#shippingisnotactivism

[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)

[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

[the-blackest-spider]

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

*just died, choking on laughter and coffee*

-revives- hehe

[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]

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- 

[fierceawakening]

What do you mean by cis people prescribing trans experiences? I feel like you’re having a conversation that’s completely different from the one I’m having and getting angry when I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s why I said I feel like blocking uni, morlock, and you—because I felt like their tone was weirdly hostile to shippingisnotactivism and I didn’t understand why. I’m still not sure how anything you’ve said is a commentary on that conversation and I continue to be baffled at the post of yours that suggested I was saying casual sex is bad, especially since you then turned around and lamented how casual sex is fetishizing for you as a trans person.

At this point I am honestly really wanting to know what you think I said, because I have no idea and whatever you’re responding to seems to have only the most tenuous relationship to my responses to uni and morlock.

What do you think I was trying to say? I know that’s kind of a pointed question but I don’t know if I can continue conversing if ideas I don’t expect about what I think of bars and casual sex keep popping up and I don’t expect them.

thefutureoneandall said: On that attraction post? Certainly not a rat I recognize, blog looks downright lefty. But those are some shockingly hostile interpretations in any case.

Which one? Potato, morlock, or uni?