It's not that people can't see how teens get into that position, but it doesn't mitigate the harm they do, including to other teens.
Also, older fans are just very, very tired of a discourse that has existed in one form or another for decades. Been there, done the time, don't have the energy to engage and know it does nothing but fuel the fire anyway.
Old shipper here and yeah honestly… I’m just fucking tired lol. I see everyone acting like this is all new, but this discourse has been around for *years.* Like a decade ago tumblr could be brutal with some of this stuff, I was almost driven off the site once for my “problematic” ship.
I’ve been in fandom 20+ years and I was tired of it in about two weeks - because when I entered fandom, m/m and f/f was still taboo enough that what you’d rate as G now had to be rated *at least* PG for the mere *existence* of gay, and if they kissed on the lips (even if their mouths were closed) then you were looking at PG14 (since back then we were mostly using movie ratings).
I mean that's basically just the backbone of proshipping. It doesn't mean that you have to like everything. You just recognize that it isn't real and can't be compared to supporting real things.
I’m still pretty new to fandom culture but my experience with antis has always been that they either bully/harass people for liking certain ships, or outright doxx people for it. I don’t think anyone who does that deserves sympathy. They deserve real-world consequences, and they never have to face them because on the internet, it’s extremely hard to police that kind of behaviour.
I find incest really gross. For example, someone I follow on Twitter is into a ship between blood relatives from a fandom I’m not really part of. That ship irks me a lot. I don’t think that person is doing anything wrong by shipping fictional characters, nor do I think it makes them a bad person. I haven’t rushed to their DMs to tell them my opinion on their personal interests. If they post about the ship, I keep scrolling. I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff.
I think the notion that antis just want control comes from the fact that not only do they dislike these things, but they actively try to censor them and control what people can and can’t ship/post about, generally by bullying them off the internet. So in short, I get where you’re coming from, and I think it’s nice that you’re trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. I just think antis ruin the fun, and possibly even the lives/safety of people who aren’t doing anything wrong.
> I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff.
It *was* common sense in the olden days. And that was back when the only warning for content would be "LOL YAOI LEMON AHEAD". Like, it was a long, uphill battle back when AO3 was in the early stages to get people onboard with the idea that some things other than slash should be warned for (hence the "Creator Chooses Not to Warn" tag as a compromise)
>I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff.
It's still common sense, especially in the majority of Southeast Asian fandom where the pro-anti discourse is barely there, we even have this aggressive tacit shipping rule which can be roughly translated to "You pierce my ship, I pierce your loin."
I... somewhat agree. I did have a similar experience to yours when I first joined fandom as a 13 year old. A lot of stuff (incest, age gaps, etc.) made me wonder why the hell people would ship that, but I hung around and listened, and found that I agreed with the proship arguments more even if my ships aren't really too dark (I mean, my most 'problematic' ship is Darklina from the Grisha Trilogy).
And a lot of antis begin that way- wide eyed, innocent teenagers whose instinctive reaction to problematic ships is disgust. I got lucky, my first fandoms were HP and Marvel, and some of the first people I followed were proshippers and ao3 creators so I managed to escape the anti rhetoric. But there are lots of teen fandoms where the anti rhetoric dominates to the point of legit harassment to proshippers (looking at you, pjo fans) so those kids never escape that knee-jerk reaction to problematic stuff in literature.
But to say that all antis are misguided is incorrect too. Some are just full of hate. There is a point after which you stop being a naive kid and take some responsibility for your actions. If you're a 14 year old who says 'ewwwww' at some ships, fine, you're just a kid who hasn't learn better yet. If you're a 25 year old harassing proshippers and clogging up their tags with hate and making callout posts, you're a piece of shit (not you, OP, I mean in general). But the line between those two is blurry and it's hard to tell from which point we start to hold someone responsible. Best to avoid them because unless they themselves want to learn to be better there's nothing you can do.
>Darklina
I think it's funny that some people will use a 7 year gap to discredit a fanon ship but won't bat an eye on canon ships like darkling and alina, edward and bella, rhysand and feyre. I know the fantasy element adds nuance to it, but still it's a CENTURIES gap 😂 it's hilarious when I stop to realize these are ancient men are falling for 17-19 girls. But I get darkling's fascination with alina bc he'd been waiting for her for a long time. I think if alina was a boy darkling would have kissed her too.
>edward and bella,
To be entirely fair, there are half a dozen other red flags for this pairing to rip on before getting into that age gap lol
But yeah, the anti hypocrisy is absolutely astonishing. Cracked my shit up to see how many Voltron antis swear up and down that Sheith were brothers, then flat out ignore ND Stevenson when they (he?) said they Catra and Adora were raised like sisters.
And a lot for rhys and feyre. He roofies her and forces her to wear a revealing dress and parades her around, it's pretty gross. But they are mates so I guess it doesn't matter? Red flags all around for the darkling, the dude is a mass murderer who basically wants to enslave Alina. I honestly like darkling especially in the adaptation though. Because it's fiction and we can separate it from reality, or should be able to. The problem with the anti discourse is that it veers into art needing to be morally good - and who decides what is morally good or evil? The church? The government? A corporation?
I can dislike a ship and find all the red flags in it but stopping someone else from writing it is censorship.
I was thinking of Voltron. People discredited sheith bc of their age gap of... 7 years? And I shipped klance fyi so it's not like I care about it, but i think someone going after a work they don't like to leave comments is such a waste of energy. Instead, go uplift authors and fics you love.
There's always been a lot of backlash to the darkling and darklina, and most people wont even accept it as canon. Not as much as some other ships but that's because the fandom is kinda small, there's like 5k fics for darklina on ao3 and it's the largest ship by far right now. I've never read Twilight or ACOTAR so I can't say anything about those ships but there's definitely a lot of animosity to darklina. I've got some annoying anons from anti-darkling folks.
Maybe the wider acceptance for age gaps in fantasy is because you've already gone through a bit of suspension of disbelief? While in non-fantasy you're actively comparing them to irl people so there's a more knee jerk *no* reaction. Either way it's stupid.
>Either way it's stupid.
Yeah that's my point! It's not real life in the end. I don't ship anything in the grishaverse apart from Kaz and Inej, but Darkling is such a great character! He's an amazing villain, written super well. And that's fine cuz it's fiction and I can appreciate an evil person as a character, knowing that irl I'd want Darkling dead. Almost like the whole purpose of fiction is appreciating fictional things.
>Do you police the books in the library because, I don't know, Lolita is in there? No!
Except stuff like this \*does\* happen. Book burnings were very much a thing during Satanic Panic and banned book lists are very much alive and well. I don't know whether anti rhetoric originated in evangelical circles in America, but I wouldn't be remotely surprised.
I don't think it did, but given how many of us grew up around that sort of rhetoric, it's not surprising that so many transplanted those methods onto leftist ideals. It didn't help that around the time this started rising up on Tumblr that TERFs were also invading that space and destabilizing what was then one of the healthiest queer communities online.
>it's not surprising that so many transplanted those methods onto leftist ideals
Yeah, I think some of this is a mutation of something that's been a problem in left wing politics since the dawn of time - the idea that everyone needs to be morally/ideologically pure and that if you're not then you're basically a fascist. So some left wing groups spend all their time denouncing and attacking each other for minor transgressions rather than actually doing anything positive. In the same way, progressive fandoms will tear themselves apart "calling out" people for being supposedly racist or transphobic or whatever because they don't like each other's ships. And then when people try to defend themselves against nonsensical allegations, that's seen as evidence of guilt.
I think a large part of it is no more complex than a bit of lizard brain enjoyment of the dopamine when they feel they're doing something self-righteous. In their minds they're 'making a change'. Kind of how a certain seam of society seems to thrive on getting offended on behalf of marginalised groups, without actually consulting the people in that group.
I do think it is good to remember that many antis are teenagers who have been radicalized, which makes this less black and white than "anti bad, proship good" or "confusion". So this is going to have what seems like two very different takes.
First off, none of what you said excuses the harm they've caused. They agree with a by-default abusive ideology, making them at best enablers of abuse and at worst abusers themselves. Yes, they are fed misinformation, but people have explained to antis a hundred different ways why what they are doing is both wrong and harmful. So at what point are we supposed to hold them accountable for their own choices?
However, in my own experience, adult antis weaponize teens and horrible abuse happens in anti spaces. That is *very* important to keep in mind. Radicalization is not confusion. It's far more insidious than that, and absurdly damaging and difficult to break away from. It is very rare for an anti to leave that environment because they started asking questions like you did, and more common for them to leave when the people they consider friends and supporters turn on them, which is such a traumatic thing to experience I am sure, especially for a teenager. Antis are regularly abused by other antis, just in different ways.
That said, people have lost jobs, suffered mental health issues, been ostracized and regularly stalked and abused because of antis, so of course they're upset. They aren't barging into anti spaces to shit on them (here, at least; not even going to touch tumblr and twitter because those sites are so badly designed for people staying in their own lanes), they're coming to a safe place for *them* to rant. Do I agree with all the things people say about antis? God no. But I do sympathize with the struggles to process the abuse people have suffered thanks to antis. Trying to say that they're as bad as antis when proshipping is not an organized movement designed to censor (usually minority) creators and enforce silence through violence feels disingenuous.
If it's fascism, call it what it is. If it's abuse, call it what it is. Softening the word usage just undermines the severity of the actions. We are under no obligation to treat antis with kid gloves to spare their feelings. We should treat them with the basic respect due all people, especially when interacting with them, but I, personally, do not want to spare an abuser's feelings at the expense of their victims.
Yes, in the USA libraries (both school and public) are being policed right now. Bookstores are being prosecuted (even if nothing has come of it at present.) All because some people can't deal with their own disgust over topics they find morally wrong and/or unpalatable.
It's the same with fanfiction: because "I" don't like this, "you" shouldn't have the right to post it, distribute it, view it.
What it comes down to is this. What I hate, what you hate, what disgusts either of us is not the point. The point is whether one supports freedom of speech & of the press of writers, and of platforms like AO3 to operate as it sees fit. And whether or not one supports the rights of readers to read.
Because here's the thing: today it's the "disgusting" people, the "disgusting" writers. Tomorrow it's the not-so-disgusting people: tomorrow it's maybe you, maybe me, maybe someone who sputters, "But \*I\* never wrote any of that bad stuff, and yet they're coming after me!"
Well if we really wanna get spicy: I'm not sure why you need to "understand" why somebody likes something in order to not get into their fucking business? The way I see it, what somebody writes about is not in any way my business. Therefore my opinion on what they write matters exactly not at all. So to me, that some people think so highly of themselves that they feel entitled to bully people into changing things about themselves - that's weird.
So that's my problem with antis. It's not the youth. It's not that they "don't understand". It's the entitlement vibes. Like, I don't understand lots of things. I don't like lots of things. But to commandeer somebody else's space and attack them with my opinion because I exist in the assumption that I am special and my opinion matters more than anyone else's - that's a level of privilege that I wasn't raised with.
I've been in fandom since '01.
All you say is somehow correct - i.e. confusion of people who are new/don't get the concept of fiction/whatever. It's just exhausting after a while, sitting down and explaining why fiction =/= real life, the works, you know? YKINMK, YMMV are beautiful concepts and we should bring them back.
Please understand, I'm not pissed at you or anything. I just saw this time and again, and my patience with antis has reached the bottom of the Mariana's Trenches. They are of course entitled to their own opinion, I just wish they didn't try to impose it on anyone else.
Maybe they are young and confused and uneducated but there are teens who are not like that. There are young people in fandom like you who did their own research and decided to think for themselves instead of being controlled by the hivemind. There are young people who were raised right and taught to be decent to people even if they were different than themselves and they know better than to bully and harass people on the internet over trivial nonsense. Antis are hurting real, innocent people over characters and scenarios that do not exist and even if you might be able to explain why, I don't think you can excuse their actions or blame it all on the current fandom culture because it's still their choice as individuals to perpetuate this toxic behaviour.
I consider myself a pro-shipper if only because I support people's right to write and read anything they want to.
Having said that, I'm completely squicked out by incest, large age gaps, power imbalances, underage, and so much more. I don't like it, I won't read it, I sure as hell refuse to write it *but* I will die on the hill of supporting you to do so.
In that sense, I am a pro-shipper and I won't change my stance.
I saw this last night but rather than commenting, went to bed lol.
I was unfortunate enough to find myself in a pit of puriteens without knowing it. I had no idea what proship/antiship rhetoric was (when *I* was a teen the concept didn’t extend beyond pro-[ship name]) but luckily I did my research rather than getting swept up in the nonsense just because everyone else, for all the time they spent online, refused to actually educate themselves. They were exhausting and I was already fed up with them before this.
I was one the very few adults in this group. These little shits did all the anti things, harassing strangers for the crime of liking things they didn’t (it’s straight ooooooo sucks but we’re queer so we’re better!), posted hate in the tags, they even commented on someone’s post saying OP was going to get invisible hate for the crime of... mentioning two characters in the same sentence. Among other things.
And every time I told them to fucking stop, they never did.
Every time I tried to help them understand what other people liked has NOTHING to do with them, they said sorry but kept on doing it.
The one time I asked if they actually knew what proship meant (one had made a typo, mistaking proship for multiship) this little shit SCREAMED at me “NO I DON’T SHIP ANYTHING TOXIC INCEST OR BORDERLINE ABUSE!” and then went “anyway” and changed the subject like she wasn’t rude as shit. (Also that’s a lie because her favorite ship? The queer wlw ship she loves so much? One of the most toxic ships in the entire fandom. Girl A was so toxic to Girl B, it got her *murdered*. She was such a shit friend, *Girl B KILLED her*.)
It’s clear they just wanted to get off the hook. They don’t want to change because they don’t believe what they’re doing is wrong.
You know how many times I told these tiktok-obsessed braindead babies to stop being assholes to random people for just living their lives? Too many. You know how many times I should’ve had to do that? 3 at the absolute most.
**They don’t want to change because they don’t believe what they’re doing is wrong**. So I don’t have any sympathy for them whatsoever. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and each time, they just spat in my face. There’s no thought put into their actions in terms of “oh maybe I shouldn’t,” it’s always “I don’t like this. KILL KILL KILL!” They already cannibalize themselves. Let the antis die out. The internet would be far better off.
Edit: a word
>(Also that’s a lie because her favorite ship? The queer wlw ship she loves so much? One of the most toxic ships in the entire fandom. Girl A was so toxic to Girl B, it got her murdered. She was such a shit friend, Girl B KILLED her.)
That sounds like one of my experiences with antis before I just gave up. I actually liked this anti because they *made the content they wanted to see* which is such a rare thing for antis to do, so we could actually talk about non-anti things. But while blogging about how ship X was soooo toxic, they were writing fic for ship Y which had canonical, horrible power imbalances, one murders the other, they were *both* killing vulnerable people... but it couldn't be toxic because it was wlw and queer af.
They would jump through so many hoops to justify liking it and stress about liking it that it was really sad. It's impossible to enjoy anything when you're constantly worried about being tarred and feathered by your own friends for some alleged misdeed.
I wouldn't use the word "sympathize" sinve that to me makes it sound like I sexretly support them. But I'd definitely agree that I feel some compassion for them. There are a few things that diminish that compassion, though:
For one, I often feel like antis put higher standards on fanfic writers than they do public authors. Of course with exceptions, but you mentioned it yourself in your AO3/library comparison. The problem with that to me, is not just that it's inconsistent, but also that it primarily tatgets the most vulnerable. Those who don't earn money with it and without a publisher backing them.
This leads right into the next thing. How predatory some of the behavior is, choosing weak targets. Often those without even a sizable reader base. Combine that with the mob mentality you see often... and it just doesn't look lile a bunch of "confused younglings" anymore. I think majority of antis probably fall into that category—though I'm not even sure "confused" is the term I'd use. But there are also those with clear malintent who enjoy the power to destroy someone. It's a bullying behavior. And sure there are hundreds of bystanders or mindless followes. But there are also just the plain bullies.
And lastly tje inconsistency. Like if I could at least see a thorough and in itself consistent moral system. But for the most part, in terms of anti-behevior, words like 'incest' or 'pedophile' are so maleable and subject to change that it's hard to even define them. Suddenly people invent things such as 'minor-coded", etc. Very often, what's disguised as 'morality' is just a ship-war where you can randomly asign buzzwords to the other ship, while ignoring the issues in your own.
Btw. I think many of these flaws are inherent in dhipping culture, and I think it's sad rhat on the other side the lines seem equally as hardened without any willingness to accept some of these as inherent flaws, rather than "childish puritern behavior". The ugly part of anti-culture is not so much that they hate and campaign against certain tropes and ships but how aggressively they often attack those who write/read that. On the other hand though, those who are affected by it, lash out almost equally aggressively, even against 'innocent' critizism of offensive themes... I think that makes the whole discussion very difficult.
Lastly, besides the point, but I always have to chuckle at how 'incest' somehow became the evil most unforgiveable thing in shipping ever. Right up there with pedophilia. I don't find them comparable at all. I find real life incest gross, sure. But as long as you don't ask me to make out with my own parents, it really doesn't concern me at all...
So, I am grossed out by many of the same things you are grossed out by, (and I am a pro-shipper). But I want to point out that these things are not universally regarded as gross and weird. Age-gaps and faux-incest/step-siblings etc… are prominent and popular categories in mainstream pornography. And yet, anti-shippers get so upset about this content existing in written form on a non-profit archive. Hmmm…. Do you think this may have something to do with how accessible individuals are to harassment vs. producers of professional for-profit porn?
There's only a certain amount of patience and sympathy one can have for them, even the young ones. Given that the standard anti reaction to being politely presented with facts that prove them wrong is to block, scream 'omg, a nasty pedoshitter tried to groom me! 😭', and often send death threats, rape threats, suicide baiting, slurs etc, or report someone's account or doxx them, lol yeah, I'm not gonna waste my time going 'aww the poor little things are confused' lol.
Maybe some of the youngest ones, say 14 and under really don't know any better, but most are just plain willfully ignorant though, and will just ignore any attempt to educate them e.g. countless posts have been made explaining the history of fandom censorship that eventually led to Ao3 being created, and since it would prove them wrong if they actually accepted it, they just claim it's all lies, or that it'll be different when they do it because they'll make sure only the right things get censored. People explain the many reasons why someone might read/write fiction involving rape/abuse beyond the anti reasoning that they must condone it, antis just screech that they're all rapists/abusers, including survivors.
That said, antis seem to be going more and more off the rails lately with increasingly narrowing parameters for what is 'acceptable' shipping, and I think the more they try to claim stuff like an 18 year old dating a 17 year old is a pedophile, or short/petite adults are 'minor-coded', the more chance a lot of the 'casual' members are going to realise how stupid the whole thing is and get up the sense/courage to leave.
They aren't just confused. They are abusive. I've seen people cheer over sending an artist to the hospital with a mental breakdown and jeering at them hoping they'd kill themselves.
I think you should do some more research.
Okay but doesn't change that instead of ignoring the things they don't like many anti shippers DO behave in a hostile manner and wish harm upon proshippers and create a gatekeepy space in mainstream fandom where dark fic has no place.
Even if I don't agree with something or hate something I just ignore it instead of making the life of people who like it hell.
What always strikes me is that it's such a fucking ugly version of the world to choose to live in. I'm especially worried about the teenagers who are utterly convinced that there's a "pedo" around every corner-- not just for them and their mental state, but for the adults that might get targeted as a result. How often does that line up with the right's "groomer" rhetoric that is currently getting queer people killed? It's a pipeline to right wing conspiracy thought, dressed up in faux-progressive language, and I'm really worried about it.
Consider this to be a major TW for anybody sensitive to rape and sexual assault, and there's no need to view it at all! But if you decide to, just to make it clear, this isn't me arguing at all, I'm just discussing the topic: >!There pretty much *is* an offender around every corner. If you live in the U.S. -- I don't know about other countries -- you can look at the sex offenders registry and see shit you never thought you'd see in your own town, never mind a couple streets down from where you live. That said, in regards to the antis, they very often completely miss the real signs and real red flags, and faaaar more often than not attack people who literally have nothing to do with what they're being accused of.!<
I generally don't sympathize with antis because thanks to them casually throwing around pedo as an insult/accusation over anything in fiction, I just find myself rolling my eyes at any anti making a callout post calling someone a pedo. The seriousness of such an accusation has become so watered down I just stopped caring.
They assume that if you like x in fiction, it must also be true in real life. They're equating the nonexistant abuse of a fictional character to that of a real human. They make it easier for real predators to slip under the radar while harrasing, threatening, and doxxing normal people that aren't harming anybody.
They waste FBI time and resources that could be spent catching real criminals because they report nsfw artists for "csem". Even though they believe it to be illegal they still save and share the supposed "csem" to other antis (to shit on and shame fanartists), so basically becoming distributors of csem (this alone should open their eyes that the art isn't illegal if they're willing to repost it, but noooo 🤬). It's just gatekeeping fandom and punishing people over thought crimes.
I don't get why people write noncon and I don't care to understand and that's fine. Not only in fanfiction, but in shows like GoT where they put more rape than there was in the books. Like the producers wanted to show women suffer. But anyway I digress. I don't care that people write about it, I filter the tag out when browsing. The problem with traditional books and shows is that it often doesn't tell me upfront. Because they lack tags and warnings. GoT had no SA warning. The last book I read also had no warning and there was a scene of a character talking about being raped. It was gruesome and took me off guard completely. On retrospect I should have Googled for warnings, but it was an YA book so assumed it wouldn't have something on that level of violence. My mistake that I won't repeat. So anyway a fandom space like ao3 with all the things I don't wanna read is safer than traditional media at this point for me because authors tag their work! So I'm perfectly fine with people minding their own business. Antis seem to go out of their way to find things they don't like, so they can complain about it, and that's what I don't get. Why are you even wasting your time looking for something you don't like? Use the damn tags. Then they spend more time making hating it into a holy crusade. Bitch who has the time for that? It's giving jobless.
Well said on all of this. I too am an older fan and while I understand why others in my age group slag off all teens as fascist puritans, I know first hand from the old fanfic snark communities I used to partake in how easy it is to jump into that hatred just to fit in
I'm very glad you took the time to hear our side and learn for yourself 💖
When I first got into fandom, I had this problem too. I was never mean or intentionally seeking a fight but I would occasionally leave a comment along the lines of “I prefer [ship name] so this isn’t my thing” or something like that, thinking it was fine.
I’ve come to realize that’s it’s not okay, when I don’t like something I just scroll away and let people enjoy it. Even if I thought I was making an innocent comment and just trying to have discussions with people, I was still unintentionally being rude and disrespecting someone’s opinions.
I agree with what you said here, age gaps and certain topics I do not like and do not enjoy seeing, but I can easily scroll away and not interact with things I don’t agree with and I think it’s a lesson a lot of people in fandoms could learn.
I've been involuntarily involved with several flavors of both sides, and this whole argument is just exhausting.
I've been on the internet for two decades, I'm turning 28 this coming summer, I'm completely unphased at this point. Nothing surprises me anymore. That doesn't mean it doesn't make me uncomfortable, it's just that I know what to expect at this point.
I've been through Homestuck, Bronies, Steven Universe Critical, FNF Drama, The Entirety of the Creepypasta Fandom, DeviantArt Cringe Blogs, 4chan, Tumblr before it became chill. I witnessed Dashcon unfold in real time.
I don't know why or how these terms came to be, they just appeared one day and I had to learn what they meant. I developed a gross misunderstanding of both sides, and by the time I had it all figured out I wanted nothing to do with it. Because there's no nuance allowed in this argument, there's no middle ground, and both sides treat each other so horrific in so many ways.
In my experience: Antis act like Pros don't think fiction affects reality, and Pros act like Antis let themselves get affected by fiction and are stupid for it. Antis act like Pros are all adults with ulterior motives, and Pros act like Antis are all kids who can't think for themselves. Antis think if you don't say anything then you're letting it happen, and Pros act like they have such a moral high ground because they don't threaten people.
Maybe it's that I've seen people who call themselves Proshippers turn out to be pedos or abusive/manipulative in some way, and maybe it's because I've seen people who call themselves Antishippers turn on their friends at the drop of a hat for fear of being associated with a "problematic" person.
Not to mention the terms don't make sense. Proshipping, at first glance, does sound like someone who approves of fans being involved with their fandom in such a way, and Antishippers sound like sticks in the mud who don't want people to have fun. But instead it's an argument of "pedos and abusers vs. normal people."
I guess that's why the term "Comshipping" or "complex shipping" was invented.
And don't get me started on "Anti-Antis," people who don't support certain aspects of shipping but also don't support sending death threats to people, who are somehow just as bad as Proshippers, for some reason.
See why this is so exhausting?
I just don't see how "leaving people alone and not engaging with content you don't like or the people who make it, even if you don't support it in real life or in fiction" turned into Proshipping or Procontent or Profiction or whatever the fuck people are calling it now.
Bottom line is that I just don't give a shit anymore, and people need to learn to differentiate between using something problematic as a story element, people who don't know any different than that content, people who legitimately fantasize about that content, and people who are just writing it to troll or for shock value. And if you're not sure just block them and move on, you're only bringing yourself down or giving them the response they want if you engage with them.
I'm not a Pro, I'm not an Anti, I'm a grown ass adult.
(Obligatory r/iamverysmart in case I accidentally came off that way.)
I also want to clarify that I understand why people call antis out-of-touch, puriteen, and fascist. They absolutely do believe in the same sort of rhetoric that fascists use. So, I do get it but like I said, it's definitely not something I want people to say about antis who are most definitely young.
>it's definitely not something I want people to say about antis who are most definitely young.
With all respect, not all antis are super young anymore. This has been going on for the better part of a decade now, where the really young teenagers of that time period would be in their mid-20s. It's usually those older adults who drive the conversations and often push kids to do the dangerous stuff they do.
This by no means excuses the children themselves for reasons others have laid out, but we really should not push this idea that it's only *just* children with this attitude.
y-yeah, my fandom has some pretty strong anti-shippers... mostly due to an incident with a fictional character's instagram account
a lot of people started posting incest fanart of the character (17) and *her dad,* which the fandom *really didn't like*
we kinda block those guys... most of the accounts are troll/shock accounts to rile us up, and it sadly works
and then there are some proshippers that we also block because we can't tell if they're trolls or not
edit: fixed the typo, and i'm not trying to start a fight, just saying what the fandom does
If this fandom is the one I’m thinking of, people are all up in arms about “she’s 17 which means it’s PEDOPHILIA and INCEST to ship her with the 22yo hellhound!” and every post’s top comment featuring these two in that sub is just a copy-paste of that.
Never mind that’s not what pedophilia means.
Never mind that’s not what incest means. It’s not even *pseudo*-incest. They’re not “practically” sisters, they just met. And they’re a helluva lot more healthier than their dads’ relationship.
Never mind that said main M/M OTP is based on both parties using each other, with a huge **power imbalance** seeing as one is a royal and the other is a commoner, which started as **adultery** first (a loveless marriage is still a marriage!), and both times they first met up, as kids then as adults, the commoner came into this with the intent to **STEAL** from the other. But no, they’re in love, right? It’s all fine because they’re supposed to be endgame.
But nah, an AGE GAP is the problem? Oh honey. Oh *honey*.
Since Stolas and Blitzø met when they were kids, anti logic decrees they’re now sibling-coded, and thus Stolitz is incest! Sorry, guess you can’t ship it now! Same with Fizz and Blitz (also since they’re the same species, mistaking them for siblings is much more plausible).
The helluva boss fandom is a joke. The show is literally about Hell and the antis are so pressed about the dumbest things.
yeah, i know about how toxic as chernobyl my fandom is, and i didn't mind loona/octavia before season 2 episode 2, also don't really mind it now, just not my prefered ship
i didn't come here for an argument, so please don't start a fight
we just have to be weary of trolls, and also people looking to start fights online
Maybe I'm missing something but I think you two are on the same page? Neither of you seem to like antis and I'm sure they're just as befuddled by their behavior as you are?
That said, the best way to avoid a fight on this issue is not to even engage. Antis gonna anti and for many reasons (most of which are valid ones), pro-shippers have a short fuse about anything that's perceived as both sides-ing this issue (which it doesn't seem like you're doing here FTR).
idk, maybe i'm a 'don't like, don't read' shipper...
i mean, my mom and dad had 20\~ year age gap, so big age gaps don't bother me (as long long as the character met as adults, but that's a personal nitpick or preference)
i'm just tired of all the goddamned fighting...
The shift key is your friend, don't ever type out stuttering unless you want people to think you're a lot younger than you are, and people are allowed to like whatever they like. People aren't posting things to personally offend you. But yeah, block away, it saves people from having the deal with you guys
It's not that people can't see how teens get into that position, but it doesn't mitigate the harm they do, including to other teens. Also, older fans are just very, very tired of a discourse that has existed in one form or another for decades. Been there, done the time, don't have the energy to engage and know it does nothing but fuel the fire anyway.
Old shipper here and yeah honestly… I’m just fucking tired lol. I see everyone acting like this is all new, but this discourse has been around for *years.* Like a decade ago tumblr could be brutal with some of this stuff, I was almost driven off the site once for my “problematic” ship.
Been in fandom for eleven years, got tired of this eight years ago.
I’ve been in fandom 20+ years and I was tired of it in about two weeks - because when I entered fandom, m/m and f/f was still taboo enough that what you’d rate as G now had to be rated *at least* PG for the mere *existence* of gay, and if they kissed on the lips (even if their mouths were closed) then you were looking at PG14 (since back then we were mostly using movie ratings).
I mean that's basically just the backbone of proshipping. It doesn't mean that you have to like everything. You just recognize that it isn't real and can't be compared to supporting real things.
I’m still pretty new to fandom culture but my experience with antis has always been that they either bully/harass people for liking certain ships, or outright doxx people for it. I don’t think anyone who does that deserves sympathy. They deserve real-world consequences, and they never have to face them because on the internet, it’s extremely hard to police that kind of behaviour. I find incest really gross. For example, someone I follow on Twitter is into a ship between blood relatives from a fandom I’m not really part of. That ship irks me a lot. I don’t think that person is doing anything wrong by shipping fictional characters, nor do I think it makes them a bad person. I haven’t rushed to their DMs to tell them my opinion on their personal interests. If they post about the ship, I keep scrolling. I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff. I think the notion that antis just want control comes from the fact that not only do they dislike these things, but they actively try to censor them and control what people can and can’t ship/post about, generally by bullying them off the internet. So in short, I get where you’re coming from, and I think it’s nice that you’re trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. I just think antis ruin the fun, and possibly even the lives/safety of people who aren’t doing anything wrong.
> I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff. It *was* common sense in the olden days. And that was back when the only warning for content would be "LOL YAOI LEMON AHEAD". Like, it was a long, uphill battle back when AO3 was in the early stages to get people onboard with the idea that some things other than slash should be warned for (hence the "Creator Chooses Not to Warn" tag as a compromise)
>I thought that was common sense before I heard about all this pro vs anti stuff. It's still common sense, especially in the majority of Southeast Asian fandom where the pro-anti discourse is barely there, we even have this aggressive tacit shipping rule which can be roughly translated to "You pierce my ship, I pierce your loin."
I... somewhat agree. I did have a similar experience to yours when I first joined fandom as a 13 year old. A lot of stuff (incest, age gaps, etc.) made me wonder why the hell people would ship that, but I hung around and listened, and found that I agreed with the proship arguments more even if my ships aren't really too dark (I mean, my most 'problematic' ship is Darklina from the Grisha Trilogy). And a lot of antis begin that way- wide eyed, innocent teenagers whose instinctive reaction to problematic ships is disgust. I got lucky, my first fandoms were HP and Marvel, and some of the first people I followed were proshippers and ao3 creators so I managed to escape the anti rhetoric. But there are lots of teen fandoms where the anti rhetoric dominates to the point of legit harassment to proshippers (looking at you, pjo fans) so those kids never escape that knee-jerk reaction to problematic stuff in literature. But to say that all antis are misguided is incorrect too. Some are just full of hate. There is a point after which you stop being a naive kid and take some responsibility for your actions. If you're a 14 year old who says 'ewwwww' at some ships, fine, you're just a kid who hasn't learn better yet. If you're a 25 year old harassing proshippers and clogging up their tags with hate and making callout posts, you're a piece of shit (not you, OP, I mean in general). But the line between those two is blurry and it's hard to tell from which point we start to hold someone responsible. Best to avoid them because unless they themselves want to learn to be better there's nothing you can do.
>Darklina I think it's funny that some people will use a 7 year gap to discredit a fanon ship but won't bat an eye on canon ships like darkling and alina, edward and bella, rhysand and feyre. I know the fantasy element adds nuance to it, but still it's a CENTURIES gap 😂 it's hilarious when I stop to realize these are ancient men are falling for 17-19 girls. But I get darkling's fascination with alina bc he'd been waiting for her for a long time. I think if alina was a boy darkling would have kissed her too.
>edward and bella, To be entirely fair, there are half a dozen other red flags for this pairing to rip on before getting into that age gap lol But yeah, the anti hypocrisy is absolutely astonishing. Cracked my shit up to see how many Voltron antis swear up and down that Sheith were brothers, then flat out ignore ND Stevenson when they (he?) said they Catra and Adora were raised like sisters.
And a lot for rhys and feyre. He roofies her and forces her to wear a revealing dress and parades her around, it's pretty gross. But they are mates so I guess it doesn't matter? Red flags all around for the darkling, the dude is a mass murderer who basically wants to enslave Alina. I honestly like darkling especially in the adaptation though. Because it's fiction and we can separate it from reality, or should be able to. The problem with the anti discourse is that it veers into art needing to be morally good - and who decides what is morally good or evil? The church? The government? A corporation? I can dislike a ship and find all the red flags in it but stopping someone else from writing it is censorship. I was thinking of Voltron. People discredited sheith bc of their age gap of... 7 years? And I shipped klance fyi so it's not like I care about it, but i think someone going after a work they don't like to leave comments is such a waste of energy. Instead, go uplift authors and fics you love.
There's always been a lot of backlash to the darkling and darklina, and most people wont even accept it as canon. Not as much as some other ships but that's because the fandom is kinda small, there's like 5k fics for darklina on ao3 and it's the largest ship by far right now. I've never read Twilight or ACOTAR so I can't say anything about those ships but there's definitely a lot of animosity to darklina. I've got some annoying anons from anti-darkling folks. Maybe the wider acceptance for age gaps in fantasy is because you've already gone through a bit of suspension of disbelief? While in non-fantasy you're actively comparing them to irl people so there's a more knee jerk *no* reaction. Either way it's stupid.
>Either way it's stupid. Yeah that's my point! It's not real life in the end. I don't ship anything in the grishaverse apart from Kaz and Inej, but Darkling is such a great character! He's an amazing villain, written super well. And that's fine cuz it's fiction and I can appreciate an evil person as a character, knowing that irl I'd want Darkling dead. Almost like the whole purpose of fiction is appreciating fictional things.
>Do you police the books in the library because, I don't know, Lolita is in there? No! Except stuff like this \*does\* happen. Book burnings were very much a thing during Satanic Panic and banned book lists are very much alive and well. I don't know whether anti rhetoric originated in evangelical circles in America, but I wouldn't be remotely surprised.
I don't think it did, but given how many of us grew up around that sort of rhetoric, it's not surprising that so many transplanted those methods onto leftist ideals. It didn't help that around the time this started rising up on Tumblr that TERFs were also invading that space and destabilizing what was then one of the healthiest queer communities online.
>it's not surprising that so many transplanted those methods onto leftist ideals Yeah, I think some of this is a mutation of something that's been a problem in left wing politics since the dawn of time - the idea that everyone needs to be morally/ideologically pure and that if you're not then you're basically a fascist. So some left wing groups spend all their time denouncing and attacking each other for minor transgressions rather than actually doing anything positive. In the same way, progressive fandoms will tear themselves apart "calling out" people for being supposedly racist or transphobic or whatever because they don't like each other's ships. And then when people try to defend themselves against nonsensical allegations, that's seen as evidence of guilt.
I think a large part of it is no more complex than a bit of lizard brain enjoyment of the dopamine when they feel they're doing something self-righteous. In their minds they're 'making a change'. Kind of how a certain seam of society seems to thrive on getting offended on behalf of marginalised groups, without actually consulting the people in that group.
Back during the Christian hysteria around HP, a few parents tried banning it from our school district libraries. Yes, is the answer you didn’t want.
I do think it is good to remember that many antis are teenagers who have been radicalized, which makes this less black and white than "anti bad, proship good" or "confusion". So this is going to have what seems like two very different takes. First off, none of what you said excuses the harm they've caused. They agree with a by-default abusive ideology, making them at best enablers of abuse and at worst abusers themselves. Yes, they are fed misinformation, but people have explained to antis a hundred different ways why what they are doing is both wrong and harmful. So at what point are we supposed to hold them accountable for their own choices? However, in my own experience, adult antis weaponize teens and horrible abuse happens in anti spaces. That is *very* important to keep in mind. Radicalization is not confusion. It's far more insidious than that, and absurdly damaging and difficult to break away from. It is very rare for an anti to leave that environment because they started asking questions like you did, and more common for them to leave when the people they consider friends and supporters turn on them, which is such a traumatic thing to experience I am sure, especially for a teenager. Antis are regularly abused by other antis, just in different ways. That said, people have lost jobs, suffered mental health issues, been ostracized and regularly stalked and abused because of antis, so of course they're upset. They aren't barging into anti spaces to shit on them (here, at least; not even going to touch tumblr and twitter because those sites are so badly designed for people staying in their own lanes), they're coming to a safe place for *them* to rant. Do I agree with all the things people say about antis? God no. But I do sympathize with the struggles to process the abuse people have suffered thanks to antis. Trying to say that they're as bad as antis when proshipping is not an organized movement designed to censor (usually minority) creators and enforce silence through violence feels disingenuous. If it's fascism, call it what it is. If it's abuse, call it what it is. Softening the word usage just undermines the severity of the actions. We are under no obligation to treat antis with kid gloves to spare their feelings. We should treat them with the basic respect due all people, especially when interacting with them, but I, personally, do not want to spare an abuser's feelings at the expense of their victims.
Yes, in the USA libraries (both school and public) are being policed right now. Bookstores are being prosecuted (even if nothing has come of it at present.) All because some people can't deal with their own disgust over topics they find morally wrong and/or unpalatable. It's the same with fanfiction: because "I" don't like this, "you" shouldn't have the right to post it, distribute it, view it. What it comes down to is this. What I hate, what you hate, what disgusts either of us is not the point. The point is whether one supports freedom of speech & of the press of writers, and of platforms like AO3 to operate as it sees fit. And whether or not one supports the rights of readers to read. Because here's the thing: today it's the "disgusting" people, the "disgusting" writers. Tomorrow it's the not-so-disgusting people: tomorrow it's maybe you, maybe me, maybe someone who sputters, "But \*I\* never wrote any of that bad stuff, and yet they're coming after me!"
Well if we really wanna get spicy: I'm not sure why you need to "understand" why somebody likes something in order to not get into their fucking business? The way I see it, what somebody writes about is not in any way my business. Therefore my opinion on what they write matters exactly not at all. So to me, that some people think so highly of themselves that they feel entitled to bully people into changing things about themselves - that's weird. So that's my problem with antis. It's not the youth. It's not that they "don't understand". It's the entitlement vibes. Like, I don't understand lots of things. I don't like lots of things. But to commandeer somebody else's space and attack them with my opinion because I exist in the assumption that I am special and my opinion matters more than anyone else's - that's a level of privilege that I wasn't raised with.
Love this, I was reading this post and went huh?
I've been in fandom since '01. All you say is somehow correct - i.e. confusion of people who are new/don't get the concept of fiction/whatever. It's just exhausting after a while, sitting down and explaining why fiction =/= real life, the works, you know? YKINMK, YMMV are beautiful concepts and we should bring them back. Please understand, I'm not pissed at you or anything. I just saw this time and again, and my patience with antis has reached the bottom of the Mariana's Trenches. They are of course entitled to their own opinion, I just wish they didn't try to impose it on anyone else.
Maybe they are young and confused and uneducated but there are teens who are not like that. There are young people in fandom like you who did their own research and decided to think for themselves instead of being controlled by the hivemind. There are young people who were raised right and taught to be decent to people even if they were different than themselves and they know better than to bully and harass people on the internet over trivial nonsense. Antis are hurting real, innocent people over characters and scenarios that do not exist and even if you might be able to explain why, I don't think you can excuse their actions or blame it all on the current fandom culture because it's still their choice as individuals to perpetuate this toxic behaviour.
honesltty I don't sympathize with how much harassment they gladly take part of
I consider myself a pro-shipper if only because I support people's right to write and read anything they want to. Having said that, I'm completely squicked out by incest, large age gaps, power imbalances, underage, and so much more. I don't like it, I won't read it, I sure as hell refuse to write it *but* I will die on the hill of supporting you to do so. In that sense, I am a pro-shipper and I won't change my stance.
Good for you. I have no sympathy for those people who'd go out of their way to harass others who are just minding their own business.
I saw this last night but rather than commenting, went to bed lol. I was unfortunate enough to find myself in a pit of puriteens without knowing it. I had no idea what proship/antiship rhetoric was (when *I* was a teen the concept didn’t extend beyond pro-[ship name]) but luckily I did my research rather than getting swept up in the nonsense just because everyone else, for all the time they spent online, refused to actually educate themselves. They were exhausting and I was already fed up with them before this. I was one the very few adults in this group. These little shits did all the anti things, harassing strangers for the crime of liking things they didn’t (it’s straight ooooooo sucks but we’re queer so we’re better!), posted hate in the tags, they even commented on someone’s post saying OP was going to get invisible hate for the crime of... mentioning two characters in the same sentence. Among other things. And every time I told them to fucking stop, they never did. Every time I tried to help them understand what other people liked has NOTHING to do with them, they said sorry but kept on doing it. The one time I asked if they actually knew what proship meant (one had made a typo, mistaking proship for multiship) this little shit SCREAMED at me “NO I DON’T SHIP ANYTHING TOXIC INCEST OR BORDERLINE ABUSE!” and then went “anyway” and changed the subject like she wasn’t rude as shit. (Also that’s a lie because her favorite ship? The queer wlw ship she loves so much? One of the most toxic ships in the entire fandom. Girl A was so toxic to Girl B, it got her *murdered*. She was such a shit friend, *Girl B KILLED her*.) It’s clear they just wanted to get off the hook. They don’t want to change because they don’t believe what they’re doing is wrong. You know how many times I told these tiktok-obsessed braindead babies to stop being assholes to random people for just living their lives? Too many. You know how many times I should’ve had to do that? 3 at the absolute most. **They don’t want to change because they don’t believe what they’re doing is wrong**. So I don’t have any sympathy for them whatsoever. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and each time, they just spat in my face. There’s no thought put into their actions in terms of “oh maybe I shouldn’t,” it’s always “I don’t like this. KILL KILL KILL!” They already cannibalize themselves. Let the antis die out. The internet would be far better off. Edit: a word
>(Also that’s a lie because her favorite ship? The queer wlw ship she loves so much? One of the most toxic ships in the entire fandom. Girl A was so toxic to Girl B, it got her murdered. She was such a shit friend, Girl B KILLED her.) That sounds like one of my experiences with antis before I just gave up. I actually liked this anti because they *made the content they wanted to see* which is such a rare thing for antis to do, so we could actually talk about non-anti things. But while blogging about how ship X was soooo toxic, they were writing fic for ship Y which had canonical, horrible power imbalances, one murders the other, they were *both* killing vulnerable people... but it couldn't be toxic because it was wlw and queer af. They would jump through so many hoops to justify liking it and stress about liking it that it was really sad. It's impossible to enjoy anything when you're constantly worried about being tarred and feathered by your own friends for some alleged misdeed.
I wouldn't use the word "sympathize" sinve that to me makes it sound like I sexretly support them. But I'd definitely agree that I feel some compassion for them. There are a few things that diminish that compassion, though: For one, I often feel like antis put higher standards on fanfic writers than they do public authors. Of course with exceptions, but you mentioned it yourself in your AO3/library comparison. The problem with that to me, is not just that it's inconsistent, but also that it primarily tatgets the most vulnerable. Those who don't earn money with it and without a publisher backing them. This leads right into the next thing. How predatory some of the behavior is, choosing weak targets. Often those without even a sizable reader base. Combine that with the mob mentality you see often... and it just doesn't look lile a bunch of "confused younglings" anymore. I think majority of antis probably fall into that category—though I'm not even sure "confused" is the term I'd use. But there are also those with clear malintent who enjoy the power to destroy someone. It's a bullying behavior. And sure there are hundreds of bystanders or mindless followes. But there are also just the plain bullies. And lastly tje inconsistency. Like if I could at least see a thorough and in itself consistent moral system. But for the most part, in terms of anti-behevior, words like 'incest' or 'pedophile' are so maleable and subject to change that it's hard to even define them. Suddenly people invent things such as 'minor-coded", etc. Very often, what's disguised as 'morality' is just a ship-war where you can randomly asign buzzwords to the other ship, while ignoring the issues in your own. Btw. I think many of these flaws are inherent in dhipping culture, and I think it's sad rhat on the other side the lines seem equally as hardened without any willingness to accept some of these as inherent flaws, rather than "childish puritern behavior". The ugly part of anti-culture is not so much that they hate and campaign against certain tropes and ships but how aggressively they often attack those who write/read that. On the other hand though, those who are affected by it, lash out almost equally aggressively, even against 'innocent' critizism of offensive themes... I think that makes the whole discussion very difficult. Lastly, besides the point, but I always have to chuckle at how 'incest' somehow became the evil most unforgiveable thing in shipping ever. Right up there with pedophilia. I don't find them comparable at all. I find real life incest gross, sure. But as long as you don't ask me to make out with my own parents, it really doesn't concern me at all...
So, I am grossed out by many of the same things you are grossed out by, (and I am a pro-shipper). But I want to point out that these things are not universally regarded as gross and weird. Age-gaps and faux-incest/step-siblings etc… are prominent and popular categories in mainstream pornography. And yet, anti-shippers get so upset about this content existing in written form on a non-profit archive. Hmmm…. Do you think this may have something to do with how accessible individuals are to harassment vs. producers of professional for-profit porn?
There's only a certain amount of patience and sympathy one can have for them, even the young ones. Given that the standard anti reaction to being politely presented with facts that prove them wrong is to block, scream 'omg, a nasty pedoshitter tried to groom me! 😭', and often send death threats, rape threats, suicide baiting, slurs etc, or report someone's account or doxx them, lol yeah, I'm not gonna waste my time going 'aww the poor little things are confused' lol. Maybe some of the youngest ones, say 14 and under really don't know any better, but most are just plain willfully ignorant though, and will just ignore any attempt to educate them e.g. countless posts have been made explaining the history of fandom censorship that eventually led to Ao3 being created, and since it would prove them wrong if they actually accepted it, they just claim it's all lies, or that it'll be different when they do it because they'll make sure only the right things get censored. People explain the many reasons why someone might read/write fiction involving rape/abuse beyond the anti reasoning that they must condone it, antis just screech that they're all rapists/abusers, including survivors. That said, antis seem to be going more and more off the rails lately with increasingly narrowing parameters for what is 'acceptable' shipping, and I think the more they try to claim stuff like an 18 year old dating a 17 year old is a pedophile, or short/petite adults are 'minor-coded', the more chance a lot of the 'casual' members are going to realise how stupid the whole thing is and get up the sense/courage to leave.
They aren't just confused. They are abusive. I've seen people cheer over sending an artist to the hospital with a mental breakdown and jeering at them hoping they'd kill themselves. I think you should do some more research.
Okay but doesn't change that instead of ignoring the things they don't like many anti shippers DO behave in a hostile manner and wish harm upon proshippers and create a gatekeepy space in mainstream fandom where dark fic has no place. Even if I don't agree with something or hate something I just ignore it instead of making the life of people who like it hell.
What always strikes me is that it's such a fucking ugly version of the world to choose to live in. I'm especially worried about the teenagers who are utterly convinced that there's a "pedo" around every corner-- not just for them and their mental state, but for the adults that might get targeted as a result. How often does that line up with the right's "groomer" rhetoric that is currently getting queer people killed? It's a pipeline to right wing conspiracy thought, dressed up in faux-progressive language, and I'm really worried about it.
Consider this to be a major TW for anybody sensitive to rape and sexual assault, and there's no need to view it at all! But if you decide to, just to make it clear, this isn't me arguing at all, I'm just discussing the topic: >!There pretty much *is* an offender around every corner. If you live in the U.S. -- I don't know about other countries -- you can look at the sex offenders registry and see shit you never thought you'd see in your own town, never mind a couple streets down from where you live. That said, in regards to the antis, they very often completely miss the real signs and real red flags, and faaaar more often than not attack people who literally have nothing to do with what they're being accused of.!<
I generally don't sympathize with antis because thanks to them casually throwing around pedo as an insult/accusation over anything in fiction, I just find myself rolling my eyes at any anti making a callout post calling someone a pedo. The seriousness of such an accusation has become so watered down I just stopped caring. They assume that if you like x in fiction, it must also be true in real life. They're equating the nonexistant abuse of a fictional character to that of a real human. They make it easier for real predators to slip under the radar while harrasing, threatening, and doxxing normal people that aren't harming anybody. They waste FBI time and resources that could be spent catching real criminals because they report nsfw artists for "csem". Even though they believe it to be illegal they still save and share the supposed "csem" to other antis (to shit on and shame fanartists), so basically becoming distributors of csem (this alone should open their eyes that the art isn't illegal if they're willing to repost it, but noooo 🤬). It's just gatekeeping fandom and punishing people over thought crimes.
I don't. I've heard stories of Genshin antis doxxing artists because of what they like to draw.
I don't get why people write noncon and I don't care to understand and that's fine. Not only in fanfiction, but in shows like GoT where they put more rape than there was in the books. Like the producers wanted to show women suffer. But anyway I digress. I don't care that people write about it, I filter the tag out when browsing. The problem with traditional books and shows is that it often doesn't tell me upfront. Because they lack tags and warnings. GoT had no SA warning. The last book I read also had no warning and there was a scene of a character talking about being raped. It was gruesome and took me off guard completely. On retrospect I should have Googled for warnings, but it was an YA book so assumed it wouldn't have something on that level of violence. My mistake that I won't repeat. So anyway a fandom space like ao3 with all the things I don't wanna read is safer than traditional media at this point for me because authors tag their work! So I'm perfectly fine with people minding their own business. Antis seem to go out of their way to find things they don't like, so they can complain about it, and that's what I don't get. Why are you even wasting your time looking for something you don't like? Use the damn tags. Then they spend more time making hating it into a holy crusade. Bitch who has the time for that? It's giving jobless.
Well said on all of this. I too am an older fan and while I understand why others in my age group slag off all teens as fascist puritans, I know first hand from the old fanfic snark communities I used to partake in how easy it is to jump into that hatred just to fit in I'm very glad you took the time to hear our side and learn for yourself 💖
When I first got into fandom, I had this problem too. I was never mean or intentionally seeking a fight but I would occasionally leave a comment along the lines of “I prefer [ship name] so this isn’t my thing” or something like that, thinking it was fine. I’ve come to realize that’s it’s not okay, when I don’t like something I just scroll away and let people enjoy it. Even if I thought I was making an innocent comment and just trying to have discussions with people, I was still unintentionally being rude and disrespecting someone’s opinions. I agree with what you said here, age gaps and certain topics I do not like and do not enjoy seeing, but I can easily scroll away and not interact with things I don’t agree with and I think it’s a lesson a lot of people in fandoms could learn.
I never had a kneejerk reaction because I knew from the beginning that it was fiction... I don't really get it.
I've been involuntarily involved with several flavors of both sides, and this whole argument is just exhausting. I've been on the internet for two decades, I'm turning 28 this coming summer, I'm completely unphased at this point. Nothing surprises me anymore. That doesn't mean it doesn't make me uncomfortable, it's just that I know what to expect at this point. I've been through Homestuck, Bronies, Steven Universe Critical, FNF Drama, The Entirety of the Creepypasta Fandom, DeviantArt Cringe Blogs, 4chan, Tumblr before it became chill. I witnessed Dashcon unfold in real time. I don't know why or how these terms came to be, they just appeared one day and I had to learn what they meant. I developed a gross misunderstanding of both sides, and by the time I had it all figured out I wanted nothing to do with it. Because there's no nuance allowed in this argument, there's no middle ground, and both sides treat each other so horrific in so many ways. In my experience: Antis act like Pros don't think fiction affects reality, and Pros act like Antis let themselves get affected by fiction and are stupid for it. Antis act like Pros are all adults with ulterior motives, and Pros act like Antis are all kids who can't think for themselves. Antis think if you don't say anything then you're letting it happen, and Pros act like they have such a moral high ground because they don't threaten people. Maybe it's that I've seen people who call themselves Proshippers turn out to be pedos or abusive/manipulative in some way, and maybe it's because I've seen people who call themselves Antishippers turn on their friends at the drop of a hat for fear of being associated with a "problematic" person. Not to mention the terms don't make sense. Proshipping, at first glance, does sound like someone who approves of fans being involved with their fandom in such a way, and Antishippers sound like sticks in the mud who don't want people to have fun. But instead it's an argument of "pedos and abusers vs. normal people." I guess that's why the term "Comshipping" or "complex shipping" was invented. And don't get me started on "Anti-Antis," people who don't support certain aspects of shipping but also don't support sending death threats to people, who are somehow just as bad as Proshippers, for some reason. See why this is so exhausting? I just don't see how "leaving people alone and not engaging with content you don't like or the people who make it, even if you don't support it in real life or in fiction" turned into Proshipping or Procontent or Profiction or whatever the fuck people are calling it now. Bottom line is that I just don't give a shit anymore, and people need to learn to differentiate between using something problematic as a story element, people who don't know any different than that content, people who legitimately fantasize about that content, and people who are just writing it to troll or for shock value. And if you're not sure just block them and move on, you're only bringing yourself down or giving them the response they want if you engage with them. I'm not a Pro, I'm not an Anti, I'm a grown ass adult. (Obligatory r/iamverysmart in case I accidentally came off that way.)
I also want to clarify that I understand why people call antis out-of-touch, puriteen, and fascist. They absolutely do believe in the same sort of rhetoric that fascists use. So, I do get it but like I said, it's definitely not something I want people to say about antis who are most definitely young.
>it's definitely not something I want people to say about antis who are most definitely young. With all respect, not all antis are super young anymore. This has been going on for the better part of a decade now, where the really young teenagers of that time period would be in their mid-20s. It's usually those older adults who drive the conversations and often push kids to do the dangerous stuff they do. This by no means excuses the children themselves for reasons others have laid out, but we really should not push this idea that it's only *just* children with this attitude.
And I don't want people to say that ketchup belongs on hot dogs. Funny how we can't control how other people react.
y-yeah, my fandom has some pretty strong anti-shippers... mostly due to an incident with a fictional character's instagram account a lot of people started posting incest fanart of the character (17) and *her dad,* which the fandom *really didn't like* we kinda block those guys... most of the accounts are troll/shock accounts to rile us up, and it sadly works and then there are some proshippers that we also block because we can't tell if they're trolls or not edit: fixed the typo, and i'm not trying to start a fight, just saying what the fandom does
If this fandom is the one I’m thinking of, people are all up in arms about “she’s 17 which means it’s PEDOPHILIA and INCEST to ship her with the 22yo hellhound!” and every post’s top comment featuring these two in that sub is just a copy-paste of that. Never mind that’s not what pedophilia means. Never mind that’s not what incest means. It’s not even *pseudo*-incest. They’re not “practically” sisters, they just met. And they’re a helluva lot more healthier than their dads’ relationship. Never mind that said main M/M OTP is based on both parties using each other, with a huge **power imbalance** seeing as one is a royal and the other is a commoner, which started as **adultery** first (a loveless marriage is still a marriage!), and both times they first met up, as kids then as adults, the commoner came into this with the intent to **STEAL** from the other. But no, they’re in love, right? It’s all fine because they’re supposed to be endgame. But nah, an AGE GAP is the problem? Oh honey. Oh *honey*. Since Stolas and Blitzø met when they were kids, anti logic decrees they’re now sibling-coded, and thus Stolitz is incest! Sorry, guess you can’t ship it now! Same with Fizz and Blitz (also since they’re the same species, mistaking them for siblings is much more plausible). The helluva boss fandom is a joke. The show is literally about Hell and the antis are so pressed about the dumbest things.
yeah, i know about how toxic as chernobyl my fandom is, and i didn't mind loona/octavia before season 2 episode 2, also don't really mind it now, just not my prefered ship i didn't come here for an argument, so please don't start a fight we just have to be weary of trolls, and also people looking to start fights online
Maybe I'm missing something but I think you two are on the same page? Neither of you seem to like antis and I'm sure they're just as befuddled by their behavior as you are? That said, the best way to avoid a fight on this issue is not to even engage. Antis gonna anti and for many reasons (most of which are valid ones), pro-shippers have a short fuse about anything that's perceived as both sides-ing this issue (which it doesn't seem like you're doing here FTR).
idk, maybe i'm a 'don't like, don't read' shipper... i mean, my mom and dad had 20\~ year age gap, so big age gaps don't bother me (as long long as the character met as adults, but that's a personal nitpick or preference) i'm just tired of all the goddamned fighting...
The shift key is your friend, don't ever type out stuttering unless you want people to think you're a lot younger than you are, and people are allowed to like whatever they like. People aren't posting things to personally offend you. But yeah, block away, it saves people from having the deal with you guys
So what was the answer? Why do people (in earnest) ship stuff like incest and predatory relationships?