#advice from a dragmonster

[doesyourshipmakeyouabadperson]

hay, this is more me looking for advice, but how do i stop lying to my followers about being proship? there was one point where i drew fontcest (undretale), and i got an anti who harassed me in ask, and sent me a graphic description of their brother killing their hamster. ever since i've been very weary of saying anything, or confirming i ship something cuz i don't want to read something like that again. that, and in general, i don't ship things too hard/go all in with it, at least 1/?

2/? i don't think i do. granted, i draw a bunch of art and post it, but for me that's just general hyperfixation. i'm also ace, and while yes, most ships are romantic or sexual, mine tend to be platonic, or suggestive. and are not as clear cut as to if i ship the characters or not, because even for me, it's up in the air, and i don't know, i'm not good with knowing how i feel about things, i just express myself through art and hope it says all it needs to. i've come up with a sorta tagging

3/4 tagging system, with tags for platonic ships, joke ships, etc, but even then sometimes how i view the relationship changes. like right now, i'm drawing a child and adult character together, most of the time the dynamic i portray is paternal, but other times i want to make it romantic, either as a cope for my own truama, or just because it's been my brain rot for weeks and i want it out of my head to get back to the "clean stuff" and just not post for a while. idk, maybe this is

4/? is all overly complicated, and i've made a mess for myself, but i feel like at this point i've tricked ppl into following or liking my work. because ppl do like my work, and then they send ask like "your art's now tainted for me", but i've been this way since 2016, i've just been scared of getting disturbing irl hamster gore stories again. or i've been told "fuck you for normalizing this", "don't hc this character as a murder pedo", "this feels like grooming", "you know your audience"

5/5 like i don't, idk how old anyone is who follows me, idk if there's children looking at my content. and i can't just make a poll, or check the thousands of followers i have to see if they have their age in their bio, i can't fucking ask for an id before following, i just. idk, this was very long and ranty, i'm sorry, i just don't want to remake my blog again, maybe i'm just dumb and anxious, i don't know. srry this was long, hope you're doin ok (^.^)v

Hello, I delayed answering this for a while since, well, i'm definitely not usually the person people go to for advice so im not used to it lol ❤ /nm

Buuut i mean... I can see why youre upset. I dont think you should have to come out and say you're proship. Being an anti shouldn't be seen as the default. You should also be able to make whatever kind of content you want as long as you tag it properly. If your fanbase is making you feel like you can't, then that fanbase isn't your demographic.

There are actually a lot of decent people out here who are pro ship, and if you choose to be openly pro ship, yes you will get some hate mail, death threats, suibait etc and lose followers, but you will also gain a lot of fans who want to see your interesting takes on different interpersonal dynamics. (Also, the former group weren't really your fans in the first place if they'll be so godawful to you over some pixels on a screen)

And yes it is impossible to police thousands of followers and that quite literally is not supposed to be up to you. Minors on the internet are supposed to be monitored by their guardians. If you put a disclaimer/tag for your content and some dumbass clicks it anyway and doesn't like what they see, that's their fault not yours.

I've also noticed that the majority of people who are pro ship are prone to actually filtering content they don't like, while antis seem entitled and want the creator to do it for them. Its just a better fanbase experience all around in my experience.

As someone who helps run multiple pro ship accs, i understand the visibility can be scary. But I promise at the end of the day you'll feel a lot better for it. Hope this is at least semi-helpful/reassuring idk ❤