Saw some comments today on an ItsFunneh YHS ship post and I'm too lazy to get into detail right now but all you need to know is that it mentioned shipping YHS Funneh x YHS Gold (the person who mentioned it said they don't ship it btw) and it had me thinking...
To get some of the facts straight, I'm all for separating the roleplay characters from the real people, and I'm also very adamant on respecting KREW's boundaries and against shipping the real siblings with each other. These two things aren't in conflict with each other and don't have to be.
The KREW fandom (the really loud, immature side), I've learned, treats KREW like how a K-Pop group fandom would. Pure devotion but zero respect for them as people. The YHS fandom (the half-KF, half-YHS fan part of it) is no different, at least from my experience.
Personally, for me, I don't mind shipping YHS Funneh and YHS Gold with the rest of the YHS cast (including queer and non-canon ships) because in my mind, it's no different from shipping Falec, Fevan and Kold.
I do mind however, shipping YHS Funneh and YHS Gold together, not because they're the same as the real Kat LA and Kim La, but because of the intentions behind the act of shipping them, and the implications of it all.
What do I mean by that exactly? Well. I don't know about you but I would REALLY dislike it, if I told my fan base that I was uncomfortable with being shipped with my younger brother and by extension my other siblings, only to later learn that people were shipping a character heavily inspired by me with a character heavily inspired by my older sister.
And yeah, I get it, this fictional character inspired by me is NOT ME. But I'd still feel really weirded out by it because it just looks like you're using the fictional characters as an excuse to ship me with my sibling. Like you're using it as a loophole to bypass my boundaries. Like you're using it as an excuse to hurt real people without consequence.
This is what I mean when I say: "Normalize separating the fictional characters from the real people, while respecting their boundaries."
It is NOT just "Normalize separating the fictional characters from the real people." There is a respect factor to it too.
So, back to the whole YHS Funneh x YHS Gold thing. What should we as a fandom do about it and ships similar in nature to it?
My answer? Ignore them. That's what we should do. Don't give those shippers any attention and don't harass them either. Harassment is bad, straight up. Don't go around commenting on their posts saying how bad the ship is or shit like that. Don't go around policing people in the fandom or something along those lines.
"Why should we ignore it though? Wouldn't it be better to do something about it?" Because interacting with this stuff only brings more attention to it. More attention means more content made about it, negative or positive, it won't matter.
The more you feed the flames the more it will spread and worse case scenario KREW themselves gets caught in the crossfire. And Idk about you, but as an older fan of theirs (been a fan since 2017) I really don't want that to happen.
So, what do you do when you see something you don't like? Ignore it!
You see a post containing a ship you don't like? Block the account. Move on with your day. That's none of your business.
You see a TikTok comment talking about the search being "Funneh x Draco Boombayah" or something like that?
You ignore it. Simple as that.
