#and weird morality police stance within fandom

[lightningbig]

I think the slow ego death of fandom can be pin pointed directly to the first use of the term stantwt actually

[thegalleonsnest]

I have been in this fandom since the start of 2021 and I've been around the block. I did not grow up the same way as most people when it comes to the internet and joined this fandom as an adult. I don't even think this is considered an unpopular opinion or not, but I've kept to my corner of the internet and kept to my circles, but if there's one thing that's constant that I always see without fail, is how serious people take shipping and discourse around it.

And I do want people to know, this is coming from the perspective of a 25 year old man. I know this is not everyone and only a small number, and from what I can gather, this mainly pertains to teenagers/young adults (with a few outliers), but it eventually grows to become this weird moral stance people feel the need to end up taking with shipping; and with particular characters too that really becomes a confusing, and just weird argument to surround yourself with. And for some, it's the determining factor for whether or not to judge someone of who's worthy of their presence or labeling them as weird and uncomfortable when literally all the characters are adults.

And let me preface this with, yes, I understand very SPECIFIC ones that some people ship might as well be considered crackships or borderline weird given the contexts of each character's relationship that I'm not a personal fan of, and potential age gap between adults, but I'm not gonna give people the stink eye and play moral high grounds with others for doing that stuff on their own time. Let alone police people about what's an acceptable ship or not. It ain't for everyone, but it's something that happens anyway.

I also know that there are people out there that are very protective of particular canon couples and judge the hell out of people for doing anything different, whether making them poly, or changing their sexuality to make another ship work that isn't an oc. I do wanna clarify, I feel very neutral about this particular subject. And on one hand, I completely understand in the sense of maintaining that proper representation in a character's sexuality, cause that's what makes them who they are and means a lot for those being repped. And on the other, I see people trying to be diligent of that fact even while expanding and exploring ships with those couples, they more often than not don't want to destroy that existing relationship but make it open with others. And in the end, becomes a fight within the community to determine the fate of BugsnaxFan97356 for wanting to share their thoughts/art on X couple being poly with X character. (And I want to clarify, this is different than straight up just destroying a character's entire sexuality/relationship for the sake of shipping them with a particular character. That shit sucks and is basically character assassination and destroying the representation we had)

Intent is what's important here, and I truly believe that most of the time, people are literally doing it just for fun and don't usually have malicious intent. (especially when the main demographic here is teenagers and young adults)

(Side note: I did talk to friends about this to get a second opinion about this particular subject, and brought up a fair point, like some people don't like the idea of making a gay monogamy couple go poly just to date a different gender. That is also completely understandable, but again, for me personally, it does boil down to the intent behind it.)

Like people are fighting over the very nuances of character relationships, ships, and everything in between and making it an argument and debate on where you stand morally. Cause if you ship a character, and it's not an oc, with one that someone considers not good, weird, or crackship material that very small groups like, they made it clear they want nothing to do with you and consider you a "weird," "uncomfortable," or straight up a "bad" person instead of just talking like mature people.

And if for any reason someone thinks I'm singling people out, I'm not. I have legitimately seen this happen throughout my time here in the fandom, and with people I personally knew. Entire relationships were ruined/destroyed because people took shipping so seriously, they treated it as gospel and the determining factor to maintain their existing relationships if they even mention liking something they didn't. It's not a healthy mentality, because in the grand scheme of things, shipping opinions like these will not matter because most people will not think the same way you do or treat it as seriously as you do. We will move on with our lives because the shipping state of your favorite blorbos will not affect whether or not you get irl business done in 5 years. And if you are using fictional shipping as a moral scale to determine your relationship with real people, you're gonna have a hard reality check when you realize most people don't give a shit cause they got a job to be at in the morning.

bugsnax fandom what’s a opinion that will get you like this