The 100 actor Sachin Sahel introduces the Ships Alliance: a campaign of positivity for fans who want to co-exist peacefully in a shared online community.

The internet has proven to be a fantastic tool for fandom, allowing people who love the same works of art, music, media and sports to engage in discussion and/or share their fanworks with strangers across the globe.

Because of the internet, your social circle is no longer confined to your geographical location, and fan communities thrive and expand across all the different social media platforms. We come together to talk about the things we love and, within different fan communities, we find like-minded friends who take the things we love as seriously as we do. Fandom is, above all else, a beautiful thing.

But the internet has also given rise to cyberbullying, with anonymity and geographical separation emboldening bullies to harass strangers for looking or acting a certain way or for expressing opinions they don’t like.

This is in no way confined to fan communities, but fan communities also aren’t exempt from toxic behavior. We’ve all seen waves of pointed harassment, fans shaming or harassing others for expressing opinions they disagree with to the extent that it can seriously affect the attacked party’s mental health and make them feel unwelcome in the place they ventured into seeking joy. And the more negativity is spread, the more negativity fosters in return.

So what can we do in the face of growing hate and toxicity in fandom spaces? How can we stop cyberbullying from occurring in fandom and making it a happier, more positive place for fans of all ages to inhabit?

The short answer is that we probably can’t stop it, not completely. The internet is open to everyone, and therefore, there will always be people who use it to spread negativity and toxicity, for a variety of reasons that we can never know or control. There’s often a fine line between those who harass and those who feel harassed, and none of us want to be fandom police. We all have our own reasons for being here.

But just because we can’t stop hate from existing, does that mean we should just learn to live with it or stay off the internet if we can’t handle being harassed? Is it ever true that the only solution to negative energy is to exclude yourself from a group or activity? Of course not. Like any social spaces, internet communities are only as open, constructive and safe as their members work to make them, which means that all of us can influence and curate our personal online experience, and maybe even make someone else’s online experience more enjoyable in the process, if we have the desire or energy to do so.

Certainly if fans want a place to be positive and constructive and focus on loving the thing they love, rather than hating on and trying to silence those who don’t, then they are responsible for creating that place themselves. But nobody can do it alone. It takes initiative and direction, and it requires collaboration. It takes an alliance.

The 100 actor Sachin Sahel has made it his mission to create such an alliance within The 100 fandom, of which he is also an active member, in an effort to promote constructive discussion and peaceful coexistence within this fan community.

And here is Sachin Sahel to introduce the Ships Alliance: a space for fans to come together to foster positivity, if they want to, and to connect with fellow fans and shippers (both those that agree with them and those who don’t) who are tired of the fan wars and fighting and want to make the social internet a little bit of a better place.

“By being a part of this alliance, what you’re saying is: ‘I’m going to try to be a positive voice and make sure that the negativity doesn’t overtake the fandom I love and overtake the people that I love’,” says Sahel. “It’s not about fighting back, it’s about loving back.”

With this initiative, Sahel hopes he can inspire fans of the show to come together in a new and more constructive way, not in spite of, but because of the opinions that divide them. After all, a fan is, by Sahel’s own definition, someone who loves something. With the Ships Alliance, he wants to work actively to celebrate and promote love rather than hate.

Importantly, Sahel stresses that the Ships Alliance isn’t an attempt to regulate the discourse that happens around the show, nor is the aim to silence disagreements or criticism. It’s not about policing anyone who is being negative, because it’s not about the negativity at all.

“The point of the Ships Alliance isn’t that we all ship the same. It’s that we can be different, and that we can disagree,” says Sahel. “The motto is ‘Love what you love and let others do the same.’ That’s it. I want everyone to be able to do what they want, but in this space, that also means that other people also feel free to ship what they want to ship and want what they want to love.”

The alliance will exist to encourage and support those who want to be kind to each other, and to give fans who don’t feel heard or happy or safe online a place to find and experience kindness from others. By joining the Ships Alliance, you become an ambassador for positivity and kindness and pledge to do the best you can to be a positive voice in the community.

Of course there will always be people who come online to mock or scorn others (in fandom and everywhere else), and Sahel is fully prepared for there to be plenty of pushback against the Ships Alliance itself. But this initiative isn’t for or about the people who want to be scornful and negative. It’s about and for the fans who want constructive, friendly discussion and to want to celebrate the things they love without putting down others for loving something else.

“At the end of the day, I know the people that will embrace it are the people I’m talking to,” says Sahel. “It’s not for everybody. It’s for the people who want to beat back the hate with love, who come online and only see negativity and want to go somewhere where positivity rules. And eventually, hopefully, it will spread, and there will be people who might think twice about sending that negative thing because they see so much positivity.”

So why is this not called the Fandom Alliance? As much as it is about promoting positivity in The 100 fandom in general, Sahel wanted to start by highlighting shipping as something he wants to help make positive again, and then hopefully spread to all parts of fandom. Because, as he says: shippers are not separate from other fans. Shippers are fans, and fans are shippers. We shouldn’t try to separate the two categories, or treat shipping as a bad or inferior form of fandom.

“A big issue for a long time has been that shippers haven’t felt heard,” says Sahel. “Even I have honestly only realized this year that this was the case. I think a lot of us don’t know how to deal with shipping, so we just push it under the rug. But I think actively talking about shipping and not shying away from shippers is a big first step. A lot of the time, people just see the ship wars, but shipping is beautiful, and if we can find a way to show how beautiful it truly is and not a negative thing, then we can make an even more beautiful place.”

Sahel himself admits that shipping was not something he was familiar with before he joined The 100 and began actively engaging with this fan community, both online and at conventions. “I didn’t even realise what shipping was,” he says. “But it is legitimate, and it’s a big part of fandom. Shipping is a beautiful thing, it means you’re supporting the show, and you’re supporting love.

“And I don’t want people to love something and feel lambasted because of it. I want everybody to come online and feel safe. I don’t want people to use the show or what happens or doesn’t happen in it as a way to attack other people. You can cheer for your own team without attacking the other one.”

Cheering for your team is something that, perhaps ironically, one might associate with rooting for a sports team – a traditionally more legitimized and certainly more widely acknowledged form of fandom. But, in a lot of ways, shipping a pairing is just like supporting a sports team.

You pick a team, you support and root for that team and, ultimately, you hope your team qualifies and you hope it wins. Because it means something to you, and it sparks a passion and sense of belonging in you. Trying to pretend like competitiveness can’t or shouldn’t be part of the shipping experience would be disingenuous; we define ourselves by that which we love, and in doing so, we become loyal to that thing. To love something is also sometimes to take up arms for it, either against other shippers or against a media system that doesn’t acknowledge it (as has traditionally been the case for LGBTQ+ ships).

Sahel, a huge fan of Sports™ himself, understands this too. This is why the Ships Alliance isn’t about creating One Ship to Rule Them All or making fans feel bad for liking or disliking any ships. As long as fans respect that everyone has different viewpoints, the more variety of opinion, and the more love involved, the better.

“I want you to support your team, I want you to wear your colors, I want you to chant and be loud,” says Sahel. “That’s exactly what fandom is. I want to see fans enjoy what they love and be as passionate as I am. I just want them to be able to do it without being bullied.

“Just recently, Jared (Joseph) and I went to the basketball finals for Golden State Warriors vs the Toronto Raptors, and we were in enemy territory, but the Golden State fans were so amazing, and we had such a blast cheering for each other’s teams with each other. And that was such a great realization: that you can have two opposing views and still have fun with it because you can have an open discourse. Without it actually being a negative thing.”

So how does the Ships Alliance plan to foster such a positive, constructive community of fans with a variety of conflicting opinions? Per Sahel, “It’s important that we start by having the conversation. I want the fans to dictate where it goes. I want them to dictate the positivity of what it becomes, what they want to feel like when they are online, and how they want to be. I just want to create a space for them where they can go and feel like a part of a loving community. From there, I want to see what people want it to become.”

Sahel was inspired to initiate this quest for positivity by his friend Rob McAninch, who passed away last year. McAninch gave Sahel his first acting job in the Justice Theater Project, a traveling theater troupe that went to high schools to teach children about bullying by putting on mock trials that illustrated the serious and harmful implications that bullying has.

“Rob was one of the greatest, most selfless human beings I’ve ever met,” says Sahel. “Not only did he give me a job, but we also got to do so much good. And I’ve been thinking of a way to keep his legacy alive, something I could do that would make him proud.”

Because of his experiences with the Justice Theater, Sahel knew that he wanted to do something that focused on bullying and which aimed to improve the conditions of this community he cares passionately about.

“That’s why I’m doing this. Because I love this fandom so much, because of how much they care about this show — and everybody knows how much I care about the show too, as a fan as well as being involved with it. And I know the cast feels the same way. We love the show so much, and we love our fans so deeply, that we want them to feel safe to love the show the way they want. I want us to enjoy it together,” Sahel explains.

The Ships Alliance initiative launches with a t-shirt charity drive benefiting STOMP Out Bullying, an anti-bullying charity that will also be supplying tips and advice for people who want to make their online experience a more positive one.

Sahel chose to partner with STOMP “because it’s a growing charity, and I love their mission statement; I love how they speak to kids and how much they care about children. Because I think that’s where it starts.”

Bullying is an issue that has been close to Sahel’s heart all of his life. “I’m Indian, and growing up, I dealt with a lot of racism,” he says. “And initially it made me try to hide the fact that I was Indian. I thought maybe I had to. But I ended up having people around me that said, ‘No, you’re Indian, be proud of it. Love yourself.’

“But you see so many kids that don’t have that support system. Kids are the ultimate potential, they can be and do anything, but when they get bullied, the potential they have to be whatever they want to be and love whatever they want to love just gets lost. And that’s true of anyone, because bullying happens everywhere.”

While the Ships Alliance will be about promoting positivity and celebrating and raising up shippers in the existing fan community, Sahel also hopes that this can eventually grow into something that will help make the internet a safer, more positive space for younger fans as they’re discovering fandom and learning to be a part of fan communities.

“I see a lot of young kids at conventions, and they tell me what they experience online, and I don’t want them to grow up thinking that this is how they have to behave as a fan. Because it’s not. It’s not how I grew up being a fan. I want them to know that they can have a community that will let them have a beautiful, happy, joyous time online loving what they love, because that’s the kind of community the Ships Alliance will be for us.”

Further down the line, Sahel plans to use the Ships Alliance to provide giveaways and advice and to let members have a lot of initiative in terms of what they think and need from this space.

Beyond that, “I’m gonna allow it to flourish the way it wants to. I want to be a part of it to keep my friend’s legacy alive, but right now, I just want people to be aware that they can be a part of something positive. ‘Cause everybody is out there swimming and hoping they won’t run into something negative. I just want them to run into something positive. And I want shippers to feel valid. I want you to feel so valid in whatever you ship, in whatever you love.”

Even though Sahel hadn’t consciously thought of himself as a shipper before getting involved with online fandom on such an active level, it doesn’t take him long to come up with a handful of his own OTPs (one true pairings). Because, yes: we all have them.

The first one that comes to mind?

“Buffy and Riley.”

“WHAT!” I gasp, unable to contain my shock, perfectly illustrating why we need a Ships Alliance. (You are so valid, Sachin. #SpuffyForever.)

Other relationships that stand out to him are Wash and Zoe from Firefly, Lois and Clark, Daenerys and Drogo from Game of Thrones, Scott and Jean Grey and Rogue and Gambit from X-Men, and Harry and Hermione from Harry Potter.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said that one out loud before,” he says of the good ship Harmony. “But to be honest, Ron is fine, but I think Hermione is better than every wizard ever. She’s a badass witch, and she should be with Harry. I like relationships where the characters make each other better. Like Buffy and Riley! They were equals, they were fighting together.”

“Until he got addicted to vampire blood and left her,” someone mumbles. Definitely not me.

“Well, I tend to forget about that, because that was an excuse to get him off the show, so that was not Riley to me.”

“But then he married Diyoza (Ivana Milicevic), so it all worked out.”

“I totally forgot that that was Ivana. I can’t believe it. I really should ship them. But I don’t. Sorry Ivana!”

Well, the shipper heart wants what it wants. And that’s really what the Ships Alliance is all about.

How to join the Ships Alliance

To become a member of the Ships Alliance, the first step is simply to follow them on Twitter and Instagram and tweet them your support. This is where Sachin Sahel will communicate with fans and provide details about future giveaways and activities.

You can purchase the Shipper Alliance t-shirt to support STOMP on ShopStands.

And, above all, just think about how we participate in online fandom and what kind of space we want it to be for ourselves and each other. Sahel stresses that the Ships Alliance is shaped by fan feedback, so feel free to interact and express your thoughts and hopes for the alliance to help it becomes what it needs to be to best serve fandom.

Love what you love, and let others do the same.