For those of you keeping track, yes, this is my first rant chapter ever. Buckle up.

So, if you've been following me on this site, you might have noticed that I'm not particularly fond of the practice known as "shipping". I don't read romance books. I don't write them. When I read books containing characters who develop romantic feelings for each other, I'm not leaving tons of happy, excited comments about how much I want them to get together.

Sometimes romance in a story is pulled off well. On rare occasions, I even find myself happy when things work out for the couple in question. And I don't mind if the people around me are enthusiastically shipping characters who are obviously attracted to one another.

But I get annoyed when people insist on finding a ship in every single book they read, whether there was supposed to be romance in it or not. I get annoyed when they ship two characters who have a completely platonic relationship. I get annoyed when they begin to pressure the author into having those characters develop a romantic relationship where it never needed to exist. And I get really annoyed when writers I like give in to this pressure and turn every single book they ever write into a freaking romance.

When I know that people are salivating for a romance so much that they're prepared to see it based on even the smallest of interactions between two characters, it stifles my creative freedom. It stifles my ability to depict close friendships. It makes me feel as though I have to take twenty separate steps to prove to the reader that the feelings between these characters are not, in fact, romantic. It makes me feel as though it might be better if I just stopped writing books where two characters of the opposite gender have a positive platonic relationship. And then it makes me feel as though I have to avoid the same thing for characters of the same gender because I'm sure that fans will go there as well. And then I worry even about the idea of having the platonic friendship occur between two characters of vastly different ages because what if the shippers won't even stop at that?

I guess I'll just have to write about terribly lonely main characters living the terribly lonely lives that are obviously the inevitable result of not having anyone to love romantically. Because that's the way things work, right? Anyone who's single MUST be sad and lonely and devastated that they can't find that perfect person. You can't be happy unless you're in love.

That's what these shippers are saying. Not all shippers. Not the ones who just like one particular couple from their fandom or the ones who simply enjoy watching the development of romantic relationships in books that truly are made better for it. No, I'm talking about the shippers who insist on having ships EVERYWHERE. And they are out there. Far too many of them.

And it's people like them who prevent writers on this site from writing the books that I would like to read. I would like to read a book where two people go on an adventure together and DON'T fall in love at the end of it. I would like to read a book where the girl DOESN'T fall in love with the handsome jerk because she realizes that she's worth way more than the piece of trash he treats her as. Or a book where a guy breaks off the relationship that has developed between himself and the girl because he realizes it isn't right for him, a book where he gets his happy ending as a single man.

And I want to be able to write books where I can show a variety of different types of platonic relationships, showcasing the vast and intricate and, yes, satisfying spectrum of human relationships that exist apart from romance.

When you go overboard on shipping characters, you limit an author's creative freedom.

But there's actually something one step further. Because some shippers don't stop at shipping fictional characters whose stories could be written any way an author chooses. Some shippers decide that it's a good idea to go around shipping people.

Actual people. Human beings who have their own lives and interests and their own freedom to direct them according to their own wishes.

To all of you, I'm a person who exists on the internet. I write words on a screen, and you read them, just like you read a story. But I am not the first person narrator of a fictional story that somebody is telling. I am a person just like you. I am a PERSON.

And I do not appreciate you "shipping" me with someone.

I shouldn't even have to argue about why your ship doesn't make sense. I shouldn't have to share details of my personal life that prove that it doesn't make sense. I shouldn't have to do anything except say "no". Because that is my right as a human freaking being.

And I shouldn't even have to do that. Because you shouldn't have done that in the first place. It is not your job to go around telling people who they should start a romantic relationship with. Because, at least in the country where I live, the tradition of parents giving their daughters away to the guy who can make the best offer is rightfully dead. And because I'm also not living in a dystopian society in which an oppressive government assigns you to the person you must marry and spend the rest of your life with. And because I can't imagine any other scenario in which you would plausibly even THINK that you have the right to tell people who to get romantically involved with.

We got rid of those stupid old traditions and we fear the potential rise of those oppressive threats because we as a society believe that people should have the right to make their own choices about their most intimate human relationships. I agree. Do you?

Or do you seriously think that shipping real people is just harmless or funny? Because it isn't either of those things to me.

It's bad enough to feel creative pressure. It's awful, but at least it only affects the art that you strive to generate from the deepest parts of your heart. Imagine if the pressure you feel doesn't come in the form of what your characters should and shouldn't do but instead in the form of what you yourself as a living person should and shouldn't do.

Because there already is a pressure in our society, and it especially applies to women. It's a pressure to develop a romantic relationship, to get married, to have kids. It's a constant whisper in your ear that says you can never be happy if you stay single. And it makes people feel like worthless trash.

It also makes them feel lonely. And maybe they just want to have some different relationships, some of those in the wide spectrum of platonic ones that I mentioned earlier. Maybe they just want to be a friend to someone. Or maybe they just want to be casual acquaintances who have a friendly discussion about a topic of mutual interest.

And maybe when you start "shipping" that person, they start to feel like the real life equivalent of the character who is forced to be written as a terribly lonely person living a terribly lonely life. Maybe they start to feel like they can't have a simple conversation without it being misinterpreted. And, just like the main character who can't go on an adventure with a second eligible character, maybe they conclude that they'd better not have such conversations anymore.

We can hope that this "hypothetical" person is intelligent enough to avoid actually acting based on the pressure of the shipper. But, you know, they shouldn't ever have been pushed in the first place.

In case anybody missed the message I was going for here: Don't ship real people. Some people might not care, but others really, really do. And that makes it really, really not cool.