Whitelightningoverasunset - Layla Rose

r.a. salvatore wrote in one of the legend of drizzt books “he died of natural causes, for a dagger in the heart quite naturally ends one’s life” and i’ve never gotten over that

that feeling when you’ve been reading all those gentle soft happy fanfics where everyone is gay and in love and it’s not a big deal and their friends all support them.

and your favourite superhero couples and detectives and kings and warlocks are just domestic and happy.

and then you emerge into the real world and it’s just not like that.

you walk into your job in the morning and know that if anyone knew, you’d be out the door. kids use the word ‘gay’ as a slur and it might be silly but it makes something hurt inside your chest. you look at your mother and think of the words she’d use to cut you with if you told her. the disgust on her face. you have your family around you and you know it could all be shattered in a minute and it would be you who’d done it.

everyone assumes your straightness. people look at you strangely when you use ‘they/them’ pronouns when asking what their fiancé’s name is, bcs you don’t want to make the same mistake that others make with you. you file forms with spaces for the mother’s name and father’s name and wonder how you’d fill them out if you had a partner and a child. you work with children and wonder what they have to hide about themselves.

and then, sometimes, you go home and read some more fanfic. maybe you write some, or draw fanart if that’s your thing. that’s the best thing, that we’re dreaming about a better world. maybe we’re not famous or published or earning money for what we do. but writing and reading fanworks like this helps a heck of a lot of people, including me, feel happy and comforted and like it’s possible that they might belong one day. that it gets better.

thank you, everyone who creates fanworks where being gay is simply treated as normal. your work is healing and wholesome and full of heart and goodness. and much as i may love the canon, it’s not the canon - it’s the fanworks that are a safe haven to retreat to and recover and heal.

Mansplaining protip:

When a man starts explaining a concept you already told him you understand, instead of saying “I know” over and over until you die, try one of these:

Ok, which aspect is confusing you?

It seems like you have the basics down; Would you like me to recommend some good articles so you can get a more nuanced understanding?

So did you have a specific question, or do you just want a more in depth explanation?

So, I wanted to create an appreciation post for the ships that are scorned and receive hate.

For the ships that are treated with homophobia, and are belittled for no other reason than for being between two people of the same gender. The ships whose beautiful emotional developments are ignored, and instead stereotyped into false pictures of “lustful yaoi pairings,” which they are most certainly not.

For the ships that are overshadowed and ignored due to their more popular competition:

For the ships who, conversely, are “too popular,” or have “taken over the whole fandom.”

For the ships who are sent hate for ‘queer-baiting’ in spite of their beautiful, long-developed bond:

For the ships that are considered ‘abusive’ or ‘wrong’ because the characters have problems (and work them out, in DirkJake’s case!):

And the ships between two characters who are “clearly straight,”

(Yes, I have actually seen this argument used against Kagehina XD)

Because every pairing, no matter how minute, mainstream, or controversial, deserves respect. It’s okay if you don’t ship it. Hell, I don’t ship all of the pairings in this post. However, that gives you no excuse to behave with hostility towards the people who do.

(I will likely continue making edits to this post. I didn’t include every ship that has ever received hate, of course, and I may have mis-categorized a few of them. I understand that not everyone will like these ships for a variety of reasons, but I would appreciate it if everyone avoided any shiphate :)

I feel a very Rational™ stab of fear everytime I start reading a fic with like 20 chapters and the main couple gets together at like chapter 8 or something.

Reject the chains of history. Do not let the past define your future as I did. Free yourself from the past. Learn from it, understand it–then let it go. Create a brighter future from your own hearts and imagination.

King Harrow, The Dragon Prince s2, ep 6 “Heart of a Titan” (via red-alynore)

possibly my favorite trope in the hobbit fics is the dwarves underestimating a hobbit’s appetite and either fretting that they’ve been starving bilbo or worried that he has some kind of eating disorder

Bilbo: *stuffing his face as only hobbits can and oblivious*

Thorin: *acting majestic but having internal panic attack* have we not been feeding him enough?

Fíli: where do you suppose he’s putting it all?

Kíli: do you think he’ll explode

While looking for some flags, I stumbled upon this one and thought

yEP this is my flag

One of the worst parts of being a fangirl is when you put your phone down because your otp is being overwelming (like always) but you can’t find it for like 10 minutes.

let’s talk about racism in the danmei fandom

alright so originally i wrote this for twitter, but i felt like tumblr could benefit from it too. today we’re finally getting the long awaited “deconstruction of racism in the danmei fandom” post. and lemme preface this by saying- i’m chinese-american. i’m nblm. i do, in fact, have the cultural and historical background to know what i am talking about. so let’s get into it. 

this is gonna be a long post, because we have a lot to talk about. first, racism doesn’t have to be as blatant as calling me a chink, or saying all asians look the same, or not wanting to consume asian media, or making ching chong jokes.racism can be as subtle towards asians as it can towards any other race. if you think i shouldn’t have to say that, join the club, bc same. 

second, racism towards asians, especially in the west, has a long history of being overlooked and accepted. now, let’s talk about how racism dictates some of the takes you see in the fandom. firstly, what originally inspired this thread- the mxtx rumors and the jokes being made about her and censorship. now, obvs some ppl are gonna say that they were just jokes made in poor taste. and, sure. but they were jokes made in poor taste, steeped in racism. the jokes being made about mxtx going to jail happen bc ppl do not view her as a real person. not rlly. she’s an author, sure, the author of one of their favorite novels, but she’s not, like. a person with thoughts and feelings and a life. and that sort of casual lack of humanhood and agency given to danmei authors is rooted in the severely racist dehumanization of asians that’s prevalent in the west. this is something that can be seen other places, too- a good example being when parasite was notably nominated for every oscar category *except* the acting ones. 

it’s this lack of personhood, this lack of agency, that allows ppl to have takes like “censorship isn’t actually bad, and here’s why”. yes, this is a real take that i saw. this take argues that the cql is better than mdzs, bc it is “softer and less graphic”. in general, a lot of ppl have the take that mxtx’s works in particular are too graphic, with problematic sexual elements. now, i’ve talked before about how that’s a homophobic take bc gay relationships should also be allowed to be messy. but it’s also deeply entrenched in racism. it’s why white gays can have the take “this is Problematique and here’s why” and claim it’s not homophobic. 

racism against asians has long since created a trend of sexualizing them- thinking asian men are sexy while also removing their sexual agency. asian men can be sexy, but they can’t actually *have sex*. not explicitly. there’s a historical, real world element to this. “not fats no femmes no asians” could definitely be seen on ppls grindr profiles, back in the day. asians can be sexy, sure. look at kpop boys. but they can’t be sexual. they’re infantilized. they have to remain pure and wholesome, or they’re dragged as problematic and homophobic and fetishizing, a word that’s thrown around so often it’s practically lost meaning. fetishizing is my ex-bf telling me i’m sexy bc* i’m asian, it’s bl/yaoi fans approaching a gay couple on the bus and gushing over how “cute and yaoi they are.” fetishizing is *not* showing your 2 male main charas having explicit sex. if it is, then every white fan in danmei is fetishizing asians. 

but i digress- back to the point about racism. the fact that ppl can argue about censorship shows that they, as a whole, aren’t considering the ramifications of censorship on the literal country it exists in, and it’s citizens. i, obvs, do not live in china. but i’ve got relatives who do, and who did. i’ve got relatives who fled china. not everything is about you and the media you want to consume. and then, of course, there’s the casual racism. the everyday racism. the racism that lies in things like saying all the names are too similar and it’s hard to keep track of them. the racism in saying things like “i’m just here to have fun,,,like sure, i’d persevere through dostoevsky, but this is danmei”, as if danmei is somehow inferior, as if danmei isn’t meant to be critically engaged with, as if danmei doesn’t tackle and critically explore some of the deepest and darkest issues. 

asian media is often presented that way, from kung fu movies to danmei. there is a type of racism, of eurocentrism, that exists in the belief that western media has deeper, more engaging morals. asian media is more “fun”. asian media is almost entirely based on morals and deep thought, it’s just not based in western ones. for example, two of my favorite authors are haruki murakami and kazuo ishiguro. both are japanese authors, who’s works i’ve heard westerners describe as weird and without a point, when in fact they are simply telling stories with innately eastern asian morals and teachings. it’s the same type of racism that causes ppl to make jokes about asian food, to not view it as a craft the same way they do french food. it’s asian- it must be “less than”, be inferior, be inherently not worth as much. 

casual racism about asians is normalized, which isn’t a word i use often. it’s normalized to the point where ppl don’t even realize they have that sort of implicit bias, and we know ppl don’t rlly come on the internet to think critically. but unintentional racism is still racism. it still has an impact, still does damage. ppl need to think intentionally and critically in how they consume and interact with media not made for them, but they don’t, instead choosing to come in with their preexisting biases, and bc of that, it’s easy for fandom members to dismiss the cultural concerns of chinese ppl within the fandom. it’s easy, for example, to say “calling them martial brothers is incest apologism”, ignoring the inherent cultural roots of martial brothers. 

now, we’re gonna get in to the current “drama”. i do not ship chengxian. i think that even bears repeating. i Do Not ship chengxian. i have written them, in a modern au, as adopted brothers. but there is a real historical and culture relevance to the idea of martial brothers, of community, that westerners willfully refuse to hear, claiming instead that “you’re disregarding adopted families!” no. that’s not what’s happening at all. what’s happening is ppl are refusing to look at their own, western bias, and placing western values on an eastern idea. community raising of children, community family bonds without being adopted families, is important in east asian culture. there is a long history of community being whats important, and ppl don’t get that you can be a “communal/community family” without being considered familial. jyl choosing to view wwx as her brother, bc he is a martial brother, and chengxian being in love, are things that can technically coexist. whether or not you choose to perceive them as such, refusing to acknowledge the real history of martial brothers, and scremaing “incest apologism” whenever someone tries to explain it, is inherently racist. it’s you assuming you know my culture better than me. it’s you assuming your western ideas are the only ones that exist. which is, at its core, the basis for most racism in the danmei fandom. 

most racism in the danmei fandom comes from this idea that casual racism against asians isn’t *really* racism, and therefore asians don’t *really* get to have a say, and it shouldn’t matter anyway bc we’re lucky you’re even engaging with danmei, with asian content, since it’s shallow and inferior anyway. the racism comes from a place of moral superiority, of ownership, of this assumption that westerners are entitled to not just consume danmei but also bring their western lens and apply it to something that was never written for them in the first place.