[ SECRET POST #7104 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #7104 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 05 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1014.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Antishipping

[(Anonymous)]

Thread OP

My own experience with antishipping is that I used to think anti views made a lot of sense. While struggling badly with my PTSD, I started seeing these urgently written analysis posts about how abusive fictional stories could be dangerous, and as a survivor myself, that made sense to me on an emotional level. I also had some bad experiences in fandom with harassment from older fans when I was young, so the idea that people making "bad" fanfic actually wanted to do something bad also sounded true, because I had met a few creeps, so maybe everyone writing problematic slash was a creep? It also triggered me to see people having fun in fiction with things that had hurt me IRL. It was a childish reaction, but felt very real and painful.

I was never one to harass people or seek out triggering fic, but I regret participating in anti friendgroups and thus passively encouraging people who did bully others. I regret participating in petty gossip. I think I was really misjudging things and using purely emotional logic. Seeing the stricter and stricter standards my fandom friends would impose on ships (blocking people and calling them predators for shipping a 25 and 35 year old...?), the gossip getting crueler and crueler, and working on my mental health made me realize I was looking at things the wrong way, I took a long break from fandom and no longer give a fuck if people write triggering stories, it's nothing to do with me. I avoid antis and ship drama like the plague now.

The funniest thing is that I am not the biggest shipper, was never in the VLD fandom, never have participated in ship wars, this was all going on in fandom spaces adjacent to me and the ideas ended up having a big impact on me, perhaps because the issues are framed as if they are non fandom ("we are against abuse, we are against predators"). It seemed like almost overnight so many of my fandom friends became hardcore antis, actually starting a bit before VLD fandom, though it really took off then, and I'm just wondering what fandoms and incidents laid the groundwork for what became the current anti subculture?

I see it as related to early 2010s social justice bullying (fans using social justice concepts to make bullying look okay, and escape criticism), and related to the nature of Tumblr and twitter (constantly stumbling on content you aren't interested in, personal posts going viral). I think I'm missing a lot of fandom context though.

Re: Antishipping

[(Anonymous)]

>My own experience with antishipping is that I used to think anti views made a lot of sense. While struggling badly with my PTSD, I started seeing these urgently written analysis posts about how abusive fictional stories could be dangerous, and as a survivor myself, that made sense to me on an emotional level.

That's interesting, I was the opposite. I'm only in my mid-30s but I was a lurker in "old school" fandom before Tumblr. While I was icked out by A LOT of content in the early days (slash when I leaned conservative, lolisho, noncon), there was an attitude that "it's the internet, get over it" so I accepted gross stuff would exist. In my mid-teens I started processing some CSA trauma and went to youth therapy, and I started shipping some taboo relationships that I read fic and had sexual fantasies about as a coping mechanism. I always hated underage stuff and still do, but I shipped dubcon/abuse and incest between adults. YMMV but I consider this an important stepping stone for processing my trauma. I'm not "healed" but my brain was doing what it could to self-soothe. I don't enjoy these ships anymore because they don't interest me.

However, when participating in fandom forums, I was uncomfortable because I found fellow fans... who liked this stuff for the WRONG reasons. More on that later.

>I regret participating in anti friendgroups and thus passively encouraging people who did bully others. I regret participating in petty gossip. I think I was really misjudging things and using purely emotional logic.

*sigh* THEN Tumblr happened. Before 2015 I reblogged some incest ships and edgelord stuff before the term "anti" existed, but after Gamergate and some specific fandom drama people in my circles became more acutely aware of the intersection of politics and fiction. So my Tumblr dashboard was split 50/50 between antis and proship, I guess? I kept my opinions to myself and stopped reblogging taboo ships, but antis made me super uncomfortable because they had an absolutist stance that my way of coping was harming myself or other people. I really didn't agree.

Then some bad stuff happened to me IRL and I wound up in an anti friendgroup for nearly a decade. I truly did consider these people my friends. We agreed on real world politics and I wasn't into fandom or ships then due to depression, but the subject inevitably came up. And then I felt like I had to hide my fandom past with them, or else I would get accused of heinous things. For years I believed that I deserved to be abused and I was contributing to abuse because of my former coping ships. The irony is these friends knew about my CSA history, and that I knew an adult on fandom forums who enabled me to indulge in these ships, which could count as a form of grooming. Apparently it wasn't an excuse because I still continued this as a young adult. Meanwhile "the leader" has worse trauma so their habits of reading taboo fiction as "self harm" was okay, and it was the writers fault for creating that content.

The worst part was when they felt compelled to dogpile or harass people. "The leader" of the friend group's closest friend was very sadistic and would harass, purposely trigger, doxx, absolutely insane shit. When "the leader" broke up with an LDR ex and falsely accused them of abuse (I saw the chatlogs, they didn't), the friend went all out and even isolated anyone who didn't buy the narrative they were an abuser. It terrified me. I was stupid enough to date "the leader" for awhile after they chilled out and started becoming more tolerant, but I was inevitably next.

I have a bone to pick with proshippers myself, but antis have been 5x worse. I'd rather be alone than deal with this again.