#anti-shippers

[warlordgab]

Analysis of shipping: One Piece anti-romance arguments

Years before Oda was asked to write Strong World, years before the Summit War saga, even years before many of us joined the fandom, a significant portion of fans shared an anti-romance sentiment.

This perspective was so widespread that it seemed as if the One Piece community in general was convinced no pairing would ever become canon. Sure, there were some exceptions: 

Some people dispalyed indifference toward the anti-romance trend, but also towards the emotional narrative of the story. So, they would likely support shallow premises anyway

Others shipped characters by relying on inter-series comparisons that no longer hold up nowadays. (it didn't take long for perceptive individuals to find out how unlikely those "theories" truly were)

Some of these people were editors on other wiki sites, that pointed out how filler provided shipping fuel for stuff that never gets actual development in the manga. And yet, the same editors also promoted a non-existent "sexual tension" as many shallow shippers would, but I digress.

Still, since that era, a lot of arguments had been made for this position regarding romantic love; some were forgotten, and some stuck but in pretty unexpected ways.

So, here we’re going to consider those arguments, how bad they aged, and what possibly led to the anti-romance idea losing its initially strong foothold in the fandom.

The anti-romance idea through time

Firts, let us consider that one of the most important elements that helped the anti-romance idea to grow was how Oda talked about the subject. When the mangaka was asked about if someone from strawhats (except Sanji) was in love, he replied in a SBS they were all "in love with adventure."

While that was a pretty creative answer, it seems some readers weren't satisfied with Oda’s reply. But, it wasn’t like fans couldn’t agree that the statement was technically a correct.

Not to mention that fans back then didn’t have the Hancock character westerners simp so hard for. Instead, they had Alvida as the first woman calling dibs on Luffy...

... But, this was easy to dismiss given how they never became allies or friends.

Still, that doesn’t mean the anti-romance idea didn’t have its weak spots. In fact, Oda gave us an interesting “insight” on one scene, that LuNa fans loved, in the SBS Volume 32:

This was long before Summit War saga. It's interesting how the only girl that managed to make Luffy a “little horny" was Nami.

It’s true that the Oda’s answer would later change to what basically amounts to “bad influence,” when he was confroted with the fact Hancock’s beauty couldn’t get the same response from Luffy. But, the fact, still remains that it was Luffy’s response, unless people want to argue Luffy’s companions have a greater influence on his libido than Hancock’s beauty ever could. Doesn’t sound so good when you think about it, does it?

Of course, a lot of perceptive readers and even some anti-shippers know that being as “horny” as a “healthy boy” is not something inherently romantic. So, even if this moment left a crack on the anti-romance argument by displaying Luffy’s “healthy” reponse to Nami’s sex appeal, that still wasn’t enough to debunk it.

Needless to say, some anti-shippers may claim being “horny” is a must for a relationship to grow, but that myopic perspective completely disregards how emotional connections can develop by sharing meaningful moments instead of lusting after a potential partner. 

Moving on, Oda’s vagueness back then just encouraged readers to keep discussing the subject of potential romance by relying on the manga material they had so far. Still, the anti-romance crowd would shortly get another argument, when Oda stated the following:

“One Piece is basically a shonen manga, manga for boys, so romance isn’t depcited“

Ironically, this is where the another crack in the anti-romance idea starts to show. As many chapters later, we got something subtle about Usopp and Kaya at the end of the Ennies Lobby arc.

But, the fact the story focused more on its plot, themes, and other characters, probably made it easier for everyone to miss how this relationship could contradict the 'no romance depcited' argument.

Later, the fandom got introduced to Boa Hancock. While Alvida’s interest in Luffy got scratched as “not romantic enough,” Hancock’s infatuation for the hero couldn’t be ignored due to how over-the-top it was. But, it still wasn’t enough, why?

Because the relationship between Luffy and Hancock never develops into something deep or truly impactful, as Hancock’s crush remains as one-sided as it can get.

Luffy’s rejection to Hancock’s proposal just made it a lot easier for the anti-romance argument to stay strong despite the few cracks it had at that time.

Specially, when you factor context. Luffy’s reply was framed as a negative response to Hancock’s promotion of herself as a potential wife. Add Luffy’s personality to this setup, and no matter how you try to put it, he sunk that ship before it had a chance to sail.

Debunking the “no romance” myth?

So far, we’ve seen things that could a best put a dent on the anti-romance argument. But, what actually destroyed this myth?

We have to flashforward to the Dressrosa arc. Two pairings with tragic backstories were introduced: Kyros and Scarlett & Señor Pink and Russian

Kyros' relationship Scarlett story serves as part of the compelling drama of his background. And we can tell how Pink’s relationship with Russian made his character and current state and struggle emotionally impactful.

This obviously destroyed the argument of “no romance in One Piece” and contradicts Oda’s own “romance isn’t depcited”

It became easy to see that romantic love was not only playing a part in the story, but it was doing so in a way that didn’t negatively impact the author’s work. Instead, Oda used romantic love to enhance both character and story.

And this wasn’t going to be the last time, as One Piece Film: Gold gaves us something we’re about to consider in the following section, as Tesoro and Stella were depicted as lovers.

However, the greatest blow to this argument was delivered by something that not many people saw coming: SanPu's tragic love story

We already know that Pudding’s initial affection was just an act to fool Sanji and carry out Big Mom’s plot against the Vinsmoke family. But, as soon as she has her first genuine moment with Sanji, she develops actual feelings for him as the chef shattered the image she had of her own self for years. 

Needless to say, due to their respective crews being enemies, this relationship couldn’t become official, as Pudding gives Sanji a pretty romantic farewell... before removing it from his memory.

Here, romantic love plays a important role in the emotional narrative of the final scenes.

I could mention Kinemon and O-Tsuru, as well as Oden and Toki, but I think that would be overkill at this point.

Still, while the “no romance” myth got destroyed, the anti-shippers didn’t give up, those who saw how this approach became ineffective in promoting anti-romance just made their arguments undergo a microevolution. And this is where we get to the final stage:

“They’re in love... with adventure”

Given that the statment of “romance isn’t depcited” became completely useless, one would think that’s the end. But, instead of trying to encompass the entirety of One Piece, the idea came back to its origin.

All strawhats are “in love with adventure,” so accordig to self-aware anti-shippers, there will be no romantic relationships between members of the strawhat crew, because adventure is their only “love.” But, as the philosopher George Santayana once said: 

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

And even the old version of this argument started to shows some cracks at the Zou arc:

Nami was both happy and eager to receive Luffy and the rest, and as pointed out by perceptive readers, she could've ran to someone else, like Zoro, something some westerners in high positions clearly wanted, but I digress.

Instead, she went straight to Luffy and only then she let out how she felt about their current predicament with Sanji...

...people try to downplay it by saying the moment was all about the chef. But, the thing is, not only she could’ve ran to someone else's arms, she ran straight to Luffy, but also poured her heart out only when she was with him.

This scene was truly remarkable as it was not only impactful, but also consistent with previous developments between Luffy and Nami as seen in Oda's works.

As we already already analyzed multiple times in this blog, this matches the trend of Nami seeking (and finding) hope, comfort, and strength in Luffy.

While this isn't something explicitly romantic, this consistent bonding could likely lead to a potential growth and an eventual relationship upgrade if the author keeps working on it.

After Dressrosa damaged the credibility of their arguments, and the possibility of more development from characters so important to the story, anti-shippers had seen better days. But, that wasn’t the only thing that left another crack on the last anti-romance argument.

Let’s talk about One Piece Film: Gold

At this point, a lot of LuNa fans, and many people who read my post already how Oda changed the climax of One Piece Film: Gold, and his work speaks for itself...

...as explained in the special Volume 777, Tesoro was in a romantic relationship with a slave: Stella. Their romance ended up in tragedy when he failed to save her from getting bought by a noble.

If we see the climax of the movie, as well as Oda’s draft of the scene, we can see that the intent was for Luffy’s situation with Tesoro holding Nami in his grasp to mirror Tesoro’s own tragedy back when he lost Stella. And thus Oda drew a parallel between Luffy/Nami, and a romantic pair: Tesoro/Stella.

However, many people would find such things too subtle or simply insufficient. But, even if we ignore emotional narrative and trends, the real weak spot in this “no romance in the crew” argument, is the basis itself: “They’re in love with adventure”

This isn’t only a clever response, and a way to avoid the subjet. It is a reminder of what One Piece is at its very core. 

You probably don’t hear this one pretty often, but One Piece story is “romance.” In fact, here are some definitions that show how that statement is far more accurate than more people would imagine:

Romance:

“A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful”

“A long fictitious tale of heroes and extraordinary or mysterious events, usually set in a distant time or place”

“A narrative in verse or prose, written in a vernacular language in the Middle Ages, dealing with strange and exciting adventures of chivalrous heroes”

– thefreedictionary.com, 2016

“A prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious”

–  Merriam Webster, 2016

Romantic:

“Marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized”

“Having an inclination for romance: responsive to the appeal of what is idealized, heroic, or adventurous”

–  Merriam Webster, 2016

Remember what’s the title of the first chapter of the manga? “Romance Dawn.”

The claim of the strawhats being in love with adventure fits the definition of “romance” in the framework of the series. But, does this concept exclude romantic love?

No, this narrative style can easily include romantic love if the author wishes to. In fact, as far as we seen, One Piece featured this kind of relationships multple times in the story.

So, trying to uphold this anti-romance phylosophy is ultimately pointless as the only argument left is not enough anymore, and the story already debunks most, if not all of the arguments.

Shippers take the anti-romance approach?

While anti-shippers don’t have a solid ground to stand on, some of their arguments are still used nowadays. Ironically, they’re used by shippers in an attempt to discredit rival pairings

This why the “no romance in the crew” lives on. More often than not, shallow shippers don’t even try to quote the author, instead they repeat what they hear or read in YouTube or Reddit. 

This applies to many newcomers that lack the time and patience to stomach a long-running series, as well as people who let their bias for certain characters dicatate their view on the story, something akin to the mindset that feeds the endless squabble of Zoro Vs. Sanji.

Still. the point is that the anti-romance arguments are now the greatest assets for pretty loud individuals to wage shipping wars out of ignorance and hate.

However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any active anti-shippers using these arguments. It’s just that LuNa seem to be their favorite target

But, that leads to the question: Why LuNa? Why are pairings like LuHan, SaNa or ZoNa seemingly getting ignored by anti-shippers for the most part?

Well, you guys probably realize I haven’t mentioned Sanji at all in the “Debunking” section. That’s wasn’t something incidental

By the time, the community rebuffed the idea of romantic love in the series, Sanji with all his corny flirting and pervy gags never made a dent in the anti-romance arguments because most people knew back then that being horny is not something romantic. Even when Hancock appeared, fans knew a well-written pairing could only happen if the feelings between the characters become mutual.

So, what makes Luna the favorite target of these people? What makes the pairing stand out to anti-shippers?

Is it because their consistent bonding is the perfect setup for a relationship upgrade? Is it because their moments are far more meaningful and impactful from a narrative standpoint? Or is it because the alternatives to LuNa lack the potential to grow? I’m not sure about it

Still, those who had seen all of this, know better. At this point, anti-romance arguments mean little to nothing in the story. And Oda will keep writing characters and human relationships regardless of what fans do or say.

So, instead of going around making noise about how “there shouldn’t be a romantic relationship in the crew” or trying to start senseless war between fandoms, we should enjoy the ride and see what Oda has in store for us in the final saga.

[dead-dove-dolly]

Anti-Shippers being shitty part 2: Electric Boogaloo

So, my first Anti-Shippers being Pieces of Shit is getting too laggy to add anything onto, so here we go again.

First post can be found here!

"I'd rather hurt a real child than look at fictional characters"

A 25 year old caught trying to groom a 12 year old and having inappropriate conversations with said minor, now trying to send other people to harass said minor.

"I expect everyone to respect my boundaries, but it's okay for me to break other peoples boundaries and leave hate comments because I don't like them uwu"

Calling for violence towards innocent people!

And well, this is disgusting enough behavior in itself.

[unpopularfanopinion]

More random musings but I’m starting to think the whole “fiction affects reality” is one big con game to prevent people from looking deeper and seeing/solving the real systemic and institutional issues.

Like for example the whole Jaws Effect myth where a 40+ year old movie is blamed for the death of millions of sharks a year. Spoken of so matter of factly and with the implication that before Jaws people had no thoughts or fear of sharks before then, and as if sharks weren’t hunted by the millions before Jaws was even a glimmer of an idea in the author’s head(let alone greenlit to become a movie)

People who so confidently cite “The Jaws Effect” as proof that “fiction impacts reality” never seem to ever be aware of real life events that inspired Jaws and some of it’s characters

 https://www.history.com/news/the-real-life-jaws-that-terrorized-the-jersey-shore  (most cited inspiration)

https://historydaily.org/black-december-sharks-attacks-bomb-ocean(I suspect these attacks might also have been an influence on the story)

They’re not aware of various books, news stories, and documentaries that all paint sharks as vicious predators(the term shark infested waters was around long before Jaws came around)

https://www.amazon.com/Shark-Attack-Victor-Coppleson/dp/0207153507 (first published in 1958, a supposedly scientific book that popularized the rogue shark myth central to Jaws, and convinced people to change the term of shark accident to shark attack)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBWW7ecdzw&t=181s The shark menace

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/150-years/sd-me-150-years-june-15-htmlstory.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLd359WJZQ4 Tv spot for the non-fiction documentary Blue Water, White Death9also titled Man-eater)

Even moving away from from non-fiction creating a aura of fear and suspscion around sharks there were killer shark featured in movies before Jaws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzxeYrmyr7k 1950 movie called Killer Shark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyDGRZE6Jp0 1965 James Ball scene feature a shark pool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEvib3iJWw (movie has multiple titles of Shark!, Caine, and Man-eater) released 1969 and a piece of gruesome trivia a stuntman was killed by a shark during the making of this movie.

So yeah people did not have a very good opinion of sharks before Jaws was created. The real kicker is that none of those things I listed are why sharks are hunted as much as they are.  Nope that’s all down to good old human greed and capitalism.

Shark and ray fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry https://fishgame.com/2021/09/shark-ray-meat-a-2-6-billion-trade/

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/46967/100-million-dead-sharks-its-not-all-about-shark-fin-soup/ The most commonly cited reason for shark fishing in shark fin soup, but shark meat in general is sold and eaten. Cartliage from sharks is used in various supplement, and squalane(made from oil in the shark liver is used in cosmetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squalane) Shark meat has even been found in pet food https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/endangered-shark-meat-might-be-hiding-in-your-pets-food-180979682/

Blaming Jaws for the death of millions of sharks every year is just a lazy way to avoid taking a long hard look at their own action/purchases and never need to question if they might possibly be fueling the demand for dead sharks.

But do the people who quote the Jaws effect as their proof and justification of “fiction effects reality” know or care about any of that. No of course not. Do they care probably not. Because at the end of the day “Fiction impacts Reality” is the same as the claim of “pro-life” from republicans. It’s a piece of leverage that they use to justify being able to tell you what to do. It’s a club to beat you over the head with. Because antis are really just the conservatives of fandom, everything they say and do is about them having power and no accountability. 

[turnipinternetcomics]

Pro-shippers

[samble-moved]

post itself

false flags

trans/adjacent tags

accessibility features

tumblr live post (thanks for the link, @problemnyatic)

flashing / strobing / lights

unblockable flashing ad

buying ad free

staff @/macmanx guilt trip

list of staff + more issues

[tiny-space-robot]

I´ve lately seen many young peeps in fandom spaces, worrying about openly shipping their ships because of what antis might do

so let me tell you something:

antis are huge losers who are gonna find something to hate you for no matter what you do

even if you ship EXACTLY what they ship, theyre gonna yell at you for "not shipping it right"

so, my piece of advice: just do whatever you want and tear up the house! antis are gonna hate no matter what, so ignore them and find some good companions by being yourself

[devilith]

hey do you guys remember when like. brother/brother and sister/sister and brother/sister ships werent just normal, they were really common? parent/child ships werent as widespread as sibling ships but you still saw both of them a lot. like you used to see incest ships all the fucking time.

like you couldnt go five minutes on this hellsite without scrolling past wincest or thorki or any number of the dozens of popular hp incest ships. do people not remember the onecest takeover? the onecest dynasty? what about elsanna? what about all the fontcest that came out of the undertale fandom? mha fans loved shipping the entire todoroki family together. what about game of thrones just in general? the hitachiin twincest? literally everyone from osomatsu-san? usuk and all the other incest ships from hetalia? fucking HOMESTUCK?

it used to be that you couldnt throw a rock in ANY fandom without hitting a whole bunch of super popular incest ships. it was everywhere. it was NORMAL. because people didnt care about what anyone else liked in fiction, because everyone knew the difference between fantasy and reality. and its not like incest hasnt been one of the most popular porn categories all over the world for years.

now though, with the huge resurgence of evangelical puritanism in western fandom and the massive influx of alt-right christofascist antishippers, nothing is allowed to just be fiction any more. braindead little conservative assholes and bigots will scream and shit themselves over people shipping the elric brothers because fandom isnt allowed to be fun any more. antis will see someone talking about sebaciel and start spewing their disgusting rhetoric at everyone and being TERFS and wannabe cops until nobody wants to participate in fandom any more.

fandoms are dying and its antis fault

[vivi-ships]

Do y'all remember when this was a normal thing to see all over the place? Because I do. I remember seeing and posting this image everywhere when I was like 12-15.

[evans-kinard]

People have the right to love and/or hate whatever ship, character, storyline, etc they want, but they also need to know where to draw the line between fiction and reality.

Tommy Kinard is a fictional character. You can hate him as much as you want and absolutely loathe Bucktommy with your entire being.

But Lou Ferrigno Jr is a real person. Bullying him online, editing him out of cast photos, speculating that Oliver/the entire cast actually hate him based off of a 3 minute interview, criticizing his physical appearance, calling him names, etc IS. NOT. OKAY. He’s a real person with real feeling who more than likely sees your comments about him as a person and that can really mess with someone. It doesn’t matter if his character is “in the way” of your ship, he’s a real human being who has done nothing to warrant this kind of behavior.

Stop harassing actors just because you can’t stand the thought of your two favorite fictional people not kiss on-screen.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Zutara, romance novels, and the female gaze

Okay so I’ve been thinking about the female gaze a LOT so I checked out a subreddit about romance novels, despite never having read one. I came across this meme (which was initially a Tumblr post and then got posted to Instagram and then to Reddit and I’m now bringing back to Tumblr — Internet telephone, pls never change):

And…what is The Southern Raiders, if not a platonic grovel? Katara’s pain is central to the episode. It’s central to Zuko. Zuko asks Katara what he can do to make up for his betrayal; she demands the impossible. He reads between the lines, cockblocks her brother to get the necessary information, and then waits outside her door overnight (which he also did for Iroh, the one person we know for sure he loves). He basically makes himself a receptacle for her rage, and he holds space for her by coming with her on her revenge quest and carrying their bags and not saying a damn thing about what she should and should not do beyond like…asking her to rest. And obviously the grovel works! She forgives him and then they’re thick as thieves, bantering and fighting and saving each other’s lives, etc.

On a different note, I’ve been told that enemies to lovers is one of the biggest tropes in romance novels, similar to YA lit and fanfic. Here’s something else I found in the romance novel discourse:

And…yeah. In TSR, Katara really does show Zuko her worst self, because she doesn’t feel the need to perform for him. She doesn’t feel the need to perform moral perfection OR cold blooded vengeance. She bloodbends in front of him and he just goes with it. She doesn’t kill Yon Rha and he just goes with it. He doesn’t treat her any differently afterwards. Maybe they talk about it off screen, but I kind of like the idea that they don’t, because Katara doesn’t need to explain anything. And it’s so interesting, because some people in the ATLA fandom have a totally different read on TSR. They think Zuko was encouraging Katara to get revenge (by what, keeping his mouth shut?), and that Aang is the one who acts as her moral compass. I believe that either Bryan or Mike said in the DVD commentary that Aang is the angel on her shoulder the entire time. And this interpretation does make sense if you see it from the male gaze, where Katara as an object of affection is acting in an angry, irrational, threatening way. But if you see it from the female gaze, you recognize that actually it’s probably the most emotionally taxing experience Katara has to go through, and she doesn’t owe it to be nice or perfect to anybody. Katara’s formative trauma literally comes to a head, and she has to make a decision — no, a discovery — about who she is in relation to the tragedy that defines her life and even her identity (as a waterbender, as a parentified child who becomes the mom friend, as a genocide victim), and she’s accompanied by someone who trusts her judgement and validates her feelings.

I’m not saying TSR is explicitly romantically coded, but when it conforms so well to romance novel tropes…is it any wonder that so many people thought “yes this is her man?” And then he takes lightning in the heart for her and reaches for her when he’s literally dying, I will never be normal about that either

[iamnmbr3]

JK Rowling: you can tell harry is in love with ginny bc in book 6 he has a momentary fantasy where he imagines her weeping over his mangled body

Also JK Rowling: anyway here's a scene in the same book where harry does almost exactly that when he thinks draco is dying

[selfship-confession-box]

for a while, i ran two selfship imagines blogs: one strictly against proship and one that caters to proship to see how the two communities actually treat each other. I posted similar imagines on both blogs, none specifying the f/o's age, gender, etc, and nothing nsfw.

the proship blog's notifications were disgusting. people talking about the things they want to do to underaged characters, people fantasizing about feral animals, and one guy who pretended the imagines were about his irl sister he wanted to bang. I received the occasional "you need help" anon, but no threats or anything like that.

the no-proship blog? I received constant threats from the proship side. death threats. rape threats. one person made it a point to describe how he would "ruin" me every single day. another tried to doxx me (but ended up sending the address of a TJ Maxx halfway across the country). people talking about how I was "censoring the internet" and I need to "try reading some noncon to lighten up".

both blogs were deleted after a month, and I will never trust a proship person saying they're the ones being treated badly.

Dear god

[clownfessionsofficial]

"DNI if you ship ILLEGAL ships!!!!!"

Tell me you suck cop dick without telling me you suck cop dick

[allaboutalf]

Nothing proves the majority of toxic shippers are extremely young than their reactions to the daddy issues flirting/joke.

Not only is the queerphobia in the talk of vomiting and wishing characters are killed off cause they’re flirting with their adult partner pretty gross, but perhaps it’s a sign they shouldn’t be watching a show about adults, made for adults, with adult actors and writers if they’re uncomfortable with adult themes. This isn’t Heartbreak High.

Or maybe it shows that those who aren’t that young are going to pull out faux horror over anything the other ship does that they’d be loving if it were their ship.

Again, this is a show for adults about characters in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Can the childish, puritan takes with no understanding or experience with adult relationships, especially queer relationships, please be left in the trash where they belong?

[starliteonearth]

You know Ghoulcy has become a very serious threat when antis are literally forgetting that their ship IS the main cannon ship. Because what do you mean you'll cry if Vaultknight doesn't become real?? They ARE real. Did we somehow slip into an alternate reality where they aren't canon? Like please be so serious right now 😭😭

[tiny-space-robot]

literally all I want is just to have fun with fiction and for others to have fun as well

and shipping is fun!

shipping age gaps is fun

shipping incest is fun

shipping humans with non humans is fun

shipping people with objects is fun

it's all so much fun!

and it's okay to have fun with it! all those ships are valid and good!

if a ship is putting a smile on your face, ship it! ship it unapologetically and wholeheartedly! it's fun! ☺️