By That Logic, Does The Person Refuse To Call Themselves A Human Because Humans Historically Have A Problem

By that logic, does the person refuse to call themselves a “human” because humans historically have a problem with racism? Do they wholeheartedly reject their own gender, race, nationality, hometown, and alma mater because other people from that category have been Problematic? And do they bother people who insist on using labels or belonging to communities that this person believes also include The Bads? Or does this only apply to online fandom for…hmmmmm……Reasons

That anon was a known troll. Shortly after I refused to entertain their argument they started spamming me with 40+ eccentric and threatening asks and turned to other blogs to spam them with the same asks and bait.

I don't mind bait when the person has unknowingly given me the perfect opportunity to counter it, educate people and allow people a speak-piece, but once the angry spam started they got an instant block.

I don't like saying I'm proship because shipping has such a huge problem with racism and misogyny and acephobia and a dozen other things. I'm not an anti, but I'm still going to criticize people for ignoring female characters or characters of color for the sake of only ever shipping boring white men. Those are cases where a person's real life beliefs and biases are definitely showing through.

Proship sounds like you just ship totally uncritically which isn't any better than ONLY criticizing.

"Everybody misses out if one person ruins the good thing" is actually a very effective way to make sure the people who want to ruin the good thing shut the fuck up because they realize very quickly that:

They don't get the good thing either. Being an asshole means nobody gets anything, not just the people they think don't deserve it.

The more they make everyone miss out on the good thing the less welcome they find themselves in a space.

It teaches proper fandom etiquette and consideration.

The only thing that allowing them to behave the way they do teaches is that it not only works, but they themselves are in a position of power to enact it.

If you act like an asshole and subsequently find yourself without content, friends and unwelcome in a fandom space you're going to sit down and keep your mouth shut the next time you have the opportunity to.

top/bottom discourse in the Genshin fandom is annoying

hear me out, I don’t have anything against people who like one fixed dynamic only. Unless they go out of their way to harass other fixed/switch dynamic shippers

and that’s exactly what happened to a zine artist. The zine is for profit, also still in the making but they announced a guest artist who doesn’t care about strict dynamics, they occasionally lean towards the other dynamic (let’s call it vanilla) but would draw the fixed dynamic (chocolate) for this zine

people who wanted chocolate only were angry about the fact that an artist who leans more to vanilla was invited for a chocolate zine. They called it “false advertising” and “being lied to” and “how can we make sure this person will only draw chocolate?!” and “how dare you invite a VANILLA artist for CHOCOLATE!”

the harassment was so bad that the artist deactivated their twitter and I’m really sad to hear that. What more, there were Chinese fixed shipper in the comments who insulted the zine mods and artist, making comments like “it looks you slept with each other” or “if you don’t get why were complaining, you’re stupid!”

and I’m just like… this is no big deal.

This zine is not out yet. No one lost money, no one was hurt by “false advertising”. The zine mods protect the artist and said switch shippers are welcome as long as they draw the fixed dynamic the mods decided on, which the artist will do or would have done. If you don’t like the product, you don’t have to buy it! It makes me sad that something so little exploded into something so big

Unfortunately this isn't just a Genshin issue. Fans are fucking rabid about top/bottom discourse and it usually boils down to some kind of heteronormative-vaguely-sexist flavor.

You see it most often in ships which have very obvious dynamic and personality differences. The "little sunshine one" is always the super feminine uwu bottom. The tallest one is always the top, though some people like to add a little spice by making them a submissive top.

And don't get me wrong—I'm not immune. I have the odd pairing where I'm more fixated on a set sexual dynamic, but I'm a switch shipper through and through. And I'd certainly never try to dictate that my preferences in fanon are the universal rule.

In all honesty, I'd have cancelled the zine. People need to learn that actions have consequences. If you want the fun fandom thing, you have to be respectful. Too many people have caved to fandom pressure and harassment and just aided in educating people that being cunts effectively gets them what they want. People need to learn there are consequences to ruining it for everyone else.

(Because lets be honest, you are going to be nobody's favorite person if everyone knows you're the reason they lost out on something.)

Your post regarding specifc places for things and some places dont need a vent channel it helped me realise that the people i follow online were damaging to my health. They were constantly sharing real people who died horrifically and saying things like "if you dont share you're supporting violence " while i only joined social media to view art.

I actively speak about real life events offline with my family, we always talk about whats happening in the world once a week and mention anything new within the local and worldwide news. I didn't understand why social media was worsening my mental health around these topics since i could speak about it in real life with my family. i assumed i was horrible for simply not wanting to see it online, When your post about a safe space came up i realised why it made me feel so bad, the artists i followed no longer were posting art and were just constantly sharing news daily about horrific events. It became inescapable and i was unknownly doomscrolling for hours on social media while hoping to see art (that just made me feel bad viewing after seeing so much death) , my only escape was going offline. I already made new accounts just for art and Im so thankful for your post since i did avoid everything that was about real world events since the account is only for art and i feel so much more.. i guess happier.. but definitely more mentally healthy if that makes sense? It felt like my mind was drained or foggy when scrolling through social media, and i wasnt actually paying attention before but now its a lot more, clear, healthy and positive. Im able to think properly and actually pay attention and appreciate the good things online

I'm so glad I was able to help you on your journey to bettering your wellbeing. Its an aspect of why I run this blog and talk about the things that I do.

So very often people don't actually register or realize what parts of their lives are causing stress. They attribute it to 'working too much' or 'not sleeping enough' without realizing that there are direct causes for things like not sleeping enough. And I'm not saying every single part of life comes back to activism, but very often we don't even realize how much negativity and forced awareness we're exposing ourselves to.

I used to religiously follow accounts on Instagram which posted about animal abuse. Other than a handful of celebrities my Instagram feed would be the most graphic videos you could imagine of people hacking into live dogs with axes, boiling cats alive in huge vats of water, jockeys tearing at horse's mouths until their teeth were loose and they were leaving a trail of blood as they walked the winner's circle.

I used to think if I wasn't constantly forcing myself to acknowledge that these things were happening, if I wasn't constantly reminding myself the extent at which these things happen, I was a bad person. I wasn't a real animal lover. If I truly loved animals why wasn't I sharing these videos? Why wasn't I sitting there with thousands of other people acknowledging what animals go through while I sit comfy at home doing nothing?

It got the point where I'd be throwing up constantly, I refused to sleep because I was terrified of the nightmares and my hands would shake as I opened up the Instagram app because I dreaded what I'd see today.

It wasn't helping me. It wasn't helping the animals. I'm just as aware now of what animals go through without having to see any of it.

But now, I have the wellbeing to actually devote myself to meaningful activism. Not just tormenting myself to no outcome. Now, I have the willpower and the energy to sign petitions and do research and take steps in my own life to better the welfare of the animals in my care.

Now I can sleep at night and wake up well-rested with the energy and the motivation to do things both for myself and for other people. Now, I can scroll Instagram and leave polite, correctional comments on misguided videos about animals. Now I have the knowledge to devote my attention and my efforts to where it actually makes a difference and changes animal's lives.

It is such, such a hard thing to drag yourself out of. We're so conditioned into thinking suffering shared is suffering lessened. We're so conditioned into believing that by spamming words anywhere we can we are the direct cause of change.

Its a hell of a learning climb. A steep one. But I genuinely believe the world would be better off for learning and changing as we both had the courage to.

hey, same person who sent in the ask about pro-ship and 'anti' definitions and such -

(sorry if this is incomprehensible i'm tail end of an all-nighter and my brain is fried lol) thank you, reading through it makes a lot of things make sense, and honestly, I definitely do find myself on the 'neutral' or therefore pro-ship side (as it appears to be), or just that "live and let live" idea. writing a fic about an abusive relationship doesn't make you an abuser or an awful person, and its always been so strange to me how people will say that 'writing it means you are it', to put it loosely. i have my own personal limits in how I like to consume and portray these things, but i literally have zero qualms if someone else's limits and tastes are different than mine because 1) not my business 2) nobody's holding a gun to me head to make me consume their content 3) doesn't mean they're an awful person who ought to be arrested or however some people make it out to be. if someone writes a rape fic that's between them, their audience and the google doc it was written on. it also kinds ties in to the whole idea of censorship and my opinions on it for me, with how vague some people seem to be about it - if you're calling to ban all fics that "romanticize abuse", that itself can be abused to take down the works of queer or disabled people, people who are open about different types of relationships, etc etc. what i'm trying to say is if you try to ban any fic like that, you're probably also going to ban fics of people in poly relationships, or who have an unusual kink that you don't like, because it's vague enough to be able to suppress people. am i making sense here? probably not, but I do hope you get what I'm saying here, sincerest apologies for my incessant rambling.. it's just been a long, long time since I've been able to say these views that I hold (I don't think I ever have, actually. Not to this extent anyway).

thank you, thank you very much. definitely going to be sticking around this blog for a while, I think ^^

What you've described is effectively being pro-ship. However, there's no obligation to use labels. SALS is still a somewhat popular acronym and there is also profiction, which a lot of people are more comfortable with using to describe how they relate to fiction vs reality. Fandom spaces are all down to the individual.

I'm glad I could help you better your understanding, give you a space to speak openly, and I never mind rambling or long messages.

You're the one making an assumption here... I never said everyone who ships is bad. I mean that there's enough of a problem with shipping that I and others feel uncomfortable associating with shipping culture. I'm saying more people should try to address issues with bigotry in their fandoms instead of acting like reality and fiction *never ever* interact. Proship is just a bad term and I hate that it's so common (so is anti)

Where did I make the assumption?

When you said:

"I'm not an anti, but I'm still going to criticize people for ignoring female characters or characters of color for the sake of only ever shipping boring white men"?

How about when you said:

"Proship sounds like you just ship totally uncritically which isn't any better than ONLY criticizing"?

And then there's:

"Proship is a bad term and I hate that its so common."

If you can't even recognise, understand and respect the literal definition of and history of a term, you are simply not ready or in a position to be trying to grandstand about it or argue about it. If you want to talk about bigotry, how about the female actors who get paid a fraction of what their male co-stars do?

How about authors of color who are told to use a white-presenting pen name in order to sell more books?

How about the fact that abortions are being controlled by religious fascists who are coming for birth control next?

How about the fact that China won't allow any form of queer representation in movies even if its only implied?

No? You're just mad that people aren't buying into the ship where the female character's sole role in the movie is to be the 2D love interest who's entire personality boils down to owning breasts and being either quirky or hypersexual?

I see.