Snowflake Challenge #3: Fannish Opinion
Jan. 5th, 2025 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
visualjyushiIn your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.
When I first discovered fannish communities, I very much understood the concept of "Ship and Let Ship." However, I was young and impressionable, so the rise of anti-shipping made me believe there were certain things in fiction that couldn't be justifiably enjoyable. There was a distinct ship I liked at the time that allows me to kind of pinpoint when it all started for me.
I remember being around thirteen or so and shipping Axel and Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Admittedly, I don't think fans knew their exact canon ages at the time, but I'm pretty sure it's confirmed now that Roxas is 15 and Axel is in his 20s. When they first meet, Roxas is 14. It was strange, because this was (and still is, I'm sure) a popular ship in that fandom. I personally never really thought about their ages, either. Most of the fancontent I saw, and the ideas I thought about in my head, depicted them as being the same age. I think a lot of us thought of Roxas as being just slightly younger than Axel— perhaps, Roxas was 18 and Axel was 20, or something like that. But, I remember seeing a lot of artists that enjoyed them in a romantic sense suddenly stop talking about them or begin only exploring their relationship in a platonic, or even familial, manner. I didn't think too much of it until I saw a rise in previous Axel/Roxas shippers being openly irritated or upset when someone would talk about them with romantic or sexual implications. From there, it became very obvious to me that there were people in fandoms that thoroughly despised any talk of "dark" or "problematic" fictional content. As I was an avid Axel/Roxas fan, this made me feel guilty and disgusted whenever I so much as thought of them.
It's interesting to think about why I let some people change my mind, though. I think a part of me didn't truly care what sort of fiction people liked or how they enjoyed thinking about a canon. Hell, I would have been cancelled if I was a teenager today and still liked some of the things I liked back then. But, I was someone who turned to the internet in search of friends and acceptance, so I must have wanted to be more palatable to others. For a long time, I rejected any fanwork or fellow fan that provided the reminder: "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" or "I like (insert problematic thing here), you might not want to see this."
The funny thing is: I didn't. I'm not necessarily into shipping characters with the intention of exploring how toxic I can make them. I don't like angst most of the time, either. This isn't to say that you even automatically enjoy those kinds of works when you ship, say, an incest ship, but many anti-shipping fans seem to think the two aren't mutually exclusive. That you genuinely can't just think two brothers share a sane, sweet, romantic love for one another. I think this was part of the problem for me; newer fans aren't sure what these words mean anymore. Being someone who is anti-harrassment now automatically means you ship things that are "illegal" (always hilarious word choice to me, by the way), even when maybe you don't ship any characters at all. Or maybe you do. Not that it matters.
When I got into a new fandom as an adult— Hypnosis Mic, for those who are curious— I began to realize that I really didn't care about any of this. I entered a fandom filled with people who liked exploring dark or problematic themes and shipping whatever they wanted. It bothered me at first to see so many things I didn't enjoy myself, but I know everyone has their own tastes. And so, I filtered the AO3 tags accordingly. Eventually, I joined Discord servers and roleplay groups and spent joyous hours interacting with fellow fans. We would talk about the fanon, the canon, what we were writing, and anything and everything. It was a fun time... until I woke up one day to several people having left one of the roleplay groups. Some I truly liked, some I was very close to. All because they enjoyed ships the mods did not like. I then began to take notice that many antis would rather spend time being negative and judgeworthy, not just in the sense of fandom and fiction, but in general everyday life. It was exhausting.
(But, don't get me wrong. I think there are people on both sides that are a bit too extreme. I think it's a waste of time to argue about anything on the internet. Go read a book, make a new recipe, or spend time with your loved ones instead.)
Just when I thought I couldn't get another wake up call, something happened to my partner. We had just gotten together and were long distance. We would play an online game to spend time together, and it sometimes felt like the distance wasn't so long anymore. I knew he enjoyed a ship that was quite controversial in the fandom; people often argue over whether it can be considered an incest ship or not. Enough people believe it can be. My partner was trying to save up money for a surgery by selling miscellaneous merch. He made a post about what he was selling online, which was then spread around by antis attaching a screenshot of "proof" that he liked said ship. It felt surreal to see so many people not only imply that he didn't deserve money for surgery but also threaten him over fictional content.
It was after that event that I gradually let myself filter who I associated with on the internet. I was not okay surrounding myself with people who encourage their friends to indulge in this kind of behavior over something ultimately so trivial. I also became more open about something I quite frankly should never have changed my opinion on: I don't care.
And, this is a pretty good TL;DR for this answer: I don't care what you ship. I don't care how you ship it. And, I really don't care what you choose to draw or write and choose to read. If I see something I personally don't want to see, I know how to see myself out.
This turned into more of a narrative than I wanted it to be, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I especially find it hard to befriend people in fandom anymore due to all of this. I either see people who just simply are not okay with dark or problematic fictional content, which I can respect, or I see people who basically only talk about dark content. I'm a person who is in the middle: there are some dark things I enjoy, but honestly, a lot of it is not my cup of tea. Most of my interests also tend to lie therein what "antis" are more likely to enjoy (I find it really hard to make Hypmic friends anymore because my favorite ship is considered an "anti" ship over there). I fear that it's difficult to find other people who don't care that much anymore.
When I first discovered fannish communities, I very much understood the concept of "Ship and Let Ship." However, I was young and impressionable, so the rise of anti-shipping made me believe there were certain things in fiction that couldn't be justifiably enjoyable. There was a distinct ship I liked at the time that allows me to kind of pinpoint when it all started for me.
I remember being around thirteen or so and shipping Axel and Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Admittedly, I don't think fans knew their exact canon ages at the time, but I'm pretty sure it's confirmed now that Roxas is 15 and Axel is in his 20s. When they first meet, Roxas is 14. It was strange, because this was (and still is, I'm sure) a popular ship in that fandom. I personally never really thought about their ages, either. Most of the fancontent I saw, and the ideas I thought about in my head, depicted them as being the same age. I think a lot of us thought of Roxas as being just slightly younger than Axel— perhaps, Roxas was 18 and Axel was 20, or something like that. But, I remember seeing a lot of artists that enjoyed them in a romantic sense suddenly stop talking about them or begin only exploring their relationship in a platonic, or even familial, manner. I didn't think too much of it until I saw a rise in previous Axel/Roxas shippers being openly irritated or upset when someone would talk about them with romantic or sexual implications. From there, it became very obvious to me that there were people in fandoms that thoroughly despised any talk of "dark" or "problematic" fictional content. As I was an avid Axel/Roxas fan, this made me feel guilty and disgusted whenever I so much as thought of them.
It's interesting to think about why I let some people change my mind, though. I think a part of me didn't truly care what sort of fiction people liked or how they enjoyed thinking about a canon. Hell, I would have been cancelled if I was a teenager today and still liked some of the things I liked back then. But, I was someone who turned to the internet in search of friends and acceptance, so I must have wanted to be more palatable to others. For a long time, I rejected any fanwork or fellow fan that provided the reminder: "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" or "I like (insert problematic thing here), you might not want to see this."
The funny thing is: I didn't. I'm not necessarily into shipping characters with the intention of exploring how toxic I can make them. I don't like angst most of the time, either. This isn't to say that you even automatically enjoy those kinds of works when you ship, say, an incest ship, but many anti-shipping fans seem to think the two aren't mutually exclusive. That you genuinely can't just think two brothers share a sane, sweet, romantic love for one another. I think this was part of the problem for me; newer fans aren't sure what these words mean anymore. Being someone who is anti-harrassment now automatically means you ship things that are "illegal" (always hilarious word choice to me, by the way), even when maybe you don't ship any characters at all. Or maybe you do. Not that it matters.
When I got into a new fandom as an adult— Hypnosis Mic, for those who are curious— I began to realize that I really didn't care about any of this. I entered a fandom filled with people who liked exploring dark or problematic themes and shipping whatever they wanted. It bothered me at first to see so many things I didn't enjoy myself, but I know everyone has their own tastes. And so, I filtered the AO3 tags accordingly. Eventually, I joined Discord servers and roleplay groups and spent joyous hours interacting with fellow fans. We would talk about the fanon, the canon, what we were writing, and anything and everything. It was a fun time... until I woke up one day to several people having left one of the roleplay groups. Some I truly liked, some I was very close to. All because they enjoyed ships the mods did not like. I then began to take notice that many antis would rather spend time being negative and judgeworthy, not just in the sense of fandom and fiction, but in general everyday life. It was exhausting.
(But, don't get me wrong. I think there are people on both sides that are a bit too extreme. I think it's a waste of time to argue about anything on the internet. Go read a book, make a new recipe, or spend time with your loved ones instead.)
Just when I thought I couldn't get another wake up call, something happened to my partner. We had just gotten together and were long distance. We would play an online game to spend time together, and it sometimes felt like the distance wasn't so long anymore. I knew he enjoyed a ship that was quite controversial in the fandom; people often argue over whether it can be considered an incest ship or not. Enough people believe it can be. My partner was trying to save up money for a surgery by selling miscellaneous merch. He made a post about what he was selling online, which was then spread around by antis attaching a screenshot of "proof" that he liked said ship. It felt surreal to see so many people not only imply that he didn't deserve money for surgery but also threaten him over fictional content.
It was after that event that I gradually let myself filter who I associated with on the internet. I was not okay surrounding myself with people who encourage their friends to indulge in this kind of behavior over something ultimately so trivial. I also became more open about something I quite frankly should never have changed my opinion on: I don't care.
And, this is a pretty good TL;DR for this answer: I don't care what you ship. I don't care how you ship it. And, I really don't care what you choose to draw or write and choose to read. If I see something I personally don't want to see, I know how to see myself out.
This turned into more of a narrative than I wanted it to be, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I especially find it hard to befriend people in fandom anymore due to all of this. I either see people who just simply are not okay with dark or problematic fictional content, which I can respect, or I see people who basically only talk about dark content. I'm a person who is in the middle: there are some dark things I enjoy, but honestly, a lot of it is not my cup of tea. Most of my interests also tend to lie therein what "antis" are more likely to enjoy (I find it really hard to make Hypmic friends anymore because my favorite ship is considered an "anti" ship over there). I fear that it's difficult to find other people who don't care that much anymore.
