I Know This Is Probably A Wild Generalization, But I Dont Know If I Can Be In A Community If Theyre Gonna

I know this is probably a wild generalization, but I don’t know if I can be in a community if they’re gonna say it’s okay for an adult in their 20s to write erotic fanfiction about a REAL 16 year old and a 20 year old. I understand fictional characters, because they’re not real, but RPF of minors seems like another thing completely.

I'm personally not invested in or interested in RPF of minors, but frankly the literal core value of proshipping is simply not inserting yourself into what other people do in terms of fiction, so.

You can disagree with it all you like, it doesn't necessarily make you 'not proship' as long as you're not sending people hate or trying to tell them they can't do it. There are plenty of people who are proship who draw a personal line at RPF involving minors. I know people who enjoy RPF of all ages but draw the line at topics like non-con when it pertains to those people/ships.

If it makes you feel any better, the anti community also, in a wild generalization, weaponizes rape videos and literal child pornography, believes in doxxing and stalking, supports suicide baiting and hounding.... Really, on each side there's the bad and ugly. Being proship doesn't strictly mean you enjoy or even condone or are invested in common themes and subjects under the 'protection' of the label. You're not a more morally clean or good person for being on either side.

Being proship simply means you know they're going to do it, you at least somewhat respect their right to do it, and you're not going to tell them to kill themselves over it.

Which honestly, feel like pretty basic requirements of critical thinking and human decency. As I said, I'm not invested in RPF about minors, but I simply curate my online space so I don't see it.

(Also, RPF is fictional still. Its quite literally in the name. Real person fiction.)

hi! just asking your opinion on RPF, i’m very very new to the proship/fanfic community and really don’t know how to feel abt it. i haven’t heard anyone’s takes on it so far so i’d love to hear your thoughts!

RPF is just another form of fiction. Its no different to any kind of other fictional literature, fandom space, creative action, ect. The people are, essentially, just characters. You're using them to tell a story.

A lot of people's issue with RPF comes into play because of individuals who ignore the proper etiquette behind RPF and ruin it for everyone. The general concern is that unlike fictional characters, real people are capable of seeing what you create and getting upset, offended or angry over it.

This is where its important to remember the following rules regarding RPF:

Never send RPF to the people whom it concerns, people close to them or people in reasonable contact with them. Personally, even if an actor has said they don't mind RPF about themselves, I wouldn't push it on them. Accepting something's existence isn't always the same as wanting to be invested or involved in it.

Similar to above, make sure you're not tagging them or using searches the person is known to frequent. (E.g; if you're posting ship art, don't tag the people involved.)

Where possible, keep RPF to closed-off websites like AO3 and Tumblr where the people involved would actually have to go looking for it in order to be exposed to it. (Sites like X are next to impossible to actually curate and monitor and are awful for this kind of thing.)

Ensure you are properly tagging and marking your content so in the instance it can't fully be prevented from reaching the person/people, they are explicitly aware of what it is. (Another reason why sites like Tumblr and AO3 are simply the best option.)

Anyone who is famous will be aware that there are people who view them and use their image sexually. Every single famous person knows this. In industries like kpop, even, bromances are actively marketed because they know its lucrative and sought after.

Famous people are also more than aware of how to avoid content they don't want to see. They're aware of sites like AO3 and know once they go there its a lawless (albeit well tagged) wasteland of hardcore smut and the unimaginable. They know if they don't want to see certain things they simply have to stay away from certain platforms, tags, key words, ect.

Famous people aren't helpless little ducklings accidentally stumbling upon twisted non-con fanfic of them and their colleagues on an hourly basis like some people assume.

Although RPF is just another form of fiction is does require a bit more respect, conduct and consideration. That's all.

I know there's a lot of advice for handling things like depression and its so fucking easy for people to say "just do this and you'll feel better!" and I hate that, I fucking despise it, but I'm also gonna throw in my two cents about what is personally helping me get out of bed some days and genuinely, not kill myself.

Its taking care of nature.

Seriously. It sounds stupid and some days it feels stupid, but I put up bird feeders because I live in a semi-rural area where human activity is decimating the local bird population and options for safe feeding. So I put up bird feeders. And now I have like 83 different birds flocking to my garden on the daily and screaming at my window if the feeders are empty. And I've seen generations of baby birds brought to my garden by their parents because this is where the food is.

And I researched what plants and flowers were native to my area and I spent like $5 on a few different seed packets and sprinkled them around the grass and the sad empty flowerbeds and the lawn because the bees have nothing to eat and that's awful and it turns out wildflowers will fucking GROW the moment you look away, but now every spring and summer my lawn is a pretty little multi-colored bug haven.

And I've even gotten the chance to save a few little bug lives because of it. I've taken in cold-shocked bees and given them a warm little tupperware to recover in. I've fed bugs sugar water to get their energy back to take their food home. I've given dying bugs a sheltered, safe place to spend their last moments.

I planted a veggie garden. And I know I'm very lucky in that I have the space to do that, but also, you can grow a lot of things indoors. My friend has literally the smallest apartment you can imagine but she grows chives in her bathroom and grows five radishes at a time in a pot in the kitchen. Literally five. But it makes her so happy every single time she pulls them up or trots off to the bathroom to snip some chives.

I pick trash up every two weeks. The pick stick was like $4 online and I just put the bag out with my bi-weekly trash pick-up and its disgusting but but nobody else is gonna do it and I've only got finite time on this earth. If nobody else is going to pick up that can, I will. Because some innocent wild animal doesn't deserve to get hurt by human ignorance, and I deserve to walk home and see pretty flourishing nature instead of depressing discarded trash like I feel like most days.

I've left water out for the wildlife and watched hedgehogs, local dogs on their walks, squirrels and all sorts stop by to take a drink, because humans are fucking selfish and we're making something as basic as water so hard to access for anyone but ourselves, but I can fix a little bit of that just by putting out a bowl. Sometimes I don't even have to remember to fill it because the rain will fill it for me, and its kind of like nature's way of saying "you're helping me so I'm going to help you out too." Which is neat.

Like most days I do not want to be living on this earth but my god earth did not get a choice about us living here, and we're ruining it, and it actually feels so good to help stop and un-do a little bit of that destruction.

And you don't even have to try everything I do. If the only thing you've got the spoons to do is buy one bird feeder and you only remember to fill it once a month, its still something. That once a month could mean the difference between starvation and a full belly to a bird.

Again, none of this is obligatory and I'm not saying at all this is some magical cure for depression, but personally these things are things which are helping me slowly find things to keep getting out of bed for and things to feel a sense of self worth and satisfaction over. I feel better both in and about myself when I feed the birds, when I see the bugs in the garden, when I pick up the trash.

If its something you haven't considered yet, it might be worth a try.

The way some of you will just blindly scream "that's illegal!!" at anything without actually fact-checking yourself beforehand 🥴

Anyone else feel like God when they write something particularly dramatic sometimes?

Sometimes when I know I've just ruined someone's day by not taking their moral sword waving seriously I feel like a godly little creature looking down upon mere creatures.

Other times I mostly feel like a haggard little swamp creature hissing at people and chewing philosophical debates into the walls.

We actually are in the era where we're so offended by everything we're getting offended on other peoples' behalf and telling them that they're wrong if they're not personally offended by something.