When we were younger we enjoyed a lot of stuff that nowadays gets deemed as "problematic". Media that contains sensitive or disturbing content, ships that involve abuse/incest/pedophilia, loli and shota characters, we could go on. We never really felt that anything was wrong with these things at the time. It was all fiction, after all. Just like how people enjoy fictional murderers, as long as you don't condone doing these things in the real world then it's fine. But, it was around the year of 2020 that we began to really notice change. A major shift in attitude towards such content. Everyone we were surrounded by had gained this attitude, and for the first time we felt like we were doing something horribly wrong.
We tried to maintain our ideals but it began to drive more and more people away. Given we frequented social medias at the time, we began to see what enjoying this kind of media would lead you to. Over the years us Critters witnessed many artists, writers, creators and what not get cancelled. Their very reputations that they spent so long building up now crumbling before their very eyes by a simple call-out post. For others, I saw their very livelihoods attacked, their information doxxed to the public, and from there their careers damaged. It set a great fear within us. "Don't be like that person or they'll come after you.".
So, for about 4 years we tried to fit in with what we began to learn were called "antis" or "antishippers". They would preach that what they were doing was correct and that they were trying to save people, especially children. I didn't realize it then but I realize now it's a form of brainwashing. Children and young teens join the web, they join social media, and they want friends, they want to find a community. When you're that young you're very impressionable, and you'll do whatever it takes to fit in. They take advantage of that, and we saw many cases of this in our time in anti circles. Now, when I was roped into all that mess I wasn't quite as young. However, we wanted to find a community to be in. Given our autism, we had difficulties fitting into places, understanding others, and making friends. This left us quite vulnerable, and they too took advantage of that.
As we mentioned before, us Critters were on social media at the time. Putting out art into the world and trying to make friends from that. Well, we ended up making friends with all antis at the time, and the other people we were surrounded by were connected to said antis. They made us feel safe, feel accepted, like we finally had lots of friends and a place we could call home. But there was a trend we began to notice amongst these people. The beliefs they preached, what you could and couldn't enjoy, what was right and wrong. They all would say these things to each other, many of which I didn't agree with. We were fans of many of the things they deemed as "wrong", yet we wanted to stay with these people. We finally had friends, had a place in the world. So, out of pressure, we changed ourselves. Hid away all the parts of us that were deemed bad and tried to convince ourselves that what these people spoke of was the truth.
So, we did that for nearly 4 years. There was quite a number of instances where these antis would tell us that engaging in such media, such ships, and what not had traumatized us. We remember feeling a great anxiety over this, but that anxiety never went away. Throughout those 4 years it was near constant, all day everyday. See, what a lot of people don't realize is the whole proship and antiship movement is about more than just shipping fictional characters. It ties into a much greater issue, and that's censorship. If you look into either side you'll notice they bring up more than just shipping. You might see terms such as "pro-fiction" or "anti-censorship" or "pro free speech" in discussions about either. It seems that the terms "proship" and "antiship" are widely used mainly for their popularity, but they really indicate one's own beliefs in whether censorship is okay or not.
Now, we bring all that up because that began to affect our daily life. We began to question a lot of what we were doing and whether or not it'd be "right and acceptable". Are we allowed to say "this"? Of course not, because people were getting cancelled for saying the most mundane of things. Are we allowed to like "that"? Oh, definetely not, there was a scene that upset all the antis so that show is deemed unacceptable and we should not support it. The antis we were with claimed this anxiety we were feeling was from all the trauma we got from before. We couldn't understand why this anxiety wouldn't go away, wouldn't stop growing despite being around "safe" people. Of course, us Critters know now that we have a clear mind, that it was because of the antis.
We would not recommend this to anyone, as from our own experiences this has deeply messed with our mental health. But, if you spend long enough with antis and go in deep enough, their beliefs get quite twisted. It will go from, "These two characters are siblings, therefore shipping them means you endorse real incest" to "Well, these characters feel like siblings to me so if you ship them you support real incest". There was a lot of mundane things like that, where people made their own discomforts everyone else's problem. Much to our stupidity, we went along with it all and praised that it was right and anyone that disagreed was a filthy incest supporter or whatever else the antis were in the mood for calling people.
We did have friends before we got roped into anti circles. Of course, we lost those friends after spouting the nonsense they preach. All of which was by my own hand, we cut them all out because they were "bad" and we can't be associated with the "bad" people or we'll be cancelled! It's a decision we deeply regret to this day. By the year of 2024, that was when the light began to come back on in our head, metaphorically speaking. We don't really know what caused it turn back on, but whatever did it we are very thankful for. Those 4 years finally caught up to us and we spent a very long time just thinking it all over. We had already quit social media at the time, as it was becoming far too much for us to handle. It had cut me off from the larger anti circle I was in, as well as some of my friends. Perhaps that had contributed to the hypothetical light turning on in our head again as we weren't as surrounded by their preaching and cancelling and what have you anymore. We began reverting back to our "problematic" ways and that shoo'd away the last of my anti friends.
Ever since then, we've been trying to reverse the affects that being an anti had on us. Learning to love and engage in "problematic" media again that meant so much to us, such as the Boyfriend to Death series, DRAMAtical Murder, and Killing Stalking. We fell back in love with all our old ships like Minao, Akuroku, and even began enjoying some ones we weren't allowed to before like Shroudcest, Sebaciel, and Coffincest. Us Critters allowed ourselves to engage in a lot of fetishes we were never allowed to before either, that was another thing antis were very vehemently against. Porn in general is a topic they've also begun to cast great shame upon as time goes on. More recently we've even begun to embrace our love for lolisho content. It's been a long and slow process. There is still that great fear that's instilled within us, a fear that almost feels like instinct with how hard it was hammered into us. But, the more we embrace this side of ourselves we had to deny for so long, the more that fear is quelled and the more self love takes its place.
From my previous experiences before becoming an anti and these past 2 years taking on the label of "proshipper", we've learned a lot. As we mentioned before, there's a lot more to this movement than simply fighting over fictional pairings. As much as that experience has traumatized us, it really opened our eyes to a much greater issue. Censorship is nothing new, there's many cases throughout history of it occuring. But, it still continues to this day and it's been getting worse, and worse. There's so many examples we could bring up, Tumblr banning porn in 2018, in more recent times payment processors enacting censorship on certain kinds of explicit content (which in turn is making platforms do the same thing), the list could go on. It's spreading rapidly, and the more people continue having an attitude of "this makes me uncomfortable, let's ban it" the louder that becomes and the more the higher ups will listen. Considering many of these said higher ups are white, male, christians, which are all infamously known for advocating for censorship, they won't just stop at porn and "weird" fetishes. If they gain enough power, they'll go after anything that doesn't fit their agenda, including queer fiction and the belief that queer people have a space in this world.
It's also made us more open minded and accepting of others. We're all strange and weird in our own ways, but we're all people. People with lives, with people who love and care about them, and we deserve to treat each other with respect and kindness. We once find it okay to shame, to make fun of, and to diminish the importance of anyone who was "bad". There were many things we did during our time as an anti we deeply regret. We participated in the many practices they engage in, call out posts, harrassment and sending death threats. And the antis would shower me in praise every single time. Our only wish is those we affected are doing alright. An apology will never fix what we did, but we still must apologize anyway.
We find it quite funny how many antis use Archive of Our Own, without knowing who the creators are and the history as to why such a site was made. There's a reason they allow "problematic" fanfiction. Something else that kind of amuses us, but also saddens us, is seeing when someone clearly doesn't understand what "proship" is or doesn't want to be an anti. There's a trend we've seen around of people engaging in media or ships or what have you that, by anti standards would be classified as "bad", yet will then say "Do not interact Proshippers". It's worrying, to say the least. We remember from our time being with antis that they spread around that word as meaning "supporting [insert something bad] in real life". Whenever we see this, it reminds us of ourselves not even 2 years ago. Makes you wonder, are they doing it to fit in too?
Outside of writing journal entries like this about the topic, it's not really a word we use often. The amount of drama and negativity surrounding that word is far too much. It was a better time, not even a decade ago, when words like "proship" and "antiship" weren't really a thing. The only word there was was "anti-anti", the precursor to proship, which never had the same mainstream use as these two words have. Despite our annoyance with the word, in this day and age its what we've decided to call ourselves to let others know what we believe and if they feel lost like we once were, they're safe with us.
So, what does it mean to be "proship"? Perhaps each person would give a different answer, based on their own experiences. We'll say what we know and feel. It means to believe in what you want and enjoy what you want. It means to let others believe in what they want and enjoy what they want. We may not agree on things, but we should never advocate for censoring each other. If it bothers us, we simply walk past and move on with our lives.
Fiction is one of the greatest things mankind has ever made. It gives us the power to explore and experience things we never could, things we never want to experience. To have people say what we can and can't portray in fiction, its a dangerous power to have. It's all based on opinion, and everyone will not collectively agree on it. Fiction can have the power to influence the wrong people. But if we were to ban the video game Doom because it influenced the Columbine shootings yet millions of others played it and turned out fine, it just doesn't seem fair to us. Another example, Sebaciel was one of the most popular slash pairings in the 2000s and early 2010s, and the majority of those people never turned into pedophiles. In the case of Andrew Blaze, her murders were influenced by the character Ember McLain from Danny Phantom. A character, and show, that were harmless in nature unlike the violent Doom and controversial nature of the ship Sebaciel, yet should we ban that? Should we believe anyone who engages in Doom or Danny Phantom is just like those murderers? Of course not.
A huge concern of antis was fiction turning people bad, especially children. As a young child, what you take in greatly affects your development. Yet, we think if a child grows up in a good environment and is taught certain things are bad they will grow up fine. We were exposed to a lot of content such as murder and the like in media we consumed, but we were taught such things were bad. The media never convinced us otherwise. Even being exposed to "problematic" ships at a young age, we already knew such things were not acceptable in real life and that it was all fiction. Us Critters believe it moreso affects those that are already twisted, already set down a dark path. Those that shouldn't be allowed to be exposed to such media in the first place, as it affects something they've already had inside them.
The whole "proship" vs "anti" thing going on very much reminds us of the satanic panic from the 80s and 90s as well as the "Video Games Cause Violence" debate that's been happening ever since video games were first created. People making issues and causing panic out of nothing, which leads to certain content getting unjustly banned or close to it. All this misinformation gets spread, so much so that the wider public catches wind and continues to spread it like wildfire. Of course, the terms "proship" and "anti" are not on the same level of notoriety as the previously mentioned topics, but they are well known in fandom spaces. Still, censorship in general is a widely known topic that is debated upon frequently on the mainstream with misinformation also spreading like wildfire.
Obviously, we don't believe full uncensorship of everything is a good idea. If that went into affect genuine harmful content would run rampant everywhere. Us and others seem to agree upon that CSEM should stay banned. We believe content that deliberately spreads real hate or bullying towards marginalized individuals or groups should be censored. Not jokes, and not things portrayed in a fictional world, but if someone is creating content that deliberately is going "Gay people are bad, here is why we should kill them." and advocating for that to be done. That may make our fierce stance on anti-censorship sound a bit hypocritical, but if it brings genuine harm to a person or people we believe it shouldn't be allowed.
We certainly wrote a lot here, huh? Us Critters wanted to wrap all this up by saying we grew up in a time we refer to as "old fandom", and thus have their mindset on things. Change can be a good thing, but with the way things are heading we don't believe this change to fandom attitude is a good one. Bullying has always been around, there's always been ship wars, there's always been fights over whose into what, this fetish is cringe (we remmeber when this word became a big thing to say as an insult!) and so on. There were extreme cases back then that involved individuals getting doxxed, sent death threats, and being harrassed. We do not deny that those happened, back then was not some perfect paradise. But, it was never to the level and extent it is now. Now, its almost normalized. We remember how fandom wars were like back then, we lived through many of them. They were nothing like they are now. We Critters hope things will get better in the future. Not only for fandom spaces but for media creators in general. There is so much beautiful work out there being woven by some of the mos talented artists and writers. Many of which are queer and are able to express themselves through such mediums. Stay weird and stay freaky during these difficult times, that's all we can do to combat this nonsense.