Please can you explain Victor and the f**kin' dishes and why somebody considers it problematic. I've only been around the YoI fandom for about a month and I've stayed very much on the edge (I'm in the VLD fandom - that's enough drama for me and then some), so I've missed a lot of the discourse and I just don't?? Understand?? This??
You’ve only been in the fandom about a month? Oh you sweet summer child. You’ve missed some interesting drama lol. (though to be fair what I’ve heard out of the VLD fandom, this may be nothing compared to some of the crap the VLD had done.) This explanation is gonna require some backstory. This may be long-winded, I’m sorry.
First of all, there are a couple ant/ blogs that have the phrase “without the shit” in the url. Two blogs in particular, an art one (so “y0i art without the shit”) and a fic one. (More recently a general blog and a gif blog have popped up, but they’re not important to this story.)
On their blogs, they only reblog “safe” art and fics. That’s their entire theme and purpose. They only reblog safe and pure fanworks. Of course, this means no 0tayur1 (or YP/JJ, or any ship with “minors and adults” aka any Yurio ship because these people don’t like shipping him with anyone). They don’t reblog works that “sexualize minors.” Etc. You get the gist.
They won’t even reblog fanworks from people who are guilty of those things. Even if the subject of the post itself wasn’t a Bad Ship. This artist drew a cute, pure, fluffy v1ctur1 piece? Nope, they won’t reblog the v1ctur1 art, because that artist drew 0tayur1 making eye-contact once upon a time, that artist is now forever tainted as a gross pedophilic shipper. Even if they have problematic ships in other fandoms, they won’t reblog from them. “This artist supports a sha/ad1n ship? Nope, they’re a nasty artist and will never be reblogged on this blog. They like KS or capt1v3 pr1nc3? They’re a Bad Person too.”
The two blogs are run by two different people, so they have different lists of what is and what is not allowed. Ranging from “no 0tayuri” to no stripper AUs to no omegaverse to no genderbends to no“problematic or homophobic tropes.”
These Bad Tropes include such hits as:
“Yurio Calling V1ctur1 Disgusting” (for being all lovey-dovey and flirting with each other I assume… apparently Yurio being grossed out or annoyed by them having PDAs is homophobic)
“Yuuri Being Cold to Viktor”
“V1ctur1 Having Sex at the Banquet”
“Viktor Trying to Get Yuuri Drunk”
And my personal favorite Bad Trope: “Viktor and the fucking dishes.”
There’s been a running gag since early on in the fandom, that, once they start living together, V1ctur1 will get into small arguments over dishes. Like Viktor will forget to do the dishes, and Yuuri will get annoyed with him and tell him to wash the dishes and like hold a kiss over his head until the dishes are done. Just a stupid, harmless joke about being domestic. Right?
Welp I’ve legit seen people argue that this is heteronormative. (Do same-sex couples not wash dishes? I didn’t realize arguing over whose turn it is to wash dishes was a straight couples thing. I guess college roommates all over the country are straight couples.) And according to ant/s, it’s homophobic somehow too.
So the dishes trope is problematic because it’s… idk, I guess v1ctur1 isn’t allowed to have normal silly domestic spats over chores?
I guess, according to ant/s, it’s unhealthy to sometimes argue over chores and couples should never argue at all…even though they’re human beings and misunderstandings happen no matter how in love you are with someone because no one is perfect, and so long as you communicate and talk after an argument, it’s healthy and normal. To ant/s and their purity culture, v1ctur1 are too superior to have something as mediocre as the occasional disagreement in their relationship.
I can understand why people are annoyed with the dishes thing. It’s a tired, unfunny joke. But it’s nothing to call a “problematic trope.” It’s annoying and dumb at worst, but it is not problematic or homophobic. Like come on people, please go outside.
So yeah, that’s where “Viktor and the dishes” comes in. Sorry for the novel.
Some further backstory to complete this saga though.
Around May, it came out the the fic blog had a “shitlist.” A private list that they shared with other ant/s so they would know which writers to block. Someone posed as an ant/ to get their hands on this list, and released it, and exposed the fic blog for having a “shitlist” of writers in the fandom.
That little incident brought more awareness to these “without the shit” blogs, both the fic and the art blog. Some people were aware of their existence, but not many until this shitlist came out.
Some people had a field day with this drama and were more amused than anything, trying to create art/fics to get onto the shitlist, like some badge of honor. Others were understandably pissed at these blogs for quite literally calling certain fanworks “shit.” People work hard on their art and fics. It’s so wrong for these ant/ blogs to call their work “shit” just because they don’t like the ship.
Now I can imagine running a blog with a complex tagging system, that way people can blacklist things that trigger them and also easily find art and fics that will suit them. But that was not the case with these blogs obviously. I hate to use the word “discriminate” so lightly, but they were essentially discriminating against 0tayur1 shippers under the guise of “this blog is a safe space and only reblogs safe works!!”.
After the shitlist was released, the fic blog password-protected for a few days (probably because they got an influx of asks from writers begging to be put onto the shitlist lmao) and then came back later. And now these blogs are continuing to reblog only “safe” works, while deeming all other works as “shit.”
