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.

Victims can be angry.

Victims can not want help for whatever reason.

Victims can be loud.

Victims can be aggressive.

Victims can be violent.

Victims can be emotional.

Victims can be stubborn.

This Hollywood perpetrated idea that victims can only be meek and silent and pitiful needs to be beaten to death with a hammer.

There is no such thing as the standard or typical victim. There is no such thing as a bad victim. Victimhood is not a one-size fits all.

If you believe victims shouldn't receive or are undeserving of compassion and help because they don't behave the way you think they should, you are no better than the person who made them a victim in the first place.

If you wish they died, or think they deserve what happened to them, or think they should have suffered more/should continue to suffer, you are no better than the person who made them a victim in the first place.

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.

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've come to the conclusion that antis think about pedophilia and children being involved in sex way, way more than proshippers do.

Is there a difference between someone that writes rpf and someone else that has a parasocial relationship?

I really wanted to know, because I throught that they were the same

Well, yes, because you could write RPF about someone you know absolutely nothing about aside from a quick googling. A parasocial relationship is not intrinsically linked to writing RPF.

Parasocial relationships are just a state of relationship and existence. They are, by definition, one-sided relationships where one part is totally unaware or only peripherally aware of the other's existence.

In all honesty parasocial relationships are often being painted in a bad light by the media. They're often referred to when talking about obsessive fans, the inherent lack of privacy in the celebrity world, ect.

But, in reality, every single person who is a fan of a celebrity no matter how in-depth that goes, has a parasocial relationship with them.

For example, I am very much a fan of Henry Cavill. I don't actively try to seek out information on him—I follow his Instagram and I passively obtain information about his life from scrolling past some posts or articles here and there, but aside from admiring his talent and wanting to climb him like a tree, he and I exist on very separate planes of existence.

And yet, our relationship is parasocial. Because while I admire him and respect him and lust for him, he has literally no idea I exist. Absolutely buttfuck none.

In countries like China and Korea, parasocial relationships are often used to refer to stalkers and obsessive fans.

While writing fanfiction, particularly RPF, can certainly be a contributor to how you engage with your parasocial relationship and foster it, its entirely plausible to have a parasocial relationship and not write RPF.

Its also entirely possible for the reverse. Of course, in specific situations. Its not common, but its not impossible. That said, typically the people writing RPF are part of a parasocial relationship. They're writing the RPF because of their interest and investment in that person/those people.