I actually do agree that getting too into Discourse on either side of the anti-proship debate is unhealthy, bc getting too into online discourse is by nature unhealthy.
But like. One side is built around trusting yourself and your immediate audience to be responsible engaging with fiction.
And the other side is half the living embodiment of Morality OCD thoughts and half regurgitating conservative and radfem talking points, and then being surprised when their own puritanism inevitably comes back to bite them.
Like these are not equally bad camps djsjfjejtnekf As someone who has been in both, one was actively detrimental to my mental health, and one was adopted naturally as my mental state improved; 3 guesses, no prize, as to which happened when.
Personally, I have serious concerns about the fact that my friends and myself are repeatedly, forcibly cut off from the wider fandom because a bunch of adults have convinced themselves and a bunch of teens we're dangerous predators even without any real evidence.
Like. Most of us were already staying away bc we knew this was going to happen, and it happened.
And idk there's not really anything else to say, is there? lol. It's about exerting control. Using that control to isolate us. Using that control to consolidate opportunities to boost your own popularity and feel righteous doing it.
But also like. Yall started tearing yourselves up over ship discourse without us there at all; strictly infighting. Because again, it's about control. So like yeah dw we won't willingly put ourselves in a position for u to flex on us; have fun keeping your sense of superiority without us there to be easy scapegoats.
It's both biphobic and homophobic to target M/M ships as being part of some problem, and to posit that they are somehow erasing bisexuality ignores that bi men...like men....
Like. It was transparent in 2020 when any ship involving a man, but especially M/M ships, were considered bad and misogynist and lesbophobic. And it was transparent in 2022 where specifically M/M ships consistently got singled out as biphobic.
Stop trying to strong-arm buzzwords when you really just want to say "I wish x ship was more popular." All you've been doing for 2 years now is being homophobic towards mlm and M/M ships.
I was always a rather passive anti? By 16-17 I was annoyed by most ppl I saw and probably would have called myself neutral. I don't think it's a coincidence that by this point I was in a DBT therapy group where skills were taught to own and manage our own feelings and behavior to the best of our ability.
I look back at the behavior I condoned towards artists who hadn't done a thing wrong and I still get hit by waves of guilt like. I wasn't even active in the harassment per se, but I absolutely rationalized it as being deserved when it just. Plainly wasn't.
Constant crosstagging while feigning innocence toward such behaviour; constant posts and answered asks about how ~dangerous~ an artist was for drawing a ship. Same artist mocks antis for being so pressed abt a 7 year age gap btwn a fictional 18 year old and a fictional 25 year old? They're as evil and bad as plebcomics.
One artist was deemed an active danger to children bc they did nude figure studies and made them homestuck characters. Hatred toward artists was obsessive; new accusations against them to justify continued obsession were often just. Being mad they still existed on the platform.
Anyway, just. I can't get back into the old headspace I occupied. I don't know if I ever will be. But what I've seen since 2020 has only served to make antidom and the behaviors it encourages just. Inexcusable to me.
And I look back at 13 year old me and I just feel bad. Guilty. For all the claims and behavior I'd end up spewing and supporting in those next 4 years. Especially now not only being on the receiving end starting literal months after I turned 18 and getting a refresh every few months, but also seeing shit like the harassment of Bryan Fuller; iamlunasol; seeing an artist, who isn't even proship but merely offered support to one bc they were dealing with a hacker, get "outed" as gay by antis to their family while living in Iran. Quotation marks bc the family member they told already knew, but that wasn't common knowledge; seeing the horrifying reactions to the possibility that a 15 year old killed themselves over harassment received over an rpf shockfic.
I still feel pangs of panic and shame and paranoia while making innocuous content. I have lost a large amount of my capacity to trust and befriend new faces bc of the willingness to turn on me no questions asked. But mostly I see teen antis and just. Either you're going to grow up without understanding why and how what you're doing is genuinely harmful, or else you're going to look back on your teenage years and feel awful. Antis are hurting real people, and it gets harder to ignore that the older you get; the more control you get in your own life. And like idk I just find the whole thing skeevy and v much built around exploiting young people by grabbing them before they can realize all the radfem and otherwise reactionary and conservative rhetoric that antidom is drowning in.
Idk how to end this lmao. Uh. If your side is pointing at everything it doesn't like ad is seeing pedophilia. Ask why the ppl most likely to agree with that assessment believe in pizzagate, the wayfair conspiracy, and satanic panic
The US is on the verge of losing. Almost all progress since the 60s in terms of queer liberation so with all sincerity I do not give a singular fuck abt ppl having m/m ships in a way you dislike
and I've got no time for entertaining transandrophobic dogwhistles while we stare down criminalization of existing as trans ppl.
