#trying to engage in fandoms and finding nothing but shipping and being ostracized for not shipping certain things was bad enough

[bloggingboutburgers]

I realized I was AroAce and got into the community apparently long after the dog days of AroAce discourse. I'm glad that it's somewhat better now, but I'm kinda disheartened that we were rejected in the first place. I still only have a partial picture of what went down, though. What was it like at the time?

I'm not gonna lie – I wasn't really that vocal about being aroace at the time, only occasionally, because I believed it'd probably get ignored or diminished anyway.

...Guess that sorta made me dodge a personal bullet, considering the stories I read. (Also full disclosure, whenever I stumble onto posts about it I can only read a certain amount before I have to stop. It's all pretty distressing and I try to avoid that.)

I'm really glad and very pleasantly surprised I now get so much positive feedback talking about my aroace experience, but I also still get the occasional aphobic comment on this website or others, and I bet many others do too, so let's not forget that it's not like the discourse is fully gone either. I'm really glad things are going good, but I hope everyone can stay safe from exclusionist being verbally harmful to them. Didn't think their words could get to me anymore but they still do sometimes and... Yeah.

[thunderjawsandlightning]

I'd like to make abundantly and explicitly clear that I DO NOT and WILL NOT tolerate ship bashing or ship policing on my blog.

I have been fortunate enough to not have any nasty asks or outright rude things said in reblogs or tags, but several of my friends have, and continue to get. Knock it the fuck off, please and thanks. It's tiresome at this point.

Number one rule in fandom is Ship and Let Ship— namely, let people enjoy their sandbox with their barbies and enjoy your ship in yours. Or, be a multishipper! Whoever said you could only enjoy one dynamic only, ever, for the rest of time? You could have a whole armada of ships! Nothing's stopping you from collecting the most eclectic bunch of ships, crackships, and the whackiest cross-fandom relationships anyone's ever seen!

There's no hard and fast rules except to Be. Fucking. Nice.

If you do start shit just to start shit, consider it an instant block. I'm not interested in entertaining juvenile provocations for any amount of validation that "my ship is better than yours" or "my ship is The Canon One" or any other nonsense in that vein. On this platform or any other. Fandom has always inherently sprung from the transformative aspect of interacting with the media in question: be it video games, movies, TV shows, books, or other print media. It's meant to be fun, and engaging, and an escape from our present reality into a much more fantastical world.

You're not doing any favours to your ship when you police it, or try and shove it down people's throats as The Only Correct One. If anything, you're ostracizing and demonizing the ship— and the people who do enjoy it without being assholes— to the point where there will no longer be any fan media made for said ship. Don't be the rotten egg that spoils the rest of the nest. All you're doing is showing how immature and inconsiderate you're willing to be to REAL PEOPLE about MADE-UP CHARACTERS. It's not a good look.

The back button is right there, or just continue scrolling. For the love of God, curate your internet experience. Blacklist words and block things that you don't want to see. I promise it's SO much nicer when you have a space full of things you like and enjoy. Be Fucking Nice in fandom, or else you'll find there's no fandom left to engage in.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[madasthesea]

I see that some writers have been defending others when it comes to ace representation. I relate to the skeptics due to a specific writer, parkrstark, writing smut fanfic too. I identify as ace and aro, so maybe it's just a me thing, but I find it odd that she likes shipping so much and writing about sexual details when she's said before that that kind of topic has made her uncomfortable. So, ???? Idk. Are you ace or aro too? What do you think? Maybe narrative experimentation?

Sigh. This is not at all how I wanted to start my day, Anon. But, ok, let’s do this. 

I’m going to go through your ask sentence by sentence and interpret. If I’m reading it wrong, sorry, but you should be aware that this is how you’re coming off. 

1) “I see that some writers have been defending others when it comes to ace representation.” Why do you say this like it’s a bad thing. I’d be horribly disappointed if ace people were excluded from tumblr solidarity. Also, “ace representation????” parkrstark isn’t a spokesperson for ace people other than that she is vocally ace. If she was incorrectly portraying ace characters (and by that I mean the only possible way to do that is if a character feels sexually attracted to another character, as not feeling sexual attraction is the only truly defining characteristic of being ace), then I could some people wanting to inform her that that’s incorrect, but she isn’t doing that. 

2) “I relate to the skeptics due to a specific writer, parkrstark, writing smut fanfic too.“ AKA “I want a reason to hate parkrstark because tumblr has taught that you can only dislike people if they’re problematic” which is not true. If you don’t like parkrstark for some reason, don’t try to engage random people in your petty feud, just unfollow her. ALSO, parkrstark hasn’t written smut fic, not that that’s relevant to the discussion. The highest rated shipping fic she has is a T–not exactly PWP. Perhaps you’re referring to the fact that she has several rape/non-con fics. Which a) don’t qualify that as smut cause that’s freaking gross and b) might be like… personal to her or something idk maybe, and here’s a radical concept, ask her and c) has nothing to do with me why did you send me this ask

3)  “I identify as ace and aro, so maybe it’s just a me thing, but I find it odd that she likes shipping so much and writing about sexual details when she’s said before that that kind of topic has made her uncomfortable.” As an ace/aro you should then know that there is a spectrum of asexuality ranging from being ok with having sex to not even being ok talking about it. It is not your place to decide that parkrstark isn’t “ace enough” because she likes shipping people (again, she doesn’t actually write smut, you’re making that up). She’s also said before that she felt like she had to write shipping fics several years ago because that’s what the fandom liked and she hadn’t yet come to terms with her sexuality. Let people grow, for heaven’s sake. 

4) “Are you ace or aro too?��� I am ace. Pretty sure you knew that, which is why you sent me this ask, because you wanted me to say “Yeah, she’s not ace enough, let’s ostracize her!” I’m not doing that. Shannon has been incredibly kind and supportive to every other ace in this fandom, of which there are a lot. I’m not going to betray her kindness by saying that because she doesn’t act the same way I do, she can’t be who she is.

5) “What do you think?“ I think next time you see someone acting contrary to how you perceive they should be acting you should maybe realize that there’s a person behind that screen that you’ve never actually met and know the bare minimum about and keep on scrolling rather than send high school drama-esque asks to people who are not involved in the jealousy fueled war against parkrstark.

Anon, maybe you really did just mean this out of curiosity, but even if you did you need to learn that the best way to resolve a confusion you might have over someone’s behavior is to ask them, or even better in this case, realize it’s none of your business. 

@parkrstark I’m sorry people are for some reason fixated on tearing you down in any way they know how. You’re a great person and you don’t deserve it.