#its so verrrrry annoying how often i feel i have to dial back affection in my writting

[dittolicous]

I've been thinking a lot about the whole purity culture struggle thing re: incest/twincest because of submas and while I absolutely get the issue of slippery slope censorship + how dark topics are not inherently bad, I feel like a lot of the issues people have in incest ships isn't neccarily with the actual incest portion, but actually the constant denial & erasure of deep platonic love, yet all shipper focus on is censorship or antis or 'being too sensative' etc...

for example, every goddamn year around Christmas people roll out the 'incest folgers commercial' and every goddamn year I have to practice my breathing so as to not lose my shit because why the fuck can a little sister not love her damn brother and be elated to see him again? why does that mean she wants to fuck him? why are we okay with belittling familial relationships, demanding they only show their love in a certain way?

just because you don't have that kind of relationship with your sibling doesn't mean no one does.

this can also be seen in found families and/or adopted families, as well as nonconforming queer-platonic relationships. so why is it not something to be had and acknowledged in creations?

another example is the batfam (aka the Waynes & co). despite Bruce CANONICALLY adopting various robins/sidekicks, people constantly deny they're siblings, shipping them with each other. and even with Bruce.

because 'it's not by blood'. because oh, whats the platonic explanation for such-and-such?

because platonic love is only allowed to be shown in one way, and if they do otherwise, if they consider them just as important, well clearly they're in ~romantic~ love.

its.... really demoralizing to say that if you care about someone a little too much, that means you want to fuck them. that's how we build a society that is lonely, divided, and lacking in a loving community, because the only love we put credit in is single, romantic love.

the tier list of relationships isn't 'romantic partner > family > friends'. in a better world, they're all equal to a point and given proper attention to sustain a healthy relationship altogether. just like gender or autism, love is a spectrum that we shouldn't demand conformity of.

and, ok, how does this relate back to submas?

I think a lot of the b-----kshippers really don't understand just how upsetting and even triggering it can be to have them interact with non-shipping stuff.

like... how many people base their work on their own siblings, on things they've experienced in their family? so a person make a submas comic or fic based on a memory with their own siblings. they're happy, want to share it, and we'll of course creators want to see what others think of their creations!

until they see tags or comments about how 'there's no platonic explanation' or how 'in love' they are or, hell, even just the simple tag noting the ship.

on a piece created after a real-life experience with their sibling.

that can shift the entire vibe, not only of the work and characters, but also the creator. now they're having their family relationship twisted & denied. will they stop creating for these characters? will they pull away from their siblings so no one ever claims they love them in that way?

idk

I know that in my own writing, I constantly stop and question how close i make Ingo and Emmet, how their relationship may be viewed, despite it all being written 100% platonic. and it's agitating that I struggle with that, because it makes me feel so utterly gross that people look at what I make and deny that any other love is possible.

that also comes through in how I interact with creations of others, because I do not want to accidentally interact with something that twists platonic love languages or denies them. and i think people who ship such things demand understanding for their 'whys' without stopping to consider that maybe these 'antis' have reasons beyond 'ew incest taboo!'

what can we do? again, idk. censorship isnt..isn't... something im down with. but I think that those who do ship it need to be just as critical of how they interact with it and the fandom at large, because they impact our art just as much as we impact theirs.

there is a time and place for all creations.

don't act like disliking or wanting no interaction with them makes them pathetic or... whatever. you have your reason, we have ours. a trigger is still a trigger, even if the trauma it comes from is the menial yet constant societal pressure for romance to trump all other relationships.

so please look critically at how you interact with others too. don't view my stuff as bl------shipping. just... block me and move on. or whatever.