#drama--

[skimblyshanks]

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.

[skimblyshanks]

( X )

[skimblyshanks]

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.

[skimblyshanks]

Has the anti infighting abt this stopped now?

Bc as a note. In case it crops back up.

M/M shipping is not bi erasure.

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.

[skimblyshanks]

I'll just say.

I was an anti ages 13-17.

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

[skimblyshanks]

Ive been out of the Cats loop for a while and slowly refollowing people. What happened with the drama??

So, pre existing context is the whole pro/anti ship schism.

But basically, back in November there was a whole thing with gifs being reuploaded without giving proper credit to the person who filmed the footage, which wasn't publicly shared at that point. And it got turned into a pro/anti thing bc of course it did.

So myself and a few others since then started to watermark our gifs. Our own usernames if we're working from boots that are in circulation, the master's/cameraperson's name for clips or footage that have someone on tumblr we can point back to.

And so a few ppl on the pro side of the schism have some bootlegs. Very recent bootlegs of a very recently closed production. And whit used some of the footage for a closing tribute, as well as making some gifsets out of portions of the boots that the masters agreed could be shared. Those gifsets are watermarked with the masters' names

So through all of this ppl on the anti side realize we have bootlegs. And suddenly these ppl who were stealing our content and calling us names sent over someone to politely ask if someone they had mutually blocked would be willing to share their bootleg.

Its already kind of a common thing within bootleg trading to not immediately release footage for circulation, for a number of reasons. In this particular case, there is also the issue of the fact that the people requesting these bootlegs have been inconsiderate if not outright hostile when we have requested credit for a cameraperson or set boundaries about reuploading our gifs.

Anyway. The person asking for bootlegs from us got told "the bootlegs aren't being circulated right now." Which is a true statement, they aren't. I don't have access to one of them, despite what some ppl might tell you. Again, there are multiple reasons that these boots aren't being circulated right now.

Anyway people are mad that pro shippers aren't releasing all full bootlegs taken onto YouTube or similarly gift it to people bc something something sharing the arts, and apparently us watermarking gifs of footage they can't access is a powerplay and not something we did in direct response to a refusal to credit sources when the source was a "proshitter".

This argument was actually floated back in November during the gif drama, too; that we were being selfish and hoarding footage. Nevermind that I know antis have their own footage that hasn't been released to circulation yet. Nevermind that boots having a stage of "not for trade" is common within the trading sphere, in part as a protection for the master. Once again, it just shows an entitlement and a disregard for how bootlegging culture works. This stuff is going to be released. But not right now. They just don't want to have to wait.

[skimblyshanks]

Anyway it's not bootlicking (heh heh, puns) to say that boot masters don't have to release their footage immediately after taking it, and in many cases there are legal reasons for them to keep it to their chest/Not For Trade until the venue/producers punishing the bootleggers becomes more trouble than its worth. It's been A Problem within recent years of NFT conditions being violated and footage being leaked, and as a result a lot of bigger name masters have slowed/stopped their bootlegging, even prior to 2020.

No one is saying these boots will never be widely available.

We're saying they aren't available right now, and the masters are not comfortable giving access directly to people and their friends who have shown themselves inconsiderate of respecting our boundaries on the issues of credit and reposting.

You can get them once they've been released for wider trading, and that will be on the masters' terms.

Waiting is part of what you have to do when you want bootlegs. Not every bootleg is going to be gifted to you.

It is, indeed, entitled behavior to demand immediate free access to the outcome of other people's risks and costs.