I may lose followers for this post, but at the very least I hope I don’t lose friends. There are scientific resources at the bottom of the post.
I just want to remind you guys following me, I am 100% Pro-ship. It doesn’t matter what the ship is you ship, the age of the fictional characters, their canon or fanon dynamic, what situations you put them in, or whatever else you would think others would deem you problematic for in your fictional sandbox. As long as you aren’t an actual pedophile, abuser, or other morally reprehensible thing, and as long as you don’t use your own or others’ fictional content to groom or abuse others, your fictional tastes don’t necessarily define who you really are, and you are welcome here. Even if you ship something or create fictional content that I don’t like, or fictional content I even hate or find disgusting, you still have my blessing to be here, and create what you wish in the realm of fiction. I will not push you down, I will not condemn you in private or public, and I will not ever send threats of any kind. If shown your fictional content, I will simply say, “thank you for sharing, but that’s not my thing!” and move on. That’s how it should be for fictional works.
While my own ships are non-problematic (at the moment– I HAVE had problematic ships in the past), and I won’t be sharing problematic, or even NSFW content to this blog ever (except for pro-ship posts similar to this), if you want to retweet my posts that I made and say “kin” or tag it with your ship, use it as a bouncing-off point for a headcanon or story, you are welcome to.
There is no judgement here. You create the things you do for a reason. That reason doesn’t always have to be justified by past abuse or trauma. You can ship or write things that would be terrible in real life just because you want to, just because you can, and I will support that. But again, if you are, want to do, have done, plan to do, etc, ANY of these morally reprehensible things in real life, that’s 100% different, and you are NOT wanted here. You have nothing in common with me if you want to harm people in those ways in reality, and you belong somewhere where you can get real, professional help for those thoughts and actions, not in fandom or other spaces where there are people you can hurt.
In the same vein, I have to say that anti-shippers are not welcome here. Yes, even though this blog is considered a “safe space” for you, since I’m not reblogging or producing problematic content here, I would prefer you not be here. I have seen what the people you associate with in your shared name have done in the name of “protecting the innocent” and “fandom/content purity” and “eliminating threats online.” Regardless of whether you yourself have done those things– you know what I’m talking about– by association, you support the actions of those who do or have done those things, which hurts real people, clogs up reporting lines for real crimes, and does absolutely nothing for the fictional creations you’re trying to “protect”. You’re a liability and potential threat not only to me, but to all the pro-shippers not just following me, but simply existing.
If you disagree with my pro-ship sentiment, if my standpoint angers you, if you wish I was nowhere in your online spaces, do us both a favor, do the right thing and block me for both our sakes. We can continue to go about our lives with no issue; beyond the quarrel that I don’t want to interact with you, and you with me, I hold no ill will towards you, and wish you no harm of any kind. No one deserves to be hurt for their fictional preferences and fictional interactions, including you. If you see someone creating or reblogging something you don’t like, you have every right to unfollow or block them, and you should not be judged for that. You WILL be judged for how you treat that other person in the aftermath of seeing that content, but simply unfollowing or blocking quietly is commendable. That is the right thing to do, and regardless of your own personal tastes, you will be commended for that.
I think that covers pretty well everything I had to say, but my final words are this: lines on paper, words or art, and what people do with them, are not always the responsibility of the author. The creator can attempt to sway the viewer one way or another in their work, but once it’s out in the world, it’s truly, for the most part, beyond their control. The image one has of the creator can taint the view of the work, certainly, but that still doesn’t mean the work can’t be warped or altered to fit the viewer’s perspective, wants, and desires. This means that a creator that is a paragon of goodness can have their work twisted for sick purposes, for personal gain, to groom, to manipulate, to control others. This is what happened to the Bible. It has happened to the Quran in western spaces. It can and will happen with anything and everything. It cannot be stopped. But unlike what happened with the bible, so long as the majority of viewers of a fictional work bear in mind its fictional status, any way it’s twisted and warped can be recognized, and accordingly dealt with, if it even needs to be. A fanfiction with 5000 hits with a questionable or downright objectionable ship or content matter is not one of those things that needs serious dealing with.
It’s lines on paper. Not a plan of action. Not an approval. Not something that actually happened. Just lines on paper.
On this blog, we are pro-ship. Nothing less.
Extra resources:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1s2PL7TcWJfxDGzKn1M7jnMLViOI6Dvj_
