#but they're the exception because a) they're trans-coded to me anyways and b) they also hold yuri potential

[humbuns]

hits them with the yuri beam

[chocolatepot]

youwillregretthis.jpg

So it all starts with antis, because "proship" only exists in contrast to anti-shipping.

As long as there has been the word shipping (so, since X-Files fandom), there have been people who defined themselves in opposition to a particular ship, often calling themselves "anti-[shipname]", but generally not related to each other. In the mid-2010s, this kind of specific anti-ness shifted into a broader subculture in which members just call themselves "antis" as a noun rather than a prefix. (I suspect this is related to a middle step of broadening from anti-[ship] to anti-[fandom] as people who hated Twilight in its entirety developed an identity focused on that.) Their general ethos was/is that what someone ships/writes about reflects their inner character in a fairly simplistic way: people who write a fic with a sexual or romantic relationship between one character above the age of consent and one below it (or with both characters below it), with an incestuous pairing, or with a pairing that could be considered abusive in the canon are showing that they are attracted to children, attracted to people in their family, or abusive. Some of them would allow writing these "to cope" (i.e. with the writers' personal trauma - much if not most of this stuff is written from the victim's perspective) but many others consider that unhealthy behavior. And not only does it reflect on their character, but it means that they are participating in or condoning actual criminal activity, and any abuse of them is justified because they are, effectively, e.g. a child abuser. They drive people to suicidal ideation, try to get them fired, make them delete their accounts, etc. I've also noticed a strong TERF strain - there's a lot of misgendering queer trans men as "fetishizing fujoshis" - and purity culture nonsense about sexless fiction simply being better than anything with sex scenes, particularly when it comes to queer fiction (for some reason).

This very quickly became a set of arguments for shipwars, and the definitions of all three "problems" stretched to cover any ship an anti didn't like. These characters have an age gap that means they would have been on opposite sides of the age of consent at one point, or this character is "minor-coded", or this character was shown as a child in a flashback in the show - shipping them is pedophilia. These characters are in a found family together - shipping them is incest. These characters are a hero/villain pairing, or they bicker, or they're close but they had a really big fight at the climax of s1 - shipping them is promoting abuse. These standards are purposely restrictive, and I've yet to see anyone identifying as an anti who doesn't have at least one ship that they should not be shipping according to the types of logic they apply to other people's ships ...

Anyway, the reaction to this among people who didn't or couldn't just ignore it (like because they were being harassed for liking a hero/villain ship) was for them to identify as "anti-anti" or "pro-ship." Typically, it means a) a recognition that things you read or write don't necessarily reflect what you want to do or have done to you and b) opposition to harassment. There are some fans who say they're "proship with exceptions," which is a bit meaningless but I suppose it helps them explain their position in some way.

I've seen people layering this onto OFMD for a long time now, and it's fascinating to me. There's maybe a bit of a parallel between Izzy-critical takes and anti-dom, but it's not remotely on the same scale, even including Izzy-Hating/Stede Stan Anon, and I think it's silly to invoke it. Antis on Twitter literally got a chronically ill illustrator fired and when they said they would probably die because they lost their health insurance, the antis celebrated. Nobody is doing that. Likewise, the fandom as a whole is pretty enamored with darkfic, kink, and exploring negativity - and definitely very pro-expressions of queer sexuality.

There are plenty of people who don't know what "proship" means. But I typically take "proships DNI" in a bio as a big red flag.

SamAburime on Twitter is an acafan who researches and writes on antis and purity culture - worth a follow.

Do you want the whole boring pedantic explanation of "proshipping"? Because I can do that if you want it but I don't want to subject you to it otherwise

I think I basically get it but you can hit me with it if you want