#like what do you mean you’re over 30 harassing ppl over a fictional concept

[evergreenr0se]

I gotta say, bad batch fans (and even clone fans more broadly) can be toxic AF, esp on twitter.

[janiedean]

Hi Janie! So, I admit to a bit of ignorance pertaining the whole “anti”-debacle. I’ve seen anti and anti-anti posts that say the same thing, sometimes it’s about morally offensive things, sometimes about completely unrelated stuff and I can’t make heads nor tails of it, especially since there isn’t really a wealth of actual information? Just rants... *sigh* If it’s possible, do you think you could explain what the problem is? (Does that need to be in plural?) and the „sides“? Thank you! ❤️

anon you asked the question of the century I’m afraid X°D THAT SAID let’s... see if I can make this understandable.

so: the anti debate is... pretty much tied to the whole ‘politics in fandom discourse’ and you can’t separate the two of them sadly. of course I come from the not anti side of fandom so what do I know. anyway, premise:

what happened is that in the last two/three years, whether we liked it or not, the debate in fandom has moved from ‘my ship is better than yours’ to ‘my ship is better than yours because it’s more progressive/woke’, which has gone hand in hand with the political fandom views of any media product, ie ‘you can’t watch that because it lacks representation’ or ‘that show is crap because it’s not woke enough or doesn’t treat that topic well’ and so on, and with a tendency to think that if you ship anything you want it to be canon because it only is worth anything if it becomes such (which imo is bullshit but never mind);

this has moved on to also judging people based on their ships, as in: ‘ship X is wrong because it’s problematic for X reason therefore if you ship it you support X irl and you’re problematic and you need to be stopped’. such as ‘thor/loki is wrong because it’s incest so if you ship thor/loki you’re okay with incest irl and you want to bang your siblings if you have any’, which is a ridiculous notion but this goes also hand in hand with the fact that people have suddenly decided to trash all the psychology that confirmed how violent videogames don’t influence reality and now think that liking something problematic influences you irl because they don’t grasp the difference between fandom and mass-media consumption of a mass-media product;

they also don’t grasp the concept of catharsis through media nor of the really basic concept that most normal people who see themselves in fiction don’t take the entire package but relate to specific things;

keeping THAT in mind:

the whole ‘anti’ thing, as ‘people being opposed to a ship or a trend’ is basically people saying that you cannot ship a thing or be into a problematic character or kink because it says something about you and not about your fictional preferences and actively go around being assholes to people who ship the thing while at the same time gatekeeping/policing their own ships which are of course Purer Than The Others and bringing politics into it, too;

this also goes with a frankly problematic (AND I’M USING THE WORD NON-IRONICALLY) attitude that those people have of equating age gaps with pedophilia always and considering children people older than thirteen/fourteen, which automatically makes them think of people who ship age gaps even in between adults pedophiles (I kid you not a friend who’s over thirty in a rship with a person fifteen years older got told that their rship was pedophilia because their partner was an adult when they were a child at some point in their lives. I mean, IMAGINE THAT.);

to give the to-go example these days because it’s sadly the worst: sw sequel trilogy fandom. rey/kylo has been targeted by antis as the to-go Most Problematic Ship because in order:a) enemies to lovers as a trope which is of course abusive if the good side is a woman (more on that later) b) both are white (so it’s racist to not ship her with the non-white people in the light side *roll eyes*)c) they have a ten years age gap (so it’s pedophilia even if rey’s of age and she kicked his ass more than once)d) he’s not technically good looking so it sets people’s worst instincts offe) these people don’t buy into the fact that people can be redeemed so they decided he’s absolutely Not Redeemable and so onf) it’s an m/f couplenow, rey/lo is admittedly a fairly tame ship as far as problematic goes - it’s honestly your typical enemies to friends to lovers trope that’s been in media since the beginning of time, but according to these ppl it’s The Worst and if you dare being into it you must be a pedophile, racist, misogynist (or internalized misogynist), straight person (because of course only straight ppl ship m/f) - and yes, being straight is a problem but more on that later. but since you can ship her with finn (black) or you could ship finn and poe (black and latino actors) if you’re not into either you’re problematic. too bad that if you ship finn and poe (WHICH I DO) these days it’s... let’s just say I’ve seen a list of ‘problematic f/p writers’ where the reasons for the PROBLEMATIC was that they took a fluff ship and wrote it dubcon. oKAY. also pre tlj fandom was full of block lists for r/eylo shippers where you’d get the name plus ALL REASONS WHY THEY HAD TO BE HARASSED OUT OF FANDOM which you will imagine does not sit well with me since that’s... like... the most fascist thing you could do (NO REALLY BAN LISTS OF PERSONE NON GRATAE WITH REASONS WHY THEY WERE IS A THING THAT HAPPENS IN DICTATORSHIPS AND SOCIETY WHERE EVERYTHING IS CENSORED LIKE BANNED BOOKS) in this circumstance, but hey, if you’re anti-reylo and you’re doing the above you’re just doing the work of the lord because you’re saving people from the Horrible Problematic Ship, and meanwhile I don’t want anything to do with a fandom where people do block lists for how you write your fanfic IN GENERAL. like, concrit is more than welcome but lists? please don’t fucking kid me;

I used r/eylo as an example because it’s the epitome of what anti-shipping ends at, but there’s also sh/eith from voltron which is two guys, with a seven years age gap but both are adults now and were older than 15 when they met, who have the sweetest less problematic relationship ever and people who ship.. the other rival ship decided that it’s pedophilia, SUPPORTS INCEST on the grounds of one of the two tell the other ‘you’re like a brother to me’ SERIOUSLY and that it’s abusive and by shipping it you’re a pedophile. k;

also, this entire thing ties with the fact that these people seem to think that having sex when older than fourteen is somehow bad, which means that if you write someone under the age of 18 (and sometimes NOT EVEN THAT see voltron above) you’re automatically a *pedophile* even if teenagers aren’t children and fictional characters are fictional and never hurt anyone, and that goes hand in hand with the fact that these people seem to largely be against kink;

specifically: ‘bdsm is abusive’ (???), ‘you can’t be a feminist if you like kink’ (OKAY???), ‘if you read/write noncon fanfic you have a problem and you’re terrible’ etc, with a specific subset being against specific kinks that play on a certain angle ie daddy kink and so on which are PEDOPHILIA now, which is again an extremely puritanical way to see the world, not progressive;

at this point we have a situation where a bunch of *antis* specifically target people who are into *problematic* things whether it’s ships, characters, kinks and so on and are going like THINK OF THE CHILDREN half of the time. the children being them, of course.

at this point we have the other discourse we need to have ie about the age and sexuality of the people involved in fandom and why it matters:

now: a lot of fandom is made up of women. it’s statistics. a significant statistical part of the old guard (25+-30+ people ie my generation plus the previous 40+ older generation) is cis women (who can be straight or bi but are attracted to men) who went into fandom writing m/m slash. a significant part of this group is into either problematic ships or kink and such on. but in our understanding of fandom, the key terms were ship and let ship + your kink is not my kink + don’t like don’t read. as in: outside your usual MY SHIP IS BETTER THAN YOURS wank was generally understood that people liked things different than yours and that you had no business being an ass over it, and back in the day warnings were at the beginning - when I went into fandom warnings were not a thing. now there’s warnings everywhere which is GOOD and guess why ao3 was made by... the old guard/old fans, which of course are not very pleased with being told they’re pedophiles or perverts for shipping a thing or, *drum rolls*, that they fetishize gay men by shipping m/m or writing m/m porn, and are fairly vocal about it;

on the other side, this new wave of younger fans who thinks is progressive along with older fans who are assholes/most likely grooming the youngers (because this anti shipping thing is seriously cult-like at this point) calling the old generation all the stuff above and pushing the idea that they want ‘old straight ciswomen out of fandom’ because ‘they have gross ideas and THEY DON’T WANT TO READ OUR GROSS FIC’ and such things. we can also talk for ten years about how the new wave has decided that straight = insult but again, tumblr politics. all goes hand in hand;

so basically the sides are ‘younger fans who thinks they are progressive but are actually being puritan af’ vs ‘older fans who want to do their damned thing’ with some people obviously crossing into the others’s territory;

(and mind that not counting SW, most of the anti drama happens in fandoms for... animated cartoons and the likes - vo/ltron, ste/ven universe and so on, which says a lot about the age discourse, but nvm that);

now, the problem is that by telling some woman older than you that she can’t safely explore her sexual fantasies/kinks in fiction about fake characters you’re basically doing the same thing as policing women’s sexual fantasies that has been going on since the dawn of time, so it’s actually hella misogynist, and the fact that it goes with people saying that you can’t be a feminist who likes kink and that kink is abuse/misogynist... is still policing women’s sexualities, irl and fictionally, and that’s what they’re doing at the end of it;

on top of that, they’re also policing what non-straight, non-female fans who ship problematic stuff do and most of all, there’s the shipping to cope bush of thorns.

about shipping to cope:

now, this entire system had to, at some point, deal with the very true fact that a lot of people who are into problematic stuff/kinks/noncon (not all of them of course) engage with that material to work out their issues - a lot of the time it’s abuse victims writing it to elaborate on their abuse and take control of it and so on and usually... a lot of them aren’t even straight (honestly, almost everyone I know who ships th/ramsay ie noncon torture ship that I personally don’t like myself is... not straight, and a lot of them do ship to cope) and telling them you cannot handle your recovery with whichever system they see fit is... RUDE at best. which is why there’s antis who are like ‘shipping to cope is fine but JUST IF IT’S TO COPE’ which means that in order to be given the green light you have to out yourself and tell people you were abused and other antis who are like ‘SHIPPING TO COPE IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU JUST MAKE IT WORSE’ which is... not a thing that happens to everyone and actually every psychologist worth their salt in the world disagrees (or better: for some people it’s bad to do but for others it’s cathartic, and the latter shouldn’t be not able to do it because the former can’t blacklist or because kids on the internet decided that shipping to cope is bad);

so a lot of antis are actually crossing into the territory of wanting to police how people handle their own experience of abuse (honestly once someone told a friend who explained them from a professional pov the valid of problematic/violent art as a cathartic, healthy way to deal with you shit, and who told them that they were an abuse victim who dealt with it in different ways, to GO ON GOOGLE AND LOOK UP HOW IT WORKS and that person knew shit about it period just to say one) and telling people they can’t process their abuse in THAT way but just in THIS way, feeding into the idea that there’s a right way to process abuse and a wrong way to react to it which in turns becomes good victim vs bad victim;

(and then you wonder why they hate kylo ren... who’s a Bad Victim under the definition of the word but hey whatever)

and this is all thrown under the rug of ‘we need to police problematic attitudes in fandoms’ which is 100% bullshit because if you run into someone specifically problematic you should explain them on a one-on-one basis, not do the witch hunt, and you should never presume to police how people handle their own shit, never mind that 90% of the time the so-called problematic material is consumed by a small percentage of people and you can choose to like, not read it;

and by the way, 90% of the actually problematic fandom trends don’t get called out because it wouldn’t be progressive (I can talk for ages about how it’s really worrying that ppl headcanon characters as X following stereotypes that are actually hurtful for the category in question but since the hc = a minority then it’s always okay) but that’s an entire other problem;

tldr: the anti side, as much as they want to think they’re not doing it, are actively policing the content that other people put online based on supposed ‘moral’ standards which 90% of the time aren’t even true (a 16yo in a relationship with a 20yo is NOT pedophilia period) and even going as far as ‘I’ll press charges to the FBI because X wrote underage fic’ when according to the US law if it’s fictional characters it doesn’t count as such and it only does if real recognizable minors are involved (and in that case it shouldn’t be happening in the first place) and those people might be whoever, and for all they support feminism they also end up being incredibly misogynist.

or, just because I like to use my own experiences as an example: this year I had the horrid idea of replying to a post made obviously by anti people where I told them that straight women writing m/m ie what they’re attracted to of course have more in common with a guy into guys in that sense and not with a lesbian since they’re not attracted to women and that writing m/m wasn’t inherently fetishizing shit. since then I’ve had people:

informing me I MUST have internalized homophobia

assuming shit about my sex life that wasn’t even true including which positions I like in bed (because of course straight women only identify with the gay bottom so they’re capitalizing off that experience when some of us don’t)

assuming I was disgusted at the idea of writing lesbian sex (false, I wrote it when I was in the mood)

informing me that writing fanfic about canonical m/m characters wasn’t activism and I shouldn’t presume I was one for that (I never said I considered it such) but at the same time these people think reporting incest fic to ao3 is... activism, but nvm that

telling me that I was a sad old bitch who needed to find a husband and grow up (I MEAN NOT EVEN IN THE FIFTIES) (I’m 29 btw hardly old) because it was the only way my life could have had sense

informing me that of course I was that horrible since I’m italian and all italians beat their wives (NOT XENOPHOBIC AT ALL)

accusing me of writing torture porn with gay characters to get off (never wrote torture porn once in my life, not with gay characters nor any character)

(most ppl I know into torture porn aren’t straight btw)

telling me that I didn’t understand my own attraction to men

assuming that my parents must have thrown me out of the house at some point, that I had no friends and that I never got laid

and in another occasion I got sent fanart of a ship that I said upset me because I had the gall to tell people to leave the shippers alone but hey what do I know

and a bunch of other stuff I won’t bother you with but that to me sounds hella misogynist (I mean, GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN AND FIND A HUSBAND, srsly?). spoilers: I never write noncon, I’m into a few kinks but most are literally harmless, the wildest thing I’m into writing is... 100% consensual d/s sex, the most problematic thing I’m into is thor/loki and I hadn’t shipped it until I realized that... it was cathartic (ps: no, I don’t think irl incest is okay as a general thing) and for the rest I’m famous for... being the person who almost never kills people in fandom X°D I mean, I got that shit and I laughed about it, but what if they sent it to an abuse victim or someone who actually got kicked out of the house? who knows, but sure af they only seem to care about victims when it’s convenient to them and when the victims agree. *shrug* but the above is absolutely okay if you tell that to a straight cis woman who doesn’t particularly feel like writing f/f sex (which is ANOTHER plot point but never mind that I can’t possibly go into how tumblr has decided that f/f relationships without sex are the Thing Everyone Should Aspire To and everything else is a problem including lesbians having kinky sex). anyway, that was all antis. heck, a round of the shit above was started because an anti-ship blog found an oldass ask related to that wank, so.

tldr: the point is that we’re always talking about the same old dumb fandom war ie my ship is better than yours and my fave is better than yours, but now the arguments aren’t just about ships, are about which one is most moral or pure or non-problematic and if you dare being into anything else for your own reasons in your own life (I forgot friends who’ve been told they abuse their partners because they’re into kink, WHAT A DAY) when the *else* is fictional (ie doesn’t exist) and you don’t even do the thing irl or would want to but just want to explore it fictionally, then you are that problematic thing and so *you* are problematic and guess what, there’s a nice witch hunt starting and -

ops.

HOW SURPRISED I AM.

I mean, it’s 90% wanting to censor people and all of that time it’s useless that they dress it as ‘FIGHTING PEDOPHILES’ because thing is, now that everyone rolls their eyes at it because you think ‘right, real pedophiles or people who ship the wrong voltron ship,’ actual pedophiles have free reign and actually whenever I see a post to report a real one it has very little notes in comparison to OMG REY/LO IS PROBLEMATIC and stuff, and the one time I got linked one I checked because I didn’t trust tumblr and let me tell you I wish I didn’t. anti shipping or being anti kink is just... 90% wanting to be puritans without knowing that you’re a puritan and you’re still policing women’s sexualities and abuse victims’s reactions and you’re not helping anyone.

and you sound like those soccer moms from the 90s who thought playing tekken made their kids violent or that marilyn manson’s music caused the columbine shootings which is a thing that has been disproved since two weeks after it happened. and these people have no idea that media influences you to the point you let it and that fiction is not reality. *shrug* and that was my offer to this contribution, I know I’ll get roasted at this point but I’m beyond giving two fucks at this point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯