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i had an interesting experience the other day, and it made me think a little about antishippers and how they react to fanfiction and fanart that makes them uncomfortable, and i wanted to talk about it a little bit.
i was looking at a person's fanart of their ocs, and greatly enjoying it, until i saw an ask they answered about them. one of the ocs in question is a sexual predator, and his whole thing is that he's constantly cheating on his wife with teenage girls. the ask was about how the girls he dated turned out in the future once they were no longer with him, and they answered that because he was mostly nice, they actually turned out alright.
this REALLY bothered me. as someone who was groomed and treated nicely by said groomer, i wouldn't say i left that relationship without wounds. looking back on it, the realization that i was taken advantage of really fucked me up. so reading this made me feel super uncomfortable. i hate the idea that as long as your groomer treats you nicely, you'll turn out okay.
but then i stepped back. fiction like this doesn't need to be realistic, and i have no reason to believe this person thinks like this of real life people. i myself have very unrealistic interpretations of fictional relationships. when i ship incest, i often ship it in a consensual and mutual sense, but incest in real life is not like that, it's abusive. so why isn't this person allowed to think of their ocs in this way?
it made me feel upset, and i think those feelings were valid, but if i had then chosen to lash out at people over this that would have been wrong.
but it got me thinking about how a lot of antis feel. many of them have been hurt, and i think for a lot of them seeing content that closely resembles what happened to them, often with some fetishistic undertones, can be deeply upsetting. when i saw that person's ask, i thought "would they think like this about what happened to me?" i imagine antis probably think stuff like that.
this experience gave me some level of empathy. because it sucks feeling like that, and if you haven't done the work to distance yourself from your disgust reactions, yeah, i can see how that would feel very real.. but it also made me realize, it's entirely possible to recognize your feelings don't define others. you can feel upset and uncomfortable, you can even feel angry. but what you do with those feelings is entirely up to you.
i was looking at a person's fanart of their ocs, and greatly enjoying it, until i saw an ask they answered about them. one of the ocs in question is a sexual predator, and his whole thing is that he's constantly cheating on his wife with teenage girls. the ask was about how the girls he dated turned out in the future once they were no longer with him, and they answered that because he was mostly nice, they actually turned out alright.
this REALLY bothered me. as someone who was groomed and treated nicely by said groomer, i wouldn't say i left that relationship without wounds. looking back on it, the realization that i was taken advantage of really fucked me up. so reading this made me feel super uncomfortable. i hate the idea that as long as your groomer treats you nicely, you'll turn out okay.
but then i stepped back. fiction like this doesn't need to be realistic, and i have no reason to believe this person thinks like this of real life people. i myself have very unrealistic interpretations of fictional relationships. when i ship incest, i often ship it in a consensual and mutual sense, but incest in real life is not like that, it's abusive. so why isn't this person allowed to think of their ocs in this way?
it made me feel upset, and i think those feelings were valid, but if i had then chosen to lash out at people over this that would have been wrong.
but it got me thinking about how a lot of antis feel. many of them have been hurt, and i think for a lot of them seeing content that closely resembles what happened to them, often with some fetishistic undertones, can be deeply upsetting. when i saw that person's ask, i thought "would they think like this about what happened to me?" i imagine antis probably think stuff like that.
this experience gave me some level of empathy. because it sucks feeling like that, and if you haven't done the work to distance yourself from your disgust reactions, yeah, i can see how that would feel very real.. but it also made me realize, it's entirely possible to recognize your feelings don't define others. you can feel upset and uncomfortable, you can even feel angry. but what you do with those feelings is entirely up to you.
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