Proshippers Are Dangerous To Children!

“Proshippers are dangerous to children!”

Me, reading “immoral” books since age 11, 16 now, yet to have killed, raped, or tortured anyone:

Children are not put in danger simply by exposure to specific things. In fact, for many things, the sooner we learn them the better. I know a lot of people are going to interpret this in bad faith and the worst possible way, but;

Children actually need to be exposed to things in order to actually understand them and properly learn about them in a safe manner that will set the groundwork for the rest of their life.

I'll use an example that has absolutely nothing to do with sex or anything 'proship.'

The good old 'the dog went to live on a farm' analogy. When I was younger and my pets died my parents always told me that my pets had gone to live with other families who needed hem more. That pets were like Nanny McPhee; they went where they were needed.

This devastated me.

I spent years wondering what I'd done wrong. Why I wasn't good enough. Why my beloved pets had decided I didn't need or love them anymore. Where had they gone? Why had they gone? Did they love their new families more than me?

Literal years spent plagued with torment until I hit a new school year and we learned properly about death in biology. Then I spent weeks feeling betrayed, ridiculed and stupid because my pets hadn't abandoned me for a more deserving family. They'd up and died.

And death is sad, yes. I would've been sad for weeks. Months, maybe. I'd miss them forever. But I understood death. I would've understood and accepted death far quicker than I did the notion that the pets I loved so much had simply up and decided to fuck off one day.

If my parents had been honest with me they could've used my pets' deaths as opportunities for literally so many things. How to understand and deal with grief. How to understand and accept death. How to mourn. How to reminisce. How to manage and process and understand and accept my emotions. How to ask for comfort and self-soothe.

Instead all they taught me was that they thought I was too stupid to understand things and that I could've trust a word they said anymore.

Honestly the overbearing safety net we trap children in only robs them of opportunities to be healthy, functioning, developed adults. Children do not need to be sheltered from the entire world until we suddenly drop-kick them into it at 16 or 18.

I'm not saying we need to start hounding eight year olds about pornography and fictional shipping. But what we do need to do is safely introduce them to the world they live in and give them the tools needed to live in it.

Would I be the asshole if I bought Harry Potter merch anyway or is it just antis or others shaming me? I'm not a fan of Harry Potter, I just want to buy what I want without being shamed into "supporting" bad things.

I don't want to be known as an Israeli supporter because I buy Starbucks.

The thing is, the issue with buying these things is that the money you give those companies then contributes to supporting something awful. Which means if you know that, and you're still willingly giving these companies money, you're either declaring you just don't care or you're declaring you support what they're doing.

Like I said; if you genuinely can't live without Harry Potter merch, buy it secondhand. Or buy fanmade merch where absolutely none of the money is being funnelled into anti-trans and anti-queer movements and goal corporations.

Here's a scenario for you:

I'm walking down the street and there are two stalls. Both are selling the same thing. One of the stalls has a notice saying all the money raised today will go into funding animal abuse. Dog fights, ect.

The other stall has a sign saying all the money raised today will go into funding the stall owner's ability to keep making products as an alternative to the other store, so you can get the same product without funding the horrific abuse of innocent animals.

Now again, remember: they sell the exact same thing. Exact same price.

So. Do you think I'm a bad person if I choose to buy from the stall that funds animal abuse? Even though I really, really love animals and have the option not even two feet away to make the same purchase knowing it means the other stall gets less money for their horrible goal?

Because that's what Starbucks and JK Rowling and Nestle and Chick-Fil-A do. When you buy their products, you're actually putting money in their pockets which then gives them the ability to fund things like anti-trans movements, conversation camps, child slavery and xenophobic wars.

JK Rowling can't donate 75k to anti-trans movements if she doesn't have 75k to donate.

You're not being "shamed into not supporting bad things." Frankly if you have to be shamed into not supporting those things I think that answers your question anyway. But you are being given facts to make choices with.

And you can't stop people from looking at the choice you made and deciding if that makes you a bad person or not.

You're allowed to feel sad, disappointed or lose some interest in a character because its no longer played by a specific actor or character.

(Obviously not talking about blatant racism here. Derail this and I'll scream.)

But I mean like. I see people shitting all over anyone who is losing interest in The Witcher because Henry Cavill is no longer Geralt, but at the same time actors will all have very unique ways of portraying the same character, and its perfectly fine to not feel the same way about how a different actor portrays or visualises the same character.

If you prefer the story and portrayal of Steve Rogers' Captain America over Sam Wilson's Captain America, that's fine! They're two completely different stories under the same mantle. You can absolutely respect the story and message of Sam Wilson's Captain America while still preferring the one Steve Rogers' Captain America told.

If you're in love with the way Henry Cavill depicts Geralt, you're not a bad person who holding onto that and choosing not to devalue Liam Hemsworth's interpretation by forcing yourself to consume media you no longer have a vested interest in.

Spider-Man is another prime example. While the core values and details of the Spider-Men stay the same, the specific stories and characters of each Spider-Man are supposed to be different. They're supposed to fit the narrative being told and the larger framework of the universe they are set in.

So many people hated on Tom Holland's Spider-Man because he wasn't the 'OG gutter rat broke bitch' but like. For one, we do actually see those aspects in the story still (Peter taking dumped items off the sidewalk, his small room, stressing about money and replacing things, ect) and for another, he's meant to be different because Spider-Man with The Avengers is different to Spider-Man alone.

Its meant to be a different depiction of the same character.

Its fine not to like one or to prefer the other but it doesn't make it bad media or a bad thing either way.

I lost all respect for antis the day that one said outright said that I, a disabled, fully mature adult was 'basically a child' and any person who was attracted to me was basically a pedo. Because telling disabled people that others being attracted to them is inherently evil is a totally normal, non infantalizing thing to do, right? There's nothing ableist about saying disabled people are 'basically children' right??????

Antis and the media have watered down the meaning of pedophilia to basically nothing. Its a defunct term at this point. It just means anything and everything that anyone wants it to and it makes me so, so angry for the actual victims of true pedophilia and the actual people who are being victimised by the trend of using it as a battering ram.

Neurodivergency and disabilities being weaponised, too, is part of the problem, not a contribution toward a solution. The more you tell people that disabled and neurodivergent people are vulnerable and open to risk the more risk you actually expose them to.

And, frankly, the more you piss them off.

Characters do not have to be redeemable.

I'm so, so sick of people absolutely trashing media and characters because they never get reformed or redeemed or become 'good.'

That's the whole fucking point, sometimes. That that character is bad. Characters who are genuinely, down to the bone, rotten to the core bad are part of the narrative too. They're valid too.

You're meant to hate them. You're meant to think of them as awful, evil people, because they are.

Narrative and story and development you disagree with doesn't inherently mean its bad or wrong.

Characters who balance between good and evil and ultimately choose evil are not storytelling failures. They're a narrative and story in their own right. They had the choice. They chose evil. That's the story. That's the narrative.

Media is predictable enough as it is. Pigeon-holing it even further by dictating that characters can't simply be bad or become bad is not the solution.

I've had people chew me out simultaneously for my fanfic supposedly promoting harmful messages *and* for saying that maybe their feminist credentials need checking if they promote a real life influencer who encouraged his viewers to blame and harass real life victims.

That's called not having a braincell. And also being a massive hypocrite.