sharksmirk-reblogs:

While I agree with all of this, I also think it’s time the fandom got introduced to the Chair Leg of Truth. And because I find wading through the cesspool of fandom delusions mildly entertaining, I’m going to add a two more points to your list. But before I start, let me just say that 4ntis and the shitty part of the VLD fandom are just a natural conclusion to a specific brand of tumblr narcissism. They’re what happens when your head is so far up your own ass that it forms an echo chamber. And with that introduction, let’s begin with the autopsy, shall we?

1) VLD is a show in no way geared towards tumblr shippers

As far as VLD target audiences go, tumblr shippers probably rank slightly above the Amish. That doesn’t mean that the show doesn’t want them watching - just that it has no reason to cater to them specifically. The reason Netflix sunk so much money into a proper reboot (looking at you, “Voltron the third dimension”) is because they’re calculating that fans of the original show now have kids of their own and will introduce them to the show. This is not to say that the show itself has no artistic merit, but no company worth its salt will produce a product they cannot sell. Nostalgia is money, kids. If you don’t believe me, here’s the producers talking about how they have to compromise on every episode that’s not a massive robot fight. Or how they had to bring back Shiro to sell toys.

Meanwhile, part of the tumblr fandom expects the show to turn into a kl4nce coffeshop AU any moment now because it’s “the number one ship on tumblr!!1!”. Trust me, if every single kl4nti stopped watching the show right now, it would not make a single dent in profits. In fact, 4ntis are the kiss of death to your profits: they drive away existing fans, deter new ones, and threaten to boycott the show every time their tastes aren’t catered to. VLD’s target audience (original fans over 30 and their kids under 12) are the exactly the demographic that would not be on tumblr and are more likely to be in the “passive” fandom (i.e. not creating content or voicing opinions, but participating in merchandise sales). And when Netflix execs want to know what fans think about the show, they let them vote with their wallets: they track Netfix users and merchandise sales. They couldn’t care less about tumblr shippers who watch the show on kisscartoons and buy kl4nce mugs off redbubble.

In other words: dear tumblr, you’re invited to the party, but it ain’t your birthday.

2) When all you have is a hammer, turn every problem into a nail

Deep down your brain is very much aware of point (1), and while kl4nce could theoretically happen, the odds are just not in its favour. Which is why that same brain decides to shield you from disappointment by creating its own little tumblr-reality. So let’s say your a tumblr shipper who wants their ship to be canon and is (at least subconsciously) aware they have no real-world leverage. Well then you’ll have to use the only weapon you do have: tumblr callout culture!

Now again, VLD is a very specific exception here. The reasons nobody sends death threats to Marvel demanding Stucky be canon is because the best you could hope for is some studio exec having a little chuckle before they mark your email as spam. But VLD is a show that can be labeled “progressive”: there’s a desire to make the show more diverse by changing the character’s races, the show runners support LGBT rights, there’s a LGBT person and POCs among the VAs, the show is animated by the same studio that did LoK (which is absolutely irrelevant, but we’re not exactly dealing with sound logic here), and so on. This is what 4ntis use as leverage: if the show really wants to be seen progressive, then it has to earn it! 

If the VLD team want to prove their loyalty and devotion to being THE MOST WOKE, it’s not enough to simply have a character with no previous canon sexuality be LGBT+. Oh no, if VLD creators are to be approved by tumblr activists, they must reject all previously established canon! They must destroy the only canon relationship (ka11ura*) and “redeem” 1ance’s canon personality by having him do a character 180-turn**. Nothing less will do! Deny us and prepare to burn in hell be called problematic!***

Like I’ve mentioned before, these fits of impotent rage don’t really have much influence on the show’s decision makers. Unfortunately, impotent rage will not stop until it finds an outlet where it can actually have effect. In the fandom this usually means death threats and attacks against “rival” shippers, trying to get a LGBT VA fired because she’s a “traitor to the cause”, calling people “pedos” for shock value despite the word not applying at all, etc. It’s like a spoiled child kicking the cat because his parents won’t give him cake for breakfast. As it happens, on tumblr being a good person is not a seen as an active choice but as inherent (and therefore inalienable) to certain identities, so 4ntis will honestly claim they’re trying to protect people from harm while partaking in harassment. Scratch the surface of any of these “moral panics”, from 80s satanist scares to g4mergate and 4ntis, and you will find a group of people angry that they don’t have control and ready to regain it by any means necessary.

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Phew, that was long, but it needed to be said. And just because I’m feeling extra cheeky today, I’m going to leave you with a nice little quote:

“Where books are burned, in the end, people will also be burned.”
-  Heinrich Heine

Though that might be a bit too subtle for tumblr. Let me try again:

freedom-of-fanfic:

honestly, though.

A perfect storm of circumstances working together, mostly:

• anti-shipping was already posing itself as against ‘pedophilia’, defining pedophilia as ‘adult/teen ships’ (erer1 for example) or ‘ships with age gaps i don’t like’.
  
• kl@nce, the juggernaut ship of the fandom, shares a character with she1th, which while having a much smaller fanbase was nonetheless teased and joked about by the VLD staff. ‘ship war’ was written all over this.
• shiro was clearly a bit older than the other paladins from the start, and had the nominal leader position. younger fans in general and kl@nce fans in particular, more inclined to interpret keith as sharing Lance’s maturity level, saw shiro as far too mature for keith.

The video recorded at SDCC 2016 of the creators verifying that Shiro is in his 20′s (’an adult’), Pidge is a young teen, and K/H/L are all late teens (but ’not adults’) was like dropping a spark on a powder keg. ‘she1th is pedophilia’  - because shiro is an adult, keith is not an adult, and dating over the 18-year-old dateline is ‘pedophilia’ - has been the primary war cry of antis for over a year now.

in short: anti-shipping moral standards feed directly into putting down the main rival ship (she1th) of the juggernaut ship (kl@nce), and was directly embraced by an unusually large portion of fandom like a security blanket. things just snowballed from there. decency never had a hope of survival.

(There are antis that don’t ship kl@nce, of course, but the vast majority of VLD antis do and pro-kl@nce antis dictate the course of anti-shipping in VLD fandom space.

also there’s nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with a ship for any reason at all. it’s when you set out to make a hostile environment for shippers, harass them, and suicide bait them that there’s a problem.)

“Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.”
- Adolf Hitler

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* with no regards to how bad it would look to change a11ura’s race and then deny her romantic relationships

** canon 1ance mostly fits the “womanizing cishet male” trope which tumblr believes to be the work of the devil himself, but if 1ance rejects his evil ways and swears everlasting love to one man than the creators will be absolved of their sins and allowed back into the woke parthenon (lol)

*** if all of this sounds a lot like religious fanaticism, that’s because it kind of is