#I keep seeing this across multiple fandoms and it’s gross for a multitude of reasons.

[thecreelhouse]

btw the excuse of “but I’m using AI to talk to my comfort character!!!” is still invalid

you’re a grown adult, making the choice to talk to a chat bot because it poorly emulates your favorite character(s), and ignoring the impact AI has on fandom, creative spaces, and the environment, all for….. what?

it’s sad if you need to rely on AI for comfort.

[cowardlybean]

ok so

beyond being gross and weird I think there’s something to be said about the lack of literary analysis in proshipping (this post is about mp100 in particular but this can apply elsewhere)

there’s two points I’m getting at here: lack of understanding of the characters being interpreted, and intent of author

first of all, the common rebuttal to “he would not fucking say that” is “it’s just fiction and for fun” (which is just a really common rebuttal for everything but that’s beside my point). But that point lacks acknowledgement that their interpretation isn’t based on the source material. For example: Reigen, the guy who notoriously stood up against a terrorist organization to keep kids from being in danger, being interpreted as a pedophile (there’s no soft way to put it). It’s going directly against what is set up in a (in my opinion) disrespectful way. Also there’s a point to be made about trampling over platonic relationships for the sake of shipping and how that applies to proship but i digress!

There are methods to have characters act in ways they would not normally. In fact, most of my favorite fics across all of my fandoms do this!! What they all have in common is an understanding of that character that explains what pushed them to the point of deconstructing their own morals and values. “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if this happened?” works so much better when you can see how it led to that point. And even then I’d venture to say there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, knowing these characters do in fact belong to the author, but me drawing lines in the sand isn’t going to be accurate to everyone’s view. It’s always going to be a nuanced topic!

Second of all is the importance of authors intent when reading. Rather than applying this to the base media, however, I’m pivoting focus onto those creating proship content. What is their intent while writing? Through unfortunate exposure in Multiple fandoms I see these common reasons: fluffy content with or without acknowledging the ship being (for lack of a better word. i wish i knew a better one) problematic, dark content such as gore or rape, or (there’s no way to put this lightly) jackoff material. Keep in mind these are generalizations, but im also not giving some of these people the time of day to add defenses.

The “fluffy” content I can sometimes see as the author of the content not understanding the consequence of the ship itself (incest and pedophilia bad) due to a multitude of factors, and I genuinely do think there are learning experiences for them in non negative or aggressive ways. Dark content I can make a case that this is a form of self harm whether intentional or unintentional, however for some this gets looped into the last category. Finally, it’s pretty obvious some people just yank their shit to incest and pedophilia and I REALLY don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad. Point is, it’s important to consider proshippers intent, and how it’s more complex than just gross people who are intentionally malicious. I think there’s learning experiences here for every proshipper, however those who refuse to acknowledge that their actions have consequences (entirely different post to make there about how proshipping can in fact have real life repercussions) I hold a special vendetta against.

To conclude I’ll say I’m not someone who calls myself an “Anti”. Do I hate proshipping? Yes, absolutely I do. But I also enjoy fiction with darker topics that are handled in a critical manner!! Think Oyasumi Punpun. Good manga btw, absolutely horrifying though. I don’t think dark subjects should be kept out of fiction but I do think they should be handled with care.