Honestly I’m so confused by the whole “pro ship” label. I’m not comfortable being followed by those who ship inc3st or are aggressive about it, but like I’m totally fine with an adult shipping themselves with All Might, like what? Or villain stuff either bc like.. I get it 👀 It’s just such a broad label
I think the thing about it is like… Being “pro-ship” was never a community the way being an anti is. Being pro-ship or pro-fiction just seems to mean that you don’t necessarily care what other people ship, as long as they aren’t shoving it up your nose or trying to force you to ship it. It’s a new version if the “ship and let ship” mindset I grew up with, where we just like… Really didn’t care what other people did with fictional characters. We interacted if we vibed, and didn’t if we didn’t. It just means you don’t harass people over a ship. Which is honestly normal and not hard to do.
Antis on the other hand seem to like to organize and attack people. They’re a community that is constantly talking and pointing fingers and throwing themselves at people. They DO harass people, very frequently and for often nonsensical reasons– look through my blog a bit and you’ll find them calling me a pedophile due to my relationship with All Might. On my old blog someone led a campaign calling me a serial killer because of yet another F/O. They think that if you ship something they don’t like, be it incest or villains or anything, you deserve to die and have your life ruined because you’re an awful person because only AWFUL people like problematic media. It hinges on their belief that shipping = morality, which… It clearly doesn’t, considering you have people on that side trying to commit straight up murder and handwaving it away because “I only gave needle-filled cookies to a BAD person”. It’s fucked up.
And the thing is? You don’t have to use the label “pro-shipper”. I don’t! I just openly hate antis and point out how stupid they are. I’m pro- Leaving People Alone If They Aren’t Hurting Me. Someone shipping something on their own blog where I can choose not to see it? Not hurting me. Someone sending me death threats because they think all age gaps are pedophilic in nature? VERY hurting me. It’s a simple process and makes it easy to tell who the real assholes are.
We create our own online experiences. Don’t attack people, but don’t be afraid of blocking things that hurt you. And… Controversial take, but someone following you does NOT mean you gotta follow them back. They can consume your content without you consuming theirs. It’s okay to ignore people if you don’t care for their content. Like we’re allowed to just let people live.
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