"Jackpot"

Look you could or “would” say proshipping means problematic shipping all day long but you would be wrong. That is revisionist history. Pro is not short for problematic, pro is the opposite of anti. It means for. For shipping. To contrast against anti-shipping/shippers.

Proshippers are folks that think that all ships and dynamics are valid, and that people should be allowed to play with their dolls however they want to without being harassed. I don’t have to like a ship to want others who do be allowed to set sail with flags flying proudly. There are ships or dynamics that I’m never going to be interested in reading but I respect the right of the author to write it. And I hope those who are interested in reading that stuff make sure to tell the writer what a great job they did, in part to drown out the noise of the antis who say they don’t want to interact but then keep interacting in the most negative ways.

“They are against ships that could possibly harm an involved member.”

The crux of the matter is that characters in fanfic ARE NOT REAL which means any harm is not real. No one is actually being abused. Thought crimes are not real crimes.

Also, choosing to read something that made you (you in the general sense not specifically the person who wrote these tags) is self-harm as far as I’m concerned, and none of that is the fault or responsibility of the author. “But it triggered me!” No, you triggered you. Stop reading.

Antis are absolutely not against all shipping, despite aligning themselves with the term “anti-shipping.” They think their ships are above moral reproach and that because they only ship morally acceptable ships it gives the right to harass others.

And then after all those words, you acknowledge that antis are fine with some ships, and this contradicts the "anti-shipping" label. That's just agreeing with their point, that the label is deceptive.

Literally the person who wrote that tag was saying that. Like that's exactly what it says.

"Proshipper" is a name that was created in reaction to "antishippers" specifically. It has never stood for "problematic shippers," but a number of antis have tried to convince people it does. While antis claim to only be against "problematic" ships, what constitutes "problematic" varies wildly from person to person. I have seen people go so far to say that it's problematic to ship a "non-canon pairing."

"Proshipping" just means that you mind your own fucking business and let other people do what they want. It's the old philosophy of "ship and let ship" and "don't like/don't read." These are fictional characters, and we are not here to play thought crime police.

@betrayedbycinnamon and I aren't misreading that, you are. The "pro stands for problematic" assertion by some antis is not new, nor do I believe it's the first time it's been brought up in the notes of this post.

If you read the second link I included, you'd note that this misconception is so common that it's even made the Fanlore entry:

One common misconception is that the prefix "pro-" in "proshipper" is derivative from the word "problematic" and therefore the term is an abbreviation of "problematic shipper"[1][2][3][4]. This definition is occasionally used in the company of other misbeliefs such as that "proship" is an adjective or label indicative of any particular genre of 'condemnable' ship [e.g. "this pairing is proship", "do you proship?"] or that proshipping is a verb used to describe the act of engaging with these ships.

There are citations and examples of it being used this way.

You could go ask the person who left the tags what was intended, but it feels like you're trying to pick apart a semantic argument when it's clear to anyone with any ounce of literacy what was intended.

Source is Instagram user thatmodernlife. Per Reddit, this post was deleted quickly, and was captioned:

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

“The real truth is, I would perform my show and I would meet kids after and young girls would come up to me and they understood what I was expressing in that bit onstage way more than guys my own age. Way more. So if there was a bridge between us that I had to cross to write the movie [Eighth Grade], it was built to me by them. I felt understood by them before I presumed to understand them.”

Behold! The ONE thing that bothered to relate its female audience with positivity:

Source: June 1998 issue of Newtype, in a special supplement/booklet titled 「まるごと富野」 (“Marugoto Tomino” / “All About Tomino”)

Clip from the NHK documentary where Tomino says this AGAIN and continues on to say that if they wanted a movie he knew they had to hold on to this part of the fandom. https://x.com/tayuta0079/status/1577387893135384577

a million times this. “I don’t like these xyz fics” then don’t read them. THEY ARE NOT FOR YOU!!!!!!! no one forces you to read anything you don’t want to read. no one forces you to consume art you don’t enjoy. it’s so easy to click that mute or block button. instead of insulting fanfics or fan art for not fitting your personal liking, either choose something that does fit your personal liking, or write the fic you want to read yourself / draw the art you want to consume yourself.

This is what AO3 is designed to prevent.

This is what AO3 is here for.

You will never have to worry about middle of the night fic purges.

Censorship.

Purity culture cults and advertiser tantrums.

Your fic stays, until you yourself take it down.

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