lvtvr:

the following are concepts that i quickly learned my way around when growing up in fandom, but that seem to have fallen out of use recently. i’d like to propose a revival of…

• NOTP: a pairing that, for whatever reason, you simply cannot stand. it can be because the ship repulses you morally, or because you hate one of the characters, or love them both but despise their dynamic – or just because looking at it makes you uncomfortable, for whatever reason.
• different from labeling something a “bad ship” in that it implies an entirely personal preference.
• calling a ship your NOTP informs others that you really, really, REALLY dislike it, while also acknowledging that you don’t know what other people’s reasons are for shipping it, or what interpretations they may have that makes it work for them.
• a cool way of avoiding stuff you hate while also not morally condemning thousands of complete strangers for liking it.

• squick: similar to notp, but goes for anything, not just romantic pairings. something you just don’t like, either for specific reasons or just because it irrationally repulses you.
• not as severe as a trigger in the sense that it doesn’t cause any extreme and potentially harmful reactions – it’s just something you’d rather not see, because it grosses you the fuck out. and that’s okay. 
• decent people respect other people’s squicks, while also remembering it’s cool for other people to like things they personally are squicked by.
• this works as long as everyone agrees not to be dicks and shove stuff in people’s faces in unwarranted ways.

• crackship: a ship that just doesn’t make any sense. there’s absolutely no chance that these characters would ever end up together.
• perhaps they’ve never interacted. perhaps they are on opposite sides of a war. perhaps one of them died a thousand years ago. for whatever reason, there’s zero possibility of this becoming canon. 
• still, you’d like to see how they’d romantically mesh, to explore their dynamic or a what-if scenario – or maybe they’re just two characters you really like to imagine smooching one another.
• the fact that it isn’t and never will be canon doesn’t matter, and can even be part of the appeal. it certainly does not invalidate the ship’s existence. the ultimate form of doing something just for fun.

these words all help describe the cool concept of doing stuff you enjoy, while also realizing others may be doing things you hate, but not in order to victimize you personally. live and let live! give people the benefit of the doubt! it’s a good time. we should all try it.