#but don't fill ship tags with misinformation and hate

[skumhuu]

Proshipper = you're against censorship and harassment over fiction & curate your experience on the internet to have a healthy distance from things that make you uncomfortable

Antishipper = you're okay and even encourage harassment towards "freaks" and "weirdos" society deems acceptable to hurt

[antimony-medusa]

So Why Do I Keep Talking About Don't Like: Don't Read and Block And Move On?

So there are ships in my fandom that don't do it for me. There are characters who I do not like, there are tropes that make me grimace, there are relationship dynamics that I can't see any way that they could be delivered and still bring me any joy (in fact they actively make my day unpleasant). When I fill out my Do Not Want for exchanges, I have a BUNCH of stuff on that list. There's stuff in every fandom that I'm part of that makes me go "Oh boy that's a no from me". And my reaction to that is to ignore it. Block terms if necessary, unfollow people, just— leave it along. Don't like: don't read.

But why? Because that's not necessarily the fandom norm. This fandom definitely has a tendancy to actively go after stuff that it doesn't like. Especially on twitter, but I've seen it here too, especially when it comes to ships people don't like, or character takes they think are problematic, or creators they hate. Sending messages to warn people about other blogs, searching up the thing you don't like to hate on the people who post it, screenshotting the thing you hate or just talking about how bad it is so you can all be angry together. And man I just think that's a really bad idea.

The reason I think going after the thing you think is bad is a bad idea falls under two major headings. The first is what it does to you. Some of the things I don't like are just because they rub me the wrong way, or I think it's rude. But a good portion of the stuff I don't like is because it taps directly into some pretty serious stuff. If this is bringing up actual major trauma in my life, things I'm afraid of or bad things that happened, I do understand the desire to focus on it and the eraticate it. It's the same thing that makes you keep biting down on a painful tooth or poking at a painful eye. The thing hurts, so I give my attention to it. But oh boy, giving extra space in my head to the thing that is painful to me is not something that I should be doing lightly, and especially not in my recreational space. I see people being like "I hate this/this is bad because it's related to my trauma", but I can't overstate how bad of an idea it is to go "okay, this is terrible and related to my trauma, therefore I am going to search it up and focus on it and talk about it and share it with everyone I know. I'm going to make this traumatic thing a feature of my life".

You're just giving extra space in your head to the thing that hurts you. Don't give it that. Block the tags, ignore it, go full "I won't see it and I won't respond to it".

And even when it's just that I think something is rude, there's posting a careful post about the rudeness that you think some people might not have thought of and washing your hands of it (which is fine but like the amount of times I've started typing it and then gone "wait, everyone who follows me knows this, I don't have to post this, leave it along"), and then there's making it a feature of your blog to talk about how rude something is— why are you giving a slice of your precious life to the rudeness. Why are you giving them the spotlight? Why are you choosing to celebrate the worst things possible, and not the good things?

And then the other thing where I'm like— you're gonna see stuff you don't like, it is the internet, when you do so I'm begging you to just leave it be and walk away— is what it does to other people.

So I spent ten years on twitter. And in that time I have seen my fair share of hate mobs. Some of them are attacking legitimately horrible people. Some of them are completely misinformed and/or operating off of pure hatred. Some of them are attacking people over the most trivial things. But the thing is that with amost all of them, once they really started rolling, the impact they had was disproportionate to what anyone who was talking in good faith wanted. Someone would start a careful conversation about racism, and then people would go "oh, something I hate", and twelve hours later it's just several thousand people screaming over the original people who just wanted something to be fixed, and instead the person who fucked up is scared off the internet and being doxxed. Sometimes the original problem got fixed, but over half the times the person just closed down because they were being screamed at and learned nothing, and that's pulling from the situations where there was an actual problem to be fixed, and not misinformation or hatred or like, liking the wrong ship motivating things. And like, getting mobbed can really fuck someone up. People have had to check themselves into hospital and worse over this.

There's participating in someone saying "hey, this is fucked up", and that's something we should all do when it comes to matters of bigotry, but it's real important to be able to tell when a conversation is no longer being productive and is just about calling for someone's blood. Saying "hey, this trope plays into sexist stereotypes and you should be aware of it" is a great conversation to have. Attacking and mocking people who wrote the wrong trope does not actually increase the store of justice in the world.

And that's for things that you have a rational, principled reason for thinking is bad. A bunch of the time you just don't like a thing! And that's fine! You're allowed to not like things! But starting the ball of hatred rolling because you don't like things— oh in that case you do not have the moral high ground. You're just a bully.

Like at a certain point you have to start looking at matters of harm reduction, and going "I hate this ship, is calling everyone who likes it filthy degenerates actually going to make the world better, or is it going to make them feel bad and then double down, and nothing good happens". Or is it going to get even worse? Is it going to lead to a mob that causes in real world harm— people's housing or jobs impacted, or mental health, or worse! Sometimes it gets worse!

Sometimes a ship or trope you don't like can feel like a personal attack, but like, in the vast majority of cases, you're having an emotional reaction to something you don't like, you're not actually being harassed. You can feel like it's a good idea and even justified to strike back at this thing that is so bad, but like, in actuality it's just some words on a page someone wrote. Stabbing back at it is biting down on the injured tooth again, it's making things worse. Your best bet is to not give it power. Block terms, block users, ask the mods to not match you with certain people or ships, unfollow people— walk away. Don't spend time on it. Ignore it and focus on something good.

Engaging with things you hate is bad for you, and it's bad for the people around you, and way too much of the time it's disproportionately bad for the people who like the thing you hate. So I'm all in on Block And Move On, and Don't Like: Don't Read.

[pirates-and-posies]

I have never been so flabbergasted by a post until now and I am not going to be as nice as the above folks. There is so much wrong with this kind of mentality and I am very much going to nitpick most of it.

You are not being forced to like any ships. What you are implying with this post is that people are wrong for even so much as using canon material to justify their ships or using it at all. That is, to put it simply, childish at best and straight up cruel to fandom culture overall.

"Leave canon alone" your blog is filled to the brim with both canon and fanon content, you saying that makes you hypocritical. Any form of headcanons or character usage take directly from canon or are inspired by canon because it is the blueprint in the first place. By asking the fandom to "leave canon alone" you are saying there shouldn't be a fandom at all.

"It pushes people away from the community" @/lietpolski said a lot of good points! Especially about that kind of behavior not happening in the recent years, since earlier fandom was definitely hostile about ship wars and it was an unwelcoming environment. You rarely see that anymore.

In fact, do you want to know what drives people away from Hetalia nowadays and keeps them fearful of ridicule? POSTS LIKE THIS. By publicly shaming people for even so much as using canon as inspiration you are barring them from the freedom of expression. By mentioning popular ships and deeming them as problematic you are demonizing the ships from any other interpretation and generalizing shippers.

I'm not even going to entertain what was said about UsUk and Spamano because those shippers have heard enough accusations as is, not every shipper enjoys the problematic aspects behind those ships and typically DO separate from canon just like you say they should. You would know that if you interacted with a majority of those shippers or even looked in the tags.. but instead, you have taken canon material and a hypothetical situation that may or may not have happened and assumed. I have not seen anybody say something so bold on main in YEARS about that kind of Spamano or UsUk content unless you count a small fraction of fics on AO3 and maybe a once in a blue moon post on here. So you're just turning gears at this point. I've seen more hate over Spamano and UsUk being "problematic" than I have actual problematic content from shippers. It's been that way since 2020 since people keep hopping on the hate train.

Funny enough, Spamano is indirectly canon just as much as SuFin or CzechSlovak (those ships aren't fully canon either and are more implied). Spain proposed to Romano and Romano said as long as he gets taken care of he's fine with it. Spain however took it as a rejection. So there's canon. I hope you follow it as much as you say others should.

Hetalia canon isn't some saint, either. I shouldn't even have to explain the implications that both Spain and France are sh/tacons. Himaruya isn't some idol, and neither are his works. By treating canon as some virtuous content you are ignoring a lot of his mistakes and a lot of his misinformation. Are you going to fight those strips? Or just accept them? I don't think you should fight him over it. (Sarcasm).

If you really had nothing against shippers or headcanons you wouldn't have made this post and worded it in such a way that implies people are doing wrong for using canon to create content they enjoy. You are a blog who recently became very popular with polls and fandom engagement. You are very aware of your reach and influence. By posting disheartening shit like this for everybody to see you are collectively affecting people.

We're in 2023. Why the fuck are posts like this still floating around and being used to shame and berate people for doing what they want. You've been in this fandom longer than I have, and yet you lack respect for other people's interpretations and what they do. If it is that much of a problem use your big adult block button. Mute tags. This is an absurd take I'd expect to see from a young teen on TikTok, not a full grown adult. Y'all have got to stop shaming people over HETALIA in 2023. You are pointing one finger at others while 4 more are pointing back at yourself.

Just voicing my opinion here

Something that has always bothered me is when people force their ships into cannon and make up things that are taken out of context or just never happened. I feel this was for all media in general. Not just hetalia but I’m using Hetalia as prime example because I’m a hetalia blog.

Now I’m not saying I don’t like when people ship that is fine and people can of course do whatever they want. I’m talking when they take a screen shot of 2 characters together on screen and say something like “omg they looked at each other they are so in love” like you don’t have to do that. Make up your own storylines leave cannon alone. I especially don’t like it when it’s two characters who clearly dislike each other and it is forced to ‘be so’ if you get what I’m saying. Like if someone says they hate that person maybe just understand that they hate them in cannon but it may not be so in your fannon. It might stem from being Ace but when I enter a fandom and there are already pre established ships that everyone must agree on or face wrath it’s just never good. I have only just started having a ship in hetalia after being in the fandom for almost 10 years and it’s something I have always hated. Not to mention it pushes people away from a community. It’s like we should enjoy the show at face value and then in our fan works do whatever we want. If the creator says ‘you’re reading too much into it it’s just not there.’ then just accept that.

Hetalia for example the only confirmed relationships we have are Sweden & Finland, Austria & Hungary and Czech and Slovakia. Everything other than that is just searching for things that are not there. Like you can say Germany and Italy are in love all you want. But it does not change that in cannon they are just friends. How do I know this? Because the creator said so. But it doesn’t change we can make our own fan works to make it that way. We should leave his material alone there.

Another one I truly cannot stand and have never understood and will never understand and just don’t want to is when people use the source to justify ships like America and England or Spain and Romano. Like if we use the source what we have are Spain and England Raising them from little babies. Like that just gives me the ick and major grooming vibes. I got nothing against these ships in practice but once you start screenshooting a baby America hugging England and saying they are in love. I do not like that. Same with Romano when he literally pisses the bed and runs to ask Spain for help and people say that they’re in love it’s just yucky disgusting. Like how about it’s a little boy who just pissed the bed and we leave it right there. And just do whatever you want outside of cannon but when you use these tools to push your narrative it’s not good like at all. But I’m just saying leave cannon be. We don’t have to search for things in the source material. I personally respect Himas work and when he says “no sorry they’re only friends” I don’t think you can fight him on that. He created it he knows what he’s decided for the characters. But if you want to make your own fictions on the side the sky is of course the limit.

I hope this came across how I wanted it. Again I have nothing against head cannons or shipping in general.