I'm Not Asking Out Of Some Kind Of Contrarianism, It's Just That It Seems Like A Good Idea To Get This

I'm not asking out of some kind of contrarianism, it's just that it seems like a good idea to get this spelled out, because I'm not seeing it, and I'd imagine others are not as well: Why specifically is it dangerous to go incognito into an anti-ship space or a pro-ship space if one is the opposite?

Because deceiving people and inserting yourself into spaces wherein you are overtly unwelcome has no positive or beneficial outcome. And there are batshit insane people on both sides who are known to go as far as doxxing, stalking, getting people fired, creating revenge pornography and so forth.

Absolutely nothing is worth that. No amount of fake friends or "gleaning information" or whatever other excuse you have is worth risking the sanctity of your life for.

For example, the anon who started this conversation is "incognito" in a server full of people supposedly their "friends," and yet they are constantly making it overtly aware that they think the kind of person anon (secretly) is is disgusting and immoral. How do you think they're going to react if they find out the person they're supposed to be friends with is actually the very thing they hate?

Even if their reactions aren't inherently dangerous they are certainly not going to be pleasant. It is simply not worth the risk at all.

https://www.tumblr.com/myfandomrealitea/751296525323370496?source=share Screaming from the rooftops "WANTING THINGS IN THE PROPER AREAS IS NOT CENSORSHIP"

Idk if you are an artist, but do you have suggestions of how can I manage an art account while being a proshipper?

I really wanted to post some art, but I'm scared of the stress that I have to deal with antis

No, seriously.

My advice is largely the block button. Far too few people weaponise it the way they should. Its free: be greedy with it. Anyone you think is going to harass you based on your art? Block them. Anyone who does harass you based on your art? Block them.

Adding the 'proship' tag to your posts can also help people avoid your art if "supporting a proshipper" isn't something they want to do, or exposing themselves to art which may make them uncomfortable.

Also, searching for art and artists within the proship and your fandom tags can help you to build a following and to follow people who are compatible with your views and beliefs. As I mentioned briefly in another recent post; fandom communities build themselves.

Advertise yourself in proship circles. Find fellow proshippers in your fandom and engage with them. Build a presence and a positive mutual relationship.

Make heavy use of the block button and block anyone you perceive as being a possible harassment or unpleasant risk. And anyone who is harassing you or being unpleasant.

Make heavy use of the applicable tags on any artwork that may be triggering or uncomfortable for other people. E.g; gore. Make sure to use appropriate tags such as 'blood' and 'gore' and 'violence.'

Use your bio or a pinned post to be overt about your stance. This way nobody can try to initiate a witchhunt against you by claiming you're 'hiding' or 'misleading' or that they were triggered because they 'didn't know you posted X.'

Not sure if allowed, but I wanted to reply to the anon that asked about giving their incestuous characters a good ending:

Yes, you'll get scorn for portraying it at all, but also people should be smart enough to be able to tell that positively portraying incest is just... Characters experiencing their lives?? Weird shit happens! I certainly don't know your plot but I can sure believe that incest can happen if you so write it - because shit happens. Two siblings having a positive incestuous relationship means nothing in reality itself; they're just characters. That do incest. And are happy. That's all there is too it.

You're not "glorifying" anything. It's that age-old discussion of perspective: write it from the perspective of the siblings, or someone in their environment that supports it, and it will be positive. Write it from the perspective of perhaps their parents, disgusted and horrified, and suddenly it's not so "positive" even if the siblings get a happy ending.

I wish you the best of luck for the story, though, anon, no matter your choice. Remember that having fun is more important than this bullshit and prioritize your health at all costs!!

You make a good point about reading from perspectives. All too often people fall into the trap of reacting to a story as The Reader, and evaluating the story from the perspective of The Reader rather than recognising the actual character perspectives the story is written in and for.

Far too many people insert themselves into books as the personal perspective within it, when for a not insignificant portion of literature the actual point is that you are supposed to be inside the character's life and mind.

Because I said 'there needs to be spaces' and the first thing you said in response was that 'actually X is a different matter and needs to be given spaces.'

My point isn't that every single fandom space should be free from these things. My point is that there should be at least some that are, regardless of what relevance an issue has to the fandom.

By saying 'X is a different matter. There needs to be space for it' you either made the completely irrelevant point that it should be present in the spaces that I'm not talking about, or you're making the contradictory point that they should be in the spaces I am.

I am actually begging some people to just let some spaces exist untouched by real-world issues and horrors.

Like I've lost count of the amount of times peaceful game or fandom servers have been ruined by people stampeding in with political rants, bitching about world issues, demanding internal activism, demanding vent channels so they can whine about their shitty parents, ect.

Like. Respectfully. Not every single space has to be inclusive of and welcoming of outside topics. The real world sucks. We don't needed to be reminded of that absolutely everywhere.

I always want to wholeheartedly agree with the "create what you want, just label it" argument. I really want to. Right up until people defend unexamined bigotry. For example, I once ran into a story where Martha Jones was actually about to fail out of medical school when she met The Doctor, because she was "incapable" of learning human anatomy and medicine, and despite "bribing her teachers". I wrote in my journal that I thought the story was racist, in a public post, and people scolded me for being censorious and not letting people "have fun". (This was back when LJ was viable.) I have a pile of other experiences like that. I would never agree with the antis that Someone (aka them) should prevent people from writing whatever, but I feel like to completely agree with "create what you want, no limits, nothing matters but creating," I have to agree that a fan of color has no right to be hurt by a story that turns an intelligent Black woman into a cheat and an idiot, even in that fan's own space. What do you think?

You have every right to feel offended or hurt by a story. But your hurt and offense does not negate someone else's ability to create. Nor does it dictate that you can tell them what they can and cannot create.

How do you know the author wasn't a person of color themselves? How do you know they weren't writing the story based on their own emotions, difficulties or experiences? Is painting a person of color as 'unintelligent' a common theme in their works or was it just the plot device of this specific story? If Martha Jones was Asian or Indian or Caucasian, would you have still been offended on her behalf that an intelligent woman/intelligent woman of color was being turned into 'an idiot'?

These are questions we have to ask ourselves when trying to determine if a work was genuinely created with the intent of being harmful. Because individually not liking or being hurt by the content's of a story is not a good enough reason to advocate against it.

The 911 fandom, for example, saw a lot of it with Eddie Diaz. People were so entrenched in fandom virtue signalling that pretty much any depiction of Eddie Diaz in fanfiction was getting bitched about as 'out of character' or 'racist' including works written by actual people of color. It got to the point where for quite a while fanfiction production within the 911 fandom dropped way down because people were too annoyed with or upset by the constant accusations no matter what was being written.

And I know it probably sounds like I'm just smokescreening for racism or excusing it. but I can promise you, I've blocked and reported authors and fandom creators before for being blatantly racist in their content. But fanfiction and literature become trickier because the purpose of stories is not to be palatable or feel-good. Stories do not have to be pleasant. Fanfiction does not have to conform to the source material.

Describing someone as "incapable" is typically a turn of phrase and has nothing to do with trying to allocate unintelligence to a specific type of person. Plenty of people would be classed as "incapable" of learning medicine because its a hard fucking thing to learn. You need to dedicate more or less five-ten years of your life to studying it before you even really get anywhere with actually practising it.

If you're someone who's easily distracted or has trouble remembering things and vice versa, you're unlikely to go into a career field that especially demands these things of you.

I imagine in any case her failing out of medical school was likely the plot point that leads her to going off with The Doctor. Which is a simple narrative and not a case of "unexamined bigotry." Its just as likely that if the author had had Martha Jones simply give up her aspirations and career to follow The Doctor, someone else would've been offended by the trope of a (black) woman giving up everything for a (white) man and deemed the story sexist or racist. Possibly both.

When analysing literature you have to be critical of if something is offending you personally or if it was intended to offend people of color as a whole. If the answer is only the former, then its a situation where you just have to recognise the work is not for you and move along.