#proship vs anti

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

Proship vs Anti Discourse is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

(PT: Proship vs Anti Discourse is Why We Can't Have Nice Things) (Trigger warning: This post discusses multiple sensitive topics, including abuse, bullying, bigotry and suicide. Reader discretion *heavily* advised)

I've finally gotten around to this post and I'll admit I can already smell the hostility. Just some disclaimers: This post isn't me commenting on the morality of certain media or ships, nor is it me commenting on whether or not fiction affects reality. This is only to talk about the damage this kind of discourse has done to fandom. I am going to warn you: This is *not* a post full of kindness. I am not going to be nice. This post is going to be a bit mean. No. Very mean. Sorry about that. So, TL;DR: Both sides have a harassment problem, and neither side wants to address the issues their communities have, leading to fandom becoming an unsafe environment. So uh, I don't think I need to write a witty introduction here. The current state of fandom is rancid. Harassment has become a giant fucking problem lately. So what's the problem? The problem lies in one thing: 'Proship' vs 'Antiship' discourse.

"Shadow, what the fuck do those words mean?" Proship used to mean that you supported all ships, all forms of fiction, and that you were against harassing anyone who was involved in fandom, as well as against censorship. 'Anti', or 'antiship', meant that you were against some forms of fiction and shipping, mainly ones involving minors or incest. Now you might've noticed that I used the phrase "used to" and the word "meant". That's because both terms kinda got new definitions and became buzzwords, with proship turning into a synonym for 'problematic shipper' (the term 'darkship' eventually came around to distinguish the two apart from my understanding, but uh...as you can see it hasn't helped much!). On top of that, people use the word 'proship' as a verb or type of content rather than an actual stance (ie. 'proshipping', 'proship content', 'proship artstyle', you get the idea). However that's not the main point here. Let's cut to the chase now; both sides fucking hate each other; we'll make that clear, with both sides throwing vile accusations towards one another. However, the more I looked into the swamp, the more distrust I gained for both sides. Something was bothering me, but what? I tried to do a survey; two of them in fact, to see which side was more hostile. Unfortunately, neither survey gave me a lot of useful results, considering I got very little responses from the anti side (So uh, thanks for nothing on that end guys. /nm). The written responses did give one common theme: Fandom has a problem. A problem with harassment, bullying, creeps and bigotry. The antis are particularly horrible when it comes to this. I'm going to start this off by saying that I actually used to consider myself an 'anti' due to my discomfort with noncon and incest. And unfortunately, I was pretty fucking hostile to others (although I never sent death threats, fuck anyone who does that shit). I eventually stopped associating with the 'anti' side when I saw how rampant the ableism was- more on that later. 'Antis' have caused severe harm to fandom, and I don't really understand how anyone can deny that. However, I am pretty fucking tired of everyone pretending that the 'proship' side is the good side. I know the 'proship' side isn't going to like hearing this, but it needs to be said: You guys are *just* as guilty as 'antis' when it comes to being toxic. And I'm not saying that because of the pro-incest stuff or the minor/adult pairings. I'm saying that many 'proshippers' are way too comfortable with being creepy towards others, and the community that claims to be 'anti-harassment'... isn't all that anti-harassment! Here are just some of the written responses I got from the survey:

Here's one alibi from an anonymous user who submitted to the @selfship-confession-box account (pls let me know if you dont want to be tagged)

Another anon that was submitted to the @proship-anti-discussion account

Lastly, here's some of the replies and reblogs to a post talking about an 'ex-proshipper' that left the community due to negative experiences (the OP of said post and the 'ex proshipper' in question did eventually apologize to each other, so I'll cut both of them some slack. I'm only showing the responses because holy fuck are they rancid).

So yeah. So much for the 'proship' community being "anti-harassment" and inclusive to SA and grooming survivors. Now, to the 'anti' side. I will say, the 'proshippers' got one thing right, and that's the fact that 'antis' very much fucking suck. And remember when I said that 'proshippers' were hypocrites? Well, 'antis' are also that. They talk so much about protecting "sa survivors" and how "proshippers are bigoted". But what do the written responses say about this?

and let's not forget *this*

I also want to bring up this comment about the term 'proship artstyle' that I thought was worth mentioning:

In other words... 'antis' aren't as great to hang around either! Now, there's one particular issue I really want to zero in on, and that's the rampant ableism from both sides. As one of the above written responses say, there is a huge problem of 'antis' and 'proshippers' misusing words like 'psychotic' and 'delusional'. The r-slur is also pretty rampant, I've noticed.

Still don't believe me? Okay. Here's a more recent example from an anonymous 'anti' I came across (ironically enough this came up when I searched "proship ableism". Also. fatphobia too? pick a struggle anon)

And that's not even getting into the amount of 'antis' who weaponize the saying "seek help" or "go to therapy". Now, let's go back to the terms supposed original meanings, particuarly the meaning for 'proshipper'. That term was supposed to mean that you were against censorship and harassing people for fiction and ships, and that you didn't judge people for liking certain ships. Meanwhile, 'antis' were supposedly about wanting to get rid of problematic media that could be harmful to minors and SA survivors. But it's time to be honest: Both sides have lost the plot. How am I supposed to believe either side is "anti-harassment" when neither side knows how to respect boundaries? How am I supposed to believe either side cares about SA survivors when you have both sides constantly speaking over said survivors and also harassing them? How am I supposed to believe either side cares about minors when there's been individuals on both sides, yes, including the so called "antis" that "care so much about protecting children uwu", that were outed as groomers? How am I supposed to believe either side is the good side when you have things like this happening:

The last thing I take issue with? The terms "proship" and "anti" as a whole, as well as every single similar term that's come out of this mess. While I do genuinely believe these terms were probably helpful in the past, it's clear that they're not doing any good whatsoever. Both terms have had their original meanings muddied and twisted to the point where they basically have no meaning at all, and the terms existing have created a massive "us vs them" mentality within fandom. There's also the issue of both sides forcing labels on others. I've seen posts that are all "if you believe x, congrats you're a proshipper!" or "if you believe y, you're an anti!". As well as anyone identifying as 'neutralship' (a label I also used to identify with before I stopped associating with these labels entirely) being called a "closet proshipper" or an "anti in disguise". Personally? If you have to force people to pick a side in order for you to trust them, I don't see why I should trust you. If you have to rely on labels like "proship", "anti", "anti-anti", "anti-harassment", "anti-censorship" to come across as a safe person or a good person, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to see you as a good person. You might be wondering why I included the "anti-harassment" and "anti-censorship" labels in that. Well, I'm going to be honest, and you are welcome to disagree with me on this, but I feel like these terms are so fucking unnecessary. Being "anti-harassment" and "anti-censorship" is the BARE FUCKING MINIMUM, a bare minimum that neither side can truly follow. Also, calling yourself "anti-harassment" doesn't automatically make me believe that. Especially when it's been proven time and time again that 'proshippers', the side believed to be 'anti-harassment', isn't all that 'anti-harassment' at all! Now I know what you're thinking at this point; you're thinking that I condone harassment because I'm going after both sides. You're thinking that I don't give a damn about the death threats that 'antis' have sent. No. No. No. That is not what I'm saying. And honestly, if *that's* the message you're getting, I don't know what to tell you.

So no, I'm not saying harassment is good or okay (and if that's the message you got from reading the above... I genuinely do not know what to tell you). I'm saying that you don't deserve a medal or a cookie for not sending death threats or being against people who send death threats, when it's literally the BARE MINIMUM. The bar is in fucking hell at this point. And as it's been shown, neither "proshippers" nor "antis" are truly anti-harassment. Me not liking 'proshippers' doesn't automatically mean I'm okay with sending them death threats, and me not liking 'antis' doesn't make me okay with abuse. And it sure as fucking hell doesn't mean that I don't care either. Because guess what? I do fucking care. It's why I'm fucking making this post in the first place. I shouldn't have to identify as "proship" or "anti" or any other labels to tell you that I care. Me refusing to use a label doesn't mean I'm apathetic to all the harm that's happened. And I sure as hell am not condoning harassment by refusing to hold hands with individuals who can't even bother to respect each other's boundaries. And honestly? If you interpret "I don't support proshippers *or* antis because they both made fandom toxic and unsafe" as "I condone sending death threats and rape threats", that's kind of on you. Here's a simple message I have for anyone who calls themselves "proship" or "antiship", and I am going to be especially mean here: Stop pretending to brand yourselves as the good guys when all you've done is break boundaries, talk over abuse survivors and marginalized groups. Stop being hypocrites, and actually address the issues within your goddamn communities. And stop downplaying said issues by saying "BUT THIS SIDE IS WORSE!" or "BUT THEY DO IT TOO!". Also, stop forcing people to use your dumb labels. Literally all of this could be fucking solved with using the block buttons or report buttons. There is no reason for this stupid fucking infighting. You don't have to like each other, fuck no, but quit dragging those who aren't involved into your messes and ruining fandom for everyone.

To "antis": Quit pretending to care about SA survivors and minors when you're the ones sending them death threats (And maybe address the fucking groomers within your community too, by the fucking way). To "proshippers": Stop being a dick to people who have had negative experiences with your community, stop ignoring the bigotry and stop letting in predators within your community. Now lastly, I know I said I wasn't going to comment on stances, but I do want to say this because it's also very much fucking bothering me. I hate how this discourse just boils down to either "Fiction DOESN'T affect reality at all, it's 100% okay to support ANY kind of media/ship/pairing no matter how problematic it is, and if you disagree with that you're a fascist!" or "Actually supporting ANY kind of media that's problematic and/or depicts so and so is BAD and if you support that you're a horrible human being! And if you disagree with me you're just as bad!" Have you guys perhaps, I don't know: Considered a fucking middle ground? Have you maybe considered nuanced discussions? How about that? Okay, I'm done being mean. In fact, I actually don't have much else to say so here's a video that talks about it a little more nicer than I do

*Sigh* I'm going to regret posting this, aren't I?

[glitterydragoncollective]

Fandoms, proshippers, antis, censorship - a rant

what makes me angry about vocal antis is majorly the fact that they’re fighting against the wrong people and the wrong cause. I understand feeling disgusted and distrusting of proshippers and not liking certain fan works but these are not things and people that actually cause widespread harm. 

I don’t think all antis are actually harassing people. I know that proshippers aren’t all saints. This isn’t even about that really, I’m talking about people most of us have minimised as just being “stupid kids”

And I know this discourse mostly happens online, but many of these “stupid kids” grow into adults, and some of these past “stupid kids” are now adults who have the power to bring that censorship or are going to be in power to cause unwanted change

For now it’s just a lot of hot air being made public, I realize that. I guess I just wanted to make a post about the future

I want to show an example of me previously saying “antis are fighting against the wrong people and cause” with this screenshots. They obviously don’t realize or understand what they’re posting, and compare kinky fantasies wrongly with things like racism or hate speech. 

They think since both causes them to feel uncomfortable, it causes harm

However, sex positive psychologists agree that kinky fantasies about fake people and things that aren’t real, even if they’re gross, they don’t usually cause harm

Emotions, as valid as they are, they’re also not causing harm

But when someone engages with, as an example, underage fics and feels more and more tempted to do something inappropriate with someone who is under aged, then that’s obviously not a kink

it’s not just egregious to compare kinks with real world harm, it’s important to tell the difference for safety reasons too. After all, an abuser can just pretend to be against proshippers instead and this is something that happened

multiple times

And these people - they don’t understand and don’t want to understand the difference. They’re anti-kink and think anything connected to sex or sexuality is shameful - which is a direct result of not just the reappearance of religious purity culture but also the results of fandom becoming mainstream

But fandoms are just too weird and too diverse to be mainstream. This resulted in more and more people not understanding that fanworks are posted for free, because someone wanted to, or because someone wanted to share their passion, not because they want people to engage with easily digestible content that’s made for clicks or that sells

Engagement is, of course, encouraged - but vocal antis aren’t “engaging”, they’re hating. It’s hate that binds them together

And so they will twist the meanings of words or twist what is actually happening IN fandoms to spread a moral panic. They often exaggerate and lie so that more people fall for their scheme

and unfortunately - it often works. 

Victims who don’t know better end up believing that yeah, just finding someone’s fetish art accidentally or intentionally is grooming, purposely interacting with a correctly tagged piece of media they know can be triggering is grooming, it’s no longer the actions or behavior of a person who intentionally targets a child or otherwise vulnerable person to desensitize them to sex so they don’t realize they’re in a very inappropriate relationship

Historically and currently, censoring or banning “pedophilia” or “pedophiles” or cracking down on “abusers” has never actually benefitted anyone. Once we ban and censor any of it, it’ll be harder to even just talk about because we aren’t allowed to, harder to educate about because it’s forbidden and harder to go after because it gets harder to spot. 

SESTA and FOSTA aimed to protect sex workers - but it resulted in most adult oriented websites having to cease operations, sex worker exploitation harder to combat and sex workers were more and more pushed into the shadows

the NCMEC looses its funding and was forced to take down their guides to recognize and stop child trafficking because it mentioned trans victims.

The porn ban on tumblr aimed to protect children by removing child sexual abuse material - and it resulted in queer blogs getting purged instead, trans people not being able to post their post surgery pictures, discussions of safe sex, women’s sexual health and STDs were purged, sex work was banned, porn bots were not banned, white pride was promoted, violence was promoted, and actual pedophiles were and pedophilia was, and, to an extend, still is promoted

When lgbtq-phobia started to rise in the US around the early 2020’s, republicans also purged “pornographic” books - which are written by, for or about POC, are about sexual health and education, are about accepting oneself or simply show queer relationships as normal. 

And all of these things are still happening today. Censorship is a bomb that goes off - there’s no stopping it. Yet what vocal antis promote is the same authoritian regime that decides what is and isn’t harmful - and this despite claiming they’re not those kind of people. All because they’re uncomfortable that there are people who are unbothered about the ships people like unless they cause real world harm

The real world harms I’ve mentioned before can all be prevented with education - and this is something vocal antis aren’t interested in because it makes them uncomfortable, because it’s propaganda, because it nornalizes ___ and they argue in the same or similar ways as the current fascist regime in the US because that’s the environment they grew up in, this is the new normal, other people who raise alarm are just talking too much, they never want to go past their “factory settings”. 

And no, I’m not calling them fascists, they’re likely also victims of being influenced by the wrong crowd - and also because they don’t know better. Some of them do grow out of this immature behavior eventually. 

But it’s high time to finally end this discourse and fight against what’s really causing harm:

That is people with power, that is censorship, that is fascism, that’s people who get away with crimes - but not the tools they use to carry out their crimes. 

It’s okay to feel disgusted at the end of the day. It’s okay to criticize. It’s okay to say “I don’t want proshippers to interact with me”. That’s not censorship either. 

But criticism is not posting lies about people you don’t like, harassment is more than just unwanted interaction, it’s also the call to “make sure proshippers feel afraid and ashamed again” or to rally your friends into “mass reporting that bitch” and they’re someone who didn’t even know you existed in the first place

[heyftinally]

Okay, I almost ranted about this on a reblog, but it can (and probably should) be it's own post.

Fiction effects reality and fiction does not effect reality are BOTH true.

Yes, I'm going to elaborate in the most unedited, covid-fueled rant I can, as tumblr intended. Hold on to your butts, grab a soda, and strap in.

First and foremost, I need all of the piss on the poor readers to stop their feral response typing - READ what I'm ACTUALLY SAYING before you start bitching about what you're pretending I said. Got it? Good.

This is going to involve nuance. Yes, I know, this website is allergic to nuance. Pop a Benadryl, you'll be okay.

Now, for real:

Fiction DOES effect reality BUT

Only in subtle ways. Absolutely nobody is going from your average normal Sarah to a cold blooded mass murderer because they played silent hill or something. People who become murderers always have some other motive, usually long term and/or severe (ie years of abuse, victim of trafficking, untreated psychological disorder usually paired with abuse, etc).

When I say fiction influences reality, I mean kids who grew up hearing Disney's Pocahontas say "you think the only people who are people are the people who look and think like you, but if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew" are more likely to be accepting of diversity than the kids who exclusively grew up on South Park and Family Guy.

I mean reading stories of real people's struggles with disabilities not being accommodated will make you more likely to notice inaccessibility in your daily life, and make you more likely to be accommodating to those who need it.

I mean reading about how a character was skeptical of or easily misled about something via the media can make you more critical of what you read.

Fiction effects reality because if you only consume one kind of media, we assume that's the only way things are. If we consume a vast array of media, we learn to explore different possibilities.

Fiction does NOT effect reality IN THE WAY THAT

Reading a fanfic (or even a published novel) with dubious themes is inherently going to normalize those themes in your reality.

Millions of people watched Hannibal, but cannibalism didn't surge.

Lolita is a rather famous novel, yet I've never heard of it being the sole reason someone suddenly condoned pedophilia out of nowhere.

Horror movies do not routinely make people murderers.

Fiction is not enough to make someone completely change their morals.

So where is the line?

Exactly where your critical thinking ends.

Because yes, there are people who watch shows like South Park and Family Guy and take the crass, bigoted, and otherwise truly vile jokes at face value, and find the humor in that. There are also people who watch it and see the jokes as hyperbole emphasizing just how terrible the people in the show are. Yes, some of this also has to do with the show writers, but again - your critical thinking is what tells you "is this show promoting being racist, or is it showing this character as racist to drive home what an absolute shitbag they are?"

The other aspect is your personal moral compass and ability to adapt.

Yes, I'm talking about echo chambers.

If you can NEVER accept being wrong, or if you refuse to change your mind on a specific topic (again, like racism), so instead of adapting you seek out people who are more likely to agree with you, you may find yourself starting to agree with other viewpoints that previously you wouldn't have.

And this can be good OR bad - if being friends with someone who agrees with you that racism is wrong, they may influence you to also start believing homophobia is wrong, and that's a good thing! But the reverse can also happen, and that's bad.

But media alone didn't do that - it was one of MANY contributing factors, including race, religion, disability (or lack thereof), income, how you were raised, where you live, and more.

So whenever I see people talking about "pro-ship" and "anti-proship", all I can think is

Shipping is only one tiny thing that media can influence you on - why is shipping your sticking point, but not murder?

You aren't capable or willing of engaging with the media you consume in EITHER direction.

Being anti/proship is irrelevant. If anything you're just telling me whether or not toxic purity culture is part of your specific flavor of media illiteracy. It means nothing of substance.

Instead of worrying about who ships what, worry about how your views and actions shape how you percieve and impact those around you.

[vacantgalaxies]

If Character AI really is trying to remove romantic roleplays from its platform, I'll be the first to say it.

That will be everyone's future if people keep trying to censor any fiction they decide is too gross to exist. Censorship won't stop at the crappy AI platforms that waste energy and steal online art or "gross" fiction, it'll keep going until fiction as we know it ceases to exist. Even the most innocent and pure fictional stories like My Little Pony or Bluey will become unrecognizable. That's what censorship does.

"Except for-" No. There are no exceptions. If you censor one thing, no matter how gross or morally abhorrent you think it is, everything gets censored.

Also, censorship will always negatively impact LGBTQIA+ stories. Fiction or non-fiction, SFW or NSFW, our stories will get hit by censorship whether that was your intention or not.

This is the closest I'll get to getting involved with proship/anti discourse on here. I've stepped away from both labels because one goes against me being anti censorship, and for the other, I just don't want to get dragged into petty drama by people that don't know what a block button is.

[furiitha096]

Antishippers in fandom is like terfs in feminism, like obviously one is wayyyy worse but it’s like similar format

“I support women’s rights expect for these women I dislike”

“I support fiction expect for this fiction I dislike”

A lot of antishipper arguments actually are like diet conservative ones

“Fiction is not the same as reality”

“Oh so if I tell u to kys it’s fine cuz it’s just words?”

“Trans people are valid”

“Oh so I can identify as an attack helicopter?”

Basically

Obviously they’re different, one is disliking a mindset while the other is disliking people based on something they cannot control. I’m just pointing out similarities

[oceansarepink]

Just so you guys know, sending me messages like “don’t follow/pls block @ username they’re a pro shipper” and nothing else, does little other than confuse me.

My policy is that ‘proship’ as a label is just not on my radar, unless they have specific heinous shit on their blog. It has become a vague term and the discourse can become very unnecessarily nasty. This is solely my experience and I know the proship types can harass too but….I don’t wish to proclaim myself as either. I have only been harassed by someone who was an ‘anti’ trying to police my blog for not being ‘anti’ enough.

I’m probably not ‘enough’ for either side and I see proship and anti as a false dichotomy.

[urfavisaminor]

yknow, the vocaloid with the singing

Hatsune Miku is a minor ! (16, changing age)

if u take advantage of her non canonical age to sexualize her then u should dr1nk bl34ccch btw so gross how normalized it is

[yaboy-miz]

Recently I’ve been considering my stance on the whole proship and antiship thing

I personally don’t think I like either side. There’s some things I draw the line at and absolutely won’t accept as ok, but I also don’t think it’s ok to harass people over it.

And even with the things I don’t think are ok, there’s still exceptions with each of them. There’s still perfectly good reasons someone would make them, it really comes down to how the person in question chooses to handle them.

It’s contextual, really.

I’m still gonna keep the proship tag blocked though. I’d rather not be scrolling through nsft posts and see art of Sam and dean winchester having sex, and that’s what I keep fucking seeing any time I unblock that tag.

[4drian321]

Proship vs. Antiship

This is the most polarizing discourse I'm aware of in every fandom, in that both sides generally believe the other side is morally atrocious and might cut ties with someone due to their stance on the issue.

Proship (short for pro-shipping) is the stance that people should be able to ship whatever they want, including ships that in real life would be harmful, or morally taboo at the least, such as teacher/student or incestuous relationships. The general philosophy of proshippers, from what I've seen, is "Ship and let ship." Proshippers believe that depicting harmful things in fiction is not necessarily harmful, at least in the context of fanfiction. They are usually very anti-censorship and believe in absolute freedom of artistic expression.

Antiship (short for anti-shipping) is most generally defined as the opposition to proship. I've never seen anyone self-identify as an antishipper, rather, the label is applied to them by proshippers. Though, people will express their opposition to proship openly, such as putting "proshippers DNI" in their bios. Antis generally believe that romanticizing harmful relationships in fiction, including fanfiction, is harmful in real life, due to normalizing abusive or unhealthy dynamics.

When I say this discourse is polarizing, I really mean it. The shipping war as characterized by antishippers (often referred to as "antis") is pedophiles vs. normal people who care about morality. According to proshippers, the war is anti-censorship believers vs moral puritans who will bully you off the internet for liking problematic content. To be clear, there is a real problem of antis bullying and harassing people they deem problematic, but this is not the behavior of the average antishipper. The shipping discourse is very Western and associated with English speakers, and has only recently (2015–present) started to spread to other cultures.

My view is that the popular discourse, the arguments that get 100k likes on Twitter and dominate the conversation, reflect a black-and-white, unnuanced, incorrect understanding of abuse and depictions of abuse in art. Black-and-white views of complex issues are always wrong, and that includes issues of morality. To keep this short, I believe that the responsibilities of artists depend on what their art is for and who will see it. An artist making art for children has more responsibility not to harmfully influence the audience than an artist making content for adults. Artists writing for a niche audience do not have the same responsibilities as artists writing for a general audience. Writers on AO3 have different responsibilities than writers who seek to publish their work and potentially have their book on shelves in libraries and bookstores.

Due to the niche and insular nature of AO3, as well as the tagging system, and the lack of profit incentive, I believe writers on AO3 have relatively few responsibilities towards their audiences. The one important responsibility AO3 authors have is to tag their works appropriately so that those who want to read the content can find it and those who wish to avoid the content can avoid it. I also have the hard-to-prove feeling that there should be some places like AO3 where people can write problematic and even horribly disturbing content, so long as it is a non-profit platform with a tagging system that limits the likelihood of people reading anything with content they don't want to read. Due to this, I fit in best with the proshipping crowd and would call myself proship if asked, despite thinking the entire discourse is wild.

I wrote this to put my views on shipping discourse so everyone knows where I stand and I can link to this if anyone asks me haha

[fangirllllpriv]

The dichotomy of “proship” VS “antiship” is weird to me, because it means completely different things to different people. I’m a bare bones example of an antishipper, because I don’t support adult x minor and I don’t support family x family. That’s an incredibly shitty thing to portray positively. And there are other kinds of pairings I’d rather not go near, but won’t hate on anyone for.

But someone else might call me a proshipper because I’m willing to ship characters in their late 20s with characters in their early 50s. Or hell, even some people think enemies to lovers is proshipping. There are blurred lines in what counts as proship in terms of how something is portrayed, too. What is the line between portraying something dark and “proshipping”, however you want to define it?

So here are some dynamics that might be considered controversial, let me know what you think in the notes. Remember, try to consider if you think these dynamics count as proshipping, not whether or not you’d be personally comfortable with them:

Adults with a large age gap.

“Minor coded” characters being shipped with adults. (That’s a whole other topic)

Bigot X Minority

Therapist X Patient

Prisoner X Guard

Enemies

Rivals

Adoptive siblings that met when they were older than 10

Two people that physically fight

Hero X Villain

Villain X Anyone

Two people that knew each other when one was a minor and the other was an adult but now they’re both adults (think Monica and Richard’s storyline from Friends)

Kidnapper X (adult) Victim

Someone X themselves from an alternate universe or from the future/past (the age old question about selfcest: incest or masturbation)

Human X Monster

I’m realizing I can think of so many pieces of non-derivative media that outright contain these dynamics.

I’m so tired I need sleep now

Edit: apparently I got the definitions wrong. Apply this to “what do you consider controversial”

[antiship-callout]

Are you truly anti-harassment, @ anti-paradise?

Before we begin with this post, we would like to make the following clear:

asks, submissions and notifications have been turned off. We will not be looking at or answering any comments or reblogs, should there be any

we do not like being called proship, anti anti, anti or anti-shipper. We are critical of "both sides"

we are aware that most of the depicted accounts are owned by teenagers, with two or maybe three exceptions.

we are strictly against harassment and do not wish for the individuals here depicted or anyone else to be harassed

at the same time we are aware that there is at least one harasser who keeps interacting with the individuals described in this post, and who these individuals call "shoo". We condemn any harassers' actions

we collected screenshots from different posts, but we are not associated with any person

Now with that out of the way let's talk about the "infamous" anti proship group that has been making the rounds on tumblr. If you know who we are talking about, it is the individuals frequently found defending, following and or reblogging from the blog "anti-paradise" who was previously known as antiproshipconfessions.

We decided to categorize the group as "anti-fans". Unlike normal fans who interact with media or a person they are a fan of with genuine passion, anti-fans invest time and "passion" into mocking, criticizing, spreading bad faith rumors, and posting malicious posts or articles about the media, person or group they hate. This may also border sometimes on strong and negative obsession.

This specific group shows clear signs of this preciously mentioned anti-fan behavior.

We also need to mention that all of the people within their circle want fictional characters to be treated like human people, and anyone who tells them that fictional characters do not have human rights is quickly slandered as "insane".

They are invested in denying people of their humanity, their identity and are constantly breaking their own DNI as seen in the first screenshot above. They pretend that they are just "criticizing" people, but genuine criticism does not give anyone the right to make false accusations. If you want to criticize a work posted online, you begin with analyzing it, giving your thoughts and offering improvements.

Instead, these people made clear that their goal is to attack any small fish they perceive as "different" or "weird". They have not spoken up about bigger and controversial personalities whose works have wider reach such as Colleen Hoover, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, or Maïmouna Doucouré (Director of the movie "Cuties" - which was criticized for sexualizing the cast members, most of which were young girls)

We have also looked through all of the accounts they have targeted in the past or present, and none showed any sign of worrying behavior towards or about (prepubescent) minors.

However, we are excluding people who identify as radqueer from this. We do not support them, but we believe that they should be left alone as well.

But why are these haters making these false accusations?

One of the major reasons is the concept of reciprocity: negative energy or behavior can be mirrored and reciprocated by those who encounter it.

Or simply said: haters attract hate. And haters rarely hate alone, they feel empowered when they hate the same thing together, and will encourage others into hating the same thing or people.

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, myths and conspiracy theories, which enhance the members' status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate.

We would like to emphasize on the word "degradation". In the beginning of the post, we have described that these anti-fans deny their enemies their humanity and their identity.

This hate group has been noticed by both anti-shippers and pro-shippers because they have decided to use the loaded term "degenerate" and its variants against pro-shippers, and continue to defend the usage of this term.

The screenshots above show that these people have been educated about the term and why they should not use it (by anti-shippers as well), but they ignored it in favor of continuing to defend and "giggle" about the controversy. It's just a "silly word" and using Nazi terms is no big deal apparently

And for those unaware, here is a small history lesson on why "degenerate" has explicit Nazi origins.

It was used centrally within their ideology since the 1920s to describe any group varying from their notion of the ideal human ("Aryan," straight, cis, etc). During the 1930s, the term was most known for the 1933 Nazi book burning (the destruction of literature considered as "Un-German") and the infamous 1937 Nazi exhibit "Degenerate Art."

Today, people like Nick Fuentes, Richard Spencer, and Donald Trump continue to use the term degenerate to attack minoritized people and political opponents.

Anyone who seriously uses the term "degenerate" is invoking Nazi ideology. When they call POC, Jews, queer/trans people, or anyone who may differ from them "degenerates," they're calling for our extermination. This is also something anti-paradise has not only "joked" about, the other hate group members supported it as well.

The extreme radicalization or just reactionary behavior, the need to defend open death threats, book burning, the erasure of their enemies' (proshippers) humanity, the eagerness to call them "illegal aliens" like racists call immigrants and refugees, the call to criminalize adult material, which will always affect and hurt minoritized people, the accusations that their enemies are "faking" their trauma, and denying that they are also LGBTQ+ or BIPOC/Jewish is extremely worrying.

Some people have played their behavior down as "rage bait" coming from "uneducated" teenagers, but the eagerness they display when they degrade people they hate tells, in our humble opinion, a different story. We also believe that most anti-shippers at least respect pro-shippers' basic human rights and identities - these hateful people do not.

The accounts with the random usernames and standard tumblr profile picture is the previously mentioned harasser "shoo". Most of their accounts are deactivated

Curiously enough they want to "redeem" pro-shippers of their wrongdoings, but to do that you must actually see "wrongdoers" as human. People who merely exist in their own spaces and who do not intrude in yours are not evil. People who respect internet etiquette are not criminals, nor can someone "recover" from being in favor of letting people be, even if someone ships something they dislike.

You must respect a human person on grounds of being a human if you want to redeem them.

And to be human means that no one is good or bad, we are simply people.

Secondly, these people erroneously compare being in favor of letting people ship whatever they want as long as it's fictional to a coping mechanism. But being in favor of or against ships is not a coping mechanism, and they never suggest a coping mechanism that, in their eyes, is better than adhering to fandom and internet etiquette.

We also find it quite interesting that an adult, rainbow-starheart, has come to the defense of yet another hateful person (or teenager, we are not sure), who keeps using the term "degenerate", who agreed with the intent to criminalize adult material and who called for the destruction of a queer webtoon.

Naturally we do not see issue with people disliking "Boyfriends", but just because you may not like it doesn't mean you should wish for its or any art piece's destruction.

We also have reason to believe that the hate group members do not care about copying and or indirectly supporting Republicans and their plans to harm and censor LGBTQ+ people. They most likely know who they're sounding like - and chose not to care

The screenshot above depicts the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025"

And this screenshot is Oklahoma's new planned bill to criminalize adult material. This bill doesn't directly name trans people, it makes a reference to gay and trans people instead ("warps young people's perception of the opposite sex").

Have you noticed that the Republican Senator is calling adult material "degenerate material" and likens it to a highly addictive drug? These people also believe that one can "recover" from a nonexistent porn or sex addition despite the fact that major health organizations recognize it as a behavioral problem rather than an addiction instead.

Our belief is that people like these, despite identifying with left leaning identities and movements such as LGBTQ+, have never truly unlearned internal biases or have picked up anti-kink rhetoric and sex negativity from conservatives.

This is made evident as they only target anything related to sex, sexual assault and sexual health or kink, and associate transgressive fiction and kink with pedophilia.

The screenshot of rulerzreachf4n7's complaint about Medrano's show "Hazbin Hotel" proves this as well, to them the only problem lies in the fetishization of sexual assault. Other problematic behavior such as Val's love-bombing, violence and the manipulation of Angel is ignored.

Lastly, we are concerned that this inappropriate and concerning behavior is encouraged by another adult. We do not know how connected they are to the hate group above as they have previously never interacted with each other before until the harassment started.

The conversation in this screenshot shows that this adult and rainbow-starheart have become "protectors" to (these) minors, and this inappropriate behavior has unfortunately been normalized in fandoms.

Do not misunderstand, we are not accusing either adult of grooming, we simply criticize inappropriate behavior some of them (may) have shown such as:

promoting anti science beliefs and encouraging youths to trust random bloggers more than medical professionals

seeking validation and emotional support from minors

posing as "one of the good ones"; a self proclaimed protector of children and the vulnerable.

showing minors 18+ material to "warn them" about certain artists

encouraging minors to openly discuss pedophilia and sexual abuse in art

casually discussing sexual topics openly or privately with minors.

reblogging public posts from or encouraging minors to publicly discuss the "ethics" of kink based on personal disgust

making themselves seem safe compared to artists who draw or write the "nasty" media they or the minors they encourage cause scenes over

bonding over how "gross" certain sexual topics are

encouraging minors to catfish people they believe to be pedophiles and or sexual predators to "expose" them or to gain evidence

encouraging minors to seek out and "criticize" adults (random strangers) about (their) kink(s)

A true "safe adult" who has the best intentions for a minor or minors would not encourage them to "make connections" to or discuss pedophilia so openly. Minors should not discuss or be encouraged to talk (to random strangers) about any of these things on a public platform, it is inappropriate and unsafe for them especially

Now we would like to finish this post with the following:

You are allowed to dislike or feel disgusted about anyone and anything, for any or no reason at all

remember that anyone can be a predator regardless of the ideology they have, the things they support or how they treat others

disgust is a defense mechanism that protects us from harm, but not everything that triggers feelings of disgust is harmful

if you are truly disgusted by someone or something, it is healthier and easier to avoid the person or the thing rather than mocking, attacking or verbally abusing the person or the thing

blocking people is not censorship, it is a tool to make your internet experience more pleasant

to any harasser/to anti-fans/to shoo: do not engage or stop engaging, move on and leave people alone

here is your chance to let this discourse finally die. Do not contribute more to it because it will affect you too

Fandoms are for many a place to escape life. Do not join fandoms if your intent is to be a hater

please do not encourage for the censorship of art in an age where this is happening again. It does not benefit you at all

remember that trauma is always dark and never clean, as such healing process of a survivor may be messy

education and information is power. Do your own research instead of blindly believing others or rumors

verdict: anti-paradise and followers are not anti harassment

[www-sys-net]

Anyways here's yalls unfriendly reminder that despite how fucking stupid the proship/antiship discourse is, I would still entirely be on the side of pro!

Curate your own fucking internet experience. I do not care if I somehow trigger you because it's not my responsibility to cater to every single person on the internet.

Especially when the term "trigger" is being used so loosely. 7/10 times you're just uncomfortable, not triggered. A lot of you all are so engrossed in online spaces that it's degraded your knowledge of actual issues.

And that's entirely fine. Nobody should ever force you to interact with content that makes you uncomfortable or that could harm you.

But your trauma or your discomforts are your own. They're not mine. And hopefully, they never will be. I can only hope that you can get the help you need to move forward instead of wallowing in self pity because it makes people feel bad for you.

Blocking is a right that you have. Nobody should be telling you that blocking people makes you weak or that you've somehow lost some fight or argument for keeping yourself safe as best as you can.

But when it comes to it, that's that. You can't impose anything on anyone else because you dislike it or because it makes you uncomfortable.

Also, if you're going to use a legally definable term, I'm begging you all to actually understand what that term entails. Cause it really seems like quite a lot of you are throwing around words and terms that aren't actually applicable, and then you'll ignore anyone who points out you're being incorrect.

Your trauma does not give you the right to impose your thoughts onto others. Antishippers have no right to use their trauma to force someone to censor themselves. Proshippers have no right to use their trauma to force someone to interact with content that makes them uncomfortable.

Disagree? Congratulations, you have the right to block us and move on with your life.

[catgirl-catboy]

So. You've just heard the words "proship" and "anti" for the first time. Or maybe you've been hearing them for a while, and you decided to look up what they mean. Or maybe you've just stumbled upon this post.

A quick disclaimer! I, the person that wrote this post, am a proshipper. However, I will try to present both arguments from an objective and unbiased point of view. However, there may be small mistakes from the antiship side of things, of which I am sorry. This post was made in good faith to help people who have never heard of this discourse before. If you're an anti and would like to give your two cents about my section on antis, feel free!

I have also linked several sources in the replies section, since links tend to fuck with the tumblr search engine. Feel free to look into those if you'd like to read more on the subject. (and please do before trying to correct this post, since there's a lot of misinformation going around on the subject!)

Antishipping:

Since the term antishipping originated before the term proshipping (even if the proship ideology existed first), it seems like a good place to start.

Antishipping is the belief that certain types of fandom content reflect badly on the people that create and consume it. Antishippers believe that if you interact with that content enough, your real-life morals get loosened, and you are more likely to want to commit the crimes depicted in said content.

Some antishippers think that people that already have a desire to commit said crimes are more likely to enjoy content depicting those crimes, and thus liking that content is a "red flag". I've seen both arguments about equally.

What do I mean by said content? You'll get a slightly different definition from anti to anti, but common targets of this logic include:Ships with a large age gap. Ships that have one character under the age of adulthood, and one over. Incestuous ships. Ships between real people like celebrities. Ships deemed racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/transphobic by the fandom. Abusive ships. One thing I've noticed about antis is how sex and romance focused they seem to be. They rarely apply the same logic to fics depicting crimes such as assault and murder, despite those also being just as illegal IRL.

Proshipping: If antishipping is the belief that certain ships reflect badly about your character, proshipping is the belief that it does not.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the word proship, so allow me to do a quick tangent about what a proshipper is not:

Proship is not short for problematic ship. The term proship was named to oppose the pre-existing anti ship. It is pro as in for.

Proship is not a synonym for pedophile. Proship is all about what you think is okay to depict in fiction, not your real life sexual preferences. For instance, the proshipper writing this is asexual and incapable of having a sexual interest in anyone.

Proship is not an assertion of comfort for every type of problematic ship. Quite a lot of proshippers are uncomfortable with incest and age gap ships. The only requirement to be a proshipper is that you don't think someone is a bad person for writing/reading problematic fiction.

Why do proshippers think this? There is a variety of reasons among the community, but as a general rule of thumb they try to give people the benefit of the doubt. That person who writes incest fic could be hitting on their own family. But they also could be a victim of incest and write to come to terms with what they went through. They also could be an only child that finds the idea of a big brother having a crush on them hot. Without having an honest conversation with them, we have no real way of knowing.

I won't overshare, but the main reason I enjoy abusive dynamics in fiction is because I was abused in the past. I like the idea of finding catharsis in fiction, where characters that remind me of my abusers can grow and change for the better. I don't think that'll make me more likely to abuse the people close to me. I'd argue that since I understand what behaviors are abusive better, I'm actually less likely! (I had to unlearn a lot of shit.)

Problems with the antiship community:

A lot of antishippers harass people that make content for ships they dislike. Despite antishippers being upset at the perceived normalization that problematic ships might cause, a lot of them normalize using violent language to people they disagree with. A lot of antishippers are comfortable dehumanizing proshippers and have little compassion. Despite a lot of antis calling for better trigger tagging of fictional content, they rarely trigger tag their violent threats to people that make content they are morally opposed to.

A lot of antis overuse words like "pedophile" and "Child Porn" (tangent: the proper terminology for pictures of a (real, IRL) minor is CSEM or Child Sexual Exploitation Material. It is never porn.) in situations when they don't actually apply, creating alarm fatigue and difficulty communicating when an actual crime is being committed. Governments have asked antis specifically to stop clogging up their hotlines with reports of porn of fictional characters.

A small but dangerous subsection of antis will knowingly expose NSFW content to minors to show them what proshippers are creating. This is an IRL crime, and should be reported if you ever encounter it.

A lot of antishippers strech the definition of problematic to include ships they personally dislike. I have seen anti shippers bashing the relationship between a 14 y/o character and a 16 y/o character, despite that not being much of an age gap at all. This causes the rise of excuses like "sibling coding" (the implication that two characters that are not biologically related or are adopted siblings are siblings for found family reasons, and can't be shipped.)

Antishippers frequently call for problematic content to "remain out of the main tags", which would seem a logical request at first. They do not wish to know such content is being created. However, this makes it harder for the people not in the fandom to avoid seeing said content. Some people have fandom tags blocked for trigger reasons, and following the antis advice of not putting things in the main tags can put those people in danger. (Most proshippers put multiple trigger warnings on their content for people to search for and filter out.)

There is a lot of ableism in the antiship community, with two of their frequently used insults being "get help" and "proship freaks". Many antis frequently expect users who want to interact with them to check a "carrd" (an external website where they keep lists of who they do and don't want to see on their blog.) which can frequently be eyescorching and hard to read for people with visual sensitivities.

A lot of antishippers overshare information about themselves to dangerous levels. It is common for them to share their names, exact ages, and triggers. This could be used to hurt them by malicious trolls, and is not a good idea.

Instead of creating new websites where the rules cater to them, antis will try to bend (or just) the rules of existing websites that are more in line with the proship ideology. Despite believing these websites lower the moral character of everyone that uses them, the willingly choose to use them anyway.

Problems with the proship community:

(this is by far the section I am the least confident in writing, so if you would like to reblog this with problems about the proship community I did not mention, I will not be upset. I try to make this post as objective as humanly possible.)

Many critics of the proship community describe it as an "echo chamber", and there is some truth to that. There is a lot of pressure to be comfortable with the darkest of problematic ships, else you may get accused of not being a real proshipper.

There is also overlap between the proship community and several communities like consang, radqueer and transid. You have to do your research on who you follow if you (understandably) wish to avoid those communities.

There is a lot of hostility to "neutrals" of this discourse from the proship community. (Personally, I don't think neutrals exist. Either fiction makes you worse, or it doesn't. Its a binary issue. That being said, ID as neutral to this if you want, I won't stop you.)

This could either be a bug or a feature depending on who you ask, but I notice a tendency to prefer ship positivity over nuanced discussion or talk about dynamics/headcanons.

Quite a lot of proshippers have victim complexes (probably due to all of the suicide baiting) and will take any disagreement with them in the worst possible light.

[septrose]

I'm gonna be an asshole.

Look. I'd say im neither proship OR anti. I'd say I really can't care what people do but perhaps thinking rape / incest is sexy is weird.

But.. being on fanfiction related reddits has made proships seem WAY more annoying holy fuck.

I swear they're obsessed with antis and them getting the upperhand.

Both sides are annoying sure but at least.. anti's like.. aren't creepy I guess. idk idc.

edit: since im dumb and forgot to say. Uh proship doesn't *actually* mean you like dark topics / romanticize them. It just means you are well.. pro-ship. You think people shouldn't be so strict on what people make / ship.

The better term to use would actually be darkship which means you DO ship those taboo stuff (ex; incest and age-gaps)

comship also exists but thats.. well in the name (complicated). think immortal x mortal.

The reason why I said that's what proship is was because im stupid but also because that's.. I guess the rounded term. Proship could mean either you're again censorship or you like taboo ships. unbrella term it seems.

[skin-perambulator]

The internet is the only place where you will see someone call themselves an activist and their only activism is quite literally just quote retweeting people explaining the in-depth reasons as to why it’s completely right and just for them to be able to look at an anime child making an ahegao face and why you’re actually the one in the wrong and oppressing them on this matter and infringing on their rights.