Imagine youâve been transported to a parallel universe where your life is a popular TV show. Some of the details are wrong, and the characterizations are a bit off, but itâs unmistakably your life. You and everyone you know are the characters.Â
Imagine watching that show. It could be fun, right? And it is. Sometimes. It can be fun to laugh at the things the show got wrong, to joke about overdramatic moments. Itâs not always fun, though. Sometimes you watch the fictional version of someone you love get hurt. You know itâs not them, not really, but it looks like them. It feels like watching them get hurt, even if you know theyâre actually safe and unharmed.
Now, imagine finding the fandom of that show. Again, some of itâs really cool. Thereâs beautiful art, amazing fics, and detailed analysis by dedicated fans. Sometimes you see people talking about how much they love the fictional you, and it makes you happy. It makes you feel appreciated.Â
But, sometimes, itâs not cool at all. Sometimes you find people who hate you. Who dedicate whole blogs to picking apart your fictional selfâs every flaw and mistake. And there are people who ship you with your abusers. Or your siblings. Or, worst of all, your children. Youâre disgusted and horrified, but no one seems willing to listen when you say that itâs wrong. âShip and let ship,â they say. They tell you youâre advocating censorship, alienating other fans, accuse you of harassment and kinkshaming. âAfter all,â they tell you, âitâs just fiction.â
But itâs not. Not to you, anyway. And itâs not that the fans are doing these things to you, you know they arenât literally forcing you to engage in the things they write your fictional self doing. Of course, thatâs what youâll get accused of believing if you speak out about it. If you say âthis disgusts me because itâs me,â youâre met with a condescending âyou know itâs not literally you right?â They roll their eyes and mock people like you publicly. Even some in your community, people who shouldâve been on your side.Â
Can you honestly say that wouldnât get to you? Donât you think this would be upsetting?
We can tell you that it is. This is the reality for fictives who engage in fandom. This is the reality for so many in our system. When we say that fandom is hostile toward fictives, this is what we mean. We are exposed to disgusting and horrifying content using characters that have our names and faces. Our pain and anger gets treated like shipping drama. We are told, even by others in the plural community, that we arenât allowed to ask for it to stop.
So when youâre deciding what fan content youâre okay with, what ships youâre willing to stand up for, remember that we exist. That we see what you create, what you share. Weâre in fandom spaces with you, whether youâre willing to acknowledge it or not, and you have to make room for us.Â
If youâre not willing to do that, youâre no ally of ours.
I see many posts of this nature, and I implore you to stop treating us fictives as a monolith. Stop using fictives as a âgotchaâ in shipping discourse. That you are fictives yourselves does not matter, and it is especially important if youâre âadvocatingâ for us as you say. You do not represent me, my headmates, or my friends, because I and many people I know strongly disagree with what you advocate for here.
The only things people in fandom are required to do is to tag things, and to treat you nicely. Beyond that it is up to you to âmake roomâ for yourself, by learning to use the blacklist, block button, and coping mechanisms if needed. If you are unable to do this, if you are unable to separate yourself from the fics and art you see, if just the thought of this content existing causes such harm to you, then fandom just might not be a good place for you.
Fictives are not uniquely incapable of looking after ourselves and dealing with things that upset us. We do not need to be babysat by other people in fandom. Yes, itâs âreal to us,â but even that isnât a monolithic opinion held by all fictives, and it means little since fictives can be canon divergent. What about the fictives whose in-source abusers didnât hurt them in their canons? What about the fictives who werenât siblings with those characters and who were in love instead? Do their feelings not matter?
If you call yourself an advocate for fictives, then you should be an advocate for all of us, not just the ones who are convenient for your purposes. Otherwise, it comes off like you are simply using your identity, and the identities of other people, as a cudgel to push ideology. You speak of advocacy and allyship, but I do not feel like you are a good advocate for me, and any allies that think like you are no allies of mine.
-Galvatron, an IDW Transformers fictive
stop treating us fictives as a monolith. Stop using fictives as a âgotchaâ in shipping discourse
The whole point of our post is that our pain and anger shouldnât be treated like shipping discourse. The fact that fictives are hurt by this, even when it isnât all fictives, means that we need to think about what fan content we do or donât condone. We arenât telling people what conclusion to come to, just that they need to consider the impact of their actions on marginalized communities within fandom
Beyond that it is up to you to âmake roomâ for yourself, by learning to use the blacklist, block button, and coping mechanisms if needed. If you are unable to do this, if you are unable to separate yourself from the fics and art you see, if just the thought of this content existing causes such harm to you, then fandom just might not be a good place for you.
We already do this. We block people, blacklist words and tags, put clear DNIs, and we still see this shit. We get harassed by people who donât give a damn about our boundaries, who donât respect that we are trying to keep ourselves safe, because theyâre mad that weâre âantisâ. We shouldnât have to leave fandom, something that has been a major part of our lives for over a decade, just because other people care more about their ships than they do about us. Weâre not fragile just because other peopleâs actions affect us negatively, and weâd like them to acknowledge and grapple with that
Yes, itâs âreal to us,â but even that isnât a monolithic opinion held by all fictives, and it means little since fictives can be canon divergent.
I know. Most of us are canon-divergent on some level. For crying out loud, Iâm a transfem Jason Todd fictive, I get it. Some fictives arenât affected by fandom in this way, we know that. Maybe we could have been clearer about that in our original post, but that doesnât undermine the message, because it does hurt some of us, and we have the right to speak out about it
it comes off like you are simply using your identity, and the identities of other people, as a cudgel to push ideology. You speak of advocacy and allyship, but I do not feel like you are a good advocate for me, and any allies that think like you are no allies of mine.
What ideology, exactly? That singlets and non-fictives in fandom spaces should care about how their actions affect us? That shipping isnât more important than actual living people? You donât have to agree with us, but can you at least explain why thatâs such a bad thing to advocate for
If you donât agree, and donât want to consider us allies, thatâs your decision. If you want to protect people who donât bother to put in the work to at least try to make fandom more accessible to fictives, you can. But donât expect us to call it a loss that you donât want us on your side
- Cat (she/her)
The whole point of our post is that our pain and anger shouldnât be treated like shipping discourse.
Despite this, and saying youâre not trying to tell people what conclusion to come to, your original post still clearly props up one side. The âfiction affects reality,â âantiâ crowd is not particularly thoughtful towards the feelings of fictives, either.
People get harassed, bullied, sent terrible things, just for liking the wrong characters or ships, let alone being a fictive of that character or half of the ship. Untagged hate can be found in certain characters and ships all the time, and these people also do not care what fictives might think if they came across it. People in general do not think or care about us very often, but you frame it as coming from the âship and let shipâ crowd, rather than it being a more fundamental issue with the way people view systems regardless of shipping stance.
Iâm sorry people harass you. They should not do that, whether youâre an anti or not. Tagging isnât perfect, no, we have to deal with things being untagged as well, but there is a big difference between calling out lackluster tagging and just saying âwhen youâre deciding what fan content youâre okay with, remember we exist.â It is coming off as a guilt tripââif you care about fictives, you will not post about these things at all. You will think theyâre abhorrent, like we do, or you donât care about fictives enough.â
And Iâm saying this isnât a sustainable position, because fictives are diverse and people have competing needs, and you cannot just say âthis harms fictivesâ because what is horrible to you might be beneficial to another. Getting rid of it might be good for you, but harmful to someone else.
What ideology, exactly?
The ideology that certain fandom content shouldnât exist because itâs bad to create/share. Please do tell me if there is another interpretation, but my read is âthis material is harmful and triggering to some people, therefore it needs to stop being made.â Otherwise youâd be saying that this material is harmful but itâs fine for it to exist, which doesnât make sense to me as a position to hold.
What do you want people to do about this problem exactly, if not that? What does an âaccessible fandomâ look like to you? If I have gravely misread you, I would like to know.
Yeah, I think youâre misreading our intentions a bit. We arenât trying to force people to stop creating certain types of content, regardless of our opinions on it. And we certainly didnât mean for our post to be a guilt trip. It was an expression of our anger thatâs been building up for years, from before we were even aware of our system
We know that everyone has the right to create whatever content they want, and that thereâs not a good way to limit what people are âallowedâ to create without turning to censorship. This is a complicated, nuanced ethical discussion, and everyone has to decide for themselves what their views on ethical and accessible fandom are
That being said, itâs not okay to just ignore that some people are being hurt because it doesnât align with what a person wants to create. Anyone creating and publishing content, even in fandom, should take some time to really think about the potential impact of their works and decide if itâs worth creating. Artistic freedom is important, but so is integrity and compassion. And fictives arenât the only ones asking fan creators to consider the impact their works have on marginalized groups. There are similar discussions happening around the treatment of characters of color, queer and trans characters, disabled and neurodivergent characters, etc. If content is hurting people, those people have the right to speak up and say that itâs hurting them, and ask creators to reflect on their actionsÂ
And yes, harassment happens on all sides. We do not condone anyone being harassed, even if they create content that we find disgusting. My original response came from a place of anger, and it probably would have been a better idea to cool off before responding. This is an issue that deeply affects our system, and it has a tendency to get our hackles raised. Thatâs also why our post focused on shipping as an issue, itâs something thatâs caused us a lot of pain. We know there are a lot of issues facing fictives, and that shipping is just one piece of a bigger puzzle. Our post was supposed to get people thinking, not provide a comprehensive breakdown of all the issues facing fictives
Thereâs no easy answer to any of this, it just doesnât feel fair that we should be expected to be quiet and keep our pain hidden so that people who ship incestuous or adult/minor pairings donât have to face up to the impact those ships have on us
- Cat (she/her)
I believe I spoke out of anger as well, and did not phrase things as delicately as they should have been phrased. It is clear that I assumed things here and there. I do believe that your experiences are real, and worth treating with respect. While reading this post, I was starting to think I had misjudged this entire thing.
But you brought up bigotry. I do not think itâs right to compare these issues to fictives at all. To use a personal example: there is a fanfiction on AO3 that portrays my source self as sexually abusive. This deeply disturbed me when I found it and I do not like knowing that it exists.
The idea of comparing how I felt when I saw this fanfic, which was genuinely quite terrible, to how we feel when we see queerphobic, transphobic, sanist takes (the sorts of marginalizations that we face) is absurd to me. These are not the same experiences even remotely and I do not like the wording that suggests these experiences should be seen as similar.
Stereotypes and offensive tropes are bad because they reflect real, systemic bigotry that affects every aspect of a marginalized personâs life. People are raised with these biases that affect how those with privilege treat marginalized people, and how marginalized people see themselves.
Somebody writing what they perceive to be a fictional character in a relationship that would be unhealthy/illegal/immoral in real life, or a dark situation, or posting hateful rants about that fictional character, is not the same as somebody writing something bigoted because they have unexamined biases in their minds, and it is especially not the same as somebody writing something intentionally bigoted with the intent of harming marginalized groups.
That person didnât write me as a sexual abuser because they had unexamined, systemically-produced anti-my-source biases in their head or because they wanted to hurt fictives. Itâs just what they wrote.
Fictives are marginalized, yes. Weâre marginalized because weâre in systems, and systems are marginalized by ableism. Fictives are not separately marginalized due to being fictives. As horrified as you are allowed to be by things like adult/minor and incest ships, they do not reinforce or reflect the kind of ableism that we face.
To be clear, when Cat was referring to us as part of a marginalized group, she was talking about plurals as the marginalized group, and fictives as part of that group. She was talking about how fictives are dismissed and ignored by other fans because weâre not seen as ârealâ, not how our source characters are portrayed by them. I still donât think youâre understanding our point
That being said, it looks like this conversation is over anyway. Thanks for being civil, even though we clearly have very different views on this
- Hal (he/him)
