Then speak a third time. Stand UP. Interrupting is a bothersome but extremely normal thing people do when excited.
Posting this to share my thoughts on some discourse I saw on Twitter.
The practice of only shipping men is male-centered in a way, obviously, but I want to clarify some things about my position beyond this obvious statement. I don't think being a fujoshi is any kind of moral or feminist failing.
It makes sense that we, in a sexist world, are more interested in male characters on average. This is one factor in why someone would prefer MLM media. But equally impactful and inseparable is the fact that a sexist world leads writers to write women worse than they write men, on average. Someone with truly no bias favoring men would still like male characters more often than female characters because the male characters are most often written better. For a person to have a roughly equal amount of male and female favorite characters, they have to purposefully seek out media with good female leads or lower their standards for what makes a good female character.
There's a million reasons why fujoshis or people in general prefer male characters, and none of them are moral failings. Fujos aren't very secretive about centering men in media preferences. It would be silly to say shipping mostly or only men isn't a male-centered practice in at least one sense. Like no shit. But does that mean fujos center men in every aspect of life? Noooooo. It does not, at all! Does it make them "bad feminists"? No. Most of the world is taught to favor men. Decentering men is a purposeful effort, not a state most people grow into naturally.
Now, to talk about myself. Most of my ships are MLM. These are the main reasons:
I live in a sexist world and absorbed subconscious preferences from that.
There are more good male relationships in stories than there are good female+male or female+female relationships.
I'm a little bit damaged by sexism in a way where I feel more comfortable enjoying romances with no women involved. When I see a woman on screen, there's this dread that lingers in the back of my mind because I'm waiting for her to be treated shittily by the narrative or for her to prove to be just another two-dimensional female character.
If the story subverts my expectations, the dread goes away, but the dread exists for a reason: often women characters are treated or written in the ways I dread to see. Thank god for all media that subverts my expectation for shallow female characters. Media with well-written female characters did so much to heal my relationship with myself; being born with the body of a woman, having this body my whole life, and experiencing the gendered upbringing that comes with it.
I've made a huge effort to decenter men over the years, and I think I've done a damn good job. I don't think I can completely erase all the effects of sexist conditioning from my brain, but I deal with internalized misogyny when it crops up, and that's enough. I deeply love women now, and things associated with women. It took a long, long time to get to this point.
Everyone, let's stop faulting people for shit like being male-centered. No shit people are male-centered, we live in male-centric masculinity land. So if someone actually cares about women's issues and treating women fairly, good enough. I don't call myself a fujo—I like yuri and sometimes straight ships—but I don't think it would be a moral failing on my part if I only liked MLM ships.
Most of my OTPs are MLM. That is a symptom of living in a sexist world. It's a wonderful mix of internalized misogyny (maybe. I've rooted a lot of that out) and the fact that there are fewer cool relationship dynamics written involving women than those written involving male friends. This does not at all indicate a failure on my part.
Getting through this world as a woman or as a person perceived as a woman is confusing as fuck and hard to navigate. Let's accept this reality and not be shitty to each other because of it.
This is the most polarizing discourse I'm aware of in every fandom, in that both sides generally believe the other side is morally atrocious and might cut ties with someone due to their stance on the issue.
Proship (short for pro-shipping) is the stance that people should be able to ship whatever they want, including ships that in real life would be harmful, or morally taboo at the least, such as teacher/student or incestuous relationships. The general philosophy of proshippers, from what I've seen, is "Ship and let ship." Proshippers believe that depicting harmful things in fiction is not necessarily harmful, at least in the context of fanfiction. They are usually very anti-censorship and believe in absolute freedom of artistic expression.
Antiship (short for anti-shipping) is most generally defined as the opposition to proship. I've never seen anyone self-identify as an antishipper, rather, the label is applied to them by proshippers. Though, people will express their opposition to proship openly, such as putting "proshippers DNI" in their bios. Antis generally believe that romanticizing harmful relationships in fiction, including fanfiction, is harmful in real life, due to normalizing abusive or unhealthy dynamics.
When I say this discourse is polarizing, I really mean it. The shipping war as characterized by antishippers (often referred to as "antis") is pedophiles vs. normal people who care about morality. According to proshippers, the war is anti-censorship believers vs moral puritans who will bully you off the internet for liking problematic content. To be clear, there is a real problem of antis bullying and harassing people they deem problematic, but this is not the behavior of the average antishipper. The shipping discourse is very Western and associated with English speakers, and has only recently (2015–present) started to spread to other cultures.
My view is that the popular discourse, the arguments that get 100k likes on Twitter and dominate the conversation, reflect a black-and-white, unnuanced, incorrect understanding of abuse and depictions of abuse in art. Black-and-white views of complex issues are always wrong, and that includes issues of morality. To keep this short, I believe that the responsibilities of artists depend on what their art is for and who will see it. An artist making art for children has more responsibility not to harmfully influence the audience than an artist making content for adults. Artists writing for a niche audience do not have the same responsibilities as artists writing for a general audience. Writers on AO3 have different responsibilities than writers who seek to publish their work and potentially have their book on shelves in libraries and bookstores.
Due to the niche and insular nature of AO3, as well as the tagging system, and the lack of profit incentive, I believe writers on AO3 have relatively few responsibilities towards their audiences. The one important responsibility AO3 authors have is to tag their works appropriately so that those who want to read the content can find it and those who wish to avoid the content can avoid it. I also have the hard-to-prove feeling that there should be some places like AO3 where people can write problematic and even horribly disturbing content, so long as it is a non-profit platform with a tagging system that limits the likelihood of people reading anything with content they don't want to read. Due to this, I fit in best with the proshipping crowd and would call myself proship if asked, despite thinking the entire discourse is wild.
I wrote this to put my views on shipping discourse so everyone knows where I stand and I can link to this if anyone asks me haha
I know that the thing that makes me feel so connected to Vinland Saga is Askeladd and Thorfinn's relationship. Something about it is one of the most impactful things to me, but Ive been trying to think of what it is so I can capture it again in new art.
I think what it might be is something about hating someone you love/loving someone you hate. Something about how we don't get to choose who we hate or who we love and the great unfairness of it all
Like if I hate my father, I hate someone I love. I don't get a choice of just hating him. No matter what I want, he will be a deeply important part of my life, even if he died and disappeared forever (I don't hate my dad, it's more complicated than that. I love him but feel hurt by him. This is just for example purposes).
Like Thorfinn does not get a choice; the man he hates and wanted to kill is forever a very important part of his life. Because Askeladd raised him, Askeladd is permanently important. There is nothing that lets us move on 100% from these permanently important people. No matter what we want, they will keep affecting us. There's something hard-hitting about this unfairness.
I think Askeladd and Thorfinn's relationship impacts me the most because it's one of the purest examples of getting no choice in how we feel about someone: An enemy who has done horrible things to you becoming like a father to you. It also captures the extreme unfairness of this situation by having Askeladd be taken away from Thorfinn in a way that was completely out of his control. He didn't even get to end Askeladd on his own terms. Someone else took away his reason for living, the person who he defined his life by, even though he hated this person.
It's just very oof to love someone you hate.
Hello all and welcome to Monthly Challenge 2! Again, these are totally separate to the big bang, so you don't have to have signed up for that to participate in these. Everyone is welcome :)
1k fic/writing OR 1 piece of art (which could be either a drawing, podfic, graphic or fanmix) based on the prompt
Sign up via the below link
Post completed works by midnight March 31st according to your timezone
The round up post will be posted about a week later on April 7th.
All Fandoms allowed, just so long as the main ship is femslash - see FAQ below or send an ask if you need anything clarified. :)
FAQ
Schedule
Prompt List (updated when prompts drop)
AO3 Collection
We have a discord too - send an ask (off anon) or reply to one of our posts and I can send a link :)
Lets fucking go
ALRIGHT PARTY PEOPLE!!
Offical thornute week 2025 Twitter and bluesky!! (Above art drawn by yours truly)
Im here bring this to tumblr as well but there isnt an official account for thornute week because 3 people are hosting the week ^^` (including me!)
Today will be the posting of the prompts (right below)
(Doodles by @4drian321 and SmolCanutie
The rules are as follows:
1. No tracing of other's art, stealing and AI.
2. NSFW content must be posted behind filter.
3. You can post fanfiction, art, cosplay and other types of art.
4. You can post things that you created before Thornute Week if it weren't published before.
5. Be kind to others and have fun!
Please remember to check the replies/reply if you have any questions!