general techniques to avoid gross shipping of your characters

reyohnaka:

strangeauthor:

reyohnaka:

fission-mailure:

sangled:

1. have most characters be non-minors, around the same age range. this is mostly to minimize underage nonsense.
2. while family relationships are important, save them as background elements, explored every now and then. focus mainly on the bonds of non-related characters and how their different backgrounds play off each other.
3. limit the overly edgy tone, where pain and suffering are near-romanticized. try to emphasize wholesomeness, health, and the various ways characters can have good relationships despite their differences. a lot of nintendo franchises are good examples.
4. avoid creating significant characters who are utterly irredeemable with harmful ethics. (for me personally, i limit elements such as abuse and discrimination for background conflicts while presenting more interesting, morally gray arguments, where either side is right/flawed) if you’re going to have a villain, either make them team rocket goofy or classic disney fun.
5. just. try not to have characters + relationships rely on racial tropes. if you overly rely on a tough dark-skinned / dainty light-skinned formula, you’re going to see some racist shipping. mix it up. round ‘em out.
6. same goes for gendered tropes. if a dude is downright violent and irresponsible and a level-headed girl has to put up with his flaws without him facing consequence, that’s a downright unbalanced relationship. and do keep in mind that if two boys utterly despise each other, people will absolutely take that a certain way. again, with #3, try to play off disdain as comedic or with exception rather than constant seething hatred.

obviously these aren’t hard and fast rules, and what/how you create will vary. but it’s how i generally approach my work

I am legitimately amazed that tumblr’s weird obsession with Never Have Anything Unwholesome writing advice has now reached the point of:

– Don’t have children in your work,

– Don’t have families in your work.

– Don’t have any themes or ideas darker than Nintendo, because that’s romanticising suffering.

– Don’t have villains unless they’re in the relatively simplistic, child-friendly mould of Disney or Pokemon, and don’t try to deal with any difficult themes.

– Don’t have characters dislike each other.

The idea that you should build your work – because these are all fundamental aspects of a story – around preventative measures against ‘gross shipping,’ and that coincidentally all those measures boil down to “Have as little nuance, conflict, or difficult and unpleasant things as possible,” is kind of creepy.

i feel like the #1 reason to not rely on racist and sexist tropes in your writing should be that racism and sexism are intrinsically bad things to promote, not primarily… that you might accidentally inspire someone else to write bad fan fiction

“heres some advice to not be a nasty person. its literally easy”

“so youre saying you want me to die?? is that it?? do you want me to fucking die???”

no one in this thread is accusing op of wanting us to die, or even really like… demonstrably implying that. also there are obviously solid points in this list (albeit ones that are contextualized a little confusingly) saying things like “don’t emphasize family relationships and try not to write about children” has little to do with… not being a nasty person, and more to do with circuitous ways of theoretically preventing other people from being nasty that 1. don’t work 2. impose limitations that are actually potentially harmful to the art op is ostensibly trying to protect and 3. ignore the real roots of the issue at hand, e.g. the liberty weirdo fetishist shippers feel in ignoring their own ethical responsibilities in producing content. conflating criticism of this list with sheer thin-skinned-ness is pretty misleading IMO

Also, people can and should write about unhealthy relationships. At the very least, it’s interesting. There’s no issue with writing about unhealthy or even abusive relationships. And people should write fictional characters who are horrible, irredeemable people, and do horrible, irredeemable things. Those can be interesting things to explore, they can be cathartic to write, and they can serve as examples of what not to do. You just don’t glorify them. 

If you write about an abusive relationship, which is clearly abusive and is treated as such in the work, and people write this as though it’s romantic and sweet, that is not your fault. 

If you write a story about a family relationship and someone decides to write incest based off of that, it is not your fault. 

Heck- you can write an abusive, incestuous relationship, as long as it’s not treated as something positive in your work. There is no reason not to write about bad things happening. Write about the worst things you can imagine. You are not responsible for what people do with your work.

Gross people are gonna do and write gross things. You as an author are not responsible for making sure it’s impossible for people to do that with your work. You’re just responsible for not outright being gross yourself.