#but like. that objectively legitimately happened this is not an april fools joke.

[pixelatedquarter]

pop rocks to a medieval peasant (aka: the entirety of all fobbies before 2023) but:

They kissed full on in the mouth during GINASFS onstage in the middle of the Fall Out Boy concert

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

While I think April fool's jokes might be funny sometimes, some people take it too far.I'm in a fandom for a show wich is all but officialy confirmed to be in it's final season,and the "favorite ship of the fandom" is almost certain to be endgame. The thing is, before this ship came along,a lot of people shipped another one, who is now ridiculed and called "toxic".And for April fool's,a big blog for the "new main ship" turned their blog into a "old ship" blog,saying it'll be canon... 1/2

2/2... and that ship is real as a joke. Even if I didn't ship "the oldship", that's really not nice, specially considering since a large part ofthe fandom, including that blog, constantly trash on the "old ship"and the people that ship it. That's not to say that there aren't mean people onboth, but the harassment by the majority is real, and real low blow. Sorry forthe rant, I just wanted to talk about this and felt you could understand.Thanks for reading.

Noproblem, nonnie. I completely understand the need to rant. And it’s so muchmore therapeutic when you know there’s someone on the other end listening toyou. I’m more than happy to provide this service to you. And I feel honored that you chose me to vent your frustrations,I love being needed. 

And I can definitely understand how you feel on this matter.That whole situation you described is really messed up and super not cool, evenfor an April Fools joke. I legitimately despise April Fools and I wish it wouldjust disappear into culture obscurity. I don’t even understand why it’s a thing(I mean, I know why, I just don’t understand why people feel the need topractice it in today’s age). Sure, there are some more or less harmless pranksthat are played but a lot of the April Fools pranks these days play into thevictim’s emotions and that’s super not cool and some of the people that pulloff these “jokes” it almost comes off on a sociopathic level.

Andthis holds very true for this situation you described. I don’t know whichfandom you’re referring to here, so granted, I’m missing a whole lot of contexthere but looking at it objectively just from this, it legitimately shows adisrespect for both ships and both fanbases. The “old ship” in the sense thattheir ship should be taken as a laughing matter and the “new ship” for being treatedas something that can be so easily discarded for the sake of an April Foolsjoke. Regardless of how toxic or not toxic a ship is, no fanbase deserves tohave their ship treated like a joke. For some people, these ships are extremelyimportant to them, they represent a fundamental aspect of themselves asindividuals, and to so callously make a joke like that, it shows a real disrespectfor these people as individuals on both sides. I’m a “ship and let ship” kindof person. Sure, I have my notps, ships that I don’t like, but I never begrudgeanyone those ships (unless they’re pedo related, I absolutely will shame thosekinds of ships). Regardless of what may or may not be toxic, if you shipsomething than it’s because that ship means something to you, it touched yourheart in some way and no one should have the right to belittle you or take thataway from you.

Asyou said, there are probably nasty people in both fanbases, that’s justsomething that happens in every fandom but for every nasty person out there,there’s at least 10 good, genuinely nice people out there just trying to enjoytheir ship and their fandom. Because even if you don’t mean to be attackingthose people, by doing a blanket attack such as this April Fools joke, you’reattacking them as well, hurting them as well, and that’s not cool.

Thisis honestly why I stay away from ship wars. That and I feel they’re kind of pointless. And just in general, whatever I doship, I don’t typically expect to go canon or to be endgame. If it does, that’stotally cool, but for me, it’s honestly for the best that they don’t. Peoplemay think that they want it to be canon or endgame, but you really don’t, nomatter how much you might tell yourself you do. Why do I say that? Because justas you’re an individual, so too are the writers for the show. Unless, thewriters’ minds are a carbon copy of yours, that ship (whether it be canon orendgame) is never going to play out exactly how you want it too, you’re alwaysgoing to be disappointed on some level. I unfortunately came to learn thisharsh truth with my time with Glee and then Teen Wolf. For the longest time, Ishipped Klaine (Kurt/Blaine) hardcore. And whereas they became canon reallyearly in the show, ultimately I was quite disappointed with how they handledKlaine and I didn’t like what the show did to get me to their endgame. Andthese days, upon re-watching Glee, I’m legitimately asking myself why Ibothered to ship Klaine in the first place. And then in Teen Wolf, Stydia(Stiles/Lydia) was super big for me. And they’re still too this day one of mybiggest otps. And I waited 6 seasons for them to finally become canon and whenthey finally did, the show did nothing with them and it was just ultimately a reallydisappointing experience for me. Granted, a large part of the lack of Stydiaafter they went canon had to do with the fact that Dylan O’Brien wasn’t availableto film a lot of season 6 on account of his accident and his movie career. Butthis was a hard-learned lesson for me that just because a couple goes endgame oris canon, doesn’t mean that what the show will do will match up with yourexpectations. But the ship in your head, that will always meet yourexpectations, it’ll never let you down. So that’s how I approach shipping. Youcan have a much more fun shipping experience if you don’t place anyexpectations on the writers because that’s something that will always beoutside of your control as the writers have to answer to way more people thanjust the fanbase. But the ship that exists in your head, that will always bethis pure and wonderful thing.

ButI think I’ve rambled enough (I tend to do that, I don’t know if you noticed).You’re absolutely right, that joke is in poor taste and I hope that person wasrightfully shamed by both fanbases for it. It really shows a disrespect forboth sides.