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.

saw ur post about going incognito into spaces and stuff and i wanted to add my own thoughts about my experience of basically being stuck in places where proshippers r hated (not against wut ur saying! i definitely agree that theres no benefits and honestly its not that fun)

the fandom that im currently in is.. very toxic. someone got harassed to the point of having to delete their account bc they "supported" a proshipper (it was literally just them saying that u shouldnt harass this person just bc theyre proship-). a lot of my friends were very supportive of this person and agreed that ppl shouldnt be harassed over shit like that and many of them seem to have similar viewpoints as me (anti harassment and all that) but prefer to stay away from that stuff

the fandom is basically ran by antis. theres a small corner that some ppl have made where they talk about proship stuff freely (love those ppl so much theyre genuinely so nice) but overall its. not the best place to be if ur proship. which is interesting to me bc theres actually a shocking amount of proshippers that just... dont say anything. on my side blog ive had multiple ppl interact that i thought were anti (or at least just. not proship in some way) but would literally go and like all my posts about incest ships of the characters.

and sometimes i think about it and how theres actually a bunch of proshippers but we're so heavily harassed and silenced that we just- dont say anything. but the fandom is small and we cant exactly separate ourselves from it if we really like the show. and i feel especially bad for some of the bigger blogs that ppl love and adore bc i know wut would happen if somehow ppl found out and made some big post or wutever.

i dont pretend to be antiship but i dont outright say im proship unless i really trust that person

im currently trying to make my own lil space with some friends so at least if anything goes wrong i at least have a few ppl but its a bit scary to think about honestly-

Although it can be full of snot-nosed superiority complexes, I do recommend using the AO3 Subreddit in order to find likeminded people for your fandom. The very vast majority of the AO3 Subreddit is proship or at least proship neutral. Antis are generally eviscerated on sight whenever they try to poke their nose into it.

If you have any other fandoms that you are active in or have friends within, there's also no harm in introducing them to your small fandom.

From what I understand the Marvel fandom did kind of the same thing you're describing with the Starker shippers, but they flourished and supported each other anyway.

I know its easy for me to simply say 'do it anyway' as someone who generally could not give a fuck about anyone's opinion of me, but honestly. Do it anyway. Form your little collective. Support each other. Learn how to write and draw and make GIFs so you feed your own portion of the fandom. You physically do not need those people, it just unfortunately takes a bit of effort and means potentially a bit less content until you start really generating your own.

Fandom spaces do not start out from nothing. Promote the shit out of your fandom. Draw people in. Comb through the proship tags and send asks to blogs like mine asking other proshippers to check out the source material.

People in small fandoms are easy to bully because you're so enclosed into this circle of the exact same people. They happen to be the majority in the room and they're weaponising it.

Force them into a bigger room.

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.'

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.

Which is already stated in my previous HP-related posts.

With my recent Harry Potter posts gaining traction, I just want to make an important note:

You are not a bad person for having enjoyed Harry Potter. You are not a bad person for finding it hard to let go of something so ingrained into your life. You are not a bad person for enjoying the overall story of Harry Potter despite the bigotry JK Rowling managed to smatter into it.

Nobody should be telling you that you are. Your past relationship with Harry Potter is not the issue.

The issue is what you and we all do moving forward with the new information and facts that we know.

And the facts are that JK Rowling is a rampant and proud bigot who is hellbent on using the fortune Harry Potter made her to actively pursue the entire trans community with hostile intent.

And she does not care. She is happy that she is doing it. She is happy that people oppose her because it gives her an excuse to play victim and paint trans people who oppose her as violent, aggressive and evil.

This is not about how you engaged with Harry Potter in the past. Or even how you engage with it privately. This is about whether or not you choose to contribute toward her mission and towards the persecution of trans people right now.

Because when you buy that licensed merch in the store, she gets part of the profit. When you go to Harry Potter World, she gets part of the profit. When you buy the Harry Potter game, she gets part of the profit.

And all of those things result in three consequences:

It shows the marketing departments that Harry Potter is still a cashcow.

It shows JK Rowling that she can say and do whatever the hell she wants and nothing is going to stop that money rolling in.

She is given a steady cashflow which she uses to bankroll anti-trans movements and spokespeople and government petitions.

That is the reality of your choice from here on out. That is why people are asking you to set aside what you once had with Harry Potter and to stand with the people she has made it her life's mission to destroy.

You don't even have to let go of it completely. Just let go of the interactions that directly fund JK Rowling. Just cut off the cashflow she's using to ruin the lives of people she's never even met.

Buy fanmade merchandise or learn how to make your own. If you're cosplaying? Buy unofficial cosplays or buy second-hand off resale websites. Same with other merchandise.

If you want to watch Harry Potter, there are hundreds of non-licensed steaming websites showing it which do not contribute royalty income to JK Rowling.

If you're writing Harry Potter fanfiction, use a site like AO3 which will defend you tooth and claw if she gets desperate and starts coming after fan creators.

Harry Potter might be the comforting memories of your childhood, but JK Rowling is an active threat to the literal livelihood of trans people. People who could lose legal rights and protections simply because of one vicious woman with a bigoted agenda and deep pockets.

All we're asking is that you compare your reasons for enjoying Harry Potter with the facts of why you should make a few simple, easy choices to avoid bankrolling her and determine which is more important.

Or rather, which one should be more important.

And make the right choice.

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.