#cozy fandom

You hand them a steaming cup, and their eyes soften like the sunrise through the cafe window. Fingers brush, and you swear the world pauses.

☕ Soft tea steam curls around your hands, warm and comforting.

The thing is, characters don't belong to anyone. No one can own a character, dynamic, or relationship. Characters in media exist for fans to read, identify with, and interpret on their own. Other people's ships don't "steal" someone else's personality, and it doesn't deprive someone else of their imagination or experience. Quite the opposite, actually: seeing other people enact the same ships is sometimes inspirational, creating new ideas, new interpretations, or new storytelling styles.

One of the best things about fandom is that it is something done sociably. Shipping speculation, fanart mailing, fanfic writing, and trying out different dynamics whether cannon or self-insert is how communities flourish. If people attempt to gatekeep ships or characters, it takes away from that sense of cooperation. It stifles talk, creativity, and emotional investment. Selfshipping, after all, is very individualistic, but it does not occur in a vacuum. It can be a source of information, empathy, and even friendship for the spectators who might identify in terms they never considered before.

Ownership of characters is typically attachment, identification, or fear of invalidation but that fear is unjustified. Fiction worlds aren't zero-sum worlds. It is conceivable that many people can ride on the same ship or dynamic without spoiling one another's experience. Imagination and creativity aren't drained, they are multiplied. In a real-world sense, respecting other people's self-ships and OCs can actually enhance your own fandom experience and create new meanings and possibilities.

It's freedom in its purest form: freedom to dream, to create, and to share. The same for self-shipping. The more open and shared the experience, the more healthy and alive the fandom. Possessiveness of characters or ships does not save the fandom it will harm it. It is in accepting cooperation, diversity, and mutual enjoyment that the fandoms are challenged to flourish, and in which each fan is seen and called to their own potential.

A Cozy Night in With Your F/O 🍿🛏️

The sun sets behind the willow trees, a soft, golden glow filling your favorite café corner. Your F/O brings you an iced drink topped with cream what gentle words do they share as you unwind together after a long summer day?