#I can totally talk about things that don't appeal to me without bashing a ship

[mothellie]

ST Ships Tierlist Tag Game

So. I did something no one asked for and that took a considerable amount of time to complete. I decided to make a tag game out of it so I didn't feel like I totally wasted my time (/lh).

I made three Stranger Things ship tierlists on Tiermaker, one for each age group. I'm a pretty huge multi-shipper and I was finding it hard to really convey all the pairings I liked and how I felt about them, so I spent the last week and a half doing this. I mainly just love seeing people be passionate about their ships, so here's an opportunity to put your faves on display.

The Tierlists

The Party Tierlist

The Teen/Young Adult Tierlist

The Older Adult Tierlist

Tag Game Rules

Do as many of the tierlists as you want. You don't have to do all three of them unless you really want to.

Download the image(s) of your tierlist(s) and put that into a post here on Tumblr. Can be your own original post or a reblog of this one. Though if you're going to make your own post, please link this post in yours so people know the rules, warnings and other info and know how to participate.

Tag at least five (5) other blogs (preferably within the Stranger Things community lmao) to keep the chain going. Although, you can just do this without being tagged if you want to.

As a general rule, no ship or character bashing is allowed for this tag game. Please be respectful to each other.

If you'd like, please also tag me in your post if you don't directly reblog this one! I'd love to see :)

Tiers Breakdown

ABSOLUTE OTP: These are the pairings you absolutely cannot live without. Your babies, your blorbos that kiss, the cream of the crop, etc etc. You're entirely abnormal about them and probably post/talk about them a lot. They consume your thoughts. Etc etc.

I love them abnormally: You love these pairings so so much. You're feral over them. You talk about them a lot and you might make content for them if you're a creator. However, they aren't quite in the top tier. Think of this as only a half-step down from the top tier. OTPs without as intense of an emotional attachment.

I love them normally: You love these pairings, but a normal amount. You aren't absolutely losing your mind over them, but if anyone asked you about them, you would probably say they were in your main ship list.

I like them: Exactly what it says on the tin. You like these ships. They're good ships and you'll enjoy content for them if you come across it, but that's usually as far as it goes. They're just neat.

I like them under certain conditions: You like these ships, but only in specific circumstances. Only in polycules, only if one of them is trans, only if they're completely removed from their canon stories, etc.

I'm curious about them: You don't actively ship these pairs right now, but the concept/dynamic is intriguing to you and you're open to the idea if someone can sway you.

No strong feelings: You don't actively ship these pairs, but you also don't have any strong feelings about them one way or the other. They just exist and you accept that.

They make sense to me, but aren't my thing: The dynamic itself makes sense to you, or you get why someone might ship these pairs, but you personally don't like them for one reason or another.

They don't make sense to me, not my thing: You don't understand the appeal of these ships, so you don't like them.

They make me uncomfy: The idea of these pairs makes you uncomfortable to some degree for one reason or another, so you avoid content pertaining to them.

Warnings/Disclaimers

If there's a character missing from the lists that you'd like to see added, you can DM me about it and I can see what I can do. I can't guarantee I'll be adding every character under the sun, but I'm pretty open to the idea adding a few more if someone really wants them. Alternatively, you can make your own squares if you have the means to do so. I think there's a way to add your own locally.

That being said, I have not added Lonnie Byers or Neil Hargrove, and I don't particularly want to for personal reasons. You can add your own squares if you have any ships you really wanna display involving them.

I cannot figure out what Gareth's canonical age is supposed to be, because this show fucking sucks at continuity, and the American education system has weird rules. He's also shipped both with the party members and with the teens/young adults. So he's included in both. I can't be fucked to try and determine what camp he should go in.

At the moment, there are only monogamous ships in these tierlists. This was mostly to conserve space and make sure all the pairings could get included, and that I'd have room to add more characters if I needed to. I bounced around the idea of making one or more for poly pairings, but the amount of effort that would take would be nearly double what this took. However, if people really want it, I might just bite the bullet because I love you guys. The same goes for a tierlist for crossover pairings.

My Tierlists

Tags: @californiaboytoybilly @shieldofiron @applewillowstone @lorifragolina @alicetallula @half-oz-eddie @harringroveera @ocalaghan @whataboutthefish @larkandcarry + anyone who wants to join in can say I tagged you

#cassie games #tag games

[gascon-en-exil]

What's the appeal of balthyuri to you? Imo they don't have as much chemistry as you often make them out to have, Yuri immediately shoots down his sex appeal in the first support, and it almost completely relies on Yuri's pre-established bisexuality. Balthus on the other hand won't shut up about how much he likes women, and his supports with other characters don't paint a pretty picture for his own sexual fluidity

I wouldn’t say it’s a major ship for me mostly because there’s still not much content for them, but I will say that the fandom is sleeping on this pairing that has a fair amount more to pull from in canon than anything gay Claude ship. As various people have pointed out after all, Yuri is the flirty bisexual lord Claude was built up to be pre-release. Some other highlights:

Their support line explicitly acknowledges the possibility of sexual chemistry between them which no other line between two (non-Byleth) men does that I can recall, and then ends with Balthus dubbing them “bash bros” which is as bizarre as it sounds but still feels like it’s pivoting around subtext in the same way that the Dimidue supports pivot around the word “friend.”

This is because, for all that he’s into women and Claude’s mother specifically, Balthus clearly has some issues with attraction to men he’s never thought much about working through. This is most evident with his eagerness to wrestle Dimitri, which comes up on multiple routes and actually happens (offscreen) in AM in a way that does not sound particularly heterosexual. Also, it’s Dimitri; the man’s got a thing for beefy guys plus he ogles Balthus’s abs in that one scene in CS, and this has led to entertaining headcanons about Balthus joining the Lions harem but having to find increasingly silly ways to declare that it’s totally not gay and just bros being bros, etc.

And back to Yuri. He and Balthus do have a paired ending after the bash bros nonsense, one that some have pointed out resembles a trope in Japanese media of planting gay subtext between a yakuza boss and his subordinate. While I don’t know anything about that that’s easily translatable to a Western equivalent where that does seem highly suggestive, like an organized crime Dimidue without the extreme trauma bonding. A lot rougher and less fluffy, but that seems to suit both their characters better anyway. 

I don’t see Balthus as the type to be very comfortable with that aspect of his sexuality, at least not compared to the Lions guys or Yuri himself, but he and Yuri fall into a professional relationship in their ending that just happens to involve them shacking up on the regular where neither of them care to talk about what they’re doing. Not super romantic, but FE16 already has a wealth of different M/M pairings that are romantic in various ways so that’s fine by me.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Balthuri #Balthus von Albrecht #Yuri Leclerc

[rissynicole]

Hi! You probably already explain this a 100 times, but I couldn't find a post where the answer was summed up, so forgive me if I ask and make you repeat yourself. Don't take me wrong, this is merely out of curiosity. You say that you're a non-shipper (more than respectable position, I'm with you), and yet from time to time you post shippy/shippy bordering stuff on your blog. How so? Also, I saw that you promote fics with ships from time to time too. Do you actually read them?

No worries! This is a really good question! And I’m not gonna lie, I spent almost the entire morning thinking about this one, and how I wanted to formulate my response to it. I feel like there are a lot of tangents I could potentially go off on, so I want to stick to topic. Nevertheless, I’m going to play it safe and put my answer under the cut:

Rissy’s Stance on Shipping in the IZ Fandom:

I don’t ship. Most people know this about me. I don’t know why, but I’ve never really understood the appeal or obsession behind it. I’m not saying that to make myself sound all high and mighty or to put myself on a pedestal, either. I totally respect shipping; it’s just not something I’ve ever been into. Especially not in this fandom. As far as IZ is concerned, I’ve always been more fascinated in themes of morality, character studies, and the unexplored facets of Zim’s culture. 

That said, you are totally right–sometimes I do reblog things that can be interpreted as “shippy” or borderline. If it can be interpreted as either romance or friendship, though, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m interpreting it as friendship. 

(I can already feel a tangent coming on. This could easily lead to another post, and I will gladly answer follow-up questions from anyone.) As far as ships go, if it’s not morally questionable or problematic (i.e., incest, pedophilia, etc.) then I’m pretty chill with it. 

I acknowledge the big, prolific ships in this fandom, and then I simply go off and do my own thing when it comes to creating content. I’m not deeply offended by the pairings that are popular in the IZ fandom, nor will I ever label myself as an “anti” when it comes to those pairings. I’m not going to bash people on something harmless that makes them happy, nor am I going to ostracize myself away from everyone who ships these characters. If I had done the latter when I entered this little world, then I can say without a shadow of doubt that I would have drastically limited the number of people I interacted with in this fanbase. Annnddd… to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have lasted very long in the fandom as a result. I’ve made a lot of friends–very talented friends–and some of them happen to ship the IZ characters. 

So here’s what it boils down to for me: I don’t ship. It’s no mystery that I dislike the biggest ship in the entire fanbase (you know which one I’m talking about,) and I only enjoy seeing these characters as friends at best. However, I love my friends. And boy howdy, do I appreciate good art and writing. So I’m absolutely going to give my friends the recognition they deserve. I have a little under 1,000 followers, and I’m thrilled to be an outlet where people could get recognition for their work. I will read it, too. And comment. And show support. All that good stuff. But notice how my favorite fics are 100% gen stories… 

So yeah! I swear to God, this post was twice as long before I did some major cutting down on stuff. I’m ashamed to admit that I spent more time and effort on this damn Tumblr ask than I have for some homework assignments. XD But I can certainly go on and on about this topic, my stance on certain ships, etc. Anyone can feel free to ask me questions about specifics, and I will gladly get back to them. 

#rissy's asks #anonymous #long post #that was once even longer #and addressed specific ships and junk #yay

[nyxelestia]

Serious question - do you actually ship Sterek? Because I've seen you say you do ship Stiles and Derek romantically, and also know that you've written Sterek fic, but going through your blog I literally never see any positive Sterek content. I mean, it's totally OK to dislike a ship, but it seems counterintuitive to simultaneously claim to ship it... Also, if your answer is you dislike the fandom, why don't you interact more with the "less toxic" Sterek fans?

Well first off, I have a sterek tag, and there is plenty of positive content in there, mixed in with meta - as there is for most of my ships, and my Teen Wolf tag in general.

Second, you have to define how you mean 'shipping' before I can give you a simple "yes/no" answer. tl;dr version: "yes, but not the way most people do".

Some people use shipping to mean soulmates and romance and true love and OTPs - and I don't do that with any pairing, including Sterek. A lot of romance tropes - especially the types specific to fandom culture and monoshipping - are just normalized emotional abuse. I don't understand why people find it romantic for a character to abandon all their friends and family for an S.O. I don't understand why only your S.O. "understanding you" is supposed to be romantic. I don't understand why an S.O. being able to solve all your problems for you is supposed to be cute or loving. More specifically to Teen Wolf, I don't understand why so many Sterek fics are dependent on Stiles having problems with Scott and his father, or why so many fics feel the need to undermine or erase Stiles' attraction towards Lydia or the ship-teasing with Erica in order to support Sterek. I don't get why anyone thinks any of this shit is romantic, or the appeal of romance in general.

So in that sense, I ship nothing.

There is another way to use shipping, though, which is to simply enjoy the relationship between two characters, or think that two characters have compatible personalities and would be good friends or good intimate partners.

(Please note: if they can't be good friends, then they can't be intimate partners. If you can't love your friend, or if you can't be friends with the love of your life, that's not love.)

Now, this means that the way I use 'shipping' and 'otp' is how most people describe or use 'brotp' (and what other people just describe generally as shipping, I refer to somewhat specifically as monoshipping). Certainly, there's a lot of "brotp" content in my ship tags, and I use a tag derived from shipping culture to describe a sibling, non-ship relationship between three characters who I'm writing a fanfic about (Stiles, Allison, and Liam as siblings). If I didn't use "family feels" tags already, I'd probably use shipping nomenclature to tag my content about family relationships, too, even though I don't intend/enjoy them incestually.

In that sense, I ship everything.

My problems with Sterek, as a fandom, aren't really about the ship itself. It's about the character erasure, character bashing, and the warping of canon without acknowledging it. Headcanons are one thing - thinking your headcanons are canon and then getting mad when reality doesn't match up is another.

I identify a LOT with the Stiles of the TV show, which is why I get so disheartened to rarely ever see him in Sterek fanfic - instead, I find a Manic Buzzcut Dream Boy that is basically a demented conglomeration of Scott and Stiles' best traits and with all of Stiles' flaws or worst traits erased out, and with many other characters sidelined, flattened, or erased entirely. Throw on all those "romantic" tropes (many of which are really normalizations of emotional abuse tactics disguised as ~True Love~), and it's like my favorite characters are gone, and no one's noticed because something 'better' took their places.

I identify with Stiles the most. When people change him so dramatically in fanfic and fanworks, it's disheartening. In implying that Stiles has no value as who he is (and will only have value once he is drastically changed), it feels like they are saying the same thing about me.

On top of that, I can't really get into romantic melodrama, which is why even though I generally like Stydia, I actually despised it in Season 6A. Their friendship, their actual relationship, was sidelined or erased entirely, and replaced with bullshit shipteasing and overwrought melodrama that had previously been exceptions for their relationship, not the norm. I "shipped" Stiles and Lydia as genius badass geniuses who worked together to solve problems and take care of their friends, I "shipped" them as the two pack detectives (or as the two ravens to Scott's allegorical Odin), and I "shipped" them when their relationship was built on a foundation of support, of growth, and respect. When 6A tried to erase that growth (i.e. claiming the 3A kiss changed everything, even though it actually hand't), when they overplayed Soulful Gazes (TM) instead of showing all the awesome scenes of them working together or protecting each other, and when the remembering episode/montage involved Malia and Scott having to talk up their ship (as if the ship couldn't stand up on its own???), that's when I started to hate it. If the show hadn't tried so hard to prop up Stydia, it would've stood just fine on its own. Instead, they overplayed it, hollowing it out in the process and robbing Stiles and Lydia of real growth and what could've been a fantastic relationship.

So do I ship Stydia? Do I not ship Stydia? I still say I do, but I know a lot of people who say I don't. I've gotten anonymous asks in my Inbox accusing me of being anti-Stydia after making pro-Stydia posts.

That applies to Sterek, as well.

There is very little Sterek in the first two seasons. Most of their scenes together are extremely hostile, and if we count "all scenes with hostility" as belligerent sexual tension and "scenes which they both happen to be in" as shipping, then most other ships have far more canonical support than Stiles and Derek. Scott has way more "shipping" scenes with both of them in that regard, if we're going to look at it that way.

But, I think that if we set aside the nasty history, Stiles and Derek have very compatible personalities that go well together, and I can see why people shipped it even without canon.

And then I got to Season 3A, which actually does have a lot of Sterek in it - people just didn't notice because the show still teased multiple ships (as it's kinda supposed to do), and because the show continued to be about packs and be about Scott, instead of turning itself inside out to be about Stiles and Derek. I absolutely adored the growth in relationship, and Stiles and Derek's relationship growth in Seasons 3A, 3B, and 4.

However, I like it because of friendship, as I like all ships because of their foundation in friendship and love - and not in romantic tropes or sexual tension. I loved Stiles and Derek's friendship in the show, which is why I ship them - but if you based shipping solely on romance, then no, I don't ship them,  and I don't ship anyone else, either.

So do I ship Sterek? I'll let you decide that, because it depends entirely on how you define “shipping”. :)

#stiles/derek #teen wolf meta #teen wolf #stiles stilinski #derek hale #nyxie answers #sterek #anti sterek #Anonymous