marysuewhipple:

marysuewhipple:

Like, if you genuinely believe that certain kinds of fictional relationships are inherently unethical to ships, then…okay. You’re allowed to think that. (Frankly, I have mixed thoughts about certain kinds of fan content too, which I’m still ironing out.)

But. 

That doesn’t change the fact that even the gnarliest most fucked up ship in the world is still fictional, and any harm done by people shipping it is completely indirect. Unless someone is actively shoving their weird weecest noncon hentai or whatever into your submission box forcing you to look at it, they as people haven’t actually done anything to directly harm anyone. No action was taken to intentionally hurt any actual living, breathing human beings. Whether the work itself, independent of the artist, is harmful is the question on the table.    

And you’re totally allowed to think that it is. And you’re allowed to say “this ship is harmful and here’s why.” And you’re allowed to dislike the people who made the art, to distrust them, to want to avoid them. To block them and everyone they talk to, if you want to. 

You’re not entitled to harass them. You’re not entitled to accuse them of committing actual crimes against real people with no evidence. You’re not entitled to lie about them. You’re not entitled to send death threats and rape threats and suicide bait to them. 

Once you do that, you’ve already lost the moral high ground, because all of that constitutes direct harm. There’s no question of whether it’s harmful. It’s intended to be. These are actions taken with the intent to hurt a real-life living breathing human being. And that’s not okay. 

Art will never be as good at hurting people than people are at hurting each other. Reality will always affect reality a hundred times more powerfully than fiction can. Please bear that in mind. 

I almost never reblog my own posts like this unless it’s to respond to someone or add something else, but I’m reblogging this one because…like this really is the bottom line for me. The most problematic piece of art in the world is still not as morally wrong as intentionally and maliciously trying to hurt a real life human being. 

And that’s not the climate of criticism we have right now, that principle is not understood or even entertained. And unless and until it is, I refuse to participate in media criticism. This includes fandom criticism, obviously, but probably also includes criticism of canon media. I’m done. 

Because right now, it doesn’t matter how long I scream “THIS THING IS NOT INHERENTLY HARMFUL!” As long as we’re in a climate where it’s okay to mistreat people if they create art that IS inherently harmful, we are going to have people exploit that climate and label anything they want as inherently harmful so that they can mistreat people with impunity. 

And I’m done. I’m done with that. I’m out.