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social-vampire · 10 months ago

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Hello! First of all, love your work. Wonderful takes and analysis on the alpha trolls, and also i’m a big fan of sovstuck - both the text and the awesome cool art. I love that every character gets introduced with their own unique artstyle, each oozing with character :)

I wanted to ask, - and please believe that i’m asking in good faith, - about your proship dni. I’ve been seeing discourse about ‘pro/anti ship’ for ages now, but i cannot for the life of me understand what the hell either side stands for. First i hear it’s about abusive or problematic (pedo/incest) ships in general, then it’s about the difference of portrayal/endorsement of those things, then it’s something else entirely and i can never fucking understand what the hell the issue is and why it is so heated.

By no means i’m asking you to speak for the whole discourse or even for the entire ‘side’ of it - if there’s one thing i got, it’s that no one can agree on their definition of what ‘their side’ stands for. But i would like to know what meaning you put into the terms, and what kind of ‘proship’ you would like to not interact with you; i trust that you know what you believe in and are able to put it to words in a way that makes sense and doesn’t contradict itself or common sense, as i sometimes see :”)

I.. understand that since the topic is so divisive, you may get a ton of bullshit in your ask box and notes, should you choose to answer this, both from people who disagree and those who choose to misinterpret what you say. So feel free to ignore this ask if you don’t want to deal with that. Still, i do hope i can someday gain some clarity on this topic haha.

Best wishes!! thanks for what you do :)

Hello! Thank you so much, the compliments mean a lot! They really keep me going, lol!!

First of all, congratulations on formulating the most normal ask adjacent to this topic. Since it's so god damn touchy, people have a tendency to start throwing rocks no matter what "side" they're on, and no matter if they know what the hell they're talking about or not. Frankly, some of the ruckus surrounding this circus act is embarrassing. On both ends. Second of all, while this isn't something I'm an expert in, I do know more than I'd like, so I'd be happy to give my perspective, even if it's potentially a bit limited/flawed.

Thirdly, I'm putting this under a cut, for anyone who doesn't want to read all that.

Content Warning: Discussions of Shipping Discourse, Sexual Assault, Abuse, Grooming, Incest, and Pedophilia.

Let me start this by defining what the Relevant Terms mean:

Shipping: The act of pairing two or more Characters together. Though the term is derived from "Relationship", and therefore is at its core - technically, theoretically - a Neutral Term, it - conversationally, colloquially - carries extremely heavy Romantic Connotations, with a strong implication that said Romance is found to be appealing - typically in the sense of being either Cute, or Sexy. Defining this is not me trying to condescend you - One of the key questions in this discourse is what it means to "ship" something, and whether or not the term implies the shipper is condoning the material inherent to the ship.

ProShip: Essentially means "All For All Shipping". It's the personal, discourse-based identity label equivalent to the phrase "Ship And Let Ship". There's a common misconception floating around that the "Pro" in "ProShip" stands for "Problematic", rather than simply being the positive antonym to the prefix "Anti". While I find this to be a failure of basic deductive reasoning, I can also understand how the conclusion was reached - Proshippers are most commonly associated with "Problematic Content"/"Problematic Ships", and they do tend to take pride in being "Problematic" themselves. Either way, the word "Problematic" is highly associated with them and often reclaimed by them. They also call themselves "Anti-Antis" (horribly stupid label, by the way), and "ComShip(pers)", with the "Com" being short for "Complex". To my knowledge, ComShip is a sect specifically trying to get away from the baggage that the term "ProShip" holds, and away from the very real predator problem within the ProShip Community. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

AntiShip: Essentially means "Against Certain Forms of Shipping". It actually used to be a term for people who were against specific individual ships, rather than a blanket discourse label - for example, rather than someone identifying as just an "Antishipper", they would typically label themselves as "Anti-VrisMeen", or a "VrisMeen-Anti", or whatever their focus was. An important thing to note is that Antis trend Young, and they trend Traumatized. They are typically Teenagers, and their stances are largely informed by their discomfort watching Adults Sexualize Characters who share their age or younger, and discomfort watching people Sexualize some kind of Trauma they've been through - and considering their general ages, it's not unlikely that that Trauma is either Fresh or Ongoing. This is not always the case, but it's such a large amount of the AntiShip crowd, and it's acknowledged so little, that it's worth mentioning. It's a very important piece of context to me.

The general Belief Systems of both sides, as they currently stand, are as follows:

ProShip: ==> Never Harass Anyone Over Their Ships: This is the bones of their beliefs, and where everything started. Essentially, it's rude and unnecessary to send people Harassment over a Ship they enjoy, because not only could you be doing something better with your time, but also it can be pretty difficult to tell the "How/What/Why" of someone's interest in such material. ==> All Forms of Shipping Should Be Allowed, No Matter The Content: This is the meat of their beliefs, and also where the arguing starts. It's exactly what it says on the tin - Anything Goes, including Rape, Abuse, Incest, and Pedophilia. This is why the label is so touchy - many people are extremely uncomfortable with the idea of Fandom going back to its habit of uncritically normalizing + romanticizing Rape, Abuse, Incest, and Pedophilia. Part of this is due to the fact that this uncritical normalization has led to genuine, tangible harm on people in Fandom Spaces, particularly Minors. ==> Being Problematic Is Based: The skin of their beliefs. Many people wrap up Shipping Discourse in terms that make it sound like engaging in it is Political Praxis, somehow. While your stance on Shipping Discourse can certainly be telling of your Political Beliefs, in the way that your stance on literally anything can be telling of that, calling Shipping Discourse on its own some kind of Radical Political Stance is... Deeply silly, and also keeps leading to people saying "Being into Incest/Pedophilia is Queer Nature", like, unironically. I keep seeing this happen. This part of it tends to be very... Spite-driven. ==> Fiction Is Not Reality: Basically their catchphrase - nothing that happens in fiction is real, and therefore has no tangible effect on reality.

AntiShip: ==> Please Tag Your Content Appropriately And Keep It Out Of The Reach Of Minors: The bones of their beliefs. Self Explanatory, typically followed up with "and if you can't do that, don't post/make it at all". To further illustrate this, I'd like to spark any reader's memory of the times where you couldn't Google search "Fluttershy" without being lambasted with hardcore porn. No additions of "R34", or "NSFW", just "Fluttershy". There was no SFW Filters. You just had to fucking fight for your life. Being a child on the Internet is and was extremely rough. There wasn't any Official Tag Filtering on Tumblr until... I think 2017. It was dark. ==> Abuse/Rape/Incest/Pedophilia Should Not Be Considered "Shipping": The meat of their beliefs. Essentially, these are extremely heavy, delicate topics meant to be treated with respect and tact, or not handled at all. This is not possible in Shipping Content. At least, not as we currently understand it, and will likely remain understanding in that way for years to come. They argue that Fanfiction is not ever going to be on par with Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Which is true. They also argue that it's impossible for most Fanfictions to treat these sensitive subjects with any respect, which is... Dubious, but also fair, considering the Sturgeon's Law of it all. ==> Ewwwww...: The skin of their beliefs. Disgust. It's a whole lot of disgust. Again, worth reiterating that the bulk of AntiShippers are quite Young and/or Traumatized, and the content they are reacting to tends to be Extreme, so a gut response of disgust is... Honestly, healthy. No 15 Year Old should be stumbling upon art of a child getting frisky with their dad and going "hell yeah, brother!". Though I wish they'd handle their disgust with more tact, I find that it's just... A fair response, given their age, what their backstory tends to be, and what content they tend to be reacting to is. ==> Fiction Affects Reality: Not necessarily their catchphrase, but definitely their counterpoint to the catchphrase of ProShippers. They do not say Fiction is real, just that it does literally have a tangible effect on reality, and point to cases where this is observable. The impact Jaws had on real life sharks is a favorite, as is The Birth of a Nation, and The Turner Diaries. And, of course, the ways that the works put out by ProShippers has tangibly affected the lives of others, especially children.

It is worth noting, I am neither of these things. I do not identify as a ProShipper, nor do I identify as an AntiShipper. I identify as a Horror Writer. I have "DNI: ProShip" in my bio because their stances make me the most uncomfortable, and I have been victimized personally by members of their crowd and the result of their beliefs.

I was Groomed by an Adult ProShipper when I was 14 Years Old. She used her ideologies as a ProShipper to excuse herself and the (sexual) content she forced me to Roleplay with her, and used it to pressure me into writing more and more extreme content. I did not want to do it even at the time - it made me uncomfortable - but she made the idea of saying "No" to her... Quite scary, and like I was the one in the wrong for being uncomfortable with it. After all, Fiction Isn't Reality, right? I am not the only person I know with this experiences. I have met and spoken to countless - and I mean countless - individuals who have had similar experiences with that crowd. The sheer distrust kids and teens tend to have towards them is learned through that crowd's propensity towards grooming them. Because the celebration and normalization of that content breeds comfortability with "the real deal", and comfortability with harboring predators.

I'm sure some ProShippers have noble intentions, and don't realize what the controversy is about. I'm sure some of them are deeply out of the loop, and still think it only means "Being Anti-Harassment". But I do not care enough to give people the chance, just... For the sake of my own sanity. You understand, I'm sure. I do not think that this rift between worlds is ever going to get closed, or that these sides are going to experience amicability, because the question is nuanced and about morality itself, and one side is full of defensive, traumatized teenagers trying to keep themselves and their friends safe from what they are perceiving as legitimate threats to their safety, and the other side is full of people who just wanna jerk it to weird porn.

I'm not personally comfortable with, like, any self-identified ProShipper being near me, just due to my own experiences. Some might try to identify me as one against my will, due to the fact that I am Anti-Harassment and a Horror Writer unafraid to touch upon every single one of the aforementioned sensitive topics, but... I am simply not one, because I don't identify that way, I don't believe in their beliefs, and they creep me out, lol.

My beliefs are that people should be able to write about whatever they want, as long as they handle things with the appropriate amount of care, and as long as they keep things tagged appropriately. I think that harassing people for shipping Stridercest in fucking 2024 is lame because you could be doing literally anything else with your time, and I think shipping Stridercest in fucking 2024 is lame because you could be doing anything else with your time. Like, come on, man, it's not even interesting. They're not even doing anything interesting with it. Where are the themes? There are no themes. It's just brothers mackin' on each other whitely. Come on.

No topic should be off limits, but you should at least give it the care and respect it deserves, and you should make it interesting. Nothing is interesting on its own. Rape is not interesting on its own. Incest is not interesting on its own. Abuse is not interesting on its own. Pedophilia is not interesting on its own. Taboo subjects are not interesting on their own. They're mundane evils that happen literally every day to regular people. In writing, they need to be paired with themes, and, hopefully, with good writing. People who have been through these things deserve not only to have their trauma represented, but handled with care, and also for it to be interesting to read. They deserve to have options. They deserve to have good literature to chew on, to help them digest and cope with their own trauma. It's difficult to do that when you feel invisible to everything but the camera lens of a Fetish Pornographer, and I know many people who are suffering with the fact that their traumas seem to only ever be represented or referenced in shitty pornography.

Sure, some people cope with their own trauma by sexualizing it. I know that's the case for some ProShippers, and their reason for being within that group. But it's certainly not everyone's method of coping, and it shouldn't be the only option... Which is why I'm advocating for safe, non-fetishized exploration of extreme themes.

I think the reason why the discourse is so unclear is because "ProShip" and "AntiShip" aren't very tangible, definite belief systems, and also the talking points are evolving and maturing over time. A few years ago, the beliefs of "Antis" definitely broadly leaned more heavily towards total rejection of those themes being present in any fiction, but their arguments seem to have matured lately into "the problem is the nature of the depiction, not the presence of depiction itself".

That's all I can think of saying right now that wouldn't just be me walking in circles. And don't worry, I can definitely take the hit. I'm not sure what here could be very arguable other than semantics, or maybe a history lesson or two.

Thank you for the ask! Hope this helps!

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