Get out, get out, whoever you are.

Fatphobia? Nope. Nothing wrong with Erin or Patty or Holtz being shipped with Abby, certainly not for her weight. There’s way more important things to talk about in the movie, and they never once make any sort of crack or reference or mention of her weight.

Racism? Nope. That’s probably the most offensive belief, that not shipping Holtz or whoever with Patty means we’re being racist.

You know, as much shit as the movie got, to the point that we lost money and 90% likely won’t get a sequel, you’d think the fandom of the movie and the shippers would be friendlier to each other. And especially not hurl insults like assuming other shippers are racist because they don’t ship a character with Patty.

As for fan fic cliches and inaccuracies, yeah, I see those a lot. I personally try to write around them. I write Holtz as plenty self conscious and socially awkward a lot of the time. I write Patty as the cool-headed walking fortune cookie of wisdom. I write Abby as the understanding, smart and honest team mom. And I write Erin as slowly coming out of her shell, and that even Holtz’s love can’t fix it overnight. Fan fic cliches are something to avoid for sure.

I dunno. Yeesh. As much hate as the movie got, I’d figure the fandom would be more inclusive than this. And once again, shipping Holtzbert doesn’t automatically make you fatphobic or racist. That kind of thinking is what hurt the movie’s performance. There’s nothing wrong with shipping whoever. It’s not even a matter of agreeing with the ship. I don’t ship Polybusters, but i don’t think something is wrong with it.

It doesn’t matter which ship is the most popular either. It just happened to be Holtzbert and could easily have been one of the other ships. Geez.

I also love the “Holtzb*rt” spelling thing going around, that’s trying to equate it to a slur or whatever. Wow. You call Holtzbert shippers racist and prejudiced but you’re trying to make up a slur? Yikes. Grow up, people. Ship who you want to ship, stop ragging people who ship something different. The amount of hate is really terrible and heartbreaking to see considering how much irrational hate the movie as a whole got.

1. You’ll find, if you look at the more wordy posts, that any commentary about holtzbert as being “rooted in racism and fatphobia” is actually not an accusation, but actually started out as a discussion on what representation past/present/future does to how we see and react to characters. The people who truly want to have a conversation about this would point out that media through the years do not portray poc or the overweight as desirable love interests (this is clearly not a hard and fast rule) but generally if you are watching a movie that has a couple more often than not it is with an attractive white couple (and 99% of the time they are straight). So while no one is accusing anyone of being racist or fatphobic we are trying to point out that as a society we have essentially been conditioned to not see that as a reasonable option in the movies/tv we are watching. That’s not to say we act that way in real life, not at all. But stereotypes do exist. Remember this is why we fight so hard for more/better representation.

2. Fandom is fandom, and people are horrible, both sides of the fence. This is not solely on non holtzbert shippers, in the same way it is not solely on holtzbert shippers. You are naive if you think this is not happening in other fandoms. Claiming that because non holtzbert shippers have brought up racism and fatphobia within the fandom as the reason the movie didn’t perform as well is ridiculous. These things are not connected in the slightest. This is a claim solely made to cause trouble. What happens in fandom is for the most part contained within fandom. I think you’ll find a few petty disagreements between fans did not hinder ticket sales, nor did change people’s decision to purchase the movie or merchandise. 

3. I wonder if you’ve ever considered that holtzb*rt being used in place of holtzbert is not a slur, that again is a baseless accusation. Now if you’ve been following any of the fandom drama you would know well by now (unless like many holtzbert shippers you’ve stuck your head in the sand) that tagging and having posts show up in tags that aren’t relevant has been an ongoing issue. Now see how tumblr works is your first 5 tags sort the posts into those tags, if you follow a tag tumblr will check all the tags used. Now search on the other hand, search will look for the word anywhere in the post, the text, the tags, the url. So maybe MAYBE before you go making accusations about us trying to make that a slur you consider that we’re trying to keep any of our commentary and gripes about holtzbert out of your searches. It’s called consideration (it’s a big word I know).

When I said that line of thinking is what hurt the movie’s performance, I meant that automatically assuming someone is ____ for not liking ______ is what hurt us. From the looks of things, Paul Feig responded to a lot of genuine critics of the first trailer by calling them misogynists and all. I didn’t care for the first trailer (and wasn’t even a Ghostbusters fan period when it came out), but that doesn’t automatically make me a misogynist for not liking it. Accusing every member of the audience who didn’t like the trailer, even if they genuinely just didn’t think it was funny, turned people off big time, gave us bad publicity, and led us to a weak performance even though the Rotten Tomatoes score was the same as Jurassic World, which made $1.5 billion (and the RT consensus was the same, that it stood on its own as good but paled next to the original).

In summary, assuming everyone is ____ because they don’t like ____ is a line of thinking that absolutely was a part of what hurt the movie. It’s like when Obi-Wan said “only a Sith deals in absolutes”. The statement is so hypocritical that no wonder Anakin attacked him and couldn’t be calmed down.

And I certainly never meant to say Holtzbert shippers never said or did anything wrong. But I wasn’t talking about them, simple as that.

There’s nothing wrong with shipping any of the ships. I see no problem with any of them. And I don’t see Holtzbert as being rooted in racism or fatphobia. I certainly see and feel the dismay over characters like Abby and Patty not being seen as desirable love interests in the media. But I don’t contribute to that by shipping Holtzbert.

Of course fandoms are messy. Just look at the movie and all the shit that went down, like that piece of utter shit Milo that FINALLY got his comeuppance this past week (thank you Bill Maher for helping expose him and lead to his fall). Look at the reception to the Star Wars prequels. The Bronies. And now the Ghostbusters fandom. But shouldn’t we, in the light of all the horrible shit this movie got, be more accepting of other parts of our small fandom? If Holtzbert shippers aren’t being accepting and kind, shouldn’t non-Holtzbert shippers try to be to pick up the slack and not do crap like “Holtzb*rt”?

The minority should not have to be the one to bend. Why are we not allowed to be frustrated in fandom. We are trying to keep that within our own circles. How is using an alternate tag which keeps our comments away from shippers who don’t want to see them an insult, a slur?

Baloney. Of course you can complain. Nobody is saying you can’t or that you have to bow down to anyone. All I’m saying is that if I saw someone being really bad, I would strive to do better and not make the same mistake. You’re right, everyone should strive to do better.

I don’t care who someone ships. That’s their call and it’s totally fine whoever they ship.

Being considerate of others and calling out issues within the fandom is not making the same mistake. It is being better and trying to make the fandom better.

I just don’t see any other couples there. It does not make me racist when I just can’t imagine that e.g. Patty and Erin would be a couple. You can’t force anyone to imagine other ships when someone just doesn’t want to, and does not believe they would exist. I personally think that there won’t be a canon, but also if it happens there won’t be any “gayness” in it, due to the studios.

http://sn0wghost.tumblr.com/post/157619819123/right-im-not-saying-this-is-equatable-at-all-and

Just do me a favour. Give it a glance, at the very least. And perhaps, if you see fit; take some time to reflect. If you come away from it feeling the exact same, then so be it. But it will not hurt you one single bit to do some self-evaluation.

No one is outright attacking, or even accusing, you of being racist or fatphobic. What they’re asking of you is that you take a more than superficial look at why you completely erase Abby and Patty out of any potentially romantic relationship. (The bs of off-screen romance with straight boys doesn’t count, sorry.)

I’m not going to even bother getting into the bullshit that is “I HC someone who literally makes a noise/face of disgust at Chris Hemsworth who everyone else is drooling over as straight and not gay or at the very least aro/ace” because oh boy, your words are dripping in subconscious bias; and it’s buried so fucking deep you don’t even realise!

Patty Tolan and Abby Yates Appreciation Weeks!

Are you sick of seeing irrelevant or horrifying posts that completely erase two of our favorite ladies? Have you had to unfollow your favorite character’s tag because it was too disheartening? Are you fed up with Patty and Abby getting treated like $h*t by fandom? THEN THIS EVENT IS FOR YOU!

When: February 25 - March 11

What: post headcanons, meta, gifsets, photosets, fan art, fan fic, fan vids, fan mixes, fic recs, favorite quotes, favorite moments, just shout I LOVE PATTY TOLAN or I LOVE ABBY YATES from your rooftop – share whatever you want! The goal is simply to show our ladies some love <3

Who: YOU!!! and the character appreciation blogs @actualsunshinepattytolan and @abbygreates

Participation is obviously not mandatory. Participation everyday is not mandatory. Just post whatever you can, whenever you can. If you want to start early? Great! If you want to post only once for each character? Cool! You want to make five million posts every day for the rest of your life? FANTASTIC! Do whatever you want!

Afraid you can’t prepare anything in time? Fear not! The Abby and Patty blogs won’t be going away. They will continue to reblog your character adoration whenever you’re able to post. :)

Feel free to mention either @abbygreates or @actualsunshinepattytolan in your post. There’s also the Ghostbusters Appreciation Week tag that we’ll be checking, as well as braving the general Abby and Patty tags to track down stray posts. All* appreciation posts will be queued up and reblogged by the promoters.

* we say all but really we mean “all the posts we manage to find AND don’t perpetuate harmful stereotypes or tropes”. What counts as a harmful stereotype will be left up to the judgement of the promoters, but basically anything you’ve seen chattered about by Those People isn’t allowed. That’s the kind of stuff we’re trying to escape from thanks.

Need some inspiration? Consider these themes:

canon moment

a childhood event

favorite ship

family backstory

song you associate with them

future headcanon

your most burning question about this character

what do they have set as their phone’s background and lockscreen?

what’s something this character has changed their mind on?

thing about this character that makes you cry

who is this character’s celebrity crush?

Fatphobia? Nope. Nothing wrong with Erin or Patty or Holtz being shipped with Abby, certainly not for her weight. There’s way more important things to talk about in the movie, and they never once make any sort of crack or reference or mention of her weight.

Racism? Nope. That’s probably the most offensive belief, that not shipping Holtz or whoever with Patty means we’re being racist.

You know, as much shit as the movie got, to the point that we lost money and 90% likely won’t get a sequel, you’d think the fandom of the movie and the shippers would be friendlier to each other. And especially not hurl insults like assuming other shippers are racist because they don’t ship a character with Patty.

As for fan fic cliches and inaccuracies, yeah, I see those a lot. I personally try to write around them. I write Holtz as plenty self conscious and socially awkward a lot of the time. I write Patty as the cool-headed walking fortune cookie of wisdom. I write Abby as the understanding, smart and honest team mom. And I write Erin as slowly coming out of her shell, and that even Holtz’s love can’t fix it overnight. Fan fic cliches are something to avoid for sure.

I dunno. Yeesh. As much hate as the movie got, I’d figure the fandom would be more inclusive than this. And once again, shipping Holtzbert doesn’t automatically make you fatphobic or racist. That kind of thinking is what hurt the movie’s performance. There’s nothing wrong with shipping whoever. It’s not even a matter of agreeing with the ship. I don’t ship Polybusters, but i don’t think something is wrong with it.

It doesn’t matter which ship is the most popular either. It just happened to be Holtzbert and could easily have been one of the other ships. Geez.

I also love the “Holtzb*rt” spelling thing going around, that’s trying to equate it to a slur or whatever. Wow. You call Holtzbert shippers racist and prejudiced but you’re trying to make up a slur? Yikes. Grow up, people. Ship who you want to ship, stop ragging people who ship something different. The amount of hate is really terrible and heartbreaking to see considering how much irrational hate the movie as a whole got.

1. You’ll find, if you look at the more wordy posts, that any commentary about holtzbert as being “rooted in racism and fatphobia” is actually not an accusation, but actually started out as a discussion on what representation past/present/future does to how we see and react to characters. The people who truly want to have a conversation about this would point out that media through the years do not portray poc or the overweight as desirable love interests (this is clearly not a hard and fast rule) but generally if you are watching a movie that has a couple more often than not it is with an attractive white couple (and 99% of the time they are straight). So while no one is accusing anyone of being racist or fatphobic we are trying to point out that as a society we have essentially been conditioned to not see that as a reasonable option in the movies/tv we are watching. That’s not to say we act that way in real life, not at all. But stereotypes do exist. Remember this is why we fight so hard for more/better representation.

2. Fandom is fandom, and people are horrible, both sides of the fence. This is not solely on non holtzbert shippers, in the same way it is not solely on holtzbert shippers. You are naive if you think this is not happening in other fandoms. Claiming that because non holtzbert shippers have brought up racism and fatphobia within the fandom as the reason the movie didn’t perform as well is ridiculous. These things are not connected in the slightest. This is a claim solely made to cause trouble. What happens in fandom is for the most part contained within fandom. I think you’ll find a few petty disagreements between fans did not hinder ticket sales, nor did change people’s decision to purchase the movie or merchandise. 

3. I wonder if you’ve ever considered that holtzb*rt being used in place of holtzbert is not a slur, that again is a baseless accusation. Now if you’ve been following any of the fandom drama you would know well by now (unless like many holtzbert shippers you’ve stuck your head in the sand) that tagging and having posts show up in tags that aren’t relevant has been an ongoing issue. Now see how tumblr works is your first 5 tags sort the posts into those tags, if you follow a tag tumblr will check all the tags used. Now search on the other hand, search will look for the word anywhere in the post, the text, the tags, the url. So maybe MAYBE before you go making accusations about us trying to make that a slur you consider that we’re trying to keep any of our commentary and gripes about holtzbert out of your searches. It’s called consideration (it’s a big word I know).

Probably Patty when she totally marries Holtzy and Erin. Just sayin. (via ectoholtzmann)