#shipping discourse tw

[compassionatereminders]

"Are you pro shipping or anti shipping-" I am pro free speech and anti censorship and I am anti legal discrimination/bigotry and against abuse. But none of that is about fanfics. I don't care about fanfiction

[rabbithaver]

Help what do I do part of my brain kinda wants to ship mephilver but also wtf no?!??? I'm an espilver shipper aswell hellp,I think it's my brain defaulting to ship because there's no actual content on mephiles and silver help me

oh boy okay so like. mephilver as a ship kind of wigs me out real bad unfortunately. i have it blacklisted so i dont see it. it's one of those ships that i personally cannot stomach, i don't see it being healthy in any capacity and while that's definitely not a requirement for me in ships in general (hello i ship surge and scourge because it'd be nuclear wasteland levels of toxic and i think that'd be interesting as hell), for ships including Silver, it is very much a requirement for me. because i love Silver as my son and have intense instincts to protect him, i need his relationships to be positive and healthy or else i'll die and also explode LMAO

however THIS IS JUST HOW I FEEL!!! this is just me!!! i have absolutely no beef with folks who do ship mephilver and i don't think there is anything morally wrong with hypotheticals and exploring relationships in fiction. i know a couple people semi-personally who ship it as a toxic dynamic and i don't get it, but i just ignore it. i do not care what other people do with their lives and i think spending time being upset about how other people play with their touys is just an exhausting way to live.

at the end of the day, i think you should do whatever you want forever! i am not the boss of you! my feelings on the ship should not affect what you choose to do! ship whatever you like!! just do me a favor and tag your ships, ok? no matter what they are. it's just common courtesy :)

[sanityshorror]

r u proship

Please touch grass if you consider yourself proship or anti ship, because if you do, you are so severely terminally online that you've forgotten about reality. Do I think some shit is nasty in fictional ships, such as pedophilia and other obvious shit? Yes, I think it's fuckin gross. I don't look at it nor want anything to do with it. I don't want nor interact with it -- why am I going to invest time in it?! I have real shit to concern myself with. Real responsibilities. A career. A life that doesn't center online, about fictional characters and their relationships. I'm concerned with advocating, speaking out, and actually actively helping real victims in the real world.

I'm pro-fucking go touch grass and reevaluate your life if you think shipping discourse should be a fucking priority.

If you care about victims, then help real world victims. Go volunteer in shelters for them. Advocate for them. At the very least, create fiction that portrays the true suffering a victim experiences. Don't fucking talk about it, go do something real and meaningful.

As far as free speech is concerned, you know who censors speech, art, writing, etc? Fascists. You allow one single censorship on freedom speech - and you've open the floodgates for the fascists to take over. I'm anti-fascist. I certainly hope you are, too.

Does that answer your question? 🙂 Please, go fucking touch grass. 💀👍

To both pro-shippers and anti-shippers:

[elijah-terry]

i love seeing posts like. "ship culture went wrong when people decided what you ship represents what you want out of relationships instead of what dynamics you find interesting in the context of the media"

which sounds like a perfectly fine and normal thing to say. except i was curious and went to the op's blog and they're a black butler blog who ships sebastian and ciel

so like. of course you're going to say that, you don't want people to be mad at you for shipping something pedophilic. lmao.

[sick-thing]

Pro-shippers need to learn the difference between like, provocative art that's exploring dark themes and shit written to wack your weiner to

[benevolentgodloki]

//When the world seems dark and you're frightened of the puritan, pearl-clutching masses, remember that a 19-year-old me wrote this

And now I write the most horrendous dead dove pr0n and I'm glad of it. It's ok. I was young. My brain hadn't matured yet and grown out of black-and-white thinking and honestly I'm kinda greysexual in my bi-ness so it took a while to get a sense of sexual exploration in writing.

Don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't write, or worry about other people's opinions. Because they can change. Humans are wired differently at different times of their lives and that's ok.

[beautyxofxdestiny]

🔥

Send me a 🔥 for an unpopular opinion (Accepting)

Shutaba is a good ship actually, and the arguments for why it's "problematic" are some of the dumbest I've ever seen.

[locustgirl]

not to be radical or whatever, but i think that maybe calling women and queer people “pedophiles” for fanfiction is actually not the activism you think it is

[unladielike]

( i honestly can’t help but laugh whenever i discover an anti has me hardblocked... and these antis spread misinformation about pr/o-shippers too, that it’s just like trash taking itself out.

but honestly, you don’t necessarily have to have problematic ships in order to be a pr/o-shipper - you just have to not condone harassment over ships. and yeah, while i won’t deny most pr/o-shippers in the rpc tend to ship inc/est or minor/adult ships, the fact antis have to resort to spreading misinformation to make them self seem morally superior is so damn hilarious to me.

honestly, i wouldn’t be surprised if people would assume i’m a pr/o-shipper too despite the fact i actually agree with them in/cest and minor/adult ships are gross - i just do not appreciate seeing people witch hunt others or hurl death threats at people consensually writing things they don’t like, regardless of how i might feel about the topics they are writing about, because at the end of the day, real people matter more than fictional lines on paper.

seriously, it costs $0 to just block/unfollow/blacklist and mind your own business. plus, all this moral outrage people have towards supposed ‘p/edophilia’ is performative af. like, if you care about csa victims so much, then why are you exerting so much of your energy on being mad at fictional characters being abused when you could help out actual victims of csa/grooming in real life??

i dunno, man... i just feel like these people need to touch grass or something, because they do more slacktivism than actual writing. i mean, maybe it’s just me, but i personally do not get how you could not be tired, calling out people for shipping crimes or being angry all the time, when all i wanna do when i come back home from work is scream about characters and maybe write self-indulgent shit.

...TO THAT END, I DO NOT HAVE THE SPOONS TO CARE ABOUT WHAT GROSS SHIT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING, because it doesn’t concern me. honestly, i wouldn’t say i ‘support’ it, but it’s more like i acknowledge that people are always gonna write weird shit regardless, so i’ll simply ignore it and move on, because for me, it’s not healthy or productive to my mental health, focusing on things i hate. )

[sparkling-pink-lemonade]

Saw a post of an anti saying that they are leaving AO3, as they are too uncomfortable to post their fics there now. The reason? They found out one of their long time readers was a proshipper, despite their fics having proship dni. And how "that includes silent readers too, I don't want you all looking at my content."

My brother in christ, you are posting on the fiction freedom site. The proshipping site. Dnis aren't god damn restraining orders. They are one tool in helping you display your boundaries. It's still on you to enforce your boundaries. You post something publicly, you forfeit your ability to regulate who can view your work. If you're obsessive enough, you can regulate who actually interacts with your work by stalking each person in the kudos list, comments, or bookmarks and then blocking snyone you don't like, but you do not get a say on who may silently read your posts. Not unless you private your work and only show it to specific people.

And if you don’t want proshippers to interact, get off the profic site.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

literally just saw another “call out” post in my fandom, “this person ships these characters together, they support fucked up things in fiction. moots, unfollow them, they’re disgusting for liking these fictional things 🤢” can we please just. not do this? especially with all that’s going on in the world recently, can we please not try to take away people’s source of comfort? who cares what fictional things a person enjoys? they’re ✨fiction✨. they’re ✨not real✨. you don’t know what battle a person is going through outside of social media. you don’t know if fandom is literally the last source of happiness they have left. you don’t know if fandom is the only thing keeping them alive right now.

ask yourself, is it really worth it? you claim to be “morally superior” by “exposing” people who find comfort in fictional things you deem morally unacceptable. but is it really worth it if your words drove a person into harming themself?

are you really being morally superior by being the reason someone hurts themself?

these characters are fiction. but the person you’re harassing in the name of being morally superior is a real person with real feelings.

if you find something that you don’t like, instead of going out of your way to harass someone, scroll past it, ignore it, mute it, block it. and focus on the things you do enjoy.

with everything that’s going on in the world right now, now is the time we need to keep fandoms safe. they’re the last source of happiness some people have left.

[rabbithaver]

I want mephiles and silver to burn the world down kind of shipping, silver deserves to let out some of that anger

that's an interpretation of the ship i've never really heard before and it sounds interesting! i could definitely see the appeal for this. it's just not for me is all

[carto0ncritter]

I'm sorry but I genuinely can't understand how people can look at Stolitz and Catradora and think these ships are healthy in any way, shape or form.

Stolas r*ped Blitzø. No, consent given in a life-or-death situation doesn't count

Stolas is racist towards imps, and this didn't change even when he "fell in love" with Blitzø

Stolas doesn't appreciate or respect Moxxie and Millie in the slightest (and was disappointed that his "Prince Charming" wasn't the one to rescue him)

He looks down on Blitzø and calls him things like "impish little plaything" and "his big dicked Blitzy" and doesn't stop treating him like shit even when Blitzø says loud and clear that he hates being talked down on like this (DUH)

The only thing Stolas knows about Blitzø is that he hates books and the only thing Blitzø knows about Stolas is that he's a boring bookworm. Keep in mind, the two figured this out about each other while they were kids, 25 YEARS AGO, after Blitzø was bought so that he could be Stolas' "friend" for ONE DAY

Stolas doesn't love Blitzø for Blitzø. Stolas loves the *idea* of Blitzø. The bird man wants to live a romance that is just like the romances in his cheesy novels. He wants to ride into the sunset with his one true love. He wants grand romantic gestures. He wants his "Prince Charming". Except, Blitzø isn't the type of guy for such sappy displays of affection, he never was. Especially combined with his trauma. And as soon as that other imp guy asked him to dance, Stolas not only accepted the offer, but Blitzø was no longer on his mind. And no, I don't think being drunk is proof that Stolas didn't mean what he had told Blitzø. Drunk people find it easier to say what's really on their mind after all

Blitzø fell in love with his abuser. This makes sense, actually. The guy always pushed everyone away and never got to experience true love, and now that he has the chance to be "wanted," even if the "relationship" is toxic, he finds it hard to let it go

As for Catradora, the things I wanna say about this ship have already been said throughout the years, but it all boils down to these things:

Catra mentally, emotionally and physically abused Adora

Catra had no problem ending the whole entire universe if it meant she'd finally be better than Adora

Catra was a war criminal and a fascist

Catra was responsible for what happened to Glimmer's mom and never apologized, let alone faced consequences

Their relationship was toxic even when they were kids

They were both raised by Shadow Weaver and were the only ones in the Horde who saw her as a mother figure, thus making the ship straight up incest, with even the official source material calling them sisters (adoptive siblings ARE REAL SIBLINGS!!!)

Catra got exactly what she wanted in the end (the girl she's always been obsessed with and dependent on) and, once again, faced 0 consequences for her actions

The show (and C//A stans) fetishizes abuse. As a SA survivor, I felt physically sick during the final episode, where the abuser ends up with her victim/sister and they kiss

In short, these ships are disgusting and the lgbt community deserves better representation

[5typesoftrash]

if you are pro-censorship, you are not my ally. Not in feminism, not in queerness, not in anti-racism. Bad actors aren't going to just censor the things you don't like; they won't stop. Sure, they'll sweep over the explicit incest and pedophilia, but then, just like the fancop teenagers have, they will start stretching those definitions to include everything that they dislike. Calling queer people pedophiles is a textbook example of queer oppression; you don't think conservatives are gonna use that as an excuse to burn books about trans joy and wlw/mlm experiences? Because they will.

If you are pro-censorship, you are not my ally.

[frownyalfred]

Can I get clarification on your pro shipping post? The example you gave was a 20 year old with a 40 year old, and that's "problematic" (not really), but not really what I think of when I hear "pro shipping". Usually it's the shipping of minor/adult or incestuous relationships that I see getting defended. Does being against fictional works/ships that depict pedophilic or incestuous relationships as normal/romantic count as puritanism to you? Do you see the ship of Bruce Wayne/Damian Wayne as a personal preference with no moral implications?

I think there's a huge difference between being personally against something, and wanting to shame others or ban others from reading or writing something. The Puritanism comes from wanting to limit and ostracize others who don't share your beliefs. It comes from believing that your perspective is the only morally right one.

I think there will always be people who want to write or read about ships like that, yeah -- incest, pseudo-incest, everything in between. By moral implications, do you mean for the person interested in the ship? Or do you mean for others? Because I see that concern a lot on here -- this idea that somehow, by wanting to read/write about something, people are either 1) harming others by spreading this morally wrong ship or 2) harming themselves by normalizing the ship, and therefore making it more likely that they'll pursue similar relationships in their real lives.

We don't have much evidence for either of those claims. People have been clutching their pearls and wringing their hands over "morally wrong" books for ages -- and yet, Game of Thrones is still available in every bookstore. Am I a bad or woefully misguided person for having read Lolita in high school? Is a 16 year old reading a Bruce/Damian fic likely to turn around, shrug, and say "guess fucking my Dad is okay now"? Did an entire generation of fans shipping Wincest somehow have lasting, moral effects? I really don't think so. Not at the scale anti-shippers online seem to think, at least.

I think we need to separate how we moralize people from the content that they consume. And acknowledge that shaming and excluding people for wanting to read something doesn't exactly do much to prevent "moral implications." There's also a huge difference between reading a book, and endorsing the ideas/events inside of it. Same things with fics.

Anti-shipping is very appealing to people because it purports to protect people from harm. Until you look a little closer, and you realize that that protection comes at the expense of free expression, creative license, and agency to choose what we personally do and do not consume. And that that protection isn't really airtight out of your anti-shipping discord or tumblr community.

I think the best we can do is let people write and read what they want -- whatever they want, with limited warnings/etc like ao3 employs -- and ensure that those pieces of content are tagged, warned, and displayed accurately. We need to understand that the only control we have is over ourselves, and what we choose personally to consume or not consume.

I don't generally read those fics you mentioned, but I'm not saying they should be banned from ao3. Just because I might possibly think they're wrong or gross doesn't mean I think the person who wrote them is wrong or gross, either. The more we go down that moral slip and slide, like I said in my previous post, the worse off we will all become.

[ouchiemyspine]

'cop' is new tumblr buzzword. not everyone u disagree with is a cop. u cant make a 'terf' variation for every group that excludes anyone. words have meaning. the world doesnt revolve around u