I'm so frustrated by the toxicity and double standards of so many communities, but especially shippers!
Just as an example – Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy has reignited one of the more infamous shipping wars, Cloud/Tifa and Cloud/Aerith. I won't go deep into spoiler territory (mostly because I could go on for an hour why I think Aerith is so good for Cloud) but the moment anyone dares to suggest shipping Cloud/Aerith in particular, there's a flood of comments about how Aerith is a "homewrecking plain village whore" and is "betraying Zack" (her first boyfriend who hasn't contacted her for years and she thinks is probably DEAD). All of this is probably worsened by how it went in the OG: Tifa arguably "won" and Cloud/Tifa is basically canon in the expanded universe, so it's by far the more popular ship.
Standard toxic shipping stuff, amiright? Well, there's a lot of male/male shipping in the fandom (Cloud/Sephiroth, Cloud/Zack, etc.) and there isn't a hint of the vitriol happening there! And as the cherry on top of the whole issue, this is what Tifa looks like and this is what Aerith looks like. I can't help but feel that a LOT of male gamers are just simping for Tifa because she's sexy and basically ignoring Aerith because she's "plain." So in other words, sexy girl is better, plain girl is "intruding/overreaching" on the relationship, and male/male relationships aren't any competition.
I'm sure people could list other shipping communities where these double standards are common, but I'm just SO SICK of it.
Meanwhile, I’m shipping Tifa with Aerith, like the hipster I am.
I mean, you’re not wrong. Do you remember when the redesign for tifa in remake was shown and men were going crazy as they’d never heard of a sports bra?
Fandom wank is always there, loud and obnoxious. In all fandoms. As you get older you get better in just turning it off. Block it, block tags, block subs, block people. Don’t let their petty toxicity stop you from enjoying yourself
Me, a casual Tifa fan, ages ago to my diehard player friends: “Cloud is a sadboi with a cool bike and I ship Tifa and Vincent.”
surprised with how much guys like lesbians that more don’t pick up and ship TifaxAerith, since their chemistry got so much better in Remake and Rebirth
Why do people get into such big fights over ships, I’ve never really got it
I know this doesn’t have anything to do with a game, but I have the same problem with people who ship Midoriya and Bakugo from my hero academia. Like I’m not a hardcore watcher and I haven’t seen a lot of the later seasons, I also know he gets like a character arc and stuff, it’s also not a huge deal cause I just stay away from it anyway, but I just know that when someone bullies you most of your life and then tells you to jump off a building, you tend to not want to date that person, even if you become friends afterwards.
Yes misogyny is a really pervasive element in romantic anything.
They’re both insanely hot by the way, terminally online people just think Aerith is plain because she’s wearing a long skirt and a cardigan instead of a tank top and a miniskirt. I’m not gonna pretend I’m not more into the miniskirt, but the sad little nerds that call her fugly would piss themselves with excitement if she looked at them twice
Shipping in general is one of the more toxic elements of a fandom. I frequently keep away from spaces that explicitly call themselves “fandom” because to me it got associated with shippers sending death threats over not shipping the same thing
I ship
Aerith X Cloud
Tifa X Cloud
Aerith X Tifa
Aerith X Tifa X Cloud
Cloud X Sephiroth
Cloud X Zack
Zack X Sephiroth
Cloud X Sephiroth X Zack
Aerith X Zack
Aerith X Cloud X Zack
All at the same time 😌🥰
As someone who has favorite ships in just about every piece of media I enjoy, I will be the first to say that shippers tend to be the worst part of any fandom aside from the straight up bigots and a-holes.
I think Tifa and Aerith should kiss.
That’s an interesting on one Tifa vs Aerith’s appearance, I’d have thought, given the usual raging sexism about these things, that people would go the other way, ie, “Tifa is too butch and basically a man, Aerith is actually a good pretty femme woman and therefore right choice”
Don’t see why it can’t just be a trio of Tifa/Aerith/Cloud