The focus should really be on people learning how to consume a wide range of media in a healthy way, and that includes being able to process feelings of disgust, rage, and discomfort in cases where the narrative absolutely is intending you to feel that way!

It feels like we're witnessing a lot of people now grow too comfortable with what they are familiar with that they project their inability to process negative feelings on others and blame the content itself.

For instance, I am aware that I cannot handle very explicit and violent scenes of SA, and had no warning when I first watched The Flowers of War movie. I remember being so affected, I was haunted by those scenes for days. But I don't condemn the movie for existing just because it contains a subject and content that makes me uncomfortable and upset. Especially for what was a war movie.

Ugly things deserve to exist. The critical focus should be on the execution and narrative intent, and even if those end up being bad, people are allowed to make bad things! People can suck at writing! They exist!

We cannot be wishy washy when it comes to creative freedom, especially when you try to commit what is "morally good" to paper under such a subjective perspective.

Multiple things can exists at once, and in this case it's also the fact people are getting too comfortable with the thought of normalizing certain topics and not in a media literacy type of way, but more of a

"Fiction doesn't equal reality!" Or more disturbingly "So long as they only do it behind close doors and doesn't effect me I don't see the problem"

No one has any issues with horror, or disturbing media, and before anyone says anything I say this as an English literature teacher who focuses on Post war literature so you can IMAGINE the things I have to teach and share understanding with

To word as simply and crudely as possible look below

And not to demonize, but if you are watching say Lolita, and rather than understanding that this is from the POV of a predator and has layer of layers to the story, and instead ingredients IDOLIZING and making this sad story out to be sexy, chic, or god forbid, romantic, then you need to stop and question why and see if you have any further issues adding to it

And as much as people hate to acknowledge this, authors DO infact need to be watched and criticized when needed. It's incredibly easy to make CP, romantic violence, bigotry, and hate filled works, and simply slap a genre label on it and then cry "THE ANTIS A RUNING EVERYTHING AND TRYING TO CANCEL ME 😭😭😭😭"

Splatterpunk ESPECIALLY has this issue and is happening with more frequency this last few years

To simply call someone an anti without even stopping to think why and to ignore the same critical thinking you demand others to use is sad at best and bitterly pathetic most of the time

Perhaps you're not getting the point of the original post, so I'm going to back up a bit. You may not have been in fandom spaces for long enough to know that "proshipping" is a term created by antis so they could carve out an "us vs. them" space in fandom.

Proshipping was the default. "Live and let live" was the motto most fans lived by, at least when I first got into fanfiction in the 90s. This is how I (and a lot of people) define it.

I know exactly why antis think they way they do. I was Mormon once. You don't get more pro-censorship, thought-policing than that. So, yes, I have years of personal history and critical thinking when it comes to considering the media I consume. Don't worry about me, I'm doing just fine.

What I worry about are young people growing up in this environment where fantasies aren't only considered sinful, they're considered harmful, and they're being told to purge them from their thoughts if they want to be a good person. I can't even begin to describe how harmful that is to children and adults alike.

I do maintain that partly why Israel is losing the PR war is that they can’t stop the IDF acting like fucking idiot monsters on instagram and tiktok.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if social media had been a thing during the Iraq war.

Reblog to kill it faster

I've noticed this pattern with antis in fandom where, in their attempt to distance themselves from anything and everything "problematic" in their fandoms, they refuse to acknowledge when they DO enjoy something problematic. Therefore, they don't recognize the problematic elements of the ship, character, media, etc. They'll also heavily downplay or deny any problematic. aspects of their favorite fandom thing.

I just saw an example of this and it is blowing my mind right now and I need to share this with y'all.

It involves the comments on this video.

Some context for Princess and the Frog: the blonde girl is Charlotte, also called Lottie. She's the main character Tiana's best friend. Charlotte's goal was always to marry a prince, and she almost marries (who she believes to be) Prince Naveen, but once she sees that Naveen and Tiana are in love, she tries to help them turn back human so they can be together.

At the end of the movie, Tiana and Naveen get married, and this scene plays after. Charlotte dances with Naveen's kid brother, and says "I've waited this long" in response to him saying that he's 6 and a half years old.

Now Charlotte's line here, if you look at the context clues of her story line, implies that she's saying "I've waited this long for a prince to marry, so I can wait longer for Naveen's younger brother to grow up." It's just a joke. Albeit, a joke that many will find to be very uncomfortable and inappropriate, but a joke nonetheless. I highly doubt Charlotte is actually going to "wait for" this child to grow up to marry him. She's making a joke at her expense, about her desperation of her dream to marry a prince.

BUT FOR SOME REASON.... many of the comments are like "she means that she's been waiting to DANCE with a prince."

I'm completely and utterly serious y'all. Here are some of the comments along those lines, with thousands of thumbs up each.

If you've seen this movie, you'll realize that these comments make absolutely no sense for more than one reason.

1) Charlotte danced with Prince Naveen (or at least with the villain disguised as him) earlier in the movie. She danced with a prince already. Why would that still be her dream if she already accomplished that?

2) Lottie speaks multiple times (during her childhood and in present day as a young adult) about her dream of "marrying a prince." Not dancing with a prince. Not meeting one. No, she wants to MARRY A PRINCE AND BE A PRINCESS.

This video has some clips of her saying this, at the time stamps 0:20, 2:52, 4:08, and 5:21.

Charlotte does give up her dream of marrying Naveen specifically for Tiana, because she see that he makes Tiana happy. But with how she jumps in like a wide receiver to catch the bouquet at Naveen and Tiana's wedding, it's clear she still has her dream of marrying *A* prince, just not Naveen.

But back to the comments on that video.

The comments seem to be downplaying the actual implication of her line. It's almost like they're desperately trying to ignore what she actually meant and make it more wholesome because they don't want to admit that their favorite movie has an uncomfy and inappropriate joke.

It's disturbing that this is yet another example where people in fandom (who are fantis or have been influenced by that fanti mindset) are downplaying a scene (or a ship, trope, etc) that is ACTUALLY problematic because they personally like the movie or the character and they don't want to admit that it has some issues. Instead of just admitting "yeah that scene/line was kinda fucked up and gross," they are jumping through HOOPS to make it seem more innocent than it was. And this is completely blowing my mind and is honestly concerning.

If you want to personally interpret it in a different way, in a way to make it more palatable to you, be my guest. That's what fandom and fanon is all about and I do that a lot too. But to see so many people outright deny the actual implications of this line is... bizarre af. It's one thing to be like "hmm yeah I don't like that, so I'm going to personally interpret this ship/trope/scene differently so it's more comfortable to me." It's another thing entirely to be in complete denial and ignore the actual context of the character and their story.

Also, so many of the other comments on the video aren't even commenting on the actual scene or on what Charlotte said. They're just generic comments on how much they love Charlotte as a character or how they miss this 2D animation. It's like they're trying reallyyyyyy hard to ignore the joke that's being made.

On the grander scheme, this is concerning because these people are refusing to acknowledge something that's inappropriate at best and predatory at worse (an adult "waiting" for a child to grow up) because they don't want to be caught enjoying/supporting something "bad."

All their talk about normalizing and normalization, but they're the ones kinda normalizing bad things by downplaying them or being in denial of it when it's in THEIR favorite media. And that is very concerning and a big issue.

This is some fascinating analysis! This is, like, basic text comprehension, and it's scary that so many people are training themselves out of using it.

For real! And this is a Disney movie too. Not to say that Disney characters can't be complex, but many characters from a Disney princess movie are going to be pretty simple, simple enough for kids to comprehend at least. So the fact that so many people in these comments are completely missing Charlotte's pretty simple motivations is concerning.

Gonna jump on here with a quick little story. When I saw this movie, during the credits, I overhead the group behind me say things like, "I'll give him a pass if he's 18, but if he's 22, then no" and "she's 16, it's so weird" and I was screaming internally because it's just like "THAT'S seriously your takeaway after watching this beautiful movie?? can't relate."

Anyways I agree with anon's take here. There's really nothing more than they obviously care about each other (which makes sense considering the life-changing, world-saving events they went through together) and it's hinted that they may be a thing after the movies events. And besides that, their ages are literally irrelevant

So, Liz @lizcourserants and I are collecting receipts on F8 and his harassment mob to warn people about them. Too many people are unaware of how much damage they do. I also encourage others to report any behaviour that breaks TOS (there is a lot) to at least slightly further the attempt to mitigate their harm, beyond just compiling this record of their shitty behaviour. Deplatform toxic individuals. Report bigoted and harassing tweets so marginalised people don't have to see their hateful diatribes. They are actively making pro ship spaces hostile to the very people that made them in the first place. Any examples of harassment, bigotry (especially insinuating queer people are groomers or predators), etc would be appreciated.

If that group can kick me, an acc with 14k+ followers, off twitter based on false reports, they can essentially run wild and terrorise the pro ship community wherever they like. They already grift off our efforts to spread awareness about the damage censorship does and give us a bad name, and frankly I think we should say enough is enough and not let them get any more of a foothold in coopting our spaces. I think we should make a concerted effort to distance ourselves from these types of people (bigots, typically altright leaning) as much as possible and kick them out of any pro ship spaces. They clearly do serious damage, and as a community founded by queer fandomgoers, they're blatantly disrespecting the very people that previously have gone to bat for them. They bite the hand that feeds, so to speak, and they'll continue to do so until we separate ourselves as much as possible.

Imho we can do this by raising awareness about what they've done and reporting their harassment where we can. They get platforms by having their worst behaviour go under the radar, unreported and under-discussed, and we need to stop that. I'm aware the internet isn't a safe space, but pro shipping as a community is supposed to (and always has been previously) be by and for marginalised people who wish to express themselves through art in an accepting, welcoming environment.

I'd appreciate any boosts here. If you want to get this to twitter or anyone else outside of this website who's been a victim of that group of harassers, please feel free to screenshot and share as well.

If you have any screenshots of F8 or his ilk, please message them to me here. You can make a submission too

An update to the situation regarding @/birdsong-warriors and @/talkingtalltales

all trigger warnings for the previous document apply to this update as well.

please read the document in full before making your judgements.

this is the last i will be speaking on this, unless something major occurs.

update document: x

original post: x

Further Statement Regarding Suspension

So, the more I look into the situation, the more it's clear this was a coordinated harassment attempt from F//ateCE//O and the rest of his unhinged transphobic mob. Someone I followed was outed as a MAP, a fact I had zero clue about. I had previously promoted her patreon before knowing about this. When Fate's cronies mentioned it, I said to please go to the police with any criminal evidence, and also not to link me to triggering callout threads full of MAP discourse, which I stay the hell away from. This person had literally already deactivated on twitter so there was no one to unfollow. Idk what the point of any of it was. I literally wanted nothing to do with any of this and told everyone to go to the police for real, this was way above my pay grade. Also, fun fact nobody likes to mention, MY MOTHER WAS IN HOSPITAL AT THE TIME. I had a lot to worry about, and what to do with a potential criminal case (again, very long and unhinged callout thread from known liars and transphobes, so I have no idea about the veracity of any of these claims based on an untrustworthy background) that I have no jurisdiction over (as an internet person??? And not the FBI??) was not my top priority at the time.

That is it. I did not defend them. I did not advocate for pro contact. I said be succinct with your evidence so I don't get fucking triggered and also I AM NOT A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. Anyway, that entire l0lichud side of twitter has turned on me and frothed themselves into a rage without actually listening to a word I said. Typical word of mouth bs. If my account isn't reinstated, I honestly may not even go back. The fact that the proship community has been invaded by these bigots and trolls on twt has been a fact that has continuously exhausted me. I've spoken about it extensively so I won't go into it here, but let me tell you, these people damage our reputation beyond repair, spread disinformation and bigotry, and I want nothing to do with any of them.

I also had this transphobic lot in my twitter mentions, leaving replies about this same thing simply because that person and I were mutuals. Likewise, I also had no idea about that person being a MAP. That was something that she revealed on discord very recently, and sceenshots of that began being passed around on Twitter, which I only saw a few days ago. By the time I saw it, the person's Twitter account had been suspended so, like Mouse, there was no one to unfollow. Even when I did follow the person, we barely interacted. I followed her because she called out bigoted l0licons and I replied to her tweets occasionally. That's it. But the l0lichuds in my replies were acting like I was defending a MAP just because I was mutuals with her prior to me being aware that she came forward about herself.

So if this person's account was already gone, this unraveled on discord (where I'm not even present), and there was no longer a twitter account to unfollow, why were these l0lichuds badgering me about it so much? Oh yeah, because they are a bunch of bigots who are angry that people like me and Mouse don't put up with their bigotry, and they're trying to slander us as pedo groomers because that's what bigoted right-wing conservatives do.

Anyways I'm also disgusted and upset that these bigoted l0lichud have invaded proship/fic spaces on twitter. I call them leeches a lot over there and that's what they are. They're nothing but a bunch of parasites. I block and block and block, they get suspended for being bigots, but they just remake new accounts and come back like headless roaches that refuse to die. They ruin everything that they touch because they're awful, disgusting, selfish people who have zero respect for others and they don't care when they aren't wanted.

I'm sorry this happened to you, Mouse. It's really unfair.

Further Statement Regarding Suspension

So, the more I look into the situation, the more it's clear this was a coordinated harassment attempt from F//ateCE//O and the rest of his unhinged transphobic mob. Someone I followed was outed as a MAP, a fact I had zero clue about. I had previously promoted her patreon before knowing about this. When Fate's cronies mentioned it, I said to please go to the police with any criminal evidence, and also not to link me to triggering callout threads full of MAP discourse, which I stay the hell away from. This person had literally already deactivated on twitter so there was no one to unfollow. Idk what the point of any of it was. I literally wanted nothing to do with any of this and told everyone to go to the police for real, this was way above my pay grade. Also, fun fact nobody likes to mention, MY MOTHER WAS IN HOSPITAL AT THE TIME. I had a lot to worry about, and what to do with a potential criminal case (again, very long and unhinged callout thread from known liars and transphobes, so I have no idea about the veracity of any of these claims based on an untrustworthy background) that I have no jurisdiction over (as an internet person??? And not the FBI??) was not my top priority at the time.

That is it. I did not defend them. I did not advocate for pro contact. I said be succinct with your evidence so I don't get fucking triggered and also I AM NOT A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. Anyway, that entire l0lichud side of twitter has turned on me and frothed themselves into a rage without actually listening to a word I said. Typical word of mouth bs. If my account isn't reinstated, I honestly may not even go back. The fact that the proship community has been invaded by these bigots and trolls on twt has been a fact that has continuously exhausted me. I've spoken about it extensively so I won't go into it here, but let me tell you, these people damage our reputation beyond repair, spread disinformation and bigotry, and I want nothing to do with any of them.

I have absolutely zero idea why my twitter account was suspended lmao. We'll see if I can get it back. I've got no damn clue