Why is it that people fear what we don't understand?

Why is it that people feel the need to insult people based on something that could give ABSOLUTELY NO INDICATION about them?

Why is it that people always, without fail, jump to conclusions?

I'm sorry, let me explain. People seem to think, that if you ship ONE slash/shonen-ai/femmeslash/shojo-ai/yaoi/yuri pairing, you automatically SHIP 'EM ALL!

Likewise, if you draw even one picture of a popular pairing that you ship, and it ends up on the front page, people assume "Ohhhh, they drew it for the attention."

If I'm bi, does that make me an unreliable lover?
I'm I'm gay, does that mean I'm out to to pull everyone of the same gender as me?
And it works all ways. If I'm straight (which I am) does it mean THAT I AM A BIGOT WHO ONLY SUPPORTS GAY PAIRINGS IF IT'S IN A FICTIONAL UNIVERSE, OR HEAVEN FORBID, BASHES EVERYONE WHO IS GAY/BI, FICTIONAL OR NOT?

*sigh* I'm sorry. It's just... people like this really annoy me. Let me put it into context.

As a pairing, I ship Roxas and Axel together. Not because it's popular, not because I'm one of those "OMG YAOI TWO HOT GUYS LET'S HAVE THEM SEX EACH OTHER UP WHEEEE!¬" fangirls, but because I actually believe that they have a chance of being together in that way. As in, loving each other. I know, it's insane, because to bring the context of the fandom into it, they've got no hearts to love with (Although Final Mix has brought up something interesting about Roxas...) but there it is. I'm a hopeless romantic, therefore, I ship them together. It's the way it is. I'm trusting (read, naive) enough to believe that love really does transcend all bounds we set out for it; be that gender, race, colour, class, or the matter of whether you should be able to love in the first place.

A lot of people, however, would take one look at me and lump me in a category of fangirls that ship every guy in every fandom together. And I'm not knocking the fangirls that do. I may not like it much, but what they do with the characters in their fandoms is their own business. I'll just let them get on with it and do my best to avoid it, because, to be honest, that's not my scene.

What DOES annoy me is that if I say I openly ship RokuAku (and yes, with the names that way round ) then some people will scoff, shake their heads and say "dear me, another yaoi fangirl." and not take anything I say seriously. In fact, they would disregard everything typed here.

I'm going to tell you something now: most of the pairings I ship are straight. Doctor/Rose, Danny/Sam, Cloud/Yuffie, Cloud/Aerith, Sora/Kairi. And I don't much go for pairing-bashing either: as long as you let me ship the pairings I want (because let's face it, I ship them for reasons I have already explained, and I can probably back this shippage up) I will let you ship the pairings, if any, that you want.

Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs, their own religion. I know some people are uncomfortable with the idea of two people of the same gender being together romantically, because of beliefs or religion, and I'm fine with that, mostly. I'm not gonna start asking people to compromise their beliefs because of something I say or believe. I'm fine with these people, because these people understand, or make some attempt to, and they tolerate it. Tolerance is a seriously underrated thing. (and hopefully after reading this, these people are fine with me. )

What irritates me, are the people who would come up to me, and challenge me, saying "OMG THEY CAN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE IT'S GHEY AND WRONG" or "OMG THEY CAN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE THEY'RE MEMBERS OF A DIFFERENT SPECIES". And when I ask them why exactly they have a problem with this - after all, there is the policy of "Don't like, Don't read/look" - all they can come out with is "BUT - BUT - IT'S WRONG!"

And then they accuse me - or other people like me - of just doing it, like I have mentioned, because it's gay, or because I want to get my art some more attention.

Never mind the fact that I do actually have some friends who aren't straight, or who haven't been straight. Nope, I MUST just like it if it's fictional, because that's what ALL people who ship even ONE gay and/or popular pairing are like, right?

Seriously. Get over yourselves. No-one is going to look at my art and comment on it any more just because it has two guys kissing in it. It's the quality, not the content, that should draw people to look at art. Of course, content is important; art's only art if it draws a response from people, because it should resonate somewhere in the deepest parts of our souls. But on the subject of love, again, as far as I'm concerned, love is the most important thing. Everyone needs to be loved or needed by someone else; I've found that's why most people ship a pairing. Because we relate to it in some way. So if someone has found, to quote the wonderful CLAMP's Chobits, "The Person Just for Them", then does it really matter, in the end, who it is?

Well, there's my two cents. In conclusion: People who some of the above applies to, be sensible, and use a little tolerance. I also find that the rule of don'tlikedon'tread/look is a good starter. It's the one I tend to use. Commenting on people's work telling them that what they are drawing is wrong won't bring about anything good. Just a pointless argument. And that's never cool.

If we all thought the same, wouldn't life be boring?

So, now I've got that off my chest, what are your opinions? I'd like to hear them. ^_____^

Much love, peoples!

-Aimee x




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REQUESTS:
1) A chance meeting of Disney's Megara, Aurora, Jim, and two of Jim's fangirls for ~Kage-Hikari ^^ COMPLETE
2) A picture of Zack for ~Sumiyaki
3) A meeting between Cloud (FFVII) and Auron(FFX) for ~animeguitarist
4) A shipperish picture of Sam and Jack from SG1 in the park for ~sproxy23 COMPLETE
5) A Jack/Ianto (from Torchwood) drawing for ~hysteria--x COMPLETE

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