#i have a lot of opinions on shipping discourse but I've got both antis and anti-antis following me and i don't wanna get attacked by either.

[daz4i]

my take on ship discourse is that ppl should ship what they want but also you gotta be okay with ppl not liking certain ships for reasons you don't consider a big deal. and you gotta be okay with them complaining about it (outside of ship tags). someone not liking ships with age gaps, for example, does not automatically make them an "anti" or w/e, thinking ppl should enjoy whatever fictional thing they want =/= automatically being okay with it all yourself. i don't think it's that complicated

[hazbincalifornia]

(I’m pretty sure the way I type is recognizable but I need to like pretend at anonymity bc I feel. Remarkably silly about this)

I wanted to like idk rant to someone in the HB fandom who isn’t balls deep in the “anti proship” sphere bc like, I’ve been struggling w guilt over enjoying a certain ship that everyone hates and considers problematic (I think Loona and Octavia is rlly cute!) and I’d like to make content for it but I also rlly fear being seen as like a pedophile. Do u ever worry abt that kind of thing? And is there anyway ur able to get over it if u do? I don’t like getting into anti/anti anti discourse bc I feel like it’s a very reductive way to view and interpret media but I still have a crazy amount of worry/guilt

First off, it is still ridiculous to me that this is even a problem in this fandom. This is an adult show about characters in Hell, and the main characters are, respectively, assassins and the eclectic cast of the Hotel which includes a cannibal serial killer. (I am eternally both amused and completely baffled that like half the awful puritanical takes I see are from Val icons. Buddy. Pal. The fucked up fiction is coming from inside the house.) I saw waaaaay more fucked up shit on Zim nsfw twitter than I see on Hellaverse twitter and that show was Y7. Up your game, guys.

Personally, I don't really see Loona and Via as siblings/sisters as much as I think a lot of others do, more just friends (and honestly I think canon moved much too quickly to give them such a heartfelt scene together, they hadn't even met officially before that point?) so it's really only the age thing and even then, the plot of HB has seemed to imply that a fair amount of time has passed since the series started, probably around a year- so Via would be 18 or older by the time anything actually started anyway, especially if they became friends first. Setting aside the 'justification' though... they're not real. They're cute together, I agree, and I think you should be perfectly fine enjoying them just in the lens of 'they're similar, I like how they'd interact, and I think they're cute together'!

I was pretty much forged in my opinions about this from Invader Zim stuff, where people insisted that liking two characters that I'd liked together since I was thirteen made you a pedophile. Obviously, I could tell that wasn't true, because it had never been the case in all those years up to people starting to be bitchy about it in 2019. (Before that, it was that it was bad because it was enemies to lovers and, more importantly, gay. Great hater throne to inherit, guys!)

Unfortunately... as stupid as it is, this fandom is way more puritanical than it should be, so it wouldn't be wrong to engage through anonymity to protect yourself. Find the people in the tag who are using 'proship/proship interact' or something along those lines (I've seen a few, although some tend to lean more on hard/dead dove content), post on ao3 into the anonymous collection which removes your name, make a tumblr sideblog that doesn't connect to your main, find fellow shippers and interact with them specifically. Do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe from people who can't understand that thinking something is cute or interesting to explore in fiction is automatically bad just because they don't like it. The more stuff that's put out there about the ship, the more likely you are to find kindred spirits, that's honestly part of how I gathered my mpreg weirdos to me in both this fandom and the last.

I'm pretty sure that the callout I got for Sunny was why several mutuals who were a friend group unfollowed (and likely muted) me on twitter. Unfortunately, it left me worrying that the other shoe was going to drop any day for about a week because it got just enough notes to make me worry but not enough to get to anyone with any real reach to spread and get it 'over with'.

At this point, I've sort of reached a state of 'fuck it', because if it happens, it happens. I know that I'm fine, and the people I genuinely care about know that too. I know that what I'm making is entirely separate from my morals as a person, if not from how dumb the IZ stuff was than from the fact that I was an English major. Literature is full of stuff that authors don't make as a 1:1 with their real-life morals! And the one you're thinking about isn't 'bad' comparatively at all.

I think the fandom is starting to see that being a dick about fictional content is bad through the backlash to Poison and 'hey, maybe telling somebody that they need to detail their trauma to the public to make fiction is bad?', but it seems to mostly be centered on dub/noncon, so I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath.

At the end of the day though, remember this: You, as a person, are completely fine, no matter what others might think. Octavia and Loona would probably be seen as a totally normal ship like ten years ago (except for people who'd be dicks about them being gay) and there is no judgement to be made on your character in any reasonable way for thinking they're a good ship. You're not a pedophile for thinking a fictional owl and hellhound look cute together, any more than I was for smacking together two Nicktoon characters, and frankly the IZ argument held slightly more water than 'the almost-18-year-old and the 22-year-old' because Zim's age was so ambigious. Try explaining this 'people think the young adult animals holding hands are bad' to any adult who isn't sucked into fandom discourse and they'd probably be baffled that it's a problem.

I know that the guilty feelings aren't always rational and it took a bit of time for me to unwind how I felt about creating certain stuff too, but try to remember that above all else- exploring things in fiction has been a thing people have done for a very, very long time. What matters is your actions towards other real people, not what you do with fictional dolls.

If nothing else, if you want you can always send me a dm and chat that way, I'd be happy to talk.

[ladymorghul]

I agree with you on that nasty anon being, most likely, a toxic Aemond stan posing as team black but I think it needs to be said that there are some nasty black stans out there who hate Aemond with a passion and who, by extension, also take it out on Helaemond and Helaena specifically, calling her names, bland and how she and the ship are only a self-insert for us plus countless other stupid arguments. I've also seen on some of their blogs the same Daeron discourse anon was spewing as well as the GRRM being involved with S2 writing thing as proof that Aemond will finally be portrayed as his book counterpart which further means that Helaemond will never be a thing. Maybe, maybe not, in any case most helaemonds know the ship in just a show only thing that may very well not happen if the writers choose so. Either way I hope that person, whoever they are, gets a life and stops harassing other people online. I also hope you're okay considering the amount of hate you've been constantly getting on this blog, please don't let the haters succeed into bullying you off this platform.

oh yeah, aemond and helaena definitely also get hate from team black stans, that much i know, and especially since i spend a bit of time on twitter too

however most of the hate i've seen from team black stans when it comes to helaena and aemond is aimed separately, rather than necessarily at helaemond itself. for example, some say helaena is bland, boring and definitely did not deserve to get dreamfyre and then not use her. there's a lot of grief about her claiming rhaena's dragon. aemond is usually insulted and interpreted as some "cheap version of daemon" and how he's actually just a loser, etc.

but this hate is usually character centric from what i saw and there's plenty of team black stans who don't care that much about aemond or helaena, but they don't hate them either, and by virtue of being team black, they're also more relaxed about the incest side of the targaryens, so there's many who actually did pick up on all the helaemond hints and wouldn't mind it

however i don't doubt that there's probably black stans who hate helaemond as a ship as well

my conclusion of this being a green aemond stan is specifically based on me having knowledge of how i post my posts and tag my posts, who follows me, etc. and certainly most helaemond vitrol actually comes from fellow greenies. and, sadly, for some time now, i've noticed some lowkey helaena hate too. i say lowkey because well, as a team black stan, not caring / disliking helaena wouldn't be a huge shock, but a greenie? disliking helaena of all characters? mostly if not surely over ships? that would be hard to justify

honestly so sick of grrm discussion.... both team black stans and some green anti helaemonds use grrm's "comeback" (he was always there, but okay) as some sure fix for all of their grievences with the plot. some say it means the end of helaemond, others say it means the end of rhaenicent, others say he will make everyone like in the book. it is tiring, especially since it's being used as a "gotcha" against people having different opinions or expecting other things based on what they've seen so far

but thank you for thinking of me. i do appreciate all the kind words i get. once i started reblogging or posting about helaemond more, not only did i lose a bunch of followers (which is fine bc i do believe in curating your experience), but i also got quite a bit of hate and it's been.... a journey. i would like to say that things might get better but i think it's just gonna get worse until people realize that you shouldn't take out your frustration over fictional characters onto other people (send anon hate).

why do people care about who i ship or what my opinion is on a given character? i'm just some girl, i don't have grrm or ryan on speed dial

but anyway thanks for your message ❤️

[selchwife]

augh <3

bitching about this here bc i feel way more comfortable doing that than on main where i have a ton of followers i dont know but like

i hate shipping discourse so fucking muuuuch lol. i usually try to just ignore it but occasionally i stumble upon it anyway and i end up so fucking frustrated with how uncharitable people tend to be.

there's been this article going around recently on twitter that was meant to explain the "anti vs proship" debate to people in JP fandom, but it was (imo anyway) like EXTREMELY heavily biased and felt pretty cruel and dismissive bc of that.

i get that there are people on both sides of the discourse that are utterly horrible fucking maniacs and that there are also people who ascribe to one label or the other and end up not really having a lot of difference in opinion, like "i think it's wrong to write simulated CSEM/abuse/etc but i also don't think that means topics like abuse should never be written about, and i don't condone harassing people even if what they do is wrong" is something i've been like. shocked to find is the exact stance of people i've met who i found out aligned with pr*ship and who were equally shocked to find that most of my experience with people who consider themselves pr*ship is like "you are literally a massive fascist puritan if you have any qualms with people making underage/incest/etc type content." like, i was really scared bc of Labels that these people i'd known for a while were actually dangerous to me and would advocate things that hurt me, and it turned out we had basically the exact same opinion.

and like i guess i can't blame people for thinking "oh those guys are clearly the nutballs here bc i didn't do anything wrong and got harassed/saw them saying something insanely cruel" on EITHER side. like, i certainly do not give anyone who bitches about "puritan antis" or who considers themselves pr*ship the benefit of the doubt, bc in my experience most of those people have gone on to say and do extremely offensive hurtful stuff, and people who hang out in those communities are not people who i feel at all safe around or who i generally consider great people. it's just really frustrating to have my own concerns painted as like "anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with pr*ship people is just making their feelings other people's problems and being thought police, and all they ever do is harass people, you should avoid them for your safety!" bc like. i just leave people alone! i avoid them if i dislike them!!

and especially bc like. i don't even consider myself an "anti." i feel like i'm just a reasonable person, and that's a label that's only ever been maliciously put ON me by people who object harshly to my having any sort of standards for how i think other people should act. i don't like that i want a VERY SPECIFIC sort of person to leave me alone (people who are OK with romanticized and sexualized portrayals of incest, csa, and abuse), and since most people who advocate for those things use a specific label, i ask that nobody from that group interact with me. so naturally the latest Big Fandom Thing is all about how people who make that request are like....unreasonable and will attack other people and shit? i literally do not have the time in my day to do that shit. i just don't want to have flashbacks or feel like people believe what happened to me is okay.

it's so fucking frustrating and exhausting and it wouldn't be a problem if we didn't live in a horrible fucking broken-ass culture that just CANNOT resist defending sexual abuse in fiction OR in reality. i'm not going to trust people who parrot rape myths in fiction even if they insist they don't believe them in reality. they're lying, or they wouldn't repeat them at all. i just, like, UGH. i wish it wasn't seen as radical to just ask people to be respectful of survivors but it is bc i feel like so many people just immediately jump to victim-blaming. people who lived through this are the lowest of the low to them and doing anything to us and saying anything about us is fine and if we object it's because we're oversensitive and need to shut up and take all the abuse we get heaped on us, because GOD FORBID anyone not get to have their fun valorizing sexual abuse at our expense! we're all acceptable collateral for their entertainment! it's just like. not fair.

[rosieselfships]

can selfships be classified as "problematic?" i'm worried because i self ship with a character i have a very large age gap with (them being the older one) and i'm scared that if i'm public about this antis might harass me.

alright so im gonna put this under the cut bc i rambled on for too long and its a bit discourse-y.

...sometimes antis call certain selfships problematic while they dont for others that should be just as "problematic". Some antis have no problems with people selfshipping with villains, slashers, etc. But will get mad when people selfship with characters who have done things they personally can't excuse like rapists or abusers, or selfships with age gaps especially if they are younger...or even just selfshiping with a character people think are gay even if its not canon (its still dumb even if it is canon cuz like 1 persons selfship isnt gonna take away representation guys).

I'd like to say that selfshipping with an older character shouldn't be an issue however some people have no common sense and are hypocrites and think that an adult consensually dating an older adult is pedophilia. And this isn't just a hypothetical either, i follow this one selfshipper who is in their 20s who selfships with a character in their late 40s, and i've seen them get called a pedophile even when no child is involved and the character is literally older than them...they either must be mistaken or just tossing out serious words and watering down the meaning of them.

Of course, if anyone says this to you or anyone else in a situation like this, just know that it is completely dumb and you are not at fault.

My suggestion would be to make a new side blog for your selfship stuff. In 2018 i had an old selfshipping blog but it became inactive due to seeing antis in the community and just embarrassment in selfshipping in general. It wasn't until last year when i got the urge to post about selfshipping again after following some proship selfshippers, then i made this blog and started over. You could start new and make it clear that you don't want antis to interact with you. Block anyone who sends you harassment and turn off anons if you need to. I'm not so open about being proship outside of this side blog tbh, but only because the community is full of antis and i just wanted to avoid them and curate my own experience. There are a lot of things i would say if i didnt feel i would be harassed or loose friends/mutuals over it...and i just dont really like to discourse anyway...except for in private with people i know share similar opinions with me and we all bitch about some dumb take we see online. Having friends or people you follow share similar opinions and beliefs can make you feel less alone.

...honestly..ive had this blog for a year and im at 100+ followers and ive had anons on for a long time, im actually surprised i havent received hate yet...while recent-ish i got a random anon on my main blog that just said "kys". I have no idea what prompted that response...it took me 5 years on this account for me to get hate xd. maybe i am just low profile, or people think they cant get a reaction out of me so they dont bother me, or both.

[tasmanianstripes]

Yeah generalisation on both sides can be huge and is a bad thing, not only does it prevent any respectful discussion from taking place, it can also hurt the other party.

A lot of discourse on this website is fucking stupid and toxic so even if I have my opinions on it I tend to stay away from this bullshit. Especially fandom discourse.

As for shipping, I personally see a distinction between shipping something and finding their dynamic interesting. I have always treated shipping as liking that couple in a positive way and wanting them to be together, and I distinct it from let's say, finding an abusive relationship dynamic interesting. Like, "I like to explore this topic in my story and it has an excellent potential for angst material, but I wouldn't want them to stay together as I don't think their relationship is healthy" kind of way. I like exploring abuse in my works and I'm a big sucker for reforming some abusers in my stories, but I make a distinction between these things and shipping two characters together, because for me shipping feels inherently good. When I think of shipping I think of people wanting the two to be together in a healthy relationship, instead of just finding the dynamic between these two characters interesting. And I think a lot of other people, like antis, do too, so maybe that's the reason some antis and anti-antis disagree so much, we might just have different ideas of what shipping is.

And now for AUs. I think people need to be more careful when making them. Like, making a grown up au where only one character is older, just so you can ship them with an older character? Yeah, that's kind of bad. But I don't think the situation you described is an AU that was handled poorly.

I think the only really big thing we disagree on is the whole fictional child porn thing. Personally, I see it like, if you look at a drawn cp and find the character in question attractive or the situation they were put in "hot" then that's a sign that you might be a pedophile. After all, if you find a fictional 8 year old attractive, that's still finding an 8 year old attractive, regardless if it's fictional or not. The person in question finds children's features attractive. Of course, drawn or written cp is still not as bad as cp in real life, because the latter that's a video footage of a real life child getting raped, fictional cp is better in a way that no child was hurt during the production of it, but it's still bad. It also helps to normalise these things. No matter if we like it or not, media we consume shapes us greatly. Even if you know an ad is specifically made to manipulate you, it still doesn't stop it from working. I've studied advertising and public relations, I know how an advertisement is made and how they work, and just what manipulation tactics are used in them, but the ads still work on me because this shit is subconscious. You've probably heard about the whole thing with shark killings getting higher after Jaws came out, or how after Finding Nemo and Where's Dory came out there was a spike in sales for blue tangs and clown fish, it got so bad that some stores refused to sell these fish unless the person could prove they're experienced enough to keep them because keeping a salt water fish is much, much more difficult than keeping a fresh water fish. Although this kind of content won't suddenly make somebody a pedophile, it will normalise these things for some people, especially children, and might give enough of a push for a person with pedophilia tendencies to go through with them. It's kind of like the whole violence in video games thing. Of course, we all know video games aren't a direct cause for shootings and murders, and they don't have an impact on a normal person, however because they've normalised the violence so much, somebody who's already deranged might get just enough of a push from this content to go through with their murder fantasies or get inspired by them. Another example is 50 shades of grey inspiring some rapes, although reading it wouldn't make a normal person become a rapist it certainly can and did help people who were more likely to rape somebody go through with it. Media we consume shapes us, and it does it differently depending on an individual person. It's just facts and we can't do anything about it. No matter how much disclaimers or trigger warnings you put on your work, it's still going to have effect on people, and authors should be aware of this when creating their work. Which is why I'm so on the fence about it. On one hand, I do believe censorship of any kind is bad, on the other removing these kinds of work could help a lot of people. So I generally am under the opinion that any work that intentionally shows these things in a good light should be banned.

But the rest should be criticised. And I mean constructive criticism. Analyse the work, criticise it, criticise the author's morals and viewpoints, but don't insult the author. It won't do anybody any good.

the wellbeing of children is more important than your weird ass fucked up ships. Stop defending paedophilia. Stop normalising paedophilia. Stop trivialising the shit I and countless other kids have gone through for your pointless fucking garbage.

and no, “I was abused too!” is not an excuse.