⚪️ · 21h
To weight in on the whole stereotyping thing as a chaotic 22-year-old bisexual that lives and breathes switching and has gotten into rpf only recently/ has a background in mostly being in fictional-centric circles with a variety of friends with different preferences :
So to preface, I've always felt alianted within fandom spaces in some sort of way. I'm chronically poly brained (making super petty ship wars absolutely hell to go through) , I've been judged again and again for "liking problematic ships" however, usually the biggest roadblock tends to be the way I approach dynamics— that being that I, on paper, will vouch for versatility always and believe in reversible positions within pairings, with my dynamics outside of that favouring one side being more dominant while the other is more sub-leaning and even that doesn't quite scratch the surface. Really, I tend to treat dynamics within ships as slides with different categories similar to video games with a character creator. And, from a more biased (?) Lens, I have a very subtle top/dom bias agenda (meaning that the character I latch onto the strongest has a high chance of either 1.) Being dom fixed dynamics-wise in my brain 2.) Me really liking, wanting to see them top and being a top apologist. Oh and well, I'm trash for dom!bottoms and sub!tops in particular hahah AND I do happen to like genderbends of the m/f variety (or 'het' if one were to prefer calling it that, I'm personally not super comfortable doing it but that's a me thing only fjfjfj)
So with that said one could say I've? Always been morbidly fascinated with how fandom treats and prefers dynamics, how it's changed, how different cultures shape ones perception and how differently my friends tend to approach it.... Which brings me to m4tz in particular and how, even as a new fledgling especially as fledgling 8iny one of the firsts things to stick out was how devided this particular ship is.
Not my first rodeo, but still fascinating.
Others have already brought up valid points and how and why people have preferences and I'm not here to ever invalidate that but to give insight on why someone like me may feel tempted to turn something into 'het' for example..... It's because to my brain (and a lot of others) it isn't quite that. More than their actual gender I perceive fictional characters (or fictionalized rpf counterparts) more as concepts than anything, concepts to tell stories with and that, more often than not, transcend what gender frames we assign them to and that live in a constant state of fluidity, that are a mosaic of countless experiences and I perceive as storytelling devices.
I actually really like your take on gender expression in regards to both hj and hwx bc I actually agree for the most part :) one of my favorite hwx things to exploit is how he just can perfectly embody both extremes of the gender scale and how he just does it flawlessly and they're both sides of him and it's awesome. Guy gives ME gender envy with whatever he does and i'm cis! (He's such an icon fr)
Anyway it may be surprising to note that I'm—as of now and under the context of hj and hwx in particular— generally more sub!hwx and dom!hj-leaning WITH that said if you were to ask for my specific agenda I'd be tempted to say to Let hwx Top (Especially when he's leaning more into his fem side), with my main reasoning being that?? Well. It's plain and simply hot and goals for me. And I like the variety of it, though that's again my bias speaking here. My other big agenda is Letting Hj be a bit of a mess in the sense that he's not as quite put-togerher as hwx is and needs someone to keep an eye on him in that sense and I also like hwx initiating more openly romantic advances especially with words www
Anyhow this is probably super long and I'm sorry if I'm not making any sense, I just felt like throwing my thoughts out into the void as someone that's still getting adjusted, I hope nothing here comes off as super skeptical or negative. I like opening dialogue and in my humble opinion if there's one thing that fandom kind of needs sometimes it's just to kinda have the general space to sit back in and just. Listen to others without the intention to instantly agree with anything / see where the other is coming from. It's easy to just stick to a bubble sometimes and embrace the comfort zone and while healing, that little bit of curiosity never hurts!
yes, i do prefer calling a ship composed of a man and a woman "het" because that is what it is, and not calling it that gives too much leeway for this queer-safe space to possibly be bastardized by the "norm" in times where fascism, transphobia and homophobia are on the rise. i don't mean to be harsh, but in a way i wonder if the resistance to calling a m/f ship "het" is a cop-out to not have to reflect on the ways that patriarchal values may be projected onto them, to continue to value m/f that comes from mlm rpf as a queer ship just so people don't have to admit to liking het content (which, i would like to highlight, is not something to be ashamed of, but it cannot be treated as equal to queer representation). i know this is the type of opinion that gets people telling me it's not that serious yadda yadda, and i don't know how you grew up, but i grew up being queer and looking queer and being ostracized for being queer and surrounding myself with other queer kids who were often less lucky than me when it comes to familial and societal acceptance, and i think it matters that we really do put thought into these things so every generation can grow up a little luckier. we need to consume things critically, yes even in the silly little smashing dolls together rpf. i think the rise on het content using matz as the dolls to make it, the bastardization of a queer ship, can be a problem, it can make cishet people come into this space for the projection onto this female "character" (this is not a judgement of value as we all project onto them in some capacity) without having to interact with and learn from the queer people who are at the core of nsfw spaces in fandom, who built this space FOR THEMSELVES. if anyone feels less connected to a character if they're a trans woman instead of a cis woman, i need them to be forced to sit there and evaluate WHY that is. if anyone feels less connected to a character if she's a lesbian instead of straight, i want people to be forced to sit there and give it thought
i cannot see how making a het ship out of them can transcend what gender frames we assign them to, i can barely even grasp what this is supposed to mean. not only because of this but especially when the woman of the ship is nearly always being put in a stereotypical position that complies with patriarchal values. again, this to me feels like a cop-out. if they're supposed to live in a state of fluidity then we might as well make them trans people, who have a vast experience with gender roles and norms and presentation, craft it with care so we can dismantle the very barriers you are alleging to not see but which are very much there
this is just me, please read this as solely an opinion, and solely applied to FICTION because i know irl people find some of these things empowering and have their own ways of navigating them and dismantling these notions, as real life is always going to be infinitely more complex than we can convey in fiction, but in fiction i personally avoid the dichotomy of a subversion based on reinforcing certain roles. fem top hwa is great and masc bottom hj is great, but at the same time doesn't this create the thought that they're not actually fluid, and that there are two boxes in which you can put them and not really go outside of it? a big issue i see is that everyone wants to break stereotypes but we're not going outside the boxes, we just think that if we put them into boxes they don't usually go into enough times the boxes will crumble. they will not. they are boxes made of steel, hence why they've retained the shape so well throughout the years
thank you for sharing your thoughts and your experience with this topic!! it genuinely gave me a lot to think about and i hope i have conveyed my thoughts well, but i'm open to hearing other perspectives and argument and also to clarifying in case anything is unclear
