#until the anti/proship online discourse started

[storytellering]

I guess I can see how if they (the Sparda boys) weren’t related shipping them would be interesting. I think a better question for me to ask is why incest? You said it was the cherry on top, so why is it appealing to you? Is it a taboo thing or like a dark fantasy type thing?

I’m sorry if I’m being overly nosey. Obviously you don’t have to reply to me again. I just don’t know anyone who likes this type of stuff and I’m curious as of why some people do.

No worries! I chose to answer this more in depth anyway, because I feel like it's a valuable topic to discuss and it's important to understand where other people come from, especially if they naturally tend to have a different perspective from oneself. Still, thank you for being respectful, I can tell you're just genuinely curious and I personally don't mind explaining! Since I have answered a very similar question before on twitter, I'll direct you to my answer there as a first intro to it, and then expand since this is tumblr and I don't have to fit my answers in many tiny character limited boxes. So: like I said in that sp answer, it simply appeals to me, on an intrinsic, personal level. When there's something morally wrong in a potential fictional couple, if I already liked their dynamic, it just draws me more to it - I do think the simple fact of having a taboo aspect plays into it, though I don't know to what degree necessarily.

Personally, when it comes to dmc and spardacest specifically, I do really, really enjoy playing with the demonic aspect of it - there's something deeply, deeply satisfying to me as a queer neurodivergent person who grew up bullied and ostracized all my life and have been treated like a freak and an animal and an other my entire childhood, to imagine a humanoid-but-not-quite species that can shift form at will, and has completely different moral/societal/biological rules from regular human society, and subsequently imagining a character that's been brought up their whole life to believe they were a human and full of fucked up things wrong with them, only to discover that, hey! Actually they weren't human, they were something else just vaguely human looking all along, and all their flaws are actually features among the species they belong with. In that way, I do think it's wish fulfilment, though very much metaphorical and not 1:1 to reality or anything I personally experienced or related to. It just feels good in the brain to play with that. (similarly, it's why dbh as another fandom I've been very into for a long time also draws me - androids are very good for making similar analogies, even if there isn't anything necessarily inherently "fucked up" there by regular irl standards, unless you count two androids of the same model fucking as akin to incest, or want to claim some kind of unbalanced power dynamic in an android/human couple lol) In that way, the incest is simply an extension of it - it's not appealing to me because it's morally wrong or fucked up, but because I like to assign traits that would be repulsive to an average human to the Spardas as a species, and explaining them as instinctual/natural to them (for example of other nonsexual things, also things like a tendency for extreme violence and heightened aggression, cannibalism, territorialism, etc ), so at the end of the day, the incest is more a way to play with the existing dynamics and explore my own hc's, than something I'm into for its own sake (and actually, if we have to be honest, before I got into dmc I was really not that into fictional incest for its own sake lol! Not for any personal disgust reasons like I said, but it was just completely neutral to me, not something that would attract me to a fictional ship for its own sake, but not something that would repel me either. In that way, I do think I enjoy it far more as pack and parcel of their demonic nature than for its own merit.) I understand that to some people, otherwise liking a fictional couple's dynamic might be extinguished the moment they find out/realize that there's something morally wrong were they to be together (age gap, underage, incest, toxicity/abuse, etc). That's also perfectly fine and a perfectly acceptable way to navigate fiction. I just so happen to not really care that much in the realm of fiction. To me, it's always kind of been a given that it was separate from my irl morality, in the same vein some people love horror and gore and splatter media, and some people don't.

[cousinshipper]

hii i saw a post you made a month ago about how selfshipping was a proship thing originally and I’m very curious about the history of it in that regard if you are so inclined to share!! no worries if you don’t wanna answer :]

yeah yeah no problem!! :0c so selfshipping was originally made by proshippers (as well as fandom itself, tons of earlier online spaces, etc) on tumblr in the early/mid 2010s with OC/SI x canon and it used to be seen as like this hobby/roleplaying type thing where people would just post positivity about their F/Os and how much they loved them, as well as make OCs and S/Is to go with them !! it was super creative and innovative at the time

it was totally fine until antis started discourse about age gap shipping and shipping with villains (and also mary sues which tells you how long ago this was), typical anti stuff, and then selfshipping became a proship friendly space because antis hated it so much . but then antis started to self ship and like take over the community basically 😭 so now we just have constant discourse in a community that was originally supposed to just be about loving our F/Os together

after the porn ban & anti raids a lot of older selfshipping blogs got deleted/deactivated or moved over to twitter

[bolters-and-rivets]

you've just discovered proship vs anti-ship discourse, I am so sorry. unfortunately it's not isolated to Tik Tok, it's on here too

the bare facts, from someone who innitially dipped one way because of the blogs I was following then realised what I was getting into and got the hell out of dodge for my own sanity: TL;DR: as ever with discourse like this it boils down to an online clique having a "justified" reason to bully people

proship = radical acceptance of ships and fiction regardless of content and focussing only on reading the content you want. it's the concept of "don't like don't read" if it could be boiled down to an idiological principle. OP's stance very much follows accepted proship talking points, to give a relavent example

antiship = the belief that all content is capable of causing material, real world harm, therefore a fic that features a certain topic is the same as activly commiting that action in the real world and we and all our freinds should harrass authors until they disapear from the internet or kill themselves, we are the morally correct side of the argument.

it's reached the point of people in group A with entirely reasonable stances having to become more hardline and defend content in fiction that they actively dislike like because group B is going out of their way to harrass people for perceived moralilty crimes in the name of "reducing harm".

this shit started because people are afraid to admit that they dislike a ship, hell anything, simply because it's not to their taste, so they have to moralise their personal taste as the only good and correct taste. you don't dislike that ship because it's not for you, the ship is actually super problematic because the dynamic has an age gap so it's clearly condoning pedophilia, so you're justified in messaging everyone who follows OP accusing them of supporting a pedophile.

The “That’s immoral you shouldn’t write that, we need to get that taken down” discourse on tiktok right now is PISSING ME OFFF

Wdym you want censorship for a literal ARCHIVE are you fucking stupid

Ao3 was literally founded to preserve works that were largely getting taken down due to censorship

Censorship is the opposite of what Archive of Our Own stands for

The TAGS and WARNINGS are there for a REASON. Use them and stop complaining

The universal rule—don’t like, don’t read

It’s THAT simple

[celesfear]

long post rambling about an assortment of things, mainly just a bunch of nonsense thoughts about the proship/antiship debate and how i feel about it

you ever think about how many cool, life-changing friendships or relationships might never occur because of pro/anti shipcourse, i think it's kind of sad.

maybe that's a thought that'd get me nuked in some circles but i really wonder. i've met a lot of antis who i could never get close to because i could never be my authentic self or show the works i was most proud of to them.

it wasn't until recently when i started participating in fandom again that i started caring about shipcourse, prior to that i didn't care about 'dni this' 'dni that.' i thought some things were weird yes but i didnt truly care much deeper than that

i don't know. i just think everyone's wrong on a fundamental level to some extent; not antis for being uncomfortable with dark subjects and not proshippers for not wanting fiction to be censored, but just the fact this has to be a debate at all.

i wish we could go back to the era where a lot of people's first reaction to subjects they didn't like was "that's kinda gross imo, anyways *blocks the person talking about it / clicks off of the tab / whatever*" and honestly, if there's any antis reading this; if you're apart of the crowd that does that instead of harassing people; good on you. genuinely, i wish all antis were like you

maybe it's the sleep deprivation but i truly do wish there was a situation in which we could both co-exist and just not harass or insult each other and maybe even be friends. idk

the older i get the more pointless all of this seems; just fandom drama and discourse in general really. the workplace isn't going to care if you called out a proshipper for thinking incest is hot or because you wrote a dead dove fic for homestuck or something. and if they do for either of those; then that's less a problem with the discourse and i think more of a problem with you not separating your online presence from your real life presence (never use your real name for socials, kids)

i think life's too short to worry about the little things. at least that's what i think

i dunno

i just wish we could be friends instead of arguing over things that truly, ultimately won't matter in 10-20 years

[coolfire333]

Not to post discourse but *posts discourse*

Tldr; "proshippers" piss off and touch grass you are GROSS I do not welcome you here AT ALL, "antishippers" please learn to be respectful of "weird/morally questionable/toxic" but otherwise "legal" ships and have media nuance you are on thin ice dude JUST BE KIND TO PEOPLE AND BLOCK (/REPORT WHEN APPLICABLE), DON'T HARASS

Ok I seriously hate the lack of nuance in modern fandom re: shipping discourse

Granted I was not online until 2016 when I first made my tumblr so I only got remnants of the untagged "wild west" of the internet but I truly feel as if I've seen some of the worst when it comes to shipping discourse

Like I'm actually worried that I'm gonna get burnt at the stake for liking a boss/employee age difference ship because of the questionable power dynamics that come with it even though there's nothing else "wrong" with the ship the way I wanna depict it. Like god I wanna explore that ship more in art/writing despite knowing that it's questionable but I've already got told to kill myself once over my writings (don't even know why that happened tbh) and I really don't want to have that happen again

But I also don't want people to see that I ship something like that and think that I'm proshipper-friendly, anyone who earnestly uses that label 9.9 times outta 10 is just an absolute creep who hides behind the "it's fiction :)" excuse to romanticize pedo/incest/noncon stuff which is NASTY like you realize how chronically online you have to be to think that's remotely ok or normal to most people

And the earnestly "anti-ship" side is so bad too like jesus christ I can't even fully align myself with them either!! Like I swear to god they'll see a ship with a 20 year old and a 30 year old and think that 10-year age gap is inherently problematic and that depicting dark content is Bad even if it's not even being romanticized and they're WAY to eager to harass people over stuff that literally doesn't matter

I swear to god some of these people need to retake english class or any other sort of media analysis class because oh my god depiction is not always normalization/romanticization!!! But the second you start to say that a bunch of absolute CREEPS begin crawling out of the woodwork to defend your points like no dude piss off I know you're whacking it to morally depraved pornography in your spare time and trying to pass it off as "normal fantasies" YUCK!!!

The staunch antishippers will assume you're proship if you don't want to use either label and the proshippers will do the exact same thing like "yeah sure no label but you're one of us right ;)" NO!!!!!!!!!! I literally do not want to be associated with either side they are both cesspools and the antiship side is only better if you ignore the rampant harassment and intimidation tactics and undeserved callouts

Literally go touch grass and leave me alone both of you I really do not want to receive more suicide bait or any death threats over wanting fictional characters to kiss each other or hold hands or, yes, even (consentually) fuck nasty even if it's morally questionable but I swear to god if you're so much as turning your head to people outwrite getting off to depraved shit romanticizing pedo/incest/noncon like "hmmm it's fiction, doesn't bother me if other people do it" then you are VILE

But don't go out harassing people who like nasty stuff just block them and make sure not to let them enter your space jesus it's literally THAT EASY

[insomniaink95]

Uuuugggghhhhh… okay. Proship/Antiship discourse. Inky's got opinions on this...

Okayso, I have never known what the terms proship and antiship ACTUALLY mean. I know about the issues SURROUNDING what the terms mean but not what they actually 100% really mean at all. I did not grow up on tumblr. I had an account for, I think, three months once before deleting it, and didn't come back until I made this account a couple months ago. I also have only ever read fanfiction written by close friends and a single Final Fantasy VII fic from the ancient internet days of 1999(I barely know how to navigate Ao3 to read friends fanfics even). I have never had any real interest in any kind of shipping with the only caveat being a VERY mild fascination involving GriffGuts… So basically no real exposure to any community that was dealing with this.

So about a decade ago(give or take) when I first heard the terms proship and antiship, my understanding of it without looking anything up was that there were people who were against shipping in general and people who generally enjoyed it. I had no outside input and no impetus to go find out because I had heard the terms in a complete vacuum without their actual meanings. It just sounded like another random internet argument that I had no interest in whatsoever.

Several years later I FINALLY started hearing a few people's negative opinions on proshippers as well as other people's negative opinions on antishippers and realized my understanding of this was completely lacking and that it wasn't just some dumb argument and it was based on very important societal impacts. …so I went looking for what the two terms actually meant.

And the reason I have never known what the two terms actually mean is because depending on who's words you're reading the two terms can mean any number of different things with wildly different negative connotations for one group or the other. And it can be any DEGREE of negative connotations depending on who's explaining it as well!

On the most negative edges of the definitions I have heard proshippers described as those who enjoy fictional CP/incest/abuse who don't care that the propagation of that material in a positive light can have a real negative impact upon society and what other's perceive as acceptable irl.

And I have heard antishiipers described as censorious puritans who are against sex-positivity and are often also anti-LGBTQ+ and have even been compared specifically to the "burned furs" movement.

And of course from that level of negative connotation on either side all the way down to some folks thinking it's just a mild difference of opinion and no big deal…

I've got a good idea of what the terms SHOULD mean these days. but I just did another quick web search to see what any young people would run into if they were curious about the term's meanings after just hearing them for the first time. Y'know, what're the KIDS gonna learn these two terms mean today if they go to look it up like I did several years ago.

It's the same jumble of definitions that I ran into several years ago. Both from random people who gained their opinions on what the terms meant from the SAME jumble of definitions to news articles in which the writers did a cursory glance at what the meanings were(basically looked at whatever the first google search result on the subject said) and wrote authoritative articles on the subject.

pulling my hair out!!!

The ISSUE is deadly serious. But these terms have no useful application in society. I don't know the history enough to say if they ever DID, but they don't anymore at least. There's been so much muddying of things by those who don't want their interest in hardcore muppet babies porn to result in reasonable people giving them the side eye and hitting the block button AS WELL AS online "news" content mills doing their best to make a quick buck by churning out articles on the subject that are authoritative and "well researched" when the authors don't know jack and had no interest in ever knowing jack in the first place!

asdlkfja;dfja;kfja;ldfja;sdlfkj

Also, does anti proship mean the same thing as antiship or is that a new term with a completely new meaning??? I am an old man who doesn't even have a smart phone, someone take me back to my room, my grand-kids are supposed to visit soon!

[wild-aspen]

“Proship DNI” is bc a lot of “Proshippers” who post pedo content would start interacting w and following real children (under 18) online. Said shippers also rarely tagged properly, then got all pissy when the kids started getting mad that they couldn’t avoid pedo content, and that adults w pedo kinks were following them & trying to interact w them bc like, that’s dangerous. U don’t have to post this btw I just saw ur post & wanted to add context as someone who is on the outside of the discourse.

I'll post it, but I just want to note that it's not "a lot" of "proshippers" doing this, because "proship" is not a synonym for "pedo content". You know how I know that?

"Pro ship" was, until quite recently, the default position within fandom. Everyone was "pro ship". Everyone followed a "ship and let ship" standpoint. Everyone tagged. Everyone minded their own business. Everyone said "Don't like? Don't read!". Communities on LJ and on forums would kick you out if you made a fuss about a fic or pairing or kink someone wrote. Being an "anti" was a minority and you were a troublemaker, a drama-starter, and not welcome in most writing communities. People still had triggers and squicks, but they were responsible for themselves, and didn't engage in content they disliked.

So no, you cannot use "pro ship" as a synonym for "pedo content".

Are there gross people out there doing what you described above? Definitely! But guess what. If they were seeking out minors, weren't tagging, and actively being pedophiles as you've described, they were also not welcome in the communities, because one of the HUGE main rules of these communities was keeping NSFW fic away from children, keeping the communities 18+ ONLY, and TAGGING PROPERLY.

So the creepers were always EXCLUDED too. If you got caught sharing NSFW content with kids? You were OUT.

So yeah. The majority of people in fandom are and have always been what antis describe as "pro ship".

[filthyriddle]

Past Experiences With Antis

Warning: Fandom Discourse Post, Discussing Abuse

Copied over from Twitter

Between 2016 and 2018, I used to be in an anti circle, whilst I actively didn't set out to harass people and kept myself out of direct involvement, the 'friends' I had at the time always found a way to drag me into things. This post will detail my experiences with Antis, Anti spaces and how I got out.

I have always used art therapy as a way to explore my trauma and take control of the situation. My therapist first started with advising me to write things down to get it out, then it moved onto messy scribbling. Before finally settling onto reading + creating transgressive art.

When interacting with this art, I have full control, I can 'leave' at any moment if I notice myself getting triggered and with my therapist, I found a great balance to figure out the difference between consuming to heal and consuming to self-harm. This is something I've done for years, not once did I encounter someone who had an issue with it IRL.

When I started to engage in online social circles especially for fandoms, it was around 2014, Back then it wasn't as often, mostly fanfiction/fanart and the occasional comment. It was 2015/6 when I started actively engaging and wanting to find a group of online friends.

Of course I stuck to finding friends in fandoms since It was much easier to discuss the source of the fandom with others and find friends from there, I eventually joined a GC and things were great.

Until it came to Fan created work.

In the GC, let's call them Jan, Jan would send over 'problematic' art into the chat, commenting on how disgusting it is, how the creator should be arrested, how everyone interacting positively are all 'sickos'. Jan was the most extreme one, they'd harass, bully and threaten any artist who created a piece of work who didn't follow Jan's black & white morals. Jan went on tangents in the GC about how fiction MUST be shown in XYZ way, how reading a fic with X topic and not being disgusted by it meant that you condoned said work.

I mostly ignored them at first, until others started to vocally join in and I was confronted about my thoughts on a certain piece of work, that everyone else knew, contained the topic of my abuse.

I was honest, telling them that I wasn't super fussed, I decided to open up on my methods of art therapy, hoping to give them some insight on why someone may create and consume this type of art.

They didn't like that one bit, for WEEKS since I opened up, they went on and on about how I had to stop, how through this art therapy, I was retraumatising myself, self-harming and condoning what was being reflected. Telling me how "worried" they were because they didn't want me to end up "destroying" my morals with such "icky" art.

It wasn't long until I gave in and believed what they were telling me, I still refused to be involved in their little harassment campaigns but they often used me as their token victim. Pulling me into a conversation directly so I could be a "listen to victims!" gotcha, this took a toll on my healing. Without my art therapy, I had no controlled or safe outlet for emotions, memories, triggers, etc. I started to spiral, finding myself deliberately searching 'proship' content to send to the GC. I didn't realise at the time that this was my brain trying to get me to use art therapy once again.

Then I couldn't take it any more, I was starting to feel urges to physically self-harm again, my deliberate searching for discourse to read was a more emotional and mental s/h. So I asked the GC to stop pulling me into discourse, to stop using my abuse stories for their personal gain.

Jan and a few other vocal 'antis' DESPISED that, for hours I was being bombarded by their disgusting words. They accused me of lying about my abuse, that I deserved it if it was true. They accused me of engaging in transgressive art therapy to prey on children, to manipulate others into thinking that was was being reflected in the artwork is okay. I felt so sick.

So I left, I left the GC, blocked them all, deleted my socials at that time and worked on getting a fresh start. Deep down, I knew they manipulated me, that I didn't truly believe a word they spewed regarding art.

I got back into my typical methods of coping, transgressive art therapy and worked on healing the damage they had done to me.

Things got much better after that, I finally had control again, I went to using a method of blocking anyone I come across who is an anti or shared a similar mentality, to avoid interactions as much as humanly possible.

Yes I make these tangent posts, but I can do that. My main goal is to cut off any possible direct interaction.

Funnily enough, a few months after this, one of them got in contact with me through what is actually their main account. I'll call them Feb. Feb was always quiet in the GC, not adding too much apart from the small comment and I got along well with Feb.

Feb came to me and told me how Jan and the others did the same thing to them long before I joined the GC, after I left rather vocally in the GC, Feb told me it inspired them to do the same.

Turns out, two other of the vocal antis, we will call them Mar and May. Actively interacted with that the GC called 'proship content'. Mar consumed it as a stress reliever but was in denial about it being the same thing me and Feb did, Mar insisted that. I don't know too much about Mar, but I believe Jan manipulated them too.

Jan was the main harasser afterall.

May instigated discourse as often as Jan, turns out that they purposely looked for 'proship' content to share to Jan, purposely angering themselves and directly arguing with artists. To me, this is a form of s/h.

Overall, that time period was one of the most toxic times in my life, it felt like I was constantly on eggshells, I'm so glad I got out when I could. There was more that Jan did, but I won't go into those details because they're private and directly involved details of my abuse. Which I don't really want to go into too much detail on my socmed.

But yeah this is a somewhat summary, it always scares me to learn from 'ex-antis' how they went through a similar path of manipulation as I did.

It's okay to be disturbed by certain fiction, it's okay to not like it. What's not okay is to get on this moral high ground about it. I've been interacting with this artwork for years. My morals haven't been altered by this fiction, because I already know my morals and stand by them.

[brightblueinky]

Long winded ramblings about a Bronycon video

So I’ve seen some hubbub about a YouTube essay going over the history of the Brony fandom up until the last Bronycon. (You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVOF2PiHnc ) I just got around to watching it today and I was...somewhat confused by some of the stronger negative takes I was seeing floating around Twitter, and I’ve been in a “fandom discourse” mood lately so, hey, I thought...why not talk about it. The first part of this was originally going to be a Twitter thread until I realized Twitter wasn’t going to let me keep going on the thread so I gave up and decided to put it here instead (lol) so it’s probably going to be a bit choppy since I was trying to keep it readable for that format.

So first of all, my background, so I can be completely honest about where I'm coming from and try not to portray what I'm saying as like...an end-all-be-all take here, because I don't wanna do that. I was never really an MLP fan. I watched the first season of FiM and really enjoyed it, but I didn't really engage with the fandom because by that point I'd gotten to where I didn't spend much time in huge fandoms. So I can't come at this from the perspective of an MLP fan. When I’m addressing the fandom here, I’m coming at it as an outsider in the sense that I am not a MLP fan/brony. What I AM going to do is come at this from the perspective of something of a "native" to fandom. I've always been a geek. I've engaged in online fandom in some form or another since I was about 8, which was in the mid 90s. I've been around the fandom block. Actually, I can even say that I used to lurk on 4chan a lot and I saw a lot of the early Brony discussions there. I also watch @JennyENicholson's videos, and yeah, there's been times where I've been bugged because we had a disagreement of opinions and felt like it was a little harsh. She's got a dry sense of humor and sometimes it's hard to read when she's joking and when she's being genuine. So like, I wasn't surprised when I saw some hubbub from some people online about her doing the video about Bronies. Not at all. But I gotta say...I am really surprised by some of the more INTENSE takes on the video after watching it?? The LARGE majority of the video is @JennyENicholson covering this fandom from an INSIDER'S perspective. She was an MLP fan before FiM, she was active enough in the fandom to be a BNF. A huge, huge amount of the video is positive and nostalgic. In fact I now wish I HAD been in the fandom! It seems like it was a lot of fun! The only thing I felt was maybe harsh in the video is I think she gave the impression that being "furry" is exclusively a sex thing, but by the end she talks about furries being a community that's a very inclusive, kind community with a lot of queer people, so even then I think if you're really paying attention to the whole video you're not going to come away with the idea that the furry community is bad. Just maybe could've had more nuance earlier in the video?  So from glancing through mentions of her in a Twitter search (which is definitely not going to be a perfect sample) from what I can tell there's like two things that people seem to be upset about with the video: 1, the idea that the fandom is "dead" and 2...just...Body Pillows. So let's talk about the dead fandom thing first. As I mention, I have been in fandom a long, long time. Although I (usually) shy away from big active fandoms now, I started off in bigger ones--Sonic, Pokemon, Digimon, LOTR, etc. The two fandoms I currently care about the most, though, are definitely fandoms that tend to be called "dead" and were never HUGE to begin with (Princess Tutu and Chrono Crusade). I think I can count on my hands the number of ppl who actively discuss or create fanwork for CC.   So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've been on both sides of the coin here. And let me reassure Bronies: "Dead", while maybe too strong of a label for what it actually means, does not have to be a negative thing and you don't need to defend your fandom from it, IMO. I think the "dead" label simply means that interest in the fandom has cooled, the number of active participants is significantly down from the heydays of the fandom, etc. And I don't think that's an unfair label for brony fandom from what I know.   If there was a large scale replacement for Bronycon then maybe it'd be unfair, but...yeah, if you're losing your large hubs for the fandom community, if the flow of fanwork and discussion has slowed, I think "dead", as it's used, isn't an unfair label.   But again, I don't think this is a bad thing! I'd imagine that even the current state of the brony fandom is larger and more active than the Princess Tutu fandom at its greatest heights. It's a pretty relative term. It doesn't mean nobody cares, or that you can't still enjoy it! All the "dead" label really means is acknowledging the change in a fandom. It's not a bad thing. I might be 1 of ~30 writers for Chrono Crusade on AO3 but I still have fun writing fic and I still get hits and occasional positive comments. It's not bad. Just different. Okay so now let's talk about the body pillow thing and oh man, is this going to be a minefield, lol. Let's first talk about my personal lens I'm going to come at here... I've created NSFW fanwork. Some of it taboo. I'm also (somewhat) a part of the "proship" discourse on Twitter which is basically a community of people that push back against another community of "anti"-shippers who feel that some ships are problematic (because of character age, power dynamics, etc) and shouldn't be shipped. (I think that simplifies a lot of the discussion on both sides but it’ll do for the purpose of what I’m getting at here, I think.) At its worse this debate has lead death threats and suicide attempts. I have seen people get treated abusively for fanwork (sometimes NSFW but not always). (And I also want to add that while I think the major component of the pro-ship discussions on Twitter are anti-harassment, there’s been some ‘edgy’ types who think that it’s fun to harass antis with NSFW fanwork and the like and I want to make it clear that is ALSO ABUSIVE AND NOT OKAY.) Basically, I want to say I'm sympathetic to a knee jerk defensive reaction over NSFW fanart. Okay? I can get why people might want to push against criticism of stuff they enjoy/create, and that there’s an element of possibly being harassed for fanwork you create. But the thing is, I don't think this is really the attitude Jenny is taking in the video. She lightly mocks NSFW stuff and body pillows, but often describes it as "harmless" and "fine". The only time she's critical of it is when she notes that sometimes body pillows with suggestive poses could be on display at conventions where young kids were present--at a con celebrating a show MEANT for young kids--and that probably shouldn't have been allowed. She's not saying you can't buy a body pillow, or create one. She didn't even say that while discussing body pillows of characters who were 10! She expressed personal discomfort, but the only restriction she really suggested was "keep this out of the sight of minors." And I don't know why that would be a controversial take. I read lemons when I was younger so I'm not going to sit here and act like it's going to completely ruin kids lives or anything. But I ALSO think it's appropriate to have boundaries for sexual materials for kids (or anyone who doesn't want to engage for whatever reason). I want my stuff to be clearly labeled as NSFW, with tags being clear about the content, so people know what they're getting into. I’ve grown to care about this even more as I’ve gotten older. I don’t really want to know about minors reading my nsfw fanfic or anything. I’m not going to, like, parent them and shame them if they do, but I don’t want to engage with it, I want my stuff to be labeled, and I am DEFINITELY not going to put it on public display at a place where I know kids are allowed, ESPECIALLY not when it’s work based on stuff MEANT for children! I mean, I grew up in a fundamentalist Evangelical household and I will rant at you for hours about how damaging I feel that environment was, and that I don’t think kids and teens should be completely shielded from sex, etc. But that doesn’t mean that having boundaries in place is a bad idea, especially when minors are involved. I also think that boundaries are good just for the sake of consent, too? I’m not saying that someone accidentally seeing suggestive art is the same as them being raped, please don’t conflate it like that, but if people don’t want to see it for whatever reason they should be given the opportunity to make that choice as much as possible. The stuff that Jenny mentioned brony conventions would do (requiring stuff to be sold under the table, or having late night hours for the dealer’s room where 18+ merch could be displayed and sold) seem like really good policies and pretty similar to what I’ve seen at anime conventions I’ve attended (although occasionally some stuff that was maybe a biiit more suggestive than I’d be comfortable displaying in public...but hey, my local con allows kids but also makes it clear in their rules that it’s mostly geared for 13+ attendees and that it’s up to parents to decide what’s appropriate for their kids, and I think that’s fair). And yeah, I know, nothing that Jenny showed in the video being displayed at Bronycon was 100% explicit, just suggestive. She notes this in the video herself, saying that yeah, it doesn’t show genitalia, etc...and as I’m writing this I think I’ve maybe rambled too much about NSFW fanart when most of the stuff we’re talking about here is more “suggestive” than straight-up porn, since that’s probably muddying the waters a bit. But I gotta, gotta, GOTTA address the sentiment I saw multiple times on Twitter in response to her video: “Dakimakura/body pillows aren’t sexual and to say that is orientalist.” I...what? What the fuck? Okay, again, I’m going to make it perfectly clear what my background is here so that I’m not claiming to have some expertise that I don’t have: I am white. I am VERY white. My parents did the DNA test thing and the most “exotic” thing that came up is that my dad is 3% Spanish. Not latin american, I mean from Spain spanish. I am sooooo fucking white. I’ve studied a LITTLE of Japanese culture in college classes but that wasn’t even my field of study (Communication major on a Broadcasing track, minor in Theatre) so I’m not going to tell you I’m an expert on Japanese culture. I’m just a weeby geek that grew up in anime fandoms and never really stopped consuming Japanese pop culture. I have a very limited experience with Japanese culture. I am NOT an expert on what is and isn’t orientalist. I know I’m really hammering in this point here but I think it’s really, really important that I make it clear that I shouldn’t be used as an expert on this subject. But what I DO have a background in is someone who has engaged in Western fandom of stuff from Japan from a young age, I did spend a lot of time on 4chan, this is NOT the first time that I’ve seen some form of an “this isn’t sexual at all and you’re just a PERVERT” discussion about fanservice and...okay first of all, I highly doubt anyone saying this is any more qualified to define what is and isn’t orientalist than I am. I think this is bullshit and it feels like an attempt to make your opinions more legitimate by implying people that disagree with you are some form of bigot. (And look, I was a sheltered, insecure, stuck-up teenager in fandom, part of the reason I feel like I can recognize this is I totally pulled the same shit. I am not going to act like I have never tried to pull this and that I’m a pure innocent woke intellectual who’s never said something foolish, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it slide, either.)

While writing this I googled ‘dakimakura’ to make sure I was spelling it right and noticed that Wikipedia does note that the origins of this style of pillow are sometimes used by Japanese kids as something like a security blanket, which I’m guessing is where the justification for the argument is coming from, but let’s be intellectually honest here--body pillow covers being sold at a convention aren’t primarily meant to be a security blanket for kids. And, okay, maybe you have a body pillow cover with a character on it that isn’t exactly in a sexual pose, just laying fully clothed on what looks like a bedsheet background. But I don’t think it’s an unfair argument to say that even THEN it implies a sort of intimacy, right, possibly a desire for a romantic attachment? Like, sharing a bed with someone doesn’t have to be sexual or romantic, I used to share a bed with my brother in hotel rooms when we were kids, but I’m also not going to share a bed with my brother and then hug him closely to my body no matter how he’s posed or what he’s wearing??? And look, maybe a body pillow isn’t ALWAYS sexual but to say it’s NOT sexual, which kinda implies NEVER, is so disingenuous. The top result I got when I searched for “anime body pillow” is a shop that includes categories like “18+ body pillow” and “sexy body pillow” and also SELLS FAKE BREAST INSERTS FOR SOME OF THE PILLOWS SO YOU CAN SQUEEZE THEIR BOOBS (obviously, NSFW link: https://www.dakimakura.us/ ) Like, COME ON, I don’t think it’s orientalist to say that something is sexual when Japanese people are actually selling body pillows they label as 18+. The second result even has a second for pillows you can insert sex toys into. And yeah I saw the guy saying “masturbation isn’t sex!” and sir at BEST you have a very narrow and incorrect definition of sex as simply being intercourse and, again, at worst you’re just being straight up dishonest. In fact, I’ll straight up call myself out for this. There’s a fanart body pillow of a fictional character I’ve considered buying several times! (Not porn but still probably NSFW link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/701912275/dakimakura-hypnosismic-doppo?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=hypnosis+mic&ref=sr_gallery-1-4&organic_search_click=1 ) Is this porn? No. You can’t see much. But on one side of the pillow he’s got his shirt untucked, you can see a bit of his stomach, and his fly is undone and you can see the band of his underwear peeking out. This is sexual. I’m not wanting it to like, get off on it, exactly...honestly it’s maybe a bit ironic, and a lot of wanting a body pillow in general is I like sleeping hugging onto something but I have a different sleep schedule from my husband I find him too big to hold all night and too warm in the summer anyway. But I’m not going to tell you that me wanting this PARTICULAR pillow case isn’t at all sexual, I know what I’m doing, I like the character and think the drawing is hot. I’m not saying don’t buy body pillows, okay? I’m not saying don’t sell them. I don’t think Jenny is either (she literally OWNS ONE that she shows in the video!!!). But don’t act like there isn’t ever anything sexual about it existing to try to defend their existence, okay? You don’t need to be a fucking coward about it, and you especially don’t need to say it’s racist if people call out something as being suggestive when, well, it fucking is. And I think it’s totally 100% reasonable for someone to say “hey I don’t think it’s a good idea to display suggestive art around kids, especially if it’s depicting young characters.” TL;DR -- Chill, guys. CHILL. Your fandom is getting smaller and the term people use for this is “dead” but that’s not a bad thing, you’ve still got the fandom, you can still enjoy it, there’s definitely no need to take personal offense over it. And enjoy your body pillows, but don’t be disingenuous about the fact that they can be suggestive and try to act like anyone that calls it such is racist, that is such bullshit. Like what you like, other people’s opinions of it is not automatically a personal attack on you, there’s no need to jump to being defensive every time someone says something vaguely negative about it. Chill, fandom friends. Fandom ain’t bad but it also doesn’t need to be the center of your identity and you don’t need to lash out against people for daring to have opinions about a thing you like. You especially don’t need to act like other people are perverts for noting something being suggestive. Chiiiiiiiiiill.

[bigbeautifulcartoonpeople]

These are some conversation I've had with several people in discord:

1) Other Person: Idk if this is an unpopular opinion, but find myself being more anti harassment then anti anti. Like im proship but I also think that people, when they tag correctly, should be allowed to talk about why they don't like a character, a peice of media or a ship... I think that also ties in to WHY im proship. People should do what they want but I don't want to see anti xyz or even a tonne of ship stuff in the main tags.

Me: Tbh same, that was actually the way of the internet before all this proship and antiship and anti-antiship shit started. Literally people liked what they liked, criticized what they didn't and moved the fuck on. The people who demonized, shunned, suicide bated, etc. other people in fandom were the people looked down upon and excluded from fandom. Now it's just okay to hurl death threats and the like over literally 2-D pictures, characters and even stories willy-fucking-nilly. Like seriously, I don't think a lot of people have even looked at a library otherwise they would start trying to burn them down because they lack such common sense and awareness over the fact that fiction is QUITE LITERALLY not reality. Consuming it doesn't make you IT, but the sad thing is is that this isn't even a new way of thinking, it's only newly been on the internet and is now spreading like a cancer/wildfire.

Purity culture has always been a thing due to Catholicism and Christianity and the like, claiming video games cause kids to be violent, even further back, metal music made kids devil-worshipers and violent, even further back, IT the book made people murderers and that Stephen King(the author) is a murderer himself! Hell, the ideology is still standing strong with conservatives believing that if their kid consumes queer media that will somehow magically make them queer and that's just not how that works. If you go into media thinking murder, incest, etc. is okay irl beforehand, nothing is going to change about that except figuring out you are okay with it irl and not just on paper/screen. Same with queer kids, they were already queer or questioning before they consumed the queer media, they're just figuring out what the words are or what it looks like now that they've consumed it and can now define themselves.

I'm genuinely growing more and more concerned that people really do believe that fictional characters are real. Like, if they just believe hard enough it makes it so, and that because they think that the fictional characters are real anyone who'd want to hurt them, sexualize them, put them in harm's way, etc. are awful people cause they believe you would do that to real people and, to them, that fictional character is real.

It's so fucking concerning because I am becoming more and more aligned in the belief that people shouldn't be handed the internet until a certain age cause technology and screens and the wide wide web are rotting kids' brains, holy fuck

2) Just casual discussion:

Me: Antis are ruining fandom space and it ain't even our fault, wtf

Person 1: creating unnecessary drama too! they...outed...a 12y old...sexual fantasies from a PRIVATE conversation

Person 2: These guys need to realize they're not the fucking police it's none of their business what other people do online unless it's ACTUALLY illegal

Person 1 in Response to: they...outed...a 12y old...sexual fantasies:

that was some years ago, and i didn't know proship and anti discourse

for ppl that love to say legality isn't morality, they sure love to bring up the law "it's illegal!!"

"no it isn't, [proof]"

"legality isn't morality"

Me: I'm seriously starting to think the majority of antis are minors, like kid/tween minors, cause the lack of reasoning skills, inability to tell fiction from reality, and basically little sociopaths sound both like antis and children and that's starting to make me super fucking uncomfortable. Cause there are so many parents who will hand their kid an ipad or even a whole ass phone at like 4 or 5 and then they're left to their own devices (pun not intended) and expected to figure the wide wide web out on their own...like, THEYRE FUCKING CHILDREN, we are A) not responsible for parenting your random ass child in place of you, B) expecting adults to interact with is adults and will reply and interact as such.

And so we've got LITERAL CHILDREN with no moral compass established being told that x, y, and z people are the worst possible people to ever exist ever.... Kids already take everything to the extremes, and that shit is only gonna make everything worse for us and everybody else just trying to enjoy fandom

Person 1 in Response to: I'm seriously starting to think the majority of antis are minors, like kid/tween minors, cause the lack of reasoning:

yea, kids usually see black and white

they don't notice the grey also cause they're easily convinced, and when they're convinced, they're gonna keep insisting

Me: Like, for example, I was watching a Jacksepticeye vid yesterday and he was looking at reviews of him on this website and read a review of a literally EIGHT YEAR OLD who said that they had been watching him since they were a toddler and jack was shocked....I WOULD BE TOO, like who just hands their kid the internet and say "salavi, go be kids, go have fun", like NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING????? At the very least try to curate your child's experience or reach on the net until they're about 13 or so, like I promise shitting out a kid is not the only step to being a parent, I promise you

Person 1 in Response to: Like, for example, I was watching a Jacksepticeye vid yesterday and he was looking at reviews of:

since....they were...a TODDLER??

Me: Yep, and the kid didn't even see anything wrong with it, seriously, somebody needs to start trying to be parents and it shouldn't be the people who didn't ask to be, aka random adults on the net

I'm starting to find evidence on twitter of antis encouraging each other to shun friends and family for not being one of them and I am deeply concerned. This is some cult shit.

"should I shun my friend for being proship even though they're my only irl friend?"

"Should I shun my mother for being proship?"

The answer to both of these is GET HELP. You are being brainwashed into thinking that your friends and family are dangerous when you know that they wouldn't hurt anyone. See a therapist, take some time off the internet, reevaluate your situation. Fiction does not take precedence over your loved ones.

I'm tagging this with "antis please interact" because I think they need to see this too, and hopefully it helps someone. Your loved ones are not dangerous because of their taste in fiction.

[ecivons]

There’s proship discourse all over my tl on twitter and it’s really starting to get to me and piss me off,, until now I don’t really label myself as pro or anti but the way I engage with fandom is probably more pro than anything

What I find the most annoying is that I think ALOT of people are like me and don’t call themselves proship but their fandom mentality makes them basically proship

And it’s annoying because it’s like 😭 “oh ure proship, so u like incest and pedophillia “ NO BRO SLIPPERY FUCKING SLOPE.

Like to me proship basically u dgaf abt other people’s preferences bc if someone likes seeing suggestive art of a little anime boy what the hell am I supposed to do to stop them

I don’t know if these people are aware that the most proship people of them all are the big artists who don’t care enough to monitor who the interests of those following them, or are their oomfies who don’t like incest but ignore the people who do.

A lot of people really are proship without being fully aware of it.. and I’m sure there are people who call themselves antis and don’t involve themselves with problematic content, they dislike incest and big age gaps, but they don’t go out of their way to call out people who do, they just block and move on. That’s literally what proship is. It means just block and mute as u please. Curate ur online experience!! You don’t need to advocate so hard for people to get cancelled because they enjoy the types of content that you don’t 😭

And for a lot of antis out there ik that proshippers can be really annoying about politely asking them to not interact. I find that annoying too because like .. I cant tell if they’re aware that they sound really dumb ☠️ just block them tbh that’s it. I think some proshippers have become kind of loud and annoying because the content that is deemed problematic now was never a problem before, in fandom spaces. The most visceral reactions would probably be like a rp account on Pinterest freaking out about it idk

Ok rant over sorry for that 🦭

[rosieselfships]

can selfships be classified as "problematic?" i'm worried because i self ship with a character i have a very large age gap with (them being the older one) and i'm scared that if i'm public about this antis might harass me.

alright so im gonna put this under the cut bc i rambled on for too long and its a bit discourse-y.

...sometimes antis call certain selfships problematic while they dont for others that should be just as "problematic". Some antis have no problems with people selfshipping with villains, slashers, etc. But will get mad when people selfship with characters who have done things they personally can't excuse like rapists or abusers, or selfships with age gaps especially if they are younger...or even just selfshiping with a character people think are gay even if its not canon (its still dumb even if it is canon cuz like 1 persons selfship isnt gonna take away representation guys).

I'd like to say that selfshipping with an older character shouldn't be an issue however some people have no common sense and are hypocrites and think that an adult consensually dating an older adult is pedophilia. And this isn't just a hypothetical either, i follow this one selfshipper who is in their 20s who selfships with a character in their late 40s, and i've seen them get called a pedophile even when no child is involved and the character is literally older than them...they either must be mistaken or just tossing out serious words and watering down the meaning of them.

Of course, if anyone says this to you or anyone else in a situation like this, just know that it is completely dumb and you are not at fault.

My suggestion would be to make a new side blog for your selfship stuff. In 2018 i had an old selfshipping blog but it became inactive due to seeing antis in the community and just embarrassment in selfshipping in general. It wasn't until last year when i got the urge to post about selfshipping again after following some proship selfshippers, then i made this blog and started over. You could start new and make it clear that you don't want antis to interact with you. Block anyone who sends you harassment and turn off anons if you need to. I'm not so open about being proship outside of this side blog tbh, but only because the community is full of antis and i just wanted to avoid them and curate my own experience. There are a lot of things i would say if i didnt feel i would be harassed or loose friends/mutuals over it...and i just dont really like to discourse anyway...except for in private with people i know share similar opinions with me and we all bitch about some dumb take we see online. Having friends or people you follow share similar opinions and beliefs can make you feel less alone.

...honestly..ive had this blog for a year and im at 100+ followers and ive had anons on for a long time, im actually surprised i havent received hate yet...while recent-ish i got a random anon on my main blog that just said "kys". I have no idea what prompted that response...it took me 5 years on this account for me to get hate xd. maybe i am just low profile, or people think they cant get a reaction out of me so they dont bother me, or both.