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echoes-lighthouse · 1 year

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Proship vs. Anti (A Personal Manifesto)

I define the difference between ‘proship’ and ‘anti’ as basically being whether you can judge a person’s future actions by their taste in fiction, and I strongly believe that’s not true.

Antis believe that consuming problematic media makes you more likely to do problematic things in the future (ie. incest fics will lead to irl incest, etc), whereas proshippers believe that most people can separate fiction/fantasy and reality, and understand that enjoying dark fiction doesn’t mean those things are ok in real life.

I believe that kinks and fiction are all a matter of playacting, and are not an indicator of deeper desire. Participating in BDSM doesn’t make someone abusive if all parties are consenting. Selfshipping with an underage character doesn’t make someone attracted to real minors.

So here’s the short version of my views on fictional limits!

I support people shipping themselves with villains, including “irredeemable” ones

I support people shipping themselves with characters out of their age range, although I’m personally more comfortable with aging up or down the character or self-insert if there’s a minor/adult gap

I genuinely don’t care what fanfiction people write, but I am usually uncomfortable with bloggers who identify themselves as particularly attached to problematic tropes (ie. specifically seeking out incest ships over other ships)

I do support open conversation about problematic elements in media, but I don’t typically support the outright banning of fandoms (I’m more conflicted about problematic actors, artists, or youtubers with large followings, but it’s complicated)

I think it’s quite cute when people selfship with celebrities in their own head/notebooks (I know a lot of people have married celebrities in their daydreams), but I have more complicated feelings about posting publicly about selfships with real people, and I haven’t settled on one side or the other

I have strict limits on content that involves real people (videos of assault, explicit content of minors, and posts that encourage harm or provide ‘how to’ guides for sexual assault) and I WILL report any of that, because it is different from fictional content and causes active harm

I am deeply unsettled by positivity posts for problematic fancontent that actively paints it as ‘cute’ or ‘desirable’ but I also understand it comes from a place of reacting to fandom negativity? I’m conflicted on this.

If you have questions about any of these, feel free to send an ask or a message: I’m very open to discussions in good faith and will do my best to explain myself!

Why Am I Proship?

I grew up selfshipping with a lot of villains, and in those daydreams, our age gaps were often a large feature of my writing and fantasies. I was selfshipping with villains by age six, including creating self-insert fanfiction, but when I was eleven I gravitated towards Nolan’s Joker and really settled in. At the time, I didn’t know about online fandoms: I was an isolated autistic nerd who very much identified as a freak for my interests and the intensity of my obsessions.

I discovered fanfiction two years later, and was overjoyed.

I felt like I wasn’t so weird, and I wasn’t alone, and that there was a space for freaks like me.

In high school, my friends and I had friendly competitions to find the weirdest fics online: cannibalism and unusual kinks and intentionally shocking fics like ‘the [insert noun] fic’ were some of our standard fare, as we competed in teenaged fashion to weird each other out. When we didn’t have weird fics for niche fandoms, we would challenge each other to write them.

Shipping and fandom has never been about my real-life desires, to me: it’s escapism at its finest, into a multiverse of headcanons and fanfictions where nothing affects even the fictional characters for long, with everything shifting from one fanfiction to another. Major character deaths make me cry, and then they come back to life again: relationships build to marriage and then start again from scratch. A ship can be domestic perfection in one story, and a horrific game of manipulation in the next one.

There’s a multitude of reasons why someone might enjoy fanfiction that is triggering to someone else. In my own life, I take comfort in some very strange tropes, including kidnapping (how nice to not have to make any decisions anymore) to omegaverse (what a lovely world where biology makes other people so sensitive to my needs), which I’m aware are NOT real-life desires for myself.

It is genuinely appalling to me that people judge each other so harshly based on their taste in fanfiction and fandom content. I remember being in shipping wars as a teenager: yes, the Wincest shippers were freaks, but they were damn better than the squares who weren’t in fandom at all, and would make fun of all of us for reading fanfiction. And when my friends shipped Wincest, I teased them for being weird and then let them tease me about Hannigram a few years later.

Although I don’t identify 100% with the label proship (I am very concerned about the way that fiction reflects and reinforces our society’s shortcomings, especially with the way it reveals current misogyny, racism, ableism, and tendencies towards oversexualizing teenagers, among other things), I tend to be much more forgiving in fandom, which is mostly created by single people and their fantasies, rather than books and shows that are produced by companies, funded by companies, and designed for mass consumption.

#don't reblog please!#i'm just making mobile links at the moment #tw for shipping discourse under the 'read more'#also if you recognize a different blog from this personal story no you don't :p #me heading into shipping discourse with absolute earnestness and genuine emotion: i'm sure this will be fine

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

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one of the most amusing things that i’ve seen come out of anti darklinas in the last few weeks is this idea that ‘oh, we’re only posting our bad faith read of the ship and why people ship it in the tag For The Kids, because children need to know they shouldn’t want these relationships irl!!!’ and it’s like... if these Straw Children are genuinely at risk of growing up thinking it’s perfectly ok for an immortal dark wizard to kill people then....... i think there’s something going on in their life that a condescending tumblr post is not going to protect them from lmfao

and frankly, tumblr is a 13+ website. no one should be on here who is under 13, and at 13, you’re more than old enough to understand that a fictional character did it too is not a good excuse for bad behavior. 13 is old enough to understand that just because two characters have a toxic or unhealthy relationship in a fictional book doesn’t mean they should be seeking that kind of a relationship out irl.

and like, i’m old enough to have lived through (with unfortunately vivid memories) the team edward/team jacob and ‘i’m just searching for my edward’ teen crazes but like... first of all, the difference is, both of them were presented by the narrative as ideal romantic partners, and in neither case was the abuse ever acknowledged. by contrast, darklina is comprised of a lovers to enemies arc and while there’s plenty to be said about the lack of nuance and care shown in his story on the page, at the end of the day alina killed him. and secondly, honestly??? like, i will talk all day about what i hated in the twilight books and the romantic relationships and how harmful it was to present an abusive relationship as The Ideal in novels marketed toward teen girls, but, at the end of the day, it still wasn’t meyer’s job to make sure that her audience grew up to understand why those relationships were bad, and i’d like to think that those teen girls grew up into women who knew what to look for in a healthy and supportive relationship and found one for themselves.

but if any of them did wind up in bad relationships, it’s not the fault of some author who wrote a handful of best sellers, no matter how bad the writing was or how ideally it portrayed abusive relationships. (and i’m not saying it’s the fault of the victims, either, but winding up in an abusive relationship is a lot more fucking complex than ‘i read a book as a teenager and thought the evil guy was hot so i wanted to date one of my own lol’)

so anyway, coming into a tag for a ship populated mostly by young adult women and older, and going ‘i just wanna make sure that any Straw Children around here know that this is a Bad Relationship uwu’ is beyond condescending and frankly inappropriate, not to mention highkey misogynistic (cause the real underlying basis there is ‘lol those silly girls couldn’t possibly decide for themselves how they feel about this fictional relationship so i must inform them that It’s Bad’)--because literally no one who is in this tag on this website for this ship needs you to tell them that. i promise you that we, as shippers, are more than capable of having complex and nuanced discussions about this ship (which y’all clearly don’t understand, because you keep throwing around buzzwords like ‘grooming’ without any understanding of what they mean and why they really don’t apply here) without your interference.

we really, really do not need people coming into the tag telling us we shouldn’t fall for some handsome immortal wizard who does bad things and kills people. no one here will benefit from that knowledge, because we already fucking know. we just don’t care! and we really don’t have to! and there are no children here that are young enough they need some random tumblr blog to ‘protect’ them! so please, save your condescension and your pretension. you aren’t saying anything new, and you are very irritating lmfao.

(and please, please, don’t go all ‘oh no i seem to have offended people uwu’ when you get replies from the people who regularly visit this tag and see through your bullshit lmfao. it happens almost every time and playing dumb is not a good look for any of you.)

#darklina #grishaverse fandom salt #salt for ts #the darkling #alina starkov #it is genuinely just getting so irritating at this point #and blocking them doesn't help bc it seems like every other week there's some new 'oh lol i hope any straw children in here don't think #this fictional hero/villain relationship is ok irl!' blog and it's like #who do yall think you're helping? genuinely?#long post

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arofili · 4 years

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for the character ask meme: sauron?? >:3c

How I feel about this character: evil twink. terrible. i love him. for real tho i think fandom has woobified sauron to angband and back, and while i get people who are frustrated by us forgetting he’s a villain....like....he’s just so FUN, you know? he’s done so many things, he’s so complicated, why wouldn’t you want to play with what’s going on in his head? i know i do! there are days i want to just sit down and rewrite the entire legendarium from sauron’s POV, because he was there for all of it, causing trouble the whole time. my version of sauron is Evil And Loving It almost the whole way through - but he did it out of love, for melkor at first and then for himself, and while that’s no excuse for evil it’s a fascinating motivation.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: i mean, melkor, obvs. angbang’s probably the second biggest ship in the fandom after russingon, and it’s a GOOD ship. my particular flavor of angbang isn’t the abusive/controlling melkor kind, i like it when it’s reciprocated and sincere - though there’s still absolutely room for evil and possessiveness. idk, healthy(ish) angbang is just more interesting to me? like there’s gonna be a power dynamic there, but i’m so much more interested in mairon having almost equal footing in his relationship than him being some pawn of melkor - i think that makes the times where he has the harsh realization that he’s not equal, just almost equal, even more impactful. like, he can tell melkor “no” and melkor will listen - except when he doesnt. idk, i like that more than him being afraid of saying no at all. (though i certainly do enjoy other versions of angbang! this is just my favorite) Like, i think Sauron carries his love for Melkor through everything he does after the first age. At first he’s doing it all for Melkor, thinking about when he breaks his master out of the void, and then slowly starts to realize that wait, that might not happen. but he keeps going anyway, with melkor as his grounding for what he’s doing, as he becomes more invested in his own future.

THAT BEING SAID i also love silvergifting because im PREDICTABLE. again, my flavor of sauron is one that’s in love with melkor first and foremost and always intentionally planning to fuck celebrimbor over, but the trope of sauron being like “i’ll seduce Tyelpe into evil, it worked when Melkor did it to me” “didn’t Melkor fall in love with you though?” “SHUT UP” becomes Annatar in a way that he almost forgets who he used to be, which is also interesting, but i’m the kinda person who wants Sauron always consciously aware of every thing he does to Tyelpe- I want him feeling guilty about it by the end, but, importantly, doing it anyway.

[cw rape] Sauron/Maedhros is also really fascinating to me, especially since it’s (almost) always nonconsensual... it’s a good reminder that sauron is at the end of everything evil and practically irredeemable. and i’m more interested in mae’s feelings on this ship than i am sauron’s, considering sauron is abusing him because melkor wants him to (and he probably wants to toy with maedhros too) and isn’t particularly apologetic about it. ALTHOUGH. sauron maybe fucking with Maedhros to the extent of actually pretending he cares, that he’s genuinely here for Mae - that is also some really fucked up interesting shit especially as foreshadowing for Silvergifting.... [that being said! i linked a fic up there that has consensual sauron/maedhros and oohhh boy is it good! heed the warnings, and it’s a modern AU ft. abusive!melkor, but definitely check it out if you’re interested in these two!]

I can get down on other Sauron ships (like him and the Nazgul, him and Ar-Pharazon) but most of those are Sauron playing a game of chess - but, critically, not making the same mistakes he made with Tyelpe. he keeps himself detached and distant, not actually falling in love.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Eonwe!! I looooove headcanons about him and Eonwe having been bros in the past! makes everything at the end of the war of wrath so much more tragic :)

Sauron and Aule are also great, I think Aule was fatherly toward him and heartbroken to lose him. Which leads me to: Sauron and Curumo/Saruman, considering they were both disciples of Aule - and perhaps Curumo tried to replace Mairon after everything went down, but never quite could... Them having been friends puts their collaboration in LOTR into a different perspective, too. it’s sooo juicy to think of Saruman coming to Middle-earth determined to be Better than Sauron was, to prove to Aule that he’s the superior Maia, maybe even hoping that he can convince Sauron to repent...and then falling into the same trap of evil, being outsmarted by the friend he always wanted to impress, being cast aside and defeated.

AND i’ll also throw in that he and Thuringwethil were definitely best buds in Angband, sorry I don’t make the rules. she’s an exasperated lesbian vampire who has to put up with his disaster gay stunts all the time, less of his lieutenant and more of the friend who tries to keep him out of trouble!

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk, he’s evil? like unrepentantly evil. we woobify him, and i’ve done a lot of that in this post already, but it’s worth really making it clear that he IS very evil. [cw rape] and i definitely think he raped maedhros, and probably tyelpe and a lot of other people too. which is just awful awful awful no matter what way you slice it. so like yeah, i feel for the dude, and it’s hard for me to wrestle with how fun and sexy i think sauron is but at the same time be a huge maedhros stan. it’s strange how we as fandom can excuse murder and war crimes and torture and shit but we draw the line at sexual abuse (which!!!! is bad and shouldn't be excused!!!). like all of the other things are horrifying and terrible and aren’t condoned irl, but in fiction i guess it’s like “meh, violence is fine, i stan a villain” but then this other violent thing is Not Remotely Ok because it’s also sexual. (again!!! not saying that we should be ok with sexual violence!!!!! more like...questioning why we’re ok with other kinds of violence, why sexual things in any form is more taboo. tho im saying this as a person who enjoys a good gory fic, so. yeah. im ramlbling at this point)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: frankly i dont KNOW, he did SO MUCH in canon already?? i want a more fleshed out, detailed version of everything he did (remember when i said i daydream about rewriting the legendarium from his POV??) but i think events wise he’s done EVERYTHING he could do lmao.

#silmarillion #sauron #mairon #cw rape #rape cw #tw for ts #long post #ask games #my meta #tefain nin #(these ARE metas after all i should tag them as such...)#anyway THANK YOU ANON for asking this i definitely Went Off!!!#anon #answers #silm meta

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themountainsays · 4 years

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Antis baffle me so much because... yeah incest is disgusting irl. know what else is disgusting? The monarchy. War. Violence. Blood. Capitalism. Liberalism. In fact I’d bet those are all 100 times worse than incest because incest hurts like, one family? maybe two families at a time? The monarchy is a political system that has opressed millions of people for thousands of years. If we’re talking about the ammount of people hurt at once by each one... then I think we can measure monarchy as being worse than incest lmao. Yet here we are, all of us watching disney movies about princesses. Discussing which Princess would be a better queen. No one should be queen! In fact, no one should govern shit! The State is a tool of opression. It holds the monopoly of violence over the population. We cannot trust the State or the goverment. Modern democracy is a bourgeois invention from the french revolution of 1789. It’s shit but it’s the best we’ve got so far. Still, the only true utopia is an anarchist utopia. But guess what! Anarchism can get violent really quick! All revolutions are violent! Wars are violent! I’m not gonna drag a hypothetical anarchist revolution to the level of the monarchy, but if I’m making my point correctly, you can see why this morality argument antis can’t stop talking about is bullshit. Yet we’re allowed to have fictional monarchies. I fucking love(d) game of thrones!* Like yeah monarchy is evil but i don’t care i still wanted the dragon lady to become queen! See? We’re not only allowed to portray the monarchy in both adult and kid’s fiction, but to romanticize it. We’re allowed to romanticize wars between the forces of good and evil, we’re allowed to romanticize violence and crime in basically every videogame ever. Do I look like a dark brotherhood assasin to you? Am I a serial killer just because I joined the dark brotherhood in skyrim? Do i think murder is cool? Well, aesthetically, yes! I have a lot of fun murdering NPCs in skyrim. But I’m also a normal person who can tell murder is fucking wrong. That’s why I would never take it outside of a fictional space. You know. Like normal people.

So I ship incest. Does that mean I want to fuck my sister? Well, does liking diney movies mean I would tolerate a monarchical regime? lol nope to both questions. If you’re gonna hate and harass people who enjoy incest ships, then it would only make sense for you to harass everyone who enjoys disney movies, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Skyrim, Vikings, basically every high fantasy book. You should hate all stories that romanticize war. You should hate all stories that don’t condemn crime. You should be against everything that portrays evil things as anything but evil. Because if shipping incest is an expression of real incestuous desires, then rooting for dany to get the iron throne must be a real desire for... the monarchy? And if someone being so comfortable with finctional incest, indulging in content about it, means they’re really romanticizing a disgusting form of real abuse irl, then someone enjoying a disney movie about a princess is equally as bad, because you’re romanticizing an authoritarian regime. The difference is that the monarchy has always been fed to us as a romantic thing, and incest has always been (rightfully) shunned. So no one thinks it’s weird to enjoy Game of Thrones, even tho everyone knows monarchical regimes are bad.

Of course, I’m not saying you have to start hating Disney movies in order to be morally good. And I don’t think you HAVE to be comfortable with incest shipping. I know I was high key uncomfortable with the third season of Stranger Things, the way it protrayed the russian thing. That scene where the soviet dude discovers capitalism for the first time and is the happiest he’s ever been in his life? Yes that’s some mayor bullshit. And one of the reasons I hate that season so much. But I wouldn’t treat you badly or claim you’re immoral for enjoying it. Had the writing actually been good I could have probably brushed it off as “well, they’re americans. We can’t expect anything more from them” and probably still love the show enough to watch season 4.

But it’s impossible to measure morality by what someone enjoys in fiction. Because for centuries we’ve used fiction to indulge in things that are undeniably evil in real life. Someone might be shipping a minor with an adult because this is how they express their perversion. Or maybe not! Maybe they genuinely think the characters are cute together. what do i know. But a ship is not evidence enough for any kind of serious accusations.

*And speaking of game of thrones, i find it interesting that people seem more lenient with incest ships that are canon. I mean, I didn’t see much jonerys hate despite being a canon incest pairing. It’s almost like, if it has the creator’s approval, then it can’t be that bad.

#if you're wondering if i'm talking about frozen and elsanna yes #pro shipping #anti-anti #i feel like this is all over the place #i hope it makes sense

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miazeklos · 6 years

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As you guys know, I’m usually pretty chill when it comes to fandom and, like, the Internet in general, because ultimately it’s all for enjoyment and I genuinely don’t care about The Discourse once I’ve blocked all the people that bother me, but today has been... a lot in many aspects, up to and including fandom, so I’m gonna talk. Mainly about Shadowhunters, its fanbase, and Cassandra Clare. If you don’t feel like dealing with this, scroll on. You won’t really be missing out.

Now, on to the Hard To Swallow Pills.

1. The entire fandom isn’t terrible - neither the show or the books one - but stop turning a blind eye to the part of it that’s a fucking nightmare. I’m not saying to talk about them or attract attention to them; don’t do that. It’s what they want. What I’m saying is, it’s ridiculous to talk about how it’s impossible for a Shadowhunters fan to vandalise someone’s car (which there’s actual literal proof of), or to harass people or to drive them off the Internet. It’s ridiculous to talk about how loving and supportive the entire fanbase is.

A lot of people in it are that way, of course. That is true and they’re the ones we should be paying attention to! But denying that there’s a loud, vapid, absolutely vile minority that tries their hardest to ruin people’s lives on the daily is silly. They exist. We all know that. ‘A true fan would never-” But they do. They’ve done it for the past two years and they’re doing it now. No-platform them and move the hell on, but let’s not pretend they don’t exist when it’s been right in front of our eyes the entire time.

2. People who create the fictional worlds you entertain yourself with don’t owe you shit. Like it or not, none of us is entitled to anything. We don’t ‘deserve’ and we’re not ‘owed’ anything. It’s entertainment and it’s given to us for us to enjoy. That’s all. We don’t own it, we don’t control it and we sure as hell can’t tell all the writers and producers and actors and everyone else involved in them that they should be grateful for ~everything we’ve done~ and do more of whatever you want to see.

Cassandra Clare created those characters. The writers of the TV show adapted them in their own ways. None of those people owe you anything and claiming that they do is entitled as all hell, especially when you disrespect the person who created the thing you claim to love so much.

“But she’s got bad history! She didn’t treat her characters well! She-”

I don’t give a fuck! She might have done all that she’s accused of, she might have done none of it and neither of those options have any impact on the person you choose to be! If you criticise her - or Todd Slavkin, or Ed Decter, or any other human on the planet - for what they’ve done, be better than that! Learn from their mistakes! Be the person who would never do the same thing, especially over make believe things! Which leads us to...

3. No fictional character will ever be more important than a living, breathing person. Ever. Yes, even if it’s your favourite character; the one that’s really really important to you. Yes, even if the living, breathing person is someone you dislike or someone you dislike a lot. No, not even that one character and that one person. Not ever.

So when that person you dislike a lot says on social media, ‘hey, I’ve had a terrible month, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I wish people would stop telling me to kill myself every time I write a two-sentence post’, you fucking stop doing that. You had no right to do it to begin with, but at this point? This is the point where you shut up. It truly is. It doesn’t matter how spiteful you feel or how miffed you are about your favourite form of entertainment being taken away. That’s an actual person with actual feelings and they’ll literally always matter more than the fictional feelings of fictional characters. There’s nothing controversial about this statement and in the same line of thought...

4. Your real actions have real consequences. Here’s a reality check if you needed it - your life is not a TV show. Neither are the lives of the people you communicate (if we can call it that) with on the Internet. These are actual humans. So when someone’s car gets vandalised, when someone ends up doxxed, when someone’s food ends up filled with needles over fan art - that’s all real.

And if you’ve ever sent anyone any sort of abuse over the Internet - even to the extent of ‘I hope you choke’ - then please sit down and think long and hard about people you know offline. Your friends, relatives, coworkers, classmates, neighbours, people you see on the subway. People you can see as someone substantial, not a profile picture on the Internet. People just as real as the ones you treat like shit over fictional characters. Think long and hard whether you want to be responsible over someone actually getting hurt, actually waking up to constant threats and hate sent their way over the most innocuous posts every damn morning, actually losing their life. It’s happened before; we all know it. People have been hurt IRL because of fandom. Is this the kind of responsibility you want? Do you ever want to feel like you’ve contributed to that when you think of the person on the other side of the screen as more than just some annoying might-as-well-be-bot who you argue with over who they ship on a TV show or what kind of headcanon they have, things that ultimately absolutely do not matter and do not affect you in any way once you stop interacting with the person?

If the answer is no, then it’s probably (definitely) time to stop and look around you and realise how ridiculous this actually is and that you can do better. The only logical next step is to try and enjoy whatever you love with the people who also love it and push everything else to the side where it can’t have the power to bother you.

If the answer is yes, then you’re probably (definitely) in dire need of psychological intervention and also to be kept away from the general public, because your mindset is extremely dangerous to literally everyone outside of your carefully picked group of people who care about the same things that you care about in strictly the exact same way. It’s not a mindset that has a place in a fanbase, in the offline world. or in any sort of healthy community. It’s a mindset that needs to disappear because yet again - this is real, actual abuse that you are throwing at people for the sake of fiction that, for what it’s worth, doesn’t even belong to you to begin with.

That is all.

#Shadowhunters #Cassandra Clare #I'm tagging it all it's what this fanbase deserves #also this is over 1k words long #but now I'm finally done #it's all out #and I don't regret it in the slightest

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skythief · 7 years

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Analyzing Sheith, with a dash of discourse.

unoriginaltoast

replied to your post

“Cordially inviting any and all anti’s to come at me bro Whether it be...”

Can I just add, that many antis throw around the word "pedophilia" and first of all, that's a disgusting accusation to make of someone imagining FICTIONAL characters in a relationship. And second, it does not apply. Like the literal definition does not apply. Would a 25 year old with a 17 year old be cool IRL? Probably not but it's not pedophilia and it's also FUCKING FICTION JFC. God I wish I had the time to worry about what fictional characters people shipped.

Sorry for that brick I just have been wanting to say that for so long, hope you have a spectacular, wonderful, idiot free day <3

You may definitely add that. I certainly forgot to.

It really depends heavily on context for that 17-25 thing. It depends on the relationship and maturity levels of the two people in question. I know there are 25 year olds that are still running around this site screaming about “problematic ships” like its the fucking plague. And then there are people in my life who grew up in drug houses, who struggle because their families entire line of poor credit, bad choices, substance abuse and felonies makes it nearly impossible for them to get jobs and basic debit/credit cards, who dug around in dumpsters for food during their childhood-- and you can bet they grew up incredibly fast, and incredibly hard.

Biology plays a part in it to a degree too-Female brains tend to fully develop ages 16-25? (dont cite me on this, im just going off of memory) and for male brains I think they finish developing around like, 18/22-30??? I’d have to look it up again, but you get my point.

Theres a lot of factors that go into play- The maturity levels of the individuals themselves, and the actually Nature of the relationship itself, I think.

Lets take Sheith, for example.

We have seen maturity and selflessness exhibited in both individuals; Both of them have had to go through very hard experiences; Keith being an orphan with abandonment issues, yet still carries some incredibly strong morals and a fierce love for people and a desire to protect others.; Shiro has been enslaved, amputated and experimented upon, and forced to perform in bloody, gruesome, arena’s. He’s been through Hell, and still he has retained a sense of calm, patience, and compassion.

So we know from this that they’re both plenty mature enough-- But what about the nature of their relationship?

Honestly I think this one of the most healthy ships out there for the sheer amount of love and compassion and respect between the two, even without picking apart just how well they compliment each other.

Again, starting with Keith; This is a highly individualized person that does not like authority. He’s not going to want to feel like he has to explain himself to anyone or meet anyones arbitrary standards; Does not like, and possibly feels threatened by rules and restrictions as that threatens his ability to do his own thing. He makes his own rules for himself and his own personal values to which he will adhere strictly. He’s intelligent, but it’s shown and seen through his actions-- Not explained through word of mouth, and most likely never will be. Trust and abandonment issues, as well as his orphaning, may lead him to difficulties communicating with others, being vulnerable, and expressing emotions or showing weakness, making him a very secretive, private person, that most likely finds both comfort and fear in Isolation. Comfort, because no one can hurt you, and you can sort everything out yourself and have complete control when you’re alone; Fear, because it’s very easy to keep isolating yourself and never stop, even though you want, like, and need people in your life, but may be hesitant to go to them for fear of getting hurt or abandoned, especially if you reveal your softer, more unprotected sides. Keith, as a character, may even be scared of his feelings.

One of these belongs to every paladin okay, thats all I’m sayin’.

In conclusion, Keith is a very private, lonely person with a history of trust issues stemming from abandonment and a dislike for authority, making him not the easiest person to get along with. He needs someone who will have the patience and respect that will allow Keith to open himself up to them on his own highly secretive terms, someone who is open minded, patient, and understanding, in order to understand someone as rare and unconventional as Keith (He’s not exactly going to come with an owners manual or introductory pamphlet y’know?). He needs to feel safe, comfortable, and not judged by a person in order to place so much trust, value, safety and security with them. If someone tries inauthentic, underhanded, or forceful means of manipulating someone like Keith into anything, you know Keith won’t be having it.

Shiro is kind of the epitome of all of these traits, and we don’t just see him using them to understand Keith, but we see him using them to understand other members of his team as well (like Pidge or Allura). Once Shiro has a good understanding of someone, he waits until an appropriate, non-threatening time arises in order to build his team members up, give them advice, solace, or whatever he thinks they may need that he can give them. He uses a very open, friendly, safe, respectful and non-threatening communication style in order to build up people around him; This is an incredibly rare and beautiful kind of person, imo, at least in Shiro’s case, because we can see how very dedicated he is to doing this, and that he makes it one of his biggest priorities.

This makes him pretty great for Keith, but there are plenty of reasons why Keith is great for Shiro too.

From episode one, from Keiths very introductory sequence, we see him caring, for and sacrificing for Shiro-- Going out of his way to make sure Shiro is safe at all times, or backing him up; Whether it be in or out of Voltron, Keith is literally Shiro’s right hand man. Keiths love for Shiro is very similar for Shiros’ love for Keith; It is a respectful, kind, and appreciative, thankful kind of love. It is built on and never runs out of trust, and only seeks to lift the other up, and make sure the other is okay, without breaching any boundaries.

Shiro, from his iron devotion and love for others, strikes me as the type of person that forgets to take care of himself, in lieu of others and their importance, valuing it over his own. Keith, being a very confident, straight forward, and protective person, is perfect for Shiro in that he can and will make sure Shiro does get the self-care he needs, but without threatening or stomping upon Shiros virtues, or his mission. Shiro, for all his dad-jokes and stereotypes, honestly might need the child harness more than Keith does for his sheer scary-levels of willingness to sacrifice himself, like he means nothing- Or at the very least, nothing in comparison to others. Shiro, just like Keith, doesn’t know when to stop and take a break if others don’t make him/tell him too. And even then, Shiro might not understand or believe it, simply because war and soldier-trauma is like this.

Shiro needs someone who is confident, straight forward, and strong enough to take care of Shiro as Shiro takes care of others. He needs someone who will be considerate and kind to him when no one thinks to be, or knows to be. He needs someone who will keep a close eye on him and watch and listen for when he’s breaking, when he needs help, whether he knows it or not-- He needs someone who will be aware of just how much Shiro himself may not know it too. And he needs someone who will do this genuinely, authentically, respectfully, and patiently. Issues like these are incredibly painful for both parties to go through, and they may never heal. A spouse who deals with this may have to come to accept this as never-changing, and to do that... Takes so much genuine love and self-sacrifice? It’s both heart-wrenching and beautiful, as it is a gruesome reality. It’s not sexy, cute, or fun-- It’ cold and it’s harsh and to persevere in your attentive care of someone in spite of such hard issues, especially when coupled with things like PTSD, is about as Real as you can get.

The reason Keith fits this bill perfectly? Is because we already see him doing this for Shiro in canon.

We see it in anytime Keith flings himself into action in order to save shiro, whether it’s well-thought out or not. We see it in his respect, adherence, and boundaries. We see it in how he trusts Shiro to keep throwing himself into battle and come back to him, amidst a respectful but attentive observance of his person, his space, his wishes and his safety. In Keith we see he’s developed his own very deep and respectful understanding of Shiro and how he works, just as Shiro has developed an understanding of Keith-- they both know each others strengths and weaknesses, and give each other trust and patience.

Like, I really can’t think of a more healthy relationship yo. Fuck ages man, these two are good for each other, these two honestly keep each other sane and safe, and uplift the other, they have a rock solid understanding of the other, and their wants, needs, strengths and weaknesses, and they communicate in succinct, blunt, non-threatening ways build on trust. Even if they disagree or say harsh things to each other (Like Shiro reprimanding Keith for reprimanding Pidge, “That’s not how a team works.”, or giving him criticism. Or Keith pleading with Shiro in his BOM-nightmares.), they do not stay mad or hold grudges, which tells me that they never assume bad intent of the other either, even though it would be very easy to.

My god like theres so much healthy shit in this ship it’s actually hard to cover everything, they both exhibit so much.

Overall I really think like the last thing I’m worried about with these two is fucking AGE y’know? Clearly theyre mature enough to take care of each other; Does anyone really think either of these people would abuse the other? Because I certainly don’t. It wouldn’t just be wrong, it’d be completely out of character. Keith and Shiro simply care, value, and love each other too much for that.

Feel free to add to this, if you’d like.

#unoriginaltoast #sheith #voltron #anti-shaladin #pro shaladin #voltron discourse #shipping #character study #character analysis #relationship analysis #sorry i turned this into an analysis post #i rambled #but i do not regret #cant stop wont stop

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