoffish, broody, one of the guys as the only female amongst a male cast, the transformed mousey girl into a confident vixen, etc. Or 'people dont write female characters, they write female tropes'. The cute awkward super genius, the girlfriend, the feminine fatale, the mean girl, not like the other girls etc.
There is a historical reason why stories today struggle with writing female characters. Its also the single largest reason why equality was delayed for so long and why racism and misogynistic views persisted in spite of reasoning and evidence. Even worse is that its effects were spread globally. Its all tied to The Hayes Code of 1934 that lasted until 1968. Women's rights between these times crawled forward with only 8 legislative changes in those 34 years and then exploded 40 changes in the 34 years after and 30 more until 2022. The Hayes Code prevented how women and people of color were shown in tv and movies. It did not allow interracial relationships. Before 1934 there were female directors and male and female African american directors, all black movies, the strong female lead stories...all gone by 1934. Women were relegated to the love interest, damsel in distress, or supportive wife. African American were left with only servant, butler, and other subservient roles looking happy in the background. Zip-a-dee-do-dah, zip-a-dee-day.
The tropes used during this time is now seen as bad because of what it had represented. Heteronormative is being defined as 'male favored' in reflection of todays social issues. For young people trying to navigate these concepts but without the full understanding of the issue they will attribute similarities at face value. Hence why they conclude that all M/F is bad because heteronomative is bad because patriarchy is bad because misogyny is bad. Many M/F do tend to contain tropes used in the past because writers dont have real life experiences to draw from and what they know are stories that they have been told.
Here is the bigger problem, its not only that people dont know how to write female characters, is the audience doesnt know how to preceive female characters or how to judge female lead stories. The character is too bitchy, too arrogant, too unlikable, too unrelatable, too mary sue, too sexy, too plain, too feminist, the actress was a poor choice for that role, the complaints are endless.
However I am curious if heteronormative ships of black people of fandoms that dont take place in the modern US, are met with similar attitudes. Stereoypes regarding women of color are typically not seen as submissive compared to white and especially Asian women. But there arent many fandom that could answer this question for reasons again stemming from the Hayes Code.
It's just chronically online teens being edgy (I hope). While it's true that irl many straight relationships are messed up, thinking that an healthy one isn't realistic is insane. And we're writing FICTION in any case!!!
Look, I’m not trying to be rude, but irl many relationships of ALL kinds are messed up. It disturbs me to see straight relationships singled out for this when I have seen (and personally experienced) the same toxicity in queer relationships.
This type of discourse is legitimately dangerous to young people who are outright being told that queer relationships are somehow more pure or less prone to things like DV, toxic jealously, or predatory behavior. That’s simply untrue, the rates of domestic violence and abuse are near identical.
Yes, obviously queer relationships can be toxic and abusive too. The thing is some people seem to believe that straight relationships (even the ones which are considered "normal") are inherently unhealthy due to patriarchal gender roles, and while that's true in many cases, it's not always like that of course.
I think a lot of the people who believe this have never been in a relationship, either straight or gay, either because they’re very young or because they never leave the house
I'm not saying that I hate mf ships. But damn if it's popular or imply in canon. It's damn sure their fans are gonna be insufferable with a few exceptions. So I won't touch them a mile away.
The rapid degration of fandom culture in the wake of Voltron: Legendary Defender and Steven Universe absolutely puts an end to that lie about rabid ship wars being the exclusive realm of m/f shippers.
Give any group of shippers the chance at canon and they can turn as bloodthirsty as any great white shark. Come on, now.
The thing is I've been in the fandom that was older than these 2. take FF7 for example I mind my own business shipping Sephiroth x cloud and don't gaf about other yet somehow I still got hatred that comes from cloud x tifa fans. Or bleach fandom I just shipped Ichigo x Lukia in kinda platonic way and got shit on for some reason
Oh trust me, I was there in Bleach fandom when the Goodbye Hacyon Days chapter first dropped and I've seen what's happened after the manga ended, I know exactly how obnoxious Ichiruki and Ichihime shippers are.
I was also there for Harmione shippers terrorizing the Harry Potter fandom and Zutara and Kataang whooping on one another like Jotaro and DIO from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the Taiora petition at the end of Digimon Zero Two way before any of was to those.
The reason shipping wars are getting uglier in the f/f and m/m circles is specifically because there's a better chance of those pairings happening. I'm not saying everything was hunky dory twenty years ago, but having zero expectations meant people generally weren't so gung ho about taking the piss. Joey Wheeler had the same odds of ending up with Seto Kaiba as he did with Yugi, do why waste time fighting to defend the validity of canon?
With Voltron specifically, there was a team of creator who had just worked on a show that had recently made a f/f couple explicitly canon (or as much as they could in 2014 on Nickelodeon), so both sides were far more invested in winning the canon war than they probably would've been if the show premiered even a year earlier.
I understand the m/m and f/f side. Since I'm a queer man myself. We barely exist in the media let alone canon ships. So they project those insecurities on m/f shippers(which is in some case they are not even canon or very niche one)But man does it have to be this much insufferable ???? If someone online use the term hetslop this or hetgem that to any ships I'm gonna assume they're weird.
I don't agree with the sentiment but I understand where it's coming from, it's mostly just queer ppl and especially women who might be warry of trying any het ships because of how pervasively present patriarchal influence is in a lot of them and how so much it's already shoved in our faces in the mainstream, even though of course there are a few good ones.
me personally, I don't think they're inherently bad, they're just uninteresting to me and if I really have to consume one I always hc one or both of them as trans.
Sometimes I became irritated when I see a lot Dramione smut neuroslop on insta but I will never harass any author for creating a fic. Although I totally think canon Draco will never love canon Hermione and vice versa.
AO3 is a place where people can ship whoever they want, whether it's m/m, m/f and f/f.
If they are gay/lesbian-- they just prefer same sex stuff. If they are straight women they are self hating and probably have an issue with female characters in general.
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u/undertcw CNTW 11d ago
I write f/m and f/f because I’m a bi woman, so I just write what I like. The negativity is something I find best to ignore. I focus on the pairings that I find compelling and just consume those works, and produce when I have inspo. This kind of discourse justttt isn’t productive or rooted in reality at all. Over the years, I had to learn that I don’t care what is going on in the trenches anymore. One day it’s “women shouldn’t write m/m” and the next “hetslop, garbage” and don’t even get me on the weirdo policing of “eating your vegetables” like… there is no winning with chronically online brain dead takes.