#when really most people in fandom and out of fandom are against censorship but i know the tags will appeciate it so

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.

But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!

Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.

Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.

I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....

With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....

Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?

[coulsonlives]

I'm thinking about fanpol peeps, and how they obviously have super insecure and unstable moral compasses. They might wanna feel like they're doing good things, and seeing the world the 'right' way, and they're desperate to do good. But they don't have the ability to view and interpret things critically on their own, without a ton of external influence, because they never learned how.

This makes them super impressionable! Because they can't examine their views and moral compass on their own, they end up grafting the closest things they think are a good demonstration of morality onto themselves, which is super dangerous because again, they can't tell what is 'appropriate' vs 'inappropriate' to be against, or when they're going too far. Adult/child relationships, incest, etc are the most 'obviously bad' things someone can do in real life, because we all know child abuse and the likes are bad, so that's what fanpols latch onto first. But since they can't think critically about how far to go with this, they think it makes them a better person to crusade against ppl who write things like that, regardless of context. It shows they don't really know how to contextualize or find nuance in things.

They can't think, oh well, it's just fiction. They don't know how to look at the hard facts and think, oh well, so what if a few serial killers said they read a certain book, or played a video game, it doesn't mean those books and games should be banned, or that everyone who consumes that material is a bad person/possible killer. No, they think it all should go. It's like calling everyone who reads lolita a 'pedo' or everyone who reads mein kampf a 'nazi' because they don't have the nuance to understand people are curious, or that people want to be uncomfortable (that's the point of horror movies and novels tbh, am I a bad person for enjoying thomas harris' red dragon??), and that people can, actually, read the wildest things and not get ideologically influenced by it

Once you add on the 'la la, i'm plugging my ears and not listening to you degenerates' thing that fanpols use to shut out any productive conversation (which is also a cult mentality: assuming anyone who isn't them is the bad guy, so those opinions are insta-moot), it just spirals out of control. They keep grafting on 'bad things to be against' to their list, with no willingness to reflect or examine just how bad things have become for them, or how far down the slope they're slipping, and that's how you end up w people who will suibait someone if they even headcanon a character as hetero or say they like whump/gore fics

Saying that, I gotta wonder how many fanpols must be projecting. If they really think people can be influenced that easily by consuming or making 'bad' content.. Do they think that about themselves? Do they think people are this impressionable because that's what they see in themselves? If so.. that should be a glaring red flag that they don't have healthy media consumption habits, and it's a problem with them, not everyone else.

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[nerves-nebula]

this gonna be a bitchy post lacking in nuance but who cares. im annoyed.

child predators and abusers will use literally whatever is most effective to groom someone, that's kind of the whole fuckin point. pointing out that they can use certain media to groom kids is like pointing out that you can drink liquids. like yea you sure can. you can groom a kid through their interest in sesame street. you can groom a kid with adventure time. you can twist even the most harmless story book with a Nice Upstanding Moral at the end into whatever you want.

when i was in high school I basically fell in love with any teacher that gave me food cuz i was fucking starving and that's a way more effective way to gain my trust than like, idk, sketchy fandom porn. (which i also loved as a kid/teen but I never really talked to people online or in person about it cuz i didnt wanna get adults in trouble!) and if someone online was weird to me back then i just ghosted them cuz i didn't have to exist in meat space with them if they made me uncomfortable.

anyway back to my point: should we ban granola bars cuz they were a way to fast-track the trust of food insecure kids? the way some of y'all talk about abuse, and grooming in specific is so frustrating, like, what are you fuckin talking about. grooming is a series of actions a person chooses to take to get what they want, it's manipulation, what they use to groom people with is entirely situational and moreover irrelevant.

should we all just sit in 5 x 5 cubes and paint neutral faces on a canvas till we die or should we try to have systems in place to prevent adults from gaining so much control over kids just by being kind of nice to them. and that's not even getting into how censorship literally never works the way you might want it to. it's impossible to create censorship that isn't inherently bigoted and useless because the only people with the power to properly censor are the people with the most power in general. and they do not like the rest of us. and they are also often on the side of abusers, if not abusers themselves!

yall will gives thousands of notes to posts that basically say they want the haze code back cuz you're too dumb and reactionary to think about fucking anything other than "child abuse bad so i guess i agree." then go patting yourselves on the back without having helped a single child.

yall love to feel vindicated more than you care about victims. don't act like anything you do is for the survivors if your focus is always on retribution or censorship against the abusers. you don't care about us. you don't remember we even exist half the time. none of you have looked into what actually helps us, none of you internalize our complicated feelings, none of you are willing to ease up on your christian ideas of sex and sexuality unless we explain our entire traumatic backstories to you. and then you say we're broken and need help, as if what we don't really need is for you to back us up or leave us the fuck alone.

none of you care. you just wanna find acceptable targets for your anger so you can feel good about destroying the Bad Person. dont piss me off

[elfwreck]

heyo, i was looking through the proship communities bcs i have a question and saw you run one?

i don’t rlly consider myself anti or pro, but one of my issues with the proship community the fact that real children in public fandom spaces can see it? im aware that you tailor your own internet experience, don’t like don’t read, etc, and i agree with that mindset and abide by it, its just that when it comes to kids coming across proship communities they don’t really know better and can get like, fetishes and stuff related to it. i was just wondering how the proship community really feels about that. don’t feel pressured to answer btw, im just curious.

The first thing to be aware of, is that "proship" does not mean "extreme kink and explicit sex and abusive relationships." It means, "in favor of a non-censorship approach to fiction."

Which does not mean "it's fine if small children read explicit sexual content." It means, "it is not the job of the WRITER to prevent children from reading fiction that's not age-appropriate to them." It's the job of their parents to manage their media intake.

Parents should have help - which is why AO3 has a warning for "this work could have adult content" on M and E fics, why they have required warnings for gore and non-con, among other topics. But it's not AO3's job to prevent kids from ignoring those warnings; it's the parents' job to steer their kids towards age-appropriate reading material.

(When my kids were under 18, I told them some parts of the internet were off-limits. And because my kids trusted me - because we'd had talks about why - they agreed not to visit those parts of the web. Parents who don't have that degree of trust can invest in software that can restrict some of the internet.) (I will happily provide the same kind of support for other people's kids. I will not provide support based on the morals of strangers. If they want me looking out for their kids, they get to deal with my ethics.)

The proship community I run on tumblr is not age-restricted, because we're not talking about anything that's inappropriate for 13-year-olds to see. (That's the youngest age allowed on Tumblr; if there are younger kids than that, that's outside of my scope to manage.) We talk about the arguments against censorship, and sometimes about the poor logic some antis use. Sometimes we talk about the history of censorship in fandom - what's changed, and what hasn't. Sometimes we talk about the terminology involved.

Most people who are proship are not involved in "extreme kink" discussions. Many don't like extreme kink or sexual content at all - they just don't think it's a problem if other people do. For those people who do like that kind of content, they're not looking to entice kids into joining their interests - they want to talk with people who already share them.

And while most actively labeled "proship" servers have a channel for extreme kinky/horny content - that's locked to 18+ people, and nobody's trying to sneak kids into those channels.

Nobody is picking up fetishes because they saw a post online. At most, they are discovering an interest they already had but didn't know how to name. And if they discover it in a kink-friendly community, they can learn about the risks involved, what's safe and what's not, and how to acknowledge a potential interest years before it's safe to try practicing it. If they are kept away from all "extreme" content, they can wind up hurt by trying something without knowing the risks, or running into predators because they're desperate for information and acceptance.

They are far safer if they know there are communities that say, "there are some people who are into this thing, and some who enjoy reading about it but don't want to do it in real life, and some who just want to ponder it at a distance from both of those - and all of those are okay." (...Assuming the kink in question is something like fisting or bondage, not necrophilia or breathplay, which are both in the category of "actually do NOT do this in real life; if the idea of this gets you off, stick to text and pictures about it.")

But most proship communities are not sex-ed communities; they're just people who like some kinds of fiction. And the reaction to new people is not "you should JOIN US in our omegaverse breeding kink cbt omorashi fic exchange" - it's "here's the list of kinks in our upcoming fic event - if you don't like all of these, please don't bother joining."

There is a very solid "Don't like? Don't read!" ethic in the actively proship communities. Nobody's trying to entice kids into reading or writing kinky stories.

[inkedberries]

Hey! Prefacing this by saying that this isn't meant to be an attack (which generally isn't a great way to start a message but I'd rather be clear about intentions) and more so genuine curiosity. Apologizing in advance for this being long; I have a tendency to overthink and overexplain.

I don't typically interact with fandom outside of like... carefully curated little microbiomes. As such I haven't really encountered the whole proship/anti shit with any amount of seriousness since probably around 2018. I personally don't put much stock into either of the terms because there's far too much grey area and for the fact that (as per my understanding) exist as ethical frameworks, and I don't care much for subscribing purely to a single framework to the exclusion of anything else in terms of personal ethics and morality. At most with friends we tend to colloquially refer to incest + pedophile ships as proships, because that's just sort-of what the term has evolved to mean most strongly (again, at least in the circles I run in). I don't consider myself anti or proship or whatever the fuck else, because I generally don't care to involve myself with that kind of fandom drama. I'll involve myself over like, matters of being anti-bigotry but the rest is just something I haven't wanted to deal with for 5-6 years. Tagging + filtering + block functions exist for a reason, and I don't need to do anything more than prevent my feed from showing me those things. I generally just hit block and move on with that kind of stuff, especially because I'm anti-censorship for a variety of reasons.

Tl;dr on that: proship/anti aren't terms I really use or subscribe to, because I feel like they oversimplify everything and conflate "drama". From my understanding, I agree with proship ideology (????) in the sense that I believe censorship only fucks over everyone, and that you can just block + filter and move on. But at the same time I see this overall conception that 'proship' means you support/condone/etc incest and pedophilia and so on, which I really truly don't. But there is this really heavy perception that proship = this person ships (usually) pedophilic or incestuous relationships. A bit reinforced for me typically because when something like that comes across my feed and I go to block the person, they generally have 'proship' in their bio. That to acknowledge that I do have some bias in that, even if I know it's a correlation/not cause thing. That all being (over)said (and I'm SO sorry again about how fucking long this is, my twitter TL is having a meltdown and I've avoided all this stuff for so long I don't know if I'm missing something? Because ethically on my end there's no reason for me to block or whatever outside of just the word proship...? Two minutes for a quick search as as far as I can tell you don't participate in anything against my own comfort/moral beliefs. so) I guess I'm asking what your definition of proship is for yourself and why people are jumping to this conclusion of dislike so instantaneously? Obviously you're under no obligation to educate me on what I presume is fucking YEARS of fandom history, nor respond publicly or even at all. I'm only asking you specifically because this is the first time I've encountered 'being proship' ≠ shipping pedophilia etc etc. I think maybe I came across it way back when as a middle schooler, but I'm not about to trust any of my opinions/recollections from when I was that age lmao. But anyways. Just genuinely curious and wanting to understand because I'm wary of reacting too-quickly just because other people are, and especially so if it's actually a total non-issue for me. Sorry again for the insane rambling in this lol

hello!! i hope you don't mind me prefacing this response too by saying to please read this out fully, if you don't agree with the starting points i've provided, i hope you still continue on reading until the end💙 i think @/frownyalfred best words the defense i would most likely stumble on if i give it a go at answering your question with my own words

and this was a post made in 2016 (where a lot of ppl say is the year anti-shippers started sprouting up) and this is honestly what i mean when i say i hate antis

if anything, antis just started the propaganda that all proshippers are incest lovers and pedophiles and people ate it up like cats who haven't had wet food in three weeks. as proven by your friend group using the term as such? that's wild to me that ppl use the term proship like that, i hope the case i'm making will change that for you and your friend group.

no, proship literally is anti-censorship. ship and let ship. antis gatekeep, police shippers and harass anyone who doesn't ship their ship the RIGHT way. and it's not just the ships you say are 'harmful' or 'immoral'. i've shipped a rarepair before and the fandom at large did not like me shipping a rarepair so they started calling me a pedophile bc i aged up said characters???????? they'll find anything and i mean ANYTHING to twist everything i say and do to make it seem like it's "okay" for me to be harassed and bullied. "oh it's okay that i'm telling this person to die because they're gross," yeah no that behavior is So Much More Normal than a person shipping two fictional characters the "wrong" way. AND YOU KNOW WHAT'S FUCKED UP? ppl BELIEVED THEM LMAOOOO

and hey no sweat, i was like you once. i didn't define myself as proship or anti bc the real world exists but then in the one space i thought i'd be free from real life speculation and surveillance i get these anti policing assholes so yeah im a proshipper now lol just to get away from that bs. i honestly just want to have fun on here without judgement but i can't even have that lol that's why im all about blocking/muting.

you say your tl is having a meltdown? well shit, they're probably calling me names on there too. probably throwing out baseless accusations without fact checking bc i'm lowlife enough not be respected or given the decency of a fact check? or saying my art wasn't good anyway? bc gatekeeping their precious kudoichi is so much more righteous, top priority that they start slandering a real life person, right? no no no one disgusting should be touching or shipping our precious kudoichi lmao i hope you see how Not Right this is. kinda makes me feel sick for real lol

and i hope you understand how harmful this is not just to my mental state but my livelihood as an artist as these people would just start policing their fellow fans and just tell them not to support or view my art because im a 'proshipper' not even that, they'd probably just straight up say i support incest and pedophilia which are?????? such STRONG accusations to make????????? now they're just buzzwords. BUZZWORDS for antis to use to defame and cancel an artist! a real life person. over their precious fictional characters. over their precious kudoichi. oh man it makes it so much more stupid if i specify the ship, what is wrong with people sometimes😭

but hey im all about blocking and muting and unfollowing if you don't like my stuff i'm 100% for that but i hope they do it on their own terms. their own thinking. not because someone told them to.

and i dunno man that behavior of not even letting their 'friends' think for themselves, that they'd bash them too if they support me, my art, kinda seems like grooming don't it? or nah no im just looking into it. it might not be that deep. but i really yeah that's why i hate antis and why im more proship.

but hey i appreciate you even taking the time to come to me in the first place and uhhh idk i hope you found what you were looking for and that i answered your bit of curiousity there!

[pastryjay]

I know some OFMD fans have become more biased against Izzy content, Izzy fans, and Con himself due to two years of discourse, and I get it, but that is not an excuse for this. Some people have to be more careful/ respectful of the way they talk about Con O'Neill.

Context: he streamed a workshop about creative insults titled 'How To f*ck off with Con O'Neill'. This was explicitly stated to be for people 18+ only. At one point, he was seen briefly wearing only boxer shorts and a t-shirt in his own home. This was in a non-sexual context - he was just sitting down. Now, he's being called out for sexual harrassment and indecent exposure because of that.

Firstly, i'd like to say that anybody loudly offended by this 'incident' has made it clear that they didn't attend the workshop, and those who did attend are fine with it. The Venn diagram of people who wanted to attend that event and people who love Con's cheeky humour is a circle. Con knows his audience and his audience know him. You, random person who doesn't like Con much anyway, don't have to like it but it making you uncomfortable doesn't mean it is morally wrong.

It's important to note that Con O'Neill is open about being queer and proud about that. He is not shy about his sexuality or willing to censor his queerness e.g. he's not afraid to make suggestive (but not overly explicit) jokes or show his support for queer fanart. That is a good thing! It reeks of homophobia seeing him getting accused of being perverted just for existing as himself. It's not the first time either. In the past, OFMD fans have called him gross, a freak and creepy for sharing suggestive fanart to his Instagram.

It's wild to see all the focus on a cheeky, harmless moment when there are so, so many real issues in the world. Countless people are out there committing real sexual harrassment daily. Focusing on this queer man over nothing is dangerous. Accusing queer people of preying on those around them just by existing is literally right-wing rhetoric. Especially as there is a bigger push than ever from right-wing politicians to paint queer people as dangerous predators. Censorship, homophobia and puritanism is not welcome in the fandom for a show about queer joy.

Lastly, To the people mad about this: Why are you fine with anybody posting thirst traps online or people existing in swimwear in public, but you cry about 'not consenting' to seeing a queer man in boxer shorts and a shirt? Why are you upset about Con doing this, but love it when Rhys Darby posts shirtless photos to his Insta stories for fans? Why is it okay for most people to be comfortable in their sexuality/ their own body... but not Con?

I know the kind of people who need to see this probably won't take any of it on board, but it is really uncomfortable to see the way some people are talking. If many people like myself (I have been very critical of some Izzy fans and mostly avoid Izzy content) disagree with you, maybe you should re-think what you are saying.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[xx-slug-xx]

Honestly, I think being proship is really cool and antis aren't thinking about things as critically ash they should

I mean this in the way that most people who are proship or profit also are in support of freedom of speech and are against censorship. Both are innatly good btw!

I just think it's crazy that antis say that we're all "chronically online gooners" when it's really not out of the ordinary that people's interests in activism and freedom of speech overlap with their interests in fandom. Like, I'm being so serious when I say that free speech is good and that my views against censorship affect how I interact with art in a healthy way. I really don't understand it when antis talk about how we don't do anything productive with our stance in fandom spaces when being against the censorship of art and literature has an impact on the real world in more ways than antis seem to realize.

Book bans are bad. The erasure of queer art/writing is bad. The silencing of BIPOC voices and representation is bad. People should have access to libraries, art galleries, and archives to house the things that aren't in those places. Information being readily available is a good thing, and it goes without saying that the more information we have access to then the less people will believe things that are simply untrue. Bigotry controls how a lot of the world works, and you can see that fact everywhere. Anti-censorship means that, yes, bigots have the right to voice their god-awful opinions. But that also means that people who aren't full of hate also have that right. You can't take away someone's right to express themselves just because you personally don't like it. This goes for fiction as well as opinions that bigots may have. At the end of the day, fiction is just a means of expression in some magnitude. Everyone benefits. And even if bad people do benefit from it too, that just means that people who want the world to be a better, kinder place have just as much of a say on the matter. (Also, people giving out death threats and harassing people isn't exactly cool and doesn't qualify as freedom of speech when it's the threat of harm. That's just a crime at that point). You can't magically make the world a better place by being mad at people though. Hate only leads to more hate. But you can use your hate in a positive way by helping others and spreading information that people can actually benefit from. You have to take some sort of action to do something about making a difference in a positive way.

And I'm sorry, but just because loliso makes someone personally uncomfortable (me included), that doesn't give people the right to make it a crime to create or view it unless an actual child was harmed in the process of making it. And even then, it's when CSEM is used as reference material, and that's already illegal as it is. You can't get rid of something just because you don't like it.

I feel like the overlap that proship has with these real-world things can't be ignored. What do antis do though? Perpetuate censorship and witch hunts for something they don't like? Which really does more good in the real world and which does more harm in the end?

[nikethestatue]

I am seriously so shocked and appalled at the pedophilia shipping situation. I don’t even want to say the name of the ship it’s so gross. Just when I thought the ACOTAR fandom couldn’t reach new lows. The most awful thing is people are DEFENDING it ??? Saying it’s just a fictional ship, you can’t censor writers… what in the donald trump is that logic. It’s not censorship. It’s people rightly standing up against something wrong and putting pressure, rightly, to get them to change their behavior. This is a space (mostly) for young-youngish women. We don’t want to see that stuff. I’m pretty upset because two big ACOTAR blogs who I love (they are eluciens but I ignore that because I like their feysand fanfics) are defending it. Just very disheartening all around.

Yeah, every now and again, I am still surprised.

Firstly, it's all performative. The same people who didn't like the backlash against Elain x Tamlin, turned around and decided to one up themselves and say, okey, how about Tamlin x Nyx now?

Even the most deranged ones in this fandom --and there are some--don't actually ship Tamlin and Nyx. It's all for show.

However, when other idiots start defending them, that's when it gets tricky. Because why? They yell censorship! The laws and protections around pedophilia always existed. I don't care how much you vow to 'age up' Nyx, canonically, he is a baby, an infant. And that's how he will remain. No matter how much you try to weasel out of it, you are shipping an infant with a grown man, and no 'freedom of speech' and all other platitudes don't excuse you. 'Morals don't apply to ships!' they scream. No, they do. Because then why don't we have Gwyn and the Hybern Captain Week? Gwyn and her Reverse Harem of Hybern Soldiers Taking Turns and Teaching Her Week? Lucien and Ianthe Week?

Notice how there is never an Amarantha and Tamlin Week? Much more foundation for THAT week than a Nyx x Tamlin Week.

Oh wait, hold on--you don't want Timmy to be dommed by Amarantha and taken against his will? Or you think it's gross that she was (or might have been) lusting over him when he was a kid?

Oh, not so eager anymore?

I thought that morals don't apply to ships?

Ehhhh. What is there to say, really? Some people are fucked up and that's how they operate in this world.

[coolingrosa]

(Ok i typed more than i meant to feel free to not read if you’d so prefer🩵)

while what you say about the proshipping label is something i somewhat agree with (as in realizing how many people identify the term with certain meaning) i do wish to point out that calling it ‘old fandom usage’ isn’t really accurate…

obviously it’s no one else’s buisness how you choose to define it and this isn’t a hate ask or anything🥰 /genuine

i’m also against comship, (or proship whichever you wish to call) although comshipping would be the correct term for dark ships

it’s also just a little weird to see it said that “no one uses that” when a lot of people do. truly a lot. they simply do not shout it as loudly from what i observe, that section of people are just quieter and keep to themselves more, because of the amount of new fandom people who bulldoze them from what i understand. those people are loudest, and this switch in definitions didn’t happen until the past few years…these people who have used that label for years but suddenly are expected to not because of misinfo that was spread….its a very interesting( and probably unfortunate )phenomenon in fandom spaces!

again you can ignore this i’m sorry if this comes off as annoying, i just am an old lady in fandom spaces and i see a lot of misinfo around fandom talk..

by its definition proshipping means “people can do what they want and it’s my responsibility to block or move on” , it’s moreso a freedom of speech thing, comshipping is when you ship problematic things (although by definition the problematic things are probably defined by the user.)

i don’t like dark ship one bit, but i understand that theres serious repercussions when it comes to censorship,and that i don’t know peoples life stories or who they are as people. it’s media and no one forces me to consume any type of media, and i’m more than happy to block people if i don’t like or agree with it. most of those people also are VERY adamant about blocking them if you don’t like it,from my experience!

anyways again i’m so sorry if this is just an annoying word dump for you, i just thought i should share some perspective since i feel like this is a serious fandom thing, a lot of people get harassed for misunderstanding. i personally don’t like perpetuating labels and definitions that are based on misinformation, but again no one’s allowed to tell you what you have to do and you can just move on and ignore this if you so please🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵/genuine

understanding that a lot of new fandom talk is built on misinfo and being aware of that is a solid take, however i don’t think redefining and people choosing to interpret a textbook definition, a correct one, should be blamed on the person using the correct terminology

again your opinion is yours and personally i respect it 😄😄 absolutely no hate or pressure these sort of discussions simply interest me

also it makes so much sense to use proshippers as a dni buzzword because of how many people are misinformed, i just hate to see it be continued when as a fandom space we all could choose to return to correct definitions and use those

again. using it to avoid the masses is understandable, it’s just unfortunate

i love your art and stories and i’m continually excited to see what you come up with next!!! i hope you have a great day!!! (or night)🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵 and no pressure to answer this i understand that it’s an annoying ask to answer😶

Will say this once, I am very aware of what PRO-SHIPPING used to represent and what the older people in fandoms still use it for. However, that does not change the fact that rhe definition has changed. It just has. Any google search will tell you that. And though I can understand how that can be frustrating for you, I will still be saying dni proshippers and still seeing it as a problematic term due to the fact that’s how it’s primarily used. Its old definition is an old fandom term now. The people who still use it are as you said, from the older fandom times. Meaning that yes, it’s old definition is now inaccurate and also no longer represents what it means and trying to win it back or convince people otherwise won’t work, especially since I am not the one who misconstrued this old definition. I am not one of the new gen proshippers who changed this for you. Your issues would be with them, not me, a random artist who is keeping up with the times and avoiding problematic people from coming onto her page. I am trying to protect my page with the new gen knowledge. Reminiscing on the past in my ask box does nothing as I have no case in the change.

It has changed. It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing to be done. You acknowledge this yourself, and yet still claim it’s misinformation when it’s not. It’s an old term that turned into a new definition. That happens in history multiple times. It doesn’t mean it’s misinformation or wrong. It means that time has changed it and a new generation of people have taken the word, and that happens with the dialect of our world every century. The older proshipping definition, therefore, is old fandom history. And the people who still use it are going by those older rules which STILL equals to old fandom definition. The only people using it go by outdated fandom rules, expectations, and are possibly older. That’s….literally a combo of what makes an outdated and older used definition. And using these definitions knowing full well what the change has done to the word with the defense of “in old fandom times it was different” also makes me have little pity for you as if you’re fully aware and still chose to sport the label, that’s on you. Not saying you do this, just using an example.

Yes we have different opinions. It just makes no sense that you brought this to my askbox when I didn’t ruin the word for you. It’s the new generation proshippers. If you have a problem with it, go speak to them and their community who uses these terminology. I cant do anything?? And if you just wanted a discussion, I’m the last person to have a discussion with as I keep far away from the new community and also can’t speak for them?? This reads more like ur upset bc you use the label and therefore cant interact than an actual discussion, bc if you had a real problem with the change, you would NOT be in MY askbox. And yet you claim ur against proshipping so…it makes no sense

At the end of the day, this fandom deep dive stuff makes my head spin. Why are we defending incest lovers. Why are we trying to find an exact term for these weirdos. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things what an old fandom definition means because this is so chronically online bull. Weird ships are weird fucking ships. And those weirdos who make them use proshipping as a label. Therefore, I put them on a dni and block. It’s literally that simple and fandom terminology discourse is so insane to me I’m sorry LMAO. Like I have work in three hours dude I can’t with this 😭💀

[cosmossystem]

Hey, I'm sorry for suddenly dumping this onto your askbox, but I just feel the need to be heard

I honestly don't care about being anti and proship at all

But... Everytime I see a post from someone who proudly calling themselves anti... It's always so scarily violent

All those posts saying "kill yourself", "deserves to die", all of that stuff

If you don't like a person or stuff they make... Just block them, mute the tags they use, forget they ever exist

Literally easier to do that than harassing the said person or making others uncomfortable with your violence tendencies

This is why some people that have "I'm an anti" or "Proship dni" have become such a redflag to me, even tho most of the time people who uses them are genuinely just good people who misunderstood what proship is

I wish this whole discourse never existed, I miss everything before 2020...

^^ this

and we feel the exact same way

like we dont have any hard stances on shipcourse because both sides have misinfo and both are wrong about some things-- like, we are firmly anti-lolisho and thats one of the things that is usually seen as "proship", but we do have "problematic" ships and we believe in SALS and are anti-censorship. so much misinfo flies between the two because no one cares about being right, they care about looking right, much like every other fake-activist (which are unfortunately common these days.)

the only reason we even care to begin with is because antis have been so violent to us about it. if you arent with them, youre against them, and if youre against them, youre a target.

it seems like theres a lot of antis in neurodivergent & plural spaces, too, which is just crazy to me, so it feels like we have to specify every time "yes, we're the proship in your DNI, just block us please."

i do wanna say that while 2020 made things worse, ive been in shipcourse + fandom spaces since 2016 and it was pretty bad back then too. like in 2016 i had an anti-ship & anti-ddlg blog and there were DOZENS of other antis in the tags -- yall remember "character-against-bad-ships" blogs? yeah. we ran several of those and had hundreds of mutuals running them as well. (im getting flashbacks to "sonic-for-real-justice". eugh.)

we Fully Converted To Proshipism (/j) in about 2018-19, so i saw how bad it was getting right before covid and honestly its never fully recovered. fandom hasnt really been peaceful since... maybe before 2016? i dont know, i wasnt there. flaming and ship wars have always been around but i honestly cant think of when all this "pro v anti" stuff started. seems like it was a slow buildup and now its just fucking everywhere.

i know this wasnt the point of your ask, but im gonna go on a tangent here because i like to yap:

i think the current state of shipcourse is caused, in part, by the fact that younger generations are getting into fandom. except, i think every time someone points this out, they get it wrong and pin it on some bullshit like "younger fans are mistaking fandom for activism/politics!" that argument sucks because that doesnt afford any empathy to the teenagers and young adults who grew up in this awful fucking political climate (including myself.) fandom IS politics to young people, because they have been aware of the state of the world since the time they could read and dont know a world that isnt inherently political in every way.

and then that brings up the misconception that fandom isnt / should never be political, which isnt true and is literally just denial of what is already happening. every form of media and consumption is inherently political. proshippers tend to be wrong about that, plug their ears and lalala until it goes away while ignoring the very political parts of fandom-- like the misogyny, racism, ableism, aphobia... etc.

and so we get stuck in the same song and dance because everyone is wrong and parrots the same disinfo. fandom is very black and white like that. its either everything is ok, or none of it is, with no room for nuance. like for instance: you can enjoy shipping the canonically-aroace character with someone and that doesnt make you a bad person, but dont pretend that doesnt have any real world implications. and so on.

anyway. thank you for the ask, anon. sorry this got really long and passionate. im very opinionated.

- red

[vironarro]

Hey hey, I saw your tweets about mgs fans who have proship DNI in their profiles being absolute morons and hypocrites and I just want to say THANK YOU because I feel like I’m losing brain cells over having to wade through so much bullshit in the metal gear fandom of all things. We might have a different focus on what blorbos we have (I’m more on the mgr side of the fandom but love the entire franchise) but I just wanted to send a big 🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝 because booooy does it feel lonely here sometimes.

It’s especially funny because when you think about it, the biggest proshipper in the metal gear fandom would be Kojima himself. Idk how people get into mgs and have never looked up the big words they put in their mouths even once. Like how can someone live like that, getting into a series that is supposed to make you THINK about what happens and how it’s a reflection of real world issues, and then turn around and parrot some right wing rhetorics repackaged as fandom “activism” 24/7, inherently contradicting that you even understood what these games were about despite claiming so otherwise.

It’s so… brainless and boring and as someone who loves to discuss the complexity of this franchise (and things in general), I am glad to come across a likeminded person in this fandom.

Like man I felt like I’m getting to old for this, I got into mgs before anti ship as we have it now was even a thing in the internet. But seeing that you’re about a decade younger than me and get that all of this stuff is horseshit, I feel like I am not losing hope 😅😅

I hope you’re having a great day :]

Also I love your art 🫶

Hey there!! Thanks so much for the kind message, I mean it 🥹🫶 I love MGR too!! I was so obsessed w it as a kid. I had my Raiden phase too~ (Still kinda am! That game awakened my love of mecha.) This is my first time dipping my toes into the MGS fandom. Coming from someone who usually lurks in smaller fan spaces, and said fan spaces are largely pro-fic, I really didn't expect the onslaught of antis interacting w my art hahaha! I was ripping my hair out vetting new followers that came into my twitter. Metal gear is a game filled with so much political commentary, I think I expected... more critical thinking y'know? The fans you mentioned are probably just as bad as the fanboys who think whatever went between BB and ocelot is just a 'russian taunt' I agree w/ what you said Kojima being profic LOL The man hated to have his life's work censored. To him, games aren't only a medium for his stories, but it's also a way to express his opinions & ideas. MGS in particular, it's about war. How war affects regular people, the devastation it brings them. How the fuckheads behind it are orchestrating it, taking advantage of the military industrial complex (To quote Kaz, "And war will become a business...") I'm again reminded of that analysis you rb'd from me: "Peace is only possible in the case of war criminals when they’ve been buried." I can't fathom how so many people missed that message in MGSV. As you said, it seems like people are fucking blind to the fact that their faves are bad people. They are war criminals! Some people in fandom acting like they are above it all, saying 'proshitter dni' and repeating fascist talking points is just so... I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Because you are either that dense, or media illiterate or emotionally unintelligent or... something ! Most that I've seen so far who do this are teenagers, which okay. They are still figuring things out, I can excuse them a little bit. But there are adults over 20 who do this too and I'm just... wow. You know? To stand for Antis is to stand for censorship in fiction. And that goes against everything that Kojima believes. Haha dw there are people my age who aren't this stupid! I've been hanging out in more profic spaces and they're out there. You're not alone friend!! I hope you have a nice day too :] Lmk if you wanna be mutuals on twitter! 🌻

[aaaaamorphous-entity]

You when you see something representative of a larger problem in politics: damn it's just like those bitches who refuse to jork it to incest

Wow this is laughably Reddit-toned. Anyways I doubt you're the kind of person to engage in good faith, but I'm going to piggy back off your ask to clarify for anyone who might listen:

I assume you mean my tags on this post, which. First of all, I am the exact person those brain-rotted 'anti-woke' people would despise in a game. I'm queer in a variety of flavors, so I'm not someone detached from the 'larger problem in politics' that you're implying I'm not aware of or concerned with.

Secondly, claiming being pro-ship is just 'people who jork it to incest' is entirely reductive, untrue, and flat. It's boiling people you disagree with down to one morally objectionable tagline so you can quickly and easily categorize them as 'those bad people we can shun'.

I wonder where we've seen that move before. (Conservatives. It's how conservatives talk about queer people.)

Pro-ship is more primarily anti-censorship. It's 'live and let live', or 'your kink is not my kink/your ship is not my ship', and so on. And I know some are immediately jumping to argue that shipping incest or writing kids in sexual situations and so on is morally reprehensible and indefensible.

This is a conversation that can be had, and has been had by many people in much more eloquent ways than me. But that is not the conversation of this post.

The conversation of this post is the implication that likening antis to conservative queerphobic rhetoric is nonsensical, when, as I just pointed out a couple paragraphs ago, they use the same playbook.

They start with something that most people can nod to. "Incest is bad", for example*. Then they move the goalposts. Skipping a few steps for brevity, it goes from "Incest is bad (fandom)" to "Problematic ships are bad" or irl, "incest is bad" to "the gays are incestuous and thus, bad".

Noting that a 'problematic ship' might not even include incest, but someone might spin it with a tone of outrage that it's ~incest adjacent~ enough to be 'bad' (I'm looking at you, ppl who clutch their pearls about HS Jane/Jake). And of course with the irl example, it always starts with 'X morally objectionable thing is bad. This group of people we're biased against Tootaally does X morally objectionable thing, trust us, so THEY'RE all bad too'.

(*although fictional incest frankly harms no one and this also ties into the conservative talking points of 'if you read about something morally objectionable, you'll think it's okay in real life'. Which, if you're that easy to sway into doing deplorable acts, it really is not the fiction that's the problem.)

All of this to say: When I said that antis have the same tone as the anti-woke brainrotted people who make lists about 'woke' games that you can't touch because it contains ~woke~ (or in anti language, ~problematic~) content, I meant it.

Y'all sound the exact same, except one crowd is overt and the other hides behind much more pretty language and obfuscated talking points.

Because antis don't just go 'I don't like ppl who write incest' and shit, they start going "if you write unhealthy relationships between people of any age, you're a bad person", and then "if you write kink, you're a pervert and a bad person", and then "you shouldn't write anything with queer people", and then it's "we shouldn't allow any of this on our platforms", and then LiveJournal gets Thanos-snapped and guess what? All of the content on those sites, whether you consider it 'good' or 'bad', vanishes and everybody loses.

It all circles back around to puritanical policing of other people, because so often anti spaces will escalate from what sounds reasonable (even though again: writing fucked up things in fiction is NOT actually harmful to anyone in the real world), towards more and more controlling and harmful narratives that feel justified when you're immersed in it.

And then you end up in a queer person's inbox implying they aren't aware of how bad anti-queer conservative politics are 🙃

[even-more-pro-fiction-jellicle]

I wish we could go back to how older fandoms worked. Not saying they were a perfect utopia without issues but we didn’t have political language attached to ships and fiction and we had healthier skepticism towards people we didn’t know

Antis created this good vs evil dichotomy in fandoms several years ago. They blindly believe anyone with “proship dni” in bio or similar is automatically “good” since they’re “against pedophiles/pedophilia”

I’m getting major red flags from anyone who says “I’m a safe adult” or “you can identify a predator based on xyz, like the fiction they like”

That’s not how it works and is dangerous to say! Because not too long ago people were using this same excuse against anyone (mostly queer/trans people) who liked dnd, rock and roll, or superhero comics. And it was all just moral panic because no one was actually “evil” for liking any of those things

And also adults can pretend to be good and “not like those freaks”, culminating a community full of minors. abusers are often hiding in 'morally pure' roles so people should be even more vigilant of who's around them in those cases.

Also, predators can be in ANY community! But instead of realizing that and telling people to stay vigilant, antis do the opposite.

“There’s so many of us, it’s just bound to happen someday!”

“We have less predators than communities who think xyz”

The key point is: antis don’t care about keeping people safe. Antis care too much about fictional ships to the point they just let bad stuff happen or become people who are adults or support adults who try to “cure” minors from being pro-ship (this has actually happened) as if that’s totally not inappropriate

You bring up the similarities between anti ideology and the moral guardian ideology that's against D&D, rock music, video games, comic books, etc and most antis will either be willfully obtuse (because at this point in so many conversations it has to be on purpose) or just get angrier and more violent cuz you sniffed them out to well.

There's people on this site who are openly supportive of the Hays Code and Comics Code for specific defunct but still culturally relevant censorship policies. I don't know if it's better or worse that a growing amount are at least finally acknowledging that they are active and intentional pro-censorship political activists. There's still plenty who get really mad when people rightfully classify them as pro-censorship and the inherent political and community leanings that come with that. Again, willfully obtuse because we have plenty of history to show them why what they want is a bad idea and they have no explanation for why it would be different "this time".

That's my 2 cents on that topic and I agree with everything else you said as well.

[zeroducks-2]

I have noticed that anti rhetoric seems to go against most of the old types of ships people would flock to in like 2008, Sasunaru is a ship of all time but Bakudeku is abusive. Even if there isn't anything wrong with a queer ship (can't be called pedo or incest) messy and angsty ships are treated as worse than super fluffy ones, and tbh this has kind of made me feel alienated from fandom.

I know that I repeat myself but it's true. You're right. The purity culture that antis employ is rooted in homophobia, which is why even the fluffiest gay ships get targeted 100% more than the "dark" het ships. If you ship Jaytim you're a freak of nature and you should repent, but if you ship Brubabs you're fine - mostly fine at least.

Because here's the thing. They started coming after the dark ships and the really heavy kinks, then they switched to just non-vanilla ships and mild kinks, then they expanded to any ship that has a vaguely "unhealthy" connotation (sometimes this unhealthy connotation is made up), and kink doesn't even need to be involved. They are starting to attack het shippers too - it doesn't happen as often but I do see people being harassed for shipping Sasunaru and Sasusaku, or Brubabs, or anything the casual anti dislikes really. The dynamic of laying out why a ship is pRoBLeMatiC, arguing how shipping is bad and makes you a bad person, seeped into fandom spaces of all kinds and is employed even by people who aren't antis themselves, because it got just so widespread. It's essentially the norm for a lot of people; they see a new ship and their first reaction is to dissect it to find reason to harass who ships it (see one of my mutuals who got bullied to hell and back for drawing punkflower because of course if you ship Miles and Hobie you're a pedophile, even if Hobie's official age has not been disclosed, and Miles is most certainly not a child).

The so called discourse will keep spreading. I know this sounds alarmist but there is no limit to anti mentality, it's kinda like how republicans take it out on trans people, then spread it to queer people in general, then go after the rights of women and children and if they could they'd abolish divorce. I'm pretty sure they will actually try depending on how the elections go next year. Antis are on the same path. Now we progressed to a point where het ships aren't safe anymore either, and some antis make the case that sex and nsfw content should not exist at all in any kind of media, fictional and transformative alike, not just the "toxic" representations of it.

I too feel alienated from fandom too because of that. It's an old adage, but fandom is supposed to be a safe space and it's just not that anymore (come to Aethy for a better experience btw, they really do have a policy to kick antis out if they bother people). Sure block the people you don't want to see, customize your own space, tailor it for yourself and all of that. But when you are a creator it's consistently harder, harassment is always around the corner especially when you're an artist. Especially because a website like tumblr directly caters to antis and censorship worshippers and does not by any means defend who's getting harassed.