#I know other people ship it

[jeraliey]

This is one of my favorite relationships in fiction. -Jack's character is defined significantly by the loss of his son at a young age. -Daniel also lost his parents at a young age.

The two of them fall very solidly into a respectful friendship that has VERY strong father-son overtones. You can see it whenever they get in a disagreement. Jack's exasperation-flavor is very annoyed-dad. Daniel's exasperation-flavor is very dad-why-won't-you-listen-to-me.

They mutually step into the role that the other needs filled, without discussion or acknowledgement. They ALWAYS have each other's backs, even when they're fighting. Their love for each other is unconditional.

They both get a second chance at the relationship type that was lost to them.

(And, since Daniel is a linguist, names are very important. So it doesn't escape me that HIS name breaks down to Daniel, Jack's-son.)

[eatingsomegreeneggos]

My uh- My hand slipped 🌟

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.

i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.

i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.

nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.

the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.

what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.

that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.

but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.

i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.

the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.

if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.

even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.

children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.

which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.

individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.

if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.

[theonlymadmanonmars]

Hi hello hi. As an AroAce individual in a QPR who has no desire for a romantic or sexual relationship, I think shipping Alastor in QPRs is so so fun and people should do it more. I also think it works for a good amount if not all of the ships I've seen him in.

Alastor and Rosie: Hell yeah. They're already great friends and every interaction we've seen between them has been pure and adorable. Rosie Gently guiding Alastor through his identity because he isn't exactly up with the slang. Them going out for tea and human flesh Sunday afternoons. Them giving each other forehead kisses and holding hands platonically.

Alastor and Angle dust: Mhmm. Angle not really wanting Sex or romance after all he's been through. Angle respecting Alastor's identity and not pushing for anything more than friendship. Alastor not really liking Angle at first because of their differences, But tolerating him regardles. Alastor explaining to Angle that Romantic relationships don't have to involve Sex (I'm an Asexual Angle truther.) Angle offering Alastor a hug that Alastor reluctantly accepts. Them cuddling at night with a pinky Promise of nothing more.

Alastor and Vox: Go ahead. A fic about Alastor trying to Navigate exactly how he feels about Vox, Because when he died the term AroAce didn't exist, so he thinks it's romantic attraction, Maybe they kiss and Alastor is like "Ha! No!" Maybe that's why they had their falling out? Who knows.

Alastor and Lucifer: So So SO much Yes. (This is my personal favorite) The two of them hating each other, but putting up for each other for Charlie's sake. Slowly growing to actually tolerate and maybe even like being around the other. Exchanging snarky remarks in a more playful way. Alastor finding Lucifer sitting in a pile of ducks and despair and offering his hand to help him up and take him to the hotel. Never letting go of his hand. Fuck Enemies to Friends to Lovers I want an Enemies to Friends to Qpr arc goddamnit.

I do think it's okay to ship Alastor even outside of QPR's, BUT. If you do, don't just ignore Alastor's identity. AroAce people get far less representation than the rest of the LGBTQ+ community. I can think of one other canon Character off the top of my head. So it's not okay to erase the little rep we do get. In the end I think it's important to listen to what AroAce people have to say on the matter, it is our representation after all.

[copepodkisser5000]

I'm just interested to see who's popular! >:3 (not to be taken seriously, it's only hypothetical)

[marlynnofmany]

It’s back!

If you missed it the first time around, the “human are weird” anthology is back for a second printing. (There’s even a new story included: “Black Box” by Dara Brophy.)

Here’s the blurb:

In science fiction, humans are usually boring compared to other races: small, weak, with no claws or tentacles, and no special abilities to speak of. But what if we were the impressive ones, the unsettling ones, the ones talked about by all the other aliens? What if we're weird?

If you’d like a collection of excellent stories about humans inspiring awe, fear, and utter confusion, it’s available everywhere books are sold!

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[spoiledskullz]

Messy ref of Whimsy's younger designs so I could add them to art fight LOL

[ruporas]

i killed. i murdered. i'm nothing like these sleepy people here… nevertheless, you can actually be grateful? bastard… i’m saying… thank you. because you spilled blood, you saved all of these people’s lives. i couldn’t have done it without you. (ID in alt)

[abyssalcryptid]

Why Rolan isn't recruitable

[ihavesomejays]

in vino veritas

funny thing i actually concepted this doodle while i was biking home one day and was like "oh shit what if the mice piss ship drunk on a couch" and procrastinated on drawing it for a week before the brainworms got too strong and i sat down and drew it in three hours. anyways enjoy my narc!ratio x skeeve!aventurine agenda

closeup + matching pfps under keep reading

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[k-kroomie]

Ganke holding Miles Jordan's: Why can't I wear them again?

Miles snatching the Jordan's: Cuz I wanna wear my shoes now give em here.

Hobie swings through the window: Hey luv thought I'd borrow ya shoes, yea?

Miles gives Hobie his Jordan's with no hesitations: Yea, I wasn't gonna wear them anyways.

Ganke 🧍: OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for voting in the poll to decide who was going to be the leader of the band! It turned out to be such a close race!

[zeroducks-2]

Fandom these days is wild.

I remember how Jaydick used to be the go to vanilla, childhood-crush-to-lovers soft ship for young, first time shippers that wanted something simple and completely unproblematic.

Now going by the general consensus if you ship Jaydick you're a fucking freak of nature and you should repent or burn in hell.

[mellarked-katnisseverdeen]

Will never, ever get over the Toasting exists. Collins literally created a wedding ceremony based on bread and fire...the literal two things her main character and her love interest are both tied to symbolically. Like she literally connected them to love and marriage and she could not be more explict with it if she tried.

Make no mistake as insane as we are about Everlark, the captain here will always be Collins herself.