#shippingisnotactivism

[azuremist]

As a CSA survivor, I understand better than most people how upsetting and triggering it can be to be scrolling through your favorite tag, only to see a post either depicting or advocating for the same abuse that you went through depicted through your favorite characters. So I decided to throw a blocklist together!

The purpose of this blocklist is to keep CSA/trauma survivors safe from viewing or being followed by people who post triggering content. It is not a list of people to harass.

And, if any “pro-shipper” sees this: as much as we all love to make blocklists something ‘cringy’, this is to keep people who are triggered by your content safe. And, yes, I am a CSA victim who is triggered by “pro-shippers”. So if you truly care about respecting victims of sexual assault, as you say you do, you will not interact with me. If you respect me, I will respect you. I am just trying to keep people like me safe. 

I tried my best to focus on people who either create/have recently created either pedophilic or incestuous content, or “pro-ship” blogs. This list will be updated as I find and are suggested more people, so watch for that!

Blogs who need a special note will receive so in parenthesis next to their username.

  antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-thx

ironcandybabe (contains sexual drawings of children)

fandoms-for-exalla

problematic-butnothateful

dysphoric-rohan

shutupsmileformefandom

pro-ship-spring-bonnie

tonyjcrowley (openly admits to not reading or caring about DNIs; when I mentioned that I was an anti on a sideblog, they PMed me to say they write r@pe p0rn, to me, a minor)

(many more blogs under the cut!)

scofflawsins

problematic-fiction-101

im-a-goner-foryou

shirosrighthandman

pupa-stronga

oi-chibi-oi

anotherproshipper

commander-erwin-smith

peachy-pro-shipper

edgelux

shayromi

incompetent-shippings (also supportive of noMAPs, as stated in bio)

antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-ty

fuckoffantitrash

shippingisnotactivism

yaoi-fake-goth

plague-of-insomnia

sweetswordswoman

griever-bit-my-finger

goofatron

kawree

shippy-mcdiscourse

tirediscourse

0liver-rants

whogivesa-ship

chara-hates-antis

just-antithings

freedom-of-fanfic

fandom-is-for-pleasure

grumpy-old-fandommom

anti-ship-wars

iwillshipwhatiwant

antis-are-so-shameful

proshipshy

stop-bitchin-its-fiction

armada-of-ships-against-antis

konatas-pro-fic-cafe

freedom-of-fiction

antis-suck-but-you-dont

fiction-is-not-reality2 (is openly supportive of pedophiles IRL, was the mod on AO3 who created the MAP (minor attracted people) anthology)

pro-fiction-starscream

glimmergf

anti-anti-a-la-bi-bi

b-b-b-bakaaa

tired-and-salty

shippingisntactivism

multishippers-deserve-happiness

fullmetal-anti-shit

multishippers-hate-antis

golbatgender (claims all antis are homophobic which is... a lot)

discoursecatharsis

princessesdiscourse

positivity-boots

dracfics

antis-are-wrong

androgynousblackbox (won’t delete reblogs upon request, as stated in bio)

shipswith-no-morals-reincarnated

theassholeantiarchive2-0

antis-fuck-off-challenge

problematic-kai

antiantis-saltmine

shipping-isnt-morality

thecatdiscourses

reysistantis

everyshipisgood

heroes-never-discourse

shippy-mcshipface

shipwhateverthemotherfuckyouwant

fandomsense

cottoncandyshipwall

dad-n-deathjokes

forest-of-stories

rougetheantianti

matilda-against-censorship

fictional-me

venom-hates-nasties

muchymozzarella

pro-shipping

shipper-forces

reniisbooks

joeyjojos-for-ships

glock-blocking-antis

youareagoodperson

yourfavisafujin

fujinshipped

weirddnibanners

problemtique

fiction-and-reality-are-complex

bigbadfujin

fahrenheitdiscourse

shipping-positivity

coffee-ships

hydras-white-wolf

proshipping-kitten

anti-anti-wincest (also supportive of incest in real life, as stated in bio)

underratedcharactersandships

legendary-discourse

bkdkpro-shipper

khrysoprase

mordellestories

kidgephobe

proshiptsumugi

fuujinofcourse

as-thou-will

pan-catra

let-our-ships-sail

aniitaruiz

nuvex

xxkoichiixx

your-fave-is-pro-ship

callme--starchild

bloodyjinxii

musingartblog

weirdojacko666

anti-anti-stevidot

shipwhatever

yourfaveknowsfictionisntreality

romelle-for-proships

your-fave-hates-antis

lesbianstarker

stop-stalin-and-suck-my-dick

wetwareproblems

nonbinarypastels

xenoqueer

tired-user

theliterarywolf

best0utthere

largic

iggycat95

calisdraws

heroic-deku (does not respect DNIs/people triggered by anti antis)

bebe-benzenheimer (does not respect DNIs/people triggered by anti antis)

blackbrokensouls (does not respect DNIs/people triggered by anti antis)

simply-pro-ship (despite having ‘anti harassment’ in their blog title and having a DNI themselves, they also do not respect DNIs)

ask-deltatale

eltiolimon

qbanalras

cchoco017

metadinhxs

zemikiart

oraclesaturn2

the-triangle-cat

sinfulzany

malenchka

pierrotsdrawer

heavenrose150

ekou-ascii

xiang-doodle-place

likeabosslikeafox

kaliu6

elleapdraws

franszine

askyanberry

sansfrans

aniitaruiz

fransweek

spite-for-the-antis

hagakure

huiluis

arlen-lestat

freerangeflowerbrat

a-small-tragedy

daydenmax-drawings

smol-pastel-boi

[shippingisntactivism]

I can’t believe this happened but tumblr actually reinstated my old account! Please follow me at @shippingisnotactivism

[who-gives-a-ship]

First batch of easy answer images.

Easy to make and easy to use! Save these pictures and the next time an anti tries an overused argument, you’ve got an answer ready to go. Just post the picture instead of typing the same thing over and over again. Free for anyone to use with or without credit.

Thanks to @ship-is-love, @shipping-isnt-morality, @forest-of-stories, and @shippingisnotactivism for their contributions.

[shipping-isnt-morality]

what are other anti-anti blogs you read/recommend?

I click around a lot! A lot of people I find by looking through notes on interesting posts and seeing who had something good to say.

Blogs I really like that focus mostly on discourse:

@freedom-of-fanfic - obvious, a big inspiration for this blog. lots of sourced posts and more meta theory

@fiction-is-not-reality - I don’t agree with them on everything, but I respect them a lot and they back everything up with solid arguments. also sources a lot

@just-antithings - they’re funny and salty without bullying

@fangirlunderground - a general fandom blog, but occasionally adds really great points from experience or on fandom history. also good if you don’t want All Discourse All The Time

General discourse blogs that I follow and have, I think, good points and a good attitude:@who-gives-a-ship@shipwhateveryouwant@antis-delete-your-blogs-pls@the-salt@discoursecatharsis@theassholeantiarchive (yes, I know the recent drama, yes, I still follow them)@anti-anti-survivor @shippy-mcdiscourse@shippingisnotactivism@history-student-against-antis

(Feel free to reblog, but I’d prefer that people not add other recs directly onto this post!If I didn’t mention you I’m sorry!! This was compiled by my following list + some recent reblogs and isn’t exhaustive)

[thegingervulcan]

Going off of this post originally by @shippingisnotactivism I just wanted to say in addition to the alienation felt by cispassing peeps who are attracted to both genders it's the exact same for those of us cispassing folks that just like the one. I'm nonbinary but I dress more femme a lot of the time and on top of that I'm asexual, so when I talk to people I'm not out to or just in general it feels like it's a separate sort of zone that you're in. I don't completely identify with my cis friends when the talk about having crushes on guys or going out with them bc that's a whole other world on my end. If I'm talking to a guy I like I half to completely out myself before anything can even think about happening bc I look the way that I do and it's often assumed that I'm different from who I am

[cameoamalthea]

Are we too harsh on progressive content? A book tries to explore and condemn bigotry but is blasted and boycotted for being ‘racist’ because it depicts racism. Are we crossing the line because criticism and calls for censorship?

Certainly all works should be criticized, but criticism is about reading and discussing the problems and debating them. I’ve written essays on why The Twilight Saga is racist, but I wouldn’t imply that anyone who reads or watches the series is themselves racist or shouldn’t even look at the series to see for themselves. I wouldn’t say anyone who disagrees with my criticism is morally wrong.

Art is subject to interpretation. Art isn’t like propaganda which pushes a message and should be morally judged for that message. Art isn’t like real life words or actions, which can be judged. Art is art. Novels tell a story. They are either well written or poorly written. They can be harmful and problematic, but since art is open to interpretation that is something to be discussed and debated, because in having these conversations the problems are bought to light.

Again, I support criticism. I think we should engage with all media with a critical eye. I think we should recognize that we live in a culture that is racist and sexist and full of other oppressive power structures and we should question when we see these power structures reproduced in fiction. We should see ‘what’s wrong with this picture’. But if instead of criticism we demand what amounts to ‘censorship’ by saying ‘if you read this book, you are a bad person’ or attacking publishers to stop books from being published in the first place  the end result is less conversations about what’s wrong with the picture, because no moral person should even look at the picture.

If we focus these efforts to censor on works that try to be progressive (a book that attempts to explore and condemn racism is called racist because racist characters say racist things, rather than criticized for condemning racism poorly) authors and publishers will be less likely to give us books with social justice themes or diverse casts. 

“One New York Times best-selling author told me, “I’m afraid. I’m afraid for my career. I’m afraid for offending people that I have no intention of offending. I just feel unsafe, to say much on Twitter. So I don’t.” She also scrapped a work in progress that featured a POC character, citing a sense shared by many publishing insiders that to write outside one’s own identity as a white author simply isn’t worth the inevitable backlash. “I was told, do not write that,” she said. “I was told, ‘Spare yourself.’

There’s no question that we need more POC authors. We shouldn’t hold up white authors for condemning fantasy racism when it’s harder for POC authors to find publication to tell stories rooted in their own experiences. There is no question that there are valid criticism to be made against “The Black Witch”, which I have not read but understand is a book with a bigoted protagonist who goes to a diverse university and learns to slowly question and unlearn her bigotry or ‘a book about racism for white people to tell them racism is bad, which shouldn’t need to be explained’. These are discussions worth having. 

However, if instead of saying ‘this is a badly written book, it tries to be anti-bigotry, but fails becaus X,Y,Z  and other reasons’ we say ‘this is an immoral book, and anyone who reads it is immoral’ (in harsher tones, you’re a bad person, and you should be shamed) then the message authors and publishers are getting isn’t ‘publish better books that include diversity and or social justice issues’ it’s ‘don’t touch diversity or social justice topics with a ten foot pole’. 

@shippingisnotactivism @shipwhateveryouwant

[meridianrose]

This is a long and sometimes difficult read (note the warnings at the start of the article) but is well written and highlights the toxicity of online harassment.

While it uses Star Wars (Reylo) as a specific example with data showing the types of harassment and how targeted abuse occurs, the article also looks at the broader picture of harassment (e.g. use of ‘Twilight’ to denote any female dominated fandom and deriding it as bad) and compares with the earlier policing of “boys reading comic books is bad” with the same rationale of controlling consumption to attempt to control people’s actions.

From the article:

Anti harassment campaigns follow a consistent pattern where genuine concerns about real-world injustice are misinterpreted and applied to fictional properties in an attempt to create a 1:1 comparison and exert power over another (often marginalized) group. They start by leveraging performative accusations around real world issues such as sexism, racism, homophobia, sexual assault, and gendered violence against fictional characters deemed by the group to be representative of these problems. The guilt-by-association of these characters is then applied to the people who like these characters, and a general warning is issued: “stop supporting them, or else.”

and

To antis, symbolism and subtext in fiction are bypassed in favor of literal and often severe interpretations of a story’s greater meaning. @discoursecatharsis @fiction-is-not-reality2 @shippingisnotactivism​

[sheith-is-good]

Do you have any favorite blogs?

I assume you mean in the VLD fandom, yeah I have a couple! These are the ones that come to mind, sorry it’s all discourse stuff though omg!

@crossdressingdeath​ they don’t always reblog discourse stuff, but the ones they do reblog are A+

@shippingisnotactivism​ good posts! good opinions!

@shirosrighthandman everything i’ve seen from them is super great

@freedom-of-fanfic though i don’t agree with everything they post they are still a really good blog! wouldn’t want to unfollow B)

[octopuscato]

aflyingcontradiction replied to your post “thirdearring: shippingisnotactivism: antis are amazing, i swear!...”

Hm, while I don't agree with their conclusion, I can kind of see where they're coming from re:non-con. "Rape" is the thing you hear about in the news or, God forbid, has happened to a loved one/yourself. Just the word alone is enough to make people flinch. Whereas 'non-con' is a fic genre and nothing else. In particular as it's usually abbreviated. There is definitely less power to the term and that does to some degree obscure that they're the same thing.  Mind, I have no strong opinions on what term authors end up using. Main thing is the fic is tagged at all.

Yes, my main objective would also be that it’s at all tagged/warned for. And I do see what you mean - the discussion is really very old, so I’ve heard it before. I’m not even saying you’re not right about the impact. (Though there is a point to be made about using ‘non-con’ precisely because it might be a less triggering word to show up in tags/warnings in headers - those, you couldn’t block when using ff.net or LJ, differently from tags on tumblr and AO3).

But what I really dislike are aggressive demands along the lines of “You absolutely must tag/warn ‘rape’ and not ’non-con’!” That’s when my “MUST? Pray tell how long has your head been residing in your arse that you telling me what I MUST do seems like a good idea?”-instinct kicks in.

[grumpy-old-fandommom]

Also @shippingisnotactivism and @leproblematique are gone :(

Are blogs getting purged again?

I just noticed @deku-the-problematic and @read-a-fucking-book have both disappeared on the last 24 hours :(

[the-blackest-spider]

brooklynislandgirl replied to your post: barbeauxbot: shippingisnotactivism: “as long as...

also 10000% same as your tags. tyvm for that

Most welcome lol

[shippingisntactivism]

I am a lesbian. Butch/femme aren’t lesbian exclusive. Saying they are ignores the shared history of the lesbian and multi-spec women and people who would have probably identified as non binary if that language was available to them. Not to mention that a lot of the argument as to why b/f are lesbian-exclusive can be summed up as “because bi women’s lives revolve around men” which is both misogynistic and biphobia.

I can’t track down the relevan posts right now, since I lost my account in the tumblr purge but @sirene-saphique has interesting posts on the topic.

About that last point: my discussion with @fierceawakening is probably still on their blog if you search for my old url ‘shippingisnotactivism’

Bi/pan women can use whatever terminology they are most comfortable with, but it should also be acknowledged that expecting WoC to refer to themselves as animals is uhhhh... racist.

I saw some post going around saying that since butch/femme are lesbian lables(which I completely agree with) gender non conforming bisexual women could be called stags and gender comforting bi women could be does and that’s hella adorable and I love it becuase yeah gender non-conformity isn’t restricted to certain sexualities.

[the-blackest-spider]

brooklynislandgirl replied to your post: barbeauxbot: shippingisnotactivism: “as long as...

*just died, choking on laughter and coffee*

-revives- hehe

[the-blackest-spider]

thewasandshouldbeking replied to your post: barbeauxbot: shippingisnotactivism: “as long as...

If the ship is pedophilia, I'mma side eye pretty hard. On the other hand, if it’s consensual incest, I'mma shrug my shoulders and go on with my day.

That’s fair. -nod- 

[shipping-isnt-morality]

I wanted to add onto this, because the point you make is excellent and true, but I think there’s another layer:

Women are taught from an extremely young age to empathize with, project onto, and become deeply and personally invested in male protagonists. This is a commonly discussed thing in literary criticism: that male protags are for everybody, and female protags are for women.

This has obviously been slowly but surely changing over the years, thankfully, but the baseline is still “men are easier to write and easier to empathize with, because they’re the default.”

And, I mean, there is nothing wrong and plenty beneficial about empathizing with gay male characters. Just as a woman could explore her own independence and values through a story like Harry Potter, she might find herself relating to the joys and frustrations of being attracted to men, or the experience of being same-sex attracted, or just the universal experiences of being flustered when the person you like talks to you and scared when they’re in danger.

Also - and shippingisnotactivism addresses this some - a sexual story from a woman’s POV might actually be much harder for some afab people to read as it’s harder to maintain a healthy distance. It’s too real. They’re expected to and might not even be able to help projecting onto to main female character - something which might be upsetting if they have past trauma or if it triggers disphoria.

Counterintuitively, part of exploring sexuality in fiction is sometimes the ability to distance yourself from the content, to experience some of the feelings without having to imagine it happening to you, physically, in reality.

One thing I genuinely don't understand is when female shippers of M/M get criticized for doing it they often accuse the critics of being "anti-female sexuality" or "trying to police/control girls/women exploring their sexuality". I am all for girls also exploring their sexual desires and stuff, so where's the cohesion between this and shipping male/male stuff? This sort of ship has the distinction that there is actually 0 female sexuality to explore in it cause' all participants are male? Wut?

�� I don’t think you understand how female sexuality works, nonnie. This is not an attack on you for the record, it’s just a statement.

Okay, so I’m gonna talk a little bit cisnormativity for a second, but generally speaking (and of course there are exceptions here , especially with trans and nonbinary people whose brains are a little weird and don’t usually fit the general rule, even pre transition; but generally speaking), male sexuality is visual. You see an image of a hot person (who’s your type) of the gender(s) you are attracted to and you find that hot.

Female sexuality is more emotional. It’s not so much the image of the person that does it for you, it’s a sort of an emotional bond you have with the person / the emotions you connect the person to. Which is why generally speaking, women can be turned on by a wider variety of people than men and also therefore a wider variety of porn.

Of course this in no way means that men don’t care about emotions and women don’t care about appearance; it’s just one is a bigger factor in attraction than the other for the different genders. (I have no idea where non binary people fit in this, sorry. The studies on this topic tend to be very cisnormative and binarist.)

The point I’m trying to make here, is that women absolutely can explore their (our?) sexuality through the (fictional, obviously) relationship between two men. In fact in many cases that might be more beneficial for many women, because of the male gaze. (The male gaze an academic concept in feminist film theory, not an attack on every man who’s ever written or filmed something, please don’t confuse the two. Women can also perpetuate the male gaze towards both men and women. And on a side note, there’s no such thing as “the female gaze.” It’s still the male gaze, you’re just pointing the metaphorical camera at men.)

Which is to say, that women in fiction, even fanfiction, are often objectified. Even when the fiction is written by a woman, she can still subconsciously perpetuate that objectification. Which is why it’s hard for women to read erotica with women. We are tired of being objectified even on the page.

 But in an m/m ships, there are no women. The focus is on men. Of course men and especially queer men can be objectified as well, but that’s topic for another time. 

The point is that the woman no longer features in the equation and so women can enjoy the relationship and sex) without having to subject themselves (ourselves?) to objectification. That way we can safely explore our kinks, fetishes, limits and so on.

I hope that makes sense.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

I agree with most of what you say but are you sure saying that members of the LGTB+ community are conforming to "straight lifestyles" if they don't use the word queer? I use the word queer because it's much easier for me to use that word but calling people who don't use it sounds kind of on the verge of rad fem like to me? I mean, just b/c they don't want to use the word queer does not make them disconnected from the "gay lifestyle." And we shouldn't make standards for it like rad fems do either

[2] Sorry if my last ask sounded kind of heated but saying that if members of the community don't do a certain thing sounds a lot like rad fems saying that if you don't have a certain opinion about something you're not really a part of the community. It just sounds a little judgemental.

If you’re talking about the post I think you are, anon, I explicitly clarified that I did not want to imply any such thing. to quote:

“Wanting to not identify as ‘queer’ does not automatically mean you want to conform to straight lifestyles. The wording of my tags may imply otherwise, so I want to state that explicitly.”

As I used a double-negative, i can see why this is confusing. to say it a different way: 

identifying as queer is one way of showing you don’t identify with/conform to a ‘straight lifestyle’, so to speak. but it is not the only label used to identify as not-straight (or not-cis).

I just want ‘queer’ to be respected as a perfectly acceptable label for non-straight/non-cis people again, just like all the other myriad of labels that exist and are equally valid. 

aaaaand I’d like that to be the end of the identity discoursing on this blog for a while, at least as a main focus. back to fandom talk.