#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.