Sulemio vs. Destiel

Event
Event:	Sulemio vs. Destiel
Participants:	ao3topshipsbracket
Date(s):
Type:	Bracket
Fandom:	Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Supernatural
URL:	Tumblr post
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Sulemio vs. Destiel refers to the final poll in the Unofficial Top Tumblr Relationships Bracket! by the Tumblr blog ao3topshipsbracket and the subsequent intercommunity ship war that transpired on the site as a result. The final saw Sulemio from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury and Destiel from Supernatural battle it out for the top ship of the bracket.

Sulemio won by a considerable margin, with 53,394 votes compared to Destiel's 28,519.

Upon finding out about the ship's existence, many people who had never heard of the pair stated an intention to watch the show.

Background

• Support from demilypyro - especially in getting them to the finals.

Spread

Elsewhere on Tumblr

[aroacegundamalex]
Funniest things to come out of the Destiel vs Sulemio poll as of May 13th, in no particular order:

• People outright lying about what happens in G-Witch, including but not limited to claiming the finale was written by interns, they never so much as hugged, and that their relationship was only confirmed outside of the show
• A multi-paragraph reblog that compared thinking a non-canon ship between two white men is boring to screaming about how much you want Asian women to die, and that disliking said ship between white men is sexist and racist
• The people who genuinely think Gundam is an obscure franchise and not a multimedia giant more profitable than Minecraft
• People who don’t even know what Gundam is voting Sulemio because it’s against Destiel
• People reblogging with the slap
• The multiple people pointing out that losing in the home stretch would be the perfect ending for Destiel that perfectly celebrates their history as a ship
• “Supernatural do you read me? Blame this on the misfortune of your birth.”
• The blog massachusetts-official standing with Sulemio
• The multiple people who logged in after years or months of inactivity just to vote Sulemio

[aroacegundamalex]
The single funniest thing to come out of this poll — hands down, bar none — is that there are people who believe that the groundwork for one of the most popular entries to date in a giant of science fiction was laid by… a fan ship in a completely unrelated CW show.

People believe that a Gundam show (a franchise that has had a queer fanbase since before Supernatural was even a concept and has had canon gay characters since the ‘90s) owes its lesbians to… Supernatural fans, of all things.

Memes

Some users were quick to mention the similiarities between the Sulemio vs. Destiel poll and the Reigen vs. Sans poll that coincided with the death of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.

[shut-up-zepp]
This feels like the kind of poll that would result in the death of a british royal

[smoltron]
The Prime Minister of Slovakia was recently shot, so maybe that counts?

Some fans started to suggest using screenshots of Sulemio as an alternative to the 'I love you' meme for spreading news on the site.

Discussion

[demilypyro]
It's been fascinating seeing the reaction to the poll. The Destiel fans seem to think their ship deserves to stay popular and relevant just because... it used to be popular and relevant, I guess? Reading these tags has such a flavor of entitlement, it's really something.

It's like they're not realizing that the standards for what qualifies as good representation, or even a good show, have shifted in the last 10 or so years. Not realizing that a lot of people who were here back then, like me, never cared for Supernatural, and don't agree it was important at all, and would not be interested in celebrating it. Not realizing that other fandoms have been happening around them, and that some, like in the case of Mobile Suit Gundam, have legacies that reach back to decades before Supernatural was even on the air.

Destiel is such a product of its time. It's a fanon ship that, as I recall, was strongly disliked by its show's staff, acknowledged only because the fans demanded it so much. The ending of Supernatural was widely mocked, and the show is now mostly remembered as that meme people learn the news through.

Sulemio meanwhile had the full, joyous support of its staff, and was canon since the first episode of Gundam Witch. The whole show's plot revolved around this pairing. The Gundam franchise hit record sales numbers during and after the show. Sulemio brought hundreds if not thousands of new people into the mecha audience, and got many of them interested in the hobby of building Gunpla. Suletta and Miorine being canonically married even stood out politically, because gay marriage is not legal in Japan.

Is this not progress? Is this not worth celebrating? Why cling to the old and busted when the new hotness is doing such great things?

"Be serious", they say. But I am serious. I've been serious the whole time.

Maybe it's not for me to understand.

[the-eeveekins]
I'm so proud of how Sulemio fans have come togther to support these girls, but also defend them from the flood of misinformation and bullshit. We're pouring post after post of love explaining who they are, why they're important and why we love them.

I'm familiar with Destiel because of the memes and it being one of the most infamous cases of Queerbait/Bury Your Gays around, but never interacted with the fandom (why would I?). And man like... the arrogance? They're so dismissive of Sulemio as "generic anime girls I've never heard of" and act like we should vote for them and hand them the win on a silver platter because of something like tumblr history or a the number of A03 fics. Those "generic anime girls" you've never heard from are currently kicking your ass, and it just show how much you underestimate the competition. Competition that beat Hannigram, Avatrice, Bubbline and Ineffable Husbands. The way they're so dismissive of anime and don't even know what Mobile Suit Gundam is is very telling that they look down on any form of media outside a very western/live-action sphere.

The majority of them can't give a reason why you should vote for Destiel beyond Tumblr History, like any of us should give a damn about that? I care about media with queer couples being important FROM THE START, and getting happy endings married to each other. Destiel's history has nothing to do with my fandom experience, especially as a sapphic women who loves yuri.

Western and White-centric Fandom

Much of the discussion regarding the event relates to the perception of the ships and shows involved, with a big focus on the White and Western skew on fandom sites like Tumblr. One argument is that Gundam is a highly influential and popular series in Japan, and so for many users of the site apparently having never heard of it speaks to the Anglospheric bias of the fandom spaces on it, especially when the canon ship is the Gundam one.

[tunaculosis]
I think it's very fascinating that, back to back, we have had a pair of what I want to call system shocks on tumblr.

The first wave was the beef between Kendrick and Drake. The beef reached truly titanic levels in order to breach containment and reach our shores in any real way. What was then immediately revealed is that a very loud (if not actually numerous) portion of the tumblr userbase is not simply ignorant of rap music, but proudly so, and not just proudly so, but ignorant of it in ways that have become stereotypes of rap critics. Accusations of violence, misogyny, and difficulty of understanding it were particularly visible to me. With a side helping of racism. The response to this was twofold: tumblr users either got into some damn funny fights when idiots doubled down on their ignorance, or they were curious and we got some damn good recommendations.

The second event was this week: The AO3 Ship Bracket finals: Destiel vs Suletta [sic]. The strongest yaoi of the past vs the strongest yuri of today. As Sulemio tore through the polls, again this trend emerged! Deeply incurious, proudly ignorant people parroting criticisms of anime that have become stereotypes anime fans repeat to make fun of critics! Accusations of sexualization, misogyny, and obscurity were particularly visible to me. With a side helping of racism. And then, just like last time, people split off into two camps. The first was idiots without any actual knowledge of Gundam showing up to crow about Destiel like the franchise isn't older than some of their parents. The second was some really good recommendation threads with people willing to learn (just start on Witch From Mercury, it's fine, then maybe watch The Origin or something, other people have better recs than me).

I think it's really interesting that tumblr's userbase has been exposed for being really inflexible and driven into a rut in its fandom spaces. And defensively so. I think that expanding your horizons is good for you for a lot of reasons, but avoiding looking like a jackass on tumblr is a really good incentive, I think.

Much of this argument stems from the impact Gundam has had on anime as a whole.

Resources & External Links

• Destiel vs. SuleMio Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - KnowYourMeme page