#food for thought. might try and specify things to include the content i don't like seeing.

[peaceandloveonpluto]

Heya I don’t find ‘proship’ or ‘anti’ to be productive labels so I don’t really use them, but like I’m generally more pro-whatever-people-want than policing-fiction kinda vibe, does that mean I count as proship or are you specifically trying to avoid that genre of discourse entirely so it’s ok to interact as long as I don’t use that term?

It's definitely a tricky thing to define since it seems like everyone has a different idea of what proship vs. anti means. There are some things people define as proship that I don't really mind (e.g., selfshipping with a fictional character who is a murderer), but others that I do mind (e.g., selfshipping with a fictional character who is a minor when the person is an adult - and even then, that example itself can be tricky to define. I don't really get into the nitty gritty of that and I sort of go off of beliefs in real life relationships; an 18-year-old dating a 17-year-old? That doesn't bother me, the adult vs. minor thing there is just by a legal line. But a 21+-year-old dating a 17-year old (or below)? That is a bit weird to me, at best. But I digress.)

There are also certain things that characters can do that, if I saw someone selfship with them, would elicit a feeling of "really? THAT one? That's the one you fell for?" in me. Namely, I feel uncomfortable with people who selfship with characters that are shown to be abusive (in whatever way that is, whether it's physically, emotionally, or sexually).

I do understand that it's all fictional. Also, I get that everyone's life experiences are different. I understand that some people imagine or fantasize about these scenarios as a way of coping with things that have happened in their lives. I cannot claim in the least to understand psychology, and it isn't my place to try and tell people how I think they should handle their trauma. And even if a person isn't doing it to cope with something, I think that going up to a person who is essentially a stranger and telling them "hey! I don't like this thing you do!" would have no effect besides wasting both of our times because the chances are neither of us will have our opinions changed by this encounter.

I do want to make it known that if someone calls themselves a proshipper or has ideals that I mentioned above with regards to shipping, I do not necessarily think "this is a bad person." It is fictional, and there are several worse things you can do in real life. I don't think a person who is 25 years old and ships with a 16-year-old anime boy is the absolute scum of the earth or anything. (Now, if that was a behavior that they reflected in real life, i.e., interacting with real minors in romantic/sexual ways when one is an adult, that is a whole other can of worms.) I just find it to be weird and do not want to associate with it. My blocking policy is the result of that; I do not want to see it, so I block the person so I do not see it. I don't send any messages to the person or say "hey I found so-and-so and they're a proshipper, everyone block them." It's a matter of personal preference and boundaries.

I am honestly laissez-faire about most selfshipping and would rather stay in my own space than harass people. When I say "please do not interact with me if proship," it is because I don't know to what degree the person defines proship. I don't like seeing content of adult/minor relations or abusive relations, but from a quick glance, if a person says they're a proshipper, I don't know if they post that sort of content or not. I just block to make sure that the chance of me seeing that content is 0%. I would hope that if a person calls themselves proship and they disagree with my stance, they would show the same respect and similarly block me. I am not here to fight, truthfully. I am here to think about Fictional Character.

TL;DR: Honestly if you don't use the label and you don't post about the things I'm uncomfortable with, I do not mind you interacting.