First of all, this rant is not for the faint-hearted. It’s been some time since I wrote a full rant about something and I might get really harsh. If you can’t take harsh things, don’t read it.

I’m writing this for a person I consider a close friend who’s been feeling vexed lately witnessing (but not participating) in a fan war.

Fan wars can be about any fandom, any idol, any fictional character, any OTPs—you get my point. My main focus today, however, will be on fan wars between OTPs.

So, what exactly constitutes to this kind of fan war? Simple.

When a fan of couple AB decides to go onto some place that fans of couple BC congregate and spazz, type something stupid and mindless like, “Y’all be stupid people shipping B and C together ‘cause AB is definitely real” incur the wrath of BC fans and BC fans decide to do the same thing back to fans of AB. Then AB fans feel that they can’t sit back and do nothing when their OTP is undermined and attack BC again. BC then retaliates and so on and so forth. In short, it’s a ing vicious cycle because nobody likes to take it lying down when something they like is trampled all over by someone else.

Stop and think for a while. What was the purpose of demeaning someone else’s likes? To show that what you like is better? Really, how mature. If I say that “I like the color black. You like yellow? Ew, why would anyone even like yellow? It’s such a horridly bright color that hurts people’s eyes. Black’s better and used more. Please, do you ever see anyone use the color yellow to type? Nope. See, black is superior.” I’m pretty sure the people who like yellow would wanna sock me in the face and retort that I must be some kind of gloomy, sad person to like a dull color compared to their happy, sunshine yellow. One thing for sure is: you don't show your love for one thing by hating on every other thing in the world.

So why do people do that? Why do people try to show off what they like is better than others? At the end of the day, are you going to write down “AB is my OTP. They’re the best. They’re better than BC. What I like is superior.” on your resume and then your employer would employ you because of that? If you say yes, please find me a clean wall to bang my head against. I feel immensely sad for what the society is coming to in that case.

The thing about “My OTP is more real than yours!” really irks me. Wanna know something? The only realistic OTP is this entire world is OTP Bank. They’re one of the biggest financial services provider in the Europe area. So don’t give me crap about your OTP being more real than OTP Bank – unless your OTP does get married and have kids else just keep quiet and stay in your seat. (Same goes for ships. Nobody wants to hear about your realistic ship unless it’s one that floats on water and brings people around. In that case, please extend me an invitation for a ride on your yacht.)

And then we have the moments of our OTPs. Hate to shoot y’all down but let’s be realistic. Most if not all of the moments on screen are planned. WGM is ing scripted (and in my opinion the most redundant show on earth because their producers couldn’t decide whether they wanted to do drama or reality). Moments caught on videos by fans (or fancams for short) have a higher chance of being real but honestly; sometimes it’s all planned beforehand. Idols are not stupid. (C’mon Amber’s sister Jackie has said that she gets sent links of fan fiction of Amber paired with other people and knows about the Kris x Amber ship. Peniel’s sister knows about the ship between Peniel and Sungjae.) They do know who we like seeing them interact with and purposely do stuff to makes us go in a frenzy over them. My drama instructor once said, “Once you’re onstage, remember that your audience are all there to watch you and be fooled by you.” That goes to show that what the audience – us fans – see is of most importance. What the actors – the idols or in this case your OTP – do after curtain call we’d never know and we don’t really want nor need to know.

I’m not saying that our idols are all putting up a façade but hey, we’d never know. The entertainment circle is a tough place and it’s inevitable to put up some kind of mask to survive. And these OTP moments are more than likely one of those masks to help them thrive in their industry. The more frenzied us fans gets about them, the more popular they are and the more contracts and endorsement love calls they get.

Another thing. More moments does not equate a higher possibility of your OTP being in a secret relationship nor does it always mean they’re flirting and are on their way to become a couple. Sometimes it’s just friendly gestures, having fun together and like I said, a false impression they’re trying to give us. For all you know, B might decide to hang out with C onstage a bit more since he had been spending time offstage with A. In that case, does your argument of more moments of BC together still stand? I hardly think so.

Next we have our OTPs ideal types’ description fitting each other. Whoa whoa whoa, slow down buddy. If I say my ideal type is the kind who’d be the perfect house husband, cooks well, does house chores because he likes to be neat and tidy, loves children, a little on the cute side but sometimes can be flirty/y, has big eyes, a sweet voice – I think most fans of EXO would register Kyungsoo immediately. Does that mean that Kyungsoo is my ideal type? Yes. But is he the only one? Nope. Countless of people in this world could fit the bill. And let me be annoying and reiterate again. Who knows, your OTP might just be describing each other because they know you fans of them out there would worship the aisle they walk down to get married. So when they describe their ideal types, don’t jump to conclusions that they’d get married, and have kids. If they really do in years to come, feel free to come back here and comment “in your face” in caps. I’ll be waiting.

Lastly, I’ll touch on the thing about “B said he likes/admires C in an interview”. I don’t know what kind of argument that is but yeah. Dear readers, ‘like’ is very different from ‘love’. For all you know, when they said they like or admire someone, it could be just a characteristic the person possesses that they think is nice or, they want to be friends with that person. Based on that one little sentence (or even one word reply on who they like best in a group), you jumped to the conclusion that they date, probably and are gonna have kids in a couple of months, that’s vivid imagination you’ve got. Why not channel that into fan fiction writing instead of bash others’ OTPs?

Ah well you’ve almost reached the end of my excessively long rant. The bottom line is, fan wars shouldn’t break out between different OTPs. What you like has nothing to do with what other people like because that’s your business. Don’t stick your nose into other’s people’s business if you don’t want people to do the same to you. Even if someone does that to you, just ignore them because they’re immature little kids who have barely gotten out of preschool that still like to boast about whose mother makes better lunch for them. (I’d just like to say that my mother cooks really awesome food though.)

Let me end off with a quote from Anne Lamott, “Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare.”

Forgive and forget when people say rude things to you (about things you like). Else it’d become a never-ending, vicious cycle.

I feel like I went out of point in the whole rant but yeah, I hope you guys get my point which is FAN WARS ARE REDUNDANT, STUPID AND INCITED BY DUMB PEOPLE. AND YOU'D BE EQUALLY DUMB TO ENGAGE IN ONE.

That’s all folks. O/

p.s. to my dear friend, I hope you’re feeling less vexed about witnessing the fan war. 

p.s.s. if you don't believe me about otp bank please click here. about amber and peniel's sisters knowing about ships, it was during the sibling panel at kcon 2013. I found only the part where Jackie talked about Henry and Key being paired with Amber. There are two tumblr posts (one & two) about Jackie and Jennifer's other comments on the ships.