taking-your-hand

[taking-your-hand]

Thanks for making this blog. A friend of mine in the Lego Monkie Kid fandom has been getting really controlling and has vaguely threatened to screenshot anything said by people they disagree with, and I'm willing to bet it will be out of context. They've smeared people in the past for disagreeing with them before, and they're messaging me under the guise of "making sure the others aren't attacking or manipulating" me, but I just feel even more unsafe. I'm scared to block or unfollow them, because they've jumped to conclusions before, and I'm sure they will again and will talk smack behind my back. I'm just so done. It makes me not want to participate in the community of LMK anymore.

Hello! I'm happy that you find comfort in this blog, and I do apologize for taking so long to answer this. 🙏

I'm really sorry that your friend is frightening you. It definitely sounds like a sensitive situation, especially with the friend checking up on you to make sure you're not being influenced by people they don't like or something. ><

I think it would be ideal if you could get out of that situation, but I understand that it can be risky when dealing with someone who's that trigger-happy against people they perceive negatively. I suppose you could try to slowly distance yourself and hope they eventually stop thinking about you and thus don't notice when you unfollow them, but I'm not sure how reliable that is.

I'm struggling to think of better advice, so I'll tag this with some proship tags if that's alright, cause they usually have some thoughts about this sort of thing that might help, and I'll see if anyone I know has ideas too.

Either way, I wish you the best and hope you stay safe, Anon. 💛

[taking-your-hand]

I really wanna start streaming on twitch and making Minecraft roleplays on YouTube (my main inspirations are Nihachu and Aphmau) but I’m really scared of people seeing that I’m a comshipper and trying to cancel me for it. I know how bad it can get, I’ve seen people leak faceless’ streamers address’ over petty drama and I’ve seen others snooping through youtuber’s Facebook just because they like them, I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if they disliked the person. I’m super scared of that happening to me because I’m openly comship. Not to mention the amount of people who’ll go around and call me horrible names, I once saw a Vtuber refer to Venti as a shota and they were called the dirtiest most gut-wrenching names. I’m already really sensitive so I don’t think I’d be able to handle it :(

Oh goodness, I have very similar fears myself. >< I am working on some projects that I intend to publish as original works that I do hope people will enjoy and be inspired by, but I'm always fearful of the people who will try to drag my name through the mud because I'm very openly defensive of The Bad Kinks™ and much more aggressively on my main than on here too, heheh!

I've seen... horrible things happen to artists, especially when they already have little power in society and the people with more power find it much easier to just kick them instead of standing up for them.

It's bizarre to me that I have yet to be so viciously targeted, and I really wonder if it comes down to popularity. Anti-kink people don't particularly care about me because I'm just a small Tumblr user, but on the other hand, god help me if I explode in a fandom one day or make a beloved game/show/etc. THEN, I'll face their wrath for daring to seek out success and happiness for myself, because I'm "tricking" or "manipulating" fans who don't realize how "problematic" I am. -_-

And certainly, some of it comes down to luck as well, because lots of small artists also get targeted. 😔

I don't think I have THE answers, but... I can tell you what I try so hard to internalize myself.

First of all, you have every right to the space you occupy as everyone else, regardless of your kinks or views on such. Contrary to what some people will claim, you are not intruding and you are not falsely advertising yourself. It's important to always keep that in mind. The idea that comshippers hurt people by being in their spaces is like saying they hurt people by standing in the same line at McDonald's pff. It's unrelated and ridiculous.

Secondly, as sad and perhaps pessimistic as this is, there will NEVER be a person or property that these extreme, one-note, closed-minded bullies won't target. No matter how much care you put into a story or presentation, there will be someone ready to twist it into something negative, or try to gatekeep your own fans if they do think you're on "their side" and "would never support these bad ships", etc. And here is the silver lining to that: Because this attitude is inevitable, you need not try to sand down your work to please such people. Anyone who would put so much energy into hating and tearing down someone for their art: their opinion of you is absolutely worthless. It's best to skip the needless pain and doubt they'll cause, and worry about the opinions of people with something of merit to say. People who criticize you in good faith, not the brainless screechers who just can't stand their own existences.

I feel like there is certainly more, and perhaps even better, advice out there for you, but I hope this was at least a start. As I said, I struggle with this fear too, and I think I have yet to fully embrace my own solution, especially since I haven't yet put out my projects heheh.

But either way, hope it helps. <3

And of course, I welcome any further advice from others on this! Lord knows I need it too haha.

Real quick, note that my rather vitriolic language is directed specifically at harassers and abusers, not at all self-identified antis.

[taking-your-hand]

Casual reminder that not everyone experiences mental illness and trauma the same way, and there is no "correct" way to do so.

Doing your best not to hurt others is all I'll ever ask of anyone.

Also, if the way other people cope is hurting you, then you need to stop engaging with it. What comforts one person may devastate another, and that doesn't make either of you wrong.

You just need to take care of yourself, and take what responsibility you reasonably can for your own mental health. On the flip side, of course, people need to do their due diligence in making their stuff filterable. I'm never going to say "don't look at it" when the content wasn't avoidable.

Buhh buhh pretty standard stuff, but whatev.

[taking-your-hand]

Oh dear, I nearly forgot about this account. Sorry about that! Sometimes I just really need to look away from all this stuff.

I'll try to answer the other ask I got tomorrow if I have time. 🙏

[taking-your-hand]

I often see people who are neutral on the matter just seem to thinking that are above it all and talk about anyone who cares or is interested in the topic as cringe weirdos.

I like to call it arrogant apathy

I fully hate that attitude as well. I feel like the word "neutral" has a connotation of not caring, but when I call myself "neutral", it just means that I don't completely align with one side and can criticize both while still having my own strong stances on the various topics that come up. I certainly care a LOT, to the point that it hurts sometimes, and I suppose "neutral" isn't a good description of that.

But yeah, I definitely agree that people who turn up their nose and mock us for caring about this are obnoxious. I recognize that many of us care too much, to a point that this "discourse" takes over our lives, and I think that's unhealthy. But I also understand why it keeps ending up like that.

It's hard not to care once you've witnessed so many people who ARE minding their own business and not investing themselves in discourse getting their lives screwed with anyway, because someone saw fit to punish them for what they do in their own spaces. I've tried many times to stop caring, but I cannot.

[taking-your-hand]

You seem like a really nice person. Thank you for making this blog, I appreciate you ^^ /gen

Awww, thank you so much for saying so!

I often wonder if anything I do in discourse is helpful at all, so it makes me very happy to know someone is getting something good out of it. <3

[taking-your-hand]

hot take: people are ALLOWED to be neutralshippers, and you should not in any circumstance try to push them into one label or the other (looking at you, posts that are like "neutralshippers are just proshippers who don't wanna admit they're proshippers!!")

y'all seem to ignore that many neutralshippers quite literally don't fit into either category because they often tend to both have some proship-adjacent opinions, while also having some anti-adjacent opinions. it's not fair to try and claim that they're all "basically proshippers" because they're not, the whole fucking point of being neutral about something is NOT be forced into either category 🫠

it's every neutralshippers right to decide which group they're comfortable with, or whether they even have a preference at all. you can't decide that for them

- sincerely, a frustrated proshipper

[taking-your-hand]

you don't have to justify your interests and hyperfixations to anyone.

you are allowed to enjoy them regardless of what others think. (⁠っ⁠.⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠っ 💞

[taking-your-hand]

Ahhh okay! I think I get that. Not wanting to have discourse n stuff on your account since it's dedicated to your problematic ships?

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!

[taking-your-hand]

@problematiquehell: I'm neutral but I'm more against antis than I am against proshippers. I'm not really into killing stalking or lolis and I'm not a proshipper by proship standards, but I cope with teen x adult content and yanderes (due to my own abuse) but most antis come and go "you should be abused more! You actually deserve your abuse" and when you're getting this thrown at you it's almost too easy to get swept up into proship spaces.

Yeah this is pretty close to my experience as well. >< If I recall, I think I talked about it in more detail in other reblogs of that post as well!

[taking-your-hand]

Yeah, I can say I've seen that mentality from both sides for sure. ><

Also hope you don't mind, I got an ask tagging you and it seems to merely be adding to this discussion, like... a private reblog or something? So I guess I'll publish it? ovo

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!

[taking-your-hand]

Antis are really ableist.

They genuinely harm people with OCD. The demonization of people with POCD, HOCD, and other ones like that genuinely makes me sick.

Thought crimes aren’t real. Fiction is fiction.

Ah, this reminds me of a recent period of intense anxiety I went through (like some months ago by now, but still) where I was having intrusive POCD thoughts that I had NEVER had in my entire life, and I was so disgusted with myself and I was frightened that I'd have thoughts like that for even a split second.

And I'm certain that started happening because I had gotten so involved in heavy anti/proship discourse that oh-so-frequently included fighting about whether liking lolicon was the same as being a pedophile, and I started getting so paranoid merely because I don't actively despise lolicon. I just don't really care one way or the other, it's just like any other porn to me in that I may enjoy some of it, but certainly not all of it.

And I think I became paranoid that somehow that made me some kind of terrible secret pedophile despite never ever having these issues before I started reading these aggressive insistences of my fears every day. REALLY messed with my head. When I cut the discourse off for a good several months, the POCD thoughts went away again, because they were only there as a result of me soaking in things anti-lolicon people would say.

I'm sure there are many people out there who have much worse cases than I did, who can't so easily change the thoughts by changing their environment, and to those people I really hope you're doing alright.

At the end of the day, YOU know yourself better than anyone else, and strangers online have absolutely no authority to tell you how you feel and think. They don't know you. They don't know your intentions or your desires. And mental illness and trauma are not your fault. You are doing great just by being aware of your struggles and working to improve yourself (and that honestly goes for any type of mental issues 'cause WOW do I have to deal with some of those every day x.x)

I'm sorry, I feel like my reassurances may be a little inadequate because I still have such limited experience with POCD and I haven't researched it. And I also had never even heard of HOCD before now, so I can't say much on that either.

Either way, thanks for the ask and have a good day, Anon. ^^

[taking-your-hand]

I'd like to talk how about how much fandom bullies target autistic people like me

Dark stories are always how I have learned about the world and usually the first thing I do when I come across a new idea is make a story about it

I had a bit of harassment growing up over my characters but it would be significantly worse now

Often anti's use words like "weird, creepy, and gross" to describe things that aren't really hurting anyone but that I enjoy

They trigger RSD and POCD by calling us pedophiles and making death threats.

They hate adults in fandom. Even though fandom is inherently autistic.

I just wanted to talk about this

Thanks for the ask! If it's okay, I'll add some of my thoughts as well because I'm also on the spectrum. Sorry if my thoughts are unorganized haha.

I totally get what you mean about writing stories in response to new things. I did this so much more often as a kid (I just had more energy and free time), and many of my stories were dark and even a bit edgy at times. But it was so fun, and I do remember feeling fear that people would judge me for not writing happier things.

I very much relate to the RSD issue especially. I have pretty intense fears of that nature too, and I think that could be what makes it so hard for me to avoid preemptively defending myself against insults I think I might get, before I ever get them. One particularly unhealthy way I used to do this was by insulting myself in the way I feared others insulting me, in hopes I would appear self-aware and "beat them to it".

I agree about the terms "creepy, weird, gross". I definitely use the word "creepy" in reference to either specific horror vibes or behavior that I think is targeted and inappropriate, but I don't like how people will use it to imply predatory intent where none has actually been presented.

I also really don't like the use of "weird" and "gross" in this context, especially because "weird" is like... a word we as autistic people would sometimes "reclaim", like when I was in school and someone tried to insult me by calling me weird, I'd act flattered and say "Yes, thank you!" Because I was proud of being "weird". In a similar vain, I will occasionally jokingly call myself (or my characters) "freak", but I try not to use that as an insult, especially because it's normally used to vaguely paint any abnormal behavior as evil or wrong (even though abnormal does not equal bad, and literally any person in fandom should already know that).

I'll also admit that I'm still struggling not to use "gross" or "disgusting" for stuff like predatory behavior or csem, but I would like to start finding better terms for those things, because as I've seen other people put it: Preying on people isn't "icky uwu", it's genuinely harmful and violating.

Those are the thoughts that come to my mind, anyways! I don't always realize that the language I tend to use for different things can potentially reinforce harmful ideas in my head. Sorry for rambling about each word individually xD.

And I hope you have a good day, anon!

[taking-your-hand]

Nah, not preachy! I really appreciate your perspective and the conversation. <3

But yeah I definitely vibe with that. I'll admit I've always kinda taken getting blocked personally even though I probably shouldn't. It's just because when I block people, it's always because I think badly of them. I don't block people just because I respectfully dislike one of their kinks, I block people who I think are bigots or harassers or just bad people. So my brain thinks that the same must be the case for others, even though I logically know everyone is different. And even if people block me because they think badly of me... so what? Like you said, as long as all they do is block and move on, I shouldn't be angry. I didn't lose anything if someone was blocking to be a dick anyway.

I've been so torn regarding how important this discourse is because on one hand, the subject matter itself is so goddamn silly and should be inconsequential. "Eww you ship incest, you're going to give children The Evils with that!" and "Omg someone said my kink is weird, this is harassment and my day is ruined" are ridiculous ahaha. But on the other hand, I've seen some of the most foul, awful stuff happen because of this fandom drama, people's real lives affected and occasionally even ruined. It's horrific, and not something I can ignore.

But I guess... framing it as "antis vs. proshippers" isn't the most helpful thing because like... the basic value of "hey, doxxing and telling people to kill themselves is bad" is the bare minimim of decency, and if someone rejects that, it's not an "anti" thing, it's a thing that anyone with any vision of an "enemy" may do when they start dehumanizing them as monsters.

I super appreciate the discussion about how fiction affects reality or how we can be responsible with what we post, but even if everyone in the world stopped being antis, that wouldn't stop these harassment campaigns because the root of them is the act of dehumanizing one's opposition, not necessarily the dislike of proshippers. The worst case of life-ruining harassment I've ever seen within fandom was something that was very clearly not done because of taboo art, but taboo art was merely used as a scapegoat by already-abusive people to rally the public against someone they hated before they had even found out about their art.

Sure, I would like more people to understand that kinks ≠ morals, but what may be more important is teaching people to recognize when their own thoughts or the words/actions of their peers are dehumanizing and controlling. I've seen this happen in anti spaces before, but I have little doubt that it happens in proshipping spaces as well. I've at least seen people get too defensive and thus shut down suggestions of more moderate ideas.

But yeah I recently had to ask myself a question similar to the "if I leave proshipping, does that make me pro-censorship?" thing. I thought, "Can I really be 'neutral' if I'm still okay with stuff like noncon fic or anime loli stuff existing?" And I think the answer is yes, because there are nuanced, in-between perspectives to take on how said content should or shouldn't be distributed and tagged. It doesn't have to be "all of it should be purged from existence" vs. "it's never harmful and shouldn't have any limits".

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!

[taking-your-hand]

Taking the time to respond to this one cause it's giving me a lot to consider. Hope it's okay that I just kinda ramble haha.

I think I definitely understand that sort of thing. The three values you listed ("don't harass, don't send death threats, fiction affecting reality is more complex then some people think") are definitely ones that I hold and that proshippers kind of claim "ownership" of in a way, and I agree that you don't have to be active in the community or even like it at all (or use the label) to hold those values.

And it's fair to assume that someone labeling themself proship comes with more connotations than just those values, because each community or label kind of ends up with common... occurrences, I suppose. Some of which are toxic or uncomfortable. ><

I struggled a lot last year with feeling isolated in the fandom I was in because I had been blocked by many artists who had "proship dni" far before I had started embracing the term or even any taboo ships that I was aware of. I don't know if it was because they perceived me as a proshipper regardless of my labels, or if it was merely because of a ship or art I liked. From the beginning, I assumed their assessment of my stance was right because I had been pretty firmly pro-darkfic/kink/whatever for years, but I hadn't once called myself proship until people had already started blocking me and sometimes even accusing me of breaking their dni.

I remember feeling pushed into the proship community by that isolation, which lead to me becoming super intimate with the discourse-y side of it and all the blemishes that came with it.

But to avoid getting off topic: I guess even as I begin to re-assess my position in this discourse and open my mind to sympathizing with antis more than I was ever comfortable doing before, I still wonder if me having those core beliefs you listed or being willing to associate with proshippers or just... liking some pretty screwed up art tbh, would slot me under the same dni regardless and continue the cycle of isolation. Or would I cease to feel so isolated over it if I no longer considered myself proship, in a more active way than merely using no labels?

It's sort of difficult for me to come to terms with the idea of fully separating myself from that label because so, so many proshippers insist that me having those values still makes me proship, and because I have been given the impression that many, many antis would still see me as an enemy of sorts.

Sorry if this was bothersome! I'm not asking you or anyone else to answer my life ponderings for me haha. It just super helps me to think about this stuff aloud sometimes.

Thank you for your feedback btw!

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!

[taking-your-hand]

Thanks for the boost and addition!

Also I just thought of this, but if you're an anti and you're uncomfortable replying directly to this post, I'm okay with DMs or anon asks too, and I won't post them with an answer if you don't want me to. I wanna make sure everyone's comfortable and doesn't have to fear harassment.

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!

[taking-your-hand]

What exactly does "proshippers dni" mean? /gen

I'm not doing a semantics thing and I won't "correct" anyone's answer, I genuinely just want to know what type of person most antis are referring to when they say "proship/proshippers dni".

Because at first, I thought it was just... anyone with any type of dark kink or ship, or who believes that fiction does affect reality but just not on a 1:1 scale, but I think I've been mistaken about what antis generally want to avoid.

So I wanna know, because I want to respect people's dnis and I want to understand antis more!

The antis I have spoken with have given me the impression that while they may disagree with milder proship stances, what they REALLY hate is stuff like "Fiction never has an impact on people in any way!" or "If you don't like my kinks, you're inherently sex-negative!" or "MAPs should be accepted and trusted uwu" or whatever other frankly awful and untrue things they might say.

And it's like, if an anti hates those things, but is okay with milder or neutral stances, I would like to know. Because unfortunately I've been led to believe that most antis would consider anything that's not aggressively anti-proship to be just fully proship, so I just completely stay away to avoid causing any discomfort or trouble.

Anyways, feel free to reblog or reply with your personal feedback, and please be nice to each other. ^^ I don't intend to try and convince anyone of anything in this post, I just want to understand people with different perspectives. :)

Thank you!