#Shipping of fiction and fantasies is not endorsement of irl. But also age gaps IRL aren't that weird on their own

[liedownquisition]

When I was a tween, it was not only an expectation but a pressure for you to have some kind of celebrity crush. Failure to comply or know yours off the top of your head meant you were either lame, and to be mocked, or gay (derogatory) and also to be mocked.

I've always been bad at names and, honestly, didn't see the hype. Despite my grandmother being really into celeb drama, I could never keep up or bring myself to care. I liked the characters some actors played but I didn't know... anything about the actors themselves, so I didn't see any appeal. In a last ditch attempt to fit in, I remember using my money for the scholastic bookfaire to buy a book on "Hollywood's Hottest Guys" and resolved to pick one from there to hold onto as my crutch. Ultimately, I picked Orlando Bloom, bcs I liked Pirates of the Carribean and Will & Elizabeth were my favorite romance in anything ever. Jokingly, I still consider him my "celebrity beard crush." (In Retrospect, I was WAY more into Kiera Knightly.)

The earliest male fictional character I can remember having a crush on was Luxord, whose age I Do Not Know but I always assumed was somewhere in his early to mid forties. When I, as a wee kiddo, shipped my self-inserts with him they were vaguely early 20's. The Age gap was part of the appeal. I didn't really go after older guys though, it was like crushing on a celebrity. You thirst after the "safe" older guy that was never going to happen as an outlet for burgeoning hormones.

In movies you would always see girls with pictures of boybands or actors who were sometimes decades older than them. Boys had pinups or porno mags of women who were *definitely* at least twice their age. Teen Dramas had all kinds of tropes of crushing on substitute teachers or your older siblings' friends or just generally older, cooler people, ect, ect. They weren't often something that became canon in widely-watched shows because of concerns about teaching children the wrong things, but fanwork doesn't have the kind of broad, impressionable audience that someone just watching a live broadcasted TV stuff would.

These fantasies were normal, and accepted. I mean, yeah girls still got mocked for them a lot actually, but it was still assumed and expected that they were like that. It was IMPLICIT that these pubescent kids were having fantasies that were romantic or sexual in nature about people who were significantly older than them.

Stacy's Mom, a song about a teenage boy fantasizing about having a long term romantic and sexual relationship with one of their classmates' parents, fucking existed.

To this day, DILF and MILF and GILF are still popular terms. Statements like "fuck/breed/ect that old man/get that old man pregnant" are thrown around all the time.

So whenever I see ppl arguing about fictional age gap shipping, and how problematic it is for [older character] to get involved with [younger character] I can't help but think about all of the above. It's fiction, y'all. It's fantasies. Sometimes, the way it's phrased makes it sound like the RL person fantasizing is a predator, like the younger person is their target for the older one to enact their misogyny or barely legal fantasies/ect. ect.

Like, why is the assumption that it's about the younger character, and not that the younger character is a barely-concealed self-insert/projection field for the person to fantasize about getting to Fuck That Old [Insert gender of choice].

[the-cpu-system]

No disrespect, but headcanoning Jack as a groomer is really gross.

Alot of people ship with him and you're saying he's a groomer? That's genuinely disgusting, you're a child, you should know better.

What the HELL are you talking about! YOU severely misinterpreted something!

There's like 2 things you could be talking about, so like I'll mention them both.

If you're talking about my rhack discussion post where I mention that most rhack fics are grooming fantasies, that was NOT saying he's one?? Or endorsing the idea that he is? Literally all I was saying is that there is a lot of content where (and repeating this sentence, FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM) Jack does/is exhibit grooming habits. Since a lot of rhack fanfictions are engrossed with the idea of their age gap and make it a point to show Rhys as young and naive. I never once said I think that way as well.

But if you're talking about the fact I'm a kid and I selfship with him.. you're?? Kind of really stupid?

I don't headcanon him as anything. Realistically, Handsome Jack would NOT like me. Most he'd ever interact with me if he were real is maybe a "where're your parents, kiddo?" Or he'd give me his autograph after I ask for it.

But.. oh my god.. spoiler alert.. HES NOT REAL.

Teenagers have been swooning over fictional characters— AND REAL CELEBRITIES!— for EVERRRR. This has been going since the dawn of man, buddy.

Might I remind you of beatlemania, 1D fans, Draco Malfoy simps...

Teenagers have literally paved the way for selfshipping for ages, buddy. Who do you think were writing those x readers on quotev? The imagines on Instagram? Making those poorly edited photos of their bae markimoo in a flower crown?

Another point about the selfshipping, I'm not even nonsharing. "A lot of people ship with him and you're saying he's a groomer?" If I was saying that, they could keep shipping with him? I literally don't change anything? I am a speck.

Also the sentence "you're a child, you should know better" seems a little oxymoron-ish.

PLUS I don't make any ship content of irl me and him besides comfort sketches. I don't make fanfic detailing how he gets with a teenager (though a 1D Wattpad style "sold to Handsome Jack!" fic would be SO funny), I don't draw anything weird. I doodle him swooning me to some corny 2010s love song. and that's it.

When I do make ship content, it's with my self insert, who is 24. Is there a big age gap? Yes! Does that mean it's grooming? No!

Basically, uh. Tldr. I have NO clue how you came to that conclusion, but I very much do not headcanon him as anything of the sort. If I did, I'd really hope you WOULD be disrespectful, cus that's GROSS. EYUCK!

[deep-sea-anemone]

I don't know you, I don't know who or what you ship, but my understanding of anti vs. pro means being anti vs. pro-shipping children with adults and if you think the majority opinion is that that is perfectly fine and normal, you need to go outside and touch grass.

Hi!

I assume you're referring to my addition on that poll post. I'm happy to clear a few things up.

Firstly, Proship IS the default opinion and only in recent years has this anti-ship ideology come about (I have my own theories as to why that is, but that's its own can of worms and I specifically just want to adress this ask).

Any Pro vs Anti definitions were made up and forced on proshippers (again, because pro is the default and Antis are new). As such, Antis have skewed the meaning of proship into basically stating that "all proshippers like and endorse this content, and do not discriminate between content or judge the individuals who make it". This actually goes against what proshippers believe. The entire pro-ship philosophy can essentially be boiled down to "don't like, don't read".

There is a whole hoard of fiction that grosses me out. For instance I hate yandere and non-con, and find incest and minor/adult relationships incredibly gross. I even block the "age-gap" tag because even if they are both consenting, having that much of a power imbalance wiggs me out. I've unfollowed some of my favorite artists because they've posted dynamics and scenes that I don't like (Most recently I unfollowed a very popular artist because I found out they ship Sukufushi: a ship between a 16 year old and an ancient demon possessing another 16 year old. Since it's fiction and not reality, you get these wierd nuances that could never happen in the real world and it is up to the individual to decide what they are comfortable with).

A lot of proshippers actually WILL tell you that people who like pedophilic ships or other dark content (such as rape and snuff fics) ARE gross and sick in the head and that the people who think otherwise are delusional. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that they don't have a right to create that content. I just want them to keep it away from me. Hence why I have those tags blocked on tumblr and why I filter them out when I search for fics.

The proshipper philosophy isn't that problematic ideas/ships are good and should be celebrated, and everyone certaintly doesn't believe that it is "perfectly normal", we just think that if you don't like it then, rather than berating the "freaks" who do, simply block and move on and do your best to keep them out of your thoughts, because ultimately, as disgusting as it is, there is no actual harm in it.

Secondly, Antis seem to believe that we proshippers endorse gross/dark content in real life. I assure you that that is NOT the case. And if an individual does, in fact enact their ficticious-but-irl-illegal fantasies, then that is not an example of the pro-shipper caving in and acting out their sick desires in the real world. It is the case of a REAL LIFE pedophile (or whatever) coming into fandom spaces and then interacting with or creating dark content. Is it possible that this happens? Sure. That doesn't mean that it is the default or even common, and basically every proshipper is in agreement that they are disgusting individuals. Again, this is because proshippers believe that fiction should remain fiction. Any time that make-believe turns into real-world actions, it is no longer make-believe and is now a real danger. Antis refuse to see the difference between the two.

You also mentioned touching grass which I think is a little ironic. The proshipper philosophy is that as long as fiction remains fiction, it has no bearing on the real world. It is Antis that have a hard time recognizing that playing pretend isn't the same as physical wrongdoing. Hence, why proshippers use the term "touch grass": it's meant to remind people that there is more to life than fantasy and online discourse, That it's important to log off and go "touch grass" to remind yourself that there is a difference between the tangible real-world and the imaginary scenarios that people create in their heads.

If you (and others! This isn't meant to be a callout, just informative) have difficulty comprehending this, I encourage you to consider the following scenarios:

1) Murder Mysteries: just because someone writes someone getting murdered, does not mean that they would want to see it happen,and certainly not commit it in real life.

2) BDSM: no party that willingly engages in bdsm is truly getting hurt (except to the extent that they want to be). Smacking someone during sessions does not mean that that person would ever do it in real life, and certainly wouldn't support others doing it

3) rape fantasies: this sort of goes along with bdsm, but there is a large difference between having faith that your trusted partner would never hurt you and only acts out a scenario because you ask them to, and being forced against your will to engage in harmful and/degrading sex acts.

4) Shooter Games: For a long time, people believed that playing violent video games corrupted children's moral and made them crave violence and increased the likelihood that they would want to renact that violence and turn into school shooters. There was actually a study done a while ago examining the link between video game violence and real life consequences....and they found nothing. There was no correlation between committing fictional violence and real world impact.

Fiction =/= real life.

Secondly, Antis have a tendency to invade people's inboxes and leave hate comments everywhere. Sometimes this is just saying "this is gross", but often Antis start harassment campaigns, recruiting multiple individuals to scare and intimidate people whose content they don't like (One tactic is to dump hundreds of graphic, gory images into peoples inboxes. I'm sure you can see how that would be traumatizing). Antis also have a history of doxxing people and causing this ficticious content to cause real-life harm to come to people. This is especially concerning since one of the most common things Antis like to parrot is some variation of "kill yourself".

A lot of Antis actually ARE proshippers, they just don't realize it because they get so caught up with the Anti's hate philosophy that they believe that willingly not engaging with content that they don't like (rather than harassing and condemning people who do) is what proshippers stand against. This is why some proshippers use the terms "anti-harrasment" and "pro-censorship" rather than proshippers and antishippers because it helps to clarify what the pro-shipper philosophy ACTUALLY is.

*phew* that was a long post, wasn't it? Let's both go touch grass together 🤝

[shipcestuous-two]

not trying to be rude, this is genuine curiosity: what are the rules for irl stories you will/won't post? years ago, i sent the story of my/my bro's 1st kiss and how it evolved into a secret relationship during our teens. it wasn't longer than some personal stories posted lately, but you wouldn't post it and it seemed like it was bc it felt too long/fake (even if it was real). but you've posted things that felt more like a reddit fantasy than what i sent in, so i'm curious about the guidelines

Not rude at all, a very good question, and I'm glad you presented me with the opportunity to say something on this topic.

I really hate not posting something, because I don't want the person who sent it in to feel like I don't appreciate their participation, or to feel like I've questioned the legitimacy of what they sent in (assuming it was real/true), or especially for them to feel like I've passed some kind of judgment on them. And especially if it was a long message I feel bad. They took the time to type all of that out and to share something personal, and I fully appreciate that. So in general I like to post things if I can, even if I'm a little skeptical that it's true. But there are a few reasons why I might not post something.

When I post something to my blog, I'm essentially endorsing it, or saying "this is OK". Unless I use the text box to explicitly disagree or say something in protest. So sometimes I'm put into a position where I have to choose - do I say to this person, "I don't approve"? Or do I just not post. It seems nicer/easier not to post. So that's a factor sometimes.

In terms of personal stories that get sent in, some reasons why I don't post them are:

They seem fake

They're too explicit

They treat cheating or something else questionable like it's OK

I don't fully understand what's being said

Something to do with age stuff (more details below)

It just makes me uncomfortable/it seems like it's maybe not as healthy as the person who sent it in thinks it is

Relating to the age thing, if there's an age gap of more than a couple of years and the relationship or whatever act being talked about started or took place while one or both people were underage then I probably won't post it. (This applies to someone sharing about their own personal experience, not relating facts as a thirty party.) It's a gray area, I'm not saying I'm judging, and not every case is the same, but that's just not something I'm comfortable posting. Same goes if the two people being talked about are close in age but it goes into stuff that happened while they were kids/pre-pubescent. Again, I'm not saying it's wrong, every case is different, and a lot of people might find it cute, depending upon what it was, but that can make people uncomfortable and I don't want to court any controversy. I understand that it might be important background info or an important part of the story. But I don't want to be dealing with reaction messages or debates or anything like that. Anything that might have fallout will probably not be posted. I apologize.

It would be different if this were a confession blog and I just posted everything no matter what without comment. But my focus is on shipping/fiction and people who send messages in often ask questions and expect responses most of the time.

Also, I get a lot of asks and don't have a lot of time and sometimes I just have to make a quick judgment and can't spend a long time debating it with myself or consulting others. I have to make things easy on myself or else I would have to give up the blog. I fully acknowledge that others might have a different opinion.

Also, sometimes Tumblr just eats messages. I don't even know how often it happens because I have no way of knowing unless the sender follows up or it was one in a numbered series. But it definitely does happen.

I'm honored that people interact with my blogs and I apologize if I didn't post something that you sent in and you were hurt or offended. I would be hurt too and I totally understand that and I really am sorry.

Also, if you want to share your story, anon, or anyone else, and I did not post it here, or even if I did post it here, there are several subreddits on Reddit that exist for that.