I love it when anons/guests find my works and kudo/leave reviews, but given the new revelation that Elon Musk is using bots to mine AO3 fanfiction for a writing AI without writer's permission, my works are now archive-locked and only available for people with an AO3 account.
How Shipping Discourse Harms People with OCD/Guilt Complexes and what can we do about it
I'm autistic and I have a special interest in sexology and recently I've gotten a knack to study paraphilic disorders. And while I don't like taking sides on Fandom Discourse and I think that anyone who claims the label of "anti" or "pro" maybe spends too much time online. I think that there's a disconnect from the both sides on how pederasts work.
It is claimed by people on the sexology field that most pedophiles (people sexually attracted to children) won't become pederasts (someone who actually rapes a child) and while I do find some ships to be gross and (by extension the people who ship them as well) I don't think they are more likely to harm an irl child than, say, your average priest or kindergarten music teacher.
The thing about pederasts is that most of them raped a family member or manipulated their way into a non relative minor's personal space by being a charismatic manipulator, all of it which happened slowly and gradually... and the ones who were more your stereotypical "Hey kid I've got candy hop in my van" did it impulsively and only after their whole support system (friends, family, mental health experts) had been stripped away or straight up never existed in the first place. (Which btw I'm not defending the act. I've had thoughts about commiting non sexual violence against someone while having no one to go to and I still never did it anything of the such)
And the thing is that...anyone who claims the title of proshipper or anti as part of their identity is inherently going to be a little bit pathetic (I'm saying this at someone who's been both) but they will find a community who will validate their ideas and give them a general sense of "Not Being Alone...". And speaking from personal experiences: It's a lot harder to give in your worst impulses when you have that.
I've been friends with Antis and with Proshippers, and I don't find them that different in the way they approach people who need help. Like if an hypothetical non offending pedohpile came to a friend of whatever camp they wouldn't recat badly.
Hers where I get personal: I have POCD. That stands goes Pedophilia Obsessive Compulsive disorder. Which is basically the obsessive phobia of becoming a pedophile. The gist of it is that you get intrusive thoughts of harming children that distress you so much that you do "compulsions" in order to "purify" your thoughts. But OCD is pretty much like quick sand, the more you try to get out, the more you'll sink on it. But when you're so distressed by your brain telling you repeatedly telling you're a monster waiting to happen then you eventually might confuse it with attraction for real.
And adding the fact that i was being witness to all the shipping discourse during a time where literal politicians were arguing over this invisible boogeyman grooming their children and therefore seeing both side fo the Discourse applying the same rethric to each other really did a number on my mental health and almost pushed me to suicide.
But ironically, whenever I talked to a friend involved in that discourse about it, whether they were Anti or Pro, I would get Empathy from them. Albeit in different ways. An Anti might be more familiar with the lingo of mental health and encouraged me to talk to a therapist while prooshipper might focus more on reassuring me that everyone has impure thoughts and give me coping techniques more related to not feeling guilty.
And both of them had the intention of helping me. Hey both recognized that my brain was fucked up and that I didn't deserve punishment.
(And yeah I acknowledge not all proshippers or antis would be empathetic to someone like me but a good chunk of them would, cause it's in the human nature to be kind)
But their understanding didn't stopped them from sending detah threats and harrasement to each other, it didn't stopped them from justifying their hatred for people they didn't even know just cause they were Doing Fiction Wrong. The boogeyman they made out of is still there.
And that's my main point. This constant infighting is only going to hurt mentally ill people. Is getting a death threat horrible for the person on the receiving end of that? Yeah, duh. But being witness to the discourse of who's the "real" harm to children while suffering from a condition that literally makes people kill themselves over not being this morally pure human being can also be super detrimental to someone's mental health.
I hate being all like "Oh just ignore the harassment (from either side) and they'll go away eventually" cause since when has that worked out? But maybe if there was less of a "supply and demand" chain of Finding The Bad Person of the Week and Chase Them Off the internet people like me would be more willing to come ask for help when their brain is being a bitch.
You can't stop people from thinking your kinks are gross or to stop them from thinking you're a puritan just cause you have a very cosnervative fetish tomato meter but you can stop feeding into the very catholic narartive of "There Are People Who Are Irredeemable and If You Can Find Them And Eliminate Them Then You Are Automatically Good"
And to end on a final note. I know trauma plays a huge role on how someone participates on the discourse on either camp...someone posting something like "Oh I hate Proshippers/Antis" out of a play of personal trauma with that group of well within their right of doing so as much as a White Woman who tweets "I hate all men" without thinking about all the ramifications and social implications for the men who didnt do anything and aren't privileged over her (Like MOC and Trans men for example) cause the thing about trauma is that it will never make you a better person, it will actually make it harder for you to be kind.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. Happy fandom
It should 100% be illegal for companies to make you give them your payment information when you sign up for a free trial version of their product. It is not necessary and there is no good fucking reason for them to do it. It’s blatantly just so they can steal forgetful customers’ money.
Internet mobs will be like "why doesnt anyone just ADMIT when theyre WRONG anymore??!!" and then treat someone like they deserve the death penalty because they said something off-colour on twitter when they were 14
No one will admit that they were wrong if you treat being wrong like its an eternal indictment against them with no chance for rehabilitation
these tags, tbh. we fucked up when we allowed "the people you hurt aren't obligated to accept your apology" to shift into "...so you have to shut up and accept whatever abuse is hurled your way no matter what, forever, and if you ever say anything about it, you're deflecting and playing the victim."
all this accomplishes is driving people to double down & refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing, bc to admit fault would be to accept that you're a Bad Person, which means you deserve whatever you get.
hey mod iggy pt 2!
i would also love a board of barok van zieks x ryunosuke naruhodo also from the great ace attorney, with aesthetics of european nobility and traditional japan, and themes of bitterness and growth/rivals-to-lovers <3
-once again, i am but a masked crusader and absolutely not mod kaito in any way
sorry for the delay! my school work has been less than enjoyable as of recent. i hope this looks good!
you may have to click the image for better quality
I'd like to point out, as someone who was studying child and adolescent mental health, children cope through play. The basis of therapy for young children is play. It's one of the most adaptive coping skills a child has.
What is the big difference between a child using their toys to display an unhealthy relationship and feeling catharsis and an adult using fiction to display unhealthy relationships to cope and feel catharsis?
And I mean, not everyone feels catharsis from that and that's fair but lots of folks do. And that's normal and healthy.
As long as the fiction is contained (in the appropriate tags, with appropriate warnings, etc), it's so healthy. And so normal.
Hey, everybody, this is a really quick thing you can do in like two minutes, the article shows you exactly how to do it and poof, ad ID deleted! Take a sec to read and protect yourself, it’s very short I prommy <3
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