#antishipping

I had no idea what those terms meant, but by only looking around and catching some hints, I understood (wrongly) that proshipping stood for 'problematic shipping', and I've seen a lot of people explaining it as exactly that, no further elaboration, done.

Previously I thought it meant professional shipping, which made as much sense to me as it makes to you, don't judge ok.

So I asked a friend who has been around fandom spaces for longer periods about it, and they kindly explained to me that the term is not actually meant as problematic shipping.

It is pro-ship as in "pro all ships."

In a sense of you being able to ship whatever you want, and you're not a bad person for shipping the fictional characters, much like like how being "pro-choice" means believing everyone has the right to safe abortions if they want to, not that they are in favor of problematic choices like, wtf.

Antishipping, however, means being against whatever that individual anti deems a problematic ship, and thinking that other people should also oppose it, as well as generally being in favor of censoring "problematic" content in fanfic. So they wrapped the original meaning to mean problematic shipping when that's not really what pro ship people mean when they say they're pro-ship.

You can be a proshipper and only ship the most basic, normal, vanilla, fluff things ever. It only means you won't go after other people who ship couples that you don't.

You see?

And instead of asking about it on tumblr or twitter, where a lot of people are being awful at explaining, and doing it oh so wrong, if you google it you find the actual origin and meaning of the terms.

Even the google AI, the damn gemini who sucks, got the term explanation right.

So, spreading misinformation is really a choice nowadays, as is being ignorant.

This also borders the subject of anime characters being minors, and it splashes in the selfshipping/yumeshipping area as well.

It seems to be a recurring theme in every single fandom space, that when you, — a person, a human being, flesh and bone, soul trapped in the mortal shell that you are — grow up and age, you can't ship yourself with the character you used to ship yourself with as a minor, because — shockingly — the character does not grow up with you, since it is a drawing, a bundle of words, a concept of your imagination, an amount of pixels, an amalgamation of the author's wildest fetishes, etc.

So, the moment you hit your eighteens you can no longer draw yourself, imagine yourself, ship yourself with that character.

"They are fifteen, they are minors." "It is immoral. It is criminal. It is unholy. It is problematic."

Right? So, this is the background I can provide you if you have never in your life opened twitter, tumblr or TikTok to stumble upon some of these fandom discourses and miss concepts.

And these are a few of the things going on and on and on, and of course I blocked the whole names, handlers, everything ffs it's the bare minimum, I cannot care less about the individuals here, I'm talking about the main thing.

This is, to the date, one of the biggest not-issue I've ever seen in the whole fandom aspect.

Dearest, and I will hold your hands as I tell you this, my sweet, sweet darling, you do not need to feel guilty about liking the PNG.

"But she is 70 years old and she likes this character that is depicted as being 14 years old!"

Baby. Sugar. My summertime sadness.

Look at me.

this, right here, is Jotaro Kujo. This, this man, this tall, large, broad shouldered man. This bricked motherfucker. This character that can be YOUR dad, is a minor.

And this other character here is ALSO a minor. Shiryu. And all the other damn saint seiyas or whatever the hell they are. Saori is a minor AS WELL.

So I ask you now:

Do they look like minors to you?

They do not, you can try and twist it as you may, but they do not look like children nor teenagers.

They also do not ACT, think or are portrayed as such — they act like damn adults, young adults on their 20s to say the least.

You are not being a terrible person for being attracted to these characters. (this is the paragraph you come back to if you don't understand why it's okay to ship fictional characters)

You are attracted to them because of their design, their physique, their background/history, their personality.

You are not attracted to them because they are said to be a fucking minor.

Can you see the difference? Can you understand such a complex concept? Can you wrap your head around it?

So go ahead and keep shipping yourself with that twink, with that BNHA buff shredded character, with JJK long lean annoying character and whatnot.

I promise you they won't be disgusted at you, and I say with confidence that this is because they do not exist, so they are not capable of being hurt, nor feeling anything.

That's the beauty of it, isn't it.

The beauty of fanfiction, fanart, fandom.

Fiction.

You can enjoy things.

You can also enjoy seeing the twinkatron that looks like he's 25 but is said to be 17 making out with the 600 years old gay ass bara.

You can ship the character that is 40yo with the other character that looks like he is 26yo but the author swears he is 17yo.

⚠️If you don't really get why, go back a few paragraphs and rewind, it's explained right up there.

You won't be sent to jail for that.

And you won't be deemed inferior, filthier or a predator because you enjoy such things with the fictional gay little dolls.

And, newsflash, there is no space for prudes and bullies and conservatives nor antis on fandom spaces.

Oh but I don't think it's right for people to like a character because they're adults and the character is not.

Get fucked.

Try and use that smooth brain of yours to think that the world does not, in fact, revolve around you and your opinions.

I'm giving you the small mercy of explaining the obvious thing that fiction is not reality and vice versa.

Why would you feel entitled to harass someone because you, dumbass, think they shouldn't be able to enjoy their comfort PNG?

Fandom is dying because of you and yours.

There is no crime being committed and no correlation with real life, you dense motherfucker.

You all sound like the satanic-panic people from the 90's big media telling parents that Yu-Gi-Oh, Dungeons and Dragons, Pokémon and Digimon are things that are used to worship the Devil and that they will make your children become satanists.

That's how dumb you sound when you try and forbid someone to enjoy a character kissing other character or even their fictional persona.

Like, damn, go find something real to worry about.

You're worried about predators on the internet?

Or are you worried because your online friend is liking that fictional anime couple you deem PROBLEMATIC?

So you really need to go after the real issue and act on it.

Log off twitter and tumblr and go research institutions that actively combat predatorial behavior online and offline, or that helps SA survivors perhaps, it's way better and way more effective than being some entitled moron that tries their best to rip off the little comfort some people find in their silly png dolls and harass them out of a fandom.

Or are you just doing this shit because you, little star, don't like when other people like different things?

Let me grab another spectrum of this for you, because I know people act and speak with malicious intent and love to twist and talk about things that have nothing to do with the subject. And this will get worse as we go, so bear with me.

Look at this character. This is a dragon of hundreds and thousands of years. An adult, if you may.

Does it LOOK like this toddler is an adult?

Because I see people, mostly men sigh, justifying nsfw art of this big headed infant due to their age being over 500yo.

This character is, at BEST, a 6yo.

It is portrayed as one, it BEHAVES as one, it LOOKS LIKE A TODDLER.

So, here we go again, if you are attracted to /the character that is the representation of a toddler/ you oughta seek therapy, you may want to work this shit out and understand EXACTLY "what, in a 6yo, is making you want to do whatever you want to do with them."

Age in some medias, specifically anime and manga, is arbitrary.

It just is, there's nothing we can do about it.

So what matters, and I'm being crude, is the appearance of the character + how they behave + how they act and think.

Rebeca, from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, is an adult. She is short and lean, but she presents herself as an adult since the first episode. She is childish, bratty and crude as well, those are personality traits. Still an adult.

Shipping Anya, from SpyxFamily with Loid, for instance, should also make you go seek some checking and therapy to understand what, in this scenario, arouses you. She is portrayed as an infant, thinks like an infant, looks like an infant and behaves like an infant. And he is, looks, thinks and behaves as an adult.

I'm being as didactical as I can so everyone can follow, but there's only so much I can do. I can't magically make you understand the most simple things if you're not willing.

People are in desperate need of depth understanding. Of text interpretation classes sometimes. Of... thinking. Really thinking.

You don't need to be Einstein to understand or think a little before talking about things you don't know, you just need to live the real life, research subjects, you need to know people outside of the internet, interact with your surroundings, with colleagues in school, college, workplace, the supermarket, with real people, live your life, gather knowledge and experience things.

It's not black and white as many, many people think it is.

It's very fucking gray, it's something worth debating OUTSIDE of the internet mostly, with the friends you have that are inside fandoms, the people that know how to discuss the nuances of character creation, artistic choices, and such.

Hell, I spent hours debating the reason behind characters looking like middle aged dads and then turning out to be sixteen years old because the author says so.

Culture, in Japan for instance, sometimes is a big reason behind their aesthetic choices. As is age of consent in the country behind the canon content.

There are even some debates here and there on the internet talking about these things, I may link them below, but I just wanted to rant and put in actual words that antis/prudes/entitled fans are really fucking stupid, and kids/teenagers are becoming more and more like that, not to mention they are becoming conservative?? therefore reflecting a reality that existed before they were even living in the ballsack of their parent.

Like, babes, you were supposed to be chill and smart, how the fuck did things get so backwards that teenagers are just straight up trying to purge kinks from Ao3, like?

And before you think, consider and decide to comment/ask anything rude, dumb or slightly out of context because you can't comprehend, interpretate or understand words put together in a text, remember that I am not above telling you to give your parents a smidge of happiness and end it all.

Fandom discourse: If they look like an adult and act like one then whatever arbitrary age placed by the author doesn't matter.

r/FanFiction | wowowowthrowaway44

r/CharacterRant | nihilnothings000

If people say that the arbitrary age does not matter then wouldn't that mean that the appearance of the drawing is all that matters in the end? In spite of this, people seem to be up-in-arms on drawings that already look non-suspect enough even though most people said that an arbitrarily placed age rating should not matter. They look like adults, sound like adults, and they act like adults so they are more less adults. Though you might also say: "There are teens who can pass off adults too so is this not trying to justify ephebophilia?" Regarding that I suppose these are one of the rare moments where the statement "it's just a drawing applies". The main difference between IRL teens that pass off as adults and fictional ones are solely the fact that the latter aren't real. Fictional arbitrarily labelled teenagers aren't going to be affected by the comments made by horny teens and young adults regardless of sex/gender. Think of it like this, when people are attracted to Zandaya's character in "Euphoria" (mentally sound) people are not attracted to the characters because they're teens but because the character that Zandaya (the legal adult) is playing is attractive. Apply this logic to fictional characters and it's more or less the same, most are attracted to the drawing that looks like an adult, not the arbitrarily place age by the author. Since this debate tend to persist a lot in shounen targeted series I suppose there are additional reasons to make the characters attractive as possible: • Attractive characters sell to get teens regardless of sex/gender to thirst over them as well and at this age most teenagers are pretty hormonal. Stories are in the end the most important but having an attractive looking character does help keep in increasing attachment. • However, due to anime and manga being a medium with a periphery demographic it probably attracts those who're above teenagers like college students and young adults. They also have a larger spending power for merchandise, physical books, and DVDs considering that they have jobs at that point so it's best that the characters made don't look like literal kids to make it less iffy (some weirdos might not care but at least if the characters look like adults then it'd probably garner less side-eyes and looks of suspect) • It also doesn't help that anime/manga characters tend to be drawn as age ambiguous as possible, with only wrinkles and sharpness of eyes (sometimes) being an indicator of them being older. These debates wouldn't have happened if Japan could stop romanticizing high school and have them be set in college, but considering the target demographic being young teenagers we're gonna have a lot of settings be in HS than college. I really hate how the ones who usually say that it's just a drawing are the ones trying to justify attraction to lolis which makes it difficult for this side to be talked about, nuance in the Internet truly is dead.