How not to be a pox on fandom, incomplete list
Fanfic doesn’t have to conform to canon. Canon ships are not better or worse than non-canon ones.
Someone shipping a character you ship in a different ship than you do is not an attack on you. It is not a claim that your ship is wrong. Fan creators each have their own internal canon that is separate from all others, unless they’re collaborating. If you try to ban people from shipping something or try to find reasons why it’s “bad” just because you ship something else, you’re an asshole.
Shipping means that you think 2 or more characters look hot together or have an interesting relationship dynamic, or sometimes that you think the canon is implying they might be together. If the latter, that does not mean you have to like it or can’t ship anything else, nor that it isn’t a false flag or a temporary relationship or you just reading into things that much.
Shipping is a creative state. It should inspire you to make things. If you only want to destroy everything else, you’re an asshole and only hurting fandom.
If you seriously intend to hurt or harass people because a ship got sunk or they ship something you don’t like, you’re an asshole.
If you’re planning a literal protest because a ship got sunk, you’re an entitled, selfish, toxic asshole. There are actual problems in the world, and you’re picketing a TV show because you didn’t like a ship. Go be ashamed of yourself.
Writing about something doesn’t mean doing it in real life. The point of fiction is to mentally explore things you can’t or shouldn’t do in real life. You should try it sometime.
Don’t do pedophilia libel. It’s homophobic and destructive. (The average fan creator is queer.) If there isn’t a direct victim, it’s not predatory and the accusation is fake. The target can, under some circumstances, sue you. It’s not worth it. Don’t do it.
Don’t shame people’s kinks. If you don’t like it, they didn’t write it for you. There is a 99% chance you have some weird horrifying fetish, too.
(And this is not a claim that pedophilia is a kink, ffs. Assaulting people is bad. You’d better have some evidence that an assault actually happened before you accuse anyone though, you ghouls. Also, if you literally think there are pedophiles everywhere, your reality is distorted and you need to get help.)
Disgust ≠ moral turpitude. That’s projection. Look it up.
“Fujoshi” doesn’t mean what you think it means. Just stop using that word.
Fetishization requires dehumanization and reduction of a character to a single trait. Attraction is not automatically fetishization. Arousal is not fetishization.
Sex isn’t bad. Stop being scared of sex. Especially stop being scared of fictional sex. You can’t even get pregnant or catch an STI from it.
Stop judging people for having sex, for wanting to have sex, or for doing either in ways that you wouldn’t.
Stop being scared of your own desires. Stop hating yourself for them. If you can’t do that, at least don’t project that onto your opinions of other people and their work.
A ship having abuse or conflict doesn’t mean it’s bad to ship. Just don’t emulate it in real life. This is simple. If you don’t get it, you need help. If you just pretend not to get it so you have an excuse to hate people who ship a thing you don’t like, you’re an asshole. Stop being an asshole.
Shipping doesn’t matter in real life. People shipping ships you don’t like doesn’t matter in real life. Just ignore other people’s ships.
If you get so obsessed with a ship that sinking it would make you have a real breakdown, you need to disengage. If that level of obsession happens regularly, you need to stop shipping at all until you’re more stable, because it’s not healthy for you, the same way you wouldn’t run a marathon on a sprained ankle.
If you’d break up a friendship or relationship because they started shipping something you didn’t like, you have a problem and you’re being an asshole. Get help.
Don’t insist things are canon when they’ve only been implied. Especially don’t do that to attack other people or ships. Canon does not define validity. Stop being an asshole.
If you feel like you need external validation such as canon to ship or headcanon something—you don’t. If canon directly contradicts the thing, it’s simply AU. That means alternate universe, which means you can change as many rules and conditions as you want, for whatever reason. If you still feel like you need external validation, get help.
Wanting your own work to be canon compliant is fine. Bashing someone else because theirs is or isn’t makes you an asshole. Don’t be an asshole.
Before you reblog things that make claims about anything fannish or shippy, especially if it has buzzwords, apply critical thinking to make sure it and its underlying premises (assumptions about how things work) make sense. If you’re allergic to thinking, take Benadryl. If it doesn’t actually make sense but it gives you a plausible sounding excuse to be a hater, you’re an asshole. Stop being an asshole.
If you like hating on people and get a rush out of it and take any excuse to yell at Bad People and tell them to choke, die, suck your toes, or pee themselves, you are an asshole and are probably not being honest with yourself about your motivations. Also, please look up the definitions of humiliation kink, breathplay, foot fetish, or omorashi, and try to find consenting partners for any of those that appeal to you and stop doing them verbally to strangers on the internet who didn’t ask for it and probably aren’t interested. (Because that’s creepy and predatory. Notice it also involves actively doing something to real people instead of writing about it happening to fictional characters.)
If you think fictional characters are traumatized for real when people write about bad things happening to them and that such writers are real abusers, but that you’re not hurting anyone by yelling at them and accusing them of terrible things and hurling outre sexual invective at them, you’re an asshole and your reality is distorted. Get help.
Fictional characters aren’t real people. Writers and other shippers are real people. Treat the real people only how you’d want to be treated, and get consent before you do anything else. Take out your antisocial impulses on the fictional characters, because they’re not real and can’t be hurt by it.
Being kind is ultimately more rewarding than trying to seek out and identify Bad People. “Everything is bad and I must punish it” can feel powerful but leaves you exhausted and terrified. Kindness is two-thirds leaving people alone and one-third encouraging what you do like, but you’ll make real friends you don’t have to be afraid of and walk on eggshells around, and the kindness comes back to you.
Creative, not destructive; transformative, not curatorial; kindness, not vengeance. Less ship wars, more free sailing.
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
baratheonpilled
dededos
jbbartram-illu
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
